The Terror: Infamy

The VFX work from Framestore features in two episodes the main sequence seeing one character is trapped between two worlds and must throw herself into a burning building to escape.

The work on this sequence includes the animation of Japanese symbols disappearing from the skin of the main character. To achieve this, the team at Framestore took a CG scan of the actor to map out the placement of the symbols before removing them from the live action plates. They used the information from those scans to digitally add the symbols back onto her skin and animated their disappearance with a small fire-like effect.

‘Tracking the actors body in order to add all the characters back onto her face was by far the most challenging aspect of this sequences VFX,’ said Leonardo Costa, VFX Supervisor. ‘We had references from the live action plates of exactly where they needed to be but we had to make sure they looked as though they were naturally drawn on her face before we could add the animation for them to disappear.’

The end of this sequence ends with the character having to throw herself through a burning door for which Framestore created a CG model of a building, added flame effects and replaced several background environments with live action and digital matte painting assets.

The VFX delivered for the fifth episode of the show is a series of set extensions and the addition of a number of CG elements including shipping crates on a crane arm and vehicles driving in the background. Talking about the work on this sequence, Costa said; ‘when working with background elements and matte paintings, it's really important to not only create something that looks convincing but also make sure it matches the colour and aesthetic planned out by the director and the production designers.’