Come have a look at the environment work by Pixomondo on the third season of WESTWORLD!
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Nhat Phong Tran & Phi Van Le: My interview of Nhat Phong Tran (VFX Supervisor) & Phi Van Le (VFX Producer).
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
Interested about crazy environments? Russian company Argunov Studio present their work on the sci-fi movie, COMA:
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
IN 2018, Craig Wentworth told us about the work of Method Studios on AQUAMAN. Now he’s talking about EXTRACTION.
During his last visit here, Dan Bethell had detailed the work of Method Studios on OUTLAW KING.
How did you and Method Studios get involved on this show?
Dan: Method studios was approached by Netflix.
Craig: I came onboard having worked THE LAUNDROMAT for Steven Soderbergh and Netflix.
How was the collaboration with Director Sam Hargrave and the Russo Brothers?
Dan: Our collaboration was with the studio VFX Supervisor Mark O. Forker and VFX Producer Lynzi Grant. Like all good projects, it felt like a real partnership, with Mark O. being really open to our creative input, and supportive throughout the process. It was a tough schedule and the shot count was logistically challenging so having a strong and affective collaboration with them both was key.
What were their expectations and approach about the visual effects?
Dan: From the beginning we had one goal – the VFX had to look real. Wherever possible we would use photographic elements and reference, and when full CG vehicles and environments were required, we went to painstaking lengths to make sure they felt real and believable, from the story behind why some buildings were in certain places, to the accurate physics of destruction and bullet hits.
Craig: Absolute realism was first and foremost of most importance. This was not a film meant to be a CGI-fest. In the case of The Oner, which was intended to be 12 minutes of relentless and continuous action, the main expectation was that our work appear completely seamless. There could be nothing obvious about what we had done to connect shots through transitions. In terms of the approach, that meant extensive planning of the photographic elements to help facilitate the clever ways in which those transitions were ultimately hidden in the final product. It also meant, at times, exhaustive frame-by-frame analysis of the transition points.
How did you organize the work with your VFX Producer?
Dan: Our work fell into a few broad categories of ‘scope’ which we used to organised things. Sometimes this was based on scene or environment (bridge, casino, sewer), and sometimes the type of VFX could be used to categorise and organise things (bullet hits, blood hits, explosion, debris). This helped us split the large number of tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks.
Craig: My producer (Karen Clarke) and I appreciated that the Oner was intended to be “a star” of the movie. Sam has made these kinds of moments his signature, and so the bulk of our resources and focus was on those shots.
Just as the main unit had in capturing the footage, we had to think cleverly about how we would schedule shots because they were all so dependent upon each other. We eventually broke the whole sequence down into five or six “sub-sequences” which contained smaller snippets of the action we felt we could have, for example, the same artists work on, or block out smartly as a group.
From there it was a matter of prioritizing the transitions we felt were going to be the most challenging and working on and around them.
How was split the work between you two and amongst the Method Studios offices?
Dan: Vancouver had the challenge of completing the Oner, while in Montreal we concentrated on the Dhaka bridge environment for the final act, as well as a lot of miscellaneous aspects: the sewer scene, establishing the Casino, and more bullet hits than I can remember.
Craig: In Vancouver we had the Oner, the opening sequence in Australia, Rake’s initial rescue of Ovi in the tenements, and a hand-full of one-off shots involving bullet hits and blood splatter. Dan supervised the third-act bridge attack, sewer bugs, Rake’s fight with the kids, and more in Montreal. Dan’s commitments meant he left the show in November, and I ended up supervising the work that extended beyond our original schedule out of both Montreal and Vancouver locations.
What did Method Studios did on this show?
Dan: Method studios was responsible for nearly all the main VFX on EXTRACTION, including the Oner Car Chase, and the final act on the bridge.
How did you approach a sequence like this crazy car chase sequence?
Craig: I have to tip my hat to Sam, Marko and the production. They had planned and filmed the whole live action portion so well that the hardest part for us was ensuring we drew no attention to our work. The sequence was cleverly shot sequentially, and Sam shot most of it himself. His experience as a second unit director and stunt coordinator proved invaluable.
What are the main challenges with a long continuous shot?
Craig: From a VFX perspective, particularly as I had never done a sequence like this before, the most challenging thing for me was wrapping my head around it organizationally. Every shot had a dependency on those around them, and creative choices in one transition would often affect two or three other transitions around that. Keeping track of the snowball effect was very important.
Which cut was the most complicated to create and why?
Craig: Every transition presented unique challenges, but a couple stand out in terms of complexity. Obviously, the crash at the end presented some real challenges, but the toughest cuts were unexpectedly Rake landing on the rooftop after throwing Ovi to another building, and then something as conceptually simple as a truck driving by.
Rake’s jump was challenging due to quite vast lighting differences in the plates which required quite a bit of set reconstruction to hide. The truck pass-by was complicated because we had nowhere to hide at all in that moment. To pull it off we did a CG takeover right in front of your eyes, along with subtle camera reworking, and extensive frame-by-frame manipulation and paintwork in order to conceal the switch.
In terms of element complexity, the final truck crash was obviously the most complicated shot to create. The environment, while made of photographic elements, was a digital matte painting, and the truck (and everything it crashes into) full CG. Countless layers of FX elements went into the explosion and associated debris field, all of which were essential to recreating the kind of visual complexity you expect of and see in a practical stunt like this.
Did you have any tips and secrets to create the perfect invisible cut?
Craig: The best tip is most certainly great planning and rehearsal. The closer your plates match during transition moments, the more successful those transitions will be. The second, and this might sound silly, as you are finishing comps, watch them flipped and flopped. You get used to looking at things a particular way while working on something for a long time. Dramatically changing your perspective helps you spot details you often miss, even when looking at things frame by frame.
How did you create the various car crashes?
Craig: Honestly, we took a pretty typical approach to these with one thing in mind: that our work needed to be complementary rather than a feature.
Such great stunt work was already done on location, we didn’t want to hide it. So, the trick was to sandwich our additions into places that helped solve problems (such as the Tuk Tuk we added in front of the bus to obscure stunt rigging that was a challenge to extract from the footage cleanly).
Digital assets were reconstructed from on-set Lidar, texture captures and photogrammetry in a pretty standard way. The FX team enhanced our animations with lots of dust, debris, broken glass, and more.
Can you tell us more about the stunts enhancements?
Dan: Sam Hargrave is an accomplished stunt coordinator and second unit director, so as you’d expect the action captured in-camera was phenomenal. With such a great starting point, the job of VFX was really about enhancing the action and making relatively safe environments for the performers seem more precarious and dangerous. Removing stunt rigging, wires, and crash mats was a big part of the VFX remit, as well as enhancing explosions (where proximity to larger practical pyrotechnics would have been dangerous), adding bullet hits, blood and plenty of debris flying towards camera.
How did you create the various elements in CG (digi doubles, cars, …)?
Dan: For the main elements we followed a fairly typical asset workflow, starting with some good on-set reference textures, lidar scans, and photogrammetry. For the environments however, we relied on a lot of real-world photography reference and a much more procedural approach, laying out thousands of instanced buildings and props in Houdini. We started our Dhaka environment with just a few basic buildings but by the end of the project had built up a large library of buildings, antennas, awnings, clothes lines, telegraph wires… the list goes on and on!
Can you tell us more about the FX work for the explosions?
Craig: Realism was key. Fortunately, production had shot an unused crash in the same location that served as invaluable reference. We literally frame-by-framed that and challenged ourselves to match all the photographic and physical aspects of that practical explosion digitally.
Dan: The helicopter crash on the bridge was a big challenge for the FX team. It was tough task to balance the realistic physical attributes of an aviation fuel explosion with the artistic direction and aesthetic requirements of the shots. For example, once the tail had been blown off the helicopter and everything started to burn realistically, we were generating quite a bit of smoke. That worked from one angle, but as soon as we cut to a wide overhead shot the thick smoke covered everything in sight and meant we couldn’t see our helicopter! It took a few iterations but in the end after a bit of clever tweaking to the smoke density and some extra down-draft from the helicopter to steer the smoke in the right direction, we got to keep all our realistic elements and see our helicopter crashing into the bridge below.
Is there something specific that gives you some really short nights?
Craig: Not on this show. I loved the work and the variety of challenges it offered in terms of creating invisible effects.
Dan: The city environment for the bridge scene in the 3rd act kept me up a few nights. Not only was it featured in over 100 shots but getting enough detail for such a large environment to feel believable was a big challenge. We might not always be conscious of the details we see when looking at a real cityscape, but as humans we’re very perceptive when things just don’t feel quite right.
What is your favorite shot?
Craig: It is the truck driving by. It turned out to be one of the toughest shots to get right, and the blood, sweat and patience that the compositor put into getting every frame of that transition perfect was amazing. But in the spirit of our work being a Oner, I can honestly say the whole sequence is my favorite shot. Very few people have been able to pick out what we did or where the transitions are, and that is awesome.
Dan: There are a quite a few in this movie, but they all have a common theme – great photography to start, and subtle but effective VFX as a supporting aspect. Extraction was never a movie about flashy CGI and the best shots in it are just that, seamless VFX that you’ll never notice.
What is your best memory on this show?
Craig: The team. From the client-side collaboration with Marko and Lynzi, to the crews in Vancouver and Montreal, I had a blast working with all of them on the type of stuff that is right up my alley.
Dan: It was a big show with a lot of moving parts, so having a talented, creative and adaptable team was essential! So, it goes without saying working with my awesome team at Method Montreal was probably my best memory. A close second was the day we photographed a mangled sausage covered in fake blood, to use in augmenting a severed finger!
How long have you worked on this show?
Craig: We spun up the show in Vancouver in April. I wrapped almost a year later.
Dan: I was brought on board in May and I wrapped up in November.
What’s the VFX shots count?
Craig: Roughly 120 shots for Vancouver.
Dan: Good question… a lot. I think we completed just a touch under 500 VFX shots in the Montreal studio.
What was the size of your team?
Craig: I think we peaked at around 18 people in Vancouver.
Dan: In Montreal we reached about 80 people at the peak of the project.
What is your next project?
Craig: I’m now working on Season 2 of FOR ALL MANKIND.
Dan: I’ve since moved back to Australia where I’m working on a couple of exciting projects, that of course I can’t talk about.
A big thanks for your time.
EXTRACTION – VFX REEL – METHOD STUDIOS
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Method Studios: Dedicated page about EXTRACTION on Method Studios website.
Netflix: You can now watch EXTRACTION on Netflix.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
YEAH! Don’t miss this really cool trailer for the second season of THE BOYS!
The VFX are made by:
ILM
Rising Sun Pictures
Rocket Science VFX
Rodeo FX
Ollin VFX
Soho VFX
Rhythm & Hues
Method Studios
Studio 8
The Production VFX Supervisor is Stephan Fleet.
Creators: Evan Goldberg, Eric Kripke, Seth Rogen
Release Date: September 4, 2020 (Amazon Prime)
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
Chris White and Aidan Martin told us in detail about the work of Weta Digital work on THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY last year. They are back with a new Netflix series, SPACE FORCE.
// Chris White – VFX Supervisor
How was the collaboration with the various directors and VFX Supervisor Trent Smith?
The collaboration was excellent. We had frequent conference calls with Trent and Greg, so we were lucky to receive a quick turnaround on feedback. It was a collaborative, creative relationship where we were involved closely with the design process.
What was their expectations and approach about the visual effects?
They knew our history of working on chimps and primates, and they were looking to have the same quality in Marcus. We did this by leveraging our history of creating photoreal chimps to meet their expectations.
What are the sequences made by Weta Digital?
We worked on the interior of the capsule, the introduction of Marcus, and Marcus leaving to the airlock, and we provided the picture-in-picture facial inserts used in conjunction with the Zoic Studios space shots.
After The Umbrella Academy, Space Force is a new collaboration with Animation Supervisor Aidan Martin. What’s the most significant advantage of it?
The most significant advantage is that our team has worked together before and collaborates well. We can trust each other to consider all areas of expertise when evaluating the work. As Aidan designs animation, I’m aware that he is thinking about lighting and other considerations, and likewise, I think about Animation needs throughout my own processes.
Can you tell us more about the creation of the capsule environment?
We modeled the all CG environment, then worked through our iterations of augmenting lighting and texturing. We designed a minimal look so the audience could focus on Marcus.
Marcus then goes to space – how did you handle the lighting for this sequence?
We knew early on that most of our work needed to match Zoic’s shot lighting—facial P.I.P.’s needed the same direction of sunlight as the matching full-body shots. Complex shots such as the high-speed drill spin had to sync up, so Zoic provided us with their animation as a lighting guide for us to match to.
Which sequence or shot was the most challenging?
The most challenging shot we worked on was Marcus waking up. We were working within the framing of a fixed security camera, therefore couldn’t use the camera for angles and composition. We had to compose Marcus to match the fixed camera.
Is there something specific that gives you some really short nights?
Not really. This show was a pleasure to work on and had a fun, light-hearted mood throughout the production.
What is your favorite shot or sequence?
There is a shot that has a P.I.P. of Marcus on the big screen. Here we get to see the interaction between General Mark R. Naird’s character (Steve Carrell) and Marcus. It’s also the largest onscreen view of Marcus from his helmet cam, where you get to see all the detail of his design.
What is your best memory on this show?
My favorite moment was when we began seeing the P.I.P.’s composited together. It was the first time he started to come to life as a character.
How long did you work on this show?
It ran over 25 weeks in the end.
What is the total VFX shot count?
31 shots across one episode.
What was the size of your team?
We had a big team if you consider everyone that contributed within the studio. We had over 100 crew work on the show at one stage or another, but around 30 people did the most significant amount of work. The core team was 15-20 people.
What is your next project?
The AVATAR sequels.
// Aidan Martin – Animation Supervisor
After The Umbrella Academy, Space Force is a new collaboration with VFX Supervisor Chris White. What’s the biggest advantage of it?
This is the third show Chris and I have worked together on featuring chimps. The familiarity of our existing processes means that our communication has streamlined making everything a lot easier when it comes to collaboration. An advantage for each new show together is that we are able to build on our the processes we developed on previous projects.
How did you use your Apes franchise and The Umbrella Academy experience for this new chimp character?
Our experience creating primates prepared us in a multitude of ways. To find the right look for Marcus, we drew on our extensive chimp and ape reference library, and as we’ve done in the past, we visited the troop of chimps at Wellington Zoo. Marcus is based on one of the troop members, named Alexis.
Can you tell us more about their rigging and animation?
Marcus’s bone structure is based off real-world anatomy—we created a skeleton covered with muscle and fat tissue, skin and fur layers and cloth costumes. All of these are set up and simulated by the Creatures department once the character rig has motion applied. We pre-vised the sequence in-house, based off initial storyboards from Greg. Once the client’s editorial team had figured out the length of shots, we were able to utilise our in-house motion capture stage using our lead animator Craig Young as our motion capture performer. Incidentally, Craig received his first performer credit on SPACE FORCE for the motion capture of Marcus – yay Craig!
Did you received specific indications and references for Marcus from the production?
We received reference from the production for inspiration. Our art director Gino Acevedo took these and went to work to develop the design for Marcus and his spacesuit, alongside Theodore’s spacesuit and the space shuttle’s interior look.
How does the zero-gravity aspect affect your animation work?
Zero gravity is definitely something that we’ve looked at in-depth. We used reference from the international space station and also YouTube videos from zero gravity flights. What we noticed was that in zero gravity people don’t go into slow motion, something that we see a lot of in tv production. The sense of weightlessness actually comes from the minimal amount of energy required to push yourself off things, hold yourself up and generally keep yourself stable. This can seem like slow motion, but it isn’t. We had to tread the line between what looks like slow motion versus what is deliberate movement. Normally we don’t want animation to look “floaty”, but in this case we wanted everything to look as floaty as possible.
What was the main challenges of the Marcus face shots
The Marcus face shots (or as we liked to call them, the “Iron Man Cam”) were challenging because we had to make sure the head movements and eye directions matched what Marcus’ body was doing. Shots outside the space station were shared with Zoic studios, so we made sure we were in sync with what they were doing, as production was happening simultaneously.
From a performance point of view, these shots were difficult because we were trying to get the emotional read on Marcus’ face. Since he’s not a highly advanced ape that can talk and encompass human emotions, we had to make sure he was able to communicate his emotions without using sign language or any real vocalisations. A lot of his emotion is read through his eyes.
Which sequence or shot was the most challenging?
The most challenging shot is when Marcus wakes up in the cage and is signing and communicating with General Mark R. Naird (Steve Carrell). We went through many iterations of the sign language, making sure we were using correct American Sign Language (ASL). There were times that it didn’t necessarily hit the comedy beat so we took some liberties and changed some of the sign language to some more primitive gestures. Our goal was to ensure Marcus was communicating effectively and keeping it realistic, while hitting the comedy beats.
Is there something specific that gives you some really short nights?
The first shot that we pre-vised was Theodore playing fetch. After that was approved, one of our senior animators Edwina Ting did many beautiful passes. She added all sorts of flourish and extra life to Theodore – it looked incredible – but every time we sent a new version, Greg would reply that he liked the pre-vis. Eventually, at the very end, we just matched the pre-vis and Greg loved it.
A big thanks for your time.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Weta Digital: Dedicated page about SPAEC FORCE on Weta Digital website.
Netflix: You can watch SPACE FORCE on Netflix now.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
DNEG has released this interesting making of with the Animation team (led by Animation Supervisor Aaron Gilman) about their work on TOGO:
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
DNEG: Dedicated page about TOGO on DNEG website.
Raymond Chen: My interview of Raymond Chen, VFX Supervisor at DNEG, about TOGO.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
Don’t miss this featurette by Netflix about the VFX (with Overall VFX Supervisor Sara Bennett) and makeup work to help making the Immortals of THE OLD GUARD:
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Milk Visual Effects: Dedicated page about THE OLD GUARD on Milk Visual Effects website.
Sara Bennett: My interview of Sara Bennett, Overall VFX Supervisor, on THE OLD GUARD.
THE OLD GUARD: You can watch the movie now on Netflix.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
Interested to go back to the Overlook Hotel? Then be sure to watch this VFX Breakdown by RISE about their work on DOCTOR SLEEP:
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
RISE: Dedicated page about DOCTOR SLEEP on RISE website.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
Canadian studio The Embassy have released a new breakdown about their work on the Netflix series, WARRIOR NUN focusing on The Tarask:
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
The Embassy: Dedicated page about WARRIOR NUN on The Embassy website.
Michael Blackbourn: My interview of Michael Blackbourn, VFX Supervisor at The Embassy.
Netflix: You can stream now WARRIOR NUN.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
David Sewell began his career in visual effects with INDEPENDENCE DAY. He then worked in various studios such as Cinesite, The Senate and DNEG. He has worked on many shows including WORLD WAR Z, JOHN CARTER, IN THE HEART OF THE SEA and CHERNOBYL.
What is your background?
I started in the industry in 1996 (what? when!?!) – demonstrating on computers made specifically for visual effects. I think they ran on steam. It was for a company called ‘Quantel’. I am now an On-set and in-house VFX Supervisor.
How did you and DNEG get involved on this show?
I moved from film to episodic work in 2015. DNEG TV formed relationships with larger networks like Netflix, working on higher end TV shows like CURSED.
How was the collaboration with the Showrunners and VFX Supervisor Dave Houghton?
Dave was great. Very inclusive from the start. Allowing us direct communication with Tom Wheeler (showrunner) and Frank Miller (exec producer). This hugely helped the creative side of the work. DNEG also helped cover a lot of the 7-month shoot, supervising our own sequences.
What was their expectations and approach to the visual effects?
We were awarded work based on DNEG TV’s experience on previous shows. This gave the clients some confidence but also high expectations. The producers and showrunners were involved in each step of the process and it worked well!
How did you organize the work with your VFX Producer?
These shows are not (always) shot episodically so we had to organise the work episode by episode back at DNEG. We first delivered the builds of the biggest assets – creatures like the Demon Bear and environments like Hawksbridge and Grammaire.
How did you split the work amongst you and the DNEG offices?
London built the main assets and setup templates of hero shots. Mumbai and Chennai took these looks for majority of the sequences. Montreal were also a big part of the work, picking up whole sequences themselves.
What kind of references and indications did you receive for the environments and the magic?
We were given a lot of references by the Art department, Dave Houghton and even some personal work from Frank Miller himself. These were illustrations, storyboards as well as numerous reference images. Really useful for everyone. The fantasy period was a blend of Medieval, Neolithic, Druidic and Classic Roman. However, we also had to be true to the show’s strong look already in place from the production set builds.
Hawksbridge was based on an ancient Roman city that had crumbled and been rebuilt in medieval times with a mixed Druidic style in there too. We added a river running through the city going out to the sea, with the entrance overlooked by 2 100ft stone statues. The statues didn’t make the cut though.
Nimue is from Dewdenn, which is a small village made of mud and straw huts. We extended the 10 huts into a further 10 that we extended into the forest. Beyond the forest we indicated to a world of much larger Druidic stone buildings and sculptures. Mayan temples were given as reference. Then beyond the lake Dewdenn is next to is a 180 degrees high mountain range.
So yes, a lot of research was done all the way through the show in order to find the right look.
Where were the sequences with the castles filmed?
The castle at Grammaire was filmed on the set at Deepcut, Surrey.
Could you explain the environments creation in detail?
We would start with the photography; whether it was already shot plates or location stills or our own set references. From here we would build concept stills in Photoshop or Maya to get an idea of the scale and style of what the clients were after. We always tried to keep some grounding in reality. Even if the final result was quite conceptually different.
For example, in Grammaire, Ectors castle started off very loosely based on Leeds Castle. Even though the final result looks nothing like Leeds Castle, there are plenty of photographic references we can now use to make Ectors Castle look real.
Can you elaborate about the creation and animation of the magic effects?
DNEG TV did a few magic effects throughout the show. In the first episode we see the embers from a funeral pyre come alive and choose Nimue as the next ‘Queen’. This involved our FX team firstly matching a simulation of the real embers shot, then producing a seamless takeover to animate the embers. They needed to divert the direction into a large whirlwind in the sky that then reduces down into a small whirlwind that circles Nimue. We added interactive lighting from the embers onto the body using roto-animated body geometry.
Can you elaborate on the impressive bear?
The Demon bear was one of our biggest challenges on the show in terms of a creature asset. In the second episode the bear corners a young Nimue in a cave, towers over her and over extends his mouth; enough to eat her head and torso in one! We worked in the concept stage for quite a few months. Early concepts leaning more towards the horror, with mangled skulls and mangy fur. But this was felt to be too much. The production was after a 80/20 split of real bear and fantasy.
We started with a basic model of a brown bear, increased the scale from 8ft to 12ft (when standing), sculpted in Z-Brush larger paws, enlarged teeth and an over-extended jaw. Based on snake reference the rig for the jaw was built to dislocate and extend. Finally, we gave it red demonic eyes with small black pupils, because as Frank himself says; ‘pupils show intelligence and you’re more scared of an intelligent monster than a dumb one.’ The animation needed to portray the heavier mass but still be able to move fast enough in a frantic attack – like a 12ft Sumo wrestler. Kind of.
How did you create his fur and eyes?
The groom was done in Houdini
How did you simulate his presence on-set for the cast and crew?
Someone from the stunts team kindly volunteered to dress in the green morph suit and carry the tennis ball / stick (to appropriate height for eyeline). The young 5-year-old actress playing Nimue did very well to pretend to be scared and not laugh (unlike the crew)!
Can you tell us about the ocean and the boats?
Our basic smaller boats were variants of the 2 small boats on set. We then created further variants based on medieval fishing boats. We created 2 larger Galleons, and a large Viking Galleon for Pym and the Vikings scene. The water was simulated in Houdini then brought into Maya for the boats and ships layout and the interaction with the waves.
Can you tell us more about the FX work on the water?
For the shot of the Viking Galleon that travels in close up to camera we used a combination of an FX simulations in Houdini, based on some live action library footage of the right kind of sea. We could then blend the two elements for depth; foreground to background and above and below the water. The simulations were then brought into Maya to work with the Galleon and rendered out as separate elements for control in the composite.
Which sequence or shot was the most challenging?
It has to be the scenes in episode 5, of Nimue and Arthur in the ‘natural’ steam pool on the edge of the mountain. It was shot with a tricky light setup (multiple sources) with a shallow depth of field, which is quite the opposite of the real-world scene. A lot of roto, specific area grading and steam (!) helped us through it. It is a deep and meaningful sensual scene between the actors/ characters and quite a bit of concept work went into finding the right balance between a boring hillside and a front cover of a tourist magazine.
Is there something specific that gave you some really short nights?
Edges! Best ways to fix edges! Those damn edges! Edges, edges, edges. Now you’ve made me remember the edges!
What is your favourite shot or sequence?
There were so many! Some of the painted environments were stunning. The animation on the floating flowers was really nice. The bear sequence really worked for me. But I always did like the body slicing of Commander Vallus in episode 8. He gets sliced in half at the waist by Nimue with the Excalibur sword. This was a tricky shot. Defying anatomy, biology, physics and generally all reality! Sickly fascinating trying to make it believable. I think the final result looks good.
What is your best memory on this show?
Sounds cheesy, I know, but I’m going to say it – it’s the people! It’s the people I met and worked with, both on-set and in the office. Unlike a lot of other industries, ours can be very transient and despite working on the show for over a year, I may never work with a lot of these great people again. Seems sad but I also have good memories!
How long were you working on this show?
From about February 2019 to March 2020
What’s the VFX shots count?
822 beautifully crafted shots of genius.
What was the size of your team?
As with most shows the crew size fluctuated based around the delivery schedule.
Roughly 30-40 in London, 20 in Montreal and between 40 and 60 in India.
What is your next project?
THE WHEEL IN TIME. An adaptation of 14 books by Robert Jordan. A similar (but different!) medieval fantasy.
What are the four movies that gave you your passion for cinema?
For VFX;
STAR WARS (oh my god that’s a flying space fighter!)
JURASSIC PARK (oh my god that’s a DINOSAUR!)
E.T. (is that an alien flying in a bike basket in front of the moon!?)
INDEPENDENCE DAY (my first VFX shots in a film)
For ‘normal’ films;
MOON
THE BIG LEBOWSKI
SEXY BEAST
TWIN TOWN
A big thanks for your time.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Netflix: You can watch CURSED now on Netflix!
DNEG: Dedicated page about CURSED on DNEG website.
Dave Houghton: My interview of Overall VFX Supervisor Dave Houghton about CURSED.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2020
