'Spider-Verse' Filipino artist Aldo Scarella makes waves
Published Jun 4, 2023 01:07 pm
Pinoy FX artist Aldo Scarella (Facebook)
After releasing “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” in 2018, the Oscar-winning animated film has once again shown its fans a sequel that features visually appealing scenes and a game-changer of animation styles. Part of the amazing team of animators of Sony Picture's "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" is Aldo Scarella, a former information technology employee from Quezon City, who now works as a Sony Imageworks FX artist for Sony in Vancouver, Canada. In an email interview, Aldo shared some of the challenges that he experienced and how it became a fun routine for him to work on the sequel.
Aldo explained, ''The main challenge was coming up with fx elements that matched the many different art styles in the movie. As you can see from the trailers, each character's universe is extremely stylized. Most of the time fx elements are supposed to look as real as possible, but in this case, we had to push ourselves creatively, think outside the box, and at times throw reality and physics out the window.''
The Filipino artist also shared that he doesn't have any particular favorite scenes while working on the film but when he does a funny scene, it usually adds a little bit of satisfaction to him.
Aldo grew up in Quezon City for 21 years, and just like the characters in the film, he took a leap of faith. At the age of 27, Aldo left his job as an IT employee at Hewlett-Packard, moved to Vancouver to study visual effects and never looked back.
Before working on the newest Spider-Man movie, his name has been credited on several films such as, ''Man of Steel'', ''Maleficent'', ''Godzilla'', ''Into the Storm'', and Oscar-winning effects for ''Life of Pi.''
Aldo said that Spider-man was also his favorite superhero.
''My favorite superhero growing up was Spider-Man. His powers were so unique but at the same time he was down-to-earth. He had super strength but would stress out about everyday things. You could idolize him and relate to him at the same time'' he said.
Throughout his childhood, being creative was never new to him because both of his parents loved the world of art.
'My dad was in finance and my mother was an architect. They both loved art (they still do) and made it a point for art to play a big part in our childhood,''
he said. Working in the movie industry for a long time, it was not an easy journey for Aldo. His advice to all aspiring Pinoy artists is to be a good communicator, do what you love, and practice.
Images from '
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse'
courtesy of Columbia Pictures
''My advice would be three things. The first is to be a good communicator. Making a movie is such a collaborative endeavor and it's really key that you can have productive discussions with all sorts of people. The second is to maintain that love and passion for your craft. This will help you get through the tough days, and also maintain your artistic energy at a consistently high level. The last would be to get good at what you do. Practice, practice, practice, even when you don't feel like it.'' ''Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse'' is now showing in cinemas nationwide. The film stars Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Jake Johnson, Issa Rae, Daniel Kaluuya, and Jason Schwartzman. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Connect with the hashtag #SpiderVerse