♪♪
-A visual effect is kind of like a special effect
except it happens in the computer.
-On this show, the term "visual effects" is a pretty broad one.
It could be everything from green-screen compositing,
3-D animation, 2-D animation, a title popping on the screen.
-One of the challenges with our timetable is that we have to
create all these effects in a 10-hour span
but still make it look good enough for television.
-It's different from other production environments in which
you might have weeks or months to create something.
Here we have hours, sometimes even minutes.
-We have to kind of pace ourselves out,
and even while the show's airing, we're still
making changes to pieces that will air later in the show.
We're working until the very last piece airs.
-We add people's heads getting cut off.
We add and remove things that otherwise
wouldn't be able to happen on set.
-Our week starts on Wednesday when we get the scripts.
-We go through and kind of collaborate
through a shared document, and we all take a look
at the script, figure out which graphics they're gonna be.
While the shoot's going on on Fridays,
we're working with our designers, Marissa and Leigh.
-We're in charge of the looks
or anything that falls into the "graphic" category
for the film shoots.
In terms of VFX, we do the titling.
-I design a shot where there's like four Popsicle sticks
that look like rocketships,
and there's smoke coming off the bottom of them.
The VFX guys take that and make it look like
the Popsicles are flying off.
-Definitely one of my favorites.
-It's always gonna look better when we're on set
because we get to communicate with the director in a way
that otherwise we wouldn't be able to.
So, we're on the set of "Chad's Journey."
This entire set's gonna become Heaven.
-There was a Kellyanne Conway spoof
in which she was depicted as It.
We actually were able to be there with the rain machines
and everything and helping frame the shots
so that they would work well for our post-production process.
-When we get in on Saturday mornings,
we usually arrive around 10:00 in the morning,
and we'll usually walk into a rough cut.
Typically from the moment we get in until dress rehearsal,
we have about 12 hours to start working on everything,
and the cut is still in progress while we're doing it.
-4:00 is when we get roughly a locked edit.
Really, that's when we know for sure this shot's gonna be in,
this is gonna be in the actual thing for sure,
so we definitely have to put on our thinking caps
and think creatively about how we're gonna get it done.
-We also have to be really flexible
and ready to change things on the fly because sometimes
a writer or director will see something
and want to push the effect further.
-You know, one of the things that's really exciting
and fun about working here
is that the requests are so diverse.
There's a lot of different ways that you can interpret
a visual-effects or graphics request.
And since we're sort of emulating
so many different styles and we're sort of aping
the look of advertisements and films and things like that,
we have to be able to sort of adapt
to the look and feel of these things
that come from all these different sources.
I always like working with the performance of the cast
because, to me, that's sort of the meat of the show.
It's a lot of fun when the cast members themselves
kind of get into it and really embrace
the portion of that that is the performance
that we can then marry with the effect.
In "The Chosen One," we made Kenan into a centaur,
and he was able to kind of move his body
in a way that felt like a horse walking,
even though he was just on a green screen.
And once we took that torso
and kind of married it to our prop horse,
it really helped to sell the effect.
-You know those challenges on reality shows
where they have to, like, bake a cake?
They do the countdown. It's like, "Okay, everyone.
There's five seconds left."
That's what it feels like every week,
and it's actually a lot of fun. -Yeah.
-It's definitely continuing to grow.
Whatever we can do to try to get it done faster.
-We're working on stuff that just hours later
we're gonna see air live on television,
and it's really exciting
to see that instant, like, gratification.
♪♪
-♪ Yeah, whoa ♪
♪ Yeah, whoa ♪
♪♪
♪ Here we go ♪
♪♪
♪ Here we go, here we go ♪
♪ Ohh ♪
♪♪
♪ Let the people take the mosh and just go ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Explode ♪
♪♪
♪ Oh, no, you didn't ♪
♪ But I think that you did ♪
♪♪
♪ Here we go again and again and again and again and again ♪
♪ Ahhhhh ♪
♪ Let the people take the mosh and just go ♪
♪♪
♪ Explode ♪
♪♪
♪ Let me tell you something ♪
♪ Living your dreams ♪
♪ Thanks for the serotonin ♪
♪ We're going insane ♪
♪ Ahh, ahh ♪
♪ There we go, there we go, there we go again ♪
♪ You did it, you did it, you did it ♪
♪ Oh, no, you don't, oh, yes, you did ♪
♪ Ahh, whoa ♪
♪ Come on ♪
♪ Give me the goods, give me the goods ♪
♪ Give me the goods, I know you got 'em ♪
♪ Give me the goods, give me the goods ♪
♪ Give me the goods, I know you got 'em ♪
♪ Yeah, no, whoa ♪
♪ Yes, no, whoa ♪
♪ Yeahhh ♪
♪ I can't believe you're doing the thing ♪
♪ I can't believe you're doing your thing ♪
♪ Come on, come on ♪
♪ And stop ♪