Computer Graphics World

Broadcast ■ ■ ■ ■ Terra Nova, the much-anticipated new television series airing Monday nights on Fox, is a unique combination of science fi ction and drama, which melds not only futuristic and prehistoric elements, but also live action, computer graphics, and visual eff ects. Th e show takes place in the year 2149, with people on Earth fac- ing probable extinction, until scientists devise a working time machine capable of transporting inhabitants back in time roughly 85 million years. Th e series closely follows the fi ve-member Shannon family as they, along with myriad others, start life anew in the plush, prehistoric terrain of the new colony called Terra Nova. Fox offi cials and a long list of executive producers behind Terra Nova— including Steven Spielberg, and showrunners Brannon Braga and Rene Echevaria—eff ectively built up signifi cant suspense and excitement in anticipation of Terra Nova 's September premiere. A Super Bowl TV com- mercial, full trailer, and sneak preview at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con event—each sample released in succession over the span of six months, between January and July—fueled interest and provided audiences every- where all-too-brief glimpses of what would culminate in Terra Nova 's two- hour premiere and subsequent fi rst season. "Th is thing is going to be huge," predicted Fox Entertainment presi- dent Kevin Reilly in October 2010. "It's going to take an enormous production commitment." Th e production is, by all accounts, ambitious. It was fi lmed in Aus- tralia on more than 250 sets. Fox, abandoning the typical wait-and-see approach, ordered not a pilot, but the fi rst series of 13 episodes—taking Terra Nova through the end of the year. Each episode reportedly enjoys an average budget of $4 million, requires roughly eight days of fi lming, and spends six weeks (twice the average stint) in postproduction. True to its name, the show breaks into new territory, particularly in ck Time the area of visual eff ects. While typical VFX-heavy shows might feature 10 shots of "the big CG creature," Terra Nova features between 20 and 70 shots with CG creatures per episode. Getting Started In the fall of 2010, Kevin Blank, VFX supervisor on Terra Nova (who has worked on groundbreaking pilots including Lost, FlashForward, Fringe, and Hawaii Five-O, as well as the movies Cloverfi eld and Mis- sion: Impossible III), and John Parenteau, general manager of Pixo- mondo Los Angeles, assembled a team of artists to begin developing creatures for the new series. Renowned creature designer Neville Page (Cloverfi eld) worked with lead creature modeler/designer Dan Katcher and animation director (and original Pixar member) Colin Brady at Pixomondo to develop how the creatures would look and move. Jason Zimmerman took the reins as Pixomondo VFX supervisor, while Pixomondo CG supervisor Eric Hance rounded out the team. As Pixomondo artists were advancing Terra Nova's creature designs, the company's founder and CEO, Th ilo Kuther, collaborated with in- dustry veteran Mark Miller to open a new Pixomondo studio in Bur- bank, California, catering to the CG and VFX needs of this high-end television series. Under Miller's guidance as GM, they built a new pipe- line process designed to accommodate the ambitious show—a televi- sion/feature-fi lm hybrid—and in the process, expanded the company's global network to 11 studios in six countries. Hybrid Pipeline A team of approximately 50 Pixomondo artists—including the anima- tion, CG, modeling, and compositing teams—worked on the two- hour Terra Nova premiere. As with all VFX projects, time and money were key factors in determining the tool set for Terra Nova, along with fi nding the right artists. "We had this grand, beautiful creature project coming in and knew that we had to fi nd the right artists and not worry about software," says Zimmerman. "We asked them what they needed in order to do the job, and then found a way to work it into the pipeline. We use the term By Courtney Howard Terra Nova, with its CG dinosaurs and lush jungle landscapes, proves to be new territory for TV visual effects October/November 2011 43

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