Cinesite delivers Black Widow visual effects

Cinesite has announced its delivery of several visual effects sequences for Marvel Studios’ latest release, Black Widow.

Black Widow explores the evolution of the eponymous character, also known as Natasha Romanoff. Following the events of Captain America: Civil War (2016), Natasha finds herself alone and forced to confront a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, she must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

Geoff Baumann was VFX supervisor and Lisa Marra VFX producer for the production. Cinesite’s work was overseen by VFX supervisor Ben White. This is the fourth Marvel film to which Cinesite has contributed visual effects in the past three years, following Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Antman & The Wasp (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019).

Cinesite’s visual effects for Black Widow, in contrast with the other-worldly effects created for previous Avengers films, are terrestrial, ranging from helicopters to cars, a laboratory and a prison. In one sequence, where Natasha and Yelena are having a conversation whilst driving down a motorway, Cinesite’s team replaced their BMW with a CG version, stitching together 9 cameras forming a circular array to create a 360-degree environment.

This environment was projected behind the actresses on set to achieve appropriate interactive lighting and added into the shot later, complete with glass reflections on the car windows. Another shot, filmed with a locked-off camera, was altered so that the car drives into shot, adding dynamism and pace to the dialogue scene. This was achieved through careful sleight of hand which involved adding the plate with the actresses into a separate card and positioning them within our CG vehicle and environment.

Much of Cinesite’s work takes place inside a squalid Russian prison, where Alexei (The Red Guardian) is languishing.  In one gruesome but hilarious sequence, Alexei is participating in an arm-wrestling contest in which he easily snaps the wrist of a particularly gargantuan opponent.  His arm hangs precariously at a very uncomfortable angle. A CG hand and forearm were added, and 2D projection techniques used to blend seamlessly out of the live action into the CG limb.

One of Cinesite’s most challenging shots involves Alexei pulling one of the prison guards over a guard-desk, through a pane of toughened glass. Cinesite VFX supervisor Ben White says, “What made this shot a particular challenge is that it’s laminated glass, which behaves very differently from the regular type.  It’s like windshield glass – it’s tough, flexible and very difficult to break.  As it shatters it behaves more like a kind of rigid, glassy cloth; that was a challenge for the FX team, but they really pulled it off and it makes for a very convincing action shot.”

Cinesite partner company TRIXTER also delivered a significant body of work, which includes Taskmaster’s mask, Black Widow’s veil and several major action sequences and environments. Last year, they delivered over 280 shots for Captain Marvel, including Marvel’s cat, Goose. More recently they delivered the VFX for the Loki series and they are currently in production on Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, scheduled for release in September 2021.