How ‘VisionQuest’ Set Paul Bettany Ablaze And Got James Spader To Say “LMAO” — The Process

Showrunner Terry Matalas and visual effects supervisor John Haley describe how they created key scenes for *VisionQuest*, including James Spader’s Ultron saying “LMAO” and Paul Bettany appearing to be on fire. Their account shows how performance, practical lighting and digital effects were combined to shape the series while managing visual effects costs.

Matalas proposed staging an episode around Ultron and Paladin reading emails aloud, using a black-box setup to limit effects work; the final scene was given a monochrome CRT surveillance look, with the characters and emails in colour. For Bettany’s burning Synthetic Man, LEDs in his costume cast light around Hatfield House before digital flames were added, powered by a battery carried on a skateboard. The team also used performance capture and comic-book art as references for Jocasta’s glitching fight with Vision.