Avengers: Endgame’s visual effects supervisor breaks down the process of making the massive final battle.
Avengers: Endgame has many notable moments, but the scene that stole the show was the climactic battle between the Avengers and their allies and Thanos’ army. Creating an action sequence that was both thrilling and easy to track was a daunting task, to say the least. But the visual effects artists at Weta Digital found a way to control the chaos in the epic, action sequence.
Weta Digital visual effects supervisor Matt Aitken told Comicbook.com that the studio was up for the challenge, but recognized that the sequence had to hit on all cylinders. This included honoring the decade of storytelling that preceded it:
"“We relish the challenge, and we love these opportunities…we had to honor that level of expectation and really honor the fact that this was the culmination of all these individual storylines. So we couldn’t mess it up.”"
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With so much going on, the toughest aspect of crafting the battle was keeping it confined to the ruins of the Avengers compound. Aitken also mentioned that they had to stay focused on the main story thread of the fight, which was the Avengers attempting to get rid of the Nano Gauntlet and Infinity Stones:
"“…there’s a thread running through the whole battle which is our heroes collaborating and teaming up to get the Gauntlet with the Stones across the crater, through to the other side to where the van with the quantum tunnel is sitting, so they can get the stones back in time.”"
There was also the matter of make the site of the battle seem bigger than it really was. Due to the small size of the physical set the actors played against, it was difficult to make it appear that they were all in various areas throughout the battlefield. Ultimately, Aitken and his team were able to remedy this by shifting the audience’s perspective of the fight, with the help of some key elements:
"“So they’re kind of going over the same piece of crater over and over again, but hopefully people aren’t noticing that, because we like moving the dressing around and changing the perspective, and so it may be that the crater ultimately feels bigger than it is, but we’re helping with that by dressing and drifting smoke elements and the atmospheric haze and all these things can help make the crater feel bigger than it actually is.”"
Constructing an action sequence in any film is no easy task, but the artists at Weta Digital had their work cut out for them with Avengers: Endgame. But they succeeded in making a large-scale battle that not only looked cool, but also made sense. It’s safe to say this battle is one both comic and film fans will be talking about for a while.