The Devil Is in the Details
If you like creepy content, chances are you’ve watched a film or TV show that Zoic Studios has had a hand in crafting. The VFX studio’s deep pool of accomplished artists and producers specialise in bringing fantasy and horror VFX to life: from dark coming-of-age series, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina; to gothic, gory dramas like Game of Thrones, True Blood and The Haunting of Bly Manor.
Leading the VFX production on hundreds of award-winning series and film projects, Zoic have garnered international status as masters of scarily impressive 3D, animation and compositing. In celebration of Halloween, LBB sought out the talented team of VFX supervisors, Rob Price, Ian Fenton, and Richard Patterson, to learn more about the intricate art of crafting gory VFX for film and TV.
LBB> The most impactful VFX tend to be a mix of practical special effects makeup techniques combined with computer generated visual effects. Can you tell us a bit about the symbiotic relationship between makeup artists and VFX teams?
Ian Fenton> The key to a successful partnership between VFX and practical make-up is communication. Concepts for characters and FX can follow many different routes; from the VFX studio, from the make-up FX house or from the production and director themselves. Oftentimes the make-up house cannot give a character or plant full movement, so it come down to the VFX house to use 2D compositing tricks to help bring the practical work to life, or the make-up house needs to build an asset modelled by the VFX studio. We’ve seen every level of collaboration back and forth between all the partners in a production. We are most likely to achieve success when all participants realise they are invested in the same end goal. Passing all levels of work back and forth successfully and constantly keeps everyone on the same path to creating a great finished product.
LBB> What are the main differences in approach when crafting static and dynamic VFX for horror?
Rob Price> Both have similar approaches in preparation: lots of concepts, references, and planning, but your end goals for the two are very different. Static VFX, like in Bly Manor, needs to feel imposing and dangerous but blend into the background. It needs all the right details so you never question it. You need to feel it more than see it. The more dynamic the VFX - like The Lady of the Lake’s CG face prosthetic - the more you want to see it. If you have an immediate reaction that something is wrong, morbid curiosity grows and you instinctively want to see more of it, to try and figure it out. We will find small ways to help pull out interesting details and set the tone: light and shadow shapes that push the facial features, or water droplets that catch light in intriguing ways – you really want to spotlight these kinds of effects so the audience craves them more.
LBB> One of the most impressive VFX feats on The Haunting of Bly Manor was the house itself, which is entirely computer generated. Considering how integral the house is to the story, how did you ensure the VFX fit the director’s creative vision?
Rob> Great reference, attention to detail, and a whole lot of faith in our team’s experience. It’s tricky when people are standing on set, looking at a 200ft bluescreen, trying to envision what will be there at the end of the project. In prep, we found a house that fit the overall look we wanted for an English country manor. We looked at a lot of houses before landing on one that had the right feel for our starting point. We scanned that house, recording as much visual data as possible from the location, then used that as the base to create our CG house. We needed to fit together various pieces from the house scan, concept art, and stage plans to create one cohesive building. We wanted the complete set to fit together, with all the interiors matching up to the exterior façade. Additionally, we wanted to pay homage to The Innocence, which was based on Henry James’ horror novella The Turn of the Screw, so we added small architectural details like spires, gables, and sculptures to the manor and grounds.
It was all about lighting and age to make the house look its scariest. We worked extensively with the DP on lighting, both for the on-set blue screen location we would be integrating our CG house into, as well as during the reference scan process. Lighting the reference house while we were scanning it gave us invaluable practical lighting references. This step is often overlooked, but really pays off when trying to recreate a practical location. We also did a lot of specific ageing and weathering to the façade to make it feel like the house has always been there waiting for the characters. We created a new digital system of growing ivy to be as botanically accurate as possible. The ivy on the house grows over the course of two hundred years in the show; it needed its own depth and complexity. Having it blowing subtly in the wind really elevated the realism and made the house fall into the background as an invisible effect.
LBB> What should directors be aware of to make sure VFX teams do the best job possible?
Ian> Please try and ensure that VFX studios or on-set VFX supervisors are involved with the most complex VFX tasks from the very first pre-production meeting. It’s the difference between making something ‘work’ and making something fantastic. VFX studios aren’t always recognized for their wealth of experience in shooting that can be passed to productions, but one quick conversation can often fix the simplest shooting mistakes and ensure that post production VFX goes just that bit smoother.
Secondly, block out enough time for pre production designs and testing. Knowing how fast a car should be moving in a complex camera move sounds like a simple thing that everyone sees every day but a VFX house can mock-up a camera and provide 10 tests of a car travelling for a lot cheaper than doing it on set. VFX can provide quick answers to what people take for granted but don’t work when being shot by a camera.
LBB> Finally, what is a common misconception about VFX - specifically gory VFX - that audiences might be surprised to learn?
Richard> Probably how much of the blood they see is digital. We are seeing less and less special FX blood used in shooting. We rarely see blood squibs for stabs or gunshots or sets dressed with blood pools so when audiences see blood splatters of blood pooling in shows now it’s most likely been added digitally!
