Glasgow VFX studio celebrates supporting role in bringing The Penguin to life after Emmy recognition

Glasgow-based FixFX worked alongside the show’s Oscar-winning makeup team to bring Colin Farrell’s titular character to life, with the widely acclaimed series receiving 24 nominations, including Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup and Outstanding Special Visual Effects In A Single Episode.

While FixFX may have played a supporting role in The Penguin’s success, their subtle but impactful work has attracted some of the biggest names in entertainment to Scotland.

“To have had a major involvement in two of its incredible 24 nominations is enormously exciting and it's very flattering, you know, to be recognised for that kind of work – although it's not ourselves that are directly recognised,” said Colin Kennedy, chief executive of FixFX.

“We know where we've fitted into the process and it's great to be operating at that kind of level.”

The Penguin among FixFX’s first projects to be highly recognised

FixFX was commissioned to add the finishing touches to Colin Farrell’s prosthetic makeup for The Penguin, helping develop the show’s gritty tone.

VFX studio supervisor Chris Duffy said: “Basically 99% of the work was just Colin Farrell's prosthetics and tidying them up.

“The art we do is all invisible, so the recognition we get is always when someone doesn’t notice the work that we’ve done.”

The team began working on the show in 2023, but it wasn’t smooth sailing for them to finish the project.

Mr Duffy said: “We got going on maybe about 50 odd shots, and then it completely stopped because of Hollywood strikes. There was lots of delays because of that.

“It was a particularly tricky [job], because it was such fine, detail stuff, that took us a while to go back into afterwards as well.”

FixFX spent six months working on The Penguin, which saw the team handling 800 shots in total. In comparison, Mr Kennedy highlighted their work on Outlander.

He said: “[Outlander] was about the same sort of length of time as The Penguin, but we did 800 shots on The Penguin and we did nearly 3,000 on Outlander, and we've managed to do sort of both projects over a period of about six months.

“It was very intense.”

Having worked on Outlander for several seasons, Mr Kennedy said the show’s contribution to the Scottish filmmaking industry has been “absolutely brilliant”.

“Outlander has really helped us to expand our spectrum of work and talent within the company. It's been fantastic to have their trust and investment in us, and they've created an awful lot of jobs and supported an awful lot of new talent in Scotland, specifically through us but also through every single aspect of filmmaking disciplines,” he said.

Glasgow VFX company’s work includes Stranger Things

In addition to beauty work, the studio also provides everything from general clean up to getting rid of crew members and rigging.

“We did a lot of work on Civil War, for example, where we got rid of all of the vehicles and stuff that were in the streets to make it look more apocalyptic,” Mr Kennedy highlights.

The 2024 Alex Garland film is just one of many projects which FixFX has had an invisible hand in making. The team has also contributed to shows such as Lockerbie: A Search For Truth, Nautilus and Stranger Things, which was among Mr Duffy’s favourites to have been involved with.

Despite having previously been involved with the Netflix hit, Mr Kennedy suspects that they won’t be getting a call as the new season rolls around.

“That's because they changed their visual effects supervisor, producer, and this business is very much relationship driven,” he explained.

It was FixFX’s longstanding relationship with The Penguin’s visual effects producer which helped them secure the job, with Screen Scotland’s PGF Project Post also supporting the production.

The production growth fund aims to attract large scale film and TV productions to Scotland – something which Mr Kennedy says is starting to work.

“We are finding that [the] fund is starting to attract more people and, of course, with the nominations and the successes and the hype around The Penguin, then it's great for that fund to be associated with such a high profile project,” he said.

Creative Scotland attracting major projects to country

Over the past year, a number of large productions including Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, Apple TV+’s The Buccaneers, and Edgar Wright’s upcoming remake of The Running Man have spent time filming in Scotland.

Christopher Nolan has been shooting his upcoming historical epic The Odyssey in Moray, while filming for J.J Abrams’ untitled blockbuster took place in Edinburgh and Glasgow last month – something which Mr Kennedy is hopeful that FixFX could potentially get involved in.

He said: “We are trying to get work on that. We're not on it yet, but hopefully there might be something.

“These productions are at least now aware of small companies like us with great thanks to the work that's been done at Creative Scotland through their funding. They are managing to attract really, really major projects to the country. And of course, there's a benefit for us as well.”

In particular, Mr Kennedy credits this recognition to the work of Creative Scotland’s executive director Isabel Davis and her team.

“They have really turned things around there in recent years and helped put Scottish filmmakers and talent on the international map.”

Due to the “unpredictable” nature of the industry – particularly with recent events such as the Hollywood strikes and Covid – it has been a quiet period for FixFX recently.

“Having said that though, looking at the forward order book and the amount of inquiries that are coming in, inquiries are definitely going up in recent weeks – which I could get a lot more inquiries – and I guess we could turn about 50% of that into actual jobs and that does make me feel quietly optimistic.

“But I am Scottish, you know. It feels like there's always going to be a little bit of 'well, you never know.'”

Though there isn’t much that can be said about what comes next for FixFX due to non-disclosure agreements, Mr Kennedy did reveal that there is work in the pipeline for clients including Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures, Netflix and Apple.

They are also involved with upcoming Outlander prequel series Blood of My Blood, which is set for release on Saturday, August 9.