When was the last time you were onboard a space ship?
We enjoyed a trip on one about two weeks ago. It was your basic model, though a little old and rusty, and a little messy too. Obviously the crew wasn't much into housekeeping, but the technical guys were nice enough. The "spaceship" was the Serenity, the ship on Joss Whedon's new show on Fox,
Firefly. Details always spoil things, don't they? You'll feel spoiled after seeing our behind-the-scenes look at this craft, tonight on "Tech Live."
The show is adventure splashed with humor, 500 years into the future. A band of travelers cruise outer space in Serenity, looking for odd jobs and trying to negotiate between sides of a nasty, interplanetary civil war.
Loni Peristere and Emil Edwin Smith were our hosts, and both have impressive computer-graphics backgrounds. Peristere has been working with "Firefly" creator Whedon on his other two television hits, "Angel" and the uberhit "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
Smith is no slouch either, having been part of the team that put the finishing touches on the digital effects in the feature film "Starship Troopers." Peristere, the visual effects supervisor, and Smith, the CG supervisor, gave us a little insight into the work the goes behind the making of "Firefly," like how the crew manages to pull off feature-film effects for pennies on the dollar.
"We recycle images by blending them," Smith says. "We designed it in a way we could reuse models, lighting, etc."
"Our budget is tight," Peristere adds. "Standard budgets run between $75,000 and $200,000 per episode, so our budgets range from zero to $300,000, depending on how many images we have to create. But still, in the features world, that would be would be $100 million."
Peristere and Smith work for Zoic Studios, the effects house where much of the "Firefly" magic really happens. During our visit we met a team of mostly 20-something guys tucked away in a dark room. Pop culture references abound -- their workplace is definitely not Cubicle Land.
After all, the guys need inspiration. Indeed, some of that inspiration makes it into their work, though you probably wouldn't notice while watching "Firefly" on Fox. One example is a very faint number "3" painted on the side of a "Firefly" rig. The "3" pays homage to the
Thunderbirds. You'll have to watch to figure out what it means.
All fun aside, these guys really know their stuff. They can tell you where the light looks the most natural. And if it doesn't look so natural, it's just a click away.
To see Peristere and Smith's creations, as well as those of the rest of the hard-working crew behind Fox's "Firefly," tune in to your local Fox station on Fridays at 8 p.m.
