Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1522701
make it work one day! Stefan Bredereck: I joined the team in January 2006. I'm from Ger- many. Originally, I worked mostly in corporate design…but it was bor- ing, and a friend of mine said, 'Why don't you show your reel here in America somewhere?' So I took a trip to America and showed John and Fred my reel back then on a Friday. They said I could start on Monday, which was awesome. I love our team. We have really amazing, hand-picked rock stars that all have at least one specialty but also can wear multiple hats, which, in a boutique company like ours, is super important. Can you give us an overview of the visual effects work that Muse VFX has delivered for What We Do in the Shadows? Fred Pienkos: We've worked with Shadows VFX supervisor Stephen Pugh on the show for multiple seasons now, and this past season we were lucky to work on several different, key effects. I think one of the things that stands out for me is that it always helps when you're working on a show that you love and with people that we love work- ing with, like Steve [Pugh]. And as usual with visual effects, the goal is sometimes to be invisible, and always to help reach the show's vi- sion. I think what I like the most about it is that the visual effects also play a part in the comedy, and what's most rewarding for me is when I see our team adding to this humor that is already so rich. Some of my favorite VFX from our work so far has been Baby Col- in, the vampire house explosion, and the Guillermo gauntlet. Stefan Bredereck: We usually have two meetings, a morning and an aernoon approval meeting, where we look at the shots in the current state. With that show, there's always a good mood and good laughter. We usually crack up and we can't wait to see the next ver- sion when stuff comes from the compositors. We just hope that ev- erything works out so that it looks good but also is funny. When you see it finally come together, that's very rewarding. Any time the show appreciates that kind of stuff, it has to look real be- cause it's a documentary or a fake documentary, but it has to also be a little bit over the top to kind of push the humor level. We work on all kinds of shows, but that show is definitely one of our favorites to work on because of the positivity of it. I think all of our team also watches the show actively, so it's a lot of fun. How is your visual effects team organized, and how do you di- vide the workload for a typical episode of the series? Stefan Bredereck: It starts with Fred and me. Fred oversees the compositing team, and I oversee the CG team. That's the first line where we say, 'Does it require CG or not?' Fred and his team—and he can say much more about it—did this beautiful replacement of the head of Colin, the energy vampire, on top of the child actor. I think that was last season or this season? Fred Pienkos: Last season, and it bled into the first episode of this season. Fusion is the VFX team's main compositing system for the series. 10 cgw a p r i l • m ay • j u n e 2 0 2 4