Phil Attfield and Tom Hockings
Men From Mars

Phil Attfield and Tom Hockings headed the special effects team for the third series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.  They kindly took time out from their current projects, to build a few bridges with us.  Phil's answers are in purple, Tom's are in blue...

Hi guys, great to speak to you.  When and how were you first approached for Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and what where your initial thoughts?
We were approached last summer around the time of our Emmy nomination for our work on series 2 of "Hornblower". Rob Harris, the Production Designer on "Hornblower" was also the designer for AWP and really it was his recommendation that got us the gig.

How did the process of removing/rebuilding the bridge work, initial visits etc?
We started off with a technical recce in Middlesborough. That's when the various departments (camera, production design, location manager, line production etc) ride around in a bus with the director for a couple of days visiting locations. It was during this time that we decided which shots we'd need things like green screens for and what background shots we'd need. Most of the images of the distant bridge in Arizona were shot on 35mm stills during the technical recce, because we had a day of beautiful, sunny blue skies. It's a lot easier to make elements match if the lighting is similar!

Another example of how important lighting conditions are comes during the catapult fight scene. We had to paint out parts of the bridge, which was the easy part. Getting stills of the riverbank and legs of the bridge from suitable angles and in the right weather/lighting conditions was a little more difficult. The elements for those backgrounds come from three different people taken over a period of weeks, and they all match in to the main unit live action.

 What computer software package was used?
The main piece of software we used was After Effects 5. It was ideal for the TV work we were doing for AWP and gave us great flexibility for reviewing shots in progress and also to make amendments easily. Other software we used included Photoshop, which was used for painting up still backgrounds, some of the dismantling of the bridge and building up the casino to look more impressive. Commotion was used to remove dust and hairs from the shots before going into After Effects. Finally, Final Cut Pro was used to capture the material, review the work and to put the final shots back onto DigiBeta. Everything ran on our G4 Macs.

What was the most difficult part of the special effects process?
Mmm, tough one this. As I'm so good, none of it was difficult..... only joking! The most challenging effect for us was the entire green screen sequence on top of the buiding where the boys meet Chip in Episode 5. We made the decision to leave this to be the last effect we did as I would need help compositing the 76 shots in the 4 and a half minute sequence, something we have never done before!

In total I believe this took us about 3 weeks to do, but there was some preparation at the beginning of the production to see if the background angles matched the foreground green screen shots, and also to knit together a super-large background plate that we could use in all the shots that had Chip in them.

The greatest challenge here was obviously the great number of shots involved. Keeping track of where people were with the shots, making sure all the colour balance was the same for each one, making sure that it all stayed in sync with the voice soundtrack that we were provided with and also being sure that the client was happy with the work we were doing.

All the other shots like the bridge dismantling/re-building sequence were relatively easy compared to this.

 How pleased was the team with the overall result?
We were all very pleased with the results initially, but when I watched them on TV and saw them for the first time in a narrative sequence I was even happier, especially with the huge green screen scene.

There are always things you could change in every bit of work you do, but you have to realise that you have a time restraint and a limited amount of material to work with, so you do the best you can. We all take great care in the work we do and I feel that this reflects on the clients who are more than happy with the results.

 If you were to do it again, would you have done anything differently?
I suppose in the green screen sequence we would have liked more atmospheric interaction with the actors, ie wind and lighting that mimicked a Las Vegas high sun. There is only so much we can do at the compositing stage so making an actor's hair wave as if being affected by a breeze is extremely difficult, so these things are usually done at the shooting stage. Preparation is so important as it really helps us compositors.

Other than that I cannot complain. The whole production was a thoroughly enjoyable experience for us all.

I would just like to mention the other people involved in the compositing who were and who came to my aid for the huge green screen sequence.

Simon Carr, Phil Attfield, Jackie Rowson, Robin Beard

 The original ending, which was dropped, would have seen the lads taking a trip on the bridge across the canyon only to get stuck half way Was anything ever done with that effect, or was this dropped early on?
All the elements for this sequence were actually filmed. Including shots in Arizona looking across the gorge and the lads on the gondola in Middlesbrough dressed in their Arizona clothes. The sequence was dropped during editing, before we started any image composition, which was a little disappointing for us as we thought it would have looked great. (See above)

 Where you surprised to be asked to work on a show that many people thought was confined to the annuls of TV history?
Not really. Remakes have been very popular in movies for decades. Look at how many eighties pop bands are doing reunion tours. Popular culture does have a tendency to repeat itself! I think it's actually a credit to TV in Britain that so little is revisited, and when it is we get great shows like AWP.

 And finally, what is the team currently working on?
Currently we are working on "Hornblower" series 3 for Meridian/A&E, "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" for Working Title Television, "Dr. Zhivago" for Granada and "Young Adam" for Giant Films, which is a feature starring Ewan MacGregor.

With very special thanks to Phil and Tom for the interview and the picture.

 

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