By Robert Goldrich

LOS ANGELES --

Over the years, Zoic Studios has had a hand in 17 VFX Emmy nominations, the two latest coming this awards season in the Outstanding Special and Visual Effects category–one for the “We Are Grounders, Part 2” episode of The 100 (CW Network); and the other for Zoic artisans–VFX lead Michael Cliett, VFX producer Steve Melchiorre and 2D lead Jared Jones–for the Almost Human pilot (Fox). Artisans from studios Bad Robot (filmmaker J.J. Abrams’ production company) and Zoic were named in the Almost Human nomination. Meanwhile Zoic was the primary effects house on The 100.

Of The 100 nom, digital effects supervisor Andrew Orloff noted that the other nominated shows included installments of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Game of Thrones and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “I’m super proud that we were able to put out such high quality work within the schedule and budget of an in-season broadcast show and have it nominated along with higher budgeted programs,” said Orloff. “It’s a real win for the crew here in our Vancouver office.” Zoic maintains studios in Culver City, Calif., and Vancouver, B.C.

“We’re a little startup show now filming our second season,” said Cliett who is also a nominee as visual effects supervisor on The 100. “This nomination was for a first season episode of The 100 and to have it in such high profile company up against Game of Thrones and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is gratifying.”

As for the creative challenges posed by the nominated episode of The 100, Cliett noted that series creator/head writer/executive producer Jason Rothenberg wrote a sequence where post-apocalyptic human survivors are on a space station Ark rotating around the Earth. They try to return to Earth on the Ark which re-enters the planet’s atmosphere, breaks up into pieces, triggering explosions. “It was an incredibly dynamic and very ambitious sequence,” recalled Cliett. “Jason left it up to us in terms of how to visualize what he wrote. We designed the entire sequence.”

Orloff added, “Technically our biggest hurdle was all the dynamic effects–fire, smoke, pieces of debris. There was great attention to detail. When the Ark breaks up upon reentry, we break up the big pieces in animation, then make those pieces break up at different junctures. Smaller pieces break up and explode while other little pieces of debris vaporize in the atmosphere. From pre-vis on, it was an enormously time consuming process. And with our tight schedule, we only had one or two shots at getting it right.”

The Zoic ensemble also created a mutated horse for the nominated episode of The 100. A horse was lensed on location with Zoic placing tracking markers on the animal. A second digital prosthetic head was then coupled with the horse–the mutation resulting from the radiation that was still on Earth years after an apocalyptic nuclear war.

“The interaction and collaboration between the Zoic artists and the series directors, interfacing with creatives at the show and at Warner Brothers, played a key role in helping us bring it all together,” said Orloff.

As for Zoic’s contributions to the pilot for Almost Human, Cliett cited the Blade Runner-esque futuristic worlds created for the series. “We were able to creatively augment the skyline of Vancouver where the show was shot.”

Thus far, Zoic over the years has scored two VFX Emmy wins–the first in 2003 for Firefly (Fox),  and in 2010 for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS).

Vikings
For the second straight year, Vikings (History) has been nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Special and Visual Effects in a Supporting Role. This time around, the nomination comes for the episode titled “Invasion.”

This marks the third consecutive year that the Emmy competition has broken down artistic excellence in visual effects on primetime television into two distinct categories based on the role of VFX in a show–one for VFX-driven programs, the other honoring those efforts in which VFX play a supporting role.

As defined by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the Outstanding Special and Visual Effects category honors nominees behind effects-driven programs where VFX are routinely present and essential to the storytelling–shows which could not have been realized without the inclusion of VFX. Programs in this category could include shows dealing with space travel, the supernatural, creatures, fantasy themes, superhero powers and/or CG or puppeteered creatures, etc., and have extensive use of computer graphics, virtual sets (environments which are created almost entirely in computer and could include performers shot on green or blue screen), and large-scale pyrotechnic and mechanical special effects.

By contrast, the Emmy category Outstanding Special and Visual Effects in a Supporting Role honors the overall achievement of VFX in programs where those effects are used on a more modest scale, play a supporting role contributing to the storytelling, and are often photorealistic and invisible to the viewer. A supporting role may include set extensions (the creation, enhancement or augmentation of a practical location or physical set), sky replacements, atmospheric phenomenon, scientific visualizations, crowd replication, fire, smoke, elemental enhancement, and similar effects. Such effects are used more sparingly to help create the setting, environment or mood of a given scene, or to illustrate a scientific principle–but the program does not absolutely require the use of special visual effects to tell the story.

Prior to 2012, the two VFX Emmy categories were not based on the role or nature of the effects themselves. Instead the categories were predicated on the program format–one category for long-form projects, the other for TV series. The change from program to role-based VFX categories has generally been favorably received, putting nominations on more of an even playing field and akin to the structure which the Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards have had in place for many years.

Dominic Remane, visual effects supervisor for Vikings, said, “It’s a great honor to be nominated for two straight years. I think we’ve been able to achieve a higher quality of visual effects this time around. We spent the first season establishing the characters, getting the geography correct and the look that the writer and production designer envisioned. Now in season two, it’s more about the journey which has opened things up for bigger scope visual effects compared to the first season.

For the “Invasion” episode, a major challenge both technically and creatively, related Remane, was to depict a violent storm, revealing treacherous rocks and having actor reactions timed perfectly to the waves and the perils before them.

Remane, who is with visual effects house Mr X, noted that the studio prior to Vikings was pretty much focused on feature film VFX. John Weber of effects studio Take 5 had approached Mr. X in the past with TV assignments but to no avail. However, when Weber brought season one of Vikings to the table, Mr. X decided to diversify into television. Since then, said Remane, Mr. X has worked on Penny Dreadful (Showtime) and has two or three other shows on the docket.

Da Vinci’s Demons
Also scoring an Emmy nomination for the second straight year in the Outstanding Special and Visual Effects in a Supporting Role category is the Starz series Da Vinci’s Demons, the most recently coming for the season 2 finale episode titled “The Sins of Daedalus.”

Tom Horton, series visual effects supervisor/producer, reflected on the challenges he and his team encountered on “The Sins of Daedalus.” He recalled, “We received the script for our finale episode a few weeks before we were scheduled to shoot and I think the whole production team all needed immediate medical attention after we read it!  The biggest challenge for us all was the recreation of the warmth and visual richness of the Mediterranean Italian seaside town of Otranto in the dead of winter in Swansea Wales.  The bulk of the episode played out in ‘sunny’ Otranto and I think we were averaging eight hours of daylight a day at the time, and being in windy and rainy Wales there was no guarantee that we would actually get to see that daylight.  There was a brief moment of head scratching, but I have to say that the production team on Da Vinci’s Demons is one of the most creative and collaborative groups of craftsmen I have ever worked with, and we all just threw ourselves into the challenge.  We collectively poured over every scene,  problem solved every shot,  every frame, pushing around options from locations, to set builds, to CG.  In the end our amazing production design/art department built an Otranto City street, a war room, an Ottoman Flag Ship deck, and a castle Battlement in our extremely compressed pre-production time frame, which were supplemented by some local beach locations.  Unfortunately for the VFX department, the battlement set that almost 50 percent of the episodes drama played out on was a 220-degree green screen, and the drama on that green screen–120 Ottoman warships rowing in a Mediterranean bay (with 100 oars on each ship) towards Da Vinci–was going to have to be created entirely in CG.

“On top of the obvious challenges of such complex CG, the episode played out over a 24-hour period,” continued Horton. “This meant that the environment surrounding our 220-degree green screen had to be lit for dawn, day, dusk and night, which almost immediately ruled out a 2D digital matte painting approach.  In the end we decided that a fully CG environment was the only approach.  Every part of our environment from trees, rocks, castle, bay mouth, etc., was modeled, textured and lit to enable maximum flexibility from a lighting and camera angle perspective.  We were able to achieve such a CG heavy approach in our tight TV turnaround due my VFX company, Realise Studio’s Houdini based procedural approach to the CG.  They used sophisticated terrain forming algorithms, L-systems for the foliage that mimic natural organic growth, and habitat aware custom code that intelligently placed trees, shrubs depending on height, inclination of slope and east/westerly orientation.  More than anything the fully CG approach enabled us to have maximum flexibility and control over every aspect of our scenes, which did in the end save us time and money, as we were able to produce more complex shots more efficiently once the scene was fully set up.  Also besides wanting to create photo-real shots, we also wanted them to look aesthetically beautiful.  Too often this type of CG is lit and rendered to perfectly mimic reality, which is of course something we actively avoid doing when we are shooting live action.  Cinematographers light to immerse the audience into the emotion and drama of a scene.  We wanted to do the same.  I think we produced some beautiful CG.  Some of the boat work is lovely, and the detail in the sea bed that refracts through the water really places us in the Mediterranean.  Of course, I unfortunately can’t help but see all of the flaws.  I was devastated when we finished the episode as I honestly felt we fell short of what we could have achieved, so to be nominated was a real surprise.  A very pleasant one of course, and one that I am keen to share with the amazing production team on Da Vinci’s Demons.  It’s easy, much easier to do stand out work…to stand out, when you are standing on the shoulders of such creative giants.

Black Sails
Another Starz series, Black Sails, written as a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel "Treasure Island," also earned an Outstanding Special and Visual Effects in a Supporting Role Emmy nomination for the “I” episode.

Erik Henry, sr. visual effects supervisor on Black Sails, is no stranger to the Emmy proceedings. He was part of an effects ensemble on the HBO miniseries John Adams which won an Outstanding Special Visual Effects Emmy in 2008.

Looking back on his latest nomination for Black Sails, Henry observed, “The biggest challenge to any period film or television show is authenticity.  The ability to ‘hide in plan site’ is the true measure of the success of our shots in Black Sails. Nowhere is that better represented than in our Emmy selections. In our environment shots as much as 20 percent of the frame is live action set and extras. It’s easier for the audience therefore to believe everything else in the frame is real.  Likewise, our ship decks are full scale live action sets and although the masts and sails are added as are the oceans, it helps to keep the audience focused on the drama, not the VFX shot.  If we are lucky enough to be winners on August 16th, I think it will be because we met the challenge authenticity brings and transported our audience back in time without them noticing.”

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
Garnering an Outstanding Special and Visual Effects Emmy nomination is “The Immortals” episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (Fox). In part 1 of our The Road To Emmy Series (SHOOT, 6/4), we caught up with the series core effects team consisting of VFX supervisor Rainer Gombos, and effects producers Natasha Francis and Addie Manis.

“The visual effects had to be accurate, theatrical, beautiful and entertaining at the same time,” assessed Francis who said the final tally for the inaugural season was some 1,575 VFX shots. “There were a whole bunch of mini-scenes within each episode, countless environments. Spinning all kinds of plates in the air became the norm for us.”

Gombos said that the VFX and animation involved the deployment of 16 vendors with a mix of “artists working in production offices with us, and others scattered all over the world.”

Among those vendors was MindOverEye which had a team of 30-plus artists on the show, completing more than 100 shots over the entire series. Among those named in the Emmy nomination is visual effects artisan Ergin Kuke. Leading the MindOverEye ensemble of talent were VFX supervisor Kuke and sr. producer Jennifer Chavarria.

The project began with three VFX sequences that Voyager Pictures asked MindOverEye to create, and expanded from there.  Collaborating with Voyager Pictures’ VFX supervisor Gombos, VFX producers Francis and Steven Holtzman, MindOverEye’s team worked around the clock to create images that fused beauty and scientific accuracy in an entertaining way.

“It was refreshing to work on a show that actually matters,” said Kuke. “Maybe one day our children will become astronauts because of it. Big thank you to Voyager Pictures for giving us the opportunity to work on this epic project. It was tough but worth it.”

A 13-part science documentary series hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey aired in the spring of 2014 on multiple channels on FOX and throughout the globe, averaging close to 6 million viewers per episode.  The show is a follow-up to the 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, presented by Carl Sagan, which helped bring enthusiastic curiosity about science to the general public.

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This is the ninth installment in a 12-part series that explores the field of Emmy nominees and winners spanning such disciplines as directing, cinematography, editing, animation and visual effects. The series will run right through the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony and the following week’s primetime Emmy Awards live telecast on Aug. 25.

To read The Road To Emmy, Part 12, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 11, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 10, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 8, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 7, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 6, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 5, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 4, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 3, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 2, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 1, click here.
To read Primetime Talent, Pre-Road To Emmy feature 2, click here.
To read Primetime Talent, Pre-Road To Emmy feature 1, click here.

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