VENICE BEACH, CA — Siren Lab Productions (http://sirenlab.com) recently launched, following a five-month collaboration with director Cary Joji Fukunaga (True Detective) on his Netflix original film, Beasts of No Nation, starring Idris Elba. The creative VFX studio is led by veteran VFX supervisor/Flame artist Karen Heston, who collaborated with Fukunaga by overseeing and producing the majority of the film’s VFX shots.
Heston (pictured) stationed VFX right next to the edit bay on Beasts. “Cary likes to push the VFX to their limits,” she notes, “not only making the final product more clear to his vision upon completion, but trying a few avenues along the way to ensure the best outcome.”
Siren Lab can mix both visual and practical effects. In addition to long-form projects, the studio is also working on commercials, including upcoming jobs for Infiniti and Tom Ford. During her decade-plus career, Heston has worked on a variety of notable commercial and music video projects at established VFX companies that include Framestore, Mass Market, Rhino FX and Charlex. She has also worked directly with major brands that include Google, Kohl’s, Macy’s Visa, GE, AT&T, and L’Oreal.
As for her newest venture, Heston says she was inspired to start Siren Lab “to do what I love and what interests me in finding adaptive and unique VFX solutions that are custom tailored to the needs of each individual project.
Siren Lab is extremely rare because it focuses on keeping costs down while providing personalized attention. Personalized attention is the cornerstone of the company; from pre-production, on-set VFX supervision, to final post production, Siren Lab’s goal is to get complex commercials done well in a way that’s also economically sound.”