How are the Iron Man suit scenes filmed?
In all three movies, you see Downey Jr (as Tony Stark, and occasionally Cheadle as Rhodes/War Machine) in the namesake suit, either completely covered, or with the head open or having the suit put on/taken off.
My question is what kind of filming techniques were used in order to achieve this feat of seamless transition from ordinary man to Iron Man?
Best Answer
In Iron Man, there was a heavy physical suit they sometimes used, but the bulk of the footage was CGI, as the proportions of the Iron Man suit aren't that of a human's. Wikipedia mentions
sometimes, Downey would only wear the helmet, sleeves and chest of the costume over a motion capture suit.
From here:
[The Iron Man 2 suit] was only a half suit -- from the waist up. I think we weighed it in at about 13 pounds. The [suit in] the first film was about 85 pounds.
In Iron Man 2, they built a light partial suit that a person could fit in. If you compare Iron Man in any of the action scenes against the suit that Stark is wearing during his party for example, you'll see that the party suit is much larger and bulkier. This is because he's wearing the physical suit during the party scenes (they then transition back to the CGI for the fight afterwards).
Physical suit:
As you can see, the arms and legs are then added via computer later on. However, they leave the thicker real torso for these scenes instead of making him thin. After they've put it through computer movie magic, it looks like this:
For one of the all-CGI suits, see how it's much thinner in the waist:
From the same article:
The upper suit is real for most of those shots.
For the shots where it isn't real, they also had this:
Update for The Avengers:
io9.com recently interviewed some of the folks at ILM who worked on the special effects for The Avengers:
Robert Downey Jr. basically never wears the full Iron Man suit any more. That suit is really, really uncomfortable and pinchy, says Chu. And whenever you see Iron Man in his armor, that's a CG rendering of Iron Man, or a stunt man named Clay. After the first Iron Man movie, says Chu, Downey Jr. saw what they could do with CG versions of the suit. "He knew he did not have to wear as much of the suit, and that would make him a lot more comfortable." There's a partial version called the "football suit" that he wears in a couple scenes, like at the end when he's laying on the ground.
Although, there are still occasions where he wears a full version of the suit:
Pictures about "How are the Iron Man suit scenes filmed?"
How did they film Iron Man suit?
The actors only wore partial helmets and tracking suits. The rest of their suits are CGI. And in this particular scene, ILM didn't even need to use a tracking suit at all. They built the CGI suit right around Robert Downey Jr., who was only wearing a tuxedo.Did they use a real suit in Iron Man?
The Iron Man suit was a mostly CGI creation for a large part of Robert Downey Jr.'s run in the MCU but, in the beginning, Iron Man director Jon Favreau and Marvel Studios were aiming for a practical suit.Did Tony Stark pee in his suit?
Yes, he can. Specifically, he can urinate. In the second part of Iron Man (2010), Tony is celebrating his birthday with almost 90% of paladium in his body and decided to celebrate like the last party of his life and put his suit for the party.How is the Iron Man suit controlled?
Tony Stark uses something called brain computer interface that translates brain EEG signals to control machines. So if Tony needs to move the suit's arm he just needs to think about moving it. This technology currently is very slow and not advanced as Tony has but it might get to that level in future.IRON MAN (2008) Creating the Suit [HD] Marvel Behind the Scenes
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