Ultraman: Rising Visual Effects Supervisor Hayden Jones Shares How Netflix Animated Movie "Pushed Boundaries" Of VFX

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Ultraman: Rising

Ultraman: Rising continues the beloved Ultraman universe that first began in the 1960s, with the new Netflix original treading new ground in terms of visuals and storytelling. The film has set itself apart as an original kaiju movie that focuses more on the protection of the giant creatures than battling them, after new protagonist Ken Sato discovers an egg of a baby Gigantron that imprints on him as its parent. The film is directed by duo Shannon Tindle and John Aoshima, who previously collaborated on the 2016 release Kubo and the Two Strings.

Rising marks the introduction of Sato, who's only recently taken up the Ultraman mantle from his father, and must navigate his heroic duty with the duty he has to his own family and Emi. The film has received critical praise for its visual direction, much of which was spearheaded by VFX supervisor Hayden Jones. Jones is an industry veteran in effects, having previously worked on projects like The Mandalorian, Black Mirror, and Agent Carter.

Ultraman: Rising Ending & Post-Credits Scene Explained

Ultraman: Rising ends on a cliffhanger after a major battle in which two generations of heroes come together to protect a baby kaiju and her mother.

Screen Rant interviewed Hayden Jones to discuss designing a baby kaiju for the Ultraman franchise, making the city of Tokyo feel like its own character, and updating a classic tokusatsu and with modern VFX.

Production Babies Truly "Earned Their Credits" With Ultraman: Rising

Balancing New & Old Effects & Crafting A Baby Kaiju

Screen Rant: Can you elaborate on the challenges and the rewards of creating the digital version of Tokyo as a character in Ultraman: Rising? Because that's one of the coolest parts of this, because Tokyo feels like a character itself in this film.

Hayden Jones: Yeah, it does, and actually it was a real challenge, because we really wanted to pay homage to Tokyo and we didn't have a chance. We started the show, it was during a pandemic, so we couldn't fly there. We couldn't go and take photos, so a lot of research was done online. There was a lot of YouTube videos, there was a lot of wandering around on Street View on Google Maps. But also as well, we had a cultural committee that Netflix had put on to make they ran these training sessions where they explained to us what it was like to be Japanese, what it was like to live in Tokyo, some of the nuances, and then all of our teams just really bought into it.

The modeling team got really specific. They found all the details. There's lots of real nuances in Tokyo, so street furniture is different in different districts; bollards in Daikanyama are different to bollards in Nagoro, and you have to know exactly what you're making. We were really specific about all the details, and it was a real joy in the end that I didn't even need to be encyclopedic, because the teams behind me literally knew every single detail, and it is a real joy to bring to the screen.

Have you been to Tokyo since the film came out?

Hayden Jones: No, I'm going actually in a few weeks, and it's going to be a real joy to visit some of the places that we've actually created.

One of the most important things about being Ultraman is finding balance, so how do you balance updating a classic tokusatsu and with modern VFX?

Hayden Jones: It's a really interesting challenge, and I think when you start on a project like this, you have to do your research. You have to know where Ultraman has been so that you can take it on that next step into the future. Obviously, I knew of Ultraman, but I wasn't like a deep Ultraman fan, so I had to do a lot of research when I started the film. Luckily, they gave me a stack of DVDs of all the series. I watched them all, and it was great.

It started off as this really interesting experience, and then suddenly it dawned on me that like, "Oh my God, this is huge, massively culturally important." Suddenly it was like I had to really understand this is very important to a lot of people and we have to make sure we protect it for future generations. We knew we had to take care of every detail, but it was great being able to take from the past, give it our own kind of Ultraman: Rising twist, and see how it could progress into the future. It was beautiful.

Emi is one of the cutest things I've ever seen on screen, and we haven't seen a baby, I don't think, ever. Can you talk about the process of creating Emi?

Hayden Jones: Yeah, so it all starts with the character design, artwork. Everything we do on Ultraman: Rising always starts with a piece of art, and with Emi, it was beautiful. We had beautiful surfacing, so we had color artwork that really showed the texture and the scales and everything like that. But then we had all these beautiful gestural kind of character pieces as well, which showed the flexibility she had.

She's like a real baby, and they are wriggly, but the thing is as well, she's 25 foot tall, so we have to make sure that we balance off the playfulness of being a baby with the scale, and so that involved the animation team. The animation supervisor, Matt Vig, did a tremendous job of collating huge amounts of baby reference; never before on a show have the production babies earned their credits as much as they have on Ultraman: Rising.

But we had this huge catalog of reference from all of the animators worldwide, and it was great because we got the playfulness and then what the animation team did was add the scale. So suddenly you're taking these really small, cute expressions and making them kaiju size and really, really finding the weight and the scale of the character is just brilliant.

The Team Wanted To "Push Boundaries" With Ultraman: Rising

New Techniques & Conceptualizing Sequel Ideas

Tokusatsu is so ingrained in Japanese culture, and I think it works perfect in animation form. How does this open the door for other tokusatsu, like a Kamen Rider or a Super Sentai to be adapted for an animated experience for viewers?

Hayden Jones: I really hope it does. I think one of the interesting things we have at the moment in animation, is animation feels like it's one of the art forms left that is really willing to push boundaries. You see it all the time, especially with Ultraman: Rising, where stylistically it really wanted to create something quite new. We really wanted to push the boundaries of what people were willing to accept as a feature film, and I think that will open the door for lots and lots of different genres to really try something new, really push into new territories.

Were there any specific scenes in Ultraman: Rising where you tried either a new technique or approach for the first time?

Hayden Jones: I think one of the places where we were trying really hard to find something new was in the ocean, the water surfaces. We started off going super stylized, very simple surfaces, very, very stylized kind of shapes. What we first learned was that wasn't really connecting with the size and the power of the ocean, and it kind of distracted from the size and the power of Ultraman and the kaijus. So we went for this hybrid - again, it's balance - bringing an Ultraman theme.

We went for a hybrid approach, where we used a realistic water surface, but then we stylized elements on top of it. So the cresting waves all had stylized little white crests that left behind almost like painterly feeling of foam, and that really felt like a kind of handmade image, and it was - I mean, lots of artists went into it and handcrafted all of these elements, but it really, really bonded with the look of Ultraman: Rising. It was a beautiful thing to bring to the screen.

Ultraman: Rising pushes the limits of animation. Have you already started conceptualizing where you want a sequel to go and what techniques you're going to use for a sequel?

Hayden Jones: I would love a sequel. I'm willing to sign up right now for the sequel. I think there's things you constantly can improve on, and there's things that, stylistically, I think that we can kind of plus. I think also, everything we do is about servicing story with filmmakers. We want to partner with filmmakers and we want to partner with filmmakers who want to tell a really interesting story, and Shannon [Tindle] and John [Aoshima] have really told an interesting story visually, and we've done things on this that I think we can push forward in our next film together.

Now I want to talk about Shannon and John since we're talking about filmmakers. Can you talk about working with them as collaborators on this project?

Hayden Jones: Yeah, it's been one of the most collaborative, most joyous experiences of my career. I've worked with Shannon before on Lost Ollie, which is why we ended up working together on Ultraman: Rising, and it was just such a wonderful experience. Both Shannon and John really the VFX team, so it's not a kind of like Netflix and ILM. It's like we're one Ultraman team and everybody - there was 550 people at ILM working on Ultraman: Rising. Every single one of them belonged to the Ultraman team, and we all felt like we were making this thing with Netflix together, and that's important for making a really beautiful film.

More About Ultraman: Rising (2024)

With Tokyo under siege from rising monster attacks, baseball star KEN SATO reluctantly returns home to take on the mantle of Ultraman. But the titanic superhero meets his match when he adopts a 35-foot-tall, fire-breathing baby kaiju. Sato must rise above his ego to balance work and parenthood while protecting the baby from forces bent on exploiting her for their own dark plans. In partnership with Netflix, Tsuburaya Productions, and Industrial Light & Magic, ULTRAMAN: RISING is written by Shannon Tindle and Marc Haimes, directed by Shannon Tindle, and co-directed by John Aoshima.

Check out our other Ultraman: Rising interviews here:

Ultraman: Rising is available to stream now on Netflix.

Source: Screen Rant Plus