JAM VFX Crafts Climactic Moment's for Paramount's 'Sexy Beast'

JAM brings its VFX expertise to 'Sexy Beast', the prequel to Jonathan Glazer's cult classic. The story follows Gal Dove and Don Logan as they rise through the ranks to become key players in the London criminal underworld.

Q> Who did we work with on it?>

Evren> We worked very closely with James Levison (Producer) and Hazel See (Post Production Supervisor) to shape the vision and creative intention of the project.

Q> What kind of VFX were in this show?

Evren> Sexy Beast includes a lot of ‘invisible effects’, such as transforming Liverpool into the London cityscape. This effect, in particular, was achieved through matte paintings of many skylines and backgrounds throughout the series. JAM also had to dedicate resources to properly researching London’s skyline over the years, to deliver an end product that was authentic to London in the early ‘90s.

Sexy Beast is set in the criminal underworld which, as you can imagine, required plenty of gore work - notably examples include head wounds and dog ears being ripped off. Gore is ever present throughout the series!

JAM also created a series of remarkable climactic moments, encompassing explosions and fire elements - this was a great opportunity to collaborate with SFX to ensure the scenes felt authentic.

Continuity shots were required throughout. A good example would be adding chest hair and stubble to Gal. JAM used Keen Tools (a plug in for Blender) to help us with the face stubble shots.

Q> Was it shot in an interesting place?

Evren> Although the entire premise of the show was (and is!) the London criminal underworld, most of the series was shot in Liverpool. Mark (VFX supervisor) therefore had to be hyper aware of elements which might reveal the shoot location and need adjusting in VFX.

Q> Was there anything interesting about the look of the show?

Evren> Sexy Beast is set in the ‘90s which made for an interesting series from a visual standpoint; as the set(s), costumes and scripts were composed in such a way to transport the audience back in time by 30 years.

Q> Did you face any challenges around creating techniques? If so, how did you overcome them?

Evren> The heist scene was a great challenge to overcome: it required Mark (VFX Supervisor) to have eyes on four cameras concurrently.

On the day of the shoot itself, to further complicate matters, the scene evolved and necessitated a scramble around the shoot location, Liverpool, to secure additional green screen. JAM originally needed 30ft and ended up using 220ft - relying on the goodwill of other productions happening at the same time.

Resolving the best approach for adding stubble to Gal’s face was another puzzle - finding the optimal ways of producing the best shot, when the character's face reacted with natural, direct sunlight.

Q> Was there any new technology used on the show?

Evren> We used Keen Tools (a plug in for Blender) to help us with the face stubble shots.

Mark Robinson, VFX supervisor said, “I thoroughly enjoyed working on SB. It was the most extreme example of thinking on our feet. The scripts were constantly evolving as the project developed. We were going on set without the script being locked and this led to a lot more creative input.”