With its star-studded cast and sprawling narrative, Scott Cooper's Black Mass heads back to the '70s to tell the story of Whitey Bulger - the brother of a state senator and one of South Boston's most infamous criminals.
It was fitting, then, that Zero VFX - with one of its two offices in Boston - was called upon to re-create the bygone era of the city it calls home.
From augmenting crowd shots to swapping one season for another, Zero's work on the project was far- and wide-reaching. Nevertheless, despite its contribution, Zero lived up to its name, leaving no trace of its fingerprints across the production.
We managed to implement a diverse range of invisible effects across Black Mass, working directly with the plate photography, says Sean Devereaux, VFX supervisor for Zero on the project, and more than willing to spill the family secrets.
It was challenging, but I think 99.9% of the people who see it will never know we touched a single frame of it.
Changing Seasons
The Zero team worked on 375 shots in total, straddling period enhancements, shot corrections, and violence augmentation. The name of the game was realism, which, while adding to the drama of the film, was a challenging task.
The director, Scott Cooper, wanted the film to be totally true, in every way possible, to the time it took place, explains Devereaux. That meant shooting on location in Boston and sometimes in front of buildings that wouldn't have existed in the time period. It was up to Zero to remove those buildings from the plates.
Another factor to consider was that Black Mass was shot in late spring, whereas most of the scenes in Black Mass take place in a much colder late winter. Zero's team of seasoned supervisors, producers, and artists took on the monumental task of swapping seasons.
Utilizing a diverse array of tools - including Autodesk's Maya, The Foundry's Nuke, and Adobe's Photoshop, Devereaux and his team went about transforming mild spring to a stark winter. This involved creating CG snow. Any time you see snow in the film, it was added by us, says Devereaux. Also, it entailed removing the thick foliage from the trees visible during footage.
There's really no way to just take off leaves from a tree - you have to replace the entire background, explains Devereaux. A lot of our shots became over 80% digital in order to accomplish that, with entire backdrops of green foliage changed to snow-tipped branches.
Creative Control
All of these changes were impressively created without the aid of any greenscreens. For Devereaux, this wasn't necessarily an issue, as it gave the director much more creative freedom in how he approached each shot for the film.
I want to give the director as much time as possible to figure out how he wanted his shot to look, and as soon as you put that greenscreen up, you're instantly limiting his ability to have more time with the cut, explains Devereaux. In avoiding that, yes, it meant we had to focus on rotoscoping, but it allowed the director more freedom in the editorial process. At Zero, we want to engender that creativity, not distract from it.
Devereaux states that the most VFX-intensive shots faced during the production were those set within a moving vehicle. They did take the most resources, remembers Devereaux. We had to replace absolutely everything outside of the windows, including the reflections, which required a lot of careful, meticulous work from our artists.
Thankfully, VFX Supervisor Paul Linden was on set, he continues. He did a great job on set, ensuring that the transition between on-set shooting and postproduction was as smooth as it could possibly be.
From Drawing a Crowd to Drawing Blood
In addition to the CG snow, the crowd extension - achieved by duplicating extras - became another important element in the Black Mass VFX process.
There were no CG people involved in Black Mass's crowd extensions, explains Devereaux. It was a case of simply duplicating extras from multiple takes. We achieved the effect in 2D using assets captured from other takes and angles. The result was totally seamless.
Zero didn't just need to draw a crowd, but also draw blood. Black Mass is, after all, a violent film, and that meant a great deal of arterial spray being used to enhance the special effects occurring in the original plates.
Zero's work didn't just include enhancing the violence, but also toning it down. If you're a sucker for authenticity, you know bullet holes don't have smoke come out of them when you shoot somebody, but squibs sometimes cause that, says Devereaux. As such, a lot of our work involved squib cleanup. It was about making things look more real while also enhancing the impact of the violence.
Building Boston
Throughout the Black Mass project, reality was the name of the game. Yes, entire buildings were removed, and an epic reversal of Mother Nature was achieved. But despite these feats Zero's involvement needed to remain as low key as possible.
We did a lot of work, but what I'm really proud of is that, of all the work we've done at Zero, Black Mass truly is one where you'll never know we were there, concludes Devereaux. We're invisible - it's an illusion in every sense of the word.
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
04/12/2025
SBS launches Future Frames initiative to support emerging First Nations video ed...
04/12/2025
Coronal mass ejections caused by eruptions on the surface of the sun can have fa...
04/12/2025
Gracenote Content Connect enables media ecosystem to precisely align ad campaigns and programming based on rich content signals
NEW YORK - December 4, 2025 - N...
With its star-studded cast and sprawling narrative, Scott Cooper's Black Mass heads back to the '70s to tell the story of Whitey Bulger - the brother of a state senator and one of South Boston's most infamous criminals.
