Go Behind the CGI of ‘Batman v Superman’ with New Visual Effects Featurette
Take a seat, because what you’re about to read may shock and disorient you: Many of the images seen onscreen during the motion picture Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice are a sham. While the completed film may appear to show superheroes valiantly flying through the air and shooting lasers out of their eyes and discussing maternal nomenclature, many of those same scenes were created using sophisticated computer programs, and never happened at all! Not to destroy the magic of the cinema, but we’ve all been lied to. Superman’s not real, he’s just some unusually pretty dude who spent a couple months in a room wallpapered with green screen.
The folks at Scanline VFX have released a new video (noted over at /Film) detailing the processes through which they created some of the more involved effects shots for Zack Snyder’s superhero showdown, emphasizing just how much of the film came together during post-production. While the likes of Mad Max: Fury Road, the new Star Wars films, and the upcoming Blade Runner 2049 have all trumpeted their practical effects, Snyder traded old-fashioned ingenuity for expensive technology, deriving everything from the Batmobile to entire cityscapes from 0s and 1s. Though Batman v Superman has already been frozen out of the shortlist for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, it looks like it has a solid chance at the Academy Award for the Most Visual Effects.
It’s as unsettling as it is impressive — entire crowds can be copy-pasted to fill a funeral, roiling skies can be rendered with a few layers of computerized imagery. Truly, there’s nothing VFX trickery can’t do, apart from fixing a bad script.