A young asian woman in a white robe, she has multiple small wounds on her face

The Terror: Infamy

Framestore delivered VFX for AMC’s anthology horror show, The Terror. The second series - dubbed Infamy - was a horror fantasy set against the backdrop of WWII Japanese-American internment and features a wide range of VFX from the creative studio.

Effects Simulation
Visual Effects Supervisor
Concept Design

The VFX work from Framestore features in two episodes the main sequence seeing one character is trapped between two worlds and must throw herself into a burning building to escape.

The work on this sequence includes the animation of Japanese symbols disappearing from the skin of the main character. To achieve this, the team at Framestore took a CG scan of the actor to map out the placement of the symbols before removing them from the live action plates. They used the information from those scans to digitally add the symbols back onto her skin and animated their disappearance with a small fire-like effect.

back view of a geisha wearing a white robe bracing herself as she stands in front of a door that is engulfed in flames

‘Tracking the actors body in order to add all the characters back onto her face was by far the most challenging aspect of this sequences VFX,’ said Leonardo Costa, VFX Supervisor. ‘We had references from the live action plates of exactly where they needed to be but we had to make sure they looked as though they were naturally drawn on her face before we could add the animation for them to disappear.’

The end of this sequence ends with the character having to throw herself through a burning door for which Framestore created a CG model of a building, added flame effects and replaced several background environments with live action and digital matte painting assets.

a geisha wearing white robes looking at her hands in shock as kanji characters appear on her face and arms

The VFX delivered for the fifth episode of the show is a series of set extensions and the addition of a number of CG elements including shipping crates on a crane arm and vehicles driving in the background. Talking about the work on this sequence, Costa said; ‘when working with background elements and matte paintings, it's really important to not only create something that looks convincing but also make sure it matches the colour and aesthetic planned out by the director and the production designers.’

back view of a japanese soldier looking into the distance towards a war zone
a japanese soldier holding a bag inside of a barn warehouse as light shine through the ceiling

Credits

Client
AMC
VFX Supervisor
Leonardo Costa
Digital Artists
Harry Wormald, Adam Smith, Michael John, Paola Santoro, Alice Roseberry-Haynes, David Cattermole
VFX Editors
Jack Hubbard, Gavin Hyde, Richard Gao
Line Producers
Mia Lalane, Andrea Sjoberg
Production Company
Scott Free Productions
2D Supervisors
Tim Pruce & Suzanne Jandu
Digital Artists
Gez Wright, Bruno Reis Coimbra, Edwin Baker, Matthew Thomas, Thomas Bourret, Finella Fan
VFX Producer
Therese Zambra
Production Assistant
Nora Keszeg
VFX
Framestore
Lead Digital Artists
Valerio Di Napoli & Andrea Lazzarini
Digital Artists
Adam Chabane, Andrew Scrase, Alessandro Melillo, Christiant D’Alberto, Thomas Greenhalgh
Development Producer
Benjamin Perry