Visualization supervisors Christopher McDonald and Maike Fiene discuss their teams’ expansive and extensive efforts, from previs to postvis and final, including helping devise camera angles and character movements, on Nessarose Thropp’s levitating wheelchair, Elphaba taking flight, and Doctor Dillamond sequences, on Jon M.Chu’s hit musical adventure.
Leading VFX and animation studio Framestore had the recent good fortune of working from previs to postvis to final on Jon M.
Chu’s award-winning hit musical adventure, .On the film, Framestore Pre-Production Services devised the camera angles and movements for sequences involving Nessarose Thropp’s levitating wheelchair, Elphaba taking flight, and Doctor Dillamond.“The chorography is similar, from action scenes through to musical numbers,” notes Christopher McDonald, Visualization Supervisor, Framestore. “A great starting point is to look at storyboards to get a representation of whether it’s a set or location and then block out the action literally from a top-down perspective.
That’s a strong basis because it’s always something you can refer back to once you’ve got that basic blocking in place. On “Defying Gravity,” in particular, we worked quite closely with the stunt team, which had a bunch of tests that were done with the various rigs. They had all of these concepts for movements that Elphaba was going to perform at certain points during the song. Then it was a case of figuring out how do we fit this in? How is it going to look? How are we going to shoot it? Those are the building blocks for scenes like that.” Previs is about imagining the possibilities.“The challenge with previs in a lot of cases is it’s that first swing of ideas,” remarks McDonald. “What you hope is at every point it’s going to progress. Previs is informative to the point where you can get everyone on the same page as to where it’s going to go from there. Seeing the stuff that came through from the postvis, it was rewarding to see how those ideas evolved into what they eventually became.” Postvis revolves around getting the best out of what has already been established.“It’s like, ‘So they shot this. How are we going to make this work?’” laughs Maike Fiene, Visualization Supervisor, Framestore. “This is where it comes in handy to see all of the previs work and to have a notion of, ‘These were the ideas that we discussed.’ Because quite often, films are still in their early stages of development when it comes to environments, set extensions, or characters. When the postvis starts, nothing is set and final. There is still some room to go, ‘How can we improve from what has been done in previs and work together alongside the film team to see in which direction they’re developing things? You know how long things are going to be.
Although, that being said, there were a lot of transition shots and shot extensions that were explored in postvis. For instance, the transition from the Ozdust Party through the ceiling with the fish and then onto Shiz University. There was a bit more of that kind of creative figuring out of what that might look like. In the opening sequence, Glinda is on the bubble platform and starts to look back at the school.The camera pushes past her, and you transition into this river, underwater environment.They played it nicely with the music as well because the sound cue was coming a bit before the visual transition at that point, so you knew something was going on. There was this wonder of awe of ‘Where are we going next?’” The creative and technical processes were streamlined by doing everything in-house. “What was useful with it being so end to end at Framestore, between the art department right through to the final visual effects, is we are able to stay in touch with everybody at every stage,” states McDonald.
“Doctor Dillamond interacts with a lot of specific tools, like a projector and a teapot contraption.While we were doing the previs, Framestore animation is also figuring out how is he going to interact with the world and use these various contraptions. We can see those animation tests that they’re working on and incorporate them into our previs and postvis. It all weaves and knits together. An animation test might be great but then to be able to see it in the context of a shot or scene gives it a different dimension.” At least once a week the postvis team communicated with the animation and visual effects supervisors.“We’re seeing where things are developing and where we can share assets to make sure that we’re not showing something completely different to the director as to where the final is headed,” remarks Fiene. “For previs as well as postvis, there are certain technical limitations that are never going to push into the realm of looking like the final stuff. There is a point where it doesn’t become efficient to continue developing assets.” Having massive practical sets were extremely helpful, especially the Plaza of Emerald City and Shiz University. “Trying to build on top of those felt like extending a painting,” states Fiene.
“It was lovely to have that starting point.” Unlike in an action scene, a musical number’s duration is determined by the length of song.“It’s a different type of challenge,” states Fiene. “At least it gives you those couple of points and notes that you know you’re going to have to hit.Essentially, it makes your guesswork shorter. Even for the previs, there was a temp audio to work with already that put it into the ballpark of the length of the musical number.
Throughout the postvis, we always had temp mock-ups of songs to accommodate the edits.” One of the first sequences that Framestore worked on was Nessarose Thropp’s levitating wheelchair.“There were a lot of conversations early on about how they were going to depict the gravity aspect,” remarks McDonald. “It was about having it feel grounded, not mystical. This is this first time that you’re seeing those powers in that way, so it’s about setting the tone.” The weight of the wheelchair had to be taken into consideration. “There were quite a few people involved, from animation to the director and visual effects supervisor, all trying to wrap their minds around making that work,” recalls Fiene.“It came down to tests.
Let’s try something similar to the previs and see if it hits the right tone. Is it too much? It was critical that it shouldn’t feel magical. It’s gravity but in the other direction! She has not developed her full powers at that point so there’s a certain limitation to how high everything reaches.The wheelchair is floating. It’s not stable or frozen in any way.There’s always some sort of movement because it’s at a fine balance level at that point.” Elphaba takes flight for the first time during the “Defying Gravity” scene.
According to Fiene, “You have an idea of what style of movie this is going to be.With previs and postvis, it’s about iterating quickly on ideas, testing them out and seeing if they land. With Elphaba flying, there were all kinds of different poses with the broomstick because there are numerous moments where she’s holding it and levitating.There is also traditional riding a broomstick stuff. We iterated on different poses and various styles of movement. It’s about what fits with what you’re trying to do in a scene and moment.
In the meetings, director Jon M.Chu would stress being respectful to the source material.He didn’t want to do anything that would deviate in a strange direction and possibly alienate the fans of the musical.” “Defying Gravity” was shot entirely against bluescreen.
“There was little reference for how big the loops should be that she’s actually flying, how much do we stick to the camera and her screen position, what are the physical limitations of shooting this, and how do you make it work on the big screen?” notes Fiene.“With the layout of Emerald City coming together, there was a bit of discovery to be done.We needed to determine where do you have a good moment or angle for a big panoramic view to show off the city, but also her progression throughout the sequence.
The further you get into the song, the more epic the shots get, and it becomes more like that action sequence where you can see her taking control over her flight path and embracing her powers. At the end, she’s spiraling, twirling, and looping over backwards. There are small movements you can do while filming this, but how do you scale that into this huge environment and make that backdrop with the broom going back down onto the Emerald City? What feels crazy enough at that point?”
Increasing Framestore’s workload on the project is that has been divided into two feature films.“It is a huge scope across both movies and we’re working on them back-to-back,” states Fiene.“We postvis somewhere around 900 plus shots in the end for the first movie, which is a good chunk of everything from small window views to huge numbers of animals plus transition shots. It required lots of different environments, various effects, capes, broomsticks, and set extensions.”
As usual on a project like this, the major challenges are always about exploring ideas. “That’s the biggest thing with previs because what works in a storyboard and looks great doesn’t necessarily work once you start getting into the specifics of the scene or story,” remarks McDonald. “You have to iterate on the ideas and bounce back and forth with visual effects, stunts, and everybody else. You work with all of them to solve those problems. Seeing those scenes come together was incredibly rewarding.”
Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer best known for composing in-depth filmmaker and movie profiles for , , and .
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