Autodesk Media & Entertainment
The high-stakes world of competitive tennis sits at the heart of Director Luca Guadagino’s romantic drama “Challengers,” so naturally the film is packed with an abundance of intense match play. While lead actors Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist vigorously trained to authentically portray professional-calibre athletes, select scenes required visual effects (VFX) magic to convey the on-court action as imagined by Guadagino. Overseen by Brian Drewes, VFX Supervisor and Founder of Boston-based Zero VFX, “Challengers” features around 900 VFX shots that are seamlessly interspersed throughout the film, with Autodesk Maya and Flow Production Tracking providing the foundation for the studio’s VFX pipeline.
“Tennis is such a fast game, and Luca’s vision was to shoot it almost like a boxing match where the camera is on the court,” Drewes explained. “That informed our work, which focused on CG head replacements, including close-ups, and the POV tennis ball sequence.”
Warming up for an intricate VFX sequence
Many of the pivotal exchanges in “Challengers” are set on or near a tennis court, but one particular match stands out for how it plays out on screen. As the male protagonists go head-to-head, a 24-second volley is shown from the perspective of the ball, providing a unique view of a familiar game that underscores its speed.
“The POV ball shot was on Luca’s mind from the beginning. We discussed it in our very first meeting and found we were looking for the same sort of creative output,” shared Drewes. “The goal was to be photoreal and allow the actors and camera team to really create a sense of intimacy between the actors and the audience.”
Achieving this sequence required extensive planning and coordination. As soon as pre-production kicked off, the Zero VFX team used Autodesk Maya to begin iterating on previs for the sequence while Flow Production Tracking (formerly ShotGrid) was used to track and manage the process. This allowed for the shoot to be fully mapped ahead of time so that everyone had a clear understanding of what would be captured, ensured the appropriate equipment was sourced, and the right amount of time and resources was allocated to shoot it.
Ahead of filming the ball shot sequence, Drewes and his team conducted robust LIDAR and photogrammetry scanning of the court at different times of the day. This provided artists with extensive reference for when a portion of the sequence required re-lighting for edit continuity or for CG elements to be added. During filming, a detailed storyboard with shot listings and camera angles provided the blueprint for the sequence, which was captured over three weeks. The first takes were done with tennis player stunt doubles, who would volley with each other as the storyboards dictated, allowing the camera team to map out movement on the court. Then, the actors would repeat the scene without the ball.
“We had a VFX editor on set because of the intricacies of the shoot. We ended up stitching together 23 different segments and needed to make sure that before we moved the camera, we were really confident that we captured everything we needed. We also had to contend with the sun moving throughout the day,” Drewes noted. “A lot of these shots might have a totally CG ground plane, and it’s no small effort to get that to read consistently. Maya is a foundational tool for us here at Zero VFX and it allowed us to remodel and relight a lot of the film’s shots.”
Elevating match play with CG
Several VFX techniques were used to ensure the film’s actors came across as professional-level tennis players. Though their stroke form was perfected during pre-production training, precisely hitting the ball to a predetermined location was a task best handled by the pros. This meant that the VFX team either added a CG tennis ball to the shot or replaced the head of the stunt tennis player with the actor’s. Additionally, some scripted moments would have been impossible to choreograph, like having the ball hit the net, requiring CG enhancement.
For close-up shots, the actors would perform with only a racket handle, then artists would create a CG tennis racket top and match move it onto the handle. Shooting the same shots with both the stunt players and the actors provided the VFX team with comprehensive references for lighting and facial animation. It also allowed editorial to choose a take with the actors or with the stunt players.
“Trying to find a stunt double that is a collegiate level tennis player and has the same height, body type, and head shape as each actor wasn’t realistic, so we ended up doing full hair grooms and head replacements, because as soon as you put someone’s face on a bigger or rounder skull, it distorts the proportion,” said Drewes.
At the same time, Drewes was mindful to keep the number of head replacements used in check so that the Zero VFX team could focus on acing each one. From a technical standpoint, artists primarily used Autodesk tools, including Maya for keyframe animation, along with Zero VFX’s proprietary machine learning-powered facial replacement pipeline.
A winning serve of passion and technology
Founded in 2010, Zero VFX has established a strong reputation for photoreal commercial and feature film work, often working directly with productions around New England, including “Bad Boys 4,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” and “Little Women.” The studio was acquired by investment firm Arenova Capital in 2022, which has strategically aligned Zero VFX and other mid-sized boutique studios around the world. Maya has been an important tool for Zero VFX’s sustained growth and achievements, and as the cloud plays a bigger role in production, Drewes anticipates he’ll continue to turn to Autodesk tools, including Media and Entertainment industry cloud, Flow, moving into the future.
Drewes concluded, “Artists know how to use Maya and it’s stable. We can build our pipeline, lighting tool sets, and other processes around it and know we’ll create a reliable output. It’s our de facto tool for a lot of work, especially animation. It’s battle-tested for sure, and integrates nicely with Flow Production Tracking.”
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