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www.postmagazine.com 25 POST MAR/APR 2019 Post continues its coverage of big-time visual effects for broadcast television online, looking at such shows as NCIS: Los Angeles, The Orville and more. Visit us online at postmagazine.com. extension to provide more drama as a car crashes over the side of an embankment. More common work includes the removal of modern architecture and infrastructure from shots in and around con- temporary Austin. In a scene from last season as well, the artists had to remove an arm from survivor Martha, who had been handcuffed to a vehicle after she was found to be plotting against the hero survivors. As she began morphing into a walker, she removed her own arm to escape. Before the survivor Morgan kills her, she turns around a full 180 de- grees. "We had to remove her arm at the shoulder. She was wearing a green sleeve in case we had to pull keys," Sanchez notes. The shot required full-3D tracking of her body. A paint artist then removed her arm, and a matte painter created a texture of a torn-up arm with visible bone, blood and gore. Next, the 3D department projected that image onto its bone model. They then cleaned it up, textured it, lit it and rendered it, while the comp team put it all together. "It looked amazing," Sanchez says. Another memorable episode from Season 4 is a scene where the walkers are devouring a horse as a hurricane bears down — revealed in a lengthy camera pan from left to right. There are also walkers in the far background and some coming in from the forest, and a pair next to a large truck belonging to the survivors. The wind increases with the ap- proaching storm, and the "gag" is that the walkers (who are on wires on set) are lifted off their feet. All of this was shot in stages and then compos- ited by the artists in Nuke. They also captured the on-set rain and enhanced the plates with CG rain, then added some digital walkers as well. "We put some in the far background, and as they progress forward, they are fighting against the wind and eventually get blown away. "It was funny, and a nice epic shot," says Sanchez. While the crew at Alkemy X has created digital walkers, it is more the exception than the rule. "We are doing it for some upcoming episodes, but [the filmmakers] are really good at capturing extras on set in amazing costumes," Sanchez notes, "so there isn't a lot of need for it. But, when they want to populate [the scene] more, we can add digital walkers in the mid-ground and far background." According to Sanchez, the work in Fear is film quality but delivered on a television schedule — the show is shot in 2K using Arri's Alexa. "That means we have to get it right the first time — from organization to animation, render and composite," he says. While the turnaround time varies for each show, on average, the team has three weeks to deliver an episode's shots. Currently, Alkemy X is working on Season 5, which begins airing sometime after the current season of The Walking Dead — ensuring that fans do not have to wait long in order to get their walker fix. And while Sanchez is unable to detail the work they have done so far for this new sea- son, he teases that it is completely different from what they did last season. Rest assured, the apocalypse continues. – By Karen Moltenbrey LOOKING FOR MORE VFX FOR TELEVISION? Alkemy X digitally removed the actor's arm in the foreground. The shot with a CG prop extension. A shortened safety-tipped prop.