My latest article lands over at ILM.com as I chat with ILM Visual Effects Supervisor Pablo Helman about the monumental work that went into bringing Wicked: For Good to the silver screen, a project that paired with Wicked (2024) signified 155 days of shooting and two years of intense VFX work.

Loaded with sequences of dizzying visual complexity, Industrial Light & Magic was tasked with bringing Chu’s vision to vivid, yellow-bricked life. ILM.com had the opportunity to sit down with the production’s four-time Oscar-nominated visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman to discuss Wicked: For Good and the task of unveiling even more of Munchkinland, Shiz University, and the Emerald City.

“It was a 155-day shoot for a two-part story,” says Helman. “We thought of Wicked and Wicked: For Good as one movie, and we shot it that way.” That meant intense preparation and planning, given the logistical and technical nature of certain sequences in the films.

“Visual effects can often be challenging because you’re asking the director, the editor, and everybody else to think about things that they normally don’t want to think about,” explains Helman. “A director is thinking of the whole story, but we’re asking them to look at specific sequences because we need to turn over a certain number of shots. They don’t like to be presented with choices because they think they’ve already made their choice, so why present another one? That means they have to rethink, and that takes time.”

Jon Chu was open to the challenge. “Jon takes an organic approach to filmmaking, he loves having choices and different possibilities,” Helman says. “There might be a script and a plan in place, but the process of making a major motion picture still has plenty of fluidity. “Lots of things change throughout the process of filming, and there are lots of choices to make.”