Maxance Vincent
With a new showrunner and directors on board, Loki – Season 2 is far aesthetically different than the first season. This is not only apparent through its cinematography and production design, which take different approach than the first season, but also in its visual effects, as explained by Visual Effects Supervisor Christopher Townsend, whose work was nominated for an Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Season or Movie.
Speaking to Awards Radar on Zoom about the second season, Townsend said that the visual effects team had discussions with the showrunners and directors before they had even started shooting on the look of the season:
“We’d already figured out what that final look needed to be. We pushed it pretty hard and tried to create a more filmic look and analog feel. If we know we’re going to treat this in a particular way in post-production, let’s put something through the process so that we can say, ‘This is how we’re going to shoot it, and this is what we’re going to do to it.’ That’s what we did through test photography, and we would it show the studio and say, ‘Okay, is everyone on board with this?’ With that in mind, because you have that concerted effort to create a singular vision, I think that’s really important that everybody was on board with creating it. It was key to the project’s success, practically and creatively.”
The visual effects department also “worked very closely with production designer Kasra Farahani, who also directed one of the episodes. He was also the production designer for season one, so his incredible knowledge and passion for the world of TVA were really helpful. Sitting down with the director of photography, Isaac Bauman, who worked on five episodes, and Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who directed four episodes. They had a very strong hand guiding the show so that we all stayed on the path. We stayed true to the vision of what it was, and then it was all under Kevin Wright, the executive producer on Marvel’s end. He was incredible and was amazing to work with. He was passionately involved with not only the first but also the second season, and making sure that we all stuck to the script as it were for any visual guidelines.”
We also had a chance to discuss some of the show’s biggest challenges in the creation of its visual effects, the process of creating the time-slipping effect, the Temporal Loom, and the final scene of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) becoming “God Loki,” and rearranging the timelines into a Yggdasil Tree.
You can check out my full interview with Christopher below and stream all episodes of Loki – Season 2 on Disney+ today:
[Some of the quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity]
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