ILM visual effects supervisor Stefen Fangmeier shepherded the Baudelaire children through the unfortunate events of Lemony Snicket’s. ™ & © 2004 Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved.

Stefen Fangmeier is a serious guy, a 14-year veteran of Industrial Light & Magic with such credits as Terminator 2, Twister, Jurassic Park, Casper, The Perfect Storm, Saving Private Ryan and Master and Commander. He also possesses CG expertise gained at software company mental images in Berlin, and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. But when Lemony Snicket author Daniel Handler came to speak at ILM, Fangmeier completely dissolved. “My cheeks were hurting at the end of his talk it because I laughed so hard. Daniel was absolutely hilarious. He really has a wicked sense of humor.”

ILM helps Mr. Poe along his journey.

In collaboration with director Brad Silberling, it was Fangmeier’s to make sure that that Handler’s offbeat approach to children’s literature was translated faithfully to the screen in this big-budget production for Paramount/DreamWorks. Silberling, who had worked with Fangmeier a decade ago on Casper, specifically requested that he supervise the effects in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.

While Fangmeier may be best known for visual effects that appear to be photographically “real,” the assignment on Lemony Snicket was anything but that. “For me the key was to understand the level of reality necessary. It wasn’t the ultimate goal to create an absolutely real look but something that had some flair. The whole film has a theatrical feel to it. It is sort of a `non-period’ period film that’s got its own aesthetic. I call it `Fellini for the family.’”