UPN’s Jake 2.0 VFX Eye for the Dorky Guy

With a demanding slate of visual effects, UPN’s new science fiction series Jake 2.0 demanded superhuman effects work. It was a perfect fit for veteran visual effects producer Sam Nicholson ( C.S.I. Miami, Fastlane, E.R.), president and founder of Stargate Films, an effects production company with studios in Pasadena, CA, and Vancouver, British Columbia.

" Jake 2.0 is a very high-concept show," notes Nicholson. "The pilot was directed by Rob Lieberman, who we’ve done many projects with, including the original pilot for The Dead Zone and Second String for Turner. He’s a very demanding, very talented guy, so whenever there’s a very demanding high concept such as this one, where Jake gets nano-robots or‘nanobots’ injected into his body, we get the call. I think we’re the only guys who can keep up with his vision and the challenge."

The titular Jake is a tech-support flunky at the National Security Agency who is infected by nanites, a concept based on real-life nanotechnology, that give him mind-boggling powers. The challenge in question was "how to get down to nanobot scale, and go into the blood stream and see the nanobots fusing," he explains. "And then convincingly build the premise visually of Jake 2.0, that it could actually happen."

Realizing this vision required a combination of creative cinematography, cutting-edge computer graphics and careful pre-production design, "all done on a TV schedule and budget, which is very tight," notes Nicholson.

Another key part of the equation was the company’s use of a virtual backlot. "Although the show is set in Washington, D.C., it’s actually shot in Vancouver," he says. "So by using what is totally unique to our company, the virtual backlot, we shoot and virtualize entire Washington, D.C., sets and then matte people into them to convincingly set the show in Washington without ever having to go there."

To this end, the team shot 36 hours of HD tape that is used to create 360-degree sets. "So now we can have any rooftop location we want in Washington, D.C.," he says. "We can have a cafe on the steps of the Congress, we can have a meeting on the White House lawn, and so on. Basically we’re bringing Washington to the production instead of the other way around."

For the pilot alone, the company created some 60 to 70 effects- a huge amount for a TV show. "Technically, the most difficult was the scene where the nanobots enter Jake’s bloodstream, and you have to do the same thing we use a lot in CSI, which is the snap-zoom into the body," says Nicholson. "Then you go into the bloodstream, so all of that has to be modeled, and then you go down to a nanobot size and create CG nanobots which look like complex little machines full of pincers."

The company maintains a large render farm. "We use PCs with Maya spread over 100 machines, and then composite on After Effects on a similar network so that the composites can be extremely complex and the CG work can be totally photoreal," he explains. "And again, they can be done on a very fast turnaround for TV, and on an economical basis. So it’s delivering feature film quality visual effects on a TV schedule and budget."

The pilot took four weeks of post to complete from picture lock. "With a pilot, you’re also stretching as far as you possibly can to help the show get picked up. So in pilots you’re generally stretching twice as far, for basically the same money, as you do in the season. And there’s no amortization on effects. Once we’ve done an effect like the nanobots, we can use them in another applications throughout the season, as they’ve already been modeled. But everything is a unique effect in a pilot, which makes it even more difficult."

Nicholson says the quality of TV visual effects is now approaching that of feature films. "That’s the challenge, and the gap’s closing," he sums up. "In fact, I think it’s one area where TV can actually accelerate past features, because it is the original digital medium. And there aren’t nearly so many cooks in the kitchen, so you can move much faster and more efficiently."

Jake 2.0