Saving the day is a big job for an insect-sized superhero. In creating the action for Marvel's Ant-Man, Director Peyton Reed and his team used specialized techniques, including macrophotography, to depict Ant-Man, Yellowjacket, and armies of ants at believable scale. Much of the film was mapped out in previs in a visualization process that brought together input from set design, production, visual effects, and other departments to execute both the live shoot and digital VFX.
The most challenging aspect was working in the macroworld of Ant-Man, said James Baker, supervisor at The Third Floor for previs, techvis, and postvis. There was a lot of experimentation with lenses and framing, and figuring out what types of shots and camera moves were best. A shot pulling away from the bathroom could make Ant-Man look tiny against cavernous bathtub walls, for example. We were always looking for ways to sell' the scale.
Collaborating closely with Visual Effects Supervisor Jake Morrison, The Third Floor previsualized key scenes across the movie, including the helicopter/briefcase fight, which threw in complex physics and lighting on top of the size-scale factor. A challenge for visualizing the helicopter sequence - part of which was built as an interior shoot on stage - was keeping the action readable with several characters in a relatively confined space.
The briefcase fight sees Ant-Man and Yellowjacket in free fall, bouncing around alongside the rest of the contents as the attach drops. A cell phone display inside the briefcase provides the only light for the scene.
The light of the cell phone provided a great look -- similar to seeing the sun in space, except that this light source was spinning and bouncing around, Baker said. We keyframed all of the action inside the briefcase and used After Effects to add Red Giant's Trapcode shine to help the props and characters produce shadows within the dusty environment.
The sequence where Ant-Man runs action hero-style across an architectural model of Pymtech headquarters offered a few new challenges. Beyond needing to help develop epic-looking shots at the character's level, there were specific logistics to consider as the scene was to be filmed by destroying a Pymtech building model for real. Production had planned to shoot with a Bolt high-speed Cinebot motion-control rig using the Phantom Flex 4K. This required digging trenches in the physical model to allow for the cam, and Baker's team delivered techvis to help determine how far the cam would be traveling based on the camera shooting at 1,000 frames per second.
The final battle on the Thomas the Train set employed a similar technique - approaching shots seen from the level of Ant-Man and Yellowjacket as if they were locked in battle with a life-sized track and engine, and contrasting that with wide shots of the bedroom with harmless puffs of smoke among toys. Morrison and Baker worked to create beat sheets that outlined the action, which was then depicted in previs.
In the previs, we included hallmark camera moves for action drama - booms, helicopter shots, handheld on the roof of the train, Baker said. In one shot that was particularly difficult to track, we referenced a paratrooper dropping to the ground from the sky to have Ant-Man launching onto the train set. Some of the funniest moments in the movie come when the action goes from epic jumps and explosions experienced by Ant-Man and Yellowjacket to Cassie's view on the other side of the room where all of the mayhem is clearly toy-sized.
But in many places, something - or someone - needed to grow or shrink in mere moments in camera, and these proved some of the most challenging effects to visualize. You couldn't shrink something and do a zoom on the shot at the same time or you would cancel out the shrinking effect. These were all things that needed working out to keep a realistic scale, as characters and props shrinking and growing was a core plot element, Baker said.
To create assets used in previs scenes and in postvis shots done to help inform work in progress by collaborators, including editor Dan Lebental, the team worked from concept art, stills of the sets and, sometimes, Lidar scans. As characters designs evolved, the previs models and rigs were updated. Detailed assets and scenes incorporated bump maps and normal maps in Maya, realistic shadows from Maya Viewpoint 2.0, and textures from photos taken on the set.The tool set for previs and postvis modeling, animation, compositing, tracking, and editing, included Autodesk Maya, Adobe After Effects, Boujou, PFTrack, and Adobe Premiere. Motion capture for previs was done in-house using Xsens' Moven markerless suits.
The advantage of having previs right there with the team is that ideas can be developed very quickly, Baker added. Peyton had a very clear idea of what he wanted and sometimes gave us thumbnails, which was invaluable. He would always hone in on the central point of the scene and how it played into the overall story. VFX supervisor Jake Morrison came up with great creative approaches, such as using a snap zoom, as a way to locate Ant-Man within a big environment. These and other techniques helped to define the size and physics of Ant-Man's world and also added to the fun of the film.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Saving the day is a big job for an insect-sized superhero. In creating the action for Marvel's Ant-Man, Director Peyton Reed and his team used specialized techniques, including macrophotography, to depict Ant-Man, Yellowjacket, and armies of ants at believable scale. Much of the film was mapped out in previs in a visualization process that brought together input from set design, production, visual effects, and other departments to execute both the live shoot and digital VFX. 
