Brooke Noska

## External Links

**Brooke Noska** is a visual effects producer on *The Orville*. In addition to overseeing much of the visual effects post-production, Noska acts as a "liaison" between Fox's finance employees, independent employees from effects vendors, and the show's product and post-production staff.

## Background

Noska attended California State University, Northridge and graduated in 2014. She started her career in Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in California as supervisor of the park's entertainment wing.

She moved to FuseFX, an effects company, as internal visual effects producer shortly thereafter.

## The Orville

When The Orville hired FuseFX to be its effects vendor for Season 1, Brooke Noska became the show's visual effects producer. She worked with nine vendors and creator Seth MacFarlane on visual effects. Noska recalled starting out on The Orville:

> *My first day of The Orville went a little like this. [I] showed up on set and [MacFarlane] was chatting with the art department on some concepts for season 2, and I was just absorbing my new world but I kept on looking around me for* TED *because that’s all I could hear.*
>
>

> *Every day I showed up to set for the first 5 months of shooting no one really knew who I was, so the assumptions of where I belonged were quite hilarious! For an entire day on location I was referred to as “that chick who gives out the juice” - it was just a hot day...*
>
>

Noska was often on set during filming to ensure continuity and reduce the need to re-shoot scenes. Her goal, she later said, is to *not* be recognized for her work when The Orville airs. Associate producer Andre Danylevich elaborated, "It’s like the water bottle and coffee cup in *Game of Thrones*." (Referring to a water bottle and several Starbucks coffee cups accidentally left in shots during its final season.) "We legitimately have those issues as well. You gotta make sure that stuff’s not in there, we have to take it out in post."
Noska worked with digital effects supervisor Brandon Fayette and FuseFX on the Battle of Earth, and recalled "[c]ountless phone calls, meetings, and updates" to finish the battle. Noska later talked about Season 2 in general:

> *There’s an average of 500 to 550 shots per episode, with a very, very close total of about 7,000 VFX shots for the entire season. (Laughs) We did some math, everybody in the broadcast world and our fans saw 7,000 shots, but our little tiny visual effects team and our vendors pumped through 22,000 versions of those different shots. So there’s a lot of visual effects flying through little Building 310 on the Fox lot!*
>
>

For the third season of *The Orville*, Brooke Noska helped 14 vendors to deliver more than 7,000 shots. Describing her work, she explained that the visual effects are a cornerstone of the show's storytelling, that "We can’t just go to Southern California, call it Planet A and get away with it." She felt that the COVID-19 pandemic was actually a blessing in terms of having a break to get back on track and that switching to a streaming platform allowed her team a voice in a way they'd never had before. She stated that the show aims for a look that avoids that of *Star Wars* in which viewers can tell a character is a puppet, but at the same time something can't look so CG that viewers don't believe it. She described the visit to the planet of Krill in "Gently Falling Rain" as a season highlight, stating that "They have been such the baddies for so long that revealing their world and culture is so exciting because everybody thought it was taboo."

## Awards

For their work on *Identity, Pt. 2*, the Emmy Awards announced that Noska, visual effects supervisors Luke McDonald, Tommy Tran, Kevin Lingenfelser, and Nhat Phong Tran; visual effects producers Melissa Delong; digital effects supervisor Brandon Fayette; computer graphics supervisor Matt Von Brock; and compositing supervisor Joseph Vincent Pike would be collectively nominated for Outstanding Visual Effects.

For that same episode, the Hollywood Professional Association Awards awarded Noska, Fayette, Tran, Lingenfelser, and digital effects supervisor Joseph Vincent Pike with Outstanding Visual Effects - Episodic (Over 13 Episodes).

## Trivia

* Noska has a pet dog named Bruce Wayne, Jr., who has his own staff placard in The Orville's post-production offices, which reads "Goodest Boy."
* She helped create The Orville Experience, a museum exhibition that ran during the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con.

## Interviews

* *Gizmodo*
* A Planetary Diary
* The Stunning New Horizons of ‘The Orville: New Horizons’

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Brooke Noska. CSUN. Oct. 2, 2018.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Frei, Vincent. "THE ORVILLE (S02E09): TOMMY TRAN & KEVIN LINGENFELSER (VFX SUPERVISORS) AND MATT VON BROCK (CG SUPERVISOR) – FUSEFX". *Art of VFX*. March 25, 2019.
3. ↑ @Brooki\_eh. "Hokkayy! My first day of ORVILLE went a little like this .. showed up on set and @SethMacFarlane was chatting with the art department on some concepts for season 2, and I was just absorbing my new world but I kept on looking around me for TED because that’s all I could hear 🤦🏼‍♀️". Twitter. March 26, 2020.
4. ↑ @Brooki\_eh. "Every day I showed up to set for the first 5 months of shooting no one really knew who I was, so the assumptions of where I belonged were quite hilarious!  For an entire day on location I was referred to as “that chick who gives out the juice” - it was just a hot day... Rolling on the floor laughingRolling on the floor laughing". Twitter. March 26, 2020.
5. ↑ Folwer, Matt. "GAME OF THRONES WATER BOTTLE, STARBUCKS CUP AND OTHER CRAZY POP CULTURE GAFFES". *IGN*. May 24, 2019.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Keeler, Lee. "Post-Production on The Orville: Communication, Kombucha, and a Dog Named Bruce Wayne Jr.". *Gizmodo*. June 29, 2019.
7. ↑ Failes, Ian. "VFX Battle Stations! Star Wars in The Orville". *VFXV*. Summer 2019. Pg. 86.
8. ↑ Hogg, Trevor (July 8, 2022). The Stunning New Horizons of ‘The Orville: New Horizons’. Animation World Network. Retrieved on July 10, 2022.
9. ↑ The Orville. Emmys. Last access July 16, 2019.
10. ↑ 2019 HPA Awards. HPA. Last accessed Oct. 2, 2019.
11. ↑ @HPAOnline. "The first award of the night for #VFX (Episodic over 13 Episodes) goes to #TheOrville! Tommy Tran, Kevin Lingenfelser (@FUCHIPATAS
), Joseph Vincent Pike (
@FuseFX
); Brandon Fayette (
@megamanex
), Brooke Noska (
@Brooki\_eh
) (
@20centuryfoxTV
). #HPAAwards". Twitter. Nov. 22 2019.