"So, my question is, do you see an improvement in the way or speed f/x are
done nowadays? With what you have now, would you expect to ever have to
change schedules b/c f/x was taking too long?"

No, not really, because the system is about as fast as you can get it, and
so far we haven't seen any need to rearrange episodes or put anything back
due to cgi. (#406 is as big as anything we've ever done...usually, we do
something that big toward the end of a season, with Severed Dreams an
exception.)

It's mainly faster now in terms of the approval process. Foundation would
lay off a jpg image of a shot in process, but it's just one frame...when
they'd deliver, it would be on an exobyte or laser disk transfer, and it
would come down from their offices in Santa Clarita once a day. So often
you can lose a day or so in that process. Now, it's over at post, which
is 12 minutes away. We zip down, see the whole shot (sometimes in
wireframe or low-res tests), and approve or make changes at that stage,
saving a LOT of time in terms of re-do's and the like.




jms