Stunts, special effects and digital effects combined for this incredible Wicked moment. An excerpt from befores & afters magazine.Wicked ends in spectacular fashion as Elphaba learns how to fly a broomstick and defies the Wizards guards in order to fly off west from the Emerald City. These flying momentsachieved with bluescreen wire work and digital visual effectsinvolved significant collaboration between stunts, special effects and visual effects.Special effects worked closely with stunts to design and make custom flying equipment for this sequence, outlines special effects supervisor Paul Corbould. We made a self-levelling broomstick motion control rollercoaster to fly Ariana and Cynthia around the Wizards chamber. The path that they needed to follow was very specific, requiring a camera to move around them during the shot. This would have been challenging to achieve safely using other methods.Since Cynthia Erivo would be live singing, Corbould also helped facilitate something dubbed Silent Wind, where air was blown onto the actors to add to the sense of flying, but the motorized fans ducted away from the set and piped in. The purpose of Silent Wind was to aid in the live recording of the vocals with as little set noise as possible.Earlier, previs (both The Third Floor and Framestore Pre-Production Services delivered previs for the film, with FPS also crafting postvis) drew upon storyboards to explore how the broomstick flying would look and how it could be achieved. We then moved on to having miniature models built by Nathan Crowley, says visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman. We gave Jon a little stick with a little Elphaba at the end of the stick. We recorded those sessions in which Jon would just make the move for Elphaba by playing the music from his iPhone, and then he would choreograph the whole thing together with choreographer Christopher Scott.By doing that, notes Helman, we were able to see how we were going to wire Cynthia there, as it was important that Cynthia wanted to do all her own stunts. The one thing that we couldnt have there was the cape. Because of the wires and because of the center of gravity where she needed to move, we couldnt have the cape, which had to be put in via visual effects. A lot of her body was replaced, but we always kept the face and the acting. Sometimes the hat was replaced because it needed to move.issue #26 WickedErivo was filmed against bluescreen and against a balcony set with wire rigs and a tuning fork. This all provided a foundation for Elphabas ultimate flying performance and movement. Due to the physical limitations of the stage-based shots, realizing the overall scope and speed the director wanted for the scene, multiple VFX techniques were then used by ILM to augment the footage, including shot stitches with animated blends to extend selects, digital double takeovers and transitions, and also fully animated wide shots. The sequence was handled by VFX supervisor Anthony Smith at ILM Sydney.We designed dynamic moments using fully animated beats to extend the filmed performance in shots, with live to digital transitions disguised by camera movements, flourishes and the characters cape, explains Shirk. Extending filmed action was complicated due to the strict time rules imposed by the song and in many cases aided by designing action across cuts to ease any continuity issues. Match animation to the original wire and rig-based footage ensured the integrity of Cynthias performance choices while allowing simulation of the effects of speed and wind on the characters costume, adding freer secondary movement physics for the increased speed as well as minor timing adjustments to action and changes to the camera and interactive lighting.Elphabas cape proved to be almost its own character, with very specific direction given for its performance, including making it especially extended as a homage to what happens in the stage musical. The dramatic shaping often required manual posing of major shapes, working in tandem with simulation, says Shirk. Establishing creative trust was critical to the success of shots featuring the extended mega-cape as the team would often compose frames and animate the character in specific ways to drive interesting shapes for the cape that would follow later in the production process.For Helman and the entire visual effects team on Wicked, Defying Gravity represented a key aspect of the filma highly photorealistic and emotional moment in this fairytale story. I think the reason it feels so realistic, says Helman, is because Cynthia is mitigating all the forces of gravity doing those stunts while shes really singing. We thought, if we combine her movement and her face and the fact that shes singing live with a cape, then thats what its supposed to do in a very heroic way. Read the full VFX of Wicked issue of befores & afters magazine.The post The making of Defying Gravity appeared first on befores & afters.