VFX secrets of Marvel’s miniseries The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Lorraine Cink interviews Eric Leven, VFX Supervisor at Marvel Studios, about VFX’s work secrets of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

About The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) team up in a global adventure that tests their abilities—and their patience—in Marvel Studios’ The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Kari Skogland is the director of this all-new miniseries and Malcolm Spellman is the head writer. Streaming exclusively on Disney+. Set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), it shares continuity with the films of the franchise and takes place after the events of the film Avengers: Endgame (2019).

VFX progression of Marvel Studio’s miniseries

Skogland said the series’ crew made good use of their time when development was halted due to the pandemic, enabling them to continue post-production work on the show and make choices they wouldn’t have had time to make otherwise. Jeffrey Ford, Kelley Dixon, Todd Desrosiers, and Rosanne Tan edited different episodes of the miniseries. Visual effects were provided by Cantina Creative, Crafty Apes, Digital Frontier, Industrial Light & Magic, QPPE, Rodeo FX, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Stereo D, Technicolor VFX, Tippett Studio, Trixter, and Weta Digital.

It wasn’t like we had to figure out a new look for an energy beam or something like that. It was to make this photographically real… Just trying to figure out if you were shooting something for real, how would you photograph it? Where would the camera be? How fast would the camera be moving? We orchestrated two aerial units. We had a helicopter plate shoot in New York to capture plates for Episode 106 and then we had the skydiving unit for Episode 101 Stunt guys actually had a day when they went out on real trucks, drove down, and pretended to fight just to see what that would look like.

– Eric Leven, Visual Effects Supervisor, Rodeo FX

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