VFX: Sucker Punch

Miguel Gonzalez spoke with US director Zack Snyder about Sucker Punch, the first film he’s conceived from beginning to end. It’s also another step in his successful relationship with Australia’s Animal Logic.

Sucker Punch is Zack Snyder’s fifth film, but only the first one not to be adapted from existing material. It’s an original script co-written with Steve Shibuya; it tells the story of Baby Doll (Emily Browning), a teenager locked up by her stepfather in a psychiatric hospital. With the help of her inmate friends (including Abbie Cornish) she’ll have to enter and conquer a series of fantasy worlds in order to escape her real life prison before being lobotomised by her captors.
Snyder admits that, being his own script, he felt more pressure working on Sucker Punch, at least in the early stages.
“But once it’s written, the script takes a life of its own, and I have to rustle with it as if it was any other project. With this story there was a great sense of freedom and visualy, we got to stretch our imagination and just do whatever the hell was cool; people are going to find a completely unrestrained, unencumbered visual feast,” he explained.
The film was 100 percent shot in a studio, and features extensive use of CGI to create the fantasy sequences: “I think I have a certified visual effects vocabulary, with all the work I’ve done recently. Making Legend of the Guardians helped me be able to work in this fully computer-generated world,” said Snyder.

Part of that VFX vocabulary Snyder learned through his collaboration with Animal Logic. Together, they created the animated Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole – the eight highest grossing Australian project of all time, with U$140m worldwide.
“With Sucker Punch, I just said ‘Animal Logic has to do a sequence, there’s no two ways about it’. That was one of the things that were not up for discussion.  Having done Legend… together, I thought they’d be good for the dragon sequence.
“It was a nice sort of collaboration, from design all the way through to realising each of the VFX shots; the directive was to create a fantasy world with realistic touches but didn’t sacrifice either of these aspects,” said Snyder.
Sucker Punch, was shot in Vancouver, one of Australia’s fiercest competitors in terms of attracting runaway productions. It’s Hollywood’s favourite discount filmmaking destination, particularly for science  fiction/action projects.
“The thing about Vancouver is that I know the crews so well [having shot Watchmen there, in addition to 300 and Dawn of the Dead in Montreal and Toronto, respectively]. I know the talent base is so strong and it’s an easy place for me to work,” said Snyder.
How about shooting in Australia one day?
“We’ve talked about it a bunch of times but it hasn’t worked out yet. I’m sure it will… I’ve continued to have a strong relationship with Australia; first with Animal Logic as a VFX vendor, and now with my Sucker Punch cast. With them I found that Australian ladies are really emotionally available; they are able to be strong, but they don’t shy away from those emotional moments…they really go after them with all their being.”
“I feel a really strong connection to the Australian motion picture talent pool, and it’s one that I don’t have a desire to or I see changing in the future,” he said. “I don’t know wheter Animal Logic will work on [my next project] Superman: Man of Steel, but I’d certainly be open to that.”

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