Exclusive Interview with Sam Nicholson of Stargate Digital
Sam Nicholson is CEO and founder of Stargate Digital the company responsible for the over 300 special effects shots in NBC's new Knight Rider movie.
NICHOLSON: So now, what can I do for you?
KRO: I'm with Knight Rider Online, we're essentially the largest, oldest Knight Rider fan community on the net, and we have a bunch of fans who are really looking forward to Sunday, and we wanted to talk to you and hear about your part in it. For starters, can you give us some background on Stargate Digital?
NICHOLSON: My background is I'm the founder of Stargate Digital, but I'm also a special effects supervisor and cinematographer. So we've done a lot of work with NBC, stretching back to big event films like Asteroid. We do a lot of their work and they know that because Knight Rider has a very photo-real, action-oriented look to it, that we would be able to deliver the over 300 shots in a very short period of time with a very high level of complexity for their visual effects on the show.
KRO: Over 300 shots?
NICHOLSON: I think overall in complex digital effects that we've done, it's about 350 or something.
KRO: What would be an example of a smaller effect, that people wouldn't even realize it was an effect, and what would be a big effect?
NICHOLSON: Well the small efffect that people wouldn't even realize is the red lights on KITT, on the hood, the two red lights that indicate his personality and mood. They didn't work on set, so we had to put a lot of them in in post. So you would never see those types of effects at all, or even believe that they weren't real.
KRO: So the car does has physical lights installed, they just weren't working?
NICHOLSON: Yeah, absolutely, they weren't working on the day. So those are kind of fix-it things. But the big effects obviously are things like where the car is morphing into another mode, and through its nanotechnology it changes so that it is literally growing the spoilers, power bulges... We did a lot of research into nanotechnology and making it more believable, photographically believable. So the car in the action sequences, we did laser-scan all of the cars used in the show so they're virtual cars now driving around that are very photo-real.
KRO: You laser scanned the actual, physical cars.
NICHOLSON: Yeah, you do a 360 laser scan on them and then every detail of the car is captured. And then we mapped that over the top of a real car driving, or sometimes a partial photographic buck with the interior but no hood on the car at all. And then we build the car around it to make the car race down the highway and do all sorts of interesting things. We took the photo-perfect car and then photographed environments using a 360-degree camera array, and then put the real actor into a computer-generated car, and then drive the computer-generated car and real landscape across a photographic, very high-definition background that we shot all over California. So we've been shooting for the last couple weeks up in Lone Pine and all over the place. There's a certain part of the pilot that's like a road-trip and we needed a lot of different environments.
KRO: So some of the cars we'll see on Sunday are virtual cars.
NICHOLSON: Absolutely. A lot of them. You can't tell, but when you think how did they insert 2 cars and make them change color and change shape and do all this stuff in the middle of a driving shot with actors acting, that generally is a computer-generated match-move car.
KRO: The interior of the car, when it was first released, it seemed a little stark and when we talked to Ted Moser who built the car, he said that if it goes to series they're going to start to add more gadgets to the interior. We also heard that you guys may be adding more features to the interior as well.
NICHOLSON: Yeah, we're adding head-up displays, holographic readouts, all that kind of stuff. And I do think that during the life of the series, that will become increasingly more complex as the storyline demands. The show ends in Prague. It starts in the United States and ends in Prague. So I think where the series may go is into an international motif, which we would play a very heavy role in utilizing our virtual backlot. This is the type of show that lends itself to a series because you can develop very complex computer-generated models and instrumentation and the logic of how KITT changes, and that can be amortized over the life of a series much easier than it can be over a single pilot. The pilot is a challenge. We got it done and we just scratched the surface of what we believe is going to be possible to achieve in a series.
KRO: What was that schedule like for you? We know the production was quick, are you finished?
NICHOLSON: We're finishing today actually. There are a number of shots that are going to be delivered today, it's going to be delivered wet. It airs Sunday, we're definitely working up until the final deadline. It's an extremely challenging show from a time standpoint and the complexity of doing photo-real, three-dimensional computer graphics.
KRO: Are you involved with the commercial that have been out?
NICHOLSON: We did one of those, the morphing commercial.
KRO: With the remote?
NICHOLSON: Yeah, the remote. It was relatively simple because we had all of the computer-generated models we could do it quickly.
KRO: I wasn't sure how much of your work we've seen yet, and how much we haven't. We haven't seen the heads-up display.
NICHOLSON: A little bit. Just a little taste. None of the really complex stuff. When it comes to all the car chase scenes and whatnot, they were shot on green screen and the driving of the car. Most of the driving was shot on green screen. Those are all processed shots that when you see the before and after, it's amazing what we started with. An actor sitting on a chair on green screen and you wind up racing down the highway with KITT at 400 mile per hour with the car morphing. I think the before and afters, we can post them on our website after the show airs. I think that the fans will be very interested in that.
KRO: Absolutely, we're interested in the entire process, with everything that's involved with it.
NICHOLSON: I'm glad. One of the challenges of the show with the fan base, it's very known. You say you're doing Knight Rider to anybody and they say oh, that's fantastic, we were big fans of the show. We're very heavily promoting where Knight Rider can go in terms of new technology and utilizing digital effects to really expand the look of the show and the dynamics of the drama that can be told.
KRO: One of the big fan debates is the whole Mustang debate, but that's pretty much settled...
NICHOLSON: (laughs) Ford wrote the check and it pretty much happened. And I know that Ford really supported the show. And I really do think that now with 3D computing technologies being what they are, that we can create a playbook for Knight Rider the series that would really be astonishing.
KRO: KITT's new voice modulator, is that your design?
NICHOLSON: I think the final graphics rendition of that is the graphics guys. It wasn't our design. Two of the flat graphics guys did a lot of the high-con graphics design.
KRO: You're more involved with the exterior car and the driving scenes, as opposed to the on-screen graphics.
NICHOLSON: Yeah, we're more or less photo-real 3-D work and photographic work.
KRO: In the movie, we know that KITT does not turbo boost. But we know the car can evolve. If it goes to series and the story calls for it, are you guys prepared to give us a turbo boost?
NICHOLSON: (laughs) Considering the fact that we don't turbo boost in this one when KITT goes over a hundred miles an hour, I would imagine that a turbo boost on top of 450 miles per hour, if you're not there yet it would be pretty damn fast.
KRO: More specifically, in the old series KITT would jump over other cars without a ramp.
NICHOLSON: Oh right, we didn't do anything like that. We could do it. We could turn KITT into an F-16 if we wanted to with the CG technology we have. Are we prepared to do it? I would say if it follows logic. We're trying to keep it grounded in some semblance of science fiction reality. And I think even if you have things like jump tubes and stuff like that in science fiction, you have to have a set of rules by which you play. Captain Kirk could only transport from a particular place for instance. And so I imagine turbo-boosting would be possible with KITT but we'd have to show the scientific logic behind it, at least enough to say it is a believable stunt that you might have been able to do practically.
KRO: If you want to play around with it a bit over the summer, trust me, the fans will overlook it if it isn't scientifically perfect.
NICHOLSON: OK. Well we are prepared to get really fantastic with KITT. There's no doubt that we've got the groundwork to do it, we've got the models to do it, and we've got the technology and the artists that want to do it. So now I think it's a matter of drama first, everybody wants to say that the drama comes first, but then KITT and the spectacular capabilities of KITT are something that we are going to develop and push right over the top for the fans.
KRO: We're definitely looking forward to that, that's for sure.
NICHOLSON: All right, well any notes or suggestions that the fanbase has, we'd love to hear about it and we can pitch those in creative meetings to make them happen. I hoe we live up to everyone's expectations. Remember, this is just the beginning. We're working on a very nice posting on our website for Knight Rider, as well as linking to your website and other fanbase stuff.
KRO: Well we really appreciate that. And I know this is a real busy time for you and appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.
NICHOLSON: OK, well I'm always available if you need somebody to talk to about what's going on behind the curtain.
KRO: OK, thank you very much.
NICHOLSON: Thanks, bye.
Many thanks to Sam Nicholson of Stargate Digital for taking the time to speak with us. Remember to check out him and his teams work TONIGHT! Knight Rider, Today Sunday February 17th on NBC!
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