Backrooms VFX explained, trickiest shots, Easter eggs
Gold Derby • • entertainment
Key Points:
- The visual effects team behind Backrooms faced the challenge of making a physically impossible, liminal space feel both believable and unsettlingly real, blending practical sets with CGI to extend the environment seamlessly.
- Director Kane Parsons, who created the original YouTube series using Blender, collaborated closely with VFX supervisor Edward J. Douglas, personally building previs models to communicate his vision effectively.
- The production balanced extensive physical set construction with digital extensions, using 30,000 square feet of stage space combined with blue screen areas to create vast, interconnected backrooms.
- Complex effects like characters passing through walls required meticulous animation and shadow re-projection to maintain a clean, realistic look without typical fantasy effects, achieved by the Mr. Wolf VFX team.
- The team reverse-engineered the original viral backrooms image to create a pixel-perfect foundation for the film’s aesthetic, adjusting colors on set to maintain natural skin tones while preserving the iconic yellowed atmosphere.