ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA Writer Teases Wasp Action Scene and MANDALORIAN Tech Used to Make the Film
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is going to be the third chapter in the Ant-Man saga, welcoming back Paul Rudd's Scott Lang and Evangeline Lilly's Hope Van Dyne. Shooting just began, and beside the additions of Kathryn Newton's character Stature and Jonathan Majors' Kang the Conqueror, we don’t have a whole lot of info about the project.
But the film’s writer, Jeff Loveness spoke with Bridger Winegar's I Said No Gifts! podcast (via The Direct) about the filming process, and he had some intriguing insight about the new technology that is being used on the film that is called The Volume. Industrial Light & Magic pioneered this tech for The Mandalorian, bringing the Star Wars planets to life around its actors. Actors, producers, and directors have praised the technology, which wraps a soundstage in a wall of LED screens, depicting a virtually constructed landscape.
Loveness explained:
"I was there for, like, three months during preproduction, so its anything from costume people, up-to-the-minute script stuff, you get to meet the actors, you get their points of views on stuff, you get practical things. You have like big goggles to do 3D VR scouts of sets. I don't know if you watch The Mandalorian or any of that stuff. There's this new technology called The Volume, which is basically a living green screen. You can actually put up the backgrounds and the cool visual effects that you want in real-time. Much better for the actors, and then they'll do digital stuff later to make it look better. It is pretty cool, it reminds me of an old David Lean matte painting or something in the background, or Wizard of Oz."
He went on to describe a scene with Evangeline Lilly's Wasp, who flies around in a forest with the film crew tracking her every move. The Volume helps make that kind of action look like a seamless shot from the film even without a real-world set.
"I had one of those things where I felt like a French person watching that train movie. There was a complicated running sequence where the Wasp, very small, she flies around, she’s going through the forest and the camera’s moving with her and it tracks on the screen, so it just kind of looks like a legitimate shot from the movie, and it’s very jarring to have this gigantic screen moving like a camera."
Winegar said that sounded like it could be quite nauseating, and Loveness admitted that it was. He also made sure to dissuade fans from throwing on a VR headset and exploring a completely computer-generated world the way he did with this experience.
"It kind of was! Especially in goggles, I don’t recommend throwing an Occulus on your head and jumping into an all CG environment."
It’s pretty amazing to see how technology advances, sometimes from film to film in the MCU. I have loved the Ant-Man movies, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opens in theaters on July 28, 2023.