Watch the breakdown reel: from de-ageing Bill Nighy to shaping psychological landscapes, the studio was the sole VFX vendor on the mind-bending thriller series, now streaming on Prime Video.
Led by creative director Simon Carr, Vine FX utilized a hybrid pipeline of cutting-edge CG, machine learning, and seamless compositing techniques to craft the VFX for As sole VFX vendor, the studio was embedded in the creative process from the start of the project.Working closely with the Quay Street Productions and Prime Video teams, Vine FX delivered over 235 shots across 6 episodes.
The Vine FX team was tasked with creating a visual language that felt slightly futuristic and neither overtly British nor rigidly North American, but evocative, moody, and international in tone.“The clients wanted the environment to appeal to a broader audience and feel neither distinctly UK nor North American," said Kaitlyn Beattie, Executive VFX Producer.“Shooting in Manchester and Liverpool gave the show an urban backbone, but the team was asked to obfuscate location cues, insert extensions, and create variations in weather and lighting that emphasized claustrophobia, density, and tension.” Check out the VFX Breakdown reel, then read more details about how the work was performed: Another key environment was the psychiatric hospital, shot in a repurposed hotel but designed to feel isolated on a cliff outside the city.
“The hospital is a mix of brutalist and Art Deco style extensions,” said Carr.“Though still stark - scenes set here were marginally brighter, edged with hopeful light, and counterpointed against the gloom of the city.” The team extended structures, added fencing, trees, hills, and replaced the sea with a cliff edge.Visually, the city scenes leaned heavily into moody, overcast tones with consistent wet-downs.
CG Rain was also added.They also faced the challenge of de-ageing leads Bill Nighy and Amanda Root while preserving their identities, performances, and emotional nuance.“Retaining Bill Nighy’s performance was key,” noted Carr.
“Bill’s face presents a unique VFX challenge; it's instantly recognizable and deeply expressive.Obviously, the clients wanted a believable finish, so they didn't want to change his glasses or hairstyle too drastically in the de-ageing process.” In the series, Joel Lazarus (Sam Claflin) returns home to confront long-buried trauma after the apparent suicide of his father, Dr.Jonathan Lazarus (Nighy).
As he begins to uncover unsettling clues and experience strange phenomena, Joel is drawn into a cold case tied to his sister's unsolved murder 25 years earlier.Based on an original story by Harlan Coben and adapted by Danny Brocklehurst, the project blends psychological suspense with themes of grief, memory, and buried truths.The cast also includes Kate Ashfield, Karla Crome, David Fynn, and Alexandra Roach.
“Visual subtlety was essential," explained CG Lead Matt McKinney, noting that while full-CG replacements provided maximum control, complete replacement wasn’t the goal.“The CG model looked great on its own, but when you compared it to the original plate, the differences stood out.” The team opted for a mixed approach, using CG elements to control topology, lighting, and hair, while compositing key aspects of the original plate to retain micro-expressions.“It’s not pure CG, we always blend in original elements for subtlety, as performance preservation is paramount,” added Jake Newton, CG Lead.
“We’re capturing minuscule performances, retaining tiny tics, little twitchy mannerisms, and micro-expressions.This is what makes de-ageing believable.” CG head construction for precise control over facial structure, lighting behavior, and machine learning models trained on synthetic face-pair datasets (young/old).The team's R&D Developer, Peter Noble, developed a domain-constrained de-ageing model trained on thousands of facial images, specifically tuned by biasing it toward older male facial features to reduce noise and computational overhead.
The team then finished with a compositing blend that retained original elements, which helped to preserve delicate expressions.Facial capture was done using Unreal Engine’s Live Link Face App, supported by FACS (Facial Action Coding System) libraries to map plausible facial shapes.While effective, early outputs pushed the digital likeness too far.
“What we were coming up with was more caricatured at first,” said McKinney.“We had to tone it all back to capture the actor's nuance, and hand‑refining to achieve natural micro‑movement.” Root’s role posed a different kind of challenge.Her brow furrow is key to her emotional delivery, and standard smoothing approaches threatened to erase that nuance.
“If you de-age and smooth Amanda’s face too much, you essentially lose 90% of her performance,” noted Carr.“For De-Aging that did not require a full CG, or even ML approach, the team found Nuke's Copycat tool to be invaluable.” The team also tackled a critical sequence, where a statue was used to brutally fracture a victim’s skull.As practical film on-set could not depict such internal gore, the team created a complete CG head destruction sequence.
The team then simulated fragmentation, particle flows, and fluid mixing in a controlled but visceral way so that the effect was gory but seamless.All six episodes of are now streaming on Prime Video.
Journalist, antique shop owner, aspiring gemologist—L'Wren brings a diverse perspective to animation, where every frame reflects her varied passions.
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