Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/908098
30 We're kind of moving things over to game engines like with unity because that gives us flexibility. Right now on The Last Ship, for example, everything on that show changes the day of, twenty times a day. PS&V: Right there? CK: Right then and there. Constantly. PS&V: How do those changes get worked out on set? CK: It depends on the director or whoever is making the change. But usually, we'll look at it, and for example, they'll say, "Can we have this guy more over here?" or "Can we just move or scale this or change something subtle?" We'll then relay it back to the playback guy or the graphics guy to make that change, hopefully, within enough time before they'll begin shooting. Sometimes they don't want to wait. So then it's going to be as it is or you can make it green or blue or whatever you want. PS&V: Going green or blue means that they're going to come back and do it in post? CK: Yes. PS&V: Do they reach out to you at that point? CK: They could but it depends on the show. It could go to a visual effects house or the editors or something like that. If it's easy enough, we've done it sometimes where we'll shoot, like, let's say it's a radar on The Last Ship. Vince would put up a graphic without all the blips of where the ships are because they just aren't sure where they're going to go. We'll shoot that and then in post, the editors can add the ship's blips where they need to be. PS&V: Would that be one of those times where you provide graphics for pre-production, pro- duction and post? CK: Exactly. Sometimes it's not even just delivering the play- back graphics we created to visual effects. We actually even do the visual effects—the actually finals out to film. So we try to cover the whole spectrum so when they come to us for on- screen graphics, we can provide everything. PS&V: Do you see any trends in terms of on- set visual graphics and playback versus green screen? CK: People want to always implement new technologies like curved screens or transparent LCDs. Those are all cool, but we rarely have the time and the budget to actually explore those things. Sometimes you get lucky on big features but it always kind of comes back to the same thing where we try to have as much in camera, as much flexibility as possible and just go from there. PS&V: What projects are you working on now? Are any done remotely? CK: Pacific Rim Uprising. Followed by Rampage and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Pacific Rim Uprising is in China and we're doing everything remotely and then sending it out to China for playback on set. PS&V: People don't realize all the work it takes to get those images on screen. CK: Yup. That's the magic