CG CAR CRASH MAKES A REAL IMPACT ON FARGO, SEASON 5

By OLIVER WEBB

Images courtesy of FX Network.

Nominated for 15 Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, the latest installment of Fargo takes place in Minnesota and North Dakota in 2019. Season 5 follows Dot (Juno Temple), a housewife whose mysterious past begins to haunt her after she gets in trouble with local authorities. Soon, Dot must find a way to protect herself and her family as the law begins to close in on her. Created by Noah Hawley, all five installments of Fargo stream on Hulu.

“[O]ne of the characters is in a room and has mud all over his hand, and he puts his hand on the wall; it’s blood/mud and he wipes it. The [print] they had on set felt like just a handprint. We couldn’t get it right, so instead I put my hand in some of the fake blood. Then I did it a bunch of times and sent a screengrab to [Post Producer/Editor] Regis [Kimble]. He picked one, and that’s the one that’s in the show. Shooting the elements ourselves, just small little pieces, is a fun part of the job, and there is a ton of it in the show.”

—Brendan Taylor, President and VFX Supervisor, Mavericks VFX

Brendan Taylor, President and VFX Supervisor at Mavericks VFX, served as VFX Supervisor on Season 5. Taylor had worked closely with Executive Producers Kim Todd and Warren Littlefield on The Handmaid’s Tale. “They were looking for someone to help them with Fargo, Season 5,” Taylor explains. “I picked up Unreal Engine over the pandemic and had been using it on Handmaid’s to help them plan things out. When Kim called and asked about Fargo, I was really excited as I loved the Coen brothers and the movie Fargo as well as the series. It was honestly one of the most rigorous interview processes I’ve ever been through. It became clear early on that I wasn’t going to be able to be out in Calgary the whole time, so I had to find a visual effects supervisor that I could partner with, who would be there for the on-set portion, and that was Jesse Kawzenuk. The only way I could do it was to get someone to go there, then I’d be there for all the big shots. I would be there on the calls, reading the scripts through and talking to Jesse about approaches. He did a great job on the ground in Calgary.”

“One thing that was quite different on this one, that became apparent as we started going into post, was the involvement of Regis Kimble, who was the Post Producer and Editor for Noah,” Taylor adds. “I love his process. He will just do a screenshare in the edit as he reviews the shots, as opposed to sending notes out to us. There have been times when it’s like two and a half hours of just looking at visual effects shots. He is so kind and his temps are amazing, and he is so understanding of the visual effects process that it makes for such a great partner. You look forward to those client calls every single day. The entire post team for the production were such friends of visual effects and so understanding. They knew if something came in late that there was a reason for it. The whole thing was really great.”

Jesse Kawzenuk was first approached by Dana Gonzales (Producer, DOP and director). “He broke down the large VFX sequences and explained that they were looking for someone who could join the team as a creative and be able to offer collaborative solutions to problems that would arise throughout the shoot,” Kawzenuk says. “Dana was very specific about bringing in someone who would inherit this passion for Fargo and be transparent about the creative choices throughout. Having been a big fan of the show and knowing that the bar is set quite high, I thought that this would be a very interesting yet challenging project to be a part of. We knew that there was going to be some relatively large-scale VFX fire work in the show. Mavericks VFX was to be the main vendor based on the fire work they completed for The Handmaid’s Tale. We had a base amount of artists on it. Mark Ferguson was our producer. I think we had 10 or 11 compositors on it and a couple of CG artists. Usually, we can get by with just that, but when a show comes in and we start bidding it, we usually need one or two more people, so we either pull from other shows within the company or bring on more people. The good thing was that because of the communication, Regis or Christie would let us know that, say, Episode 7 is going to be quite heavy but Episode 8 will be a bit light. So, we would work that way. It’s making sure that you are thinking far enough ahead into the future.”

“It is all about the storytelling. You need to create a barrier so the bad guys can’t come into the room, but you also need to create this ticking time bomb where the family needs to go out of the window, otherwise they’ll catch on fire. You always try and do it practically on the day as much as possible, but at the end of the day you don’t know how it’s going to be cut together; you could have too much fire in one spot to tell the story. My approach with fire is always do it real. It’s really intensive and difficult to get right.”

—Brendan Taylor, President and VFX Supervisor, Mavericks VFX

There were several challenging visual effects shots throughout the show. First, Taylor points to Episode 1. “There is a scene where they throw the ice on the ground. What they use in movies instead of ice is rubber, as ice is such a pain to clean up. Sometimes plastic is used instead, but in this particular case they used rubber as ice. The point is that it doesn’t feel like ice, so when it slides across the floor it should slide, but it actually crumbled; it just felt like plastic cubes. One thing I personally love to do is shoot things, so we went and got a bag of ice. We have a greenscreen stage here, then we just tossed ice on the ground and replaced it. That was pretty fun.”

Another challenge for Taylor and the Mavericks team was finding the right amount of blood to depict to be as realistic as possible. “When Dot cuts the bottom of her feet on glass, we needed to track where she had been,” Taylor says. “That one is so closely related to the storytelling. [The scene] needed to feel like she had been taking steps, and the more steps she takes, the more blood comes off, so the next step is going to have a little less blood. It was about finding the balance, but it’s so nice to be working with someone like Regis in those situations where you can really just talk about it. We couldn’t get the blood prints right. We had gallons of fake blood at the studio. I just poured some into a little painter’s pan and put my foot in it, and started walking around. I almost fell because the stuff is very slippery. That was one of the ways that we would tackle things. There is another part where one of the characters is in a room and has mud all over his hand, and he puts his hand on the wall; it’s blood/mud and he wipes it. The [print] they had on set felt like just a handprint. We couldn’t get it right, so instead I put my hand in some of the fake blood. Then I did it a bunch of times and sent a screengrab to Regis. He picked one, and that’s the one that’s in the show. Shooting the elements ourselves, just small little pieces, is a fun part of the job, and there is a ton of it in the show.”

“On a TV schedule, you can’t be messing around with the look of the fire. …  That whole scene was around 60 shots, and it was really about getting everyone onboard with what the edit will look like and the story we’re trying to tell. … Thankfully, we have done so much of this fire in the past that we are actually pretty good at it now, so it was less about the look and more about making it the most impactful scene it can be.”

—Brendan Taylor, President and VFX Supervisor, Mavericks VFX

It was crucial that all the elements came together when dealing practically with the fire scene. “It is all about the storytelling,” Taylor explains. “You need to create a barrier so the bad guys can’t come into the room, but you also need to create this ticking time bomb where the family needs to go out of the window, otherwise they’ll catch on fire. You always try and do it practically on the day as much as possible, but at the end of the day you don’t know how it’s going to be cut together, so you could have too much fire in one spot to tell the story. My approach with fire is always do it real. It’s really intensive and difficult to get right. On a TV schedule, you can’t be messing around with the look of the fire. We try and shoot with the actors, take the actors out, then do a bigger burn there. We did use some EmberGen, which is a good piece of fire-and-smoke software. That whole scene was around 60 shots, and it was really about getting everyone onboard with what the edit will look like and the story we’re trying to tell. We know we’re trying to push them out of the window, but we can’t do it too soon. It was all about pushing and pulling. Thankfully, we have done so much of this fire in the past that we are actually pretty good at it now, so it was less about the look and more about making it the most impactful scene it can be.”

The car crash sequence in Episode 7 was one of the most arduous aspects of the show. “The car crash was a great example where we shot two versions, one which would allow for a CG car to hit Dot,” Kawzenuk says. “We shot a series of clean plates and did proper reference passes. [Visual Effects Supervisor] Cody Hernandez led his team to create this seamless sequence, and it looks incredible. It’s a great example of how the VFX is used in Fargo to complement rather than dominate. The car crash sequence at the diner was necessary for timing and camera position as well, but mainly for the stunt department to see where and how to place the stunt double.”

“We figured out well in advance… where we were going to put the car, where we would put Dot so that the spins feel real. The kiss of death for us as visual effects artists is when we have to break physical reality. Everyone can spot it right away. We had a dummy car there that was actually hit by an 18-wheeler to give us that moment of impact, and it actually turned a little bit, but it didn’t do a full 360. So we knew we would have to do it in CG.”

—Brendan Taylor, President and VFX Supervisor, Mavericks VFX

Originally, the car crash was going to be captured as a single shot but proved to be too much of a challenge. “You are a slave to physics at that point,” Taylor adds. “They didn’t end up doing it as a ‘oner’ because there was too much information in the single shot that we needed to take in, so it did end up being in cuts. We did a lot of previs in Unreal, and it was great because Noah was on the call. It was all about how many spins, how many rotations and how fast it was all going to go. We sort of figured that out well in advance – where we were going to put the car, where we would put Dot so that the spins [of the car] feel real. The kiss of death for us as visual effects artists is when we have to break physical reality. Everyone can spot it right away. We had a dummy car there that was actually hit by an 18-wheeler to give us that moment of impact, and it actually turned a little bit, but it didn’t do a full 360. So we knew we would have to do it in CG. We ended up building the entire model of the Dodge Charger and replacing the one that was hit. Then we did effects simulations for the explosion part to match the practical, and we did all the animation. It took a long time to get it right. The hardest part was not the initial impact or the spin, but the moment when it hits Dot. There were lots of revisions, but finally we got there. Another really difficult part of the sequence was the snow, as snow is really hard to get right. It had this ‘clumpiness’ on the ground, and if you make it too clumpy it feels like foam, and if you make it not clumpy enough if feels like sand. So it is about finding that sweet spot. I think we were overdoing the snow quite a lot because it looked good but didn’t feel real. The actual effects simulations that are in there are quite subtle but really effective. That’s what really sells the shot. You have a layer of snow on top of the car that goes up in the air as it turns, which is really nice. I think it’s the two best shots in the series and one of the best that we have done at the company.”

For Kawzenuk, the most challenging shots were all unplanned. “In Episodes 9 and 10, Dot is sneaking around the Tillman Ranch, trying to move around unseen,” Kawzenuk details. “Production made a schedule change that shifted scenes originally scripted as night to take place during the day. Once the sequences were cut together, it was clear the lack of suspense and mystery was hurting the narrative. We looked at what VFX could do to assist and decided that adding fog to each shot would sell the suspense. We shot the whole sequence over a 10-day span, and the weather changed drastically from overcast to full sun, to snow, to sometimes real fog. Getting the consistency without altering the original plate too much was a real challenge. Trying to layer the fog and create a series of large volumes moving across these open plains was difficult. The Editor, Regis Kimble, has such a strong eye and really guided the look of these scenes right from the editing bay. I think that Tom Turnbull and his team at Rocket Science VFX really executed these episodes effectively.”

Kawzenuk concludes, “The most enjoyable part of being on Fargo was being a part of this family. This was my first time working in Calgary, and the crew there is phenomenal, a hard-working team that really wants to provide the resources required to make the VFX work effectively. In many situations, the planned VFX shots went away because the practical SFX led by David Benediktson was so strong. I think Fargo continues to be one of the best television series. Having spent over a year working on the show from pre-production planning right through to post-production has made me a much stronger VFX supervisor.”