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STREAMING SERIES www.postmagazine.com 20 POST MAR/APR 2020 set pieces that they built on-stage, and then we build in a ton of depth," says Ghezzo, noting that if a character were to fall over a handrail, they would appear to fall dozens of floors to a dark and scary death. The studio also adds football fields of length and detail off into the distance to really sell the idea of its massive scope. Technicolor also handled set extension work on latter episodes of the series, where the storyline takes place on Commander Riker's new home planet. "It's a lot of exteriors [and] a lot of interiors," he explains. One of Technicolor's most complex visual effects contributions comes in Episode 10, where there is a fight sequence with some of the main characters. "It's a set extension [with] over 40 shots, which entails not just geometric building up the environ- ment in 3D, but adding a lot of atmospherics," he explains. "There's some steam, some smoke, some sparks. We have to do a couple of character take- overs, where we're replacing the performance with a digital double. There's hologram-style graphics that pop up that are being interacted with as well. One of the performers gets thrown through it! So there's a lot of complexity, both from the stand- point of the actor having to interact with some- thing that just simply doesn't exist, to making cer- tain that the environment and everything around them really just feels the part. And it all just blends together seamlessly." According to Ghezzo, Technicolor completed work on approximately 250 shots for the five episodes they worked on. Each episode involves numerous contributing studios. "Just the number of shots and then the amount of work that has to go into them can be pretty daunting," he says of the show's demands. "If one VFX studio were to take on the whole episode, I think that would be akin to putting all your eggs in one basket, and probably not a good decision for the studio or for the production team." The different studios often collaborate, sharing assets and effects. "We'll be tag teaming, whether it's graphics or a certain effect that another company might have created. We'll integrate it into what we've done, or we will create an asset, or an environment, or a prop, or something along those lines, and then we'll hand it to the other vendors so that they can utilize it in their sequences. There's definitely col- laboration between studios." Technicolor currently provided visual effects ser- vices to approximately 18 shows, and Ghezzo over- sees the LA-based VFX department. In addition to Picard, he is involved in overseeing VFX work on FX's Snowfall, Fox's Deputy, AMC's Nos4a2, Netflix's Dead to Me and Firefly Lane, and NBC's This is Us. On average, the studio has approximately six weeks to complete visual effects for an episode, give or take a week. Technicolor is the sole VFX vendor on Snowfall and Deputy. For some shows, the studio also provides sound, editorial and color grading services. The LA VFX department has a team of more than 60 artists. Technicolor also has offices in Toronto, London and Mumbai. According to Ghezzo, the studio uses Autodesk Maya, Foundry's Modo and Mari, Pixologic ZBrush and the Adobe suite for 3D and CG. Chaos Group's Phoenix FD and SideFX's Houdini are used for dynamics and effects. Foundry's Nuke is used for compositing. Andersson Technologies' SynthEyes and The Pixel Farm's PFTrack are both used for camera tracking. Motion graphics are created using the Adobe suite, and rendering is performed with Chaos Group's VRay and VRay Next. DC Universe: Titans DC Universe's Titans follows a group of young superheroes as they come of age. The show is a new take on the Teen Titans franchise and features characters such as Batman's former sidekick Dick Grayson (Robin), the mysterious Starfire, the love- able Beast Boy, and Rachel Roth, who, as Raven, is possessed by a strange darkness. The series premiered in October of 2018 and recently completed its second season. Encore VFX (www.encorepost.com) in Hollywood handled visual effects on the first two seasons of the show, helping to introduce the characters, as well as their signature powers. Armen Kevorkian, creative director/senior VFX su- pervisor at the studio, says it was Encore's work with production company Berlanti on superhero shows such as The Flash, Supergirl, Black Lightning and For Titans, Encore established the look of Raven's dark energy.