Usually when you hear a movie is going back for re-shoots, it means it's bad. But, in the case of The Amazing Spider-Man this was obviously an exception. Back in 2011, ComicBookMovie reported that they were filming re-shoots in New York City and some panicked. Since the film is widely regarded as a raging success the re-shoots were a good thing.

Warren Drummond is an excellent artist who also worked on Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and A Beautiful Mind. He's one of the storyboard artists that worked on The Amazing Spider-Man and shared his experience with me. He also sent me some exclusive storyboards from the film.



How did you get involved in the project?
I originally got a call from the production designer, Michael Riva in early 2010. I was on the movie ABDUCTION and couldn't take the gig. I was heart broken as I am a life long Spider-Man geek. [J. Michael Riva] (production designer) unfortunately recently died weeks ago while on Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. I never had the chance to work with him on a daily basis. Good man.

Last fall, the production supervisor JoAnn Perritano, whom I had worked with on other films called me in when the movie was about to do additional photography or "reshoots".

This is done when there is new footage that needs to be added do to various reasons. In this case, director Marc Webb wanted to explore some ideas that were not shot initially, like the first time Captain Stacy sees Spider-man.

I was told I'd get about a week's worth of work. I got about five weeks as Marc kept coming up with good ideas and I guess he liked the way I worked. The three storyboard artists who got screen credit did the lion's share of the work, but I did some cool stuff.

Q: I notice there were quite a few close ups and tracking shots. Were these from the director or your own designs?
Marc had a basic camera idea for every scene he had me do. Many of the shots were planned by him, but he let me be creatively free and involved. I was able to contribute, but ultimately, he had the final say on the shots, which worked out fine. Smart filmmaker.

Q: What was it like working on Spider-Man?
A dream come true. I grew up on John Romita Sr's drawing and his son JRjr is a buddy. I keep missing the opportunity to get on these super-hero films. I did to do one reshoot scene for X MEN: FIRST CLASS, but I was in and out. Maybe this will up my "Cape Cred".

See more of Warren Drummond storyboards at WarrenDrummond.com

What do you think of the storyboards?

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Ed Natividad is a master concept artist. His most famous work is on Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, but he recently lent his skills to The Amazing Spider-Man.

I got in touch with him recently and he shared some tidbits on the designs for the film including why he designed the web-shooters using bicycle parts and helping to design the "iconic suit."  he also sent me some high-resolution images of his work.

Click images to enlarge

 

"Concerning the web shooters, It had always been an issue with me how he could produce an infinite variety of web configurations with one push of a button. After discussions with the production designer, J. Michael Riva, I based the new web shooter nozzle with that of an actual spider." Natividad said.

"All have several 'spinnerets' which discharge the web for a respective function. I visualized there to be three or four independent nozzles which can intertwine the silk to form rope or construct a wide net, ect... It wasn't fashioned after a specific species of spider in this case. 

"Ultimately, the web shooter hardware was to be constructed from items accessible to Peter Parker such as watch and bicycle parts."

"Conceptualizing a new Spiderman suit was the next challenge. Under the direction of costume designer Kym Barrett, we set out for a month or two exploring several departures for the character. However, after due diligence, it was time to combine some of those elements with the graphic of the iconic suit.

"Everyone felt that too much of a departure would upset the fans, so the evolution would be in the details and textures."

See more of Ed Natividad's portfolio at EdNatividad.com. Please note that I previously used the wrong website as his official site. This has since been corrected.

@2012 Ed Natividad, Marvel Enterprises, Columbia Pictures. Used with permission. All rights reserved

What do you think of the illustrations? Does it make sense to have the spinnerets?

Related Posts

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• Concept Artist George Hull Shares His Thoughts on 'The Amazing Spider-Man' 
• The 'Amazing Spider-Man' Concept Artist Ron Mendell Says Web Was 'Challenging'

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Spider-Man has been an enduring character since he first appeared back in 1963. After hundreds of comics, and several movies, he returned to the screen in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012). Concept artist Jerad S Marantz (I Am Legend, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Green Lantern) has worked on some of the biggest films in the industry. 

I got a chance to have an exclusive interview with him about working on the film The Amazing Spider-Man. He talks about working with the studio, what it was like to help design the Spider-Man suit and why concept art often looks so different from the final design.



Q: What Work Did You Do On The Amazing Spider-Man?
I was on the show for a while. At the time, I was the lead artist at the Aaron Simms Company and I did a lot of concepts for the lizard and the new spidey suit.

Q: There's A Wide Range Of Designs For "The Lizard." Was There A Point Where The Studio Said It's Gone Too Far?
In all honesty, concept artists may start the design process with a version of the creature or character that they would love to see in the film, but we are really there to help realize what the director and studio wants. How that usually works is I’ll do a first pass and the client says, "Eh, more human. Less human. More based on this reptile. Not so much iguana." Till the process gets filtered down and that's how any concept design gig really works.

That's why, often times, you'll see concept art that does not exactly match what appears on-screen.  There are a lot of designers on a show like Spider-man that all contribute to the design process. The final product is often times pieced together from the best elements of many different concepts from different artists.

Q: Just Focusing On This One Illustration. This Lizard Has A Very Human Face. Who Did You Use As A Model?
That was an actor. There's a likeness in there for him. Oftentimes when you're doing concept art you have to design a character around an actor the studio really wants to cast. It happened on Green Lantern when I designed one of Phillip Seymore Hoffman for the character of Hector Hammond. Sometimes I feel as if a concept artist plays a small roll cast actors for these films.

Editor's Note: There was talk that Michael Fassbender was going to play a villain in Columbia's The Amazing Spider-Man, but he went with Fox's X-Men: First Class instead. No doubt the above concept art was designed with his face.

Q: The Spider Man Costume Is Very Different From The Traditional Design. Was That A Concern?
You know, its funny no one seems that upset about the suit now. When I originally did an interview with ComicBookMovie.com  the suit was already released and some people weren't very happy with it at the time.

You know I'm a comic book geek myself and some fans don't take into account how many Spider-Man suits there have actually been. There was even a Spider-Man suit created by Tony Stark and it was red and gold and was made out of Iron Man parts. There have been so many versions.

Costume designer Kym Barrett designed the suit for the film and did an amazing job. She would come by the office from time to time and give me notes. I really enjoyed working with her.

Q: What's It Like Seeing Your Design In The Final Film?
It still feels incredible. Its what I hope happens throughout the entire process.

See more of Jerad S. Marantz' portfolio at his blog jeradsmarantz.blogspot.com and you can see more of his work on upcoming films like G.I. Joe: Retaliation and the FX television show American Horror Story.

What do you think of Marantz' illustrations? Did you like his designs for the film?

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I spoke with Ron Mendell about working on the film The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and helping to design Peter Parker's webshooters.

Director Marc Webb was adamant about getting back to the mechanical webshooters from the comic books. 

"I had a meeting with Stan Lee and we talked about the web-shooters," Webb said. "I was curious about the incarnation of them [because] of course in the previous films [they went away from them] and we wanted to reestablish ourselves. That was one thing but the other thing was the fact that the web-shooters were able to dramatize Peter's intellect and I thought that was really cool. ... It was in the comics and we have a different design but it's a cool element to have. It's not something we over-use or over-exploit. To me, it's something I remember from when I was a kid and thinking 'It would be cool if I could build those.'"

Artist Ron Mendell (Batman & Robin, Iron Man, Star Trek 2009) talked about what it was like to work on the film.

"In this movie, the creators wanted to really explain where all the cool stuff comes from this time." Mendell said. "Based on original comic pages, I worked on initial re-designs for the web shooter mechanism on Peter's wrist as well as what the web itself would look like."

He also did design and airbrush work for a swirling rainbow-like logo that is in the lobby of OSCORP. It is an organic clear acrylic wave in a donut shape. He added, "I painted it with candy clears and it looked very cool."

Of all the designs he said designing the web itself was most challenging. Mendell said. "Trying to explain how a man made synthetic would respond like a spider's web and make it look cool took a lot of passes."

Next, Ron is working on Looper, G.I. Joe 2, Oblivion, Oz: The Great and Powerful, Iron Man 3 and Hunger Games 2

See more of Ron Mendell's portfolio at http://www.ronmendell.com

What do you think of the interview? Did you learn something new?

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The Amazing Spider-Man set a record grossing $35 million opening day. George Hull (The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions, Battleship) was asked by the late production designer J. Michael Riva to design a few major set pieces of the film. He "touched on" several things but primarily designed the Oscorp Tower, the Lizard's doomsday device and props, and the Oscorp laboratory/web rooms.

Since the film was very grounded in reality, he said there weren't too many crazy designs. "The film was fairly modest in its conceptual design. That is there weren't giant robots or over the top environments to create." He said, "The items were very specific and I had a lot of notes dictating how the designs should work within the story beats."

Despite this modest design there were a lot of problem solving and limitations, and it reminded him of his Industrial Design background. "When you design products for  the real world application, looking cool is only half of it, there are a lot of restrictions." Hull said. "But I had recently finish a few very high concept design projects like Battleship and Cloud Atlas, so I enjoyed the change."

 

"As a conceptual thinker, I am always looking for artistic challenges in some way. Sometimes a film maker and story asks for fantastic set pieces, landscapes, machines, etc. But not every film is like that and it would be boring if that were the case. For example, on the Amazing Spiderman, one of the items I was tasked with was to make the Oscorp tower look cool, elegant, but not too sci-fi or fantastic. It needed to have certain staging platforms, ramps etc. for a fight sequence. So I did a lot of revisions making that work for the production designer.

"Then the challenge comes in flexing my architectural muscles and turning my stylist brain off for a while. I would say to myself  'well if there isn't a huge aesthetic challenge (blue sky architectural or prop design) , then I will push myself in other ways.' I worked more 3-D on this film than I usually do, so I could fly around tower and offer exciting camera perspectives, or get into the set design specifics more than a concept artist typically does."

The production designer, J. Michael Riva, recently passed away and George shared his thoughts on working with him. "Working with Mike Riva was a huge, huge plus. I worked with him on Iron Man and Spiderman" Hull sadly added "I need to say he was truly an immense talent and an amazingly friendly human being."

You can see more of George Hull's work envisioning a futuristic Seoul Korea in the movie THE CLOUD ATLAS. Then in March 2013, he's worked on the movie ELYSIUM from District 9 director Neil Blookamp.

Be sure to check out more The Amazing Spider-Man illustrations and more of George Hull's portfolio at ghull.com 

What do you think of the illustrations?

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• Artists of 'The Amazing Spider-Man'

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BREAKING NEWS
Are we looking at Iron Man's Extremis nanotech armor? The answer is no.

The first concept art from Iron Man 3 has been released and, not surprisingly, it's by Marvel's in-house artist Ryan Meinerding (Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, Iron Man). The level of detail is astounding of course and we have no idea what the context is, but it's very dramatic.

The artist has named it "Caged" and the idea fits what Marvel producer Kevin Feige has described. "We wanted to take Tony back to, metaphorically speaking, the cave from Iron Man, the first half of Iron Man, when he's cut off from the world and needs just focus on his intellects to get himself out of his situation." Feige said "So he's not calling Thor, he's not calling Captain America, he can't press a special button to have the helicarrier come rescue him, so I think that'll be a nice complement to the team up of Avengers."

Marvel adds this description:
"Tony Stark looks like he could use a little help in this new piece of concept art by Ryan Meinerding from 'Iron Man 3'!

"But who's Tony up against, and what do they want with him? We can't say, but we know that May 3, 2013 can't come quick enough. So from now until then, keep your eyes on Marvel.com and visit our "Iron Man 3" hubpage for even more on the next chapter in Shellhead's saga."

Some have speculated that this armor is coming out of Tony Stark's body like his Extremis armor.

For those not familiar, this is how Wikipedia describes the Extremis armor from the comics
Extremis has been referred to as a "virus" constantly since the story.

The verbatim description offered by its inventor Maya Hansen, goes: "...Extremis is a super-soldier solution. It's a bio-electronics package, fitted into a few billion graphite nanotubes and suspended in a carrier fluid. A magic bullet, like the original super-soldier serum—all fitted into a single injection. It hacks the body's repair center—the part of the brain that keeps a complete blue print of the human body. When we're injured, we refer to that area of the brain to heal properly. Extremis rewrites the repair center. In the first stage, the body essentially becomes an open wound. The normal human blueprint is being replaced with the Extremis blueprint, you see? The brain is being told the body is wrong. Extremis protocol dictates that the subject be placed on life support and intravenously fed nutrients at this point. For the next two or three days, the patient remains unconscious within a cocoon of scabs. (...) Extremis uses the nutrients and body mass to grow new organs. Better ones..."

Could this be the first example of this armor? Let's see.

This is what we've already seen in the first set photo.

Robert Downey Jr. on Iron Man 3 set

Notice Iron Man's armor on the table? It matches exactly what we're seeing in the concept art.

So, this armor is a physical construct, not a nanobot generated one.

Very cool though and I can't wait to see more from this film.

Ryan Meinerding's website is http://boyrobot.com although it's been dead for a while. His Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/ryan.meinerding.

About the movie:
Offical Synopsis: Hitting theaters May 3, 2013, “Iron Man 3” returns Robert Downey, Jr. as the iconic super hero character Tony Stark/Iron Man along with Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Don Cheadle as James “Rhodey” Rhodes and Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan.

Directed by Shane Black and starring Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Don Cheadle (War Machine), Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts) and Guy Pearce (Aldrich Killian).

Official site: Marvel.com

Via Entertainment Weekly and MTV

@2012 Marvel Entertainment All rights reserved

What do you think of the illustration? Do you think this is Iron Man's Extremis armor?

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Updated:  Jerad S. Merantz, Eddie Yang, Ed Natividad
Here are some of the artists that worked on the science-fiction film The Amazing Spider-Man (2012). There are many talented artists involved in the production of a film. These are only some of them according to IMDb and my own research.

Official Synopsis:
Like most teenagers his age, Peter [played by Andrew Garfield] is trying to figure out who he is and how to be the person he is today. In his journey to put the pieces of his past together he uncovers a secret that his father [Campbell Scott] held… a secret that will ultimately shape his destiny as Spider-Man. This is the first in a series of movies that tells a different side of the Peter Parker story.

Production Design by J. Michael Riva

Concept Artists

• Simon Webber http://siweb.cghub.com/
• James Carson http://www.jamescarsondesign.com
• Paul Catling IMDb
• Matt Codd http://mattcodd.com/
• James Lima http://www.shinynewtv.com
• Ron Mendell http://www.ronmendell.com/
• Josh Nizzi www.joshnizzi.com
• Fabian Lacey http://www.fabianlacey.com
• Gloria Shih IMDb
• E.J. Krisor IMDb
• George Hull www.ghull.com/
• Ed Natividad ednatividad.com
• Jonathan Bach http://jbachdesign.blogspot.com/
• Jerad S. Merantz  jeradsmarantz.blogspot.com/
• Eddie Yang http://www.eddieyang.com/index.html

Storyboard Artists

• Robert Consing IMDb
• Warren Drummond http://warrendrummond.com
• Dan Sweetman IMDb
• Amy Lynn Umezu http://www.amyumezuart.com/

Official Site: www.theamazingspiderman.com


If you know of any artists who worked on the film, or know a website I missed, let me know via email or in the comments and I'll add them.

What do you think of the artists? Did you see the movie or plan to?

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