How do you handle the workload for a TV pilot whose outsized VFX
demands feel more like a feature film? If you’re the VFX supervisor for
Alias creator J.J. Abrams, you pretend you’re
working on a feature film.
That’s how Kevin Blank, visual effects supervisor on Lost, the new fall
series executive-produced by Abrams, handled a panoply of effects work
that the pilot required on a short schedule. In an unusual move for TV
production, Blank farmed out work to eight different VFX specialists.
"Rather than showing up on one company’s doorstep and saying,‘Gear up
your pipeline and all your bandwidth to pull this together,’ we were
able to let everyone deal with one aspect of the show in a short period
of time," Blank says.
Blank who also supervises VFX for that other Abrams show,
Alias, felt that he had a mandate to apply a
feature-film mentality to the TV production process. "In my opinion,
part of my job is to make it not look like TV,"
Blank says. " J.J. is very demanding and exacting about what he wants,
and he tends to get it. He thinks big, and surrounds himself with
people who think big."
Talk about big— the tense two-hour pilot for Lost depicts the aftermath
of an airplane crash (the actual mid-air crack-up of the plane is seen
in flashback) on a deserted island. Squabbling ensues, at least until
the group of survivors realize that there are larger, hungrier things
on the island than their own egos. Think Survivor meets Land of the
Lost. Blank’s strategy to keep the yarn rooted in the real world was to
confuse the audience about which parts of the image were real and which
were computer generated.
CG was used sparingly. Rather than creating big chunks of CG debris for
the opening scenes, which take place among pieces of the wrecked
airplane scattered on a beach, Abrams had the production design team
actually buy a plane, rip it apart, and spread the pieces across the
sand. In one scene, a grounded jet engine suddenly explodes in a shot
that composites multiple practical explosions and pyrotechnics with
photoreal CG effects. That’s followed by the image of a huge, flaming
chunk of airplane metal slamming into the ground behind one of the
characters— Blank conceived it as a completely practical effect made
perfect through painstaking wire-removal.
Flashbacks to the plane crash itself include one gut-wrenching shot
showing the inside of the plane as it drops sharply, causing
passengers— actually stuntpeople on wire rigs— to fly out of their
seats along with loose bags, food trays and coffee cups. Blank had
expected to add CG elements to the shot in post, but found that the
visceral impact of the scene came across so strongly in camera that it
was best to leave it alone. "The image of people slamming into the
ceiling on cue was so unbelievable that I knew we had it," he says. "We
just had to get rid of the green screen and paint out the wires."
Another shot, which depicted the back of the plane being ripped off in
mid-air, required some on-set trickery with a CG assist. "We basically
shot a locked-off camera pointing at the back of the plane, completely
empty, at the end of the day and told everyone,‘Nobody touch this
camera!’" Blank says. Overnight, the back half of the plane was
replaced with a green screen and stunt coordinator Greg Smrz rigged his
stuntpeople to be yanked backward, as though being sucked out of the
plane. " Digital Dimension manufactured a CG railing and substructure—
the skeletal structure of the plane— so as it ripped away, you saw [the
framework of the plane] revealed and CG debris being torn off."
Blank is a veteran of Hercules and Xena, shows that had even bigger FX
budgets than Lost. But those shows were fantasies, and his job was to
make Lost feel real. "If you say you want a monster to look
photorealistic, nobody knows what a monster looks like, so there’s a
lot of artistic leeway," Blank says. "But people do know what a plane
crash looks like. When you’re doing a show that’s clearly defined as an
FX show, you have that latitude. But what we’re trying to do here is to
create something and have the audience think visual effects aren’t
involved at all."
Lost Credits (Pilot)
Produced by Bad Robot Productions for Touchstone Television
Executive Producers: J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk
Producer: Sarah Caplan
Director: J.J. Abrams
Director of Photography: Lawrence Fong
Editor: Mary Jo Markey
Assistant Editor: Lucyna Wojchiechowski
Post-Production Supervisor: Meighan Offield
VFX Supervisor: Kevin Blank
Lost VFX Roster
Digital Dimension (Burbank, CA)
What: Ripped an airplane apart in mid-air
How: 3ds max; Eyeon Digital Fusion
HimAnI Productions / Kevin Kutchaver ( Burbank, CA)
What: Knocked down digital trees for an unseen creature
How: NewTek Lightwave 3D; Adobe After Effects
Technicolor Creative Services (Hollywood, CA)
What: Added camera shake to 20-some shots
How: Discreet Inferno
Fuzzy Logic Productions (Valencia, CA)
What: Wire and rig removal on more than 30 shots
How: Discreet Combustion; Adobe Photoshop; After Effects
Kaia / Spencer Levy
What: Animated a running airplane engine on the beach
How: Alias Maya; 2d3 Boujou; After Effects
Eden FX
What: 3D animation and compositing
How: Lightwave 3D; Maya; After Effects
Steve Fong (freelancer)
What: Compositing
How: Combustion
Blackpool Studios / Eric Chauvin (Bow, WA)
What: Matte paintings and compositing
How: Photoshop and After Effects
Post your comments below
