Season four of CBS’ Madam Secretary came to a dramatic conclusion recently as main character Elizabeth McCord, played by Téa Leoni, expressed her desire to run for President. The political drama series is set in Washington D.C, but filmed in Los Angeles. It was down to our Legion of artists to recreate the city’s iconic buildings in CG.
We were tasked to take the visual effects to the next level in some of the most complex and exacting photorealistic computer-generated environments created for the show’s fourth season which included large-scale set extensions, meticulously detailed CG environments, CG replications of buildings like the White House.
Our first task was to create a CG replication of the White House for a large green screen set up and over the season we met the show’s tight deadlines and created a variety of true to life CG shots. Our library enabled us to expedite the production of the effects by building on existing assets.
Post – “Madam Secretary brought VFX Legion onboard to help keep things real, whilst streamlining the production and challenging computer-generated environments.”
FXGuide – “The studio helped take the role of visual effects to the next level. augmenting many shots of the show’s footage that would have been impractical or impossible to shoot live such as Joint Base Andrews, the US military facilities that houses Air Force One.”
Creativepool – “VFX Legion pulled out all the stops to deliver a large quantity of complex, high-quality VFX, and make last minute changes, whilst still meeting a tight deadline and getting the most value out of the budget.”
CG Meetup – “VFX Legion had the experience and technical ingenuity to create large-scale set extensions and meticulously detailed CG environments that stood in for a number of practical location shots without sacrificing the accuracy of the acclaimed series.”
Aotg – “VFX Legion is thrilled to have been given the opportunity to work on ‘Madam Secretary’, says James Hattin founder of VFX Legion. “Working with the show’s team has been an amazing experience and we are incredibly proud of the work that we’ve contributed towards this season.”
Broadcast Beat – “Legion helped take the role of visual effects to the next level, augmenting the show’s footage with shots that would have been impractical or impossible to shoot live.”
You can catch Madam Secretary on Netflix, and stay tuned for season 5 of the CBS drama in early 2019. Watch our VFX breakdown of Madam Secretary below.