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The first thing you notice, watching theUnfortunate Eventsfinale now, is that the lions look good moviegood.
Two decades ago, Walking With Dinosaurs was groundbreaking … for TV.
They have realistic fur and muscle definition and individual personality.
Those lions are photorealistic, he says.
We did it from the ground up in two months.
The line between TV and movies is eroding, Groves explains.
Thats now the way of the world.
The effects are developed using the same process and the same tools.
And we verify the standards are the same.
But nobody, Sabrosa included, would have compared it to what was being done in Hollywood.
That was the year ofThe Phantom MenaceandThe Matrix;Framestores dinosaursdidnt look remotely as good.
The quality was always going to be lower.
Of course,Jurassic Parkhad a $62 million budget compared to $9 million forWalking With Dinosaurs.
AndJurassic Parkhas about nine minutes of actual dinosaurs onscreen, Sabrosa adds.
Our series had 20 minutes of dinosaurs onscreen per episode.
Today, that wouldnt cut it.
Everyone wants to see on TV what they see in the cinema, he says.
Thats possible in part becausetelevision budgets are bigger than theyve ever been.
He tells me that the expectations were clear from the start: HBO wants trophies.
They want work that will win them an Emmy for visual effects.
Effects work is serious labor, and labor isnt cheap.
With few exceptions, television is simply made much, much faster than film.
Most TV is produced more haphazardly.
We had no idea what it was that we needed to do.
So how do we crew?
How do we anticipate what were going to need for a show that hasnt been written yet?
Less time means fewer hours billed, which means cheaper VFX work.
Someone on a movie might call up and say,Oh, you did lions in eight weeks?
Great, now do that for us.
Nor are things likely to slow down.
But its not a bad thing necessarily.
(His most recent production is NetflixsThe Haunting of Hill House.)
The big movies I used to work on were extraordinarily expensive, in terms of effects.
But in the last five to seven years, things have changed.
You could say the industry is changing, Sewell says.
I would say the industry has changed.
