Our Flag Means Loss of life received an important tech enhance from Avatar 2

Season 2 of David Jenkins’ pirate comedy-romance-drama Our Flag Means Loss of life has lastly premiered on Max, with a gap three-episode arc that’s assured to get the collection’ fandom buzzing. The third episode specifically ends with a sequence that feels prefer it was deliberately crafted to encourage the crowds of fan artists who’ve turned the collection into an obsession. Polygon talked to the collection’ VFX supervisor, David Van Dyke, about what went into taking pictures that sequence — and the way James Cameron’s Avatar: The Method of Water helped out.

[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for season 2, episode 3 of Our Flag Means Death.]

Picture: Max

On the finish of episode 3, Ed “Blackbeard” Train (Taika Waititi) is in limbo after being assaulted and almost killed by his crew. There, he meets his former captain Benjamin Hornigold (one other of the collection’ historic pirate characters, performed by Mark Mitchinson), who tries to assist him by way of his emotional disaster over being deserted by Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby). Besides Hornigold largely helps by stating Blackbeard’s failings, then tying a stone to his waist and throwing him off a cliff into the ocean — the place he sees a imaginative and prescient of Stede as a fish-tailed merman, coming to avoid wasting him.

“Simply so , Rhys and Taika did very effectively underwater,” Van Dyke advised Polygon about taking pictures the scene. “Rhys is just not an Olympic synchronized swimmer, however he’s a powerful swimmer. They had been each very comfy underwater. They each did a extremely good job of being mermen.”

Van Dyke says he was initially requested whether or not he may do the scene with CG variations of the 2 males, for security causes. He defined that it was potential, “however that’ll value tens of millions and tens of millions of {dollars}, and we don’t actually have that.”

As an alternative, he ended up taking pictures the scene virtually. Season 1 of Our Flag Means Loss of life was shot on a soundstage in Los Angeles, however for season 2, manufacturing moved to New Zealand. That gave Van Dyke loads of benefits by way of taking pictures pure backdrops to make use of on the manufacturing’s large digital setting display, and in utilizing skilled crews from previous special-effects-heavy productions, from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings motion pictures to James Cameron’s Avatar motion pictures.

Picture: Max

“There have been positively a number of items that had been serendipitously to our benefit,” Van Dyke says. “New Zealand was the place they shot loads of Avatar stuff, and there simply so occurs to be an unlimited tank on the lot. There are a bunch of Avatar crew who’re SCUBA licensed, as a result of they’ve been taking pictures in that tank eternally. This was not one thing we had to determine — we didn’t must ship a bunch of grips and lighting technicians off to SCUBA college. So that they had been there, that they had actually wonderful underwater pictures groups, and clearly a extremely good stunt staff that was in a position to prepare up Taika and Rhys to ensure the scene was working.”

Van Dyke factors to New Zealand’s thriving mermaid freediving group as a boon when it got here to designing Darby’s merman outfit. “There are loads of unbelievable mer-tails on the market,” he mentioned. “We had been in a position to take these, and [costume designer Gypsy Taylor] and her staff introduced them collectively to make these stunning bodily items, so Rhys was in a position to really promote it and do the efficiency underwater.”

For Van Dyke, the sequence actually began with the cliff-jump sequence, which really used significantly extra CG than the underwater pictures. “That cliff sequence was an incredible fruits of results, merging bodily pictures and our LED wall, as a result of you’ll be able to’t actually put these two guys on a thousand-foot cliff,” he mentioned. “The insurance coverage alone could be uncontrolled. Additionally, we’re probably not within the enterprise of getting folks fall to their deaths.”

Picture: David Van Dyke/Max

Picture: Max

The cliff sequence started with sequences shot off New Zealand’s Bethells Seashore, utilizing drones to seize pictures wanting inward from the ocean and photogrammetry of a particular ledge for manufacturing designer Ra Vincent and the artwork division to breed within the studio.

“The extensive pictures use manufacturing plates of these cliffs, and the tighter pictures use pictures we shot particularly to construct out the stitching of the cliff sequence,” Van Dyke mentioned. “Hornigold and Blackbeard are standing on a cliff set. We tied in drone plates of the particular cliffs so we are able to see the ocean and actually arrange how terrifying [the drop would be]. Then he falls into the ocean, falls into our tank.”

As soon as Waititi was within the tank, the following step was the shot the place the stone tied to a rope round his waist pulls him deep underwater. That a part of the scene required extra typical, sensible manufacturing trickery than the remainder of the sequence.

“The tank is huge, but it surely’s not 300 ft deep. It’s fairly darn large, but it surely’s by no means large enough, as they are saying,” Van Dyke says. “So when Taika is being tugged by the rock, we really shot that sideways. By turning the digicam sideways, you get extra size to the shot. The issue is the bubbles — they need to be streaming off him after which rising to the floor, however if you happen to’re going sideways, they’re going to come back off him after which go up, perpendicular to him. So we took over with CG to ensure our bubbles had been touring towards the place the floor was presupposed to be.”

The CG within the underwater sequence was largely used to cover the lighting and rigging essential to shoot it, Van Dyke says. “Anytime you’re taking pictures something underwater, there’s gonna be loads of gear. There’s no method you will get round that. So we’re ensuring we’ve got [convincing deep-sea] lighting and the bubbles. After which there’s his efficiency — that’s an actual efficiency.”

For Van Dyke, the actual complication was the costuming and make-up for each Darby and Waititi. “Taika’s wig — I used to be amazed that factor stayed on so lengthy. It’s an extended shoot. He was taking pictures all day, all weekend. However issues stayed on. It’s a heavy weight. And Rhys is de facto working underwater, so his tail needs to be working, so all of it feels seamless.”

The shot within the underwater sequence that appears almost certainly to be a CG creation has each males simply floating deep within the sea, dealing with one another above a seemingly limitless abyss. Once more, Van Dyke says, he used little or no CG for that shot, and it was largely to cover the tank partitions.

Picture: Max

“In that case, we weren’t taking pictures sideways,” he mentioned. “It’s primarily a locked shot. It was about getting them on the proper depth underwater, and ensuring the shafts of sunshine above them had been working correctly. We don’t have to trace as a lot, we don’t have all these transferring components, we don’t have to fret about the place the bubbles are going. That one was actually nearly cleansing up the tank, doctoring out the edges of the shot, the place we are able to see the water receding into blackness, then giving the bottom of the tank true depth, so it actually seems like they’re suspended 100 ft beneath the floor.

“Clearly, a good quantity of CGI and visible results had to enter it. However on the identical time, it was a second the place we actually wanted to let the story take over, and have the visible results simply get out of the way in which, man.”

The primary three episodes of Our Flag Means Loss of life season 2 are actually streaming on Max.

Picture: Max