'Madam Secretary' began its sixth and final season with the premiere episode revealing that Secretary of State, Elizabeth McCord (Téa Leoni), won the race for the presidency. VFX Legion capped off three-years contributing a variety of digital effects for the hit show, with a challenging mix of large-scale CG sequences created for this last season, right through to the series finale, which aired on December 9th.
The LA/B.C.-based studio was called on to create over 140 of the most complex visual effects for the final three seasons. They produced everything from computer-generated environments that transported the live-action to locations throughout the world - to digital elements and technically challenging effects designed to elevate the visual impact of creator, writer, show runner Barbara Hall's hit political drama.
VFX Legion first came onboard during 'Madam Secretary's' fourth season, after the show's producer, Tony Palermo, took a meeting with the the company's VFX Supervisor, James David Hattin, and its Executive Producer, Reid Burns.
"Tony was surprised to see such convincing shots of the White House and D.C. from the TV show, 'Scandal' on our reel of CG work," says Burns. "The high-quality digital environments, built by Legion from the ground up, were indistinguishable from practical footage - and got us in the door."
'Madam Secretary' had been using stock footage of the White House, as well as other locations, and working around their limited flexibility. The cost of taking the New York production to D.C., tight deadlines, and actors' schedules made location shooting unrealistic. Legion presented a viable, efficient alternative: photo-real computer-generated environments custom-designed to seamlessly match the show's live-action footage, while enabling sites that film crews can't access to be recreated digitally with spot-on accuracy.
"The high-quality, complex visual effects we turned around quickly and on budget for that first episode led to the expansion of Legion's role," says Burns. "We became the go-to VFX specialist for 'Madam Secretary. The writer's room started developing scripts with a wider range of scenarios that took advantage of our CG assets."
Madam Secretary' was shot in New York, and set in the country's political epicenter, Washington D.C., addressing issues requiring international diplomacy that took storylines beyond US borders. VFX Legion built digital replications of the White House, a crucial fixture in the show. Its team was soon creating CG environments that enabled scenarios to play out in political hotspots around the globe, taking the show digitally where it was unable to go on film.
[caption id="attachment_139725" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Before+After-Computer Generated White House Balcony[/caption]
"Our team created computer-generated environments that stood in for regions throughout the world, from Syria and Turkey to Iraq and Mexico. We were fortunate to be given the freedom to design shots that were innovative, dramatic, and of a scale rarely seen on 'Madam Secretary,'" adds Hattin.
Legion also created numerous virtual crowd sequences over the years, adding large numbers of individuals in motion. Towards the end of season six, its compositors, animators, and CG artists took digital crowd simulation to the next level with a motion capture sequence that digitally built huge crowds of people gathered in D.C. to support the president.