Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/147928
view P O I N T B r o a d c a s t W o r k f l ow 'In-hancing' Grimm By Eddie Robison Inhance Digital moved to Los Angeles from the Bay Area in 2005 to expand its business into television and feature-film visual effects. Inhance's mainstay has been producing cutting-edge corporate animation and post for Fortune 500 companies, including a who's who of aerospace, defense, pharmaceutical, biomedical, and technological powerhouses, such as Raytheon, Sikorsky, Boeing, BAE Systems, NASA, Amgen, and Cisco. I took a position with Inhance in 2006, applying 15 years of industry experience to spearhead an effort to break into the TV VFX market. We landed our first television client with CSI Miami and began to grow the VFX department along with Inhance's booming corporate division. Over the last six years, we have grown from 18 artists, producers, and support staff to over 100. Our TV clients have included CSI Miami, Boss, The Cape, The Big C, Cougar Town, Person of Interest, Nashville, and our largest client to date, NBC's hit show Grimm. Grimm Producer Steve Oster and VFX Supervisor Ed Irastarza had used Inhance exclusively on The Cape, and, when the time came, they included Inhance, among other post houses, to work on the pilot episode for Grimm. Because we weren't known for creature work, we were given all the other types of effects instead. We did all the greenscreens, set extensions, matte paintings, and effects such as fire, blood, and smoke gags. After the show was picked up and we had solidified our new working relationship with Grimm, we set about convincing them that we, too, could do creature effects. Although there were three other facilities working on Grimm at the time, we were ■ INHANCE PROVED it could handle the creatures for Grimm, and now the facility is a prime vendor on the show, creating a range of effects. the only house working on virtually every episode, but we wanted the more prestigious shots. Along with Matt Lefferts, one of our senior artists, I began doing some tests to showcase our capabilities. We did these at Eddie Robison, who has been nominated for a VES Award and Emmy, has worked on feature films, music videos, games, commercials, and over 30 different TV shows, including Star Trek Enterprise, X-Files, NCIS, CSI Miami, and Grimm. He has written articles for major industry trade publications and has been closely involved with beta-testing software. 8 ■ CGW Ju l y / Au g u s t 2 0 1 3 our own insistence and on our own dime, redoing shots other houses had done from scratch and sending them up the chain as proof of our capabilities. I guess it worked because by Episode 12 of Season One, I had completed our first five creature shots for the series. It was an alligator creature who was a fighter in an underground cagefighting ring. For Episode 13, Lefferts turned Hitler into a "Blutbad" (werewolf ) for an amusing and very memorable punctuation to that story line. And with that, we were in the creature business. Both episodes were well received, and Inhance had successfully changed how our clients perceived us. A Grimm Future Flash forward to today, where we are finishing up work on 79 shots for Episode 18 of Season Two. Grimm is a smash hit for NBC, and Inhance is now one of the main VFX houses at work on the series. We still do the bulk of what I call the "invisible effects," and