Posts Tagged Avid Media Composer

Each year, the television networks commission pilot episodes for prospective television shows. Each pilot is a fully-realized episode, usually the first episode, of the show; and network executives use the pilots to determine which shows will be “picked up” and become actual television series. Of course, only a fraction of those pilots are picked up.

The majority of television pilots are produced during “pilot season,” which is generally January through April of each year. This is the busiest time of the year for many in the television industry – actors, producers, crew, production and post-production. It’s also the time of year when many in the industry make most of their income.

The global Financial Crisis has impacted entertainment as it has every other industry. In 2009, NBC tried a strategy of choosing new shows based on scripts rather than fully-produced pilots, a seemingly logical plan that saved millions in production costs. But every new show chosen by this strategy failed last season, and the Peacock has returned to ordering pilots.

Indeed, while orders for pilots are still down overall, the networks have ordered about as many for 2010 as they did in 2009, which is good news for those who depend on pilot season, like VFX houses.

At the Culver City, California and Vancouver, British Columbia offices of Zoic Studios, pilot season is always a challenge. I spoke to Andrew Orloff, Zoic’s executive creative director, about the winding-down 2010 pilot season, and how Zoic responds to the heavy influx of work.

The fun part of pilot season is the new shows, with new creators and new scripts; this is where we really get in a lot of our creative input.

“It’s been very busy this year,” Orloff says, “and we’re definitely doing more than we’ve done in the past, probably about double what we normally do.” In fact, the studio produced around 3,700 shots for 32 projects in the months of March and April alone; this included pilots as well as ongoing series, including effects-heavy shows like Fringe and V. At its busiest time, the Culver City studio had 163 people hard at work, as many as 70 of whom were freelancers. In addition, the studio performed a large server update, to 80 terabytes of high-speed storage and hundreds of render nodes.

“We’re cracking out hundreds of shots a week for review,” Orloff adds. “A lot of the pilots are being delivered electronically, a step away from tape delivery. It’s actually easier for the client, and a lot less time-intensive on the editorial end, because we’re delivering media directly to the Avid [Media Composer], fully integrated into their technical pipeline.

“We’re completely dependent on our Shotgun database. It allows the VFX supervisors to constantly review material from their desks, to be able to give notes directly to artists from their desktops. And then we have nine hours worth of dailies every day, uncompressed high-def material, all the shows and all the pilots. We’re reviewing an immense amount of material, and using our database and pipeline tools to make sure we don’t get swallowed up by the volume of the work we have to parse through, and maintain the creative focus.”

Orloff says it’s important to find the time to maintain creative focus, despite the volume of the work during pilot season. “We use these pipeline tools, these efficiencies, so we can still be having creative conversations even though we’re in this massive delivery mode — which is a kind of a cool thing. The fun part of pilot season is that there’s new shows, with new creators, new scripts; and this is where we really get in a lot of our creative input. Talking to directors and executive producers about what are the visual effects going to be for the show; what is the signature look for the show; how does it integrate with the story you’re trying to tell. We have the opportunity to set up a language for the visual effects, that is going to stand as long as the show lasts.”

Much of the work done for the pilot will be used throughout the life of the series. “When a pilot gets greenlit, the first thing we do is, if it’s a spaceship show we’ll build the spaceships. If there’s a digital double that needs to be made, we’ll scan and build the digital double. All of that happens for the pilot. So a lot of the heavy-duty lifting, with models and techniques that are going to be used for the life of the series, is done during pilot season. There is a lot of discussion with the creative heads of each show to make sure we design something that’s not only creatively right, but that’s also sustainable for the long run when the series gets picked up.”

Orloff explains that dealing with the extraordinary workload during pilot season can strengthen the studio’s technical pipeline. “You get a very clear idea about what the pressure points and the log jams in your pipeline are — what’s working and what’s causing a bottleneck. You have to react to those production issues very quickly. It’s definitely a benefit for the rest of the year when things are at a more regular pace. You have a limited number of development cycles to spend, and one of the opportunities of pilot season is to see where you want to spend those development cycles, and to pressure test everything you’ve been working on throughout the year.”

More  info: “Tables turned this pilot season” and “Pilot season getting mojo back” on Variety.com; “As TV networks tighten belts, look for fewer stars, fewer risks” on USAToday.com.