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January/February 2012 • V.27|No.1
Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People
Si gn W W up W .M f AR a or e Ne KE t w EM s AG .C O M
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Feature Film VFX Framestore saddles up to the challenges of War Horse ASC Award Winners: Dante Spinotti, ASC William Wages, ASC Music Libraries: The Songs Remain, But They’re Not All the Same Spotlight: The South Part II
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Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People
January/February 2012 Volume 27, Number 1
contents w w w. m a r k e e m a g . c o m
eer
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features 10
Cinematography
ASC’s 2012 Lifetime Achievement and Career Achievement in Television Winners By Christine Bunish
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Feature Film VFX
War Horse Reported by Christine Bunish
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Music Libraries
The Songs Remain, But They’re Not All the Same By Mark R. Smith
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Spotlight – The South
The South Part II
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By Cory Sekine-Pettite
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Markee 2.0 is a results-driven magazine that has been published since December 1985. A nationwide survey of film and video industry professionals revealed that Markee 2.0 is at the top of their must-read list. Editorially, Markee 2.0 offers a wide range of content tailored for its diverse readership. Features span film and video production and postproduction topics to include must-read interviews with leaders in the creative community, the latest equipment and technology news, perspectives on innovative independent filmmaking, and in-the-trenches reports on shooters, editors, animators and audio pros – plus regularly-scheduled specialty supplements. Markee 2.0’s seasoned writers know the industry inside-out. That’s what makes Markee 2.0 compelling, informative and timely reading.
www.markeemag.com
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columns & departments 4 Editor’s Note 6 Making TV – Fun With Cars, Bombs And Spies You haven’t seen a car chase or car stunt until you’ve seen Burn Notice, the USA Network spy drama. By Michael Fickes
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7 Making Commercials – Man Chases Pig In a parody of suspenseful chase scenes, a man with a roll of dollars chases a man-shaped pig through Baltimore. By Michael Fickes
36 Inside View – Giovanni Bucci Director, motion designer By Christine Bunish
www.markeemag.com
[On The Cover] "Joey" from War Horse. In a shot starring the real horse, Framestore cleaned up the dramatic sky.
January/February 2012
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from the editor
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Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People
| By Cory Sekine-Pettite
www.markeemag.com
Most Anticipated Movies of 2012
LIONHEART PUBLISHING, INC. 506 Roswell Street, Suite 220, Marietta, GA 30060 Tel: 770.431.0867 Fax: 770.432.6969 E-mail: lpi@lionhrtpub.com www.markeemag.com Publisher
2012 looks to be a banner year for filmmakers and moviegoers alike. There appears to be a great number of potential blockbusters on the calendar, which may help to alleviate headaches among studio executives who view 2011 as a not-so-banner year for box office successes (the rampaging Harry Potter and Mission Impossible sequels notwithstanding). Thus, I present to you my list of the top 5 movies I’m most anxious to see – in no particular order. These five films are sure to find an audience, and very well could be the five highest grossing movies of the year. Dark Shadows – Once again, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp team up for a quirky Gothic tale (this one about vampires) that is sure to delight. The movie is based on the cult TV series by the same name, and costars Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonny Lee Miller, and Helena Bonham Carter (of course). Dark Shadows is set for a May release. The Bourne Legacy – This Bourne series reboot stars Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross, another CIA operative with issues. Renner is more than capable of carrying this movie, and with Tony Gilroy behind the camera (He wrote the screenplays for the other Bourne movies.), The Bourne Legacy is going to surprise the skeptics. It is scheduled for an August release. Gangster Squad – Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Josh Brolin, Nick Nolte, Giovanni Ribisi. What a cast! The movie is about a group of LAPD officers trying to put away the LA mafia in the 1940s and 1950s. There are big shoes to fill in the world of mafia movies and period cop dramas, certainly, but this cast has me dreaming of fancy suits, fedoras, and Tommy Guns. Scheduled for an October release. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Peter Jackson’s latest take on Tolkien doesn’t arrive until December, but the lines are probably forming now, so invest in a snug sleeping bag and a comfy camping chair. The movie stars Martin Freeman (Sherlock, Hot Fuzz) as Bilbo Baggins who journeys to reclaim a stolen treasure. This film certainly will be remembered as a classic, just as the Lord of the Rings series before it. Django Unchained – Quentin Tarantino returns with this period action thriller about a slave-turned-bounty-hunter (Jamie Foxx) who sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). You just know this is going to epic. And yes, Samuel L Jackson makes an appearance. Look for this one in theaters in December as well.
Highlights Coming In • • •
NAB Equipment Showcase VFX in Spots Spotlight: Texas/Southwest
IN EVERY ISSUE: Making TV • Making Commercials • Inside View
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March/April 2012 Follow us on:
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Copyright © 2012 by Lionheart Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. The copyright owner, however, does consent to a single copy of an article being made for personal use. Otherwise, except under circumstances within “fair use” as defined by copyright law, no part of this publication may be reproduced, displayed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, Lionheart Publishing, Inc. Send e-mail permission requests to cory@lionhrtpub.com.
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making TV
Bart Tau and Dennis Hall | By Michael Fickes
Fun With Cars, Bombs And Spies You haven’t seen a car chase or car stunt until you’ve seen Burn Notice, the USA Network spy drama. Have you ever seen a car driven off of the top floor of a parking garage and crash into a store across the street? In one episode of Burn Notice, Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan), the “burned” or discredited spy of the show’s title, sends a red convertible over the edge to distract some bad guys. The ploy works, but sends the usually easy-going Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell), a retired Navy SEAL, into a dither because the car belonged not to Westen but to Axe’s girlfriend. Other cast members include Gabrielle Anwar as Fiona Glenanne, Westen’s “trigger-happy” girlfriend and former IRA bomb maker. Sharon Gless of Cagney and Lacey fame plays Westen’s chain-smoking, shrewder-than-she-looks mother. Coby Bell joined the cast as the fifth regular – Jesse Porter – in season four. Shot in Miami, Burn Notice moves fast, with crazy schemes, fights, car chases, explosions and intricate plot twists about spies.
Telling the story: voiceover plus cinematography To keep viewers up with the lightning fast plots, Executive Producer and Writer Matt Nix uses Westen as a voiceover narrator who explains what the devil is going on. The crystal-clear cinematography keyed to the voiceover makes the show riveting. Bart Tau and Dennis Hall shot the 16 episodes of season five and will return for season six, slated to begin shooting and running in March. Both have grown expert at shooting the car chases and stunts, which, along with numerous large explosions, stand as the series’ signature scenes. “We have seven days to shoot 70 pages – and only five days on location,” Tau says. “That’s not a lot of time” to shoot a couple of wild car chases and eye6
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popping explosions, as well as scenes about the relationships between characters important to the program.
Chase scenes and bombs The chase scenes, car stunts and explosions must be shot fast and right – as well as safely. To keep things moving, Tau’s unit and a second unit camera team work those scenes together. Each scene begins with the actors getting into the car (or cars), or planting or tossing explosives; next comes a cut and the stunt team replaces the actors. “There is a lot of starting, cutting, and getting into and out of scenes,” Tau chuckles. “Then after the crash or explosion, we cut again, send the actors back in and shoot the aftermath.” It’s mostly real, too. “The effects are usually done in camera,” Tau says. “When a car blows up, it blows up.” Among the show’s four Emmy Award nominations (no wins, yet), there is one for Outstanding Stunt Coordination.
Cameras, lights Tau and Hall shoot with the RED camera. Tau says they are testing the new RED camera now and considering it for the sixth season. Canon 7D cameras capture point of view footage in harm’s way on the cars and in the explosions. Lenses for the two-camera show are Angenieux zoom. “The A camera gets wide-angled shots and the B camera does close-up and medium shots,” explains Tau. “If the A camera is shooting 15mm to 40mm, then the B camera will be 28mm to 76mm. When we’re on dollies, we use bigger lenses – 24mm to 290mm, for instance.”
[Above] Bart Tau (right) with steadicam operator David Kimbelman on the set of USA Network’s Burn Notice.
The exterior lighting package includes Miami’s natural light plus ARRI 18K HMI and 12K PAR lamps. The show’s equipment includes a crane, but Tau says he mostly works with dollies.
Characters Tau works to give each character a unique look. The Michael Westen character is the driven hero, and the goal is to make him look as good as possible. He comes across as always thinking and never emotional. By contrast, Sam Axe loves Mojitos, Hawaiian shirts and the ladies. Tau shoots Axe with a wider lens, saying he wants to show Axe as “bigger than life.” Sam is emotional, but always cool and competent when the pressure is on. “Fiona is beautiful,” continues Tau, “and we shoot her more on the longer end of the lens, 85mm, with warm lighting. We want her to be a focal point.” Fiona is also the emotional flip side of Michael, albeit cool and calm in a crisis. Put them together, along with Michael’s mom and newcomer Jesse, and the small screen literally crashes, burns and then explodes.
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making Commercials American Institute of Certified Public Accountants | By Michael Fickes
Man Chases Pig In a parody of suspenseful chase scenes, a man with a roll of dollars chases a man-shaped pig through Baltimore. Director Matt Pittroff of Twist Films, New York City and Minneapolis, and Senior Editor Anthony Marinelli of ShootersNYC combined forces to create a public service announcement (PSA) promoting financial literacy for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Advertising Council. Entitled “Chase,” the PSA included :15, :30, :60 and :90 spots about saving for the future aimed at 25- to 34-yearold young professionals. A parody of suspenseful television and movie chases, the spot begins with the hero trying on hats in a menswear store; he receives a text message: Savings Balance Low. Outside, a man-shaped pig – in a pink suit – walks past the window. The hero doesn’t see the pig, but senses a presence and gives chase. What’s going on? We don’t know.
Prepping the shoot “Anthony and I wanted this chase to be fun, funny, desperate and impactful – but not slapstick,” Pittroff said. “We reviewed movie chase scenes,” added Marinelli. “We studied the music and sound design.” Pittroff prepped two ARRI ALEXA cameras for the two-day shoot, selecting Cooke S4 Prime lenses and Optimo long and short zooms. He tapped Andy Lilien as director of photography. Pittroff also set up some visual effects shots. For instance, the first scene in the menswear store shows the hero in front of a tall window that looks out on a busy city street. It’s a green-screen shot, though, and Mark Farkas of ShootersNYC composited in a street scene from a busier street.
The shoot Pittroff selected his hometown of Baltimore for the two-day shoot and found a dozen or so locations to stage the chase. www.markeemag.com
When the hero races out of the store after the pig, we see him picking his way across a street jammed with traffic. Once across, the hero tears through an outdoor café. The pig is on the other side of the café, and for the first time, Pittroff shows a kind of slot in his head. It’s a clue for viewers. The pig hops onto a pink Vespa and rides off. The hero tries to cut him off and races through a restaurant. On the way out, he hurdles a table – with patrons – knocking a dish to the floor. Too late, the Vespa cruises past the restaurant. The hero follows to a subway station. He would have caught the pig there, but a jammed turnstile stops him cold. Pittroff’s shot shows the hero’s disgusted look. Racing through a park, the hero vaults over a man posing in an outdoor yoga class. Finally, in a suburban neighborhood, the hero tackles the pig, pulls out a wad of bills, stuffs them into the head slot and gasps, “Same time next week?” “Of course,” replies the pig. Oh. It’s a piggy bank, for saving money.
Edit and post During pre-production, the team commissioned original music designed to build suspense. “Music is key,” he says. “Timing comes from the music.” Working with PirateNY Sound Designer Dave Rivera, Marinelli also collected ambient sounds from the locations Pittroff was shooting. The sounds and music became the sound design. The music changes from scene to scene, communicating tension from different kinds of suspense movies. You don’t recognize individual movies, but we’ve all seen suspenseful scenes with these kinds of music. Marinelli also asked the composer to alter pieces of the music at strategic times. For instance, when the hero slams into the jammed turnstile at the subway station, he stops cold and so does the music.
[Above] A parody of suspenseful television and movie chases, “Chase” features a man trying desperately to deposit money into his savings account.
When the hero dives over the guy in the yoga pose in the park, the video slows, and Marinelli cut in an electronic snippet in the style of The Six Million Dollar Man. The collaboration between Pittroff and Marinelli produced numerous such moments throughout the piece. The pig, for instance. During the shoot, Benjamin Bankes – the spokes-pig – wore a mask. In post, Farkas gave the mask a personality, making the eyes blink and the mouth move – at the climactic ending when the pig indeed speaks. January/February 2012
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Virginia Film Office
VIRGINIA:
Great Locations Since 1607
Photos Courtesy of Virginia Tourism Corporation
T
HERE ARE MANY REASONS TO CHOOSE VIRGINIA AS A FILM LOCATION. An experienced crew, full-service film office and incentives that are customized to each unique project are just a few. However, it’s the state’s exceptionally wide range of locations that give it a competitive edge for the discriminating filmmaker. The state’s locations range from untouched Atlantic Ocean beachfront on the east to mountain vistas, rolling hills, and verdant valleys to the west. Northern Virginia touches Washington, D.C., and has big city skyscapes, elegant estates and miles of Virginia horse country. To the south are rolling, green farmlands and rural landscapes. In the center of it all is Richmond, the state capital and a favored locale for projects needing a rich, historic background. For a third time, Richmond was named a top-ten city for filmmakers by MovieMaker Magazine. Virginia’s state capitol building, built by Thomas Jefferson, as well as a wide range of governmental and residential architecture, make the Richmond area perfect for historic filmmaking. Now, Virginia offers an historic backlot area within 30 minutes of Richmond and a major crew base. Located on 3,000 acres of stateowned riverfront land available without a location fee, the backlot offers privacy in a controlled production environment. The location features dirt roads that wind
through untouched hills, streams, woods and valleys, as well as access to the James River. Ideal for use as a battlefield, there are a series of earthworks specifically created for battle scenes. Two standing sets also are onsite and available for filming: A
period farm features open fields with a farmhouse and outbuildings, and a period wharf set includes commercial buildings and period wooden ships. Both sets have no modern structures in view, and are in a quiet, isolated area.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT FILMVIRGINIA.ORG, OR CALL 800.854.6233. 8
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Cinematography
2012 ASC Lifetime Achievement
2012 ASC Lifetime Achievement Award Winner:
Dante Spinotti BY CHRISTINE BUNISH 10
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The Magic of Capturing Images With Light
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hen Dante Spinotti, ASC was awarded the 2012 ASC Lifetime Achievement Award it celebrated a career in cinematography that began when a boy discovered “something magical” about capturing images with light.
From his start in Italy to compiling more than 60 narrative credits, including Beaches, True Colors, The Last of the Mohicans, Red Dragon, Public Enemies and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Spinotti’s work spans genres. He earned Academy Award nominations for L.A. Confidential and The Insider. Certainly the young Spinotti never had Oscar dreams when he got his first still camera and began working in a homemade darkroom at the age of 11. “It was a perfect craft for a little kid,” he says. “I was able to create photos of my parents and see landscapes come up on a print. What more could you ask for? Back then you had to physically make the images; working with a computer today takes away some of that chemical magic.” Spinotti was born north of Venice close to the Austrian border, but he grew up near Venice on the farmland plains. His high school studies did not go well, so his parents grew “desperate,” wondering “what to do with this kid.” Young Spinotti admired his uncle, a cinematographer who shot newsreels, features and documentaries, and who had given him his first camera. Halfway through high school his parents decided to send him to Kenya to join his uncle, who was doing newsreel work for UPI. It was a seminal time for post-colonial Kenya and for Spinotti who used his uncle’s old, 35mm springloaded Eyemo to cover the prison release of Jomo Kenyatta, soon to be the first president of an independent Kenya. “It was a great adventure, and learning English there gave me a big advantage,” he recalls. “It was the ideal school for me. I came back [a year later] much more responsible and mature.” Spinotti also returned home with a budding career. He began working as an assistant cameraman, on a freelance basis, with RAI Italian television in Milan. He was also an AC on commercials, often assisting UK-based cinematographers, such as David Watkins, because he spoke English. Although Spinotti found his freelance jobs with RAI a little frustrating at times, having a safe gig with state-owned television allowed him to experiment and try techniques of his own such as shooting high contrast to evoke the look of wartime photography for a documentary film. He started to make short features for TV “with almost no equipment and available light, pushing the 16mm film almost like the Danish Dogme 95 movement,” which stripped filmmaking down to the basics of story and performance, would do years after Spinotti’s early work. “I was really impressed by realism in filmmaking,” he says. “Cinematography is a medium based on realism. It can be romantic, pictorial, many things. But the environment, nature, www.markeemag.com
[Above] Dante Spinotti in Italy early in his career as a cinematographer.
faces, characters were all enhanced by the time I spent shooting documentaries as a kid.” Spinotti had enough experience by this time to arrive at a kind of career crossroads. “I had to take a major decision. I had a good job in TV, a family; everything was nice and safe. But it didn’t give me the ability to test myself the way I wanted to. So, about 1980, I decided to become a freelancer and try my luck in the film industry.” He expected to work his way up the ladder in Rome, but some directors had already seen his TV work and started Spinotti as a DP. Around 1985, Dino De Laurentiis was planning to open a film studio in North Carolina and was looking for collaborators. He offered Spinotti a threeyear contract and the cinematographer moved to the United States to “try something new – in our profession that’s very important.” In Spinotti’s case it proved to be life chang- [Above] ing. De Laurentiis teamed Dante Spinotti on location in the Bahamas for him with an upcoming After The Sunset, directed by Brett Ratner. January/February 2012
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Cinematography
2012 ASC Lifetime Achievement
[Above] Dante Spinotti (left) shooting L.A. Confidential, which earned him an Academy Award nomination.
American director named Michael Mann, and the rest is history. From their first pairing on the Hannibal Lectorthemed Manhunter, Mann and Spinotti have gone on to make The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider and Public Enemies. “Michael’s knowledge of and ability with the language of film is well known, but most important is his work on storytelling,” says Spinotti. “The aspect of his work I admire most is that he tries to renew himself each time, so I try to forget what I did on the last project and absorb a new story, new human situations and figure out how to shoot them.” Most recently, Spinotti partnered with director Brett Ratner, with whom he’d served as DP on Family Man in 2000, on the New York-based Tower Heist. “Brett is a very enthusiastic person who has a great relationship with actors. He’s an incredibly talented storyteller and an
[Above] Dante Spinotti on location in the Bahamas for After The Sunset, directed by Brett Ratner.
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absolutely wonderful human being – generous, respectful and a lot of fun.” The cinematographer loved shooting in New York City with a crew comprised largely of old friends. “There’s such energy in the city, and it’s beautiful wherever you look. It’s a city where people still talk to each other – people have the same relationship with the owner of the corner shop as you would in a small town.” Fortunately, Ratner started shooting exteriors in September 2010 and wrapped practical locations just as the big winter snowstorms commenced. By then, the production was lensing interiors in a warehouse space on the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Except for Tower Heist, Spinotti’s last five features were acquired digitally. “Any other craftsman can see and hear what they’re doing immediately, but with film you can’t see what you’ve done until it’s screened the next day,” he notes. He concedes that it “isn’t that simple to make the transition” to digital, however, and he still loves film. “There are trade offs,” he points out. “With some recent [digital] cameras the sensitivity is unbelievable. It opens the world to night filmmaking – making gorgeous night features without any lighting.” Spinotti is shooting his own project, a documentary on his home region of Carnia, located in Friuli northeast of Venice, south of Austria and west of Slovenia. The area is known as “The Pearl of the Italian Alps.” He’s shooting with Panasonic’s AG-HPX250 P2 camcorder. “Carnia has a strong cultural tradition, but all the mountain areas are abandoned. Years ago people started to emigrate, leaving the agricultural economy, and now the youngsters are abandoning it, too. I want to tell that story and show the beauties of the area.” Spinotti hopes to complete the documentary in a year. “Thanks to the new technology, once you have your equipment, there are basically no additional costs until postproduction. You can just go out and shoot.” He believes that “technology is the easy part” of any project today. “The hard part is getting the right ideas for what you want to do,” he said. Between features and his doc on Carnia, Spinotti also shoots commercials. “They’re always fun to do,” he says. “When the concepts are good they can be extremely interesting, too. Commercials are short but intense experiences, and you always learn something new.” In January, Spinotti traveled to Chile to shoot a spot with a Canadian production company. Spinotti first heard about the ASC when he was 17 years old, so being its new Lifetime Achievement honoree was “very touching and totally unexpected.” Michael Mann, who has been a key figure in Spinotti’s American career, presented his award. The cinematographer seems to be on something of a celebratory roll these days. Two years ago, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Cameraimage Film Festival in Poland, and last October he was similarly cited by the Manaki Brothers International Cinematographers’ Film Festival in Macedonia. “Each award is incredibly special,” he declares. Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People
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Cinematography
2012 ASC Career Achievement
2012 ASC Career in Television Award Winner:
William Wages BY CHRISTINE BUNISH www.markeemag.com
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Cinematography
2012 ASC Career Achievement
More Excited Now Than When He Started
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illiam Wages, ASC, recipient of the 2012 ASC Career Achievement in Television Award, still works from a home base in Atlanta, having ignored the advice he constantly got to move to LA if he wanted his career to advance.
“As far as the industry is concerned, I’m an LA cameraman,” he says. “But early on I made the decision not to move out there. I’m from Atlanta, my wife is from Atlanta; we have a very close extended family. I’ve managed to pursue my whole career while living here.” Wages’ unconventional choice of residence hasn’t kept him from compiling a distinguished roster of credits for an array of Hallmark Hall of Fame productions, leading TV movies, the USA Network hit series Burn Notice, and now USA’s Necessary Roughness. He earned Emmy Award nominations for his work on Buffalo Soldiers (1998) and Into the West (2006), eight ASC Award nominations and two consecutive ASC wins for Riders of the Purple Sage (1997) and Buffalo Soldiers. Not bad for a dyslexic kid who was a movie buff. “I saw the original Moulin Rouge, shot by Ozzie Morris, BSC, on TV and it blew me away,” Wages recalls. “I was always good at art, I knew about Lautrec and here was a movie that looked like his paintings. It was an epiphany – people did this for a living!” He and a friend spent their Saturdays in downtown movie theaters. One day Wages wandered into a camera store and saw American Cinematographer magazine. “Fireworks went off in my head,” he says. “The store owner gave me a back issue; I took it home and said I wanted to be a cinematographer. My father said ‘Great! Now explain to me what that is.’” Wages believes that his dyslexia has been “far more of an advantage than a disadvantage” in his chosen field. “You connect things in more unusual ways than non-dyslexics,” he says. “The flood of information that flows through your mind makes disparate things collide and combine into a solution.”
[Above] Bill on Crash Landing with Col Swanstrom, 1992.
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Wages launched his professional career in high school when rock ‘n roll DJ Bob Whitney came to town to produce Now Explosion on a local VHF TV station. “It was Top 40 radio on television,” he explains. “He and other DJs played one song after another with videotapes of dancers and every now and then showed a little film. I had been making 8mm films to music so I took one for Bridge Over Troubled Waters and knocked on his door. He liked it, gave me three rolls of film and told me to pick a song, shoot something and if he liked it he’d give me $25. So I began making movies and buying equipment with my meager earnings.” When the show moved to Miami, Wages’ parents allowed him to spend the summer working on the show. “I learned so much. The show had set up in the Videotape Associates facility, and I met VTA owner Ken Chambliss at 16 – we’re still friends. In fact, Ken, Bob Whitney and I had lunch recently.” Wages hoped to attend the American Film Institute (AFI), which had given him positive feedback on a film he made. But his father suffered a massive heart attack and had to stop working. So Wages enrolled in Georgia State University as an art major instead. He became a photographic intern on the Sunday magazine section of the Atlanta Journal Constitution then accepted a full-time job on the magazine racing the four blocks between his school and the office to maintain a full-time academic schedule and a full-time work load. His excellence in still photography led to a job offer from National Geographic’s children’s magazine, but – still wanting to make movies – Wages turned it down. “I used my position at the newspaper to call any production that came to Atlanta so I could take pictures on the shoot,” he says. Legendary cinematographer William Fraker, ASC, was in town with Sharky’s Machine and young Wages poured out his dreams. Fraker encouraged his ambitions and invited him to hang out on the set. He also met Stevan Larner, ASC, who was teaching at AFI and was impressed by the self-taught Wages’ technical knowledge. Wages went on to shoot commercials and documentaries in Atlanta, saving his money with every job. Then he got a chance to shoot a low-budget feature, Nightman, in the mid-1980s. “I didn’t get paid as much as I did on one day of a commercial, but it was what I wanted to do,” he recalls. “When the film’s money was running out, I went off payroll so there’d hopefully be enough to finish it.” Wages even went to LA to color time the feature at his expense. In 1986, John Korty came to Atlanta to shoot the Hallmark Hall of Fame production, Resting Place with John Lithgow and Morgan Freeman. “John [Korty] was a renegade director who Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People
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was willing to look at local reels when his DP became unavailable. I was an unknown entity, but I had a movie to show and got the job.” Wages followed up with another Korty project, Baby Girl Scott, which he shot in LA. “The TV movies opened doors for me; I started getting phone calls and living life on the road,” he says. A NABET member, he finally accumulated enough California credits to join the IA’s LA local. Wages was fortunate to have come along during the heyday of great TV movies. “I think half the viewing audience watched Resting Place,” he notes. “Now if you get five percent of the audience that’s good!” In 1988, he shot Gore Vidal’s Lincoln, then Caroline?, Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase, The Moving of Sophia Myles, and Miss Lettie and Me. In the early 1990s, Wages moved into features. “I’ve had very good luck in television, but I’ve never had a feature that was a huge hit, although there are some I’m incredibly proud of,” he says. He believes his high-profile television work is feature quality. “Ironically, some of the most exciting cinematography being done these days is on series television where you have the least amount of time. Good work is not about budget or time, it’s about attitude.” When he was shooting Buffalo Soldiers, producer John Watson asked Wages if he had ever directed, and Wages told him he started as a director/cameraman. Watson was doing a pilot for The Magnificent Seven series and offered him an episode to direct if the show was picked up. Wages was not a member of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), however, so he got the required three letters of recommendation from mentors and working directors Charles Haid, Lamont Johnson and Irvin Kershner. The latter questioned Wages’ prospective move to directing, telling him he already had the best job in the film industry, but he wrote the recommendation anyway. Wages went on to direct one episode of The Magnificent Seven in 1998 and three the next season. Wages was at a crossroads in his career. Johnson and Kershner told him he’d have to choose between being a director or a cinematographer, and directing would likely require a move to LA. “I really enjoyed shooting, so I decided to stay with it,” Wages says. He has remained active as a 2nd unit director, however. He directed all the battle scenes for the Ted Turner-financed film, Gods and Generals. American Heritage Magazine called the Civil War battle sequences the best ever filmed, a kudos Wages was proud to accept. “I haven’t given up directing,” he says. “It’s just that my passion for cinematography is stronger.” As a television DP, Wages shot episodes of Surface and of HBO’s Big Love. Then he met Matt Nix, creator of USA Network’s, Burn Notice, who was searching for a DP for the show’s second season. Wages calls his three seasons of Burn Notice “the hardest work I’ve ever done – we’d blow something up every day then still shoot nine pages of dialogue in Miami in the summertime!” He shot the second and third seasons of the series on 16mm after meeting opposition from the studio to convert the show to www.markeemag.com
HD acquisition. ARRI offered Wages the opportunity to have Burn Notice become the first series shot with ALEXA, and an excited Matt Nix joined Wages into talking the studio into accepting. Unfortunately, delivery of the cameras was held up, but “the digital door was open. Fox wanted us to use a Sony PDW-F800 XDCAM HD camera recording to a Blu-ray disk. [Above] “I felt we could make it Bill with Lamont Johnson on Broken Chain, 1993. work,” he says. “We were using a $50,000 lens on a $30,000 camera and getting phenomenal results. We were able to cut the lighting wattage by more than half and keep the convention center that we used for a studio much cooler, which in Miami in the summertime is a good thing.” In addition, “the broadcast image quality was so much better than 16mm whose slow-speed stock looked grainier when broadcast than the high-speed stock because of compression. HD solved all that, and the ENG-style Sony camera was conducive to handheld shooting,” he reports. Moving to HD also paved the way to using HDSLRs for the show’s car crashes. “You couldn’t intercut digital footage with 16mm, but we could intercut the Canon 7D with the Sony,” he notes. Although Wages enjoyed his time with Burn Notice, spending seven months each season away from home was tough. And, in the meantime, “a lot of shows were happening in Georgia because of the state’s production tax incentives,” something Wages had been pushing for. “Last year, I did two television movies in Atlanta: Field of Vision and Game of Your Life, part of the Family Movie Night cosponsored by Procter & Gamble and Walmart, and targeted to mothers and kids 8-14,” he says. Wages has begun prep in Atlanta for the returning USA Network series, Necessary Roughness, which received top reviews in its debut season. He plans to continue using ARRI ALEXA for the second season, supplementing it with a Sony camera for handheld. With the digital revolution firmly underway Wages says, “I’m more excited now than when I was 16. Things I used to dream about doing, we can easily do now. Look at what you can accomplish with a $1,000 camera you can hold in the palm of your hand. It’s ironic that with the evolution of cameras, they will soon be the cheapest thing on the set.” He’s eager to see the democratization of filmmaking change the paradigm where “too few people have had too much control for too long,” and he wants to see what the future of Internet film distribution has to offer. “It should allow people to make movies which are targeted to an audience that you can get in touch with directly and cheaply. That’s what I want to do. It’s a great time to be in the business!” January/February 2012
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WAR HORSE Framestore helps Steven Spielberg tell the tale of a horse put into service during World War I.
REPORTED BY CHRISTINE BUNISH
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ased on Michael Morpurgo’s 1982 novel and the very successful play that followed, War Horse tells the story of Joey, a horse
born in Devon (Southwestern England) shortly before the outbreak of World War I. The beloved steed of young Albert Narracott, Joey is sold to the British cavalry and shipped to France where he begins an extraordinary odyssey, serving both the British and German armies and finding himself alone in No Man’s Land. Albert, not old enough to enlist in the British Army, embarks on his own perilous mission to find Joey and bring him home. London-based Framestore, an Academy Award-winning VFX studio, was the film’s sole provider of digital visual effects, delivering more than 200 shots to director Steven Spielberg. The shots ranged from removing anachronisms and extending and augmenting sets to creating several exciting sequences with Joey. Spielberg decided to create his film after he and Kathleen Kennedy (his longtime producer) saw the enormously successful stage version of the book. Although the play involves the use of extraordinary horse puppets to bring the equine cast to life, Spielberg knew that a cinematic story would need to use a different language. For the big screen, Spielberg decided that only a ‘realistic’ approach would do – one in which as much of the action as possible was captured in camera, as it happened on location. He was aiming for a filmic style that might have been used half a century ago, in sympathy with its historical distance, so there is no modern ‘trickiness’ on view. That said, Spielberg knew that the story would require a few feats that would be impossible to capture safely with a live animal, and for which only the very best digital equine doubling would suffice. Enter Framestore. More than half of Framestore’s 200 or so shots involved clean-up or similar work – vapor-trail and telephone wire removal and the like. More elaborate labor and skills were required to remove riders from horses or to augment a huge field of reeds in which British soldiers conceal themselves prior to an attack. Just as challenging was the harrowing sequence toward the end of the film in which Joey, struggling through the trenches, is finally brought down to the ground as he drags a mess of barbed wire and a broken gate behind him: The horse was real, but the wires could not be. Finally, for just a couple of shots, digital horses were going to be needed – ones good enough to trick the eye of Steven Spielberg. Ben Morris, Framestore’s VFX supervisor on the project, recalls, “Kathleen Kennedy, [and Spielberg’s] production designer, Rick Carter, came to meet us. It went really well, I think, because they quickly recognized that we could deliver everything they needed from the mundane to state-of-the-art CG animation. I should emphasize that the film Steven wanted to make had no place for self-conscious VFX shots – it was to be as real as possible, with any digital elements integrated invisibly in the service of that sensibility.” LA-based The Third Floor did the previs for the film, working closely and collaboratively with the Framestore team. With Spielberg’s team having minutely prepared the ground, the director arrived in the UK for the 53-day shoot in August 2010 and, Morris recalls, wasted not a second.
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[Above] Framestore extended the line of troops in this location shot and used matte paintings to remove modern-day features from the landscape.
[Left] In a shot starring the real horse, Framestore cleaned up the dramatic sky.
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VFX in Features/War Horse
[Above Right] Framestore VFX supervisor Ben Morris.
[Below Right] Framestore removed a horse trainer and added soldiers in the background of this shot featuring the real horse.
[Below] Framestore artists at work in London.
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“As a VFX person, you often find yourself waiting around on set a certain amount, but Steven and his team were undoubtedly the most professional filmmakers I’ve ever worked with – we sped from one set up to the next with everyone knowing what they were doing and Steven knowing exactly what he wanted from each shot. And he was doing cutting work as he went.” The genuinely collaborative nature of Spielberg’s work ethic was further demonstrated later on during the shoot when Morris was given the opportunity to shoot a sequence with an additional camera team that involved a real tank, real horse and sometimes the horse trainer. “We went to do a few pick-up shots and showed them, a little sheepishly, to Steven on our iPads. He just said, ‘Great – can you go and shoot the rest of the scene?’ So – with a mixture of trepidation and glee – we did so.” This was a sequence in which Joey is cornered by a tank and vaults onto and over it to escape. It took a couple of weeks to shoot, and was one of the very few points at which a CG horse would turn out to be necessary. “When we brought the footage back to [Steven], he suggested we might also provide input by preparing a rough cut of the shots, which we did,” continues Morris. “Christian Kaestner and I also collaborated on creating another shot for Steven, one involving a cavalry brigade – some 300 horses strong – newly arrived in France.” They shot a series of four, live-action crowd replication plates after they found a suitable location on the Duke of Wellington’s estate in Hampshire. “We used a Canon 5D to shoot test replication passes, which we comped together and presented to Steven. For the final shot, we managed to get a great sunset view of the horses. Throughout, we all felt privileged to be involved and trusted at this level.” All told, they digitally cloned the 80 horses in each of the four plates to create more than 300 in the final comp. The team separated the horses from each pass and combined them in the original live-action back plate. The trust that was established continued during the five-month postproduction period, with Spielberg’s on-set ability to make lightning fast decisions a vital element of the process. “When we started delivering shots, we were all a little nervous, I think,” says Morris. “But we soon realized we’d get immediate – and generally positive – feedback from Steven, and we grew in confidence.” Spielberg remained adamantly opposed to the use of digital horses until Joey’s tank-jump sequence. The shot as captured in camera simply wasn’t working, a fact remarked upon a couple of times by Spielberg during reviews of dailies. Drawing on all his supplies of gumption, Morris put his team on it, and shortly after presented Spielberg with a new steed,
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replacing the real horse with a CG one. Impressed, the director asked where the footage had come from and Morris finally revealed its digital lineage. With a shot that finally worked, the purist gave way to the pragmatist and Spielberg okayed it, to the team’s relief and pride. A digital horse also was used for a shot in a sequence that follows the tank jump, where Joey runs alongside a trench before attempting to leap over it, dropping short, crashing into the sandbagged side of the trench and collapsing down into it. The leap and crash were impossible to safely stunt with a real horse. Tank-jump and trench-jump sequences were lead animated by Stuart Ellis and Laurent Benhamo, respectively, working under animation supervisor Kevin Spruce. Both spent much preparation time researching their horses in books, on film and even visiting the astonishing stage version of War Horse. “Horses are a very pleasurable thing to animate,” says Ellis. “They move beautifully, they always look good. But in cycle animation there’s often a tendency to over-exaggerate the up and down of the character and to not really communicate the weight, they’re just too bouncy. We nailed that, I think, and also what we managed with the head – the pushing forward and out as they gallop – was great.” “The big challenges were the necessity of absolute reality, and the level of detail that this entailed,” adds Benhamo. “Nostril flare, vein pulse, skin slide – it all had to be spot on. With such a small number of shots to develop, our animation, modeling and rigging departments – working under the film’s overall CG supervisor, Mike Mulholland – were able to work very closely together throughout the project, and I think that shows.” The animation team used both Autodesk Maya and Side Effects’ Houdini to get their horses up and running. “We built our Joey model from scratch,” says Mullholland. “It’s difficult to scan an animal as they won’t stay still, so we decided to do a photo shoot of the hero horse using multiple synched cameras. By recreating the cameras in CG we were able to look at the horse from multiple angles at the same moment in time. This allowed our lead modeler, Scott Eaton, to create a highly accurate model.
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[Above Left] Framestore CG supervisor Mike Mulholland.
[Below] A fully-digital horse was used to jump the trench. Framestore transitioned from a real horse, to a CG horse and back again during this shot.
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VFX in Features/War Horse
[Above Right] Framestore art director Kevin Jenkins.
[Below] Framestore covered the real horse with digital barbed wire as he struggles to escape.
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“Our rigs were created in Maya by our rigging department using a lot of custom tools,” he continues. “Joey was rigged by Mauro Giacomoazzo and Matthieu Goutte. We pushed our skin slide and muscle technology further than previous projects, and we explored new techniques to get the necessary detail and dynamic response.” The animation team’s work also supported one of the compositing team’s trickier tasks. “Some sequences, with elements such as explosives, legally require mounted horses, so removing the gray-clad riders was one of our jobs,” explains compositing supervisor Chris Zeh. “This obviously entails ‘putting back’ what they block from view, and if the camera angle is frontal this means the moving horses’ hindquarters. Several times we found we could use the walk-cycled CG horses as a 3D patch. In general, the CG shots were so well done that they didn’t represent the biggest compositing challenge. “Beyond superficial cosmetic work, some sequences required a real artistic eye to get them right – the ‘reed sequence’ is one example,” Zeh continues. “The sequence was supposed to show many dozens of British soldiers hiding in this field of reeds, but they had neither sufficient reeds nor soldiers to make it work. [In] nearly 30 shots, we filled the landscape with reeds – not just 2D but 3D – and soldiers. And we helped fill the air with seeds floating from the reeds.” In addition, the number of soldiers seen in certain shots was extended using crowd replication techniques. One final sequence that couldn’t be shot for real was Joey’s nightmarish final collapse, as he staggers through the trenches accumulating ever more barbed wire and other battlefield flotsam until he falls to the ground. “We shot it all one night, with Finder, the beautifully-trained horse that plays Joey in many shots,” says Morris. “We shot the horse writhing on the ground, with a couple of tethers on him – all closely supervised by his trainer, of course. During this we used a new, in-house-developed, witness camera system that gave us extremely accurate body tracks, which were essential for the detailed CG additions we would make. We were then able to procedurally generate dynamic
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simulations of curling barbed wire around his body. It looks so convincing we were anticipating a call from the Humane Society.” A witness camera is a secondary camera that provides an alternative view to that of the ‘master’ film camera. An array of them was used to help align a CG horse model with the real horse as seen in the ‘master’ camera’s view. This marked the first time that Framestore took an array of digital witness cameras, which synched perfectly with the film camera, on set. Of the many delighted reports to be heard from Framestore team members about working on the project, one more stands out. Says art director Kevin Jenkins, “After the initial meeting with Spielberg’s team, I got in touch with Rick Carter via a mutual acquaintance. After seeing some preliminary concept paintings I’d done for the project, Rick invited me too join his art department for the summer leading up to the shoot, which I delightedly did. Rick initially wanted me to concentrate on material that would help give a flavor of the time. I went for a sort of raw, muted, [20th-century British painter] Paul Nash look to those pieces – pretty grim in essence. But I ended up doing all sorts of work with them.” Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski had an idea for a shot involving a pair of horses walking in front of flames. “I painted up [this concept], Steven saw it and suddenly it became part of the film, which was very gratifying, though the shot didn’t make the final cut.” Looking back, Jenkins says admiringly, “Rick pushed me to use different media for my work, and showed me new approaches to inspire the looks I was after. The whole threemonth process was an invaluable education for me, and it’s no exaggeration to say that it has changed the whole way we think about and present our work here at Framestore.” Working on the film has left everyone on the team amazed and delighted by Spielberg and his team’s talent, enthusiasm and commitment. It was also an important and successful calling card for Framestore, a success reflected in Ben Morris’ current role, as VFX supervisor on Lincoln, Spielberg’s next project.
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THE SONGS REMAIN, But They’re Not All the Same BY MARK R. SMITH
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Here’s a question for music lovers: Are you buying as many CDs as you used to? Chances are that you’re not. After all, you probably don’t read the liner notes very intently and it’s so easy to do a quick download from the Internet. If that’s true of the public’s general approach to acquiring music, just think about how that trend is reshaping the world of production music, with the constant advertising deadlines and other requirements that make time a crucial consideration – just like the need for fresh sounds, which more and more often mean original tunes from indie bands. www.markeemag.com
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Music and Sound: Libraries The World Beat As one of the larger production music libraries in the United States, 5 Alarm Music of Pasadena, Calif., backs up its size by repping 60 music libraries worldwide and marketing “any kind of music you can imagine,” says Vice President and General Manager Cassie Lord. What’s the definition of “big” at 5 Alarm? “We have more releases [Above] in a year than most companies Cassandra Lord have in their entire libraries,” Lord says, noting its approximately 160,000 tracks available for download. Its international reach makes sense when considering that owner Imagen, which publishes the Elvis Presley and the Rogers & Hammerstein catalogs, is based in the Netherlands. Lord and Maddie Madsen, head of production, not only rep libraries, they create music in the Pro Tools house, releasing 12 new albums a year; 5 Alarm hires composers and works with its partners from the adjacent Firehouse Recording Studio. The sirens sounding at 5 Alarm are about its acquisition of the Strip Sound and the Zero Three Music libraries. They provide further enhancement to the house’s selection, which requires advanced online search and download capabilities;
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hence the use of Soundminer, which automatically makes cue sheets and allows users to share links with clients. “With so many music libraries in the business, you want to ensure that you’re dealing with a source that legally protects [Above] the client from copy- 5 Alarm Music Studio. right infringement,” says Lord, who has been in the business since 1983. “It used to be very laborious to acquire a track; now it takes two seconds – although digital technology also has allowed many new people to enter the business who might not know it well.” Lord also has noticed the trend toward clients preferring songs by actual bands, so 5 Alarm clients who can’t afford to license that “big hit” can turn to its indie music division, Rescue Records, headed by Terrilynn Rosa, which boasts a roster of more than 300 artists.
Hear It at the Multiplex The latest from Port Washington, N.Y.-based Omnimusic is the upcoming release of “L.A. Edition,” a
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library of scores that was created by Hollywood composers for TV and film projects. President Doug Wood pointed out that scoring for film is markedly different than providing sound for other projects because film scores “take a number of musical left turns,” he said. “It’s written to picture and it sounds that way; that may not be perfect for every editor because it requires a constant shifting of gears. However, that’s part of creating music for films. It’s designed to keep the viewer on the edge of his chair.” That release is the latest complement to Omnimusic’s 18,000-song catalog, which encompasses seven libraries. They include “Omni,” the house’s flagship, which covers virtually every genre; “Flashpoint,” the drama/trailer library that complements TV news magazines (and was [Above] created by the composers from Omni founder and com“America’s Most Wanted”); and “Blue poser Doug Wood at work Dot,” which is targeted for spots and in the company's recordcomes complete with tags, for ing studio. stingers and cues. Another recent creation at Omnimusic is its initial online offering, “Burn,” a contemporary rock/R&B/dance mix; and “Music Outside the Box,” which is, predictably, “free-form, orchestral concert music that stretches the boundaries of what production music can be,” Wood says. “Is it music or sound design? Even I can’t say.” The music is produced in-house in Omnimusic’s 24-foot by 24-foot studio, which is complemented by its Pro Tools control room. “It’s almost 100 percent of what we market, aside from a library called CDM, which is a ‘Eurotech’-type of sound for fashion and lifestyle projects,” he says. And, speaking of online offerings, the replication of CDs will end this spring. “The Internet gives us the opportunity to offer remixes, which only heightened our
creativity,” says Wood. “I’ll burn CDs for clients who want them, but everything else is online.”
Wide World of Music An acquisition by legendary music publisher Warner/Chappell a few years ago made Nashville-based 615 Music – along with Non-Stop Music, Groove Addicts, V and CPM (formerly Carlin) – the home of more than 150,000 tracks spanning more than 80 catalogs. Then there’s “the 100 new releases annually,” says Executive VP of North America Randy Wachtler. “In addition, the company features an extensive, world-class recording facility, smack-dab-in-themiddle of Nashville’s world famous Music Row, with another in Salt Lake City; both facilities have multiple rooms and can accommodate “live orchestral” recording for original projects. “We’re one of a very few production libraries that can compose and produce new releases, from start to finish, in-house,” says Wachtler, “and this has proven a tremendous advan- [Above] tage in keeping the quality level high,” 615 Music’s Executive VP also noting that 615 Music and Non- of North America Randy Stop are among the largest creators of Wachtler.
[Above] Music Outside the Box is Omnimusic's collection of contemporary concert music for media.
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Music and Sound: Libraries news music packages in the world. The company has some exciting news coming soon, but Wachtler can’t discuss it – not yet anyway. However, the company has new releases and special collections from several of our catalogs and numerous cus[Above] tom projects going in both 615/Nonstop Music collection. facilities, with the music available primarily for lease. Wachtler says that 615/Nonstop’s music is “quite popular” and ends up in use in various production arenas, including promos, commercials, high-end theatrical trailers and in-show segments, as well as local TV and the cable universe. It can end up online, too, and he’s also noticed how the Internet continues to change the production music business. “Our customers can search, download, and share playlists faster and with more ease than ever before,” Wachtler says. “It wasn’t long ago that online search engines were clunky and hard to navigate. Today, however, we’re perfecting and simplifying our online experience all the time. Our goal is to make it so intuitive and easy to
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use our music that it will literally save our customers much needed time and, ultimately, dollars.”
It’s Texas and It’s Big Bigger is also better at Dallas-based FirstCom Music. The full-service production music company offers 19 libraries with a whopping 160,000 tracks that span multiple genres, with selections available online or as Soundminer-ready audio files. FirstCom also creates custom music for advertising, film and television; and editor’s tools, including Liquid Traxx, for remixing selections from its libraries. Like other big fish in the production music pond, FirstCom releases an extensive series of new music updates throughout the year. Recently, the house teamed with the BBC on what Vice President of Production Ken Nelson calls “one of the most extraordinary music collections ever released, BBC Production Music. It offers everything from sweeping romantic dramas and proud period pieces to brutal booming tunes and the magic of the natural world.” FirstCom also is set to introduce “Shuffle” in its “Evo” library. Shuffle was designed with ad agencies and commercial spot producers in mind, and combines specific commerciallength music with popular ad music styles and trends. In addition, FirstCom has welcomed “Build Destroy Music” (BDM) to its “Chronicles of Hip-Hop” catalog. Created and produced by DJ Skee, BDM is a hybrid music compa-
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ny featuring up-and-coming musicians, songwriters and producers; the label is designed to fill the demand for that unencumbered, cuttingedge original sound that’s hot for TV, commercials, films and video games. Nelson also has noticed a surge in the use of singer/ [Above] songwriter music during the FirstCom music collection. past year. “Indie vocals are extremely popular among film, TV and advertising producers who are trying to garner viewership from younger audiences, and our Roadside Couch label was created specifically to meet [that demand].” That’s part of where the recent acquisition of MasterSource came in, he says. “That [deal allows FirstCom] to offer one of the largest and easiest-toclear sources of songs, vocals and source music.”
to the mix. As for trends, he’s seeing more retitled music in the market. “It creates confusion for clients and artists when the same piece is licensed under different titles,” he says, “when clients can’t tell who has the rights they need.” He also noted the line blurring between production and commercial music. “It provides an outlet for their creativity,” Mendelsohn says, noting work with artists such as Johnny Wickersham of Social Distortion and Us3, and Geoff Wilkinson. “Artists used to turn up their noses at having their music played in commercials; now they embrace it.”
Do It Right – Online While online production music search and delivery is nothing new, launching “a proprietary system that promises to be the fastest, most accurate such system in the production music industry” takes confidence. Those are the words of Megatrax Production Music President and CEO Ronald Mendelsohn concerning the new site. North Hollywood-based Megatrax’s “whole web experience was reconceived after we talked with our clients,” said Mendelsohn. “It has been streamlined. On our old site, multiple locations to download music were cobbled together; but the new site, everything is one click away.” “Everything,” in this case, includes Megatrax’s in-house catalog, which contains 60,000 tracks, with “100 or more new albums” added every year at what Mendelsohn calls, “the largest exclusive independent music production company in the United States, in terms of content.” They include the flagship Megatrax, “The Scene” for film and TV underscore music, “Marquee” for indie artist songs and “Sensacion” for the Latin market. They also have a custom music division, Aircast Custom Music. Megatrax also houses an in-house studio, which includes a Pro Tools 7.4 studio that can accommodate up to 40 musicians, plus two isolation booths. Repping outside catalogs such as Beat Bites, a hip urban catalog; L.A. Riot; Intervox; Amusicom; and Tonal Injection enhances the bottom line. Recently, a third-party catalog, Sound Adventures, was added www.markeemag.com
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Spotlight
South
The South Part II A region so busy we’re visiting twice
[Clockwise from Top] Deadline, filmed in Tennessee.
[Right] The Blind Side, filmed in Georgia. Photo: Georgia Dept. of Economic Development.
[Middle] Hunger Games, filmed in North Carolina. Photo: Lions Gate/Murray Close.
[Left]
There is so much happening in the beautiful South that this location feature from the Nov/Dec issue of Markee deserves a sequel. As previously stated, this region is thriving with hundreds of productions each year as states continually look for ways to attract filmmakers and TV productions. Each state is proving quite successful at their endeavors. For this issue, we spoke with the state film offices in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee to learn about their incentive packages and to get a sense for what it’s like to shoot in their states.
Sarasota, Florida.
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Florida: A production hot spot Florida is a perennial production hot spot. Among the state’s most attractive features, according to the Florida Office of Film & Entertainment, are its broad and diverse locations. Additionally, the film office works with more than 60 film liaisons throughout the state to better service clients. “We also offer an online location photo library, which immediately exemplifies all that Florida has to offer. We’ve got everything but snow,” says Communications Coordinator, Colleen McClure. “We’re also the only state to have a Los Angeles Film Liaison, Susan Simms, who maintains a constant presence in LA to provide additional service and support to clients,” McClure added. “All that coupled with our financial incentives and 60-plus local liaisons to assist with local needs make Florida an ideal location for production.” [Above] Florida’s Entertainment Industry Financial Incentive is a transferrable Dolphin Tale (2011), starring Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, and Harry Connick Jr. was filmed in tax credit, which awards 20 percent to 30 percent as follows: Florida. • 20 percent base percentage Photo: The Florida Office of Film & Entertainment. • 5 percent Off Season Bonus (for certain production types) • 5 percent Family Friendly Bonus (for certain production types) • 5 percent Underutilized Region Bonus (for General Production Queue only) • 5 percent Qualified Production Facility/Digital Media Facility Bonus (for General Production Queue, on expenditures associated with production activity at a Qualified Production Facility/Digital Media Facility) • 15 percent Florida Student/Recent Graduate Bonus (for General Production Queue, on student/recent grad wages and other compensation). The Florida Office of Film & Entertainment (www.filminflorida.com) says there are three different queues productions can utilize which have varying eligibility requirements: General Production, Commercial and Music Video, and Independent and Emerging Media Production. More information can be found online. Additionally, a list of current productions is available on their website, but here’s a list the office provided of “stand-out” productions: • Burn Notice – USA • The Glades – A&E • Magic City – STARZ (Premieres April 2012) • The Inbetweeners – MTV (Premieres 2012) • Dolphin Tale (In Theatres)
Parker in Palm Beach County
Photos: Jack English
Since 1989, the Palm Beach County Film and Television Commission has been a premiere location for film, TV and still photography shoots, generating millions of dollars for the local economy. VFX houses – such as Digital Domain – and studios – such as G-Star – have taken root in the county, making the area even more attractive for major productions. Currently, filming is underway for the Taylor Hackford (Ray) directed feature Parker. The film, which stars Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez and Nick Nolte, is adapted from the Donald Westlake novel “Flashfire.” Shooting for Parker has taken place in the county’s most picturesque locations, including all three of the bridges that span from West Palm Beach to Palm Beach, the Boca Raton Resort and Club, and around the Intracoastal Waterway. [Left] Getting a wide shot from the set of Parker.
www.markeemag.com
[Right] The Boca Raton Resort and Club.
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South • • • • • • • •
Rock of Ages (In theatres June 2012) Step Up 4 (In Theatres August 2012) I Am Number 4 (Available on DVD) Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Available on DVD) Tooth Fairy 2 (Available on DVD) Madden NFL 2012 (Video game, available now) NCAA Football 2012 (Video game, available now) Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2012 (Video game, available now)
Let’s not forget the multitude of Spanish-language broadcast networks that contribute to the unique structure of Florida’s film and television industries. The Florida film office says that with more than 13 million Hispanic households in the United States, the demand for Hispanic and Latino programming is growing. Telemundo, which has studios based out of Miami, recently delivered the best performance in the network’s broadcast history (TVByTheNumbers). The Telemundo Network reaches 94 percent of U.S. Hispanic viewers and has more than 1,000 cable affiliates. Florida also is home to Univision, another major Spanish-language television network. “The growth of viewers of Latino and Hispanic programming has contributed to the development and success of these networks and their productions, many of which film in or feature Florida and have been recipients of the entertainment industry incentive,” McClure said.
Sarasota County – the ‘fresh face’ of Florida The Sarasota County Film and Entertainment Office now has in place a unique cash rebate incentive program unlike any other in Florida, which provides 100 percent cash back for any County government fees such as use of lands, buildings, roads, parks, beaches, schools, law enforcement, fire, emergency services and more, and up to 20 percent cash back for nongovernment qualified expenditures in Sarasota County. According to Jeanne Corcoran, the film office’s director, in the first five months this program has been in effect, five productions have taken advantage of the quick and simple incentives, including the feature film Parker, the indie film Free Ride, the low-budget horror film Demon, the Worker’s Comp TV pilot starring Morgan Fairchild and Robert Carradine, and a nationally and internationally televised concert special starring Jackie Evancho for PBS. “We are seeing a surge in interest, especially from independent films, who recognize the unique opportunity for a cash rebate incentive as well as the ‘fresh face’ of Florida showing locations that have never been overexposed,” said Corcoran. “It’s an exciting – and gratifying – time for the gorgeous, pristine Gulf of Mexico side of the state to see the number and scope of projects growing!”
[Clockwise from Top Left] The set of Parker; the independent film Deadly Closure; Morgan Fairchild in Worker's Comp; stunt car explosion from a TV pilot; stunt car driving off a Sarasota bridge for a TV pilot.
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South Georgia: It’s on everyone’s mind
During the last several years, Georgia lawmakers worked aggressively to attract as much TV and film production as is feasible to host. Clearly, their work is paying off. According to the Georgia Department of Economic Development, Georgia is now among the top five states in the nation for film and TV production, with more than 327 productions shot in Georgia from July 2010 through June 2011, bringing in more than $683.5 million in investment to the state. These projects have generated an economic impact of $2.4 billion. Impressive numbers to say the least – made possible in part by the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act, which provides an income tax credit of 20 percent to qualified productions, and an additional 10 percent tax credit to productions that embed a Georgia promotional logo in the titles or credits, or as product placement within the content of the production. The tax credits may be awarded not only to traditional feature films, television series, commercials and music videos, but also to innovative new industries such as video game development and animation. (For more information, visit www.georgia.org/GeorgiaIndustries/Entertainment/ AboutUs/Pages/Incentives.aspx.) “While our competitive incentives are a huge part of what makes our state unique, it is also important to mention our skilled crew base, growing infrastructure, diverse locations, and accessibility through the world’s busiest airport,” said Stefanie Paupeck, a representative of Georgia’s [Above] film office. “It’s the combination of all of these assets that Sandra Bullock in her Oscar-winning role as Leigh Ann Tuohy in The Blind Side. has helped the state’s entertainment industry achieve Photo: Georgia Dept. of Economic Development. record numbers.” The list of productions currently underway or recently completed in Georgia could fill the pages of this entire feature, but have a look at this partial list: • Joyful Noise, starring Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah (Jan. 13, 2012) • Good Deeds, Tyler Perry Productions (Feb. 24, 2012) • Wanderlust, starring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd (Feb. 24, 2012) • The Three Stooges, starring Will Sasso, Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean Hayes, Larry David, Jennifer Hudson, Sofia Vergara and Jane Lynch (Apr. 4, 2012) • American Reunion, starring the entire original cast of American Pie (Apr. 6, 2012) • The Wettest County, starring Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy (Apr. 20, 2012) • What to Expect When You’re Expecting, starring Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Dennis Quaid, Chris Rock, Matthew Morrison, Brooklyn Decker and Anna Kendrick (May 11, 2012) • Neighborhood Watch, starring Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller (July 27, 2012) • The Odd Life of Timothy Green, starring Jennifer Garner (Aug. 15, 2012) • Jayne Mansfield’s Car, starring Billy Bob Thornton, Kevin Bacon, Robert Duvall and John Hurt (2013). Naturally, all of this work has attracted a growing number of industry-related services to Georgia, including professional production and technical crew members, attorneys, production companies, equipment suppliers, production support services, postproduction and more. (Georgia’s “Film, Video & Digital Entertainment SourceBook” provides a complete listing.) With these professionals at the ready and Georgia’s unique and authentic landscapes, including beautiful mountains, rural farmlands, coastal beaches and islands, swamps and marshes, scenic rivers and lakes, small towns, and major metropolitan cities it is no wonder the state is attracting so many productions. 32
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North Carolina: Setting records and creating jobs Pop quiz: What state boasts the highest mountains on the East Coast and includes great locations for shooting large cities, beaches, small towns, and historic towns? If you guessed North Carolina (or just noticed the subtitle above), you would be correct. Add one of the largest soundstages in the world to the mix – the EUE Screen Gems studio campus in Wilmington, N.C. – and you have a recipe for a successful production. In fact, The North Carolina Film Office says the state has a long, distinguished film history that continues to thrive. The last three decades have seen notable films such as The Color Purple, The Last of the Mohi- [Above] cans, Dirty Dancing, and Days of Thunder. More recently, North Caroli- Jennifer Lawrence stars in The Hunger Games, a futuristic, sci-fi thriller set for a March release. na served as the backdrop for Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Photo: Lions Gate/Murray Close. Leatherheads, and Nights in Rodanthe. Also, for six seasons, the state was home to the WB’s Dawson’s Creek. This past year marked seven seasons in North Carolina for the CW’s One Tree Hill. Such high profile and successful productions were made possible, in part, by the state’s incentive program. North Carolina’s current tax incentive package consists of a 25-percent, fully refundable credit (minimum spend of $250,000) with a per project cap of $20 million ($80 million N.C. spend). Goods, services, compensation, wages, and fringes qualify for the credit – first $1 million in compensation qualifies for each abovethe-line and below-the-line person. There is no annualized cap. Notable movie and TV productions currently underway (or pending) in North Carolina include Iron Man 3 (pre-production, 2013 release), The Hunger Games (March 2012), and Homeland (Showtime), all of which are contributing to a record year for the state. The film office announced in December 2011 that it had its best year of film production and spending – a record $220 million. “It’s been a great year here in North Carolina and even better is that 2012 looks like it is on pace to top 2011,” said NC Film Office Director, Aaron Syrett. “Not only have we had a record number of jobs created and money spent in the state, we have seen production taking place in all areas of North Carolina.” In addition to the direct-spend, productions have created more than 3,300 crew positions and provided in excess of 23,000 talent and background extra opportunities – making for more than 26,000 total jobs. Additionally, there are many local production companies making names for themselves in the industry, including Trailblazer Studios, Out of Our Minds Animation Studios, and Hammerhead Entertainment. (A complete list of production companies can be found at www.ncfilm.com.) “We are delighted that the industry is once again providing high-paying, quality jobs for our residents and having a big impact on businesses and local communities,” Syrett added.
Tennessee: Rich in music & filming locations According to the Tennessee Film, Entertainment & Music Commission (TFEMC, www.tn.gov/film), the state of Tennessee features three distinct topographical regions, which offer endless location possibilities from the West Tennessee delta and plains to the gently rolling hills of Middle Tennessee to the foothills and majestic peaks of the Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee. Further, Tennessee is rich in www.markeemag.com
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South many types of entertainment and other assets located throughout the state, TFEMC says, some of which include: • Access to the best musicians, songwriters, scorers, and singers in the world covering all types of music genres, including country, classical, blues, jazz, rock, gospel and hip hop. • If a filmmaker shoots in Tennessee and is participating in our incentive program, music rights, licenses, recordings/studio sessions, musicians, singers/songwriters and all Tennessee talent qualifies. • Tennessee is a right-to-work state and welcomes both non-union and union productions. Covering 41,219 square miles Tennessee is served by six major interstates, three major railroads and five regional airports, two of which offer nonstop flights between Tennessee and Los Angeles or New York. • The climate provides filmmakers with favorable conditions for working throughout the year with a minimum of weather related disruptions.
About that incentive program: Tennessee has two filming incentives, which can be combined for a rebate of up to 32 percent of a qualified Tennessee spend. Now the details: For the first incentive – a 17-percent rebate administered through the TFEMC – an out-of-state company must have a minimum qualified Tennessee spend of $500,000 per production/per episode. A Tennessee company must have a minimum qualified local spend of $150,000 per production/per episode. The second incentive is a 15 percent headquarters rebate on a minimum qualified Tennessee spend of $1 million that is administered by the Tennessee Department of Revenue. A Tennessee company must be registered as a headquarters location with the Department of Revenue. An out-of-state company can partner with a Tennessee headquarters company to access this program. Generally speaking, payments to Tennessee vendors and residents while filming in Tennessee are considered a qualified Tennessee spend. Payments made to nonresidents or non-Tennessee vendors do not qualify. Additionally, anything that is not original film or television content recorded in Tennessee will not qualify for the incentives. Examples include but are not limited to: live shows, concerts, music videos, training videos, etc. Also, the postproduction of a project that did not shoot in Tennessee, or has already shot in Tennessee without receiving [Above] the required certification in advance, will not qualify. Water for Elephants, starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon, So what has been filming lately in Tennessee? For was released in April 2011. Photo: TN Film, Entertainment & Music Commission starters, the 2010 film Country Strong starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw, the 2011 movie Water for Elephants with Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon, and the independent film Deadline (2012) with Eric Roberts. For television, CMT’s Next Superstar reality/competition show is filmed in Nashville, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has shot in the state, and the 2010 TV movie Hound Dogs filmed in Nashville. Additionally, Gisela Moore, a TFEMC project manager reports that local production companies have come into their own in the state, including Sony Provident, Filmhouse, Jupiter Entertainment, Ruckus Films, Dogwood Entertainment, RIVR Media and Scripps Network to name a few. (For a complete list, view the commission’s online directory at https://www.tnecdit.net/MVCTNFilm.) So what’s on the horizon for Tennessee? Moore says there is a TV pilot the commission is hoping will get picked up, a reality show, a feature film that just wrapped, and an independent feature began shooting in February. And that’s all music to everyone’s ears at TFEMC. 34
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advertisers’ index page# company phone & website 24
5 Alarm Music
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800-322-7879 www.5alarmmusic.com
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American Music Company, Inc. 516-764-1466 www.americanmusicco.com
1
Communications Concepts Inc. 321-783-5232 www.CCIFlorida.com/mobile
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FirstCom 800-858-8880 www.firstcom.com
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Island Century Media 888-373-4539 www.icm4hd.com
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Killer Tracks 800-454-5537 www.killertracks.com
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Megatrax Production Music 888-MEGA(6342)-555 www.megatrax.com
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NAB www.nabshow.com
C3
Palm Beach County Film Office 800-745-FILM www.PBFilm.com
C2
Panasonic Broadcast Systems Company 877-803-8492 www.panasonic.com/af100
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Sarasota County Film & Entertainment Office 888-765-5777 www.filmsarasota.com/incentives
8-9
Virginia Film Office 800-854-6233 www.filmvirginia.org
MUSIC LIBRARIES
FOR MARKETPLACE ADVERTISING DETAILS... Contact Gayle Rosier at 386.873.9286 or email: gaylerosier@gmail.com www.markeemag.com
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Inside View
Giovanni Bucci | by Christine Bunish
Giovanni Bucci Director/motion designer • Los Angeles, London • www.giovannibucci.com Markee: You take both a multinational and multidisciplinary approach to your work. Mr. Bucci: “I’m half-Italian and halfDutch. I started working in Italy, then I went to London and LA, and I’m actually spending more time in LA these days. Usually I’m directing and putting everything together for a project – a lot of times I’m doing the editing and motion graphics. “I always had a passion for music and was playing in a band, then I went into video because I like the potential of how audio and video can work together. I don’t see any separation. That can be hard to explain to clients and agencies that aren’t used to working this way. It can be hard to step outside the box, but if they trust you they understand why it’s important to build the music and visuals at the same time.” Markee: Tell us about your latest personal project, Addictions, which combines greenscreen, stopmotion animation, motion graphics, VFX and music to illustrate our addiction to technology and everything that manipulates our lives. Mr. Bucci: “The idea came from my life experience. Doing this job you’re really involved with technology. Then you go out and meet people, but they’re busy with their smart phones and the TV in clubs. You interact with them but through technology, and it’s just a bit too much. We could use technology less and in a better way. “I storyboarded the idea so I’d know what to shoot, but I wasn’t locked into the boards. In production you discover some things [you conceived] are really great and some aren’t. You can get really inspired in production if you’re open to it.” Markee: Addictions is a metaphor about addictions in general, about being manipulated without even realizing it or without reacting. 36
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The girl who represents addiction controls a man who is slave to a bank of computers; she bombards him with nightmarish images, lights, patterns and sounds as she changes from one highly-stylized look – costume, hair and makeup – to another. How did you shoot such a complex piece? Mr. Bucci: “I shot the greenscreen at Strani Rumori Studio in Italy with the Canon 7D camera and the GoPro HD camera for POV shots of my own computers in my studio in London. The backgrounds surrounding the girl are all CG; none of those environments existed. “I created the design and animation with Paola Rocchetti using mostly After Effects, along with Photoshop and Flash. Half of the CG is from photographic sources: part of the London Underground, sidewalks in Japan, macro shots of liquid and tomatoes in balsamic vinegar. We used stop-motion animation for the scene where the woman becomes all black with Paola’s make up. “Everything came together in editing and compositing. Every moment had to have the music and video match; everything had to feel connected to the music. So that made it much, much harder.” Markee: Were you also responsible for the music and sound design? Mr. Bucci: “I co-wrote the music with Marco Morano in London; I played the guitar tracks and Marco played the synthesizer and did the music production. We mixed some dark-ish electro/indiedance elements with metal guitars, glitchy textures and dirty synths. “We worked on the music at the same time as the visuals; we had the main timeline of the music in the edit and added
the sound design and textural elements afterward. Most projects I’ve done have been with Marco. We know each other so well we don’t even have to talk too much! When the visuals and the music start working together really well you get an energy that’s more powerful than either the visuals or music on their own.” Markee: How does a personal project such as Addictions relate to your work for clients? Mr. Bucci: “A lot of clients are more knowledgeable about visuals than music; music can be a neglected part of the project. I’d like clients to think about ideas, not just making visuals and attaching some music to them at the end. I try to explain this to them, how the visuals and the music and sound work together, and often have a hard time.” Markee: You’ve done work for Red Bull, Nike, Renault, MTV, Cartoon Network, Warner Bros. What’s ahead for you? Mr. Bucci: “I am quite happy with the way I have been working so far, but I want to do better. For the future, I would like to work on very creative projects supported by bigger budgets. That would give me the possibility to fully develop ideas. A lot of brands lock themselves into unnecessary boxes and bureaucracy; it would be great if clients took the chance to be more free.”
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