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Building the Saga of a True Warrior VFX supervisor Sean Andrew Faden reveals some of the digital tricks of the new live-action Mulan.
N
iki Caro’s recent live-action re-imagining of 1998 Disney animated classic Mulan — inspired by the centuries-old epic poem about the Chinese warrior princess — unfolds against stunning natural landscapes and beautiful historic monuments. Many of the breath-taking images showcased in this 116-minute epic are in fact the result of the close collaboration between the director, the film’s director of photography Mandy Walker and seasoned visual effect supervisor Sean Andrew Faden (Fast & Furious 6, Game of Thrones, Captain America: First Avenger). With close to 1,600 classic VFX shots, this new version of Mulan used the services of four primary vendors: Framestore, Weta Digital, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Image Engine, as well as some additional work by Crafty Apes. “When I first joined the project in the spring of 2017, I was really excited by the scope of the project with all these incredible locations,” says Faden. “I knew it was going to be big. Most of our locations were shot in New Zealand, mainly in the Ahuriri Valley and the Kumeu Film Studios in Auckland, and the second unit and plate unit were done in China for about six weeks. The end result of what you www.animationmagazine.net
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see in the movie is a combination of New Zealand plates with Chinese flavors, mountains and beautiful skies.” Faden says he knew that the avalanche sequence and the battle sequences were going to be challenging, but he’s very pleased with the way they turned out. “We had to help Niki achieve her vision of this epic tale,” he explains. “But we had to be careful about how explicit the visuals for the battle footage had
to make sure the visual effects supported the story and didn’t outshine or distract from the heart of the story. My job was to balance the aesthetic vision and give Niki what she was looking for. We had to try to be as realistic as possible and not give in to the temptation of blowing things up bigger, overcook things and put more things in each shot. I learned a lot from Niki as she has a great sense of restraint. At the end of the day, it was all about using
‘We had to try to be as realistic as possible and not give in to the temptation of blowing things up bigger, overcook things and put more things in each shot. I learned a lot from Niki [Caro] as she has a great sense of restraint.’ — VFX supervisor Sean Faden
to be since we were making the film for a family audience. We had about 900 people featured in the big epic battle scene.”
In Praise of Subtlety According to Faden, one of his team’s main goals was to visualize an epic movie that showed some restraint in its use of visual effects in the traditional sense. He explains, “Niki was more about storytelling and wanted
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the technology we had at our disposal to maintain the integrity of this beautiful story.” Of course, comparisons with the original animated version of Mulan were inevitable. Faden said he did watch the 2008 version (directed by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook) several times after he got the job. However, he points out that his best guide for the overall look of the movie was the joint vision of the film’s director Caro, director of photography november 20
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