Inside Ant-Man: Quantumania | Virtual Production & Collaborating with Key Creatives
- Carlos Fueyo
- Apr 4
- 9 min read
Updated: Apr 14
Working in pre-production as an Art Director in Unreal Engine comes with its own set of challenges, and few projects spotlight that pressure like Ant-Man: Quantumania. I had the chance to sit at the intersection of the film’s key creatives - the Director, Production Designer, and DP. Here’s what I learned from navigating one of Marvel’s most ambitious virtual productions.
How Did I End Up in the Quantum Realm?
The wildest parts of Quantumania weren’t on screen. They were in the early mornings, the real-time reviews, and the creative chaos that shaped every pixel.
I joined Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania as the Virtual Art Department Supervisor at a pivotal moment in my career. I had left behind Los Angeles and the visual effects world to focus on transferring my skill set to real-time filmmaking. I spent two years learning Unreal Engine, rethinking how production and post-production could work, and pushing the boundaries of this evolving workflow.
One day, I got a message from Felix Jorge. We spoke for over an hour about his studio’s work on The Mandalorian and a new, undisclosed project on the horizon. At the time, I was only working on my own short films and had stepped away from the day-to-day industry grind. But Felix’s energy and his vision for a better way to make movies struck a chord with me. I was in and had gained a new friend in the process.
I met with Marvel’s Production Designer, William Htay, read the script, and dove into the Quantum Realm. I was instantly mesmerized by Will’s vision and the texture of the worlds he had created.
Who Was I Working With?
The concepts for this film were unlike anything I had tackled before. The Quantum Realm defied scale, gravity, and logic. It was a narrative space where anything could happen. Our challenge was to make it feel grounded, immersive, and coherent so the creative leads could design, visualize, and plan cinematography effectively. And we had to do it all in real time, in VR, and across continents.
We built a team designed to serve as the connective tissue between the art department, VFX, and physical production - a Virtual Art Department. Led by Production Designer Will Htay, we acted as the bridge between design, story, visual effects, and the LED stage. Our role was to help Director Peyton Reed and Cinematographer Bill Pope collaborate closely with Will to visualize, plan, and refine the world - one that constantly pushed the limits of scale, physics, and logic.
Here are some of the biggest lessons I took from the experience, lessons that continue to shape how I approach virtual production, creative leadership, and real-time filmmaking.
Working with Carlos Fueyo on Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania, showcased his ability to creatively bridge our virtual and physical production needs across all disciplines. It was a pressure cooker that Carlos didn’t waiver in. We stuck to our plan working out shots with our DP, blocking stunts, and leveraged virtual sets to figure out the handoff from physical to digital.
How Do You Align Creatives Around a Design For ICVFX?
One of the first things we learned on Quantumania was that even the most surreal world needs a solid foundation. Before pre-production began, we mapped out a clear strategy to tackle the project and its many challenges. We drew from lessons learned on The Mandalorian and adapted them to our workflow. We created detailed flowcharts and a Gantt schedule to guide every phase, from concept to delivery. The goal was to build a creative sandbox where ideas could evolve in 3D and decisions could be made quickly, without locking us into costly revisions.
The production team was already set up at Pinewood Studios in the UK, along with the team I was leading. I was in Florida, so that meant 4 a.m. wake-ups for a few months. I’d get up, splash some water on my face, brew some tea, head to my desk, and flip on my camera and lights to disguise the night. Then I’d jump into our daily meetings. Some days it was just Will and I, reviewing strategy and exploring designs in real time. Other days I’d meet with individual art directors.
Fridays were a different kind of session. These were likely the most expensive meetings on the project during pre-production. Every key creative and producer joined, and they often ran one to two and a half hours. Peyton Reed would explore the sets in VR, alongside Bill Pope (DP), Will Htay (PD), Robert Keyghobad (Virtual Production Producer), and Jesse Chisholm (VFX Supervisor). Other departments tuned in to watch and take notes. My job was to make sure every real-time request was handled. That included, after designing the sets, going through lighting changes, set variations, props, camera and physical equipment placement, LED wall positions - anything they needed.
While we were having these Virtual Location Scouts, it felt like conducting a live orchestra while the floor shifted beneath us. In the middle of reviews, mind you, they’re in VR Headsets in different parts of the world, meeting within the quantum realm, flying around, placing cameras, requesting light changes, all at once - Things would break. Unreal would freeze. If it could go wrong, it probably did. I kept calm on camera, when something was requested, I would hit mute, and share the changes with the team, and as the team did the changes, the key creatives would see things change live. The team almost always found solutions in real time. And when we couldn't, it was my job to deliver the news as smoothly as possible.
For me, what I learned through this project was more than a workflow. It became a blueprint for I share, for creativity, one that empowers departments to collaborate earlier, move faster, and make smarter decisions.
How Do You Earn the Trust of a Cinematography Legend?
One of the most fulfilling parts of this project was the opportunity to work one-on-one with the legendary Bill Pope, cinematographer for The Matrix. Every week felt like a front-row seat to a masterclass in cinematography. There’s nothing quite like watching an experienced DP work. The confidence, the decisiveness, it sets the tone for everyone in the room.
That said, it wasn’t always easy. Bill has shot some of the most iconic films of the last 30 years and is deeply rooted in the craft of lighting on set. On this project, we were asking him to light digitally. If you know, you know. You can place a light in a 3D scene, but the result rarely matches how it will look on set. It took a few frustrating sessions to dial in a workflow that could actually serve his vision. While we may not have perfectly replicated real-world lighting, we found a rhythm that allowed Bill to explore lighting, mood and atmosphere, and to plan how he’d approach the lighting on stage and take into consideration the LED volume. He was able to think through setups with the limitations and opportunities of the space in mind.
It was also a challenge early on to get him comfortable with the VR sessions. You have to understand, in many cases this process becomes a requirement from the studio, and creatives are expected to adapt, whether or not the medium feels intuitive to them. The motion sickness also did not help. Peyton figured out early that having some saltine crackers close by always helped. But again, we saw a shift. After a couple of virtual scouts, Bill and Peyton began to fully engage. They started crafting shots, discussing story beats, and identifying potential on-set hurdles long before shoot day.
By the end, we had completed all of the sets for the LED stage and moved on to planning the fully VFX-driven environments. Sometimes that meant spending hours in a headset, whether the locations were physical builds or entirely virtual, drafting animatics and blocking moments that hadn’t even been scripted yet. Watching that transformation, seeing a master of traditional filmmaking embrace new tools to enhance his craft, was something I’ll never forget.
I am always grateful that Bill Pope, humored and respected the process that we were creating and made the best of it.
How Does Real-Time Filmmaking Change the Way Teams Work?
Working in Unreal Engine changed everything. Directors and department heads could walk through sets, test compositions, and even preview lighting setups. What used to take two weeks became a five-minute conversation. They even had their own workstations at home, and they could visit locations on their own time.
That immediacy did more than speed things up, it built trust and removed friction. On a production of this size, departments often operate in silos. There’s a natural defensiveness, a fear of early criticism, that can stifle collaboration. But our Virtual Art Department became a bridge. We were trusted with information from all sides and had to share it in ways that supported, rather than disrupted, the creative flow.
What began as a design-focused collaboration quickly expanded. VFX Supervisor Jesse Chisholm saw the opportunity to begin developing assets he would need in post much earlier. Together with Robert Chapman, we began to look at development on the skies of the Quantum Realm. These weren’t simple background plates. They were complex, luminous environments. Over several weeks, we created a dozen variations for different geographic zones and reviewed them in VR with Jesse and Peyton. The skies we built became the foundation for the final VFX skies in the film.
This kind of collaboration allowed ideas to evolve in front of everyone, which built momentum and confidence. It also created space for experimentation early on, reducing cost and stress later in production.
How Do You Unblock Creative Bottlenecks in Pre-Production?
In another instance, one of the producers was frustrated at not having enough time with Peyton to review the many character designs for the Quantum Realm.. Dozens of designs were waiting for feedback, holding up creature work, costume decisions, casting, and scheduling.
The solution was simple. We built a digital lineup of all the characters in Unreal, added basic walk cycles, and dropped them into our next VR session. In 45 minutes, Peyton reviewed them all, walking around them, watching how they moved, and giving approvals on the spot. Producers and department heads could take notes in real time, knowing exactly what the director wanted.
Once we knew that that could be done it opened up the possibilities to look at other aspects of the sets. In the Axia restaurant we created a seating chart with some of those same characters so that Peyton could review which characters would sit where, draft mini stories of what they would be doing and therefore allow production to start thinking about extras and shooting schedules way in advance.
How Do You Build a Team - and a Workflow - that Scales?
This project taught us how to move fast and trust faster. Many artists on the team were new to Unreal, but within weeks they were confident worldbuilders. We built a culture of shared learning. If someone solved a technical problem, it became team knowledge. Our playbook grew rapidly, which allowed us to support the production more effectively.
What excites me most is that this workflow doesn’t only apply to blockbusters. These same techniques, early worldbuilding, collaborative design reviews, and real-time cinematography previews, can scale to productions of any size. They offer a faster, more creative path from imagination to execution.
More importantly, they shift how stories are told. When directors, designers, and technologists build worlds together, there’s more alignment, less waste, and often a deeper emotional impact on screen.
What Really Makes Virtual Production Design Work?
At its core, the Virtual Art Department helps translate creative vision into tangible worlds. The tools are evolving quickly, but the mission remains the same. Serve the story, empower the creatives, and embrace the complexity.
On Quantumania, our goal was to give creatives the tools and support they needed to make decisions, weeks before a camera was even prepped. In the end, we built six massive worlds, mapped camera positions, explored animation beats, and helped define key VFX assets.
Quantumania reminded me that with the right structure, trust, and tools, a team can do its best work - together.
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