"Spider-Man: Brand New Day" VFX Supervisor Jerome Chen on Redesigning Hulk, Completing 445 Shots in One Week

VFX supervisor Jerome Chen revealed at the View Conference in Turin on Wednesday that Marvel and Sony's "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" contained nearly 2,000 VFX shots and was completed just 24 weeks after production began, with 445 shots in a single week. Comparing the feat to his first look, Chen said, "In one week, we did roughly 445 takes."

At the View conference, the Marvel exec describes a 24-week post-production sprint that turns Britain into New York and the 47-minute final tweaks to Spider-Man's suit.

Marvel and Sony's "Spider-Man: All-New Day" involved nearly 2,000 VFX shots and just 24 weeks into production, with 445 in one week, VFX general supervisor Jerome Chen revealed Wednesday at the View conference in Turin.

"In one week, we did about 445 shots," said Chen, comparing the feat to his directorial debut in 1999, which contained a total of 450 shots and took two years to complete. RELATED STORIES Kieran Culkin Plays The Devil Long In 'Family Man' (Exclusive) Oasis Documentary 'Don't Look Back In Anger' Collections Hulu, Disney+ Stream Release Date

He added that about three-quarters of "Brand New Day's" VFX work was delivered in the final six weeks, making an already demanding schedule even more intense. Popular in Variety

Then, Chen recalled that preparations began with a scouting trip to New York in December 2024, before receiving the finished script. Director Destin Daniel Cretton wanted a more down-to-earth, streetwise Spider-Man with the city itself in the story. But most of the filming took place in the UK, where Pinewood Studios, London and Glasgow doubled for New York. Concept art by production designer Charles Wood helped create a fairly limited palette, with saturated colors at key emotional moments.

Small bits of script can create huge technical assignments. An intro featuring Spider-Man and a tank expanded from a handful of words to 11 shots and roughly 52 seconds of footage. Physical desktop models helped crews determine how a vehicle should crash through a building when there was no time for detailed previews. In another sequence, a helmet-mounted compact camera captures a close-up of Tom Holland's performance, with a blurred red figure added to the composition to show the inside of his mask. "Sometimes the simplest tricks are the most effective," Chen said.

The film also gave Chen his first opportunity to work on Mark Ruffalo's Hulk. Because the character looks more ferocious and remotely controlled, the team explored a different body than previous Marvel outings, adjusting his proportions, muscle definition, hair color, and the relative size of his hands and feet. Chen consulted with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige about how the Hulk's appearance has evolved throughout the franchise.

"I noticed that no one had ever looked closely at the Hulk's toenails," Chen joked. "That's what we had to do." Previous versions looked unnaturally green, while the team also looked at how the character's skin reacted to different lighting. They lengthened his arms, reduced his body fat and gave him gray hair. A subtle change in eye color, from green to brown, marks the moment when the Hulk regains his humanity. At full scale, the Hulk's 10-foot legs helped the cast and crew judge his proportions on set, and even his pants required close attention.

Creatively solving the peak energy wave involving Jean Gray was more difficult. At first, Chen resisted the chromatic aberration of the rainbow familiar from other images of superpowers on screen. But with five weeks to go, he changed course, deciding that an established visual vocabulary would serve the film better than something overly electronic. "I thought it was the weakest part of the movie," he admitted. "I wish we could think of something better."

He argued that time often determines the quality of VFX more than the abilities of the artists. "If you go to a movie and see that a visual effects movie doesn't look that good, it's not because the artists are bad," he says. "You can tell they're running out of time." Chen advised directors facing decision fatigue to review shots in their sequences instead of obsessing over individual frames.

Finishing so quickly could also have ramifications for the industry: "Maybe we did ourselves a disservice by finishing this film in 24 weeks, because we proved once again that it can be done on time."

The final challenge was unexpectedly simple. As the vendors finished, a last minute check revealed a sweat stain under Spider-Man's arm. "You can't make superheroes sweat in their suits," Chen recalls. A small team at Marvel's offices in Burbank removed it at 47 minutes, did the modified shot, and sent Chen home from a nearly empty garage below the studio.