[THEME MUSIC]
THEME SONG: Alter Ego.
Alter Ego.
MICHAEL ZINMAN: "Alter Ego" is the world's first singing avatar
competition show.
It's never been done as a series before.
MATILDA ZOLTOWSKI: All our competitors
compete using their own digital alter ego
instead of putting themselves as humans on stage.
SAM WRENCH: We want these characters to feel like contestants on that stage.
MATILDA ZOLTOWSKI: This was a huge leap beyond anything
I've ever seen before, certainly beyond anything
I've ever done before.
MICHAEL ZINMAN: I didn't think it was going to even be possible to do--
not because you can't have an avatar on stage, you know,
singing or motion capture suit.
But how do you actually do 10 of these performances in a day,
keep it on budget, and keep it as elementary as you can to the network
and to the producers on stage?
No different than a new show with live action people.
We shoot the show as if it was live.
It is a competition show.
They cannot do it over again.
So that's a lot of stress, relying on technology.
SAM WRENCH: I was excited, but I was also nervous.
I mean, I had concerns over, like, feet
being on the ground and tracking and mocap.
All of those things because you really
are bringing two worlds together.
MATILDA ZOLTOWSKI: Now we're on this huge set in Hollywood.
We've got all this audience, all these amazing judges,
all these singers that we've flown in from around the country.
Like, it has to work?
MICHAEL ZINMAN: Is this thing going to fall over?
Is it going to go to the Blue Screen of Death?
So you have to have a very reliable platform, like Unreal,
to do a show like this.
If the core of the foundation, we don't believe in it
or we don't feel confident in it, there's
no way we would have done the show.
DAN PACK: We had just 10 weeks.
We had to create 20 characters, four different wardrobe options each,
each character with their own unique visual effects
as well as several visual effects that were tied to all characters.
CONTESTANT: And "Alter Ego." actually really helps me a lot.
WILL.I.AM: What?
CONTESTANT: What, this?
WILL.I.AM: Wow, I'm really blown away by this technology,
MICHAEL ZINMAN: We have nine tracked cameras on the show.
We have a motion capture volume that is the same size
that we have on our stage that's backstage.
So all of that data from the motion capture, both the body and the face
go to the engines.
The camera tracking goes to the engines.
The lighting goes to the engines.
And then from there, it gets composite on the stage.
And we have our audience.
We have our judges, and we have our hosts.
And all interact.
They have cheap monitors all around the studio,
and they can see everything that's happening.
So they can engage right away with the show.
The two most important features for us from Unreal
would be the DMX that gives us the success to actually program
a show quickly and efficiently.
And then certainly the compositing so that you buy
into the actual avatar on the stage.
So all of that, to me, is crucial.
DAN PACK: DMX allowed an unbelievable amount of control
over the character.
We were able to change character hair color, eye color, texture,
control the effects all through this DMX control panel.
MICHAEL ZINMAN: You literally forgot that someone's
backstage doing all of this and there's a 3D rendered Alter
Ego onstage.
DAN PACK: The moment that I realized it was all going to work
was when I was actually watching the show
and really believing what I was seeing.
GRIMES: I really wanted access to this technology myself for a long time.
And so I'm just incredibly stoked to be here.
WILL.I.AM: This technology is pretty fantastic.
SAM WRENCH: Very quickly, the contestants, the host,
and the judges picked up this natural flow,
and the technology didn't feel like it was inhibiting that flow.
When it comes to crying, I can-- we would be watching our spy cam.
If we saw that contestant nearly crying, we would cue the tears,
and we would then go into Roxy's ear, let her
know that the contestant was crying.
And she would cry herself.
And it was incredible how naturally everyone picked it up to the point
where the judges were--
I can't believe I'm feeling emotion from this conversation.
MATILDA ZOLTOWSKI: The contestants loved the process.
They really had a reason for wanting an alter ego,
for wanting an avatar to perform for them.
Some of them were stage fright, confidence.
This way, they could just focus on delivering the best performance.
They could.
I think they were quite sad to say goodbye to their alter egos
at the end.
MICHAEL ZINMAN: The most surprising thing for me was
that it actually worked to the way that we all expected it to work.
And it was successful.
SAM WRENCH: "Alter Ego" is probably the best example
of the scale of what you can do.
Watching them interact on a very normal TV production schedule
was incredible.
And I think it's probably just the start of what can be done.