Chicken Bone VFX Studios (CBFX)

VFX Blog of news, information, technology, and visual effects work by CBFX check us out at Chicken Bone VFX  

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‘The Best Man: The Final Chapters’ Trailer Sets Up Emotional Reunion

It was so cool to have worked on such an iconic and nostalgic project. Check out the limited series now available on Peacock.

More than two decades after the premiere of Universal’s The Best Man, fans will revisit with the cast in Peacock‘s limited series The Best Man: The Final Chapters premiering on December 22. The streamer released the first official trailer. [click here for article & trailer]

Chicken Bone FX is one of the finest boutique VFX facilities globally employing up to 80 artists known for 2D technical prowess, highly photoreal FX and hard surfaces integration, and creative global workflow.  The company has grown steadily over 10 years and is attached to some of the industry’s highest-profile series such as Westworld, The Walking Dead, Legion, Krypton, and Godless as well as features like The Highwaymen, To All The Boys 2, & The Kissing Booth.

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‘Emily in Paris’ Season 3

Our team at Chicken Bone VFX Studios is super excited about the new season of Emily in Paris! Lily Collins is back as “Emily in Paris.” Netflix has released a full trailer for the third season of its hit comedy series.The new footage reveals Emily Cooper continuing to work at her dream job at a French marketing firm, all while juggling new romances and friendships. Along with her typically stunning wardrobe, Collins’ heroine is found traveling the countryside, getting rocked by bumper cars and — yes — still brushing up on her French. Watch the new trailer here: https://youtu.be/Xl3HY9yMEBI

Chicken Bone FX is one of the finest boutique VFX facilities globally employing up to 80 artists known for 2D technical prowess, highly photoreal FX and hard surfaces integration, and creative global workflow.  The company has grown steadily over 10 years and is attached to some of the industry’s highest-profile series such as Westworld, The Walking Dead, Legion, Krypton, and Godless as well as features like The Highwaymen, To All The Boys 2, & The Kissing Booth.

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Our "From Scratch" reel is here! Take a look at what we've cooked up.

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New Primary Reel  for 2022 -  Chicken Bone FX

Our newest reel just dropped. Take a peek behind the curtain and see how the magic is made! Visual Effects include  Fire/Smoke Sims, Crowds, DMP, DigiDoubles, Environments, Vehicles, Planes, Destruction, Blood, Fluids, Screen Comps, Blue Screen, Green Screen, and more, oh my! (ProRes) 

View Latest Reels Here

About Chicken Bone FX

Chicken Bone FX is one of the finest boutique VFX facilities globally employing up to 80 artists known for 2D technical prowess, highly photoreal FX and hard surfaces integration, and creative global workflow.  The company has grown steadily over 10 years and is attached to some of the industry’s highest-profile series such as Westworld, The Walking Dead, Legion, Krypton, and Godless as well as features like The Highwaymen, To All The Boys 2, and The Kissing Booth 2.  CBFX is TPN certified with artist pools in regions all over the world allowing for versatile pricing in a variety of tax incentive regions plus virtual workforce and technology scalability based on project demand.

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Check out the vfx breakdown for Chicken Bone's work on Netflix's "The Sandman."  Beauty work, environment modifications, crew clean, and more.

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Chicken Bone FX Hires a BREAK+ENTER VFX Team

Chicken Bone FX Studios has seized an opportunity to hire a talented team of professionals from BREAK+ENTER, a  visual effects company that was forced to shut its doors.  BREAK+ENTER was headquartered in New York City, NY where Chicken Bone FX also has an office, in addition to its headquarters in Manhattan Beach, CA.  The addition of one of BREAK+ENTER’s visual effects team increases Chicken Bone’s employee count by about a third and greatly enhances the company’s ability to take on more projects of interest.

One of the talented individuals Chicken Bone FX was able to hire includes Creative Director / VFX Supervisor, Ari Rubenstein.  Mr. Rubenstein is a 30-year veteran with an impressive array of credits spanning features, television, and animation as a VFX supervisor, lead compositor, compositor, match-move artist, character animator, and technical director. Rubenstein served as a key artist responsible for look development and supervision at Blue Sky Studios for 15 years, where he worked on scores of animated features for Disney and 20th Century Fox. Over the course of his career, he has worn virtually every hat in the VFX production pipeline and worked at three industry pioneers, Xaos Inc., Tippett Studio, and Blue Sky Studios. Rubenstein was also the founder and VFX Supervisor/Producer of Curv Studios. Among his many notable credits are Matrix Revolutions, Constantine, Charlotte’s Web, and Hellboy.

Chicken Bone FX first heard of BREAK+ENTER’s closure from a mutual client who asked if Chicken Bone was able to take on the scope of work that was jeopardized by the sudden closure. John Renzulli, Chicken Bone FX Founder, and President, quickly determined that the company was ready and able to rapidly scale from both a technology and management perspective.

“It’s a sad day for the entire VFX community when we hear of vendors shuttering their doors. We are both humbled and excited to have the opportunity to provide stability for our community by employing one of the B+E teams. Adding this talented group of artisans and production professionals strengthens our ecosystem while also filling a void in the market. We are delighted to have them here and proud to give these chickens a new place to roost,” said Renzulli.

[Read full article]

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Chicken Bone FX has taken its’ technology next level with pixitmedia.

Chicken Bone FX Studios has teamed up with pixitmedia and Konsistent Consulting to design a bespoke, high-performance, and intelligent data-managed solution running in the Cloud. Based on pixstor secured workstations connected by ngenea to AWS, the new agile and scalable collaborative workflow serves high-end film and TV clients, with the artistry of the best visual effects talent located anywhere in the world.

Chicken Bone FX Studios is one of the finest boutique VFX facilities in the business, employing up to 80 artists known for masterful visuals, high-end environments, photoreal FX, compositing technical prowess and innovative global workflow. The company works on some of the industry’s highest-profile series such as SEE, Westworld, The Queen’s Gambit, The Walking Dead, and Foundation for a variety of studios and Networks including Netflix, Apple, Warner Bros, HBO, AMC, Amazon Studios, NBC, ABC, CBS, Hulu and others.

With its existing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) no longer able to sustain the performance or elasticity required to maintain growth, Chicken Bone FX Studios reached out to pixitmedia to unleash new capacity and easily unlock talent pools located anywhere.

Working closely with the facility, pixitmedia devised, tested and implemented a fully cloud-based setup for Chicken Bone FX Studios 2D pipeline. This featured a pixstor ‘hot’ tier on the front end for live projects linked to AWS S3 for limitless archive capacity. ngenea’s high-performance data management layer automatically extends and scales the local file system to give Chicken Bone FX Studios granular control of their data.

John Renzulli, Founder/VFX Supervisor, Chicken Bone FX Studios says,

“The cost-benefit analysis of workflow improvement through leaning more heavily on public cloud solutions and utilizing intelligent data management was immediate and clear to us. Moving into an environment where we had the ability and the control and scale of our virtual desktops, plus storage in an almost real-time manner was incredibly attractive. pixitmedia was the only partner able to provide the holistic solution required for this endeavour.”

Click here for full article 

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2022 Creative Arts Emmy Awards are here!

Ready for the 2022 Emmys? We have our fingers and toes crossed over here at Chicken Bone FX! First off, congratulations to SEE and Chris Wright and team including our very own Sam O'Hare for your Emmy nomination - "Outstanding Visual Effects in a Single Episode" for "Rock-a-Bye.". 

We’ll be also be rooting for Foundation - Congrats to the entire team on the two Emmy nominations: “ Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Season Or A Movie” and “Outstanding  Main title Design” We are extremely proud to have been a part of the VFX team!

The Creative Emmys take place this weekend. The edited presentation of both ceremonies will be on FXX at 8:00 PM ET. They will become available to stream on Hulu starting the 11th through the 27th. Check out the link below to learn more. https://buff.ly/3q2e3HC

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Working on ‘The Sandman’ was A Dream Come True

We are so excited for this long-awaited show to finally air. Check out the latest trailer of The Sandman premiering on Netflix Friday, August 5th. 

Based on the beloved award-winning DC comic series written by Neil Gaiman, THE SANDMAN is a rich, character-driven blend of myth and dark fantasy woven together over the course of ten epic chapters following Dream’s many adventures. Developed and executive produced by Gaiman, showrunner Allan Heinberg, and David S. Goyer.

About Chicken Bone FX

Chicken Bone FX is one of the finest boutique VFX facilities globally employing up to 80 artists known for 2D technical prowess, highly photoreal FX and hard surfaces integration. The company has grown steadily over 10 years and is attached to some of the industry’s highest-profile series such as Westworld, The Walking Dead, Legion, Krypton, and Godless as well as features like The Highwaymen, To All The Boys 2, and The Kissing Booth 2. 

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Netflix’s ‘First Kill’ A Romance Drama with Bite

We are so excited about this modern retelling of Romeo & Juliet with a lot more blood and cool visual effects. Based on a short story by V.E. Schwab, First Kill follows Juliette Fairmont (Sarah Catherine Hook), a legacy vampire living in plain sight with her vampire family in Savannah, Georgia.

All the popular vampire shows or movies in the past two decades feature some kind of Romeo and Juliet storyline — The Vampire Diaries’ Stefan and Elena or Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Angel and Buffy — and First Kill doesn’t shy away from these pop culture comparisons. In fact, the opening credits features an incredibly catchy song that actually name drops Twilight’s Bella and Edward. But forbidden love alone is not enough to carry a show; it’s the chemistry between the leads that has to sustain the story, and relative newcomers Hook and Lewis are more than up for the challenge. Their chemistry is electric, and the longing glances exchanged when they can’t be making out with each other in private are guaranteed to inspire hundreds of fanfiction stories. And make no mistake, they make out a lot. From the very first scene, First Kill makes a point of highlighting the physical aspect of Juliette and Calliope’s relationship — perhaps a response to the overly sanitized portrayal of same-sex relationships previously seen on television. (Source: Polygon.com)

About Chicken Bone FX

Chicken Bone FX Studios are experienced, passionate VFX teams in LA and NYC to shorten the distance between your vision and the final product. With a global remote-based talent pool and processes designed for virtual production from the ground up, if you’re ready to do great work together, we’re ready to listen. Check out our VFX work:

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“Foundation” VFX Reel & Breakdown

Congrats to the entire VFX team on Foundation!  It has now won two VES awards:  Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Episode for “The Emperor’s Peace” and Outstanding Effects Simulations in an Episode, Commercial, or Real-Time Project for “Collapse of the Galactic Empire.”  

 Check out our visual effects breakdown on Foundation: https://chicken-bone.com/apple-tv/foundation-vfx-reel-breakdown/

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Why the Cast of Hacks Should Win at the 2022 SAG Awards

All of us at Chicken Bone FX are rooting for Hacks at this weekend's Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards set to air Sunday, February 27, 2022.

The series’ strong showing at the Emmy Awards, as well as its recent nominations at Critics Choice, makes it a real contender in the ensemble category. Below is the complete list of all nine “Hacks” cast members eligible for the 2022 SAG Award Comedy Ensemble prize:

Jean Smart as Deborah Vance Hannah Einbinder as Ava Daniels Carl Clemons-Hopkins as Marcus Vaughan Chris McDonald as Marty Ghilain Rose Abdoo as Josefina Mark Indelicato as Damien Megan Stalter as Kayla Schaeffer Paul W. Downs as Jimmy Lusaque, Jr. Poppy Liu as Kiki

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Congrats to the entire Visual Effects team on SEE for its' contributions and a nomination for the VES Awards! Here's a bit of the work we did on the show.

Chicken Bone FX Studios are experienced, passionate VFX teams in LA and NYC to shorten the distance between your vision and the final product. With a global remote-based talent pool and processes designed for virtual production from the ground up, if you’re ready to do great work together, we’re ready to listen. Check out our work at: https://chicken-bone.com/visualeffectswork/

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Check out our Foundation - Apple TV+ - Chicken Bone FX Reel

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HBO MAX To Release “Hacks” Season 2

Hacks, the award wining series from HBO Max is set to for another season.While no release date has been announced yet, the highly anticipated show took home 3 major Emmys, winning awards for both Comedy Writing and Comedy Directing, while star Jean Smart took home the award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series.

Created by Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky, Hacks follows Smart's Vance, a comedic legend and Las Vegas staple, as she takes on—and clashes with—a young up-and-coming comedic writer, Ava (Hannah Einbinder).  The two reluctantly team up to freshen up Deborah's material and learn to respect each other's differences.

According to the show creators, season two will continue to focus on Deborah and Eva’s relationship with a lot more hilarious and awkward moments that made season such a success.  

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‘Foundation’ Series Renewed for Season 2 at Apple

As Apple’s sci-fi hit show Foundation first season is about to come to an end, fans will be thrilled to know that Apple has renewed it for its second season originally confirmed by Variety.

We have been so excited to watch global audiences embrace the captivating, suspenseful, and breathtaking thrill ride that is Foundation,” said Matt Cherniss, head of programming for Apple TV+. “We know how long fans of these beloved [Isaac] Asimov stories have waited to see his iconic work brought to life as a visually spectacular event series, and now we can’t wait to showcase even more of the richly layered world, compelling storytelling and stunning world-building in Season Two.”

Based on an acclaimed series of novels by science fiction titan Isaac Asimov, the plot chronicles the epic saga of the Foundation, a group of academics exiled to a remote planet who discover that the only way to save the Galactic Empire from a looming dark age is to create the Encyclopedia Galactica, a compendium of all human knowledge. For show-runner David Goyer, adapting Foundation, named the Best All-Time Series at the 1966 Hugo Awards, was the dream of a lifetime.

The Foundation series is being released weekly each Friday and exclusively on Apple TV+ with the season finale (Episode 10) this Friday, November 19th.

As one of the VFX Studios involved with the production, CBFX had a lot of fun working on the series and look forward to another season.

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Foundation, perhaps the greatest Sci-Fi work ever, was finally brought to screen with amazing VFX

Foundation is Apple TV+'s adaption of the award-wining sci-fi novels by Isaac Asimov, which chronicles the story of a mathematician who develops an algorithm that can forecast future events, putting him into direct conflict with a galactic empire when he predicts its demise. Asimov's epic literary vision has been adapted by co-creators David Goyer and Josh Friedman, Skydance Television and Apple.

Considering the vast scope of the production, which takes place on various planets over thousands of years and involves space travel, VFX were a critical part of the storytelling and the challenge was to base the show in reality as much as possible. VFX Supervisors Chris MacLean and Michael Enriquez brought in teams of visual effects studios including Chicken Bone FX.

According to MacLean, “Production filmed where it could at real locations, many of them on the Canary Islands, or on large built sets. Bluescreens and greenscreens were kept to a minimum. Miniatures were also used. That does not mean there was not significant digital visual effects work—there was—but as overall visual effects supervisor Chris MacLean related to befores & afters, each VFX requirement on Foundation was tackled with the grounding in mind.”

Full interview / article on B4 and After of the key visual effects challenges handled on the first three episodes Foundation.