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.

The official V site on ABC.com has posted a short (00:01:44) web video, in which executive producer Scott Rosenbaum explains how the sci-fi drama uses Zoic Studio’s ZEUS system to pre-visualize sets on the greenscreen stage. Visit the site, or watch the video embedded below.

More info: This video on ABC.com; “Zoic Studios’ ZEUS: A VFX Pipeline for the 21st Century” on IDYE; IDYE’s coverage of V.

Recently ABC’s alien invasion drama V returned from hiatus, and Zoic Studios has been working night and day creating the VFX for the critically-acclaimed sci-fi series.

I managed to pry compositor Nate Overstrom away from his desk for a few minutes, to discuss some of the work the Zoic team has done for V since the show returned from its Winter Olympics break.

“We’ve been working on so many shots that everything kind of blurs together,” Overstrom says. “We’re delivering about 200 shots per episode, on a two-week turnaround. We’re moving lightning fast, and doing the best we can to keep everything running smoothly.”

The most memorable effects scene since the show returned might be the final shot of episode #105, “Welcome to the War,” when (spoiler alert) V leader Anna (Morena Baccarin, Firefly), having just finished mating joylessly with an anonymous V male, says “now my eggs need nourishment” – her head juts forward, a mouthful of fangs protrudes from her maw, and she lunges at the doomed male.

“Anna’s teeth were pretty interesting,” Overstrom says. “There were two shots we worked on for her face. The first one, where she first started opening her mouth, was primarily a 2D effect. First we used The Foundry’s Nuke to warp her mouth and jaw open, and moved her existing teeth out of the way. Then we rendered the upper and lower CG jaws and teeth separately, and tracked in the 3D elements to the new warped face.

“The second shot was a digital prosthetic. The matchmovers tracked Anna’s face, and modeler Jason Monroe built out a new lower face with the jaws extended, as well as the new CG jaws and teeth. Sal Massimini and Chris Strauss took it through texturing, lighting and rendering. They projected the textures of Anna’s original face back onto the CG model, so everything lined up pretty well. Then it was just a matter of color correcting it in.”

She seemed to do a thing where her whole head slid forward…

“That was just [Baccarin]. She leaned forward, and I did a little bit of a warp on her jaw before she opened her mouth, to kick her jaw forward a little bit, and give her a bit of a menacing motion.”

In another scene, Fifth Column member Ryan Nichols (Morris Chestnut, Boyz n the Hood) reveals his alien nature to terrorist Kyle Hobbes (Charles Mesure, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) by pulling down his lower eyelid and pushing up his false human eye, revealing a reptilian slit pupil. “Jason built the eye models and did the initial textures,” Overstrom says. “Sal and Chris did the rendering.

“Those were pretty straightforward. We layered in each eye separately to maintain as much control in comp as possible. The tricky part was getting just the right kind of ‘membrane’ effect on the human lid, which was accomplished through a few extra CG elements. We had to do a little bit of extra 2D warping on the pupil of the second shot to simulate the eye constricting and dilating.”

There’s nothing practical with the actor, right?

“He’s just doing this [pulls down eyelid].”

The brunt of the show is virtual sets – anything on the mothership, which is a lot of shots…

Episode #104, “It’s Only the Beginning,” reveals a surveillance room aboard the mothership, from which the Vs can monitor humans who have been tagged with fake flu shots. “These are 300 foot long digital sets,” Overstrom explains, “with dozens of digitally added extras, and accompanied by 3D holographs around each group. The only thing rendered in CG was the room; then Dayna Mauer populated the expanse of the room using Nuke’s 3D capabilities. She extended out a full set of extras and holograph screens, and added reflections and shadows of everybody.

“The groups of extras were shot on greenscreen – six or seven plates of five groups of people standing in different positions. She went though and did 30 extra greenscreen comps, lifted those people out, put them on cards and placed them out in 3D.”

Since the show came back, the mothership technology has centered a great deal on the V control screens, which are flat 3D interfaces that appear in midair. What’s involved in creating these floating holographic screens?

“The production has a group of motion graphics artists that provide us with the playback elements,” Overstrom explains. He says that the actor is given on-set direction about how to interact with the screen, which has no practical on-set element. “They provide us with the elements. We track them into the shots in Nuke, and time the animations accordingly.

“Sometimes we get fancy and add some chromatic depth by taking a display, duplicating the object twice, and shift the channels on each iteration so each is either a red, green, or blue channel. Then we shift each ‘channel’ in space so the three are slightly offset from each other and then recombine them. So if the camera rotates around, we see that there’s a little 3D depth to it that creates a chromatic separation.”

In another memorable scene, from episode #106 “Pound of Flesh,” Anna tests the loyalty of a group of Vs who failed an empathy test. They are told to consume pills that will immolate their bodies instantly. The Vs who take the pills die, but pass Anna’s test. “The V immolation shot was definitely challenging, especially on such a tight turnaround. We custom-built and animated a CG rig to provide a series of animated mattes, skeleton elements, a charcoal mannequin, and several sets of particle passes. We then cleaned several actors out of the greenscreen and re-layered the effects in, also taking care to add the reflections of everything in comp.”

Overstrom admits that working on V, while tremendously satisfying, is also a challenge, due to the scope of the work. “The brunt of the show is virtual sets – anything on the mothership, and a lot of matte paintings for New York City, which when you watch the show… is a lot of shots. But we also have to take account of all the other shots that go into the show as well: all the holoscreens, the healing effects, medical instruments and prosthetics that need cleanup, rig removal… you know all the ‘standard’ work that goes into just about every show. That’s all there as well.”

“The biggest hurdle for any of these shots that we’re doing is the time constraint — but our work on V has come off pretty successfully!”

More info: Official V site on ABC.com; Nate Overstrom, Jason Monroe, and Chris Strauss on IMDb.

ABC’s sci-fi drama V returns from hiatus this coming Tuesday, March 30th at 9 pm (10pm central). Culver City, California’s Zoic Studios produces visual effects for the series, which is a re-imagining of the beloved 1980s miniseries. It stars Morena Baccarin (Firefly, Serenity), Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost), and Joel Gretsch (The 4400).

Zoic’s creative director, Andrew Orloff, discussed his excitement for the upcoming episodes.

It’s a big season, with a lot of surprises and a lot of new stuff. We’re spending a lot more time on the mothership. We’re getting a lot more into Anna, and the Vs and what they are really up to. We can’t give away too much, but there’s a lot happening, and a lot more to the visual effects — it’s going to be very cool. We’re continuing with the virtual set work we’ve been doing, and the virtual prosthetic work.

We’ll see a lot more of the V technology; we’re going to see a lot more of the V physiology; we’re going to see more of everything. We’re working a lot to create the reality of the whole environment. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

They’re really pushing the limits – it’s something that’s going to be really unprecedented as far as the scope of it. The scope is expanding astronomically for the first couple of episodes.

Be sure to watch the new episode of V, “Welcome to the War,” next Tuesday night at 9pm on ABC!

More info: “Zoic Brings Visitors to Earth for ABC’s ‘V’” on IDYE; the official V web site; “Welcome to the War” preview clips on VisitorSite.net.

This Thursday, three Zoic pros will discuss the VFX of ABC’s V at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood.

Zoic Studios’ creative director Andrew Orloff will head up the presentation, which also includes pipeline supervisor Mike Romey discussion the ZEUS Shotgun pipeline, and senior compositor Johnathan R. Banta on compositing.

The event, “The Making of: Heroes and V,” will also feature talks by Stargate Studios’ Mark Spatny and Eric Grenaudier. It takes place this Thursday, February 25th, at Gnomon’s Cahuenga Blvd. campus, from 6 to 9pm.

More info: Gnomon School web site; “Zoic Brings Visitors to Earth for ABC’s ‘V’” and “Zoic Studios’ ZEUS: A VFX Pipeline for the 21st Century” on IDYE

Zoic Studios has been nominated for eight VES Awards this year! Here are the nominees:

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Miniseries, Movie or a Special

Ben 10: Alien Swarm - “Montage
Evan Jacobs, Visual Effects Supervisor
Sean McPherson, Visual Effects Supervisor
Andrew Orloff, Visual Effects Supervisor

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Broadcast Series

Fringe – episode 206 “Earthling”
Robert Habros, VFX Supervisor
Eric Hance, Visual Effects Artis
Andrew Orloff, VFX Supervisor
Jay Worth, VFX Supervisor/Producer

V - “Pilot”
Johnathan R. Banta, Lead Compositor
Karen Czukerberg, VFX Producer
Andrew Orloff, VFX Supervisor
Chris Zapara, VFX Supervisor

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Broadcast Program

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation – episode 1001 “Opening Sequence”
Sabrina Arnold, VFX Producer
Steve Meyer, Compositor
Rik Shorten, VFX Supervisor
Derek Smith, Compositor

FlashForward - “No More Good Days”
Kevin Blank, Visual Effects Supervisor
Andrew Orloff, VFX Producer
Steve Meyer, 2D Supervisor
Jonathan Spencer Levy, Facility VFX Supervisor

Outstanding Created Environment in a Broadcast Program or Commercial

FlashForward - “Pilot” “Freeway Overpass”
Colin Feist, Compositor
Paul Ghezzo, CG Supervisor
Roger Kupelian, Matte Painter
Steve Meyer, Compositor

V – “Pilot” “Atrium and Ship Interiors”
Trevor Adams, CG Artist
Chris Irving, Lead Compositor
David Morton, Matte Painter
Chris Zapara, VFX Supervisor

Outstanding Compositing in a Broadcast Program or Commercial

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation – episode 1001 “Opening Sequence”
Steve Meyer, VFX Supervisor
Derek Smith, Compositor
Christina Spring, Compositor
Zach Zaubi, Compositor

Congratulations to all the Zoicians who received nominations:

The Visual Effects Society is a professional honorary society, dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences, and applications of visual effects, and to improving the welfare of its members by providing professional enrichment and education, fostering community, and promoting industry recognition. It claims 1,500 members in 17 countries.

The 8th Annual VES Awards will take place on February 28, 2010, at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.

Good luck in February, everyone!

More info: “VES Announces Nominees for 8th Annual VES Awards” on VES web site.

Visual effects professionals refer to the chain of processes and technologies used to produce an effects shot as a “pipeline,” a term borrowed both from traditional manufacturing and from computer architecture.

In the past year, Zoic Studios has developed a unique pipeline product called ZEUS. The showiest of ZEUS’ capabilities is to allow filmmakers on a greenscreen set to view the real-time rendered virtual set during shooting; but ZEUS does far more than that.

Zoic Studios pipeline supervisor Mike Romey explains that the pipeline that would become ZEUS was originally developed for the ABC science fiction series V. “We realized working on the pilot that we needed to create a huge number of virtual sets. [Read this for a discussion of the program's VFX and its virtual sets.] That led us to try to find different components we could assemble and bind together, that could give us a pipeline that would let us successfully manage the volume of virtual set work we were doing for V. And, while ZEUS is a pipeline that was built to support virtual sets for V, it also fulfills the needs of our studio at large, for every aspect of production.

“One of its components is the Lightcraft virtual set tracking system, which itself is a pipeline of different components. These include InterSense motion tracking, incorporating various specialized NVIDIA graphics cards for I/O out, as well as custom inertial sensors for rotary data for the camera.

“Out of the box, we liked the Lightcraft product the most. We proceeded to build a pipeline around it that could support it.

“Our studio uses a program called Shotgun, a general-purpose database system geared for project shot management, and we were able to tailor it to support the virtual set tracking technology. By coming up with custom tools, we were able to take the on-set data, use Shotgun as a means to manage it, then lean on Shotgun to retrieve the data for custom tools throughout our pipeline. When an artist needed to set up or lay out a scene, we built tools to query Shotgun for the current plate, the current composite that was done on set, the current asset, and the current tracking data; and align them all to the timecode based on editorial selects. Shotgun was where the data was all stored, but we used Autodesk Maya as the conduit for the 3D data – we were then able to make custom tools that transport all the layout scenes from Maya to The Foundry’s Nuke compositing software.”

By offloading a lot of the 3D production onto 2D, we were able to cut the cost-per-shot.

Romey explains the rationale behind creating 3D scenes in Nuke. “When when you look at these episodic shows, there’s a large volume of shots that are close-up, and a smaller percentage of establishing shots; so we could use Nuke’s compositing application to actually do our 3D rendering. In Maya we would be rendering a traditional raytrace pipeline; but for Nuke we could render a scanline pipeline, which didn’t have same overhead. Also, this would give the compositing team immediate access to the tools they need to composite the shot faster, and it let them be responsible for a lot of the close up shots. Then our 3D team would be responsible for the establishing shots, which we knew didn’t have the quality constraints necessary for a scanline render.

“By offloading a lot of the 3D production onto 2D, we were able to cut the cost-per-shot, because we didn’t have to provide the 3D support necessary. That’s how the ZEUS pipeline evolved, with that premise – how do we meet our client’s costs and exceed their visual expectations, without breaking the bank? Throughout the ZEUS pipeline, with everything that we did, we tried to find methodologies that would shave off time, increase quality, and return a better product to the client.

“One of the avenues we R&Ded to cut costs was the I/O time. We found that we were doing many shots that required multiple plates. A new component we looked at was a product that had just been released, called Ki Pro from AJA.

“When I heard about this product, I immediately contacted AJA and explained our pipeline. We have a lot of on-set data – we the have tracking data being acquired, the greenscreen, a composite, and the potential for the key being acquired. The problem is when we went back to production, the I/O time associated with managing all the different plates became astronomical.

“Instead of running a Panasonic D5 deck to record the footage, we could use the Ki Pro, which is essentially a tapeless deck, on-set to record directly to Apple ProRes codecs. The units were cost effective – they were about $4,000 per unit – so we could set up multiple units on stage, and trigger them to record, sync and build plates that all were the exact same length, which directly corresponded to our tracking data.”

We found methodologies that would shave off time, increase quality, and return a better product to the client.

Previously, the timecode would be lost when Editorial made their selects, and would have to be reestablished. “That became a very problematic process, which would take human intervention to do — there was a lot of possibility for human error. By introducing multiple Ki Pros into the pipeline, we could record each plate, and take that back home, make sure the layout was working, and then wait for the editorial select.” The timecode from the set was preserved.

“The ZEUS pipeline is really about a relationship of image sequence to timecode. Any time that relationship is broken, or becomes more convoluted or complicated to reestablish, it introduces more human error. By relieving the process of human error, we’re able to control our costs. We can offer this pipeline to clients who need the Apple ProRes 442 codec, and at the end of the day we can take the line item of I/O time and costs, and dramatically reduce it.”

Another important component is Python, the general-purpose high-level programming language. “Our pipeline is growing faster than we can train people to use it. The reason we were able to build the ZEUS pipeline the way we have, and build it out within a month’s time, is because we opted to use tools like Python. It has given us the ability to quickly and iteratively develop tools that respond proactively to production.

“One case in point – when we first started working with the tracking data for V, we quickly realized it didn’t meet our needs. We were using open source formats such as COLLADA, which are XML scene files that stored the timecode. We needed custom tools to trim, refine and ingest the COLLADA data into our Shotgun database, into the Maya cameras, into the Nuke preferences and Nuke scenes. Python gave us the ability to do that. It’s the glue that binds our studio.

“While most components in our pipeline are interchangeable, I would argue that Python is the one component that is irreplaceable. The ability to iteratively making changes on the fly during an episode could not have been deployed and developed using other tools. It would not have been as successful, and I think it would have taken a larger development team. We don’t have a year to do production, like Avatar – we have weeks. And we don’t have a team of developers, we have one or two.

While most components in our pipeline are interchangeable, Python is the one component that is irreplaceable.

“We’re kind of new to the pipeline game. We’ve only been doing a large amount of pipeline development for two years. What we’ve done is taken some rigid steps, to carve out our pipeline such a way that when we build a tool, it can be shared across the studio.”

Romey expects great things from ZEUS in the future. “We’re currently working on an entire episodic season using ZEUS. We’re working out the kinks. From time to time there are little issues and hiccups, but that’s traditional for developing and growing a pipeline. What we’ve found is that our studio is tackling more advanced technical topics – we’re doing things like motion capture and HDR on-set tracking. We’re making sure that we have a consistent and precise road map of how everything applies in our pipeline.

“With ZEUS, we’ve come up with new ways that motion capture pipelines can work. In the future we’d like to be able to provide our clients with a way not only to be on set and see what the virtual set looks like, while the director is working — but what if the director could be on set with the virtual set, with the actor in the motion capture suit, and see the actual CG character, all in context, in real-time, on stage? Multiple characters! What if we had background characters that were all creatures, and foreground characters that were people, interacting? Quite honestly, given the technology of Lightcraft and our ability to do strong depth-of-field, we could do CG characters close-to-final on stage. I think that’s where we’d like the ZEUS pipeline to go in the future.

“Similar pipelines have been done for other productions. But in my experience, a lot of times they are one-off pipelines. ZEUS is not a pipeline just for one show; it’s a pipeline for our studio.

“It’s cost effective, and we think can get the price point to meet the needs of all our clients, including clients with smaller budgets, like webisodes. The idea of doing an Avatar-like production for a webisode is a stretch; but if we build our pipeline in such a way that we can support it, we can find new clients, and provide them with a better product.

“Our main goal with ZEUS was to find ways to make that kind of pipeline economical, to make it grow and mature. We’ve treated every single component in the pipeline as a dependency that can be interchanged if it doesn’t meet our needs, and we’re willing to do so until we get the results that we need.”

For more info: Lightcraft Technology; InterSense Inc.; Shotgun Software; AJA Video Systems; IDYE’s coverage of V.

The level of the technology available to produce computer graphics is approaching a new horizon, and video games are part of the equation.

Creators in 3D animation and visual effects are used to lengthy, hardware-intensive render times for the highest quality product. But increasingly, productions are turning to realtime rendering engines, inspired by the video games industry, to aid in on-set production and to create previz animations. Soon, even the final product will be rendered in realtime.

Aaron Sternlicht, Zoic Studios’ Executive Producer of Games, has been producing video game trailers, commercials, and cinematics since the turn of the millennium. He has charted the growth of realtime engines in 3D animation production, and is now part of Zoic’s effort to incorporate realtime into television VFX production, using the studio’s new ZEUS pipeline (read about ZEUS here).

Sternlicht explains how realtime engines are currently used at Zoic, and discusses the future of the technology.

“The majority of what we do for in-engine realtime rendering is for in-game cinematics and commercials. We can take a large amount of the heavy-lifting in CG production, and put it into a game engine. It allows for quick prototyping, and allows us to make rapid changes on-the-fly. We found that changing cameras, scenes, set-ups, even lighting can be a fraction of the workload that it is in traditional CG.

“Right now, you do give up some levels of quality, but when you’re doing something that’s stylized, cel-shaded, cartoonish, or that doesn’t need to be on a photo-realistic level, it’s a great tool and a cost effective one.

We’re going to be able to radically alter the cost structures of producing CG.

“Where we’re heading though, from a production standpoint, is being able to create a seamless production workflow, where you build the virtual set ahead of time; go to your greenscreen and motion capture shoot; and have realtime rendering of your characters, with lighting, within the virtual environment, shot by a professional DP, right there on-set. You can then send shots straight from the set to Editorial, and figure out exactly what you need to focus on for additional production — which can create incredible efficiencies.

“In relation to ZEUS, right now with [ABC’s sci-fi series] V, we’re able to composite greenscreen actors in realtime onto CG back plates that are coming straight out of the camera source. We’re getting all the camera and tracking data and compositing real-time, right there. Now if you combine that with CG characters that can be realtime, in-engine rendered, you then can have live action actors on greenscreen and CG characters fully lit, interacting and rendered all in realtime.

“People have been talking about realtime VFX for the last 15 years, but now it’s something you’re seeing actually happening. With V we have a really good opportunity. We’re providing realtime solutions in ways that haven’t been done before.

“Now there’s been a threshold to producing full CG episodic television. There has been a lot of interest in finding a solution to generate stylized and high quality CG that can be produced inexpensively, or at least efficiently. A process that allows someone to kick out 22 minutes of scripted full CG footage within a few weeks of production is very difficult to do right now, within budgetary realities.

“But with in-engine realtime productions, we can get a majority of our footage while we’re actually shooting the performance capture. This is where it gets really exciting, opening an entire new production workflow, and where I see the future of full CG productions.”

What game-based engines have Zoic used for realtime rendering?

“We’ve done a several productions using the Unreal 3 engine. We’ve done productions with the Killzone 2 engine as well. We’re testing out different proprietary systems, including StudioGPU’s MachStudio Pro, which is being created specifically with this type of work in mind.

“If you’re doing a car spot, you can come in here and say ‘okay, I want to see the new Dodge driving through the salt flats.’ We get your car model, transfer that to an engine, in an environment that’s lit and realtime rendered, within a day. We even hand you a camera, that a professional DP can actually shoot with on-site here, and you can produce final-quality footage within a couple of days. It’s pretty cool.”

How has the rise of realtime engines in professional production been influenced by the rise of amateur Machinima?

“I’ve been doing game trailers since 2000. I’ve been working with studios to design toolsets for in-game capture since then as well. What happened was, you had a mixture of the very apt and adept gamers who could go in and break code, or would use say the Unreal 2 engine, to create their own content. Very cool, very exciting.

“Concurrently, you had companies like Electronic Arts, and Epic, and other game studios and publishers increasing the value of their product by creating tool sets to let you capture and produce quality game play — marketing cameras that are spline-based, where you can adjust lighting and cameras on-the-fly. This provided a foundation of toolsets and production flow that has evolved into today’s in-engine solutions.”

It’s truly remarkable how the quality level is going up in realtime engines, and where it’s going to be in the future.

How has this affected traditional producers of high-end software?

“It hasn’t really yet. There’s still a gap in quality. We can’t get the quality of a mental ray or RenderMan render out of a game engine right now.

“But the process is not just about realtime rendering, but also realtime workflow. For example, if we’re doing an Unreal 3 production, we may not be rendering in realtime. We’ll be using the engine to render, instead of 30 or 60 frames a second, we may render one frame every 25 seconds, because we’re using all the CPU power to render out that high-quality image. That said, the workflow is fully realtime, where we’re able to adjust lighting, shading, camera animation, tessellation, displacement maps — all realtime, in-engine, even though the final product may be rendering out at a non-realtime rate.

“Some of these engines, like Studio GPU, are rendering out passes. We actually get a frame-buffered pass system out of an engine, so we can do secondary composites.

“With the rise of GPU technology, it’s truly remarkable how the quality level is going up in realtime engines, and where it’s going to be in the future. Artists, rather than waiting on renders to figure out how their dynamic lighting is working, or how their subsurface scattering is working, will dial that in, in realtime, make adjustments, and never actually have to render to review. It’s really remarkable.”

So how many years until the new kids in VFX production don’t even know what “render time” means?

“I think we’re talking about the next five years. Obviously there will be issues of how far we can push this and push that; and we’re always going to come up with something that will add one more layer to the complexity of any given scene. That said, yes, we’re going to be able to radically alter the cost structures of producing CG, and very much allow it to be a much more artist-driven. I think in the next five years… It’s all going to change.”

Read Zoic Studios’ ZEUS: A VFX Pipeline for the 21st Century.

Of course Firefly is the science-fiction dramatic series broadcast on the Fox Network in 2002-2003, created by Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel fame. Canceled after only 11 episodes aired, the show has since engendered a major Hollywood motion picture (2005’s Serenity), a novel, a role-playing game, two comics series, soundtracks, a slew of merchandise & collectibles, and countless hand-knitted orange “cunning hats.”

I stopped by to get an idea of what’s going on with Firefly flans*, and to find out the answer to the question, Why are people still so devoted to a show that had only 14 episodes (and a movie), after nearly a decade?

Here are some answers from convention-goers, from commenters on fireflyfans.net, and from Zoic Studios co-founder Loni Peristere.

The Browncoats, a Firefly-themed band from St. Louis, Missouri.

Some credited the show’s realism, like Co-Pilot Gary Miller of The Browncoats, a Firefly-themed band from St. Louis. “[It’s] because Firefly feels so real. It’s a sci-fi show without aliens. It’s about real people and real-life types of situations — in the future. Not to mention the dialogue, the acting, and the story are all brilliant.”

For me, it was all about the writing. The dialogue, and the way the characters were developed through dialogue, were just brilliant. I especially loved the dialogue for River Tam (Summer Glau of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), the ship’s ultra-violent fugitive waif — she rarely spoke, but when she did, it was always a bizarre window into her disordered mind. And usually either disturbing or hilarious.

On fireflyfans.net, hughff says: “I agree that the writing is the key. Too frequently today, television and especially film concentrate on the visual image. However, great films/shows recognize that it’s a synthesis of both visual images and dialogue.

“There was never any doubt from the very start that Firefly had the dialogue right. More than what it told us about the characters per se, I liked what it showed about their interrelationships. The verbal exchanges between Mal and Inara; the way Jayne treated Kaylee like a little sister, the way that Mal’s trust and respect for Simon grew incrementally — these were important to the flavor of the show.

“The show didn’t avoid complexity — these were real people living in a messy (i.e. real) world (alright, worlds) and as such, things were never simple.

“Finally, and Zoic can take more than a little credit for this, the show did have some great visual images: the Reaver ship sliding past in absolute silence; Crow disappearing through the air intake; Serenity rising up the cliff after the bar fight. The off-center and shaky ‘hand held’ camera work, even in the CGI, began a trend that has become everyday (Bourne Ultimatum, Battlestar Galactica) but broke new ground for me. When I first saw the first episode I thought, ‘How could they be so amateur?’ But by the end I was hooked into the vision and never let it go.”

Firefly-themed collectibles on sale in the dealer’s room.

One of the most interesting answers came from Dwight Bragdon, Board Member of the California Browncoats, a San Diego-based non-profit that promotes Firefly and Serenity fandom through charity. Since 2007 they have raised over $100,000 for charities like Equality Now and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. “We are still in love with Firefly ten years later because of the type of people the show attracts. We’re smart, funny and caring, and we took our energy and enthusiasm for the ‘Verse and turned it into a community of giving….

“We can also see how much the cast and crew cared about the ‘Verse too… They lead by example too with their charity. [Actor] Nathan [Fillion] co-founded Kids Need to Read with author P.J. Haarsma; [actor] Adam Baldwin shows great support to the Marine Corps – Law Enforcement Foundation; Joss [Whedon] is a great supporter of Equality Now; and the list goes on.

“These guys and girls are people that I am proud to call friends, proud to call family and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.”

For Beth Nelson, Chairman of the Austin Browncoats, another charitable non-profit based in Texas, the message of Firefly is hope. “People want to root for the underdog, because for many of us, we’re the underdogs right now. Firefly gives us that hope and inspiration. Firefly and Serenity tell the story of people who might have been forgotten, left behind, taken for granted — but if they work together, they can accomplish anything…

“So much of it has to do with how well the characters were developed and how sincere and believable the dialogue was – which is something Joss is known for… We’re all flawed; we can all identify with characters who… sometimes pick the wrong path, even with the best intentions.

“In the end, though, I think we all love what Firefly has become. Firefly went from being this amazing space western to so much more. Outside of the ‘Verse itself, the fans have become a family, a movement that got together to do more than just love a television show or a movie. Numerous fans are working towards charitable goals – ending violence and discrimination or making sure every kid has the wealth of knowledge literature can bring them.”

The dealer’s room.

Loni Peristere was directly involved in the production of Firefly and Serenity, as visual effects supervisor. He created the Firefly-class spaceship Serenity, along with Whedon and production designer Carey Meyer. “When Joss first told me about the new show,” Peristere said, “he told me to read The Killer Angels,” the 1974 historical novel by Michael Shaara, which tells the story of the Battle of Gettysburg from the Confederate perspective. The novel inspired Whedon to create Firefly.

“Firefly is about not fitting in, about finding a place for yourself in a world where you don’t fit, finding a family and making a living,” Peristere explained. “There are very few shows out there where the stars are outcasts, who join together as a family, which as Joss says is what ‘makes them mighty.’ None of the characters fit in – Nathan is a Browncoat [stand-in for Confederate]; Morena [Baccarin's character] is a whore; there’s the fugitive; the tomboy; the interracial couple; the weary shepherd; the mercenary who’s incapable of doing anything else. They would all be loners, if they didn’t band together.

“How Zoic was part of that, is we made the viewer a ‘welcome voyeur.’ The camera followed the emotional beats. By using a handheld camera on-set and a ‘handheld’ camera effect for the CG exteriors, we put the viewer in the emotional center of the story. The viewer is a voyeuristic participant – another outcast, a part of the crew.”

Peristere also feels a special kinship with the Firefly cast and crew. “We knew it was important. We fell in love with it because it was a great story to tell. The show was made by creative people we loved and respected for their bravery, because they embraced the outcast. All the creative people I respect the most come from the cast and crew of Firefly. It was a moment that’s impossible to recapture.”

One last reason the flans and Browncoats stay devoted – because Firefly died too soon. From Jaydepps on fireflyfans.net: “Another reason it is still relevant is because of how abruptly it was cut [off], and it never received closure. We’ve been thirsting for more. A good TV series goes for a decent amount of seasons until the story is filled in, mostly. Then the series leaves TV… Firefly was never given the chance to do this.”

More info: Creation Entertainment; the discussion on fireflyfans.net; The Browncoats website and on MySpace; California Browncoats; Austin Browncoats.

*If you want to know why they call us “flans,” just read this aloud: “Firefly fan.”

Tomorrow (November 7th), the Disney/ABC Television Group will launch a new feature on ABC.com, that will allow users to view complete episodes of selected programs, and then create their own “commentary tracks” using their Facebook account.

The pilot episode of ABC’s new sci-fi series “V” will launch the ABC Social: Episode Commentary service, with commentaries by executive producers Scott Peters and Steve Pearlman.

From the press release:

To create and share their own fan commentary tracks, participants can go to ABC.com and log on using their Facebook account. As they view an episode in Commentary Mode, they can simultaneously add their own comments and read expert commentary, as well as see comments from their Facebook friends. Actions taken on ABC.com will be shared in the viewer’s Facebook stream, alerting friends to view the episode online and add their own comments…

Expert commentary featured in the Full Episode Player will vary from episode to episode and may include insights from a series’ producers, writers and directors, stars of the series, production and costume designers, music supervisors and network executives, among others.

The Hollywood Reporter points out that other networks, like ABC Family and NBC, have experimented with adding social networking capabilities to their online video content. But ABC appears to be the first to align its offering with a powerhouse site like Facebook, which has 300 million active users and Alexa ranking of 2.

ABC is experimenting with inserting advertising in the comment stream.

More info: ABC.com’s Full Episode Player; full press release on bythenumbers.tv; ABC introducing ‘Social’ Web tool on THR.com; IDYE on Facebook; Facebook on Alexa. Thanks to Miles Dinsmoor!