VFX Archives - Pixel Catcher

CHAS – More Than A Hospice

Role

Compositor at Eyebolls

I joined the team to composite the layers of this beautiful animation work together in Adobe After Effects into something that felt true to the handcrafted, tactile intent behind the design of the artwork.

The whole team were deeply focused on ensuring every scene conveyed the right emotion for the moment, and we had a lot of discussions to make sure we nailed it.

From Eyebolls:

“Every week in Scotland, families receive devastating news about their child. When Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS) and Leith trusted us to help tell that story, we understood the weight of what we were being asked to do. We weren’t just creating a film; we were representing real lives, real grief, and real moments of care.

One of the most important creative choices we made was to build the characters using real fingerprints from children at a CHAS workshop. That decision grounded the film in something deeply personal. It meant that, in a small but meaningful way, the children themselves became part of the storytelling process.

This film was shaped by many hands, artists, collaborators, and the CHAS community, all working together with care and respect. We’re proud to have played a part in helping share this story.

CHAS is working to raise £20 million over three years to continue supporting families through the hardest moments imaginable. We hope this film helps people understand why that mission matters and encourages them to be part of it. Please donate if you can.”

To donate online, or read more about CHAS’ appeal, visit www.chas.org.uk/more-than-a-hospice

Animation: Eyebolls
Animation Director: Garry Marshall
Animation Producer: Victoria Watson
Design: Marion Deuchars
Additional Character Design: Agata Kaczan
Background Design: Garry Marshall
Animators: Agata Kaczan & Ben McCormick
Compositor: Andy Williamson

Magic: The Gathering x Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Role

Compositor at Eyebolls

I joined the VFX team to bring the heroes in a half shell to life in this turtle-y terrific trailer, blending live action and hand-drawn animation together in Nuke.

Gifted

Role

Compositor at Serious Facilities

The team at Serious approached me to help tackle the visual effects for a key sequence in episode one of CBBC’s Gifted.

Leading a small team of two other compositors, we delivered close to 100 shots over the course of a few weeks in episode one’s climactic sequence, working in Nuke to add camera shakes, falling debris, dust impacts, atmosphere and levitating rocks during the teen superheroes’ daring rescue mission.

Set in modern-day Edinburgh, ‘Gifted’ follows a group of young Scottish teens who discover they have unique superpowers and must band together to fight a powerful organisation that is targeting them.

Midwinter Break

Role

Compositor at Creep

Midwinter Break is a stirring meditation on faith, commitment, and the enduring power of love, as a longtime couple takes a life-changing trip to Amsterdam.

With invisible visual effects in Nuke, we brought the bleakness of midwinter to Amsterdam as the backdrop against this deeply emotional tale of two people.

Starring
Lesley Manville, Ciarán Hinds

Directed by
Polly Findlay

Screenplay by
Bernard MacLaverty and Nick Payne

Based on
The novel by Bernard MacLaverty

Produced by
Guy Heeley, Floor Onrust

Distributed by
Focus Features, Universal Pictures UK

Learning to Breathe Under Water

Role

VFX Vendor for feature film Learning to Breathe Under Water

Writer: Richard Brabin
Director: Rebekah Fortune
Producers: Jack Tarling, Patrick O’Neill
Co-Producer: Nan Davies

Festivals:
Great 8 Showcase, Cannes

This film is due to be released in 2026

ScotRail

Role

Compositor for ScotRail commercials, as part of the team at Creep.

Shot in static carriages, my role involved inserting the moving exterior environments on assigned shots, including tracking, roto, keying and compositing.

Sneak Energy

Role

VFX Artist for Sneak Energy commercials, produced by Dabble.

The invisible visual effects work on this project involved background cleanup / extension and wire removals.

Here’s some examples:

Bad Sisters – Series 2

Compositor at Creep on Bad Sisters (Series 2) for Apple TV+.

There are currently no further details available for this project, please check back later.

Undisputed

Role

VFX for Netflix documentary Undisputed, produced by We Go Again.

The filmmakers approached for help with invisible visual effects work involving screen replacements and cleanup, completed in Adobe After Effects.

Full trailer below:

Murder Is Easy

Role

Lead compositor at T he 2D Workshop for BBC One‘s murder mystery adaptation of ‘Murder Is Easy’, produced by Mammoth Screen.

We completed a total of around 30 sky replacement shots across the two episode series, creating sky plates from my own photography archive.

Most of these involved fine hair, trees and other challenges such as defocus, so we worked carefully in Nuke to preserve the detail in the shot as we carried out our sky replacements.

Talisker: Glacial Edge

Challenge

Bring the creative vision to life with visual effects and rescue a shot from the cutting room floor…

Outcome

Shot saved! As well delivering a number of logo removals, cleanups and snow scenes.

The team at Scotica Film are no strangers to creating beautiful imagery in the wilderness, but
even the best laid plans go awry when nature decides otherwise…

In a remote Icelandic location, the crew are shooting the hero shot for Talisker’s new Glacial Edge whisky. But there’s a problem, the weather has rolled in and the landscape has vanished behind a veil of white. On a tight schedule, they have no choice but to roll the camera and get the shot in the can.

To fix the footage, I performed advanced digital cleanup and cosmetic bottle alterations. The shot was then enhanced by compositing a background of distant mountains to add scale, and integrating a custom-built 3D simulation of blustering snow to complete the arctic aesthetic. The final shot brings the drama the original was lacking, saving a shot that would otherwise have hit the cutting room floor.

Custom 3D snow simulations in Nuke allowed us to art-direct the snowfall for each shot.

Looking for a freelance VFX Artist for your next project? Get in touch

William Hill Rugby

Role

Freelance Compositor with Creep for a William Hill Rugby Commercial

Sometimes in the pressures of a shoot day things don’t look quite as perfect as you’d like. That’s where invisible visual effects can help, and you’ll never know we were there 👀

This breakdown demonstrates precise digital cleanups, tracking and painting to correct wardrobe issues across multiple moving shots.

Looking for a freelance VFX Artist for your next project? Get in touch

Sex Education – Season 4

Role

Freelance Compositor with Creep for season 4 of Netflix’s Emmy & BAFTA winning series Sex Education.

Here’s a selection of shots I had a hand in, with a mixture of removals, roto and compositing.

Looking for a freelance VFX Artist for your next project? Get in touch

Nėædra

Challenge

Bring concepts to life in this experimental short film through the use of visual effects

Outcome

Multiple shots delivered to the director’s vision, all within the condensed budget of an indie film.

This short film has been officially selected for the London Fashion Film Festival, Oxford Shorts 2023 and the Croatia Fashion Film Festival.

The Waterwall

The script called for an ethereal watery divide between the main character and the alien beings. This presented the biggest visual effects challenge on this production because it would be seen across multiple shots in a sequence, in wide and close up.

Fluid simulations were out of the question, they are simply too resource intensive for a small production, and there wasn’t much time in the schedule to develop the look.

In the end, the waterwall was achieved with procedural effects creating distortion and glare which could then be easily implemented and adjusted on a shot by shot basis.

Looking for a freelance VFX Artist for your next project? Get in touch

Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge

Role

I delivered over 150 VFX removal shots across this 10 episode series, a key part of which involved removing the rig used to move the car into position on the studio set.

This required some creative approaches since the studio had just about everything that works against this kind of visual effects work, all combined into one – shiny reflective floors, moving lights, smoke and camera motion.

Hot Wheels Ultimate Challenge was produced by Workerbee for NBC.

Talisker

Challenge

Carry out beauty work on the product to ensure clarity of the bottle design throughout the advert. Produced by Scotica Film.

Outcome

Three shots delivered with careful invisible visual effects work carried out to digitally replace the bottle artwork.

I find invisible visual effects work continuously satisfying, it’s the bread and butter of what I do. It’s often painstaking work sweating over the tiniest of details, but all with the goal of making it look as if nothing was ever altered in the shot. The biggest compliment I can get is “Well, what did you do?”.

Before VFX

Looking for a freelance VFX Artist for your next project? Get in touch

Blood, Sex & Royalty

Role

After collaborating with The 2D Workshop on series 13 of D octor Who in 2021, they invited me back for some visual effects work on the Netflix docu-drama Blood, Sex & Royalty (produced by Nutopia).

My work mostly involved the removal of anachronistic objects and architecture, compositing matte-painted set extensions and correcting the colour of the castle walls.

This shot in particular became a far bigger challenge than anyone anticipated:

Since much of what we needed to remove in the background was behind fine-detailed trees and reeds, myself and the team at The 2D Workshop had to come up with a solution that would allow us to complete the shot on time and within budget.

The resulting idea was to composite in additional trees to hide some of the modern buildings in the background, with the rest being a matte painting. I sourced tree assets that visually matched the existing trees in the plate, both in terms of variety and lighting conditions, and comped them into the shot.

For the beheading of Anne Boleyn, there are multiple ways of achieving this, using a half-sword prop for example and digitally completing the sword in CG. In this instance, the two actors were shot on separate plates with a locked-off camera. It’s simple, effective solution that looks 100% realistic for a highly emotional scene that cannot be undermined by wonky visual effects.

I then combined the two plates, taking a little extra time to create a shadow of the sword on her shoulder as it swings closer, it’s a small detail but it goes a long way to bring the two plates together.

Looking for a freelance VFX Artist for your next project? Get in touch

Unsaid – Short Film

Challenge

Remove filming equipment and unwanted objects from a number of shots, as well as some other creative VFX to aid the story – all within just two days!

Multi-talented indie filmmaker Shelby Eames approached me with a number of visual effects challenges in her latest project, and a very tight deadline. Luckily, I’m always up for a challenge. Since there wasn’t a lot of time and the job list was quite long, we chatted through what the priorities were for the shots, which ones were important for the story, which ones would affect the viewer’s immersion in the story (where film equipment was visible), and which ones were a “nice to have” situation if we still had time left.

Prioritising shots in this way allowed us to make sure the most crucial shots were complete within the two day schedule.

These underwater shots proved very tricky to remove filming equipment from. The water is changing, the light is changing, and everything is moving…

Combining two plates and performances to create a ghostly apparition:

Ethereal light beams:

Red Arrow Finance – Commercial VFX

Challenge

Bring the creative team’s vision to life with a range of visual effects shots for an online campaign

Outcome

A range of fun visual effects challenges created for a delighted client who were thrilled to see their vision brought to screen

The team at IN Productions were totally green to the process of visual effects. They were bursting with creativity and enthusiasm, they just needed someone to guide them through the technical and practical side of making it work. The crew had never worked with green screen before, which could certainly have been used to achieve some of the effects but could also very easily have gone wrong, so after a lot of discussion we opted to do it without green screen. I spent a lot of time with the team on video calls prior to the shoot talking through the various plates (live action elements of a shot) they would need to capture on set for me to work with in post. I was also on call for them on the shoot day for any remote assistance they needed.

A huge dance sequence needed to transport the characters into a digital world

The hero character arrives in style, through the ceiling!

Characters get sucked into their laptops…

Testimonial

“Andy / Pixel Catcher is a fantastic VFX artist, his name sounds like a super hero and to us, he certainly works magic! We needed some fancy VFX done but weren’t sure how to do it…..Andy to the rescue!! He was super helpful and always on the end of the phone ready to lend a hand, thanks Andy!“
Becky & Judith – IN Productions

Doctor Who – Series 13

Timey Wimey, Visual Effects-y

Challenge

Carry out visual effects work for Doctor Who Series 13

Late in 2021 I worked with The 2D Workshop on some of their shots for Doctor Who Series 13, which included some green screen, set extensions and screen replacements. I’ve watched the show since I was a kid, so the pressure was really on…

Outcome

Around 30 visual effects shots delivered to a happy client, and a box ticked on my childhood bucket list!

Hart Strings

Title Design & VFX

Challenge

Design a moody, stylish title card and credits for mini-series Hart Strings, and also carry out visual effects work on action sequences involving gunfire.

Testimonial

Andy was a great collaborative artist to work with. He easily absorbed inspiration, direction and feedback and came back with something wholly unique. He’s very open to experimenting and presented his ideas efficiently and beautifully.“
Sam Veeramachaneni – Director

Check out the videos below for some VFX breakdowns and title designs.

The Bridge (C4 & HBO)

Challenge

The crew had worked tirelessly to set up this new reality series and find a practical location. With the shoot was only weeks away and lots of work yet to be done, there was a HUGE problem – the location was considered not wild and mountainous enough to get the greenlight from the commissioner. Switching locations would be a mountain of a task in itself, so production company Workerbee approached me to save the day with the magic of visual effects.

Outcome

40+ visual effects shots including environment extensions, object removals and particle simulations.

The Bridge is a reality show that aired on Channel 4 & HBO in 2020, narrated by actor James McAvoy.

Concerned whether or not these shots would work seamlessly with the rest of the show, the production team initially asked for a couple of test shots to see what was possible. Satisfied with the results, I went on to deliver over forty shots for the series.

It also became apparent during production that shooting flare guns necessary to the format was going to be extremely problematic, due to concerns surrounding local wildlife. Not one to shy away from a challenge, I also created a number of photoreal CGI flares, which were so effective that most of the production team didn’t know they were created with visual effects!

visual effects manchester

visual effects manchester