We break down TheSandman season 1 with VFX Supervisor Ian Markiewicz, including the graphic novel panels that were most influential for the Netflix series, the most challenging sequences to build, and the high hopes for a season 2:
Another fantastical world of Neil Gaiman has made its way to the screen with The Sandman. The Netflix series is based on the graphic novel of the same name and centers on Morpheus, one of the seven Endless beings. After being captured in an occult ritual for over a century, he embarks on a journey to restore his kingdom of the Dreaming.
VFX For The Sandman Screen Rant: I have loved The Sandman comics long before the show even was in development, so when I heard it was finally coming out, I was like, "Yes. Let's get it. Let's finally see this world brought to life on screen." You are no stranger to the comic book world, with your work on Krypton and Agent Carter, but how you become VFX supervisor for The Sandman?
Ian Markiewicz: It's super organic; so much of it starts with the comic book. From the beginning, that was always like our Gospel, our Bible was like, "Okay, let's start with the comic books." I always have the bound volumes and the paperbacks at the ready at all times, they're always here. So, whenever we start, we start by just leafing through and saying — the scripts are also very much leaning into the comic books.
That prose was something that I could then take and almost use as a very similar brief that I might brief a concept artist on and say like, "Well, here's how Neil described it, here's how he was thinking of it, so let's do a photoreal version of that, instead of the comic book version of that, and then kind of compare notes and see what we can borrow more from the comic where it's exciting if we lean into other areas and aspects.
Ian Markiewicz: Yeah, for visual effects, everything is sort of always working in tandem, we're always sort of at a stage in a shot throughout many, many, many months. So, for that particular example, in terms of breaking it down, a few things have to happen. We have our set, we have a sphere, that is a practical sphere that exists, but has certain things that we do digitally to enhance and augment it to make it sort of more functional and viable and look a little bit more robust.
That particular shot was handled by the team at ILP, called Important Looking Pirates, they're based out of Stockholm, they are phenomenal. I would love to give them many shoutouts whenever possible. But it's really, if those sequences work, and they look good, in the end, it's to the credit of the visual effects facilities, the artists, the vendors, that are working on that stuff. In that particular example, it's an ILP shot.
That sequence was one that was designed very late, it's almost all CG, but we knew from the beginning that we wanted to showcase Lucifer's palace, and it was going to be a challenge to figure out how to do that in a way that felt like it was satisfying.
I think that we knew that we needed to make sure that we did service, so that the fans loved it, but that's also a very difficult group to please, to make sure that they were satisfied, because everybody who's passionate about this property is going to have very strong and valid opinions about what it should be.
I certainly hope for more. Since you were involved with the writer's room early, was there anything that you didn't get the opportunity to do from a budgetary perspective? I know this show had a good-sized budget, but sometimes things have to go if they're too costly. That would be fully CG, as sort of concept and design and, and it's doable. But if we are to do that, then we know that that is going to, by necessity, take resources from other things. From, more importantly, a story perspective, it became, "Well, what are we getting from this, the sand has some sentience? That's interesting, okay, we like that, that's very much in spirit to what the comic book is doing.
Ian Markiewicz: Yeah, it's a different landscape, in terms of the COVID component of everything, and that there wasn't a physical on-site writers' room like there was in season 1. But Allan spent, I think it was 20 weeks doing virtual writers' rooms while we were still in delivery for season 1. So, we were still sort of working through all those pieces, now at this point in time, we have a really wonderful framework for what we think season 2 looks like.
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