Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
CMU School of Drama
Friday, September 12, 2025
The Fantastic Four - First Steps: Robert Allman - VFX Supervisor – Framestore
The Art of VFX: In 2024, Robert Allman gave us an in-depth look at Framestore’s impressive VFX work on Wonka. He then stepped into a completely different universe with Deadpool & Wolverine, bringing his expertise to a much wilder ride.
2 comments:
Jackson Watts
said...
Most of my experience in show business is doing live theatre so I expected highly edited VFX to have entirely different principals from what I was used to. After all when you can make anything happen, surely the increased possibilities leads to a grander design process. While that is true to a certain extent, several ideas that were brought up in this interview are exactly like the core principals of design that I was taught. One of the big things that stood out to me was their discussion of scale. Often when painting scenery you need to greatly embellish small details so that the audience can see them from far away such as making the grout between bricks take up more space than it actually does to make it clearer to the audience that they are looking at bricks. At first I thought that when working with VFX because you control how close or far away the audience is this kind of technique would not be necessary but now that he mentions the scale they were working at it makes sense that they would need to tweak some things to make them come across better. Whether you’re making a flat for a small play that only 100 audience members will see or a massive spaceship for a movie that millions will watch, the fundamentals of design are a valuable guide.
As a theatre student focusing on sound design, I’m always struck by how closely the challenges in VFX parallel those in live performance audio. Reading about Framestore’s work on The Fantastic Four: First Steps shows just how much technical precision and artistic vision must work hand in hand to create believable worlds. The team’s approach to scale—like enlarging details on Galactus’s worldship so the audience has something to visually grasp—reminds me of how in sound design we often exaggerate or layer elements to achieve clarity in a complex mix. I also love the way physics informed the hyperspace effects; it mirrors how I lean on acoustics and psychoacoustics to craft an immersive environment. This interview highlights that storytelling in film, just like on stage, relies on making abstract concepts tangible through technology and artistry. It’s inspiring to see VFX and sound design share that same creative problem-solving spirit.
2 comments:
Most of my experience in show business is doing live theatre so I expected highly edited VFX to have entirely different principals from what I was used to. After all when you can make anything happen, surely the increased possibilities leads to a grander design process. While that is true to a certain extent, several ideas that were brought up in this interview are exactly like the core principals of design that I was taught. One of the big things that stood out to me was their discussion of scale. Often when painting scenery you need to greatly embellish small details so that the audience can see them from far away such as making the grout between bricks take up more space than it actually does to make it clearer to the audience that they are looking at bricks. At first I thought that when working with VFX because you control how close or far away the audience is this kind of technique would not be necessary but now that he mentions the scale they were working at it makes sense that they would need to tweak some things to make them come across better. Whether you’re making a flat for a small play that only 100 audience members will see or a massive spaceship for a movie that millions will watch, the fundamentals of design are a valuable guide.
As a theatre student focusing on sound design, I’m always struck by how closely the challenges in VFX parallel those in live performance audio. Reading about Framestore’s work on The Fantastic Four: First Steps shows just how much technical precision and artistic vision must work hand in hand to create believable worlds. The team’s approach to scale—like enlarging details on Galactus’s worldship so the audience has something to visually grasp—reminds me of how in sound design we often exaggerate or layer elements to achieve clarity in a complex mix. I also love the way physics informed the hyperspace effects; it mirrors how I lean on acoustics and psychoacoustics to craft an immersive environment. This interview highlights that storytelling in film, just like on stage, relies on making abstract concepts tangible through technology and artistry. It’s inspiring to see VFX and sound design share that same creative problem-solving spirit.
Post a Comment