Farscape is biggest most effects-intensive television ever produced in Australia. The series was shot locally with local directors and a mostly local cast sporting a rumoured $US 2 million per episode budget. The visual effects on the initial series were produced entirely in Sydney by Garner MacLennan Design (GMD) with a second series now in production at Animal Logic. Farscape represents something of a leg up for the local production industry.

GMD's Leone Knight enthuses that, behind the onscreen escapades, "doing Farscape was fantastic adventure and it was a great challenge." Knight was Visual Effects Producer on the initial 13 episodes of the series, later moving to Executive Producer. She believes the series was groundbreaking for the Australian industry because the scripts were so ambitious visually and because there was such a high volume of effects (over 1300 shots in 22 episodes) and such a high level of collaboration between departments dealing with design, creatures, visual effects and physical effects. "It demanded a very team based approach to creative problem solving which was part of the real excitement about Farscape."

Knight notes it was also demanding for producers and directors because in Australia we usually work with tv that tends to be fairly low budget. There isnt the experience and runs on the board in dealing with visual effects and that has implications for producers and directors. "There is an unfortunate attitude to VFX as a postscript or afterthought . The reality is that they are very complex, require a high level of planning and consultation well and truly up front in pre production... The sooner we can move away from thinking about visual effects as post production, the better result we're going to get."

The U.S. Jim Henson Company who concieved the series were drawn to Australia by the availability of diverse locations, good facilities and talent and an attractive dollar exchange rate. Sydney also had a track record of effects intensive productions like Babe, Matrix and Dark City and the then pending productions of MI2 and Star Wars Episode 2. They also noted no line of demarcation between the film and television industries which meant over half the crew had experience in movie production and this helped raise expectations of a high end cinematic look.

Henson's contacted GMD and sent 3 scripts and various visual reference materials. GMD liked the idea and decided to pitch. A number of style frames were created to demo their approach and the look and feel then some R&D work on the main spacecraft. Henson's also sent an effects production schedule and budgets and GMD had to respond to how realistic they were.

The original deal covered 30-40 shots over 13 episodes requiring a considerable technical infrastructure and personnel. GMD brought on key creative team, built models, textures then brought on the remaining digital artists and technicians making a total crew of 33. A purpose built facility was fitted out for computers, software, CPUs for rendering and 300 gigabytes of data storage. The 3D work was done in Power Animator and Maya and most compositing was done in Flame.

Before principal photography on the series commenced there was a 3-4 month ramp up period. Models were built, environments and matte paintings created and the whole technical infrastructure moving forward was established. Once production began GMD were looking at a period of about 8 weeks on an episode. This usually meant 2 weeks on R&D, a month on modelling and 2 more weeks to light and texture. The turnaround on models or a complex effect could sometimes be 10 weeks.

Once underway, with multiple episodes in production simultaneously, GMD were delivering an episode every 2 weeks . However in the end they were doing about 60 shots per episode - double the original expectations which placed the planning of the whole series under pressure. Additional to this was the fact that many directors on the series were not very visual effects savvy.Unchecked, this can easily lead to a blowout in effects demands.

The storyline narrative would flag production requirements upfront. The design team would sit down and problem solve how it would be achieved. Sometimes there were some flexibilities to be exploited for efficiency. If the creature shop was down then visual effects could pick up or do matte paintings if the design department didn't have time to build particular sets. The team would do a feasability check on the storyline and arrive at a more realistic view of who could do what and what was achievable in the budget. After this process changes would be made to the script.

Despite higher budgets than any television series made in Australia before, it is perhaps ironic that a large part of working with effects is still to find creative ways of reducing or eliminating them. Where possible actors were shot against a physical 'star curtain' rather than composited from bluescreen. Tracking shots were avoided to simplify composits and allow for 2D rather than 3D effects. Other options for reducing the cost of effects included multiple reuse of shots, writing custom plugins for things like laser effects and of course clever edits to avoid the use of an effect altogether.

Leone Knight says, "The point is you're looking for the best solution within a budget, the schedule and the narrative and visual needs of the script. It's not about money but about getting the best production values out of the script." There were however many times when GMD would accomodate an effects blowout. The team couldn't change the task or the timeframe so had to expand resources, add people, add storage or more CPUs for renders. GMD didn't lose any money on the series but they didn't exactly clean up either, although in the process they developed a significant and effective technical infrastructure.

"We came to the series with high end approach to television and visual effects that people hadn't seen before, to push the envelope for the genre, and for how high end visual effects could be for television." says Knight.

As often happens, a second series was proposed but with a reduced budget. Rather than develop a different approach to adapt, GMD decided they'd had their fun and chose not to pursue it. Visual effects for the second series have been taken on by Animal Logic who are hopefully now experiencing the same challenges and the same excitement and growth as new tools and a new creative team are recruited to meet the task in their own way, albeit within the original vision developed for the first series.

Animal Logic's series producer Sarah Dowland says, "It has been an incredibly smooth production so far. It is demanding and it is also a long production cycle, but you know that at the beginning so you can kind of relax. It isn't like planning to work on a job for a few months that just keeps gathering momentum so that you have to plan on the run".

The efficiencies the Animal Logic crew needed to create for Farscape rested largely in the selection of personnel and technical infrastructure. "Getting this mix right makes all the differences to how effectively you can deal with the demands of high volume fast turn around visual effects production." says Dowland.

The team uses mostly 3D Studio Max, with Quantel's Henry Infiniti for 2D effects and compositing. Maya 3D models from Series 1 generally needed some retexturing & additional detail for resurrection in the Max environment. Dowland says Max has enough basic features to cater for most shots and there are a multitude of third party plugins available to achieve custom effects. Also they can choose between rendering with the standard Max render engine or Renderman, based on shot requirements. Integration with Renderman is relatively quick and easy thanks to the in-house developed 'Maxman' product. Renderman also facilites cross-platform rendering across NT, UNIX or Linux boxes. The Max workflow and render engine are very fast which is imporant when making revisions to shots with such a tight schedule. Lower cost for the software is also a consideration when setting up a large crew.

Animal encourages its animators to use Fusion for test-composites to reduce the overall demand on the Henry suite and most importantly giving the animator more control of their work. Flint & Flame are also used where creative, scheduling and budget issues allow for it. There is scope for reuse of some effects work within different shots Once the effect or look has been designed and set up, the only thing left to do is apply it to each shot eliminating any continuity issues. Other technical infrastructure such as a render farm set up for 3D gives the option to prioritise renders to optimise production and response times to changing schedule and creative demands.

On working with the wider production crew, Dowland explains, "We had an on-set supervisor who was our 'eyes' and 'ears' on set, as well as ensuring that we got all the material delivered the way that we wanted. This is a key role in developing communication between set and visual effects as things change and develop all the time and we need that constant feedback to ensure that we are in tune with the director. We also worked closely with the Art Department to ensure continuity of designs and sets. Constantly talking with the creature shop about characters and to keep that holistic approach to the overall design of the show.

"There is no doubt that Farscape is a much talked about show. It enjoys huge success in the US and UK and is building its audience in our local market. It has an incredible profile, so of course we benefit from that. We are just so proud that production, visual effects and post production is all done here in Australia. I think the industry at large benefits from that as other producers realise the potential and possibilities."

The adventure continues...

First published in IF September 2000.