By Veronica Orciari

On October 9 at Picturehouse Central in London, the BFI London Film Festival hosted a panel titled “The Art of VFX: Creating Worlds, Shaping Vision.” On the stage were four women who have dedicated their careers to VFX: Fiona Walkinshaw, CEO of Framestore Film & Episodic (Gravity, Notting Hill); Sara Bennett, VFX supervisor and co-founder of Milk VFX (Ex Machina, The Woman King); Ellen Walder, COO and co-founder of beloFX (Disclaimer, The Last of Us); and Arpita Venugopal, head of FX at One Of Us (Napoleon, The Sandman). The panel was moderated by film writer and critic Ian Haydn Smith.

The talk explored the past, present and future of VFX and how new technologies are reshaping the craft. When asked about the most noticeable changes the industry has undergone since they started their careers, all agreed that the big shift involves the scale of the budget allocated for VFX in modern-day productions and the fact that VFX is integrated with the filmmaking process.

Walder underlined how, thanks to this, smaller projects can now use VFX as well, enriching their value. New tools have brought new possibilities but also the need to constantly stay up to date. In this regard, Bennett stated, “I think some people assume we just press a few buttons and everything magically happens, but the truth is, you need to be constantly learning to keep up with everything that is happening.”

According to Walkinshaw, the fact that VFX is necessary to filmmaking is something that has come up often in recent years: “Nowadays, we work with films even before they’re greenlit, and our [contributions] can help them get approved.” She brought two examples from her own experience to prove it. “Paul King, director of Wonka, came to us with ideas about what he wanted the world to look like and what the story was before we had even read a script or treatment. We worked on creating that vision, and that involved people creating drawings, brainstorming, designing concepts, animating movement and even designing props, like a case the character would carry — all incredibly creative work that helped the film get approved,” Walkinshaw said.

The other film Walkinshaw mentioned was How to Train Your Dragon 2. “Universal was concerned about how to bring Toothless, such a beloved animated character, into a live-action environment. Through visdev, thanks to our animators that are all trained in 2D, we shot live-action plates and had artists pose the character in key ways, knowing how important each pose would be, and presented that to the head of Universal. Our work literally helped get the film greenlit.”

On this topic, Bennett emphasized the importance of involving VFX early in a project, as it greatly benefits the overall production. “Bringing them in at the end can help, but it’s far from ideal. At that point, you’re stuck with what’s already been done, and you just have to make it work.”

Venugopal then spoke about the relationship between creativity and technicality when it comes to the different aspects of the job. “I’ve always felt that anyone at every level has some kind of influence to shift how an image looks in the end. So we do have some weight on how things turn out. For Milk’s Bennett, “The technology supports the creative. As a supervisor, I don’t know everything. You rely heavily on the people around you: the technicians, the artistry, the animators. Also, the directors really want you to believe in the story with them and go along for the ride. Same goes for the actors. They have to think there’s something beyond the green or bluescreen.”

Later in the discussion, Bennett talked about her experience with director Gina Prince-Bythewood, whom she worked with on The Woman King and The Old Guard. She described The Woman King as heavily focused on world-building. Most of it was shot on location in South Africa, with only a few days in a studio. The extensive practical sets, like the 360-degree palace of Ghezo, allowed the DP to shoot freely. “I think anybody in visual effects would always support a partial build because having something set in reality to shoot against gives you a great reference. It also allows everyone to see a footprint of what it might be, as opposed to a complete build in CG,” Bennett said. As determined in collaboration with the art department, production designer and DP, rooftops and other rarely filmed areas were done in CG for cost-effectiveness. The process was highly collaborative starting in preproduction, with all departments working together to decide what to build practically versus digitally to best serve the story and locations.

Discussing different types of clients, Framestore’s Walkinshaw talked about her experience on F1: The Movie. She described a testing process whereby they took about five shots edited together from a Lewis Hamilton race and reskinned his car in CG.

Then they placed it back into the original race environment to demonstrate the concept of integrating CG cars into real footage. “Not every car was CG, but many were,” she said. The team also had to make the broadcast camera footage look more cinematic — less sharp and not overly clean — to achieve a filmic quality. The goal was to convince Formula One that, even without access to its cars, the result would still look authentic and visually impressive. “We felt very proud at the end because Lewis Hamilton was an executive producer, and when watching the rushes, all his notes were only on sound. He corrected all the gear change sounds, and that was precious for us,” Walkinshaw concluded.

beloFX’s Walder described a similar experience she had at DNEG working with automotive company McLaren on Ron Howard’s Rush (even though Rush had a much smaller budget). “We had their simulators brought into the office, and they wanted to know that all of the car shots were real simulations from their simulator. Otherwise, they wouldn’t sign it off,” Walder said.

AI/Machine Learning
Toward the end of the panel, the panelists touched on the elephant in the room for almost every discussion of the past year — the use of artificial intelligence. A statement from Milk’s Bennett encapsulated the panel’s general feeling: “There are still human hands pushing buttons and writing prompts; it’s never fully automated. AI is a tool, but not a replacement.”

Walkinshaw added, “The truth is, people in VFX have been using machine learning for a long time. At my job, we use a lot of machine learning tools that are embedded in our pipeline because they allow us to be quicker and more efficient. There’s always pressure on pricing coming from productions, and that helps. Generative AI is a different thing, and we don’t use it that much — only in what we call a hybrid workflow, where we use a generative tool alongside a traditional tool in the preproduction process. Never in the final stages. […] In this sense, I don’t think it will replace actors or nuanced performances anytime soon, but I may be wrong. Also, text prompts don’t achieve the kind of requests that humans can ask, and that is very true in VFX, when small details can make the difference.”

She concluded by highlighting the importance of the industry’s very strict security parameters and suggesting that datasets must be checked in order to be clean, traceable and usable.

Walder noted that generative AI is a good sketchbook for ideas (with the right limits), and it takes talent even to be able to use it that way. One of Us’ Venugopal praised how machine learning is incredibly useful to save time and energy and to keep focused on the real things. None of the panelists thought that AI would shrink their teams too much, even though they all agreed that there would be a relative impact, which could mean that lower-level jobs would be replaced. At the same time, it could also lead people to get more creative or to implement more staff in certain departments.

Tips for Those Starting Out
As a conclusion, the group was asked to give a suggestion to professionals and filmmakers who might want to approach VFX services and to newcomers who want to make a career in the industry. Bennett advised that young people interested in post production must have a love for the craft, and they must look into and study all areas of visual effects to decide which area to focus on.

Venugopal suggested that trust from directors and literacy on the topic are key. Too often, filmmakers are skeptical about the role of VFX. “People have lost hope in recent years, but it will stabilize again. Films are one of the best mediums to share stories, so don’t lose faith, and find your niche,” she added.

As for Walkinshaw, she said, “Find the person in the room who adds real value to the production; technology will always be there. You shouldn’t see VFX supervisors any differently from a production designer or a cinematographer. And in the same way, those who want to work in this field should understand filmmaking as a whole and be comfortable with all its different parts.”

Finally, Walder advised those who dream of making a living out of VFX to “love film” and “self-teach” as much as they can in order to show that they are “self-starting.”

Main image: Courtesy of BFI London Film Festival L-R: Sara Bennett, Arpita Venugopal, Ellen Walder and Fiona Walkinshaw.

Veronica Orciari is an Italian film critic and journalist based in Rome and London. She regularly writes for Cineuropa, The European Animation Journal and Filmexplorer. She is editor, contributor and translator at the English edition of Cinecittà News and serves as programmer for the Torino Film Festival.