TV/STREAMING
EFFECTS TEAM ADDS THE BIZARRE AND SURREAL TO SUPER-CRAZY DOOM PATROL By TREVOR HOGG
TOP: Robotman (Brendan Fraser), Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero), Cyborg (Joivan Wade) and Elasti-Girl (April Bowlby) spend some quality time with one another. (Photo: Bob Mahoney/HBO Max) OPPOSITE TOP: Elasti-Girl (April Bowlby) extends her fingers to dramatically increase her reach. (Image courtesy of HBO Max)
No strangers to the DC Universe on the small screen are Encore Hollywood Creative Director & Visual Effects Supervisor Armen Kevorkian and Encore Hollywood Visual Effects Coordinator Gregory Pierce, who have worked together on Supergirl, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Titans and now the third season of Doom Patrol. A group of misfits who have acquired superpowers through tragic circumstances are brought together by Dr. Niles Caulder (Timothy Dalton) to form a dysfunctional family that battles the forces of evil with unconventional methods. Each of the 10 episodes has approximately 100 to 200 visual effects shots created by Encore VFX and were divided among facilities in Burbank, Vancouver and Atlanta, based on scenes and expertise. The second season was shortened to nine episodes because of the coronavirus pandemic, which had a ripple impact as the narrative carried over to Season 3 as well as the need to work remotely. Kevorkian notes, “It’s a different world for how we shoot things, but it was nice to get back out there.” Outrageous storylines and characters are a trademark of the action-adventure-comedy. “One of the things that make Doom Patrol different is that it’s creative in terms of how it’s written, how the characters are developed and the situations that they find themselves in,” remarks Pierce. “All of the effects work that we have to do has to be photoreal because this is a photoreal show, but at the same time there is a lot of surrealness to it. A lot of times with our visual effects work, we don’t know exactly what this will look like because it never happened in real life. But we still have to ground it within the scene. Some of the scenes are clearly written with an idea in mind as to how they should look, and those are related to us during the prep meetings before shooting. Other
86 • VFXVOICE.COM FALL 2021
PG 86-89 DOOM PATROL.indd 86
8/29/21 2:46 PM
