Much about the Marvel Cinematic Universe's efficiency at storyboarding its most iconic comic book movie moments can evidenty be attributed to the work of visualization studio The Third Floor.
Insider released a video analysis documenting Third Floor's role in developing 19 of Marvel Studios' films through previsualized fights, action scenes and digital environments. As explained by Third Floor CEO Chris Edwards, previous companies used Previs "for just small pockets of that movie for the one big visual effect shot, for the big finale sequence," whereas modern studios like Marvel heavily rely on this technique to construct the majority of their films.
Pre-visualization often begins long before the movie starts filming, making previs artists crucial to establishing the framework, action beats and even tonal shifts of a given scene. In one such example, Insider notes how Third Floor gave Marvel both a slow and fast-paced variation of the iconic "Avengers Assemble" scene from Avengers: Endgame in previs footage, with Marvel eventually merging aspects of the two sequences into their final shot. To translate these shots into live-action, a digital architectural blueprint known as "Techvis" is given to the filmmakers for how each sequence should be choreographed and distanced from the actors to match the look of its previs counterpart, with more than 100 techvis shots being used for Endgame alone.
Third Floor's MCU involvement also extends to post-production work on "Postvis" which involves merging actor movements and Previs shots together to appear seamless. These shots are often presented to test audiences in order to gauge how they will react to certain scenes emotionally, as well as give the VFX team a framework to finish up remaining special effects. This process benefits the number of Marvel directors who enter a project without action movie experience because, according to Edwards, "they can trust a team like ours to work with the stunt coordinator, so all they have to do is be like an avid viewer of their own film as it's coming together and to be making comments, like they do with everything else."
Marvel completed the final chapters of its "Infinity Saga" storyline with the releases of 2019's Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home. 2021 will see the release of their Phase 4 movies Black Widow, Shang Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings and The Eternals, as well as multiple Disney+ shows that will directly tie into the events of the films.
Source: YouTube