ILM’s Vancouver & London studios realized everything from ingenious facial replacements to a challenging plate composite for one cohesive action shot.
By Adam Berry
After the events of Marvel’s Hawkeye left Maya Lopez in an intense standoff with the powerful Kingpin, she finds herself now on the run from her criminal life, returning to her roots where she must confront her past and discover her true power; becoming the hero known as Echo (Alaqua Cox).
As with any Marvel production, big action set pieces and storytelling are promised elements that bring the massive scope of these heroes’ lives from page to screen. As Echo is a formidable hand-to-hand combatant, with unique abilities not yet seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the action needed to deliver.
Industrial Light & Magic was called upon to create some of the biggest action sequences in the show, with work being shared between the London and Vancouver studios. All together, ILM contributed an amazing 467 shots, from start to finish, with a fast turnaround of only six months.
“ILM was awarded some really fun sequences to work on. From a thrilling train heist with a full CG environment, digidoubles and CG train; to a roller rink brawl requiring many face replacements and fight enhancements; a huge warehouse explosion and a photoreal CG woodpecker.”
–Steven Godfrey, Visual Effects Supervisor
Echo is the first MCU project to be released under the TV-MA rating for mature audiences, so the visual effects team had a lot of freedom to play around with the blood and gore for the fight sequences. At the client’s request, the stylistic violence and gore from the John Wick films were used as a reference for the show.
One pivotal action sequence that ILM was tasked with creating, known as “The Oner,” was particularly complex for the team. The work on this sequence was to stitch together multiple plates and takes as the action progresses. The scene follows Maya as she makes her way along a series of hallways, fighting off a group of security guards; knocking them to the ground one by one, showcasing her martial arts capabilities. As the security guards lay unconscious, Maya is led into a larger room by a mysterious new adversary, resulting in the main fight. The action intensifies and reveals her new opponent as none other than the man without fear, another Marvel favorite, Daredevil (Charlie Cox). The two then face off in an epic duel that moves between a large open space and a tighter caged area full of weapons.
To make the scene as visceral as possible, there was a combination of making multiple plates blend seamlessly between takes. With multiple face replacement shots for the actors, blood spurts and destruction added to the environment, “The Oner” is among the most exciting sequences from the whole show.
It was challenging work for the team to get the plates to stitch together seamlessly; to hide transition points while ensuring that the action is still flowing throughout. By using a combination of wipes, warps, retimes and some manual tracking of multiple takes, ILM was able to stitch together all of these elements to form one cohesive shot.
The biggest challenge for the team on this sequence, and others throughout the show, was face replacement work. The shots required would be fairly close to the camera and require a lot of facial performance during the intense fighting sequences. ILM became involved with the project after principal photography on Echo had wrapped, so there was limited data capture available to work with. Face replacements were especially needed for the fight sequences involving Alaqua Cox. As she is relatively new to the industry, there wasn’t a lot of data available to reference, or a Facial Action Coding System (FACS) session to capture her facial expressions, so only the footage taken during filming could be utilized.
In total, there were about 35 shots of face replacement work throughout the show. There were different approaches taken to emulate Cox’s likeness, such as trying a 2D replacement, building a 3D digidouble and using ILM’s FaceSwap.
There wasn’t enough coverage from takes to use a 2D replacement; not enough time to build a digidouble to the standard that the showrunners wanted, and not enough footage of Cox to use for an accurate Face Swap. With limited data, there was some experimentation required to figure out how to best achieve the most accurate facial performance possible.
This was vital because Cox is very expressive during the action sequences, so the facial expressions needed to have the same energy otherwise it might feel lifeless jumping between cuts.
The plan came down to using a 3D digidouble while training a Face Swap in the background, just in case it could provide anything of use. The Face Swap took three weeks to build, and was based on only 20 minutes of footage of Cox.
After some experimentation, the solution was for ILM to utilize a combination of Face Swap with a traditional digi-base setup to accurately replicate Cox’s likeness.
The results were great and provided a better likeness of the actress, adding a photographic level of realism that was difficult to achieve using only the digidouble.
“I feel like the work done here to overcome this challenge has strengthened, or expanded how we can implement something like this again.” – Tristan Myles, Visual Effects Supervisor
ILM’s contributions brought the explosive action sequences to life, while also making them feel grounded and realistic. The action continued onto a roller rink brawl, involving work to remove cables for stunt rigging, crash mattes and tricky crew removal from reflective surfaces, such as a giant disco ball; to an epic fight on a moving train, which needed extensive environment and animation work; then finally, a warehouse explosion calling for the team to replace the skyline, create explosions and augment explosion element plates.
The fight sequences and action only got bigger throughout the show, delivering some of the most thrilling sequences from any MCU project yet. The vision of bringing the pulse-pounding action of this iconic character to life was fully realized by the talented crew with artistry that only visual effects can create.
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Adam Berry is the Studio Operations Manager for the ILM Vancouver studio. His passion for film led Adam to ILM in 2022, coming from an extensive career across different sectors of the hospitality industry including cruise ships, luxury hotels and resorts. If he’s not at the movies or traveling to new destinations, you can find Adam staying active and exploring Vancouver.
