Captain America: Civil War co-director Joe Russo surprised a lot of fans when he revealed that “every shot” of Black Panther‘s costume was computer generated—a confusing statement, since we’d already seen plenty of photos of Chadwick Boseman wearing a real costume.
Now, a new video effects reel illustrates exactly how this process worked. While Boseman and his stunt double did wear a detailed costume while filming, it was used as a template for the CGI suit you actually see in the movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vIZh8k8CnI
That VFX reel is a testament to the amount of invisible CGI that goes into a film like Civil War. A lot of the time, it’s still possible to spot unrealistic inconsistencies in heavily CGI’d movies like Warcraft, but at the same time, no one picked up on Black Panther’s costume. It’s easy to miss the more unexpected examples of CGI, such as “beauty work” to make actors look younger, or the replacement of entire sets like many scenes in this video.
