All of that open-ended production just means Hutzel’s team has to step up and rise to the challenges of each episode with speed and creativity. “Clearly, it falls on the vfx department that is on the end of that chain to deliver in record time on every show,” Hutzel admits, “but the whole point of Battlestar is to avoid any kind of streamlining of the process. By the choice of the producers, they want the show to be full of bumps in the road. They want it to be shaken up every time we go to produce another episode. They want to have curve balls everywhere. It’s not by happenstance, but by design. Consequently, for the visual effects, there is no pattern. For instance, today [Dec. 29], we just went through what will be the season opener, which will air Jan. 6. This is the first time that David has seen the finals for the show and. of course, there is a list of revisions. Now, it’s not about the visual effects at all. We have no option. They continue cutting the show until the 11th hour and we have no locked cut on the show at all. We just started on the effects when we ran out of time and we adjust to the cut on the fly,” he chuckles.

Unlike other TV shows, the director’s cut is for real on Battlestar. If a director is unavailable, production waits for him, which throws off the vfx schedule. The results give the show its form, but it wreaks havoc with the vfx team.

And that doesn’t mean Hutzel cuts any corners to get the job done either. He insists there are no stock shots and the idea is to push it so there is never the same thing twice. Occasionally, at the 11th hour, they will grab a shot from another show when they can’t afford to do another one for an action shot. “Star Trek is a great example, in that it was all structured. Every show had five stock shots in it. It’s the absolute opposite of what we are doing.”

Yet, with that kind of oppressive turnaround, can they truly be satisfied with the work they are able to produce, when time is always of the essence, but never in spare? Hutzel says: Yes. “We are maintaining the quality of the show and we are delivering the kind of entertainment I want to do. I’m very pleased with Atmosphere and Zoic. We are also doing a certain number of shots in house. One of the things I developed this season was that I built our own render farm. We have our own capability and we have two fulltime artists working with us in Vancouver, which allows us to respond to these last minute demands. It’s been very helpful and made a big difference. And if it sounds as if we are taking work away from the facilities, that’s not really the case. We are picking up additional shots that we would not have been able to do and taking some shots to a different level when we can. It takes the onus off the facilities because their capabilities would be strained, because we are delivering everything in two to three weeks. Normally, a show would have 10 to 12 weeks. We also do some R&D in the office too.”

Hutzel says his initial system choices are also helping the process this season too. “We use LightWave [3D] and composite either in Digital Fusion or Combustion. I designed the show originally on LightWave and as far as compositing, the tools have kept up with the times. I pat myself on the back for using LightWave. In our local render farm, we are running full 64-bit. We are the only facility doing that and since we are the beta-testers, we were crazy to jump in on that. We have a great IT guy and we kept things up to date. We anticipate that render times will drop to nearly a third of what they were last year. It means that we can turn in a lot more sophisticated stuff and tools much faster. LightWave has been rebuilding their software from the ground up and it turned up as we needed speed increases, so LightWave has grown with the show.”

With the rest of the season still spread out in front of him, one has to wonder if burnout is imminent. Hutzel laughs and says, “Burnout is all relative. I’ve been burnt out and it’s like running marathons — you get tired and get your second wind and keep going. A lot of people see the kitchen is hot and they don’t want to go in there, we just jump into the fire and keep going and I have a team of people willing to follow me. I’ve collected a bunch of terrific artists that say if this is how you want to lead us, this is the way we’ll go. I don’t have anybody digging in his heels and anyone saying it can’t be done. I have a team of great people who stay on top of it and recognize what we are doing and that it’s demanding but unique and worth spending time on.”

Tara DiLullo is an East Coast-based writer whose articles have appeared in publications such as SCI-FI Magazine, Dreamwatch and ScreenTalk, as well as the websites atnzone.com and ritzfilmbill.com.