For Season 3 of Amazon’s The Wheel of Time, Proof Inc. reimagined post-visualization, developing an innovative “Sketchvis” pipeline that blurred the boundaries between previs, postvis, and final VFX. Under Supervisor Steve Harrison, Proof created over 35 minutes of intricate, stylized visualizations across all eight episodes, establishing an expressive visual foundation for the series’ complex magical elements known as “channeling.” Proof’s Sketchvis combined 2D artistry with sophisticated 3D execution using Maya and Nuke, complemented by vibrant glows and intricate distortion effects. Each spell’s distinct energy was carefully choreographed, whether corkscrewing beams of power or serpentine streams of water, closely aligning with the narrative’s elemental logic and dramatically influencing the show’s pacing and visual storytelling. Working closely in daily collaboration with Production and VFX Supervisor Andy Scrase, the Proof team took on design challenges typically reserved for final VFX vendors like Framestore and DNEG. This proactive approach allowed Proof to define not only the aesthetic but also the motion logic of key magical sequences, creating a precise roadmap that remarkably mirrors what audiences will experience in the final episodes. For Proof, traditionally known for character animation and environmental previs, this venture into nuanced effect design and movement choreography represented both a creative challenge and a significant expansion of their artistic repertoire, adding to the visual texture of The Wheel of Time and pushing post-visualization into compelling new creative territory. The team contributed to all eight episodes with a core team of six artists. Proof’s ability to step beyond previs and postvis into effect design and movement development made them a key partner, enhancing in-camera performances and helping shape the visual language of the series.

After detailing the VFX work on The Last of Us Season 1 in 2023, Alex Wang returns to reflect on how the scope and complexity have evolved in Season 2. With close to 30 years of experience in the visual effects industry, Fiona Campbell Westgate has contributed to major productions such as Ghost in the Shell, Avatar: The Way of Water, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Nyad. Her work on Nyad earned her a VES Award for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature. Collaboration with Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann is key to shaping the visual universe of The Last of Us. Can you share with us how you work with them and how they influence the visual direction of the series? Alex Wang // Craig visualizes the shot or scene before putting words on the page. His writing is always exceptionally detailed and descriptive, ultimately helping us to imagine the shot. Of course, no one understands The Last of Us better than Neil, who knows all aspects of the lore very well. He’s done much research and design work with the Naughty Dog team, so he gives us good guidance regarding creature and environment designs. I always try to begin with concept art to get the ball rolling with Craig and Neil’s ideas. This season, we collaborated with Chromatic Studios for concept art. They also contributed to the games, so I felt that continuity was beneficial for our show. Fiona Campbell Westgate // From the outset, it was clear that collaborating with Craig would be an exceptional experience. Early meetings revealed just how personable and invested Craig is. He works closely with every department to ensure that each episode is done to the highest level. Craig places unwavering trust in our VFX Supervisor, Alex Wang. They have an understanding between them that lends to an exceptional partnership. As the VFX Producer, I know how vital the dynamic between the Showrunner and VFX Supervisor is; working with these two has made for one of the best professional experiences of my career.  Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO How has your collaboration with Craig evolved between the first and second seasons? Were there any adjustments in the visual approach or narrative techniques you made this season? Alex Wang // Since everything was new in Season 1, we dedicated a lot of time and effort to exploring the show’s visual language, and we all learned a great deal about what worked and what didn’t for the show. In my initial conversations with Craig about Season 2, it was clear that he wanted to expand the show’s scope by utilizing what we established and learned in Season 1. He felt significantly more at ease fully committing to using VFX to help tell the story this season. The first season involved multiple VFX studios to handle the complexity of the effects. How did you divide the work among different studios for the second season? Alex Wang // Most of the vendors this season were also in Season 1, so we already had a shorthand. The VFX Producer, Fiona Campbell Westgate, and I work closely together to decide how to divide the work among our vendors. The type of work needs to be well-suited for the vendor and fit into our budget and schedule. We were extremely fortunate to have the vendors we did this season. I want to take this opportunity to thank Weta FX, DNEG, RISE, Distillery VFX, Storm Studios, Important Looking Pirates, Blackbird, Wylie Co., RVX, and VDK. We also had ILM for concept art and Digital Domain for previs. Fiona Campbell Westgate // Alex Wang and I were very aware of the tight delivery schedule, which added to the challenge of distributing the workload. We planned the work based on the individual studio’s capabilities, and tried not to burden them with back to back episodes wherever possible. Fortunately, there was shorthand with vendors from Season One, who were well-acquainted with the process and the quality of work the show required. The town of Jackson is a key location in The Last of Us. Could you explain how you approached creating and expanding this environment for the second season? Alex Wang // Since Season 1, this show has created incredible sets. However, the Jackson town set build is by far the most impressive in terms of scope. They constructed an 822 ft x 400 ft set in Minaty Bay that resembled a real town! I had early discussions with Production Designer Don MacAulay and his team about where they should concentrate their efforts and where VFX would make the most sense to take over. They focused on developing the town’s main street, where we believed most scenes would occur. There is a big reveal of Jackson in the first episode after Ellie comes out of the barn. Distillery VFX was responsible for the town’s extension, which appears seamless because the team took great pride in researching and ensuring the architecture aligned with the set while staying true to the tone of Jackson, Wyoming. Fiona Campbell Westgate // An impressive set was constructed in Minaty Bay, which served as the foundation for VFX to build upon. There is a beautiful establishing shot of Jackson in Episode 1 that was completed by Distillery, showing a safe and almost normal setting as Season Two starts. Across the episodes, Jackson set extensions were completed by our partners at RISE and Weta. Each had a different phase of Jackson to create, from almost idyllic to a town immersed in Battle.  What challenges did you face filming Jackson on both real and virtual sets? Was there a particular fusion between visual effects and live-action shots to make it feel realistic? Alex Wang // I always advocate for building exterior sets outdoors to take advantage of natural light. However, the drawback is that we cannot control the weather and lighting when filming over several days across two units. In Episode 2, there’s supposed to be a winter storm in Jackson, so maintaining consistency within the episode was essential. On sunny and rainy days, we used cranes to lift large 30x60ft screens to block the sun or rain. It was impossible to shield the entire set from the rain or sun, so we prioritized protecting the actors from sunlight or rain. Thus, you can imagine there was extensive weather cleanup for the episode to ensure consistency within the sequences. Fiona Campbell Westgate // We were fortunate that production built a large scale Jackson set. It provided a base for the full CG Jackson aerial shots and CG Set Extensions. The weather conditions at Minaty Bay presented a challenge during the filming of the end of the Battle sequence in Episode 2. While there were periods of bright sunshine, rainfall occurred during the filming of the end of the Battle sequence in Episode 2. In addition to the obvious visual effects work, it became necessary to replace the ground cover. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO The attack on Jackson by the horde of infected in season 2 is a very intense moment. How did you approach the visual effects for this sequence? What techniques did you use to make the scale of the attack feel as impressive as it did? Alex Wang // We knew this would be a very complex sequence to shoot, and for it to be successful, we needed to start planning with the HODs from the very beginning. We began previs during prep with Weta FX and the episode’s director, Mark Mylod. The previs helped us understand Mark and the showrunner’s vision. This then served as a blueprint for all departments to follow, and in many instances, we filmed the previs. Fiona Campbell Westgate // The sheer size of the CG Infected Horde sets the tone for the scale of the Battle. It’s an intimidating moment when they are revealed through the blowing snow. The addition of CG explosions and atmospheric effects contributed in adding scale to the sequence.  Can you give us an insight into the technical challenges of capturing the infected horde? How much of the effect was done using CGI, and how much was achieved with practical effects? Alex Wang // Starting with a detailed previs that Mark and Craig approved was essential for planning the horde. We understood that we would never have enough stunt performers to fill a horde, nor could they carry out some stunts that would be too dangerous. I reviewed the previs with Stunt Coordinator Marny Eng numerous times to decide the best placements for her team’s stunt performers. We also collaborated with Barrie Gower from the Prosthetics team to determine the most effective allocation of his team’s efforts. Stunt performers positioned closest to the camera would receive the full prosthetic treatment, which can take hours. Weta FX was responsible for the incredible CG Infected horde work in the Jackson Battle. They have been a creative partner with HBO’s The Last of Us since Season 1, so they were brought on early for Season 2. I began discussions with Weta’s VFX supervisor, Nick Epstein, about how we could tackle these complex horde shots very early during the shoot. Typically, repetition in CG crowd scenes can be acceptable, such as armies with soldiers dressed in the same uniform or armour. However, for our Infected horde, Craig wanted to convey that the Infected didn’t come off an assembly line or all shop at the same clothing department store. Any repetition would feel artificial. These Infected were once civilians with families, or they were groups of raiders. We needed complex variations in height, body size, age, clothing, and hair. We built our base library of Infected, and then Nick and the Weta FX team developed a “mix and match” system, allowing the Infected to wear any costume and hair groom. A procedural texturing system was also developed for costumes, providing even greater variation. The most crucial aspect of the Infected horde was their motion. We had numerous shots cutting back-to-back with practical Infected, as well as shots where our CG Infected ran right alongside a stunt horde. It was incredibly unforgiving! Weta FX’s animation supervisor from Season 1, Dennis Yoo, returned for Season 2 to meet the challenge. Having been part of the first season, Dennis understood the expectations of Craig and Neil. Similar to issues of model repetition within a horde, it was relatively easy to perceive repetition, especially if they were running toward the same target. It was essential to enhance the details of their performances with nuances such as tripping and falling, getting back up, and trampling over each other. There also needed to be a difference in the Infected’s running speed. To ensure we had enough complexity within the horde, Dennis motion-captured almost 600 unique motion cycles. We had over a hundred shots in episode 2 that required CG Infected horde. Fiona Campbell Westgate // Nick Epstein, Weta VFX Supervisor, and Dennis Yoo, Weta Animation Supervisor, were faced with having to add hero, close-up Horde that had to integrate with practical Stunt performers. They achieved this through over 60 motion capture sessions and running it through a deformation system they developed. Every detail was applied to allow for a seamless blend with our practical Stunt performances. The Weta team created a custom costume and hair system that provided individual looks to the CG Infected Horde. We were able to avoid the repetitive look of a CG crowd due to these efforts. The movement of the infected horde is crucial for the intensity of the scene. How did you manage the animation and simulation of the infected to ensure smooth and realistic interaction with the environment? Fiona Campbell Westgate // We worked closely with the Stunt department to plan out positioning and where VFX would be adding the CG Horde. Craig Mazin wanted the Infected Horde to move in a way that humans cannot. The deformation system kept the body shape anatomically correct and allowed us to push the limits from how a human physically moves.  The Bloater makes a terrifying return this season. What were the key challenges in designing and animating this creature? How did you work on the Bloater’s interaction with the environment and other characters? Alex Wang // In Season 1, the Kansas City cul-de-sac sequence featured only a handful of Bloater shots. This season, however, nearly forty shots showcase the Bloater in broad daylight during the Battle of Jackson. We needed to redesign the Bloater asset to ensure it looked good in close-up shots from head to toe. Weta FX designed the Bloater for Season 1 and revamped the design for this season. Starting with the Bloater’s silhouette, it had to appear large, intimidating, and menacing. We explored enlarging the cordyceps head shape to make it feel almost like a crown, enhancing the Bloater’s impressive and strong presence. During filming, a stunt double stood in for the Bloater. This was mainly for scale reference and composition. It also helped the Infected stunt performers understand the Bloater’s spatial position, allowing them to avoid running through his space. Once we had an edit, Dennis mocapped the Bloater’s performances with his team. It is always challenging to get the motion right for a creature that weighs 600 pounds. We don’t want the mocap to be overly exaggerated, but it does break the character if the Bloater feels too “light.” The brilliant animation team at Weta FX brought the Bloater character to life and nailed it! When Tommy goes head-to-head with the Bloater, Craig was quite specific during the prep days about how the Bloater would bubble, melt, and burn as Tommy torches him with the flamethrower. Important Looking Pirates took on the “Burning Bloater” sequence, led by VFX Supervisor Philip Engstrom. They began with extensive R&D to ensure the Bloater’s skin would start to bubble and burn. ILP took the final Bloater asset from Weta FX and had to resculpt and texture the asset for the Bloater’s final burn state. Craig felt it was important for the Bloater to appear maimed at the end. The layers of FX were so complex that the R&D continued almost to the end of the delivery schedule. Fiona Campbell Westgate // This season the Bloater had to be bigger, more intimidating. The CG Asset was recreated to withstand the scrutiny of close ups and in daylight. Both Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann worked closely with us during the process of the build. We referenced the game and applied elements of that version with ours. You’ll notice that his head is in the shape of crown, this is to convey he’s a powerful force.  During the Burning Bloater sequence in Episode 2, we brainstormed with Philip Engström, ILP VFX Supervisor, on how this creature would react to the flamethrower and how it would affect the ground as it burns. When the Bloater finally falls to the ground and dies, the extraordinary detail of the embers burning, fluid draining and melting the surrounding snow really sells that the CG creature was in the terrain.  Given the Bloater’s imposing size, how did you approach its integration into scenes with the actors? What techniques did you use to create such a realistic and menacing appearance? Fiona Campbell Westgate // For the Bloater, a stunt performer wearing a motion capture suit was filmed on set. This provided interaction with the actors and the environment. VFX enhanced the intensity of his movements, incorporating simulations to the CG Bloater’s skin and muscles that would reflect the weight and force as this terrifying creature moves.  Seattle in The Last of Us is a completely devastated city. Can you talk about how you recreated this destruction? What were the most difficult visual aspects to realize for this post-apocalyptic city? Fiona Campbell Westgate // We were meticulous in blending the CG destruction with the practical environment. The flora’s ability to overtake the environment had to be believable, and we adhered to the principle of form follows function. Due to the vastness of the CG devastation it was crucial to avoid repetitive effects. Consequently, our vendors were tasked with creating bespoke designs that evoked a sense of awe and beauty. Was Seattle’s architecture a key element in how you designed the visual effects? How did you adapt the city’s real-life urban landscape to meet the needs of the story while maintaining a coherent aesthetic? Alex Wang // It’s always important to Craig and Neil that we remain true to the cities our characters are in. DNEG was one of our primary vendors for Boston in Season 1, so it was natural for them to return for Season 2, this time focusing on Seattle. DNEG’s VFX Supervisor, Stephen James, who played a crucial role in developing the visual language of Boston for Season 1, also returns for this season. Stephen and Melaina Mace (DFX Supervisor) led a team to Seattle to shoot plates and perform lidar scans of parts of the city. We identified the buildings unique to Seattle that would have existed in 2003, so we ensured these buildings were always included in our establishing shots. Overgrowth and destruction have significantly influenced the environments in The Last of Us. The environment functions almost as a character in both Season 1 and Season 2. In the last season, the building destruction in Boston was primarily caused by military bombings. During this season, destruction mainly arises from dilapidation. Living in the Pacific Northwest, I understand how damp it can get for most of the year. I imagined that, over 20 years, the integrity of the buildings would be compromised by natural forces. This abundant moisture creates an exceptionally lush and vibrant landscape for much of the year. Therefore, when designing Seattle, we ensured that the destruction and overgrowth appeared intentional and aesthetically distinct from those of Boston. Fiona Campbell Westgate // Led by Stephen James, DNEG VFX Supervisor, and Melaina Mace, DNEG DFX Supervisor, the team captured photography, drone footage and the Clear Angle team captured LiDAR data over a three-day period in Seattle. It was crucial to include recognizable Seattle landmarks that would resonate with people familiar with the game.  The devastated city almost becomes a character in itself this season. What aspects of the visual effects did you have to enhance to increase the immersion of the viewer into this hostile and deteriorated environment? Fiona Campbell Westgate // It is indeed a character. Craig wanted it to be deteriorated but to have moments where it’s also beautiful in its devastation. For instance, in the Music Store in Episode 4 where Ellie is playing guitar for Dina, the deteriorated interior provides a beautiful backdrop to this intimate moment. The Set Decorating team dressed a specific section of the set, while VFX extended the destruction and overgrowth to encompass the entire environment, immersing the viewer in strange yet familiar surroundings. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO The sequence where Ellie navigates a boat through a violent storm is stunning. What were the key challenges in creating this scene, especially with water simulation and the storm’s effects? Alex Wang // In the concluding episode of Season 2, Ellie is deep in Seattle, searching for Abby. The episode draws us closer to the Aquarium, where this area of Seattle is heavily flooded. Naturally, this brings challenges with CG water. In the scene where Ellie encounters Isaac and the W.L.F soldiers by the dock, we had a complex shoot involving multiple locations, including a water tank and a boat gimbal. There were also several full CG shots. For Isaac’s riverine boat, which was in a stormy ocean, I felt it was essential that the boat and the actors were given the appropriate motion. Weta FX assisted with tech-vis for all the boat gimbal work. We began with different ocean wave sizes caused by the storm, and once the filmmakers selected one, the boat’s motion in the tech-vis fed the special FX gimbal. When Ellie gets into the Jon boat, I didn’t want it on the same gimbal because I felt it would be too mechanical. Ellie’s weight needed to affect the boat as she got in, and that wouldn’t have happened with a mechanical gimbal. So, we opted to have her boat in a water tank for this scene. Special FX had wave makers that provided the boat with the appropriate movement. Instead of guessing what the ocean sim for the riverine boat should be, the tech- vis data enabled DNEG to get a head start on the water simulations in post-production. Craig wanted this sequence to appear convincingly dark, much like it looks out on the ocean at night. This allowed us to create dramatic visuals, using lightning strikes at moments to reveal depth. Were there any memorable moments or scenes from the series that you found particularly rewarding or challenging to work on from a visual effects standpoint? Alex Wang // The Last of Us tells the story of our characters’ journey. If you look at how season 2 begins in Jackson, it differs significantly from how we conclude the season in Seattle. We seldom return to the exact location in each episode, meaning every episode presents a unique challenge. The scope of work this season has been incredibly rewarding. We burned a Bloater, and we also introduced spores this season! Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO Looking back on the project, what aspects of the visual effects are you most proud of? Alex Wang // The Jackson Battle was incredibly complex, involving a grueling and lengthy shoot in quite challenging conditions, along with over 600 VFX shots in episode 2. It was truly inspiring to witness the determination of every department and vendor to give their all and create something remarkable. Fiona Campbell Westgate // I am immensely proud of the exceptional work accomplished by all of our vendors. During the VFX reviews, I found myself clapping with delight when the final shots were displayed; it was exciting to see remarkable results of the artists’ efforts come to light.  How long have you worked on this show? Alex Wang // I’ve been on this season for nearly two years. Fiona Campbell Westgate // A little over one year; I joined the show in April 2024. What’s the VFX shots count? Alex Wang // We had just over 2,500 shots this Season. Fiona Campbell Westgate // In Season 2, there were a total of 2656 visual effects shots. What is your next project? Fiona Campbell Westgate // Stay tuned… A big thanks for your time. WANT TO KNOW MORE?Blackbird: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website.DNEG: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 on DNEG website.Important Looking Pirates: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website.RISE: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website.Weta FX: Dedicated page about The Last of Us – Season 2 website. © Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2025

By JENNIFER CHAMPAGNE House of the Dragon expands its dragon-filled world in its second season, offering more large-scale battles and heightened aerial warfare. (Image courtesy of HBO) The 2025 Emmy race for outstanding visual effects is shaping up to be one of the most competitive in years with major genre heavyweights breaking new ground on what’s possible on television. As prestige fantasy and sci-fi continue to dominate, the battle for the category will likely come down to sheer scale, technical innovation and how seamlessly effects are integrated into storytelling. Returning titans like House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power have proven their ability to deliver breathtaking visuals. At the same time, Dune: Prophecy enters the conversation as a visually stunning newcomer. The Boys remains the category’s wildcard, bringing its own brand of hyper-realistic, shock-value effects to the race. With its subtle yet immersive world-building, The Penguin stands apart from the spectacle-driven contenders, using “invisible” VFX to transform Gotham into a post-flooded, decaying metropolis. Each series offers a distinct approach to digital effects, making for an intriguing showdown between blockbuster-scale world-building and more nuanced, atmospheric craftsmanship. Sharing the arena with marquee pacesetters HBO’s The Last of Us, Disney+’s Andor and Netflix’s Squid Game, these series lead the charge in ensuring that the 2025 Emmy race isn’t just about visual spectacle; it’s about which shows will set the next benchmark for visual effects on television. The following insights and highlights from VFX supervisors of likely Emmy contenders illustrate why their award-worthy shows have caught the attention of TV watchers and VFX Emmy voters. The Penguin, with its subtle yet immersive world-building, stands apart from the spectacle-driven contenders, using “invisible” VFX to transform Gotham into a post-flooded, decaying metropolis.  (Image courtesy of HBO) For The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power VFX Supervisor Jason Smith, the second season presented some of the Amazon series’ most ambitious visual effects challenges. From the epic Battle of Eregion to the painstaking design of the Entwives, Smith and his team at Wētā FX sought to advance digital world-building while staying true to J.R.R. Tolkien’s vision. “The Battle of Eregion was amazing to work on – and challenging too, because it’s a pivotal moment in Tolkien’s story,” Smith states. Unlike typical large-scale clashes, this battle begins as a siege culminating in an explosive cavalry charge. “We looked for every way we could to heighten the action during the siege by keeping the armies interacting, even at a distance,” Smith explains. His team introduced projectiles and siege weaponry to create dynamic action, ensuring the prolonged standoff felt kinetic. The environment work for Eregion posed another challenge. The city was initially constructed as a massive digital asset in Season 1, showcasing the collaborative brilliance of the Elves and Dwarves. In Season 2, that grandeur had to be systematically razed to the ground. “The progression of destruction had to be planned extremely carefully,” Smith notes. His team devised seven distinct levels of damage, mapping out in granular detail which areas would be smoldering, reduced to rubble or utterly consumed by fire. “Our goal was to have the audience feel the loss that the Elves feel as this beautiful symbol of the height of Elvendom is utterly razed.” The SSVFX team helped shape a world for Lady in the Lake that felt rich, lived-in and historically precise. (Image courtesy of Apple TV+) One of most ambitious effects for Season 4 of The Boys was Splinter, who has the ability to duplicate himself. The sequence required eight hours of rehearsal, six hours of filming, for one shot. The final effect was a mix of prosthetic cover-up pieces and VFX face replacement. (Image courtesy of Prime Video) The Penguin, HBO Max’s spinoff series of The Batman, centers on Oswald ‘Oz’ Cobb’s ruthless rise to power, and relies on meticulous environmental effects, smoothly integrating CG elements to enhance Gotham’s noir aesthetic without ever calling attention to the work itself. “The most rewarding part of our work was crafting VFX that don’t feel like VFX,” says VFX Supervisor Johnny Han. Across the series’ 3,100 VFX shots, every collapsing freeway, skyline extension and flicker of light from a muzzle flash had to feel utterly real – woven so naturally into the world of Gotham that viewers never stopped to question its authenticity. Zimia spaceport, an enormous hub of interstellar commerce in Dune: Prophecy. The production team built a vast practical set to provide a strong scale foundation, but its full grandeur came to life in post by extending this environment with CG.(Images courtesy of HBO) The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power refined its environments, which elevate Middle-earth’s realism. (Image courtesy of Prime Video) Some of the series’ most striking visual moments were also its most understated. The shift of Gotham’s seasons – transforming sunlit summer shoots into autumn’s muted chill – helped shape the show’s somber tone, reinforcing the bleak, crime-ridden undercurrent. The city’s bridges and skyscrapers were meticulously augmented, stretching Gotham beyond the limits of practical sets while preserving its grounded, brutalist aesthetic. Even the scars and wounds on Sofia Falcone were enhanced through digital artistry, ensuring that her past traumas remained ever-present, etched into her skin. The series wasn’t without its large-scale effects – far from it. Han and his team orchestrated massive sequences of urban devastation. “The floodwaters were one of our biggest challenges,” Han notes, referring to the ongoing impact of the catastrophic deluge that left Gotham in ruins. One particularly harrowing sequence required simulating a tsunami tearing through the streets – not as an action set piece, but as a deeply personal moment of loss. “Telling Victor’s story of how he lost his entire family in the bombing and floods of Gotham was heartbreaking,” Han says. “Normally, you create an event like that for excitement, for tension. But for us, it was about capturing emotional devastation.” Perhaps the most technically intricate sequences were the shootouts, hallmarks of Gotham’s criminal underbelly. “We programmed millisecond-accurate synced flash guns to mimic dramatic gunfire light,” Han explains, ensuring that the interplay of practical and digital elements remained imperceptible. Every muzzle flash, every ricochet was meticulously planned and rendered. The ultimate achievement for Han and his team wasn’t crafting the biggest explosion or the most elaborate digital sequence – it was making Gotham itself feel inescapably real. He says, “Nothing was more important to us than for you to forget that there are 3,100 VFX shots in this series.” The challenge for The Residence was making one of the most recognizable buildings in the world feel both immersive and narratively engaging. (Photo: Erin Simkin. Courtesy of Netflix) Bringing the universe of Dune to life on TV for HBO’s Dune: Prophecy requires a delicate balance of realism and imagination, grounded in natural physics, yet awe-inspiring in scale. Dune: Prophecy looks to challenge traditional fantasy dominance with its stunning, desert-bound landscapes and intricate space-faring visuals, uniting the grandeur of Denis Villeneuve’s films with the demands of episodic storytelling. Set thousands of years before the events of the films, the series explores the early days of the Bene Gesserit, a secretive order wielding extraordinary abilities. Translating that power into a visual language required technical innovation. “Kudos to Important Looking Pirates for the space folding and [Lila’s] Agony work,” says VFX Supervisor Mike Enriquez. No Dune project would be complete without its most iconic inhabitant, the sandworm. VFX Producer Terron Pratt says. “We’re incredibly proud of what the team at Image Engine created. Precise animation conveyed this creature’s weight and massive scale, while incredibly detailed sand simulations integrated it into the environment.” Every grain of sand had to move believably in response to the worm’s colossal presence to ensure the physics of Arrakis remained authentic. Floodwaters play a significant part in the destruction of Gotham in The Penguin. One particularly harrowing sequence required simulating a tsunami tearing through the streets. (Image courtesy of HBO) American Primeval integrated visual effects with practical techniques in creative, unconventional ways. The massacre sequence showcases technical mastery and pulls the audience into the brutal reality of the American frontier. (Photo: Justin Lubin. Courtesy of Netflix) For the Zimia spaceport, an enormous hub of interstellar commerce, the Dune: Prophecy production team built a vast practical set to provide a strong scale foundation. However, its full grandeur came to life in post. “By extending this environment with CG, we amplified the scope of our world, making it feel expansive and deeply impactful,” Pratt explains. The result was a sprawling, futuristic cityscape that retained a tangible weight with impeccably amalgamated practical and digital elements. Wētā FX sought to advance digital world-building for Season 2 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power while staying true to J.R.R. Tolkien’s vision. (Image courtesy of Prime Video) Visual effects extended beyond character work for Lady in the Lake, playing a key role in the show’s immersive world-building. (Image courtesy of Apple TV+) For House of the Dragon VFX Supervisor Daði Einarsson, Season 2 presented some of the HBO show’s most complex and ambitious visual effects work. The Battle at Rook’s Rest in Episode 4 was a milestone for the series, marking the first full-scale dragon-on-dragon aerial battle. “We were tasked with pitting three dragons against each other in an all-out aerial war above a castle siege,” Einarsson says. Capturing the actors’ performances mid-flight required a combination of motion-controlled cameras, preprogrammed motion bases with saddles and LED volume lighting – all mapped directly from fully animated previsualized sequences approved by director Alan Taylor and Showrunner Ryan J. Condal. On the ground, the battlefield required digital crowd replication, extensive environment extensions, and pyrotechnic enhancements to create a war zone that felt both vast and intimately chaotic. “In the air, we created a fully CG version of the environment to have full control over the camera work,” Einarsson explains. Under the supervision of Sven Martin, the Pixomondo team stitched together breathtaking aerial combat, ensuring the dragons moved with the weight and raw power befitting their legendary status. Blood, weapon effects and period-accurate muzzle flashes heightened the intensity of the brutal fight sequences in American Primeval. The natural elements and violence reflected the harsh realities of the American west in 1857. (Image courtesy of Netflix) The Residence brings a refined, detailed approach to environmental augmentation, using visual effects to take the audience on a journey through the White House in this political murder mystery. (Photo: Jessica Brooks. Courtesy of Netflix) Episode 7 introduced Hugh Hammer’s claim of Vermithor, Westeros’ second-largest dragon. Rather than breaking the sequence into multiple shots, Einarsson and director Loni Peristere saw an opportunity to craft something exceptional: a single, uninterrupted long take reminiscent of Children of Men and Gravity. “It took a lot of planning to design a series of beats that cohesively flowed from one into the next, with Hugh leading the camera by action and reaction,” Einarsson says. The sequence, which involved Hugh dodging Vermithor’s flames and ultimately claiming the beast through sheer bravery, was technically demanding. To achieve this, the team stitched together five separate takes of Hugh’s performance, shot over two separate days weeks apart, due to the set needing to be struck and rebuilt in different configurations. VFX Supervisor Wayne Stables and the team at Wētā ensured the transitions were imperceptible, uniting practical and digital elements into a continuous, immersive moment. “The Dragonmont Cavern environment was a beautiful, raised gantry and cave designed by [Production Designer] Jim Clay and expanded by Wētā,” Einarsson says. Then Rowley Imran’s stunt team and Mike Dawson’s SFX team engulfed the set in practical flames so every element, from fire to dust to movement, contributed to the illusion of real-time danger. For Einarsson, the most significant challenge wasn’t just in making these sequences visually spectacular – it was ensuring they belonged within the same world as the quiet, dialogue-driven moments in King’s Landing. “The aim is for incredibly complex and spectacular visual effects scenes to feel like they belong in the same world as two people talking in a council chamber,” he states. Every dragon, flame and gust of wind had to feel as lived-in as the politics playing out beneath them. Season 4 of The Boys delivered the fully CG octopus character, Ambrosius. A challenge was crafting a believable yet expressive sea creature and keeping it grounded while still embracing the show’s signature absurdity. (Image courtesy of Prime Video) In The Penguin, Gotham isn’t just a city; it’s a living, breathing entity shaped by destruction, decay and the quiet menace lurking beneath its streets. (Images courtesy of HBO) The Boys continues to defy genre norms, delivering audacious, technically complex effects that lean into its hyperviolent, satirical take on superheroes. For The Boys VFX Supervisor Stephan Fleet, Season 4 delivered some of the Amazon Prime show’s most dramatic effects yet, from the self-replicating Splinter to the fully CG octopus character, Ambrosius. Splinter, who has the ability to duplicate himself, presented a unique challenge. Fleet says, “His introduction on the podium was a complex motion control sequence. Eight hours of rehearsal, six hours of filming – for one shot.” Splinter’s design came with an added layer of difficulty. “We had to figure out how to make a nude male clone,” Fleet says. “Normally, you can hide doubles’ bodies in clothes – not this time!” The final effect required a mix of prosthetic cover-up pieces and VFX face replacement, requiring multiple iterations to make it work. Ambrosius became one of The Boys’ most unexpected breakout characters. “It’s fun making a full-on character in the show that’s an octopus,” Fleet reveals in a nod to the show’s absurd side. “As much as possible, we aim for a grounded approach and try to attain a level of thought and detail you don’t often find on TV.” While the battle for outstanding visual effects will likely be dominated by large-scale fantasy and sci-fi productions, several standout series are also making waves with their innovative and immersive visual storytelling. Netflix’s The Residence, led by VFX Supervisor Seth Hill, brings a refined, detailed approach to environmental augmentation, enhancing the grandeur of the White House setting in this political murder mystery. “Using visual effects to take the audience on a journey through an iconic location like the White House was really fun,” Hill says. “It’s a cool and unique use of visual effects.” One of the most ambitious sequences involved what the team called the Doll House, a digital rendering of the White House with its south façade removed, exposing the interior like a cross-section of a dollhouse. Hill explains. “Going back and forth from filmed footage to full CGI – that jump from grounded realism to abstract yet still real – was quite tricky,” he says, adding, “VFX is best when it is in service of the storytelling, and The Residence presented a unique opportunity to do just that. It was a big challenge and a tough nut to crack, but those creative and technical hurdles are a good part of what makes it so rewarding.” “We were tasked with pitting three dragons against each other in an all-out aerial war above a castle siege. In the air, we created a fully CG version of the environment to have full control over the camera work.”—Daði Einarsson, VFX Supervisor, House of the Dragon The Battle at Rook’s Rest in Episode 4 of House of the Dragon Season 2 was a major milestone for the series, marking the first full-scale dragon-on-dragon aerial battle. (Image courtesy of HBO) Season 2 of House of the Dragon presented some of the most complex and ambitious visual effects work for the show to date. (Photo: Theo Whiteman. Courtesy of HBO) For Jay Worth, VFX Supervisor on Apple TV+’s Lady in the Lake, the challenge was two-fold: create seamless effects and preserve the raw emotional truth of a performance. One of the most significant technical achievements was de-aging Natalie Portman. “It seems so easy on paper, but the reality was far more challenging,” Worth admits. Worth had tackled de-aging before, but never with the same level of success. “For me, it is simply because of her performance.” Portman delivered a nuanced, youthful portrayal that felt entirely authentic to the time period. “It made our job both so much easier and set the bar so high for us. Sometimes, you can hide in a scene like this – you pull the camera back, cut away before the most expressive parts of the dialogue, or the illusion breaks,” Worth explains. In Lady in the Lake, there was nowhere to hide. “I think that is what I am most proud of with these shots. It felt like the longer you stayed on them, the more you believed them. That is a real feat with this sort of work.” Skully VFX handled the de-aging. “They nailed the look early on and delivered throughout the project on this difficult task.” Working alongside Production Designer Jc Molina, the VFX team helped shape a world that felt rich, lived-in and historically precise. “We were entrusted with the most important part of this show – do we believe this performance from this character in this part of her journey? – and we feel like we were able to deliver on this challenge.” On the other end of the spectrum, Netflix’s American Primeval, under the guidance of VFX Supervisor Andrew Ceperley, delivers rugged, visceral realism in its portrayal of the untamed American frontier. With brutal battle sequences, sprawling landscapes and historical re-creations that interweave practical and digital effects, the series stands as a testament to how VFX can enhance grounded, historical storytelling. Ceperley says, “The standout is definitely the nearly three-minute single-shot massacre sequence in the forest episode.” Designed to immerse the audience in the raw, chaotic violence of the frontier, the scene captures every brutal detail with unrelenting intensity. The challenge was crafting invisible visual effects, enhancing practical stunts and destruction without breaking the immersive, handheld camera style. “The sequence was designed to be one shot made up of 10 individual takes, shot over seven days, seamlessly stitched together, all while using a handheld camera on an extremely wide-angle lens.” One of the most complex moments involved a bull smashing through a wagon while the characters hid underneath. Rather than relying on CGI, the team took a practical approach, placing a 360-degree camera under the wagon while the special effects team rigged it to explode in a way that simulated an impact. “A real bull was then guided to run toward the 360 camera and leap over it,” Ceperley says. The footage was blended with live-action shots of the actors with minimal CGI enhancements – just dust and debris – to complete the effect. Adding to the difficulty, the scene was set at sunset, giving the team an extremely limited window to capture each day’s footage. The massacre sequence was a prime example of integrating visual effects with practical techniques in creative, unconventional ways, blending old-school in-camera effects with modern stitching techniques to create a visceral cinematic moment that stayed true to the show’s raw, historical aesthetic. “Using old techniques in new, even strange ways and seeing it pay off and deliver on the original vision was the most rewarding part.”

Special Effects Coordinator Tony Lazarowich, VFX Supervisor Nordin Rahhali, and Stunt Coordinator Simon Burnett discuss the work in this LA Weekly article, which includes a bunch of fun videos. The post Stunts, previs and VFX in ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ appeared first on befores & afters.

Adapting the iconic, block-based design aesthetic of Mojang’s beloved Minecraft videogame into the hit feature film comedy adventure, The Minecraft Movie, posed an enormous number of hurdles for director Jared Hess and Oscar-winning Production VFX Supervisor Dan Lemmon. Tasked with helping translate the iconic pixelated world into something cinematically engaging, while remaining true to its visual DNA, was Wētā FX, who delivered 450 VFX shots on the film. And two of their key leads on the film were VFX Supervisor Sheldon Stopsack and Animation Supervisor Kevin Estey.  But the shot count merely scratches the surface of the extensive work the studio performed. Wētā led the design and creation of The Overworld, 64 unique terrains spanning deserts, lush forests, oceans, and mountain ranges, all combined into one continuous environment, assets that were also shared with Digital Domain for their work on the 3rd act battle. Wētā also handled extensive work on the lava-filled hellscape of The Nether that involved Unreal Engine for early representations used in previs, scene scouting, and onset during principal photography, before refining the environment during post-production. They also dressed The Nether with lava, fire, and torches, along with atmospherics and particulate like smoke, ash, and embers. But wait… there’s more! The studio’s Art Department, working closely with Hess, co-created the look and feel of all digital characters in the film. For Malgosha’s henchmen, the Piglins, Wētā designed and created 12 different variants, all with individual characteristics and personalities. They also designed sheep, bees, pandas, zombies, skeletons, and lovable wolf Dennis. Many of these characters were provided to other vendors for their work on the film. Needless to say, the studio truly became a “Master Builder” on the show. The film is based on the hugely popular game Minecraft, first released by Sweden’s Mojang Studios in 2011 and purchased by Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014, which immerses players in a low-res, pixelated “sandbox” simulation where they can use blocks to build entire worlds.  Here's the final trailer: In a far-ranging interview, Stopsack and Estey shared with AWN a peek into their creative process, from early design exploration to creation of an intricate practical cloak for Malgosha and the use of Unreal Engine for previs, postvis, and real-time onset visualization. Dan Sarto: The film is filled with distinct settings and characters sporting various “block” styled features. Can you share some of the work you did on the environments, character design, and character animation? Sheldon Stopsack: There's, there's so much to talk about and truth to be told, if you were to touch on everything, we would probably need to spend the whole day together.  Kevin Estey: Sheldon and I realized that when we talk about the film, either amongst ourselves or with someone else, we could just keep going, there are so many stories to tell. DS: Well, start with The Overworld and The Nether. How did the design process begin? What did you have to work with? SS: Visual effects is a tricky business, you know. It's always difficult. Always challenging. However, Minecraft stood out to us as not your usual quote unquote standard visual effects project, even though as you know, there is no standard visual effects project because they're all somehow different. They all come with their own creative ideas, inspirations, and challenges. But Minecraft, right from the get-go, was different, simply by the fact that when you first consider the idea of making such a live-action movie, you instantly ask yourself, “How do we make this work? How do we combine these two inherently very, very different but unique worlds?” That was everyone’s number one question. How do we land this? Where do we land this? And I don't think that any of us really had an answer, including our clients, Dan Lemmon [Production VFX Supervisor] and Jared Hess [the film’s director]. Everyone was really open for this journey. That's compelling for us, to get out of our comfort zone. It makes you nervous because there are no real obvious answers. KE: Early on, we seemed to thrive off these kinds of scary creative challenges. There were lots of question marks. We had many moments when we were trying to figure out character designs. We had a template from the game, but it was an incredibly vague, low-resolution template. And there were so many ways that we could go. But that design discovery throughout the project was really satisfying.  DS: Game adaptations are never simple. There usually isn’t much in the way of story. But with Minecraft, from a visual standpoint, how did you translate low res, block-styled characters into something entertaining that could sustain a 100-minute feature film? SS: Everything was a question mark. Using the lava that you see in The Nether as one example, we had beautiful concept art for all our environments, The Overworld and The Nether, but those concepts only really took you this far. They didn’t represent the block shapes or give you a clear answer of like how realistic some of those materials, shapes and structures would be. How organic would we go? All of this needed to be explored. For the lava, we had stylized concept pieces, with block shaped viscosity as it flowed down. But we spent months with our effects team, and Dan and Jared, just riffing on ideas. We came full circle, with the lava ending up being more realistic, a naturally viscous liquid based on real physics. And the same goes with the waterfall that you see in the Overworld.  The question is, how far do we take things into the true Minecraft representation of things? How much do we scale back a little bit and ground ourselves in reality, with effects we’re quite comfortable producing as a company? There's always a tradeoff to find that balance of how best to combine what’s been filmed, the practical sets and live-action performances, with effects. Where’s the sweet spot? What's the level of abstraction? What's honest to the game? As much as some call Minecraft a simple game, it isn't simple, right? It's incredibly complex. It's got a set of rules and logic to the world building process within the game that we had to learn, adapt, and honor in many ways. When our misfits first arrive and we have these big vistas and establishing shots, when you really look at it, you, you recognize a lot of the things that we tried to adapt from the game. There are different biomes, like the Badlands, which is very sand stoney; there's the Woodlands, which is a lush environment with cherry blossom trees; you’ve got the snow biome with big mountains in the background. Our intent was to honor the game. KE: I took a big cue from a lot of the early designs, and particularly the approach that Jared liked for the characters and to the design in general, which was maintaining the stylized, blocky aesthetic, but covering them in realistic flesh, fur, things that were going to make them appear as real as possible despite the absolutely unreal designs of their bodies. And so essentially, it was squared skeleton… squarish bones with flesh and realistic fur laid over top. We tried various things, all extremely stylized. The Creepers are a good example. We tried all kinds of ways for them to explode. Sheldon found a great reference for a cat coughing up a hairball. He was nice to censor the worst part of it, but those undulations in the chest and ribcage… Jared spoke of the Creepers being basically tragic characters that only wanted to be loved, to just be close to you. But sadly, whenever they did, they’d explode. So, we experimented with a lot of different motions of how they’d explode. DS: Talk about the process of determining how these characters would move. None seem to have remotely realistic proportions in their limbs, bodies, or head size. KE: There were a couple things that Jared always seemed to be chasing. One was just something that would make him laugh. Of course, it had to sit within the bounds of how a zombie might move, or a skeleton might move, as we were interpreting the game. But the main thing was just, was it fun and funny? I still remember one of the earliest gags they came up with in mocap sessions, even before I even joined the show, was how the zombies get up after they fall over. It was sort of like a tripod, where its face and feet were planted and its butt shoots up in the air. After a lot of experimentation, we came up with basic personality types for each character. There were 12 different types of Piglins. The zombies were essentially like you're coming home from the pub after a few too many pints and you're just trying to get in the door, but you can't find your keys. Loose, slightly inebriated movement. The best movement we found for the skeletons was essentially like an old man with rigid limbs and lack of ligaments that was chasing kids off his lawn. And so, we created this kind of bible of performance types that really helped guide performers on the mocap stage and animators later on. SS: A lot of our exploration didn’t stick. But Jared was the expert in all of this. He always came up with some quirky last-minute idea.  KE: My favorite from Jared came in the middle of one mocap shoot. He walked up to me and said he had this stupid idea. I said OK, go on. He said, what if Malgosha had these two little pigs next to her, like Catholic alter boys [the thurifers], swinging incense [a thurible]. Can we do that? I talked to our stage manager, and we quickly put together a temporary prop for the incense burners. And we got two performers who just stood there. What are they going to do? Jared said, “Nothing. Just stand there and swing. I think it would look funny.” So, that’s what we did.  We dubbed them the Priesty Boys. And they are there throughout the film. That was amazing about Jared. He was always like, let's just try it, see if it works. Otherwise ditch it. DS: Tell me about your work on Malgosha. And I also want to discuss your use of Unreal Engine and the previs and postvis work.  SS: For Malgosha as a character, our art department did a phenomenal job finding the character design at the concept phase. But it was a collective effort. So many contributors were involved in her making. And I'm not just talking about the digital artists here on our side. It was a joint venture of different people having different explorations and experiments. It started off with the concept work as a foundation, which we mocked up with 3D sketches before building a model. But with Malgosha, we also had the costume department on the production side building this elaborate cloak. Remember, that cloak kind of makes 80, 85% of her appearance. It's almost like a character in itself, the way we utilized it. And the costume department built this beautiful, elaborate, incredibly intricate, practical version of it that we intended to use on set for the performer to wear. It ended up being too impractical because it was too heavy. But it was beautiful. So, while we didn't really use it on set, it gave us something physically to kind of incorporate into our digital version. KE: Alan Henry is the motion performer who portrayed her on set and on the mocap stage. I've known him for close to 15 years. I started working with him on The Hobbit films. He was a stunt performer who eventually rolled into doing motion capture with us on The Hobbit. He’s an incredible actor and absolutely hilarious and can adapt to any sort of situation. He’s so improvisational. He came up with an approach to Malgosha very quickly. Added a limp so that she felt decrepit, leaning on the staff, adding her other arm as kind of like a gimp arm that she would point and gesture with.   Even though she’s a blocky character, her anatomy is very much a biped, with rounder limbs than the other Piglins. She's got hooves, is somewhat squarish, and her much more bulky mass in the middle was easier to manipulate and move around. Because she would have to battle with Steve in the end, she had to have a level of agility that even some of the Piglins didn't have. DS: Did Unreal Engine come into play with her?  SS: Unreal was used all the way through the project. Dan Lemmon and his team early on set up their own virtual art department to build representations of the Overworld and the Nether within the context of Unreal. We and Sony Imageworks tried to provide recreations of these environments that were then used within Unreal to previsualize what was happening on set during shooting of principal photography. And that's where our mocap and on-set teams were coming into play. Effects provided what we called the Nudge Cam. It was a system to do real-time tracking using a stereo pair of Basler computer vision cameras that were mounted onto the sides of the principal camera. We provided the live tracking that was then composited in real time with the Unreal Engine content that all the vendors had provided. It was a great way of utilizing Unreal to give the camera operators or DOP, even Jared, a good sense of what we would actually shoot. It gave everyone a little bit of context for the look and feel of what you could actually expect from these scenes.  Because we started this journey with Unreal having onset in mind, we internally decided, look, let's take this further. Let's take this into post-production as well. What would it take to utilize Unreal for shot creation? And it was really exclusively used on the Nether environment. I don’t want to say we used it for matte painting replacement. We used it more for say, let's build this extended environment in Unreal. Not only use it as a render engine with this reasonably fast turnaround but also use it for what it's good at: authoring things, quickly changing things, moving columns around, manipulating things, dressing them, lighting them, and rendering them. It became sort of a tool that we used in place of a traditional matte painting for the extended environments. KE: Another thing worth mentioning is we were able to utilize it on our mocap stage as well during the two-week shoot with Jared and crew. When we shoot on the mocap stage, we get a very simple sort of gray shaded diagnostic grid. You have your single-color characters that sometimes are textured, but they’re fairly simple without any context of environment. Our special projects team was able to port what we usually see in Giant, the software we use on the mocap stage, into Unreal, which gave us these beautifully lit environments with interactive fire and atmosphere. And Jared and the team could see their movie for the first time in a rough, but still very beautiful rough state. That was invaluable. DS: If you had to key on anything, what would say with the biggest challenges for your teams on the film? You're laughing. I can hear you thinking, “Do we have an hour?”  KE: Where do you begin?  SS: Exactly. It's so hard to really single one out. And I struggle with that question every time I've been asked that question. KE: I’ll start.  I've got a very simple practical answer and then a larger one, something that was new to us, kind of similar to what we were just talking about. The simple practical one is the Piglins square feet with no ankles. It was very tough to make them walk realistically. Think of the leg of a chair. How do you make that roll and bank and bend because there is no joint? There are a lot of Piglins walking on surfaces and it was a very difficult conundrum to solve. It took a lot of hard work from our motion edit team and our animation team to get those things walking realistically. You know, it’s doing that simple thing that you don't usually pay attention to. So that was one reasonably big challenge that is often literally buried in the shadows. The bigger one was something that was new to me. We often do a lot of our previs and postvis in-house and then finish the shots. And just because of circumstances and capacity, we did the postvis for the entire final battle, but we ended up sharing the sequence with Digital Domain, who did an amazing job completing some of the stuff on the Battlefield we did post on. For me personally, I've never experienced not finishing what I started. But it was also really rewarding to see how well the work we had put in was honored by DD when they took it over.   SS: I think the biggest challenge and the biggest achievement that I'm most proud of is really ending up with something that was well received by the wider audience. Of creating these two worlds, this sort of abstract adaptation of the Minecraft game and combining it with live-action. That was the achievement for me. That was the biggest challenge. We were all nervous from day one. And we continued to be nervous up until the day the movie came out. None of us really knew how it ultimately would be received. The fact that it came together and was so well received is a testament to everyone doing a fantastic job. And that's what I'm incredibly proud of. Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.

Interviews Andor – Season 2: Mohen Leo (Production VFX Supervisor), TJ Falls (Production VFX Producer) and Scott Pritchard (ILM VFX Supervisor) By Vincent Frei - 22/05/2025 In 2023, Mohen Leo (Production VFX Supervisor), TJ Falls (Production VFX Producer), and Scott Pritchard (ILM VFX Supervisor) offered an in-depth look at the visual effects of Andor’s first season. Now, the trio returns to share insights into their work on the second—and final—season of this critically acclaimed series. Tony Gilroy is known for his detailed approach to storytelling. Can you talk about how your collaboration with him evolved throughout the production of Andor? How does he influence the VFX decisions and the overall tone of the series? Mohen Leo (ML): Our history with Tony, from Rogue One through the first season of Andor, had built a strong foundation of mutual trust. For Season 2, he involved VFX from the earliest story discussions, sharing outlines and inviting our ideas for key sequences. His priority is always to keep the show feeling grounded, ensuring that visual effects serve the story’s core and never become extraneous spectacle that might distract from the narrative. TJ Falls (TJ): Tony is a master storyteller. As Mohen mentioned, we have a great history with Tony from Rogue One and through Season 1 of Andor. We had a great rapport with Tony, and he had implicit trust in us. We began prepping Season 2 while we were in post for Season 1. We were having ongoing conversations with Tony and Production Designer Luke Hull as we were completing work for S1 and planning out how we would progress into Season 2. We wanted to keep the show grounded and gritty while amping up the action and urgency. Tony had a lot of story to cover in 12 episodes. The time jumps between the story arcs were something we discussed early on, and the need to be able to not only justify the time jumps but also to provide the audience with a visual bridge to tell the stories that happened off-screen. Tony would look to us to guide and use our institutional knowledge of Star Wars to help keep him honest within the universe. He, similarly, challenged us to maintain our focus and ensure that the visual tone of the series serviced the story. Tony Gilroy and Genevieve O’Reilly on the set of Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Des Willie. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved. As you’ve returned for Season 2, have there been any significant changes or new challenges compared to the first season? How has the production evolved in terms of VFX and storytelling? (ML): The return of nearly all key creatives from Season 1, both internally and at our VFX vendors, was a massive advantage. This continuity built immediate trust and an efficient shorthand. It made everyone comfortable to be more ambitious, allowing us to significantly expand the scope and complexity of the visual effects for Season 2. (TJ): We had all new directors this season. The rest of the core creative and production teams stayed consistent from Season 1. We worked to keep the creative process as seamless from Season 1 as we could while working with the new directors and adapting to their process while incorporating their individual skills and ideas that they brought to the table. This season we were able to work on location much more than on Season 1. That provided us with a great opportunity to build out the connective tissue between real world constraints and the virtual world we were creating. In the case with Senate Plaza in Coruscant we also had to stay consistent with what has previously been established, so that was a fun challenge. How did you go about dividing the workload between the various VFX studios? (ML): I can give an answer, but probably better if TJ does. (TJ): We were very specific about how we divided the work on this series. We started, as we usually do, with a detailed breakdown of work for the 12 episodes. Mohen and I then discussed a logical split based on type of work, specific elements, and areas of commonality for particular environments. While cost is always a consideration, we focused our vendor casting around the creative strengths of the studios we were partnering with on the project. ILM is in the DNA of Star Wars, so we knew we’d want to be working with them on some of the most complex work. We chose ILM for the opening TIE Avenger hangar sequence and subsequent escape. We utilized ILM for work in every episode, including the CG KX/K2 work, but their main focus was on Coruscant, and they had substantial work in the ninth episode for the big Senate escape sequence. Hybride‘s chief focus was on Palmo Plaza and the Ghorman environments. They dealt with everything Ghorman on the ground from the street extensions and the truck crash, through the Ghorman massacre, sharing shots with ILM with the KX work. For Scanline VFX, we identified three primary areas of focus: the work on Mina Rau, Chandrila, and Yavin. The TIE Fighter sequence in Season 2 is a standout moment. Can you walk us through the VFX process for that particular sequence? What were some of the technical challenges you faced, and how did you work to make it as intense and realistic as possible? (TJ): This is a sequence I’m particularly proud of as VFX played a central role in the sequence coming together from start to finish. We were intimately involved from the initial conversations of the idea for the sequence. Mohen created digital storyboards and we pitched ideas for the sequence to Tony Gilroy. Once we had a sense of the creative brief, we started working with Luke Hull (Production Designer) and the art department on the physical hangar set and brought it into previz for virtual scouting. With Jen Kitching (our Previz Supervisor from The Third Floor) we had a virtual camera set up that allowed us to virtually use the camera and lenses we would have on our shoot. We blocked out shots with Ariel Kleiman (Director) and Christophe Nuyens (the DoP). This went back through previz and techviz so we could meticulously chart out our plan for the shoot. Keeping with our ethos of grounding everything in reality, we wanted to use as much of the practical set as possible. We needed to be sure our handoffs between physical and virtual were seamless – Luke Murphy, our SFX Supervisor, worked closely with us in planning elements and practical effects to be used on the day. Over the course of the shoot, we also had the challenge of the flashing red alarm that goes off once the TIE Avenger crashes into the ceiling. We established the look of the red alarm with Christophe and the lighting team, and then needed to work out the timing. For that, we collaborated with editor John Gilroy to ensure we knew precisely when each alarm beat would flash. Once we had all the pieces, we turned the sequence over to Scott Pritchard and ILM to execute the work. Scott Pritchard (SP): This sequence was split between our London and Vancouver studios, with London taking everything inside the hangar, and Vancouver handling the exterior shots after Cassian blasts through the hangar door. We started from a strong foundation thanks to two factors: the amazing hangar set and TIE Avenger prop; and having full sequence previs. The hangar set was built about 2/3 of its overall length (as much as could be built on the soundstage), which our environments team extended, adding the hangar doors at the end and also a view to the exterior environment. Extending the hangar was most of the work in the sequence up until the TIE starts moving, where we switched to our CG TIE. As with Season 1, we used a blend of physical SFX work for the pyro effects, augmenting with CG sparks. As TJ mentioned, the hangar’s red warning lighting was a challenge as it had to pulse in a regular tempo throughout the edit. Only the close-up shots of Cassian in the cockpit had practical red lighting, so complex lighting and comp work were required to achieve a consistent look throughout the sequence. ILM London’s compositing supervisor, Claudio Bassi, pitched the idea that as the TIE hit various sections of the ceiling, it would knock out the ceiling lights, progressively darkening the hangar. It was a great motif that helped heighten the tension as we get towards the moment where Cassian faces the range trooper. Once we cut to outside the hangar, ILM Vancouver took the reins. The exterior weather conditions were briefed to us as ‘polar night’ – it’s never entirely dark, instead there’s a consistent low-level ambient light. This was a challenge as we had to consider the overall tonal range of each shot and make sure there was enough contrast to guide the viewer’s eye to where it needed to be, not just on individual shots but looking at eye-trace as one shot cut to another. A key moment is when Cassian fires rockets into an ice arch, leading to its collapse. The ice could very easily look like rock, so we needed to see the light from the rocket’s explosions scattered inside the ice. It required detailed work in both lighting and comp to get to the right look. Again, as the ice arch starts to collapse and the two chase TIE Advanced ships get taken out, it needed careful balancing work to make sure viewers could read the situation and the action in each shot. The world-building in Andor is impressive, especially with iconic locations like Coruscant and Yavin. How did you approach creating these environments and ensuring they felt as authentic as possible to the Star Wars universe? (ML): Our approach to world-building in Andor relied on a close collaboration between the VFX team and Luke Hull, the production designer, along with his art department. This partnership was established in Season 1 and continued for Season 2. Having worked on many Star Wars projects over the decades, VFX was often able to provide inspiration and references for art department designs. For example, for locations like Yavin and Coruscant, VFX provided the art department with existing 3D assets: the Yavin temple model from Rogue One and the Coruscant city layout around the Senate from the Prequel films. The Coruscant model, in particular, involved some ‘digital archaeology.’ The data was stored on tapes from around 2001 and consisted of NURBS models in an older Softimage file format. To make them usable, we had to acquire old Softimage 2010 and XSI licenses, install them on a Windows 7 PC, and then convert the data to the FBX format that current software can read. Supplying these original layouts to the art department enabled them to create their new designs and integrate our real-world shooting locations while maintaining consistency with the worlds seen in previous Star Wars productions. Given that Andor is set approximately twenty years after the Prequels, we also had the opportunity to update and adjust layouts and designs to reflect that time difference and realize the specific creative vision Luke Hull and Tony Gilroy had for the show. StageCraft technology is a huge part of the production. How did you use it to bring these complex environments, like Coruscant and Yavin, to life? What are the main benefits and limitations of using StageCraft for these settings? (SP): Our use of StageCraft for Season 2 was similar to that on Season 1. We used it to create the exterior views through the windows of the Safehouse on Coruscant. As with our work for the Chandrillan Embassy in Season 1, we created four different times of day/weather conditions. One key difference was that the foreground buildings were much closer to the Safehouse, so we devised three projection points (one for each room of the Safehouse), which would ensure that the perspective of the exterior was correct for each room. On set we retained a large amount of flexibility with our content. We had our own video feed from the unit cameras, and we were able to selectively isolate and grade sections of the city based on their view through the camera. Working in context like this meant that we could make any final tweaks while each shot was being set up and rehearsed. While we were shooting a scene set at night, the lighting team rigged a series of lights running above the windows that, when triggered, would flash in sequence, casting a moving light along the floor and walls of the set, as if from a moving car above. I thought we could use the LED wall to do something similar from below, catching highlights on the metal pipework that ran across the ceiling. During a break in shooting, I hatched a plan with colour operator Melissa Goddard, brain bar supervisor Ben Brown, and we came up with a moving rectangular section on the LED wall which matched the practical lights for speed, intensity and colour temperature. We set up two buttons on our iPad to trigger the ‘light’ to move in either direction. We demoed the idea to the DP after lunch, who loved it, and so when it came to shoot, he could either call from a car above from the practical lights, or a car below from the LEDs. (ML): Just to clarify – the Coruscant Safehouse set was the only application of Stagecraft LED screens in Season 2. All other Coruscant scenes relied on urban location photography or stage sets with traditional blue screen extensions. The various Yavin locations were achieved primarily with large backlot sets at Longcross Studios. A huge set of the airfield, temple entrance and partial temple interior was extended by Scanline VFX, led by Sue Rowe, in post, creating the iconic temple exterior from A New Hope. VFX also added flying and parked spaceships, and augmented the surrounding forest to feel more tropical. Andor blends CG with actual real-world locations. Can you share how you balanced these two elements, especially when creating large-scale environments or specific landscapes that felt grounded in reality? (SP): A great example of this is the environment around the Senate. The plates for this were shot in the City of Arts & Sciences in Valencia. Blending the distinctive Calatrava architecture with well-known Star Wars buildings like the Senate was an amazing challenge, it wasn’t immediately clear how the two could sit alongside each other. Our Vancouver team, led by Tania Richard, did an incredible job taking motifs and details from the Valencia buildings and incorporating them into the Senate building on both large and small scales, but still contiguous with the overall Senate design. The production team was ingenious in how they used each of the Valencia buildings to represent many locations around the Senate and the surrounding areas. For example, the Science Museum was used for the walkway where Cassian shoots Kloris (Mon’s driver), the main entrance to the Senate, and the interior of the Senate Atrium (where Ghorman Senator Oran is arrested). It was a major challenge ensuring that all those locations were represented across the larger environment, so viewers understood the geography of the scene, but also blended with the design language of their immediate surroundings. Everything in the Senate Plaza had a purpose. When laying out the overall layout of the Plaza, we considered aspects such as how far Senators would realistically walk from their transports to the Senate entrance. When extending the Plaza beyond the extents of the City of Arts & Sciences, we used Calatrava architecture from elsewhere. The bridge just in front of the Senatorial Office Building is based on a Calatrava-designed bridge in my home city of Dublin. As we reach the furthest extents of the Senate Plaza, we begin blending in more traditional Coruscant architecture so as to soften the transition to the far background. Coruscant is such a pivotal location in Star Wars. How did you approach creating such a vast, densely populated urban environment? What were the key visual cues that made it feel alive and realistic? (ML): Our approach to Coruscant in Season 2 built upon what we established in the first season: primarily, shooting in real-world city locations whenever feasible. The stunning Calatrava architecture at Valencia’s City of Arts and Sciences, for instance, served as the foundation for the Senate exterior and other affluent districts. For the city’s grittier neighborhoods, we filmed in urban environments in London, like the Barbican and areas around Twickenham Stadium. Filming in these actual city locations provided a strong, realistic basis for the cinematography, lighting, and overall mood of each environment. This remained true even when VFX later modified large portions of the frame with Star Wars architecture. This methodology gave the director and DP confidence on set that their vision would carry through to the final shot. Our art department and VFX concept artists then created numerous paintovers based on plates and location photography, offering clear visual guides for transforming each real location into its Coruscant counterpart during post-production. For the broader cityscapes, we took direct inspiration from 3D street maps of cities such as Tokyo, New York, and Hong Kong. We would exaggerate the scale and replace existing buildings with our Coruscant designs while preserving the fundamental urban patterns. When it comes to creating environments like Yavin, which has a very natural, jungle-like aesthetic, how do you ensure the VFX stays true to the organic feel of the location while still maintaining the science-fiction elements of Star Wars? (ML): Nearly all of the Yavin jungle scenes were shot in a large wooded area that is part of Longcross Studios. The greens and art departments did an amazing job augmenting the natural forest with tropical plants and vines. The scenes featuring the two rebel factions in the clearing were captured almost entirely in-camera, with VFX primarily adding blaster fire, augmenting the crashed ship, and painting out equipment. Only the shots of the TIE Avenger landing and taking off, as well as the giant creature snatching the two rebels, featured significant CG elements. The key elements connecting these practical locations back to the Yavin established in A New Hope and Rogue One were the iconic temples. The establishing shots approaching the main temple in episode 7 utilized plate photography from South America, which had been shot for another Disney project but ultimately not used. Other aerial shots, such as the U-Wing flying above the jungle in episode 12, were fully computer-generated by ILM. K-2SO is a beloved character, and his return is highly anticipated. What can you tell us about the process of bringing him back to life with VFX in Season 2? What new challenges did this bring compared to his original appearance? (SP): We had already updated a regular KX droid for the scene on Niamos in Season 1, so much of the work to update the asset to the latest pipeline requirements had already been done. We now needed to switch over to the textures & shaders specific to K2, and give them the same updates. Unique to Series 2 was that there were a number of scenes involving both a practical and a digital K2 – when he gets crushed on Ghorman in episode 8, and then ‘rebooted’ on Yavin in episode 9. The practical props were a lot more beaten up than our hero asset, so we made bespoke variants to match the practical droid in each sequence. Additionally, for the reboot sequence on Yavin, we realised pretty quickly that the extreme movements meant that we were seeing into areas that previously had not required much detail – for instance, underneath his shoulder armour. We came up with a shoulder joint design that allowed for the required movement while also staying mechanically correct. When we next see him in Episode 10, a year has passed, and he is now the K-2SO as we know him from Rogue One. K-2SO has a unique design, particularly in his facial expressions and movement. How did you approach animating him for Season 2, and were there any specific changes or updates made to his character model or animation? (SP): Following Rogue One, Mohen made detailed records of the takeaways learned from creating K-2SO, and he kindly shared these notes with us early on in the show. They were incredibly helpful in tuning the fine details of the animation. Our animation team, led by Mathieu Vig, did a superb job of identifying the nuances of Alan’s performance and making sure they came across. There were plenty of pitfalls to avoid – for instance, the curve to his upper back meant that it was very easy for his neck to look hyperextended. We also had to be very careful with his eyes, as they’re sources of light, they could very easily look cartoonish if they moved around too much. Dialling in just the right amount of eye movement was crucial to a good performance. As the eyes also had several separate emissive and reflective components, they required delicate balancing in the comp on a per-shot basis. Luckily, we had great reference from Rogue One to be able to dial in the eyes to suit both the lighting of a shot but also its performance details. One Rogue One shot in particular, where he says ‘Your behavior, Jyn Erso, is continually unexpected’, was a particularly good reference for how we could balance the lights in his eyes to, in effect, enlarge his pupils, and give him a softer expression. K-2SO also represented my first opportunity to work with ILM’s new studio in Mumbai. Amongst other shots, they took on the ‘hallway fight’ sequence in Episode 12 where K2 dispatches Heert and his troopers, and they did a fantastic job from animation right through to final comp. K-2SO’s interactions with the live-action actors are key to his character. How did you work with the actors to ensure his presence felt as real and integrated as possible on screen, especially in terms of timing and reactions? (ML): Alan Tudyk truly defined K-2SO in Rogue One, so his return for Andor Season 2 was absolutely critical to us. He was on set for every one of K2’s shots, performing on stilts and in a performance capture suit. This approach was vital because it gave Alan complete ownership of the character’s physical performance and, crucially, allowed for spontaneous, genuine interactions with the other actors, particularly Diego Luna. Witnessing Alan and Diego reunite on camera was fantastic; that unique chemistry and humor we loved in Rogue One was instantly palpable. In post-production, our VFX animators then meticulously translated every nuance of Alan’s on-set performance to the digital K-2SO model. It’s a detailed process that still requires artistic expertise. For instance, K2’s facial structure is largely static, so direct translation of Alan’s facial expressions isn’t always possible. In these cases, our animators found creative solutions – translating a specific facial cue from Alan into a subtle head tilt or a particular eye movement for K2, always ensuring the final animation remained true to the intent and spirit of Alan’s original performance. Were there any memorable moments or scenes from the series that you found particularly rewarding or challenging to work on from a visual effects standpoint? (ML): The Plaza sequence in episode 8, which runs for about 23 minutes, stands out as particularly memorable – both for its challenges and its rewarding outcome. Just preparing for it was a daunting task. Its successful execution hinged on incredibly tight collaboration between numerous departments: stunts, creature effects, special effects, the camera department, our tireless greenscreens crew, and of course, VFX. The stunts team, under Marc Mailley, drove the choreography of all the action. Our On-Set VFX Supervisor, Marcus Dryden, was instrumental. He worked hand-in-glove with the director, DP, and assistant directors to ensure we meticulously captured all the necessary elements. This included everything from crowd replication plates and practical effects elements to the performances of stunt teams and creature actors, plus all the crucial on-set data. The shoot for this sequence alone took over three weeks. Hybride, under the leadership of Joseph Kasparian and Olivier Beaulieu, then completed the environments, added the blaster fire, and augmented the special effects in post-production, with ILM contributing the KX droids that wreak havoc in the plaza. (SP): I agree with Mohen here, for me the Ghorman Plaza episode is the most rewarding to have worked on. It required us to weave our work into that of so many other departments – stunts, sfx, costume – to name just a few. When we received the plates, to see the quality of the work that had gone into the photography alone was inspirational for me and the ILM crew. It’s gratifying to be part of a team where you know that everyone involved is on top of their game. And of course all that is underpinned by writing of that calibre from Tony Gilroy and his team – it just draws everything together. From a pure design viewpoint, I’m also very proud of the work that Tania Richard and her ILM Vancouver crew did for the Senate shots. As I mentioned before, it was a hugely challenging environment not just logistically, but also in bringing together two very distinctive architectural languages, and they made them work in tandem beautifully. Looking back on the project, what aspects of the visual effects are you most proud of? (TJ): I’m incredibly proud of this entire season. The seamless collaboration we had between Visual Effects and every other department made the work, while challenging, an absolute joy to execute. Almost all of the department heads returned from the first season, which provided a shorthand shortcut as we started the show with implicit trust and understanding of what we were looking to achieve. The work is beautiful, and the commitment of our crew and vendors has been unwavering. I’m most proud of the effort and care that each individual person contributed to the show and the fact that we went into the project with a common goal and were, as a team, able to showcase the vision that we, and Tony, had for the series. (ML): I’m really proud of the deep integration of the visual effects – not just visually, but fundamentally within the filmmaking process and storytelling. Tony invited VFX to be a key participant in shaping the story, from early story drafts through to the final color grade. Despite the scale and spectacle of many sequences, the VFX always feel purposeful, supporting the narrative and characters rather than distracting from them. This was significantly bolstered by the return of a large number of key creatives from Season 1, both within the production and at our VFX vendors. That shared experience and established understanding of Tony’s vision for Andor were invaluable in making the VFX an organic part of the show. (SP): I could not be prouder of the entire ILM team for everything they brought to their work on the show. Working across three sites, Andor was a truly global effort, and I particularly enjoyed how each site took complete ownership of their work. It was a privilege working with all of them and contributing to such an exceptional series. VFX progression frame Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved. How long have you worked on this show? (TJ): This show has been an unbelievable journey. Season 2 alone was nearly 3 years. We wrapped Season 2 in January of 2025. We started prepping Season 2 in February 2022, while we were still in post for Season 1. I officially started working on Season 1 early in 2019 while it was still being developed. So that’s 6 years of time working on Andor. Mohen and I both also worked on Rogue One, so if you factor in the movie, which was shooting in 2015, that’s nearly ten years of work within this part of the Star Wars universe. (ML): I started on the project during early development in the summer of 2019 and finished in December of 2024. (SP): I started on Season 1 in September 2020 and finished up on Season 2 in December 2024. What’s the VFX shots count? (TJ): We had a grand total of 4,124 shots over the course of our 12 episodes. Outside of Industrial Light & Magic, which oversaw the show, we also partnered with Hybride, Scanline, Soho VFX, and Midas VFX. What is your next project? (TJ): You’ll have to wait and see! (SP): Unfortunately, I can’t say just yet either! A big thanks for your time. WANT TO KNOW MORE?ILM: Dedicated page about Andor – Season 2 on ILM website. © Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2025

For James MacLachlan, working as overall VFX supervisor on Season 7 of Netflix’s sci-fi anthology series, Black Mirror, represented quite a jump from his previous work as VFX supervisor on Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso. “They’re very much the yin and the yang of my career so far,” he says. “I’ve always followed Black Mirror, and I enjoy a bit of a dark humor and love the technology side of things. I think I’m more aligned to Black Mirror in terms of personal ethos. But I’ve learned a lot from Ted Lasso. It’s softened my approach.” Black Mirror’s 7th season finale, “USS Callister: Into Infinity,” a sequel to the fan-favorite 2017 Season 4 opening episode, “USS Callister,” picks up years later where the ship’s crew, led by Captain Nanette Cole, is stranded in an infinite virtual universe, fighting for survival against 30 million players. MacLachlan spoke with AWN about how he and the visual effects team began with a fresh visual direction and an ambitious VFX brief, modernizing the original look while employing a collaborative pipeline to produce needed shots, and why family visits to set might help inspire a new generation of digital artists. The new episode returns to the USS Callister from Season 4, but in the future. It builds directly on the 2017 original. “We were a sequel,” MacLachlan says. “The original episode is much loved by fans. We were springboarding from a wealth of looks and ideas and themes that ran through it. We were standing on the shoulders of giants.” While the creative team worked from a familiar design language and characters, they updated the aesthetic. “The first episode leaned heavily into 60s design,” MacLachlan adds. “We were very much heading into the future. Some of the elements are similar, but the direction was new.” The production was anchored by director Toby Haynes and showrunner Charlie Brooker. “Together, the pair of them were able to directly point to where we were headed from that initial point in time,” MacLachlan notes. “Miranda Jones, our production designer, did a lot to establish the new visuals. The costume and props departments came in with fresh ideas. It was a really solid base.” He adds, “Some of the stuff we designed as we did the VFX, and some of the things Union VFX did were absolutely fantastic. You know, the teleportation, the defragging / fragging, the spaceship design, the space battles, they were all new elements this time around.” “There are north of 600 VFX shots in the episode, which is a significant shot count,” MacLachlan shares. “The largest body of work was obviously the space battle sequences in and around the Heart of Infinity,” he says. “There’s a lot of fully CG content — space battles, explosions, laser fire, dynamic camera moves.” Designing the action around a unique central structure was critical. “A key feature of the show was that everything is moving in and around this swirling, gyroscopic behemoth of a center of the Heart of Infinity,” MacLachlan says. “The team had to coordinate shots where the camera moves in and around a moving obstruction. I can’t think of another space battle where the object is shifting this way.” Describing other VFX highlights that included teleportation effects, defragging visuals, and transitions in and out of the game environment, he adds, “We were creating in-game effects within a real-world, immersive context. It wasn’t just stylized overlays — it had to feel like part of the world.” Planning began before the script was locked. “We read the scripts while they were still in development,” MacLachlan explains. “It was collaborative from the start. We’d meet with Toby, Charlie, the DOP Stefan Pearson, and just start bouncing ideas.” Early design sessions were hands-on. “We’d literally be using hand gestures to block things, filming each other, folding paper planes, moving them around,” he laughs. “We were doing sort of bad Tai Chi in the office. It started very organically.” The previs team at Bigtooth Studios helped refine the ideas. “They were fantastic,” MacLachlan says. “They generated shots and content we could slip into the edit. Union VFX then built on top of that. It was a really fluid process.” Because of the evolving nature of the edit, flexibility was essential. “We weren’t constrained to a single version of things,” he continues. “As the cut changed, the design could adapt. That was really lovely.” While there was no virtual production in the traditional sense, the team did employ a large LED wall for the bridge set. According to MacLachlan, “There’s a huge viewport in the USS Callister bridge. We figured it would be more cost-effective and give a better result if we used an LED wall. We pre-designed hyperspace, laser fire, different planets — then played them back live on set.” The benefits were both creative and technical. “The actors walked in and were blown away,” he shares. “Last time it was all greenscreen. This time it looked amazing.” From a cinematography standpoint, it also made sense. “The ship interior has reflective surfaces — shiny glassy chrome,” he adds. “The LED wall meant we had natural reflections, no need to fake them in post.” With real-time control, the team could fine-tune light and composition. “Stefan could move where a planet was to adjust lighting,” MacLachlan notes. “We did large matte paintings, animated them, and the crew could switch things on the fly. It gave us a lot of variation.” MacLachlan says the episode’s ambition pushed everyone to rethink traditional sci-fi staging. “We wanted to bring energy. The space battle had to feel dynamic, like the camera was part of the action. We had to consider how laser fire works. If a pulse leaves a fighter jet, it keeps going straight — even if the ship turns.” “It’s not something I’d really considered before,” he admits. “The Union team showed me tests, and we realized the physics mattered. It needed to be consistent.” Making it all work narratively meant threading effects into the story. “Teleportation, defragging — these had to look impressive, but also support what the characters were experiencing,” MacLachlan says. “We were building a game world that had its own logic.” He also emphasizes that collaboration across departments was key. “Everyone brought ideas. We’d be feeding off each other. Charlie, Toby, Stefan, the editor Tony Kearns — when everyone’s playing in the sandbox together, it elevates things.” MacLachlan adds that time was the only real limit. “We just wanted to keep putting more in. That’s always the challenge — knowing when to stop.” One moment that stood out during the production was the family set visit. MacLachlan shares, “Families were invited to come walk around the bridge. The cast and crew brought their kids. You could see them light up. It’s not something I’ve experienced before.” He believes those visits may spark something lasting, noting, “You hear a lot of people in VFX say, ‘It was Star Wars for me.’ Or ‘That day I visited set.’ Maybe some of those kids will remember this as their moment. That’s really special.” Ultimately, MacLachlan sees the episode as a mix of spectacle and thoughtful design. “Hopefully the energy of the space battle helps the story move forward. It’s not subtle. The VFX are right there. But it feels cohesive.” He adds, “We didn’t want to show off for the sake of it. The effects had to be part of the game logic, part of the narrative. It all had to feel photographic and believable in the context of the show.” For MacLachlan, the collaboration stood out most. “From script to screen, it was a wonderful experience. The humor, the dark areas, the tech — it all came together. I think that shows in the final product.” Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.

Behind the film’s invisible visual effects by Cinesite, including environments, aerial surveillance footage and those stunning F-18 show of force shots.  Warfare, written and directed by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, is based on Mendoza’s own experiences as a US Navy SEAL in a deadly moment during the Iraq War. It follows the action as a Navy SEAL platoon takes over a suburban Ramadi street before they come under attack. When they attempt to flee and call in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, an IED explosion results in severe casualties and a further rescue. Cinesite, led by visual effects supervisor Simon Stanley-Clamp, was responsible for the film’s visual effects. This ranged from taking original plates for the house and surrounding street areas shot at at an airfield and fleshing out the environment to resemble the Iraqi city, to realizing gunfire and weapon hits, and some dramatic ‘show of force’ F-18 shots.  Here’s how they did it. The shoot The film was shot at Bovingdon Airfield Studios in Hertfordshire, UK. The Ramadi street set was completely built there as an outdoor location in the airfield’s car park. “Initially,” recounts Stanley-Clamp, “the plan was to build just the one house and digitally do the rest. But then the plan went to six houses in close quarters around the hero house where the incident takes place. It grew finally to eight houses, one was a complete working house, with a working staircase, and then the houses off it are flattage, but good flattage with enough depth to work.” Surrounding the housing set were two ‘massive’ bluescreens, as Stanley-Clamp puts it. “They were 20 feet high by 120 feet wide. Then I had a couple of floating bluescreens on Manitou’s that we could drive in to plug a gap here and there.” Cinesite was then responsible for extending the street environment and completing some sky replacements. “Production designer Mark Digby’s set was so well-built,” says Stanley-Clamp. “Sometimes, with a set for a castle or something like that, when you get up close to the set, you can tell it’s plaster and wood and canvas. But the textures we sourced from Mark’s set are what we use to duplicate and replicate out the rest of the build in CG. Our build was completely based on their architecture.” The IED explosion As a Bradley Fighting Vehicle arrives at the house and members of the platoon leave to enter it, an IED fixed to a lamppost is detonated next to the tank. Special effects supervisor Ryan Conder orchestrated the explosion. “It was shot with a lot of dust and debris and with light bulbs inside so that it was very bright,” says Stanley-Clamp. “We had prepped visual effects simulations to add to the dust and debris, but Alex essentially said, ‘No, it works, that’s what I want.’ What we did add was some burning phosphorus that stays alight for around four minutes. There was also a small pick-up bluescreen shot for a soldier falling.” “After the main explosion,” continues Stanley-Clamp, “there’s the moment where there’s just a lot of smoke. We added about 45% more smoke and tiny particulate, so small you barely register it, but you “feel” it’s presence. There’s a lot of subtle compositing work going on inside there. At one point, two of the soldiers are standing almost next to each other, but they don’t know that they’re standing next to each other. So we were having to roto each soldier off the plate and then layer smoke back over them and then reveal them and push them back. It was a lot of fine-tuning.” Prosthetics designer Tristan Versluis delivered a number of prosthetics and bloody make-up effects for the resulting IED explosion injuries. Cinesite’s contributions here were only minimal, advises Stanley-Clamp. “There’s one particular shot where we put in a fluid blood sim running as a character cuts open the trouser leg. Arterial veins and things should be pumping a little bit of blood, so we put some fluid blood in running off the wound and a couple of other little embellishments.” Show of force At three points in the film, platoon members call in a ‘show of force’ from an F-18, which involves a loud fly-by the house designed to intimidate those surrounding it with an almighty sound and pulsating wave of dust and debris.  “The show of force was going to happen only once,” notes Stanley-Clamp, “and it was one of those shots where we were told, ‘You won’t  see the jet, just hear it.’ Well, in the end, they wanted a trailer-type shot for this. Also, that first show of force is the only time we used a bit of fancy camera kit where we were on a long arm and dropped the camera down. Usually, we were right there all the time with the platoon. For that shot, Alex said, ‘Faster, faster, faster—what happens if you run it double speed?’ We ran it double speed and it worked.”  “We worked with the physics of the environment and we measured everything out,” adds Stanley-Clamp. “I mean, it’s traveling at something like 400 miles an hour. With the camera coming down, there was actually a weird optical illusion. It made it look like the plane was going up. So we had to do some tricky things to make that work.” For the resulting wave of dust and debris, Cinesite had Lidar scans of the set, and used a model of the houses and street to aid in simulations and extra backdrafts, utilizing Houdini. Says Stanley-Clamp: “We even went in and added moving palm trees, put more sand on the ground that could lift up, and then would scrape it back so you are left with patches of exposed ground.” Stanley-Clamp’s other main memory of those show of force moments was the sound. “So, the set was rigged for sound, meaning, the sound was built into our set. When that show of force happened, the first time it happened, I was looking for that fucking jet! Where did that come from?! It was absolutely deafening. Same goes for the call to prayer, the dogs barking, people chattering out in the street, it was all there.” Aerial surveillance Inside the house, the platoon has a computer with aerial maps and surveillance of their location, showing the house from above and movement around it. These screens were initially intended to only be featured briefly, but Stanley-Clamp took it upon himself to prepare some graphics that could be played back during the shoot. “In editorial,” he says, “they started to cut in the graphics that had been made, and they found it really helped with the exposition. So, they needed more.” Using the CG models constructed for the set extensions, Cinesite expanded the buildings out to a full grid of streets and residences. Adding in soldiers and other people was then necessary for the surveillance screens. At a pick-up shoot back at Bovingdon airfield, this time on the actual runway, a large 400 foot long bluescreen was laid on the ground, and a drone used to film action from 200 feet up in the air.  “We used this to film the equivalent of running down a street,” outlines Stanley-Clamp. “We had actually previs’d it with walk cycles that I had generated myself, but Alex said, ‘It’s got to be real people. Not mocap. You can tell they’re pixels, you can tell.’ For a day shoot, I got hours and hours and hours of footage, which I could never have generated in CG. Plus, I got whole platoons to walk down the street, not just individual people.”  The result was a collection of elements that brought some realistic-looking parallax to the surveillance screens, suggests Stanley-Clamp. “In fact, at one of the test screenings with some marines, the feedback from them was, ‘Where did you get hold of the footage? It’s so good.’ They thought it was real footage.” For the actual look of the footage, Cinesite consulted with Mendoza on whether it took on an infrared, ultraviolet or ‘heat seek’ look, the latter of which is what they settled on. “Right up until very close to the end,” notes Stanley-Clamp, “I thought, ‘It’s not quite right.’ So we grunged it down and raised it back up. It was looking too clean. We had to remember this was set in 2016 and effectively the tech then is a little different. You can buy night-vision goggles now or shoot night vision with drones and the quality’s ridiculous. But we had to go back to the reference, although we found that it can be hard to find that old reference.”  Subtle effects Warfare’s use of subtle visual effects extended also to weaponry. For shots requiring the Bradleys to fire from their central gun barrels, Cinesite provided a large muzzle flash and resulting smoke, timed to practical explosions rigged to buildings. Gunshots and muzzle flashes were also added to soldier firearms, along with accompanying CG bullet, phosphors and masonry hits.  Cinesite’s muzzle flashes related directly to the choice of camera. The film was shot largely on a DJI Ronin lightweight camera (the DOP was David J. Thompson) that allowed for fast set-ups and being able to maneuver in small spaces. “We did some experiments and found that shooting at 30 fps gave us the best retention of muzzle flashes,” explains Stanley-Clamp. “You would not always see a muzzle flash go off, so sometimes we’ve enhanced a muzzle flash that’s in there or put additional ones in.” “It was a bit different for something like tracer fire,” adds Stanley-Clamp. “You might think trace fire is there the whole time. It’s not. It’s about every fifth shell that goes off, that’s where you will get a tracer fire. Alex would be counting them. ‘No…no…now!’ That was a good learning curve.”  The post How an airfield in the UK was turned into the Iraqi city of Ramadi for Alex Garland’s ‘Warfare’ appeared first on befores & afters.

In this episode of the fxpodcast, we speak with David Schneider, senior DFX supervisor, and Jane Hayen, 2D supervisor from Union VFX, to discuss their extensive visual effects work on the USS Callister episode for Black Mirror season 7. From spacecraft interiors to stylised teleportation and frenetic dogfights in deep space, the duo outlined how their team brought The USS Callister back with upgraded tech, intricate referencing to the original episode, and a keen eye for the audience’s expectations. In addition to the audio podcast, we’ve been creating YouTube videos of many of our fxpodcast episodes and this one is available in video form as well. Returning to the world of Black Mirror’s iconic “USS Callister,” the latest Season 7 installment pushes visual storytelling into new territory. With over 215 shots, 50 of which are fully CGI. Union VFX stepped in to bring the pixel-perfect dystopia to life. The episode features some of the studio’s most ambitious work to date, blending nostalgic retro-futurism with cutting-edge CG in a cinematic-scale production that feels more like a feature film than episodic television. Referencing the Original While Evolving the Visual Language One of the standout aspects of Union VFX’s approach was the conscious effort to bridge the look and feel of the original Season 4 Callister episode while modernising its visual language. “We were always referencing back,” said Hayen. “Even small things like lens flares had to match. The original had a slightly vintage aesthetic; this one leaned more into a stylised video game feel.” With Framestore having crafted the original ship assets, Union VFX inherited and upgraded these elements. “We reused the Calister’s CG model and textures from Framestore,” Schneider explained. “But a big chunk of our work was new, especially around the ‘Heart of Infinity,’ which didn’t exist before and needed to evolve into something iconic.” Building the Heart of Infinity and Space Combat At the narrative (and logical) core of the episode is the Heart of Infinity, a massive, ominous space structure concealing a digital ghost. Union VFX collaborated closely with director Toby Haynes and Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker on its concept. The final asset, which is a gyroscopic megastructure secretly built from computer parts, underwent several iterations. “You only really notice it’s made of CPUs and circuit boards when you get close,” said Schneider. “We had three levels of detail, from wide establishing shots down to intense dogfighting sequences, where you see ships weaving through CPU rings.” Previsualization played a key role but the sequences still remained fluid. “Charlie and Toby are very iterative,” Schneider noted. “Some previs translated straight to screen. Other scenes evolved considerably, especially once the action choreography changed.” LED Walls, Cockpits, and Interactive Light Set lighting was another carefully managed component, especially for cockpit shots. “The bridge had a large LED wall behind the viewport,” Hayen said. Union VFX contributed pre-rendered loops of space backdrops, hyperspace tunnels, and planets, offering real-time interactivity for both lighting and actor eyelines. “Those LED plates ended up as final pixels in many shots,” Schneider added. “But where designs weren’t finalized, we reverted to green screens and post-comp.” To sell realism, cockpit sets were built practically with motion rigs and rotating light arms. “You really see the lighting interact with the cast’s faces,” said Hayen. “That kind of contact lighting sells it far better than trying to fake everything in post.” Controlling the LED wall with an iPAD Stylized Teleportation and Video Game Visuals The entire show leans heavily into video game aesthetics, not just in narrative but also in design. “The teleporting effect was intentionally layered,” said Schneider. “We started with chunky voxel blocks building up, refining into wireframe, then finally resolving into the real actor’s plate.” That low-to-high-res visual progression mimics game asset loading and nods to gaming history, a detail the team enjoyed threading through. In space battles, color-coded neon strips on ships offered a “Tron-meets-retro” visual shorthand. “You always knew which character was flying which ship,” said Hayen. “It really helped storytelling.” Tools of the Trade Union’s 3D pipeline ran on Arnold, with compositing handled in Nuke. “We leaned heavily on Optical Flares for all the over-the-top lensing,” said Hayen. “It’s a compositor’s dream.” While The Foundry’s CopyCat machine learning tool is gaining traction for rotoscoping and cleanup, it was used minimally here. “We’ve used it on other shows,” said Schneider. “But USS Callister needed more bespoke solutions.” High Expectations, Met With Precision Following the acclaimed first Black Mirror episode, Union VFX was keenly aware of the scrutiny this sequel would attract. “Framestore’s work was brilliant,” said Schneider. “We had to meet, if not exceed, the visual standard they set—especially with tech evolving in the years since.” Fortunately, the combination of intricate design, strong creative collaboration, and technical precision delivered an episode that both honours its predecessor and pushes the story forward. “It was a real joy to work on,” said Hayen. “And yes, a bit of a dream job too.”

Bringing Mojang’s beloved blocky sandbox videogame to the big screen posed a wide range of creative and technical challenges for Sony Pictures Imageworks. In this in-depth conversation, VFX Supervisor Seth Maury breaks down the studio’s work on Jared Hess’ hit The comedy adventure from Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures stars Jack Black, Danielle Brooks, Sebastian Hansen, Jason Momoa, Jennifer Coolidge, and Emma Myers. Hess directs; Roy Lee, Jon Berg, Mary Parent, Cale Boyter, Momoa, Jill Messick, Torfi Frans Ólafsson and Vu Bui produce, with Todd Hallowell, Jay Ashenfelter, Kayleen Walters, Brian Mendoza and Jon Spaihts serving as executive producers. Oscar winner Dan Lemmon serves as the production VFX supervisor. The film is based on the hugely popular game Minecraft, first released by Sweden’s Mojang Studios in 2011 and purchased by Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014, which, immerses players in a low-res, pixelated “sandbox” simulation where they can use blocks to build entire worlds.  Here's the final trailer: The studio handled environments and character animation for a number of key scenes in the movie, including Welcome to Midport Village, the attack on Midport Village, the Elytra wingsuit canyon chase, the diamond mines, Woodland Mansion – including the zombie baby atop a chicken fight and Endermen showdown. They also handled the Nitwit work where Jennifer Coolidge’s Vice Principal Marlene hit a Nitwit with her car… the romantic dinner they shared afterwards, and the scene in her office. “In the diamond mines, Garrett wants to take a bit of a detour because he wants to sneak some diamonds into his pocket as he needs the money,” Maury says. “Then the piglins chase him through the mine very briefly. We also did the creeper farm stuff where the big Great Hog and some piglins were chasing Henry, Garrett and Steve before it all blows up.” Maury says that the production relied on a combination of boards, previs, stuntvis, and live-action plates to build sequences. One example is the wingsuit chase. “They had boarded it, prevised it, then shot it based on the previs,” he explains. “They had Jack and Jason and some stunt guys for stuff that was a little more problematic physically to do. They shot plates for all of that.” Imageworks took those plates and roughed out the animation. “We were basically mocking up or doing postvis for those shots… moving cameras through the environments with those plates so that we had something that was more representative of what the final shots were going to look like.” While not fully animated at that stage, the postvis helped inform the cut. Maury notes, “It’s so rough that it’s not like, ‘Oh look at all the time I spent animating this character.’ It was like, ‘Hey look, we got this working so that you could say it’s moving through the environment in a real way.’” The goal was to create animation-ready sequences that could maintain spatial consistency. “You don’t want the actors going 500 kilometers an hour here and now going 20 kilometers an hour over there,” Maury elaborates. “Why does this feel weird? Because the clouds are suddenly blurry on one and not in the other.” To help populate complex sequences, Imageworks used motion capture for background animation - especially for piglins during the village raid. “We were lucky to have Derek Tannahill as a supervisor on the show,” Maury says. “He had access to the mocap suit. So a lot of the piglins in the background are actually Derek. A lot of the villagers are actually Derek too.” Maury adds, “I think there were three pigs that were kind of medium-sized, which would be the closest to a human. There were three smaller ones and three that were a little bit bigger. And then there was a couple that were just really, really, really big.” Rather than guessing what would be needed later, they mocapped a wide batch of piglin behaviors in advance, like “Do one as a heavy pig, do one as a light pig, do one as a twitchy pig, do one as, you know, a really, really frantic pig.” Those were then applied to characters of different sizes to keep variation high and repetition low. “If you’ve got a guy swinging his arm, then another guy swinging his arm in the exact same way, it’s obvious,” he says. “So even if we had a great take, we didn’t want to overuse it.” For stunt-heavy scenes like the Midport piglin raid, the production had actors perform full choreography ahead of filming. According to Maury, “They shot the whole thing with stunt actors in a fake version of the set at the proper scale and size. It was really great. So when they actually shot the sequence itself on set with the real actors, we had that choreography to work from.” Maury says they focused on matching the stunt choreography with CG characters. “If the stunt actors did something that looked great, there’s no need to replace them. We just needed to find a way to get the piglins to fit in the same space.” Of course, blocky piglin characters take up more room than humans. “If you’ve got two humans side by side and then you put in a piglin that’s twice as wide, sometimes you had to copy the performance but move them over so that they would fit,” he says. “It’s like trying to put a bunch of cars on an elevator - they're so big they can’t fit in that space. So, you copy the motion, but sometimes you have to shift them over a bit to make it work.” Maury continues, “Those shots were pretty straightforward in the sense that they had practical actors in those costumes, right? So, we were doing head replacements on those characters because those costumes were quite large. You didn't put a little tiny Beetlejuice head on this big body. But, there's not a lot of guesswork in there as far as what needs to go into the shot. It's put the heads on the characters and then if they want more characters in the background, you add them in the same kind of style as they are in the practical costumes.” The infamous Garrett - baby zombie fight atop a chicken drew attention from early trailers - and required a very specific approach. “That was all keyframe animation except for the characters outside,” Maury says. “You can’t mocap a baby with really, really short limbs and a giant head riding a chicken.” Still, the production had live-action reference. “They shot this sequence again with the stuntvis team,” Maury explains, “then boarded it, shot it as best they could with the actors and stunt performers they had, and then gave us plates.” Using that as a base, the team refined it for animation. He adds, “It was just a lot of keyframe work. You look at it and go, ‘Okay, what’s the funniest, silliest thing that we can have in here?’” Creating motion that felt faithful to the game’s aesthetic while viewable on screen required experimentation. “For example,” he says, “trying to get the Great Hog to move in a way that felt aggressive… it didn’t have the body structure to move fast. That was a bit of an experiment.” The Endermen posed similar challenges. “In the game, they’re very static,” Maury notes. “They don’t bend their legs. So, there was a lot of back and forth. Do the limbs bend? Do they not bend? Do we have them take real steps?” Maury goes on to explain that character proportions created their own physical logic. “Imagine my head is this big [he gestures]. If I turn that too fast, it’s not going to feel like it weighs 40 kilograms. It’s going to feel like Styrofoam. So, we slowed stuff down.” These kinds of adjustments helped translate the game’s visual shorthand into something legible on film. Maury and his team had to figure out how to get needed weight and feel without the characters seeming too stiff. In the game, they slide almost like chess pieces. A number of characters, particularly villagers, were shot in partial costume and composited later. “They had their arms like this, with blocky stuff on them,” Maury gestures again. “We were doing head replacements because the costumes were quite large.” In some cases, the studio extended background crowds digitally. “They might have only had six costumes available for any given shot,” he continues. “If they wanted more characters, we’d add them in the same style in CG. That’s not overly complex - you’re populating a background to feel natural.” He goes on to say that all animals were fully CG. “There wasn’t anyone in an animal costume. They were added in after.” With so many characters and objects flying through the air, matching the logic of physical motion was essential. If cameras show characters flying past things really fast and then stop on a dime, they start to feel fake. “We tried to keep the camera behaving with the same rules as the flying characters. It has to feel like it’s within the same physical constraints.” That required close coordination between layout and animation. “Our initial blocking passes for flying sequences really helped because we didn’t want to reinvent each one of those shots later.” Looking back, Maury says one of the most rewarding aspects of the show was the team itself. “It might have been the longest show I’ve worked on. But because of the timing - the streaming pullback, the strikes - a lot of VFX folks I hadn’t worked with in years became available. So, I ended up working with Derek and a bunch of leads and artists I already knew.” “It wasn’t just my department,” he continues. “It was lighting, comp. The show was really stacked. And I got to work with people I’d normally only see in the coffee line.” Maury also got to enjoy the film with his family. “It was the first time I went to the theater with my kids for something I worked on. They’re Minecraft fans. That was great.” As for the reception, he’s measured. “It’s a fun, silly film. And if you laugh at it because it’s silly, then great. But it’s not Shawshank Redemption. Why would someone review it like it was going to be? Sometimes you just want to go [to the movies] and have a good time.” Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.