The Netflix series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina blends magic, monsters, and teenage drama in one of the year’s surprise hits. Visual effects company Zoic Studios takes us behind the scenes to explain how some of the show’s most memorable moments were created.
One of the surprise television hits of the second half of 2018 is The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, the Netflix series that reimagines the classic Archie Comics character Sabrina Spellman, a teenage witch who tries to find the balance between her high-school life and the world of dark magic.
Premiering just before Halloween, Sabrina casts actress Kiernan Shipka as the titular witch, who navigates both the typical dramas of the teenage years and the less-typical drama of challenging the supernatural forces pushing you to become the next bride of Satan himself, The Dark Lord. The series was developed for Warner Bros. Television by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who penned the re-imagined comic book series that inspired the show, and a second season has already been greenlit on Netflix.
In order to bring the host of supernatural creatures, fantastic abilities, and magical moments that populate the world of Sabrina to life, WB TV turned to Emmy-winning visual effects company Zoic Studios. Best known for its work on Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Game of Throne s, and countless other popular shows, Zoic was tasked with blending the practical effects of Sabrina with its own digital magic. That meant creating a unique world inhabited by witches, warlocks, goblins, and demons — all set against the backdrop of the small coal-mining town Sabrina calls home.
Digital Trends spoke with Andrew Orloff, Zoic’s executive creative director, about the studio’s work on The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and the way his team crafted some of the series’ most spellbinding scenes and creative creatures.
Digital Trends: Going back to the beginning of your involvement with The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, what were the marching orders you initially got for shaping the look and feel of the show visually?
Andrew Orloff: I was familiar with Riverdale and I’m a big comic book guy, so I was familiar with Roberto’s work and what he had done with Sabrina in the comic book. Sabrina was a really good opportunity for us to get in there and do something really cool. It reminded me of the roots of Zoic and the stuff that we did with Buffy and Angel back in the day, updated for a new generation.
When I started talking to Lee Krieger, the director of the first two episodes, who kind of set the look for the show with Rob [Seidenglanz], the other directing producer, it became clear that they were doing something that was aesthetically and visually different. It was going for this very specific look that referenced a lot of horror films from the ’70s and the early ’80s — Roman Polanski films, Dario Argento films, Romero, et cetera. They wanted to make it look like it was an artifact from that time and from that space, plucked out of that whole genre, and that was exciting.
As a modern visual effects company, did that retro aesthetic present any problems for the Zoic team?
It was kind of a challenge for visual effects, because how do visual effects work in a world without visual effects? All those early movies are very [practical effects] heavy, with a lot of sleight of hand and a lot of prosthetic makeup…. I think that the challenge was always to use visual effects as a storytelling tool and fit them into the aesthetic of a fully practical, bespoke world, so that the visual effects didn’t ever pull you out of the story.
