‘Loki’ Visual Effects Supervisor, Emmy Nominee Christopher Townsend On Visualization the Concept of ‘Spaghettification’

Visual effects artist Christopher Townsend spent over 20 years working in various capacities within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After starting with 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, he experienced the evolution of both the demands of visual effects and the computer / rendering power required to deliver the wonders that audiences now expect.

Disney+’s Loki season two marks Townsend’s first foray into television. It’s a world that, in many ways, bears little difference from the film-based worlds in which he’d previously worked.

“There hasn’t really been much difference in the way we produce the television versus the way we did the films. This is my first foray into TV and into streaming,” Townsend explained, “And I was surprised at the similarities there were between the two worlds of features and streaming.”

Loki season two’s visual effects shot count emerged at roughly 1,200 shots – approximately half of what season one required. The creative team working on season two tended to favor as many practical effects as possible. Actual sets were built, including the expansive midway from the 1893 World’s Fair-set episode, with visual effects creating and expanding the practical environment where necessary.

But the great fun, according to Townsend, on a project of this variety is initially reading through the script and having those “How are we going to do this” moments. Loki’s season two scripts provided ample moments of the sort, including the temporal loom, Loki time slipping, and, yes, the much-discussed “spaghettification” of Loki’s season two world.

“Spaghettification” stems directly from the written page. At various points in the series, Loki’s timeline begins to deteriorate, breaking down in a unique way. Rather than simply disappearing or floating off into ashes, it literally separates fiber by fiber into strands of time — strands of time spaghetti, if you will. It’s a theme that’s visually represented multiple times throughout the episode when Loki’s time slips or when he collects strands / branches of time together by the end of the series.

This concept of strands of time provided Townsend and team the opportunity to develop a clear visual representation.

“We used to call it our string theory of time — this idea that everything becomes strands and how does it become strands? We started doing lots of sort of tests and concept art and looking at reference of literally spaghetti and yarn and weaving and wool and cotton and steel wool catching fire and disintegrating,” Townsend recalled. “One of the things the directors and other creative team members really wanted to do was create something which was very tangible and physical and something you could feel. So we would photograph a scene, and once we had the scene, we would then create a CG version of the moment that it transitioned into spaghettification. We would seamlessly go from the photographed set into the CG set as it begins to extrude.”

Replicating all practical details of the set meant that, once spaghettified, the diverging strands of time would take on the color and texture of the object it originally represented. For example, there is a sequence in which Sophie Di Martino’s Sylvie quietly listens to music in a record store while the world behind her sphaghettifies. The record store contains records, record players, a cash register, and so forth. As time wipes these objects away, Townsend and team were able to visualize the break down of each object into a strand of time spaghetti.

It provided an unexpectedly beautiful moment as that timeline deteriorates.

Other notable moments of impressive visual effects included extensive work to visually replicate the timeline and time loom so integral to the plot. As characters eventually attempt to bring the timelines together, they are regularly ripped apart due to their prolonged exposure to the shattering timelines. Townsend and team needed to not only represent the dissolution of several characters in this sequence but also the environment around them.

Moving on from a more void-based concept, Townsend and team created temporal winds or wisps highlighted with a full spectrum of colors. They also envisioned the loom itself and debated its size and scale until settling on the representation audiences loved in season two.

But nothing recreated through visual effects would diverge from the logic of the series. Everything had to be tied to the core rules of the TVA world.

“The thing that was really interesting about creating that world is it was a real evolution throughout the process of trying to find logic and apply that logic and to create rules and then to see where those rules break. There is a narrative that goes through it all that makes sense if you think about it. It was a really fun project, and creating those rules was a fun part of the project to do.”

Loki streams in its entirety on Disney+.