Ingenuity Studios delivered 629 shots overall, serving as the primary VFX studio for Season 2 of SAS Rogue Heroes produced by Kudos for BBC1.
Ingenuity team members vfx ep Patrick Dean and production vfx supervisor David Sewell brought experience from season 1, working with the same producer and production team. The second season added director Stephen Woolfenden, known for his work as second unit director on The Harry Potter films.
The big opening episode of Season 2 depicts three landing craft boats with approximately 18 men on each boat, set to go ashore. Production was not able to capture real footage of this action in open water due to marine safety. To remedy this, a large water tank (4 feet deep and 75m square feet) was the setting for one practical boat, and the Ingenuity team added the other two landing craft boats via CG as they all headed to the cliffs of Sicily. CG water extensions rounded out the water and matte painting portrayed cliffs in the distance. They were then fired upon by cliff defences so Ingenuity needed to add bullet hits and tracer fire.
With painstaking perfection in mind, Ingenuity Studios developed an in-house tool to mimic WWII tracer fire to help visualize the bullets zipping through the air hitting the boats.
As Season 2 delves into a deep human side of the stories of these brave men, viewers encounter real-life tragedies that they faced. Picture this: with countless gliders overhead meant to clear the way for the incoming boats, but they were deployed too soon and crashed. These men were pleading for help from the men in the boats, asking them to save their lives but the boats couldn’t stop. To achieve realism, Ingenuity animated and simulated CG gliders crashing into CG water.
One pivotal scene involved principal actor Connor Swindells’ character Lieutenant David Stirling attempting to escape by scaling the exterior wall of Gavi prison in Sicily, where WWII prisoners of war were held. First, a stunt person was shot against a 30-foot wall on location in Croatia. Next, drone shots were captured of the real Gavi prison. Finally, the principal actor was shot against a 10-foot wall on set in the UK. The Ingenuity team then combined the three different locations with the two people filmed to make one seamless sequence where Stirling falls from 40-feet high in his attempt to escape.
Another sensitive scene involves a 10-year-old Sicilian boy that resembled a family member of Reg Seekings, the man who stayed back. He befriended the boy’s family. When German shelling suddenly started on the town, Reg ordered the boy and his family inside where they were unfortunately hit by the shells. The boy was barely alive with a deep blow to his intestines. Reg had to put the boy out of his misery, another traumatic event to add to the rest. Makeup and prosthetics of this level are not allowed with child actors. Therefore, visual effects provided the solution. The Ingenuity team approached this scene with reverence and believable subtlety, showing the boy’s injuries were dire enough to warrant putting him out of his misery, without depicting them in an overly horrific way. It was a very fine line.
In episode 4, SAS troops were stranded having to defend a town when German troops and tanks (Panzers) began arriving, quickly leaving them all outnumbered. For this scene, there was one real tank, with Ingenuity creating the rest in CG and showing them being blown to bits by anti-tank bazookas in a photorealistic way.
Near the end of the last episode of this season, we see 60 of American Dakota planes heading towards northern France dropping paratroopers for D Day. Ingenuity referred to real footage of hundreds of these planes and parachutes thanks to a film called “A Bridge too Far.” CG Dakota planes, parachutes, and environments of France below them were all created digitally for this climactic closing of the season.
Clients:
Stephen Woolfenden: Director
Stephen Smallwood: Series Producer
Karen Wilson: MD at Kudos FIlm & Television
Martin Haines: MD at Kudos Film & Television
Ingenuity Studios:
Grant Miller: Partner and Executive VFX Supervisor
David Lebensfeld: President and VFX Supervisor
Matthew Poliquin: Exec Vice President
David Sewell: Production VFX Supervisor
Patrick Dean: VFX Exec Producer
Mary-Margaret Cimino: VFX Producer
Eoin O’Sullivan: Assistant VFX Supervisor
Rich Fry: CG Supervisor
Tom Marcus-Walker: Production Coordinator
Jon Creamer
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