How A Background In VFX Led Dan Deleeuw to ‘Loki’
‘Loki’ director Dan Deleeuw has been in the VFX game a long time. From doing visual effects work on The Mask and Armageddon, to joining Marvel and working on blockbusters like Avengers Endgame, Deleeuw has seen it all.
Now, however, after working second unit directing jobs on Eternals and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Daleeuw finally got the main director’s chair for the second episode of Season 2 of Loki.
“It was something I always wanted to do. Even from the visual effects standpoint — designing the sequences and doing animatics — telling the story was something I gravitated to. When I got to work with the Russos, they definitely were encouraging of that and gave me the opportunity to shoot additional photography on “Endgame” that led to me doing second unit directing. I just always approach something from a story standpoint. So Kevin Wright saw that I had that kind of brain, and invited me back for Season 2 to direct,” Deleeuw reflects.
A Unique Approach to Directing
According to Deleeuw, coming from a background in visual effects gave him a unique approach to directing.
” I can tell a story with something that isn’t there. In the original draft, there was a car chase. It didn’t make a lot of sense why Loki would be in a car chase. We decided we wanted to go a little bit more towards the dark Loki side and move away from a traditional chase. I was imagining one day, “What could Loki do?” and came up with the shadow gags with the horns and things like that. ”
Supporting Marvel VFX Professionals
A recent development in the field of VFX has been the push towards unionization. Interestingly, the movement to unionize was born at Marvel.
Marvel VFX professionals are fighting for paid overtime and health care. It is a fight that Deleeuw sympathizes with.
I support everything they’re doing. I’ve been in it for a long time. The number of hours in visual effects have been ingrained in the system for years. From the very beginning, we always had that crunch time. We take a couple months off, and we come back to it again. What you’re seeing now is, the shows are so much bigger, and you’ve got so many shows. A lot of the artists on set, and especially in the visual effects houses, are going from one big show to the next big show to the next big show.
There has to be something that makes a better work-life balance, for the artists’ sanity and for their families and just their creativity. Otherwise, you’re getting diminishing returns. It’s your crew. You have to take care of them. That is something I think we have to think about and work out.
Loki Season 2 is now streaming on DIsney+
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