Between Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame, just about everyone on the planet has gotten a look at Josh Brolin as Thanos. But how they’d pull the transformation off? Let’s take a deep dive into how the MCU turned Josh Brolin into the Mad Titan.
According to the visual effects supervisor Kelly Port, whose company Digital Domain worked on creating Thanos for Infinity War, the number of people it takes to complete a major studio movie’s visual effects has exploded in recent decades. Marvel’s own Iron Man 3 has over 1,800 people credited in its visual effects department alone — a dramatic step up from the special effects-heavy blockbusters of decades past.
Port said to The Verge,
“We were reflecting back on Titanic days, the late ’90s, where a big effects film would be considered around 300 shots. Whereas [Infinity War], in contrast, has over 3,000 visual effects shots.”
Speaking in an interview with Art of VFX, Marvels Studios’ overall VFX supervisor Dan gave some insight into the amount of work that goes into a movie’s visual effects before anyone’s even powered on their editing rig. Speaking of Avengers: Infinity War, DeLeeuw said,
“This movie wasn’t grounded like Winter Soldier or Civil War. It involved eight to ten foot tall aliens and battles on other planets. We knew the movie was going to be massive and had to plan accordingly.”
The company’s plan, according to DeLeeuw, involved
“[dividing up] the movie into individual sequences that would be awarded to separate VFX houses. Each house would get a sequence that would tell a complete narrative. This way each house could maintain the look and feel of the sequence while minimizing the need for shared shots.”
Watch the video to see more on how they transform Josh Brolin into Thanos!
#Thanos #JoshBrolin #MCU
Matters of scale | 0:15
Division of labor | 0:57
Digital dash | 1:37
Artists assemble | 2:37
Infinite anxiety | 3:50
Mo-cap it | 4:21
Copy and paste | 5:02
The hardest part | 5:58
Read up | 6:51
Good eyesight | 7:36
Tinting the lights | 8:42