As opposed to a movie [Real Steel] where everything feels fantastical, it was really important to me, and I recognise it's not the first movie with robots in it, but that blend of naturalism in performance, writing and design with the futurism of this sport. That was the idea.
Shawn Anthony LevyBecause I've never made this kind of movie before, so I've never even been to Comic-Con. And Hugh and Evangeline keep telling me, 'Oh, my god... This is such Comic-Con fodder. We're going to have such a fun summer!' Is this the kind of thing they show? That length?
Shawn Anthony LevyI think that, on the one hand, our audience, our culture is so savvy now to an assumption that teaser effects are not fully representative of the final product. But in the same breath, I would say there's no shot in the teaser that I'm not really happy with.
Shawn Anthony LevyThere is a reality to the way the actors play the scenes, given that there is a real, animatronic, moving robot in the room. So the level of nuance and realism in performance was higher because we built the real ones, and it keeps the visual effects guys honest.
Shawn Anthony LevyThere's a very interesting article or symposium to be written on just the real difference between comedy filmmaking and non-comedy. Because, you know, when you work in comedy, you depend on audience screenings to tell you about your movie.
Shawn Anthony LevyThe dozens of people working on this at Digital Domain, they knew that you couldn't get away with almost photo real, because we had real real in the room. You have real real in the cut every four or five shots, so you have this constant yardstick built into the footage by virtue of there being no real robot there. So it became the standard of photo reality that the VFX team had to match.
Shawn Anthony Levy