By Randi Altman

No one can deny that the marketing campaign for the horror film Smile was original — actors placed behind the plate at baseball games, smiling and creeping people out. Creeping people out was exactly the intension of Smile writer/director Parker Finn.

Vico Sharabani

Yuval Levy

The film follows Dr. Rose Cotter, who, after witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can’t explain. As an overwhelming terror begins taking over her life, Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her horrifying new reality.

The film features a variety of visual effects provided by New York-based The-Artery, which was the only studio working on the film’s 17 minutes of effects. We recently spoke to the VFX studio’s founder/CCO, Vico Sharabani, and director/CD/VFX supervisor, Yuval Levy, to find out more about their work on the film.

How early were you brought on to Smile? And how did that help?
Vico Sharabani: We were brought in very early in the preproduction process. This allowed us to collaborate closely with director Parker Finn, DP Charlie Sarroff, special effects and many departments. We went shot by shot and determined the best way to merge SFX, art and VFX while still honoring Parker’s vision. By the time we were shooting, we had formed a close creative partnership between us and the production team.

For example, we worked with the art department to determine what parts could be CG and what parts had to be constructed. Several building facades were built in reality and then seamlessly extended. Toward the end, when the monster is going down a long corridor, the art department also made the corridor smaller than it appeared to make the monster look much larger.

Being brought in early also helped us on the post side. Very shortly after production wrapped, we made temps of every shot, allowing the rough cut to have actual VFX. This was important in getting the film moved from a streaming release to a theatrical release.

Did you do previsualization?
Yuval Levy: We did previz on a drone shot that goes across a hospital parking lot and then through a window of the hospital. We also did previz for the shot of the house burning down and several other shots from the fire scene. The drone previz helped our drone operator in translating Parker’s vision into a reality and the fire scenes were crucial since we were using real fire, meaning we had to get many of the fire shots in one take.

The-Artery also did preliminary R&D for the fire shots. This allowed us to determine how much we could use from shooting real fire, what references we needed and how well the CG fire could work.

Can you describe some of the visual effects the film features? Overt, invisible, characters, water or fire effects, etc.?
Sharabani: On Smile, the focus was on practicality — everything needed to feel as if it was captured in-camera. We were on-set, working closely with the SFX team to determine what could be practical and what had to be VFX. When we did have to do VFX, we worked tirelessly to make it as invisible as possible. Whether it was a camera diving into an actor’s eye that required stitching multiple takes, a CG eye, scanning Sosie Bacon’s face or a drone shot that had to be fully redone in CG, we spent weeks ensuring that the effects felt completely practical.

Even the monster on fire, which was done through a CG character, used a stunt performer who was on fire so we could have a real reference of how the fire would interact with the character and the environment.

What was the most challenging part of the film for you?
Levy: The most difficult part is near the climax, when the monster of Rose’s mom catches on fire. We did shoot a reference of a stunt double doing the same movements, but it required extensive match-moving and difficult simulation to make sure that the monster moved correctly and the flmes felt natural. Not only that, but Parker and I wanted to feel the monster burning so the monster changes throughout the sequence, slowly burning each layer of her skin until the scene ends.

In this scene, we also had a smashed lantern on fire. To make this happen, Rose reached for a practical lantern on-set, so we had to recreate Rose’s hand and the lantern (including the cracked glass) and then simulate fire on top of that. This allowed us to have fire naturally reacting with Rose’s hand and with the lantern.

Another difficult shot in this scene was the monster face rip, when Rose’s mom’s giant demon rips off her own face to reveal a grotesque, monstrous face underneath. The prosthetics team built an incredible practical. VFX then had to blend the different shots so the actor’s face would perfectly transition to the monster prosthetic. We then recreated the prosthetic in CGI and brought it to life, with skin peeling away and enhancements to the eyes. It was extremely satisfying to see all the parts come together on the big screen.

Many shots were also difficult due to their length. This often led to shots requiring impossible camera moves. To make them happen, we had to carefully stitch together multiple plates so the end result had a single seamless camera move.

Can you talk about the set process? Assuming whatever you could do practically you did?
Levy: On-set, we didn’t want to invent anything. It was a collaboration with SFX to make sure we could capture as many assets in-camera as possible. We also used lidar and photogrammetry scanning on numerous props, buildings, prosthetics and several actors for CG recreation. This allowed us to create truly photoreal CGI.

You were the only studio working on the VFX?
Sharabani: The-Artery was in charge of it all. We were working in pre-production, on-set and in post to create the effects.

We also had several shots that were added in the middle of post, such as the cat shots. In the birthday scene, there was originally a practical cat dummy that Parker was unhappy with. So  in post, we completely replaced the dummy cat with a CG cat throughout the scene.

Any particular note stand out from the director?
Levy: Overall, Parker kept emphasizing that he wanted the film to feel as impactful as possible. This was a consistent note across many of the shots. For example, in the shot where Rose’s sister’s head falls down, Parker saw the first draft and wanted it to feel more horrifying and visceral, so we redid it with the neck visually being completely twisted.

In the scene where Rose stabs her patient, Parker wanted the stab to have more tension and drawback to make it feel like she is actually pulling a knife out of a body, so we reanimated Rose’s arm to give it more friction. This philosophy is also what led us to decide to show the monster actually decaying in the flames at the end of the film.

Finally, what tools did you use to create the VFX?
Sharabani: We used Autodesk Flame and Foundry Nuke for comping, SideFX Houdini for simulations, and Autodesk’s Maya and 3DS Max for modeling, texturing and animation.

Randi Altman is the founder and editor-in-chief of postPerspective. She has been covering production and post production for more than 20 years.