DRAMA | GOOD OMENS
working closely alongside them where we can. It was great to work with Milk Studios and its incredible team on this project.” Since Molinare provided the final picture post, McGinley and her team were able to start compositing the picture after the lock, using NukeX and Autodesk Flame, which is supported by Mocha and PFTrack for tracking software and Maya and V-Ray for 3D. McGinley adds: “Working closely with Spensley, we were in a lucky position to be at the heart of the project when and where required.” Spensley details some of the secondary grading, explaining to us that he undertook various lower level VFX in the grade, including flame effects, sparks, ghostly apparition distortions and sky replacements using Baselight’s compositing tools and in-
ABOVE David Tennant in the role of demon Crowley, in front of his 1920s Bentley
mains to the engine without interruption.
RED SKY AT NIGHT Simpson worked closely with the VFX team, creating initial reference composites and sky replacements to demonstrate to Finney and director Douglas Mackinnon how the VFX would look in post. VFX artists from Molinare and Milk Studios collaborated on Good Omens . The Molinare VFX team, led by Dolores McGinley, completed 450 shots (there were around 1200 CGI shots overall) working on blue-screen comps, crowd replication and general clean-up work, involving the removal of modern-day elements, crew and equipment. McGinley explains: “We have a relatively small in-house VFX department, so we often affiliate with larger VFX houses,
built flame shaders.
The finale sees the Antichrist – an 11-year-old boy named Adam – and his friends square up against the Four Horsemen. After they are beaten (thanks to youthful idealism that they are only ideas, which can be fought) a furious Satan arrives, and the sky turns from a whirling and aggressive grey to a hellish red. “The biggest scene I did was replacing the sky in the majority of that last episode,” says Spensley. “I shot sky plates for that sequence as the story required the imagery to hit specific narrative beats; charting a red sky that signalled Armageddon. We chose to do this in the grade as it gave the production the most complete perspective of the 30-minute showdown scene. Some shots were finally composited by the VFX team, where CGI was already required, or the tracking became too difficult to achieve in Baselight. But overall, the Baselight was brilliant for this type of client request.” With teamwork at its core – in front and behind the camera – it’s heartening to know Good Omens will reach as wide an audience as possible thanks to BBC One and Amazon Prime co-producing the series. GOOD OMENS IS CURRENTLY STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME, AND WILL AIR ON BBC ONE LATER THIS YEAR
36 DEF I N I T ION | JULY 20 1 9
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