Stefen Fangmeier and Steve Kullback (‘3 Body Problem’ visual effects) on playing ‘almost all of the tools in our toolbox’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“The visual effects on ‘3 Body Problem’ brought in to play almost all of the tools in our toolbox,” declares eight-time Emmy-winning visual effects producer Steve Kullback, who with three-time Oscar-nominated visual effects supervisor Stefen Fangmeier were responsible for the spectacular visuals for the hit Netflix sci-fi drama. For our recent webchat Fangmeier adds, “it’s a smorgasbord of all kinds of things. Some, very high-end scientific stuff, but then also very fantasy with the game. Then we get some creatures and we got a missile launch. So there was a nice palette of visual effects work that really was appealing to me.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
SEE Exclusive Video Interview: David Benioff, D.B. Weiss and Alexander Woo (‘3 Body Problem’ creators)
“3 Body Problem” was co-created by multiple Emmy-winning “Game of Thrones” duo David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, who serve as co-creators and producers with writer/producer Alexander Woo (“True Blood”), based on the Hugo Award-winning novel “The Three-Body Problem” by Chinese author Liu Cixin, the first in Liu’s “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” trilogy. Benioff, Weiss and Woo co-wrote the pilot episode together, titled “Countdown,” which takes place in both 1960s China and modern-day England, where astrophysicists try to uncover and expose what is ultimately revealed as an existential threat to humanity from a distant and more advanced alien civilization known as the San-ti. The sci-fi drama’s international cast includes Rosalind Chao, Jess Hong, Benedict Wong, Jovan Adepo, Eiza Gonzalez, Alex Sharp, Sea Shimooka, Marlo Kelly and “Game of Thrones” alums Jonathan Pryce, John Bradley and Liam Cunningham.
“We set out to tell a pretty incredible story, and to do it with a high level of realism and a high level of attention to the science behind it, because it plays such an important part. And at the end of the day, realism is a great place to start, but you want it to be impactful and interesting and exciting and stimulating. But it has to tell the story,” Kullback says. “We had CG creatures; we have a monkey that appears in in episode seven. We had full-on CG effects where we were shooting crowd extensions, where it was a largely virtual environment and took 200 extras and turned them into tens of thousands and created a full-on environment out of archival photography. We used LED for some driving sequences where the material had been photographed and projected, and used as rear projection and we also used LED screens as a lighting tool for the scenes, like for example, in the game where Jack and Jen and the follower are standing in front of an environment where the entire world is moving in time-lapse.”
PREDICT the 2024 Emmy nominees through July 17
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?
SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions