Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy, which is streaming all three seasons on Netflix, features a ton of visual effects, mostly overt. In fact, the series and its VFX supervisor Everett Burrell have gotten three Emmy nominations for its visual effects since the show’s inception, including this year.

Everett Burrell

Burrell, who has six noms and one Emmy win under his belt (for makeup on Babylon 5), took some time out to answer a few questions about the show. Let’s find out more…

You’ve been on the show since the beginning. How have the visual effects evolved during that time — from a creative and technical standpoint? 
Yes, I have been with the The Umbrella Academy team since the beginning. We started prep on Season 1 in October of 2017. I am blown away that it has been six years of truly the best creative experience of my career.

The visual effects have really gone through some big changes. We keep trying to top ourselves every season. Bigger and more complicated visual effects, more superpowers, Pogo (created by Weta VFX) has changed every season, tons of new complicated effects simulations and huge new environments.

Are you using virtual production or real-time VFX these days?
We do not use any virtual production tools or any game engine renders. We are a very traditional VFX pipeline.

How many shots does each episode have, typically?
On average we are around 150 to 200 shots per episode.

How many different vendors do you use, and what is the turnaround time like? Is it like a traditional television schedule (short!), or do you have more time?
We use between eight and 10 visual effects companies around the world. It takes us 18 months to prep, shoot and finish all the post for each season. We have a much better schedule then a network TV show.

What about the pipeline?
We use ShotGrid to track all the visual effect shots and assets in the show. We collect over 400GB of data, HDRI, witness cameras and reference stills for each season. It’s a huge task to keep organized and get ready to go out to each VFX vendor.

What were the biggest challenges this season?
The new Pogo in this timeline was very complicated. The Kugleblitz required a ton of revisions before we were all happy with it. The Universe Machine in the final episode took a lot of concept art and design work. All this was very complicated work during the height of COVID and a dealing with a remote workflow.

Can you name the software used to create Pogo?
Maya is the main software but a lot of special custom software tools designed by Weta FX.

What was it about this particular episode that made it Emmy consideration worthy?
I think new Pogo designs, the Harlan and Viktor Power up moments at the drive in. Plus, all the Kugleblitz moments of the world being slowly atomized.

What haven’t I asked that’s important?
I think we are very fortunate to have built a really amazing team over the years. Working so closely with all the VFX companies has created a bond of trust and a wonderful creative partnership.