Digital Video - September 2007 - (Page 28)

close-ups Shooting in the Sanctuary Digital workflow rules CG-heavy online series. BY TERENCE KEEGAN below: Amanda Tapping, longtime headliner of the hit series Stargate, leads Sanctuary as Dr. Helen Magnus. fter spending the last decade producing and directing TV’s sci-fi cult hit Stargate, Martin Wood is no stranger to virtual worlds. So when Stargate collaborator Damian Kindler came to Wood last year with a new script—in which an ass-kicking mother-daughter team chases a baldheaded bad guy through a world rife with mutant creatures, labyrinthine underground hideouts and time-travel portals—the director immediately saw a videogame look and feel for the project. Add to the mix Vancouver, B.C.-based Stage 3 Media, a new media design firm, along with a few visionary production partners, and Sanctuary was destined to become the biggest-budget direct-toWeb series to date. Wood notes that a traditional live-action produc- A tion could have burned through the series’ multimillion dollar budget in the blink of an eye. “To make Sanctuary look as big as it needed to, we couldn’t do it traditionally, [building] massive sets and [shooting on] locations. You can blow $100,000 on constructing a set, and people would never know.” Instead, Sanctuary would integrate real actors into a virtual world, somewhat in the style of a 300 or Sin City. Stage 3 completed some two hours of HD sequences featuring monstrous CG beings, period settings, and a cavernous virtual church for $4.5 million CDN (about US$4.3 million). Wood began production with a prototype 3D Inserter pre-visualization system from UK-based Mosys, building avatars with Ron Martin, Stage 3’s VFX supervisor, for two months. The Mo-sys pre-viz tool “was just in its infancy as we started out,” Wood remembers—but after a round of marathon codewriting sessions, integration between compositors and live-action was as transparent as “set up a dolly shot and shoot.” Led by cinematographer James Alfred Menard— Wood’s longtime Stargate DP—the Vancouver-based production shot in 24p with a Panasonic HDX900 outfitted with a B4 adapter for two Canon zooms. “The VFX guys are used to prime lenses to get an accurate measurement when they go to composite and model,” Wood says. “Originally, the zooms freaked them out—the wider lenses tend to give you a bit of weird parallax to the side when you’re panning with them” that in turn distorts VFX. But with the zoom lens specs entered into the Mo-sys, Stage 3’s compositors kept cool and model movement remained clean. The heavy CG content did add a dimension to the crew’s otherwise-standard greenscreen lighting approach. “We’re matching up more closely the models to what we’re shooting on set,” Wood says, so that virtual and actual sources alike light the action. In future shoots, a CG lighting specialist will join Menard on set. The crew recorded audio and video both directly to camera-mounted FireStore hard drives—a workflow first for all involved. Sound traveled wirelessly from mics to mixer and finally, a receiver on the camera head. As each of the Focus Enhancements FireStores filled up, the crew would swap it out for a 28 DV SEPTEMBER 2007 WWW.DV.COM http://www.dv.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Digital Video - September 2007

Contents News AG-HPX500 HD Camcorder First Look: Color V8000HD 8" LCD Monitor Shoulder Mount System Instant Expert Close-Ups Fest Cercuit Q&A Flight Plan Cutter's Way Imagination in Action Motion Graphics Production Diary

Digital Video - September 2007

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