Crafting a color and black and white world for 'Spider-Noir'

Issue #60 of befores & afters magazine covers the visual effects of Spider-Noir.

DIGITAL MAGAZINE members can download the issue right now from the shop post.

Spider-Noir, now streaming on Prime Video, transports audiences to a stylized, Depression-era New York, where an aging private investigator named Ben Riley (Nicolas Cage) grapples with his past while confronting a web of corruption, crime and mystery. Riley is, of course, also the masked vigilante, The Spider, who gained his superpowers during World War I while liberating soldiers being experimented on at a German POW camp. In 1930s New York, Riley’s private investigator existence starts to overlap with his past as The Spider, and a series of encounters with super-powered individuals begin, all while a new set of mysteries unfold.

Visual effects played a crucial role in bringing the very noir world of Spider-Noir to life. Not only were VFX crucial in realizing characters, creatures and environments, they also came into play in delivering the two versions that audiences are able to view the show in: ‘Authentic Black & White’ and ‘True-Hue Full Color’. Ultimately, this meant the visual effects production team, led by visual effects supervisor Hnedel Maximore and visual effects producer Brooke Noska, had to effectively deliver shots twice (as you’ll read, it was actually three kinds of VFX deliverables).

Aided by a bevy of visual effects vendors including Industrial Light & Magic, Barnstorm, Cinesite, EYELINE, Ingenuity Studios, CoSA VFX, Alchemy 24, BOT VFX and Version Zero (with previs from Torchlight), Maximore and Noska worked with showrunners Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot to oversee the creation of 3,200 VFX shots for Spider-Noir. The show’s prosthetic makeup effects designer was Vincent Van Dyke and the special effects supervisor was Mark R. Byers. In this special issue of befores & afters magazine, we go behind the scenes to find out how the show was made.