Union VFX, the BAFTA-winning visual effects studio headquartered in London, reveals its role as the sole VFX vendor on Sony Pictures’ 28 Years Later – the critically acclaimed third return to director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland’s iconic horror franchise.
Having worked with Boyle and Garland on the original 28 Days Later, Union co-founder and VFX Supervisor Adam Gascoyne returned with the Union team to deliver more than 900 shots for the long-awaited ‘auteur horror’ 28 Years Later. Gascoyne served as overall VFX Supervisor, supported by Clare Norman as VFX Producer, with Union’s in-house team led by DFX Supervisor Dillan Nicholls, CG Supervisor Noel O’Malley and Union VFX Producer Paul O’Hara.
Boyle broke conventions all round with 28 Days Later, reinventing the zombie genre and contributing to the onset of the early 2000s digital filmmaking revolution. The film was shot on a Cannon XL-1 for portability and to reflect the ubiquity of camcorders at the time.
The use of VFX in the first film worked seamlessly alongside the plot and the film’s distinctive grainy aesthetic. For the franchise’s third incarnation, it was important for the VFX to harmonise with the narrative, enhancing the cinematic thrill of the film. Pivotal story points in the film required vast and complex FX to work in tandem with intricate SFX and in-camera work.
“Danny and I have worked together for a long time, I know it’s important for him to feel the rawness of the film and I always work alongside him and to his vision… In the film, the country has been without technology for nearly three decades, so we had to seamlessly sell that narrative to the viewer. We had to make the unreal world real and totally believable. There was a huge amount of VFX work involved but much of it is invisible. However, two sequences that were pivotal to the plot are the Causeway chase and the Happy Eater. Both look pretty epic in the final film, and I’m incredibly proud of the team’s work.”
Adam Gascoyne, Union Co-Founder and VFX Supervisor
One of the film’s most striking sequences sees newcomer Alfie Williams (Spike) and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Jamie) venture onto the mainland, culminating in a dramatic chase along the Causeway.
The sequence required 130 shots, most of them fully CG, including a 1.5-mile-long digital Causeway, FX water, mist and seaweed, and an aurora-lit night sky inspired by astrophotography at Kielder Forest Observatory. A murmuration of 10,000 CG birds added further scale and menace.
“There’s quite a significant amount of work in that particular sequence. We had to create an environment for that to happen in, and then extend all that water out and put it in the sky. We had some amazing photographic references from photographer Dan Monk at the Kielder Forest Observatory. There are certain times of the year when the Milky Way is perfectly clear because there’s no light pollution around. That inspired us to put this amazing sky above the causeway, because we felt that, after 28 years of no light pollution, you would see these amazing, beautiful vistas at night. We had about a 100-meter stretch of water on set, and then we recreated the environment complete with FX water, mist and seaweed and extended it out. When the characters’ feet touch the water, there’s almost a glow like akin to bioluminescence created by plankton.”
Gascoyne
Another central moment occurs in an abandoned Happy Eater diner, where survivors encounter a toxic miasma of gas.
“A great deal of look development work was required to create the miasma gas as reference was minimal. The gas had to be quite thin with little density so it was complex to create, but thankfully Danny liked our ideas early on which allowed us to really spend time on the nuances in the FX simulations to create something original, but believable. This was a very FX heavy setup with the layering of the miasma and ignition towards the end of the sequence. Particular attention was paid to the cut so any movement we added to the miasma worked well with the next shot. The lighting was a challenge as we needed to give the impression of an oily top layer on the gas as it hadn’t been disturbed in years. The shot also required extensive rotoanimation to drive the collisions of the choking characters with the miasma gas.”
Noel O’Malley, CG Supervisor
The gas ultimately ignites in a violent explosion – a sequence that layers subtle FX detail with large-scale spectacle.
Union’s contribution extended across multiple other moments in the film, including CG firing arrows, blood splats, galloping deer, a pack of rats escaping a CG train, and numerous invisible effects that underpin the story’s atmosphere.
28 Years Later is now available on Digital, 4K UHD Steelbook, Blu-ray, DVD and Netflix.
