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Hi, I'm Mike Seymour from fxguide.com for WIRED.

Captain America is back and so is the helicarrier

from Avengers, or should I say three helicarriers.

It's easy to become blasé about

some of these complex shots,

but to achieve shots at this level

is such an incredible attention to detail.

The texture detail alone on the new ships

is four times that of Avengers.

Industrial Light and Magic were tasked

with updating and upgrading S.H.I.E.L.D.'s

most impressive airborne assests.

And we spoke to Bruce Holcomb,

who supervised the whole building

of the new helicarriers.

When we were first approached

to do the work it seemed like there

weren't too many events that were happening,

and the helicarrier that we had from the Avengers

was going to be just a small upgrade.

And then, by the time of course we reached

to the middle part of the production

there were three of them.

A scale, I think, increased by maybe a fourth,

but the enormity of how many shots we had

were things that we were definitely not prepared for,

and then the scope of the movie

centered around a lot of that.

[Mike] For example, the Quinjets,

these are on each of the carriers.

And every one of these jets

is modeled and textured so carefully,

and yet they're just a tiny part of a shot like this.

[Bruce] Having to wrangle,as heavy as those were,

on top of the deck, cause their in every shot, you know.

They're like eye fodder now, nobody even cares,

and when helicarriers are crashing

all these things are falling off the side and stuff,

and we're just laughing at, they just became

a non-issue.

So let's look a bit more closely

as to what's going on in a shot.

In fact, how much of the shot do you think is real.

Of course we know the helicarrier is 3-D,

and then there's the simulation of it

hitting the 3-D model of the building.

The smoke is all digital.

In addition the each window is modeled

and then shattered, as of course is the debris.

In fact, all of this is digital 3-D animation.

Want to see the only live action in the shot?

Falcon was shot on a green screen,

and then placed in a 3-D set,

which was just here on the building.

Then there's a digital version of Washington

that was placed around the building.

Now we call back in the carrier.

Add those layers of smoke, debris.

Finally add some atmosphere, some camera shake,

and here's the final shot.

The actors are the stars of the film, and rightly so,

but next time you watch an FX sequence like this

have a thought for the digital modeling guys,

and the environment that they provide.

Of course modeling is just part of the process,

but in case you think that we impress easily,

I'm going to leave you with Bruce, who by the way,

would still be adding detail in if he could.

I would have just kept building these things

until somebody fired me,

but in some shots, I went into dailies

and I literally said Wow out loud.

Because some of the shots that they have it in

it is just so real there.

Don't forget to subscribe

for more behind the scenes action.

I'm Mike Seymour, for WIRED.

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