ImpactPR always brings some great panels to conventions and their first panel of the day on Saturday was the 5th Annual “It’s Alive!”: Designing Sci-Fi, Horror, and Comic Book Genre Film and TV. Diving into their inspirations and creative processes, the panel highlighted the immense creative potential working with projects that move beyond the normal world.
Panelists: Editor Brett W. Bachman, ACE (Companion, Heart Eyes), re-recording mixer Christina “Chuyue” Wen (What We Do in the Shadows Season 6), VFX supervisor/2nd unit director Johnny Han (HBO and DC’s The Penguin), editor/director Jon Dudkowski (Star Trek: Discovery), and composers Leo Birenberg and Zach Robinson (Cobra Kai, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man)
What Brought Them to Genre
There was a wide range of inspirations from the panelists and it was wonderful to hear how differnt people could come to the genre. For example, Brett Bachman grew up in the Pacific Northwest (which he affectionately referred to as Big Foot’s backyard) got a lot of his inspiration from going to the libaray as well as AMblin Entertinament movies. Growing up in China, Christina often got the big action and sci-fi movies from America, which led her into wanting to be in this field.
Epic Elements
Johnny Han and Jon Dudkowski both worked on shows that required some immense VFX and production planning. With his work on The Penguin, Johnny had to recreate the flood scene from The Batman, but in a way that felt extremely real and tactile to the world the characters on the show inhabited. It was a big undertaking, and ultimately the show ended up having almost as many VFX shots as feature films. Dudkowski had the enviable position of the director of the Star Trek Discovery pilot reaching out to him to help figure out the VFX of the pilot. He took all the footage and shots, transforming them into what he thought could work…which led to being offered a job with the show going forward.
How Does the Genre Affect the Creative Process
Leo and Zach have scored two very different projects and as such only had one main rule: enthusiasm should win the day aka focus on things that get them jacked. That has led them to doing some interesting compositions, the genre influences led them on Twisted Metal doing something hybrid and alien like. Spider-Man presented them a chance to work on something that hued a bit from retro influences and use their love of anime, blending these together melodically. I also really enjoyed hearing Christina talk about how she loves working on genre because you have to use a lot of creativity to create worlds and sounds no one has heard before.