Beau is Afraid VFX Supervisor Alexandre Lafortune On Crafting A Mid-Movie Short Film

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Ari Aster is back with another mind-bending journey in Beau is Afraid. The latest from the mind behind Hereditary and Midsommar centers on the chronically paranoid Beau as he learns his mother has died in a horrific fashion and attempts to venture to her funeral, resulting in a surreal journey in which he confronts the demons of his past.

Joaquin Phoenix leads the ensemble cast of Beau is Afraid alongside Patti LuPone, Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan, Kylie Rogers, Parker Posey, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Hayley Squires, Michael Gandolfini, Zoe Lister-Jones, and Richard Kind. Holding nothing back in exploring the increasingly deranged mind of its central character and led by a committed performance from the Joker actor, Aster’s latest effort is a divisive one that still sticks with the viewer in the same vein as his prior works.

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Related: Beau Is Afraid Timeline Explained

Screen Rant recently caught up exclusively with VFX Supervisor Alexander Lafortune to discuss Beau is Afraid, and the hefty workload he and the artists at Folks undertook for the project, including crafting an effects-heavy short film situated in the middle of the movie.

Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Alexander Lafortune on Beau is Afraid

joaquin-phoenix-beau-is-afraid — Joaquin Phoenix in Beau is Afraid.

Screen Rant: Beau is Afraid is just a wild film from start to finish, as is almost anything by Ari Aster, and the visuals that go into this movie are a big part of that. When did Ari and his team first approach you to be part of the project?

Alexandre Lafortune: Yeah, of course, he didn’t approach me, personally, for that project, but ithere was a client VFX side that was taking care of the shows called Louis Morin that brought the project to Folks. I’ve know him for around 20 years now, so it was kind of a no-brainer for me to be involved in the project, since he was bringing it to Folks, because he knew I was working there. So I guess he had some trust in me, so that’s how we got involved with the project.

Can you explain to me some of what you and your team did on this film?

Alexandre Lafortune: Yeah, this project, I had the chance to read the script, and I knew it was going to be crazy, but the thing is that what we did on that project, we were quite involved throughout the movie. So, the particularity about that is we have many types of effects to create, sometimes you get sequence and you develop a recipe and you apply that to your sequence, but here, in that case, we had to develop mini recipes, because it went through as simple as clean inserts, just replacing what inside is inside a TV or cell phone, and then we had so many types of digital mapping and enhancement.

There was some blood involved at some point, so blood splatter, or just enhancing wounds, and and then we had to make a guy explode, so there was a fix involved there. Then, in the pool, there’s many things involved. But there was also some water simulation plus merging a few plates together to get that done. Also, we were involved greatly into that little sub project we call “Hero Beau”, the short inside the movie. It’s an eight-minute long short, so just by itself, that was quite something. We worked until the attic, the monster in the attic, so we had something to do about it, as well. So, we weren’t the main vendor, mostly, the last part was taken care of by another studio called The Hybrid, and maybe some other small shots here and there.

That’s mostly what we had done on this — a muzzle flash, multiple-plate merge. Because, maybe you’ve seen it, a lot of those shots are super long, more than 20, 25 shots lasting more than 600 frames, and even some went on until 2000 or 3000 frames. That’s almost a few minutes long for one shot, but of course, usually you get that by merging plates together in a seamless way, that is the idea. We also did the stunts of Beau being hit by the truck. So, yeah, it covers a lot, there was plenty of subjective work, as well, that we had to nail with Ari, in terms a poetic transition, stuff like that. So, yeah, there was a big workload on that project.

Like I said, there’s plenty of recipes you look to develop each time, it’s not a recipe that you can apply and get better at it as you’re drawing, you just have few shots per sequence, so basically, you have to find fast solutions or work that around for a while until you get there, until you nailed his vision, since he’s the writer, he had everything in his mind.

Ari’s vision is always mind-boggling to watch onscreen, and it’s obviously supported by VFX artists such as yourself. What is that collaborative process like with him, where he is pitching you ideas?

Alexandre Lafortune: Yeah, so there’s a big part of the movie I was not directly involved with Ari, but we had some cues from him. At the end of the project, I had the chance to really be one on one with Ari for the final few weeks, I had the chance to meet him, like, twice a week. Ari does have his vision, and I felt that it was hard. Basically, what we worked on is trying to nail is his ideas, he has a pretty good sense of visual storytelling points, and also timing wise, he was really into timing. Some shots, we went through a lot of iterations to get that done, and some others, we approached it and we managed to sell our work to Ari with fewer versions.

It really depends per shot, basically. But that was quite challenging, actually. Personally, it kind of drives me, but I had to drive my team, because they don’t get used for that type of work often. If you do a series or something, you get used to that TV work or series for whatever is the streamer or vendor, but doing something more subjective, you need to be involved, involve yourself into the shots. This is where I had to jump in, and sometimes even doing some tests on my hand, personally, just to get things moving on.

What would you say was one of the most challenging shots to put together for this film?

Alexandre Lafortune: Other than having some shots [that] are pretty long and we merged them, stuff like that, but this challenge would cover the rowboat sequence. Doing an eight-minute short, just by itself, it’s a long process. This was a collaborative project, so there was Louis Morin for the show, but there was another guy involved, Jorge Cañada, he lives in Britain, but he’s a Spanish guy, and he was involved with Ari just for that sequence as a VFX and creative [partner], was involved with Ari at the beginning of the show. Then, as you may have seen the sequence, it has quite a specific look, you don’t know if it’s maquette or if it’s an actual set, and then also some animations, stop-motion animation, cel-animation paint over.

So, this was a collaboration that we did with a guy called Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña, they are from Chile, and they’re quite experimental animators, they’re doing their own stuff, and even won some prizes. So, they were involved for some look development with Jorge and Ari at the beginning, really to try to find ideas about the look. So they were doing maquette paintings and showing them to Ari, and then evolved from that. At some point, we were involved with Jorge to create some previs, because there was a five-day shoot just for that sequence with Joaquin Phoenix himself.

We spent a month just creating the previsualization for each sequence in the short, starting from storyboard, then knowing the studio dimensions, it was kind of technical, so you had to place the camera, and we were able to tell the crew to build some sets [to certain] dimensions, and then, on the day of the shoot, [tell] the camera [operators] to get what we’ve done in previs, we were able to tell them the lens should be around this or should be that. But, of course, you can play around with that, or [help direct] the motion and position the camera should go through the sequence. So, we established all this in order to not waste time, because even those five days seems a lot, it was like 15 hours a day, having all of the sets dressed up at the right time.

There were two studios, and we were switching from one to the other, the prep was done on the other while [work was done on one], so a lot of management. Once this was shot, it was on Folks to really put all this together, so we were receiving, as days passed by, photographs of maquettes to create that look, and received animations from Joaquín and Cristóbal, and we were putting all this together. Most of the shots ended up being either just a 2D comp with the plate, or 2.5D with some projection, sometimes it’s printed into the image. One shot was really almost full CG.

But yeah, we ended up putting all this together, and there were a lot of iterations, we had to manage to pull all this together and refine the provided artwork we received so it gets into one world. Plenty of files to manage, I can say. [Chuckles] It took almost a year, because we shot that in September, not this year, last year, and then we finished the movie in November, so a bit more than a year. Just this clip could could go to some festival, I guess, but we’ll see about that.

Joaquin Phoenix as Old Beau in Beau is Afraid

That’s incredible. What is that like when you see the final product on the big screen?

Alexandre Lafortune: I had the chance to see the [movie] in a premiere with Ari, he was there in Montreal, it was a show for the whole crew, the ones that were doing the shoot, and also the post-production guys or girls, artists. So, I’d seen the movie there, and even went by myself two weeks later, I think because you can go twice and just get into the movie. There’s plenty of stuff to have a look at, and I personally like it. I knew it is something that is not for everyone, but I think that’s what I like about it. When you are into the cinema world, I’m really glad I had a chance to work on this, it’s just something completely different. That’s kind of fulfilling my artistic value, I would say, more than other projects, that’s the reality.

You’ve worked on both large-scale and smaller-scale projects. Since Beau is Afraid falls right in that middle ground between the two, which do you prefer?

Alexandre Lafortune: Yeah, that is true. If you look at my IMDb, or something, but I did advertising and then I went in to the movie world. I did so many different types of effects and shows, so I always find a way to please mysel working on a project. You have to do that anyway, so whether it’s a big project or a small project, there’s always a sequence, or a shot, or a type of effect that you can be more involved. When you have more — respect won’t be the word, but yeah, just have more fun with it, basically. And, of course, there’s other types of effect that I could have done more than 10 times, and I know where I’m going with that.

So, at the same time, it’s easier for me to pull, so it doesn’t slow down our workflow. I try to like the work I’m doing as I’m doing it, because otherwise, [it’s joyless]. [Chuckles] There won’t be another project like Beau is Afraid for me, I think, and specifically that “Hero Beau” sequence, that’s something that’s out of this world, in my mind. I was reminding the people, the artists, that this is something special. Some have been working maybe for four years, five years, but me, since I’ve been working for 25 years, I know that it doesn’t come that often, to get a chance to do something like this, because of the nature of the project. This is what really drives me about that project, having the possibility to work on that type of effect or world.