Today I had the most amazing privilege to talk to one of the animators for Iron Man 3 (whose name I cannot remember right now).
It was the most amazing experience I think I've had in a long long time. He was awesome, and told us a lot of really neat stuff about working on the animation end of an Iron Man movie.
I thought that maybe other people might be interested to see what he had to say, so I've paraphrased some Q&A that I had with him.
Some Iron Man 3 Spoilers may be included


Did you ever get to meet Robert Downey Jr.?
No, we never met any of the actors or actresses on the movie.

How long is a movie's CGI being worked on?
Well, it depends on the movie how long it takes. The more VFX in the movie, the longer it takes to animate and such. Most superhero movies start the animations 6 months or so before the "final cut" of the film.

Is it stressful to work on the movies?
Oh yes. Definitely.

What other projects have you or are you working on?
I have worked on the other two Iron Man movies, as well as Oblivion and other Marvel movies. Currently my team and I are working on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Thor 2: The Dark World. We might also be in line for a few other Marvel movies in the future.

Can you give me any spoilers for either of those?
*he gave me a very very vague spoiler. That I won't tell you*
I have signed so many documents I'm honestly not sure what I am allowed to say and what I am not allowed to say.

I noticed in one of the trailers, when the Mandarin was pulling his hood down-
The Captain America tattoo?

Yes! What was that all about? I never saw it in the movie.
No, that sequence was not in the movie. I don't know why it was there, because I work on the movie itself. Not the trailers. But I don't know why it was there.

Maybe just a little easter egg for fans?
Maybe. I don't know.

I'd heard rumors that Iron Man 3 was the end of Iron Man's standalone films. Is that true?
I don't know much about that. I know that Kevin Feige doesn't like Robert Downey Jr. much at all, and would be all for recasting Tony Stark. And RDJ wants more money for it all.

But he got $50 million for Iron Man 3!
Yes, but he's... what, 48?

I think he's 51 or so.
Regardless, he's getting up there. We actually had to do some reverse aging effects on him for a lot of the movie, especially in the beginning where he is supposed to be younger.

Yeah. I noticed that... it was kind of weird.
It would be! A few of the actors had to have that done to them. But Gwyneth Paltrow didn't need it any more than once. The scene where she's in the Iron Man suit, bending over Tony to protect him when the mansion blows up, we had to fix a few things there. The relighting we did made her pores look like mountains on her face, so we fixed those up. But she is actually that fit. Many actors and actresses get little tummy-tucks or wrinkle smoothing, but not her.

What do you know about the future of Marvel Movies?
Well, nothing past Stage 2 has been released publicly yet. That includes Captain America, Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant Man, and Avengers 2. It ends in 2015.

Do you know anything about some of the rumors that have been flying around? People are saying there are movies coming for new characters and some reboots for old ones.
Like what?

Uhmm... Venom
That's a Spider-Man related thing, so that's all Sony.

Daredevil?
I haven't heard anything about that, but I hope they don't do another one of those.

Do you think they're leading up to the Civil War?
I'm not super familiar with comics, but I've heard of that somewhere before...

The government passes the Superhero Registration Act, requiring all superfolk to register their true identities and their power sets with the government. Cap is leader of the anti-registration group, and Iron Man leads the pro-registration team.
Sounds cool, but I'm not sure if that will ever happen. A couple of Marvel's characters have been sold to other companies.

Like X-Men and Spider-Man.
Yes.

Like, Spidey is owned by Sony, but they loose the rights if they don't make a movie within 5 years of the last one. That's why this new reeboot came so soon.
Exactly. In fact, Sony waited until the very last minute to start filming The Amazing Spider-Man. They own the rights to Spider-Man for 7 movies.

7 movies only? So that means that this new trilogy will be the last Spider-Man movies under Sony.
Yes, unless they repurchase the rights. Which will be interesting to see, because Marvel could use Spider-Man in their Avengers movies and Sony has made more money than any other franchise off of Spider-Man  (they were the company with the most profits this movie year, what with both Skyfall and Spider-Man).

I just want you to know that you do an amazing job. I watched a video of Iron Man when it was in progress, no CGI or anything, and I was like WHOA! There's actually a suit!
Yeah. There have been interviews with Robert Downey Jr. where he talks about the suit. It's a lot bulkier in real life and needs a fake chest to put in the arc reactor, but it actually has lights and the face mask actually opens up and tucks back into the helmet.

Wow. That's so neat. Thank you so much for sharing all this with me. It was a huge privilege to talk to you!


Some Other Interesting Facts from the Interview
- Daft Punk will be doing the Tron 3 soundtrack
- Feige is keeping Stages 3 and 4 super hush-hush
- Guardians of the Galaxy has a raccoon anthro in it
- Iron Man is definitely in Guardians of the Galaxy

Some Other Interesting Facts from the Internet
- Coulson didn't die: [link]
- Dr. Strange movie on the way: [link]
- Ms. Marvel, Iron Fist, Power Man/Luke Cage, Blade, and Black Panther coming up?: [link]
- Falcon in The Winter Soldier!: [link]