The Future is Now for 'Sanctuary'

There's an intriguing experiment launching on the Internet this month that finally moves forward the long-simmering chatter about creating high-quality television programming, targeted specifically for dedicated genre fans, right to the Internet. We're not talking about repeated episodes from broadcast networks, or fan-funded projects with low budgets and questionable talent, but brand new, scripted programming created by television and film professionals who think the time has come to bypass fickle networks by offering niche programming directly to their core audience. The name of this Internet-only endeavor is Sanctuary and it's the brainchild of sci-fi veteran Damian Kindler. Exec produced by N. John Smith, actress Amanda Tapping (Col. Sam Carter on Stargate SG-1) and director Martin Wood, the lofty goal of Sanctuary is to not only provide quality entertainment to the people clamoring for it, but to also take the first steps in proving that web-based, episodic storytelling just might render the decades old network television production and advertising models obsolete.

Sanctuary (launching May 14 at www.sanctuaryforall.com) is produced by Stage 3 Media, the production company based in Vancouver, BC. Founded by Kindler and Marc Aubanel, the company is looking at convergent media as the future of entertainment, where broadcast quality, high-definition webisode series will become the norm for audiences looking to find alternative entertainment programming that includes interactive participation as part of the experience. Sanctuary is set in a moody, gothic urban landscape where Dr. Helen Magnus (Tapping) reveals to Dr. Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne) that evolution has created an entire race of monsters that live underground amongst the ignorant human masses.

The world of Sanctuary is actually created entirely in CG, with greenscreen technology, 3D environments and even video game technology combining to produce the beautifully intricate sets and locations for the series. The computer graphics designer for the series is Ron Martin, who explains that he was drafted by Stage 3 to help covert their big ideas into a practical reality. "I was originally approached by two of the principals of Stage 3: the show's creator Damian Kindler and Marc Aubanel. Mark and I worked together at EA (Electronic Arts). He knew my work and I knew his proficiency in executing large-scale projects. We had lunch one day and looked at the opportunity of developing science fiction for an alternate distribution method or what it would take to create a series without the overwhelming studio administration. It was a gathering together of minds and talent and basically an opportunity to build a viable production and a studio at the same time."

Intrigued by the pitch, Martin says he was eager to sign onto the project and the company "Stage 3 Media started with Sanctuary as the premiere effort in creating online entertainment. Stage 3 is as much a part of the production of Sanctuary as the actors, the crew and the director. It's all one effort. And unlike what our online competition is doing, we feel like there is a passive aspect to a viewer watching something on the Internet. We hope to build an enriched experience which will have a lot more than television could ever offer."

The other unique aspect is that Sanctuary will be funded by the viewers who enjoy it and come back for subsequent adventures, which is still a risky proposition considering standard audiences still expect their Internet entertainment to be free. Martin says their proof will be in the product. "We are not choosing to use an advertising model to fund our endeavor. Being totally independent means that we are relying on the fanbase and not someone pushing products at us while we are trying to enjoy a science fiction episode. Those aspects of our production, mixed with the super high quality of the series and the acting, are going to support the story. We feel that the fans will anticipate the next webisodes with great enthusiasm. What better genre than science fiction to build an online distributed high-definition model? It's a great flagship for Stage 3 Media."

Sanctuary is set to debut on their website, as well as other media sites such as YouTube.com. They hope to hook viewers with four free webisodes (which will be available in HD only on the website), Martin explains. "Each webisode is 15 minutes and each range up to 21 minutes. We've got the first eight webisodes in the can, currently in post-production, and we will roll those out every two weeks. After that, we will be releasing the next set, which we are currently working on as well."

Shifting over to the technical issues of the series, Martin says Stage 3's launch goal was to streamline everything in the process to be a more profitable and efficient production company. "Everyone was well aware of how overbearing the process can be when you take into account the huge amount of people involved in creating something for a network. Our goal was to strip it right down -- script on the table -- asking what could we do in the script and how could we execute it. Obviously with the game technologies that we are well acquainted with and the processes through vfx and post-production, we front loaded our production methodology."

Martin says the Sanctuary pipeline began with very thorough previs planning. "We were heavily influenced by Sin City. I'm a huge fan of Frank Miller, as is Damian and our director Martin Wood. We would find ourselves thumbing though comics, like The Ultimates and Daredevil, and some of these writers that took story and image and married them together in a dynamic fashion. We wanted to create a graphic, fantasy world that would anticipate the user's page-turning anticipation from shot to shot. So first, we built sets and worked with virtual environments. We had digital characters, which we acted out before we even had the real actors on set. That gave us the opportunity to look at the shot, the pacing of the shot and the equipment that was required to meet our budgetary restrictions. The idea was to move toward the edge without tipping it over. Even though there are a lot of innovative scientific techniques in computer animation these days, we opted for the digital sets and digital lighting models that would give us instantaneous results. We used texture mapping with normal mattes. We used photographic references of buildings that were in existence to build our fantasy structures. For example, one of those amazing images was a Gothic church that has been burned out by a fire and the huge seminary that surrounds the grounds. Six stories underneath that is where the Sanctuary is and it's a whole scientific lab."

Continuing to detail their previs, Martin explains, "We rendered as flat-shaded models in our previs because the OGL capacity of the video cards we used would allow us to texture and light as well, but the simplicity of looking at the flat characters gave us more of a sense of depth without collapsing onto the crutches of what brick texture we were going to use. Simplifying the process was integral both for visual level of educating and allowing people to get acquainted to the process. Once we finished that, then we took our previs sets and went onstage. We used a product called 3D Inserter, which was in its beta. It was created by a company called Mo-Sys, out of the U.K. With it, we could do a realtime key of our characters in front of the set so we could move the camera in seven different directions. We had the rise, the dolly, the zoom, the focus and the pan and the tilt. That camera data allowed us to match our 3D background without a post-process of using a camera tracking system. Gathering all that data on set was key in our turnaround time. We finished our shoot on the 30th of January and here we are releasing our first 15 minutes in the second week of May."

Working entirely in a virtual world for their sets and environments also meant more creative opportunities to explore within the confines of their budget. "One of the things about being able to shoot in greenscreen and construct a world around people was that we weren't married to the three sides on a set," Martin continues. "We can do these wild camera moves and we weren't constrained to having the lighting from above. In television, the light usually comes from the rig up above. In this model, we can hang lights above and light characters and still apply greenscreen for a roof. It really gave us more dramatic opportunity." It also meant less physical limitations that a standard production always has to factor into its production cycle. "Even if we were going to build these sets practically, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and then we would have the problem of what to do with them after our shoot? We are a series and we hope that we are going to continue to come back to some of these sets. Those real world storage and construction costs are gargantuan, but in the CG world, we can store it just about anywhere!"

The next stage is filming the actors on the greenscreen stage. "We started by blocking out all our shots and figuring how people would interact with props and such. The actors will interact with actual objects. For example, there is a picture frame that Will Zimmerman picks up and holds it in front of him and it's a picture of Dr. Helen Magnus and Einstein. It takes a special actor to carry off a role on an entirely greenscreen set. All of the people we had working on Sanctuary were very talented and very aware of the technical challenges that would influence their performance. There were moments that people would walk onto the soundstage and it was just a wad of green," he chuckles. "Robin Dunn, who plays Dr. Zimmerman, was in last week and saw some of the [finished] shots and he was gob stopped. He said, "Oh my God! I can't believe that's where we were acting!" It takes someone with imagination to consider the world around them from rough 3D representations and concept art. It's a tremendous leap of faith envisioning science fiction and then there's another leap of faith that happens when the director is driving someone toward an imaginary monster that's yet to be articulated."

As an aside, Martin adds, "Our stunt people, when playing monsters, were dressed in green suits instead of doing motion capture, which would demand a setup time and a production stage entirely. So we opted for some animation/rotoscoping over top of our live action. It's a more traditional method but luckily the characters we are animating are a bi-pedial humanoid or it might be a different process altogether!"

Returning to the acting issues, Martin explains the actors are all local and come into shoot when needed like a normal production. "Because different characters are in every webisode, we have our core talent who will come in and shoot. We did an episodic style of shooting where we would do one full hour, which are 60+ minutes. Then we shot the second hour immediately following. All of the television blocking and scheduling goes into work there to optimize the shoot schedule to work with the actor's time."

With the raw footage shot, the next stage is marrying all the pieces together with the detailed design work developed for the series. "Spearheading that task is our art director, Todd Van Holten," Martin offers. "He works proficiently in sketch ups. He can model details so quickly that we take those roughed out models, even down to the architectural details and pass those off to a modeler, who exports them as OBJs. We put them in [Softimage's] XSI, where we start adding the finer details and the intricacies in [Pixologic's] ZBrush. We have 17 artists in total doing all of our sets, character work, composting and effects. It's a very small but streamlined team. One of the caveats of having such a small and proficient team is that people get multifaceted with their skills. We have a few senior people that mentor the younger artists. We have very high expectations for the budget and the time we have to turnaround. We are a full production house with a very small staff, so communication is key. We've developed our own assets and approval management system. It's the backbone of our production. It's all web based, so even if the director is at home and wants view a shot, he can VPN into the server, access and add his notes to the process. We realize that some of our large costs would be keeping people, like a director or production manager on staff throughout the whole production. We realize they are busy so we try to augment the daily grind by doing as much design and approval work up front so it becomes an approval process that can be done anywhere."

Time management is also a large piece of the production puzzle, Martin explains. "We've cascaded our production. The sets that get the most screen time get the most attention because they will be seen in 360 degrees by the time we get to the fourth webisode. The idea is to create a production methodology that allows the sets that will be revisited to be in the can, therefore our turnaround time on the webisodes that are coming can decrease or we can use the surplus of time to focus on new and more engaging sets. The fantasy world of Sanctuary continues to grow, and so do the assets that we will be interacting with over time."

With Sanctuary ready to face its audience and critics, Martin insists the project is already a success because of the team assembled to make it all happen. "I'm most proud of the team that we have here. We have been working very hard to achieve this and they have a sense of ownership and contribution that I don't think you could get in a huge conglomerate. We are one step away with a question to the creator or the director, whereas in certain instances you might have a question that has to be fielded by four or five people before you are validated. We are really excited by the productivity. I'm proud of the way the show is looking. We have a really well rounded one-stop shop from script straight through to delivery." With that kind of talent and dedication, Martin says Sanctuary is a project that he sees succeeding far into the future. "We are going to continue to create dynamic stories in this universe. It's one of those things we hope never stops! It's a really great model for storytelling."

Tara DiLullo Bennett is an East coast-based writer whose articles have appeared in publications such as SCI FI Magazine, SFX and Lost Magazine. She is the author of the books, 300: The Art of the Film and 24: The Official Companion Guide: Seasons 1 & 2.