Chapter 812: The Dragon-Slaying Feat

"China Film Group is very grateful to you," Tina Fey said, walking over to Duke during a break in filming. "They believe this will help the development of Chinese cinema, but it isn't suitable to be made into a movie at this stage."

Duke wasn't surprised by this. He simply nodded at Tina Fey and returned to his work.

It was already December, and the crew's only remaining scenes at Warner Studios were for the "Battle of New York." Here, Duke had adopted John Schwartzman's suggestion: utilizing aerial shots to circle each member of the Avengers.

This posed a challenge for everyone on the crew. Duke knew exactly what effect he wanted—the Avengers cooperating seamlessly—but the difficulty lay in putting that idea into practice, ensuring the heroes were interconnected rather than filmed in isolation. Furthermore, each character possessed drastically different combat styles: some could fly, some could cover massive distances in an instant, and others were limited to a small area within a single shot.

Achieving this envisioned result required full cooperation from every department on the crew.

Filming soon commenced. Mark Ruffalo, rigged with motion-capture sensors, and Tom Hiddleston, fully dressed as Loki, appeared on schedule in front of the cameras. The set before them had long since been transformed into the penthouse of Stark Tower.

With all departments ready, Duke signaled the clapper loader.

"Scene 396, Take 126."

The clapper loader held the board in front of the main camera lens. "Action!"

Surrounded by specialized motion-capture equipment, Mark Ruffalo mimed the Hulk furiously smashing the ground before charging toward Tom Hiddleston.

"Enough!" Tom Hiddleston looked somewhat frantic, his body language perfectly capturing Loki's current state of mind. "What do you all think you are? I am a god, you big green idiot! You ants won't humiliate me—"

Before he could finish, Tom Hiddleston threw himself to the ground.

Filming continued, though all the cameras were now locked onto Mark Ruffalo. Following his planned blocking, the fallen Tom Hiddleston quietly backed out of the shot.

In front of the lens, Mark Ruffalo was raging. He swung his right arm, repeatedly miming the act of smashing something against the floor. Mid-thrashing, he specifically paused to glance at his empty hand before stalking toward the window.

As he walked, he glanced back at the empty floor and muttered, "I've never seen such a pathetic god."

After Duke called cut, the take passed smoothly. Like the rest of the shoot, most of this scene's visual effects would need to be added in post-production.

While Industrial Light & Magic had created plenty of digital doubles, CGI characters, and alien monsters for Duke's crew, their most eye-catching visual effect was undoubtedly Mark Ruffalo's new iteration of the Hulk.

In the first movie, most of the Hulk's scenes had been performed by Mark Ruffalo alone, as the visual effects team at the time couldn't simultaneously capture both his bodily movements and his facial expressions. Ruffalo had to act them out separately. It was an agonizing process; after filming the physical body movements, he had to sit there, his head completely still, to act out the facial motions.

But for this movie, Industrial Light & Magic had successfully devised a method to blend head and body motion capture. This meant that Mark Ruffalo, just as he had done during the earlier takes, could finally interact with the other actors on set as the Hulk.

Compared to the technology Industrial Light & Magic was utilizing for the Hulk this time, the digital doubles in the previous Hulk films were barely worth mentioning.

Ang Lee's 2003 first Hulk film had been a massive failure in expressing the character's super strength, gigantic physique, agile movements, wild fury, and high-level acting. It had also drawn heavy criticism from audiences regarding the character's believability.

Across all film and television adaptations of the Hulk, Mark Ruffalo was the first actor to portray both the transformed Hulk and the mild-mannered Professor Bruce Banner.

In the 2003 Hulk, the motion capture for the Hulk had been performed by Ang Lee himself, but the final result could only be described as very mediocre.

In the completed visual effects shots, Industrial Light & Magic successfully showcased the most successful Hulk in history, featuring not only breathtaking action sequences but also no shortage of humor.

To achieve this effect, Industrial Light & Magic utilized advanced motion capture and a new facial animation system. They built a digital model based on a physical cast of Mark Ruffalo's face, then refined and completed the final look in specialized visual effects software, ensuring the actor's distinct facial features were fully preserved.

In reality, turning the Hulk green was not easy.

One of the problems Industrial Light & Magic faced was that because the Hulk had to interact with other characters, the visual effects team first had to drop his color saturation down to gray so he wouldn't look too jarring, before re-applying the green effect to increase believability.

If they didn't desaturate the model first, he would end up looking incredibly jarring and distorted.

To further enhance the skin's realistic effect, the visual effects team had even scanned Mark Ruffalo's actual skin to build the models.

Naturally, Mark Ruffalo had also been incredibly cooperative with Industrial Light & Magic, patiently "enduring" all sorts of tossing about. For instance, to gather data, the team had made him open his mouth to scan his gums and teeth. In addition, they had run his head through a comprehensive visual effects array, securing fantastic geometry and textures.

The set was being rearranged. After shooting a take of Tom Hiddleston groaning on the floor, all of the Avengers appeared together on the soundstage.

"Lighting is ready!"

"Camera is ready!"

"Props are ready!"

"Makeup is ready!"

"Actors are ready!"

As each department finished their preparations, Duke gave the order to resume filming, and the entire crew sprang into action once more.

Tom Hiddleston crawled out from the crater in the floor, struggling to stand. The main camera perfectly caught a close-up of his hand, followed by his facial expression.

Seeming to sense something, Tom Hiddleston glanced back. The Avengers were standing there, glaring at him, and Clint Barton's bow and arrow were also aimed in his direction.

Faced with these freaks he had just been mocking as ants, Tom Hiddleston's face showed no trace of fear. Instead, he said, "If you don't mind, I'd like to have a drink now."

"Cut!" Duke yelled, calling a stop. Then he shouted toward the set, "Tom, your expression wasn't quite right. We'll go again in fifteen minutes."

This was already the very last shot inside the Warner Studios soundstages. The afternoon had barely begun, giving Duke plenty of time to complete the take before moving the crew to New York to finish the final location shoots.

Most of the New York shots in the film were being created digitally. This specific Industrial Light & Magic visual effects team had just finished working on Transformers 3 in the first half of the year, where their digital Chicago had looked phenomenal because helicopters were allowed to hover freely above the streets. New York, however, was different. Duke required that aircraft couldn't fly lower than 500 feet above the buildings, forcing Industrial Light & Magic to digitally reconstruct the architecture to pull off the numerous sweeping shots flying around the skyscrapers.

Then there was the three-way forest battle between Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America. Originally, Duke had wanted to shoot on location in a forest park in New Mexico. However, an environmental protection group had zeroed in on his crew, demanding that they not harm a single blade of grass or tree during filming—which was obviously impossible to do.

Duke knew exactly how troublesome those extreme conservationists could be. So, he simply opted to build a green-screen set inside a massive soundstage at the Hughes Aircraft Plant to shoot this portion of the scene.

While it consumed a bit more funding, it spared them an enormous amount of unnecessary trouble.

No Hollywood production crew ever wanted to deal with animal rights or environmental protection organizations—it just meant endless trouble.

Every year, Hollywood produced hundreds of films, and mainstream blockbusters boasting budgets over a hundred million dollars were not uncommon. While Duke's crew was busy filming, other studios' crews were also filming.

Heading all the way south from California and crossing through the Panama Canal brought one to South America. This was a land brimming with boundless passion—especially Rio de Janeiro, this world-famous city was also one of Hollywood's favorite location destinations.

Many crews had shot on location here.

For example, Fast & Furious 6, which was nearing the end of its production, was currently filming its final scenes in Rio de Janeiro.

The crew had locked down several streets in Rio de Janeiro to film some crazy car chases. As the actual investor and producer of the film, David Ellison stood on a nearby small building, watching the cars speeding through the streets through a pair of binoculars.

He had poured a massive fortune into this picture. From pre-production to the current shoot, it had consumed over two years of his time. Every single detail had been meticulously weighed and considered, and it was absolutely going to be one of the most finely crafted productions in Hollywood.

But David Ellison knew full well that this alone was far from enough. If a well-made movie was guaranteed to be a blockbuster, Hollywood's mega-hits every year would be innumerable.

Not to mention, the opponent he and Fast & Furious 6 were up against was simply far too powerful.

To pull off a dragon-slaying feat, one had to be sufficiently prepared. David Ellison understood this perfectly.

That was why his binoculars occasionally tracked over to Vin Diesel.

Standing beside him was David Ellison's assistant, his most trusted confidant. The assistant's lens was also locked onto the bald actor on set.

Since there was no one else around, the assistant said in a low voice, "I've found the right person."

"Wait a little longer. Have patience." David Ellison lowered his binoculars. "Wait until all the filming is complete and the promotional campaign is in full swing. Then we make our move!"