Deadpool & Wolverine - Pre-Production

The brutally funny opening sequence, where Deadpool takes down multiple TVA Agents in a snow-covered forest, sets the tone of the movie: rude, brutal, and hilarious. The VFX needed to be equally impressive, intense, and graphic to make the intended impact. The FPS team played a crucial role in bringing this bold vision to life through visual storytelling while considering technical aspects.

For this sequence, FPS had to find innovative, irreverent, and creative ways to present the credits, while incorporating subtle moments like Easter eggs and visual jokes. This required close collaboration with the stunt team to choreograph the sequence. “Because this sequence is so physical, it involved a lot of back and forth with the stunt team and an amazing close collaboration,” says Jabar. "Based on our previz, the stunt team would perform something, and then we would take it, augment the physical trauma of the action and design camera ideas. With the help of our capture lab team, we handled our own motion capture with our stunt performer and then pitched additional ideas in our previz to the stunt team. It became a circular process where we would take a stunt viz and make it more contextual, integrating blood, FX, camera tweaks, and ultimately making this sequence as gross as possible. With each pass, we tried to come up with cooler, more outrageous ideas."

Similarly, the Oner sequence with all the Deadpool variants required close collaboration between FPS, the stunts and production teams, and was designed utilising previz, techviz, and postviz. The Oner was a massive undertaking, highlighting CG overlays and extensive animation to give the sequence a comic book feel. Again here, the collaboration with the stunt team was crucial because the sequence features more than 100 extras to choreograph and a specific music track that sets the rhythm and duration. “Once we worked everything out in previz, and because it was motion control, we did a lot of techviz to prepare for the shooting. I went on set at Pinewood Studios to do some tests, pick the motion control, and design the moves. The stunt team then did a run-through, referencing our previz to identify and incorporate the subtle jokes we had embedded, resulting in a very fluid and dynamic process,” Jabar explains.

The FPS team's comprehensive approach to storytelling and profound understanding of the project’s tone and vision helped them secure more work throughout the project. 

Designed by Framestore’s FPS team, the title and the Oner sequences were then delivered by Framestore’s VFX team, featuring complex work ranging from digi-doubles to blood simulations, set extensions, and crowd scenes.

Framestore FPS team’s comprehensive pre-production work significantly boosted the VFX team’s efficiency by maintaining continuity of knowledge throughout the process. “Take the Oner sequence: our FPS team had planned the entire sequence in previz, then programmed the motion control, supervised the shoot, and handled the post-visualization while we completed the final VFX. This approach ensured that all data, information, and knowledge were maintained throughout the process by the same team, resulting in significant gains in efficiency and continuity. For the client, this means substantial time savings, as they don't need to explain multiple times or brief new teams; we maintain the concept/idea throughout,” concludes VFX Supervisor Matt Twyford.