Geoffrey Hemwall, Co-Producer, at home in his
CSI:NY office.
98 Effects,
1 Episode: Inside CSI:NY
By Kendell Shaffer
Geoffrey Hemwall, Co-Producer of CSI:NY watches footage of a man falling from the 34th floor of the Empire State Building. It looks horribly real. In actuality it’s a scene from the teaser of CSI:NY’s season premiere.
“We had over 30 visual effects shots in the teaser of our first show. A total of 98 visual effects in that episode. That’s a startling figure. It nearly killed us. But we made it and it looks great,” says Hemwall bursting with fatherly pride.
“Summer in the City”, the season premiere for CSI:NY, introduced some big changes to the show. Sets have been completely rebuilt at a cost of $1.6 million. “They are stunning,” says Hemwall. “Especially the new backdrops of NYC.”
Managing Effects In House
Hemwall has made a less visible but equally huge change this season. He has brought the Visual Effects (VFX) work in house. Traditionally, television shows farm out their VFX work to facilities – companies that specialize in that work - and last season several premier visual effects houses designed and built the effects for CSI:NY.
Visual Effects
Director, Brad Powell in front of his Mac G5.
“When the effects department is in-house, the vendor/client relationship disappears and everyone now has the same investment,” Hemwall explained. He likens it to the business model of employees being part owners. Hemwall has hired Brad Powell as Visual Effects Creative Director and Petrik Watsonas Visual Effects Artist. Powell, who works on a Mac G5 dual 2.5, coordinates the work between the two and does most of the animation. Watson builds the 3D models using Lightwave 3D on a PC platform. Chris Cuse has recently joined the team fresh out of USC film school to function as a hybrid – effects coordinator and part time artist. He’s brought his Mac G5 with him.
Building the Effects
So how did that man end up falling from the 34th floor of the Empire State Building?
First, Watson builds a CG model of the building. Working fast, he applies some of the computer game production methods he picked up working in the video game industry.
“I use low poly modeling techniques. Polygons are the simple flat pieces that make up the 3D model. The fewer there are, the faster it renders because there is less geometry for the computer to process. I cover the polygons with texture maps, which are basically photos plastered on the polys.”
Petrik Watson,
Visual Effects Artist animates frozen heart tissue.
Texture baking is another trick of Watson’s. He applies multiple textures and a complete lighting setup to the model all at once, ‘baking it on’ in one fell swoop.
A stunt actor free falls five stories up from a crane positioned in front of a giant blue screen. Later, he falls again past exterior set pieces built on the Radford lot. The first unit then moves to New York City to shoot scenes in front of the actual Empire State Building.
All of these pieces end up at post production. Powell composites the blue screen shots and editor Bill Zabala cuts them together on his AVID. The department has three editors and three assistant editors who alternate shows. Two extra AVIDs are shared between assistants who utilize them for digitizing dailies.
Rick Lee, Sr. Account Manager with Runway, manages the CSI:NY account. He has arranged for five Media Composer 9000XL (Meridian Version 11.2.5) AVIDs to speak to each other on a Unity network. The two visual effects workstations are also on the Unity. The five AVIDs run off OS9 and share 1 terabyte of storage. They digitize from a BSP and burn DVD’s for dailies distribution. Their dub rack consists of a BSP, 3 VHS decks, 10 DVD duplicators, a DVD player, a regular DVD burner, a time based corrector, an 8X8 router, a Henry Match Box 2, and a 13” monitor. Lee says this set up is average for most television shows whose accounts he handles. Some shows go up to six AVIDs. Lee explains that the CSI:NY editors don’t require any plug-ins on their AVIDs because the VFX guys feed them everything they need in terms of effects.
The always full
CSI:NY Visual Effects Shot Breakdown board.
Reflections of the camera have to be removed from the Empire State Building interior windows and replaced with second unit shots of Manhattan. In addition, Powell composites ghost images of the suicide jumper banging on the outside of the window. Ghost shots are used to illustrate the ‘CSI Versions’ – theories put forward by the investigators on the show.
“Our first show this season had 1800 cuts and we had 42 post days from the last day of production to the end of the mix,” explains David Yoneshige, Post Production Supervisor. “That was one of those weird things where you’d prefer to online that show early so the next editor isn’t backed up. Instead we ended up delivering the day before air.” The first episode of the season, which included delivering a new main title, had an extended post schedule. Now the team, which delivered ten episodes in ten weeks, has between eighteen and twenty-three post production days.
The show is onlined and color timed at Encore in Hollywood. Colorist Johnny Kirkwood takes twenty hours each week to time the show.
The sound design on the show is particularly heavy. The assistant editors build a lot of effects in the temp sound track, then send the cut over to Todd-AO. CSI:NY has a two day sound mix. “On the last couple of episodes I had the guys create VFX temps so they could lock the show. The editors cut in QuickTime versions of visual effects so we could send to sound,” describes Yoneshige. “You do what you can.”
“Early on it was a couple of six day weeks, lately we have really gotten into a rhythm, now we can turn a show around in a week,” continues Yoneshige. “In the last two months we have actually gotten it down. “
Often the post production department creates more work for themselves by suggesting a new place for an unscripted effect. “The great thing having everything in the same building is if you want to add a push zoom you can grab a producer who can give notes and Brad and Petra can turn an FX around in same day,” says Yoneshige.
Macs are Powell’s preference. “When you boil it down, Macs & PCs are fairly similar. I’ve had better experiences with Macs as far as stability goes.” Powell, who designs and builds most of each episode’s signature push zoom, composites in After Effects. He uses Illustrator and Photoshop for 2D work and Cinema 4D for his 3D work. “I like Cinema 4D because of its ability to generate nice looking textures and it renders relatively quickly. Maya is much better for modeling and animating. Cinema 4D is better for surface.”
We’re inside a GPS. Powell designs a stylized camera move through the circuitry. He executes the move, texturing and lighting in Cinema 4D. “We purchased the 3D circuit board model from Turbosquid. We buy a fair amount of models from them. The time we save on models we can spend on texturing and lighting. The lighting inside the GPS was done in After Effects. HDRI (high dynamic range image) lighting works wonders.”
Powell earns a Fine Arts degree in ceramic sculpture from Ohio University. He always wanted to be an animator. His dad tells him an artist can always find work as long as he gets the right technical training. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Powell tells his dad. He takes zero computer classes. He teaches himself animation and effects with the help of friends. He gets his start on trailers and network branding. He paints – using a turkey baster and his finger - and is working on a comic book. “The act of creation is the most satisfying thing for me.” Given the heavy medical forensics on the show it sometimes comes in handy that his girlfriend Sheila is studying neuroscience at USC.
Frozen Heart Tissue. Watson has been given a microscope photo of heart muscle and told that when it freezes, ice crystals form between the heart cells. Watson, who graduated from the School of the Arts at the Institute of Chicago with a degree in art and technology, is working on a shot for Episode 203, “Zoo York.” He does some more research on the web and creates an animation, which exactly recreates the creepy process of ice crystals forming between the long heart muscle cells. To create the cells he builds an outer and an inner surface in 3D, applies textures created in After Effects, then composites and blurs them in 2D. Final texturing is done with ZBrush.
Hemwall doesn’t touch the computers. He has to keep his eye on all the balls the post department is juggling at any given moment. The nineteen-member department works on seven episodes at any given time. He likens his job to a prizefighter’s, saying, “I think of it sometimes as being in a boxing ring, ducking and swinging and moving as fast as I can.”
Integrating Effects and Story
Hemwall began his television career on the Vietnam series China Beach. In 1994 he co-created an effects-heavy series for Fox Television, VR.5, about virtual reality. “The lure of VR.5 would be found in post production.” He and Visual Effects Supervisor Janet Muswell ran around Los Angeles exploring all the visual effects houses for something unique that could be done on a series budget.
Then they found an effect that no one had used on a television series before: CST– Color System Technologies. It was a system that later became infamous when Ted Turner used it to colorize old movies. Hemwall calls it a Factory of Color. “It was a factory of guys in the dark working around the clock in shifts painting color on old black and white movies.” They developed a moody palate that gave the show a rich, distinct look.
On VR.5, visual effects were much discussed in story meetings. As Co-Producer, Hemwall was able to incorporate effects into the scripts. On CSI:NY Hemwall talks to the writers daily. “There is a lot of integration.” The scripts are rife with double exposure shots and push zooms. Flashbacks – witness POVs - are colored and treated differently than they are in ghostly ‘CSI Versions.’ Each episode has a fair number of speed-ups and 12-frame work done in camera.
“I depend on Bill to tell me if the science is right,” says Hemwall. Bill Haynes, an ex-cop with forensics expertise is the technical advisor on the show. On one episode a victim is killed with lye. Post production had to create what the lye would look like on the floor when phenolphthalein was sprayed over it. Hemwall worked closely with Bill and the prop department to create a liquid that would turn pink when it contacted the lye. Mike Vejar, Jr., 2nd Unit Director then shot the close-up insert. “It’s very intense. There’s a lot of coordinating and people are spread thin,” Hemwall reflects. Bob and weave and make every blow count.
CSI:NY is a completely separate franchise from CSI and CSI:Miami. The visual effects departments are not integrated and the looks do not have to match. CSI:NY is mostly shot on a stage at the CBS Radford lot. About every three episodes the cast and crew go to NYC to film scenes. But otherwise it’s up to the post production department to recreate the Big Apple. So they rely heavily on the second unit crew and their vast catalogue of NYC back plates.
At the beginning of the season CBS gave the team a mandate to improve the ratings. And every week since the premiere the ratings have gone up. “On Episode 207 we slightly beat CSI Miami. It’s the highest CSI: NY has ever done,” Yoneshige proudly explains. Episode 207 brought the show up to sixth place, and it currently shares the spot with its sister show, CSI:Miami.
“At CSI:NY more is expected and there’s more to deliver than I’ve ever had on other shows and so many people doing so many different things,” Hemwall says. “Some days it feels like I’m facing the end of a gun and I don’t know how we do it. But it’s truly fun and quite rewarding.”
Hemwall finds his refuge at his home on the water. He lives on a 51’ Ketch, a two-masted sailboat moored in Marina Del Rey. He plans to depart on a world cruise in the next three years. “I’m just waiting for the stars to align. I plan to cruise for the rest of my life. Sailing’s a little like post production, challenging, navigating, mechanical, and always trying to get the most wind. Unlike sailing, here I can create the wind.”
CSI:NY airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. EST on CBS.
Kendell Shaffer Bio.
Kendall Shaffer
has had a multifaceted career in television.
Most recently she was Associate Producer on the Lifetime
MOW, Deceit, WB pilot, In My Life, Associate
Producer on the Paramount series Level 9 and Don
Johnson’s series Nash Bridges.
Shaffer's past television credits include – in various
aspects of post-production, title design and visual effects – Sirens, for
Showtime, King of the World, for ABC, Orleans,
Texarkana, VR.5, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Titanic,
the CBS mini-series. She put in her time with Roger
Corman in the art department of four Concorde-New Horizon
movies, and was set decorator for various music videos
and commercials. She is a voting member of the Television
Academy of Arts and Sciences.
