The Dresden Files features signature vfx involving former wizard Bob’s unique abilities. Keyframe Prods. creates Bob’s disappearance into a skull by using both 3D and 2D fire effects. All images © NBC Universal.

You think you’ve seen it all with The X-Files? Think again. Premiering Jan. 21 on SCI FI Channel, The Dresden Files promises to deliver even more thrills and twists in terms of paranormal investigation than the famed Chris Carter production. The show focuses on the adventures of Harry Dresden (Paul Blackthorne), a wizard who secretly uses his unique abilities to solve cases that the Police Department is unable to handle. Advising him on his investigations is Bob (Terrence Mann), a former wizard who has been banished to live out his days as an immaterial being. Bob cannot affect the mortal world and has the ability to pass through any object.

The show’s demanding visual effects were awarded to Keyframe Prods., with Frantic Films producing specific sequences for some episodes. The core team at Keyframe included vfx director Darren Cranford, on set supervisor and coordinator Clint Green, operations manager Brian Simpson and 3D leads Tito Belgrave (a VFXWorld contributor) and Paul Neale. “It was decided between us that Frantic would have the most experience with 3D fire, so they took the majority of the fire related sequences,” Green recalls. “Knowing that Frantic had just come off of Superman Returns, we had confidence in the fact that creating fire effects in HD would not require as much R&D for them.” At Frantic, Carol Cowley and Jonathan Butchard were the key supervisors.

Dealing with High-Resolution
One of the unique aspects of The Dresden Files is its HD format. The high- resolution images imply longer rendering times, but also a completely different postproduction pipeline. “With NTSC, we would receive Beta tapes, digitize the footage, remove the field order, do the shot, lay the shot back to Beta and ship,” Green says. “Now, post-production sends us the shots on external hard drives or DVD. The HD frames are usually progressive, so logging the field orders is no longer an issue, and everything stays within the digital world. The other most significant change would be the attention to detail. We have to remember that details in a visual effect that would be obliterated at NTSC, is now completely viewable in HD. It takes more time, but we have noticed that people appreciate those little subtleties in the details.”

The average vfx shot count per episode is 30-40, ranging from simple window composites to energy fields, glowing body parts and CG characters. As always on a television program, scheduling is the key to the success of the visual effects work. “Once we receive a script, a vfx meeting is scheduled in the first week,” Green notes. “This meeting will determine the effect concepts and the plates requirements. Usually, this same week, we begin to prepare sketches, storyboards and any necessary previsualization. The second week is usually the first week of principal photography where we spend approximately every second day of the six-day shoot supervising the proposed vfx sequences. During this time, we are focusing on building any necessary 3D objects and characters, and beginning to break down the next episode’s script. Once shooting has ended, it takes two to three weeks before post-production can forward the required footage, as they have to lock the edit first. Once we receive the plates, our vfx schedule is only seven to 10 days. After we deliver, the shots are cut in and color corrected. During the color correction and sound edit, we still have a little time to make any necessary revisions. Therefore, from the time we receive the script to delivering the final effects, we work on each episode for approximately seven to eight weeks.”

Keyframe decided against using greenscreen to show Bob’s ability to transform his appearance because it would hinder the tight six-day schedule. Instead, cameras were locked off, actors switched and a heat distortion was created.

A Streamlined Pipeline
According to Green, the key to meeting the deadline is knowing the staff and catering to the strengths of each of the individual talents. It also helps to have producers who can approve shots within 24 hours. Keyframe was also able to greatly streamline its pipeline during its three years on Mutant X, a show that had up to 100 vfx shots per episode. The pipeline is mainly based on Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Combustion and Digital Fusion.

The show features several signature effects, many of them involving Bob’s unique abilities. When retiring to the skull that he calls home, the character is “tornadoed” away in a spiral of fire that fireballs into the skull. His disappearance is created using both 3D and 2D fire effects. “Bob is torn apart into a flame tornado, by first compositing him onto a blank background plate,” Cranford says. “Artist Richard Chiu does a rotoscope paint and gradually removes him with a soft brush erase. With the remaining plate, he uses the same brush, only this time using ‘smear,’ to push Bob in the direction of the flame, which has yet to be composited in. Lighting effects are added to those pieces -- again, frame by frame. For the fire, we generally use fire plates from our library that we map to planes in 3ds Max. These plates are animated following a helix pattern around the position where Bob will appear/disappear. We then make a 3D matte of Bob to go in the center of this helix. Two passes are rendered out of this effect -- one with the matte, one without. This gives the effect a dimensional quality. The non-matte render goes behind Bob, which fills in the space where Bob no longer is, and the matte render goes on top. The two layers sandwich him, and are enhanced with glows. A separate 3D fireball is rendered to trail into the skull as the final element and composited as one.”