Iron Man 3 will be out this Friday. I saw the film this past Sunday and it was pretty damn good. Even though I knew what was coming after spending 11 months working on it, it was still surprising in parts and finally seeing it all put together was great. Having really great actors in most every role certainly helps bring it to life. Ben Kingsley was particularly good. Here’s the latest ‘Critic’s Spot’:

Tags: Iron Man 3

A new featurette was released today for Iron Man 3. It’s interesting to see the sets in their ‘finished’ form. All of the sets go through so many stages during production. We spend so much time during the construction phase of the sets where we are only seeing them under the awful sodium vapor stage lights. And then we get it built and get ceilings in place and we’re looking at paint finishes with harsh work lights glaring everywhere, it’s still tough to see the ‘big picture’. Then set dressing gets in and puts some practical lighting in place and you can get a little better sense of what you’ve been working on for the past weeks and months, but still it’s not really there completely. Finally on the day of shooting, we get a sense of what the set will look like with the final lighting in place. But even so, many of the sets on this project had greenscreen outside the windows or extensions, so even then it isn’t always possible to see the finished set in all it’s glory. So even though I spent 11 months working on it, it’s still exciting to see a trailer for Iron Man and catch a glimpse of the finished sets.
We had such a good team on this one. Working with Bill Brzeski was great. He brings so much energy as a Production Designer, it’s infectious. Desma Murphy was the Supervising Art director and she did a great job of controlling all of the insanity that happens during production without ever going negative or losing a smile. Jay Pelissier was the other art director with myself. Sharing an office with him was a great time. We could constantly bounce ideas around and debate what would work best for a particular scene or set (not that anyone necessarily listened to us). I look forward to working with them again. Only a few more weeks and it will be out in theaters.

Here’s the featurette:

Tags: Iron Man 3