When FX and Disney+ launched Alien: Earth  late this summer, fans expected xenomorphs, facehuggers and chestbursters . What no one expected was a sheep possessed by an alien eyeball staring out of its skull. ⚠️  Spoiler warning : This article contains details from Episodes 4 and 6 of Alien:Earth. For this new story within the Alien universe, rather than relying solely on the classic Xenomorph, the series has expanded the menagerie with a host of unsettling new organisms. We’ve seen grotesque, giant ticks (dubbed the Leech or Species 19), and even flies that can chew through metals, alloys and minerals, upping the danger for the seemingly indestructible hybrids at the story’s core. The standout species, however, is Species 26. Also known as the “Eye Midge” or "The Eye parasite", this tentacled eyeball whose iris can split into multiple smaller eyes or come together as one single, disturbing, gaze, has quickly become one of the show’s most talked-about creatures. Even surpassing the almighty Xenomorph. And with the season finale just around the corner, let’s explore how the production and FX team brought this cute nightmare to life. “THE EYE” PARASITE ©FX / Disney The Eye parasite, officially classified in the series as Trypanohyncha Ocellus, went through several design iterations before making its debut. As showrunner Noah Hawley  explained to The Hollywood Reporter , it initially had just legs and was very fast. But it was VFX supervisor Jonathan Rothbart  who suggested a major upgrade: suckers. “[The suckers] was a really great upgrade for the original conceit where before, it just had to run as fast as it could at you. Now it can fly (...), propel itself, stick to you and you’re basically trying to fight it off ”, Noah Hawley, showrunner The showrunner also drew a direct comparison with the iconic facehugger. Whereas it forces its way down the throat, the Eye parasite takes control through the eye socket. “It just felt like it’s designed to play into that genetic revulsion”, he added. ©FX / Disney Beyond its weird biology, the Eye parasite is characterized by its behavior: it is smart, cunning... and unnervingly observant. Not like the other aliens, who are hunters, always looking for food. As for why a sheep, Hawley told SciFiNow : “The sheep was just what I typed in that moment. You know goats have a sort of satanic presence in our stories; sheep are just kind of daft and smelly, but in an innocent kind of way. And I really liked the idea that, much like Monty Python did with the rabbit, we might take the sheep and make people look at it in a very different way” HOW THEY BROUGHT IT TO LIFE? Though there’s no full VFX breakdown released yet, interviews with cast, crew and articles give us a good map of what was done, including a clever blend of practical effects, puppetry, CGI and even creative camerawork. A singular POV.  Because the Eye has one globe but multiple shifting irises, the cinematographers gave us a point of view using an in-camera kaleidoscopic filter, letting the audience “see” through its fractured, hyper-observant vision. Director of Photography Colin Watkinson  (one of the series’ DPs, alongside David Franco, Dana and Bella Gonzalez) introduced the filter on set. According to Ryan McGregor, the show’s main unit Digital Imaging Technician, they usually “shot wide open on the V-Lite Lenses with a bit of nose grease on the filter”. Kaleidoscopic filter | ©FX / Disney On set. To help actors and cameras find their marks, the crew used a practical eyeball prop as a stand-in, as showed in a featurette . This was part of a larger philosophy of keeping something physical in the frame, even when CGI would later replace it. “You always want as much in camera as possible, even if you're not gonna use it because it gives you so much information and gives the actor something to act around, and gives the DP something to light around, and gives the director something to direct around. So, it's a huge part of the process”, VFX supervisor Jonathan Rothbart In post. The puppet was only a starting point. In postproduction, the Eye was fully replaced with CGI and that’s where it came alive. How it moves, how it launches itself, how it observes before striking: all decisions made by the team of animators behind this creature. In captivity, they sometimes played it as cute, small and light, with its tentacles pressed against the glass. But when it's free? It's a violent, fast and strong little creature that aims for your eye socket, only to fall back into silence once inside a host, watching everything with its shifting irises. “I always try and think about why this creature does what it does. I need to know why it's doing these choices it's making. I try to treat it in a directorial way, because in doing that, it can help inform me on how I want to have him animated to act in the scene”, VFX supervisor Jonathan Rothbart on FX’s official podcast Victoria the sheep.  For early shots, the production filmed with a real sheep , nicknamed Victoria. To keep her stock-still and staring, her handler scratched her belly with a green-gloved pole, as explained in Polygon . Once infected, Victoria was swapped for a Wētā Workshop animatronic double , which was uncannily similar to the real thing. CGI then enhanced the iris splitting and other alien touches. “It was quite limited in movement, but it was able to do these creepy things. I mean, it looked creepy to begin with, as it was just standing still, and it was able to cock its head and chew very slowly and do little weird things with its eyes”, Ugla Hauksdóttir, director of episode 6, on the animatronic In humans.  A similar method was used when the Eye infects Schmuel, an engineer aboard the USCSS Maginot . Prosthetics handled the initial look, while CG refined the alien eye itself and possibly blended transitions between live action and digital augmentation. Ultimately, it was the blend of animatronics, live performance, and digital artistry that made the Eye parasite feel real. And while fans still wait for full VFX breakdowns, one thing is clear: the Eye Midge has earned its place in the Alien bestiary.

Recently, a theory has been gaining traction online: that Botox might be ruining cinema. It sounds like a hot take, but the idea actually taps into film theory, psychology and contemporary Hollywood practice. Freakier Friday | ©D isney If cinema is built on the power of the face, what happens when the face is frozen? THE SCIENCE OF BOTOX AND EMOTION Botox (noun/trademark) : a drug prepared from  botulin , used medically to treat certain muscular conditions and cosmetically to remove wrinkles by temporarily paralysing facial muscles (Oxford dictionary) With the rise of Botox, psychologists have studied what happens when facial muscles are paralyzed and the results are mixed. On the one hand, smoothing wrinkles may boost self-esteem, and can even help with depression . On the other, it can “undermine the ability to understand the facial expressions of other people”, as a 2016 study published in ScienceDaily found. Another study published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal  (2019) also found that Botox injections had a “significant effect on the perception of anger and surprise”, altering how emotions are read both by the person expressing them and the person observing them. Psychologist Paul Ekman , who pioneered facial expressions and emotions research, made this clear: micro-expressions are involuntary cues that reveal hidden emotion. Remove them, and you risk dulling authenticity; the very currency of cinematic performance. And this matters. If the face cannot move, emotion cannot flow. Thus, connection cannot happen. THE FACE IN CLASSIC CINEMA The Hungarian film theorist Béla Balázs  understood this a century ago. In his essay Visible Man  (1924), Balázs argued that cinema’s unique power lay in the close-up, which revealed hidden things of life that we thought we already knew so well. “The whole of mankind is now busy relearning the long-forgotten language of gestures and facial expression. This language is [...] the visual corollary of human souls immediately made flesh”, Visible Man. Silent stars embodied this principle. Greta Garbo , widely celebrated for her expressive face, built her mystique on the arch of an eyebrow and the faintest shift of her lips ( Barthes, Mythologies , 1957). Even Charlie Chaplin’s  comedy relied on minute eye flickers and half-smiles as much as pratfalls. With the arrival of sound, performances shifted, took a more naturalistic style. By mid-century, actors mastered the art of doing “less”, trusting the camera to magnify a twitch or a glance into full dramatic weight. “In closeups every wrinkle becomes a crucial element of character and every twitch of a muscle testifies to a pathos that signal great inner events”, Visible Man Decades later, Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard  would immortalize this truth in its closing line: “Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up”.  Gloria Swanson’s face fills the screen, embodying everything Balázs claimed. So, if micro-expressions are cinema’s heartbeat, what happens when Botox erases them? BOTOX IN MOVIES TODAY We now live in the age of the “Instagram face” (sometimes called “iPhone face”): a blend of Botox, fillers and filters. “Baby Botox”,  injections given preventively from a young age, is marketed as routine self-care. In Hollywood, it has become common and, for many, even mandatory. The result? Audiences are taken aback by emotionless faces. Not able to connect to the story. Lindsay Lohan , in her Freakier Friday  sequel, sparked online commentary that her frozen expressions made emotional scenes feel flat. Anne Hathaway has also been criticized for the same lack of eyebrow mobility. And what about Nicole Kidman ? Is she angry? Sad? The pressure is gendered but spreading. Women over 35 feel pushed to “freshen up” to keep roles; men increasingly follow. Winona Ryder  admitted in   Elle that directors — including women — told her to “relax your forehead” with Botox. She refused: “I’m trying to be a great actor”.  In other cases, Amanda Seyfried  gave up Botox altogether to meet director Mona Fastvold’s demand for a raw, makeup-free role, as published by People . But not everyone sees Botox as a threat to acting (mostly because it seems to be unavoidable). As one Hollywood practitioner explained, the “secret” is in timing injections around filming schedules and using them lightly, to soften lines without fully freezing the face, as published in PopSugar . " I have directors or producers that complain about working with somebody who, in a scene where they have to look surprised, can only make their eyeballs pop. I'll work with the actor and makeup artist, so we can plan Botox around certain scenes" , dermatologist Francesca Fusco , MD This is the paradox: directors want expression, but without the lines it creates. The result is a casting battlefield where faces are caught between beauty standards and expressive needs. THE COST OF PARALYZED FACES Audiences may not always articulate it, but they feel it. A frozen face can read as empty, uncanny, disconnected. When too many characters can’t wrinkle a brow, stories risk losing their emotional resonance. Cinema has always exploited beauty, but its soul lies in the imperfections  that close-ups reveal: a twitch of anxiety, a wrinkle of grief, the moist shimmer of an eye. Too much Botox erases those imperfections. And with them, perhaps, part of cinema itself. Is that one more piece of the puzzle of why so many recent films feel lifeless? Another layer to the algorithmic scripts, now with expressionless actors?

Critterz is the name of the film. “Is this AI’s ‘Toy Story’ moment?” , asked Los Angeles Times , which marked the arrival of 3D animation as a mainstream force. The film is produced by Los Angeles–based Native Foreign (the same team behind the controversial Toys’R’us ad  in 2024), in collaboration with London’s Vertigo Films and OpenAI. And it’s already fueling debate online. So, here’s the tea. FROM SHORT TO FEATURE Critterz  originated in 2023 as a short film by OpenAI creative specialist Chad Nelson and Native Foreign’s Nik Kleverov. It used OpenAI’s image generator DALL·E for its visuals, and was earlier this year “remastered” with Sora . The self-proclaimed “first-ever AI-generated short” screened at Annecy Animation film festival, Tribeca and Cannes Lions, and was nominated for a Producers Guild Innovation Award, according to Native Foreign .   The film follows a community of forest creatures whose village is disrupted by a stranger, setting them off on an adventure. “By saying that we are embarking on this, I think it can hopefully open the door for more AI projects to also come out, and we can hopefully see a wave of new great storytelling”, Nik Kleverov, chief creative officer of Native Foreign Today, after securing copyright through law firm Perkins Coie , Critterz  is now being developed into a full-length "AI animated movie" with writers James Lamont and Jon Foster, the duo behind Paddington in Peru. According to Vertigo Films , the production will also employ artists to provide sketches that feed into OpenAI’s tools and cast human actors for the voices. The feature is expected to be completed in just nine months  on a budget of less than $30 million . For comparison, a “traditional” 3D animated film such as Toy Story 4  can cost up to $200 million and take three to four years to make. By contrast, the Oscar-winning indie movie Flow , was made for $3.5 million using the open-source 3D software Blender , but took the small team five and a half years of work to finalize it. ©Flow REACTIONS ABOUT THE AI ANIMATED MOVIE The announcement comes as debate continues over the use of AI in film. Ongoing lawsuits, including Disney and Universal’s case against Midjourney , highlight unresolved questions about copyright and creative ownership. Many are asking the same question: to AI or not to AI , including us. Meanwhile, audience reactions so far remain harsh and sceptical. As of September 11, 2025, the original Critterz  short on YouTube has more than 75,000 views , with largely negative comments (but not a single thumbs down). On LinkedIn, too, the discussion is heated (at least according to our algorithm), reflecting a mix of hate and fear with a hint of curiosity (to see them fail).   Still, Kleverov aims to create a legitimate contender within mainstream cinema, “a really great film”, as reported by the Los Angeles Times . “The last thing I want [the audience] to think about is AI. (...) I think we’re going to see a revolution of independent cinema because you’re going to be able to tell so many more stories”, Kleverov. Only time will tell if Critterz becomes AI’s Toy Story  moment or if it will be yet another name on the long list of another box office flop , AI or not.

Have you ever been to a symphonic concert featuring the greatest hits of John Williams? If not, we highly recommend it, especially if you ever get the rare chance to see the maestro himself conduct. It’s spine-tingling. Exciting. Different from any other concert, as it carries an additional emotional baggage with it. You’re instantly transported through time and space. And if you grew up with his films, you’ll feel that same childhood wonder and excitement rush back into your veins. Image from Music by John Williams | ©Disney Now, that same experience is expanding. On November 8, 2025, Los Angeles will host Future Ruins , a new festival dedicated entirely to film and television music. The one-day event was created by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, longtime collaborators known for their work in Nine Inch Nails  as well as scores for films like The Social Network , Gone Girl , and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo . The goal? To bring together a diverse group of composers (from cult icons to Emmy and Oscar winners) and present their work in a rare live setting, as explained in the festival’s website : “Each artist is encouraged to take big swings and reimagine their work for a live audience. Ranging from electronic sets and live bands to orchestral performances, fans have the chance to experience live debuts from composers who rarely appear onstage” WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? A soundtrack is as essential to a movie as popcorn is to the moviegoing experience. It’s cultural. Timeless. It’s the emotional architecture beneath every scene, shaping how we feel even when we’re not fully aware of it. As the saying goes in the industry: you can save a mediocre film with the right music .  “The greatest way to demonstrate how much music affects movies, play it absolutely with no music at all. And then go back, and do the whole scene again, with all the cues”, Steven Spielberg on Music by John Williams documentary. Yes, scores guide us through suspense, triumph, grief and revelation. In some cases, the music becomes as iconic as the movie itself. Think of the James Bond  theme: big brass, bold rhythm, instantly recognizable. You simply can’t make a Bond film without it. (By the way, if that interests you, check out The Sound of 007 ,  a deep dive into how the music was composed and shaped the Bond legacy). In recent years, the boundary between traditional composers and popular musicians has blurred. Artists like Trent Reznor, Tyler Bates  (Marilyn Manson’s guitarist and composer of 300, the John Wick  series and the Pearl saga), and Geoff Barrow  (Portishead’s multi-instrumentalist and co-composer of Ex Machina  and Annihilation ) have gained recognition in both the industries. But for fans, the experience of these scores remains mostly passive, consumed through headphones or embedded within a film. FROM MOVIE THEATERS TO FESTIVALS This shift isn’t coming out of nowhere. For years, fans have flocked to symphonic concert tours dedicated to legendary composers like John Williams , whose music from Star Wars , Jurassic Park  and Harry Potter  has been performed live by orchestras around the world. Hans Zimmer , perhaps the most high-profile film composer working today, has sold out arenas with his live shows. Still, most of these concerts seem to focus on orchestral works, aka “the new classical”. But what about other composers working outside that mold? What about Cristobal Tapia de Veer , whose strange, layered and deeply satisfying score for The White Lotus  helped define the show’s tone? Or John Carpenter , who composed his own minimalist electronic soundtracks for films like The Thing and Halloween ? "Going from Hollywood studios to Boston (Pops) was very, very satisfying [...]. There's an orchestra, there's an audience. The music is brought to life. People applaud. And for the wounded ego of a Hollywood composer who never has an audience to get some applause, it's lovely", John Williams Future Ruins is here for that. It’s a platform that invites composers of all kinds onto the same stage, with a lineup that reads like a who’s who of modern screen music like: Danny Elfman (Beetlejuice, Batman...) , Hildur Guðnadóttir ( Joker, Chernobyl, Sicario...), Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin   (Suspiria, Dawn of the dead...) and Terence Blanchard (Cadillac Records, Inside Man, etc.),  to mention a few. The event also features a rare performance of Howard Shore’s score for Crash of David Cronenberg. Shore, for the record, is the legendary composer behind Lord of the Rings , The Fly and many of Cronenberg’s films. “There’s no hierarchy. Every artist is a headliner”, Trent Reznor. Even if most of us won’t make it to Future Ruins  this year, the festival represents something larger: a growing recognition that film scoring deserves the spotlight and the stage . Hopefully, it’s the beginning of a broader movement, one where composers step into the spotlight, and fans finally get to hear the music that made them cry, scream, or cheer... all while replaying the movie in their minds.

I was recently asked about the last movie I truly and I mean really enjoyed. The kind you'd enthusiastically recommend to your friends or family. And... it took me longer than it should have. Which is sad. (It was The Rule of Jenny Penn , now on Shudder). Electric State | ©Netflix We’re living in a strange moment where mainstream movies, especially sci-fi and epic action-adventure blockbusters, have never looked better (most of the time). And yet, after (half) watching Netflix’s latest big-budget sci-fi, The Electric State , I got bored. Bored and mad. I used to love these kinds of movies. Used to long for them. But now? I don’t even care. And I'm not the only one saying it. "They've ruined the movies we loved", I hear people complaining. They are pretty, yes. But also, pretty dumb. This isn’t an isolated issue. It’s symptomatic of a much bigger shift. A shift toward algorithmic “content”. Sure, films are visually stunning, but increasingly forgettable. And forgettable, honestly, is probably the worst thing a movie can be. Being good-looking is not enough anymore . Spectacle used to bring awe, wonder and originality. Today it’s industrialized, copy-pasted, slapped onto everything. But at what cost? The spectacle has grown brighter. Louder. Emptier. And The Electric State  might be the epitome of it all. How did we get here? And more importantly, where do we go next? WHY DO WE LIKE MOVIES? In the book Writing a Great Movie , Jeff Kitchen talks about drama historically serving a kind of shamanistic function: it shows those watching how to transform themselves . We, as an audience, seek guidance in our lives. Before making big decisions, we watch what others have done around us in similar situations and, depending on the consequences of their actions, we adjust accordingly. Similarly, movies offer a safe, fictional space where we experiment with forbidden ideas, radical solutions and provocative scenarios. “The key word in the entertainment industry is outrageousness ”, Jeff Kitchen Movies are meant to push boundaries, test limits, ask uncomfortable questions. But in an era dominated by hyper-political correctness, studios sanitize scripts, simplify motivations and flatten complexity to avoid offending anyone and reach the widest possible audience. The result? Good-looking forgettable movies. At the same time, big-budget productions also scramble to keep up with fast-paced algorithms and our shrinking attention spans, churning out films like they’re reels, optimized for metrics, not meaning . In the process, they’ve forgotten what makes films matter: the story. And the thing is: good stories take time. Time to write, to rethink, to feel dangerous before they feel finished. ALGORITHMIC AESTHETICS The Electric State  is based on a striking and haunting universe created by Simon Stålenhag , a Swedish artist known for blending decaying sci-fi tech into everyday life. His work carries a sense of doom, loneliness and isolation, but also wonder and beauty. Kind of like Blade Runner 2049. Seriously, if you don't know his graphic novels, look him up! His universes are incredible. So why, despite having such promising source material and a whooping $320 million budget , does The Electric State  leave viewers completely indifferent? Well, it’s probably because every creative decision feels engineered by data, like casting decisions based on Instagram follower counts, frictionless emotional beats, empty dialogue. This film feels manufactured for the “second-screen watch” or “casual viewing” as described by Will Tavlin in N+1 : “Netflix’s movies don’t have to abide by any of the norms established over the history of cinema: they don’t have to be profitable, pretty, sexy, intelligent, funny, well-made, or anything else that pulls audiences into theater seats”. It's not just Netflix. We're seeing the emergence of algorithmic cinema everywhere: stories reverse-engineered from platform metrics, past viewer habits, and AI-chosen scripts. Platforms like Largo.ai  literally quantify screenplay potential, calculating which star should headline, which narrative paths have historically worked best, and assigning percentage probabilities of success. It saves time on decision-making, certainly. But, somewhere along the line, it kills innovation. Creativity. Type-cast heroes | ©Netflix Risky ideas vanish, radical concepts get shelved, and we’re left with endless reruns of safe dystopias (or utopias) and market-tested type-cast heroes. Look, movies are undeniably products, and they must sell. But Hollywood’s current formula isn’t working. Audiences are growing bored. It's stagnating and... it might not even be (totally) their fault. “In doing so, [Netflix] has brought Hollywood to the brink of irrelevance. Because Netflix doesn’t just survive when no one is watching — it thrives”, Will Tavlin THE SILVER LINING It's easy to criticize The Electric State  as a failure because it missed Stålenhag’s original genre, but that’s not really the heart of the problem. The real issue is that it doesn't hit any tone or theme at all. It leaves you feeling nothing. We don't care about the characters, we don't feel their journey. But here’s the good news: audiences are getting tired of recycled franchises, reboots and nostalgia gimmicks. They’re becoming vocal about their fatigue, craving authenticity and fresh stories again. This moment feels somewhat similar to Hollywood’s change of direction in the 90s, from tired franchises that flopped hard (rings any bells?) to indie filmmakers with a distinct voice. “A series of big-budget flops led studios to gamble on idiosyncratic, independent-minded directorial voices and less conventional fare with countercultural energy”, The Take . Are we seeing the same thing today? Are indie mid-budget movies coming back? Hard to say, given the big differences in how media and content is consumed and produced nowadays vs the pre-social media era. But, there’s hope. Just as studios in the ’90s took chances on indie films — think Miramax or IFC Studios (both still around today) — we’re now also seeing players such as A24 and Shudder gain passionate followings by offering bold, original alternatives. Even platforms like  MUBI are finding traction with films like The Substance  by staying focused on cinéma d’auteur. The Substance | ©MUBI So, here’s the deal: if you’re an indie filmmaker with a script abandoned somewhere in your computer: finish it. Now might be your perfect moment. Take the creative risks algorithms will never be able to do (at least not without our input). Because there’s one thing data-driven cinema can not replicate: A story shaped by flaws, opinions and lived experiences, told with your own vision.

A digital simulation is what happens when you try to make natural elements behave on cue, in rhythm, under direction. You guide it. Shape it. So that fluid becomes a bottle of wine. So that a specific wave hits a ship at exactly the right moment. 2012 Los Angeles destruction sim | ©Columbia Pictures It’s the art of introducing controlled chaos into a scene. Technically speaking, it's the process of using software to recreate physical phenomena by defining rules based on real-world physics, instead of animating it frame by frame. Fire, smoke, fluids, cloth, hair, destruction — these are the type of elements that are more often than not simulated because animating them manually would be painfully slow, and nearly impossible to make look real. And the beauty of it is that you can art direct the motion. Give it purpose. Make it serve the narrative, the emotion, the frame. Think of how every superhero cape feels perfectly timed. That’s thanks to CGI . Simulated and sculpted. But simulation wasn't always possible. It all started at the end of the 1900... A BIT OF HISTORY Recently, the Season 2 of Light & Magic in Disney+ was released. The docuseries traces how ILM was built around a simple idea: use technology to help artists do things no one had done before. To push the boundaries of digital effects, at a time when they were still at their embryonic stage. To do so, George Lucas brought together a team from every corner of creativity and engineering. Artists, animators, sculptors, coders, engineers, tinkerers. People who could imagine the impossible and others who could code the programs to make it real. Among them is Habib Zargarpour, known as ‘the particle guy’. “Particles have a mind of their own. When you simulate, you have millions of them and you have to just give them general guidelines. You can have forces of attraction, forces that repel or have them collide with things. But you can’t say this particle’s going to do this thing”, Habib Zargarpour, ILM CG Supervisor. His early work included The Mask (1994), where he had to add a green gas effect whenever a character took off the mask. But the real test came when Spielberg asked: “Can you do a tornado?”. It was for the movie Twister  (1996).  They tested the VFX, before even having the script | ©ILM That work unlocked something new: water simulation. Enter: The Perfect Storm  (2000). A massive challenge. They needed an ocean that could be directed . Which meant it had to be CG. But, as Masi Oka, ILM digital effects artist, said: "human skin and water are the hardest to do with CG". And it was. The sheer scale of it, pushed both the technology and the artists to the edge. To complete the shots, they used digital layering : rendering multiple simulations separately (waves, ships, foam, splashes) and combining them into the final shot. As explained in the docuseries, it took 90 days of render time to produce one second of final simulation. “We were creating revolutionary new technology, just so we could digitally drown George Clooney”, Masi Oka, ILM digital effects artist. Since then, the technology hasn’t stopped evolving, giving artists more control over simulations with every passing year. CONTROLLED CHAOS Particle simulation is therefore a process that requires a different mindset than traditional animation. And this is important for filmmakers to keep in mind when working with VFX teams. “Because tiny variations [...] never repeat and vastly affect the outcome”, Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Parc, 1993. As Zargarpour previously noted, the artist defines the forces, materials and constraints, but the final result emerges from the physics itself. That’s because simulations rely on a web of interconnected variables, where a single change can ripple through the entire system. However, today’s tools allow for more control. You can assign a seed to make a sim repeatable, or isolate and modify a section depending on the software. Even so, a minor tweak can still mean days of rework. Because, at its core, a simulation is still what the name suggests. You’re influencing a system with millions of particles moving in interdependence. In a way, you’re playing God. It's about experimentation. About learning how to nudge the system toward the result you want. And often, there’s more than one path to get there. And that’s the beauty of it: the unpredictability. The organic, semi-random quality that makes it feel alive. The magic happens when you finally achieve the look you aimed for or, better yet, when something unexpected turns out even stronger. To have more control over the frames, many productions turn to hybrid approaches : blending simulations with hand animation. This is the case of Davy Jones’ beard in Pirates of the Caribbean. Of the 40+ tentacles, only eight were hand-animated, meaning they could be precisely controlled. The rest were simulated, giving the beard its unsettling, sticky organic motion. A similar technique was done in The Last of Us  (2023), where the cordyceps fungus erupting from infected mouths were part simulation, part animation . The sim brought realism and chaos. The animation brought timing and control, as explained by Espen Nordahl, VFX Supervisor at Storm Studios . In the end, simulation is what happens when you take something wild (water, fire, cloth, debris) and make it perform. You control it. Art direct it. Which can be as gratifying as it is nerve-wracking. Because let’s be honest: sometimes those particles? They act like they have a mind of their own (again, as the particle guy said himself). Test of a giant walking through a fire sim |  ©Orbitae So, what is a sim? It’s the art of introducing controlled chaos into a scene. to performance. Artists tweak parameters, shape forces, and build containers for that chaos — until the result feels juuuuuust right.

When the trailer for Good Boy  blew up online this summer, IFC moved the indie film from a limited run to a wide release . Why you may ask? Because this new horror movie is told from a dog’s point of view. And everyone online, unusually united for once, had the same visceral reaction: “That dog better not die”. This is the unspoken contract between audience and filmmaker whenever an animal is on screen. It’s why   Does the dog die?  is a website, a meme and a shorthand for trust. Put a dog at the center of your film and you can expect viewers to project worry, empathy and protectiveness. Even villains know better than to hurt the pet... and if they dare, well, expect the Baba Yaga to come get them (and the audience to cheer him on). But why do dogs move us so much? Ethologists remind us that they have evolved alongside humans for tens of thousands of years, becoming expert at reading our expressions and even developing eyebrows to communicate with us (or manipulate us into giving them treats!). That innate ability to connect makes them great performers... even though they don’t really know what they’re doing. “Everything that the dog does, is a reflection of either my body language or tone of voice. You give very direct cues — one word and one syllable commands — and you get a quick reaction to what you’re asking him to do”, Teresa Ann Miller, dog trainer on White Dog That’s why we understood John Wick ’s killing spree after his puppy was murdered. That’s why Marley & Me remains one of the most manipulative movies ever made. And that’s why entire films and series can be built around dogs, sometimes without humans at all, like Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. So why would a director ever use a CG dog instead of the real thing? THE CASE FOR REAL DOGS Real dogs bring authenticity, unpredictability and charm. Sometimes their improvisations become happy accidents, as when Milo in The Mask  refused to let go of the bank money or the frisbee, allowing Jim Carrey to improvise around it. But working with dogs is demanding: they miss marks, need extensive pre-production training and require trainers to give constant cues during takes. Which in turn means dialogue usually has to be dubbed later too. Productions also usually cycle through more than one dog for the same character, both to avoid overworking them and to draw on different strengths or quirks, creating a richer, fuller performance on screen. On the other hand, you’ll be under heavy scrutiny from audiences and animal welfare organizations. That said, dogs have generally fared better than other animal actors. Unlike horses, there are few reports of systemic abuse and some canines have enjoyed star treatment, like Rin Tin Tin in the 1920s. All in all, they’re expensive to have, yes, but also bankable and audiences’ affection for them makes them one of the safest bets. THE HYBRID APPROACH Sometimes the solution is part real, part digital. A classic example is Frank the pug in Men in Black , whose mouth was digitally animated to deliver dialogue. Or David Fincher’s The Killer , where the pitbull's wagging tail was removed in post because it broke the menace of the scene. These tweaks allow filmmakers to keep a living, breathing dog on screen, while using VFX to fine-tune performance. "That was quite a commitment, there was a lot of stuff with that dog shot through a chain-link fence. So, it was no easy task to remove a wagging tale", Kirk Baxter, editor of the movie. THE FULLY DIGITAL Other times, the dog needs to do the impossible or the unsafe. That’s when films go all in on CG. With those, audiences are often skeptical. But when done with care, it works. Take Krypto in James Gunn’s Superman (2025), which was done in CG because of his super strength and ability to fly. Framestore  (the ones that did Rocket in Guardians of the Galaxy) built the character using the director’s own rescue pup, Ozu. They 3D captured its frame and used videos of the dog to help animators capture his soul, as reported by CNN . On set, actress Murphy Weed provided motion-capture performance and a real dog named Jolene was used as a stand-in. The result? He stole the show! Audiences loved him, despite knowing he was pixels and fur shaders. So, in the end, to CG or not to CG comes down to the same calculus as practical blood or digital splatter : budget, time and what you need the scene to do. In the dog’s case, whether flesh-and-blood, hybrid or digital, what matters is the connection, not the pipeline. A dog on screen carries the weight of our trust, a contract. If filmmakers honour that contract, audiences will care for your character.

There it was—one star. A tiny, intangible little star, that carried so much meaning in everyone's life. It could determine the rise or demise of a business, a dream. Even a life. Generated with Midjourney As a kid, it was about grades, a way to keep track of how much we learned every year. As an adult, it’s about stars, a government’s method to control people’s behavior. We saw it on fictional series, a foreshadowing of what was to come, but no one believed it would be a reality. Fast-forward, it did. So, I learned to lay low, to keep it under the radar… but today? Today went sideways. Hard. You see, one star rating, nothing happens. Two stars... people start noticing. But three stars on your social skills? They send you to the the psychiatrist... And I hate psychiatrists. It was a Karen on steroids. Oh, she was nasty. “Such a disgusting looking creature… Just disgusting”, she sneered while chewing a bright pink gum that matched her painted cheeks. “Pardon me?”, I blurted, concealing it back in my pocket. “D-E-S-gus-tin’. Don’t ya understand tha word? What is it anyways? Some sort of deformed baby or somethin’?” Offended, I stood up. Not to fight, but to tower. Height was all I had. She, on the other hand, was short. Short, but sharp. “What? Ya’ think ya scary? Tall and all? Uh-huh, not to me. So disgusting”. She proceeded to blow a bubble of gum so big, it almost covered her entire face. POP! I was torn. My eyelid flinched. Should I storm out of the bus at the next stop? Correct her spelling of "disgusting"? Or find a strong yet politically correct way to put her in her place? As I was still thinking on the best way to address the situation, the bus came to an abrupt halt, causing her to lose her balance. She fell, front first, onto my dry, skeletal elbow. As a result, she choked on her gum and spat it onto the hair of an elderly woman sitting in front of us. Hesitant, the lady reached out for her pearly curls. Her fingers found it with ease: a pink mass tangled in silver strings. Her eyes widened. Her neck twisted far. Too far. Farther than it should... and looked at us. I was like a fish out of the water. Confused and aghast. Sneaky Karen, again, was very quick: “Not me! Uh-huh. He the one guilty here, hitting me and all with his spiky dead ass elbows, making me almost choke to death, ya know?" The gum-afflicted woman took her phone, scanned me and Karen, and gave us one star each. Infuriated, Karen also took her phone and did the same, giving me a second star with a comment as a side “rude and desgustin’” . I was discombobulated. The third and last one, was a gift from Karen’s supportive friend. They all went off the bus on the next stop. I? Well, I had to go to the psychiatrist the very next day. “What was the creature?” “What do you mean?” “The creature she said was disgusting”, the psychiatrist inquired, sitting across the table with a pen in hand, as he peered at me over his glasses with a slight tilt of his head. “Oh, well...”, I hesitated at first, but decided to come clean, "here she is”. I took her out of my trench coat and showed her to him. He was, to say the least, astonished. In my hands was a curled little hairless cat. “Should be extinct”, I specified and added, “Found her yesterday near a dumpsite. Couldn’t bring myself to leave her there. All cold and wet. So, I decided to take her home and that's when I met this girl on the bus and then...”, I leaned back on my chair and muttered, "well, you know the rest...”. The cat purred in my huge hands, almost camouflaging itself in them. “Is it… is it a dog?” The mind-expert took a closer look. “A cat” “Does it eat?” “Of course! Like us, they need food, warm and love” “But it’s forbidden. You know that, right?” “Yes” “So, why show it to me?” “You seemed like a reasonable person” The cat meowed as I put her on the doctor's desk, where she sniffed, purred and played with a pen. She was a curious little creature. He was amused and somewhat fascinated. We were not used to seeing these animals around nowadays. After the “Great Pet Crisis” - now known as “GPC” -, it was determined that humans could not have domesticated animals anymore. There were far too many irresponsible owners who abandoned them, an abundance of unscrupulous pet shops that sold them carelessly, and countless animals roaming the streets. Many ended up in veterinary clinics with deformed bodies resulting from centuries of selfish breeding. Animal shelters were overflowing, and the list of issues seemed endless. All it took was one country to make a stand. It did not take long before the rest followed suit. However, what began with good intentions led to a terrible fate for dogs, cats, tortoises, ferrets, bunnies, and even lizards: they were eradicated. Why? Well, not long after the prohibition, a war on illegal pet trafficking began. The government's solution was simple: if pets no longer existed, humans couldn't possess them, and illegal trafficking would end. Thus, the "GPC Enforcement Act" was implemented. It was a massacre. Over time, we replaced them with robots, which we grew accustomed to. They were easier to care for—no pee to clean up, no hairy clothes or chewed shoes, and best of all: no more vet bills. But there was no love, either. This all happened a century ago. I was born into a petless world. But there's a rumor that this ordeal left people despondent. It changed us. The roots of our partnership with animals were so deep, that the barbaric act had an unprecedented effect on humanity. We became lonely. Very lonely. “Can… can I touch it?”, asked my appointed psychiatrist. I nodded. He rubbed his hands together and then extended his elongated, slightly bent finger due to arthritis, towards the little creature. But she was a sneaky one. Until, at last, contact was made. He was conquered. As was I. How could Karen not be? I left the psychiatrist’s office with a cat in my pocket and a year's worth of appointments scheduled. “The patient needs a weekly session for a year – at least – to make sure he does not do anything borderline, in order to avoid any one-star behavior”, the doctor’s notice read. It was a deal: I could keep the cat and my psychiatrist could see her once a week. We became friends, real friends the three of us. The kind of friends that, like pets, were rare, if not non-existent. The kind of friends that kept a secret for almost 17 years. In the end, they were not so bad after all, these psychiatrists. Alex Iwanoff

Imagine two identical balls rolling toward each other. In silence, most viewers think they simply pass through. But add a brief collision‑like click , and suddenly they seem to bounce off each other instead. This is the optical trick called the cross-bounce illusion. Batman: The Dark Knight – Master Race | ©DC Comics This effect was explored in a study  published in Scientific Reports , which showed that even imagined collision sounds can shift perception: participants who heard  a collision noise were significantly more likely to see  a bounce than those who didn’t. This reveals something simple, but powerful: the brain fuses sight and sound . We don’t process visual and auditory information in isolation. On the contrary, we integrate them to build our version of reality. In ambiguous visual scenarios, sound steers what we think we see. And it’s not just in science labs. This idea shows up everywhere, even in written format, like comic books or scripts. Think about it: KABOOM! CRACK! POOM!  You don’t actually hear them, but your brain does something with those cues. It helps make the action feel more immediate, more real. Snippet from The Substanc e script And this is a fact one must not overlook when doing a film. Yes, music  sets the tone and emotion of a scene. But when it comes to grounding the action itself—especially when the action isn’t real—sound design does the heavy lifting. It tells us what’s hard, what’s heavy, what’s moving fast or slow. And that’s where visual effects meet their invisible partner: sound design . Because when it’s done right, synchronization anchors believability.  VFX WITHOUT SOUND IS HALF THE STORY Visual effects without the right sound? They just don’t land. They feel hollow. Fake. Think of a volcano  erupting: the roar, ground-rumbling bass, debris crackling—without these, the scene falls flat, unbelievable. A brawl without the hitting sounds? You might as well be watching rehearsal footage (and even those have enhanced sounds!). “Sound design immerses you in the film’s world and stirs your emotion”, Filmustage Ben Burtt recording sounds for Star Wars This is already true for every genre (I mean, what is horror  without the wet, bone-crunching sound effects?), but it becomes absolutely critical when what you’re seeing on screen doesn’t exist at all . Take the iconic sounds of Star Wars. Like the VZOOM VZOOM  (yes, you heard it!) of the lightsabers or the PEWW PEWW  of the laser guns. These were created by sound designer Ben Burtt, who faced the challenge of bringing an entire galaxy to life through sound alone. To give you an example, the shriek of the TIE fighters drew inspiration from WWII German dive bombers. The Ju‑87 Stuka were equipped with mechanical sirens called Jericho Trumpets . These weren’t tactical. Au contraire, they were installed purely for psychological impact, for terror. They announced the incoming chaos. To create the same unease, Ben Burtt blended elephant calls with wet pavement tire noise, and added a Doppler effect to sell the motion. And voilà, a designed fear, echoing real-world trauma from a galaxy not so far away. “Sound is what truly convinces the mind is in a place; in other words, ‘hearing is believing’”, Jesse Schell, Video game designer and CEO of Schell Games. So, again, when audio falls short, everything falls apart. The LA Film School  warns that sloppy audio can “ruin otherwise spectacular production”. No matter how gorgeous the simulation  is or how scary your monster looks, if the audio isn’t there, credibility crumbles. This is also the reason why you can sometimes save  a mediocre effect with strong sound, or even skip the effect altogether and just suggest it with audio. Yes, you don’t always need to show it, just let your audience hear it. “Sound is much more violent than images. There’s something physical, immediate about it—almost hand-to-hand. To make someone hear a sound is an act of intent”, Daniel Deshays, sound engineer and sound director. AI‑DRIVEN SOUND DESIGN Now, with generative AI, things are evolving fast. We’re starting to see tools that generate audio and visuals together , in sync from the start. Batman: the killing joke, vol 4 | ©DC Comics Academic work like Oxford’s “ Audio‑Visual Synchronisation in the Wild ” is feeding directly into new tools that prioritize perfect sync in real-world footage. Platforms like AutoFoley  use deep learning to generate synchronized Foley for silent footage. Even ElevenLabs  is exploring AI-generated sound effects (which are actually fun to play with). And platforms like Veo 3  and other beta-stage tools promise end-to-end pipelines: you create visuals with their matching audio. But that raises a question: just because we can generate sound, are we doing it right? And also, in the case of VFX, can AI generate a sound that does not exist? “Sound design is not about creating noise that simply mirrors what’s in the images, but about assigning value to certain elements within the visuals”, Daniel Deshays, sound engineer and sound director. While AI can mimic, good sound design is still about intention. In a seminar called “The mise-en-scène of sound design”,  Deshays points out that audio is about gesture . How far, how fast, how forcefully a sound evolves. Because in the end, “sound isn’t reality, it’s a way of listening. It’s an interpretation of the world”, as he put it himself. So, use the AI-tools, but use them wisely. Play with it. Mix it and remix it. In conclusion, yes, you see with your eyes. But you believe with your ears. Sound guides the imagination, fills in the blanks and makes the digital feel physical. It shapes expectations, sells impact and builds immersion. That’s why sound is the invisible glue that makes the illusion stick. Don’t do VFX, without having a budget for the sound design. It’s the liant  in a chef's dish. The mortar between the bricks. Without it, your effects might taste, look and feel bland.

Molten rock. Ultra hot. Bright orange. Volcano (1995) | ©Tw entieth Century Fox Lava is not an easy element to film or recreate—even with CG. That’s why filmmakers have had to be resourceful and use every trick in the book to depict how lava looks, moves, and destroys. Here's how three very different films tackled one of cinema’s most explosive challenges. VOLCANO (1997) In Mick Jackson’s Volcano , lava erupts from the La Brea Tar Pits and turns Los Angeles into a disaster zone.  But as the director put it, “you can’t send out for a truckload of lava”. So, the team built a “lava kitchen”, where they brewed their own. What you see on screen is made from thickened methylcellulose (a food additive), dyed orange, lit with UV lights and filmed over miniature sets mounted on gimbals to control the flow. The result was a convincing molten effect, composited with live-action plates and digitally enhanced to look hotter and more dangerous.  “Once you’ve established the data of the plate that the lava is to be composited into, we scale everything down to 1/8 version of what it was, and we built shapes of clear plastic to put in place where there are objects in the frame, and it gives a very realistic look as [the lava] is deflected and bent around these shapes”, David Drzewiecki, Miniature FX supervisor DP Given the complexity of the destruction sequences—which included fast-moving lava, balls of lava, ash, flames and explosions—the team went through an extensive research phase, combining practical experimentation with CG simulations to get the several layers of natural phenomena and destruction just right. This included creating a massive set and using 20.000 gallons of propane and hundreds of pounds of black powder. “In its most basic form, compositing is taking two layers and integrating them into a finished one. A pretty typical shot in Volcano for us has been using 20 or 30 layers to generate a finished shot”, Greg Strause, Digital Artist, Light Matters, Inc. STAR WARS: REVENGE OF THE SITH (2005) We cannot talk about lava in movies without mentioning the fiery duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan on the volcanic planet Mustafar. And naturally, it had to be a spectacle. “The big challenge in Mustafar is lava. And there’s lots of it—and lots of different scales”, John Knoll, VFX supervisor at ILM. Last fight | © Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM To pull it off, the team used everything in their arsenal: matte paintings of digital environments, CG simulations, real footage from a Mount Etna eruption happening during production, motion-control cameras, large-scale miniatures... you name it. Part of the Mustafar landscape was built as a physical model, tilted 10 degrees to allow controlled lava flow across its surface. That lava? Once again, methylcellulose—the same food additive used in Volcano —was dyed but, this time, it was lit from underneath to simulate the glowing magma. The crust was created using ground cork. “Digital technology has completely revolutionized the visual effects industry. But sometimes, nothing beats the old-fashioned use of models and miniatures. And we don’t always look to the future, we often look back”, Rick McCallum, producer. What you can’t overlook in a sequence like Mustafar is the sound . You simply can’t talk about visual effects without it. It’s essential to selling the illusion. To create the bubbling, erupting feel of the lava flowing, bursting and hissing, sound designer Ben Burtt blended artillery mortar blasts with recordings of liquid textures to capture the explosive, fluid energy of molten rock. “You blend the two together, and have a new effect”, he explained in Star Wars: Within a Minute – The Making of Episode III . FIRST DEPICTIONS OF LAVA IN MOVIES The Last Days of Pompeii  (1935) appears to be the first film to attempt a realistic depiction of lava on screen. You have to wait until the climax for Mount Vesuvius to finally erupt, but when it does, the destruction is full of fire, collapsing sets and... some shots here and there of flowy lava. This was decades before CGI, so everything had to be done practically (no computers, all real, in camera... you know , like today’s Oppenheimer or Romulus , cough cough ). Willis O'Brien seen here on the miniatures stage shooting the lava flow scenes | source Matte shot Blog Under the supervision of special effects pioneer Willis O'Brien (who had just revolutionized stop-motion in King Kong, 1933 ), the team used miniatures, matte paintings on glass, and early compositing techniques like split screens and a primitive version of blue screen. As for how they created the lava itself—well, that's less clear. No confirmed records seem to exist. But for One Million Years B.C.  (1966), it’s documented that they used a mix of wallpaper paste, oatmeal, dry ice and red dye, according to Kinorium . In the 1935 version... well, it was in black and white. So the glowing orange was one less problem to worry about.

“Absolutely!”, I used to say. But that’s changed. Gremlins movie theater scene | ©Warner Bros. I used to love going to the movies—the smell of popcorn, the big screen, the sound vibrations running through the comfy chairs. But now? I don’t go as often as before. Either it’s because of the price of the tickets or, honestly, there just aren’t that many movies that make me think, “ This  one. This needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible”. Or, maybe, it’s because the few times I went, it was almost an empty room. Either way, the excitement seems to have faded. That is… until I went to the biggest movie hall ever at the Sitges Fantastic Film Festival last year. With a capacity of 1380 spectators, it was something else. And the first movie I saw there? The European premiere of Terrifier 3 , at midnight. It was packed. Masks of Art the Clown were distributed at the entrance. People were laughing, clapping and screaming at the movie. When it ended, we had to wait for a good ten minutes just to get to the exit – the line was that big. And that’s when it hit me. That’s when I remembered why  I’d used to go once a week. After all, we still go to concerts even though we have Spotify. We still go to the opera. Why did we stop doing that with cinema? THE ANCIENT RITUAL OF STORYTELLING Have you ever wondered why we go to the movies? Why we watch them? Well, for millennia, humans have gathered around fires, sharing tales of heroism, tragedy and everything in between. These were vital for transmitting knowledge, solidifying communal bonds and understanding the world around us. In other words, storytelling is connection. And cinema, at its core, is simply the latest iteration of this ancient ritual. We’ve moved from the campfire to the silver screen, but the fundamental need for shared narrative experience remains. “People naturally seek closure and meaning in life– sometimes a film can provide this if ‘real life’ cannot”, Jeff Kitchen, in his book Writing a good movie . THE NEUROSCIENCE BEHIND IT When we engage with a good story, our brains respond as if we are living  it. Mirror neurons fire, allowing us to empathize with characters and experience their emotions. Dopamine is released, creating a sense of pleasure and anticipation. Our hearts race during tense scenes, and we might even shed a tear during moments of heartbreak. Toy Story 3 | © Disney Think of when Woody, Buzz and the team held hands as they faced incineration in Toy Story 3 . Or the shock of a twist like “What’s in the box?”. Or when Jack slowly sank into the depths of the ocean. But when we experience a film collectively, the emotions hit harder. In 2020, a study  published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience  explores how watching movies activates complex patterns of brain activity. This phenomenon, known as neurocinematics , reveals that films are structured to guide viewers’ attention and emotional responses in synchronized ways. In communal settings like a movie theater, this synchronization is intensified —viewers not only engage with the narrative but also with each other on a neurological level, creating a uniquely shared emotional and cognitive experience that streaming alone at home can’t replicate. ​It’s called the "inter-subject correlation" (ISC), referring to the synchronization of neural activity across different individuals when watching the same film, according to the Mirage News . It’s like emotional contagion, where individuals subconsciously mimic and synchronize with the emotions of those around them, making us feel more connected. BOX OFFICE AND VIEWING HABITS However, this experience is facing a challenge. While cinema isn't dying, it is undeniably changing. Recent data from the European Audiovisual Observatory  shows a complex picture. Admissions in certain European markets remain relatively stable, but overall attendance hasn’t fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels. And a recent Deloitte study highlights a significant shift in consumer habits. Streaming services now account for a substantial portion of entertainment spending, with many consumers prioritizing convenience and cost-effectiveness over the theatrical experience. There’s also the fragmentation of viewing habits. We’re not really curating our entertainment anymore, but passively consuming it. Letting the algorithm decide. Movies play while we scroll through social media, check emails and half-listen when we’re at home. And younger generations? According to Deloitte, they prefer creator-driven content over traditional films and series. And Millie Bobby Brown is proof of that, as she told The Sun she does not like to sit for a certain period of time to watch a movie. “Think about the war for people’s attention and time that exists today, between traditional media and social media”, China Widener, vice chair of Deloitte in  The Hollywood Reporter . THE RISE OF THE HOME CINEMA Electric States | ©Netflix The convenience of streaming is undeniable. A few clicks, and you’ve got access to thousands of titles, all from the comfort of your couch. But this convenience comes at a cost. Something important is shifting: how movies are made. They’re becoming content , built for the algorithm . Designed to check certain boxes. Framed to look good on your phone, your tablet, your TV. Less detail. Everything's centered. And yeah, it’s comfy. But more often than not, it just fades into background noise. This also means that there are so many meh shows, series, and movies now that we end up endlessly scrolling through Netflix or whatever platform, never really choosing anything new. We go back to that one comfort movie we’ve seen a dozen times. It's safe. It’s easy. So, in the end, maybe we just need to remember what it feels like to sit in the dark with strangers, all reacting to the same story. And, well… I’ll try to go to the movies more often. Are you?

On the second day of the NIFFF Extended program, the focus pivoted from VFX— showcased with "The Last of Us" and "3 Body Problem" —to practical SFX miniature making with Simon Weisse and it was fascinating! Simon Weisse and his miniatures (image from the NIFFF) So, first, who is Simon Weisse ? He's a master of making miniature for cinema and movies, best known for his work with Wes Anderson, including "The Grand Budapest Hotel", the Roald Dahl shorts and "Asteroid City". Through time, Weisse has carved a unique niche in the industry. He began his career in the late 80s, working for movies like Event Horizon and V for Vendetta, to mention a few. But with the advent of CGI. Things changed. Lewis & Clark spaceship from Event Horizon at Lyon's museum of Miniature. “Twenty years ago, I thought my career was over, that’s why I started making props. But since 'The Grand Budapest Hotel', I’ve never had more work!”, he told. This resurgence doesn't mean he's abandoned prop work. In his studio, for "Asteroid City", the team handled both miniatures and functional props. They created meteorites in various sizes, as well as jetpacks and guns. Among the miniatures was the UFO ingeniously assembled from everyday kitchen utensils, and the train—a particularly memorable challenge since the model arrived in pieces from the States. "I was hoping it would be like assembling something from Ikea. With a manual! It was far from it, and we had to creatively find a way to piece it together!" he recalls with a laugh. Now, let's clarify something about miniatures for cinema: these aren’t your average models you can build in your living room. Cinematic “miniatures” can be larger than a car! For instance, he was asked to create a 50-meter-long road for “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”. It was so massive that he couldn’t find a place large enough to film it and had to use a greenhouse in Berlin. By the way, for those interested in seeing these works up close, the Museum of Cinema & Miniature in Lyon, France, houses many of his creations, including a forced perspective set from the short film "The Swan", directed by Anderson and Event Horizon's ship. Unfortunately, miniature making remains a labor-intensive and resource-heavy process, often requiring strong support from directors and producers. "For this kind of project to be feasible, it needs the full backing of the director and sometimes even the producer. Without their support, it simply won't happen," explains Weisse. This is where filmmakers like Wes Anderson make a significant difference. For "The Grand Budapest Hotel", the director's enthusiasm for mini-effects led Weisse and his team to spend about two months in preparation and another three to four months building the maquettes—all for just a few days of shooting. When asked about the skill set needed to be a miniature maker for movies , Weisse emphasized the meticulous nature of the work, which demands patience, passion, and a diverse skill set. His team in Berlin includes architects, carpenters, painters, and more, showcasing the range of talents required. “You must not be afraid of getting your hands dirty”, Weisse advises, adding, “the 3D guy is also able to cut wood, you know?” Finally, Weisse also addressed the ongoing debate between practical and digital effects, dismissing it as nonsensical. Often faced with "purists" who insist on one method over the other, Weisse, an enthusiast for new technologies, advocates for a synthesis of traditional and modern techniques. “Combining these old techniques with new ones is truly an asset,” he stated.