Markee 2.0 Magazine November/December 2011 by Markee 2.0 Magazine

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November/December 2011 • V.26|No.6

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

2.0

Hawaii Five-0 DP Alan Caso helps remake a classic Animation: VFX for commercials Mobile Production: A thriving niche industry Hot Spots: Cutting commercials Spotlight: The South

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Sony-Perfect10_SeptOct2011

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A Perfect 10 Perfection is elusive. But when achieved, things come together perfectly. What’s true in life is also true in audio production software. Sound Forge™ Pro 10 software, the 10th version of the legendary audio editing and mastering application, scores a perfect 10. Long the professional standard for analyzing, recording, editing, producing, converting and resampling audio, Sound Forge Pro 10 makes a great thing even better with these new features: event-based editing, integrated disc-at-once CD burning, élastique Pro timestrech and pitch shift plug-in, plus the Mastering Effects Bundle 2 powered by iZotope™—valued at over $200, and more. Sound Forge Pro 10 delivers the ultimate all-in-one production suite for professional audio recording and mastering, sound design, audio restoration, and Red Book CD creation. Power. Stability. Reliability. This one’s perfect. Visit your favorite retailer or www.sonycreativesoftware.com/perfect to learn more.

Sound Forge Pro 10 Professional Digital Audio Production Suite

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Markee2.0

Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

November/December 2011 Volume 26, Number 6

contents w w w. m a r k e e m a g . c o m

features 8

Animation

Animation Studios By Christine Bunish

Mobile Production

Moving On Up: Trends in Mobile Production

By Mark Smith

Hot Spots

Cutting Commercials By Christine Bunish

The South

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Spotlight By Cory Sekine-Pettite

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November/December 2011

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Markee2.0

Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

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

columns & departments 4

Editor’s Note

Making TV – Re-Inventing Hawaii Five-O How to make a re-make work. By Michael Fickes

Making Commercials – Creating A House Of Cards Ntropic and The Concept Farm create a visual metaphor for the Bank of NY Mellon. By Michael Fickes [On The Cover]

36 Inside View – Matt Jacobs VFX supervisor, Tippett Studio

The cast of Hawaii Five-0. Photo courtesy of CBS

By Christine Bunish

www.markeemag.com

November/December 2011

| Markee 2.0

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from the editor

Markee2.0

Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

| By Cory Sekine-Pettite

www.markeemag.com

Holiday Classics For many of us, one of the great pleasures of the holiday season is watching our favorite Christmas movies and TV specials. Just like the holidays themselves, these shows and films spark childhood memories of innocent times when our only cares were what would be waiting for us under the tree on Christmas morning, or which of our favorite cousins would be waiting for us at our grandparents’ house when we arrived for the annual holiday meal. Like me, it likely was in your grandparents’ living room where you watched many of these holiday classics – such as It’s a Wonderful Life or Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer – for the first time. Thus, we have a great deal of affection for these classics (which is why they are referred to as classics in the first place) and tend to make them holiday traditions with our own children. My personal favorites tend to be animated, such as A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. But thinking about these old standards this year has me wondering, are there any “new classics” out there? Are there any recently produced Christmas movies or TV specials that will earn a place among the holiday classics? Every year there is a new crop of holiday programming and new films in theaters, but can you think of any that deserve to be called classics? The movie, Elf, is funny and airs on TV quite often this time of year, but it’s not heart-warming enough to become a classic. Home Alone is much-loved, but again, can one consider it classic? I, for one, cannot. I think Tim Burton has come the closest to producing a new classic with The Nightmare Before Christmas. (Burton wrote and produced the film, which was directed by Henry Selick.) Close, but no cigar, as the saying goes. Don’t get me wrong; I adore this claymation film, but I don’t anticipate watching it every December. Perhaps there is a younger crowd out there that does. On television, some more recent programming has tried to acknowledge older TV classics, such as Rudolph, with old-school style animated programs, though they tend to do so with a sense of humor. Last year’s Community (NBC) holiday episode (pictured) and the recent holiday episode of [Above] Eureka (Syfy) spring to mind. Community (NBC) Christmas episode, Dec. 2010. Both shows were quite funny, Image courtesy of Eden FX. especially if you’re familiar with the material that is being lampooned, but they’re certainly not destined to become classics. So, what are your favorite holiday shows and movies? Please share your memories and family traditions with us.

Highlights Coming In

January/February 2012

• Cinematography • Music & Sound Effects Libraries • Spotlight: Southeast IN EVERY ISSUE: Making TV • Making Commercials • Inside View

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November/December 2011

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Film & Video Gallery Credits:

Director/DP: Dustin Farrell Producer: Dustin Farrell

Landscapes Volume II Every frame of this time-lapse video is a raw still from a Canon 5D2 DSLR and processed with Adobe software. The motion is achieved with a dolly that is moved slowly by a servo motor. Besides all of the positive attention we’re getting, Landscapes Volume II has been a labor of passion that is bringing personal and professional rewards to all of us at Crew West. Crew West, Inc. P. O. Box 22147 • Phoenix, AZ 85028 Phone: 888.444.2739 • email: tvcrews@crewwestinc.com www.crewwestinc.com

Credits:

Client: Zadok Jewelers Director/DP: Everett Gorel Writer/ Producer: Bill Brauer Stylist: Summar Salah Gaffer: Mark Wells Editor: Marco DuBose Graphics: Mike Ribble South Coast Film & Video 5234 Elm Street • Houston, TX 77081 Phone: 713.661.3550 • F: 713.661.4357 www.scfilmvideo.com

“Tango” Six spot campaign for a family-owned jewelry store. Each spot features a family member shot in black and white, juxtaposed with the jewelry shot in color against organic backgrounds. This musically driven spot is the series exception, showcasing the jewelry only dancing a sexy tango.

Credits:

Client: Turner Broadcasting Sponsorshop

Producer: Erika Delgado

FCP/Smoke Editor/ Compositor: Buff Harsh, Wolff Bros Post

TBS Breakroom/ The Smurfs To bring the Smurfs to life in the TBS Breakroom environment and interact with the re-designed TBS logo, WBP editor/ compositor Buff Harsh used Smoke Advanced to retouch, motion track and composite the animated clips bringing the vision of Sponsorshop Producer Erika Delgado to life.

Wolff Bros Post 1930 Monroe Drive • Atlanta, GA 30324 Phone: 404.881.0020 • email: wayne@wolffbrospost.com www.wolffbrospost.com www.markeemag.com

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making TV

Alan Caso, ASC | By Michael Fickes

Re-Inventing Hawaii Five-O How to make a re-make work.

In a world of failed remakes, Hawaii Five-O is making it. The remake of the original hit cop show that ran from 1968 through 1980 is moving through its second season. Last February, the show ranked 29th on Entertainment Weekly’s list of the season’s top 50 shows. Top 30. Pretty good. Credit the producers, writers, cinematographers and cast. Together, they have given the show a fun, unique and contemporary sensibility, a sensibility they tweak each season.

Second Season Tweaks Before shooting the second season, Peter M. Lenkov, Five-O’s executive producer, convened a meeting at Encore Hollywood, the program’s post house, to discuss changes. Attendees included Co-executive Producer Steve Boyum; Co-producer Tony Palermo; Colorist Johnny Kirkwood; Producer Jeff Downer; and the show’s odd and even episode directors of photography, James L. Carter, ASC; and Alan Caso, ASC. The first season featured a lot of bright, saturated colors. “We decided to adjust that and to enhance the colors already there with natural light,” Caso said. “The natural light coupled with more density creates more saturation without the addition of artificial color.”

But Keep the Fun Cop shows have been slow to adopt the irreverent and sometimes rebellious tone of the rising Gen-X generation. Five-O gets it right. The cops, led by Steve McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin), son of the original show’s boss, are smart, competent Gen-Xers, complete with lots of technology, big tattoos and, in the case of the guys, unshaven faces. While McGarrett is the boss, the four main characters needle each other, point out each other’s mistakes and support 6

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each other. Unlike most police procedurals, part of the appeal is getting to know the characters. “That isn’t changing,” Caso says. “But we are trying to soften the skin tones and use more natural lighting styles – light coming in through windows, for instance, which can create edgier scenes. “And it’s fun for me. The material is different from what I’ve shot in the past. It enables me to make use of enhanced color, a new style for me.”

Coloring Hawaii Hawaii continues to co-star in Five-O as the bright, multi-colored paradise all of us mainlanders want it to be. Caso and Carter shoot most of the scenes with ARRI ALEXA Cameras and Panavision 12:1 zoom lenses or short Optima zooms. The ALEXA uses a 35mm sensor to capture images in Log-C, a format that requires more complex processing in post, but provides more color correction options. “On set we create color LUTs [LookUp-Tables] to simulate what we intend for final color correction,” Casa says. “The LUTs aren’t baked in on the Log-C master file, but we use them to view dailies. The colorist uses them to interpret the cinematographer’s intent.” LUTs provide settings that enable production and post people to adjust different display devices – that see colors differently – to the precise colors specified by the cinematographer.

Material Dictates Technique Caso and Carter employ a variety of shooting techniques and equipment. “We probably use a wider set of tools than other shows,” Caso says. “For a cinematographer, the material should dictate the technique. The writing for this show is strong and varied and provides opportunities to employ an array of devices and shooting techniques.”

November/December 2011

[Above] Alan Caso (standing) on the set of Hawaii Five-0. Photo: Norman Shapiro, normanshapiro.com

In one show, for instance, McGarrett finds himself in an extreme fight match, and Caso used a 45-degree shutter, which shortens film exposure and produces a staccato look. “The audience loves the banter among the main characters,” Caso says. “We play off of that and try to enhance the relationships and the camaraderie.” Helicopters handle the establishing shots, but some of the airborne scenes give a nod to costs, using the poor man’s process to shoot the helicopters and planes on the ground. It takes eight shooting days of just under 12 hours each to lens an episode, Caso says. The team shoots about six script pages per day. Assistant Director Michael Neumann handles the shoot scheduling and sequencing. Five-O has had a good 2011. The show won a People’s Choice Award for “Favorite New TV Drama,” while earning nominations for a Golden Globe and an Emmy. Pretty good for a remake.

Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

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making Commercials

Bank of NY Mellon | By Michael Fickes

Creating A House Of Cards Ntropic and The Concept Farm create a visual metaphor for the Bank of NY Mellon. The butterfly did it. In a new Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) commercial, a butterfly lands on top of a house and knocks off a wood shake tile, revealing a collapsing house of cards beneath the façade. Voiceover: “The one thing 99 percent of investors can expect to find in their portfolio is unexpected risk.” A metaphor. Not many commercials use metaphors. Metaphors don’t read fast enough, but this one works, thanks to ideas like the butterfly. The Concept Farm (www.conceptfarm.com), BNY Mellon’s New York Citybased agency, worked out the metaphor. The house represents an investment portfolio. The house of cards beneath the surface of the house symbolizes the unexpected risks. The takeaway: BNY Mellon can overcome unexpected risks. The agency took the idea to Ntropic (www.ntropic.com), a postproduction and visual effects company with offices in New York City, San Francisco and Santa Monica. Ntropic asked about the mechanism that would destroy the house of cards. No one liked the easy answers: wind, fire or other real-world disaster. “We avoided violence and destruction,” said Andrew Sinagra, creative director with Ntropic. “We thought that would divert attention from the point. It’s not about destroying a house. It’s about investment problems created by unexpected risks.” How about a butterfly? Oh yes: The butterfly effect – a seemingly insignificant event sets off a chain reaction that produces tremendous, sometimes catastrophic results. “We worked out a 3D pre-visualization,” Sinagra said. “We also practiced turning the house into cards. The key was figuring out how many layers of cards would be necessary to create believable depth.” www.markeemag.com

The Helicopter and the Butterfly Next came a live shoot with a RED EPIC digital film camera. “The commercial begins with a big camera move pushing in on the house,” Sinagra said. “To get that footage, we mounted the camera on the nose of a miniature helicopter.” Other exterior shots used a 70-foot crane. That initial camera move also followed the path of the 3D butterfly, which Ntropic artists created in Autodesk’s Maya. Ntropic also built the cards in Maya and used the application’s particle system to put them in motion. “We attached particles to the cards,” explained Sinagra. “We keyed in data describing the cards, such as mass and how gravity would influence their path. We simulated a gust of wind, and the computer solved for what happens.” As the house of cards collapses from the roof down, the story moves inside where a man – the investor – is working at a desk. The cards appear as shadows on the wall as they fall past the window behind him. To create the shadows, the production team shot the man using a light reveal. A light at the window simulated the sun. A grip covered the light with a black cloth; during the shot, the grip pulled the cloth away gradually revealing the light. Entropic then selected a segment of that shot and replaced the shadows created in the live shot with shadows of cards. “We used the same light reveal technique to add reflections of the falling cards to a photograph on the desk,” Sinagra said. The commercial then cuts back to the card-storm outside with cards flying through the air. “This is completely CG,” Sinagra said. “We used a 2D still photo of the sky and distant mountains as the backdrop. We animated the cards in Maya and added the sun and a lens flare in post.”

[Above Top] In NY Mellon’s spot, the house is a metaphor for a person’s investments, which always involve some risk. Photos: Ntropic

The commercial closes with a long shot of the house showing 3D blueprint plans (investment advice) for rebuilding the parts of the house/portfolio that collapsed. Created in Maya, the 3D blueprint paper with drawings takes the shape of the parts of the house that have collapsed. Trinity 3D’s VRay handled the rendering. Foundry’s Nuke and Autodesk’s Flame did the compositing. The butterfly was last seen heading for a field of sunflowers.

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ANIMATION STUDIOS BY CHRISTINE BUNISH

Animation and VFX are often inextricably linked these days; so many animation studios have become inter-

These days, multidisciplinary teams are required to fulfill clients’ needs and to continue to astonish an increasingly savvy audience. 8

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disciplinary creative shops where multiple skill sets come into play. “You don’t do one without the other anymore,” says Ed Dye, director of design and VFX at Atlanta-based Artistic Image (AI). “You’re not just an animation studio, you’re enhancing the animation with VFX and completing the piece. It’s all a combined skill now – not separated by departments like it used to be.”

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Artistic Image Defends the Dome AI will be expanding its range of offerings by investing in Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve color correction suite. “It’s an important step,” says Dye. “We’ll be able to take color work to another level. With Resolve more companies are able to afford a DaVinci room, and you see more people doing great color.” The start of the NFL season found AI (www.artisticimage.com) helping the Atlanta Falcons “Defend The Dome” with animation for the Georgia Dome’s big screen that amped up the excitement level among fans. The :60 player intro, from Team Retail First/Atlanta, merged live-action clips of the Atlanta Falcons and running footage of this season’s featured vehicle, the Ford Explorer, with bold animation of the team’s namesake raptor to create a monumental video displayed during home games. “Giving the live footage a graphic look and balancing that with the 3D animation was the greatest challenge,” says Dye. The player intro opened with enormous 3D “Defend The Dome” lettering snapping on the screen in the red and black team colors. It cut to live action of the players emerging from the stadium’s tunnel through smoke effects to a cheering crowd. An animated stadium, radiating energy waves, called to a falcon in the woods, which left the forest to pursue a Ford Explorer on the interstate. The bird merged with the fastmoving vehicle, mapping its image on the Explorer as live-action clips of star players, sporting animated falcon wings, were freeze-framed against bold, graphic backgrounds. Finally, the Explorer entered the Georgia Dome and the falcon unmapped itself from the vehicle in time to catch a pass with its talons from Matt Ryan. “It’s time to rise up and Defend The Dome!” Dye notes that the Georgia Dome’s super-wide big screen gave AI an unusual canvas on which to work. “It wasn’t 16:9 but three times as wide – an odd shape to design for. We had to play to that format as well as to traditional 16:9 monitors scattered throughout the arena. The animation had to work in both aspect ratios – we couldn’t create it twice.” Daniel Wiggins modeled and animated the falcon and the Explorer using Autodesk Maya. Daniel Barnes modeled the stadium, textured the vehicle and rotoscoped the players; Jeff Ling lit and textured the animation. Andy Sapp and Owen Chikazawa handled the 2D animation and rotoscoping using Adobe After Effects. “One of our biggest challenges was building a falcon that not only moved like a real bird, but also translated into a graphic illustration – and looked amazing in both applicawww.markeemag.com

[Above Top] Ed Dye, director of design and VFX at Artistic Image.

[Above] Still from “Defend The Dome” spot.

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Animation Studios

[Above] In AI’s “Defend The Dome,” a falcon follows a Ford Explorer to the Georgia Dome.

tions,” says Dye. “We also had to figure out how the falcon would wrap on the car and come off the car. That animation needed to be quick, but still portray to the audience what was happening. Overall, our goal was translating a graphic look to video while still keeping it threedimensional and balanced with the live footage.” Wiggins crafted a falcon with all the attributes of a real bird and rigged it so it moved its wings, turned its head and flexed its talons like a real bird. “He had to build a very photographicallyrendered bird that also worked as a graphic element and matched the print campaign the agency had previously developed,” Dye explains. Baco Bryles, a freelance editor in San Francisco, cut the player intro. AI’s Owen Chikazawa performed the color correction in After Effects. “The graphic novel-type illustrative footage had to match the live action: We didn’t want it to look separate,” says Dye. “Owen had to match the color palettes and use the same black and mid-tone highlights so it all cut well together.” Matt Melburg at Riot Atlanta sweetened the audio for “Defend The Dome.”

Charlex Brings Notebook Doodles to Life

[Below] Charlex’s “Notebook” spot for Subway.

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New York City’s Charlex (www.charlex.com) is fueled by a diverse talent pool of designers, animators and Flame artists who enable the company to follow “a multidisciplinary approach while keeping an eye on the creative process as well,” says Ryan Dunn, who describes his role at Charlex as a hybrid of commercial director and creative director. “It’s all about servicing the client while making sure from a creative director standpoint that you don’t get lost in the diversity – the jack-of-all-trades syndrome. You want the end result to be more than the client could ever have imagined.” The venerable Charlex has revamped its 3D pipeline over the past year and transitioned to Chaos Group’s V-Ray for rendering. “It’s a big step forward in modernizing the pipeline and improving aesthetically what we’re able to produce in a very efficient way,” says Dunn of the software switch. Charlex also has transformed its stage into a “top-level studio” complete with a bluescreen, lighting grid, cameras and other toys. Despite a roster of sophisticated tools and capabilities, the company turned to whimsical, hand-drawn animation for the :15 “Notebook,” one of its recent spots for the Subway restaurant chain via MMB Boston. Charlex has a strong rapport with the agency, which trusts Charlex to “connect the dots” in a highly collaborative spirit. “For the back-to-school spot ‘Notebook,’ we knew they wanted to focus on the journey through a high-school student’s notebook, including the $25 Subway card and a free sandwich promotion,” says Dunn. “The nuance and details, the way we move through the book, was up to us. Our job almost felt like an artist’s commission – we really got to have fun.”

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The light-hearted nature of the spot was an ideal assignment for illustrator Masayoshi Nakamura’s idiosyncratic style and hand-drawn doodles; 2D animators Elena Wen and Lucas Borras brought a complementary aesthetic to the project. The trio drew on paper with colored pencils, Sharpie markers, and pen and ink. Nakamura created the main key frames, including characters of a skateboarding boy, a cheerleader, a kitten DJ and a retro-style rocketship, while Wen and Borass contributed food elements, such as a crying onion and a green pepper that hinges open like a lighter, and even a trumpet-playing octopus. “We made a library of stand-alone doodles with about 20 percent more elements than you see in the spot,” says Dunn. In addition, digital cel animation done

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[Above] Ryan Dunn, creative director at Charlex and one of the animated shots produced for Subway’s “Notebook.”

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Animation Studios

in Adobe Photoshop produced frameby-frame animations of surfing submarine sandwiches (based on an idea of Dunn’s), traveling outline arrows and the typographic supers. “We knew where to place the hero elements: the skateboarder traveling with the arrow, the Subway card, the tabletop footage,” Dunn recalls. “But we needed a bridge. We thought about a football player, but I came up with surfing subs” who ride an animated wave to the conclusion of the commercial. “The animators fleshed out the missing bits and made the spot rich,” Dunn points out. “It’s the kind of spot you want to watch over and over [Above] For Subway’s spot, digital cel animation was produced in Adobe Photoshop.

and still see things you missed.” Dunn brought creative director Manny Bernardez on-board to execute the stop-motion shoot of the environment. By combining VFX trickery and elements of stop motion, Bernardez was able to seamlessly build the entire environment where the doodles lived. “There’s been a resurgence of that DIY-type of look the past couple of years,” says Dunn. “That expressive, more analog style of animation is what I like to do. I like the immediacy and sense of accomplishment that stop motion gives you.” Next year, he looks for Charlex to “push the boundaries of what people have seen us do. We’re starting to see boards run the gamut, and we’re excited to bring different types of skill sets to a wider mix of media and techniques.”

Mirada Takes IBM’s Watson to the Doctor

[Below] Mirada produced VFX for IBM’s “Watson, M.D.” spot.

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Last year, LA-based Mirada (www.mirada.com) launched as a studio to explore the possibilities of storytelling across all media, a place to visualize and collaborate as a creative partner on projects from concept through finished VFX and final delivery. The studio encompasses conceptual design, development, animation, VFX, compositing, editorial and finishing. “We’re no longer just postproduction,” says VFX supervisor Jonah Hall. “We’re involved in prepro and production, too. We spend a lot of time working with the director and creative teams planning live action shoots, the story and design. We’re part of the whole process. ” One of Mirada’s recent standout projects was the :30 IBM spot, “Watson, M.D.,” directed by Motion Theory’s Mathew Cullen for Ogilvy&Mather/NY. The visually complex commercial posits how IBM’s Jeopardy-winning supercomputer, Watson, could assist a physician in diagnosing patients. A young man, played by an actor, is engaged with a real doctor in a patient/doctor interview. The voiceover explains that as the body of medical knowledge doubles every five years, IBM is developing new solutions, based on Watson, to help physicians analyze a patient’s history, symptoms and the latest medical literature to make faster, more accurate diagnoses. Mirada was involved from the spot’s pitch stage and helped develop and design the array of images moving, sorting and collating around the patient

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and doctor. Consultation with a physician produced a list of generic live-action elements to shoot based on doctors’ commonly asked questions about their patients’ recent activities, food consumption and travel. Cullen and DP Guillermo Navarro used a pair of RED EPIC digital cinema cameras and an ARRI ALEXA to capture the live action performance as well as plates of insects, livestock, plants and other elements on greenscreen. In the commercial, multilayered moving imagery illustrates the amount of data the doctor needs to sift through to arrive at a diagnosis. Live-action stills – flora and fauna, actual medical visualizations of the young actor’s anatomy, photos of family members, and images of pathogens, viruses, allergens and bacteria – form ribbons and stacks of documents for the physician to mentally page through as he ultimately homes in on a graphic display of probable diagnoses at the end of the spot. Mirada’s extensive tool kit includes Sidefx’s Houdini, which Hall dubs “a vital part of our visual effects toolkit. It allows you to do a lot of 3D animation, data visualization, programming and scripting, and compositing under one process instead of breaking them out separately.” Instead of creating a simple particle system and attaching the array of images to it, Mirada used a procedural algorithm to sort through the data to display onscreen. “We used math to create a system to collate, organize, present and dis-

[Left] Mirada VFX Supervisor Jonah Hall.

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Animation Studios

[Above] Mirada used a hexagonal cage structure to illustrate the doctor piecing together a diagnosis.

card the information, and play with its shape,” says Hall. “It started very randomly – you saw stuff everywhere in the spot. It was very important to Mathew Cullen that it be very clean and organized; you could see the immensity of the information, but it couldn’t be so cluttered that you didn’t see the organizational structure behind it.” So Mirada came up with a hexagonal cage structure, “like a giant mathematical honeycomb,” that enabled the doctor to visually piece together information that leads to Lyme disease as a high-probability cause of the young man’s illness. The Mirada team used scripting language to describe the behavior of the imagery and tell Houdini how to run all the graphics; there was almost no keyframe animation in the spot. They tapped The Foundry’s Nuke and Autodesk Flame for compositing. Mirada also had to be cautious in the spot’s storytelling. “We had an obligation not to imply that Watson is actually doing this,” Hall explains. “Watson is not in practical use yet for medical applications. This is an example of where IBM can take the technology in the future.” Production took just four weeks and included the medical consultations, a three-day live-action shoot, editorial, developing the animation engine and final integration of VFX.

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Five companies exemplify how this niche industry continues to thrive.

Moving On Up:

TRENDS IN MOBILE PRODUCTION After a long, cold winter in the mobile industry – and during today’s various and continuing iffy ecoBY MARK SMITH

Markee 2.0 |

nomic forecasts – many unit owners seem decidedly more upbeat these days. If that wasn’t the case, would Crew West be getting ready to upgrade its last truck for about $100,000 to get its entire fleet to full HD? Would truck builder Gerling & Associates have added 20,000 square feet to its headquarters and be contemplating more hiring? Or would Alliance Productions, the cooperative of the mobile providers, have trumpeted 2011 as its best year to date? Yes, there are still issues in the business, notably to do with fuel and travel costs; but, all told, the horizon is brightening in this end of the film and video production industry.

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[Clockwise from opposite page far Left] Camera Copters’ turnkey approach works on all types of projects. Crew West has been “busy as heck.” Alliance’s fleet consists of 48 trucks. Gerling has expanded to a 100,000-square-foot facility. A CVM Productions trailer interior.

Building the Business, Industry If what’s happening at Gerling & Associates, of Sunbury, Ohio, is any indication of trends in the mobile industry, the arrow on the chart is shooting upward. Gerling’s recent expansion has boosted its square footage from 80,000 square feet to a whopping 100,000 square feet. In addition, president Fred Gerling is “happy to say that [the business] acquired two new buildings and 10 acres, then hired 20 more employees,” adding that it may require 10 more engineering and construction workers during the first quarter. Today, Gerling has 40 trucks or trailers under construction that “break down across the entire spectrum of mobile facilities [trucks] built” on site. So if that sounds like business is booming, it is. “We’ve been told by reps of Sports Video Group [an industry trade association] that we’re responsible for about 90 percent of the television production truck and trailer fleet expansion in North America,” Gerling said. “We’re also proud of our exterior look which, in our case, is a seamless, rivetless appearance with sides that expand outward as much as 80 inches.” One reason appearance is important, he said, is because when a director shows up at a trailer and its looks great, “he assumes that the equipment is that well maintained on the inside, too. It also has a psychological impact on the production personnel, who might have to work 14-hour days.” www.markeemag.com

[Above] Gerling truck interior. The company has 40 trucks or trailers under construction.

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Mobile Production

Gerling-built trailers are used by all of the major production companies that produce HD sports coverage for the major networks in North America; international business also has been strong in Australia, the Philippines, Malaysia and South America, especially Brazil, said Gerling. He expects another big uptick in business. “Most of the major broadcast contracts for all sports expire in 2012-13,” Gerling said. “As new contracts are awarded, we expect new trailers that include our latest designs and features to be required.” [Above] Gerling-built trailers are used by all major production companies that produce HD sports coverage in the U.S.

[Below] An Alliance Productions/Corplex 53-foot HD expando was used to assist with GOP debate coverage.

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Group Effort A co-op of 13 mobile companies from across the United States, Alliance Productions serves “as a national sales force for broadcast outlets that are looking for a one-stop shop,” said General Manager Craig Farrell, noting the company’s offerings of equipment rental, crewing, production management and payroll. The Alliance fleet encompasses 48 trucks, including many 53-foot expandos, 30 of which are HD. More upgrades are en route, as the company will “definitely” be adding more trucks in 2012: Corplex just rolled out a new 53-foot HD expando; and Crosscreek Television Productions will convert two, 53-foot digital trucks to HD, as well as add a new HD unit. That’s good to hear, as the slow economy had held up expansion in some quarters in recent years. “There had been some issues with financing for some of the smaller companies that only had a couple of – or a few – trucks,” said Farrell, “but those opportunities are starting to open back up. The larger companies were not having that issue very often.” Farrell called 2011 the company’s “best year yet,” as it worked with a bevy of clients such as ESPN; the NFL; Versus (now NBC Sports Network); CBS; and Belmonte Productions, a New Jersey-based production company that packages boxing events worldwide. He’s predicting more sunny weather for 2012, especially with the NFL and NBA lockouts resolved, and the fact that Alliance “doesn’t do a lot of hockey” – which is

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important since the NHL’s current labor agreement is up soon. “We’re in a different position than most of the mobile companies since we’re a consortium that addresses the logistics of the industry and keeps the units closer to home. That’s important,” Farrell said, “because the big issues today are fuel and travel costs. That means our regional approach is critical in these cases.”

The Right Niche A fairly recent addition to the mobile sector, South Bend, Indiana’s CVM Productions has served the industry as a production company for two decades. It was about five years ago that it entered the mobile arena via “large corporate shows with a 20-foot cargo trailer that we built out into a small SD truck,” says CVM President Ron Vander Molen. As it happened, that corporate work spawned CVM’s entry into the small local sporting event market, where it has found a comfortable place of business. “Two years ago, we took that truck and started covering Horizon League college events,” says Vander Molen. “That led to our producing 10 Sprint Car races for Must See Racing,” which aired on about 20 regional sports nets. That meant it was time to make a move. “Since everyone was starting to use HD, we designed and built a 38-foot HD truck,” he said, “but wanted to stay within the smaller college markets that can’t afford the big trucks. That’s how we got the smaller colleges on the air.” Still, Vander Molen says, “It’s important to note that the HD truck has all of the same hardware that bigger trucks do,” like a Chyron HyperX, a GVG Kayak switcher, a Trinix NXT 3GSDI Digital Video Routing Switcher and the Yamaha M7CL 48 digital mixer, with five Sony HXC100K cameras. The unusual approach has worked thus far and has even revealed an extra market. “We have some bigger companies

www.markeemag.com

[Above] An Alliance/Corplex truck was used to produce this beach concert.

[Below Left] A CVM Productions compact HD trailer.

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Mobile Production

that are considering our truck as a B unit, too,” he said, adding, “Though we came in new during the middle of the college sports season, we’ve been pretty busy,” with some University of Illinois-Chicago home games on the agenda for Comcast Sports Net Chicago. As for that 20-foot SD trailer – CVM sold it to the University of Notre Dame, which uses it for video production at Notre Dame Stadium, “and we still crew it,” says Vander Molen.

Flying High

[Above] Camera Copters has everything a client needs for an on-location aerial shoot.

There are most mobile units, then there’s the mobile unit from Camera Copters, coined the “Big Rig.” It’s a NASCAR-inspired transport/production trailer that comes not just with the typical production and editing equipment, but everything clients need for an on-location aerial shoot – including an MD 500 helicopter, jet fuel, camera-mounting brackets, gyro-stabilized camera system, living quarters and crew. The tractor/trailer is key to getting the copter and gear to location, economically and efficiently. “We’re the only aerial production company that transports a helicopter and all the gear this way,” said Paul Barth, the owner/pilot. “We take that truck anywhere and everywhere, and even bring the client’s camera of choice for their project, be it 35mm, 3D, HD or IMAX.” Camera Copters (locations in California, New York and Florida), with its turnkey approach, works on all types of projects, from industrials to features; Barth said its highest-profile project during 2011, the company’s “busiest year yet,” was Superman: Man of Steel, for Warner Brothers, which shot in Chicago. The movie required the rental, all told, of four helicopters, one being the MD 500 mocked up like an Army “Little Bird.” Also dotting the dossier was work on 20th Century Fox’s Call Me Artie, which was lensed in Atlanta; and more in Newport, Rhode Island, for Jobson Sailing and ESPN. It’s plain to see that the Big Rig gets around. “After the Jobson project, we then went all the way to Gold Beach, Oregon, to shoot a MercedesBenz car spot on Highway 101 for Mission Photo Productions; we went coast to coast within five days,” Barth said. “Then it was on to Yaak, Montana, to shoot a segment for the History Channel’s Mountain Men for Warm Springs Productions of Missoula, Montana; then it was back to Atlanta for Call Me Artie; then up to Boone, N.C., again for Mountain Men. Now, that’s what I call nationwide,” he said.

The Two-Way Approach

With thousands of crews around the world, we find the right one for your shoot. Crew Connection.

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November/December 2011

The mobile business is a bi-regional effort at Crew West, which lives up to its name from its Phoenix office, where it also houses SatWest, and from Lakeland, Florida, the home of its sister company, Satellink. The company, which doesn’t own or offer production trucks, serves as a transmission source that supplies crews; it has two uplink trucks at each location, as well as an insert studio in Phoenix. It specializes in field acquisition. President Jim Farrell said the company is upgrading one of its trucks in Phoenix, “which will be our last truck to go to full HD. There’s nothing cheap in a satellite truck. For instance, the encoder, receivers and other components routinely cost $50,000 each; it costs anywhere from $70,000 to $140,000” to make such upgrades, he said. Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

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Given that price tag, it’s a great thing that Crew West has been “busy as heck in Phoenix in recent months,” covering such events as the Arizona/Arizona State football game for Fox Sports Net Arizona, MLB’s Arizona Fall League championship game for MLB Network and the Austin Trout vs. Frank LoPorto boxing match from El Paso, Texas, for Showtime. At press time, Farrell and company were preparing to head to the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 2 and its fifth consecutive Super Bowl, this year in Indianapolis, on Feb. 5. Crew West also is awaiting the start of 2012 NASCAR coverage, as well as MLB spring training and even work at Universal Studios Orlando for events like Harry Potter movies media tours. Farrell noted that the “new thing that’s been thrown at me lately” is Internet Protocol (IP) broadcasting. “We’re getting our first big IP job shortly,” he said. “It looks like its going to be very lucrative and we’re already looking into buying more equipment. “We’re making significant investments now,” Farrell said, “that could become even larger in the next year.”

www.markeemag.com

[Above] Crew West has been covering a great deal of sporting events recently in Arizona and Texas.

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Hot Spots:

CUTTING COMMERCIALS Editors showcase creative cuts that tell moving, evocative and unexpected stories for Hyundai, Lenovo, Advil, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and The Bush Foundation. BY CHRISTINE BUNISH

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Edit house: Cut+Run/Los Angeles Editor: Jay Nelson Beyond broadcast: The spot also ran on the web.

Advertiser: Hyundai

Campaign/spot: “Deprogramming”

Ad agency: Innocean Americas/Huntington Beach, Calif.

Production company/city: Smuggler/Los Angeles

Director: Oskar Holmedal (aka StyleWar)

DP: Matty Libatique The storyline: Jeff Bridges’s voiceover urges viewers to relax, forget everything they’ve been told about compact cars and focus on the TV screen, which fills with kaleidoscopic images composed of fast-talking salesmen, gas pumps, shapely legs, car seats and wheels that ultimately turn into bursts of light. Bridges snaps his finger to release viewers from their trance and introduces them to Hyundai’s 40 mpg Elantra. Why the spot’s on my reel: “It shows a level of thinking you don’t see in the typical spot. You have to be comfortable working in that genre of psychedelic, hypnotic imagery; it expresses a certain degree of design you have to have in you that comes from a lot of study – I was a painter – and an understanding of the tools.” The biggest creative challenge: “This was the apex of a larger Hyundai campaign for the Super Bowl. In the offline realm, it was hard to create anything like what you’re going to see in the finished spot. At first, we were building a structure and manufacturing all the imagery from scratch. I built the music bed and used the narrative of the voiceover to create the pace then massaged the imagery over a two-month period as [director] StyleWar shot what he wanted to see in the designs and flow. Nico Knudson, the 3D animator, was the guy who really poured the syrup on the waffles. It was a creative thrill ride for me!” The biggest technical challenge: “Nico [Knudson] is one of the greatest 3D artists I’ve ever seen – he worked so quickly that he was able to create a lot of kaleidoscopic effects within minutes. Technically that made everything easy for me. I placed live-action imagery into the structure of the spot, and Nico would then bring them to kaleidoscopic life. We went back and forth evolving the spot that way. Managing the transitions from scene to scene and finding a visual relationship between motion and composition was creatively challenging. But when we had to make script or timing changes that became technically challenging as we were working with so many different technology platforms. It was a joy to see images emerge out of 3D, go into my Final Cut system and seamlessly blend into shape. I was lucky to have been a part of the StyleWar process for those two months.” Input from other creatives: “The agency had some pretty large brains when they came up with a concept as radical as this one. Incorporatwww.markeemag.com

DP/car shoot: Paul Laufer

Colorist: Stefan Sonnenfeld, Company 3/Santa Monica

3D animator: Nico Knudson (aka StyleWar)

Online editing/VFX: Flame artist Bill Higgins, The Mill/Santa Monica

Sound mixer: John Bolen, Play/Santa Monica

Acquisition format/camera: ARRI ALEXA

Editing system: Apple Final Cut Pro

Awards: Winner, AICE 2011 “Design” category

[Top] Cut+Run’s work for Hyundai.

[Left] Cut+Run editor Jay Nelson.

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HOT Spots

ing the agency’s vision into the final product took a great deal of input from everybody – I was just one of the soldiers on the front line.” Why the spot works: “There’s no other automotive spot that can compare to this. It was an original idea from the get go and stands out among all the [car spots with] sheet metal and really awesome skids.”

Edit house: Pleasant Post/New York City Editor: Will Znidaric Advertiser: Lenovo

Campaign/spots: Do Devil campaign, “Do Devil Bungee,” “Do Devil Demolition,” “Do Devil Dirtbike”

Ad agency: Saatchi & Saatchi/New York City

Where to see the spot: http://www.youtube.com/user/LenovoVision

Production company: Limey/Los Angeles

Director: Scott Weintraub

DP: Morgan Susser

Colorist: Tristan Kneshke, Pleasant Post

VFX lead designer: Maryam Parwana, EP*Vision/New York City

Online editor: Bill Saunders, Pleasant Post

Sound mixer: Tim Korn, Pleasant Post

Acquisition format/camera: RED Digital Cinema’s RED One

Editing system: Apple Final Cut Pro [Top] Pleasant Post spot for Lenovo.

[Right] Will Znidaric.

Markee 2.0 |

The storyline: Lots of people work outside the office, but not everybody is the daring Do Devil who uses his Lenovo ThinkPad tablet to review a PowerPoint document while he’s dangling from a bungee cord attached to a skycrane in downtown LA. Why the spot’s on my reel: “It’s a single spot with a lot of different editing styles happening. The story has a slow, steady build up and a very deliberate pace, then we reveal the jump and dial up the action. There’s a nice energy to the spot, a real pop and flow with a great story arc and rhythm changes. A lot of different layers make it work.” The biggest creative challenge: “I had to figure how to heighten the tension of how literally high up the Do Devil was on the skycrane – the viewer had to feel that anticipation as he stepped toward the edge, then the jump and bounce had to have enough energy, vitality and realism to be compelling. I could have taken a straightforward approach, but ended up pushing things with speed ramps and changes and jump cuts to create a sensation of excitement.” The biggest technical challenge: “We tried to integrate the screen technology practically, but that didn’t work – the stunt jumper got ill and wasn’t able to do all the jumps we planned. We were able to use some POV shots as clean background plates and shoot some greenscreen and tablet screen action later and composite it in. By integrating the greenscreen and tablet screen action with the actual bungee jump footage we made it feel seamless. POV shots over the shoulder of the jumper helped sell the idea that this was really happening.”

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Input from other creatives: “We worked closely with our sister company EP*Vision early on about how best to acquire material for the VFX. And we worked together with the agency creatives to shape the rhythm and the story. It was my first time with this creative team, but we quickly realized we were all on the same page and had a lot of fun experimenting with different approaches to get to that place of mutual happiness.” Why the spot works: “A large part of what makes this spot stand out and be so effective is that it’s so unexpected. People typically use a tablet in very corporate environments – you can think of the most unexpected places to use it and go further and you still won’t get to a bungee jump! We knew we were working on something unique.” Beyond broadcast: 15-second broadcast teasers for the spot ended with a URL for the YouTube site especially created to showcase the entire commercial from the set up through the stunt.

[Below] Advil spot from ShootersNYC.

Edit house: ShootersNYC

[Bottom] ShootersNYC’s Anthony Marinelli.

Editor: Anthony Marinelli

Beyond broadcast: A version of “Bedtime Story” runs on the web.

Advertiser: Advil Congestion Relief

Campaign/spot: “Bedtime Story”

Ad agency: Grey Worldwide/New York City The storyline: A mom suffering from sinus congestion is trying to read nursery rhymes to her daughter at bedtime when a character clad in a Mucus T-shirt appears to tell her to stop blaming him for her nasal condition and seek a remedy in new Advil Congestion Relief. Why the spot’s on my reel: “I like the overall feel of it – the storytelling and humor, the performances and chemistry of the mother, little girl and the Mucus character. It’s funny and kind of quirky.” The biggest creative challenge: “Shooters also handled the production aspects of the spot. So instead of just getting a storyboard, I got to talk to [director] Peter [Odiorne] and the production team and feel part of the process even though I wasn’t on set. Being integrated into production made post that much more seamless.” The biggest technical challenge: “There weren’t any extreme technical challenges. I used split screens to get matches between some takes, we stabilized the opening dolly shot and put a glow on the type in the product animation to match the voiceover placement.” Input from other creatives: “Everyone loved the spot the minute they saw the rough cut. Very little changed in the structure of the spot – it was just a matter of holding onto the product shot longer or finding an alternate take here and there.” Why the spot works: “Because it doesn’t hit you over the head with sell. Although there are a lot of product mentions and the Mucus character talks clinically about sinus congestion, the storytelling aspects of the spot mask a hard sell and make it charming.” www.markeemag.com

Where to see the spot: www.shootersnyc.com

Production company: ShootersNYC

Director: Peter Odiorne, Sleeping Tree Films/Ardmore, Pennsylvania

DP: Andy Lilien

Colorist: Lenny Mastrandrea, Nice Shoes/New York City

Conform: Smoke artist Rob Graham, ShootersNYC

Audio post: Inhouse at Grey Worldwide

Acquisition format/camera: Sony PMW-F3 CineAlta camera

Editing system: Apple Final Cut Pro

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HOT Spots

Edit house: Wild(child) Editorial/New York City Lead editor: Antoine Mills Advertiser: New York-Presbyterian Hospital

Campaign/spots: “Amazing Things” five-spot campaign

Ad agency: Munn Rabot/New York City

Where to see the spot: http://links.wildchildpost.com/public/nypdawn.html

Production company: Lost Highway Films/New York City

Director: Peter Rabot

DP: Maryse Alberti

Colorist: Ron Sciarratta, Company 3/New York City

Online editor: Greg Rubin, Wild(child) Editorial

Sound mixer: Jonathan Helfand, Penny Lane Studios/New York City

Acquisition format/camera: Three ARRI ALEXAs

Editing system: Avid Media Composer

Awards: Last year’s “Amazing Things” campaign, by the same team, was a CLIO finalist in the film/Healthcare category

[Top] Wild(child) Editorial spot for New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

[Right] Wild(child)’s Antoine Mills.

Markee 2.0 |

The storyline: Real people recount their remarkable medical triumphs against the odds thanks to the highly skilled doctors at New York-Presbyterian and the personal connections they make with their patients. Why the spots are on my reel: “It’s rare for a commercial editor to have an opportunity to cut unscripted, real people in spots with this level of authenticity and emotion – and have an opportunity to take a documentary-style approach to editing. The campaign sets itself apart from traditional spots and brings diversity to my reel.” The biggest creative challenge: “Getting the story, the point of view across in 60 seconds without being too ‘ad-y’ or too pushy. I wove these stories together with a minimum amount of edits to keep the flow and genuine feel as each person shared their experience, so it was all about choosing key live-action moments and finding the right place to gracefully cut to a title card. And, although the stories varied, I had to maintain a certain cadence throughout the five spots in the campaign.” The biggest technical challenge: “These weren’t technical spots. They were shot in color, and we edited and finished in black and white to create a more emotive message and put the focus on the substance of each story. I set the tone and contrast for the black and white footage, and then the palette was reproduced by the colorist.” Input from other creatives: “One of the closest relationships I have with a creative is with [agency creative director and the spots’ director] Peter Rabot. It’s rare to get to work closely with a director, and from an editor’s standpoint it’s a bonus. The director is hired to bring forth a vision and often, if he’s not available after the shoot, his vision gets somewhat transformed. So it was a pleasure to be in the cutting room with the person who conceived this campaign.” Why the spots work: “Because they resonate with viewers on the most basic and genuine level. These people tell their stories with no interruptions, no voiceover, no complicated graphics and no nuances of color to soften them. They’re very stark and real. There’s almost a lack

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of advertising about them, and that’s what engages viewers. You can tell that these are everyday people sharing true stories that have impacted their lives – you couldn’t act these things, you just couldn’t.” Beyond broadcast: Mills cut three-minute videos for the web so visitors to nyp.org could hear the patients continue their stories.

[Below] The Bush Foundation spot from CRASH+SUES.

[Bottom] Carrie Shanahan, CRASH+SUES editor.

Edit house: CRASH+SUES/Minneapolis Editor: Carrie Shanahan Beyond broadcast: The spots ran on the web.

Advertiser: The Bush Foundation

Campaign/spots: “Mr. Adams,” “Mrs. Hanson”

Ad agency: Padilla Speer Beardsley/Minneapolis The storyline: How teachers have influenced and inspired today’s young professionals and the important role they are playing in forming the leaders of tomorrow who are still in their classrooms. Why the spots are on my reel: “I love getting the opportunity to collaborate on work that can be a force for positive change in the community. Plus, I think the spots are well written and well produced and have that shiver factor – they touch you emotionally and trigger memories. I’m a teacher at Miami Ad School and have a two-yearold son, so this theme is important to me on various levels.” The biggest creative challenge: “All of us at C+S were in on pre-pro, a luxury for which we will walk a mile. The team from Padilla Speer Beardsley and Quiet Island Films, along with Jeff Stonehouse who served as co-director and DP, were very open to our input in the concepting stage, and we were able to provide some suggestions on how best to shoot for the graphic blackboard/dry-erase board effects they were interested in achieving. It’s fun to talk about how to get the best product when the concept is not yet set in stone. Also, Jan Selby, the producer and co-director, cast all real people, including former teachers, and the results were fabulous.” The biggest technical challenge: “Although Jeff had framed for the animated graphics we needed to add showing the teachers’ names handwritten on a blackboard and dry-erase board, [Flame artist] Adam [Celt] had to animate the type so it hovered over the characters in an intentionally fluid way, then track and composite the names into the footage – a process that took considerable time and finessing.” Input from other creatives: “The agency was really open and easy to work with, and didn’t give us a lot notes for changes to make. These were not high-budget spots, but they were well crafted at every level.” Why the spots work: “We knew from the get-go that they were going to have to have the lump-in-the-throat factor, that they were really going to need to remind you of a teacher from your past whom you’ve carried with you. I think through tight writing, beautiful pictures and some nostalgic graphics they achieve it.” www.markeemag.com

Where to see the spots: crash-sues.com

Production company: Quiet Island Films/St. Paul

Directors: Jan Selby, Jeff Stonehouse

DP: Jeff Stonehouse

Colorist: SUE, CRASH+SUES

Graphics: Adam Celt, Alex Engelmann, CRASH+SUES

Online editor: Ryan Wheeler, CRASH+SUES

Sound mixer: Tyler Tholl, Echo Boys/Minneapolis

Acquisition format/camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Editing system: Apple Final Cut Pro

Awards: “Best Campaign,” Upper Midwest Emmy Awards

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Spotlight

South

The South This region is thriving with hundreds of productions each year.

The South is a beautiful and remarkable place. The diversity of its land and its people make for remarkable story telling, the evidence of which can be seen throughout film and television history. Today, 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 its endeavors, as this article will explain. Markee reached out to the state film offices in Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana and South Carolina to learn about their incentive packages and to get a sense for what it’s like to shoot in their states. B Y C O RY S E K I N E - P E T T I T E 28

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Alabama: A ‘Sweet’ home for TV and film production

[Opposite page photo credits clockwise from top left]

Alabama’s current tax incentive package provides a 25-percent rebate of all MudBrick Media, Louisiana Entertainment/Disney, Chris Kirk/S.C. Film, state certified expenditures exceeding $500,000 (but no more than $10 million) Kentucky Film Office. and 35 percent of all payroll paid to residents of Alabama for state-certified productions. Additionally, Alabama provides a 4-percent state sales tax break ($150,000 minimum spend) and a 4-percent state lodging tax break (also $150,000 minimum spend). Producers should note that while there is not a per project cap per se, Alabama only awards incentive on the first $10 million of qualifying production expenditures. Further, there is a state annual cap of $10 million for each year fiscal year. Production in the state is going strong, most notably with the CMT television series, Sweet Home Alabama, which currently is in production on season 3. Additionally, the independent film SkyHook has been filming in the state since November. It might still be a bit of an industry “secret,” but those in the know can attest to the beauty and diversity of Alabama, which the Alabama Film Office (http://alabamafilm.org) says has 13 physiographic regions, from beaches to forests to farmland to mountains. Alabama can offer filmmakers a wide variety of spectacular location possibilities, which are in relative close proximity to one another. Additionally, there are several sound stages available through local production companies. As the Alabama Film Office [Above] says, with such a variety of locations, Alabama certain- Filming SkyHook inside MudBrick Studio's, private concert venue in Mobile, Ala. Photo: MudBrick Media ly has “great stories to be told and filmed.”

[Above] Filming for SkyHook, outside MudBrick Studio, Mobile, Ala. Photo: MudBrick Media

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November/December 2011

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Spotlight

South Kentucky: Natural beauty – and horses too

[Above] Ides of March Photo: Kentucky Film Office.

Though the state is widely known for its horses, Bluegrass music and bourbon, Kentucky’s topography and terrain make the state a perfect location for many productions. In fact, according to Patrick Stipes, operations manager for the Kentucky Film Office, “Film makers love our mountains in the east, rolling horse farms in the central portion of the state, and the massive bodies of water in the west,” he said. “Oh yes, we are home to the largest cave systems in the world; Hollywood loves that!” And one must not forget the state’s 1,100 commercially navigable miles of waterways – the most running water of every state except Alaska. So what has been keeping the film office (http:// filmoffice.ky.gov) busy lately? There are several major motion pictures set to shoot this spring – most are confidential at this point, the film office says. Additionally, Kentucky has seen a huge increase in shooting of outdoor television/reality/survival show projects. Twelve such shows used locations in Kentucky in 2011, and 16 more shows are set for this year. Recent films shot in the state include Secretariat (2010), Land of Tomorrow (2011), and Ides of March (2011), which starred and was directed by Kentucky native George Clooney. The state’s natural beauty is its major attraction for location scouts and producers, but Kentucky offers tax incentives as well. According to Stipes, Kentucky has a 20-percent refundable tax credit. Current minimum expenditures are set at $500,000 for feature films or television productions; the threshold for commercials is $200,000, while the threshold for documentary and Broadway projects is $50,000.

[Above] Horse farm in central Kentucky Photo: Kentucky Film Office.

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November/December 2011

Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

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Louisiana: Much more than swamps and plantations Louisiana has been on fire lately – figuratively speaking, of course. Friendly tax incentives, state-of-the-art production and postproduction facilities, and steady work for crews are enticing the film and TV industry to head south. In fact, according to the Louisiana Entertainment division of the Louisiana Economic Development office (http://louisianaentertainment.gov), production applications in 2010 marked Louisiana Entertainment’s highest year on record, with more than 140 productions applying. These applications totaled about $1.4 billion in total spending and $898 million in Louisiana spending. For 2011 (as of November 8), the state had received 130 film applications with a total anticipated spend of $1.6 billion, but over $1.1 billion in Louisiana spending, which puts the state on track to meet and/or exceed the numbers for 2010. It is perhaps the state’s diverse locations and geography that make Louisiana such a desirable backdrop. If you thought all the state has to offer – aside from New Orleans – are plantation properties and swamps, think again. The cities of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport have all doubled as other major U.S. cities, such as New York and Los Angeles. For example, the feature film Battle Los Angeles (2011) was filmed in Baton Rouge and Shreveport, and their downtown locations doubled for an apocalyptic view of Los Angeles. In addition to its varied settings, the state offers financial incentives to productions as well. Currently, Louisiana offers motion picture productions a 30 percent transferable credit on total in-state expenditures, with no cap and a minimum spending requirement of $300,000. For productions using instate labor, Louisiana offers an additional 5 percent labor tax credit on the payroll of employed residents. This very appealing offer has led to hundreds of local productions in recent years, including the 2010 Disney film Secretariat (pictured), Paramount’s feature film G.I. Joe 2 Retaliation (Currently shooting in New Orleans and scheduled for a summer 2012 release.), HBO’s

[Above] Diane Lane in Secretariat. Photo courtesy of Louisiana Entertainment/Disney

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Spotlight

[Above] Dylan Walsh and Diane Lane in Secretariat. Photo courtesy of Louisiana Entertainment/Disney

South acclaimed TV series Treme (currently shooting season 3 in New Orleans), and Nu Image/Millennium’s feature film The Paperboy (Shot in New Orleans/Gretna for seven weeks and is currently in post-production.). “It’s all about knowing that you’re going to get the maximum benefit for your dollar,” said Louisiana Entertainment’s Katharina Spindler. “You’re going to come to Louisiana and get an A-list crew, some of the best post-production facilities available, and be able to shoot any type of picture here. Louisiana can provide just about any service or location a production company needs. Louisiana’s success is largely thanks to the state’s ability to attract repeat business.” It’s not just temporary productions that have taken notice of Louisiana; many industry professionals have decided to make the state their home, according to Louisiana Entertainment. “The weather here is great for filming year-round and another competing factor about Louisiana is that when people come here, most of them realize they can live here and steadily work,” said Spindler. For example, Moonbot Animation Studios (www.moonbotstudios.com) is among the production companies recently settling in the state. The company is Louisiana’s first fully functioning animation studio. Among its most well known work is the animated short The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore, which is winning almost every festival it enters, and has become a successful app on the iPad. “So a lot of people wind up moving here because they can own property for far less than it costs elsewhere, and they can consistently work in the industry they love,” she continued. “Our crew base is nine to 10 crews deep, which is a nearly 400-percent increase since 2002. We have seen a 22-percent growth in the industry’s workforce each year.”

[Above] Dylan Baker, Diane Lane, Nelsan Ellis, Otto Thorwarth, and John Malkovich in Secretariat. Photo courtesy of Louisiana Entertainment/Disney

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November/December 2011

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Editor’s note: More Southern locations will be featured in the Jan/Feb 2012 issue of Markee, including Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina.

South Carolina: Ready when you are South Carolina has been the backdrop for more than 100 feature films, and 70-plus TV movies, series, and pilots. So it’s no surprise that the state is known as one of the country’s leading incentive states for feature films and series. Perhaps unique to South Carolina, the state’s production incentives differ from most states’ programs in that the state provides a cash rebate, paid to the production company within 30 days of final audit. What that incentive package includes is up to a 20 percent cash rebate on wages, 30 percent cash rebate on expenditures with South Carolina vendors, up to 8 percent sales and use tax exemption ($1 million dollar minimum spend in the state). All of this, plus diverse film locations and a mild climate make for ideal shooting conditions for virtually any production requirements. For example, crew for the 2010 film Dear John, were able to shoot Kosovo, Africa, Afghanistan, and Europe within 30 miles of their base in Charleston, including beautiful city, county and beach scenes. Additionally, Lifetime’s TV series Army Wives has been filming in the state since 2007 and will wrap production on season 6 in March. “Use your imagination, we have it for your film,” said Tom Clark, of the South Carolina Film Commission (www.filmsc.com). In addition to location shooting, Studio Charleston is a new soundstage and production facility that provides filmmakers with 70,000 square feet of production space, including a large cyc-wall for photo and film work, the HANGAR Studio stage setting with 40-foot-high ceilings, and everything in between. “We believe Studio Charleston will be a major component of the state’s production industry,” said Studio Charleston founder Harald Galinski in a recent news release. “Feature-films, TV shows, commercials, music videos, all types of projects need a production infrastructure to function effectively. And the state needs a space like this to compete for those projects.” Clearly, South Carolina is ready when you are. “We have ready and willing crews, as well as a diversity of locations and great service from the Film Commission before, during and after the ‘sale,’” says Clark.

[Above] Abandoned Shrimp Boat in Lucy Creek Photo courtesy of Chris Kirk/S.C. Film

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Inside View

Tippett Studio | by Christine Bunish

Matt Jacobs VFX supervisor – Tippett Studio • Berkeley, California • www.tippett.com

Markee: You started with Tippett Studio in 1997 doing VFX compositing. How did that prepare you for VFX supervising? Mr. Jacobs: “In compositing you wind up interfacing with all departments, so it gives you a well-rounded overview of VFX. Even though you’re at the end of the pipeline, it’s useful for compositing to get involved early when there are issues to be addressed that will affect your work. I comp supervised a number of shows then went on to VFX supervise my first show, The Golden Compass, which had about 40 shots, in 2007. Then I did New Moon, the first in the Twilight series, which featured our signature wolves. More recently, I was VFX supervisor for the treasure vault sequence in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II and the Titans sequence near the end of Immortals.” Markee: What did Tippett’s contribution to Immortals consist of? Mr. Jacobs: “All of the work we did on Immortals revolved around animating characters for the film. “It’s the sequence where the Titans are released from their tomb and the gods come down. When we came onto the project, choreography had been built around the five gods fighting the Titans within their tomb. Initially, the Titans were supposed to be all CGI, but for budgetary reasons they decided to use a lot of the practical footage they shot with stuntmen as reference footage for editorial. We had to recreate those performances over four days by taking the same stuntmen Titans and gods to the motion capture stage.” Markee: Why was motion capture a good solution? Mr. Jacobs: “It was incredibly valuable to go directly from shooting the film 36

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to the mo cap stage with the stuntmen – they were all prepped and knew the performances like the backs of their hands. In fact, when we started lining up the mo cap performances with the production footage, the mo cap timings matched incredibly well. “This was the first time that Tippett embraced motion capture. We’ve always been a key-frame animation facility. So we brought in people to help us bridge the gap and process the mo cap performances that came into the studio. Mo cap has a place when you’re trying to capture human performances – which is the most difficult thing for an animator to do – and when you have a big volume of human animation to do. Mo cap is the fastest way to get very specific – and very believable – performances into the pipeline. Yet you need highly skilled animators to take those performances and push them into something even more extraordinary.” Markee: While the rest of Immortals was shot in stereo 3D the Titans scene was not? Mr. Jacobs: “That’s right. The fact that this sequence was going to be converted to 3D later influenced our decision on how to create all the blood – director Tarsem Singh called this sequence ‘a ballet of blood.’ We opted to create the blood through fluid simulations instead of filming elements on our stage and compositing them. We felt we could better maintain continuity of the fight’s very stylized look – the Titans die in slow motion, and so the blood was to be in slow motion, too. “But it was very challenging to try to art direct the blood! It can be really difficult to do with fluid simulations. We had numerous iterations of each

November/December 2011

blood simulation, then adjusted the nuances to get the look we were going for. “Immortals also was the first film on which we used [The Foundry’s] Nuke for compositing, which helped us a lot. We were able to use Nuke to get extra levels of detail wounds on the Titans. Our compositors projected blood drips and splatter to enhance the wounds.” Markee: What was the most fun aspect of working on Immortals? Mr. Jacobs: “It’s always great when you’re learning new stuff and trying new things. Our entire team embraced a lot of new tools for Immortals, and the end result is really cool. This is not an industry where you want to become too set in your ways.” Markee: What’s next for you? Mr. Jacobs: “Tarsem [Singh’s] retelling of Snow White called Mirror Mirror. It’s a 180-degree turn in content from Immortals – there won’t be blood and guts. But we’re working on some really cool creature animation.”

Film • Video • Animation • Audio • Locations • People

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