Ausfilm spoke with VFX Supervisor Wil Manning, about Studio Blackbird’s extensive work across Ted Season 2, including the fantasy-heavy “Dungeons & Dealers” episode, balancing intricate VFX pipelines with other vendors, and why detail, communication and flexibility remain central to the studio’s process.

Can you walk us through the work you did on Ted Season 2?

For Season 2 of Ted we worked on almost 750 shots across all eight episodes and we did a bit of everything; full CG environments and CG extensions, creature work, FX simulations for fluids and fire, face replacements, invisible VFX, clean-up, digital matte painting and opticals (fluid morphs, retimes, stabilisations etc).

The biggest sequence of work was in Ep 03. Dungeons & Dealers, which was almost 280 shots by itself. A large portion of those were CG environment extensions, along with a host of magical FX simulations and a number of CG creature enhancements.

Throughout the rest of the season we also handled a lot of de-modernisation and localisation work, something we’re doing a lot of recently. This work involves taking one location (LA in 2025) and making it seem like another (Boston in 1994), a process that includes a lot of altering signs, shops, buildings, cars and skylines.

All of our work was done hand-in-hand with the amazing production-side team at Fuzzy Door and the incredible crew from Framestore who were responsible for the CG character of Ted.

Can you tell us more about the work from the Dungeons & Dealers episode?

The premise of the episode is that the Bennett family and Ted have to play through a Dungeons & Dragons adventure, so almost the entire episode takes place in a fantasy world. The Art Department built these great sets with foreground forests as well as a modular cave complex, but due to practical restrictions most of these needed to be extended digitally.

For the forests we extended the on-set environment with a simulated CG forest and then worked atmos and dust into the foreground for the shots to lend it this magical feel that Seth [MacFarlane] was after.

Opening the forest sequence is a wide establishing shot looking out across a completely CG valley. It’s only a single shot but we dug into it, added multiple castles, waterfalls, rivers and forests. There’s a whole town nestled onto a river bank, and a Red Dragon flying around above. It’s the sort of thing that’s hard to justify cost-wise because it’s a one-off, but we wanted to really provide something fun to set the tone of the episode, so we pushed hard on it and I’m really happy with how it ended up.

For the cave environments we had to extend and rebuild most of the ceilings and exterior mountains. The main sequence for us here was a spike ceiling trap in the riddle room.

We jumped in with post-viz, which we worked through with editorial, then built the CG environments, animated everything, added FX dust and fire to the shots and threw in a smattering of elemental magic effects.

Apart from that there was also a Skeletor-type Acolyte who needed CG glowing eyes and emaciated CG hands, as well as a series of prop replacements, atmospheric fixes and other magic effects.

And I guess that’s a good simple summary of how we supported the show: we took on whole sequences and worked on everything in them, no matter how simple or complex, except for Ted himself. The whole show was really detail focused and we really tried to embrace that, doing a bit of everything we could to help make the show feel authentic and true to the Ted universe.

Was there a lot of back and forth between yourself and the other vendors to accommodate Ted being animated elsewhere?

Yeah, so while the approach was a bit novel, I think it worked out for the best as it allowed each vendor to play to their strengths.

The CG Ted was handled exclusively by Framestore, who had previously animated him in season one, and they did a phenomenal job. Ted is hilarious, cute, emotional, realistic and all the things he needs to be for the show… however, he also needed to be in a lot of our shots. Some of which involved complex comps that layered in atmos, reflections and lighting adjustments so you can’t just hand over the final plate and say, “here you go, enjoy!”

To solve these issues we basically embraced our role and tried really hard to have solid communication with Production and Framestore. This involved both careful communication and tracking (to work out who would do what and where shots would be ‘finished’) as well as being willing to package and share working files and elements to aid each other with delivering the best quality work.

I think it’s a strength of ours at Blackbird that we’re very willing to work with others. If it helps to get a show across the line and makes the work that ends up on the screen better, it’s almost always worth the effort. And sharing shots between vendors is something we are seeing more and more of. Just before this show we’d done similar on Mortal Kombat II, we worked closely again with Framestore as well as other vendors like Rising Sun Pictures.

Is there anything else you’d like to add about your work on Ted Season 2?

Well, firstly I can’t say enough wonderful things about the team from Fuzzy Door! Seth MacFarlane (director/creator) was a distinct pleasure to work with. Coming from an animation background means you get notes that make real sense and have clear direction. VFX Supervisors Blair Clark and Hoyt Yeatman were amazing and we were lucky to have them, as we were with VFX Producer Maricel Pagulayan and her team. Also a shout out to Tom Costantino (Editor), who we worked very closely with.

Ted is an homage to the 90s sitcom and the amount of care and attention that went into getting that vibe accurate from the production-side talent really echoed down to our own team. The show always felt like it knew what it wanted to be, and that’s a pretty precious thing.

I think our team was pretty sad when we were winding up the show because the entire process felt so collaborative and constructive. It felt like we were making a difference. And, as artists, that makes you feel deeply motivated and rewarded.

Ted Season 2 is now streaming on Binge (Australia) and Peacock (US).