Production Files with Kristin Riccio
We caught up with Alkemy X Post Producer Kristin Riccio to hear the behind-the-scenes stories from her most memorable projects — the ones that pushed her creativity, tested her problem-solving skills, and offered valuable lessons that continue to influence her approach. Read below to explore what she learned along the way.
My favorite project is ….
As a TV lover, I was excited we were tasked with filming and creating content for the 2017 Television Critics Association tour for the Fall television season releases. Xfinity asked us to come up with a few new ideas for content in addition to our usual interview pieces. One of the new segments the creatives came up with was a game called “Stars Under Pressure.” We would have two costars ask each other questions to see how well they knew each other while one of them played the game ‘Perfection.’
We ended up filming a few sets of costars, one was America Ferrera and Ben Feldman from the show “Superstore.” Their banter and chemistry were perfect for the concept, and the more flustered they were, the better. All of us gathered to see it come together in the edit room. We added visual pop-ups of their responses and audio cues to add an extra punch. We knew we had something fun, and we were glad the clients thought so as well.
There is nothing better than when something comes together and hits - all while having a blast making it. It reminds you of why you fell in love with the medium in the first place.
The most challenging project …
We were tasked with creating seven Workforce Module videos for MetLife. Each video was between 2-3 minutes and they had a very tight turnaround deadline. We had at least four graphic designers working at the same time on the videos, which were made almost entirely of 2D animation and required a lot of artwork. One of the more challenging aspects of this was the amount of organization we had to do for each video and making sure the designers had everything so they could animate quickly. Not only do you have to edit, make revisions, record voiceovers, and finish each of the videos; this was just one client and project in the midst of all my other clients’ work. This was the ultimate multi-tasking lesson and one that I can always look back on and remind myself that no matter how stressful, you will make it work.
The project with an interesting backstory …
Back in 2020, as the pandemic began, I was asked to help work on episodes for the TV show “Dragnificent.” I’ve never worked post on a television show before and it was also one of the first major projects that we worked on remotely from home. I was a huge RuPaul’s Drag Race fan at the time, and I was familiar with the cast and excited to dip my toes into the TV world. I was in charge of supervising the color correction and audio mix of every episode. It was odd not being able to pop in the audio room or see how the color was coming along since we had to be remote. Soon, episode work would pile up into each other because of network note revisions, but the air date was immovable and fast approaching. Long hours and endless file transfers later, we hit all the episode deadlines. And about a month later, I was able to see my first on-screen TV credit.
The project I learned the most from …
One of the other big projects I worked on at the start of the pandemic was a new branding reveal announcement for Citadel Credit Union. The concept for the new brand kickoff was a shoot that involved multiple scenes seamlessly transitioning into each other. Production had to get multiple locations and a ton of talent for of one of the first shoots during the pandemic. For the post, we had to create a long-form video as well as multiple cut-down versions. Our editor, Hutch, beautifully built out the sequences for each video. The big learning curve was I hadn’t done extensive VFX work, other than some rotoscoping here and there. I had to figure out VFX and color workflows that would work through different systems. With help from our engineering team, we got everything to work with little issue. Our VFX team did an amazing job stitching the separate scenes together, and in the end, we created content that our clients were excited to show to their employees and customers.
The project I want to work on next …
In my spare time, I’ve been trying to teach myself how to use Gemini and Flow, mostly through frustrating failures and limited success, but I know AI is going to be used in our industry whether we like it or not. I would love to work on a project that incorporates AI either in development or as the main creative, combined with interesting graphic design work and music.