We all kind of think we know what VFX looks like — or at least what bad VFX looks like. We can often feel when computer-generated imagery clashes with the visual language of a film‘s world and is too plastic-y or textureless, when that world is all of a sudden too dark or crumbling into an indistinct mass of large-scale destruction porn. Especially with greater attention now on the punishing crunches and production sprints imposed on visual effects artists and the advent of soulless AI slop, there’s been a reaction against VFX as a useful tool, a desire to do everything practically — or at least a desire to say that everything is being done practically.
“The Legend of Ochi” got caught up in this “VFX is for Marvel movies (derogatory)” discourse when the first trailer for the A24 film dropped. So many online comments accused the film of being AI-generated that director Isaiah Saxon felt the need to comment in a now-deleted Twitter post that confirmed the titular Ochi, a rare primate-like creature a young girl (Helena Zengel) befriends despite her father’s (Willem Dafoe) crusade to kill them, was, in all close and medium shots, created by animatronic puppets and performed by teams of skilled puppeteers.
But one of the refreshing things about “The Legend of Ochi” is how it demonstrates that good visual worldbuilding is never a question of practical or CGI, but a blend of both and of all departments working together to achieve the look that the film needs. Some films want the scale and spectacle that call for notable VFX, and some digitally sculpt the sky to better reflect the mood of an otherwise grounded, contemporary scene.
“The Legend of Ochi” is a fantasy adventure story, and needed a blend of both the real and the uncanny — of primeval forests that stretch beyond our sense of the horizon, of mysterious mists that settle across mountains and hide the Ochi from human eyes, but also the kind of tactile attachment to the Ochi that would make us believe that it’s real. “ I hoped a kid could come to this movie and wonder if these were real animals. Was this a really undiscovered primate that they just hadn’t seen the BBC nature special on yet?” Saxon told IndieWire.
Creating that illusion, however, required 700 VFX shots, mostly 3D animation on wider shots and stunts. “I think that CG and VFX have gotten this tarnished reputation a little bit, largely because of the corporatization and over-reliance on it. But truly, it’s a bespoke, tedious craft and art that is full of passionate people, really brilliant people. At any effects house in the world, you’ll find people who are just so dedicated to their craft,” Saxon said. “And the problem is more at the top — it’s big corporate studios who don’t create schedules that make any sense.”
This is not a problem that “The Legend of Ochi,” with its $10 million budget (of which $1 million was set aside for creature work) had to deal with. Saxon told IndieWire he spent a couple years on concepting the world and the look of the Ochi — “A lot fo that was just, how do you ask for money to make a first time feature film that’s a fantasy adventure when nobody wants to do it and this isn’t how the world works?” Saxon said. He also spent that time cultivating a team on both the puppet and the effects side of the Ochi equation, planning and testing and planning some more.
“I spent years making fully CG animated work with my friends and learned the software myself. So when it comes time to do a big 3D environment, that’s right in my wheelhouse, and I’m going to make myself part of the team,” Saxon said. “[On bigger movies] there’s no proper shot planning and then there’s last minute notes and they can just keep spending [their way through] their own ignorance of the process.”
Saxon put together “an indie team” for the VFX on the film, led by supervisor Grant White. Some of their work together that Saxon cited as most crucial is some of the most invisible work, too. Shooting up on a remote mountain in Romania, the director needed the home of the mysterious Dasha (Emily Wilson) to feel appropriately enigmatic and potentially dangerous. But the day of the shoot was bright and sunny.
“It doesn’t feel right. So then you’re shooting as much as you can in the shade, and then in post, [White] took still photographs of when the dog did roll in when we weren’t shooting up there, and then I have the same perspective, but I have it in different weather conditions. So I can start compositing these elements into a matte painting that perfectly merges with what we did shoot,” Saxon said. “The top of half the frame is fog rolling in over the hills, and the bottom half is our live action plate.”
At the end of the day, both the 3D animation and the puppeteering are storytelling tools, and Saxon was excited to embrace both fully so that the audience can live in the world of the Ochi, and not worry about how it came to be.
“People love to celebrate practical work, and I think we should celebrate all the practical work in this movie,” Saxon said. “But if there’s a stunt shot or a wide shot or there’s something that we couldn’t really do real, then of course we’re making a CG version of that. This movie has 700 VFX shots. This is a VFX-driven movie.”
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