For Simon Hughes and his Union VFX team, Yorgos Langthimos’ dark comedy, a stunningly designed visual maelstrom, required something completely different from a typical VFX project, including odd, surgically created hybrid animals using as much actual footage as possible, integration of plates shot with 3 different film stocks, 11 enormous wrap-around LED screens, 50s style
VFX Supervisor Dann Tarmy breaks down his team’s extensive use of water sims, including how they tackled the huge, new challenge of replacing water in plates where the actor was shot in the water, on Netflix’s biographical sports drama of marathon swimmer Diana Nyad’s attempts to swim from Cuba to Florida.
Studio delivered 126 VFX shots to help realize Ridley Scott’s vision of Napoleon’s 1793 Siege of Toulon and his violent suppression of the Paris riots two years later.
The director and his VFX Supervisor, Jay Cooper, explain how they completely reversed the standard production process for his sci-fi epic, employing spontaneous live-action shoots that looked cool, not controlled, with 3D environments, digital matte paintings, and many other elements on the 1,600 visual effects shots designed afterwards, not before.
The upcoming live-action adaptation of Mojang’s best-selling video game has yet to secure a title but is set to hit theaters on April 4, 2025; production slated to begin in New Zealand by the end of December.