American Horror Story is a major hit for FX. The most recent season of the anthology series, Freak Show, became the most-watched show in the network's history. The show has won the loyalty of fans and kudos from critics for its smart, imaginative storytelling and superb performances from its stellar ensemble cast.
The show also features some of the best visual effects on television. Ranging from photo-real set extensions to CG characters to all manner of blood and gore, they are the work of Burbank-based FuseFX, whose team is currently nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Supporting Role. Earlier this year, FuseFX won the VES Award for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Photoreal/Live Action Broadcast Program.
FuseFX has overseen visual effects for American Horror Story since its premier in 2011 and its role has grown with each season. (Series creator) Ryan Murphy wants us to outdo ourselves every year, says FuseFX VFX Supervisor Jason Piccioni. In our first meeting for this season, he said the scope of the work would be something never before seen in a television series and he was right.
The average 1-hour episode from the Freak Show anthology included more than 100 visual effects shots many of which were complicated character effects. There was Edward Mordrake, a 19th century English noble, who sports a second face on the back of his head, and Twisty, a macabre clown who lost his lower jaw to a shotgun blast. Most ambitious are Bette and Dot Tattler, conjoined twins, identical in every respect except for their divergent personalities. (Both characters are played by actress Sarah Paulson.)
FuseFX works closely with the production's special effects and make-up departments in designing and executing those sorts of character effects. We go over the script together and work out a plan to divide and conquer, Piccioni explains. The creative direction comes from Ryan Murphy. He is very clear on what he wants. Piccioni notes that many of the members of the team worked together on a previous Ryan Murphy series, Nip/Tuck, and have developed a mutual shorthand that allows them to quickly assign tasks and set protocols.
Depending on the workload, FuseFX might assign 25 artists or more to an episode. Along with Piccioni, creative members of the team include Dave Altenau, Justin Ball, Jason Spratt, Tim Jacobsen, Tommy Tran, Mike Kirylo and Matt Lefferts.
For this past season, effects production was typically limited to a week per episode. FuseFX would receive production media on a Friday night and have it ingested into its pipeline by Saturday morning. Artists would tackle scenes involving the conjoined twins first and deliver rough versions to the show's editors by Sunday afternoon. On Wednesday, they would begin delivering shots for review to the producers. By Thursday, the work would be done.
It's a fast process, Piccioni says. To do the type of work that we're doing for a feature, where you might have eight months, is one thing, but to do it on a television schedule is very challenging.
The nature of the effects in Freak Show required that FuseFX work in close collaboration with the show's editors. We were creating character elements that involved dialogue and expression and so were very closely entwined with the editorial, Piccioni explains. There was a lot of back and forth with the editors, much more than in years past.
The conjoined twins required particular finesse. Artists needed to marry separate elements of the characters' heads and do so in a way that made them appear to be part of a single body whose skin and muscles functioned realistically. Piccioni notes that the twins shots would have been easier if camera movement was limited, but they resisted that option. We didn't want to compromise what was special about the show, he says. Instead of restricting how things were shot, we adapted our technique to the show's aesthetic.
The mandate to continually raise the bar creates certain pressures for the FuseFX team. Some of the things we did this year were incredibly difficult to pull off, Piccioni notes. They were really great episodes and they challenged us to reach deep into our bag of tricks.
See FuseFX's work for American Horror Story https://vimeo.com/136674268
About FuseFX
FuseFX is a full-service visual effects studio serving the television, feature film and advertising industries from facilities in Burbank, New York and Vancouver. Founded in 2006 by David Altenau, the company encompasses a staff of more than 100 highly talented and experienced artists, producers and support personnel. Using its refined, custom database and pipeline, the company can accommodate numerous, high shot-count productions while delivering high-quality, on-time results.
For more information, visit http://fusefx.com/
Contacts
David Altenau
President / Senior Visual Effects Supervisor
FuseFX
2316 West Victory Boulevard
Burbank, California 91506
818.237.5052
dave@fusefx.com
Tim Jacobsen
Executive Producer
FuseFX
2316 West Victory Boulevard
Burbank, California 91506
818.237.5052
tim@fusefx.com
Press Contact
Linda Rosner
ArtisansPR
310.837.6008
lrosner@artisanspr.com
###
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
American Horror Story is a major hit for FX. The most recent season of the anthology series, Freak Show, became the most-watched show in the network's history. The show has won the loyalty of fans and kudos from critics for its smart, imaginative storytelling and superb performances from its stellar ensemble cast.
