Creating The Manhattan Alien Abduction

The Brief 

Our brief was to work alongside directors Dan Vernon and Vivienne Perry to create a 1980s sci-fi aesthetic for the story of Linda Napolitano’s alien abduction, which took place in 1989. We delivered high-end visual effects for the 3-part Netflix docudrama. 

Client 

Story Films

Year Delivered 

2024 

What We Did 

This extraordinary project required a multifaceted approach from our team. We completed a wide range of work for the project, assisting with the creation of the 80s sci fi aesthetic, providing a VFX masterclass for the production team, attending the shoot at Black Island Studios for on set VFX supervision, completing a full Houdini alien spaceship build, and undertaking additional compositing and rotoscoping work.

We started the project by providing a VFX masterclass to the team at Story Films, this helped to explain our processes and enabled them to make decisions in the production that aided the creation of VFX, such as the provision of on set VFX supervision.

Our CEO Rob Hifle and Compositing Supervisor Tav Flett attended the shoot at Black Island Studios in London for on set VFX Supervision. Whilst on set they helped to arrange elements of the shoot where an actress is levitating as if being taken up to the alien spaceship, with them advising on lighting and camera angles that would make the subsequent removal of wires and equipment easier later on once we were back in our studio. The levitation shots were later integrated with backplates that had been taken via drone of Linda’s New York apartment. To create the shots of Linda levitating through the sky, cloud tank volumetric effects were replicated in Houdini. The cloud tank volumetric effects were licensed from renowned stereographer Chris Parks to create textures that were then integrated with the shots of Linda suspended above the Manhattan skyline. 

Alongside the levitation scenes we also spent a large amount of our time on this project creating the alien spaceship that Linda is taken into, wanting to create a 1980s retro futuristic style, inspired by Steven Spielberg and other 80s sci-fi. The spaceship went through several different iterations before information from witnesses to Linda’s abduction informed its shape as a more traditional UFO styling. We then completed the CG ship build in Houdini, ensuring that it remained visually similar to the eye witness accounts. A complex system of AOVs were used to help render the spaceship which made the process much more efficient for us. 

Using innovative machine learning techniques we were able to save 60–70% on the render time. Complex cloud scenes were rendered in Solaris XPU at 8K with 40+ volume bounces and significantly lower stochastic samples than is usually acceptable. The individual AOVs and light groups were then denoised using Intel's AI algorithm before being recombined and scaled back to 4K. This more efficient pipeline greatly reduced the studio’s carbon footprint due to shorter render time, part of a larger push towards more sustainable practices in VFX.

The Results 

UFO’s, levitation scenes, and more were created to help share the story of Linda Napolitano’s alien abduction. With a 1980s sci-fi aesthetic throughout, the project showcased our versatility and design skills with the creation of the alien spaceship. This project provided an opportunity for our team to infuse their love of sci-fi with VFX and was a key part of Netflix’s Halloween offering this year. In its second week, The Manhattan Alien Abduction rose to number two in the Netflix 'Top 10 TV programmes in the UK Today’.

To find out more about our work click here.