When I was watching Greta Gerwig’s movie BarbieI didn’t realize how much visual influences played into the story. The number of shots included in the film is astounding, and what sets it apart from other visual effects-heavy films is that it helps tell the story. Visual effects supervisor Glenn Pratt is thankful that visual effects fly under the radar. Discovering how much work went into Gerwig’s film is like discovering a new favorite toy for the first time.
“We wanted to make sure it had a grounded touch,” Pratt says. “I know there’s a tendency to criticize visual effects when they’re bad, but when visual effects are done really well, you don’t even have to know they’re there.
Is there a more iconic photo from 2023 than Margot Robbie floating out of her dream home ready for another perfect day? Audiences love that Gerwig’s film visually translates the idea of ”play,” because we all did it as children. Whether we’re playing with Barbie dolls or any other toy, we create worlds in our heads and let our imaginations run wild. If you don’t translate visual language from the beginning, Barbie It will feel too artificial and keep us too far away. Pratt explains how these conversations also extended to the visual effects department.
“From the beginning, Greta and the way she approached filmmaking was so fun,” he says. “I think that suits me personally as a VFX supervisor, and that’s what I found. My background was in fine arts, drawing, painting, and just experimenting with images. VFX is a great fit for that, because it’s an exploratory and expressive form of making images. You’re limited by your imagination in what you can do, and I think that This was pretty much the same Barbie.
One of the first conversations I remember with her was about how excited she was to go to the world of Harry Potter which was just across the road. At Leavesden’s studio in London, you can see Hogwarts Castle which, again, has this wonderful, tactile, childlike quality. This is something we brought into making these miniatures as well. We built it on film to have the satisfaction of seeing it realized in small pieces to the final practical miniature which we captured as a CG miniature that summed up its feel. It was fun all the way. Even down to things like seeing how fast the car is moving. We talked that it wouldn’t move that fast if you were a kid playing with it. It won’t drive like a regular car. We’ve settled on that, when you’re on the open road, you’re going seven miles an hour.
A good example of this is when Ryan Gosling runs to the beach, and unfortunately, he doesn’t impress Barbie as much as he would like. Poor Ken…
“It’s really silly and fun,” Pratt says. “I love the way everyone really embraced him. That’s not what you normally do in a movie. When he’s running into the wave, even the end result is so hilarious. Ryan couldn’t really run into that wave, so we had to shoot it in a certain way where we made him a separate element and didn’t The wave was there. He kept running so we could look like he was going to do this big thing…boinggg.
Use visual effects to define scope and scale to help the environment/endless potential for visual effects to suit themselves
When looking at Barbieland, we see endless possibilities – just like Barbie herself was meant to inspire. One of my favorite establishing shots is when we can see the beach for the first time. It reminded me a lot of Ocean Drive on Miami Beach dipped in pink. There are several shots that define the ambitious scope of the film, and Pratt reveals that they wanted to capture real miniatures to make them more tangible.
“There were 1,300 visual effects shots in the movie, and that’s a credit to the team,” Pratt says. “All of these artists, on both the production side, created these beautiful sets and miniatures. In terms of visual effects, Framestore did nearly 800 of all the master shots for the Barbie line — many of which were all CG. There’s a beautiful, seamless blend between the practical and the digital.” “No one notices, and I think that’s great. The production design element is so beautiful, and it allows us to use that language while filming. We captured some of those key shots, like when you see the car on the beach but also the one when Margot is looming over the roof, and it was There’s a lot of iterations of those shots. We had discussions about what we wanted them to look like. We still use that language, especially when we’re in the desert, for these scenic or painted paintings like a four-wall soundstage. It goes back to being playful or feeling like In a box.
As we were progressing with this idea during filming, we were doing tests to show Greta, and we came up with the idea that it would be more fun if they were actual buildings. It added more quality to the game. We were adding digital miniatures that we had built from practical miniatures, and that allowed us to add vehicles and people – all that clothing to help bring it to life. This progression of the idea and landing on the final idea was a very beautiful painting of toy-like houses and buildings set within the environment. When we were in pre-production, we realized that the space wouldn’t be large enough for the scope of the story we wanted to tell. We knew there would be a lot of extension after the end of the stage.
As Barbie and Ken travel to and from Barbie Land, the visual language reminds us of something fun and whimsical. It’s like visual effects have taken the best version of our imagination and, quite literally, made it come to life. It reminded me a lot of how Pee Wee Theater Poetry built by a child’s brain.
“It’s an interesting scene, and we’ve had many meetings about it,” he says. “Pee Wee Theater It’s the thing Greta talked about. For this sequence, there were initial concepts that developed and the idea was that we wanted to try to achieve as much of that in camera as possible. Which we did most of the time. There are a lot of things that can go wrong with something that looks so visually simple. We had to figure out the actual size of the pieces before the effects changed so much that the special effects depended a lot on what we were giving them in terms of measurements. Likewise, we were running that through the art department, so when we got there, it worked. The actors always had to be the same distance from the lens, so as not to collide and then work back and forth, and there was a lot of planning that we did with optical cleavers. It helped with the speed the pieces needed to move. If one of the pieces in front is slightly larger, it should move at a different speed than the previous one or vice versa. This way, everything looks like it’s moving at a constant speed, and the visual effects helped figure that out. And when Barbie, Sasha and Gloria came back and all those pieces landed on Venice Beach, it was a visual impact.
Barbie It is now broadcast exclusively on Max.
Glenn Pratt, a renowned visual effects artist, is revolutionizing the world of “Barbie” through his innovative incorporation of the concept of play into the film’s visual effects. With a passion for creativity and a keen eye for detail, Pratt has redefined the way in which “Barbie” comes to life on the big screen. His dedication to embracing the fun and whimsy of the iconic doll’s world has earned him widespread acclaim and recognition in the industry. In a recent interview with Awardsdaily, Pratt discusses the challenges and rewards of infusing the language of play into the visual effects of “Barbie”, and how this approach has elevated the film to new heights.