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Doing the Locomotion
VFX supervisor Geoff Scott leads us on a tour of the visual highlights of the second season of Snowpiercer. By Trevor Hogg
The political and social implications of the class structure as well as the impact of global warming are the prevailing themes in the post-apocalyptic French graphic novel Le Transperceneige (Snowpiercer) by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette. The events of the book, Bong Joon-ho’s 2013 English-language feature adaptation and the TNT/Netflix series version (which debuted in 2020) take place onboard a high-speed train consisting of 1,001 cars and 3,000 passengers representing the remains of humanity travelling through a frozen world. The VFX team working on the second season of the series were tasked with exploring more of the wintry landscape of the project, leading to the number of visual effects shots being doubled to 2,400. “In the first season, we were cautious and used our exterior train shots mostly for establishers,” explains production VFX supervisor Geoff Scott (Wynonna Earp), who worked once again with exec producer Graeme Manson (Orphan Black). “Sometimes there would be a story-driven event, like the avalanche in Episode 102. You would have the stuff happening underneath the train in Episode 106. And at the end of Episode 110, with Big Alice’s connector car. Aside from that, our story was more about the people inside the train. We’re doing a lot more with the outside in Season Two.”
The lion’s share of the VFX centered on the window shots, which inadvertently enabled Scott to overcome a phobia. “At the end of Season One, I spent two days in a helicopter flying in and around the Rockies to get profiles of the mountains,” recalls Scott. “Years ago, on another show, I almost fell off a building, and since then I’ve been afraid of heights. Now, I’m good with heights again! We have a lot of plate elements. We basically had a rolling environment that we could render 270 degrees. We also took pieces of CG environments and handed them to our internal team to composite. These little chunks were rendered at 8K and popped into the windows as a soft-focus-backgrounds. We would build environments specific to the shots and set up specific cameras.”
No Denying Climate Change
Throughout the series, viewers will discover that the Earth is going through yet another climate change. “There are subtle things that we are doing in the sequences,” states Scott. “You will notice that we’re having more snow in the atmosphere than in Season One.”
The overlap in production between Seasons One and Two also enabled the team to make story continuity corrections. “We actually went back to Season One and removed 90 percent of the snow floating through the air so it felt more like snow that had been kicked up by Snowpiercer and Big Alice,” says Scott. “Because we had the luxury of still having those shots open in progress, we were able to quickly fix a problem that would have had people going, ‘I saw snow in Season One.’” A close-up shot of a snowflake serves as a visual transition. “Because more loose snow is
Silver Express: The new season of Snowpiercer offers many visually stunning sequences, including full shots of the mysterious train as it traverses the curvature of the Earth.
— Production VFX supervisor Geoff Scott
around, there are implications that it has snowed in areas, and snow has blown and drifted,” notes Scott. “It’s not a character per se, but we’re reenforcing the story that there is something going on.” It was important to give a sense of what life used to be like in the outside world. “We wanted to find ways to incorporate the environment, not just as a, ‘Look there is a thing over there.’ But to actually shoot through it. It’s not just something on the horizon. It’s like we are here. Toward the end of Episode 201, we’re in an industrial farming complex. You can see a car sticking out here, and a piece of a tractor and a house. It also helps to show what a dead world Snowpiercer is living in.”
The new season also showcases an interesting weather tracking device that allowed for a creative first for the series. “It’s the first time you can actually see the entirety of Snowpiercer in a shot,” offers Scott. “Snowpiercer goes around the curvature of the Earth. Now we have added a couple of kilometres on the back of her [with Big Alice], it’s even more. We figured out last year how high in the air we needed to be to see the end without any atmosphere. We are exactly 35,000 feet in the air and on a GoPro 8mm lens to give the curve feeling. We’re about the height of a passenger airplane. Then you get that little silver line of the entirety of Snowpiercer.”
According to the VFX supe, conveying the proper size, scale and speed of the train was critical. “If Snowpiercer goes too fast then it looks like a miniature,” remarks Scott. “If it goes too slow, it loses its power. We took a lot of what we designed last year and asked, ‘What do we think works in Season One? Let’s make sure that we continue with that.’ We also worked with a new producing director, Christoph Schrewe [Berlin Station], and his shot aesthetic presented different opportunities where we were able to be higher, and come in VFX VFX and out of windows. We ended up adding quite a bit more snow flurries to give a sense that you’re moving through space with the train. That was an element I was glad we are using as much as we are. It also helps to tell the story that there is snow in the air.”
A Signature Character
“There was an aesthetic that I always liked which was the diesel pump which has that 1930s, 1940s and 1950s aesthetic,” states Scott. “There was one locomotive in particular called The Mercury that I really liked. That is actually a throwback to the graphic novel which has a similar bold nose shape to it. Our design team in Toronto played around with ideas. Then, I hired concept artist Alex Nice and his first pass was almost perfectly the train. We subsequently designed each car for the exterior like a luxury dreamliner with a vintage quality look.”
The season also includes a second train which carries the mysterious industrialist Joseph Wilford (Sean Bean), who seeks to reclaim Snowpiercer. “When it came to Big Alice, we always knew that she was lurking in the background,” says Scott. “The connector car was designed as a windowless Snowpiercer and we put the big W onto it; that was how we could echo there and also hide the fangtooth opening grabbing mechanism. I love that marketing keeps using that shot. For the exterior, we went to our concept artist Alex Nice and said, ‘What we need is a bigger, more powerful prototype engine. It has to have a similar aesthetic to Snowpiercer. The design key words we have been given are: boxy, big, and barn.’ We widened it out and added a couple of more windows. We handed our exterior to our production designer Stephen Geaghan [Another Life] and he had to retrofit all of the interior windows.”
Scott points out that audiences will see a variety of new cars throughout the season. “We have a car that comes into Episode 209 that is a bit fantastical,” reveals Scott. “The aquarium car makes an appearance again and it looks even better this season. In Episode 210, there is a sequence that I want to be in the room when people see it for the first time. I’m happy to be back for a third season and to see where we end up. I’ve got the first couple of scripts and they’re crazy exciting.”
As for the fate of Sean Bean, who is known for his numerous death scenes in TV shows and movies, Scott is tight-lipped. He responds, “You have to watch the show!” ◆
