So this has been a jam packed weekend and in an effort to get to as much as possible, I’m going to do a WonderCon panel wrap up for some of the ones I wasn’t able to take a ton of notes in.
Into the Spider-Verse: A New Take on Animation
Zac Retz and Yukhi Dehmers, Sony Animation Visual Development artists for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, came to WonderCon and packed the room they were in with all matter of Mileses, Peters and Gwens and regularly dressed people as they chatted about the making of the movie. It was really cool to hear how the got involved with the project, after the first animator and the filmmakers parted ways, and how they had to adapt to the quick pace of the film. Zac mentioned that it was great to work on the production because it was aiming for something different, noting that many of their first passes on brush work and dot patterns made it into the film. Also for the eagle eyed viewers, there are many 2D animated frames in the film. Might be fun on a rewatch to try and spot them all. My favorite anecdote from the panel was how Kingpin was tough to make because computers have trouble rendering something that takes no light, and that they used the darkest black they could for his suit. Also, this happened:
NOS4A2
You will be hearing more about this show from me in the coming days as I was at the press conference, but the show screened the pilot episode and brought the talent out to talk. I will have a formal review a bit later on in the year, but I was left kind of wanting as the pilot is so deliberate that I almost was wondering if we were going anywhere. Ashley Cummings though is a star in the making, her performance was great. The new take on vampirism is also interesting.
Twilight Zone
I am glad that I am already excited for this show because if I wasn’t, and was relying on the quality of the panel, I might not be lol They showed a trailer with talking heads and kind of stumbled through their explanations. That doesn’t mean the series won’t be good, and I am especially looking forward to the fact that each episode has its own musical identity and that each episode is themed around personal nightmares.