Behind the Bewitching Visual Effects of ‘Wicked’

This article was written for the February ’25 issue of Animation Magazine (No. 347).

“You have a specific amount of time to reinvent the shot and to do improvisation, but you’re basically in an imagery sandbox that is full of music.”

— VFX supervisor Pablo Helman

In November, audiences were treated to Wicked, the backstory of the Wicked Witch of the West (a.k.a. Elphaba), director Jon M. Chu’s phenomenal adaptation of the stage musical of the same name (based on Gregory Maguire’s prequel novel to The Wizard of Oz). Given the scope and fantastical nature of the subject matter, visual effects played a critical part of the storytelling. The Universal film’s digital wizardry was masterfully supervised by three-time Oscar nominee Pablo Helman, who orchestrated the creation of 2,500 shots by ILM, Framestore, OPSIS, Lola VFX, Outpost VFX and BOT VFX.

“We had so many resources on this project,” Chu tells Animation Magazine. “We knew the Oz we wanted to build, so it was a big teamwork of building models and saying, ‘This is the area that we want to interact with. How much can we extend that? Or is that too big and crazy? Are we going to get into harder positions later when we’re in visual effects?’ Of course, there are the flying monkeys and talking animals, such as Dr. Dillamond. You actually need to have an emotional connection to them. There was a lot of conversation with Pablo, and I tried to keep visual effects as close to me as our DP, costume designer and production designer.”

A Most Magical Color

A distinct physical trait of Elphaba is her skin color. “Way too many meetings about how we were going to do the green!” says Chu, laughing. “Overall, it was real makeup. Those were decisions made by working with Cynthia Erivo to figure out what she needed as an actor and what we required in terms of our production.”

Various tests were conducted during preproduction to ensure the authenticity and realism of the color. “At the beginning of the project, we put an actress through makeup and tested a visual effects solution for fixing some of the makeup problems, and also ones where we wouldn’t do anything, or everything becomes a visual effect,” explains Helman.

“We came up with a hybrid approach that the makeup department was a part of, but then there were some challenges when it comes to sections of the body that can’t be painted, like the inside of the mouth and on the back of the ears, because of what makeup does to the wardrobe and vice versa. Part of the methodology of the whole movie was to work together with as much as possible in camera, and then visual effects will supplement a lot of other things. At times for expediency, we would handle things in visual effects, but the most important thing is that everyone was working toward the same thing.”

As expected, fully digital characters had to interact naturally with live-action performers. “That was a new thing for me,” admits Chu, who is best known for directing such films as Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights. “We had a team of puppeteers as well as a cast of people who were the basic size of the animal. We couldn’t do the exact size sometimes. A monkey is a little smaller than a human, but we had a human there on the other side acting with them. We even rehearsed the flying monkeys with stunt people on wires so we could understand some of the physicality and how the monkeys could move.”

Even though they weren’t the right scale, the process proved helpful as a reference for the director and the actors. Chu adds, “For Dr. Dillamond, we had a puppeteer who could actually bend down and act like a goat. In the end, Dr. Dillamond is played by Peter Dinklage, but [the puppeteer] was good at creating a relationship, especially with Cynthia and the actors in the room. Later, when we recorded Peter’s face and his expressions, he had seen a rough cut of it, so he knew that interaction, and then we pulled his performance into that animation. Of course, the ways human express themselves is different than a goat would. However, there are other areas that a goat can use to express himself, whether it was the ears or how the brows or jaws moved differently or even how the hairs move.”

Helman says being a former professional musician was helpful because of the film’s many musical set pieces. “This is the first time I’ve done a musical,” he shares. “As a visual effects artist, it’s a completely different way of working. There is a lot of music that is prerecorded, along with a lot of live and temp music. We had a bunch of people with pianos and equipment, and we had to be quiet. Everyone was wearing an earpiece, and they were singing. Also, the music makes a difference in terms of the coverage. On top of that, you have choreography and hundreds of dancers. You know that your shot goes from here to there, and from there you’re going to need more coverage. You have a specific amount of time to reinvent the shot and to do improvisation, but you’re basically in an imagery sandbox that is full of music.”

The shot planning was an important aspect of the visual effects process. “Although it is set because of the music, you still have a lot of freedom for creating new things. Just by us looking at the rehearsals and the blocking of action with the director, we get an idea as to what methodology the visual effects department has to provide so that the director can be comfortable shooting. It also allows you to take a huge sequence that has hundreds of dancers, wild camera moves and fantastical lighting, and still make it look completely photorealistic and part of the language of the movie.”

Munchkinland Revisited

Massive sets were constructed, including Munchkinland, which required planting 9 million tulips. “Part of the process of Jon Chu is to have as much on set as possible,” remarks Helman. “Nathan Crowley, our production designer, built as much as possible of Emerald City, up to 25 to 30 feet in exterior work. There were some sets that were as big as four football fields but built up to a certain height, and then we would extend everything else that was there. Because we shot in England, it was full of cranes and supplementary lighting, so we had to go about erasing all of that.”

The Emerald City Express was practically built by the special effects team led by Paul Corbould. “Some of the gears, steam and smoke we supplemented with visual effects work. The train was reflective, so numerous reflections had to be replaced,” says Helman.

Of course, there are too many complex shots to discuss in this brief article. “You have sequences that are mainly creature work, where you have six or seven creatures interacting with each other with a human witnessing their conversation from outside the dwelling looking in,” says Helman. “Or there is a scene where Elphaba and Glinda come to Emerald City and talk to the Wizard’s head; that was quite difficult to do. Then, there’s the ending of the ‘Defying Gravity’ number. There are many signature moments, and ‘Defying Gravity’ is definitely one of them.”

Having all of the creative and technical minds with a common goal resulted in cinematic magic. “The only way of making Oz work is when we all work together and respect each other’s abilities,” Chu concludes. “The number of intricacies and complications that a movie like this could create and the stress of the pressure of it; this was like a dream to go through. I’m not exhausted. I’m energized and feel lucky to have had this team around me.”

Universal released Wicked in theaters in November. The movie has grossed over $570 million worldwide as of Dec. 23, and is one of the top contenders of this year’s awards season.