"I am...inevitable."

 

Last night I attended a Langara College-sponsored presentation on the award-winning special effects process behind the character of Thanos in the Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame movies. The event was presented by Jan Philip Cramer, the Head of Animation for Digital Domain, whose resumé includes films such as Ender's Game, Days of Future Past, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Avatar.

It wasn't a terribly technical evening, more of a commercial for Langara's new Centre for Entertainment Arts, mixed in with anecdotes about the production process for Thanos (along with advice for digital animation students regarding how to put together their show reels), but Cramer did provide a fascinating overview of the combination of acting, motion capture and programming that resulted in the menacing on-screen character of Thanos the mad Titan.

Cramer's well-delivered presentation made me aware of two aspects of the latest Avengers movies that I hadn't really thought about while watching them.  First, the degree of ease with which I accepted Thanos as a person, rather than a special effects creation. Thanos is a skilful blending of Josh Brolin's motion-capture performance and the astonishing digital effects work done by Cramer's team, resulting in a nuanced, emotional, physical presence on screen.

 

Their approach to both body and facial motion capture produced a digital character who was then seamlessly integrated with the live-action performances, although, really, in this case it's more a question of integrating the live actors into the digital realm.

 

Second, the breakdown of the digital process was a stark* reminder as to the degree to which Endgame does not exist, or rather exists only in the form of terabytes and terabytes of code stored on a rack mounted server somewhere**, rather than in the form of video recordings of actual sets and performances.

It's a tribute to the art of acting - or perhaps just plain make-believe - that the actual actors were able to create performances where the other characters, the scenery, and even the props and costumes were added later in the process.  As Sir Ian McKellen sadly discovered during the shooting of the first Hobbit film, it's a lonely job when it's just you, thirteen photos of your fellow actors on sticks, and a green screen.

- Sid

* No pun intended.

** And presumably very well backed up, let's not forgot the cautionary tale of how nearly all of the Toy Story 2 files were deleted, and they were only able to complete the film because one of the animators had a copy of the files that they had been using to work from home.