Monkey Man
Directed by Dev Patel
Synopsis
An anonymous young man unleashes a campaign of vengeance against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother and continue to systemically victimise the poor and powerless.
What we did
Stage23 served as primary VFX vendor on action thriller Monkey Man, which endured a complex and protracted shoot in Indonesia during the 2020’s lockdowns. Working closely with the film’s VFX Supervisor Murray Pope and director Dev Patel during the post process, the Stage23 team assisted the director to sculpt and refine his vision from what had been captured in-camera across a challenging filming process. Stage23 deployed a team of 40 specialists delivering over 340 VFX shots for the film.
Stage23’s contributions encompass the full spectrum of VFX, from CGI, to environments, particles, vehicles, crowds, and creature pipelines- specifically the film’s CGI monkey. An assortment of vehicles were another key delivery element with the addition of CGI helicopters, as well as a CG rickshaw for the film’s key chase sequence.
Invisible or imperceptible VFX techniques were essential to the process. The focal ‘kitchen fight sequence’ required Stage23 to align footage from 8 different takes into one seamless sequence, with the additions of props, fire, and broken glass to complete the action.
Crowds in the film were also supplemented by CGI extras in various scenes, owing in part to the difficulty the original shoot had faced filming during 2020. Location wise, as the movie is set in India, but shot in Indonesia, Stage23 also created the additional buildings, environments, and entire skylines for a digitally rendered Indian city scape.
The full process saw Stage23 working on the film for over two years.