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The Last of Us – Season 1 – Digital Domain

Friday | 2023 04 28 |

For Episode 4 of The Last of Us, Digital Domain Visual Effects Supervisor Mitch Drain and his team were tasked with creating the environment for the post-apocalyptic city. The team added overgrowth, decay and debris along with abandoned cars, FedEx trucks, and military vehicles, and more to truly set the scene.

For the season finale, The VFX team wrapped up its work creating a backdrop of CG environments, as Joel and Ellie drive pass a digitally created sign that reads “Welcome to Wyoming,” signifying the end and beginning of their journey.
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Tokyo Vice – Trailer

Saturday | 2022 03 19 |

Based on Jake Adelstein’s non-fiction first-hand account of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police beat, starring Ken Watanabe. The drama captures Adelstein’s daily descent into the neon-soaked underbelly of Tokyo, where nothing and no one is truly what or who they seem. Streaming April 7 on HBO Max.
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DMZ – Trailer

Sunday | 2022 03 13 |

DMZ leaps off the pages of the acclaimed DC graphic novel into the visual landscape of a dangerous and distorted Manhattan as one woman navigates a demilitarized zone in a harrowing quest to find her lost son.
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Our Flag Means Death – Trailer

Friday | 2022 03 04 |

The unique new comedy is loosely based on the true adventures of 18th century would-be pirate, Stede Bonnet, played by Rhys Darby. After trading in his comfortable life for one of a buccaneer, Stede becomes captain of a pirate ship, but struggles to earn the respect of his potentially mutinous crew. Stede’s fortunes change after a fateful run-in with the infamous Captain Blackbeard, played by Taika Waititi.
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Raised By Wolves – Season 2

Saturday | 2022 01 15 |

In season two of RAISED BY WOLVES, Android partners Mother (Amanda Collin) and Father (Abubakar Salim), along with their brood of six human children, join a newly formed atheistic colony in Kepler 22 b’s mysterious tropical zone. But navigating this strange new society is only the start of their troubles as Mother’s “natural child” threatens to drive what little remains of the human race to extinction.
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How “His Dark Materials” Used Puppets And CGI To Create Realistic Animals

Saturday | 2022 01 01 |

Award-winning VFX company Framestore produced a number of daemons and polar bears for the HBO/BBC series “His Dark Materials.” The project was overseen by senior effects designer Russell Dodgson. 

The team worked alongside studio Painting Practice to cast many of the creatures in the series, which were then brought to life by Puppetry legend William Todd-Jones. 

For close-ups, some of the puppets like Lyra’s daemon Pan, were sculpted heads. Other slinky-body styles of puppet were used for quadrupedal or bipedal animals. Some “flappy” puppets were used for daemons that were in flight or had to land on actors’ arms.

When actors needed to demonstrate the weight of daemons, the team made gray furry cushions called bucks. These had weight and shape to make it look like actors were holding daemons or pressing their face to them.  

For the polar bears, a series of large rigs were made. There was the “basher bear” to ram into stunt people and push actors to the ground, a riding rig for Dafne Keen (Lyra) to sit on, a backpack rig for her to get on top of someone’s shoulders, and a four-legged fiberglass standing puppet to show a polar bear’s height. The team also used a “couch bear,” which was a gray buck to lean against. 

Even though the animals look incredibly real, the only “animal actor” on set belonged to Ariyon Bakare’s Lord Boreal and is played by an actual snake.

We caught up with Russell at Framestore in London to explain the process.
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Peacemaker – Red Band Trailer

Saturday | 2022 01 01 |

Peacemaker will explore the origins of the character that John Cena first portrayed in James Gunn’s 2021 film, The Suicide Squad – a compellingly vainglorious man who believes in peace at any cost, no matter how many people he has to kill to get it.

The series stars John Cena as Peacemaker, Danielle Brooks as Adebayo, Freddie Stroma as Vigilante, Jennifer Holland as Harcourt, Steve Agee as Economos, Chukwudi Iwuji as Murn and Robert Patrick as Auggie Smith.

Gunn wrote all eight episodes of Peacemaker and directed five, including the first. Gunn, Safran and Matt Miller serve as executive producers on the series, with Cena as co-executive producer. Based on characters from DC, Peacemaker is produced by Gunn’s Troll Court Entertainment and The Safran Company in association with Warner Bros. Television.

Peacemaker debuts exclusively on HBO Max on January 13, 2022. Three episodes of Peacemaker launch in January 13 followed by one episode weekly through February 17.
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Raised By Wolves – Season 2

Monday | 2021 12 06 |

In season two of RAISED BY WOLVES, Android partners Mother (Amanda Collin) and Father (Abubakar Salim), along with their brood of six human children, join a newly formed atheistic colony in Kepler 22 b’s mysterious tropical zone. But navigating this strange new society is only the start of their troubles as Mother’s “natural child” threatens to drive what little remains of the human race to extinction.
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