{"id":11569,"date":"2019-10-10T14:14:14","date_gmt":"2019-10-10T14:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacestudiosmanchester.co.uk\/?p=11569"},"modified":"2019-10-10T14:33:33","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T14:33:33","slug":"behind-the-scenes-on-studio-lamberts-the-feed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacestudiosmanchester.co.uk\/behind-the-scenes-on-studio-lamberts-the-feed\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the scenes on Studio Lambert’s The Feed"},"content":{"rendered":"
Story from Broadcastnow<\/strong><\/a> \u00a0| 12 September 2019<\/p>\n The following feature appeared in Broadcast Magazine<\/i><\/p>\n Production company\u00a0<\/strong>Studio Lambert This had \u2018easy gig\u2019 written all over it. A near-future dystopian thriller about a world in which everything we do today with the aid of smartphones and laptops is transformed thanks to a high-tech brain implant that allows people to instantly share thoughts, memories and emotions.<\/p>\n <\/a>It\u2019s all there, right in front of your eyes \u2013 that\u2019s the premise of Nick Clark\u00a0Windo\u2019s brilliant, prescient novel The\u00a0Feed<\/strong><\/a>, which forms the basis of our show.<\/p>\n We managed to secure Channing\u00a0Powell (The Walking Dead) as showrunner, added some of the UK\u2019s hottest writing talent (Rachel Delahay,\u00a0Tom Moran and Michael Clarkson) and off we went, urging them to let their imaginations roam free: \u201cDon\u2019t feel constrained about what the future might hold or look like.\u201d<\/p>\n In Nick\u2019s book, things start to unravel on about page 12, but after discussions with Amazon, Channing wanted series one to effectively be the backstory to the novel \u2013 a slow burn in which we see the world where\u00a0The Feed (an Apple\/Facebook\/Amazon\/Google mash-up that controls everything) works wonderfully well.<\/p>\n With simply the power of thought, you can speak to your partner, call a doctor or order a pizza.\u00a0That is, until The Feed starts to glitch.<\/p>\n Putting together a crack VFX team was our number one priority. Our crew, under DNEG team leader Steve\u00a0Moncur, stretched from Mumbai to\u00a0LA via Madrid. They worked up visual concepts and VFX producer Adam\u00a0McInnes joined the team to manage the huge number of shots that left our edit each day for VFX work.<\/p>\n After a quick back-of-an-envelope cost comparison, we alighted upon\u00a0Manchester\u2019s Space Studios as our production base. The story is set in\u00a0London, but it was clear we would get a bigger bang for our buck by working in and around the north-west.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The Feed HQ, known in the story as \u2018The Hub\u2019, had to have all the futuristic architectural sex appeal of an iPhone and be able to believably sit next to the\u00a0Thames somewhere in the high-tech east London of tomorrow.<\/p>\n We researched futuristic buildings in the north-west, then the Midlands and then the south-east. Nothing seemed to fit the bill, so with production dates looming, we had to start the studio build of the interior without knowing what we were matching it to. What could be simpler?<\/p>\n By the time we found a building with an interesting shape \u2013 in a science park in Anglesey, north Wales \u2013 we had already shot four episodes.\u00a0We combined this with the magnificent atrium of the School of Politics at Oxford University.<\/p>\n Financially and logistically, this was a perfect storm. We were moving the unit long distances between shoots, often overnight, and had hundreds of supporting artists to transport first to Wales, then down to Oxford. It was expensive, and savings had to be made elsewhere to balance the books, but it was worth it for the added production value.<\/p>\n Simon Lewis – My tricks of the trade<\/strong><\/p>\n The opening of episode one shows the wedding of Ben Hatfield (Jeremy\u00a0Neumark Jones) \u2013 the youngest son of The Feed creators Lawrence (David\u00a0Thewlis) and Meredith Hatfield (Michelle Fairley) \u2013 to the daughter of the Japanese prime minister.<\/p>\n Never ones for ducking a challenge, we shot the exteriors for this, with road closures and bus redirections, at the British Museum, which had to be transformed in vision into a Japanese pagoda \u2013 to show what The Feed can do. We then matched this to interiors at Wentworth Woodhouse near\u00a0Rotherham.<\/p>\n <\/a>We had a huge supporting artist call at both locations, which then had to be combined with a 40-metre, 360-degree green-screen shoot back at Space Studios in Manchester.<\/p>\n The future did nobble us on a couple of occasions \u2013 driverless cars are one example. They seemed like a good way of telling the audience we were in the future, until we considered the logistics of shooting them.<\/p>\n Do you use a low loader? Conceal a stunt driver behind the seat or on the roof? Ultimately, we decided to save driverless cars for another day and another show.<\/p>\n After six months of filming, we moved down to Soho, where we held hourly battles with the VFX team of Steve and Adam \u2013 \u201chow much will that cost?\u201d was a frequently asked question.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Jon Opstad wrote a stirring score and the VFX and ADR elves spun gold.\u00a0Like I said, easy gig.<\/p>\n DEMONSTRATING THE POWER OF THE FEED<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Steve Moncur –\u00a0Visual effects\u00a0supervisor<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the biggest visual effects challenges of this production was showing the power of The Feed to change a user\u2019s view of reality. This is well illustrated in the opening scenes of the first episode, where the script required us to transform the British\u00a0Museum into a Japanese pagoda.<\/p>\n It involved months of planning. First a survey was done of the museum entrance, steps and forecourt. This was then built as a 3D model in Maya, while a 3D model of the pagoda was built from production designer Dick\u00a0Lunn\u2019s drawings. These were overlaid to check they would fi t together perfectly at the transformation moment.<\/p>\n All the camera angles from the storyboards were then plotted out to check line-ups, as the set that was constructed on stage would only be a partial build, requiring extension to create a grand sense of scale.<\/p>\n The only studio space big enough was the huge Studio 6 at Manchester\u2019s\u00a0Space Studios, where a partial garden set was built along with a plot-out of the British Museum.<\/p>\n The whole set, including the floor, was swathed in green so the actors and foliage could be keyed off. There wasn\u2019t a scrap of green screen cloth left in the northwest by the time we were done.<\/p>\n SET EXTENSION<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a>The process, along with the 3D mock-up, meant we knew exactly where to place our cameras in the studio and on location in London, and how the elements would align. This was critical with the wide field of view of the lenses we were using (21mm and 29mm).<\/p>\n The task of extending the garden was an unusual job \u2013 a mixture of 3D model, digital matte paintings plus Asian tree and foliage elements, all built in compositing software\u00a0Nuke\u2019s 3D environment set-up as multiple projection layers.<\/p>\n This was then overlaid again with a representation of what The Feed\u2019s operating system was doing to control what the user sees.<\/p>\n Story from Broadcastnow \u00a0| 12 September 2019 The following feature appeared in Broadcast Magazine Production company\u00a0Studio Lambert Length\u00a010 x 60 minutes TX\u00a0Monday, 16\u00a0September, Virgin Media Showrunner\u00a0Channing Powell Series producer\u00a0Simon Lewis Executive producers\u00a0Susan Hogg; Channing\u00a0Powell; Nick Clark Windo;\u00a0Stephen Lambert;\u00a0Sara Murray Writers\u00a0ChanningRead more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nLength<\/strong>\u00a010 x 60 minutes
\nTX<\/strong>\u00a0Monday, 16\u00a0September, Virgin Media
\nShowrunner<\/strong>\u00a0Channing Powell
\nSeries producer<\/strong>\u00a0Simon Lewis
\nExecutive producers<\/strong>\u00a0Susan Hogg; Channing\u00a0Powell; Nick Clark Windo;\u00a0Stephen Lambert;\u00a0Sara Murray
\nWriters<\/strong>\u00a0Channing Powell;\u00a0Rachel Delahay; Tom\u00a0Moran; Michael Clarkson
\nDirectors<\/strong>\u00a0Carl Tibbetts;\u00a0Tinge Krishnan; Jill\u00a0Robertson; Misha Manson Smith; Colin Teague
\nVisual effects\u00a0supervisor<\/strong>\u00a0Steve Moncur
\nPost houses<\/strong>\u00a0Encore;\u00a0De Lane Lea; Hyperactive<\/p>\n\n