'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’s' VFX Team Talks About Creating ‘Rocket Runt,’ And The Tool From 'Guardians 1' They Used For Inspiration
Interview with Alexis Wajsbrot.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 It's not an easy task to design all these different rocket
00:06 raccoons at different ages.
00:07 And definitely, there were a bit of trial and error
00:11 of finding what is the right look.
00:13 And so we definitely had some concepts, some great concepts,
00:17 sketches from the art department at Marvel that always provide
00:21 some great starting points.
00:22 So we know roughly what age we need to eat, basically.
00:26 But they are just sketches.
00:27 They are not yet photo real.
00:29 And James Gunn and Steph also had this chart
00:33 where you see all the different sizes
00:35 they want rocket raccoons to be during the movie.
00:37 So we had some information to start with.
00:40 And then we started with modeling the rocket runs.
00:45 So the one that is supposed to be photo real,
00:48 it's supposed to exist in real life.
00:49 That's where we started because we had the adults.
00:54 And so we said, OK, let's build the run.
00:56 So we casted a little raccoon that actually--
01:00 it's a real raccoon that Steph and James
01:03 had on set of "Guardians 1."
01:06 They already knew that it was going
01:08 to be needed for "Guardians 3."
01:10 So they had pictures.
01:12 And so we started that as a starting point
01:13 because it was really, really cute.
01:15 We were very conscious of that as we're
01:18 doing the opening credits because it's a much, much more
01:21 sad opening than the previous films.
01:25 But also, it just tells you what the story is going to be.
01:27 We're plunging into it straight away.
01:30 It's a darker movie, but it's also a very hopeful ending
01:37 in the end.
01:37 But just to come back on what Alexi is saying,
01:40 I think not only we can talk about Rocket,
01:43 but in the flashbacks, there was all these companions
01:47 that were with him and that have a huge part in the story.
01:50 And it's interesting for me because we
01:54 were really-- because it's the core of the movie,
01:56 we're really thinking, how do we get
01:58 the emotion for these scenes?
02:00 And talking with James and trying
02:03 to figure out what the best way to acquire this was, OK,
02:07 we're going to do just the first two days of the film.
02:10 And we're going to shoot that the first two days.
02:12 And we're going to get all the actors in.
02:15 Sean playing Rocket, obviously, as he always does.
02:19 We don't have Bradley.
02:20 But all the other actors were the voice actors,
02:22 the real actors for the role.
02:24 And we shot the 15, 20 minutes of flashback,
02:27 the first two days of principal photography.
02:30 And it was really important that we would do that.
02:32 And we captured the camera moves that James wanted to capture.
02:37 We did a reference shoot, like film theater, pretty much.
02:41 And all that acting, all that thing
02:45 got edited by our editors, by Fred Raskin, our editor,
02:49 and then got turned over to Framestore.
02:51 And really, what I want to emphasize on
02:53 is that it's really a work that goes from the actors that
02:59 do the best acting they can.
03:02 And they're really good.
03:03 And watching that edit the first time,
03:06 I mean, showing it to the guys at Framestore,
03:08 they were all very emotional, just looking
03:10 at people in gray suits, not even animals.
03:13 [BLANK_AUDIO]