• One Piece took an old-fashioned approach to visual effects, using CGI sparingly and emphasizing practical effects and actual set designs.
  • The production team prioritized creating a believable and immersive world for the film adaptation, while avoiding over-reliance on visual effects as in Star Wars.
  • Visual effects professionals spoke out against the industry’s abuse, and Disney and Marvel Studios were called “hooligans” for demanding excessive work on tight deadlines.

In 2023, the conversation about the use of CGI in movies and TV shows is more important than ever. Not only because fans have criticized blockbusters for it, but because visual effects professionals are tired of the way Hollywood does its job, so they are mobilizing their industries to unionize. In an interview with Collider Mike Thomasproduction designer Richard Bridgeland showed what was One pieceapproach to visual effects.

Since the action takes place in a fantasy world with huge monsters around and Luffy (Inaki Godoy) by stretching your body to an impossible length, it’s safe to say that One piece worked hard on computer graphics. But Bridgeland said that when it came to sets, practical effects and actual construction were the norm, with the production team taking a cue from the days when TV shows and movies were made before computers could help:

“We only used visual effects to expand the world beyond the sets, but it was quite an old movie. We built big sets and it was similar to each other. It was really important for One Piece to feel credible and not something between an action game and an anime. If there were too many visual effects, like, let’s say, a lot of Star Wars stuff is filmed this way, it wouldn’t feel like the real world, and it was really important that when doing the live action version, it felt like the real thing. place, but just a sort of parallel world.”

one piece zoroThe TV and film industries are facing a big change in visual effects work.

Most of One piece The world is, of course, the sheer number of pirate ships that populate the franchise. Through the trailers and other promotional material we’ve seen so far, Netflix has made it clear that the production team intends to build these ships on location in Cape Town, Africa, including the Going Merry and even the Baratie, of course. which looks like it’s pretty hard to build in real life.

In recent months, visual effects specialists have accused the studios of being abusive when it comes to their work, and have called Disney and Marvel Studios real “hooligans” when it comes to the amount of work they have to do. to complete the work in an obviously impossible time frame. This is true for the entire segment, and a direct consequence of this is the reduction in the quality of special effects in some productions.

Netflix premieres One piece this Thursday, August 31st. You can watch the latest trailer below: