Jumanji: The Next Level is Method Studios‘ third Asian Academy Award.

Method’s Melbourne studio was proud to receive the Asian Academy Creative Award (AAA) this year in the Best Visual or Special FX in TV series or Feature Films for their innovative work on Sony Pictures Entertainment’s blockbuster, Jumanji: The Next Level, directed by Jake Kasdan.

The Award, Method’s third in as many years, is for work that represents the pinnacle of achievement in craft and technical disciplines across television, digital, mobile streaming and other emerging technology throughout the entire Asia Pacific region. Method Melbourne received the same award for Christopher Robin in 2019 and Game of Thrones Season 7: “The Spoils of War” the previous year.

The groundbreaking work led by VFX Supervisor Glenn Melenhorst, was primarily work seen in a climactic portion of the film in which the franchise’s main characters return to Jumanji in the search of a lost member of their team. The scenes in question take place in an arid desert and snowy mountains and involve such VFX-heavy elements as a massive blimp, and a flying horse named Milo which is ridden by Ming (Awkwafina). Eventually, the blimp goes out of control and starts to rip apart with its sides flapping around as the characters’ altercation continues.    

For these sequences, production VFX Supervisor Mark Breakspear enlisted Method Studios to utilise bluescreen-shot foreground elements, adding complex interaction with CG elements and then composited into what resulted in elaborate CG environments.

Glenn was on-set during the live-action shoots for these key portions of the film and he then oversaw Method’s teams of artists, animators, compositors, as they created the snowy fortress and desert environments, the blimp, Milo and the other digital objects and characters. 

Kasdan and Breakspear were clear that they wanted even the more fantastical elements to have some grounding in reality in order to help immerse the audience in a world they can believe so Method’s team of artists and compositors worked closely with the filmmakers on walking that fine line in creating all the assets, environments — down to the behavior of the snow and the light rays through the CG clouds — and in compositing it all together seamlessly. 

The film’s enormous box office success and awards such as this AAA indicate how much of a success the final product turned out to be.

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