The visual effects supervisor of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law revealed that the titular character was harder to create than the Marvel Cinematic Universe's big bad, Thanos, due to the range of emotions she had to portray.
Jan Philip Cramer, the digital artist who works with the VFX studio Digital Domain, the company responsible for the CG on Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk and Thanos, spoke to befores & afters about the process. While the Infinity Gauntlet-coveting antagonist was a character who didn’t have too much emotion to portray, it seems that Walters (Tatiana Maslany) was the exact opposite. "Thanos was a bald, angry man, and Tatiana is a young, bubbly actress with a huge range of emotions, and she portrays them very vividly on her face," he explained. Cramer also shared that it was essential for She-Hulk to show a full range of emotions and facial expressions that included being "happy, drunk and giggling, all while talking" which the system had to maintain and capture effectively.
She-Hulk's Unique Visual Effects Challenges
Additionally, the VFX studio also had to employ extra techniques to handle the character’s hair, clothing and make-up. Thus, things were much easier for a (bald) character like Thanos because all he had to do was "look stoically at the camera" or "be angry." Cramer also discussed the challenges of accurately capturing the form, walk and poise of the fourth-wall-smashing Marvel superhero. Such motions were a major concern for the team, and they had to utilize Xsens suits along with optical motion capture technology to achieve the best, most realistic results. "Tatiana would always be on a riser. Whenever you would see She-Hulk in any physical setting, there was a riser going right through it," he recalled. "Everything she walked on had giant platforms to ensure all the eyelines were correct."
Compounding all of those issues, the character also wears high heels which turned out to be another obstacle for the animation team. New systems had to be put in place to capture She-Hulk walking in high heels while retaining her grace and elegance. Cramer also shared how Maslany did a great job handling all the props that were given to her to facilitate the CG. "From the first moment on the shoot we just put her in a room with all these different props and asked, ‘okay, how is she going to play this character?’ And she did it even wilder than we thought she would. I was like, 'Oh my god, okay, this is the character!!!'," he added.
The show sparked controversy prior to its release when fans raised concerns over the quality of the CGI. Many were quick to point out that the CGI used to create Jennifer Walters' alter-ego wasn’t realistic enough. Given the large-scale backlash, Marvel Studios released a high-resolution trailer with significant improvements that some fans were happy about.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law's nine-episode inaugural season is streaming on Disney+ right now.
Source: befores & afters