How ‘Wicked’ Made Its Army of Monkeys Fly Like a Convocation of Eagles

Of all the wondrous “Wicked” VFX (both digital and practical, including the talking animals, the Emerald City Express, the large wooden Wizard head, and the “Defying Gravity” showstopper), the most surprising was the transformation of Chistery, the armored guard who leads the Wizard’s (Jeff Goldblum) flying army of snow monkeys.

While the transformation was merely a throwaway in the Broadway musical, it is treated much more dramatically in Jon M. Chu’s film adaptation. When Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) unwittingly casts a spell on Chistery and the other monkeys, they sprout wings and become spies for the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). After Elphaba refuses to join him, she is branded the Wicked Witch and chased by the monkeys before flying away during her transformational “Defying Gravity” moment.

For ILM vet Pablo Helman, the film’s production VFX supervisor, the transformation was an unexpected highlight that expanded beyond the original concept. This was partly due to editor Myron Kerstein, who pitched the idea to make sprouting wings painful for Chistery, inspired by the classic Universal monster movies.

“It was a difficult thing,” Helman told IndieWire. “You learn through the process of closeup creature work in this business, but not all creatures are built for closeup work, and sometimes they’re not part of the edit because they don’t have them. So then we come in, and we start pitching things, especially with the transformation stuff that has to do with feathers piercing through skin and the fact this transformation is not really welcomed by these monkeys. So I love the fact that it’s painful. He [Chistery] loves birds and wants to secretly be like a bird and fly, and this shows how painful it would be to do that.”

‘Wicked’Universal

The transformation further reveals how Elphaba can’t control her magical powers, which added to the complexity of the animation for ILM. “There was this idea that we had to get the wings out from under the uniforms,” Helman continued. “And we had to break the materials. Because they penetrate, it’s very difficult to undo all that stuff. And so Jon had this idea that it was going to be a progressive thing.

“First, it was going to be one wing, and it’s going to push until it broke the materials,” he said. “And, at the beginning, it’s like a chicken kind of thing: It’s wet, and you don’t really understand what it is. Until the second wing comes up and this is very, very painful. And then the monkey starts to fly, but it’s not very successful. Then you think it’s over and realize there’s 118 monkeys that are going through this.”

Originally, the monkey army was comprised of a dozen, but Kerstein pitched 100 to heighten the jeopardy when chasing Elphaba and Galinda (Ariana Grande). “It was a great idea because I think the movie has an epic universe,” added Helman. “And it’s very difficult when you’re going with interior sets to give a bigger appearance, but I always advocate for using visual effects as a tool in this context.”

Although there was no motion capture involved in the animation of Chistery, Robin Guiver portrayed him on set with his character movement. The ILM animators reference ape behavior for the CG facial expressions and movements. They also studied eagles for the way the monkeys flew and landed. This helped determine the unorthodox rigging. The difficulty was organically blending a monkey with an eagle. “Those wings were very difficult in CG, but Jon wanted to see the monkeys fly very elegantly like an eagle,” Helman continued. “So we really had to put those two things together in terms of the design: the flying mechanics of an eagle with an animal not designed to fly. And the weight becomes important. What happens when you see him flying?

“Jon’s idea was these monkeys are like a little kitty or a dog that you put in the water and they just keep doing this thing,” Helman said. “The design was this combination. But whatever your eyes are doing, your body goes with it. So those are the kinds of concepts we put in the animation.”