The ‘Yellowjackets’ VFX Supervisors Break Down Shocking Moments

variety.com:

Sasha Urban editorSPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from the entire first season of “Yellowjackets,” and also includes content some readers may find disturbing.Showtime’s “Yellowjackets,” the newest addition to the television canon of sublime psychological thrillers, is beyond definition.

It seamlessly transitions from a coming-of-age story about a high-school girls’ soccer team to a bloody tale of survival after their plane crashes in the Ongtario wilderness, then makes a full 180 to horror, with a healthy sprinkling of buddy comedy and political drama in the mix.

The series deftly navigates these twists and turns, largely thanks to the subtle and striking visual effects that range from aircraft explosions to Van (Liv Hewson) getting her face torn off by a wolf.

To the untrained eye, the visual effects on “Yellowjackets” may seem inconsequential, since it doesn’t over-stuff its viewers with horrifying gore like a show such as “The Walking Dead,” and doesn’t play up the camp with pools of fake blood, as seen on the similarly cannibal-themed show “Santa Clarita Diet.” Its effects are semi-realistic when they need to be, but as a result, ​​are often more disturbing.According to Lawson Deming and Michael Adkisson, two visual effects supervisors from the show’s main effects vendor, Los Angeles/Vancouver-based Barnstorm VFX, the effects on the show, from an amputated leg to the numbers on a scoreboard, were mostly created through a combination of practical effects and CGI.