Behind the Scenes of Netflix’s The Boroughs: Crafting Amblin-Era Nostalgia and Geriatric Parkour with State-of-the-Art VFX

The pursuit of 1980s Amblin Entertainment nostalgia remains a driving force in modern streaming television, blending horror, comedy, and high-stakes adventure into familiar yet fresh narratives. Netflix’s eight-episode series The Boroughs continues this tradition, emerging from the creative minds of creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews alongside producers The Duffer Brothers, renowned for their work on the global phenomenon Stranger Things. Set against the sun-drenched, mid-century backdrop of a luxury retirement community in New Mexico, the series follows an ensemble cast of veteran actors—including Alfred Molina, Alfre Woodard, Denis O’Hare, Clarke Peters, Jena Malone, and Geena Davis—as they uncover and attempt to thwart a clandestine, otherworldly threat.

Bringing this high-concept narrative to life required a massive collaborative effort across multiple visual effects studios, including Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Framestore, Ghost VFX, Crafty Apes, and Platige. Under the guidance of Visual Effects Supervisor Tara DeMarco and a team of top-tier concept artists, nearly 1,200 visual effects shots were produced to merge practical filmmaking with advanced digital wizardry. The production’s intricate pipeline highlights how contemporary streaming series achieve cinematic scope through rigorous pre-visualization, deliberate in-camera choices, and innovative creature design.

Establishing the Aesthetic: Mid-Century Modernism Meets Southwest Adobe

The visual identity of The Boroughs draws heavily from a stylistic mashup of 1950s and 1960s architecture, heavily informed by Palm Springs aesthetics paired with traditional New Mexican adobe structures. According to DeMarco, showrunners Addiss and Matthews wanted the fictional retirement community to feel like a tangible, lived-in place that the senior protagonists would genuinely care to fight for.

To achieve this, the production team developed a meticulous "plant bible" to ensure native Southwestern flora was accurately represented across the physical sets and digital environment extensions. Cinematographer Matthew Jensen collaborated closely with the visual effects department from day one, utilizing softer lenses and specialized filtration tests. Rather than relying entirely on digital manipulation in post-production, the creative team prioritized in-camera capture wherever possible.

Pre-visualization played a vital role in this practical-digital hybrid approach. Using Unreal Engine assets built by Pixomondo, the crew mapped out the physical sets—such as the hero cul-de-sac, which featured five houses arranged in a circle supplemented by bluescreen containers—long before principal photography began. This digital scouting allowed the team to determine precisely where physical set extensions were needed, minimizing arbitrary frame fixes and allowing for more intentional lighting and atmospheric spookiness.

The Creature Feature: Engineering "Geriatric Parkour"

At the heart of the series’ supernatural mystery is an ancient, multi-limbed creature referred to as "Mother." The design process for this entity was exceptionally detailed, involving concept artist Jerad Marantz and visual effects concept artist Jamie O’Hara. The production aimed to create a creature that felt simultaneously frightening and sympathetic, tracking an emotional arc from monstrous menace to childlike vulnerability.

To ground the creature’s anatomy in reality, the animation teams studied an elderly ballerina in her seventies who retained the ability to dance on pointe, analyzing how musculature is defined beneath lax, aging skin. The resulting digital being features eight limbs, six of which possess five individual limb segments. This complex anatomy posed a significant technical hurdle for ILM London, which spearheaded the character’s animation style—lovingly dubbed "geriatric parkour." The creature was designed to emerge from unexpected architectural spaces, creeping out of ovens and along ceilings before descending upon the elderly residents.

To facilitate realistic physical interactions between the digital monster and the human cast, practical props studio Onyx Forge Studio manufactured a series of physical reference tools. These included tiny prosthetic hands designed to clamp over actors’ faces, stand-in proboscises, and fractional lighting busts used throughout episodes 101 through 104. For the series finale, a full-size physical creature build was brought onto set, lit by Matthew Jensen, and subsequently augmented with computer-generated layers in post-production.

The Multi-Studio VFX Pipeline and Complex Sequences

Managing nearly 1,200 visual effects shots across eight episodes required a streamlined, multi-studio pipeline. ILM, Framestore, Ghost VFX, Crafty Apes, and Platige divided the workload, utilizing Polycam environmental scans to transition smoothly from physical plates to pre-visualization and post-visualization blocking animations.

Among the most technically demanding sequences was a complex crow murmuration. While the production utilized two trained live crows on set—including one named Shadow—the script called for a massive flock moving in intricate, unnatural patterns that real crows simply do not execute. Because murmurations of this scale are unprecedented for corvids, ILM had to develop entirely new behavioral simulations, culminating in a sequence where the birds die en masse to advance the narrative.

Television sets also serve as both crucial narrative devices and practical lighting sources within the series. Several props were modified with milk or dark glass to catch reflections or act as controllable light emitters. For a dramatic explosion sequence in Episode 102—which visually echoes a celestial star map—the production combined custom pre-programmed lighting flickers with digital caustics and atmospheric star-stuff swirls. The resulting blue-hued explosion required precise timing between physical lighting rigs on set and digital enhancements added in post-production.

Practical Stunts and Geena Davis’s High-Flying Return

Action sequences in The Boroughs benefited from a blend of veteran stunt work and advanced visual effects coordination. Academy Award-winning actress Geena Davis performed the vast majority of her own physical stunts, recreating the adventurous spirit of her iconic filmography in a sequence involving a vehicle plunging off a cliff.

Working alongside Special Effects Coordinator Daniel Holt, the production deployed seven static cameras to capture Davis and her co-stars prior to the vehicle’s descent. For the hazardous cliff-dive shot itself, a physical stunt dummy was utilized inside the car. In a rare and sophisticated post-production maneuver, ILM reverse-tracked both the camera movements and the car stunt, then filmed actor Eric Edelstein on a motion-control rig holding the exact physical posture required. This allowed the visual effects team to seamlessly comp Edelstein over the dummy, avoiding the common pitfall of a last-minute digital double replacement.

Industry Implications and Streaming Standards

The extensive pre-planning, virtual asset development, and hybrid practical-digital workflows deployed on The Boroughs reflect broader shifts in high-end streaming television production. As budgets scale to match feature film standards, productions are increasingly utilizing real-time engine pre-visualization—such as Unreal Engine set scouting—to bridge the gap between physical cinematography and visual effects.

By prioritizing in-camera lighting, physical prosthetics, and deliberate lens choices early in pre-production, series creators are finding ways to preserve organic texture while executing complex, creature-driven mythologies. As Netflix prepares to premiere The Boroughs, the series stands as a testament to the technical coordination required to marry 1980s Amblin-style wonder with twenty-first-century digital pipelines.