LOS ANGELES — Mad-Man (https://www.madmaninc.com), a design/post production house that creates for sets for concerts and shows, recently contributed to the second season of HBO Max's Legendary. The competition series follows 10 LGBT houses that compete to win $100,000 by facing off in various fashion challenges. MC Dashaun Wesley is joined by judges Leiomy Maldonado, Jameela Jamil, Law Roach and Megan Thee Stallion.
According to Mad-Man producer Adriana Madrigal, the show requested two separate deliverables from the studio.
“First was a music-driven visual that incorporated footage of Season 1’s winning house, Balmain. The visuals were used for Balmain's guest performance in Episode 1 of Season 2. We were asked to create something edgy, colorful, and to use typography as an added layer. The end result was an entirely rhythmic visual with glitches and pops of color to enhance the performance. Second, we were asked to create rhythmically-cut intros for each house of Season 2. We used a mixture of typography and footage to create each houses' look, with several variations to be used as intros or segues throughout the show.”
Photo (L-R): Mad-Man's Guzman and Madrigal
Mad-Man’s Gonzalo Guzman uses Adobe Premiere as his primary editing tool. For design and animation, they rely on a mixture of After Effects, Notch and the Unreal Engine for their extended reality footage. The studio worked on Hippo servers and delivered content for six LED surfaces at 3K resolution.
"Every project has its own unique set of challenges,” notes Madrigal. “For these deliveries, we had to deliver rhythmic content without timecode and without a visual of what it looked like on-site. Usually, we are given an opportunity to tweak on-site, to make sure the content is precise and hits at optimal moments. For this project, there wasn't time, and the turnaround was quick. The other challenge was that we had to deliver a toolkit to music with different variations. We were given a musical track and were asked to create a toolkit for each house - each file being :20. We had to play with the track and create the toolkit for various points of the music. It was a challenge, but we made it work. The toolkit can be used for various intro points and segues."