CGI effects composite of the Brunnen G Dragonfly Fighters.

 


Production design artwork, showing the ship's weapon launching tail.
LEXX
SPECIAL
EFFECTS
Setting new standards for
television effects.

By Ian Johnston               To achieve the elaborate special visual effects of LEXX, creator/producer Paul Donovan brought in C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, a three-year-old Toronto computer animation company whose previous work included computer-generated effects on TEK WAR, the pilot for THE OUTER LIMITS ("The Sandkings"), and some of the downloading sequences in JOHNNY MNEMONIC. "The CG effects on this are going to be far beyond anything you might see on BABYLON 5 or SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND," said C.O.R.E president Bob Munroc. "Those shows have so far set the standard for TV. We want to take it farther."
        Munroe estimated 70% of its LEXX's footage will contain computer animation in one form or another. For some space battles and planet incinerations, the entire scene may be computer generated. In other cases, CG will be used to enhance or dress up existing live action shots. "One of the specialities of C.O.R.E. is being able to integrate computer animation and live action so that you wouldn't notice anything," he said. "The pilot episode for TEK WAR was and probably still is the most effects-oriented show ever produced for TV--more than even the DEEP SPACE NINE pilot. But most people wouldn't think of TEK WAR that way. We tried to integrate the effects as much as possible."
        Ironically, for a show that is taking pains to avoid the ground trod by STAR TREK, C.O.R.E.'s CEO is none other than William Shatner. "Bill is 10% hands-on and 90% figurehead," said Munroe. "He is the guy who brings us the attention, an who knows all the contacts."
        C.O.R.E.'s CGI work creates the series' insect ships, such as story #1's battleship The Foreshadow, a spiderweb-like ship that opens up to fire sheets of energy at planets. "The Foreshadow is sort of organic in how it looks, opening up to fire this death ray," said producer Bill Flemming, who headed the show's design group. "The next generation [Mega Shadow] is more octopus like. And there's also ships that have been developed that have more of a fish like, cigar-tube look.
        "They [The League] have defeated this culture, but without mastering their technology," said C.O.R.E. animator Steve Elliot, who worked four months on the Mega Shadow spacecraft. "It takes them thousands of years, but after a while, they learn how to grow spaceships, not build them." Computer animation is also being employed to convey the LEXX exterior--a bulbous insect head with multiple bug eyes, on a slim, mechanical frame.

Stanley Tweedle's space craft is prepared for a shot by David Albitson, who heads the team in charge of LEXX's models, minatures and prosthetics.
        Noted art director Mark Laing--who has previously worked on set design for the Nova Scotia-shot Hollywood projects THE SCARLET LETTER and DOLORES CLAIBORNE--working with CG is quite a freeing process for an architect used to having to deal with the realities of building materials and gravity. "For something like the Cluster mortuary, you could really play with the size of the thing," said Laing, referring to the graveyard of His Shadow, "In that, we designed an 800-meter-high structure that looked sort of like a funereal urn from the outside Inside, it's honeycombed with hundreds and hundreds of bodies. Try building something like that on set."
        For art director Nigel Scott, going from stage work to designing for computers had its pluses and minuses. "There was a terror from my perspective, because my history is in designing sets that are built by hand," said Scott. "We'd design something for LEXX thinking that they would be built, only to find out they're being done by computer. You'd think to yourself, 'I wish I'd knows that in the first place,' because when you're dealing with CG, the sky's the limit."