FILM
GAME ON: FREE GUY VFX ANCHORS BOTH ACTUAL AND SIMULACRUM REALITIES By KEVIN H. MARTIN
Images courtesy of 20th Century Studios and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. TOP: Video-game character Guy (Ryan Reynolds) squares off against an array of other gaming denizens. Guy’s growing awareness of his own nature, revealed by programmer Millie (Jodie Comer), fuels his desire to save his Free City pseudo-world from the game’s publisher (Taika Waititi). OPPOSITE TOP: Live action was accomplished in Boston between May and August of 2019. Direct Dimensions LiDar scanned most locations and set during the live-action shoot in Boston, which featured extensive practical work by Special Effects Supervisor Dan Sudick.
The hero who wakes up to realize his existence is limited to a virtual or controlled-from-outside reality has become something of a staple in genre filmmaking, popularized by The Matrix and The Truman Show, to name just two such entries. While Free Guy treads similar ground, its protagonist Guy (Ryan Reynolds) is no world-class hacker or unwitting reality-show star, but just a bank teller, cheerfully plodding through a ritualized daily routine that involves his Free City surroundings – the setting for a video game of the same name – suffering massive devastation and violence. Once awakened to the situation, Guy must step up his own game to stop the program’s publisher from shutting down Free City permanently. Director Shawn Levy has a long history with VFX-heavy projects ranging from the first two Night at the Museum installments to Real Steel and several episodes of the Stranger Things series, along with a remake of Starman in the works, plus he intends to re-team with Reynolds on a time-travel project for Netflix. To look after the VFX end of things, he chose Visual Effects Supervisor Swen Gillberg, whose past experience spans both real-world (Flags of Our Fathers, A Beautiful Mind) and fantasy environs (Jack the Giant Slayer and a trio of recent MCU features). Gillberg joined Free Guy’s production team in December 2018, after the arrival of Production Designer Ethan Tobman. “Ethan had already done some design work on Free City,” Gillberg recalls. “But there was real evolution to things and, design-wise, it was a group effort going well into the next year to develop how things looked in this world. When our DP George Richmond came on, he had a great idea: shoot the real world on 4-perf anamorphic, but handle the gaming section with ARRI 65 and big, sharp spherical
44 • VFXVOICE.COM FALL 2021
PG 44-47 FREE GUY.indd 44
8/29/21 2:38 PM
