Milk Visual Effects – ten years creating incredible images for our screens

Milk featured in the December edition of the Renderout! Magazine.

Read the full magazine here

The translated article is as follows:

Milk Visual Effects – ten years creating incredible images for our screens  

Now excited to join the growing Spanish visual effects community

Milk is an award-winning visual effects studio whose talented team has been crafting incredible, innovative and complex sequences for high-end episodic television and major feature films for the past decade. Their impressive creative work – from effects to creatures and environments – spans two series of BBC/Amazon’s Good Omens; Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald (Warner Bros.); Ridley Scott’s The Martian; The Women King (Sony/Tristar); The Old Guard (Netflix) Altered Carbon (Netflix); and Alex Garland’s Annihilation and The Swimmers (Netflix/Working Title).

Founded by a small team of VFX supervisors and producers in the heart of London in 2013, Milk has always been proud of its thriving, collaborative culture and its trusted creative and technical excellence. The team has won multiple awards for its creative work, including three BAFTA Television Craft awards for critically acclaimed BBC drama Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and Doctor Who. Milk won an Emmy for work on the BBC/Hartswood’s Sherlock; and in 2016 co-owner and VFX Supervisor Sara Bennett became the first woman in twenty years to win an Oscar for best VFX on the film Ex-Machina at the 88th Academy Awards.

“Our Award-winning team is passionate about making ideas come to life on screen and finding creative solutions to realise any vision.” Sara Bennett, Milk Chief Creative Officer.

Building on its strong reputation and success, the studio has expanded significantly in the last two years, post pandemic, acquiring London based factual VFX studio Lola Post Production in 2022 and opening a new network of studios in Europe – in Dublin, Ireland; Bordeaux, France and most recently bringing the Milk family to Spain in 2023. 

With its hub in London, the Milk team is now 250-strong and growing and is proud to offer end-to-end VFX capability, talent and expertise on par with the major VFX studios alongside a boutique mentality enabling a more creative, collaborative, and trusted service and the ability to take advantage of key additional tax breaks.

Milk’s French studio was established in Bordeaux in 2022. Helmed by award-winning VFX Supervisor Andy Morely who is renowned for his work on Avengers: Infinity War, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them and Batman Begins as well as recent Milk projects The Swimmers (Netflix, Working Title) and The Woman King (Sony). Andy works with his extensive network of VFX talent in France and across Europe, in addition to developing his relationships with key schools and universities to access the best emerging talent. Milk’s Bordeaux studio operates as a hub for Milk France’s hybrid remote and office-based team, leveraging Milk’s London infrastructure, in addition to its own local capabilities. 

Milk opened the doors to its new Spanish studio in the 22@ district of Poble Nou, Barcelona this summer 2023. Leading the creative team there is Milk Supervisor, Jorge Oliva Ruiz de Leon who has been with the Milk team in London and then Barcelona for nine years, following stints at MPC and Framestore in London and an early career in Spain. Jorge’s credits include Guardians of the Galaxy, RoboCop, Adrift, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and most recently MeTime and The Woman King. Joining Jorge is experienced VFX Supervisor Fernando Tortosa who has worked internationally at VFX studios including DNEG, MPC on projects from The Jungle Book to Star Wars: Episode VII and Interstellar. 

The studio will operate as a hub for Milk Spains’ hybrid, remote and studio-based team, leveraging Milk’s London infrastructure, as its French sister studio does. Jorge and the team at Milk Spain are currently collaborating on key Milk fiction and factual projects including Loud Minds’ ambitious new eight part NBC series Surviving Earth. 

“We are delighted to have opened in Spain. It is a country with a thriving VFX industry, great talent and potential. With the network of studios we now have, we can become a truly European studio able to access and develop talent and enhance our premium offering to our clients globally.” Jag Mundi, Milk Executive Chairman

“I’m thrilled to be here in Spain working with our talented artists locally. I’ve been based in London for many years and it’s fantastic to be back on home soil. Milk’s hub in London allows us to tap into both local and international projects and leverage the technical and creative expertise of the whole Milk group. Ultimately it’s all about the people and teamwork. We’re currently working on some amazing projects and I’m excited to grow the team.” Jorge Oliva, Creative Lead of Studio, Milk Spain

“I have had the pleasure of working with Jorge for many years and I know he is very passionate about helping us build a strong creative team in Spain ” Sara Bennett, Milk Chief Creative Officer 

Let’s meet some of the Milk team in Spain and London:

Jorge Oliva: Creative Lead of Studio, Barcelona  (Guardians of the Galaxy, RoboCop, Adrift, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them)

“I would say one of my favourite projects would be feature film Me Time, the CG team did an amazing job bringing a mountain lion to life,  and in the comp side we also had quite a few challenges. We had to populate an auditorium with a lot of people, so we decided to film our workmates from the London office and populate the auditorium with them. It  was tricky to match all the acting, camera angles and specially the lighting from the original plates, but also quite fun and we managed to involve all the team which was fantastic.” Jorge Oliva, Creative Lead of Studio, Milk Spain

Fernando Tortosa, VFX Supervisor, Barcelona. (The Jungle Book and Star Wars: Episode VII; Interstellar)

Experienced on-set and VFX Supervisor Fernando joined Milk from MPC most recently he was CG Supervisor for The Marvels and VFX Supervisor for the upcoming action comedy The Family Plan.

“What truly captivates me in VFX is how people with vastly different backgrounds and unique visions, each carrying their once-impossible childhood dreams, are united by a shared passion for visual storytelling. Together, we craft fantastical creatures and universes in a process that blends technical and creative challenges, transporting the spectator into breathtaking cinematic realities.” Fernando Tortosa, VFX Supervisor, Barcelona

Sara Bennett, Chief Creative Officer, London (Ex-Machina, The Old Guard, The Woman King.) 

Oscar-winning VFX Supervisor Sara is one of Milk’s original co-founders.

“What inspires me most is the people of course, but it’s the variety of the work for me too and the pace of the developing technology to support our amazing artists. You could be working on a key environment for a battle scene on one project like The Woman King and then amazing creatures on a project like Good Omens or Surviving Earth. I love the fact that we have the ability to see a director’s vision come together on screen after a long process from script all the way through the shoot to the final delivery.” Sara Bennett, Milk Chief Creative Officer.

Steve MacPherson, Milk Chief Technical Officer, London

VFX veteran Steve has worked closely with Milk’s creative team since he joined in 2022 to develop the studio’s real time / Unreal pipeline and to support and develop Milk’s creative and technical ambitions and growth. He has been collaborating in particular on Surviving Earth, the upcoming eight part event series for NBC.

“Milk represents all those reasons I fell in love with the visual effects industry – a strong, creative team, a dynamic and open culture, technology challenges and great people working on demanding projects.”  Steve MacPherson, Milk CTO

A closer look at the highlights 

Milk’s creative teams have recently completed work on high profile projects including Good Omens series two (BBC/ Amazon); Meg 2: The Trench (Warner Bros.); Netflix/ Moonage new episodic thriller Bodies; Skydance feature film Holiday Road (Hallmark) and Working Title feature Bernard and the Genie which is set for a Christmas 2023 release. 

Jorge, Sara and the Milk team have selected some of their highlights to showcase their work over the years – from creatures to environments and effects covering a multitude of challenging creative briefs for film and episodic clients. 

Good Omens (Amazon/BBC)

Brief: Milk had the privilege of helping to bring to life a huge range of creatures, environments and effects as primary VFX studio for both series one and two of showrunner Neil Gaiman’s apocalyptic cult comedy drama series Good Omens, for Amazon and BBC Studios. 

For series one of Good Omens, Milk created 650 VFX shots for the six-part comedy; completing a wide range of creature, environment and effects work – from CG Satan, a Kraken and a Hellhound; a CG Bentley tearing around London; the M25 motorway on fire, to Soho and Atlantis environments and an alien spaceship! Helmed by VFX Supervisor Jean-Claude Deguara, Milk’s work was recognised with a BAFTA Television Craft nomination in 2020.

Then earlier this year, Milk delivered over 500 VFX shots for the much anticipated new six-episode, second series of Good Omens which premiered on Amazon this July. 

The Milk team was involved in realizing the huge “Universe” space environment build that opened the series in dramatic style; they created an in-house CG feather dynamics pipeline for the wings of central characters Crowley and Aziraphale; desert storms; fireballs; the CG vintage Bentley motor car and creature work including CG Geckos, Flies and Zombies!

The Woman King (Sony TriStar)

The Woman King is a 2022 American historical action-adventure film about the Agojie, the exceptional all-female warrior unit that protected the West African kingdom of Dahomey between the 17th and 19th centuries, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. Milk’s co-founder Sara Bennett was overall VFX Supervisor with an overall brief to enhance and bring scope to the world within the epic untold story of the Agojie. Sara worked closely with Prince Bythewood for the second time, having collaborated previously on Netflix feature The Old Guard in 2020. 

Milk was the lead VFX studio. Led by VFX Supervisors Andy Morley, David Sadler Coppard and CG Supervisor Dimitris Lekanis, Milk created around 350 shots across a broad range of work from heavy simulations and CG builds for world building, major battle and fight scenes, to extensive compositing work and invisible VFX in a tight 26 week post schedule. 

Cursed (Netflix)

Brief: Milk created 389 shots for Netflix’ ten episode reimagining of the Arthurian legend told from the perspective of Nimue, the ‘lady of the lake’ (Katherine Langford).

Milk’s brief spanned a pack of CG wolves, developed from concept through to animation; to a dramatic waterfall environment where a dramatic fight sequence takes place at the climax of the final episode. Mik’s work was recognised with a BAFTA Craft Award nomination in 2021.

Me Time (Netflix) 

Brief: Milk was tasked with creating a CG lioness and cub for a challenging sequence in this comedy feature in which the lead character, played by Kevin Hart, runs into them in the desert and has a dramatic fight with the fearsome mother lion! Milk created 140 shots for the 101 minute feature, delivering work spanning detailed replication and animation choreography of the fearsome mountain lioness and her bumbling cub, crowd extensions and an FX heavy car crash and puking scene!

One of the biggest challenges was achieving a natural, realistic movement for the mountain lions (especially the cub which had to be exactly matched to the live-action cub) whilst maintaining the comedic rhythm of the scene.

The future: What can we expect to see premiering next year with Milk’s name in the credits? 

Milk is currently in production on a range of major episodic and film projects including: 

Working Title’s Genie A seasonal treat from the pen of Richard Curtis. Set in New York the film is a fairy-tale comedy about a workaholic man who enlists the help of a magical genie to help win his family back before Christmas.

Carnival Films’ Belgravia: The Next Chapter is the sequel to Julian Fellowes’ popular period drama series; set 25 years later in fashionable 19th century London – when scandals continue to plague its leading families.

Surviving Earth – prehistoric digital environments, landscapes and creatures 

Milk is currently completing 10 months of epic global filming to secure material for ‘Surviving Earth’ an 8 part global event series co-produced by production company Loud Minds and Universal Television Alternative Studio for NBC. 

Led by Emmy Award winning VFX Supervisor Jean-Claude Deguara, Milk are creating and bringing to life a broad range of high end creatures, environments and effects for the factual series, promising an incredible journey to a vibrant lost world where meteors fall, super volcanoes erupt, seas boil and the land moves…all designed to transport viewers back in time to prehistory to bring past mass extinction stories to life! Our new Barcelona team will be supporting the London creative teams on this epic project.

Milk’s CTO Steve MacPherson and Milk’s VFX and real time technology Supervisor He Sun have been working closely with the team to incorporate Unreal Engine and develop the studio’s real time and virtual production capabilities. The focus has been on creating the dramatic key environments and creatures for NBC’s event series Surviving Earth.

We asked Jorge what inspires him the most about working in VFX?

Jorge: “It’s all about the team – VFX is a team sport like no other! You need to be talented of course but it’s the ability to get through the challenges, collaborate well and laugh together that counts too!”

And looking to the future, Jag Mundi, Milk Executive Chairman concludes:

“I’m delighted Milk is again able to back our talent, in this case Jorge and our other colleagues in Spain, to help us expand our potential and harness the rich pool of creative VFX talent in the country. The team will deliver both feature and episodic projects across fiction and factual genres, working closely with the teams in London and our other studios in Europe.

We’re excited to develop our new family of studios under the Milk umbrella to be able to access and develop the incredible artist and technical expertise and enhance our premium offering to our film and TV clients globally, helping to bring incredible images to life and tell amazing stories for the next ten years and beyond.”