She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has finally found its way to Disney+, offering Marvel Studios’ first comedy. The big challenge is seemingly creating a classic comedy concept with fully CG characters. Director Kat Coiro points out that same challenge in an interview with Variety, as they had to find a way to make the series stand out visually with the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while still playing in a comedic world.
It’s really about pinpointing those comedic scenes that are about rhythm and banter and dialogue, and allowing those to be shot in the way that traditional comedies are — often cross shooting and allowing actors to improvise. Now, you add to that CG characters, and it’s a whole ‘nother level of complex. When you watch the first episode, you see that Mark [Ruffalo] and Tatiana [Maslany] are bantering.
Kat Coiro
She highlights how they found a balance with the VFX, especially in how important it was to be “really prepared” to ensure that they could also have fun with the concept.
There’s a comedic point of view there. They’re also two CGI characters who require incredible amounts of VFX passes. So it was about being really prepared, knowing exactly how we were going into it, so that we could then allow them space to have fun. That really is the challenge. You have to have fun. To have a comedy, there has to be a sense of playfulness. There has to be a sense of trust that you can improvise and go off script and explore things.
Kat Coiro
It definitely sounds like a challenge to go off script with a CG character, especially with the work required to make these characters stand out as realistic as possible. Still, it’s important for a comedy to allow its actors to breathe with the moment-to-moment comedy to add something special to the series. So, it seems they tried their best to have a balance of both.
Source: Variety
