‘Shogun’s’ VFX Pro Knows Exactly How a Cannonball Would Kill a Man

Shogun always meant a lot to Michael Cliett, who has fond memories of watching the 1980 miniseries with his dad as a kid in Japan. So the Emmy-nominated visual effects supervisor leapt at the opportunity to work on FX’s lavish adaptation of the James Clavell novel. Cliett speaks with host Rob Legato, the Oscar-winning VFX legend behind Titanic, about creating an authentic representation of Japan in the year 1600. “Everything had to be grounded in reality,” Cliett says, including the show’s brutal violence, from a chain shot cannonball massacre to multiple beheadings. The goal is for his painstaking work to be “invisible,” Cliett says. “The last thing I want is for the audience to be thinking about the fact that they're watching a visual effect.” Transcript here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices