House of the Dragon – Teaser Trailer
Tokyo Vice – Trailer
DMZ – Trailer
Our Flag Means Death – Trailer
Station Eleven – Recommended Watch
Raised By Wolves – Season 2
How “His Dark Materials” Used Puppets And CGI To Create Realistic Animals
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.
Peacemaker – Red Band Trailer
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.