electro is a villain deeply rooted in spider-man lore from the comic books who is able to control electricity a team at Sony Pictures Imageworks developed and built the visual effects elements for Electro's big screen debut in the amazing spider-man 2 played in the movie by Jamie Foxx electro starts out as overlooked Oscorp employee max Dillon he gains his powers after an accident at oscorp's electric eel lab in which he falls into a tank of genetically enhanced electric eels he is mutated into a supercharged mass of energy with misunderstood powers director marc webb stressed to Imageworks
that he wanted to see something unique and unexpected for Electro's effects our inspiration for the look of his surface effect came from lightning and how it lights atmospheric volumes like storm clouds and how neurological networks and synapses would carry the high power voltage through the body so the look we developed was based off the idea that there is an electrical storm active inside of his body he is glowing from within as if his skin is wrapped around energy that is moving through his mutated nervous system depending on his mood the storm can change speed and
color to create the effect we begin with a photograph plate of Jamie Foxx with special effects makeup designed and applied by K&B makeup we then track the image so the effects move in unison with Jamie's skin animators provide nuances to the track to maintain Jamie's performance we created a semblance of internal structure to give familiar details for the light inside to bounce around realistically and created flesh and vein volumes for the energy to light up next our simulation artists anime energy flow along the internal network these are converted into light to make the internal volumes
glow our compositing team integrates these passes into Jamie's performance for the final cop
