Using camera tricks to create an illusion of size difference is not unfamiliar to Hollywood. The films of yesteryear like Godzilla and the original Star Wars trilogy used models to bring their creations to life. In the Lord of the Rings films, clever use of camera angles and a touch of CGI made full-sized actors like Elijah Wood appear to be furry-footed half-men. Prime Focus World, a part of the production crew of Marvel's Ant-Man, used the tools available in Blackmagic Design Fusion Studio to create a stereo graphic 3D film with one of the most striking disparities in size between the title character and the surrounding world.
Size Doesn't Mean Everything
For the uninitiated, Ant-Man (played by Paul Rudd) is a superhero who has the ability to shrink down to the size of an ant while gaining superhuman strength, endurance, and agility thanks to a suit powered by the pseudoscientific Pym Particles. Some versions of the superhero have the ability to increase in size, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe has kept his powers to the "minimum". He also comes equipped with a helmet that allows him to communicate with ants, making his moniker more appropriate and giving him a horde of allies against enemies like the also-shrunk supervillain,Yellowjacket.
Fusing the Film
An integral part of creating the minuscule Marvel superhero was the use of Blackmagic Design's Fusion Studio. Unlike the Lord Of The Rings films, the more prevalent use of CGI and the more pronounced size disparity between Ant-Man and the surrounding world required a greater usage of post-production editing. To do so, PFW created a variety of proprietary systems using the Software Development Kit in Fusion Studio.
Because of the extensive use of green screens for Ant-Man, shooting in native stereoscopic 3D was less of an option for the film. With just Rudd on screen for many of the shots, the on-site crew had little to work with to create the proper effect themselves, and doing so would have added extensive amounts of time to the project. Instead, PFW used Fusion Studio's ability to spread a workload across multiple stations and servers alongside their unique brand of editing tools to create the world of Ant-Man on the timeline of a major movie release. As the scenes came to life, the team was able to convert the film into a stereoscopic view that let the small details play their part.
