HBO’s Boardwalk Empire is riveting television, taking viewers back to prohibition-era Atlantic City with a gritty portrait of a pivotal time in the nation’s history. This original series has been praised for its taut storylines, strong performances, and quality of the visual design which captures both the grit and poetry of 1920s urban America.
Helping realize the look of that world is Brainstorm Digital, a small effects house in New York that helped the show win the award for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Broadcast Program from the Visual Effects Society, as well as the Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series during its first season. Following that success, the studio has been busy working on Boardwalk Empire’s sophomore run, and now features the talent of Full Sail Digital Arts & Design graduate Kelsey Randle, who was hired as junior effects coordinator for the series, and has recently moved into the role of effects compositor based on her enthusiasm for the art.
“I had my heart set on compositing pretty early on at Full Sail, so this has been an amazing opportunity,” she says. “I started with the plan of helping coordinate [for the company], but I jumped right into doing roto to show my excitement for it. From then, they couldn't help but start giving me my own shots."
"Most of what I’m doing now is blue screen work and set extension – basically making stuff look like it’s there when it’s really not, simply put. Whether it’s an explosion or just a city view, I’ve learned so much in the past few months I’ve worked here.”
Since joining Boardwalk Empire’s second season Kelsey has also enjoyed the creative challenges that have come from the constraints of the series’ time period. In addition to the technical work that goes into each episode, the show also demands a great deal of research to accurately recreate the buildings and objects.
“All the fine details in the history is really interesting to me,” she says. “I had no idea how much the city has changed since the 20s. You assume that a lot of the major buildings have been around for a long time, but that’s not the case at all. So our team has had to find old photos that show different angles of the city, and the great outfits and old cars. I didn’t expect to love that part as much as I do.”
Digital effects have the ability to produce almost anything you can imagine – futuristic worlds and ornate creatures – but there’s a sublime beauty in the subtler use of the medium seen in shows like Boardwalk Empire. Kelsey’s collaboration with the other artists at Brainstorm is helping to provide a rich sense of immersion that not every period drama is able capture – something that continues to resonate with viewers, as well as her own instincts as a visual artist.
“I feel like what we’ve been able to do here is on a whole other level,” she says. “When an episode is finished and you see the real sets and actors blended with the what we created – especially the night scenes with all the lights of Atlantic City in the background – it’s just amazing."
"You don't even realize that the show has so many effects. It's not the kind of show with lots of explosions and crazy stunts, so I find it most interesting that you wouldn't assume that it was so heavily effects driven. When Boardwalk won a Visual Effects Society award earlier this year, most of the feedback we got was "There are effects in that show?". I always thought that was cool."
