When it comes to modern movie making, leaps in technology come around often, and recently the introduction of The Volume soundstage has seen filmmakers go from shooting actors on a green screen background to being able to put them into any scene of any film. The Mandalorian was one of the first to use the new technology, that employs digital LED screens that have thousands of LED lights on each one and can be used to form a seamless environment that is prepared beforehand and then used to bring the whole thing to life around the actors. The same technology is being used on Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and writer Jeff Loveness recently revealed how one standout action sequence was crafted in the soundstage.
Speaking on Bridger Winegar’s I Said No Gifts! Podcast, Loveness explained a little more about how the technology works and recalled using it on one scene involving Evangeline Lilly as the Wasp, which he found surreal to watch through the special StageCraft goggles that allow directors and producers step into the action as it will be seen on screen.
"I was there for, like, three months during preproduction, so its anything from costume people, up-to-the-minute script stuff, you get to meet the actors, you get their points of views on stuff, you get practical things. You have like big goggles to do 3D VR scouts of sets," Loveness said. "I don't know if you watch The Mandalorian or any of that stuff. There's this new technology called The Volume, which is basically a living green screen. You can actually put up the backgrounds and the cool visual effects that you want in real-time. Much better for the actors, and then they'll do digital stuff later to make it look better. It is pretty cool, it reminds me of an old David Lean matte painting or something in the background, or Wizard of Oz."
Loveness continued, “I had one of those things where I felt like a French person watching that train movie. There was a complicated running sequence where the Wasp, very small, she flies around, she's going through the forest and the camera's moving with her and it tracks on the screen, so it just kind of looks like a legitimate shot from the movie, and it's very jarring to have this gigantic screen moving like a camera. It kind of was! Especially in goggles, I don't recommend throwing an Occulus on your head and jumping into an all CG environment."
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Recently Moved Filming To Los Angeles
While some of the movie has been filmed at The Volume in the U.K., using the technology around the same time Indiana Jones 5 was also filming there, recent photos have shown Ant-Man star Paul Rudd filming new scenes out on the streets of Los Angeles on a set mocked up to look like San Francisco.
Set photos have been few and far between for any of the upcoming Marvel movies, and those that have been uploaded online don’t give away anything important about the plot of the films. When it comes to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, we do know that the film will touch on the multiverse, the Quantum Realm, the introduction of a powerful Kang the Conqueror and is currently set to bring phase four of the MCU to a close.
The movie is not set to debut in cinemas until Jul. 28, 2023, which means that we are looking at a year-long wait before we are likely to see anything meaningful about the film released, with a trailer probably not dropping until around April or May 2023 at the earliest. Until then, there will be plenty of theories and speculation to come as the next movies of the MCU roll out and delve further into the multiverse and its effect on the universe.