Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/908098
29 GRAPHICS WORKFLOW PS&V: What differentiates you from traditional video graphic operations? CK: A lot of the times when you work on a project, you might just hire a graphics company that only does graphics. And then, you'll hire your playback guys to play it back on set. We try to do all of it. We design, animate and program all of the onscreen content and use our playback guys and our gear on set. What we try to do is bring everything together—from pre-production to design and on-set operating. PS&V: How big is the team? CK: There are six of us as far as doing the graphics, program- ming and on set. But then we have the guys in the back also who supply, rig all the gear and get everything ready, too, in our rental department. PS&V: How do new job opportunities come along? CK: Different ways but generally word of mouth and guys who've worked with us previously. On Deepwater Horizon, we worked with Production Designer Chris Seagers. PS&V: How did the process start? CK: For Deepwater Horizon, Chris Seagers called me knowing I was at Warner Bros. He wanted us to bring all our guys and do our thing. I went out there to talk to him, went over the script—what he wanted—and we agreed to do the project. Then I'll come back and start doing all the lead design— coming up with what it's going to look like—and bring in 695 members who do on-set playback or graphics. It's hard, there's not too many of them that can do both. Usually, you have a playback guy or a guy who does graphics but not both. PS&V: It's like Pro Tools in a way. There are those who know the on set and others who know the studio side but few do both. CK: Yes. It's a hard mix to find. And the ones who do have both skill sets are always busy. PS&V: Is the part of the skill set to be able to respond improvisationally right then and make it work? CK: Yes, definitely. In minutes, when we're turning the camera around, you've got that much time to change your graphics. At the last minute, Set Decorator might just roll a medical cart onto a set and they know I'll be able to power it up and figure out a way to get whatever graphic they need up on the monitor. Props will hand me a briefcase, pop it open, and there's a monitor inside, and now I've got to figure out how to make this thing work so sometimes there's a lot of engineering involved, too. Never a dull moment. PS&V: Can you describe in a little more detail the creative workflow and the interaction with other departments that ends with the on-set graphics we see up on the screen? CK: Every show's different but it starts with the Art Department. They develop the concepts and the look for the project. On a show I'm working on now, for example, they send me the concept art and set drawings and a list of the various devices they expect to have on set … things like interactive iPads on door panels for keypads or airlocks, screens built into consoles, big wall displays or just displays on laptops and cellphones or TVs or whatever. Based on the designs we've received, we build all of the video graphic elements and have the Set Decorator or the Director or both sign off on them. Based on what hardware we're going to be working with, I'll then have to engineer it all so we can work with it smoothly on the set. And sometimes, they'll need us to program interactivity into the various devices so actors can trigger the sequence and make the scene look real. Or we have to figure out how to get our graphics into existing equipment, like some old piece of electronics or whatever it is that they need. So throughout the whole process, we're working pretty closely with the Production Designer, the Set Decorators, and the Prop Department, all of us ready to change things in case they change their mind at the last minute … which is pretty much a typical day for us. PS&V: Is this something that's evolved more recently? A kind of real-time interactive? CK: Yes. We try to be as flexible on set as we possibly can. There's just times when you can't because of the scope of something. PS&V: Are the tools changing so you can be more flexible? CK: Definitely. Before it was a lot of Adobe Flash and other programs. You could do those changes on set, but that soft- ware itself is not really being supported or updated anymore.