Ben Turner is part of a team that is Emmy nominated for its visual effects work on The Crown. The Netflix series is recognized in the "Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Single Episode" category for its "Dis-Moi Oui" episode.
Turner (pictured) served as the show's overall VFX supervisor, and shares the nomination with overall VFX producer Reece Ewing, VFX supervisor Oliver Bersey and VFX producer Julia Stannard.
"As the overall VFX supervisor, my responsibilities start in pre-production and end in post," shares Turner. "Everything starts with the scripts – that’s where you learn what the next year has in store for you and the subjects in which you have to become a temporary expert in! As a department, VFX producer Reece Ewing and I are involved in many discussions and location (considerations) before we start shooting an episode. We put together episode breakdowns and budgets, and talk everything through with the directors, producers and other departments."
As the supervisor, Turner helps to plan how things need to be shot in order for the planned VFX to be achieved.
"Whether we need a green screen or any other special requirements," he offers. "I then attend the shoot days and liaise with the director and DoP to ensure we’re all happy with how the shots look and discuss what we imagine might be included in the VFX."
Once the episodes move into post, the VFX team collaborates with the editors and directors about what shots are likely to be included in the cut.
"We start concept art at this stage and decide which vendors we’d like to bid on the work," he explains. "Once the work is awarded and underway, my responsibilities take a more technical turn as I guide the teams working on all the elements involved in a shot and finesse all aspects to ensure the final result is as invisible and convincing as can be. We will then sign off the work in the grade, so that we’re seeing it at the best possible quality."
While The Crown is not a series that audiences may perceive as a visual effects show, its needs did increased with every season.
"Our work is very much in support of the narrative, with the aim fading into the background rather than being identifiable," says Turner. "I would much rather someone watch it and say, 'The Crown? What VFX work is there in that?’ Rather than them congratulating me on some good CGI!"
The VFX team included a group of compositors, all working remotely, using Foundry's Nuke on virtual machines hosted on the AWS cloud.
"This made our internal workflows seamless and made for easy turnovers and deliveries with vendors and the DI," Turner notes.
He points to the show's telling of the late Princess Diana’s death as one of the sequences that presented some of the biggest challenges.
"(It) brought with it perhaps the most expectations, and the greatest burden of responsibility of any subject we had tackled in the preceding 52 episodes," he recalls. "It was clear from the beginning that the subject would have to be handled sensitively, and our VFX team was at the heart of achieving this."
Episode 3 - “Dis-Moi Oui” – is up for an Emmy, thanks in part to its recreation of the famous Ritz hotel, located in Place Vendome in Paris.
"The art department built a partial set (the doorway of The Ritz) on the backlot at Elstree Studios in London," he recalls. "The rest of the enormous square was created in 3D by our team using extensive LIDAR scanning and photography of the real location in Paris. We then tweaked the CG to better match the art department build, in order to create a seamless environment. The scenes required a building sense of frantic claustrophobia. We helped to heighten this by adding crowds and additional photographers to the square surrounding the characters and their cars. It was so important for all the scenes in this location to be seamless and not distract from the drama in any way, and I feel really proud that we were able to achieve this in such an important episode for the show."