While every Marvel Studios project takes visual effects and movie-making magic to the next level, the celebrated studio pulled out all the stops for its latest Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Eternals. In order to bring the film's cosmic side of the MCU to life, Marvel turned to longtime collaborative partner, the visual effects and animation company Scanline VFX. Scanline's significant contributions to the film include the action sequence between Sersi and Sprite facing a Deviant in Camden and the Celestial's cosmic activity in the World Forge.

In an exclusive interview with CBR, the Emmy Award-winning visual effects studio shared some behind-the-scenes secrets and discussed which tricks they used to bring the Camden set-piece to life. Scanline VFX also explained the creative challenges in creating something as far out-of-this-world as the Celestial and World Forge. Also included with this interview are some process shots to show how the studio brought this thrilling new addition to the MCU.

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Eternals has some of the most ambitious and distinct visuals in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date. Being involved with this project early on, how was it seeing the visual aesthetics for the film evolve over the course of the production?

Scanline VFX: One of the most exciting aspects of this line of work is seeing things come together creatively.

Eternals being a brand-new entry into the MCU offered plenty of interesting creative challenges to tackle. From the aesthetics and design language of our heroes' powers to the look of the Celestials and their accompanying transition effects. Full CG locations, creatures, and large-scale destruction effects. The script called for just about everything. The most interesting thing about the way Marvel approaches the making of their films is how open they are to change and different solutions throughout the filmmaking process. It takes an army to make a movie the size of Eternals and the creative source of the final imagery could have come from anywhere. Even though we had some great artwork both from the production's art department as well as Marvel's vis-dev team, a fair amount of the visual elements in the film had yet to be figured out by the time we entered post-production. Director Chloé Zhao and producer Nate Moore drove the majority of the creative decision process but, at times, it's been their editors who brought ideas to the table. Overall VFX supervisor Stephane Ceretti orchestrated the various VFX studios on the film and passed on successful design solutions between us constantly as well. It was an incredibly collaborative process, where slowly but surely the style and language of the visuals were found.

In a lot of ways, Kro's attack in modern-day Camden sets the tone for the film as we see the Eternals in action in the present. How was it staging that action sequence along with digital composites of the city?

For Camden, we pretty much used all the tricks in the book. A lot of that location was real. Even a fair amount of the destruction Kro causes was captured in-camera. Kro landing on a parked car succumbing to his weight, Ikaris and Kro crashing through a set of roller shutters or Kro slashing through a street food cart were all practical special FX rigs that we photographed and later composited together with our animated CG Kro. We ended up replacing parts of the Camden streets, water lock and a handful of buildings with our own CG versions to allow for additional interaction with the CG creature. For Sprite's illusion moment we utilized a combination of motion-control camera passes and digital doubles of Gemma [Chan] and Lia [McHugh]. The moment where Sersi turns a bus into rose petals was achieved with a fully CG bus, and where needed, a full CG version of the physical location. All of the rose petals were dynamically simulated using real-world physics and lidar scan data of the set helped us integrate these CG flower petals accurately into the shots. So yeah... just about every modern-day visual effect technique came into play to bring this sequence to the screen.

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This sequence also further showcases what Sprite and Sersi are capable of, especially with Sersi's transformation of the bus, which was a standout moment in the scene. How was it bringing this to life?

Remarkably straightforward compared to some of the other challenges in the film.

Large-scale simulation effects are a staple in the wheelhouse of our studio. I am fortunate to be working with some brilliant minds who have specialized in simulating the animation and behavior of natural phenomena and have built their careers on this. Whether it's water, smoke, lava, large-scale destruction of entire cities, or in this case, simulating the behavior of hundreds of thousands of rose petals is something we can do with relatively little trouble. Getting the timing and volume of the simulation right was the biggest challenge. Also finding solutions to realistically scatter light through large amounts of translucent rose petals took a little time to get right. But other than that... Just a regular day at the office.

Eternals also has some of the most sweeping cosmic visuals this side of Guardians of the Galaxy. How was it crafting these epic, spacefaring vistas?

It was one of those things where one needed a bit of a crash course in astrophysics to learn about the history of the galaxy. We drew most of the inspiration for those moments from science and attempted to instill some plausibility into the imagery by constantly referencing deep space photography. That got us half of the way there. Seeing Celestials creating suns and leaving galactic footprints as they walk through space were "slightly" harder to find a reference for. The Celestials themselves were built from scratch based on original sketches that Chloé had liked and approved. Resolving these rough sketches into three-dimensional, highly detailed models that we could then animate, came to the talents of our 3D modeling team, oftentimes having multiple artists working in tandem on different sections of a single Celestial to make sure we got these massive characters done on schedule.

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Sersi's exploration of the World Forge is the big, emotional shocker of the movie, blending sci-fi with a bit of horror. How was it rendering the World Forge and making this moment really connect?

It wasn't so much the rendering of the World Forge that was the challenge, as it was to figure out what the place actually looked like. By the time principal photography had wrapped, we did not have a locked design for this particular location yet. Part of what made Eternals as creatively fulfilling as it was for me, was helping Chloé find the visual language and design for this surreal expose in the middle of the film. She was quite adamant about using bold colors and instilling the spirit of Jack Kirby into the designs. Sersi walking through the rows of eternal replicants and being confronted with the wall of memories were all moments Chloé envisioned and shaped in post-production. A pickup shoot with Gemma Chan was needed to get the coverage we needed for those shots. Thankfully by then, we had a better idea of what everything would look like and could be a little more precise with our lighting on set.

As far as making these moments connect, much of the credit needs to go to Gemma, who was asked to deliver her performance in a blue screen void with little more than rough eyeline cues to work with. Bringing across Sersi's feelings of astonishment, curiosity, confusion, and pain without having any visuals to play off of was a big part of what made the sequence work as well as it did.

As a company that has worked with Marvel Studios extensively on a number of projects, what made production on Eternals a particularly special experience?

Eternals is a completely new story featuring new characters, creatures, and environments we hadn't seen before -- with so much to figure out. From the look and animation of the Deviants and Celestials to the design language we use during our transitions and visions. So much needed to be developed and designed.

On top of that, a large part of our work could not easily be referenced back to real-world inspiration either. It's all fairly surreal and subjective stuff, which is both stressful and fun to figure out at the same time. Trying to do something new and fresh while keeping an eye on the clock. On the whole, working on a film under the direction of Chloé made this particular project feel unlike any other Marvel movie I have personally been involved with and definitely an experience I won't soon forget.

Directed and co-written by Chloé Zhao, Eternals is in theaters now and is slated to arrive on Disney+ Jan. 12.

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