Karin Fong: Viva Las Vegas
Three-Screen Editing
Fong and her editor coordinated the imagery among the waterfall, moon and muse head screens. “We have three projectors running off the same timecode,” she explains, “and we have to time all the movements because the music drives everything.”
Fong notes that her Final Cut Pro editing covers both traditional imagery and animation, such as making sure the lip syncs are correct, as well as more theatrical choreography, such as the precise timing of the muse head rising from the water, which “has to be dramatic.” After editing the three tracks separately, they’re combined in one comp to gauge how they interact.
“Final Cut Pro is great,” enthuses Fong, “because we can edit for all three screens at once. A lot of our work is a kind of collage. We take things from different sources, like live action and digital images. Then we composite all these different mattes, keys and layers into the image. Final Cut Pro is very fluid at doing that. The ease with which Final Cut Pro lets you bring things in becomes really important to our pipeline.”
Mac Is A Collage Box
“I really depend on the Mac, and all the software that’s available for it,” says Fong. “The 2D and 3D animation, the storyboards — it’s all on the Mac. And the way the programs work together on the Mac, so I can present my ideas visually, is totally important to me. There’s nothing else like it for design.”
She goes on, “I think of the Mac as a collage box. It’s a wonderful place to layer things, including music.” Best of all, adds Fong, she’s not limited to computer-generated imagery.
“The Mac lets me scan in handmade things, like my own drawings. So I don’t have to sacrifice those elements, which I love, just because I’m working on the computer. Plus, I can have this great dialog where I put something in the Mac, print it out, scan it, bring it back in, and create these layers of digital and analog. You get this really exciting mash-up. The Mac lets you travel from something you hold in your hand to this wide vista — in a few seconds. It opens up all kinds of possibilities.”
Surprising Twists
As a storyteller, Fong understands what keeps audiences engaged. “The most exciting thing about this kind of project,” she says, “is all the opportunities for building a narrative and keeping it surprising. When there’s a twist in a story, people re-experience the world they’re in. And with these tools on the Mac, anything can happen.”
Fong relishes the advances made possible by technology. “You start with some idea that’s just chicken scratch on paper, and you can make something so memorable,” she says. “And the world of filmmaking is opening up, because people are accepting — and expecting — the integration of animation and live action and type. So it’s becoming a new language — and that’s very exciting.”
The commercial for Chittenden Bank “Homemade Chef, Homemade Oven” used claymation characters. Above is a set shot of some of those characters.
It’s a tongue that Fong and her crew are continually exploring. “At first,” she remarks, referring to the early stages of the Wynn project, “we were tempted to turn it all on at the same time. Then we saw that it was confusing. So we discovered how to use a series of screens to draw the viewer around the space.” They built a narrative for the lakeside shows by choreographing the lighting and imagery and stage effects to guide viewers where to look next.
Flamenco and Rachmaninoff
Audiences have been blown away. Says Fong, “It’s not just some ambient thing. They put down their forks and watch, which is exactly what Steve wanted. Afterward, they tell people about this crazy show they saw at Wynn — with a head that pops out of the water, or a flamenco thing with a cape and a bull, or Rachmaninoff with beautiful flowers opening up — and each person relates a different experience. The idea is to entertain people and keep them coming back.”
To Fong and her team, the variety keeps the assignment fascinating. “For us,” she comments, “it’s like we’re programming our own little channel, with all these delights and surprises. Because,” she adds with a born storyteller’s love of mystery, “my favorite projects are the ones where someone asks me, ‘How did you do that?’”
