SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS PRODUCTION.
“You have elements of lion, lizard, snake – and the wings of a bat.” So, with a concoction of animals to work with, the team had to find a way to make them come together – all while representing the creature correctly and with the proper anatomy. “Moving the proportions around, like the legs on the ground, and making them look powerful was one thing,” Silva continues, “the problem was they looked awkward when the dragon was flying.” There’s an impressive sequence in the film where Lucy Liu (Kalypso) rides the head of the dragon; Silva explains how the team built the right-size head to produce footage and keep the character looking threatening and consistent. “Before they started shooting, the team used a robotic arm to get the motion – the industrial ones used to build cars,” Silva explains. “Lucy Liu had a whole rig and was sitting on the arm, which was controlled by an animation that we established for the shot.” However, safety was an issue and so the operation required delicate hands. “There were lots of limitations,” he continues. “The dragon is very powerful and moves around a lot; that would be too dangerous. Instead, we got a rough representation of what we wanted to do. We still needed to make it menacing, so combing that with the CGI footage was tricky. She’s interacting with the dragon, “Something that works for one creature doesn’t for the other – we must make it work together”
POWER PLAYERS Ladon, summoned by Kalypso in the stadium (above); taming a unicorn with skittles (below); and the Shazamily, including lead character Billy Batson and his fellow foster siblings (bottom)
holding a horn, the hand moves up and down, there’s a staff... so many elements to make the scenes look right. What we did in the end was such a subtle effect, but rewarding.” CHALLENGES REMAIN Advances in animation technology have helped the likes of Silva achieve things that weren’t possible just a few years ago. However, he says the obstacles are greater each time because of the sheer level of the detail expected. “Everything can be so realistic, and the fidelity of the image so high, that the detail we have to produce is a real challenge,” he explains. “It’s easy to make the creature move if it’s far away. When you’ve got a big screen and must treat the minutiae, it’s very time-consuming. It takes a lot of work and research.
Something that works for one creature doesn’t for the other, but we must make it work together. The level of detail needs to be there to make it believable.” If you watch the film, you’ll see that’s exactly what they did. Watch Shazam! Fury of the Gods in US and UK cinemas now
35. MAY 2023
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