THE TEAM FROM AUTOMATIK VFX AND WORLDBUILDING DESIGN STUDIO PAINTING PRACTICE REVEAL THE VISUAL SECRETS OF “THE GIGGLE” AND “THE CHURCH ON RUBY ROAD”
UNIT TOWER
Dan May, Painting Practice co-founder and VFX Supervisor: We looked at some classic strong tower shapes like the Shard and did many, many different versions of the silhouette. We were conscious of trying to emulate the beauty and simplicity of Marvel’s Stark Tower, but at the same time having ownership in our own version.
Seb Barker, VFX Supervisor and founder of Automatik VFX: The script really defined the design in many ways, just in terms of what the tower had to perform and how the characters interacted with it.
Dan: One of the biggest things for me was where it was going to go in the London skyline and how we were going to integrate it. I very quickly plonked it where I thought it would look best, in that cluster of buildings opposite the Shard.
It’s a lovely little cluster that feels like a mini London Manhattan. It felt the right place to put it, but more importantly it had lots of good access points in terms of where we could fly towards it, whether it was down the river or across the river. We did move it around once or twice, but broadly speaking it stayed where I’d put it.
Seb: I went up and directed the helicopter shoot and we shot all the [plates] to put this thing in. Many bags of sick later, we had that material!
UNIT TOWER HELIPAD
Erica McEwan, Painting Practice creative director and graphics art director: There were originally some guard rails! They were removed for the jeopardy factor.
Seb: It was purely the catch sequence at the end. It was the scene Russell wanted the most jeopardy for. I remember the conversation when he took them away! There was talk of a barrier that extended up to a certain height around it, basically to save on the amount of VFX we’d do. In hindsight I’m really glad we didn’t do that, because you wouldn’t see the horizon of London. It would have made it feel much smaller.
Erica: The floor of the set was actually the ground. It was just the backlot.
THE GALVANIC BEAM GUN
Erica: The design would have been very much driven by [production designer] Phil Sims and the concept team worked really closely with him, back and forth.
Seb: There’s a slightly industrial quality to it.
Dan: There were many versions of this. It wasn’t a particularly straightforward thing to get right. Originally there was quite a big number about how the gun itself came out. We had ones that came up f
