ILM: Behind the Magic of the Visual Effects in Marvel Studios' The Avengers

While "The Avengers" posed many visual efffects challenges, one of the larger challenges was pulling together the "tie-in" shot during the third act of the film. Rather than frames, this single shot is measured in minutes on screen and is one of the longest effects shots in the film. It incorporates both practical special effects and extensive digital visual effects by ILM. The New York City environment that serves as the setting for this shot (and virtaully the entire alien invasion) is computer generated by the visual effects team at ILM.

[MattPerrette]

Never forget guys, without u, the movie wouldn't have been nearly as good as it was. Everyone knows how under-appreciated the visual effects department is in the grand scheme of things, but u guys really deserve all the praise for this movie.

[artbythecoco]

I work for one of the post production companies that worked on Avengers. In the final weeks before the film's completion, each time our reel files were updated, a few of us would watch versions of this shot in particular at each new level of completion, always pondering aloud, "how will this look when it's done" and "are they really going to pull this off". To this day, I'm STILL amazed when I see it. =)

[NANONilsWORLD]

CGI is getting better every year... wow !!!

[ILMVFX]

For the flying shots it really comes down to the skill of the animators. They look at a lot of reference footage, in this case of other flying objects - planes, missiles, skydivers, birds - and pick the tiny characteristics that they like from each and combine them with their own base animation of Iron Man.

From there it's constant refinement and dialing in the performance until it's perfect (in their eyes).

Thanks!

[ConstantXplorer]

The movie was awesome the work that goes on behind the scenes is just as awesome. This is the reason I'm' striving to get into the film industry.

[ILMVFX]

Yes, we use a variety of commercial software in our work though it it often heavily customized and extended by our in-house development team.

[nathanspain]

It was worth the hard work, since this was one of the coolest shots in the entire movie.
I love long shots with no cuts like this, and this one was breathtaking.

[BlAcKSmc]

I'm dabbling in Vfx shots and seeing this now really pushes me to pay soooo much attention to detail haha! I'm excited for Age of Ultron now!

[bennettwaisbren]

Absolutely incredible. One of my favorite scenes of all time, and definitely one of the greatest sequences ever portrayed on the big screen.

[Exoand]

I loved this shot. It made the whole movie for me; all the heroes working together cohesively without breaking any rhythm from moving from different cuts. It really brought the Marvel magic to real life.

[LifeNotRules]

This is easily the best and my favorite shot of the film. It's also why you guys deserve best special effects this year. (I think you deserve it every year, but this one in particular.)

[ChrisOfTheDead]

And this is why artists at ILM are the pros at visual effects! :D

[jesseffm]

I still love that sequence of the movie!
It's visually absolutely stunning and brings across the idea of the Avengers fighting together perfectly.

[UnicronicMK]

The best scifi/action movie of all time. Thanks ILM.

[JH]

Thanks for posting. It's the greatest shot in the film. So glad you picked this one to pull the curtain back on.

[akkalat]

We've come a long way from the digital double of "rubber" Neo in Matrix: Reloaded haven't we? It's finally getting to a point where we almost can't tell. On the big screen it's near impossible to tell.

[Bugsy]

I love watching the behind the scenes things for stuff like this. I mean, what they had to do to make that sequence one cohesive shot must have been ridiculous! But it worked so well! It's my favorite part of the whole film

[boutassai]

That scene was freaking amazing and seeing the process, as an artist, just makes it so much better.

[bigsole]

My favorite scene of the whole movie. Great job ILM!!!

[fabersoul_beats]

the most satisfying thing for you VFX guys must be when you tell someone "that whole scene was CG" and they go "what? i thought it was real", i had no idea that whole piece except for thor and the cap was CG, amazing!