JOURNEY INTO MADNESS

James Clarke explores how Framestore's visual development team placed Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

- James Clarke

There’s a rich and deep visual tradition for filmmakers to tap into when they approach an adaptation of a comic book. For Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the world of Marvel’s Doctor Strange comic heritage, and the established visual style of the character’s first eponymous feature film (2016) provided opportunities to both honour the legacy and strike out to create new images and forms. A fusion of genres – fantasy, horror, and time travel – as it progresses, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness becomes increasingly Gothic and horror-styled, and has a visual energy that might be familiar from other Sam Raimi movies; notably The Evil Dead and his Spider-Man films.

Fundamental to the work required to mount a lavishly resourced comic book movie like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is the input of a visual development and concept art team, whose work becomes part of a dynamic with the visual effects and animation departments to tell a story in a coherent and vivid way.

Sylvain Degrotte, a CG supervisor at Framestore, offers a deep dive into the creative choices and challenges of the project for the studio’s visual development team, and how that work informs visual effects elements. The concept art generated by the team at Framestore allowed for an exploration of storytelling possibilities around mood, scale, genre, tone, and key points of character and plot.