Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1481306
powers, which are eluded to in the book. "This power isn't quite telepathy. It's this unique thing that's specific to the book," Lopez explains. "So, in order (for) the audience to really dig their teeth in and understand it, it does have to kind of ring familiar. So starting off with some- thing that's a little bit of a cliché is helpful for the audience to understand. And then, if you can give it a little bit more of a creative flair that's unique, that's kind of where we were coming from. The show is peppered with stuff like that." Knowing that editor Leon Martin had his hands full with the pilot, Lopez says he offered to help by cutting together sequences reflecting how these effects might be visualized, all while respecting the editor's creative space. "Julie and Marguerite are really great storytellers, but I think they were looking for sort of a hunk of clay to start mold- ing, and something to start the discus- sion as far as what this piece of visual language would be," Lopez explains. "And I think once we got something in front of them, they could have an emo- tional reaction to whatever they were seeing and say, 'Yeah, I really like this, but I don't like this. How do we tweak it?'" Easterling, who began work on Episode 7, says he benefited from Lopez and Martin defining the look of certain visual effects. "Rose can like see into the other char- acters' minds," he explains. "None of that was on the page, but it's a key element of the show. So I luckily didn't have to figure that out. They were trying stuff and trying stuff until they finally landed on it. And that was a really interesting part of editing that I haven't been exposed to as an editor — inventing a style." While visual effects play an important role, Easterling says he was surprised by how little the show relies on set extensions. He's currently working on a show for 20th Century Fox in which every scene incorporates blue-screen footage. Vampire Academy, he says, is much different. "The dailies on Vampire Academy look amazing because there's a castle in the distance, and it's real," Easterling explains. "The production design exists in real life. So that was really ahead of the game." In addition to the visual effects, music also plays an important role to the series. "If you want to work on Julie Plec shows, you better know how to do music (and) score just right," Easterling adds. "This was a rare situation where they got the composers involved pretty early, so they were able to compose to rough cuts, or at least give us ideas of temp tracks, and it was really good. It was nice to have music that was going to be very close to what was going to air." Lopez says the collective team's open dialogue, willingness to collaborate and lack of egos made the project a positive experience. "We were all just trying to really create the best visual experience and the best story for the audience," Lopez explains. "This book has a big fan base and they're very passionate, so you want to do right by the fans. There's a movie, but I think this is a little bit of a departure from what the movie is tonally, visually and stylistically. We really were tasked with coming up with something from scratch." www.postmagazine.com 19 POST SEPT/OCT 2022 While visual effects play a role in the show, conveying 'heart and emotion' is equally important to the storytelling. Remote Picture Labs' private cloud platform enabled the remote workflow.