The Wheel of Time S03, episode 3, “To Race The Shadow.”
Every once in a while, a scene comes along that makes everyone on set pause for a moment and think:
Okay… how exactly are we going to do this?
Director Thomas Napper had something ambitious in mind for a pivotal moment in The Wheel of Time S03. The scene centers on Moghedien (Laia Costa) transforming her unfortunate victim Jaichim Carridin (Jared Doreck) into one of the series’ eerie assassins: a Gray Man.
In the script, Jaichim has broken his Dark Oaths, giving Moghedien the opening she needs to turn him into a Gray Man to do her malevolent bidding. Trapped and suspended in a web of her making, she asks him if he wants to be gray. He refuses. She freezes the blood in his veins. Adamant at first, he refuses to give in, but the paint eventually breaks him, and the diabolical transformation begins.
From a budgetary standpoint, the goal was to keep as much of the moment practical and in-camera as possible, with visual effects providing the supernatural elements rather than carrying the whole scene. The trick was to find solutions on set that the VFX team could build on later. My role as the VFX on set supervisor was to support the creative and technical aspects of the sequence on the shoot, working with Thomas and the other departments to find ways around the roadblocks that inevitably emerge with something this ambitious. The aim was always to avoid pushing problems to the “fix it in post” world if we could solve them on the set.
BUILDING THE WEB
Thomas envisioned Jaichim being suspended by strands of his own uniform. Very much like a fly caught in a spider’s web, he was to be trapped, helpless, in a foreboding underground chamber, Moghedian’s prisoner and soon-to-be victim.
Costume Designer Sharon Gilham came up with a clever, practical solution. The web was built using elasticated threads and strips of fabric, stretched between the actor (Jared Doreck) and hidden mounts in the set walls. The elasticated strands allowed Jonas freedom to struggle and react physically to Moghedien’s powers, helping preserve his performance while maintaining the illusion that the web itself supported his body. In fact, the weight support came from stunt cables rigged above and attached to his torso, arms, and legs. These did the real work of suspending the actor and were later removed digitally.
THE VISUAL EFFECTS
Visual effects took over for the supernatural aspects of Moghedien’s Dark Powers, the moment when Jaichim’s soul is separated from his body, and the transformation into a Gray Man begins.
Additional VFX work included enhancing the practical atmosphere with digital fog, stunt rigging removal, and subtly augmenting his eyes, skin tone, and the veining created by the makeup effects team. Like many of the best moments in fantasy filmmaking, the sequence blended VFX with costumes, makeup effects, special effects, and the art department, each contributing thier best work to sell the illusion in support of the story and the director’s vision for the sequence.
The finished scene is unsettling in all the right ways. Have a look at the sequence here.
Note: (The Gray Man sequence Thomas Napper directed had been filmed for the tail end of episode 3, “Seeds of Shadow”; but was moved to the tail end of episode 01, “To Race the Shadow”).