Mike, a down-to-earth construction worker from Jersey, is thrust into a world of super spies and secret agents when his long-lost high school sweetheart, Roxanne, shows up with more on her mind than romance. Having recruited Mike on a dangerous intelligence mission which will play out across Europe, they are thrust together in a world of spies and high-speed car chases, with sparks flying along the way.

Action is at the heart of Netflix thriller The Union, and Cinesite was delighted to help deliver the suspense, with exciting roof-top chases, spectacular car stunts, explosions and fights. As the lead VFX vendor, we created 330 shots for the production, directed by Julian Farino with production VFX supervision provided by Adam Rowland and Cinesite’s work overseen by Max Dennison.

An explosive opening

The film opens with a flashback to a previous Union mission in Croatia, to recover a briefcase containing highly classified military information from a man in a hotel room. Senior operative Roxanne (Halle Berry) is directing the team from outside the hotel via an earpiece. As they are extracting both target and briefcase from the hotel, a dramatic van explosion outside the front doors rips through the lobby, before the team are picked off one by one by a sniper on the dark, rainy back streets of Trieste.

The production constructed an authentic hotel lobby on an indoor set, where the action was filmed using exterior air cannons to disturb the curtains and blow in the sugar glass windows. The van detonation outside is seen from multiple angles; from the street and from the interior looking out through the lobby doors. For the exterior shots, the production team positioned a substantial light rig in front of the building, which they timed to flash brightly at the point of detonation. In addition, it was necessary to add explosion reflections and lighting interactions both to the hotel windows and facade, and across the rain-soaked street surfaces.

Much of the action in this sequence takes place outside of the hotel, as the agents flee through rainy night-time streets. Rain was added to work narratively throughout; whilst it is pouring down at the height of the action, it gradually subsides and has stopped by the conclusion of the sequence. In some instances, 2D methods were used to enhance what had been shot with practical rain SFX, but in most instances the choreography could only be achieved digitally and CG volumetric rain was required.

Additional VFX throughout this opening sequence include screen inserts and bullet hits, all shot with a fast-moving, handheld camera.

Trust exercise

As Roxanne trains Mike to be a Union agent, she takes him onto a rooftop for a trust exercise. Overlooking London’s Tower Bridge and wearing a blindfold, Mike must run as fast as he can across a 50ft long section of roof ending in a sheer drop at the far end, stopping only when Roxanne tells him to.

Filmed on location beside Tower Bridge, the action and much of the surroundings were captured in camera on the 10-story high rooftop. However, several additional platforms and access walkways on the side of the roof needed to be meticulously removed to enhance the sense of jeopardy.

Covent Garden

One of the most exciting action sequences in The Union takes place in Covent Garden, a historic area of London’s West End. Roxanne, observing from a nearby rooftop, is communicating with Mike on the ground, as he conducts his first mission. As the intended handover goes awry, she rapidly descends the outside of the buildings via balconies and scaffolding to ground level.

Halle was filmed on a rooftop bluescreen set constructed on Shepperton Studios’ H stage. Additional array tile footage was shot on location on the top floor of a building overlooking Monmouth Street and the Seven Dials Monument, which was then stitched together to create a full Seven Dials environment. Panoramic photography including DMP enhancements and views down to the pavement combined with a substantial CG Asset build of the Seven Dials environment ensured that VFX could cover all possible angles for Roxanne’s descent back to street level. CG animated vehicles, CG Digi-doubles and Crowd sprite elements were later added to provide movement on the ground.

On the ground, Mike enters a West End pub to deliver a bag containing five million pounds in cash. Since it was not possible to lock off Soho to film this sequence, the pub was shot at a location in Southwark, East London, where filming took place over two weeks. At a crossroads outside the pub, there is an intense gunfight. Each of the four distant street perspectives from the road junction needed to be added, created to resemble Soho. Lidar scans, photographs and texture references from appropriate London backstreets were taken; similar small bijou shops and cafes from around Covent Garden were used by the environments team to create authentic street facades.

A Running battle

In the aftermath of Mike’s failed mission, a running battle ensues at the Covent Garden intersection, which required multiple bullet impacts, muzzle flashes, breaking glass and car damage.

Having run through a theatre to escape bad guys on motorcycles, Mike runs into Ching Court, a small nook off a main Covent Garden thoroughfare, where he is found by baddie Schiller; their confrontation leads to a brutal hand to hand fight.

The first part of the fight scene was filmed on location at Ching Court just off Seven Dials, where Mike stumbles into the narrow alleyway. Thereafter, production moved to a faithfully reproduced set at Shepperton Studios, where they could capture the intricate fight choreography in a more controlled environment. The wider central, triangular courtyard at the rear was later constructed as a fully CG environment which was then added behind the actors in post-production. At the climax of the fight, the two combatants fall together through a sugar glass basement skylight. For this spectacular action piece, stunt actors were used, with Mike’s character undergoing a full CG Mark Wahlberg head replacement.

The fight continues after the fall into the basement flat, with VFX used for clean-up, invisible fixes involving further Roxanne and Mike face replacements.

Facing the danger

Wherever possible, stunts were performed by the actors. For example, Roxanne’s brutal hand to hand fight in the basement flat with Schiller was captured entirely in camera by the two actresses; however, some more dangerous stunts required face replacements. Cinesite was provided with digital scans of both Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg, and FACS “Facial Action Coding System” was used to create a range of unique expressions in order that the actor performances could be authentically created for a few briefly glimpsed action shots.

Car action

Cars feature throughout The Union; with several important sequences taking place inside travelling vehicles and a dramatic car chase near the film’s conclusion.

The car sequences were mainly shot using both a Volume and greenscreen. VFX supervisor Adam Rowland captured array footage around London; the production was keen to achieve a high-quality end result, so the capture, exposures, lenses etc. were all carefully managed to ensure that the final sequences, stitched and composited by Cinesite, are completely seamless.

In one London sequence, Roxanne and Mike are on a motorbike driving around London. They had been filmed on a simple bike gimbal against greenscreen, which allowed the camera freedom to move in closely on the actors’ faces. Plates captured on arrays were manipulated and added to create the environments. Other shots in the same sequence had been captured on location with stunt people driving the motorbike through the streets. In some instances, their faces needed to be removed, and digi-double actor performances overlaid beneath appropriate reflections on the clear plastic visors covering them.

The climactic stunt car sequence was shot with the actors in cars with driving pods mounted on their roofs, with the actors pretending to drive beneath. These shots required pod removal, CG roof replacement including an old, battered roof rack and luggage, and windscreen replacement too, with the VFX team also adding in the appropriate environmental reflections.

Croatian showdown

At the film’s climax, set in Piran, Croatia, Mike is fighting the bad guys for a messenger bag which contains mission-critical content. As bullets rain down, Mike and his pursuers race precariously across rooftops, jump across streets and onto balconies.

In a similar approach to other action sequences, the opening was shot on location in Piran, while a replica was constructed in studio with some of the building facades and terraces, where the close-up action could be captured. CG set extensions were added behind the constructed set piece, looking East and West, and additional VFX were added including bullet impacts on the building masonry, as well as adding a CG bag to some shots.

After the pursuit has descended to ground level, Mike jumps onto the bonnet of the bad guys’ car. In one dramatic shot, the car crashes into the back of a minivan and Mike is catapulted into the open boot of an old BMW. Stunt doubles were used to create this carefully planned and choreographed shot, which required wire removals and a briefly glimpsed face replacement. The chase continues with three vehicles – a Porsche, BMW and orange Ford – chasing down a narrow road, crashing into each other as they try to force each other off the road. The three cars were recreated using photogrammetry; CG versions were needed to create some of the trickier shots which could not be captured in camera, including one where a car drives spectacularly over the edge of a cliff.

As always, we’re incredibly proud of our fantastic, talented team, for helping us deliver this great body of work; without them, it would not have been possible.