ShangChi Featurette Shows How Morris Was Created

Shang-Chi Featurette Shows How Morris Was Created

Shang-Chi’s visual effects supervisor takes viewers on a behind-the-scenes journey of how some of the creatures were brought to life.

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The Great Protector and Morris are two of the many creatures that play an important role in Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. While all the creatures in the film looked magnificent on the big screen, a lot of work and effort had to be put in to bring them to life. A new featurette released by Marvel gives viewers a glimpse of some of the behind-the-scenes action.

In the featurette, Marvel Studios’ VFX Supervisor Christopher Townsend, who has previously worked on several other projects in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, talks about the process of envisioning the creatures and then bringing them to life. The main focus is on Morris, the adorable faceless creature, and the Great Protector.

“It’s very easy to design something as a CGI character, but it’s very difficult to relate to it,” Townsend is heard saying in the Shang-Chi featurette. The visual effects team found it very challenging to have the “faceless, six-legged creature” emote his feelings and appeal to the audience. They took inspiration from various different animals in the real world, including bears, dogs, and horses, and ran several animation tests before finally landing on Morris’ final look. The appearance of the creatures is extremely important, and the team puts a lot of thought into it, in order to ensure that while it looks otherworldly, it is still something that audiences can relate to. Morris’ wings, for example, were inspired by a Canada goose. As far as the Great Protector is concerned, the team looked at eels and water snakes to replicate the dragon’s movement.

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During filming, when the Shang-Chi actors are on set, they are told by the visual effects team what exactly it is that they will be looking at so that they can emote and adjust their eyeline accordingly. Morris was simply a “big green cushion” on the set, whereas the Great Protector was what the team refers to as a “buck,” which is simply an on-set prop that resembles the top of the dragon’s head or a part of its body.

Bringing the creature to life is much harder than it looks because from cushion to animal, the lighting and textures change drastically. “It takes many weeks or months to do one individual shot,” says Townsend. The dragon scenes in Shang-Chi were a lot more difficult to shoot because they involved a lot of mechanical equipment that moved the dragon’s head or body the way it should in the film’s scene, with the actors riding or climbing it while attached to stunt wires.

The Shang-Chi featurette is the perfect example of the amount of work going on behind the scenes when bringing such a large-scale film to life. When the filming process ends, the post-production begins, which includes several crew members and months of editing. Sometimes the actors are even asked to return for reshoots. So, while the audiences are taken aback by the beautiful cinematography in Shang-Chi, the featurette is a snippet of how it was all brought together.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is showing in theaters.

Source: Marvel Entertainment/YouTube

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