Doing the Math

One Top-Notch Crew + Three-perf Film and One Stock = a Winning Equation for Numb3rs

The show, which shoots on location all over the L.A. area, has a distinctive look, thanks to the Scotts and DP Ivan Strasburg ( Bloody Sunday, Live From Baghdad, The Corner) who was hired by director Mick Jackson ( The Bodyguard, Live From Baghdad). " Mick and I’d worked on jobs before, and I came on to shoot the pilot and then stayed to do the rest of the series," reports the DP. "Everyone wanted two basic looks: a very cold, subterranean look for the FBI scenes, which are shot at LA Center Studios, and a very warm look for all the scenes with the math professor. The Scotts and the producers also wanted to give it a very free-flowing, handheld feel with lots of zooms and pans and stuff in the foreground— very zippy."

As with most episodic TV, the show’s tight schedule proved to be the biggest challenge. "I arrived from another show just two days before we shot, so pre-production was minimal," says Strasburg. Fortunately, the DP had a top-notch crew to rely on, including A- camera operator Ray De La Motte ( Panic Room, Lethal Weapon 4, Batman & Robin) and gaffer Colin Campbell. " Colin did Live From Baghdad with me and is a very experienced features guy, with films like National Treasure under his belt," he notes. "He did the pilot but couldn’t do the series, so then we got Randy Glass, who did The Handler with me, and that was a huge plus as he knows my lighting style and is very reliable." Other key personnel include key grip Bud Scott.

"This show has a ton of locations, so we’re constantly moving, but I never scout," says Strasburg. "There’s just no time, so the grips and gaffer check them out for potential problems, and I see them for the first time when I arrive. So that’s when you rely on a great crew."

The show is shot with two Panavision XLs "using three-perf as they can save money on the negative that way," reports the DP. "We do everything widescreen 16x9 so it can then be broadcast on either 4x3 or HD. Basically we don’t compose our shots for HD, but we make sure it’ll work in terms of framing and so on."

"The zippy, handheld look" of the pilot has gradually evolved over the series, notes Strasburg. "We use less of it now, although we always try to keep the camera moving, and Ray is getting a great look."

The show is shot with Panavision Primo lenses using just one stock— Kodak 5229. "It’s 500 ASA and very fast, and we use it for exteriors and interiors, in fact, for everything," he says. "It’s fairly unusual to go with just one stock, but it’s very forgiving and easy to use. One problem is that when you shoot in very bright sunlight, you have to use a lot of neutral-density filters to reduce the amount of light hitting the lens, and one of the big pluses of the Panavision set-up is that you can put these filters between the film and the back of the lens so that the operator doesn’t have to look through tons of dark glass."

All post is done at The Post Group in Hollywood, where the negative is transferred to tape. "I’m so busy shooting I don’t have time to even work with the colorist," says Strasburg. "So I get a cuts DVD and I can make notes from that."

Although both Scotts were busy with feature films, Ridley Scott personally timed the pilot and discussed its look with colorist Eric Johannessen after the DP did his own timing. " Ridley was working in London and Tony was shooting Domino, so they weren’t that involved in daily decisions on the show, although they saw all the dailies and then gave their notes," says the DP.

According to associate producer and visual effects veteran Carey Keeney, the show has its own graphics department, headed up by designer Brad Powell, on site at The Post Group and next door to its editorial staff. "We do everything here, from telecine and color correction to our online," she says. "The only area I take out is the sound mix, which is done at Novastar, and sound editorial, which is done at Wildtracks."

The show began with editor Jan Northrop, who cut the pilot, and then added a second, Bob McFalls. "But our deadlines are so critical that we had to add a third, Stan Salsas," she says. "Each has an assistant, one of whom is well-versed in After Effects and other effects programs, and he acts as a liaison between all three to help move material from Avid and into the After Effects programs that Brad uses."

Numb3rs Credits:

• Executive Producers: Brooke Kennedy, Alex Gansa
• Co-executive Producers: Cheryl Heuton, Nick Falacci, David Zucker
• Creators: Cheryl Heuton, Nick Falacci

Keeney describes the post workflow as "very organic. We meet about all visual effects and discuss them, and a lot’s evolved in post, so it’s vital we have our own graphics guy who’s on site and is a key element."

The show’s look was originally set by Skipfilm, Santa Monica. "But then we brought all the effects work in house and applied a lot of the values they’d developed," she says. "So we get the dailies and assess each effect and what’s required, as it matters whether we pre-design it in the Avid with the editors, or whether Brad starts on it alone and then brings it to the editors who fold it in. And as we finish in HD, it takes a long time to render effects out, so we have to be constantly on top of our files and workflow."

Because the show has so many layers, it is built entirely on the Nitris system, reports Keeney. "The pilot had several scenes with fast-moving people with ghost-like images, and some of those had as many as 17 layers each, which were laid down and time-compressed so they were running at 3000 percent," she explains. "I can’t imagine doing that on any other system, as we could take the editors’ approved Avid sequence, load it into the Nitris, and virtually copy every video layer and all the effects directly into the Nitris, so there’s no interpretation and very little room for error."