GREAT VFX
Chernobyl, Sky Atlantic/HBO
particularly for the Pipyat firemen approaching the scene, “how big would the fire have actually been, what would have caused that fire? The fire on the roof and in the human reactor. We ended up dialling it back. We first imagined it as having more fire, a bigger raging fire.” For the nuclear core reactor, “there are only eyewitness accounts about this shaft of light, this straight column of light going up as far as the eye could see. We looked at lots of scientific references and what ionisation might look like in the air. We worked on multiple versions with the bluey / green colours and the light shifting within and a huge amount of smoke and integrated the two. The smoke
was an effects SIM, trying to capture the shifting ionisation.” Lindsay articulates the thinking behind one of the most iconic moment so of the series when the Pripyat locals gather at night to see the reactor light show, with the ash softly falling like snow, “for the Bridge of Death scene, they wanted the effect to be over-cranked slowmo… to be beautiful, kids running around playing in the ash. That was Johan’s genius – to concentrate on the kids and on the faces. The focus was on the people who have rushed to see this light show.” “For the flashback shots at the trial at the end, these are the most Hollywood style shots. Johan wasn’t
interested in the size of the explosion - a showboating moment - but rather we were fitting in with Johan’s visual language. The steam explosion happens really quickly. But then we wanted to show a pause - written into the script - with gases combining and leaking out of the core. An illumination from the core creeping out of the ground and we did create a shot that showed more, almost filling the whole of the reactor itself and we worked it up to quite a degree at DNEG and it wasn’t fitting with the story. So, we cut it back and so we see just the first sense of this thing coming around the corner. Johan liked the idea. Johan didn’t want to show an explosion for the sake of showing an explosion but rather wanted it to fit the story.”
Special Supplement Spring 2021
televisual.com
28
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36
