‘The First Omen’ VFX Supervisor Ben King On Building The Jackal: “The direction was that it had been living in its own filth for its whole life.”
In her prequel The First Omen, director and co-writer Arkasha Stevenson wanted to make sure the film leaned as hard as possible into practical effects. But some things aren’t so easy to capture in camera. Enter their incredible VFX team who knows precisely how to balance practical with digital enhancements and augmentations.
Dread Central spoke with The First Omen VFX supervisor for Herne Hill Ben King about helping enhance the film’s scariest moments, designing the jackal, and making believable CGI fire.
Dread Central: When did you come into the process with The First Omen?
Ben King: I came into The First Omen a little later. There was another supervisor on our side at the beginning and the client side supervisor James Cooper was involved from very early on so he could potentially speak to more of the pre-production component of things. Really, my role started in post after everything was shot. At that point, I came onto the project to help guide the visual effects process past production.
DC: Sweet. So there’s a lot of stuff happening here. I know there’s a lot of practical work, but obviously, there’s a lot of special effects work, too, particularly around our jackal. Can you tell me more about creating the jackal?
BK: Yeah, so the jackal was originally designed to be a suit, so there was one design that didn’t end up getting used. They had shot the original sequence with the jackal with this practical suit and then at some point in production, there was a decision made to redesign the creature. That’s really where we got very involved. So at that point, we got into our standard creature design process where we do a digital sculpt concepting phase. We were provided an initial design, a rough design, just a sketch, and then we fleshed out all the anatomy and did a full anatomical sculpt and creature build. That was quite a fun process to work back and forth with the director to find the look of the creature.
DC: I’ve heard there’s a brief glimpse at his sexual anatomy, let’s just say.
BK: Yes, yes. That was actually practical. It was a prosthetic.
DC: Um, that’s amazing. What are some other effects in The First Omen that you’re really impressed with that maybe people wouldn’t notice?
BK: I think probably the hardest thing for us to achieve was the fire.
DC: CGI fire is so hard.
BK: I mean it’s a lot of layers. So we had two sequences with fire in The First Omen. The first one was the sequence where Sister Anjelica hangs herself. That one was interesting because we had a dummy filmed on set where they had set it on fire and did a practical hanging. But then we had to augment that with a lot more fire obviously to try to make it look like a fully engulfed Sister Angelica. So what that means is it’s a lot of different layers of fire that get added.
There were some practical fire shots that we layered on top of with CGI fire. Then they shot some elements that we used to composite in. So it really becomes an accumulation of many different techniques to try to really sell it because any one on their own is just really not enough. You really need to do a lot of layering to get it to work.
DC: That’s crazy. Did you put her composite image into it as well?
BK: We did depending on the shot. So every shot was sort of different. In some of the shots we had to do some CGI, we had a digital double of Sister Angelica and in some shots, we had to fully render her. In some cases where we had the dummy, it was easier to just augment and cover up sections of the dummy that didn’t really work. And in some cases, it was just a combination of different techniques for every shot as I said.
DC: That’s so cool. I know CGI fire [is a struggle] so it’s really cool when it looks so realistic. That’s quite an accomplishment I’ll say.
BK: Oh, thank you. Yeah, I mean again, we really always try to have a practical basis for everything. I think it was really important to the director [Arkasha Stevenson] as well and it shows because you can see the amount of prosthetic work that was done and the amount of practical effects that were done. It was a really big push to be practical where possible in The First Omen.
Even while we have to augment digitally and extend shots like the Anjelica fire sequence, we’re always using as much practical as possible and then augmenting with real elements that we’ve shot, elements of fire that were shot separately and composited in. So always practical at the base where possible.
DC: Do you ever give a shot list to the director asking for certain shots? Or is it you’ll see what you have when you get it kind of thing?
BK: James Cooper, the client-side visual effects supervisor, is in constant communication through production with the director. He’s the one trying to communicate what we’re going to need in post-production effectively. So he’s always advocating for them to shoot elements for us or to include all the reference material that we’re going to need to be able to augment the scenes effectively and match into what was shot practically. So yeah, that’s usually how that works. And in this case, we were lucky enough to have a lot of practical elements shot. Then we also have a library of fire elements that have been shot and various things that we’ve used over the years. So we use everything that we can to really make these shots work.
DC: That’s incredible. So I want to go back to the jackal design. Were there any other monsters that were maybe a basis of inspiration to start designing?
BK: We were provided with obviously an initial sketch, which was sort of a rough outline of what the director wanted. Then also we were provided with a number of reference materials for things like how the creature was supposed to be. The direction was that it had been living in its own filth for its whole life.
It was supposed to be very mangy, covered in different debris, and it’s not a clean creature. So we were provided reference for different fur looks and different levels of skin distress and wounding. So we took all of that reference and incorporated as much of it as we could to really flesh out the creature design.
DC: What was that research like looking at mangy dogs with open wounds? [Laughs]
BK: You pretty quickly get desensitized to a lot of things that maybe you wouldn’t be used to seeing on a day-to-day basis. But it can often be unsettling looking at some of this reference. But you get used to it as long as you’re using it to achieve the end result. It’s all worth it.
DC: Are you a horror fan yourself? Is that something you gravitate towards in your own viewing habits?
BK: I do like horror, yeah. I wouldn’t say it’s my number one genre, but I do like horror movies for sure.
DC: Cool. I mean, it’s got to be a lot of fun to work on horror movies. I feel like they’re the most fun to play with, but that’s also me as a horror fan being biased.
BK: Oh, absolutely. I think horror movies are super fun to work on The look is always interesting. And who doesn’t want to work on monsters? It’s the most fun thing you can do.
DC: Who doesn’t want to build a giant naked jackal? Before we wrap up, are there any other particular moments that you wanted to highlight that you were proud of in terms of what you were able to capture in The First Omen?
BK: Things I’d like to highlight are all the invisible stuff that people I think aren’t aware of. So the sequence where Margaret arrives at the airport was shot with a very, very small number of extras. Then we extended it with a large crowd, a bunch of cars, stuff like that. And then also all sorts of fixes for things that were requested like prosthetic fixes, just little augmentations. It’s all the little stuff that nobody notices that I think we’re often the most proud of because if somebody doesn’t notice your work and visual effects, that tends to be what you want. You don’t always want everyone to notice what you’ve done.
The First Omen is out now in theaters.
Categorized:Interviews
