BrainDead

A government employee discovers that the cause of the tensions between the two political parties is a race of extraterrestrial insects eating the brains of the politicians.

DNEG was delighted to be the primary VFX vendor on Robert and Michelle King’s (Creators of The Good Wife) CBS’s new “dramedy” BRAINDEAD.

The 13 part series contains a large number of complex VFX shots, many of which involved the visualisation of an alien race of brain eating “bugs”.

DNEG designed and created the CG alien characters, focusing primarily on an ant like design that can be mistaken for the everyday; but upon closer inspection reveals its true extra terrestrial form. Complex rigs and animation cycles were created for speedy turnaround, with hero “bugs” hand animated to give a flourish of individuality to their performance.

A number of shots also involved huge quantities of the bugs being on screen simultaneously, necessitating a Houdini FX simulation for the 1.8 million separate alien creatures, to bring these spectacular moments to fruition.