Go behind a gravity-defying ‘Wicked’ flight

Over a thousand artists and production crew members from more than five countries brought together director Jon M. Chu’s enchanting musical “Wicked,” which tells the story of the unlikely friendship between Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), long misunderstood and ostracized due to her green skin, and the cheerfully popular Glinda (Ariana Grande). Visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman says it’s a testament to the “importance of collaboration” for the ambitious project that combined massive practical sets with alluring CG work. For the film’s climactic “Defying Gravity” sequence, Chu shared his vision using a scale model that was then interpreted by each department. “Jon is somebody who shoots for the characters. The internal, the relationships,” notes Helman. “All the visual effects that we talked about had to do with storytelling.” What that meant was creating a dynamic scene that connected to the rising emotional journey. Erivo extensively rehearsed the flying portion, which was shot using wires and against a blue screen. Adding to the realism was her request to sing live to an on-set audience. “The benefit of having the actors engaged is that you feel it. You feel the emotion and the connection between them,” Helman says. “If you don’t start with the performances being truthful, you’ll never get it.”