“The Miniature Wife” was an exercise in optical illusion

In Manuel González’s 2013 short story “The Miniature Wife,” a woman begins to become a different person after her husband accidentally shrinks her to the size of a coffee mug. Because of her new stature, women are physically more vulnerable, and it is more difficult for them to communicate effectively with people of normal size. But for all the danger the woman’s small size exposes her to, it also prompts her to tap into a power that surprises her husband.

The marital dynamics are very similar in the new Peacock movie The mini wife Series adaptation starring Elizabeth Banks and Matthew Macfadyen. The show adds depth to both leads by commenting on their brethren’s tech chauvinism, and spends more time with the wife’s inner thoughts. But like the book, Peacock’s series emphasizes this Worldly things It can be terrifying for someone who is only a few inches tall. It fell to visual effects supervisor Ashley Burns The mini wifeThe world of ordinary things feels threatened.

Burns spent months working with a team of artists to figure out how to present the show’s basic concept in a way that was imaginative and not grounded in real-world physics. When I spoke with Burns recently, he told me that while much of the show could have been done entirely on green screen, he believes the project could have been stronger using a combination of… Practical in-camera movie making trick and complex visual effects in post-production. But to blend those two modes, Burns knew there had to be strong communication between the show’s different creative teams long before the cameras started rolling.

“There’s never a situation where these things aren’t critical, but with a project like this, there’s no ‘fix it later’ because it can’t work that way,” Burns said. “This show has about 3,000 visual effects shots, and we were working with up to five different visual effects vendors sometimes.”

Although Lindy Littlejohn (Banks) is upset when she wakes up in a dollhouse after her husband, Les (Macfadyen), has shrunk her, it’s not until she emerges into the full-sized living room that she begins to understand what kind of predicament she’s in. The carpeted floor is soft, but relatively far from the table Lindy finds herself on, and she knows she will likely die if she falls while trying to get down.

To ease viewers into the show’s imagination and dark humor, Burns thought it was important for Lindy’s Dollhouse to be a fully realized set that Banks could physically interact with. While visual effects would be necessary to portray the differences in characters’ size, Burns was careful to prevent the series from feeling too much like a “CGI Fridays” situation.

“When we’re inside the dollhouse, this is a real set that we built based on the dimensions and specifications of a real toy,” Burns told me. “We actually scanned things from a real dollhouse, blew them up on a larger scale, and then made them so we could use life-sized versions of these little things.”

as far as The mini wife It is a dramatic film, also punctuated by moments of action as Lindy escapes her dollhouse and ventures out into the larger world around her. She was exhilarated when she realized she had the strength and know-how to make her way to Earth. But her feelings quickly turn to fear when she encounters everyday things like houseflies and her robot vacuum cleaner – both giants from her small perspective.

Crafting this type of footage presented a series of challenges for Burns and his team, who were committed to keeping the show from feeling like a direct rehash of Honey, I’ve cut back on the kids And Marvel Ant-Man films. They wanted to make it so that viewers could always understand Lindy’s point of view in relation to their own perspective, which required the crew to establish some strict artistic rules.

“We understand the hypothesis that a miniaturization process has occurred, but how miniaturized was it?” Burns explained. “In the end, we got to 12:1 scale which means they are about 5.5-6 inches tall, and all the props and sets were very structured at 12:1 scale. This is a scale where things are still very recognizable. We see weaves in the fabric and oversized dust bunnies on the floor, but we still know what they are.”

Although there was an understanding that the rule of the scale could be bent slightly in certain situations for dramatic effect, Burns had to ground his work more closely in reality for some The mini wifeMore action-packed set pieces, such as the scene with her riding on a toy train. Burns told me that sequences like this are powerful examples of how to do that Digital and practical effects can be combined together To create images that are as imaginative as they are rooted in actual physics.

“The reality of that scale relationship is such that, in the big 1:1 world, when you move the camera one foot, that means you have to move it 12 feet in the small world,” Burns said, describing how the train scene was put together. “Now imagine yourself tracking a train. So we have to move hundreds and hundreds of feet at the same speed as the big world, which means 12 times faster.”

During the formulation of both The mini wifeThe VFX shots were a huge undertaking, and Burns and his team chose not to use generative AI in the name of making things faster or more efficient. Burns told me that although he has used AI tools in the past on other projects and has seen how they can be a valuable asset, he still believes the technology is not suitable to replace human creativity “because there are too many steps in the process and too much control needed.”

“Is generative AI a tool that enables us to quickly prototype ideas and then move on to a more traditional visual effects vendor who has a clearer idea of ​​what we want to do?” Burns said. “Absolutely. But not a single VFX frame in this show was created using generative AI. This is all the result of artists and hundreds of VFX workers putting things together themselves.”

The mini wife Premieres on Peacock on April 9.