Following the footsteps of other VFX studios the globally acclaimed visual effects studio, The Moving Picture Company (MPC) too dropped in a four minute reel, breaking down its main areas of work in Sony Pictures’ The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). Although the sequel starring Andrew Garfield as Marvel’s web-slinger amassed a decent sum of $709 million in its world-wide collections, Sony thought it wiser to swing the Spidey into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and all plans for a third installment of The Amazing Spiderman series were shelved.
With a mammoth budget of $255 million, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 unloaded an extravagant set of visual effects on display. Teaming up with Sony Pictures Imageworks, MPC visually created over 300 shots including the sequences of Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx) falling into a tank of mutant electric eels and beginning his transformation into Electro; Harry Osborn’s (Dane DeHaan) pulsing vein transformation into the Green Goblin; and an explosive aircraft collision. MPC VFX supervisor Erik Nordby and Producer Doug Oddy led the entire team of artists at MPC delivering some of the most electrying sequences of the action-flick. The studio was also responsible for digitally enhancing several New York City shots including the battle sequence at the Times Square. The show reel decodes the various layering and rendering stages MPC worked upon for the desired outcome including the various Oscorp building environments and set extensions. Most of the Oscorp sequences were shot against a green screen and later artists from MPC digitally created the Oscorp infrastructure using animation techniques and MPC’s in-house crowd generating software to create the employees walking around the building.
Diving into the details behind the transformation of Jamie Foxx’s incarnated Electro, MPC studios delivered a true master-piece creating a neon-ignited super villain. For this electrifying scene, MPC used a stunt double for Foxx, falling into the tank to capture the desired impact and then roto-animated a digital double of Foxx in the tank. CG electric eels were created and blended with electricity effects along with adding further details into the shots.
Harry Osborn’s transformation too was digitally created using the roto-animation technique where DeHaan’s performance was further enhanced to show the bulging veins along with the animated growing nails and teeth.
Here’s a look at the break down reel by MPC studios decoding the VFX of The Amazing Spiderman 2.
