Deep Cuts: How Outpost helped reveal Demerzel's conflicted character for Foundation S1

Demerzel, labelled as one of the most complex sci-fi characters in television, is deeply conflicted between her programming which ensures she obeys the Empire, and her sense of good and evil. We watch her internal battle quietly intensify throughout the season until episode 8 “The Missing Piece”, where she is overcome by her human-like emotions.

When first presented with the brief, the Outpost Montreal team were excited to be working on such a technical VFX shot and important story point. Working closely with Production VFX Supervisor, Chris MacLean, the team set to work on this climactic end to season 1.

First of all, how did you approach such a complex VFX sequence that also holds a lot of emotional weight?

We knew we had to get this right: it had to look convincing but also carry the emotion of Demerzel’s character, even when she reveals her android form. This is a huge moment for this character; Demerzel is coming to terms with the burden of her loyalty to the empire and we needed to convey the anguish she feels for this sequence to be successful.

The showrunner was fully aware of how big of a VFX sequence this was going to be and there was a lot of thought into how this scene was going to be shot on the day. We all knew from the beginning that we wanted the audience to see everything that happens during the ripping movement, we didn’t want to hide the face at any point. 

The client made sure the shoot was extremely structured; Chris MacLean (Production VFX Supervisor) had a clear plan of how to execute the sequence in a way that made it easier for us to work with. From the beginning we had a lot of passes to use as reference, from Laura Birn’s amazing performance in the plate, to a sequence shot using a dummy head and the ripping off of its rubber ‘skin’.

They also did a lot of rehearsal passes to figure out the choreography of when the rips would happen which made it easier for us to follow in CG.

Also, to allow us to fully focus on the most technically challenging part – the ripping of her skin – the client came up with the idea of having Laura wear a wig cap that she could rip off in one sweep at the end; this meant we didn’t have to deal with the hair at all which can often prove difficult. 

We were lucky with how much thought and preparation had gone into this sequence from the production side as it gave us a really strong jumping off point.

What about the design of the mechanical head? Where did you start with that?

We started with a big mood board and a collection of images that Chris MacLean shared with us and we discussed it together. There was a lot of HR Giger and biomechanical references in the brief; they wanted her to look ancient and sophisticated but organic, not just wires and circuitry. We didn’t want to go down the too obvious sci-fi, Terminator route, but instead a bit more alien-like which is why Giger was a big inspiration.

We also needed to consider the facial features that we kept in the design, for example around the eyes we left some soft tissue to keep the emotion in her performance, as well as cheek bones and elements that resembled muscles and tendons. One element that was tricky from this perspective was her nose. When you put a nose on a skull, because you lose the fleshy upper lip, you end up with something that resembles a Simpson’s character – a skull with a drastic underbite. So there was some work that we had to do there to make sure it didn’t come across as goofy or silly.

After Chris had kicked us off with a load of ideas, we went away and modelled some 2D concept designs. Once we’d worked these up to a place that we were all happy with, we started sculpting. We were able to get a photogrammetry scan of the actress’ head so we could match her facial features such as her nose and cheekbones.

There’s a lot of movement here that you needed to track. How difficult was this?

Laura’s performance was incredible and there was a lot of micromovements in her face that conveyed anger and distress, so tracking those movements was difficult. The camera move was also a challenge as it goes almost up over her head and has a very shallow depth of field which made getting a perfect track a challenge.  Luckily, we had a great matchmove team that dealt with it all so well.

How did you pull off the ripping and tearing of the skin?

After body tracking the actress, working around the challenging camera move and depth of field, we spent a lot of time precision tracking her hands and fingers for the ripping movements which were such an integral part of the performance.

Next, we pre-cut the skin geo because the actress’ movements were choreographed, and we knew where the tearing would be. We also had the practical dummy reference that was a bit rubbery which helped us to recreate the texture and behaviour of her ‘skin’. Then we added some tearing details to the edges, and to make it more unpleasant, we added some stringy mucus and slime as the skin peeled off the ‘skull’. 

Because we had a full-CG, synchronised android head and the plate set up, when the fingers start to pull and rip at the skin in the plate, we were able to reveal bits of the CG head behind, and then when she removes the wig that we were talking about earlier, that’s when we switch to the full-CG. There was a lot of blending between the two that the comp team did an incredible job with. 

What was the biggest challenge with this scene? 

Aside from the technicality of it all, retaining the actress’ performance when we’re in full-CG was a challenge. 

Laura gave such a great performance that matching the emotion was difficult because our CG head was, by design, more simplistic than her face. We decided we needed to keep the actress’ eyes and eyelids so that we had some human-like soft tissue to convey the same emotion as Demerzel with her skin on.

Otherwise, you lose that empathy and connection that has built up throughout the scene; we had to humanise her even in her android form to keep the audience invested in the emotional breakdown that she’s having.

Now that it’s all aired and the scene was well received, how do you feel about the sequence?

I’m extremely happy and proud of the work that we did as a team; it was a big responsibility for a crucial moment in the season. I’m really pleased with the final result, and thankful to the production team for such great planning and organisation that helped us to do the best work possible and do the sequence justice.

Is there one thing in particular with this sequence that stays in your mind?

That scream – I won’t forget that one for a while!

Watch the full VFX breakdown for Outpost's work below:

Richard Clegg is Outpost’s Head of VFX with over 15 years in the industry. In these years, Richard has been a key figure within VFX teams behind some of the most technically accomplished and visually arresting films of the last decade, including bringing the Oscar-winning Rachel digi-double to life for Blade Runner 2049.

Other highlights of Richard’s career include the full-CG ‘Young Arnie’ in Terminator Genisys, the ghostly pirate crew of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell no Tales and the vast collection of vivid fantasy environments in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. 

More recently, Richard has contributed to the Netflix fantasy, Slumberland and upcoming Fast X.