The New Mutants

Sometimes the scariest thing in the dark is you…

Credits

Director

Josh Boone

Based on

New Mutants by Chris Claremont Bob McLeod

Producers

Simon Kinberg, Karen Rosenfelt, Lauren Shuler Donner

Production Companies

Marvel Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox

Studio

Twentieth Century Fox

Dneg VFX Supervisor

Neil Eskuri, Russell Bowen

Dneg VFX Producer

Anton Agerbo

Release Date

August 28th, 2020

VFX Work

DNEG’s VFX work for ‘The New Mutants’ was mainly focused on the creation of the grotesque ‘Smiley Men’ – seven-foot tall grinning creatures with misshapen faces and limbs. These creatures are conjured from Illyana’s past, and personify the traumas of her childhood.

Our work started with the performances of extra-tall stunt performers who portrayed these characters on-set. Scans of the stunt performers were used to create and track in digital versions of the Smiley Men in each shot. We then replaced the actors heads and hands with animated versions, and adjusted the shadows to reflect the distorted shapes of the new anatomy. Similar scans of the main characters allowed us to manage close interactions with their pursuers, and maintain accurate contact points. Due to the design of the Smiley Men’s faces, which are mainly large grinning mouths, facial capture was not an option and the heads were fully key-frame animated.

When Illyana transforms into her mutant form, Magik, and destroys both the enemy and the environment around her, we layered in multiple lighting passes to create her glowing plasma sword, built CG sections of wall and floor to allow interaction with the sword, and created destruction simulations, fire and debris to maximise the impact of her sword strokes.

New-mutants-smiley-men-villains (1)

We all made it happen

Careers

Abraham Sanchez del Villar

Adam Hall

Ahmed Yousry

Alfredo Arango

Anton Agerbo

Anupama Hiregoudar

Benjamin Kousholt

Bhushan Jagtap

Chad Meire

Christopher Sokalofsky

Dan Prentice

Danny Breeze

David Crabtree

Derek Gillingham

Diana Morawski

Dipankar Shaw

Dirk Becker

Divya Vij

Effandi Mohamed

Galou Minisini

Hemant Kumar

Inki Jo

Irena Steinnagel

Jack Richmond

Jan Schubert

Jason Brown

Jelena Stojanovic

Jeremy Wong

Jesse Turnbull

Joel Delle-Vergin

Jonny Wang

Jun Xian Yue

Karrina Hooper

Kathir Manickam

Katy Mummery

Kenzo Tee

Kiran Prabhu

Kobi Moldavski

Loic Le Goff

Lukas Klopfenstein

Matthias Reiche

Michael Amasio

Miles Southan

Natalia Diaz

Neil Eskuri

Nicolas Guerrero Arceo

Nicolas Guerrero Arceo

Niranjan Patel

Oded Granot

ResourceName

Ricardo Miguel Roldao Silva

Richard Cook

Richard Cook

Rick Curts

Robin Purdy

Rod Dimayuga

Rohan Barve

Russell Bowen

Russell Bowen

Sanyam Basran

Satish Edakkattill

Scott Wilkinson

Sean Coonce

Sergey Smirnov

Shane Meehan

Shashank Thakur

Show

Shuvayu Nandi

Stephanie Tomoana

Stephanie Whitmarsh

Steve Guo

Thad Warren

Tom Rolfe

Tosh Elliott

Vijin Sukumaran

Viktoria Gutheil

Vimal V

Viren Dass

Vladimir Kozhekin

Wayne Lim

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