The new Netflix movie “The Electric State” depicts a world full of robots – but not a robot as we know them.
Directed by Brothers Anthony and Joe Russo (who previously interrupted two Blockbusters, “Infinity War” and “Endgame”) for Reported budget of $ 320 million“Electric Status” takes place in an alternative edition of the 1990s, one of which has had a robot for decades. This is enough to rebel against their human masters, lost the war and were exiled in an area of southwestern – an area that the heroes of the film must slip (played by Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt).
Basically for the Optical Effect Supervisor Matthew E. Butler, Design-wise, these robots are “intentionally” the robots that exist today.
“Most of us have seen modern robots … and used in these plans,” Butler told me. “If you look at the Boston Dynamics robots. You will notice that they gather the robot’s mass in the center of the robot and then as you go out. They get less and less massively, because this is just a reliable plan.”
On the contrary, the film of the movie Cosmo has “a giant head in a tiny neck”, which Butler described as “the worst design for a robot”.
Like the film itself, the design is based on Simon Stålenhag’s illustrated novel with the same name. But Butler explained that there is an explanation for the movie about Cosmo and the other peculiar robots that often come from the real and fantastic pop culture: they were created to be “frustrating”, so everyone looks “kind of storm and goofy and fun”.
All of this meant that the butler team had to start with a plan that was inherently impractical, but it turned it into something that felt “naturally believer and real”. To do this, they decided to honor Cosmo’s original plan with “Silhouette Fashion”.
‘If we drain and put him away from [the] Camera, looks like Cosmo, the way it is in the book, “Butler said.
The goal is to convince the audiences that “things can really work”. As soon as they are convinced, they will accept the design of COSMO and the design of other robots, without seeing all the details.
And yes, there are many other robots. Butler said his team had to bring to life “hundreds and hundreds of unique robots”-not because every robot in this alternative world is unique, but because “in the film we usually present people”.
In other words, every robot was an isolated character. And unfortunately, there were no easy shortcuts for the VFX team that had to make them as real as possible.
“We have scratched our heads as many times as,” How do we do that? “He said.” If you have 100 different robots and everything is moving, they must be able to move, which means you have to be able to abandon them, so someone has to design them, someone has to paint them, someone has to come alive. “
To bring these robots to life, butler said the team used a combination of traditional optics motion arrest and a newer system that uses accelerometer costumes. This allowed a troupe of seven performers of the arrest of motion to work with the live actors in the location and in the set, with their performance then providing the basis for moving robots-whether they are colossal, human sizes or to adapt to the palm of a hand.
Butler emphasized that the process was much more complicated than the mere transfer of an actor’s movements to a robot body.
“Take Little Herman as an example,” he said. ‘You have the [motion capture] The performer, and adds his sense, his performance and is someone that Chris Pratt can now act. Then you say, “Well, okay, but the real robot can’t do many of the things this guy can do.” So now you have to change it based on the restrictions on the design of the robot. ”
And it’s not over yet: “And then you talk to the directors and there is a special change of features, which you now have to honor, then you change that, and then you have the wonderful voice actors that add so much, and now it’s like,” So, if the character [sounds like] This, then the rhythm [of the robot] has to change. ”
In the end, Butler said that the robots we see on the screen were created by the work of all these artists and artists who come together: “And that’s why we really just went through our sleeves and continued with it.”
