Visual Effects Supervisor Matt Sloan, handling as much in-camera as possible so digital effects didn’t overshadow the tremendous stunt work, helped deliver 1,400 VFX shots working with Framestore, Cinesite, Rising Sun Pictures and Crafty Apes, as well as extensive postvis by OPSIS, on David Leitch’s behind-the-scenes ode to stuntmen, starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt.
It’s only appropriate that a stunt coordinator who moved into directing is responsible for loosely adapting a television series about a stuntman for the big screen. That stunt coordinator / director is David Leitch, and his new film is The Fall Guy. The action-comedy stars Ryan Gosling, stepping into the role originated by Lee Majors (who does a cameo appearance). The film also reunited Leitch and VFX supervisor Matt Sloan.
“I come out of special effects and moved into visual effects around 2000,” states Sloan. “Actually, I collaborated with David Leitch on The Matrix, so it was a fun throwback to work together.” In total there were 1,400 visual effects shots created by Framestore, Cinesite, Rising Sun Pictures and Crafty Apes over a period of eight months, with the extensive postvis handled by OPSIS.
Making things interesting for the visual effects team was having a movie set as the primary environment. “There were occasions where we accidentally painted out the wrong thing,” Sloan laughs. “We had shots come back that were meant to be The Fall Guy shots about the movie and stuntmen didn’t have wires on them anymore; we would have to put them back. You would have such a kneejerk reaction seeing crew gear in a shot that you would want to remove it because that’s normally what we do.”
Visual effects were not front and center during prep and principal photography. “Our department was extremely reactive as supposed to proactive,” reveals Sloan. “Normally, we would go in with previs and plan these shots out weeks and weeks in advance. More or less the meetings were we are going to try to do everything practically and there will be bits to clean-up which we will figure out in post.” The practical mandate elevated the visual effects work. “In our industry reference is king. Having as much as we could in-camera was great because you knew what everything had to look like, aside from the Metal Storm movie shots. In post, David is not elitest. He is more than happy to utilize visual effects. There were a couple of geography shots that we hadn’t managed to get on the day so we created those in CG but those were few and far between.” All the movies within the movie were elevated. “In the Vietnam War sequence, we added additional explosions and burning trees in the background which is a beautiful way of using visual effects because it’s like a magic trick. Visual effects work so much better if your audience is not looking straight at it while it’s happening. We did a lot of work around all our stunts. The stunts themselves are real. We did touch a lot of the stuff on the periphery of the frame.”
Concept art was plentiful, while the previs budget was given to the stunt department. “We had a ton of stuntvis,” notes Sloan. “While locked inside during the coronavirus pandemic, Micah Moore [Assistant Fight Coordinator] learned Unreal Engine. He was doing previs and combining it with the stuntvis. The entire Bin Chase was mapped out by stunts and the fight sequence in the club. We knew going in what we were going to be doing.” Going back to Australia for the principal photography was in essence a homecoming for the Los Angeles based visual effects supervisor. “I’m Australian so going back to Sydney… that’s where I grew-up in the film industry. I knew most of the stunt and special effects guys. Because I come from special effects it’s easy to talk to them about how far they can take it before we need to take over or they can do this, but we’ll need to remove all these things on the side. Those discussions were easy.”
“Ideally, if I do my job properly, I will figure out a way to get it in-camera or with a miniature,” remarks Sloan. “You’ve got such a vast toolbox of visual effects that lumping it straight down into full CG when you don’t have to… I will push back against that if I can. Getting something real in the frame helps immeasurably.” Proper physicality had to be kept in mind with digital doubles. “I would be picking apart the physics of the helicopter or car and he’d be picking apart the physics of the performance,” says Sloan. “Even though David has a stunt background, he is primarily a filmmaker. David knows when to let something go. The most disappointing times was when you would show him a shot and he would immediately go, ‘Great.’
As with the John Wick franchise, a dog is part of the cast. “We tried so hard not to do a digital dog. There is one shot. These dogs were so beautifully trained. We captured a lot of bluescreen elements of them running, jumping, sitting, and barking. Jean-Claude was played by two females. The differences between the dogs were so slight that we swapped them constantly.”
In the film, in one sequence, Gosling’s Colt Seavers is drugged, which leads to a surreal, hallucinogenic fight scene. “That was fun and got tough because everyone’s drug experience is different,” observes Sloan. “We went backwards and forwards on the drug effect quite a bit. There were chromatic aberrations, atmospheric sparkles, and various explosions. We went through different cartoon styles. A lot of anime was referenced like Arcane. It was a long process. There is a ton of finesse through all of that such as the explosions that happen on the hits, how quickly they dissipate or spread out. We don’t want to cover Ryan Gosling for 112 frames!” Regarding the simulations used, Sloan explains, “There are so many parameters that you can push into a simulation program now like stick, gravity, and lower gravity. Those explosions were extremely fast and slowed down quickly all the time. It was having a ramp on how thick the atmosphere was. When the explosion happens, it starts thin and immediately goes extremely thick. The particles begin fast, slow right down, drift slowly and then gravity ramps up. There was a lot of balance, backwards and forwards, and getting images of these different sparkles, fall rates and flash rates. That was definitely one of the most work intensive scenes for getting the creative right. Everything else in the movie needed to look real.”
Gosling was up for anything except for being set on fire. “There is one shot where there is nowhere to go,” states Sloan. “It’s a big push in on him collapsing to the ground on fire. We were trying so hard to avoid CGI as much as possible, so we captured elements for that shot and tried to get those in. It never stuck so we made the decision to go full simulation for that. That was one of the first shots we turned over and was one of the last ones we finalled. There is so much nuance to the fire. The fire had to be there, big and impressive but not distracting from the actor himself. It’s all about the look on his face when he hits the ground even though he’s completely enveloped in fire.”
At one point in the film, Gosling talks to Emily Blunt while standing on a speeding Russian Arm. According to Sloan, “What we did for that was a wire removal. We put Ryan on the Arm, harnessed him in, drove a separate Russian Arm filming him, had stunt drivers, and Emily was in the truck. I was at craft services for most of it! There was not a single bluescreen shot in that sequence.”
Numerous vehicle chases occur on city streets and in water. “We were out in Sydney Harbor,” remarks Sloan. “There is not a single bluescreen on the boat. We had a drone shot looking down and weaving between some boats which is full CG; we needed to show Ryan turning the boat around because that was the story beat which was missing. This was discovered in post. We did have a drone on the day, but it didn’t get that particular shot. What we did have was the drone returning back to the boat from where it was launched. It was looking straight down showing the quality of the light on the water and it went over a couple of boats. That was used as a lighting reference and something that we needed to match the look of the moon. It was a great steppingstone. However, the rest of the shot was created whole cloth in CG.” Back on land at one point the GMC comes up and rams into the back of the truck. “The Russian Arm was a little behind on that take, so we did the shot again. We had shutdown massive main roads in Sydney, which were a huge undertaking itself. It was decided that we didn’t have time to swap out the truck and go again. We used the same truck so before the truck hits the bin [trash] truck the front of it is all CG. The most expensive thing you have when shooting is time so it’s cheaper for us to do that and nobody is expecting or looking for it. We fixed the front of the truck, and it allowed them to shoot fast; that’s a perfect use of visual effects.”
One of the most complex shots to execute was the opening oner. “Ryan is doing a walk and talk, gets into the lift, goes up into the building, gets strapped in, and takes the fall,” explains Sloan. “There are a ton of hidden visual effects in that shot. There is a transition where we switched between two cameras and because of the layout of the area when we went in with the B side camera, we couldn’t get the camera in the same position as the A camera. There was a huge parallax shift in the background. At one point there are 150 frames where the background goes entirely CG and then flips back into the plate. It was absolutely incredibly painstaking roto that took months and is flawless.” The bin truck chase was the biggest challenge. “There were so many different elements, special effects rigs, stuntmen and camera platforms. We ran through the entire gamut of every sort of stunt and special effect. Then every band aid and trick we had as well. It was tough, but in the end, came out beautifully. I really enjoyed the third act. The big silly helicopter fight, and the giant jump and high fall. The things that excited me about the movie are the stunts. The Fall Guy is not about visual effects. It was exhilarating being there. Chris O’Hara [Second Unit Director] spent months and months planning these massive stunts. When you stood there watching them your heart was in your mouth!”
Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer best known for composing in-depth filmmaker and movie profiles for VFX Voice, Animation Magazine, and British Cinematographer.
