A few months back I mentioned that Blue Bolt and Screen Scene will NOT be handling the VFX on Game of Thrones in Season 2. Both are fairly small companies and the amount of VFX this season would have been just too much for them to handle properly in the given time frame.
Over the weekend Ran at Westeros broke the news that the VFX for Season 2 will be handled by Pixomondo. They are a larger FX company and have a good resume of FX heavy films and director's they have worked for including working on Hugo with Scorsese, on Super 8 with JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg, on Sucker Punch, 2012 and more than 30 motion pictures over the past few years. They also did the VFX for Terra Nova.
Wait, Terra Nova who's FX were laughable more often than laudable? Indeed.
This made me worry I won't lie. I looked around at a number of trailer, VFX Reels and movie scenes and I still have my doubts about the Direwolf CGI honestly since the only "hairy" creatures I can go by were Terra Nova's feathered or "furry" dinosaurs....
However, their dragon VFX work on Sucker Punch was first rate. Even in that movie's highly stylized environment I think the dragons came off being some of the best I have seen in film.
I also have little doubt their backgrounds will be as good as last year, they do incredible smoke and fire and great epic battle scenes (very important VFX this season) as can be seen in the Sucker Punch and Red Baron clips linked below.
While we look forward to Season 2(and maybe worry a little), concentrate on the positive and enjoy the show reel for Pixomondo, a scene from Sucker Punch that highlights their fire and battle work, and a VFX reel from Red Baron which highlights some nice background work.
Pixomondo VFX Show Reel:
PIXOMONDO REEL 2011 from PIXOMONDO on Vimeo.
Sucker Punch - Dragon and Battle Scenes:
Red Baron VFX Reel:
