as Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Released in theaters, visual effects supervisor Stephane Ceretti remembers filming with cast, crew and director James Gunn The “very emotional” final day. “We all finished the last few scenes and said goodbye to everyone. On the last day, we all cried like babies,” he said in The Hollywood Reporter’s New episode of Behind the Screen Talking podcast. “We had a lot of fun filming, and we ended up being happy and sad too.”
During post-production Gunn was named Co-chairman and co-CEO of DC Films, but Ceretti says the director never missed a beat on Guardians. “That’s his kid. He’s always wanted to do this movie, it’s very important to him. We have full access to him,” said longtime Marvel collaborator Ceretti, who credited Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange
two Oscar nominations. “For the vendor, especially the final battle with Weta, he’s always been there.”
Ambitious third film in the series, centered on Rocket’s past , involving an astonishing 3 films, 066 visual effects shots, spread over approximately 10 VFX companies including Framestore, Weta FX and Crafty Apes.
Detailed character animation is critical to the evolution of Rocket as the “heart of the movie”, it needs to be realistic and emotional. “There are a lot of close-ups in the movie. We open the movie with an extreme close-up of the baby [Rocket] raccoon’s eyes, and then we transition to the [growing] Rocket,” Ceretti said of their CG Rocket, one of many in the movie. One of the characters, which also includes “bad guy” Groot and new characters. “It’s important that we correct those details [like] the wetness of the eyes, all this stuff, you can almost see the tear ducts.”
“Their eyes are really dark, It’s dark and you don’t see that much white,” he added of the raccoons. “Most of the time, when they’re looking around, they just turn their heads. They don’t look around with their eyes as much as humans do.” He remembers the VFX team studying raccoons while creating the characters—there’s even a picture of Gunn holding a critter. Photo.
The VFX supervisor discusses other challenges of VFX work, including a two minute long in which in an action sequence. “We spent almost a year in post-production,” he says of the shot in Weta.
You can listen to the full conversation here: 1235476974 066
