The Setups

With 6 different setups, it’s important to distinguish the various challenges that each might entail.  As both the DP & Virtual Production Supervisor overseeing the previz, virtual environments, and final vfx shots, I’m in a fortunate position to help dictate how these things get broken down at the granular level.  As far as grip & camera goes, this meant talking with Brendan about what I was trying to accomplish through both previz & prep conversations.  We determined that the general footprint would be relatively small, with a clear focus on camera support.  However, with several talent inside vehicles (several of which were dark leather) Brendan, Vince, & I knew there was still plenty of lighting to be done as LED walls—while great for reflections and ambience—did not provide the push required by the look I was going for.

Day Ext. Museum Parking Lot - Static

Arguably the simplest setup, this was done with a precision placement for a T12 (as the backlight) that was planned during the tech scout.  This was the only point put up in the LED ceiling (the stage has to remove a panel to make way), and we lined it up just right thanks to some help from tech viz lighting plots I made.  It was important to pick a spot that both rake the floor in a pleasing way, as well as not reveal the unit in the reflection of the vehicle windshield.  Outside of that single unit, Brendan and I made use of the virtual grip tools available in ICVFX: a large clean blue card on the right side to help clean up the reflections in the side paneling, and some virtual negative (essentially turning the wall off) behind camera so that the front grill of the vehicle wasn’t getting too many distracting pings.

Day Ext. - Downtown City - In Motion

Brendan and his team made excellent use of a custom Modulus-X rig to get the camera through the front of the SUV (more about this below).  With such a dark interior, I definitely had to keep pushing more and more light to bring out the detail, and it was equally as important to cut those units properly to fake some slashes as well as control the fall-off through the various seats.

Day Int. - Coastal Road - In Motion

This clean profile with a sunset look becomes much simpler to accomplish: add an 8’ soft push through the front windshield that has the blue/purple tones of the overall ambience, and a sharper & warmer patch of light from a more backlit position to cheat the setting sun.  I think this was most likely a Skypanel or Vortex through some grid cloth, and a Leko through opal frost.

Night Ext. - Coastal Overlook - In Motion

A fun orchestration of camera and vehicle movement lead to what I believe is a completely believable “car pulls up” exterior moment.  Timing with the crane and car landing at its mark was meticulous, despite only being maybe a 10ft move.  Add to that the requirement for a super subtle soft key that had to be gripped off the vehicle so it wasn’t obvious from the outside & ground, but still have enough presence to push through the side & front windshield.

Day Int. - Mountain Road - In Motion

This shot used a similar setup from the Coastal Road, but with the added complexity of having the camera up close to the driver inside the car.  Garrett Dorin, our crane op, orchestrated some very small yet difficult moves covering only a few feet.  These quick and tiny moments are always difficult to capture with a bulky camera, and a lesson learned for me here was how vital a 2nd camera body would have been.

Day Int. - Forest Road - In Motion

Our final setup called for a bit more of a classic poor-man’s-process lighting gag: scattered forest sunlight during a driving moment.  We elected to use the T12 bounced off a 4’ mirror to gain some fall-off (it’s a tight squeeze even in a medium/large LED volume), and Brendan’s team employed a branch-o-loris windmill.  The effect is subtle in the shoot, but really helps the moment. Adding those subtleties for variations in lighting really helps sell effects like this.