Five-Time Emmy-Nominated VFX Supervisor Michael Cliett on ‘Shogun’ and Past Experiences
Posted on: Aug 22, 2024
Photo Credit: Shutterstock // Rokas Tenys
Visual Effects Supervisor Michael Cliett received his most recent Emmy-nomination for his outstanding and historically accurate work on season one of FX’s sleeper hit series Shogun. The five-time Emmy nominee sat down with Staff Me Up for an exclusive interview about how he got started, how he got on Shogun, and what advice he’d give to people looking to break into the industry today.
Staff Me Up: How did you get started in the entertainment industry and with visual effects (VFX)?
Michael Cliett: I went to school in Orlando, Florida, at a school called the DAVE School (the Digital Animation and Visual Effects School). I graduated in 2004. Back then, the school was owned by a gentleman named Jeff Sheets, who was one of the visual effects supervisors from a very old former VFX house called Foundation Imaging, which is one of the original VFX houses in Hollywood.
They did all the Star Trek shows back in the 90s. He started his own school and I went there. When I was getting ready to graduate from that school, I went out to LA and met some people that he put me in touch with. These were the guys who were making Battlestar Galactica.
Basically, they hired me for Joss Whedon’s film called Serenity. That was my first job. I was always interested in what they were doing behind the camera. I bounced around from various VFX houses in Hollywood before I moved my way up into CG supervisor and commercials.
I was nominated for my first Emmy for Jericho, which wasn’t so much sci -fi. My second one was for V, then Falling Skies. I enjoy good stories and whatever genre that story comes in, I’m all for it. Shogun was a beautiful story, that’s why I jumped on it.
SMU: How did it come to you? Was it just through somebody you knew that was like, hey, I’ve got this show or how did you first hear about Shogun?
MC: A friend of a friend gave my name to the producers at the show when it was still in talking stages. I lived in Japan when I was a kid. I was a big fan of the original Shogun series. It was one of the first things I watched with my dad when I was a kid. I definitely had a deep love for all things Japanese. Later, I developed a love of the country and the people and the traditions and the history.
When the opportunity came to do a retelling of Shogun, I think it was a really good fit. It’s a dream project for me, Japanese historical fiction. We took deep dives down every little last detail in order to make it as authentic and as historically accurate as possible. Our ultimate goal was that we wanted the Japanese people to be able to watch the show and say, “Wow, they got it right.”
SMU: With so much to keep in mind, is there a particular VFX scene that stands out to you where it took lots of pieces to come together to make it accurate?
MC: It was really important in the construction of Osaka to get all of that right. We really wanted to ensure that all the buildings were correct. We took a deep dive in historical accuracy with the help from our historians and advisors.
The VFX are so woven into the story that you don’t notice them. The showrunner, myself, all the producers, we all wanted that. We wanted you to be able to watch the show and be fully immersed in the world of 17th century feudal Japan and not thinking like, “Wow, that’s a great visual effect.”
In episode one, someone’s head is cut off with a katana. I think it was done really well because we studied the weight of the head and how it rolled off the body. We needed to know the velocity and angle of the katana. It was important for that moment to be shocking. It was important for it to be real. It was important for it to not stick out.
SMU: What advice would you give to someone looking to get into the industry today?
MC: It’s really hard to give advice on such a rapidly changing industry right now. The industry is undergoing a lot of growing pains at the moment.
I think that the visual effects industry is going to be bigger and stronger than ever, because all these tools are gonna do is make the studios that much more dependent on the visual effects of the show in order to create something better and cheaper and faster.
At the end of the day, that’s really all that everyone wants you to know. They want to be able to create great TV or great movies for less money and then at a faster pace. Right now, I think it’s just important to make as many connections as you can with veterans in the industry. Take those internships too. It’s important to get experience and make those connections.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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