Gadgetory

what were you the god of again alright guys and gals I am here with mr. Andy Park Marvel Studios I'm gonna get this visual development supervisor right now and concept artists now that's a crazy title but if you were to explain that to someone like my mom mm-hmm what do you actually do yeah well hi lead me and another the head of visual development Ryan miner ding we lead the department the visual development department and what our department does is we design all the characters that you see in the Marvel Cinematic Universe all the film's so we designed the characters and we also do keyframe illustrations which are key story moments in any given film so we're in the beginning of the process we're even even sometimes even before there's a script we're like designing characters we're designing scenes to help inspire the directors to producers to kind of help visualize what the movie can look like so I lead a group of artists and I know I also do designs and then we present them to the directors to the producers and come up with a visual look for the Marvel Cinematic Universe one of the movies that is coming out soon Thor Ragnarok that's why we're here can you talk to me about you obviously you look at the comics and see what they do but you guys are putting a modern spin or modern twist that stays true the comics but also brings a kind of breeze new life can you kind of talk about that process in your mind or what what goes into that because a lot of people like they'll see this little like that is amazing but they may not know the roots of how it all starts yeah I think the fun fun part of what we do is because you know we're not just coming up with things you know out of thin air you know we're facing these movies on the source material which are like decades and decades of Marvel Comics you know the worlds that Jack Kirby and Stan Lee and so many so many amazing artists I know have created through the years so you know whenever we do a film like Thor and Thor Ragnarok you know get to design characters obviously like Thor for this movie hella you know introducing the female villain you know Hulk in his in a gladiator armor from from World War Hulk storyline so we got to take a lot of storylines from the comic book stories and they they kind of refigure it and make it you know work in our universe and so much of it is looking at the source material and then the tastes of the director so in this case type of white tee tee you know he will I'll sit down with him we'll have conversations about what he's thinking about when it comes to like hello for these characters for Thor he wants Thor to have a new look that's fresh and different than his more traditional Asgardian look from the past two films and even his appearances and Avengers and everything so we'll look at the combo you know I look at all the different because she's been drawn in you know various different ways her headdress you know is portrayed in various various ways so you know I will just paint as many different versions as I can I'll do something that are you know a little bit in more realistic and grounded and then some that are a little bit more pushed and like more comic book II for lack of a better word but you know the big challenge with Hello was her headdress you know how crazy do you go you know your instincts tell you in the beginning like there's no way you know you know a character that has you know these horns that stick out like five feet you know wingspan can move around and fight but that's exactly what Tyco wanted which I totally appreciate it because you know typically you're always trying to pull it back and make it less comic-book II and bring it a little bit more realistic but he really wanted to embrace for this movie you know this one is going to be full on Jack Kirby's gonna we're gonna embrace the source material we're not gonna pull punches so that's it's combination of source material and then the director and then of course the producers from Marvel and their input as well I'm a huge fan World War Hulk was one of the great Planet Hulk storylines just amazing when I saw the trailer I freaked out when I saw hit in the gladiator garb do you actually have of your own maybe I mean I know there are all your babies but one that sticks out in your mind of the cost of the character concept design that you've done for Thor Ragnarok is there one that kind of sticks out for you personally for me the one that sticks up for me is definitely hella like designing hella was such a treat because I think at the end of the day because I'm a fan of comic book that in particular Marvel comic books so that's what I grew up reading to be able to do a character that's that's so out there it's not just like someone wearing you know tactical clothing which is fun to do as well but she's like a full-on comic book character with you know her her cape and just our body suit to the her helmet and the headdress with the antlers it's just you know you can't get more comic book II than that and then the icing was you know when they got Cate Blanchett then it's just like yep that's hella right there now I just cannot wait to see it all come to fruition but the other thing you don't always know who the actor or actress is going to be before you your concept in this so does sometimes once you know who the person that plays that role does it does it help direct you even more or is a lot of times that the concert view came with they tend to find the actor that maybe you've even in your brain have modeled it after you know in any of the movies have you experienced things like that yeah majority of the times when we're because we're in the beginning stage we're in the beginning stage of all the movie making process at the same time as the script is being written so oftentimes they're there there's no actor or actress that's already signed on for a lot of these roles and that was a case for hella like I was doing a lot of designs that other artists were doing a lot of designs for hella but then she got you know signed on pretty quickly and then once you know you can apply the design that they're liking to the actor you know you you you adjust things to make it work I mean with the information that you have you know we don't always necessarily have like a body scan at that point so we don't know exactly body proportions but you know Google Images a lot of like you know you know she's pretty tall and and then you can see pictures of them so you can see oh okay they this particular actor I'm not talking about Kate but just in general has a longer neck than this one so you take all those things into consideration and try to cater the lines and the design to flatter their proportions at their face you know oftentimes you know you don't want to just hide their face because they're beautiful we do a lot of other movies people may not know they've worked on what Civil War guardians of the galaxy ant-man I have a question about just gardens the galaxy and Thor they both really for the most part take place off of Earth yeah but they have different you know feels to them right as Asgard versus just the galaxy how do you kind of differentiate those two in your mind as well because they seem to have a lot more you can be a little more playful with with with the environments that they're in as well yeah because so many of the I've been working on over here at Marvel for seven and a half years and I've been doing working on all the films since the first Captain America so so many of our films you know took place on earth and you know they deal with the Avengers characters and a little bit more grounded you know relatively speaking but you know in recent years we've delved into guardians the galaxy Thor so it's really that the way you make the distinction is it came from the directors with guardians it's fully James Gunn and his vision and James Gunn's sensibilities so much of what he loves especially in the guardians got galaxy 2 is was that called Flash Gordon you know Flash Gordon the Pope Pope sci-fi novel from decades ago like that that was his inspiration for that film so everything we did was in that vein it kind of has this retro feel you know it's not like this ultra-modern type of costumes and look he will always like this kinda throwback to kind of that era with thor ragnarok tiger embraced Jack Kirby so looking at the source material of Jack Kirby and his crazy colors and the way he designs chunky metal and kind of mechanical looking designs he wanted that in Thor so so much so so many of the designs especially it's a car that is not this sleek sophisticated swoopy lions are very like chunky it's retro in its own different way than Flash Gordon is so it really comes down to like the vision of each of the directors and that's how you're kind of able to get a distinct feel you know so you know we're gonna there's what Payton you know like there's a different feel that he has and you know working on civil war with the Russo brothers like they've got this you know greedy or you know very grounded visceral action style which is you know very distinct from the way joss whedon you know handled like the Avengers which which is very much more like superhero like classic comic book you know so it's really fun working here because every director has their own flavor but we're still dealing in the same universe and the same characters and it's so fun to see each director kind of doing their own spin on these characters so even though this is the third in the trilogy it's completely different than the last two you know the first one was Kenneth Branagh the second one was Alan Taylor and in very different fields even those had different fields from each other and this one is like completely just like they went for it like okay let's completely do something different fresh it's still Thor yeah still Marvel Cinematic Universe but it's fresh and new you can feel Thai cos kind of personality in his the the court you know the just the freak work is a free spirit quirkiness in it yeah and the trailer you could just you could feel it yeah if you've seen any of his films like you know he's got that kind of very quirky you know but very fun and that the characters are always central and really great that's what he brought to this film what what movies are you currently working on right now I mean we know that Marvel has plans to feature AI is are you working specifically on anything like Captain Marvel or things like that what are you working on right now yeah I'm I'm still doing work on ant-man and the wasp but that's like that's winding down at least on our end and right now we're fully working on Captain Marvel so we were willing to think of it we're doing designs it's awesome this is what happens and we were just kidding well what what you know stylistically we know that it's I guess it's you know it's set before Nick Fury loses as I I don't they didn't really set out a specific genre like is eighties and nineties ish I mean does that kind of lead to some of those new inspirational styles like well what excites you about that movie specifically and what you guys are trying to aim for yeah I mean it's still early days and you're still getting there's not even like full script yet there's you know they're still working out the story but we've been working with Anna and Ryan and the producers and you know it we know it takes place in the 90s that already you know brings an excitement like oh cool you know all the ramifications of that that happens before a lot of the stuff that we see in these movies so that's all being fleshed out we're working on designs yeah just beyond that we're still trying to figure out what exactly is this movie but on our end we can can we cut at least we can start running with the designs of those characters and yeah I'm having a lot of fun working on that Andy thanks so much man you did all your time and all your amazing work and you know I hope people that watch this or listen this will have learned a lot about just the process just the amazing stuff that you guys hear and marvel studios do so thanks bro I appreciate