“This being a deep cut reference to Constantine’s past in the ‘Hellblazer’ comics. For Desire’s threshold, we started by looking at Brutalist architecture but settled on a more 1920s Art Deco look, which felt more appropriate for the character of Desire. “This included finding interesting shapes in lava flows for the wall of bodies in the Hell Portal as well as instances where fire behaves unusually so that we could have some kind of real-world logic behind the behavior of the flame tendrils that pull at Johanna Constantine and Astra in our recreation of ‘The Newcastle Incident,’” HattSmith reveals. Mood boards were produced that had references of images and textures for pitching ideas to the client and briefing artists. This was primarily set in the animation which needed to serve as a really solid base for the effects.” With the flaming tendrils, the difficult balance was having them feel like flame with all its wispy and delicate nature, but also solid and strong and threatening. We wanted it to feel like you could pass through it, as though it was an entrance to a corporeal place. We wanted to avoid the feeling that the Casanova club was simply on fire. In the Hell Portal sequence, it was important that the portal felt both intangible and tangible at the same time. According to HattSmith, “Keeping things grounded was important, but the most important thing was to tell the story concisely and coherently. We answered a lot of questions by concepting Hell Portal, Desire’s Threshold, and The Vortex sequence.” Key to developing the fantastical elements was grounding them in reality. “That enabled us to use our in-house concept team, lead by the highly skilled Cameron Johnson, to offer our own vision of what might work. “There were still a lot of set pieces that hadn’t been completely settled upon,” shares HattSmith. Untold Studios’ involvement began after most of the principal photography had been completed. These meetings were always great fun and always ended with us buzzing with excitement for how we could develop our ideas further.” We had regular meetings with Ian and his team. This allowed us to pitch some really bizarre ideas along with our own concept art and image research. Ian had, of course, directions that he wanted to explore within parameters that had been discussed with Allan and Neil but also demonstrated a great deal of trust in us by bringing sequences to us that had not yet been fully realized in concept. Such sequences that were a single panel or page in the source might be extended to 80+ shots in the show. That being said, and despite the incredible panels within the graphic novel, there were still sequences and effects that needed expanding upon. There were also effects and sequences that were particularly important to them with Desire’s Threshold exterior being a good example. “Both had particular tastes and beats they wanted to hit. “Ian had an incredible handle on the project as a whole and had a good idea what kind of things would satisfy both Allan Heinberg’s and Neil Gaiman’s visions,” HattSmith explains. The source material is thankfully incredibly well-realized and tangible, so our main focus was always to do it justice and bringing it into the real world whilst keeping the feeling of fantasy and maintaining tangibility.”Ĭollaboration with production VFX Supervisor Ian Markiewicz was key to realize the distinct and detailed directives from both Gaiman and showrunner Allan Heinberg. “Working on shows such as The Sandman brings its own unique set of checkboxes that need ticking. “I have previous experience working on similarly beloved IP with a fantastical flavor such as The Dark Crystal and Wheel of Time,” HattSmith says. The show, based on Gaiman’s famed DC comic series of the same name, features the journey of Morpheus, the King of Dreams, captured and held prisoner for over a century, and his struggles to fix his kingdom – known as The Dreaming – amidst the chaos his absence has caused. In his first project with Untold Studios, VFX supervisor James HattSmith, and his team of artists, delivered 360 visual effects shots on Neil Gaiman and Netflix’s fantasy adventure series, The Sandman.
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