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There are many reasons streaming shows are having so much success. But not enough of the attention is being paid to the artists behind the camera.
At this past weekend’s WonderCon some of the best and brightest got a chance to tell their stories.
Enter: David Van Dyke, one of the founders of Shade VFX, a company that has worked on Netflix’s Daredevil and Jessica Jones and blockbuster movies such as last weekend’s major entry: Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. We talked about how working on streaming shows compares to features, his favorite condiments, cockroaches, workplace cliques and more.
You’ve worked on so many superhero projects. Watchmen, Blade—
Blade II baby.
Do you look at the comics to influence you?
100%. You have to come in and face the music. If you don’t know what you’re doing, people go nuts. The biggest thing that I worked on was probably Hellboy. That was the one where I was deeply, truly immersed into the comic book world of that character. I worked with Guillermo [del Toro], I was on from the very beginning when all of those guys were designing the monsters and guns in a tiny office in Van Nuys, way before we even left for Prague. I was on that thing for two and a half years.
I actually met my wife on that show in Prague. But she’s from Kentucky, so there you go. But anyways, that’s a whole other—you want to talk about that?
Yeah, I’d love to. How did you meet?
Her sister was the script supervisor, and you get these cliques on a movie set. We were in the same clique.
What clique was that?
Oh, just like the camera, visual FX, nerd group.
So you’re weren’t like the goths or the—
No, no.
Who are the jocks on a movie set?
Probably the stunties.
That makes sense.
Don’t quote me.
Too late.
I’m only eight in to Daredevil, and I say “only” because people burn through these so fast—
I don’t know how people do it. Season 2?
Yeah. I love it. The FX and look of the show is one of the best parts and it really does have that comic book, pulp, gritty, noir vibe.
It’s very grounded in reality, because while he does have super powers, he can’t shoot laser beams out of his eyes. He gets hurt like anybody else. He loses his fights and wins his fights. There’s something very human about Daredevil, which is something people appreciate.
Do you prefer doing grounded FX to crazy laser-shooting-out-of-the-eyes FX?
Absolutely. Bryan Godwin [the owner of Shade VFX] and I very much appreciate what we call invisible effects. I was talking to a buddy of mine, who’s a post supervisor, and he’s like, ‘Hey man, way to go on season 2 of Daredevil! I got to say great job,
if I only knew what you did. Looks like you did 3 shots in the entire show.’ But in reality it was well over 1,000 shots. Tons of set extensions, safety stuff, weapons.
We don’t like it to be fantastic. We’re not making our show. We’re making the project’s show. This is about Daredevil. It’s about making sure our FX really works in the fabric of the show and is not drawing away from it.
What is one of your favorite invisible FX moments from these shows?
I don’t know if this is my favorite, but this is something that I think is really excellent. In Jessica Jones there’s a tender moment she has by herself in the bathroom. She’s taking a shower, in a towel, and there’s a cockroach on the wall. Do you remember that scene?
I do.
I don’t know if you’ve worked with a cockroach, but they can be totally unreasonable. They can be really hard to work with.
Oh, I know. I live in the Valley.
And it’s also totally illegal to flick a cockroach. So that’s a total CG cockroach. There was a green dot on the wall. This is where the cockroach is. Krysten Ritter flicked the green dot. The cockroach falling into the drain, all of that stuff was 100% CG.
I love that scene.
Did you know it was an effect?
I didn’t think about it, and that’s clearly the point.
You’re thinking that’s a big, disgusting cockroach.
I watched it with my girlfriend and there was some revulsion.
Yeah, exactly, my wife did too. My team did that.
What is your team? What is Shade VFX?
Bryan and I have known each other 10-12 years or so. We are trench buddies. We found each other, and found that we not only respected our abilities as visual FX artists, but we liked each other. He’s my brother. What we wanted to do was high-end, excellent work, and work on all the big shows, but do it in a way where we know everybody’s name. We always joke that there’s no jerks in Shade. We can do every facet of the visual FX process, but we just can’t do it on the scale of an enormous shop. There are certain situations, like Daredevil, where we can do 1,300 shots. We could work on Star Wars, and have some large sequences, but we can’t do the whole thing, nor do we want to. That’s an entirely different business model.
What’s the difference between working on a streaming show or a regular show?
It has a lot of similarities with television and feature films. On features, you get these production schedules that are built on managing the one body of work and cultivating it through the post-production process. If you think about it, Daredevil is a 13-hour movie. But by having it episodic, you can take these manageable bite-size schedules.
But they’re moving fast. It’s like working on a 911 feature schedule. But the quality needs to be the same. It’s a 4K show, and there’s no way to hide in a 4K. It’s got to look excellent. If it doesn’t, you’re going to be exposed. Shade is a movie
shop, so we treat it like a feature; you just use those incremental deliveries of the episodes to your advantage.
Have you worked on a standard episodic TV show?
Not really.
It doesn’t appeal to you?
I wouldn’t say it doesn’t appeal to us; it just doesn’t quite work for our model. We’re somewhat hardwired for a feature process and OTT (over the top) streaming. That world caters more to what we’re built to do.
Are there any dream movies or TV shows you’d like to work on?
I would’ve loved to work on a Raiders [of the Lost Ark] movie, which could happen. Shade worked on Jason Segel’s Muppets movie. We were pretty excited about that. I don’t know why. I don’t get very star-struck anymore. But we worked on Muppets! You just go YEAH!
Kermit wins.
Yes! It’s a moment from childhood. You still have these moments, even if it is part of everyday. You talk to all these extremely talented, famous people, it’s heady, but it’s part of your job.
What’s your favorite condiment?
My favorite condiment…this is critical. I don’t want to get this wrong. I don’t want to say..-I’m half-Japanese, I could say ketchup. But I’m probably going to say soy sauce.
You ever mixed them?
I have actually. On scrambled eggs.
Did it work?
I don’t know. I was six.
You still remember it.
I remember it vividly. It tasted a little bit like a hot dog. I was also enamored with the hyperbole of it all, and watching the expression on my mother’s face.
That’s why you do it. Thanks David.
Seasons 1 and 2 of Marvel’s Daredevil and season 1 of Marvel’s Jessica Jones are streaming on Netflix.
[Cube image courtesy of Netflix; body image courtesy of CW3PR]
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