Spider-Man No Way Home: Did you spot these ‘invisible’ VFX in Tom Holland’s Marvel film?

Kelly Port, the visual effects supervisor of Spider-Man: No Way Home, made some interesting revelations about the film in a new video shared Vanity Fair. He elaborated on the ‘invisible effects’ in the film and said that only around 80 shots in the movie didn’t have visual effects. In fact, he showed the door to Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, and explained that the leaves, trees, and the facade of the building around it were all created digitally.
“It doesn’t seem like a visual effect, but it absolutely is. The set was built in Atlanta, and we just had the door, and steps. We had to extend all the particular area, and that’s a common practice, that we call set extensions.” He added, “All the cars and trees are CG.”

🎬 ESCENAS SIN VFX Spider-Man No Way Home 🎬#SpiderManNoWayHome #SpiderMan #TobeyMaguire #TomHolland #AndrewGarfield #Marvel pic.twitter.com/g4KP1rEQuq
— David Taipe (@DavidATS06) March 18, 2022
 
(Photo: Vanity Fair/ YouTube)
Even the pedestrians were created via CG, and some of the extras were shot on blue screen. In fact, the scene in which Flash Thompson (Tony Revolori) is talking on the phone to Peter Parker was actually composited from different shots, as the party was shot on another day and the actor wasn’t available. “He had to be shot on a different day, so this was an invisible effect. It looks like a normal shot, but it’s not.”

While they filmed several aerial shots for the scene in which Spidey looks for the Harvard Vice Chancellor in New York City, they had to change the tower that was under renovation, and manufactured a new CG tower. “When we shot the aerial, it looked nothing like that, so we had to move the tower, not only did we have to move it–it was under renovation and under scaffolding, so we didn’t remove the scaffolding, so we had a mix and match of digital, it’s one of those hybrid plates,” Port said.
(Photo: Vanity Fair/ YouTube)
Port also showed the de-ageing effects used on both Alfred Molina and Willem Defoe, who had starred in the original Spider-Man trilogy. “For Alfred Molina and Willem Defoe, we did de-aging, because they were coming from a different and older timeline.” He also showed the action sequences between Doc Ock (Molina) and Spider-Man (Tom Holland), and how different the behind-the-scenes footage was to what was actually shown on screen.

🎬 Spider-Man No Way Home 🎬
SIN VFX / CON VFX#SpiderManNoWayHome #SpiderMan #TobeyMaguire #TomHolland #AndrewGarfield #Marvel pic.twitter.com/aOj4cACF0E
— David Taipe (@DavidATS06) March 18, 2022
During the intense action sequence, Doc Ock chases Spider-Man through heavy traffic and lifts the pipes, and smashes it on the car. He showed the original blue screen, and said, “Tom would do a lot of his own stunts, and do his own flips and jump on trampolines, and things like that. The camera team had to be really be as accurate as possible.

🎬 Spider-Man No Way Home 🎬
SIN VFX / CON VFX#SpiderManNoWayHome #SpiderMan #TobeyMaguire #TomHolland #AndrewGarfield #Marvel pic.twitter.com/oVUZIejywm
— David Taipe (@DavidATS06) March 18, 2022
 
(Photo: YouTube)
Spider-Man: No Way Home is the third solo film in the new Spider-Man series, fronted Tom Holland. Directed Jon Watts, the film also featured Zendaya, and surprise appearances Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.