interview and copy written for Sohonet
Annie Rader, the
associate producer of the hit teen drama Riverdale, discusses her
experience on the show, the evolution of her role, and the show's unique
appeal, along with production challenges they had to overcome.
article here
Teen drama Riverdale was
one of the most popular shows worldwide on Netflix when it aired its final
episode in August. Based on the characters of Archie Comics and adapted for The
CW by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the series is produced by Warner Bros. Television
and CBS Studios, in association with Berlanti Productions and features an
ensemble cast led by KJ Apa, Lili Reinhart, Camila Mendes and Cole
Sprouse.
Annie Rader was
associate producer until its finale having worked on 102 of the 137 shows
across seven seasons. She talks to us about her role on the show and how it
evolved over five years.
Could you tell us
how you got involved with Riverdale?
Annie Rader: I
started out as a post production assistant 10 years ago and worked up through
different shows (CBS’ Mom, ABC’s Dr. Ken, The
CW’s Life Sentence) before finding Riverdale in 2018
where I began as post supervisor. I’ve kept working at it ever since!
During that time, I
also worked on other shows for showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa like the Chilling
Adventures of Sabrina and Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin.
What were your
responsibilities on the show and how did they grow?
Riverdale was the first show on which I’d been
responsible for post supervision for a full season, and it was initially a
learning-on-the-job role. I was hired by co-producer (and later, the show’s
producer) Amy Myrold from whom I learned so much.
At the outset I was
mostly in charge of picture finishing and VFX but I was also involved in pre
production helping to break down the script and making sure production had
everything they needed, from playback on set to music. With picture finishing I
would oversee everything from online edit to color and VFX, to the final mix
where Amy and I would work together on the sound.
As I became more
experienced my role evolved, so by the end of the run I was fulfilling many of
the roles of a department head, reporting to Amy. As well as post supervision I
was doing all the tasks of the associate producer such as budget, mixing, prep,
scheduling, dealing with composers and the back and forth creative and
technical decisions with the producers, the studio and network.
What is it you most
enjoy about working on Riverdale?
Riverdale is a really fun show that does not take
itself too seriously. It has musical numbers and I love those because I’m a big
musical nerd.
That’s not to say
we didn’t cover some sadder material. We had a memorial episode for Luke Perry
after he passed. [Perry starred in 46 episodes as Fred Andrews with the
memorial episode using archive clips airing in 2019].
But honestly, the
reason I love Riverdale is the people I work with every day. Everyone
from our editing teams to our vendors is fantastic. From Amy I learned a ton
about the process and the business. She is very good at building people up and
mentoring them, so much so that you just want to stay. Our showrunner is also
really good at what he does and has a pulse on what is interesting and fun.
Who are the show’s
main post vendors?
Our principal
picture vendor for online and color is Company 3. Our online editor is Matt
Purse who has worked on the series since the pilot. Tom Reiser is our colorist.
They are both terrific. We do our audio mix at Sony with Vicki Lemar and Ken
Kobett and VFX at Encore VFX.
I guess you had a
successful structure in place for the first few seasons, then Covid came along
to break it. How did you respond?
Our production shot
in Vancouver and editorial is in LA, so we already had some need for a remote
workflow but, yes, we had systems that were pretty much set in
stone. Up to that point, if our director or producer was out of town,
they would watch a cut and send notes for our editors to address, and we’d send
them a new version. That was the old school workflow.
When Covid happened
we all had to go remote. Not just our producers and directors but our editors
and everyone on the team. We couldn’t just pop into an edit bay, review
something and leave.
Our partners at the
online facilities and mix stage all had some form of a remote workflow in place
but the technology was very expensive and to be honest not that ideal for us.
So, on that fateful
day in 2020 when we had to go home there was a lot of in-house scrambling. We
were running three shows out of the same office and each production team
researched a different technology. Some had ClearView Flex, some had Evercast,
and some had Streambox. For us the biggest questions were: ‘What is the price?
How does it work? Is it producer friendly?’
Honestly, those
were our biggest concerns. We needed something that was straightforward —
basically plug and play. If producers and directors needed to create a login
and remember passwords, it was never going to work for us. So, we put
together a report on what the various options were and sent it higher up.
What was the
outcome of the assessment?
We chose ClearView
Flex. This was simply because it was the most producer friendly solution. Plus,
it just worked really well.
Initially, we got
one box to share among our three edit teams purely because that was all that
was available at the time. Our PA would collect the box from one person and
drive it over to another person and put it on their front doorstep and wipe it
down because, of course, you weren’t allowed any contact and safety was our
first concern.
Luckily, we had
finished shooting most of Season 4, leaving two and half episodes to shoot. We
finished the season without those, editing an earlier episode to become the
finale. All we needed to do was get our producers to watch live edits with
ClearView. We finished the online and mix stage offline.
After we’d finished
Season 4, we took an enforced break until people were allowed back to make the
show again.
How did you change
up the editorial workflow for Season 5?
The answer was
straightforward. It was ‘let’s do ClearView again!’
We went back to
work for Season 5 in September 2020. This time we had multiple flexboxes. We
set up all of our editors at home with boxes. Company 3 had ClearView boxes.
We’ve used ClearView ever since.
From the get-go on
S5 we used ClearView more for live mixing, online, and colour correction. My
producer and I got set up at home with an Apple TV display that was calibrated
by Company 3, so we were able to do our online sessions and colour review through
ClearView. This was great and so much better than back and forth. I could
say to our artists directly, ‘No, not that part of the image, this part here’
instead of having to send three rounds of notes per fix.
ClearView was also
important for sound. So much of our mix process is collaborative. For example,
it meant we could request a sound effect that was ‘bassier’ and our sound mixer
would be able to search, find and playback there and then rather than going back
and forth.
We were able to
streamline the whole process so now it no longer felt like crisis mode. It just
felt like this is how it is supposed to work over zoom and ClearView.
Once the pandemic
was over presumably you all went back to the office?
Because we’d done
really great work for two years using ClearView remotely we were able to segue
into more of a hybrid workflow.
We had one team who
preferred to work in the office and two editing teams who preferred to work at
home. We also had a floating Avid system in the office if, for whatever reason,
anyone’s internet went down, or their producer wanted to work in person.
Part of that was
preference but was also about managing lower numbers in the facility and mix
stage. At the beginning of the back to work during and post-pandemic there were
limits to the numbers of people permitted in close proximity. After a while
this was relaxed, and we transitioned to it being personal preference whether
one worked remotely or not.
We did do most of
our mixes in person with Roberto joining remotely via ClearView sometimes, as
would our editor instead of coming to the mix stage.
I’d say we were 85%
to 90% remote even up to our very last episode. We had one team in the office
who were regularly using ClearView for sessions with the producer and director
shooting in Vancouver or with our showrunner who spends a lot of his time in New
York.
Riverdale ended
photography on S7 just before the SAG-AFTRA strikes kicked in and the finale
aired in September. What is your next move, Annie?
Since I’ve worked
essentially for five years non-stop with a couple weeks off between seasons,
and the Covid break, I am welcoming a hiatus right now! I’m busy refreshing my
engines for when production goes crazy following resolution of the strikes.
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