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00:00 with three-time Emmy-nominated VFX compositing supervisor
00:04 Bill Parker.
00:06 [APPLAUSE]
00:08 He'll be discussing the stadium crowd work
00:11 he did for the big AFC Richmond game in the season 3 episode,
00:15 "Mom City."
00:16 Hi, Bill.
00:17 How are you?
00:17 Thank you, Gloria.
00:18 [APPLAUSE]
00:21 So Bill and his team are up for an Emmy nomination
00:25 for Ted Lasso this season in the outstanding special visual
00:29 effects in a single episode category.
00:33 So crowd work has always been part of the VFX playbook.
00:38 Tell us about how you've implemented it for Ted Lasso
00:44 here.
00:46 Yeah, so is this a good distance here?
00:50 This seems like it's working.
00:51 Very cool.
00:53 Yeah, I mean, it's sort of been a staple thing
00:56 in VFX for a long time.
00:58 But I think one of the things that
01:01 made our show sort of different is the volume--
01:05 and by that, I mean quantity-- of shots that needed to be done
01:08 just across the season.
01:09 We did over, I think, about 1,000 shots this season.
01:14 So that sort of required us to use every type of crowd
01:18 technique that we could think of,
01:20 whether that was shooting tile plates,
01:22 or if that was shooting sprite crowd elements,
01:24 or if it was CG crowd.
01:26 We had to sort of approach every single shot
01:29 and every single sequence and just sort of look
01:32 at what was shot and go, OK, this is a 600-millimeter lens,
01:35 so our CG maybe won't hold up.
01:37 We have to get some people in there.
01:39 This is really wide angle, or this is out of focus.
01:43 So I think that was really--
01:44 we just required a very sort of robust way
01:47 of being able to change techniques
01:50 depending on sort of the type of shot we were doing.
01:52 So I think that answers that.
01:54 Yeah.
01:55 So TV's a tight schedule.
01:57 How does this all come together?
01:59 Do you get the live footage immediately
02:02 after they've shot it?
02:04 Or is this all in post?
02:06 You're getting this, I don't know, weeks later--
02:08 I think--
02:12 --to build on?
02:13 Yeah.
02:13 We usually will get initial cuts, I think,
02:18 with a lot of wiggle room in the handles in terms of this
02:22 is generally the cut, but we may lose this shot,
02:25 or we may change this to a different take,
02:27 or we may extend it.
02:29 So I think there's a lot of organization.
02:33 It needs to be very organized so that when they say, hey,
02:36 here's this shot that we're giving you
02:40 the exact same shot, but it's a different take,
02:42 how can you take the work that you've already done on that
02:45 and sort of copy it over?
02:47 And a huge part of that is all the work
02:49 we do on the stadiums and the crowds.
02:51 It's all in the same world space.
02:53 It's all in the CG same world space.
02:56 So you can get a cut, a new shot,
03:01 or you can get an extension or whatever.
03:02 And as long as everything's existing in the same world
03:04 space, you can bring that into a new plate.
03:08 But we sort of had to deal with stuff that way,
03:10 because there isn't really enough time
03:13 to do the volume of work that we're doing
03:15 if we wait until the very locked, locked cut is done.
03:20 So yeah.
03:22 So how long does it take-- for example,
03:24 in the Emmy-nominated episode, "Mom City,"
03:27 how long did it take to do all those crowd shots?
03:31 Was it a matter of weeks?
03:33 Yeah, well, yeah, by that point in the season,
03:36 things were a little more compressed.
03:38 So we were moving a little quicker
03:41 than we had in the earlier episodes.
03:43 Because the earlier episodes, we had a lot of time.
03:46 We had a lot of time to sit on sort of an early cut.
03:50 And then right at the end, the cut changes.
03:52 And you got to really scramble to sort of update some stuff.
03:54 But that episode, "11," was I think one of our biggest
03:59 episodes.
03:59 It was 250-ish shots.
04:02 And we probably-- I would say like a month in terms of like
04:06 match move, Roto, passing that on to comp, CG, layout,
04:11 and getting all that stuff working.
04:14 Honestly, it takes just two weeks to three weeks just
04:18 at the beginning to get all the preliminary stuff.
04:22 Because there's like people's hair is flying.
04:24 You know, Jamie's got his hair flying around.
04:26 Danny Rojas, they had to tie his hair back.
04:29 Because after season one, they were like,
04:30 this is too much hair.
04:32 So there's a lot of that stuff that
04:36 needs to happen to sort of prep the shots.
04:39 And then my job, I think, was sort
04:42 of to be able to take those things
04:44 and build the templates in a way that we could go, OK,
04:47 our Roto is complete.
04:49 Our tracking is complete.
04:50 Go, go, go, 50 shots a person.
04:51 You know, being dramatic there.
04:54 But yeah, that I think is-- that's
04:58 sort of how we had to deal with it.
05:00 How are soccer crowds different from other crowds
05:03 when you're--
05:05 Well, that's-- yeah, that's a good question.
05:08 See, I'm not a sports guy.
05:09 So I've found that this gives me maybe more of an objective view
05:15 on things, perhaps.
05:18 I found that maybe the soccer or football fans are--
05:25 it's more of a potent reaction to what's
05:29 happening on the field, I've found.
05:31 There's a little bit less, I'm looking at my phone.
05:33 I don't want to be--
05:34 everyone's very into it, you know?
05:36 So that also became sort of a huge part
05:39 of the job, which was taking those crowds
05:43 and sort of going with whatever was happening in the sequence.
05:46 Oh, you know, these guys scored, these guys scored.
05:49 There was a foul here.
05:49 And really dialing in those emotions
05:52 based on sort of stuff that I've referenced and seen
05:56 and just watching matches.
05:58 Because I don't-- I've never really watched sports.
06:00 But now if I go to like the Outback Steakhouse,
06:02 I'm just sitting watching the game because I'm just
06:04 looking at the crowd.
06:05 And I'm just like, oh, this is--
06:07 OK, I said a thing and 20% of you guys laughed.
06:11 So I write that down.
06:12 These are important things, right?
06:15 So yeah, I enjoy that aspect of it.
06:18 Because I always like looking at the real world
06:21 and being like, OK, what percentage of white shirts
06:24 versus-- OK, that's how this--
06:25 you know, it's very interesting.
06:27 Now, are there other types of VFX shots
06:30 you work on in the show outside of stadium crowd scenes?
06:36 We only did stadium crowd stuff.
06:40 That was like-- there was so much of it
06:42 that I think it was important for us to stay focused on that.
06:46 There were some little things like at the West Ham London
06:50 Olympic Stadium.
06:51 They have a guy.
06:52 His name is Mickey Bubbles.
06:54 He's a real guy.
06:55 And he runs the bubble machines.
06:58 Because at that stadium, their song is "I'm forever blowing
07:02 bubbles."
07:03 They all have songs, too.
07:04 That's how the fans are different than other sports.
07:07 So we were adding a bunch of bubbles into shots.
07:10 And that's fun.
07:11 You know, crowd and bubbles.
07:14 That's-- yeah.
07:18 Yeah, no, I mean, there was a lot of nuance in the stadium
07:22 and crowd stuff we did, I think.
07:24 We ended up doing, I think, 11 stadiums this season.
07:28 We did one stadium in season one.
07:30 And we did three, I think, technically, last season.
07:34 So that was another reason that everything really
07:37 had to work together in a templated sense.
07:40 Because I had to be able to jump from stadium to stadium,
07:43 from team to team.
07:44 Because a lot of these episodes overlapped
07:47 when we were working on them.
07:49 Yeah.
07:50 What are you going to miss about the show?
07:51 Oh, wow.
07:53 I'm going to miss Thursday night.
07:58 Is it Thursday?
07:59 No, I think it aired on Wednesdays.
08:00 I'm going to miss whenever it aired.
08:02 It was like 9 PM.
08:03 I was like, oh, when is it live?
08:04 Because I would always just want to see the work we did
08:09 and the things that I was stressing about.
08:11 And I'm realizing this isn't necessarily a healthy thing.
08:14 But I would want to watch.
08:17 And I'd be like, oh, half the time, the things that I was--
08:20 oh, this didn't end up looking as good as I thought.
08:22 I'd watch it in context.
08:23 And I'd be like, this looks fine.
08:24 This is-- nobody's going to notice.
08:26 This is fine.
08:28 I enjoyed watching the show.
08:30 It's also the only show--
08:31 or one of the only shows, I think,
08:33 I've worked on that I've actually watched as it came out.
08:36 So it's a great team of people to work with.
08:41 We had a good relationship working with the Post House
08:46 digital film tree.
08:48 They have the best wrap parties also.
08:50 So that was a good time.
08:55 Yeah, really.
08:56 I mean, it's also--
08:57 I think everyone working on the show
08:59 sort of gets the idea behind the show
09:03 and gives people that extra bit of grace when it's needed.
09:08 And I think that is something that is--
09:13 I will hope that I can take elements of that moving
09:16 forward to other shows, I guess.
09:18 What are you working on now?
09:21 Oh, what am I working on now?
09:22 That's a good question.
09:23 That's a very good question.
09:27 Not because I don't know, but because--
09:30 what am I--
09:32 just some-- I'm sort of taking a break internally
09:37 to sort of help out on some other shows
09:40 as sort of a senior compositor, help out,
09:42 because it is a long show.
09:44 I think we're doing the Santa Clauses.
09:47 That's-- yeah, some reindeers.
09:50 Yeah, I think that's probably to be expected.
09:55 Yeah, I think-- yeah, I don't know what is--
09:57 you know, I don't know what's coming down the pike
09:59 necessarily.
10:00 I was really just trying to archive this show
10:02 and put real materials and stuff together,
10:05 because it's a lot of stuff.
10:07 Yeah.
10:08 Bill Parker, everyone.
10:10 The FX compositing supervisor.
10:12 Emmy nominated for Ted Lasso this year.
10:14 Ted Lasso has won 11 Emmys and is up for another 21
10:19 nominations this year, including--