Disney’s Snow White, the new live-action musical reimagining of the classic 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, stars Rachel Zegler as Snow White and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, alongside photoreal versions of the beloved characters Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy and Sneezy, all set against a backdrop of massive sets and real locations. To pull the epic production together the studio turned to director Marc Webb, whose credits include
The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel,
The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the fourth and fifth blockbusters in the multi-billion-dollar-grossing franchise.
Behind the cameras, the creative team helping bring Webb’s vision to life included director of photography Mandy Walker, ASC, ACS (Mulan); production designer Kave Quinn (Emma); editors Mark Sanger, ACE, BFE (Jurassic World Dominion), and Sarah Broshar, ACE (West Side Story); visual effects supervisor Max Wood (Cruella); visual effects producer Olly Young (Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore); and animation supervisor Greg Fisher (The One and Only Ivan).
Here, in an exclusive interview, the director talks about the challenges of making the film, his long-time love of post and dealing with all the VFX.
What was your vision for this film when you took this on?
“It was important to honor the legacy of the original Snow White. I think Walt Disney invented something pretty spectacular with the first feature-length animated film in 1937, and I think it was important to be inspired by it. We also wanted to create something that had a few modern twists and surprises that were still within the vernacular of what you’d expect a Snow White film to be. And part of that is the music — both these wonderful arrangements of ‘Whistle While You Work’ and ‘Heigh-Ho,’ but also some new, original music. And visually, we wanted to build something that felt magical and had scope, but that was also intimate in just the right ways. So, it was a fun exercise to build out this world with the live-action elements in a way that felt familiar and lovable, but also a little bit surprising to the audience.”
What were the big challenges of prepping this huge production and dealing with the CG characters?
“First, it was incredibly technical. We did a very elaborate testing process trying to figure out how to bring all these iconic Disney characters to life. So, we began with ‘Heigh-Ho’ and spent several months on it. First, we shot on a virtual stage with motion-capture actors and then refined the animation and tried to deliver what we felt would be a lovable series of characters doing this musical number, because we were relying so much on that process, which started way before production. And then we delivered and dealt with the methodology.
“Initially, we were wondering, ‘Should we do motion capture? Should we do keyframe animation?’ Because, learning from my experience with Spider-Man, motion capture is good in many ways, and it’s particularly good for facial elements. But when you’re dealing at a scale which is different than the human scale, which we were, as we’re combining these characters from the original Snow White with a live-action human, it was quite a technical challenge, because there was so much interaction both with the music and with Snow White herself. So that testing process was pretty elaborate, and Disney was really involved at the ground level. And then the pre-production was massive choreography rehearsals at a scale I’ve never dealt with before, which was fun but quite challenging. And then we did a lot of rehearsals.
“We recorded scratch tracks and demo tracks, and then we recorded music accompaniments with those tracks, and then, particularly with Rachel, we recorded the music live — and so much of her performance in this movie is live vocals. And that allowed for a level of detail and nuance and in-the-moment authenticity that really reads in a special way.”
Did you do a lot of previs?
“I did some previs for the night in the forest scenes, but I relied more heavily on my storyboard artists for scenes with the CG characters. And we came up with gags the same way Walt did it, where he paid $10 or $5 for every gag that he used in the animated film. We had a similar incentive system, and it was fun to do for things like the food-fight sequence, where a group of really talented artists came up with playful gags to deploy throughout that scene. And then we would give it to the motion-capture actors and puppeteers, who would add their own nuances and levels and layers to it.
“So, creating these characters was a team effort. Everybody had a part in it, even the voice actors. We brought them to the sets before we started shooting and walked them through what the scenes would be, how the scenes would be blocked and had them improvise lines. And that then made it into the story department, and then we riffed on that. Then we went back and shot it with Snow White, which changed it a little bit more, and added ADR gags and jokes in the post-production process. So, it was a really deep, ongoing refinement that is much more akin to how you would make an animated movie, I think, than a typical live-action film.”
Was there ever a point where you felt, if you didn’t get the CG dwarfs right, the whole film might not work?
“In the first edit it felt like they were basically postvis or previs, or very early animated versions of those characters, and you couldn’t really feel their emotions because the face work, which is so much a part of the emotional depth of a character, with all the nuances and the micro gestures — where their heads turn, and where their smile dips, and where the eyelids show the micro emotions — was not in that first cut. So it took a long time, a lot of imagination and patience to work through that. To find the level of nuance and humanity and moments of real emotional authenticity in those characters was a real challenge.”
How tough was the actual shoot, as you had a ton of locations and all the sets to deal with?
“It was logistically hard, but most of that sat on the assistant director and the line producer. I would just talk about how much time I needed in each place. We built so many of the sets on the backlot of Pinewood, and shot in some real locations, like the woods. The key was doing a lot of preparation, and so much work can be a slog, and you can lose sight of what you’re doing if you’re not vigilant. But every time you stepped onto a set you were stepping into this magical world, and it was very palpable.”
Where did you do all the post?
“Primarily in London, and partly in Montreal for the VFX with MPC and Framestore. And our animation director would come out to LA, and we would go back to London. And we did a lot of Zoom calls with Montreal. There was work done in India and all around the world with a variety of vendors, as is the case with most big movies these days. Post took a couple of years, because the strike happened right in the middle of it, which put us on hiatus for a while.”
You had two editors. How did that process work?
“Mark Sanger was editing on-location in England. And then when we went on hiatus, he went to work on another film, and we just didn’t have an editor for a long time. So we brought in Sarah Broshar, who has worked with Steven Spielberg for many years, and she’s just incredible and brought a really delicate touch to the finishing of the film. She and Mark were not working simultaneously, but they were in communication to a degree, and we kept on etching away at the most streamlined, emotional version of the movie.”
You began as an editor, so you must love editing?
“Yes, and that background’s given me a kind of freedom and a vernacular as a director. I think the editorial process is a fascinating one and so misunderstood or underestimated. It really is a kind of writing, both from a structural perspective, but also in delivering so much nuance to the performances, and to the emotional depth and attitude of a film.”
You had a lot of VFX vendors, so who did what?
“It was primarily MPC and Framestore, and the animals and most of the dwarfs were done by MPC, and Framestore did some of the birds and some of the set extensions. And Crafty Apes, Lola, Cheap Shot, Passion and Vitality also did work. The most difficult visual effects shot to get right was where Snow White is swinging Dopey around in ‘Whistle While You Work,’ because it involved interaction with a live-action character and the CG Dopey. We had to shoot the motion capture section first, then we reshot it, and then we shot her moments between that. And then it had to interact with real objects within the room that she had interacted with. So, it was really quite complex and by far the most technical three or four minutes I’ve ever done. That process probably took two or three years to complete.”
What about the DI? Who was the colorist and how closely did you work with them and the DP?
“It was Yvan Lucas at Company 3, and he tries to emulate the film color-timing, photo-chemical process as a guideline. He has such a beautiful eye and understood the magic and whimsy that we were trying to create.
“Our DP, Mandy Walker, really led the charge on the DI, and she had so many visual references, starting with the original animated version of the film and how we wanted the queen’s costumes to feel dark, but still have texture and layers. And all that drove a lot of the conversation around the color. But you also want it to feel emotional, vibrant and specific.
“The sets were painted in a way so that when the evil queen comes to town, it loses its color and becomes much more muted, and the blues were real dominant in that moment. When Snow White gets to the forest and to the cottage, there was a much more vibrant color palette, with a lot of color separation and a touch of warmth that contrast with the Queen’s world. And that was a language that was developed early on and was carried through to the DI, which was a very elaborate, long, steady, carefully-constructive process.
“I spent more time in the DI on this movie than on any other movie. That’s how crucial it was to how the final film looks. It’s designed to deliver delight, and I think we all felt that the entire way through the process of making the film.”