The Art of Visual Effects in Film: Behind the Horse Collapse in 1923
You know you’ve made an impression when the death of a horse your company created makes headlines.
The goal of visual effects in film and on the small screen is to enhance the story without taking the viewer out of the moment.
In the case of a horse’s demise in ‘1923’ season two, WeFX did just that.
Blending live action and visual effects, the scene of Pete Plenty Clouds, fleeing from Marshal Kent and Father Renaud on horseback, needed to be a tragic, emotionally charged moment that demanded unflinching realism.
Our team holds itself to an extremely high standard, but we knew that making a photoreal horse for Taylor Sheridan, the creator behind the ‘Yellowstone’ universe, and his team required a whole other level of scrutiny.
For Sheridan, horses aren’t just a hobby, they are life.
If our work wasn’t perfect, it would be glaringly obvious.
WeFX’s 50-person team, led by VFX Supervisor Ryan Ng, went into full research mode for this sequence. The artists studied real-life horse racing accidents to understand how horses fall, roll, and collapse. While reviewing these videos of racetrack accidents was not the most pleasant task for our artists, it was important to make sure that the way the horse falls is believable. From muscle contractions to hair physics to dust kicks, every detail mattered.
Full digital doubles of both Pete and his horse were created, complete with:
● Muscle and skin simulations
● Dynamic hair and tail physics
● Saddle modeling and accurate cloth dynamics
● Full CG environment asset for dust and ground interaction
One of the biggest challenges was blending the CG elements with the practical environment. A special effects dummy horse was used on set, and the CG animation had to match its movement and final resting position precisely.
Thanks to visual effects, scenes like this one, depicting the injury and death of an animal, are created with no injury to the performers while allowing the creatives to tell their story exactly how they imagined it.
When viewers took to Reddit to question if what they had just seen was real, the WeFX team knew they had done their job .
Bringing this sequence to life required the full VFX toolbox:
● ZBrush for sculpting anatomical details
● Maya for animation
● Houdini for simulations (muscle, hair, dust)
● Nuke for compositing
● Arnold for rendering
Having the opportunity to work on this sequence in 1923 Season 2 was a privilege and the team at WeFX is thrilled to have left such an impression.
