Captain Marvel: “[De-aging is] a painstaking, frame-by-frame manipulation of the image,”
International Cinematographers Guild
“[De-aging is] a painstaking, frame-by-frame manipulation of the image,” Townsend explains. “And since I’ve used them many times previously, Lola Visual Effects was our main go-to for that work. We spent a huge amount of time in preproduction determining how the younger Sam Jackson would look. That included what we could do practically that could help their effort, like with hair and makeup, plus we had reference of him in other movies from that era. Supervisor of additional VFX Janelle Croshaw looked after that whole body of work, which requires a light touch to avoid stepping on his performance. Photographing people with different lenses and in different lighting conditions can alter their apparent age rather drastically; in reality, we accept that. But with digital manipulation, those situations come off like red flags, so we have to be especially careful not to go too far afield.”