EPISODE ENTRY: THE STRAIN SEASON I, EPISODE 101: ‘NIGHT ZERO’FOR CONSIDERATION FOR CATEGORY 97: OUTSTANDING SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS

67TH PRIMETIME EMMY AWARDS

The Visual Effects team’s directive on The Strain Season 1 was to bring to life the beginning of a cataclysmic vampire apocalypse in New York City, complete with feature-quality creature and environment effects.

In the Spring of 2013 we began look-development on the CG stinger—the probiscus that the strigoi (vampires) launch from their mouths in order to drink from their victims—based on concept art that the Director had been developing for months. Using one of our own lead animators as our test strigoi, we cyberscanned, matchmoved, and animated an engorged wattle and stinger for him and presented it to the Director as a proof of concept.

In the fall of that year, we began principal photography on the Pilot.

OPENING SHOT OF THE SERIESFor the opening of Ep 101, the Director and Producers wanted a long aerial shot of the plane flying toward New York City to accompany Setrakian’s introductory monologue. Production shot an aerial background plate in New York, and we photosurveyed and modeled the Boeing 747 that can be seen on the tarmac in later practical shots so that our digitally created airplane would match it exactly. We then animated the plane and jet engines, and added FX simulations of clouds and atmosphere.

THE MASTERThe first scare of the series involves The Master: an ancient vampire who stowed himself away in the airplane with the intent to unleash the vampire strain on NYC. The performance the Director wanted for these beats was impossible for a human actor to achieve, so we cyberscanned and created a digital model of The Master and the many layers of his tattered cloak. The Master was then animated into the practical plate of the flight attendants’ reactions and the cloak was brought to life with a combination of hero hand animation and FX simulations.

Later in the episode, Bishop, a curious air traffic controller, is drawn to an underground section of a cargo facility and is stung by The Master. The Director wanted to see the veins and flesh of Bishop literally “sucked dry” like a juice box, so we modeled parts of Bishop’s body and digitally replaced and collapsed them with a combination of animation and comp work. The practical photography involved The Master mimicking the action of viciously striking and sucking with his stinger, and Bishop shaking and reacting. The slimy stinger and interactivity with Bishop’s neck were achieved digitally.

To illustrate the parasitic sucking mechanism of the stinger, the Director asked us to create a full CG sub-capillary environment of Bishop’s neck. This was achieved through a series of R&D, look development and animation cycles.

After the Master has finished drinking, he illustrates to the audience a piece of strigoi folklore: he must destroy his victim’s brain stem before the victim turns into a vampire himself. He smashes Bishop’s head, which we achieved by creating and breaking down a full CG model of the head. He then retreats from the cargo area with a backwards “spider walk” into the darkness. This involved animating our fully digital Master, replacing Bishop’s head with our smashed CG one, and modeling and animating the cargo items he knocks into on his way out.

HEART IN THE JARAnother challenge was the worm-infested heart that Setrakian keeps in a jar in his basement armory. The Prosthetics department created a stunning diseased heart that the Props department then placed in murky pond water in the jar. This worked well for shots where the heart is static, but when Setrakian “feeds” the heart with drops of blood, the Director wanted the heart to animate and a feeding frenzy of the worms to commence. This involved a full digitally created replacement of the heart, the water, and the beveled glass of the jar.

BLOOD WORMSThe transmission mechanism of the vampire strain is via thin, semi-translucent blood worms which live in the body fluids of vampires. The Director’s inspiration for these was the nefarious horsehair worm, which we pulled several video references of (on empty stomachs) and modeled closely after. The animation was also inspired by them, but we added extra ferocity when the worms get close to human skin or blood.

CORONER SCENEDr. Bennett is the city coroner who is charged with the daunting task of processing the deceased victims from the plane. This responsibility becomes a liability when he is first attacked by the blood worms from a diseased heart, and then when the vampire strain reanimates the victims and they viciously turn on him. This sequence involved animating a full CG heart, blood worms, jaw replacements on five vampires and of course, the deadly stingers!