VFX Legion Wraps Three-Year’s Work on ABC’s 'Scandal'
- 6 years ago
The recent airing of the series finale of ‘Scandal’ on ABC capped off VFX Legion’s three-year run as the sole visual effect company for award-winning creator/EP Shonda Rhimes’ political thriller. The Burbank studio has been the driving force behind the hundreds of computer-generated effects that the show’s viewers didn’t see each week.
While the episodic drama didn’t call for futuristic CG worlds, the LA-based production relied heavily on VFX Legion to create composited sequences, set extensions, computer-generated environments and exacting replications of iconic D.C.buildings that would have been too expensive, impractical, or impossible to shoot.
The studio’s first task was to recreate the White House’s Truman Balcony from multiple viewpoints revealing different sections of the building with various historic structures in the background. Legion nailed the first episode, turning around over 50 shots in less than a week.
Once ‘Scandal’ brought VFX Legion onboard, founder, creative director James David Hattin’s first order of business was to customize a digital pipeline tailored to the show. Hattin, the architect of the studio’s state-of-the-art pipeline, designed its infrastructure to support transparent communication with each artist and enable his management team to work one-to-one, supervising every phase of the production.
Spearheaded by Hattin, Legion handled every facet of the effects process, from pre-production, budgeting, establishing shot lists and developing concepts to on-set supervision and production.
VFX supervisor Matthew Lynn, on-set coordinator, Mathew Noren and their support staff were on-set during shoots, working closely with ‘Scandal’s’ teams. They provided input and gathered data on green-screen placement, the positioning of tracking markers, lighting placement, camera angles and other specs, ensuring that all of the assets seamlessly blended with the live-action.
During season six Legion's team created a exploding cabin effect integrated into a live-action scene, as wel as more advanced full CG environments. A computer-generated replication of Marine One closed the season finale as president ‘Fitz’ (Tony Goldwyn) ended his term and boarded the helicopter. Among the FX for this year's final season was a photorealistic digital aircraft that's indistinguishable from a practical shot of the plane when cut back-to-back.
’Scandal’s’ VFX breakdown reel, ‘VFX Legion Goes to Washington…In LA,’ provides a retrospect of some of the CG sequences that the studio created for the show over the last three seasons.
VFX Company: VFX Legion / LA
CD/Senior VFX Supervisor: James David Hattin
VFX Supervisor: Matthew T. Lynn
Production Manager: Andrew Turner
VFX Head of Production: Nate Smalley
CG Supervisor: Rommel S. Calderon
VFX Coordinators: Matthew Noren, Lexi Sloan
VFX Legion: CG Environments, Set Extensions, Compositing, Matte Painting, Lighting, Look Development, Dynamic
VFX EPs: Rajeev Dassani, Elan Dassani
While the episodic drama didn’t call for futuristic CG worlds, the LA-based production relied heavily on VFX Legion to create composited sequences, set extensions, computer-generated environments and exacting replications of iconic D.C.buildings that would have been too expensive, impractical, or impossible to shoot.
The studio’s first task was to recreate the White House’s Truman Balcony from multiple viewpoints revealing different sections of the building with various historic structures in the background. Legion nailed the first episode, turning around over 50 shots in less than a week.
Once ‘Scandal’ brought VFX Legion onboard, founder, creative director James David Hattin’s first order of business was to customize a digital pipeline tailored to the show. Hattin, the architect of the studio’s state-of-the-art pipeline, designed its infrastructure to support transparent communication with each artist and enable his management team to work one-to-one, supervising every phase of the production.
Spearheaded by Hattin, Legion handled every facet of the effects process, from pre-production, budgeting, establishing shot lists and developing concepts to on-set supervision and production.
VFX supervisor Matthew Lynn, on-set coordinator, Mathew Noren and their support staff were on-set during shoots, working closely with ‘Scandal’s’ teams. They provided input and gathered data on green-screen placement, the positioning of tracking markers, lighting placement, camera angles and other specs, ensuring that all of the assets seamlessly blended with the live-action.
During season six Legion's team created a exploding cabin effect integrated into a live-action scene, as wel as more advanced full CG environments. A computer-generated replication of Marine One closed the season finale as president ‘Fitz’ (Tony Goldwyn) ended his term and boarded the helicopter. Among the FX for this year's final season was a photorealistic digital aircraft that's indistinguishable from a practical shot of the plane when cut back-to-back.
’Scandal’s’ VFX breakdown reel, ‘VFX Legion Goes to Washington…In LA,’ provides a retrospect of some of the CG sequences that the studio created for the show over the last three seasons.
VFX Company: VFX Legion / LA
CD/Senior VFX Supervisor: James David Hattin
VFX Supervisor: Matthew T. Lynn
Production Manager: Andrew Turner
VFX Head of Production: Nate Smalley
CG Supervisor: Rommel S. Calderon
VFX Coordinators: Matthew Noren, Lexi Sloan
VFX Legion: CG Environments, Set Extensions, Compositing, Matte Painting, Lighting, Look Development, Dynamic
VFX EPs: Rajeev Dassani, Elan Dassani