Hulu's Paradise is set in a large underground bunker in Colorado, three years after a doomsday event. Secret Service agent Xavier Collins seeks to discover the truth behind the killing of the President, but comes under suspicion. In Season 2, Xavier learns how people survived outside the bunker, while the social fabric inside begins to fray.
Paradise stars Sterling K. Brown, Julianne Nicholson, Sarah Shahi, Nicole Brydon Bloom, Krys Marshall, Enuka Okuma, Aliyah Mastin, Percy Daggs IV and Charlie Evans. Recurring guests include James Marsden, Shailene Woodley, Thomas Doherty and Jon Beavers. The series was created and executive produced by Dan Fogelman.
Onyx VFX (https://www.onyxvfx.com), which has locations in Los Angeles and New York, handled visual effects throughout Season 2 of Paradise, including the Emmy-nominated finale, “Exodus.” The episode called for a wide range of work, from the collapse of Paradise Mountain and large-scale destruction, to digital environments and transitions across Denver, all delivered on a tight schedule.
VFX supervisor John Stewart recently shared details with Post regarding the studio's work on “Exodus,” as well as insight into the team’s collaboration with director Hanelle M. Culpepper and the challenges they faced in creating the episode’s biggest visual effects.
John, when you first read the script for "Exodus," which sequences immediately stood out as the biggest VFX challenges?
“It was definitely the last VFX shot in the episode that took us from Xavier standing in the evacuation camp, to a drone shot high over the crater remains of the Paradise mountain, over Denver, Colorado, and to a room underneath the Denver airport. Just figuring out how to traverse that much space - framing up something the size of a person to framing up an entire mountain and airport and back to a wide shot of Alex. The head and tail of the shot were shot footage, but the middle was all VFX. It evolved from a long oner shot to having a crossfade to cover more distance. There was an entire beat that was removed for time that was downtown Denver that was leveled with a nuclear bomb. From the initial storyboards to the final shot in the episode, it did change a lot, but it still tells the same story point as the initial concept.”
What were the biggest creative and technical challenges unique to "Exodus," and were there any moments where the team had to rethink its approach or develop new solutions to achieve the episode’s vision?
“The biggest challenge was time and how time informed all of the creative decisions. We had half a dozen big VFX scenes and just a handful of weeks to get them ready for air. It all started with the prep for the episode, knowing we had a lot to accomplish at a high level. The shot designs needed to play to our strengths. We had to pick the important moments and not get bogged down by too much volume in any one scene. Some scenes that on a different timeline would have been a full-CG build had to be broken up between comp, matte painting and CG to give us the speed and the ability to iterate quickly.”
Can you walk us through the creation of one standout visual effects sequence or shot from the episode?
“The final collapse of the mountain, as seen from outside, was something we were all fairly excited to get into when we read that in the script for ‘Exodus.’ We knew this was going to be front and center for VFX, rather than supporting invisible work that comprises most of the rest of the show. We went through a concept-art phase to get an idea of what shape the mountain should be, how rocky it should be, and how tree-covered it should be. We built a model in Mudbox/Maya of the mountain and then did a low-resolution sim of the entire mountain collapsing from start to end and let editorial have that. They were able to cut our collapse sim through the whole sequence and time the beats of the mountain collapsing as they liked. Once the edit was locked, we got the sequence turned over to us, which really helped us avoid over-simulating and know exactly which beats to focus on.”
Which visual effect or sequence in "Exodus" are you most proud of, and what do you think it reveals about the team’s creative approach?
“The Sinatra walk through the falling of Paradise. I feel we really nailed making this destructive moment something elegant. It went through dozens of look revisions. Some were way over the top, where the destruction was the focal point, which ended up in the final edit. Something that really supports the moment. There (are) tons of amazing detail in there if you want to look closely, but it also works as a beautiful background for this strong character moment.”
Talk about the team’s collaboration with director Hanelle Culpepper. What were those conversations like?
“Hanelle Culpepper is an amazing collaborator; she always brings her ideas to the table, but is open to VFX input to make the best of the resources we have available. For the key sequences, we worked out the broad strokes in pre-production. Storyboarding and previs-ing the VFX-heavy scenes. The scenes would evolve on-set, but we always had that to fall back on. The visual language always referenced back to the first season. We wanted it to feel like a continuation, but with a more expanded look.”
Many of the effects in "Exodus" feel integrated into the storytelling rather than simply showcasing technology. How did you balance the technical demands of the work with the emotional goals of the episode?
“Paradise is a character-driven drama that happens to have a lot of visual effects. Anything that could be shot and achieved in-camera was. The visual effects needed to live in the footage, just like any other character in the show. This season, we shot footage for every VFX shot in the show, even if we knew we were going to completely replace it with CG. It gave us great real-world reference. If something wasn't looking right, we'd always go back and study the footage, and see what we could incorporate into our shots. It's that balance of making a cool VFX moment and adding to, not distracting from the momentum of the story.”
Looking back at the finished episode, what do you think was the most rewarding aspect of the work?
“In ‘Exodus,’ our VFX got to punctuate all the key moments of the last act. The episode would have been completely different without the visual effects and how we designed them. A different team would have had a totally different take on the material. This was our take. And it was filtered through all of the amazingly talented VFX artists that crafted these shots. I hope the audience gets as much of a thrill from the work as we did creating it.”