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Sci Fi Series is Green Screened

Posted on: Friday, 3 October 2008, 09:40 CDT

By Scott D. Pierce Deseret News

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- The Sci Fi Channel has a new series that goes where no TV series has gone before -- and it has absolutely nothing to do with "Star Trek."

It's not that the content of "Sanctuary" is so different, but how it's made is a major leap. It's the first North American TV series produced primarily on virtual sets. Other than the actors, most of what you see on the screen isn't real. It's created inside computers.

When executive producer Damian Kindler created the show about eight years ago, it would have been prohibitively expensive to produce. But, thanks to advances in technology, it can be done on a budget that makes sense.

"Technologically we felt there was a new way to do this," Kindler said. "And that's actually one of the cool things. When Sci Fi got involved, they weren't like, 'Well, now just build a lot of stages and shoot it with these usual HD cameras.' They totally embraced the really kind of new and innovative way we wanted to do it."

("Sanctuary" actually began as an Internet-only movie in 2007; it's been adapted for the new series.)

The technolog has been used in films like "300" and "Sin City." And in TV productions to a lesser extent.

"Sanctuary" is shot in a former bicycle factory outside Vancouver using the new RED camera, a digital system that captures images at more than double the resolution of a high definition camera. It provides the "ability to (use) high-definition stills and focus them so it looks like they gave incredible depth," Kindler said.

"We're not shooting on film or even HD. ... It's way, way beyond that. We shoot on, like, a computer with a crazy lens," Kindler said.

"It's really going to be startlingly amazing when it hits the screens," said executive producer Sam Egan. "And no matter what size screen, audiences are going to know that it's something they've never seen before."

"Analog or digital, it will look better than regular TV," Kindler said.

But the difference is particularly noticeable on digital televisions.

"We're making TV for big-screen TVs," said producer/director Martin Wood.

From the producers of "Stargate SG-1" and "Stargate Atlantis,""Sanctuary" revolves around Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping of "Stargate SG-1"), an enigmatic scientist. Magnus and her team track down, capture and protect "abnormals" -- humans and animals that appear monstrous but are often just misunderstood.

Magnus gives them sanctuary at her castlelike headquarters. Her team includes forensic psychiatrist Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne of "Dawson's Creek"); and Magnus' kick-butt daughter, Ashley (Emilie Ullerup).

In addition to the acting skills required to play any role, acting on "Sanctuary" requires learning and becoming comfortable with the production process.

"It's not that much different than actually shooting on a real set, once you get over the Chroma key-green headache, which lasts about three days.," said Tapping, who's also one of the show's executive producers. "Our director of photography, David Gettis, is an artist, and he paints with light. It's the best way I can describe it."

She said the challenge is "just getting your head around the idea of being inside a totally virtual set. We talk to our director and our vis-effects team, and we often have renderings that we can look at before we actually step onto the stage, so you get an idea of the scope."

Although mistakes can happen when you're moving around an empty soundstage without being able to see anything that's going to be there when the set is digitally constructed.

"Every now and then we'll have a chase and I'll run through a wall or something by accident," Dunne said. "And Martin will have to call cut and give me the parameters again."

If you're making a movie with CGI sets, all you have to do in a situation like that is put the wall in a different place when you create the digital set.

"When you have standing sets that are virtual that you have to keep going back to, that's when it becomes tricky for the actors because now it's like there's no door," Wood said. "You have to come this way and go around here, and you're going around little tiny pieces of green tape on the floor."

Eventually, however, "You don't feel like you're standing in front of a green screen," Tapping said. "You actually feel like you're in the catacombs under Rome or on an island off Scotland. We go everywhere. Once you get used to it, it doesn't feel like you're on a sound stage anymore."

And that may be the greatest advantage to the technology. The show can go on location -- to any location in the world -- without actually going anywhere.

"We go everywhere, but we never actually roll trucks and go on location, which is really neat," Kindler said.

"One of the many amazing things about the show is just that -- the limitless possibilities that the green screen affords us," Dunne said. "We can go anywhere, like Amanda said. To Rome. To the Bermuda Triangle."

No television series can travel from continent to continent to film episodes. At best, shows are either shot in a specific location -- most often New York or Los Angeles -- or shot in places like Vancouver, which is made to look as much like different places as possible.

But using the latest technology, anything is possible.

"The real joy of green screen, for me, happens not on the stage but in the story room where fundamentally as a producer, writer, storyteller, you're not bound by what you can build but only by your imagination," said writer/executive producer Sam Egan.

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On the Net:

• Sanctuary

Source: Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

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