Visual Effects Supervisor Sean Faden discusses visualizing a security android’s existential thoughts of escape and carnage through story, humor, and giant worms across more than 2,000 shots on the Apple TV sci-fi black comedy.
Given that Murderbot revolves around a security unit android that gains self-consciousness, the dark sci-fi comedy is custom-made for an age where there is a growing fear of technology becoming sentient and wreaking havoc on its creator — humanity. The narrative of the 10 episodes is told through the perspective of the protagonist as he attempts to understand the world around him through the filter of his newfound independence. Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz, creators of the Apple TV series based on “The Murderbot Diaries” by Martha Wells, relied on visual effects to elevate their interstellar satirical vision, with DNEG, FOLKS, Pixomondo, PANC, CBS VFX, Image Engine, Fin Design + Effects, Supervixen, and Island VFX creating over 2,000 shots under the watchful eyes of VFX Supervisor Sean Faden. “The challenge was figuring out how to visualize the thought process of Murderbot,” states Faden. “It ended up being a good part of the humor and storytelling of the first season where we relied heavily on the timing and the information that was presented in his thought bubbles. It's not just pure information, but a lot of times the information itself was a snarky response to what was happening in the scene, and we had to find what would work. The first thing that actually worked was when he was in stasis in the first episode and we were showing his status level. Having that come in and out of focus created an almost rack focus to his thoughts. It gave it a life and felt much more organic, like human thoughts. It's just that he's more precise.”
Setting the narrative into motion was Murderbot successfully hacking his governor module while dealing with hostile miners. “There was a lot of back and forth on that one,” notes Faden. “We had a temp track that Alexander Skarsgård had recorded for that moment. We were working off of that. It was a lot of ‘How do we represent that he’s hacking his governor module and being able to try different things, run various lines of code and keep hitting these roadblocks.’ We didn’t want to make it be a magic switch. There are these guys burning his hand, and Murderbot is overriding his pain sensors; it was through that backdoor action that he is able to kill the governor module.” UI plays an important role in Murderbot’s POV shots. “Supervixen did a fantastic job of coming up with a lot of different things, but where we landed was this etched glass look. You didn't want it to overpower the visuals of the scene or the other characters. It was about keeping it clean and simple enough that the message would be communicated. The more complicated stuff was when we were doing the Murderbot data stream, where we're actually journeying inside his mind as he is either trying to reconstruct the series of events that led to his being in a vegetative state after Episode 104, or rebuild his own memories in Episode 110.”
One key scene involves Murderbot intricately weaving a wound back together. “I'm happy with how that sequence turned out,” remarks Faden. “We had the prosthetics team create a torso with the gap missing and had good details for the organic meat and blood. We scanned that and then when we shot Alexander, we had blue paint on his stomach where the hole would be. We asked prosthetics to create a bloody edge around it; however, we ended up replacing a lot of that with a digital version because with his breathing, it needed to have a little more to it. The real challenge was figuring out how to create the layers of organic tissue, the meshing, and what his organs would look like. There were a couple of things the prosthetics team gave us, but we riffed on that one in post and came up with a methodology as if the 3D printers reconstructing Murderbot could either generate metal-like strands and reweave the protective mesh or use more organic materials such as flesh. What was important about that was it defined for the audience that this is what Murderbot is made of.”
Giant worms wreak havoc on the PreservationAux scientists who hired Murderbot for protection during their planetary expeditions. “When Murderbot gets swallowed up, it’s almost like a kiddie tube that is three feet in diameter and six or eight feet long and connected to a crane with a camera inside of it,” explains Faden. “That camera drops down with the crane on top of Murderbot, so you’re getting a realistic lighting change. We had stunt guys pushing and pulling this kiddie tunnel and he’s inside being knocked around. The kiddie tunnel was replaced with a CG gullet as well as most of Murderbot because we wanted realistic lighting between the wet surface inside the worm and the surface of his costume. Our special effects team built a seesaw rig that spun around on location. Murderbot is on the end going up and down. Cameras were mounted on that, and we had the worm built around this so when Murderbot blows a hole through the side of the worm, what we’re seeing is Alexander’s actual performance.”
Faden adds, “The mouth was inspired by a snapping turtle, and the legs resemble those of a centipede. There were a ton of legs which meant a lot of interaction with the surface of the ground, so we had extensive dust effects created. A stunt double was used when the worm spits out Murderbot, who was thrown onto the ground. We were able to back into that and figure out in animation how he would be tossed. A digital double was utilized at the beginning to hand off to that moment.”
Alien worlds still need familiar elements to feel believable, such as the one inhabited by the worms. “The set was located at a rock quarry outside of Toronto, so there wasn't a whole lot to it,” states Faden. “When you see the sheer rock wall that surrounds two sides of the habitat, that was real. The habitat was a partial build that included the front door. Because there was a parking lot behind us, we digitally extended the actual habitat, which was based on Production Designer Sue Chan’s designs. They had built a couple of small alien-looking trees that we scanned. I went to Moab and shot a ton of photogrammetry and reference backgrounds. In fact, when they're flying in the Hopper, a lot of those plates on our LED screen through the windshield are treated footage from Moab, flying over these interesting formations. We exaggerated by adding a lot more plateaus and cliffs that stretch into the distance. In terms of the skies, in working with Paul and Chris, and Tobias Datum, our main DP, we talked about not going too crazy. The skies we came up with incorporated rings, which was a nice addition that immediately says, this is somewhere else. We went with more wispy clouds but also introduced something that's a real phenomenon on Earth. Fire rainbows are not rainbows or clouds but ice crystals at high elevations.”
During a hostage situation, Murderbot blows the head off of Leebeebee (Anna Konkle), who is using Gurathin (David Dastmalchian) as a shield. “The way that plays out is great,” Faden remarks. “Instead of doing the typical thing, having the actor fall down, then you have a dummy and do the head explosion with CG, Anna Konkle continues to act a little bit after her head has been blown off. We actually did blow up a head that looked like Anna’s as a special effects element and there was also a lot of digital work to get the control that was needed. Getting the splatters on the faces, some of that was practical, but a lot of it was CG. In the post moments, every time you cut to an actor and they’re like, ‘What the hell was that?’ They had been splattered on set to make it funnier, and we used that as sort of a reference. We tried to blend into that. All of the blood on the walls was enhanced. I remember doing a blood drip continuity across the sequence that was silly, but you got to do that stuff. That moment was supposed to be shocking. It worked well. It ends up becoming, in its own way, another humorous moment in the episode.”
Hoppers were the primary spaceships shown in the series. “We ended up having a second Hopper built for the bad guys in Episode 109,” says Faden. “But for the PreservationAux Hopper, we had a great design from Sue Chan. The design evolved as a partnership between us flying this thing around in previs and trying to figure out how it would move and what the final design would be. They built the back third of the Hopper and the full interior, which we had on a bladder gimbal set piece that Tim Barraball, our special effects coordinator, created. I would say 90 percent of the interior stuff was LED wall projected. There were a couple of moments where we had to do CG stuff to either enhance or replace what was projected. The Hopper crash was an example in which we had something on the LED screen to give us proper lighting on the actors. However, we knew we'd have to add in the exploding transmitting tower. We kept leapfrogging between sets, which allowed us to keep moving and not wait. The back door could either be open or closed. We animated the opening and closing in CG. When it was open, it was only that back third of the interior built. We had a greenscreen there so the rest of it was created from reprojections of the actual interior set. Seventy percent of the exterior when you see the Hopper parked at any location was digital.”
Fully CG shots were created for the outer space scenes. “The first thing that we did was the asteroid space station in Episode 101 where we introduced Murderbot on that mining planet,” explains Faden. “We worked with Sue Chan doing random sketches and I did some stuff on my iPad, like a rough blob that was in the edit until we could get something cool from Pixomondo. Using natural elements of the asteroid to grow the space station was one of Sue’s ideas and we went with that. That ended up feeding into the Port FreeCommerce space station, which looks organic, almost 3D-printed by drone bots. It’s constantly under construction, so you’re seeing these spires growing with housing units while it’s depleting the natural resources of the actual asteroid it was built on. It’s almost like an apple core. That was a nice collaboration between visual effects and the art department.”
“One of my favorite shots of the whole season was the interior shot with Murderbot where we pan out his window and you’re seeing what he’s seeing as the ship is rotating away from the space station, then comes back to him as it takes off,” states Faden. “That was tricky because it was a shot made up on the day. We were shooting on our greenscreen set for the interior spaceport, which was small. There was an entryway and maybe 50 or 60 feet of flooring. When you see that spaceport, much of that was CG extension. But on the day we were shooting that, directors Paul and Chris said, ‘What if we do a quick close-up of Murderbot as he’s leaving?’ We had him sit on a green box, and it’s just green behind him. We did this camera move and then had to build the whole thing in CG. I was at LAX and it was a foggy night. I had put my iPhone up to the window as my plane was coming onto the jetway. The plane itself was rotating, and you’re looking out this window seeing this world go by with different blinking lights and signs of life. I gave that to Pixomondo and said, ‘This is the kind of randomness and life we want to put out there.’ We even had some atmospherics because there are jet exhaust ports off of the space station to justify the blooming. I had a lot of fun creating that world of random blinking lights that have some basis in reality.”
Horny worms appear in a signature moment for the series. “We fell in love with the worm sex sequence because we were having so much fun with it,” Faden reveals. “The female worm appears in Episode 101, and the male appears in Episode 107. We had a concept for the sequence, but DNEG built and animated it; one of their earliest animations was inspired by male spiders dancing to get the female’s attention. Paul, Chris, and I fell in love with the test and thought it was the funniest thing. It’s such an absurd thing, but I’m so happy that people were struck the same way we were. It could almost be a throwaway thing, but we put a lot into designing the male and female worms.”
One of the most important ongoing storylines is that Murderbot is an avid viewer of the sci-fi melodrama Sanctuary Moon. “Sanctuary Moon was an opportunity to get silly,” notes Faden. “Originally, we were going to do more space shots. But even the opening title shot is a cliché slingshot camera move that every space movie in the 1990s did. Sanctuary Moon is supposed to be as if AI has generated some version of a soap opera that it thinks humans are going to like, because it uses all the different things that have been popular over the years. We built that the old-fashioned way, but we were using that as the idea. This was the show that taught Murderbot most about human interaction, so it gave a funny backbone to many of his reactions to the real people he dealt with.”
Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer best known for composing in-depth filmmaker and movie profiles for VFX Voice, Animation Magazine, and British Cinematographer.
