‘Furiosa’ VFX Supervisor Andrew Jackson on Film’s “Groundbreaking” 1,347 Visual Effects Shots

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Although much of the visual spectacle in George Miller’s film “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” appears to be computer-made, it’s based on realism.

In this fictional universe, the laws of physics remain constant, according to visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson. He’s not fond of movies where miraculous events occur out of nowhere. Instead, he enjoys being part of a realm where we can shoot or capture scenes and say, “This is real. This is how it should behave or function.” George fits perfectly in this type of setting.

Despite Furiosa not making it to the Oscars Visual Effects (VFX) shortlist, there’s still a chance for the film to be nominated in the Visual Effects Society (VES). The nominations will be announced on January 14th. When asked about the omission, director Jackson commented, “My team and I were proud to be among the contenders for this year’s awards with our work on Furiosa. We extend our best wishes to all the artists whose films are on the Academy’s shortlist.

The visual effects (VFX) in the movie Furiosa are truly impressive. In the backstory of the character Furiosa, portrayed by Anya Taylor-Joy, there were a total of 1,400 shots, with an overwhelming majority of 1,347 being VFX. Instead of creating everything new, the DNEG team utilized their collection of about 200,000 images that had been previously gathered for the effects in Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road.

Jackson explained that they were constructing new worlds using photographic elements. Unlike in their previous film, they didn’t reuse computer-generated (CG) assets, which meant everything had to be remade, even the Citadel. Unfortunately, they couldn’t retrieve the files for it either. The main reason they couldn’t recycle the nearly decade-old CG assets was due to software compatibility issues.

Amongst the notable places in the storyline, The Citadel, the fortress ruled by the malevolent Immortan Joe, is also a prominent location featured in Furiosa’s saga.

Speaking about “Mad Max: Fury Road,” he remembers using a helicopter to explore the Blue Mountains, situated just beyond Sydney. As we flew backward, we hovered near a towering 200-meter cliff face. He explains that they captured intricate, high-resolution images of this sandstone wall, which served as their main inspiration for the Citadel in the film. They utilized that very cliff, manipulating it to construct the entire set.

Despite featuring numerous large-scale set pieces in the movie “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”, Jackson, who has worked on films like “Tenet”, “Dunkirk”, and “Oppenheimer” for writer-director Christopher Nolan, found that some of the most difficult shots were not necessarily the grandest ones.

Although “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” has many large set pieces, Jackson (who’s worked with Christopher Nolan on movies like Tenet, Dunkirk, and Oppenheimer) found that the trickiest shots weren’t always the biggest ones.

One of the major difficulties we faced was that our filming was frequently disrupted by poor weather, such as during the Bullet Farm sequence. We’d planned for bright, sunny conditions, but instead, we encountered rain, gloom, and clouds on some days,” Jackson shares. “We ended up having footage from all sorts of weather conditions and were trying to make it appear like a single, consistent world by editing them together.

They created a makeshift studio in the desert, which enabled them to illuminate objects more efficiently.

He clarifies, “Our vehicles were stationary and performed what we call Simtrav, an abbreviation for simulated travel. To give the illusion of movement, we placed the vehicles on airbags causing them to bounce around, while the camera moved along. This had to be carefully managed to ensure a seamless blend with moving backgrounds, creating a lifelike effect. Some shots were tricky as they lacked the desired dynamism and excitement. These were set within a tent, illuminated by artificial light, and our goal was to make it appear as if it were real daylight.

Despite the glossy exterior of the War Rig, piloted by Furiosa and Tom Burke’s character, the Praetorian Jack, it still presented some challenges.

Jackson chuckles as he reflects, “There couldn’t be a more challenging task for our visual effects team than creating reflections on the central figure.” He continues, “We can’t ignore it because we end up seeing reflections of the crew everywhere. To handle this, we used a CGI War Rig that was synchronized with the filmed one, allowing us to project the correct images onto those reflective areas. It’s not overly complicated, but it becomes quite a chore when this reflection is one of the film’s main focuses.

As I navigated through the gritty landscape of Gas Town, I found myself dodging some tricky oil slick surfaces that seemed to have been conjured up by some cunning digital magic.

As a gamer, I consider myself fortunate that it was densely packed and remained stationary, for there wasn’t even a whisper of wind or a hint of rippling like water. Drawing inspiration from the Gulf War’s oil fields devastation, we sourced our reference to those massive, flat, gooey puddles in the desert where oil spilled out in large quantities. The challenge was striking the right balance of reflectivity.

They placed a layer of “dusty material” on the oil’s surface, which prevented it from appearing “entirely smooth or consistent.

Notably, one of the most impressive visual effects feats in the movie lies in the facial transformation work done on the character Young Furiosa, portrayed by Alyla Browne.

Jackson explains with excitement that we adjusted her facial features to resemble how Anya might have appeared as a child. Instead of modifying an existing face, we created a brand-new one. In post-production, we carefully selected the areas to alter while preserving the rest, ensuring Alyla’s performance remained intact.

The process utilized machine learning, where the visual effects (VFX) team educated the system using images of the young actress and Taylor-Joy at a similar age. This enabled the tool to produce a new face that mirrors the actress’s performance, lighting conditions, and footage specifics, while also incorporating the features learned during training.

He asserts that the technology in question is quite recent, having not been available a decade ago. This innovation, he adds, is revolutionary and poised to influence our sector significantly, ideally for the better. The emerging technology will streamline tasks that are currently time-consuming, thereby allowing us more time to focus on creative aspects. Roles like rotoscoping, tracking cameras, and match-moving will likely become automated and, consequently, potentially more precise due to this new development.

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2025-01-13 19:25