BrainDead

DNEGTV primary VFX vendor on CBS’s new “dramedy” BRAINDEAD

Credits

Directors

Robert King, Jim McKay, Allan Arkush, Frederick E.O. Toye, Brooke Kennedy, Ron Underwood, Felix Alcala

Creators

Michelle and Robert King

Executive Producers

Robert King, Michelle King, Ridley Scott, David W. Zucker, Brooke Kennedy, Liz Glotzer

Production Companies

CBS Television Studios, King Size Productions, Scott Free Productions

Studio

CBS

Release Date

13th June 2016

We really couldn’t be having more fun than we are on BrainDead. Not only is the show incredibly funny it also has a host of complex visual effects shots, which you may not expect from the genre.Stefan Drury, DNEGTV’s Executive VFX Producer

Bugs, and lots of them

DNEGTV are delighted to be the primary VFX vendor on Robert and Michelle King’s (Creators of The Good Wife) CBS’s new “dramedy” BRAINDEAD which premiered on CBS last night. Missed the show? Don’t live in the US? Don’t worry, the series is available to watch right now on Amazon Prime!

The 13 part series contains a large number of complex VFX shots, many of which involved the visualisation of an alien race of brain eating “bugs”.

DNEGTV designed and created the CG alien characters, focusing primarily on an ant like design that can be mistaken for the everyday; but upon closer inspection reveals it’s true extra terrestrial form. Complex rigs and animation cycles were created for speedy turnaround, with hero “bugs” hand animated to give a flourish of individuality to their performance.

A number of shots also involved huge quantities of the bugs being on screen simultaneously, necessitating a Houdini FX simulation for the 1.8 million separate alien creatures, to bring these spectacular moments to fruition.

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Jake Braver

The show side VFX Supervisor on the Pilot.

“DNEGTV was a really natural fit for Braindead. They walked into the show with robust creature pipeline, amazing ideas, a great team, and they were game for anything, not sure what else I could have asked for!”

“DNEG TV brought so much to the table, and they did some tremendously complex work on what pretty much amounted to a pilot schedule. The complex nature of the bug attacks, both Brianna and Wheatus, involved complex 3D facial and body tracks and complex animation”

“In post, we had a Polycom in our review room, and DNEG had one as well— so between that and Cinesync, our communication was easy. We had daily morning Cinesync reviews, and I would pull Robert in to look at things as they were ready for review, by the time we got back into the office the next morning, most notes had been hit. It was a really fun way to work.”

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