What It’s Like to Work on 20+ Marvel Movies
Victoria Alonso, EVP of Production at Marvel Studios, shares tales of Iron Man and Black Widow, her thoughts on Disney+, and how she handles the superfans.
By S.C. Stuart
For Victoria Alonso, EVP of Production at Marvel Studios, giving the keynote at SIGGRAPH—which celebrates computer graphics and interactive techniques in art and filmmaking—was something of a homecoming. “My first SIGGRAPH was back in 1995!” she told the 3,000-strong crowd in the LA Convention Center.
Alonso has worked on 22 (and counting) Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies, including Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, and Avengers: Endgame, which just became the highest-grossing movie of all time with $2.79 billion. “[That’s] the biggest dream anyone could achieve,” she said. “Thanks to you for watching it!”
Understandably, Alonso did not discuss the MCU beyond Phase 4, which was announced at San Diego Comic-Con last month. She was more forthcoming about her own origin story: born in Buenos Aires, Alonso came to the US on her own at age 19. The plan was to act, but that didn’t pan out, so she ended up at Ridley Scott’s company working on commercials before joining Digital Domain and training to become a visual effects producer.
Then, one day, studio co-president Louis D’Esposito called her about a movie he was working on. That movie was Iron Man.
Alonso has been with Marvel ever since, joining the company as Chief of Visual Effects in 2006, then promoted to EVP of Production in 2015. Today, Alonso is in charge of nearly 70 employees and all external vendors who work on Marvel’s MCU slate. She’s won many awards over the years, including last year’s Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) Charles S. Swartz Award.
Alonso stressed the importance of Marvel Studios upping its game on each new film-especially since Black Panther’s Oscar nominations. Black Widow is up next in May 2020. “We’ve been waiting for it for 10 years,” she said.
It’s always been a deeply complicated process; she’s sometimes juggling three films a year. Scheduling 44 actors for Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame was “insanity,” but they pulled it off.
When asked about the upcoming Disney+, Alonso did not seem worried about populating the video-streaming service with content. “The thing about Marvel is we have 6,000 characters in our library; there are so many stories to tell,” she said.
But her job has its risks. While paying tribute to Marvel’s legion of highly vocal super fans, Alonso said she’s learned to ditch the crew sweatshirt when grabbing sushi after work. Fans have taken her to task on a character arc one too many times. She perhaps proved her point later in the Q&A, when someone complained about Hulk’s evolved “professorial look” in Avengers: Endgame.
Virtual Reality Inspiration
On emerging technologies, Alonso said she’s thrilled with the expansion into cool formats, like wraparound movie experience ScreenX ( which we got a sneak peek at in 2017), but she wouldn’t be drawn on any VR/AR plans, besides confirming some experimentation there. “We are doing some VR stuff we can’t tell you about,” she said, laughing. “I love that stuff. All of it.”
After her keynote, Alonso had to dash back to the Marvel offices on the Disney lot in Burbank, but I stuck around to take a look at the amazing innovation on display at SIGGRAPH. Three VR experiences hopefully coming to a head-mounted device near you caught my eye.
If you’ve always wanted to slip inside and drive the TARDIS (with the sonic screwdriver no less), check out Doctor Who: The Runaway, which features an alien of ever-expanding energy properties that needs to be kept calm when danger suddenly strikes. Finally, VR that lets you do something.
Another smart use of eye-tracking, 3D spatial audio, and hand controller functionality is Bonfire from Baobab. You find your spaceship stranded on a strange planet with something odd rustling in the bushes. Aided by an engaging robot voiced by Ali Wong, you must complete tasks, like building a fire, scanning the perimeter, and choosing whether to save humans or (no spoilers here) something else.
Finally, there are some people who deliver pure magic-like “future reality computing creative” Botao (Amber) Hu from Silicon Valley-based Amber Garage. In City of Sparkles you fly over Manhattan at night, chasing glowing red orbs in the sky before they burst into thoughts from sleepless souls. Hu merges aerial photogrammetry and robotic choreographed drones with data feeds from Twitter, and it’s glorious.
Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com on July 30, 2019.
