A visual effects veteran with 16 years in the industry, Gavin McKenzie first worked at Rushes and Cinesite before becoming part of Framestore in 2012. Over the years, he has helped bring projects such as Thor: Ragnarok, His Dark Materials, If, and Prehistoric Planet to life.
What is your background?
I’ve been working in film for over 20 years now. I started out as an On Set Computer & Video Playback Technician. And then moved over into VFX as a Compositor about 16 years ago. I’ve been at Framestore for 14 years.
How did you and Framestore get involved on this show?
Framestore had previously collaborated with Baltasar on Everest and Beast. On the former we created an accurate mountain setting that didn’t break the audience’s immersion in the drama, so we were uniquely qualified for the challenge of Apex. I think I was just in the right place at the right time.
How was the collaboration with VFX Supervisor Enrik Pavdeja and VFX Producer Gavin Round?
Working with Enrik and Gavin was great. Enrik and I had known each other from when he was at Framestore so it was nice to work together again. The film had lots of complexities to navigate and it was good to solve those problems together.
How early did Framestore become involved in planning the film’s two major climbing sequences?
We got involved after the production had finished shooting. Our in-house visualisation department, Framestore Pre-production Services (FPS) began with postvis as we began to build our assets. FPS used the preliminary build of our mountains which helped us understand where to stage all the action.
What were the biggest challenges in building the completely digital environments for the Troll Wall sequence in Norway?
Our biggest challenge was creating an environment that would hold up to big wide shots, and also work for closeups. They shot all the Troll Wall sequences on a large set build that represented different sections of the mountain. Because this wall had particular features that we didn’t want to feel repeated we often had to remove large sections of the plate and replace them with our CG wall. This required custom models and variants of our mountain to make sure it all tracked correctly.
How did your team approach recreating the scale, height, and vertigo of the Norwegian cliffs in a believable way?
We used a scan of the real Troll Wall location to base our mountain from. We then chose a route up the mountain that would work with the edit and also deliver the most dramatic looking views. In reality the Troll Wall is extremely tall but isn’t completely vertical, so we often needed to cheat the angle of the mountain relative to the tilt of the plate when looking down to increase the sense of vertigo.
The storm in the Norway sequence plays a major role, how did you craft the atmospheric effects while keeping everything grounded in realism?
This was one of my favourite sequences to work on. We started by finding lots of blizzard references and discussing with Enrik how strong and intense ours needed to be. Baltasar, being Icelandic, has lots of experience with snow and extreme weather so we knew we had to base everything on reality. Our FX team created a large simulation that covered the entire area of the blizzard sequence. This consisted of snow and vapour blowing from the surface of the mountain and also more snow blowing in from the wider valley. We then ran this through our shot cameras and adjusted the simulations based on what we saw. We rendered everything in lots of layers so our comp team could drive the strength and visibility. I’m really happy with how this all turned out.
How different was the creative and technical approach when moving from the cold Norwegian environment to the Australian landscape?
Both of our environments presented similar, yet distinct, challenges. We had some great photographic references of the Troll Wall that Enrik shot in Norway. This helped with our distant environment.
The Australian mountain on the other hand was based on a real gorge but the scale and shape was fictional. So this needed to be fully built in CG.
Lighting appears to be a key challenge here, how did you handle the very different natural light conditions between Norway and Australia?
Lighting both the Norway and Australian scenes was an interesting challenge. Mainly due to the need to integrate the plate photography with our CG extensions. We were often seeing a greater distance so needed to find a sympathetic light direction that worked for the foreground and background.
The Troll Wall blizzard scene was set at night, the cast wore head lamps which needed to integrate with the CG blizzard and environment. Every plate needed to be bodytracked so our lighting team could accurately illuminate the CG.
What made seamless digi-double work essential for these climbing sequences?
The cast never went to Norway, so for the helicopter and wide shots we needed to add Sasha, Tommy and all their climbing equipment. For the moment when Tommy gets hit and falls, Baltasar really wanted this to feel unexpected. He also wanted the audience to feel like they were falling with him. So this shot needed to be full CG. We wanted everything to feel as real as possible so based our animation on reference of real climbers falling.
How did you ensure smooth transitions between the actors, stunt performers, and digital doubles without the audience noticing?
Our asset team did a wonderful job building the digi’s. And our animators then based their performances on reference from other shots in the movie. The stunt performers did a great job mimicking the actors, we just needed to help with a few face replacements.
Invisible VFX often rely on restraint, how do you decide how far to push environment extensions and digital augmentation before they stop feeling natural?
I always like to keep VFX grounded in reality and use real world references as much as possible. The hardest VFX is creating something that everyone looks at all the time, and making the audience not question it. When doing an environment extension it is really important to stay true to the lighting in the foreground photography. If that means the extension is then compromised with a less perfect look, the fun challenge is to find a way to bring life to the background in a way that makes sense. We often used cloud shadows and pools of light to bring interest to our extension whilst staying true to the photography.
Looking at Apex as a whole, which invisible effect do you think audiences would be most surprised to learn was created by Framestore?
The actors did an amazing job climbing for real on the sets that were built and also the locations. But for safety reasons they had to wear extra climbing harnesses and had safety ropes attached to them through their costume. Anchor points and hand holds had to be removed from the set. Our Paint department did an incredible job to remove these seamlessly. It was sometimes a real challenge knowing which rope was a prop and which was a safety. I think the audience will watch the movie and really believe the climbing was that perilous.
What’s your best memories on this film?
I had a wonderful team on this show. It was a real pleasure to work with them all. I love the outdoors and I’ve done a fair bit of climbing myself in the past so it was nice to do a show that had both.
How long have you worked on this film?
I worked on the film for just about a year.
What is your next project?
I’m currently helping out on an exciting film project, but I can’t say what it is just yet.
What are the four movies that gave you the passion for cinema?
My favourite movie is The Shawshank Redemption. Its story really connects with the audience and instills a strong feeling of hope. The finale is so uplifting.
My other favourite movie is The Lord of the Rings trilogy (these should count as one right?) The movies are incredible on many levels. They are a very good representation of the book. They were extremely ambitious for the time when they were made. You can really feel that everyone involved absolutely loved what they were doing and wanted it to be the best thing. Watching the making of DVDs is what got me interested in filmmaking and VFX.
I love movies that draw you in and immerse you in their story, so that everything else falls away. That is what cinema is to me.
A big thanks for your time.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Framestore: Dedicated page about Apex on Framestore website.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2026
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