Ms. Marvel: One Surprising Moment Was Entirely CGI

As is standard with productions from Marvel Studios—and most other major outfits, for that matter—Ms. Marvel featured its fair share of computer-generated imagery. After all, filming a real human shooting light constructs out of their hands is simply impossible. In a post-COVID world, the use of visual effects has grown even further, with films like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings being forced to build an entire island from scratch, buildings and all. When it comes to Ms. Marvel, one of the show’s biggest moments was also nearly entirely computer-generated.

In speaking with Digital Domain’s Dave Cunningham, the filmmaker tells us the moment the hero is sitting on a lamp post at the end of the series—an homage to the cover of Ms. Marvel #5—was nearly all CGI. That includes a digital double of Iman Vellani.

“Her hair as it’s flowing was plate footage of Iman,” Cunningham recalls. “Then as the camera comes around the side of her, we transitioned from full CG to plate footage of Kamala. So the first half of the shot is all CG. The skyline is CG, the water is CG, the jetty, the road, the buildings, Kamala, all full CG, except her hair. And then as the camera comes around the side of her, we blend back in the plate of her face and her hair and then a little bit of a costume. But the rest of that is full CG.”

That means the massive skyline and everything in the harbor is entirely digital.

“It’s a cross between simple 3D geometry and highly detailed painting so you get that depth and that sense of volume of those buildings, but it’s painted on there,” he adds. “The geometry went pretty much all the way out to the shore of Manhattan and some of those buildings and then it blended in nicely with the digital matte painting. But all the water and the boats and the lights and the jetty and all that sort of stuff was a full all CG build.”

The first season of Ms. Marvel is now streaming on Disney+.

What other characters would you like to see Kamala interact with in her MCU debut? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!