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www.postmagazine.com 28 POST OCTOBER 2014 Technicolor-PostWorks New York, where showrunners Anya Epstein and Dan Futterman live, and where the show could take advantage of New York state's sup- port for local post facilities. Apart from near-set dailies, processed by Earl Fudger from a hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, and boarded VFX by Stargate Studios' Vancouver office, all post production was done at Technicolor-PostWorks. Editorial suites there hosted Avid ed- itors, who cut the show on Media Com- poser V.7 with an Avid ISIS 5000 shared SAN. "It was great to be co-located with the folks doing all the finishing," says Gracepoint producer Irene Burns. "And Technicolor-PostWorks has an amazing technical support staff." Online editor Pat Kelleher did the conform and finish. Smoke on Mac was his dominant tool, but he was also equipped with a Media Composer and Avid DS. "Since Media Composer on Mac now supports ProRes natively, instead of transcoding, we were able to conform in ProRes 444 on Smoke on Mac and conform the editorial effects on Media Composer," explains Matthew Schneider, director of technology at Technicol- or-PostWorks. The company also supplied about half of the VFX for the series, many of which consisted of handheld devices' screen shots. "The VFX were built by the editors, Pat auto-conformed them in Media Com- poser and sweetened them in Smoke, as necessary," Schneider says. "Having cam- era native sources for the auto-conforms gave Pat a real leg up in quality. It is also a tremendously-efficient way to work." Colorist John Crowley graded the series on Filmlight's BaseLight. "We were given LUTs to apply from the dailies, but we were also fortunate to have the opportunity to play around with the look with the DP who was [at Technicol- or-PostWorks] after the show wrapped," says Burns. "CDL adjustments were passed through the Media Composer to the EDL in Baselight, where John could refer to them while also color grading in native ProRes 444 12-bit color space," Schnei- der says. "Gracepoint is a wonderful place where a terrible thing happens," Burns notes. "So the beauty shots had to be really stunning. The town of Gracepoint is a major charac- ter in the story, so a lot of the look had to do with the exteriors." To wrap up finishing for each epi- sode, Kelleher dropped VFX shots from Stargate into the conform. Technicolor- PostWorks delivered the series to Fox in three formats: HDSR 1080 23.98 and HDSR 720 60p tape, and as files. "Pat and John are two extraordinary, talented people, and we were really lucky to work with them both on Gracepoint," says Burns. ZOIC STUDIOS — THE 100 Nuclear war has wiped out almost all life on Earth, but several thousand survivors remain, orbiting in The Ark, a massive space station formed when various inter- national space stations nested together to form a giant pod. When The Ark's life-support systems start to fail, The 100 are dispatched to Earth to determine if the planet is habitable. These hundred juveniles had committed crimes and were condemned to prison on board The Ark. Now, they have arrived on Earth to discover that not all humans have dis- appeared: the Grounders still eke out an existence on a planet that has returned to nature. Zoic Studios' Vancouver office (www. zoicstudios.com) has created VFX for The CW series since the show premiered last March. A second season, once again shot in British Columbia, is set to debut on October 22, with Zoic's Peter Hunt serving as CG supervisor. At the end of Season 1, the main core of The Ark has crashed to Earth and impacted the side of a mountain. "A lot of cool looks were established in Season 1 and we're expanding imagery from there," says Hunt. "Earth is definitely a brave new world, and the show's writers and artists are bringing viewers new things to see." Zoic crafted some epic VFX for Sea- son 1, so it has its work cut out for itself with Season 2. "The Ark is a floating city on a massive scale," notes Hunt. "It had to look as good in close-ups as in the wide shots. We had a 3D base model from the production art department, and we filled in all the high-level details that make The Ark feel massive." CG was used to depict The Ark re- entering the Earth's atmosphere and crashing. "Our dynamics team created the shots as it rips through the atmo CONTINUED ON PG 44 Post for Gracepoint takes place at Techni- color-PostWorks, with editors cutting on Avid Media Composer V.7. POST FOR TV SERIES