Emmy Talk: Watch How the ‘Orphan Black’ F/X Team Made the Clone Dinner Party a Reality
As we enter Emmy season — nomination voting runs through June 27 — Yahoo TV will be spotlighting performances, writing, and other contributions that we feel deserve recognition.
Last year, Emmy voters righted a wrong by rewarding Tatiana Maslany’s remarkable performance(s) as Orphan Black’s multiple clones with an overdue Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress. This year, they have the opportunity to finally recognize another key player behind the Leda line of clones: the visual effects team at Intelligent Creatures. Because while Maslany painstakingly creates each individual clone, gifting them with strikingly different personalities and hairstyles, this Toronto-based F/X company is responsible for putting them in the same frame for simple conversations and more elaborate clone dance and/or dinner parties.
Related: Catch Up on ‘Orphan Black’ With Our Recaps
At least Orphan Black’s passionate fanbase is aware of the excellent work Intelligent Creatures has been doing during the show’s four-season run. At a Yahoo TV-moderated panel earlier this year, mention of the F/X crew inspired cheers and applause from the audience. Here’s the list of Emmy-eligible names from Team Orphan Black, so you can praise them like you should as you’re reading this:
Geoff Scott, visual effects supervisor
Sarah Wormsbecher, visual effects producer
Eric Doiron, compositing supervisor
Nathan Larouche, visual effects artist
Anthony DeChellis, visual effects artist
Lon Molnar, visual effects executive producer
As further proof that this group belongs in the visual effects category alongside perennial nominees like Game of Thrones and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., we offer video evidence of the show’s most complicated F/X stunt yet. Produced by Intelligent Creatures and narrated by visual effects supervisor Scott, this four-minute tutorial offers a fascinating peek behind the scenes of the clone dinner party that closed out Season 3. (That episode aired on June 20, 2015, which qualifies it for 2016 Emmy consideration.)
Related: Watch the ‘Orphan Black’ Cast in a Charades Showdown
Accomplishing this sequence required 10 hours of preparatory meetings and took two full days to shoot. And during the editing phase, the team had to review every single take to see if they had to literally borrow an arm or a leg from a specific clone to complete the scene seamlessly. “One of the greatest things about Orphan Black is that it’s a show about character and heart,” Scott says. Thanks to this video, you can see just how much heart the F/X team brings to their job.
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