We spoke w/ 'Cocaine Bear's VFX supervisor Robin Hollander about bringing 'Cokey the Bear' to life.
When working to bring an outlandish screenplay like Cocaine Bear to theaters, director Elizabeth Banks told Collider “...the only way the movie works is if the bear works.” Considering the horror-comedy has earned over $55 million globally to date, the partnership with Wētā FX, which Banks says, “was just a dream,” paid off exponentially in achieving what the director hoped would be a photorealistic leading lady, affectionately referred to as Cokey the Bear.
ROBIN HOLLANDER: Yeah, ultimately I'm responsible for making sure that the client's vision aligns with our internal scheduling and skill sets.
I wanted to ask a little bit about the collaboration process with Elizabeth Banks because previously she's worked a lot in straightforward comedy like Pitch Perfect. How much did she collaborate with the VFX? Was it just at the beginning? Is there a visual effect shot in this movie that you were the most proud of, or that you would consider your Mona Lisa?
HOLLANDER: It's an interesting one. I think everyone who's worked on Cocaine Bear really appreciated that it had a bit more of an old-school VFX throwback feel. And what I mean by that is, it was predominantly plate photography and adding one really good-looking asset into the scene, which is kind of rare because I think VFX is such a tent pole for lots of big movies these days.
HOLLANDER: Ooh, this is a tricky one. I mean, prior to [Avatar: The Way of Water] coming along, I would have probably had a few things, but I think those guys and girls, they sort of smashed that out of the park. So, I think with anything it's, potentially, speed. I think we're at a point now where we can do everything pretty well, but the real expensive, or the real costly setups, are things like water or getting eyes really realistically.
HOLLANDER: Yeah, absolutely. Star Wars, the first Star Wars did that for me, and what it was was I didn't really know what it was I was seeing, but I knew that I wanted to do it. And I think in my mind, you know, being a mischievous, I don't know, eight or nine-year-old kid, it just meant like, “Oh, cool, I could blow up things on screen like that. Sounds like fun.
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