Proof’s Ron Frankel approaches previs with the view that it’s smarter and costs less to hire independent firms. Photo credit: John Scheele (left) and Fantastic Four ™ & © 2005 Twentieth Century Fox. All rights reserved. Courtesy of Proof.

Proof Inc.
Ron Frankel, a former member of PLF that started his own company Proof Inc. (Panic Room, Minority Report, The Cat in the Hat, The Terminal, Fantastic Four) three-and-a-half years ago, explains his company is actively helping to redefine the roles of the small previs company and larger vfx houses in the production process. “Unlike some of the large vfx facilities that do previs in addition to final vfx, on the one hand we don’t have bigger budgets for R&D for specific tailor-made tools, but on the other hand I don’t think that puts us at a terrible disadvantage. The kind of previs we are doing is much more about creating relationships with production. When it comes to needing a very specific toolset developed in order to create the visual effects, I think that’s always better handled by the company that is going to be doing the visual effects in the end. Our role is in helping craft the vision of the director and the vision of the production. The way Proof approaches previs is that it’s smarter and costs less money to hire independent previs because we don’t have a compelling interest in the numbers of visual effects shots in a film. A lot of time, especially with films with limited budgets, part of our job is figuring out ways of reducing the number of vfx shots and to take advantage of practical locations or build sets. Since we are clearly working on the production side of it and not working for a vendor, we have more freedom and leeway to experiment with less ambitious shots. And by spending a little money upfront on independent previs, you’ve taken a lot of the guesswork on the final visual effects production.”

Frankel adds that size actually works to keep them focused. “We are a small company and we try to keep our overhead as low as possible, we’ve taken the strategy, as clichéd as it is, to be as smart as we can be with the technology. We don’t pour a lot of money into leading edge tools. We prefer things that have been production tested and know are going to be stable. The measure that we use isn’t how quickly we can get something done, it’s when the director walks into the door are we confident when we go to open a scene — it won’t crash. The other factor for us is that we are very mobile. Even when we are on production we move from office to office or set up on set. We use workstations that can be broken down very quickly, so those factors taken together combine to show we are working higher-end consumer grade technology. What we bring to the process isn’t so much technological, but our experience using it. We have experience previs animators who understand filmmaking that can sit down at a not terribly spectacular computer and create some really spectacular product.”

Proof is small but its size actually works to keep the firm focused. Above is an example of the work it did on Constantine. © 2005 Warner Bros. Ent. Inc. All rights reserved. Courtesy of Proof.

And size is certainly not a detriment to Proof getting work with recent projects such as Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, Fast and the Furious 3 and Underworld Evolution. “It’s really networking. As competitive and as big as the filmmaking industry is, it’s all about relationships. We always try to deliver the best product that we can, and if we can make the process of making a film a little bit easier, we find the sales effort isn’t that difficult because people will call you back the next time. The most disappointing moments for me are always when I get on the phone with a former client and they say X visual effects company will do the work for free. I can’t underbid free! I try to make my argument that nothing is really free and make the case for us, but sometimes the pressure from the studio is too much.”

Looking ahead, Frankel says postvis is a growth area Proof will be investing a lot of effort into. “I’d say in the past year-and-a-half, the biggest growth area for us has been postvis. We haven’t done postvis on a huge number of projects, but we’ve done a handful of jobs that have asked for this type of work and it will happen more and more. It’s a fairly efficient use of resources. The vendors are focused on the final elements and you’ve got your previs working very quickly in a low-res environment so when they are in post-production, they can still make creative decisions and still be designing the visual effects and its all happening within the production, rather outside the visual effects facility. I would like to see the business move into the direction of the filmmaker being in charge of the creative decision maker, rather than handing off a huge chunk to a final vendor. By doing postvis temp work, it keeps it directly at the fingertips of the vfx supervisor and the director. We can flesh out sequences together.”

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.

Bill Desowitz contributed to this article.