The Marvel Cinematic Universe not only brings together a cohesive and detailed tapestry of storytelling, it does so while staying on the cutting edge of visual effects. With several films out in theaters – and upcoming shows streaming on Disney+ – every year, it’s impressive to watch the superhero behemoth keep everything together. Screen Rant spoke with the effect wizards of Captain Marvel, from Marvel proper as well as the various vendors who helped craft the film, about everything from the de-aging process to the herding of digital cats.

A big thing this year in digital effects has been de-aging. They had it in Irishman and Gemini Man, and you had it in Captain Marvel. Can you talk to me about the process of de-aging Samuel L. Jackson?

Captain Marvel is obviously a big space epic. Can you guys talk to me about building that world? Obviously, we’ve seen other MCU movies take place in space, but how does Captain Marvel differ from Guardians of the Galaxy or Thor: Ragnarok? 

Janelle Croshaw Ralla: Sure. I oversaw the de-ging as the additional visual effects supervisor under Christopher Townsend, the ultimate boss. But our de-aging process was actually much different than some of the other de-aging out there this year, in that it wasn’t a fully digital head. Gemini Man was a fully digital head; Irishmen was a very automated procedural pipeline.

Ours was, in a lot of ways, very artistically driven. We didn’t have the luxury of time at all - I think that our whole schedule with the shoot and post was probably about nine months- ad there was over 500 shots of Sam Jackson in the film where we took off 25 years. LolaVFX, who was our lead vendor, did a test early on and we decided that we weren’t going to do the normal process of having a double element shot, because we didn’t have the time to be able to do the two passes. So, we just shot Sam as is.

We were very hands-off. The filmmakers, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the DP and Sam were kind of left to their own devices to shoot it as they wanted. And then we took care of the rest in post. What we found in post is that it was a very organic process. Each scene varied significantly from shot to shot sometimes, and how he looked depended on whether he was wearing that super tight collared shirt or whether he was really tired that day, or energetic for that matter.

We really analyzed each scene and found out if we needed to adjust his posture here or the color in his face. We made significant changes and kind of made ourselves plastic surgeons. You’re doing collagen fillings and facelifts and wrinkle removals, but the biggest goal was to not take away from his performance at all. He wasn’t Nick Fury until the end; he was just Nick, this dejected office guy, so part of his character was hunched with bad posture. We had to really analyze where he’s hunched because he’s 69 and where it he hunched because he’s kind of down and out.

Goose the cat does a lot of fun things in this movie. Is it harder to work with an animal? How much digital Goose the cat is there in the film?

Janelle Croshaw Ralla: This was a very grounded film, because of the 90s vibe and Anna Bowden and Ryan Fleck’s style. It was super analog and kind of lo-fi until the end, which is when Craig and his team as well as Shannon did the bombastic effects.

Shannon Justison: I think, compared to something like Guardians and Ragnarok - I was actually on Ragnarok as well - both of those are in this very Caribbean, candy-colored, really fun space where it does feel almost like a 70s space opera. And this one, even though we are going to space, almost wanted to feel like a 90s shuttle launch. That was more of our look.

She’s going to end up superpowered and flying around a meteor, but in terms of our lensing and our framing, we weren’t going for magical cameras. I mean, there’s some of that when flying in space, but just keeping the color palette in a certain realm that didn’t feel quite so close to Guardians or especially Ragnarok land.

But what was interesting is that we then had a character like Korath, who was actually in Guardians. The Kree do need to still fit into this larger universe that is semi-established; we saw Ronan too. So we were keeping them in kind of that you muted blue-gray, very Soviet-looking ships and everything. And just leaned into that a little bit more. And again, leaning into sort of 90s vibe - as a 90s kid, I grew up watching the shuttle go up and down. That was kind of where we were coming from with how it should look and how things should get to space.

Craig Hammack: And the action part of it is not always comical or beautiful action. It’s flashy, but it’s a gritty kind of flashy, and it kind of leans into the comic books more. It’s about her powers and not necessarily about the world. So, we’re able to use her power along with the idea of being grounded and go to this middle ground.

You still do lens contamination, because it doesn’t want to be this super clean world. You can lean back on NASA footage to get that contamination and flaring, but you still stay within that semi-colorful palette and let her exist in this comic book world. She does these magical poses as she’s destroying these massive ships, you know? It stays fun but has aspects of that real-world photography.

The Skrulls made their MCU debut in Captain Marvel, and their design is very similar to the comics. But was there any added pressure, given that this is going to be the definitive Skrull moving forward?

Janelle Croshaw Ralla: About 80% of the shots are digital, but Goose was played by an actor cat named Reggie and three other cats. When we were shooting, they all looked like orange tabbies. But in post, we realized that one troublesome cat, his name was Gonzo, actually looked totally different. What we ended up doing, almost like with de-aging, was changed Gonzo into looking like Reggie. We changed his proportions and made him match Reggie more, because sometimes the discontinuity was more between Gonzo and Reggie than it was between our CG cat, who was modeled after Reggie.

But I think as the shoot went on, they were shooting less and less cat. Because of time crunch; because Brie was allergic to cats and Sam didn’t want to hold the cat anymore. What ended up happening was that we had a green cucumber-sausage thing, and the actors were like, “Oh, yeah, we would much rather hold this thing than deal with the cats.” I supervise second unit, and second unit would get reference shots. We had a reference cat that we would shoot for pretty much every single CG cat shot. There were entire scenes that were shot in New Orleans, and we didn’t shoot the cat out there. both of those. And so, it became less and less cat as the movie went on and more CG cat.

Shannon Justison: I think that what was asked of the cat also got progressively more difficult. In the beginning, he’s just a cat. Later, there’s a lot more action that you can’t actually get a cat to do.

With Marvel, I feel like you can handle almost anything at this point. Any challenge that gets thrown at you, Marvel figures out. But what was the most daunting task you had going into Captain Marvel?

Janelle Croshaw Ralla: Most of the Skrull looks were prosthetics; beautiful prosthetics. What we ended up doing in particular throughout the film, with Ben Mendelsohn’s character, is we enhanced Talos. Because  Ben’s eyes kind of get sunk into the back, and the rubber looks like rubber. As beautiful as the prosthetics are, they start to look like rubber. So, we did this fleshy treatment, where it really looked more like skin. And then we did a big eye treatment that was subtle, but it enhanced Ben’s performance so that you can really see his eyes. That happened throughout.

As far as moving forward, I don’t know. Usually, Marvel is pretty good about keeping the same design and just enhancing on it. In this particular film, we had very few Skrulls that were fully digital. There were some on the ship, and then we had a lot of Skrull digital doubles when they were needing to fly up in the space and things like that. But I can imagine that moving forward, they might be all digital.

Kevin Souls: They were in Spider-Man: Far From Home.

One of the challenges that you face, aside from going back to the 90s and mixing them with a space epic, is staying true to the comic. Can you talk to me about the challenge of blending all that together with the director’s vision and the digital cats?

Janelle Croshaw Ralla: For me, it was the de-aging. The cat was also really difficult, because it had to just be a real cat. There’s nothing special about it for most of the film. It’s oftentimes a lot easier to actually add character to something, like the raccoon. You know what I mean? To actually give them a character. But to just make a cat be a cat is actually pretty tough.

Because this one was shot mostly on location and had a really grounded feel, there was a lot of pressure for the effects to just be seamless and not as bombastic. Which made it a little tougher.

Kevin Souls: With Marvel, it comes down to schedule and the changes that happen near the end of the show, and the pacing and the cadence of the movie. There is a real push in Marvel films to do the best possible work you can and to make the best movie you can. That means that, as they watch the movie, things evolve and change. Ands you need, as a vendor, to roll with it and find a way to be efficient and to make even the hardest asks from the studio happen in a way that looks good

Janelle Croshaw Ralla: And fast.

Kevin Souls: And fast. You might have a matter of a few days and maybe a few weeks to make a major change to an idea or a storyboard.

In the comics, the Kree Supreme Leader is pretty much a giant head. Were there ever any plans or designs for that giant head guy to be in the film? 

Shannon Justison: I think, fortunately, it kind of all works together because Anna and Ryan do have a very indie, analog vibe which actually gels really well with the 90s. Technology was still kind of clunky; we had computers and the Internet, but it was like Altavista. It was a lot of fun looking at all that stuff and getting to think about 90s gags.

Kevin Souls: I think they used old lenses as well.

Shannon Justison: Actually, there were certain lenses that they would only use on Earth and certain that were only used in space. Anything Kree was a different lens kit than the stuff on Earth. I do remember that we had different packages, because we always had to be aware of which lenses were available to us when we were setting up shots.

In terms of the 90s analog vibe, that worked really well with what Anna and Ryan wanted. We shot so much of this on location, because they wanted it to be shot like they would shoot a movie. They don’t come from a background of, “Well, we’re just going to shoot on a stage with a bunch of blue screens.” Obviously, the stuff at the end goes into that because they’re going to space.

Then bringing in the comic books… We always go back to the comic books. I’ve worked on a lot of Marvel pictures, and that’s always the first stop. Whatever one I’m working on, I’m going to go back to the back catalogue. Sometimes, they tell us they’re focusing on this storyline.

This was a certain run of Captain Marvel, where she got reimagined in the late 90s. Kelly Sue DeConnick kind of rescued her from these ashes- where she’d become this weird background, psychic character that no one knew what to do it - and made her into this amazing icon and the most powerful character in the MCU. So, we are always looking at that for framing, for posing, for how her powers work and how she acts. What is her reaction in a situation like this? She’s very funny and sarcastic, and she’s unflappable. She’s been through a lot, and you can’t really startle her. You need to keep that in mind when you’re planning sequences. Presented with this crazy situation, how is she going to react? How she going to take it? So, there’s a huge influence from the comics in everything we do.

Marvel’s a huge machine and a very cohesive universe. How often do you work with other productions, especially since Endgame was the next one up, to inform how Carol was going to look?

Janelle Croshaw Ralla: You know, there might have been.

Kevin Souls: Sounds very Rick and Morty.

Janelle Croshaw Ralla: I think that all of those avenues were explored. What it comes down to is, at that moment, it’s about her turning into Captain Marvel and finding her own power within herself and not from someone else. So, I think that as the film evolved, we asked what are the most important parts that need to be there for that to be conveyed? Sometimes the script, early versions even, are trying to cram in so much that it almost complicates the whole thing. So you have to get down to the core of what’s necessary for the film.

What are you most looking forward to with VFX when it comes to taking Marvel to the next level?

Janelle Croshaw Ralla: Yeah, we had them over and went through what we’re doing. And I’m the second, so I’m sure Chris had even more conversations than I did. You’re always packaging up and sharing, even amongst the vendors and amongst the internal teams of the different films.

Kevin Souls: Sometimes it feels like one big movie, and a lot of times there’s a lot of crossover with the facilities where you’re working. Like at Scanline, they may be doing three Marvel films at a time in various stages. Luma may be doing several, and ILM is certainly working on different stages. So, you’re seeing what the next movie is going to be as you’re doing the one you’re working on, and the one that’s going to happen a year and a half from now.

Janelle Croshaw Ralla: And Marvel has such a great internal team that you can say to a staff pipeline person or a data person, “Hey, I need to find the nanotech from Iron Man or Black Panther. Can you gather all of the references you can?” And then in a couple days, you go into the screening room and you can screen all that reference to get all the back history. That’s something really great that I haven’t seen at other studios.

Kevin Souls: And they’re thinking about it. If they say they want this effect to reference what happened in Ultron against what happened in Thor: Ragnarok, you have to look at those two. And they’ll give you references from the comic book to combine these two things for this story point. You’re like, “Okay, I get it.”

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Janelle Croshaw Rolla: It’s funny, because as much as everything’s open and we share everything, we’re actually kept in the dark about all things secret. For me, I see the Black Widow trailer. I’m a big fan of Cate Shortland, the director, and it has this unique look that’s grounded and gritty and unlike anything you’ve seen.

That’s what I’m most looking forward to. How is this going to evolve? You look at characters like the Hulk or Thanos and how much they’ve evolved over the years - how are some of these characters going to evolve in the next films? What is in Kevin’s brain? Which none of us know, of course. That’s what I look forward to.

Kevin Souls: For me, I look at the early modern Marvel films and am like, “Those are superhero movies.” And as you progress, they’re becoming genre films that have superheroes. That’s a really interesting sort of trajectory. With the additional stuff that they’re doing, whether it be streaming or movies, there may be more specification of what this is. This is now a spy genre film, which is what I think Black Widow might be. And then the sequels that are coming out now; one may be a really weird fantasy one or an abstract one. Having them diverge away from what people think a superhero movie is, that’s really interesting.

  • Black Widow Release Date: 2021-07-09 The Eternals Release Date: 2021-11-05 Shang Chi Release Date: 2021-09-03 Doctor Strange 2 Release Date: 2022-05-06 Thor: Love and Thunder Release Date: 2022-07-08 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Release Date: 2022-11-11