How do we do this?” asked Laura Pedro, visual effects (VFX) supervisor when the production of J.A. Bayona approached him with the proposal to make The Snow Society. Although the artist had already worked with the director on A Monster Comes to See Me, this time the challenge was not in evoking fantasy, but in achieving the maximum possible realism. “Verisimilitude was the basis of the approach to the entire production,” Pedro explains to La Vanguardia. “That the public felt the prison that is the Valley of Tears”, a place where “living is impossible” (and shooting a film is unviable). Something that Laura Pedro saw firsthand when she traveled with part of the team to the Andes. There they captured all the backgrounds seen in the film. There are no digital mountains, what you see is the same as what the survivors saw during those 72 days. “We intervened approximately more than a thousand plans, double the usual amount.”
At 35 years old and in competition to obtain her third Goya award, Laura Pedro returned to the Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya (Escac), the place where she trained, to share her experience during the filming of La Sociedad de la snow . The building located in Terrassa has not changed much since she studied there, only now the special effects (VFX) classroom has her name on the door. “It's like coming home, it's very exciting to meet again with classmates and teachers who are proud of the path you have taken.” In a technical section in which male names predominate, she has managed to set a milestone. Michaela Gagliano, post-production manager of The Snow Society and also a former student of Escac, feels the same way. “I can't stop thinking about when I was here studying,” says Gagliano, “the industry in Spain was still on its way to being what it is today.”
Through those same corridors, 30 years ago, a then unknown Juan Antonio Bayona walked. The director was part of the school's first graduating class and today he has become one of the Spanish directors with the most international projection.
The Snow Society has become one of the most viewed non-English speaking films in Netflix history. It reached more than 50 million views in its first eleven days in the catalog and has shown that Spain has nothing to envy of a Hollywood blockbuster. Something that a few years ago seemed impossible, especially at the level of visual effects. “The commitment that the platforms have made in the territory has helped a lot to give our industry the international projection it needed to consolidate,” explains Berta Coderch, head of VFX at Netflix in Spain.
In addition to its candidacy for best European film at the Gaudí Awards and thirteen nominations at the Goya Awards, The Snow Society will compete at the Oscars in the categories of best international film and best makeup and hairdressing.
Regarding special effects in Spain, Juan Antonio Bayona had already marked a before and after in 2012 with The Impossible, the film that portrayed the story of a family that survived a tsunami during their vacation in Thailand in 2004. Today Bayona remembers that shoot as “the hardest” he has ever done. The director was just beginning to make a name for himself in Hollywood and it was his first time filming in English with stars like Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor. “Nothing like this has ever been done in Spain,” admits Berta Coderch, head of VFX at Netflix in Spain. The film was crowned on the podium as one of the highest-grossing Spanish films in history with more than 42 million euros collected. “It has not been a one-size-fits-all path, but starting with The Impossible, Spain appeared on the map as an internationally competitive industry. Everyone wondered how these people had done that with so little money, compared to American blockbusters.”
The awards season has begun and The Snow Society is not the only production in which alumni of the Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya stand out. The academy's talent has participated in some of the most notable productions of Spanish cinema such as: 20,000 species of bees and Els Encantats. In the Gaudí Awards there are thirteen categories with films that bear the seal of Escac filmmakers, including best film, best original script, best artistic production and editing. In turn, they lead the Goya award nominations with a total of fourteen nominations.
