LONDON - VFX studio Peerless won a Creative Arts Emmy at the recent ceremony at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. The Emmy award for outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Supporting Role went to The Alienist (Paramount TV / TNT). The project was led by VFX supervisor Kent Houston and VFX producer Wendy Garfinkle.
LONDON - VFX studio Peerless won a Creative Arts Emmy at the recent ceremony at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. The Emmy award for outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Supporting Role went to The Alienist (Paramount TV / TNT). The project was led by VFX supervisor Kent Houston (pictured) and VFX producer Wendy Garfinkle.
The Emmy was awarded for the first episode, “The Boy on The Bridge,” with Peerless being the lead vendor. The VFX centered around the digital transformation of location and set builds based out of Budapest, where principal photography took place, into the New York City of 1896.
Peerless and VFX producer Martin Lake created a full CG layout of the entire city of Manhattan and built a whole host of landmarks, streets, buildings, carriages and carts, down to CG fruit and vegetables to populate the market stalls. Particular attention was paid to areas of the city where key scenes were happening, including the famous aquarium and the Williamsburg Bridge, where the murdered victims were found, as well as the main streets and squares of Manhattan. Both the Williamsburg and Brooklyn Bridges were built to an acute level of detail and featured very close up in several scenes.
Overall VFX supervisor Kent Houston commented on the win: “I was delighted to win this Emmy as it was acknowledgement from my peers of the incredibly high standard of work on this episode in particular, and the series in general, against extremely stiff competition.
“It was a very collaborative process not just with the various vendors but with the production and shooting crew, in particular Mara LePere-Schloop the Production Designer, and PJ Dillon the DoP. Director Jakob Verbruggen had a vision and our task was to realise that vision. We accomplished that and far more. I really enjoyed the prep and shoot in Budapest and found the environment very conducive to creating a totally convincing period world.
“I am really proud of the show - every aspect of it. So well made, by such a great bunch of talented people.”
Peerless also recently fully supervised and produced the VFX on Bodyguard for World Productions, playing Sundays at 9pm on BBC 1. They are currently working on numerous high profile film and TV projects including The Spanish Princess (New Pictures/ Starz Ent.), The Kid Who Would be King (20th Century Fox), Judy (Pathé) and Holmes and Watson (Sony/Columbia).