As for Namor’s attack on the Wakandan throne room, Baumann outlined what the scene needed and how they made it a reality. “So there was initial conversation just conceptually with Ryan about Namor throwing hydro bombs at the window. We knew that then the glass would explode, and then there were conversations that we had that kind of trickled into post with regards to what’s made out of Vibranium, what breaks and what doesn’t break,” he explained. “We did cheat some of those in there because, just impactfully, we needed the glass to break, but we wanted to keep some structure there of the window.”
“And then, once we knew roughly what we wanted, previz stepped in and started to shot design what it could look like,” he added. “Along with Autumn, our DP, she and Scott Meadows, our previz supervisor, worked together to design the shots along with Ryan. Then Dan, I think, kind of takes it from there and starts presenting different types of cannons or dump tanks to Ryan to determine what the look is. Then I think from there, Dan… If you maybe want to run with it from that point, once you understood how Ryan wanted the look, then you tested stuff in the parking lot.”
“We took the previz,” Sudick continued. “Once you have the previz dialed in to that specific point, you take the hydro bomb—it has to be a forceful impact. It couldn’t be slow; it couldn’t build and strain. So we eliminated dump tanks pretty early because of the time it takes for the water to get velocity. So we designed something that could be an explosion of water that would replicate the hydro bombs.”
“We ended up building six very large water cannons and projecting nearly 15 tons of water through that window opening into the set. And at the same time, we plumbed the set with some plumbing so we could basically flood the set the instant the water from the windows came into the set, so we can wash her down into the glass,” he said, then confirmed, “We had people in the shots.”
“We had two stunts. I mean, Angela [Bassett] was in a little section,” Baumann revealed. “There is a tight shot in that film where we were on her head, and I think, Craig, we augmented it a little bit, but for the most part, there was a lot of plate photography with Angela in that, but then there were stunt doubles in there as well.”
