112-1177: HCF may refer to: Arts and entertainment [ edit ] Halt and Catch Fire (TV series) Hot Club de France , a French jazz group Half Circle Forward, a common move in fighting game special moves, popularized by Street Fighter II Buildings in the United States [ edit ] Honolulu Control Facility , an air traffic control complex Hutchinson Correctional Facility , Kansas Hawaii Correctional Facility Businesses [ edit ] Hard Candy Fitness , an American fitness center chain HCF Insurance , Australian insurer Non-profit organizations [ edit ] Hispanic College Fund Historic Charleston Foundation , in South Carolina, United States Hamilton Community Foundation , in Ontario, Canada Sports teams and bodies [ edit ] Hellenic Cricket Federation Hellenic Cycling Federation Hércules CF ,
224-473: A clearing company, which attempted to obtain approvals from the artists or their estates to use the works on screen. Some art vendors had the artists' contact information, allowing the buyers to deal with them directly. The production designers also rented pieces from local galleries that were able to sign releases on the artists' behalves. Near the end of the first season, Totten began using a local vendor called Elk Creative to digitally create custom paintings in
336-504: A startup company , the online community Mutiny, headed by Cameron and Gordon's wife Donna ( Kerry Bishé ), while Joe ventures out on his own. The fourth and final season focuses on competing web search engines involving all the principal characters. Halt and Catch Fire marked the first jobs that Cantwell and Rogers had in the television industry. They wrote the pilot hoping to use it to secure jobs as writers, but they instead landed their own series with AMC. The initial inspiration for
448-427: A 20-page pitch document, which Rogers said they worked on "day and night". The creators called Johnson and Bernstein their "advocates... with the network". In March 2012, Cantwell learned that AMC would not make a decision about the project until autumn; by that point, he and his wife had depleted their savings. In April, Cantwell and Rogers presented Halt and Catch Fire at AMC's annual pilot script showcase, dubbed
560-457: A Spanish football team Hungarian Chess Federation Science, technology and mathematics [ edit ] Halt and Catch Fire (computing) , a semi-mythical machine code mnemonic High-cycle fatigue Highest common factor Host cell factor C1 Hundred cubic feet , a unit of volume Hybrid coordination function Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with
672-444: A blend of "analog and digital sounds from that era and [his] own sound design". He eschewed explicit musical themes for each character to avoid sounding "hokey". Instead, he tried to write for the subtext or underlying tension of scenes. Starting with the third season, Haslinger strove to pare down his compositions, often starting with fifteen tracks of audio before scaling down to five. He also incorporated more influences from beyond
784-508: A cover of Joy Division 's " She's Lost Control " by the Raveonettes , " Mercy Street " by Peter Gabriel , and in the closing sequence of the series finale, Gabriel's " Solsbury Hill ". The opening theme was composed by Danish musician Anders Trentemøller . After the series's producers attended a concert of his in Los Angeles, they asked him to compose an electronic music theme that had
896-465: A discount in exchange for Gordon configuring the mainframes. Mutiny subsequently thrives, due in part to their new "Community" chat rooms conceived by Donna. Preoccupied with work, Donna keeps an abortion secret from Gordon, and he hides his toxic encephalopathy diagnosis from her. At Jacob's request, Joe raises Mutiny's rates, much to Cameron's chagrin, but Donna and Joe negotiate a compromise contingent on Mutiny meeting certain benchmarks. One of them
1008-668: A few unproductive meetings, Cantwell and Rogers turned their attention to writing film scripts; one of them called The Knoll , about the assassination of John F. Kennedy , appeared on the Black List of popular unproduced screenplays. At the end of that summer, Cantwell and Rogers asked their agent again to shop the Halt and Catch Fire pilot to television networks, leading to meetings with HBO and Showtime that were mostly introductory in nature. In late October, they met with AMC , by which point Cantwell had been out of work for five months and
1120-581: A job with them; he agrees. Having transitioned from games to an online community , Mutiny departs for California. Gordon writes Joe an antivirus program in hopes of helping Westgroup, but Joe uses it instead to pitch a venture capitalist. He invites Gordon to join the endeavor but is refused. Gordon is furious to learn later that Joe has received $ 10 million in funding for a new company in the San Francisco Bay Area, MacMillan Utility. List of Halt and Catch Fire episodes Halt and Catch Fire
1232-505: A new city. There are not a lot of buildings from the 1970s and 1980s." Totten said that locations that still existed from that period had been remodeled in the 1990s or 2000s and no longer had 1980s decor or color palettes, thus requiring filming locations to be re-dressed . Storefronts and restaurants were particularly difficult, as small details such as carpeting, window frames, lighting fixtures, chair upholstery patterns, and bathroom fixtures needed to be retrofitted. The season two set for
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#17331049988331344-458: A reference for developing the story. For example, Joe was seen as a "futurist looking forward" embodied by acts ahead of their time such as Gary Numan , the Cars , and Wire , while Gordon was interpreted as someone whose musical tastes did not evolve past 1970s acts such as Steely Dan and Boz Scaggs due to his preoccupation with work. AMC partnered with music streaming service Spotify to share
1456-431: A rented house with their developers. Cameron hires a paroled Bosworth to be a manager, as well as one of Mutiny's subscribers, Tom, to be a game designer ; she and Tom begin dating. Gordon writes a computer program, "Sonaris", intended to map Mutiny's network , but it inadvertently acts as malware . To make up for his mistake, Gordon agrees to an arrangement with Joe for Mutiny to be Westgroup's first time-sharing client at
1568-455: A room, both in terms of getting a great story out of people, and in terms of being a really good and decent and fair person in what can sometimes be a brutal industry." For research, the production staff and cast watched Robert X. Cringely 's documentary Triumph of the Nerds and read the books Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson , The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder , The Nudist on
1680-543: A script from first-time writers, their intent was to use the sample script to land Cantwell and Rogers entry-level writing positions in the industry. The managers advised them to write something in which they were personally invested. Cantwell and Rogers initially discussed "men under pressure" stories like Glengarry Glen Ross , although they did not want their subjects to be doctors or police officers, believing them to be well-trod territory in television. As they brainstormed, Cantwell recalled his childhood; in 1982, when he
1792-419: A story about a secret society of the ultra-wealthy. Rogers shared the script with Chris Huvane, a former colleague from Condé Nast who had become a talent manager at Management 360. Huvane and his coworker Jennifer Graham offered to represent Cantwell and Rogers, while urging them to produce another script they could use as a staffing sample. Since the managers thought it was unlikely a network would option
1904-514: A time jump. Ultimately, instead of choosing one of the two approaches, they decided to incorporate both of them; the majority of the season takes place in 1986 before making a time jump to 1990 for the final two episodes. With the new setting in Silicon Valley, Cantwell and Rogers wanted to explore if the characters who had demonstrated their potential in Texas could "really pull it off once they're in
2016-404: A trail as it travels. Along the way it passes digitally distressed images of the main cast members, before it completes its journey to light up an LED indicator . Marks said the signal was depicted "allegorically to illustrate the competing forces driving young tech entrepreneurs towards a new technological dawn". The animators were tasked with creating an "abstract and symbolic" sequence "about
2128-543: A two-year deal; Lisco had just concluded three seasons as executive producer on the drama series Southland . He was impressed by the script for the Halt and Catch Fire pilot but initially was unconvinced that he was best suited for the showrunner role. He did not view himself as a technophile and wondered if there would be "enough stakes in the bits and the bytes ", saying the subject matter did not "dramatically blow your hair back". The network assuaged his concerns by telling him that they believed he could delve deep into
2240-541: Is porting their software to the AT&;T UNIX PC , which they unsuccessfully fake during a demo for Joe. Impressed by their ingenuity, Joe convinces Jacob to make an acquisition offer to Mutiny, but after realizing Jacob would corrupt the startup's vision, Joe convinces Cameron to reject it. He decides to quit Westgroup and after marrying Sara, plans to move them to California. Gordon admits his medical diagnosis to Donna and begins stress therapy after his condition worsens following
2352-543: Is an American period drama television series created by Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers , that aired on AMC from June 1, 2014, to October 14, 2017. The series depicts a fictionalized insider's view of the personal computer revolution of the 1980s and later the growth of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. The series' first two seasons are set in the Silicon Prairie of Dallas–Fort Worth , while
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#17331049988332464-499: Is an American period drama television series created by Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers . It aired on the cable network AMC in the United States from June 1, 2014, to October 14, 2017, spanning four seasons and 40 episodes . It depicts a fictionalized insider's view of the personal computer revolution of the 1980s and the early days of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. The show's title refers to computer machine code instruction Halt and Catch Fire (HCF),
2576-608: Is located) became a secondary technology hub behind California's Silicon Valley . Companies in the Silicon Prairie included Texas Instruments , Electronic Data Systems , Tandy , and RadioShack , while elsewhere in Texas, Dell (in Austin) and Compaq (in Houston) were also prominent players in the PC industry. Executive producer Jonathan Lisco said: "[Texas] was viewed by a lot of people at
2688-403: Is promoted to head of the software engineering team and designs a user-friendly operating system (OS) intended to draw in the user. Joe's ex-lover Simon, an industrial designer , designs the case for the PC. Initially hesitant about the project, Bosworth comes around but is denied further funding by Cardiff. With Cameron's help, Bosworth embezzles money to sustain the project but is arrested as
2800-433: Is set in the Silicon Prairie for its first two seasons and Silicon Valley for its latter two. Halt and Catch Fire experienced low viewership ratings throughout its run, with only the first episode surpassing one million viewers for its initial broadcast. The series debuted to generally favorable reviews, though many critics initially found it derivative of other series such as Mad Men . In each subsequent season,
2912-439: Is sold to a conglomerate in 1985, earning Gordon a six-figure settlement but Joe nothing. Eager to start anew, Joe gets engaged to his girlfriend Sara and goes to work at Westgroup Energy, an oil firm where her father, Jacob Wheeler, is CEO. Starting in data entry , Joe spots an opportunity to use their mainframe computers for time-sharing and takes over the department. Meanwhile, Donna and Cameron are chaotically running Mutiny in
3024-465: Is soundtracked by the Clash 's " The Magnificent Seven ", whose lyrics about the "futility of the capitalist grind underscor[e] her ambivalence about the job", according to Pitchfork ' s Judy Berman. After she founds Mutiny, the company offices are frequently heard playing punk, post-punk , and alternative rock , which Berman said represented Cameron's growing influence in the tech industry. Towards
3136-459: Is wary of his involvement in the project, but she eventually contributes to it, first by giving Gordon her idea for a double-sided printed circuit board , and then by recovering lost data from Cameron's computer (a data loss event faked by Joe). Gordon brokers a deal for discounted liquid crystal displays through his father-in-law's connection with a Japanese company. After finishing the BIOS, Cameron
3248-524: The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco . The fourth season's first episode opens with a sequence edited to appear to be a " one shot " that covers three years of story. The sequence was conceived by Campanella and filmed over two days, requiring several hairstyle and wardrobe changes to the actors. For the series finale, " Ten of Swords ", Donna's and Cameron's diner scene in the closing moments of
3360-467: The Malls Across America collection of photographs by Michael Galinsky . Due to the difficulty of finding decor items with brass finishes, Totten often resorted to reproducing the look with gold paint or brass spray paint specially ordered from Krylon . Other heavily sought after items included: lamp shades with pleats and tapered or bell shapes; furniture with clean, linear lines and upholstery on
3472-707: The Plaza Theatre , the Georgia State Capitol , an office building near The Weather Channel 's headquarters, and a brick ranch-style house in Conyers . Production on season two lasted from October 2014 to May 2015, with filming commencing in January 2015. The staff dismantled all of the first-season sets except for the Clark family house, a decision Cantwell said was made to force the series to reinvent itself and to parallel
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3584-451: The TNT television series Animal Kingdom . Joel Stillerman, AMC's president of original programming and development, called Lisco's departure "completely amicable". Cantwell and Rogers took over as showrunners prior to the third season. Rogers called Lisco the duo's mentor, saying: "He kept us creatively involved and really showed us the ropes, and we felt like it was a master class in how to run
3696-468: The University of Southern California as an undergraduate student, and Rogers from the University of California, Los Angeles as a graduate student. Rogers referred to himself and Cantwell as "dream-deferred writers". In August 2010, they agreed to partner as screenwriters. For their first collaboration, Rogers helped Cantwell with creating a television adaptation of his film screenplay Very Prepared Men ,
3808-504: The execution of which would cause the computer's central processing unit to cease meaningful operation (and in an exaggeration, catch fire ). In season one, the fictional company Cardiff Electric makes its first foray into personal computing with a project to build an IBM PC clone , led by entrepreneur Joe MacMillan ( Lee Pace ) with the help of computer engineer Gordon Clark ( Scoot McNairy ) and prodigy programmer Cameron Howe ( Mackenzie Davis ). Seasons two and three shift focus to
3920-488: The open architecture of the IBM PC, the characters reverse engineer its BIOS and set out to build a clone called the "Giant", but obstacles both internal and external threaten to derail the project. Halt and Catch Fire follows the protagonists' endeavors in the computing industry, their shifting partnerships and competitive relationships, and the personal costs of pursuing their professional ambitions. Halt and Catch Fire
4032-469: The " Cardiff Giant ", Joe's goal is for it to be twice the speed at half the cost of IBM's PC, but much of the company does not buy into his vision or trust him. He further alienates himself from Cardiff and Bosworth after IBM responds by aggressively undercutting Cardiff Electric, resulting in layoffs , and after he upsets a potential investor. Despite her suspicions of Joe, Cameron begins an on-again, off-again relationship with him. Gordon's wife, Donna,
4144-423: The "Bake-Off"; network executives opted to keep the project in consideration. On October 23, 2012, Cantwell and Rogers pitched the network on how they envisioned Halt and Catch Fire as a potential series. The network ordered a pilot the following month. The project was Cantwell's and Rogers's first jobs in the television industry. Cantwell said, "The first writers' room we walked into was our own." In July 2013,
4256-536: The 1980s and the early days of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. The series begins in 1983, just as IBM is cornering the personal computer market with the IBM PC . Entrepreneur Joe MacMillan joins Cardiff Electric, a fictional Dallas-based mainframe software company, and has a vision of building a revolutionary computer to challenge IBM. For the project, he enlists the help of computer engineer Gordon Clark and prodigy programmer Cameron Howe. Taking advantage of
4368-495: The 1980s cliches of the "whole neon-pastels and shoulder pad vibe" were not prevalent until 1986, and that he focused on the design period of 1978–1983 at the series's onset. To identify period-accurate lighting fixtures, televisions, telephones, kitchenware, and curtains, he consulted: back issues of Texas Homes and D Magazine ; old Sears and J. C. Penney catalogues; the Interiors books by English designer Terence Conran ; and
4480-413: The 1980s, Haslinger was drawn to Halt and Catch Fire as a second chance to write for the decade. Rather than merely revive 1980s music, he instead wanted to draw from its moodiness, and to combine his favorite retro sounds with modern-day elements. Haslinger's score was electronic, making heavy use of synthesizers ; he used his original equipment and samples as well as virtual instruments , creating
4592-513: The 1980s, such as the works of Giorgio Moroder . A compilation of tracks from the first three seasons was released on CD and vinyl through Lakeshore Records on September 16, 2016. A second volume followed on vinyl, CD, and digital services on April 5, 2019. Golubić and his team at the firm SuperMusicVision handled music licensing, creating a soundtrack of album-oriented rock , college rock , new wave , and 1980s punk . Golubić said that his team sought to license lesser-known tracks, believing
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4704-497: The Clarks' daughters, and Anna Chlumsky joined in a supporting role. Prior to the fourth season, AMC addressed the gender pay gap among its four leads by giving Davis and Bishé salary raises to match what Pace and McNairy were earning. Davis and Bishé were relatively unknown when they signed their original deals at lower salaries; Davis was earning the minimum rate at the time. Their characters were given more screen time beginning with
4816-591: The Donna–Cameron partnership, and instead created a "bedrock" on which a friendship could be built. The theme of connectivity was incorporated into the season as an exploration of whether technology "brings us closer together or pushes us apart", as well as what the characters' motivations were for their involvement in the industry. The second season also isolated Joe and Gordon somewhat from the main storylines to reflect an "absence of connection". Cantwell and Rogers liked making viewers think they were "the worst writers in
4928-511: The Giant. Cameron quits Cardiff Electric and poaches most of the software engineers to form an online gaming startup company called Mutiny. After Donna leaves TI, she accepts an offer from Cameron to join Mutiny. The Cardiff Electric team celebrates the completion of the Giant, but Joe sets fire to the truck containing the first shipment and disappears, leaving Gordon to run the company. Cardiff Electric
5040-445: The IBM PC. The duo conceived the pilot for Halt and Catch Fire in January 2011. The first eight pages of the script followed their protagonist Joe MacMillan at IBM. In May, Cantwell quit his job at Disney, though Rogers remained until the future of their project was assured. Cantwell and Rogers finished the draft of their pilot in the summer of 2011. Their agents liked the script but were not optimistic about selling it. After
5152-490: The Late Shift by Po Bronson , and The Silicon Boys by David A. Kaplan . The series had at least three technical advisors . Industry veteran Carl Ledbetter, who worked at IBM, AT&T Consumer Products , and Sun Microsystems , collaborated both with the writers to ensure the dialogue in early scripts was technologically accurate and with the actors to refine their line deliveries. Ledbetter's anecdotes from his time in
5264-585: The Mutiny set in season two, "hundreds of different eBay purchases" were required, since the PCs, monitors, and peripherals all had to be obtained separately. One of the series's Atlanta-based technical advisors built the complex network of telephone lines and modems that hung on a wall of the Mutiny house set. From season two onwards, the series's staff collaborated with Living Computers: Museum + Labs in Seattle to obtain vintage equipment. One prop that could not be sourced
5376-520: The Slingshot and make the Giant commercially viable, Gordon removes Cameron's OS and the supporting hardware. When Joe supports the decision, a heartbroken Cameron leaves him. Joe and Gordon present the downgraded Giant at COMDEX and secure their first order, but it is a hollow victory for the team. After witnessing a demonstration of the Apple Macintosh at the conference, Joe becomes disillusioned with
5488-566: The Sonaris malware on a Westgroup computer, crippling their network during Joe's presentation of WestNet at a shareholders meeting . Sara annuls her marriage to Joe, while Jacob is scapegoated for the WestNet fiasco and fired. After Gordon admits to an affair, Donna gives him an ultimatum: he must purchase and renovate a mainframe in California for Mutiny, move their family there with the company, and take
5600-476: The arms, legs, and feet; and metal constructed props instead of plastic. The set designers purchased from thrift shops , antique stores , yard sales , office supply companies that were closing, and individuals through Craigslist , but in some cases they rented items. Early 1980s seating and office furniture were difficult to acquire in large quantities, as furniture from that decade was not highly collected, other than high-end pieces by designers, and Totten said
5712-472: The backdoor instead of straight ahead." After a second meeting with Cantwell and Rogers on December 5, 2011, AMC optioned the script the following day. To continue to develop the project, AMC brought in Gran Via Productions' Mark Johnson and Melissa Bernstein, who were producing the network's hit drama series Breaking Bad at the time. They helped Cantwell and Rogers refine the pilot and create
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#17331049988335824-443: The big leagues". One of their themes for season three was "people with the right idea at the wrong time" who failed due to market or technology forces not aligning. Heading into the fourth season, Cantwell and Rogers knew it would be the series's final one, giving them the opportunity to write a conclusion on their own terms. In researching the tech industry following the inception of the World Wide Web in 1990, they found that there
5936-463: The character playlists online and to promote them on amctv.com and the network's "Story Sync" second screen platform. Punk rock played a prominent role in the characterization of Cameron, frequently playing through her headphones on-screen or non- diegetically to represent her temperament as a rebellious loner. The scene in which she enters the Cardiff Electric offices for her first day of work
6048-497: The characters of either getting along or fighting, the writers attempted to change the dynamics between the characters, often by creating new pairings on screen to interact with one another. Cantwell and Rogers originally intended to use the pilot to land writing jobs on series they already liked. Consequently, they wrote it to emulate the "difficult men" dramas that inspired them to get into television, shows that included The Sopranos , The Wire , and Breaking Bad . Joe MacMillan
6160-470: The characters to create stakes. Lisco also felt an immediate creative connection with Cantwell and Rogers upon meeting them, and sensing they had a strong vision for the series, he signed on as showrunner. Leasing office space in Studio City, Los Angeles , Lisco guided Cantwell and Rogers through the process of assessing and hiring writers. Lisco stepped down as showrunner after the second season to work on
6272-492: The characters to grapple with the existential question of whether their continued pursuits of the next big idea could ever make them feel whole and whether they could break free from the constant cycle of reinvention. As the season was being written in 2017, a potential strike by the Writers Guild of America loomed. Fearing an abrupt end to their series, Cantwell and Rogers proposed alternate plans to their writing staff for how
6384-511: The company office is raided by the FBI . Having smuggled out the Giant prototype, Gordon convinces the others to proceed with their plan to present at the COMDEX trade show. At COMDEX, the team are shocked to discover the "Slingshot", a copycat of the Giant, being presented by the Clarks' neighbor (a former Cardiff Electric employee) and Donna's former manager from Texas Instruments (TI). In order to undercut
6496-572: The computer era that was about people, not machines". The sequence evolved from the animators' initial pitch to the showrunners to depict the "birth of an idea". The artists' first inspiration was to show a lightbulb turning on, a common visual metaphor for a "bright idea", and consequently they sought to show the journey of a signal to light up the bulb. During the extended storyboarding process, art director Eddy Herringson toyed with geometric shapes inspired by Saul Bass art, retro video games, and sex education films; sequence director Patrick Clair said
6608-408: The computing industry informed plot points, character traits, and other in-universe details. He also wrote sample computer code that appeared on screen and helped operate props on set, which consisted of controlling lights on a breadboard from underneath a table and hand feeding printouts through a dot matrix printer . After the series's focus shifted to networking and proto-Internet services for
6720-422: The creators were convinced they had found the perfect person to portray her. In March, it was announced that Scoot McNairy had been cast as Gordon Clark and Kerry Bishé as Gordon's wife Donna; it was a reunion for the two actors, who had played a married couple in the film Argo a year prior. Actors that auditioned for the role of Gordon included Jimmi Simpson and Jason Mantzoukas , while Karen Gillan
6832-422: The crew reused Polaroids of McNairy and Bishé that had been taken on the set of Argo from their portrayal of a married couple in the 1970s. Prior to the second season, additional crew members were hired for the production design team to help with their extensive workload. The architecture and design of Atlanta posed a challenge to the production design staff for achieving period accuracy. Bernstein said, "it's
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#17331049988336944-545: The crew would need to shoot. As a result, they partnered with Mark Henderson, Daniel Minchew, and Glenn Murer, who built the Atlanta Filmworks sound stage in a converted facility that previously served as a DuPont plant and a dog treat factory. The space comprised two adjacent 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m ) warehouses and a 17,000-square-foot (1,600 m ) production office. The soundproofed Studio A, measuring 110 by 200 by 42 feet (34 by 61 by 13 m), housed
7056-441: The decade marked the beginning of the era of "mass disposability". As a result, he drew from the 1960s and 1970s for certain sets, such as Bosworth's office and the Clark home. Old family photos provided by Totten and other crew members adorned certain sets to give the impression of the characters having extended family, while Totten's children drew the refrigerator art seen in the Clarks' kitchen. For old photos of Gordon and Donna,
7168-410: The early days of Silicon Valley when startup companies operated out of older buildings. The set was designed as a converted fruit-packing warehouse with brick walls and large windows. At the series's onset, many of the vintage computer props were obtained on eBay or from private collectors through Craigslist. One such prop was the original Apple Macintosh , which had become a collector's item and
7280-521: The eighth episode to the characters' grief, before incorporating it into the two-part finale , in which they wrapped up the series's remaining plot threads. Halt and Catch Fire was produced in-house by AMC Studios. Although the series was set in Dallas and Silicon Valley, it was primarily filmed in and around Atlanta, Georgia, where the studio has infrastructure and crew due to state tax incentives that are favorable to filming . The writing staff, however,
7392-454: The end of the series, punk music is used in the characterization of the Clarks' teenage daughters. The rebellious, troublemaker Joanie enjoys Shonen Knife , and Haley listens to PJ Harvey and riot grrrl bands while coming to terms with being queer . Among the tracks licensed for use in the series were "Red Eyes" by the War on Drugs , " Velouria " by Pixies , " So Far Away " by Dire Straits ,
7504-588: The episode was filmed at the Waffle House Museum. Donna's idea at the end of the scene is never revealed, but the producers ensured that each camera shot in the diner showed an analog aspect of life for which there would be a future digital innovation. After production on the series wrapped in late July 2017, the crew transitioned to a new AMC television series, Lodge 49 , within a week. The series's production designers were Chris Brown, Craig Stearns, and Ola Maslik. Set decorator Lance Totten said
7616-447: The failure of his homebuilt computer business. Tom and Cameron write a first-person shooter game, but on the night of its planned launch, Westgroup replaces Mutiny's service on their network with a copycat, "WestNet". Joe denies involvement, but the Mutiny staff disbelieve him. Cameron and Donna sell their game to sustain the company, causing Tom to break up with Cameron and quit Mutiny. Cameron emotionally manipulates Joe in order to run
7728-589: The fourth season. The arrangement helped foster a camaraderie among the cast members. Each season, the writers strove to "use up [their] story fast" rather than save the most dramatic moments for later. Rogers said that the uncertainty of the series's fate from season to season "reinforced a hold-nothing-back mindset in the storytelling". They aimed to advance the plot quickly enough that it would not be predictable. Rogers described their approach: "We want to put ourselves into corners and ask ourselves to write out of them." To avoid depicting binary relationships between
7840-520: The house that headquartered Mutiny, Cameron's start-up company, was designed to mimic the homes found in the Lakewood neighborhood of Dallas. Modeled after a single-story American Craftsman –style home that was popular in the 1920s, the set's design featured hardwood floors, ample trim moldings, built-in shelving painted white, and curved kitchen woodwork. For Mutiny's move to California in the third season, Stearns wanted their new office's set design to evoke
7952-480: The network announced a series order of 10 episodes. In February 2013, it was announced that Lee Pace had been cast in the lead role of Joe MacMillan, and Mackenzie Davis in a co-starring role as Cameron Howe. Actors that were considered for the role of Joe included David Harbour , Ryan Phillippe , and Wes Bentley . The role of Cameron took the longest to cast, with actors such as Dakota Johnson and Brie Larson auditioning for it. After Davis's screen test ,
8064-596: The period setting. Strategic framing of shots was also used to avoid anachronisms, as was computer-generated imagery to turn an Urban Outfitters location into a rug store. Scenes set at a Las Vegas hotel hosting COMDEX attendees in the season's penultimate episode were filmed at the American Cancer Society Center in downtown Atlanta. Other first season shooting locations included the Cobb Galleria Centre , Chops Lobster Bar, Northside Tavern,
8176-524: The pressure of velocity and self-destruction". They achieved this by streaking debris, digital artifacts, and facial details away from the portraits in horizontal lines; Marks likened the effect to a person " re-entering the atmosphere from orbit but in a digital world". In 1983, Joe MacMillan joins Cardiff Electric, where he enlists the help of Gordon Clark to reverse engineer the BIOS of an IBM PC and reconstruct its assembly language code. Company owner Nathan Cardiff and vice president John Bosworth confront
8288-439: The process gave each portrait an "interesting facial approximation". Afterwards, the images were built into 3D models, although the artists did not want a "fully immersive 3D scene" but rather one that still had "more depth than just a graphic". Since the series's story was about "people putting pressure on themselves, and risking self-destruction through their own ambition", the artists wanted to depict them "decaying, breaking under
8400-501: The reinvention common within the technology industry. Production on season three took place from November 2015 to August 2016. Due to the shift in setting from Dallas to California that season, the producers hired a new director of photography , Evans Brown, to give the series a sunnier look. Despite the setting change, production of the series remained in the Atlanta area, with the exception of two scenes from that season that were shot near
8512-464: The remaining nine episodes of the first season began in October 2013 and lasted until May 2014. The weather was uncharacteristically cold and snowy for Atlanta, complicating outdoor shoots and suspending production for a few days. Location scouting was carried out by location manager Ryan Schaetzle to find settings that would not be anachronistic and would require the least amount of modification to match
8624-421: The same tempo and mood as his song "Still on Fire". Raoul Marks, lead animator of the opening credits, described the theme as "straddl[ing] the line between contemporary electronica and more retro-analog" sounds. The opening title sequence was created by the design studio Elastic, with creative direction from Antibody. The sequence depicts an electrical signal racing across a neon-red digital landscape, leaving
8736-421: The scripts. Instead, they organized their own, gathering at Pace's house on weekends to prepare dinner, drink wine, and discuss the scripts and their characters. Davis said of the cast dinners, "it was really nice, because you got to hear other people's point of views about your character." For the third season, Pace, Davis, and McNairy lived together in a rented house in Atlanta, with Toby Huss joining them for
8848-511: The season's story. They wanted to reach the advent of the World Wide Web in 1990, which they considered an exciting setting and a natural destination for the series. However, doing so would have required them to advance the plot by four years from the end of season two. They thought they still "had so much story left on the table at the end of season two" with the characters' arrival in California in 1986 that they did not want to skip over with
8960-448: The second season, but the actresses did not feel they were being equitably compensated for their work. Before Davis and Bishé could renegotiate with AMC, the network gave them unsolicited raises. Since Cantwell and Rogers were new to the television industry, AMC wanted someone with more experience to be the series's showrunner , and it consequently hired Jonathan Lisco in July 2013 as part of
9072-476: The second season, the producers relied more on the expertise of Bill Louden, who founded the GEnie online service for General Electric in 1985 and designed games and computer programs for CompuServe . The producers also sought out journalists such as Paul Carroll, who covered the tech industry in the 1980s for The Wall Street Journal . Due to the production schedule, the actors did not have formal table reads of
9184-410: The sequence. Due to the need to show the signal in a state of constant motion from shot to shot, precise animation and cuts between shots were required. Serif fonts were used for the credits and were inspired by the mature, classical typography and conservative layout design of personal computing advertisements from the 1980s. The color scheme, inspired by high-saturation 4-bit color computer graphics,
9296-422: The series grew in acclaim, and by the time it concluded, critics considered it among the greatest shows of the 2010s. In 2022, Rolling Stone ranked it the 55th-greatest television series of all time, based on a poll of 46 actors, writers, producers, and critics. Taking place over a period of more than ten years, Halt and Catch Fire depicts a fictionalized insider's view of the personal computer revolution of
9408-510: The series was drawn from Cantwell's childhood in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, located within northern Texas's Silicon Prairie , where his father worked as a software salesman. The creators subsequently researched the contributions of Texan firms to the emerging personal computing industry during the 1980s. Self-produced by the network and mostly filmed in the Atlanta, Georgia , area, the series
9520-407: The series was picked up, several scenes from the pilot episode were re-shot . Lisco said that the staff wanted to make the tone "a little more jagged, a little more ambiguous" by giving Cameron more edge and by exploring whether Joe is "a visionary or a fraud". After the series order, the staff decided that the production facility housing Joe's condo set was too far away from other locations where
9632-509: The series's visual appearance, the producers initially took inspiration from the 1970s films All the President's Men , The Parallax View , and The Conversation , according to producer Jeff Freilich. In developing his visual approach, Campanella was inspired by Russian photographer Alexander Rodchenko and the Constructivist movement, particularly in the camera angles he used. After
9744-408: The set for Cardiff Electric's corporate offices, which occupied 9,000 square feet (840 m ). Studio B was initially envisioned as a flex space for set construction, but ended up being used for filming as well, housing the set for Joe's condo, among others. As a result, several enhancements were made to the studio for the second season, such as quieter heaters and additional lighting. Production on
9856-426: The show could be written to a conclusion quicker. After receiving pushback from the writers that it would undermine their strike, Cantwell and Rogers abandoned any such plans in solidarity; the strike ultimately did not occur. The creators decided to kill off a major character during the season but did not plan in advance when it would occur. Eventually, they plotted it into the seventh episode, allowing them to dedicate
9968-419: The show's period setting, before attempting to secure licensing deals. They also curated playlists for each of the main characters after discussing them and their backstories. Golubić said of the process, "This is how we informed ourselves of the world that the characters live in." The playlists were sent to the actors to help them prepare for their roles, and were used by the producers, writers, and editors as
10080-424: The software engineer he would bring along would explain the technical details. In the second season, the series's narrative began to focus on the partnership of Donna and Cameron in their startup company, the online gaming service Mutiny. Rogers said the technology of the time period seemed to point to "this proto-internet connectivity" and that as actors, Bishé and Davis deserved more attention. Cantwell said that
10192-442: The staff did not consciously refocus the show around the female characters, but rather it naturally developed that way as they sought to create "compelling and earned stories for each of those characters based on where [they] left them in season one". Rogers said the first-season partnership between Joe and Gordon was dominated by egos, a need to prove themselves, and a lack of mutual respect. They did not want to repeat that dynamic in
10304-606: The story went in a different direction. For season two, Aleksa Palladino joined the cast as a regular, while James Cromwell and Mark O'Brien joined as recurring characters. For season three, Manish Dayal was cast as Ryan Ray, an Indian-American computer programmer native to San Francisco. Cantwell and Rogers created the character to match the change in demographic after the series's setting shifted to Northern California. Matthew Lillard and Annabeth Gish were also cast in recurring roles. For season four, Kathryn Newton and Susanna Skaggs were cast to play teenaged versions of
10416-470: The style of 1970s and 1980s mass-produced corporate art. Freilich said that the early 1980s fashion was "a little bland, a beige time", and that as a result, vintage clothing stores did not carry much merchandise from the period. The wardrobe department ultimately obtained many articles of clothing from shops and rental houses in Los Angeles where inventory was more extensive. According to Freilich, AMC budgeted $ 40,000 per episode for music. The amount
10528-429: The team "bounced between digital sperm to missile command and back—all in 8-bit." After several iterations, they replaced the lightbulb with an LED indicator to better evoke the computer era. In the initial pitch, the artists depicted competing signals that ended up disintegrating or being left behind, but these elements were scaled back. The team took artistic license with the appearance of electric and digital signals in
10640-664: The time, per our research, as sort of a catch basin for people who had not succeeded [in Silicon Valley]. On the other hand, there was a lot of wonderful tech going on here." Cantwell said that he and Rogers were intrigued by the lesser-known players and settings of the tech industry: "We wanted to find the place you didn't know. Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, IBM, Microsoft , all those stories and companies have been exploited dramatically to great effect." In their research, Cantwell and Rogers came across stories of computer engineers at Compaq taking risks by attempting to reverse engineer
10752-478: The title HCF . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HCF&oldid=1247787830 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Halt and Catch Fire (TV series) Halt and Catch Fire
10864-421: The two when the company is sued by IBM for copyright infringement . After Joe reveals that he told IBM about the project, Cardiff Electric is forced to legitimize it and enter the personal computing business. Joe heads the project to build an IBM clone , with Gordon leading the hardware team. Needing a software engineer, Joe recruits Cameron Howe to write the BIOS in a " clean room ". For their PC, ultimately named
10976-416: The use of obvious 1980s hits would be "kitschy" and not within the series's budget; explaining their approach, he said, "We want to immerse people in that time period, not distract them". The music supervisors were engaged by the writers early in their creative process in an attempt to better integrate music into the series. Golubić and his team started by compiling playlists of songs that were evocative of
11088-486: The world for about five minutes" by creating familiar situations, only to subvert expectations with the end result. Between the second and third seasons, all of the series's writers departed to work on their own projects, requiring Cantwell and Rogers to build a new writing staff. The creators rented a house in Joshua Tree National Park for three days in October 2015 and discussed how they wanted to plot out
11200-466: The writers could later "explode" to evolve the characters beyond their archetypes . Bishé said that when the cast signed onto the series, they believed it would be a "slick corporate thriller", but over time it evolved into an ensemble-based "real human drama". Cantwell said the dynamic between Joe and Gordon in the first season was inspired by his father's experience in software sales in the 1980s; Cantwell's father pitched to clients on sales calls, while
11312-480: Was an IBM 3033 mainframe computer , requiring a replica to be built in consultation with Living Computers using original plans from IBM's archives. Obtaining period accurate corporate signage and logos was a challenge for the staff, as many tech companies had gone out of business or had become part of large conglomerates over the years. Staff sought out 1980s artwork from antique stores, thrift shops, and online; works with legible artist signatures were submitted to
11424-431: Was based in Los Angeles. Many crew members who worked on another Atlanta-based AMC series, The Walking Dead , were borrowed during its offseason to work on Halt and Catch Fire . The series was shot using Arri Alexa cameras, with dailies being delivered by FotoKem Atlanta using their nextLAB system. The series had a budget that various sources estimated between $ 2–3 million per episode, which Variety said
11536-456: Was considered for the role of Donna. During the casting process, McNairy emailed the creators to tell them how the pilot's story resonated with him, as he grew up in Dallas and his father had been a salesman. Also in March, David Wilson Barnes was cast as Dale Butler. Barnes was initially credited among the main cast in the pilot episode, but his character was written out after just two episodes when
11648-511: Was created by Christopher Cantwell and Christopher C. Rogers , who met while working at the Walt Disney Company . Cantwell's online movie company was acquired by Disney and he was moved into its marketing department, while Rogers was hired by Cantwell's team to manage Disney's editorial program for social media. After a year of working together, they learned that they had each graduated from screenwriting programs in college—Cantwell from
11760-453: Was dominated by an "iridescent red that never peaked beyond hot magenta". To give the title sequence a human element, images of the main cast members were incorporated. Rather than show " beauty shots " of the actors, the animators heavily edited images of them in a glitch art style. Marks "de-rezzed" the character images with Adobe Photoshop by selecting rectangular sections and using the software's average color feature on each; Marks said
11872-428: Was just six weeks old, his family moved from Elgin, Illinois , to Plano, Texas , so his father could take a job as a systems software salesman for UCCEL Corp. During his childhood, Cantwell had been unaware of Texas's role in the personal computer revolution of the 1980s, but after speaking to his father and researching the era with Rogers, they learned how the Silicon Prairie of Dallas–Fort Worth (in which Plano
11984-432: Was not "a lot of major business investments [or] huge development in the web" for several years due to its nascency. As a result, they created another time jump in the series's storytelling. The opening sequence in the season's first episode shows the passage of more than three years and was meant to depict the characters in stasis, waiting for the technology world to catch on. In the final season, Cantwell and Rogers wanted
12096-494: Was often insufficient to license even one song, which necessitated the staff finding ways to cut costs in other departments of production to allow it to be redirected to music. The original score was composed by Austrian musician Paul Haslinger , formerly of German electronic music group Tangerine Dream from 1986 to 1990. He secured the position on the series through his connection to its music supervisor , his friend Thomas Golubić . Having previously recorded music during
12208-471: Was on the lower end of cable TV dramas. The pilot was directed by Juan José Campanella and produced over six weeks from April to May 2013. It was primarily shot on location in the Atlanta area, although one set was used as Joe's condominium. Additionally, as part of a one-day shoot in Dallas in May, AMC paid to restore a 50-foot-tall neon sign of Big Tex located at a former Centennial Liquors store. For
12320-466: Was quickly diminishing his savings. He and Rogers were surprised to find that the AMC executives had a copy of their script at the meeting. One of them, Ben Davis, said: "We were really interested in trying to tap into that world—into the spirit of innovation, and the tech world specifically. I loved the idea that it took place in Dallas and that I didn't hear Steve Jobs' or Bill Gates ' name. It approached it from
12432-512: Was rare. Many props were also borrowed from the Rhode Island Computer Museum . The Cardiff Giant portable PC depicted on screen was specially built for the series from molded plastic and was partially functional, as the production staff wanted to ensure the design was "consistent with the visionary thinking of the time and was not sci-fi", according to Freilich. Totten said that in order to build 40 Commodore 64 PC workstations for
12544-540: Was written in the pilot as a traditional antihero , with the world organized around him. Once the series was picked up and the staff began writing subsequent episodes, they found what Rogers called a "writers' groove" and changed their approach: "We figured out what was our voice, as opposed to the voice that felt like it was emulating the shows we liked." Rogers acknowledged that he and Cantwell were initially inexperienced as writers but said that they were "careful enough to lay... these little grenades into each character" that
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