If you’ve watched Netflix’s comedy-drama Nobody Wants This, you’d probably be surprised to hear that it includes visual effects.
The show follows the budding relationship between an agnostic sex podcaster (Kristen Bell) and a newly-single Rabbi (Adam Brody) – not the usual premise for a VFX-heavy project. But, as the show’s visual effects compositor Stephen Pugh tells TVBEurope, most modern TV shows have a VFX worflow of some size. “Typically [it’s used] for production clean-up and legal clearance issues but very often, comedies in particular will utilise VFX to help beats land better by adjusting timing, combining performances from different takes, or changing images on screens,” he explains.
On Nobody Wants This, Pugh worked alongside the editors and assistant editors, as well as post supervisor Bianca Ray and post producer Mariel Paniagua. “I used Adobe After Effects for processes such as mobile phone video burn-ins to give the editors control over the flow and pacing of the dialogue, as well as splitscreens to combine performances, and cleanup work to remove distractions, reflections, or other things that cropped up in a shot.
“All told, I tackled about 240 shots for the first season, exclusive of shots that may have been handled at the online facility or elsewhere. I worked one to two weeks on each episode, over the course of about 12 weeks,” he adds.
One thing Pugh didn’t use was AI, but he admits, “I can see it becoming more and more of a tool to explore as it develops.”
Asked what was his biggest challenge while working on Nobody Wants This, Pugh says that on a project that doesn’t have a huge amount of visual effects, a seemingly straightforward effect can be more difficult than anticipated. “Whether it’s a bit more parallax on something you’re removing or a particularly tough screen to track, it is not uncommon for one particular shot to be far more complex than another shot from the same camera mere seconds later.
“This was absolutely a show where the VFX work does not want to call attention to itself, so I’m happy to have flown under the radar,” Pugh says about the fact that many viewers would have no idea visual effects had been used on a show
“If a particular light behind an actor’s hair or a reflection crossing over someone was gnarlier than usual, then it just makes the lack of detection that much sweeter.”
Nobody Wants This is currently available to stream on Netflix, with season two set to debut on October 23rd.
