The gods might be willed into existence by the belief of men, but American Gods still needed computers to create its surreal world where deities walking among us. And while we might never get to meet Mr. Wednesday, we can now get a glimpse of the special effects that went into the making of the show.
Cinesite released this short breakdown reel, which we first saw at AWN.com, highlighting some of the VFX shots they made for the first season of Starz series based on Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods. While most of them helped bring to life the mystical-looking world of the gods, there are some that we never would have realized weren’t actually real, like the Egyptian-themed casino Laura worked at.
The most beautiful shots here are from the afterlife, where Anubis weighs the hearts of the deceased against a feather. The land of the dead was almost entirely computer generated, but since that world looks nothing like the real life we know it never came across that way on the series.
With this show we would have thought creating amazing visuals was as easy as willing a storm into existence merely by thinking about “snow” really hard. However, Cinesite said they made “160 VFX shots across 18 different sequences, split over five episodes,” so it was a little more complicated than that.
Although, it might have helped if they prayed to Media while making them. You know, just in case.
Which shot from the first season of American Gods was your favorite? Put your faith–and your thoughts–in our comments below.
Featured Image: Starz
