Tim Key in a bee swarm suit in The Witchfinder

A Bee Swarm Suit

Lexhag VFX used Houdini to create CG simulations to completely cover lead actor, Tim Key, in a swarm of bees for Baby Cow’s six-part comedy series, The Witchfinder. The series, which aired on BBC Two in February, follows a failing Witchfinder Tim Key as he takes a suspected Witch played by Daisy Donnelly across 1640s…

Hacked Off

We produced a sequence of shots for the stylish six-part cat and mouse thriller, We Hunt Together from our Visual Effects studio in London. For example, the severed head in Episode 1, as well as providing on-set VFX Supervision for some of the bigger elements in the series. In the first episode, we see Baba,…

Coronavirus-proof crowd-capture

Getting back into production is an exciting prospect, but you might be wondering how to make your scenes look old-normal in the new-normal? How do you convey energy, movement and life that comes from people being close together, be that a small setting in a restaurant or a large crowd scene? What looked like some…

The Pale Horse

The Pale Horse is a two part Agatha Christie drama set in the 60’s for the BBC, adapted by Sarah Phelps. We’ve worked closely with Mammoth Screen to produce over 130 VFX shots, from simple removal of modern TV aerials and sky replacements, to more complex fire simulations and set extensions.  Getting involved from an…

Stand out from the crowd

If you need crowds of people to fill a scene, one way to achieve this is to get hundreds of supporting actors in place. The cost of this can add up of course, particularly if they require complex costumes. We needed to create a crowd of approximately 6000 people for the hanging scene in Poldark…

Realising the Virtual

What we do uniquely at Lexhag is think about our creative challenges with all the tools available to us, which includes SFX and practical techniques. To illustrate this we decided to make a workflow piece to show how a shot can be designed from the start to end using a range of techniques in both…

Building Bridges

A typical project for us consists of many exciting challenges. If you read our other posts, you’ve probably realised that we’re not just VFX people. We have knowledge and skills in all aspects of getting that shot and Jericho was no different. We had a vast range of different challenges that you’ll have an insight…

First Man Oscar Win [Opinion]

So why the Oscar win? Considering the category nominees; Avengers, Christopher Robin, Star Wars and Ready Player One, it was a controversial win, no doubt. It’s likely that each of the nominations had well over 1500 VFX shots, several being full CG. Compared to maybe only half of that in First Man. Maybe it wasn’t…

Blow Me Up

CGI isn’t always the answer Working together with Asylum SFX, Lexhag developed a computer controlled pneumatic suit for the Netflix show The Innocents. Universally made to fit all the different actors’ shapes and sizes, the under jacket contained all the major muscle groups, which could be individually inflated and deflated to give the illusion that the actor’s body…

Frontside 360°

Shooting interior vehicle shots can easily turn into a big number, creeping over you like Freddy does, while you sleep. Traditionally, they can be shot for real, on a low loader or with a specially modified vehicle. You can also shoot them in a nice warm studio, which is what we were tasked to do….

Vac my Face

A quick one for the records; working upon the recommendation of our friends at Peanut VFX we created some vac formed faceplates for the quick application of tracking markers for a recent project. The process involved taking face casts of each actor, from which plaster positives were made. The plaster was cleaned up and the marker holes…

Ice and Lasers

Iceland is a cool place. Quite literally, it’s a beautiful, harsh, unique place on earth where, it seems, no much lives. We travelled there in search of a mythical Ice Cave in which an artist, Isaac Julien, would make his next works. What did we do? Our key job was to add a giant, wooden, staircase…

It’s a Wrap – How we wrapped a set

When you can’t find a 1940’s London Street scene that’s been demolished because of the bad things that happen, you build one in a BBC carpark in Glasgow. That’s what Pat Campbell’s team did for Rillington Place. Lexhag worked closely with Pat’s team to make a giant PBU (Photo Blow Up) with a twist. Traditionally the art department…