2004-2006
Background
Over a couple of years during my tenure at Behavior Design, we worked with HBO, the television network, producing "Behind the Scenes" featurettes for a number of their original movies and tv series, including Carnivàle, Deadwood, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, Elizabeth, and Rome.
- Feature concepts and storyboards
- Flash interface design and animations
- Production of "movies" consisting of interview audio clips set to animated photographs
- Audio & Video Editing
- Photo optimization for the web & DVD
The individual goals and parameters of the projects, as well as my participation in the process varied from project to project, however, the focus of each was a media-rich, audio, visual, and interactive experience produced in flash. The work was usually featured on the DVDs as well as the website. In each case, I worked closely with Art Director Jeff Piazza and developer Daniel Hovey.
Our first project was for the original film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. The HBO website has a standard set of content areas for each of their movies on their website, and in most cases a standard format. Though we stuck to the same basic content types, we did something different and designed and built a complete micro-site, including "Behind the Scenes" multi-media featurette. The featurette contained two sections: Several "movies" consisting of audio clips from the film set to animations, and video clips of interviews with the filmmakers and the cast.
My involvement on this project started about half-way in; the concept and design had already been approved. I was responsible for the design of the remaining non-flash pages, and for the production of the "movies." This entailed editing the hours of interview audio clips, choosing, editing, and optimizing the images, and producing all of the "movies" and flash interface animations.
Carnivàle
With Carnivàle we were only concerned with creating the featurette, and this time I was involved from the beginning. The show was set in the Dustbowl in the 30's, and it was very fun, and natural for me to adopt the style of the show. My first design was approved at the first meeting.
The focus of the feature was to reveal the secrets behind the special effects used in the many fantasy sequences of the show. The end product included video from the show, and several sections with voice-over interview commentary from the filmmakers set to animations of behind the scene images. I was again responsible for editing audio, choosing, and optimising images, and creating the flash movies. We also had a new section called "artifacts" where viewers could peruse images from the feature, and watch and listen to additional video and audio clips.
This work won us a number of awards, and was included on the DVD's as an extra feature.
→ http://www.behaviordesign.com/news/2006/0509_behavior_wins_two_webb.php
→ http://www.behaviordesign.com/news/2006/0414_behavior_wins_horizon_.php
Deadwood
This show was a western set in the Frontier days in South Dakota, and we made two seperate features to focus on the fabulously well-researched and intricate sets and costumes. I wanted to embody some of the kitch of the old west style and the show into the design, so for our interface I suggested we use an old style animation tactic where elements in the foreground move at a faster rate than elements behind. The design needed to show the vast amount of material they had, and we wanted to take a slightly more interactive approach than we had in the past. Instead of "movies," we simply presented a collection of sketches, materials and photos of each set and costume for visitors to browse and examine.
Making the idea come to life proved a much heavier challenge than we had anticipated. The images we had of the various sets and actors in their costumes were not in the same scale, perspective, or lighting conditions, so the amount of image editing required was vast. We were limited by the screen size, so getting each layer to have the right emphasis, and still make the motion concept clear was difficult.
Rome
For our Rome feature the audio interview commentary was provided by the show's historian and focued on the facts and fiction of the show. We went through a series of concepts and rounds of look and feel on this project. We explored everything from very colorful, racy designs that captured the drama of the series, to fancy animation tactics, and eventually landed on a solid traditional look. With 18 movies to produce, it was the largest project we had undertaken to date.
→ http://www.hbo.com/rome/behind/rome_revealed/rome.html
Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I was a miniseries "that explores the intersection of the private and public life" of Queen Elizabeth the First. This project I entered half-way as well, so the concept and the design were already approved. I made the "movies" and auxiliary graphics, like loading animations and title cards.
→ http://www.hbo.com/films/elizabeth/swf/dev/index.html
Deadwood, Second Season
For the release of the second season of Deadwood, we re-visited our "Behind the Scenes" project. We started with a whole new interface for the Sets feature. In order to emphasize the organic growth of the sets, as it mirrored the organic growth of the historical town, we decided to make the interface a map. It was important to visualize the relationships between the buildings and how that affected the relationships of the characters. The bulk of the project however, were the 20 new "movies" for the sets and costumes with updated photographs, sketches and materials from the new season.
→ http://www.hbo.com/deadwood/behind/sets_and_costumes/setTour/→ http://www.hbo.com/deadwood/behind/sets_and_costumes/costumeDesign/
