Fears of the Clown: ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ VFX Supervisor Guides Us Through the Show’s Visual Horrors

[the_ad id=”3280664″]

HBO’s new series It: Welcome to Derry serves as a frightening prequel to the feature films It and It: Chapter Two, in which an evil entity terrorizes children every 27 years in the town of Derry, Maine. The new supernatural horror show consists of eight episodes based on Stephen King’s 1986 bestseller and was developed by Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti, who also were behind the films, as well as co-showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane.

Since the story is set in the 1960s, digital augmentation was required to achieve the desired scope, period authenticity and horrifying effects. With Andy Muschietti directing four episodes and involved with postproduction, a prevailing feature film mentality ruled the day.

“Originally, the show was thought [of] as a movie, but when they started to dive into the world of Derry and the backstories of the movies, it was felt that there was enough story to fill eight or nine hours of content,” says Daryl Sawchuk, the show’s visual effects supervisor. “This is set in 1962, and throughout the Cold War there is a lot of nuclear panic going on. There is a militaristic baseline for some of the story ideas. We have a couple of moments that flashback even further to help establish some of the storylines and [original] components to the world of It.”

Re-creating Maine

Just under 2,700 visual effects shots had to be created, with Rodeo FX, Alchemy 24, Folks VFX, DNEG, Crafty Apes and Digital Domain serving as the primary vendors. “Oftentimes we used our in-house team to temp some shots as rough assemblies and edits were presented to the studio for the first time and to make sure that some of the creative holes were being filled for Andy,” explains Sawchuk, whose credits include Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Jumanji: The Next Level and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. “The in-house team also played a huge part in terms of fixing things, like things left in shot that shouldn’t have been, which you realized after watching it for the 200th time. You definitely try to spread around the work and do as much as you can with the in-house team, which saves you the bigger dollars to spend on the bigger environments and characters.”

A wide range of characters, creatures and environments needed to be produced for the series. “It wasn’t like we did one thing,” observes Sawchuk. “We were often shooting two units at the same time in two different locations. I had a strong on-set visual effects team led by Steven Tether, and I could lean on him to make sure that we got the photographic elements and all of the references, like the ball and lighting charts that were needed in order to pull things off once we got into post. The whole premise is that Pennywise [the clown] plays on people’s fears, so there are moments in some of the characters’ backstories that show up in various iterations, whether [in] creature or effects form. We’ve got a wide range of growing and transforming CG characters.”

Motion performers worked through the scenes exploring the movements and mechanics of the CG creatures and characters. “That could be used as lighting reference for what skin might look like in a certain outdoor environment,” explains Sawchuk. “Was it more freeing [creating characters and creatures manifested through fear]? Probably not, because we’re still tied to the boundaries of real-world physics, gravity and lighting. Wherever possible, we tried to give the visual effects team as much [of a] base in reality to start with that we could then match into and explore differences of performances.”

“Was it more freeing [creating characters and creatures manifested through fear]? Probably not, because we’re still tied to the boundaries of real-world physics, gravity and lighting. Wherever possible, we tried to give the visual effects team as much as [a] base in reality to start with that we could then match into and explore differences of performances.”

— VFX supervisor Daryl Sawchuk

Derry, Maine was created with an even mix of locations and sets. “There is a lot of action and dialog taking place up on the iconic Standpipe from the films,” remarks Sawchuk. “We shot a bunch of stuff onstage looking out at a blue world. Then using Port Hope [Canada] as our primary basis for the town of Derry, we had a bunch of drone photography, aerial arrays and bubbles. Crafty Apes created a CG version of Derry and populated all of our bluescreen work and several CG establishing shots as well.”

One of the film’s key locations is the Neibolt house, which is where Pennywise lives. “You’ll understand more the importance of that home and why it plays a big part in the storylines of the films,” says Sawchuk. “We managed to go back to the exact location where the films shot background plates. We had a front facade of a doorway and everything else was built out digitally.”

Seasonal continuity had to be taken into account while constructing the shots. “Because the duration of the shoot happened over such a long period with the [writers’ and actors’] strikes, we shot both summer and winter,” says the VFX supervisor. “There were a lot of shots where the main street was shot practically, and we had a little bit of CG signage and top-ups to do, but we had to replace all of the trees because it was captured in winter and had to relight the scene. Or we shot in the summer, and the town of Port Hope decided to chew up the main street, so we had to replace it. There was quite a bit of work that we had to do digitally.”

Obviously, the film wasn’t lacking in body horror, blood and gore. As Sawchuk recalls, “The joke in post was ‘more is more.’” He adds, “Andy is definitely a big proponent of going heavy-handed with a lot of that stuff. Darcy Callaghan and his special effects team did a great job with practical gore and blood effects. Our makeup prosthetics team led by Sean Sansom also did amazing work. We were digitally enhancing on top of that. Once the assemblies start to come together, you see where the moments are that Andy has teased out and where he wants the impact to go over the top with things. You’ll definitely see where we’ve added stuff. There are a lot of moments where you get your fair share!”

Fires, Glass Jars and Snowy Scenes

The show’s supernatural elements had to be grounded for the sake of believability. “I probably beat the drum the loudest for, ‘Let’s shoot as much as we can practically,’” says Sawchuk. “Even if it was a reference pass. We had a huge special effects component, like dropping real glass jars. The photographic elements were used as a starting point, and then we augmented them. The fire scene, which is a big moment in the story, we did a lot of testing. Daniel Vilar [DP collaborating with Muschietti] and I spent a lot of time doing tests with lighting tubes, LEDs and real fire to try to assemble a strong visual language.”

The team spent two days working on car process shots on an LED volume stage. “We shot some stuff in a nighttime snowy environment with a kid who is hitchhiking,” says Sawchuk. “It was a combination of a 360-degrees camera array to capture 360-degrees plates and multiple passes down several roads across Southern Ontario. We stitched those together and managed to compose a sequence of looping driving scenes that we could use as volume material to shoot the action and choreography that we needed to do on the stage.”

The overall goal was to have the series feel like an extension of what was accomplished in the two It movies. “Bill Skarsgård came back for Pennywise, and he was fantastic,” says Sawchuk. “We definitely honored and elevated the work that was done in the films, and everybody will see the series as an expansion upon some of that high-water work. From a series standpoint, this feels like an epic story. There are so many large environments and sequences that people will be excited by what was made possible by the team.”

It: Welcome to Derry premiered October 26 on HBO and HBO Max.