Ted Lasso | Visual Effects & Screen - video Dailymotion

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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--

Ted Lasso | Visual Effects & Screen

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