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High-Impact Set Design
19 May, 2011 By: Meleah MaynardInnovative Show Design gives Versus's Hockey Central a whole new look using CINEMA 4D and Vectorworks.
Having worked with NBC on Super Bowl XLIII and two long-running poker shows, Innovative Show Design (ISD) already had a solid relationship with NBC Sports when executive producer Sam Flood called with a request. He wanted a new look for the set of Hockey Central, which airs on the Versus channel. "Watch the show tonight and see what you can come up with," Flood told Justin Garrone, ISD's associate artistic director.
"We presented two desk designs and the next day, received a call from NBC requesting a meeting at the Versus studio," Garrone recalls. The following Monday, Chris Runnells, ISD's owner and creative director, flew to Connecticut to discuss the project further. Suddenly, what began as a request for a desk design became an opportunity to create an entirely new set. With a time frame of just three weeks, Runnells, Garrone, and the other members of the ISD management team, Nate Mitchell and Mark Dowling, used Nemetschek's Vectorworks and MAXON's CINEMA 4D (C4D) to create the new look.
One of the main goals of the set redesign was to create a more intimate space, with a desk that the show's hosts could gather around.
Combining Vectorworks and C4D is not unique to this project. ISD designers started using C4D four years ago, when they needed a better way to render from their CAD-based engineering program. "Nate [Mitchell] introduced CINEMA 4D as a more sophisticated way to render the companies' designs and give them a more realistic look," Runnells explains. And the ISD team plans to keep using C4D as part of their pipeline.
"We work so fast in CINEMA now because we've built a lot of tools, including a library of objects we use, so we don't have to redraw every single item every time," says Mitchell. Some of the most useful tools the group has made include an extensive texture library and an array of photometrically correct lights and cameras. "Justin [Garrone] and I have built lights and cameras [in the software] that perform exactly as they would in the real world, so clients can preview what their set is going to look like," Mitchell continues.
It's All About the Hockey
ISD created the new Hockey Central set from scratch. The existing set had been used for several seasons and multiple programs, so NBC executives decided they wanted to start over with a set specifically designed for the hockey program. The first goal was to design a new, much more intimate desk for the hosts to gather around. The concept that NBC presented to ISD was inspired by a Nok tabletop hockey game.
Designed to look like a hockey rink, the hosts' desktop incorporates a touchscreen that they use when discussing strategies and illustrating plays.
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