Even VFX Critics Are Impressed by How This ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Scene Was Filmed

One particular scene from Deadpool & Wolverine has captured fans’ attention for its exceptional execution. It was so well done that even the most vocal VFX critics couldn’t help but praise it, as we’ll explore later in the article.

In a recently released video, Swen Gillberg, the VFX Supervisor for the film, detailed how they created the scenes where Cassandra Nova’s hands pass through the faces of other characters, most notably Paradox (and Deadpool, though with less detail since he was wearing a mask). This sequence was one of the most impressive VFX moments in the entire movie, and here’s what he shared:

One of the highlight scenes of hands through face would be seen with Cassandra’s hands going through Mr. Paradox’s face. You literally see every pore on his face. Its fantastic effects, very, very cringe worthy. In our development process, we played with different skin thicknesses and I liked it thinner because we actually want to start seeing the details of her, like, knuckles in his skin.

There’s definitely a skull in those heads and she definitely works around it. And then when the fingers go over the eyeballs, the eyeballs pop out and it’s great. [MUSIC PLAYING] So for hands through face, Shawn and the effects team started out with comic book reference. There’s some key comic book frames that we really tried to match where it goes straight up through here and her fingers like to come out the nostrils and the eyeballs and the ears.

Whenever we are replacing limbs or replacing faces, we’ll often put tracking markers on. Emma’s hand has to go somewhere, so we just put it off to the side or this side or out of frame. Then, we would do clean plates on the day to clean up the arm and hand. And then in post, we would do a fully digital hand and arm, and then into a mostly digital Matthew Macfadyen face.

Then we go into detailed animation and that would be getting the details of the fingers sliding over the skull just right, getting it over the forehead, and dipping into the eye socket, that kind of thing. And then we go into a final detailed sculpting and creature pass. And that’s where you really would figure out, like, if she was wearing a ring, you would see the ring in there on the knuckle.

Source: YouTube

Many fans immediately reacted to this, praising the scene as incredible—even those who typically dislike VFX and the overuse of CGI agreed:

The hands through the face is one of the best CGI moments in The MCU it looked real and trippy

Huge props to the VFX team they cooked

– @DoomBlazer

This is one of the most creative depictions of telepathy I’ve seen in films. She literally puts her hand into your brain and digs up to see what’s inside your head. That’s disturbing but still accurate in representing what telepathy is all about.

– @Nicholas_Chen_

It’s crazy how little people are talking about Emma Corrin’s performance as Cassandra Nova. They killed it in the role, nailing Cassandra’s sadistic, twisted personality from the comics. Loved the VFX of their hands through people’s heads, as the VFX team really did an excellent job with the fluent movement of their fingers travelling under the skin to really add a level of sadistic menace and creepy terror to them.

– @milkiassamuel780

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