San Francisco News Archives | Industrial Light & Magic

Visual effects supervisors Vincent Papaix and Abishek Nair join animation supervisor Mike Beaulieu to discuss bringing the Grid to the streets of their very own city of Vancouver.

By Mark Newbold

Think of the most iconic films of the 1980s and there’s a good chance that among those unforgettable films would sit Tron (1982), a movie that changed the cinematic landscape in ways its makers couldn’t possibly have imagined.

First conceived in 1976 by writer/director Steven Lisberger as an animated adventure, a 30-second promotional video made with producer Donald Kushner soon blossomed into a combination of backlit animation, live-action footage, and 2D computer animation to create the visual world of Tron. With Walt Disney Productions both financing and releasing the film, it debuted in North America in July of 1982, setting the stage for the computer graphics boom that would follow.

Step forward 28 years to 2010, and Tron: Legacy, which saw Lisberger return as producer, now with first-time director Joseph Kosinski at the helm. Production on Tron 3 was next, as announced by Lisberger in 2010. However, a series of stalled attempts saw that initial iteration of the sequel fade away. But by 2017, elements of a draft began to develop, and by January 2024, production had begun on Tron: Ares (2025), directed by Joachim Rønning.

The film is a dazzling return to the world of Tron, bringing characters from the digital realm into the flesh-and-blood reality of today. The skills of the artists at Industrial Light & Magic were entrusted with the responsibility of not only creating something fresh and engaging, but honoring the styles, designs, and vision that had come before. ILM.com had the good fortune to sit down with three of the artists based at the Vancouver studio who are behind the visual effects of Tron: Ares – visual effects supervisors Abishek Nair and Vincent Papaix, and animation supervisor Mike Beaulieu – to discuss the return of the Grid to cinemas worldwide.

Classic Inspiration

“It was a lot of fun to look back to Tron with its early 2D computer graphics, and Tron: Legacy, where new CG was established,” explains Vincent Papaix. “You could see the design upgrade. We looked at the broad shapes and rebuilt the assets from scratch. On Tron: Ares, we were paying tribute to both movies and seeing how we could incorporate both styles.

“There’s a sequence when Ares goes back into the old arcade game and meets Flynn,” Papaix continues, “so that retro 1982 look was needed, but the rest of the movie steers closer to the more futuristic, up-to-date look of Tron: Legacy.”

“The goal of the animation department was figuring out how we can make things look like they belong to the Tron aesthetic,” says Mike Beaulieu, “but exist in the real world, which is something we’ve never seen before in a Tron film. You always saw those vehicles in the Grid. It was the early days of computer animation, and some of the things the bikes did, like turning 90 degrees in a one-frame turn, we couldn’t do in the real world. If the bikes turned that quickly, we’d have lots of injured actors, so there was no way to marry the physics to something that stylized.”

“We needed to make sure that when the Light Cycle and the Recognizer were printed into the real world, the designs were upgraded because they needed to feel believable,” adds Papaix. “For example, the Recognizer had engines because we now had to show how this massive thing flies.”

Tron arrived in an era when visual effects had captured the imagination of audiences worldwide, thanks to films like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), which landed in cinemas a week after Tron in 1982 and featured its own groundbreaking CG effect in the fractally-created landscape shown in the Genesis sequence. ILM was breaking ground with every project they participated in, but the company had never entered the Grid – until now.

Mike Beaulieu describes his special connection to the film. “I didn’t talk about it much during the production, but it was very personal for me because Tron is my father’s favorite film. It was the first film he saw where the action heroes were computer programmers and computer geeks, and that’s what he was. He came up in the age of computers really becoming a thing, so it’s one of the movies he’s always loved. It was really exciting to be involved and have that little feather in my cap. I went to see it for the first time with my dad, so that was pretty cool.”

On Location

Coming onto the project two months before principal photography began, visual effects supervisor Abishek Nair worked closely with production visual effects supervisor David Seager to oversee on-set duties. With the digital world of the Grid about to enter the real world, this newest Tron story required some changes.

“Initially, there wasn’t a plan to have a splinter unit or a second unit,” Nair explains, “but with the schedule, challenges with the weather, and different locations, it was decided that a second unit would shoot the stunts, car crashes, and visual effects-related work.”

Nair’s place on the set allowed him to form an important connection between phases of production. “It was amazing because I had so much context on what was happening, as well as what we had and hadn’t shot.” It also offered another set of options for the ILM team. “I could tell them not to worry because we had photography of the set that we could derive data from, or we had props that had been scanned. I could form a bridge between production and post-production and give that sense of coverage for the entire project.

“We had a small visual effects team that had started working with assets and building some of the environments for the show,” Nair continues, “but when I was on set, I could chat with the team and say, ‘We couldn’t shoot this stuff, so we’re going to have to build these things,’ or ‘I’m going to shoot this tomorrow, so tell me what you need. I might just be able to cover all that for you guys as well.’ It became a symbiotic process where I could internally work with my effects team while working with my on-set team. It really made a difference, and it helped us better prepare for post-production because there were fewer surprises.”

With that increasingly essential bridge between the second unit and the visual effects team in place, Nair was able to contribute even more to the production.

“I have a pilot’s license, so I could work with the aerial unit and plan the flight routes, which helped the pilot because I sat next to him with my navigation charts, and there was a trust because he knew I wasn’t going to lead him into some crazy areas. We shot most of the aerial footage for the movie over four evenings. We were this little unit with an aerial cinematographer sitting at the back of the helicopter with my monitor, storyboards, and charts laid out in the chopper as we shot plates.”

Nair knew what could be done for real on the streets of Vancouver, what could be achieved by ILM, and the places where the two processes met.

“I would say to Scott [Rogers, second unit director and stunt coordinator], ‘Let’s actually flip the car and see what we get out of it.’ That got them excited, that we were pushing to shoot as much as we could in camera, and then augment with visual effects to take it to the next level. Why shoot an empty street when we’ve already got a lot of this stuff here? Let’s smash stuff up, get the garbage bins to fly, and then see what we need to augment or clean up, and make it as visceral as possible.”

The Light Cycle Chase

As the Master Control Program (aka Ares) leaves the Dillinger Grid with his second-in-command, Athena, they arrive in the real world to hunt down Eve and the all-important Permanence Code that will allow constructs from the Grid to survive longer than 29 minutes in the real world. To do that, they ride Light Cycles, but unlike the Light Cycles of the 1982 original, these would have to adhere to the physics of our own planet. Before ILM could start their impressive work to create this unforgettable chase sequence, Nair and his team had to film the real-life scenes on the streets of Vancouver, which they did in early 2024.

“We shot the Light Cycle chase over a couple of nights in Vancouver,” Nair recalls. “The trickiest thing was the secrecy of it. Thankfully, we were shooting in the middle of the night, so paparazzi weren’t much of a problem, but you can imagine the excitement of unveiling a Tron motorcycle in the middle of Vancouver and riding it down the street. David Seeger and I decided to bring the real-life cycle in for close-ups, because we could get the reflections and atmosphere that you naturally get with a physical shoot.”

Vincent Papaix adds that “we called that the proxy bike. It was a Harley-Davidson with a stunt rider, and we attached red LEDs to create an interactive light.”

“They had GoPros to capture the data that we needed,” Nair continues. “The bikes weren’t self-propelled, but they were on a rig that could be made to feel like they were actually being ridden around. We would look at sequences and decide which to use. For the high-octane sequences, we used the proxy motorcycles, and when we needed cutaways or close-ups of the riders, we’d use the practical Light Cycles.”

Onset footage and visual effects then needed to be blended together, a process that took considerable departmental collaboration, as Beaulieu explains.

“From the animation point of view, we start with what had been filmed on location. If the bikes were in shot, we would put our CG assets in there and replicate what had been done on set. Then we would take a look and say, “Okay, our asset is going at the same speed and is in the same position as the stunt bike, so what do we want to improve upon or change?’ We start from the grounded reality of the shot first before saying, ‘You know what, the bike feels a little slow here, let’s make it faster.’ Or maybe we want to completely change what the bike is doing.”

“Sometimes we’d track the bikes and replace them with our CG Light Cycle,” Papaix explains, “because the energy was there, but most of the time, Mike and the animation team took over and made it more dangerous or epic in terms of the performance. That meant a lot of cleanups removing the bike, which is easy to remove, but when moving the bike somewhere else, we have to remove the interactive to create another one, so that was a lot of effort to create the clean plate.”

Beaulieu agrees. “I’d often have conversations with Vincent about how we would place the bikes in an environment if we deviated from what the onset lighting was giving us, which would add more complexity to a shot. If you moved the bike away from where the stunt bike was originally, it meant a lot more work for other departments, so we would have conversations about what we were deviating from and try to make informed choices that weren’t moving stuff around for the sake of it.”

Once that decision was made, Papaix and his team would then continue with their work. “We would create a digital twin,” he says, “then blend between plate and CG and make sure that everything matched. It’s a lot of attention to detail to have a replica in CG and then render all our assets into those plates and integrate that with quite a bit of compositing work.”

Plenty may have been filmed on the streets of Vancouver, but ILM added significantly more in post, as Papaix continues. “People know the Light Cycle isn’t real, but they won’t realize that we added CG cars to make it look more dangerous. There were plenty of practical cars, but for safety reasons, they were in the distance, so when you see a car in that sequence, is it CG? Is it real? You don’t know, right? That’s a testament to the job we did.”

Live-action footage, CG vehicles and characters, animation, and more. It’s a complicated mix of disciplines. “There’s a lot of energy and types of effects shots you can have in a five-minute sequence,” says Papaix. “Some shots have practical light, so all we did was minimum cleanup and add the gyro [the spinning engine of the Light Cycle], and it looked fantastic. Then we cut to a city shot, and now it’s fully CG, a full CG Light Cycle, full CG character, and it needs to have the right contrast, the same feeling about the animation, everything. Then you go to the next shot where the main character will be on the blue screen, CG city, and then cut to the next one, and it’s a plate of the real-world city, but with the CG Light Cycle character.”

For Beaulieu, the project was notable for its complexity. “This was one of the biggest projects I’ve worked on at ILM as far as the collaboration between animation and effects. On a lot of shows, animation will do their thing, then they’ll pass it to another department, who do their thing in isolation from animation, but on this show, there was a lot of back-and-forth and a lot of conversations. Ultimately, we want to make sure that the sequence blends seamlessly, so the audience never really thinks about it.”

The classic Light Cycle chase of the original Tron featured a light wall trailing behind the bikes that would bring their opponents to a sticky, pixelated end. With the Light Cycles now travelling through the streets of Vancouver, that posed some interesting challenges for Beaulieu and his animation team.

“The Light Cycles were dragging light walls behind them, so any movement we did on the bike would instantly be visible in the path of the light wall. That was a big challenge for animation, because we couldn’t just go crazy and add a lot of subtle movements and bumps and things like that on the bike to make it look real, because then you would have a light wall that looked like a spaghetti strand, and that’s not what we wanted. That wasn’t part of the visual language of Tron. You’d expect the light wall to be smooth and clean, not have a lot of noise in it. We’d animate, pass it off to effects, they’d do their thing on top of it, and then we’d analyze it. ‘Okay, what do we need to change in the animation?’ or ‘What can effects do to get the look or the effect that we want for the shot?’”

Ultimately, the goal was to make viewers believe they were looking at an actual bike travelling down an actual road, as Beaulieu describes. “We tried to make sure the Light Cycles felt like they belonged on a real road as far as having interaction with uneven ground, but still behaving like you’d expect a Light Cycle would. It has almost otherworldly handling, it’s very fast, very smooth, and it corners very easily.” It sounds simple enough, but it takes a village to create such a complicated sequence.

“You don’t want viewers to be lost in a chase sequence that doesn’t make sense just to include a cool flashy sequence,” says Nair. “There are a lot of story beats in there, but you’ve got to keep them engaged. We wanted the audience to feel like they’re part of the chase on another Light Cycle, so keeping the progression of the story while keeping that sense of tension was important.” Beaulieu agrees. “We always ask, what gives the shot a little bit more punch? What can we alter and change? What tells the story?”

The Dogfight

With the battle for the Permanence Code reaching its endgame, Julian Dillinger loses control of Athena as she attempts to carry out her primary objective to get the code, causing a Recognizer to arrive in the real world, along with countless drones. As well as creating mechanical vehicles that have to follow the laws of physics, ILM also needed to build a digital city to host the Light Cycle chase and the aerial dogfight when two F-35s roar in to take on Athena in her Dillinger-built Recognizer.

“An F-35 moves at 300 miles an hour in a city environment,” explains Beaulieu. “At that speed, they’re going to be through the city and gone in about five seconds, so we had to figure out how to maintain the speed that we wanted, but still make it feel like we’re in the city and not just buzzing by. That was a challenge because we didn’t want to repeat landmarks that you could see in the distance, like a Looney Tunes cartoon, so they would customize things. In animation, we would block in rough geometry of buildings as we were trying to stage the action around it, and then we would pass it over to the environment team and say, ‘Go do your thing and put in some cool buildings.’”

“The environments team looked at some of the plates we’d shot and said they could use aspects from them,” Nair continues, “but they needed to make Vancouver look way bigger than it actually is to give the jets enough space to fly around and come back for a second pass.”

“The environment team tracked those plates, and we built a CG asset of the whole city, which we could render from any viewpoint,” Papaix adds. “Then we told Mike, ‘Okay, you can have your fun. Design and animate a dogfight, put the camera wherever you want, and make an awesome sequence.’ It’s a full CG city.”

With the location being developed, Beaulieu and Nair plotted the dogfight. “Early on, there were only two or three of us pre-vising that sequence,” says Beaulieu. “We blocked out what we wanted to do with the F-35s and the drones that were chasing them. We’d already seen previews of some of the flashier gags, like the light walls of the drones cutting the wings off the F-35, which was always there from the beginning, but it was important to find camera work that felt grounded and didn’t feel like a CG camera.”

“Mike and I agreed that while there’s the fantasy aspect of the Tron world,” Nair continues, “so let’s keep the jets following the laws of physics as much as we can because that’s the only way to make this look real. With the choreography of the jets, we tried to make it feel like you were an observer filming from one of the rooftops, or on another jet, or a drone that was following. That way, you get the sense of movement and speed.”

They used some old-school techniques to plan the sequence, reminiscent of George Lucas’s creation of animatics for Star Wars: A New Hope (1977). “Mike and I edited clips of the Blue Angels [the U.S. Navy’s flight demonstration squadron] to block out the sequence,” says Nair. “It was our gospel in terms of camera angles. If I had to really film this, where would I place the camera? Also, because we knew there was the fantasy side with the Recognizer and the drones, how do we ground this with the F-35s while keeping it believable?”

Believability in the sequence was key, as Nair explains. “We can observe and learn from real-life stuff, like the little flutters in the jets or things that you would see when you place a camera on the wing. Some of the control surfaces move based on how the jets are banking and how tight the turn is made, but to get that sense of speed, we had all these reflections on the canopy that came from our CG environment. That gave us the sense of flying low level through the city with all the lights flashing by. Details like that definitely make a difference.”

Despite that impressive work, there were other considerations to take into account. “Having the dogfight against a dark sky was also a challenge,” says Beaulieu, “because we have to stage the F-35s in spaces where they had something behind them, so you didn’t lose the silhouette of the object you’re looking at. The Grid vehicles illuminate themselves, but with the F-35, we had to make sure to keep the horizon a little bit higher than the wings to keep it visible.”

Nair was also in the perfect place to be starstruck. “Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor [Tron: Ares composers] were the pilots for the F-35 sequence. It was awesome to meet them in person, one of the best days on set. They were in the cockpit on a gimbal, and Scott Rogers was like, ‘Hey, Abi, you’re a pilot. Why don’t you tell them how to fly the airplane?’ I haven’t flown jets, but at least I could tell them how an airplane works. We shot them on set, and the next day we were up in the helicopter to shoot the plates, which we could use as a reference to get the sense of motion of the jets across Vancouver.”

Beaulieu expands on the concept of visual effects that viewers have no idea are even there. “Tron: Ares is a good example of what’s been coined lately as invisible visual effects. People assume that what they’re seeing is real because they know it was filmed on location with real actors, but it doesn’t bump their eye as they’re watching it. There’s a lot in this film – the dogfight, the Light Cycle chase, the end battle – that are completely CG. The actors are CG, the bikes are CG, the Recognizer, so many things are going on. The more spectacular shots, well, of course, that’s CG, but a lot of shots in the sequences that lead up to that you might assume were real, but they’re not.”

Memories and Moving Forward

A major motion picture like Tron: Ares not only has the eyes of its fandom and the wider genre world on it but also marks waypoints in the careers of the cast and crew who helped make it, as well as creating memories and experiences they’ll take with them.

“Our director, Joachim, found a storytelling device to keep loyal fans engaged with callbacks to the old films while bringing new fans into the fold,” says Abishek Nair. “We go into the modern Dillinger Grid, bring that Grid to the real world, and go back to the retro 1980s Grid, where we added all these little Easter eggs. It was a very, very well-balanced movie.”

The film also gave Nair the chance to travel to some amazing locations. “Aside from filming up at 5,000 feet in a helicopter, we went to Alberta to shoot the snow sequence at the start of the film, where Eve is on her snowmobile. It was minus-30 degrees Celsius, and we were trying to avoid avalanches and snowstorms, so we went from sea level in Vancouver to the peaks of Alberta and everything in between. It was quite the experience.”

Vincent Papaix feels much the same. “We knew it was something special, but seeing the final film with the music created an amazing spectacle. The Light Cycle sequence is definitely one of the highlights, as is the Recognizer attack. So many good things that I enjoyed. I’m really, really proud.”

Mike Beaulieu sums up his thoughts on making the film. “When you work on a project, it can be hard to watch afterwards because you’re so close to the work, it’s difficult to enjoy it as an audience member. It’s hard to turn that part of your brain off, but with Tron: Ares, I went into the theatre and was blown away by what we’d done. When the Light Cycle chase was over, I wanted to watch it again, and I’m not saying that from the point of view of being part of the team. As an audience member, that was a lot of fun to watch. It was good to have that experience because you don’t get that on every project you work on.”

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Mark Newbold writes for Star Wars Insider magazine (since 2006), ILM.com, Skysound.com, and news site FanthaTracks.com, having previously contributed to StarWars.com and StarTrek.com. He is a 4-time Star Wars Celebration Podcast Stage host, podcasting for over 20 years, and has been involved in websites since 1996. You can find this Hoopy frood @Prefect_Timing.

ILM.com is showcasing artwork specially chosen by members of the ILM Art Department. In this installment of a continuing series, four artists from the London and Sydney studios share insights about their work on season five of the Netflix production, Stranger Things.

Art Director Amy Beth Christenson

Concept art by Amy Beth Christenson (Credit: ILM & Netflix).

One of the biggest design challenges that I had for Stranger Things season five was coming up with the look for the exotic matter sphere – the shield generator above Hawkins Lab in the Upside Down. This matter sphere takes on a lot of different forms over the course of the series, so there were a lot of different ideas and evolutions to cover with this task.

The first stage of the sphere was the most difficult in some ways, since it’s actually invisible in its most stable state. With no way to see the sphere itself, I concentrated on how that sphere is affecting everything around it. There was already a plan to have the melted roof and lab, but I tried to think of anything else that would be visibly affected by a transparent orb. I threw every visual solution I could think of at it. I had the air spores/motes sticking to the sphere shape, clouds missing in the sky above the sphere, vines dying off around the sphere, and a flashlight beam terminating in thin air.

I tried several iterations of what that might look like once the matter was in a visible state. We ended up going with a look more inspired by scientific sources, such as neurons, firing synapses, plasma, sound waves, and ferrofluid. To help make it feel even more integrated, the elements mimic some of the other Upside Down elements, such as energy bolts mirroring the vine growth, and the center of the sphere feeling almost like a solid organic material.

Throughout all of its states, the sphere needed to be ever-evolving and have a feeling of instability, but also have some ties back to the rest of the established Upside Down/Abyss visual language, so there were a lot of conversations and explorations around that. I got a lot of great direction from them, and from ILM visual effects supervisor Bill Georgiou, to help narrow down the final sphere looks.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Stranger Things (being a 1980s kid myself), so my favorite part of this was just getting to work on season five (my entire family and I even went as Eddie Munson for Halloween a few years ago!). I was able to work on multiple designs, but the matter sphere was the biggest task that I had to tackle, and I had a great time working with everyone throughout the process.

Art Director Cody Gramstad

Concept art by Cody Gramstad (Credit: ILM & Netflix).

This image serves as the final frame in a longer sequence revealing Will’s transformation. By this point, the Demogorgon has already been violently killed, its body collapsed into a lifeless heap in front of a vulnerable Mike Wheeler. The goal of this frame was to communicate two things clearly: that the Demogorgon is no longer a threat, and that Mike is now safe.

The creation of these images involved several stages. First, I analyzed the pre-shot plates of the actor’s performance, which established key constraints such as lighting direction, value range, and indications of the likely composition. From there, I produced a loose sketch to map out the placement of the main elements, including the environment and the Demogorgon, ensuring the composition and storytelling were clear.

Once that was approved, I developed the lighting to match the original plate while enhancing it to emphasize the destructive moment. In the final stage, I refined the image by drawing attention to key narrative details, such as the severity of the broken neck and subtle expressions of pain on the Demogorgon’s face.

A key priority for the client was striking the right balance between the two narrative beats. With both Mike and the Demogorgon acting as focal points, I relied on core visual principles to maintain clarity without competition. The Demogorgon is emphasized through sharper camera focus, increasing its visual presence, while Mike is defined through value contrast. This approach keeps both elements readable and distinct, without pulling attention away from one another.

My favorite aspect of the design is the subtle framing of the two focal points. Images like this can easily become cluttered and visually overwhelming, but I aimed to create a balance that guides the viewer’s eye and allows the story to be read in the intended sequence.

See the complete gallery of concept art from Stranger Things season five here on ILM.com.

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Accessing the Upside Down

“I was the ILM visual effects supervisor for Stranger Things, and I oversaw our global team,” Bill Georgiou shares with ILM.com. “Each ILM studio – Sydney, Vancouver, and Mumbai – was run by very talented associate visual effects supervisors – Stephen, George, and Arnab – who I worked closely with. I also worked directly with the clients, in this case, the Duffer Brothers and client-side visual effects supervisor Betsy Paterson, and I even spent almost two months on the set with them. ILM was initially awarded around 1,200 shots overall, spread across every episode.”

The scope of ILM’s shots was vast, encompassing a range of visual effects disciplines. Whether ILM was adding major environmental extensions to bolster the Hawkins set and provide a bird’s-eye view of the town, inserting spores throughout the Upside Down’s air, or working with assets like digital doubles, Demogorgons, and a massive vine creature, every department was involved. Given the breadth of ILM’s duties, the schedule and availability of the artists at ILM’s Sydney, Vancouver, and Mumbai studios determined who received which tasks. “I was the associate visual effects supervisor in Sydney,” Stephen Tong relays. “We did about 600 shots in Sydney, and I had the pleasure to be with Bill in the same office, which made things a lot easier.”“

ILM’s Vancouver studio did about 350 finals in total,” associate visual effects supervisor George Kuruvilla notes about his site’s responsibilities. “While Bill sleeps, we get everything else ready on this side of the world [laughs].” Associate visual effects supervisor Arnab Sanyal, whose site is ILM’s newest addition, reports, “I managed the team here in Mumbai, and we got over 250 shots. When ILM’s Mumbai studio began in 2022, many of us came to ILM from other studios. Our team was growing, so the initial projects we did consisted of basic-level work. However, year after year, our projects are getting more and more complex, which shows that the more established ILM sites have trust in us. We’re always doing something interesting, and that’s the best part. As a creative, that is the type of assignment that we look for.”

A Memorable Membrane Wall

The seemingly infinite membrane wall surrounding the Upside Down became an asset that embodied ILM’s global approach to the project. While production had built a portion of the wall on set for the actors, ILM needed to extend the otherworldly barrier into the vast unknown and modify it for multiple scenes. Although the digital asset was built at ILM’s Sydney studio, the other two sites needed to alter it for their own shots. For example, while Vancouver focused on Steve Harrington’s (Joe Keery) car striking the wall, Mumbai handled the sequence where Eleven and Jim Hopper (David Harbour) fight the army at its foundation.

The Sydney studio tackled the wide establishing shots of the wall, as Tong explains, “We needed the wall to look good in wide, medium, and close-up shots. When we do big environments, you normally think of hard surfaces, like mountains and rocks, but this was more of an organic, fleshy wall. There was liquid running down the wall, and then we needed to tear it and heal it – George’s team had to put a BMW through the wall and do all sorts of creative things.”

Georgiou concurs, recalling, “There was so much look development time put into that wall. We started with a fleshy concept that the client provided. We looked at all kinds of medical reference, and it had to have a very visceral, human feeling to it. We worked on the wall for about six months, if not longer, and based it on human tendons, veins, and pustules. All of the work that we did was grounded in reality in one way, shape, or form. Our references were quite gross [laughs], and our texture and look dev artists had to look at the worst of it all. It was pretty horrific at times. The wall had to have a subsurface component as well because the characters were shining flashlights onto it, and we needed to see light disperse through it.”

“In dailies, when we talked about some of the liquids, we used food as reference because people know the difference in viscosity between honey and blood, for example,” Tong reveals. Turning to the hole that is eventually torn into the wall, Kuruvilla echoes Georgiou’s observations about the grotesque nature of certain references, saying, “The client requested the wall to feel like it had been ripped, so we looked at photos of the inside of a whale. The edges needed to feel like a butcher’s knife had gone through it.”

Mumbai set its sights on another section of the wall, where Eleven and Hopper take refuge behind a billboard before clashing with the army. “The main asset for the membrane wall came from Sydney, but our angle of the wall was slightly different from theirs, so we had to work on the asset for our shots. There is a massive amount of detailing that normal viewers might not notice,” Sanyal opines. One such component even consisted of a soldier urinating on the membrane wall, which meant that, as the ILM team recalls with a laugh, they needed to run effects simulations so that the liquid’s properties lined up precisely with how the filmmakers wanted it to appear on screen.

The Void and a Vine

After Steve Harrington’s BMW collides with the membrane wall, a thrilling sequence sees the car pulled through the opening and out into a nebulous void. “We started with a full CG shot where the camera moves through the hole in the membrane wall, and when it goes onto the other side, you’re in the void and look up to see a different scale of the wall,” Kuruvilla remarks about the Vancouver studio’s approach. “The challenge is the scale because on one side of the wall you see Jonathan and Nancy standing in front of it, and you sense that it is infinite – but you don’t see it go on forever.”

Georgiou agrees, acknowledging, “Scale was so important. The BMW is literally flying through, and the camera’s following it, but then, as the camera turns around, we’re supposed to see the ‘inside out’ version of the wall. The level of detail was quite high, but the detail scale had to be quite small so that it felt enormous and as if our camera had traveled a huge distance away to be able to see the entirety of this wormhole-shaped wall.”

When the time came to work on a vine creature from the Upside Down that has been captured by the military, ILM sought to keep the visual language consistent with the membrane wall. “This massive vine had to have its own character. Vines are particularly tough to do, especially when they have to wrap around an actor. In this case, it had to wrap around Hopper’s neck and lift him up. We spent a lot of time in look development to get the vine to be realistic and have similarities to the wall with pustules and a mucus covering,” Georgiou divulges.

The vine’s interaction with Hopper’s neck was a notable obstacle, as the character’s attire and features acted as hurdles to making that interaction believable. “They filmed the shots using a pool noodle around David Harbour’s heavily bearded face and neck as he was suspended from the ceiling,” Georgiou describes. “To keep the vine alive, we were required to add additional motion and rotation which meant that both his clothing and long hair and beard would need to move and interact with the vine. We meticulously match moved and look-deved the actor with a digi-double and created a groom for his hair. Both the hair and the clothing were then simulated to allow us to get the pressure of the vine’s squeeze and shadows from the various set lights onto David.”

“On top of that, the shots were very difficult to integrate for compositing,” Tong asserts. “The on-set lighting had many spinning lights off-screen. It was a hazy environment, and the atmosphere changes in every frame as the particle light spins. So, when you integrate something with the plates in those lighting conditions, you have to be careful to match those levels and the haziness.”

MAC-Z Mayhem

Another entity essential to the Upside Down was Stranger Things’s legendary Demogorgon design. Wētā FX upgraded the Demogorgon model from previous seasons and passed it to ILM for their own Demogorgon sequences, where the team then modified the creatures for an attack on the MAC-Z military base in the center of Hawkins. “The Demogorgons are iconic to the series, and it was so cool to work on them and their look dev,” emphasizes Georgiou, whose tenure on set was largely devoted to overseeing this climactic battle, which gradually results in the Demogorgons becoming dirtier, bloodier, and even burned. “I will never look at barbecued chicken the same way,” Georgiou jokes about the reference ILM used for the burned Demogorgon.

ILM placed blood maps on the Demogorgons’ arms, legs, and chests to reflect the carnage they wrought, as ILM’s sequence required the team to supply a different type of Demogorgon performance than the show’s other vendors. Whether the Demogorgons are lifting or stomping the soldiers they faced, it was necessary to have simulations for skin sliding and muscle movements. The effects team added drool and blood, while impact points were created so the animation department could depict dents in the Demogorgons’ skin where bullets were impacting them.

“Our animation team was incredible, as both Mumbai and Sydney did a fantastic job with getting the physicality and weight for the Demogorgons,” Georgiou proclaims before expressing his joy over seeing ILM animators film themselves lumbering, slashing, and roaring to provide reference, commenting, “For creatures that are eight-plus feet tall and have extremely long arms and claws, with enough strength to jump across entire sets, they worked really well.”

As the fight unfolds at the MAC-Z, Demogorgons also pursue children through an underground tunnel. “Mumbai had those Demogorgon shots,” Sanyal explains. “The Demogorgon’s animation and the way it moves were not easy things to do because it was not human-like, but not truly animal-like either. When Will Byers [Noah Schnapp] uses his telekinetic power, we had to determine how the Demogorgons would react, shake, move, and finally break.” Tong also beams about reviewing the shocking revelation in dailies, reminiscing, “When Will stopped the Demogorgon from killing Mike Wheeler [Finn Wolfhard], I knew this scene was going to make fans jump on the sofa and scream. It’s so iconic and unexpected.”

Demogorgon movements weren’t the only delicate aspect of the tunnel scene spearheaded by the Mumbai studio. “We tackled three or four rifts within the tunnel, with the most intricate details in the closing one,” Sanyal states. “Imagine a spider drawing an insect into its web – that’s how a child was being pulled into the rift, and the entire web reacted to their movement. Our FX team handled this unique and challenging work, resulting in a truly amazing final output!”

An On-Set One-Shot

Speaking to the time he spent on set in Atlanta for the MAC-Z battle, Georgiou elaborates, “Being on set was wonderful, and it was the only way for me to be able to understand the scope of that sequence. Production built this tremendously huge 360-degree set where they had shipping containers stacked seven or eight high, covered in blue screen for the set extensions. There were over 100 extras and 150 lights from every direction flashing on set. I was there early to watch the rehearsals and see the choreography of how it was going to go down. The Duffer Brothers were kind and generous with their help and questions, and they asked our opinions too.”

A lengthy shot in which Mike Wheeler and his companions attempt to avoid the chaos as Demogorgons wreak havoc on the base was done in a continuous take and represents one of the primary reasons for Georgiou’s presence on set, as he outlines, “The oner was a huge accomplishment. It was filmed handheld and with a fast shutter speed, so it looked like war journalism footage.”

As delicate as the on-set choreography was, ILM’s postproduction work was equally taxing. “Everything had to line up on set, but then it took a long time to put the layout all together. We had to animate, light, and comp on top of the plates. The 100-plus soldiers have muzzle flashes, their guns are emitting shells, the bullets create dents as they hit the Demogorgons’ skin, the Demogorgons have breath and their bodies are sweaty – there’s so much detail put into the oner, and into the MAC-Z sequence as a whole, and it went off without a hitch.”

Extending an Exterior

A second military base resides in the Upside Down, and Eleven infiltrates it by leaping over its perimeter. A set was constructed on a soundstage, but ILM needed to build a large extension for the base’s exterior and connect it to the set piece. “We started with the asset and did a significant extension of the base,” says Sanyal before turning to an intriguing fact about ILM’s contributions to the scene. “When Eleven is running prior to her jump, there are vines all around. We made sure the vines were properly placed and physically accurate from one shot to another in order to maintain continuity.

“Once Eleven jumps, she lands on a practical glass roof, but many shots in that area were completely CG,” Sanyal continues. “To integrate those shots, everything had to be balanced so the CG portions looked like the same type of glass roof that she jumped onto. It was an exciting sequence to work on. The military base asset was originally created to be smaller, so we rebuilt on top of it. There was barbed wire and multiple spotlights around it, and we wanted the lighting to pick up those interesting highlights.”

A Melting Menace

In another intense scene, Nancy and Jonathan become trapped in a room within the Upside Down’s version of the Hawkins laboratory as the facility essentially melts around them. Although this was filmed on set, the client determined the gray material they had used for sludge was too thin and had surface air bubbles that made it appear too much like water. The Vancouver studio was tasked with replacing that practically-filmed liquid with a substance even thicker than house paint.

“We were concerned about continuity and coming up with the reality, weight, and viscosity of the fluid that the characters were moving through. They were walking through it and pushing their hands through, so there was interactivity that was happening. The fluid needed to feel thick and viscous, and ultimately every background – the walls and floor, and even the surface of the table that Nancy and Jonathan were sitting on – was completely replaced,” Georgiou discloses.

Kuruvilla shares Georgiou’s perspective on the matter of ensuring that the melting remained consistent, stating, “One of the things that I found most challenging was keeping continuity across the shots while the walls were melting. When you’re replacing a fluid and matching something that’s real, you’re matching a physics-based simulation and taking it over in CG. Blending between CG and the plates is the hardest part.”

Upside Down Destruction

The melting room’s strange properties are caused by an energy sphere atop the Hawkins lab. The client-supplied brief described the sphere as having an outer shell that cloaks its interior core, but exploring the specifics was left to ILM. “One of the amazing things about this client is that we weren’t just a vendor – they were looking for partners in creating and building these otherworldly things,” Georgiou begins. “ILM had a spectacular concept artist in [visual effects art director] Amy Beth Christenson, who created the first images of the sphere and the sphere breaking apart. That art served as our inspiration for our two years of working on the show. From there, the effects team looked at cellular structures and human body-heavy references.”

In time, the sphere explodes, unleashing enough energy to wipe out the Upside Down, including the membrane wall. “An energy wave hits the membrane wall, and Vancouver was involved in that destruction. The wall is such a large and tricky asset – it’s so detailed, and it has effects like mucus and other elements that run over top of the wall,” Kuruvilla professes. “Destruction-wise, our effects teams did simulations on the wall, and we built veins, membranes, and fleshy pieces inside the wall to accentuate the break and tear as the energy hit it.”

The catastrophic demolition strikes many familiar landmarks in the Upside Down. “The Vancouver studio built the Hawkins High School. There’s the school and a packed car park, so we researched which types of cars were there at that point and kept it as faithful to the references as possible,” Kuruvilla continues. “Our last build was the Wheeler house, and our artists went through images from seasons one through four. They got drawings and plans of the set to figure out where the basement would be and what the wallpaper was. Where the kids play their games, the artists put up the same posters and all sorts of references from the show for when the house would be destroyed.”

The sphere’s explosion reaches a heartwrenching conclusion at the rift gate linking the MAC-Z base to the Upside Down, where Eleven stands defiantly as the rest of the Upside Down is being torn down behind her. “ILM’s Sydney studio did some of the destruction behind Eleven in that last emotional scene. The look of it came from the effects team, and we were very grateful. Many of our team members are fans of the show and wanted to add stuff that they think is cool and appropriate to the world of Stranger Things,” Tong affirms.

Spore Wars

While sensational effects tend to get the majority of fans’ attention, even the subtle spores residing in the Upside Down’s air throughout the season provided ILM with an opportunity to work its magic. “The spores have their own individual rotation, so we built them like a ravioli to have some width and thickness in their center. This way, when they rotated toward the camera, you wouldn’t lose them as if they were a single plane. That rotation, plus any camera motion, became challenging because it could quickly start to look too much like snow or as if we’re traveling through hyperspace in the Millennium Falcon,” Georgiou concludes.

The filmmakers art directed the spores’ placement and movement, guaranteeing each scene contained the right amount of spores while avoiding any errant spores falling in undesirable locations. “Since the spores are transparent, our work depends on what the back plate is. There’s no set formula to say we’re going to do, for example, 70% opacity and have it work across the whole shot – it’s not going to be like that. If the plate is too dark or too light underneath, we have to manually change the spores’ opacity or the sharpness of the edges to work with the plates.”

Sanyal hones in on the troubles inherent with lighting the spores that ILM’s Mumbai studio inserted into Eleven’s battle with the army near the billboard, imparting, “There are spores all around, and we need to consider how they will react to every light. The soldiers carried guns, and each gun had a light source attached to it. Every time the guns move, the spores in that area need to react to it. Most people don’t realize how much effort goes into our work. When you genuinely dive into the levels of detail that are required, it’s incredible. The spores are so minute, but their behavior and movements are specific. Spores kept us on our toes for a long time [laughs].”

A Worldwide Wonder

The smooth collaboration across ILM’s Sydney, Vancouver, and Mumbai studios on the final season of Stranger Things demonstrates the extent of ILM’s capabilities as a global visual effects powerhouse. “This show is a great example of ILM’s cross-site workflows. Our supervisors and teams all worked together. The level of communication was terrific, and that can be hard – you can have too much conversation, where people are talking and not enough is getting done. At the same time, you can have too little, where things get missed and extra time is needed to solve something. But on this show, right from the start, we were so well-aligned and efficient,” Kuruvilla attests.

“Our three sites worked together so well,” Tong adds. “Production expertly split the work between us, establishing the schedule of who developed what and how these assets would come together in a way that each studio could deliver their work on time. Bill is always so nice to work with and accessible, especially when his office is next to mine [laughs]. If I have questions or anything I want to show him, I can get feedback or approval as soon as possible, so the team can keep going and get the shot done.”

“This sort of collaboration is what ILM is all about. In almost every show we take on, we are working with multiple ILM sites,” Sanyal observes. “We received so much support from the Sydney studio – my CG supervisor, Kunjal Dedhia, stayed in continuous touch with theirs because there were assets that we were handing over to each other. The collaboration we see at ILM is important, and it’s unique compared to other places I’ve worked. Everyone here feels part of the same team and shares the goal of delivering a show to the best of their ability – the only difference is the time zone.”

For Georgiou, having the role of overall ILM visual effects supervisor meant stepping back at times to allow his associate visual effects supervisors to lead their respective studios. “I actually had to pull myself out of being as involved with the Sydney team because I was so used to being as available as possible, and I needed to let Stephen – and George and Arnab, as well – work with their teams on their own and build those relationships. They are so smart and gifted, and watching them encourage and support their artists blew me away,” Georgiou avows.

Kuruvilla praises the range of tasks ILM completed this season, saying, “The sheer volume of work that ILM took on for this season was astounding. We did such an immense number of varied shots and sequences with different assets – there was so much cool stuff in one show, and it was so rewarding to be a part of it.” Tong confirms, specifying, “The visual effects are so diverse. Digital doubles, environments, big effects, plate-based work, full-CG work, characters – it’s all there.”

Of course, confronting such monumental assignments is what ILM thrives on, as Georgiou contends, “Working on Stranger Things felt like having Christmas morning every day – waking up and opening shots from Vancouver, and then looking at the new shots in our daily sessions from Sydney and Mumbai. It was a joy.”

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Jay Stobie (he/him) is a writer, author, and consultant who has contributed articles to ILM.com, Skysound.com, Star Wars Insider, StarWars.com, Star Trek Explorer, Star Trek Magazine, and StarTrek.com. Jay loves sci-fi, fantasy, and film, and you can learn more about him by visiting JayStobie.com or finding him on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms at @StobiesGalaxy.

The actor who voiced and supplied the motion capture performance for Volo Bolus discusses their collaboration with ILM for the mixed reality playset.

By Jay Stobie

In Star Wars: Beyond Victory – A Mixed Reality Playset’s Adventure Mode, players follow the journey of up-and-coming podracer Volo Bolus, whose plight to become famous leads them to team up with the infamous Sebulba. ILM.com sat down with actor Fin Argus, who voiced and provided the motion capture performance for Volo Bolus, to learn more about their approach to portraying the character, their time collaborating with Industrial Light & Magic, their thoughts on the interactive gameplay experience, and much more.

A Star Wars Story

Argus’s zest for Star Wars stretches back as long as they can remember, with cherished memories ranging from watching their original trilogy gold VHS box set to carrying around a Darth Vader backpack filled with figurines. “I also dressed as Jar Jar Binks in my preschool’s costume contest for Halloween, and I was robbed,” Argus jokes. “The first video game I ever completed was, in fact, LEGO Star Wars, and it’s still one of my favorites. Star Wars was the first fantasy world I fell in love with. It is epic and vast, and I was convinced that I was destined to be a Jedi. Joke’s on me – I was actually destined to be a podracer!”

When Argus finally had the opportunity to audition to become that podracer, the information they were provided about Volo Bolus was understandably limited. “Such is the nature of the things for stories as huge as Star Wars,” Argus relays. “All I knew is they were a non-binary podracer with a good sense of humor. Part of the audition scene was just the directive: ‘Act like you’re working on things like an engine,’ so I grabbed a spatula and ladle and started banging them around in my living room. I’d say that’s the energy I honed in on for the whole of the project: just some kid banging spatulas together hoping something great comes of it!”

Motion Capture Magic

Once they landed the role, Argus dove right into the motion capture process at Industrial Light & Magic. “I was brand new to the mo-cap world, so I learned on the job. Luckily, I was with a team of seasoned professionals who made it fun and easy. I got into my little outfit, which is a skin tight body suit. Then I get velcroed in from the outside while people add reflective balls to any point on my body that has a joint so they can track my body movements in the studio.

“I also had to wear bright red lipstick so the camera that pointed directly at my face from the helmet they put on me could make out the contrast of my lips to use for the animators to add on to my character design,” Argus explains. “We then go through a series of motions on the stage, almost like an aerobics class, that calibrates my avatar with my own body. There’s a ‘magic mirror’ that then shows you your character design reflected back to you – that’s where I practiced my character’s ‘walk’ and learned how long Volo’s limbs are so I could reach for objects in the mo-cap world accurately. Learning the dimensions of my new body was the hardest part of the job for me, but by the end of the first week it was second nature. After that, it was off to the races!”

Argus’s favorite element of the motion capture work involved collaborating on setbuilding scenes with multiple actors. “There’s a scene where I hop up onto Sebulba’s ship to join his crew and pilot for them. Our team had to build a multi-level structure of perfect proportions so the dimensions of our characters’ bodies fit perfectly on the ‘ship’ and still allowed my character’s movement to look natural,” Argus declares. “It makes so much sense in retrospect, but I was surprised to learn that, because all of our characters are such different sizes, we as actors had to interact with the set very differently to make our characters land in the right locations. For example, for two actors in the same scene, the cockpit of the ship could be in totally different locations on the stage, because our characters are different sizes, relatively speaking.”

Volo’s Voice and Movements

When it came to developing Volo Bolus’s voice, Argus harnessed their younger years for inspiration. “Their voice is basically just me as a teenager! A little more animated than I am in everyday life, but the game is still very much grounded. I just got to tap into how a younger version of myself would speak and react in those situations, while hanging on to that sense of humor to cope with all the chaos that ensues for them,” Argus outlines.

As far as their four-armed character’s movements, Argus lightheartedly proclaims that “with all respect, Volo and I are both pretty gangly, and I leaned into the floppiness of my arm movements to highlight their youthfulness and draw attention to their four arms. How fun is having four arms? Very,” Argus quips.

“I didn’t have to worry too much about the second pair of arms, as those were controlled entirely by animation. I only controlled the top two, which I guess you could say are Volo’s ‘dominant arms.’ The bottom two were mainly doing auxiliary tasks or in use while piloting when every single arm had a job to do at once. I would say the most I thought about having four arms is when I was imagining all the very specific choreography they could do. I hope I can test this theory someday, but I think it would be very hard to beat Volo in a dance battle.”

An ILM Experience

Speaking on their time collaborating with ILM, Argus credits their colleagues for creating such a special experience. “A huge shout out to [Beyond Victory director] Jose Perez III for his direction and the passion he brought to the project,” the actor says. “He set a tone of excitement and drive that kept everyone on set happy to be there, and to tell the story. [Writer] Ross Beeley turned out an amazing script and kept us focused on the heart of the story throughout a process where we had to jump around and film different parts of the story,

“Big shoutout to [motion capture performer] Nathan Camp for not only delivering a sensational performance as Coy Vrizh, but also as so many other characters for mo-cap. He taught me and a lot of other actors how to navigate mo-cap performances with so much kindness and patience,” Argus continues. “The ILM team is a dream to work with every step of the way, and I feel lucky to have done my first video game with such an all-star group of creatives and professionals.”

From Performer to Player

Given Argus’ dedication to their craft and enthusiasm for all things Star Wars, it’s no surprise that they took Beyond Victory for a test drive as soon as it was available on Meta Quest. “I was so blown away by the immersiveness and game mechanics. It was strange hearing my own voice in my ears and seeing the game from ‘my own’ perspective, but as the character. It felt nostalgic, like I was reliving the filming experience but peeling back the layers to see the reality of what we were making. It felt like watching a dream come true in real time,” Argus beams. “I’m still not over it, and I probably never will be.”

Argus takes great joy in their character, revealing, “Volo is a total sweetheart and goofball, but I think I may have brought a slight edge to them through my performance. Maybe ‘sass’ is a better word, actually?” The actor also admits that their initial playthrough of Beyond Victory might have been forever enshrined, as “I’m pretty sure my friends have a video of me playing for the first time and jumping up and down, screaming, when I first heard and saw Volo within the game.”

For as grand in scope as the Star Wars galaxy is, Argus ultimately believes that the slightest details are what truly stand out, observing, “It may sound a little silly, but I’m most proud of seeing the really specific things come to life: like a shot where I had to open a dumpster to a jump scare of a droid popping out. When we filmed, it was tough to get the placement of my hand and timing of the reaction just right, so seeing those moments of attention to detail pay off to create such an immersive, exciting, and beautiful game makes me so proud of the entire Star Wars: Beyond Victory team, and I hope we get to do it again!”

On Meta Quest, dive into three unforgettable adventures with Vader Immortal, Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge and Star Wars: Beyond Victory — A Mixed Reality Playset, each 50% off, or get all three together for $30 from April 28 to May 5.

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Read more about Star Wars: Beyond Victory here on ILM.com:

Bobby Moynihan Takes Us Behind the Scenes of ‘Star Wars: Beyond Victory’

Inside the ILM Art Department: ‘Star Wars: Beyond Victory’

‘Star Wars: Beyond Victory’ Now Available and Director Jose Perez III Takes Us Behind the Scenes

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Jay Stobie (he/him) is a writer, author, and consultant who has contributed articles to ILM.com, Skysound.com, Star Wars Insider, StarWars.com, Star Trek Explorer, Star Trek Magazine, and StarTrek.com. Jay loves sci-fi, fantasy, and film, and you can learn more about him by visiting JayStobie.com or finding him on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms at @StobiesGalaxy.

Industrial Light & Magic artists Marc Whitelaw and Maia Kayser discuss the studio’s work on director Sam Raimi’s Send Help, and how its rampaging boar sequence evolved into something bloodier and funnier.

By Jamie Benning

There’s a moment in Send Help (2026) when the film shows its hand. What begins as a familiar survival setup quickly escalates into something far more chaotic. Stranded on a desert island, Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is attacked by a wild boar. After an extended moment of intensity, the audience settles into laughter, waiting to see what comes next.

It’s a tonal balancing act rooted in the filmmaking of Sam Raimi. Across films like The Evil Dead (1981) and Drag Me to Hell (2009), Raimi has consistently pushed horror into a space where shock and humor sit side by side. The violence is heightened, the reactions are exaggerated, and the audience is invited to laugh as much as recoil.

ILM’s work focused on bringing the boar to life and shaping the escalation of the attack, balancing physical realism with increasingly exaggerated behavior. The challenge was not simply to create a believable creature, but to understand how far that believability could be stretched.

Escalation as a Creative Process

What defines the sequence is not just how extreme it becomes, but how deliberately that escalation was shaped by the filmmakers. It doesn’t begin at full intensity. It builds, step by step, each beat pushing the limits of what feels plausible before extending beyond it.

That progression emerged through iteration. Early versions of the work aimed for something grounded, integrating the creature naturally into the environment. But with each pass, it became clear that realism alone wasn’t going to carry the scene.

Marc Whitelaw, lead digital artist and compositor at Industrial Light & Magic, explains how quickly that restraint fell away once the tone of the film began to assert itself. “We started off fairly reserved, holding things back and integrating the creature into the plates,” he tells ILM.com. “But throughout production, it just kept going further and further until we were essentially making blood. We added so much blood.”

What’s notable is that this escalation wasn’t something the team had to fight for. In many productions, there’s a point where things are pulled back, where excess is trimmed in favor of control. Here, the opposite happened. Each version went further, and the response was to go further still.

“It felt like no matter how far we went, the response was always ‘yes, yes, yes,’” notes Whitelaw. That direction often came down to a simple note from Raimi: “kill, kill, kill.” It became something of a guiding principle for the sequence, not just in terms of violence, but in how far each moment could go.

That kind of feedback loop changes how a sequence is built. Instead of working toward a fixed target, the team was discovering the tone in real time, using each iteration to redefine what felt appropriate. By the end of the process, ideas that might once have seemed excessive became essential. “We even had an eyeball pop out of its socket, and it all seemed to work,” Whitelaw adds. “Sam clearly knew what he was looking for, and I think we delivered that.”

Director Sam Raimi and actor Rachel McAdams (Photo by Brook Rushton © 2025 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved).

A Different Kind of Production

That freedom to push the boundaries was shaped in part by the scale of the project itself. Coming off a large production, Whitelaw found that the transition to a smaller team immediately changed the way the work developed. Fewer layers meant faster feedback and a more direct exchange of ideas between departments. “I finished on Tron: Ares (2025) before joining Send Help. It was a huge project with a big team, so moving onto something much smaller was a really nice contrast. Even though there was still a lot of work to get through, it felt very different.”

Where larger shows can become segmented, this environment allows ideas to move more fluidly. Departments were working in constant dialogue, shaping the sequence collectively rather than handing it off stage by stage. “We worked very closely together. It was collaborative and quite intimate between departments, with a lot of cross communication and shared problem solving,” says Whitelaw.

Just as important was the proximity to the filmmakers. Rather than reacting to notes after the fact, the team was seeing those reactions in real time, adjusting and evolving the work as the tone became clearer. “Being in client calls with Sam Raimi and seeing his reactions firsthand, then watching him take ideas and run with them, made it a really fun project. I had a great time.”

Alongside the digital work, the filmmakers also captured practical elements on set to help sell the interaction. Blood hits were captured directly with Rachel McAdams, giving the sequence a tactile base that could then be enhanced further in post.

For animation supervisor Maia Kayser, that same dynamic extended to how performances were built on set. “Well, they had an on-set head in the last scene where you see it drop in. That was a practical element,” she tells ILM.com. “And then they also had this dummy on rollers that they used, which helped with the interaction and the timing. Everything gelled, both with the client and within the ILM team. We fed off each other, brainstormed ideas, and it created a really fun environment where a lot of great ideas came from.”

The practical boar puppet used live on the set (Photo by Brook Rushton © 2025 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved).

From Realistic Animal to Wild Character

At the center of the sequence is the boar, and its shift from realism into exaggeration sets the tone for what follows. The starting point was realism. A believable animal, behaving in a way audiences would recognize. But as the sequence developed, it became clear that realism alone was limiting what the scene could achieve.

“The original idea was a hyperrealistic boar, so we started in a more subdued place,” notes Kayser. That approach quickly gave way to something more expressive once early versions were reviewed. The direction shifted toward aggression, exaggeration, and comic performance.

“As we showed our first takes, the direction became clear – we needed to push it further, and make it more aggressive,” Kayser says. “It was so great to have very clear direction from Sam Raimi. It’s about finding those comedic pauses, at least in animation. It’s all about timing. It’s all about finding those right pauses.”

That timing is what allows the sequence to pivot from tension to release. The boar drops. The audience breathes. Then it rears back up again, taking everything further into excess – with snot, blood, and movement all exaggerated to the point where the violence tips into comedy. Kayser points to the spearing moment as one example of how far the sequence could go.

“I remember when the beast first gets speared. Initially, the way we animated it, we had him just going and running right into the spear, and then Sam Raimi was like, ‘No, you gotta take this much further. We really want to make this funny.’ So we had him literally run at the spear, and he gets lifted off the ground and lands again. It worked. It made it funnier.

“We also started adjusting the model, so it became grittier, dirtier, and more injured,” Kayser adds. “It was interesting to see how it evolved and became increasingly gory.” This shift is crucial. Moving away from strict realism, the team created space for exaggeration, allowing the animation to carry both threat and humor without breaking the audience’s suspension of disbelief.

Building Through Collaboration

Many of the sequence’s defining moments didn’t originate from a single department. They emerged through conversation, evolving across reviews as ideas were picked up, challenged, and developed further. In one case, what began as a relatively contained moment of violence quickly escalated into something far more extreme, as each iteration built on the last.

Kayser explains how those ideas would often take shape in discussion before finding their way into the work. “It would be just randomly in these meetings where we talk. At first the gore and violence was actually happening in the ear.”

That initial idea didn’t last long. As the work developed, the team began looking for ways to push the moment further, both visually and tonally. “And then that evolved. She [McAdams] holds onto one ear and starts stabbing the other ear. Well, it had to be even gorier,” Kayser says.

From there, the moment shifted again, moving beyond what had originally been planned. “This whole thing came about with the eye. And Marc was saying, ‘Well, what if we just have the eye kind of pop out and roll down?’” Kayser says.

What followed is a clear example of how the sequence came together across departments, with each layer adding to the final result. “So we integrated that in animation. And then comp started squirting all the blood out,” Kayser explains. “It was really over the top, but it was so fun because there was such a great collaboration with the client and also internally, brainstorming and really trying to go with these ideas and push the envelope.”

Timing the Chaos

For all its intensity, the sequence works because of control. Not control of scale, but control of timing. The humor doesn’t sit outside the action. It is embedded within it, often arriving in the pause before the next escalation. Those pauses give the audience just enough space to catch a breath and process what they’re seeing before the sequence escalates again.

“The comedic side, especially in animation, is all about timing,” says Kayser. “It’s about finding the right pauses.” Those moments are carefully shaped, often by pushing them further than instinct might initially suggest. “Sam would say, ‘Take this much further, we want this to be funny.’”

One moment in particular captures that shift from realism into exaggeration. “I remember thinking it might not play when we had the boar run into the spear, get lifted off the ground, and then land again. But it worked. It made the moment funnier.”

The success of that moment depends on the design of the creature itself. Because it sits slightly outside strict realism, the audience accepts that level of exaggeration. “If the asset had been fully realistic, it might have looked strange,” Kayser notes. “But because it was stylized, we could exaggerate the animation and make it work. Make it over the top and still believable.”

The Audience Test

For all the iteration and refinement, the final measure of the sequence is simple. It either lands with an audience, or it doesn’t. That reaction can’t be simulated in a review or a client call. It only becomes clear when the film is played in front of a crowd. “It’s always fun in the theatre, you get to watch how people react,” says Kayser.

When the sequence played, the response confirmed what the team had been building toward. “I love that moment where the boar kind of dies, and then Linda breathes, and then it cuts to a close-up of her, and then it rears up again and snot continues to fly. Once the scene is finished, you know, there was that moment of release, and everyone started laughing,” says Whitelaw. In that moment, the balance between horror and comedy, realism and exaggeration, finally clicks into place. “I remember thinking, ‘It worked.’ It looked great.”

The Throughline

What runs through the work on Send Help is not just technical craft, but the way that craft is shared. The sequence works because it was shaped across departments, with ideas passed around, refined, and developed by artists working toward the same goal.

For Marc Whitelaw, that collaborative approach is not unique to this project, but something fundamental to how ILM operates. Even on larger productions, where teams are more segmented and timelines tighter, he sees it as the key to unlocking better work. “One of our core principles at ILM is collaboration, and I’d love to see that continue on every project I work on,” he says. “On bigger shows, when teams are trying to hit deadlines, it can be harder to try new ideas and approaches. But whenever there’s an opportunity, it’s one of ILM’s strengths.”

That mindset was particularly evident on Send Help, where the smaller team allowed ideas to move more freely and evolve more quickly. For Whitelaw, it wasn’t just the scale of the work that stood out, but the level of care that went into it at every stage. “The smallest of details never got overlooked,” he explains. “Even things that no one asked for would get improved, just because people wanted it to look as good as it could.”

Sam Raimi studies the production’s storyboards while on location (Photo by Brook Rushton © 2025 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved).

Kayser sees that same idea on the animation side, but also in terms of what artists take away from working in that environment. For her, one of the defining aspects of ILM is the depth of talent across the studio, and the way each project becomes an opportunity to learn from the people around you. “What’s so great about ILM is the talent that we have here, and every project you learn so much from your peers and your teams,” she says. “And that makes everything better and the product better.”

That shared investment shows up in the work itself. As the sequence developed, details were added and refined across every department, from animation through to fur and compositing, each layer building on the last. “When you have a project like that, and everybody’s motivated and passionate, the work that comes out of it is incredible,” Kayser adds. For her, the eye-stabbing moment stands as the clearest example of that collective effort, where multiple departments contributed ideas that shaped the final result.

“One of the eye-stabbing shots was one of those things, one of those shots that really felt like a shot where every department came together…and came up with these different ideas and details,” says Kayser. “And that’s where ILM is so good and strong.”

In that sense, the sequence becomes more than just a showcase for creature work or spectacle. It reflects a way of working – one where ideas are shared, details are pushed, and the final result is shaped collectively. And in the case of Send Help, that collective push often came down to a simple directive: Go further. Push harder. Kill, kill, kill.

Send Help begins streaming on Hulu on May 7, 2026.

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Jamie Benning is a filmmaker, author, and podcaster with a lifelong passion for sci-fi and fantasy cinema. He hosts The Filmumentaries Podcast, featuring twice-monthly interviews with behind-the-scenes artists. Visit Filmumentaries.com or find him on X (@jamieswb) and @filmumentaries on Threads, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

The team joins their Lucasfilm counterparts in the win for Special, Visual and Graphic Effects.

Last night at the BAFTA TV Craft Awards in London, the team from Industrial Light & Magic and Lucasfilm took home the win for Special, Visual and Graphic Effects for their work on the second season of Andor.

Lucasfilm’s vice president of visual effects TJ Falls accepted alongside fellow winners, including production visual effects supervisor Mohen Leo and ILM visual effects supervisor Scott Pritchard. Along with ILM as a whole, the other individual recipients included special effects supervisor Luke Murphy, creature and droid effects supervisor Neal Scanlan, and senior digital colorist Jean-Clément Soret.

Congratulations to all of our ILM and Lucasfilm winners!

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Art Director Tyler Scarlet

We wanted to give the bison a whimsical look so I played around with stylizing their fur to give them facial hair as well as to exaggerate the shape of their horns. I also wanted to humanize them a bit so I worked on the shape of their eyes and exaggerated their eyebrows to be more expressive.

Since the Bison were forced to work against their will, we wanted to show some signs of injury. I worked on finding the right amount of scaring, bruising, etc. Some of my early versions went too far and looked a little too sad so I had to pull that back a bit and find the right balance. I really enjoyed exaggerating their different personalities.

Art Director Chris Voy

This image is part of a series for the sequence where we follow the train from the Ozian countryside and see how Glinda’s influence sweeps through the Emerald City, which is represented by her characteristic pink color in flags, streamers, and confetti. This shot shows the banners unfurling from the tall towers with the train crossing the river in the distance. Later the train’s color was switched to pink.

Across both films are several wide establishing shots of the Emerald City. They are usually from different angles and show something new in the story. For each of these we’d design and build out a bit more to fill in the gaps. On the first film I put some time (maybe too much!) into figuring out a layout for the little Ozian gardens and streets, but you never really got a chance to see any of it very well. Fortunately the second film added this epic tower-view shot where we see right down into the surrounding city where all those little details are on display.

This sequence shows several new parts of the city along with areas that the audience would hopefully recognize from the first film. Of course, everything needed to be consistent from shot to shot as we traveled from the countryside up through the center of the city. I did some rough sketches to discuss ideas but it became necessary to keep most of the work in 3D to ensure it all fit together with existing parts of the city and worked from the perspective of each shot. Then I was able to pass that geometry on for use in the shot.

Concept Artist Mathilde Marion

We wanted to offer some visuals for a forest sequence in which Elphaba is being chased by the flying monkeys. We had some plates but were worried that it was not going to look Ozian enough and that we would need to either augment or replace them. So the main point was to build an environment that would feel Ozian, all the while respecting the fast-pace and the tension of a chase sequence.

We used the previs as a base, choosing the shots that seemed to be the most important story-wise and that could best describe the environment. I started painting them as black and white thumbnails to make sure I’d stay visually consistent through the sequence. Once that was done, we picked a couple that we wanted to build up to a fully finished concept. These were to go along with the thumbnails to sell the look and atmosphere to the client. The main challenge was with how fast the chase was. Visually, it had to be striking enough that it would immediately appear as part of the magical land of Oz. In order to do that, we relied on the strange shapes of the twisted Ozian trees, and created a magical atmosphere through color and lighting.

A lot of great production design work had already been done on the first movie. I used that and the sets as a starting point, and then did some more reference gathering. There are many interesting images in landscape photography, with locations like Broceliande’s forest in France, or the goblin forest in New Zealand. Photographs in the morning fog, with a very diffuse bright lighting, were the ones that talked to me the most.

See the complete gallery of concept art from Wicked: For Good here on ILM.com.

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San Francisco News

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