The leading visual effects company handled both client side and vendor side production on Netflix’s limited series that tells the story of the late Brazilian Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna.
Scanline VFX has shared with AWN and VFXWorld a visual effects breakdown reel highlighting its work on Netflix’s limited series, .The show, directed by Vicente Amorim and Júlia Rezende and produced by Gullane, tells the story of the late Brazilian Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna.
For the first time in its long history, Scanline provided complete visual effects project management and consultation services along with the creation of several hundred shots as a key creative partner on the project.Led by VFX Supervisor Craig Wentworth and VFX Producer Vero Lauzon, Scanline's team creatively and financially managed nearly 2,100 shots across six episodes, working with six international vendors, including Scanline's own facilities in Vancouver and Seoul. With the company’s long-standing reputation in digital world-building, virtual production, and producing high-end visual effects on some of the industry’s biggest films and TV shows, Scanline was well suited to take on this challenging and regionally pivotal project.“We faced VFX challenges that covered the technical gamut, from the simplest of burn-ins to the most complex of full CG environments and racing shots, all with a relatively limited budget for a project of this scale and ambition,” Wentworth explains.
“Our primary goal was to provide our Brazilian partners both support and absolute maximum bang for their buck, and by having oversight of the work as a whole, leveraging our decades of expertise in projects of this scale, and being very smart about where we spent time and money, we could help produce really high-quality work at a fraction of typical cost.”
Beyond overall project management, Scanline was tasked with the recreation of historic racetrack environments and F1 cars from the late 80s and early 90s, covering several key moments in Senna's career with absolute accuracy. Plate photography was captured at multiple racetracks in Argentina and Uruguay, which Scanline then transformed into Suzuka (Japan), Estoril (Portugal) in the rain, Interlagos (Brazil) and Imola (Italy). Suzuka - which featured in 3 different time periods and configurations - and Interlagos required extensive CG builds and animated crowds, along with era-specific set-dressing and advertising based on source FIA footage. Scanline also meticulously crafted hero cars for Senna and rival Alain Prost, as well as supporting vehicles across multiple races, adding dynamic effects such as dirt, smoke, flames, rain, and splashes to enhance and add an extra layer of authenticity to production footage.Overall, Scanline's teams in Vancouver and Seoul delivered 372 racing and environment shots that captured some of the most memorable moments from Senna's career with “stunning accuracy.” “All of this attention to detail was absolutely crucial to the success of our work, which had to intercut seamlessly with archival footage of the actual events,” notes Wentworth.“There was literally nowhere to hide, and I am so grateful to the Scanline team for paying as much attention to the little things as they did to the really hard stuff!”
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
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