By TREVOR HOGG Before stills courtesy of John Heller. Final stills courtesy of Apple TV+. Two small-time crooks steal from drug dealers by posing as DEA agents, but when a score goes horribly wrong, they become a target of a ruthless biker gang that has no qualms in leaving behind a bloody trail of retribution. This is the premise for the Apple TV+ series Dope Thief, based on the novel by Dennis Tafoya and adapted by series creator Peter Craig. Serving as an executive producer is Ridley Scott, who directed the pilot that set the groundwork for the following seven episodes that star Brian Tyree Henry, Wagner Moura, Marin Ireland, Nesta Cooper, Kate Mulgrew and Ving Rhames. “There is no way that anything cannot look like it really exists in the frame because there’s nothing about Dope Thief that isn’t real life. This shouldn’t be a visual effects show even though we have nearly 1,600 shots. You never want to see the work that we do unless it’s Game of Thrones or Dark Matter where you want to show that off and everybody knows that stuff doesn’t exist.” —John Heller, VFX Supervisor One of the tricky simulations was to make sure that the practical and CG snow blended seamlessly together. Causing some canine mayhem is the dog owned by Ray’s adoptive mother, which resulted in poop and pee being added in digitally. While con men Ray Driscoll (Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny Carvahlo (Wagner Moura) make a show of their deceit, VFX Supervisor John Heller adopted a stealth approach when overseeing 1,575 visual effects shots created by Barnstorm VFX, Mavericks VFX and FOLKS VFX. “Dope Thief couldn’t be told without visual effects, or if it was, you couldn’t tell it quite the same way with the gunfights, explosions and some of the death scenes,” Heller observes. “There is a lot going on but, hopefully, virtually unnoticed. That’s the sad thing about doing a show like this, but also the beauty of it.” Principal photography took place in Philadelphia, which is where the story takes place. “We didn’t have to do much to Philadelphia at all,” Heller reveals. “They didn’t focus much on the downtown. It was more about outlying areas, like lower-income neighborhoods and down by the airport.” There was the seasonal matter of the pilot being shot during the winter and the other episodes happening months later. “One of the biggest things was the amount of deforestation that we had to do. There is a park scene where they are having this big birthday party and there are blowing bubbles and stuff everywhere surrounded completely by trees in full foliage. Time after time, we had to completely rid those trees of leaves and make them look like bare winter trees; that was a big undertaking, but the work was excellent.” Snow was a major issue. “We did a lot of snow work, whether it was removing, blending or adding to make shot-to-shot work through the sequence that otherwise wouldn’t have been able to cut together well.” Principal photography occurred in Philadelphia where the story takes place. As the narrative progresses, the body count rises. “There is a subtlety to the blood and gore,” Heller remarks. “The first thing you always need to know is the studio’s appetite. This one they let us go where we wanted to with it. There is one great head shot I love in an episode [where] there is a big gun battle and a lot of gunshots and wounds throughout the show. Entry and exit wounds are standard fare. I always like to make things look as realistic as possible. If it’s a head shot, there should be a little bit of ‘gak’ flying through the air. I don’t like anything too extreme.” A murdered woman is found in an overflowing bathtub. “Although the tub water was practical, we bloodied it up. Then we added some blood dripping down over the edge of the tub. It was a little too dead, so we livened up the interactivity of the water and did a little bit of additional make-up work,” Heller says. “There is a subtlety to the blood and gore. … There is one great head shot I love in an episode [where] there is a big gun battle and a lot of gunshots and wounds throughout the show. Entry and exit wounds are standard fare. I always like to make things look as realistic as possible. If it’s a head shot, there should be a little bit of ‘gak’ flying through the air. I don’t like anything too extreme.” —John Heller, VFX Supervisor Wagner Moura and Brian Tyree Henry portray childhood friends and partners-in- crime Manny Carvalho and Driscoll. Among the dramatic death scenes is a biker getting squished between a truck and dumpster that is in full view of the camera. “It’s gruesome,” Heller laughs. “This guy is getting crunched. We even had to do a fully CG truck to replace the wall that was used to push him against that dumpster. Then we had to do a lot of blood enhancements even when he is laying on the ground. The way it was shot was one thing, then putting it together we pushed it even further.” A digital double was avoided. “When you’re up in close with that character with the beard, with the grooming and clothing and the emotions on his face, we wanted him to be real. Doing a CG truck, you want to do it perfectly, and it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do, but it’s a rigid body item versus a CG character. We wanted to get the actor’s performance in there, which is why the decision was made.” Muzzle flashes tend to be viewed as nothing special. “It’s about what kind of gun is it?” Heller observes. “What would that gun actually do? How would that gun actually be photographed? I start there. I don’t like to do things that are done for the sake of being big and explosive in this case. For this one, we had so much gunfire and so many different types of firearms that I did a lot of research. I sent video after video to our vendors egging and pushing them along so we had a good variety of styles of gunfire so that it didn’t look like they were using the same gunshot element every time.” Bullet hits find their way into wooden doorframes, vehicles and windows. “You want to make it look cinematic, but you’re not going to blow out a brick wall if someone shoots it with a pistol.” Heller remarks. “We had to do a lot of glass blowing out, which involved rolling car windows down or taking the windshields out so we could do a fully CG one with reflections and then blow it out. There is a scene where Manny ducks down as a guy tries to shoot him with a shotgun and blows out the plaster behind him. That’s a cool shot because you see what would have happened to his head.” A deer that gets hit by the car began as a stuffie but did not have the proper weight needed, so it was replaced with a CG version. On the spectacular side are the explosions. “The first major explosion was the meth lab blowing up,” Heller states. “That was a significant effects explosion, which was done practically, but once you get it in the cut, everything needs to be bigger. What we ended up doing was blend into the effects explosion that was there and at least triple or quadruple it in size. We also added a bunch of smoke that wrapped around buildings. We removed and replaced trees, power lines and power poles so we could have a concussive effect that affected the trees and power poles. It’s all subtle stuff that sets it up to be realistic and fits in the scene.” A mixture of practical and CG effects elements was utilized. Heller adds, “There are a lot of elements that vendors have since they do quite a bit of this, but I’m usually not too happy with that, and we don’t always have the right angles. I always push hard to have CG-driven [effects elements] where we need it, and in this one there was quite a lot of that for sparks, fire and smoke.” Getting a lot of attention is the unruly canine owned by Ray’s adoptive mother, Theresa Bowers (Kate Mulgrew) – it might be tiny but leaves behind a big mess. “When I look back on the dog, it was one of those things where whenever he was around, we had to do something,” Heller notes. “It was usually poop and pee. There’s a scene where the dog is in the car, and it didn’t work out editorially. The dog is jumping around the car and going in between characters, and we had to recreate all of this stuff to get rid of it.” Receiving additional treatment are the flashback scenes that explore backstory of Ray. “What was cool about the flashbacks in this show is that the idea began that we’ll only go to black and white as Ray is remembering these things with his dad or high school girlfriend. Then later as we got into editorial, Peter wanted to explore these hallucinatory events, especially when Ray got shot and was all drugged up. It evolved into a warping alternative-reality pseudo-color treatment where we let some color creep in and thread through depending on what was in the scene.” The flashbacks that merge into reality were treated as if a cinematographer had placed a Lensbaby on the camera. “[T]he idea [of flashbacks] began that we’ll only go to black and white as Ray is remembering these things with his dad or high school girlfriend. Then later as we got into editorial, Peter [Craig, series creator] wanted to explore these hallucinatory events, especially when Ray got shot and was all drugged up. It evolved into a warping alternative-reality pseudo-color treatment where we let some color creep in and thread through… ” —John Heller, VFX Supervisor Ray Driscoll (Brian Tyree Henry) runs toward a CG truck. Grips compress a flat board against the actor to make look like he is being pushed against the dumpster by the CG truck. CG effects were blended into the practical explosion to significantly increase its size. Because the pilot was shot during the winter and the remaining seven episodes were captured later on, the visual effects team had to use digital deforestation to ensure seasonal continuity. The explosion that occurs in Episode 108 was the biggest in terms of scope. Blood and gore were only held back by reality and avoid wounds such as head shots appearing cartoony. Achieving realism was the main challenge of Dope Thief.  “There is no way that anything cannot look like it really exists in the frame because there’s nothing about Dope Thief that isn’t real life,” Heller remarks. “This shouldn’t be a visual effects show even though we have nearly 1,600 shots. You never want to see the work that we do unless it’s Game of Thrones or Dark Matter where you want to show that off and everybody knows that stuff doesn’t exist.” Favorite moments are the big gun battles and the final scene of the series. “The fire explosion that happens in the end was one of the bigger things scope-wise. It was a lot of fun to do. They knocked it out of the park. One of the most effective things that could have been the most difficult was the tree work we did. When I first saw the passes coming out of FOLKS VFX, I was like, ‘This is going to work. It’s going to be beautiful.’ And it is.”