The sequel is set to reunite Thor and old flame Jane Foster, played by Natalie Portman, and is meant to be the “craziest” thing Waititi has done. “What I wanted to do from the beginning was to ask: ‘What are people expecting the least from this franchise?’ Oh, I know – a full-blown love story!”
He’s also advanced his use of cutting-edge technology. Waititi is not daunted by the demands of working on big, CGI-heavy films; as an independent filmmaker he had taught himself to understand green screens a long time ago. “I’m constantly working with [the VFX team] to find solutions for things,” he says.
For Thor: Ragnarok, creative studio Satellite Lab developed Dynamiclight, a technique which uses a special rig to move the lighting at eight times the speed of sound. It’s what allowed Waititi to create the visually striking Hela flashback sequence, in which light moves rapidly over footage shot at 1,200 frames per second. In Thor: Love and Thunder, Waititi is excited about a new Satellite Lab technology called PlateLight, which uses the same principle (high-speed lights and slow-motion footage) to capture multiple lighting set-ups simultaneously within a single shot. “And then when you break down that footage into increments of 24 frames per second,” he says, “you have every single kind of lighting, all individually captured. So later you can choose your lighting in post-production.”
Waititi is also continuing his use of Industrial Light & Magic’s StageCraft technology, which he first used while directing the finale of The Mandalorian’s first season. It essentially allows filmmakers to generate reactive digital backdrops in real time (in front of the camera), through LED screens wrapped around a set. Waititi is a fan because, counterintuitively, it harks back to a more “old school” way of making films. “The actors can be in the environment; they can see what everyone else can see.”