Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/47109
Foster's time on the Gary Marshall film allowed her to experiment with that camera, and others, while capturing background plates. "Alexa is a game changer," she says. "It doesn't have such a noisy blue and green channel as the other cameras have. Up until now, although the digital cameras were pretty fine, it was hard to get great keys off of them without perfect exposure. The Alexa seems a little more forgiving; I am really happy they are using it." When we caught up with Robson-Foster, the show was shooting Episode 8 in what is expected to be a 13-show season. Each episode is shot in eight days — four on stages at Silver Cup in Long Island City, NY, and four on location, mostly in Queens where the storylines take place. There isn't a predetermined number of flashback sequences per episode, but Robson-Foster says they have been averaging at least two per episode. "It's not new having the same person in the frame twice — it's been done a lot — but, the new thing is doing it on an episodic schedule for both production and post." One challenge comes from a change in directors from episode to episode; many of whom aren't effects experts. But they don't need to be, reports Robson- Foster. "That's why they hire a person like me." Encore in Hollywood (www.encorevideo.com) has been handling the show's visual effects since the pilot. One unique aspect to this signature VFX sequence is the use of different frame rates, which are then combined in the scene. The "past self " performance is shot at 60fps, while the "traveler self " is shot at 24fps. "The past is in slow motion, and the memory visitor is in realtime, so we shoot at 60fps for the first move when everyone is in the scene. We do the math and make the rig do the same move, but now we shoot at 24fps, so the difference is two-and-a-half times as slow." A switcher allows Robson-Foster to see both shots in a semi-transparent fashion. In the episode being shot at press time, the acting director decided that there was no need for a slow-motion effect, and instead the sequence is being shot at 48fps. "Unless you have got something in the background to prove that it's slow motion, like people walking, there's not really any point," Robson-Foster explains of the decision. "He's chosen to do them all at 48fps, and his plan is to go quick instead of slow." In addition to the signature effects for the show, Robson-Foster also shoots inserts with the second unit and photographs crime scenes. "I have a little station in the back of my Prius to do all sorts of stuff," she notes. "I shoot inserts with the 5D, close-ups of hands and bul- lets and blood and guts." She even used an HD Flipcam to shoot footage representing video of a crime that was captured by a security camera. "I have a bag full of cameras. We decide what would be good for authenticity purposes, so we shot on an HD Flip, and that appears in the show." BREAKING BAD VFX supervisor Breaking Bad's season finale featured a character's head being partially blown off by an explosion. Velocity Visuals created a digital model in NewTek LightWave. Bill Powloski's has a background in cinematography. He's worked as a motion control operator for IMAX, has created miniatures for mov- ies, and has contributed to animated projects, including The Simpsons. More recently, he's been working in television, on shows such as the now-cancelled Pushing Daisies and, currently AMC's Breaking Bad. Powloski got involved in the visual effects for Breaking Bad somewhere in the second season, when he was called on to create an exploding, severed head. Breaking Bad centers around a chemistry teacher in New Mexico who lives with his wife and teenage son. The lead character's cancer diagnosis has given him a new outlook on life and a desire to secure the financial future for his family via the dangerous world of drugs. The series explores how a typical man transforms into a drug kingpin, and brutal scenes, like the aforementioned, underscore the violence. The show is produced by Sony Pictures Television and airs on AMC. At press time, Season 4's finale had already aired. Sixteen episodes are planned for the next production block. "I had worked with Diane Mercer, the co-producer of the show, before and she brought me on," recalls Powloski, who heads up Velocity Visuals (www.veloci- fully painted for Vince to approve, and once he was happy with it they started creating a make-up appliance for the actor. When we shot the scene in June, we had dots on it used for CG tracking purposes so we could replace part of the head with a CG copy. What that allowed us to do was have the same design that the makeup effects people had put together. Most makeup is — by its very nature — additive. You are putting something on the actor's face. What Vince wanted to do was remove mass." The maquette was scanned in 3D. "So once we got the footage back for post production, we could determine how far into the skull we were going to go. How we wanted the skin layers to look, and know that it was going to match perfectly with the makeup. Hopefully, when someone sees the final product, they don't realize where the seams are." Velocity Visuals used NewTek LightWave to create the CG model of the actor's head. Secondary animation was applied to the inside mass, allowing the jaw to move as well as the optic nerve that was once connected to an eyeball. "[It gives] it more life than something that would just be a mask." www.postmagazine.com Post • November 2011 25 tyfx.com) in Los Angeles. The show is shot on 35mm film and the visual effects for the series vary from episode to episode. Powloski estimates that 90 percent of the effects he works on are invisible to the viewer. "We are either doing matte paintings to create an environment or doing some- thing invisible, or painting out something that was in production," he explains. But, each season affords him the opportunity to create a number of big visual effects shots. Last year involved the lead character Walter White (Bryan Cranston) run- ning down two people with his car. "They wanted it to look photoreal and wanted to do it without any stunts and without cutting away," Powloski recalls. "We ended up using digital stunt men for that sequence." The Season 4 finale, titled "Face Off," featured another ambitious effect — this one particularly gruesome. Powloski recalls meeting with co-producer Mercer and series creator Vince Gilligan back in January. "Vince came into the office and hap- hazardly said, 'I want to do a shot where someone's face gets blown off, but the person is still alive for a few seconds.' He wouldn't give me any other information or say who it was going to be — just that it's coming up and that [he wants] to do it in a single shot." The scene would involve a practical explosion, a camera on a dolly, a real actor wearing prosthetics, and digital effects added in post. "We probably had a couple of months to figure out how to do it and to do it in the signature Breaking Bad style — they usually don't cut around the visual effects. They just try to do things straightforward. They use the effect to tell the story, but it isn't about the effect." KNB (www.knbefxgroup.com) created a mold of the actor's head and sculpted what it might look like if half of it was missing. "They built a maquette that was