6 days ago
‘The Wheel of Time' VFX supervisor Andy Scrase: ‘I always think of visual effects as the magic of filmmaking'
'Season 3 had a hardcore number for VFX,' Andy Scrase says about The Wheel of Time during our Gold Derby "Meet the Experts" VFX panel. It all began with the opening episode of the season, "To Race the Shadow." 'We had this really large magic battle. Once you come off a heavy Season 2, to go straight into it again on Episode 1, was probably our biggest challenge," says Scrase (watch the full interview above). "But, it felt like something that hadn't quite been executed on the screen before in terms of episodic TV.'
The Sony series has been adapted for Prime Video by Rafe Judkins from the Robert Jordan fantasy novels of the same name. The recent third season covers events from the fourth and fifth books (The Shadow Rising and The Fires of Heaven). 'I've got respect for the source material. I try to stick to descriptions as close as I can. And if I feel like something's not going to be visually exciting enough, then I tend to bring in a bit more creative license,' Scrase says, adding 'that challenge is still the biggest thing. Getting something that looks very different to what's been seen before and reimagining that description Robert Jordan used in the books.'
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One of the characters at the center of the story is Rand (Josha Stradowski), who learns he is the dragon reborn. Scrase loves that 'there's a real darker aspect to him. The male challengers in the show's abilities are corrupted by the dark one. I like the that there's more of a grey area with Rand. You don't know if he's going to save the world or destroy it. I think that makes it a lot more interesting.'
In the season finale, "He Who Comes with the Dawn," Siuan (Sophie Okonedo) is falsely condemned and stilled of her power. "We ended up having these 'stilling arrows' fired at her and stick out of her. It felt barbaric," says Scrase. "The design of them, were very barbed, and there was Sophie's performance playing this moment of 'stilling.' Seeing how the audience reacted to it really did drive home how emotional that particular moment was.'
He reflects, 'I always think of visual effects as the magic of filmmaking. We get to imagine and execute those things that just aren't possible to do in real life. Creating that stuff is great to be able to do.'
This article and video are presented by Sony.
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