THE V I SUAL I SERS | FEATURE
PREPPING THE ENGINE Game engines were identified as potential previs engines nearly 20 years ago with their ability to work efficiently with polygons for instant game play. There are a few engines out there but by far the most popular are Unreal and Unity. These are TTF’s playgrounds and where the magic happens: but what’s on offer and what has to be authored? “We do a lot of work with Unreal, we have a great relationship with them that’s been built up over the last few years but especially with our collaborative work on The Mandalorian , the Star Wars TV series, where we have worked with them to help author a new pipeline. “In London we’re in constant discussions with them about the work
we’re doing, certainly in the areas of virtual production or more specifically interactive previs, and getting a live link between Maya and Unreal flowing. In fact, we’re in conversations with them as we speak about how we can best support each other in some of these areas. “What real-time technology allows us to do is not work faster, but potentially create a better-looking product. It’s more about the interactivity of it and a process where you can have the key decision makers in one environment acting in a kind of collegiate way to facilitate that decision-making process. I think this process is going to be something of a paradigm shift not just for us but the wider VFX industry.”
different in America. There, if you’re showrunning you’re absolutely embedded in it, you’re making all those decisions. Your producers work for you, your line producer works for you, everyone works for you. Constraints can be a good thing as we all know but the writer has to be in that conversation and I think over here a lot of the time they aren’t.” SHOT DECISIONS We wanted to know when production constraints might impact on the writing of scripts and Brooke acknowledged that as those constraints start coming down the line it might affect the route of the narrative. “In the first draft of a scene for instance it might feel a bit soggy, then you might think ‘how will this be shot?’. Then it does help, it’s an extra tool in the box being able to say, ‘what’s a sexy way to shoot this?’. Brooke was all over the production side of both Bancroft seasons and as she would say, that’s the way it should be. “I don’t go on set unless I feel I have to; I don’t actually find myself particularly useful on set. I had a very good relationship with John Hayes who was director of Bancroft Season 1, and I think I was even more of a creative force on Season 2. Once it’s your own as you created it, people do turn to you, saying things like ‘what colour dress would she be wearing?’, that kind of thing. For example, The Discovery of Witches, which was an adaptation, and Bancroft which was self-created, in terms of production what was fascinating was there was nobody else to turn to. Production does look to making and to provide a suite of tools and a creative foil with our supervisors that can help them realise some of those creative decisions. Why not experiment before you’re thrust into a high-pressure environment of being on location or being in a studio or in the confines of an inflexible VFX pipeline?” directors feel it’s anathema to them. It’s just not in their own creative process to be spending time in the computer when they want to get on set. They want to make the decisions there and in that context. “I think where there’s pushback from crews is where there’s an assumption that the computer nerds are trying to take over what they do. Actually, all we’re here to do is help support them in their decision
IMAGES Writer and showrunner Kate Brooke
you, HoDs do say ‘you’ll know’, as it was in your head.” STORYBOARDS As her shows near production Brooke does get to see storyboards; this is as near a previs as you’ll get. “I very much see storyboards, we have tone meetings, I think these are essential. It does depend on the director and some storyboard more than others. But you have lots of conversations with directors – Lawrence Gough who directed Season 2 is a very visual director who brought so many solutions to the table, we collaborated very well together and he added a huge visual element to the show which I hadn’t maybe realised. This
relationship can be so positive, but you have be allowed access to each other. “But because it’s my show and I’m relatively high status as a writer, I’m lucky enough to have directors come and listen to me; but I would hope that I listen back as well. They’ll turn to me often about character, they might not understand why a scene is a happening in this way, for example. At the end of the day it’s about time, you must put in the time to have those conversations. I have been in the position when someone is about to shoot something and I’ve said, ‘What are they doing?’! You can’t quite believe that somehow they’ve got to that stage.”
JANUARY 2020 | DEF I N I T ION 61
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