People Are Asking, Is That Really Michael Douglas In ‘Ant-Man’
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In the opening scene of ‘Ant-Man’ Michael Douglas’s Hank Pym walks into S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ to tender his resignation. That’s not 100%; it is Hank Pym, and it is S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, but it it not quite Michael Douglas, 70 anni, as he is today.
The scene takes place in Y 1989, and the Douglas that walks into the room is the spitting image of the actor during 25 years ago.
Trent Claus of Lola VFX de-aged Mr. Douglas for the Marvel/Disney film.
In the world of visual effects, Lola VFX specializes in “visual cosmetics,” which can range from secret touch-ups to complete physical transformations.
The company can make anyone “older, younger, thinner or fatter.”
Lola VFX got into de-aging during their work for X-Men: The Last Stand, but their breakout moment came on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, where they handled the aging and de-aging of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett’s characters.
Since then, Lola has had a long relationship with Marvel; creating skinny Chris Evans for the first Captain America film
“They (Marvel) asked for advice for what they could do when they were shooting that could aid us, which is very much appreciated,” said Mr.Claus. “We put our 2 cents in, and they did everything we needed right from the start.”
That meant no anti-aging makeup on Mr. Douglas and a sprightly stand-in to give a reference point for the way young skin looked on the S.H.I.E.L.D. set.
From there, Lola got to work.
Unlike previous transformations, they had lots of reference material of exactly what Michael Douglas would look like at 45. “It helped us a lot to have that reference,” he said, “but it made us work harder, because the audience already knew what he looked like at that age. There wasn’t a whole lot of leeway.”
The only solution was to view as much of Douglas’s late-’80’s work as possible closely. “What’s really important is the way his face moves as he speaks, the way that the muscles in the face have changed over time, the way the skin reacts to those muscles. To sell the effect you have to look at the way [the face] looks in motion.”
De-aging an actor is essentially giving them a digital face-lift, and Lola’s team do the same work with digital composites a skilled plastic surgeon would do with a scalpel.
“The most obvious thing is that the skin along the jaw in most people tends to get lower and lower and sag a little bit as you get older. Particularly around the throat and the Adam’s Apple area, you’ll get a build-up of extra skin down there,” Mr. Claus said. “One thing we’ll have to do to de-age someone is restore that elasticity and try to not only to remove the excess skin, but pull it back up to where it once was.”
The result in the finished film is very accurate, just as if Michael Douglas stepped into the room in the exact time frame.
Have some fun see the film.
HeffX-LTN
Paul Ebeling
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