Close communication between Beck (who acts as supervisor and visual effects producer in Los Angeles) and on-set Canada-based visual effects supervisor Walsh results in live-action plates reflecting the storyboards and any on-set events. For sequence that will take a long time to assemble, Beck’s team creates rough composites of the live-action plates with added CG elements using low-count geometry and low-res or flat-shaded textures for objects, sets and environments. These composites are cut into the show, allowing for early feedback and giving Beck and the editorial team the opportunity to re-cut the sequence to match the rhythm of the anticipated CG shot. The method also helps Beck and Walsh flag any additional elements that need to be shot or created in CG to enhance the shot’s storytelling value. These new pieces can also act as placeholders and guides for the pickup shots.

Entity helps make a young Superman fly. Courtesy of EntityFX. © Warner Bros. Television.

Once the client has approved the midvis, Entity goes to work creating high-res elements and final composites. Using this methodology Entity allows Smallville to benefit from many of the advantages of previs — most importantly extending the reach of the client’s creative team — without always having the traditional requirement that previs happen before shooting.

Prevising Previs
Any method or technology — including previs — can be over-used. As previs practitioners emphasize: Previs is not a silver bullet for all production ills. It cannot make a lousy script into a great show or an ill-conceived shot into a cinematic masterpiece. But for directors who know what previs can do — and understand its limitations — an entirely different level of control over and understanding of production becomes possible.

What does the future of previs hold? One possible future sees gaming combined with previs. Stargate’s Healey predicts: “In the near future I expect to see more industry experimentation with realtime gaming engines to allow interactive previs with directors. Instead of the director coming into a previs session for comments, and coming back later after the scene renders, they can move a camera around together, in the middle of an animated scene.”

The steady move to previs may have as revolutionary impact on production as the move to digital effects from optical effects. Why? Because previs takes 3D graphics technology into the entire film production process (production design, stunt coordination, production planning, special effects) while simultaneously taking visual effects out of its traditional “post-production” ghetto.

Watch as the city in the distance disappears. Courtesy of EntityFX. © Warner Bros. Television.

Perhaps the most important long-term impact of previs on the director’s creative process is that it will break down barriers between production departments and roles inherited from a pre-digital age, thus allowing greater diversity of creative input by the team into the director’s visual storytelling process.

For now, though, previs simply helps directors get the job done. As Hardaway says, “One of the tasks I look forward to as a director is telling stories using challenging and interesting visual concepts, then using previs as a tool to help figure out how we’re going to shoot them.”

Freelance visual effects producer/coordinator Rick Baumgartner was recently nominated for a 2003 Primetime Emmy Award for his work on the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He can be reached at rick@vfxproducer.com or via his website: www.VFXProducer.com.