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VISUAL EFFECTS www.postmagazine.com 18 POST JAN/FEB 2021 BO's The Flight Attendant is a dark, comedic thriller based on the novel of the same name by Chris Bohjalian. The series stars Kaley Cuoco as flight attendant Cassie Bowden, who wakes up in her Bangkok hotel room, hung over, with a dead body next to her in bed. Unable to retrace her steps from the night before and afraid to call foreign authorities, she instead heads to the airport for work in the hope of getting out of the country before anyone can link her to the crime. When she returns to New York, she is met by a team of FBI agents, who question her about her stay in Bangkok. Still unable to piece the night together, she begins experiencing a series of flashbacks and delusions that include conversations with the victim. At the same time, memories from her past make her question if it's possible that she is the killer? New York visual effects studio FuseFX (fusefx.com) helped tell the story, contributing between 20 and 50 shots for each of the series' eight episodes. FuseFX was working on the show prior to the pandemic, providing on-set su- pervision up until the COVID lockdown. Once production resumed, the studio's team implemented a remote workflow to complete the second half of the episodes that had yet to be shot before the hiatus. In addition to Kaley Cuoco, the series stars Michiel Huisman as the victim Alex Sokolov, along with Zosia Mamet as Annie Mouradian, Cassie's long-time friend and lawyer/legal adviser. Additional talent includes T.R. Knight, Michelle Gomez, Colin Woodell, Merle Dandridge, Griffin Matthews and Rosie Perez. FuseFX's John Miller served as a visual effects supervisor on the show and re- cently took time to share with Post details about the studio's work and the challeng- es of completing it during the pandemic. What were the VFX needs for The Flight Attendant? "Overall there were categories of the kind of work that we do. There are the tradi- tional things that can't be done practical- ly, and that would work with special ef- fects or makeup to help augment or add a layer to. When it comes to blood work, stunt work — if there's a thing that can't happen with an actor — we did all that kind of package of work. And that is sort of standard across a lot of our shows. "But we also did three other kinds of categories of work. One was, each episode, there are these transitional mo- ments where there are multiple frames — an image and an image, a transitional moment where you kind of see multiple views of an airport with planes going in different directions and it gets you to the next part of the show. In those scenes we helped with providing all of the aerial content — all the content of the aircraft. We created all those and they are based on real-life references to create the pho- toreal plates doing the things they need- ed to do. That became a graphic element for editorial to help transition to the next sequence. That's one aspect. "Then we did these flashback mo- ments, which happen throughout the series. The design and direction behind those, and everything beyond collage graphic pieces, was to live in this photo- real world of the production design…of how the look of the series is going to be. In those flashback moments, the idea is, she is looking through either a window or mirror or glass, to see an image of some- thing. Or she is outside looking at some- thing that's not there. And that viewpoint from her — those moments where she is in the shot as well — the directive is to create it so that it is plausible, so that it looks real for those beginning moments of the shot, until you realize what she is looking at and what's out the window can't possibly be there." Those sequences play a big part in the show. "That was a really cool challenge for us because it's more than just a normal flashback/VFX kind of look. There's no mirage effect to it. There's no addition- al visual effect to hint to the audience ahead of time what they are going to look at. It was done to be a very classic, invisible visual effects. And then you re- alize what she is looking at out that win- dow or through that space can't possibly be happening now. We didn't want to cheat that and let you know it was going to happen ahead of time. "There's actually another moment where she's looking out the same win- dow at the sky, and you realize we are up in the air now. We are higher than we should be. It's also making what's outside the window and what's inside the window, in terms of photography and lighting, match enough so that it feels it's the same world. You want to be in her mind as much as we can." There are other photoreal moments beyond the 'window' effects. "We have the episode with the giant rabbit. She opens the door to a hallway and there's a giant rabbit in the hallway looking back at her. Our challenge was to make a photoreal rabbit, but scaled up so much so that it's still believable, as if this is what a giant rabbit could look like, which is always a challenge. And it still needs to be real to her perspective as well. "I think that was our biggest chal- lenge — trying to keep these effects in a photoreal world, but still stylized to the photography of the show and to the production design." There are a lot of international locations. How much of that was practical versus visual effects? "We got asked this question a lot. A lot of those international locations — what you're seeing is real. They were really there. They did go to those locations, which meant we didn't need to help with those moments. There was a fear they weren't going to be able to go and we would have to do that, and we did the THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT BY MARC LOFTUS XXXXXX STORYTELLING THROUGH FLASHBACKS & DELUSIONS H Series star Kaley Cuoco