Digital Video - September 2007 - (Page 29)

left: Director Martin Wood (left) confers with Emilie Ullerup (Ashley Magnus) and Christopher Heyerdahl (John Druitt). fresh drive, download the contents of the full FireStore to a computer on set, and run it across the street to the Final Cut Pro-based post. Everyone on set had to turn their cell phones off, as their signals caused audio dropouts; Wood also recalls the crew referring to the camera-recorded tape backup a handful of times. But for those minor snags, the director estimates the tapeless production saved $5,000-$10,000 in transfer costs. Just as he’s established a shorthand with Menard and other crew over years of collaboration, Wood has a vocabulary to describe virtual scene elements with his actors, like show star Amanda Tapping (also a Stargate veteran, who came aboard Sanctuary early on as one of its executive producers). “I’m always watching the action with the model or the background in my head,” he notes. “The actors may not see it, but I can always tweak their performance to get to that point.” The director is confident that with eight completed Webisodes under their belts, cast and crew alike will move more comfortably about Sanctuary’s sets when shooting for the series’ third hour commences this fall. The CG sets have been built to last. Production designer Todd Van Hulzen (Girl with a Pearl Earring) insisted on making Sanctuary “as anatomically correct as it could be,” Wood notes. “As a television director and producer, I’m used to saying to set designers, ‘Let’s have a hall here,’ and they’ll go, ‘OK.’ With Todd, he’ll often say, ‘You can’t have a hall here, because it doesn’t attach to there.’ I’m like, ‘It doesn’t attach to anything—it’s in a virtual world.’ And he’ll say, “No, I’m not going to do that!” It’s cool—it’s as if I’m talking to a location manager.” Rather than waste resources rendering one-time-use rooms, Wood and Van Hulzen designed the halls of Sanctuary such that they can return to them in future Webisodes, like navigating levels of a videogame. Speaking of games, Wood adds that the sets are as open-source in their design as possible, in the hopes that game developers—when they come aboard—will be able to simply repurpose the existing environment. “All of this information and data will be available to them,” Wood says, “so that they can move through the same Sanctuary that we move through.” For now, the world of Sanctuary remains online— and beginning with the fifth 15-minute Webisode, the show’s producers are asking viewers to pony up $2.49 for a high-def download. (In addition to buying downloads from the sanctuaryforall.com Web site, viewers also could catch the first four Webisodes for free on the likes of YouTube.) Wood estimates that nearly 300,000 people need to buy each Webisode to cover its production—a tall order, even if the show concedes some of its precious funds to banner advertising and other online marketing. Following its Internet run, the series may very well make its way onto traditional TV and DVD media. The online business model may yet prove itself, but nevertheless, the Canadian director claims a victory in simply getting Sanctuary to a mass audience without the help of a studio in the U.S. ■ WWW.DV.COM DV SEPTEMBER 2007 29 http://sanctuaryforall.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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