The Wheel of Time takes place in a world where gifted individuals can channel the One Power, manipulating it into eye-popping feats of magic power. That means a lot of work for special effects artists, including the folks at Framestore, who worked on multiple seasons of Prime Video's fantasy series.
Framestore recently released a VFX reel highlighting their work on season 3, focusing on the channeling. Teaming up with VFX supervisor Andy Scrase from Amazon Studios, Framestore's Owen Braekke-Carroll and his team pushed things further, giving us channeling effects that looked richer, fully and more complex. I think anyone who watched season 3 will agree that the channeling never looked better. Get into the details below:
Framestore had lots of great sequences to work with in season 3. Imagine being a special effects artist and getting told you get to work on the finale face-off between Moiraine and Lanfear, one channeling the glowing one power and the other using the inky black True Power, which slurps around Lanfear like a midair oil slick. Or what about the epic sequence that opened the season, where sisters of the Black Ajah blast their way through their fellow Aes Sedai and wreck havoc in the White Tower? And I'm surprised to see that they had to model the characters right down to their nervous systems. Videos like these are always a great reminder how much work and dedication goes into making shows like this look this good.
I'd love to be able to say that Framestore will be back for The Wheel of Time season 4, but as you probably know, Amazon has gone and canceled this series, despite it being the middle of the story and season 3 being easily the best yet. Fans are mounting a Herculean effort to save the show. Let's hope it works.
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