“Brand New Day’s” VFX Supervisor Says the Digital Suit Is So Expensive That the Stunt Team Carries Everything It Can
- Chris Waegner is the visual effects supervisor on "Spider-Man: Brand New Day."
- He says swapping a performer for a digital Spider-Man is slow and costly, so the team keeps practical footage wherever it can.
- The handoff to digital usually happens at the moment of impact, so the stunt performer does not take the hit.
Posted: October 21, 2026
The argument for shooting it practically is usually made by the stunt department. On Spider-Man: Brand New Day, it is being made by the visual effects supervisor. Chris Waegner, at Sony Pictures Imageworks, told CinemaBlend that a digital suit replacement is expensive in artist hours: the shot has to be rotomated frame by frame off the live performer, then the suit wrinkles go on, then a muscle simulation goes on top of that. Leave out the fine detail — the muscle twitches, the way fabric creases — and, in his words, it does not look correct.
That cost is why the practical plate wins by default. Waegner says anything captured in camera is reference the department wants, and that the production used as much of the real swinging as it could. The place the work goes digital is the end of the move: a sequence starts on a practical Spider-Man, and the takeover happens as the figure hits the ground or a parked car, so the stunt performer is not eating the impact. That is the same line a coordinator would draw — but here it is drawn from the VFX side of the bay, with a budget attached.
The skin-tight suit is what makes this picture harder than an armoured hero. There is no shell to hide behind, so every bit of body mechanics has to survive the digital replacement — which is also the reason the department leaned on the photography. Waegner credits Tom Holland's gymnastics background and body control for getting into Spider-Man shapes naturally on camera, which is exactly what makes the live-action plate worth protecting. Holland and Zendaya were lifted 110 feet off the ground for one swinging sequence they performed together.
For performers and coordinators, the useful read is the economics: on a show of this size, the practical take is not being preserved out of principle. It is being preserved because replacing it costs more.
Learn more on IMDb: Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)
