Freeform’s Shadowhunters has been impressing viewers this season with its new visual upgrades. The make-up, wardrobe, the stunts, props – almost everything has been overhauled to better pull audiences into the magic of the Shadow World. A large part of that responsibility has been entrusted to the show’s new visual effects team, Folks VFX – the results of which have proven immensely popular among fans.
Folks VFX aren’t new to the fantasy/sci-fi genre, having worked on projects like Syfy’s Ascension and 12 Monkeys, the CW’s The Messengers, Marvel’s Legion and 2014’s Franco-German retelling of Beauty and the Beast, La Belle et la Bête. Shadowhunters seems to be a logical fit for a crew with such credentials, and according to the show’s VFX Supervisor, Philippe Thibault, it’s an enjoyable one for all involved.
Prior to becoming Vice President and founding partner of Folks VFX, Philippe’s years of experience in the industry have seen him work as a digital compositor on films such as The Last Airbender, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Immortals, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Underworld: Awakening, and 2012’s The Amazing Spiderman. He’s also been twice-nominated for an Emmy and won Best Visual Effects at the 2009 Gemini Awards for Syfy’s Sanctuary. Pretty hefty!
We had the opportunity to chat with Phil about the team’s work on Shadowhunters, the hugely collaborative script to screen process, and how the look of the show was reimagined. See our interview below!
Tell us a little bit about how you came onto the project and what kinds of things you did to get ready for it. Did you watch Season 1? Read the books?
Geoff Levitt, a VFX supervisor from L.A., first introduced me to the show. Geoff and I worked together in the past and he’s been involved with Shadowhunters since the first season. Everyone wanted a fresh start for the second season. That’s how he got in touch with me.
I watched the first season and got a detailed introduction to the Shadowhunters world from my daughter, Serena, who has read all the books. I then met with Executive Producer Matt Hastings and show creator Ed Decter. At the very first meeting, I really got excited about Matt’s vision, where he wanted to go with the show, and how he wanted to bring it to the next level. I believed it clicked right there between us, and I knew it was going to be a great show for us to work on. That’s how we got involved at Folks.
What’s the process like whenever there’s a new episode? What happens between getting the script and handing over the finished product?
The minute we get the first draft of the script, Amélie Poitras, our very efficient VFX producer at Folks, does a first breakdown to determine what could potentially be done with VFX in that episode. We then have a lot of creative meetings with Matt Hastings and the showrunners, Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer, as well as Chris Hatcher, the line producer. Our mission is to nail down what will be done with VFX and what won’t – always taking into consideration the budget and the tight schedule of a primetime TV series. After that, we design the shots and VFX sequences with the guest director of that episode using storyboards concepts from Folks or from the show’s art department, collaborating also with Darren McGuire, our world-class stunt coordinator, and obviously Mike McMurray and David Harrington, our amazing DOPs. Always with the same purpose: making the most amazing VFX possible. It’s always a very close collaboration between the guest director, Matt Hastings, and myself. When the shooting is done, our team at Folks – under the supervision of Matt Belbin and Dan Charbit – starts the ‘real’ VFX work and R&D for the biggest VFX shots in that episode while we start shooting the next one, and go through the same process. Once we get a locked cut of the episode, we have a few weeks to get it all done. The whole time, I’m keeping Matt up to date on our progress. Once we’re both happy, we get approval from Todd and Darren, and it finally gets to Freeform for the final notes and/or approval.
You largely reimagined a lot of the show’s pre-existing visual elements – like the seraph blades, the runes, the way vampires disintegrate. What was the goal there?
Since day one, we talked about grounding the VFX in reality with a darker, edgier, more cinematographic look for the show. It was of the utmost importance to find ways to make the VFX stunning, but also feel seamless with everything else that was shot. The seraph blades were one of the first things that was ‘officially’ changed; it happened in one of the first meetings we all had together. It was brought to life by the amazing work of prop masters Antonio Germinario and concept artist Sanford King.
Magnus’ magic this season behaves vastly different to what it used to and it’s often very fascinating to watch. What was the thinking behind that? And how closely have you worked with Harry Shum Jr. in collaborating on that?
My collaboration with Harry has been great and very important to the design of the magic. Harry is such a great actor, but most importantly, for this part, a great performer. The way he moves when magic happens has a direct impact on how we approach the design of the VFX. Again, we were looking to make magic that was grounded in reality, but I also felt it was very important to make it look like it was very connected to the powerful warlock that is Magnus.
The new effects tend to behave in certain ways. Everything seems to have a personality to it. What kinds of things inspired the behaviors of the show’s new effects?
Putting a new stamp on the show has been very important to all the creatives involved. Matt, Todd, and Darren are absolutely fantastic to work with. They have great ideas but are also very open-minded when it comes to new designs and finding new ways to tell the story. Their input has been tremendous and our collaboration is constant on all the episodes.
We imagine the creative process of working out the logistics of certain effects is very back-and-forth. What’s one effect that took the most thinking or the longest amount of time to decide on, and why?
Magnus’ magic was hard to nail down; we started with concept designs and decided on the look and color that way. To bring it to ‘reality,’ it took a lot of trial and error. Our FX team first started the design with particle systems using Houdini and they did a great job coming up with the look and behavior of the particles. The final product is a close collaboration with CG and outstanding compositing. Lionel Lim and Simon Devault, our lead compositors at Folks, have their stamp on the final look and I feel that now we have it down to a science. We also did a full-body scan of Harry, because his every move involving magic is being roto-animated by our team, which is also one of the reasons why it feels so connected with Harry’s acting.
You’ve also broadened the scope of things like the City of Bones, and you got to introduce us to the Citadel. What kind of things did you have to consider in conceptualizing those landscapes?
We did a lot of concept work at Folks, but the show’s production designer, Doug McCullough – who is also responsible for the beautiful set design – came up with great concepts to point the Folks team in the right direction. We took those drawings to our art director at Folks, Moika Sabourin, who then turned those concepts into reality. She’s brilliant! We always make sure that we stay connected to the root of the Shadowhunters world dictated by the original books. Todd, Darren, and their team of writers always make sure that we’re staying true to the foundation. But at the same time, they allow us to be as creative as possible, which makes it a great show to work on.
What has been your favorite episode to work on so far? Is there a particular visual effect you’re proud of?
Episode 1 was very satisfying and I’m really proud of it. Matt did such an amazing job directing it and redefining the series, taking it to the next level. There were so many things we had to design from scratch that would be carried the rest of the way, and with so little time on our hands.
Our VFX team did an amazing job all across the board, but one of my favorite visual effect has to be the vampire death. I think we knocked it out of the park. Everyone was very pleased with the result and the reactions were unanimous. We also reintroduced the portal; we were also very proud of the results and it got better and better as the series progressed. The feedback from the fans has been tremendously positive, too! Yes, we do read all the comments online!
What is the most enjoyable thing about being a part of Shadowhunters?
The team. The whole team. Both on set and at Folks VFX. I’ve made truly great friends on the set of Shadowhunters, starting with Matt and our incredibly talented group of lead actors. They’ve all been extremely fun to work and collaborate with, and are always eager to see our work. The DOPs, Mike and David; the camera team, Drew and Glenn; the ADs, Siluck and Helga; the whole crew at Folks VFX… Really, I could go on and name everyone. They’re all very important to make a show like this one a success, and working with all of them, day in/day out is definitely the most enjoyable thing for me.
Watch the Shadowhunters winter finale this Monday 8/7c on Freeform, and Tuesday internationally on Netflix.
