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ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 visual effects production supervisor Stephane Ceretti about the last of James Gunn‘s Marvel movies. Ceretti discussed the feelings that come with making a final film in a series and working with Gunn. The sequel is now available on home media, digitally, and for streaming through Disney+.
“In the film, our beloved band of misfits are looking a bit different these days,” reads the movie’s synopsis. “Peter Quill, still reeling from the loss of Gamora, must rally his team around him to defend the universe along with protecting one of their own. A mission that, if not completed successfully, could quite possibly lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them.”
Tyler Treese: My favorite scenes are the flashbacks. Rocket and his friends really serve as the emotional core of this movie, and the effects are essential to get that emotion from these CGI characters. Can you speak to the overall approach on these flashback sequences and really nailing that tone? I know James Gunn shared in the filming of them.
Stephane Ceretti: Well, that was very important for us, to be able to capture the performance of the actors. But also for James, it was important to be able to capture the way he wanted to shoot that scene. So he and his shooting has evolved. I did the first Guardians of the Galaxy film with him. Since then, he’s changed his way of shooting stuff. He’s using these very little cameras that he can move around the actors very closely and everything to be very immersive. The first thing he told me, he said, “I want to be able to shoot these scenes the same way I would shoot the rest of the film.” So what we decided to do was to use some sort of a virtual production thing, which is having all the actors for the first two days of the shoot.
We wanted to capture that as soon as possible. So we got the four actors — we had Sean Gun, we had Linda Cardellini playing Lylla, Asim [Chaudhry] was playing Teefs, then Mikaela [Hoover] was playing Floor. And we just put them in that oversized cage, which was the right proportions for them. We shot them acting for the first two days. I said to James, “This is the acting we’re going to use, so it needs to be you directing them, the camera doing the thing you want it to do.” We motion-captured the camera. So the motion of the camera was motion-captured. We did not motion capture the animation of the characters. That’s something we’ve never done on any Guardians film. Not the ones I’ve worked on.
We don’t do motion captures for Rocket, for example. We animate. It’s hand-animated by the people at Framestore in London that have worked on this sequence. To me, it was essential that we be able to capture all that stuff and reference the acting of these great actors that we had, and Framestore took that on. We got the edit from Fred Raskin, our editor, and then we started working at it. Then they built the CG characters based off [of] designs that James had done — little scribbles that James had done — and then the visdev department at Marvel made real concept designs of them. It was very important that we work on the eyes, how the face can animate, how they can emote. So we did a lot of testing of range of emotion on the animals — the wetness in the eyes, the fur, everything. The way their articulated arms were working, the way Floor was kind of bouncing on the floor and doing things, you know? All that stuff.
We just really took our time, and that’s why we wanted to shoot that first, because we knew that would be very complicated. And as you said, that’s the core of the film. If that doesn’t work, nothing works. So we had to be very, very specific about everything. And James is amazing with visual effects. He plans, everything. He is very on top of everything. We can talk to him all the time. If we have questions, he’s there. We have meetings with the vendors and him and me and everybody, and we all work together and to get all that emotion out of every single moment, and that was great. For example, we have that shot of the first time Rocket gets thrown into the cage, and we had that close-up of him with Lylla putting that cloth on to take the blood out of his head.
The eyes are moving is exactly a replica of what Sean Gunn had done on set for us. You can see the eyes in the Sean Gunn reference, and you see the eyes of Rocket and the way they blink — the little eye darts and everything. It’s exactly that. That, you can only get with amazing animators. They really understand how to translate what they see from the actors into the body of these animals. It’s not something you can do automatically. It’s something that needs the artistry of these guys to really be able to understand how everything moves so that they can get the same emotion. They’ve done amazing.
As you touched upon, you worked on the first movie and there’s a lot of time between this and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. You mentioned that James changed his approach in certain aspects. What has impressed you the most about seeing his growth as a filmmaker, especially when it comes to these sprawling epics?
Well, he was already very savvy on the first one, in terms of visual effects, because he had done … he always tells me, “I’ve done Scooby-Doo, so I know how that works.” And I was like, “Yeah, yeah, of course.” But he does! I mean, he’s really good. He always looks at me, and I literally sit next to him throughout the shoot, right? There’s James in front of the monitor and I’m right behind him. We talk all the time. There’s so many visual effects all the time, so that we need to be in sync. Coming back after almost 10 years … it was great, because I could see how it had evolved in terms of shooting with the actors, in terms of the way he does the camera — it moves much faster, much more organic, the way it’s being shot.
But also the way kind of interacts with the actors during the takes. Like, he goes in, he gives them suggestion and it’s very efficient. He is such an efficient filmmaker. He’s very prepared. He storyboards every single shot in the film. Now he knows how to use previs even better. He knows what he needs, what he doesn’t need from previs. He is very specific about that. As a filmmaker, he is much more … it was already really good, but now, he’s very at ease on the shoot. Things go fast, you know? We’ve got it sorted out. A lot of people around him are the same as they’ve been for a while, so we work very well together and it’s a well-oiled machine.
You mentioned that it was great to be back for this project. The story here closes the chapter on so many characters. What did it mean, as a collaborator and as a part of this project, to get to close out these stories that you started in the first Guardians of the Galaxy? It feels like a real full circle moment, I’m sure.
Yeah, the character arcs are so good. And I’ve lived with these characters for the last 10 years. Even though I hadn’t done the second one, I’ve always loved these characters and I’ve seen them in the other films — Infinity War and Endgame and all that stuff. But coming back to do the conclusion … it’s very … I mean, for me, it was so emotional, actually. We were also emotional and the fact that it was Rocket’s story and that we were kind of now unfolding things that we had been talking about initially when we created Rocket. In the first film, you can see he’s got little metallic contraptions attached to his body, like implants in his back and things like that, that we had hinted at in the first film.
At the time, we talked about it. We said, “Oh, what happened to him? Something happened.” And then we see the conclusion of that and we understand his character even better. We unfold the reason why he’s been like that all along. It was very emotional for us. A lot of the people, like the people from Framestore, for example, had been creating Rocket on the first film. Some of them were on that team and had done all three movies and they love Rocket. So everybody, all the VFX artists that worked on the film, they really loved the film. They really loved the story. So everybody was super excited and on top of things. They love this character so much.
So it was such a great experience, I think for everybody. We worked really hard, but at the same time, it just was what we owed to these characters, in a way. We wanted to give them a great send-off. We knew it was the end for that group of Guardians and a lot of us in the VFX world … that was my first film I supervised for Marvel as a full supervisor. Actually, a lot of people that were at Framestore had started their career on these kind of films. [Laughs]. So we were all very attached to the characters. I mean, the last day of shoot, we were all crying like the family was gone. The actors were saying bye-bye. They were all very emotional. I think the last shot we shot was with Sean in the little spaceship, and that was it. That was cut. That’s a wrap. And we were all crying like babies. [Laugh].
That’s lovely. As you mentioned, this is Rocket’s story. What really impressed me so much is that he has so many interactions with actors. How is it, making those interactions believable and getting the emotion across?
Well, I mean, we owe that to Sean Gunn, who actually does Rocket on set for us. He’s been doing Rocket on set with all these actors since the first film. So in terms of the banter between them and how they act, they know, they worked with him and they’re just real actors. Just looking at Sean thinking they know what it’s going to look like because they’ve done a few movies with him, so they know that they can trust the process that it’s going to work. [Laughs]. They’re all so good with each other, and James is so good at directing them and giving them the right cues. James’ script is very, very specific and they stick to the script, but sometimes James has an idea during the take and throws it at them and they go with it and it’s hilarious.
It’s a good group of people. They know to work with them. When we have this as a reference for us, it’s just gold. Then we we have Bradley [Cooper] coming to record later in post to do Rocket’s voice. And Bradley gives us another level of acting, you know? He looks at the scene, how it’s edited, and he’s like, “Oh, but I could do this, I could do that,” and brings another level of ideas, and we capitalize on that and we push it even further. Rocket is an amalgamation of so many people, but at the same time, it’s that very specific character. James is the guardian of that. He knows what the character needs to do and needs to be and needs to say. Everybody’s trying to put a little bit of them in there and James is curating everything, but it’s always been a great experience, honestly.
You two are clearly a great duo and luckily we’ll get to see you two team up again with Superman: Legacy. James said that he wanted to create an aesthetic that hasn’t existed before. I know it’s too early to talk about any specifics with that, but can you speak to his general ambition? We see it here with Guardians as well, of wanting to push boundaries and show the viewers new aesthetics and new visuals.
I can’t really speak about it just yet. I think I’ll let James present his stuff. It’s going be exciting. It’s going to be really cool. We have a great script and great characters, and I think people are going to be very happy.
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