Encore Hollywood Provides Visual Effects for the WB's Charmed
HOLLYWOOD, Nov. 18, 2003 -- Encore Hollywood is currently providing visual effects services for the sixth season of WB's hit series Charmed, which means its crack team of artists is busy helping pretty young witches "orb" into and out of tight situations, "vanquish" evildoers and turn cuddly dogs into handsome young men. This season, Encore artists will even have a hand in eliminating the Golden Gate bridge and in conjuring a fire breathing dragon that menaces the Halliwell sisters, better known as "the Charmed Ones."
Creating visual effects for Charmed, produced by Spelling Television, is a full throttle undertaking. Encore Hollywood produces on average more than 75 visual effects shots for each 1-hour episode of the show. With the current season slated to include 22 hours, that works out to more than 1600 shots in a tight six month production schedule.
"Visual effects are very important to Charmed," said Peter Chomsky, the show's co-producer. "It's a show about magic and without being able to convey the magic of the magic we wouldn't be Charmed. We have gone as big as 150 visual effects in a single 1-hour show. They can be as simple as a wire removal, which isn't necessarily "˜simple,' all the way up to the "˜vanquish' of a demon spread across five shots, and everything in between. It's all a part of the repertoire that we use to tell the story."
Remarkably, nearly all of that work is accomplished by Encore Hollywood Visual Effects Producer Tim Jacobsen and four artists, Jason Fotter, Trey Freeman, Sean Mullen and Craig Kuehne. (Occasional additional support is provided by Encore's 3D team of Greg Tsadilas, Matt Von Brock, Dan Lopez, Mitch Gates and Kurt McKeever; and by Inferno artists Mandy Sorenson and Bob Minshall.) During the show's first season, most of the visual effects work was accomplished via Discreet Inferno platforms, but over the years the workload has shifted to desktop systems and now 90-percent of the show's effects are accomplished via Adobe AfterEffects on 4 Power Mac Dual G4s running OSX.
The shift in technology has had a dramatic effect on the show as the lower cost desktop solution has enabled the producers to incorporate many more effects into their product. An average episode from this year's season of Charmed will have four times as many effects shots as an episode from the show's first year.
"We have a great Mac team. They are very good at compositing and creating effects," observed Jacobsen. "Because the effects cost less, the producers are able to write in a lot more and they are able to try more things. They are now venturing into the CG world more as well."
"A lot of people are surprised to learn that we are doing full visual effects work on Mac boxes," added Freeman. "But the systems are getting faster and they are closing the gap with SGI. Now we use Inferno only for the most difficult tracking work or other, especially intense effects."
Certain types of effects recur repeatedly in Charmed. The most common is "orbing," the technique Paige, Leo and other "White Lighters" use to travel from place to place. It's similar to the transporter effect from Star Trek but with a more magical bent as characters assume an ethereal glow before appearing or disappearing. Each character orbs in a slightly different way and Encore Hollywood has refined the technique to such a science that different artists specialize in different characters' distinct way to orb.
"Specializing in certain effects helps us to keep up with the sheer volume of work that comes our way," explained Fotter. "Tim divides up the shot list for the show based on the work we've done before and what each one of us is particularly good at. But in crunch time, when we might have less than a week to turn around a show, we'll all pitch in and help each other out."
Transformations are another Charmed staple. Being witches the Charmed Ones and their foes are fond of turning themselves and other people into water coolers, mop sticks or the family pet. In an episode from the current season Mullen created a transformation in which Piper undergoes a costume change by effecting a transition between before and after still frames. An added glow helped to mask the seam and give the shot an appropriately magical feel. Because the "A" and "B" sides were not a perfect match, Mullen cut out Piper's hands from the B side of the shot and composited them into the A side to avoid a jarring twitch.
Kuehne did something similar for a shot from another current episode in which evil "Valkryeis" cause the Golden Gate bridge to vanish. With, obviously, no clean plate available, Kuehne had to cut out the bridge's web-like structure, and then painstakingly paint in missing details of water, sky, land and buildings.
Character transitions and magical appearances often occur in scenes where the camera is moving or where other talent are present in the shot. The show's fast paced production schedule precludes the acquisition of camera tracking data, obliging Encore's artists to replicate camera action by eye, hand and feel. When shooting production elements for an orb sequence, other actors in the shot are simply asked to freeze in position when the camera stops and the orbing actor assumes his or her place. Encore artists typically use morph effects to disguise the inevitable small facial or body movements that occur in such situations.
"We do that kind of effect 20 times an episode, every time there is a transition and someone else is in the shot," Mullen explained. "To viewers, it looks like continuous action."
"Our ability to quickly make such fixes helps the show to stay on schedule," he added. "In the time we have been on Charmed there have been perhaps three instances where they needed to re-shoot something that couldn't be fixed in post."
Encore Hollywood also works collaboratively with Stephen Lebed, the show's Visual Effects Supervisor. A talented CG artist in his own right, Lebed occasionally produces CG effects for the show himself before passing them along to Encore for integrating with the live action. Lebed, for example, created the wholly computer-animated dragon character that appears in some 30 shots in one of this season's episodes.
Having worked together for several seasons, Encore's team has developed a close rapport with everyone on the production team from the executive producers and writers on down. "Because I've worked with many of the same artists going on six seasons, they know the style that I go for with visual effects," said Chomsky. "Now, typically the first time through I am very happy with what they show me."
Having that kind of dependable rapport is crucial to keeping pace with Charmed's hectic schedule, Chomsky added. "I drop in the final visual effects on Wednesdays during the color timing and the final mix, I deliver the show on Fridays and it airs on Sundays," he noted. "That is our schedule for 22 episodes. The team at Encore knows that we are that tight and they don't get too excited. They just get the job done and get it done well."
Charmed is produced by Spelling Television, Inc., a Paramount/Viacom company. Aaron Spelling and E. Duke Vincent (7th Heaven, Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place) serve as executive producers along with Brad Kern (Hill Street Blues, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, New York Undercover). Charmed was created by Constance M. Burge (Savannah).
Encore Hollywood is located at 6344 Fountain Avenue, Hollywood, California 90028. For more information, call (323) 466-7663 or visit
www.encorehollywood.com.
Source: Encore Hollywood
