Fun little action spots.
We shot a series of these critters over several days.
Due to a major schedule screw up, there was a decision to do this on HD with absolute zero time for lab and telecine.
The iDOG, iCAT and other iTHINGS are all very cool little guys which dance and flash and blink and are also designed with a lot of chrome.
The chrome was the problem…
The boards called for these guys to be on and in a white limbo. We had a 4’ motorized turntable covered in white plex [sometime white Formica to cutdown reflections].
This was centered on a stage with a 3-wall white cyc, with a 30’x30’ white bleached muslin flown low, banks of 6K spacelights clustered above.
A white wall was built across the camera side with the tiniest of holes for the lens.
Very careful trim of the lights allowed all of the various white surfaces to seamlessly blend together. Master gaffer Steve Cohagan did a superb job!
I chose an Innovision Lens system to get the lens and camera away from each other and the smaller entrance pupil of the Innovison primes gives the small toys a sense of grand scale.
When the toys were rotating, we placed various bands of slightly darker to very dark bands of seamless wrapped foamcore to reflect on the toy’s chrome. Without these embellishments, the toys loose sense of motion and begin to look too CGI, especially in an environment such as this.
We spun these little guys in every-which way and angle and often shot ‘disco’ plates of the toy’s flashing light patterns by darkening the stage, opening the iris all the way and running the shots again [after the normal lit beauty pass]. When combined in post made a great effect.
A similar approach was utilized for the initial shot of the reflection of the dancing teens on the front face surface of the dog. We shot silhouette plates of actors against a greenscreen, and then a reference plate of the actual distortion on the face of the toy.
This application of HD worked very well. I really believe the whites would have been more true on film, but the ability to easily see reflection in the chrome was well worth it.
| Director: | Susan English |
| Gaffer: | Steve Cohagan |
| Key Grip: | Andy Thomas |
| AC: | Steve Cates |