VFX breakdown: Union's work on 28 Years Later

This is the vfx breakdown for Union’s work on director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland’s 28 Years Later.

Union was sole VFX vendor on the Sony Pictures movie delivering more than 900 shots for this long-awaited return to the franchise.

Union co-founder and VFX Supervisor Adam Gascoyne worked with Boyle on the original 28 Days Later, and the pair have continued to collaborate since. Gascoyne was overall VFX Supervisor on 28 Years Later with Clare Norman as VFX Producer. At Union, Dillan Nicholls was DFX Supervisor, Noel O’Malley as CG Supervisor and Paul O’Hara as Union VFX Producer.

Reuniting director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland, 28 Years Later is a terrifying new “auteur horror” story set in the world created by 28 Days Later. It’s been almost three decades since the rage virus escaped a biological weapons laboratory, and now, still in a ruthlessly enforced quarantine, some have found ways to exist amidst the infected. One such group of survivors lives on a small island connected to the mainland by a single, heavily-defended causeway. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the dark heart of the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well

Boyle broke conventions all round with 28 Days Later, reinventing the zombie genre and helping to launch the digital filmmaking revolution of the early 2000s. The film was shot on a Cannon XL-1 for portability and to reflect the prolific nature of camcorders at the time.

It’s therefore apt that for 28 Years Later Danny and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle used a vast filmmaking toolkit and groundbreaking techniques that included many different types of cameras, including using a rig of 20 Apple iPhone 15 Pro’s which were adapted with cinematic lenses. The film was shot in an ultra-wide 2.76:1 aspect ratio — an innovative format used in only a handful of films throughout history to really immerse the audience in the action on screen.

The use of VFX in the first film worked seamlessly (almost invisibly) alongside the plot and the film’s distinctive grainy aesthetic. So, this time round, it was important for the VFX to work in harmony with the narrative to enhance the atmosphere and sense of thrill. Pivotal story points in the film required vast and complex VFX to work in harmony with clever SFX and in-camera work.

Gascoyne on their approach, “Danny and I have worked together for a long time, I know it’s important for him to feel the rawness of the film and I always work alongside him and to his vision. We use VFX as a tool to help tell the story creatively, to support character arcs and development so everything we do has to be very much background and found within the photography. There is an enormous amount of planning that goes into achieving that to give Danny the freedom to shoot and get the performances they need without interference.

In the film, the country has been without technology for nearly three decades, so we had to seamlessly sell that narrative to the viewer. We had to make the unreal world real and totally believable. There was a huge amount of VFX work involved but much of it is invisible. However, two sequences that were pivotal to the plot are the Causeway chase and the Happy Eater. Both look pretty epic in the final film, and I’m incredibly proud of the team’s work.”

One key environment was the Causeway that connects the ‘safe’ island to the mainland, which is overrun by the Infected. When Spike (portrayed by newcomer Alfie Williams) and his dad, Jamie (portrayed by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) embark on a rite of passage: a journey to the mainland and an opportunity for Spike to kill his first infected. Not only do they discover secrets and horrors, their return culminates in a dramatic chase sequence.

This terrifying sequence contains 130 shots, most of which were fully CG. The causeway itself had to look like it was 1.5 miles long and included a stunning, fully CG aurora nebula sky housing a murmuration of over 10,000 CG birds.

Gascoyne explains, “There’s quite a significant amount of work in that particular sequence. We had to create an environment for that to happen in, and then extend all that water out and put it in the sky. We had some amazing photographic references from photographer Dan Monk at the Kielder Forest Observatory.

“There are certain times of the year when the Milky Way is perfectly clear because there’s no light pollution around. That inspired us to put this amazing sky above the causeway, because we felt that, after 28 years of no light pollution, you would see these amazing, beautiful vistas at night.

“We had about a 100-meter stretch of water on set, and then we recreated the environment complete with FX water, mist and seaweed and extended it out. When the characters’ feet touch the water, there’s almost a glow like akin to bioluminescence created by plankton.”

Later on in the film Spike sneaks off the island seeking medical assistance for his mum Isla (portrayed by Jodie Comer). As they search for Dr. Ian Kelson (played by Ralph Fiennes) they are forced to seek safety in an abandoned Happy Eater.

They break in to find a toxic miasma of gas looming overhead which explodes dramatically when ignited by gunfire.

CG Supervisor Noel O’Malley says, “A great deal of look development work was required to create the miasma gas as reference was minimal. The gas had to be quite thin with little density so it was complex to create, but thankfully Danny liked our ideas early on which allowed us to really spend time on the nuances in the FX simulations to create something original, but believable.

This was a very FX heavy setup with the layering of the miasma and ignition towards the end of the sequence. Particular attention was paid to the cut so any movement we added to the miasma worked well with the next shot.

The lighting was a challenge as we needed to give the impression of an oily top layer on the gas as it hadn’t been disturbed in years. The shot also required extensive rotoanimation to drive the collisions of the choking characters with the miasma gas.”

Union’s work also covered multiple CG firing arrows, blood splats, a herd of galloping deer and a pack of rats scurrying away from a CG train.

28 Years Later is available on Digital and on 4K UHD Steelbook, Blu-Ray & DVD and premiered on Netflix on Saturday, Sept. 20th.

Union has recently completed work on Black Mirror: USS Callister (Netflix), Mountainhead (HBO/Jesse Armstrong) and, the soon to be released Anemone (Focus Features) and Hedda (Amazon Studios).