The first international expansion of the long-running NCIS franchise, set in Sydney and following a joint task force of American NCIS agents and Australian Federal Police investigators tackling crimes with international implications.
Produced for CBS, NCIS: Sydney has run for multiple seasons — establishing itself as a major ongoing production presence in Australia with significant international viewership.
Future Associate delivered 200+ VFX shots across 10 episodes of Series 2. The centrepiece was Episode 202 — "Fire in the Hole" — which built an entire naval confrontation from scratch in Sydney Harbour: the real-world heritage barque James Craig bearing down on the fictional American naval vessel USS Perez, with every pixel of water between them built in CG.
Beyond the maritime centrepiece, the remainder of the series demanded the full action VFX toolkit — gunshots, explosions, fire, damage, debris — the ongoing effects infrastructure that keeps a procedural running at pace across a full season.
/ USS Perez — Full CG Vessel
The USS Perez doesn't exist. A fictional American naval ship, it needed to be built entirely in CG. We started with a stock naval vessel model and extensively modified it in Maya — reshaping, detailing and dressing it into the Perez — then lit and rendered the asset in Blender with Cycles. The result had to hold from every angle the episode required: multiple camera positions, across different times of day and a range of Sydney Harbour lighting conditions.
The detail work was significant. Flags, full rigging, and a functioning gun turret — rigged for movement so it could track and point toward the James Craig on the captain's orders. For the close-up turret shots, we used a real naval vessel and digitally modified its bow to match the Perez, completing the picture with a CG ocean, the CG exclusion zone barrier, and CG flags.
The exclusion zone barrier was its own full CG build, the military cordon the story's central conflict hinges on. Placement and scale were carefully refined to sit geographically credible within the narrative of Sydney Harbour.
/ The James Craig — Speed, Ocean & Rudder
The James Craig is one of Sydney's most recognisable maritime landmarks — a fully restored 19th-century barque still sailing the harbour. That history comes with strict operational constraints. Critically for us: the ship cannot move at speed.
The episode needed it to rush at full speed toward the Perez and the naval barrier. We had to build that illusion entirely in post.
The ocean surrounding the James Craig was a Houdini simulation — waves, wake and ripple interactions — lit and rendered in Redshift. Getting the CG water to integrate convincingly with the live-action ship was painstaking work. But the ocean sim gave us a tool the practical footage couldn't: the ability to move.
For the wide shots where the James Craig needed to feel like it was bearing down on the barrier, we retimed the drone plates — speeding them up — then animated the CG ocean to match the accelerated pace. The Harbour Bridge stayed in frame throughout, preserved in the blend of live-action and CG. The result: the James Craig rushing at speed through Sydney Harbour, the tension landing exactly where the story needed it.
One of the standout shots from the sequence is a close-up of the rudder. The whitewater and splash simulation came up particularly well.
Blending small live-action splash elements back over the CG water at the rudder completes the shot entirely — the kind of detail that reads as real without the audience ever knowing it's there.
/ Drone Plates, Multi-Angle Coverage & The Barrier
To place the Perez convincingly in Sydney Harbour, we deployed a drone unit to the dock to capture all the angles the episode required — different positions, different elevations, the right height to match the Perez's bridge deck for our green screen work.
The dramatic centrepiece — the James Craig bearing down on the barrier, narrowly clearing it — was covered from every angle. High and wide. From underwater, looking up toward the sun as the bow crosses the barrier line. From the foreground, with the barrier dominating frame.
We combined live-action boats, CG boats, the CG barrier and full CG underwater shots, stitching multiple drone plates together in compositing to construct wider geography than any single plate could offer.
In that composited world, the naval dry dock sits closer to the Harbour Bridge than it does in reality. The story needed that proximity. We put it there.
/ Green Screen — Aboard the USS Perez
The sequences set on the Perez's bridge were shot on a practical set built by the art department and wrapped in green screen. We keyed those plates and replaced the green with our Sydney Harbour drone footage — acquired at the correct elevation to match the height of the Perez's bridge deck — giving the actors the convincing illusion of being out on the harbour aboard a naval vessel in the dry dock.
/ Action Effects — Series-Wide
Episode 202 was the centrepiece, but the series ran ten episodes. Across the remainder of NCIS: Sydney Season 2, we delivered the action VFX infrastructure the show runs on — gunshots, explosions, fire, damage, debris. The effects that keep every confrontation feeling immediate and real, episode after episode.