See Just How Much Work Goes Into “SNL” Visual Effects On a Tight Deadline
WHAT: “Creating Saturday Night Live: Visual Effects,” a behind the scenes look at some unsung heroes on the show.
WHO: SNL’s visual effects department.
WHY WE CARE: As SNL’s profile has risen in recent months, in tandem with presidential interest in the show and vice versa, the performers and writers have stepped up their game. One element of the show that has remained consistently excellent, though, without getting much credit for it, is how crisp and clean the digital shorts always end up, despite requiring complicated work in a pressure cooker situation. A new video brings us inside the weekly routine of the team who’s responsible.
We’ve already seen how much editing is involved in these shorts, but “Creating Saturday Night Live: Visual Effects” shows how much digital trickery is required to make them pop. When viewers see Mikey Day get karate-kicked through a wall, fly through subsequent rooms and walls, and then crash into a car, destroying its windows, it requires just as much green screen and knob-twirled sweetening as a Fast and Furious fight scene. The difference is, as the video reminds us up top, that SNL‘s VFX team often only has 12 hours each week to make it happen.
Have a look below to see some before-and-after coverage of all the effects work that goes into each week’s episode.
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