Bringing the Man to Afghanistan
So technically we really were bringing Afghanistan to the man, but that does not flow as well.
On a Friday last February around 9:30 PM EST, when I was bottling my Mendocino Left Bank blend from 2021, I got a phone call from California asking if we could do a translight of the Afghan mountains for a big name show with several A-list actors. The image needed to have snow on the peaks and dirt in the valleys printed at 100 x 25 feet, and they could send me a set drawing for more reference if I felt we could do it.
Needless to say, this is quite the uncommon request and one for which we did not have the artwork to produce. I was not even sure if we could produce such a drop. However, in the words of Sir Richard Branson, “if someone offers you a great opportunity and you are not sure if you can do it, say yes, and then figure out how to do it!”
“Email me the set drawing and I will get back to you on Monday,” I replied, and went back to bottling my wine.
Since we did not have anything that would fit this in our library nor could we fly to Afghanistan to do the photography ourselves, we had to rely on stock. My first instinct Saturday morning was to reach out to a few photographers and other backdrop producers in Europe and the Middle East I knew who could have something to work with. While waiting for their response, I started researching the mountains of Afghanistan only to find out that there are a few ranges, all distinct from each other. I felt that the Hindi-Kush mountains in north Afghanistan best fit the look of the set drawing, but I wanted to make sure I provided options and waited to hear back from those I reached out to.
By Monday afternoon we had 6 different files we could work with and sent them out for review. They decided to go with the first image below, which was my favorite as well. Now comes the retouching.
First order of business was to warm up the image, but making sure not to turn the snow yellow. (No one likes yellow snow!) This was achieved though a variety of camera raw filters, warming filters, several curve adjustment layers with a heavy use of masks. Then, we needed to create the night from day version. Using level and saturation adjustments, and a Night from Day LUT, we were able to get the image looking somewhat night like.
Next, cutting out the sky … manually… which took five hours. This then allowed us to drop in a true night sky (I captured while in Key West last January) using both the manual cut out and a softer computer generated selection. Due to the amount of clouds in the image, we had to be careful not to over do the night sky, other wise it would look fake. The final touches were to drop in the moon and perform some light painting on the mountains.
All was going well and the translight was coming together nicely, but then …
It started raining in California and would not stop. Originally the production schedule was set up to film all exterior locations first, finishing on the sound stage last. The rain forced production to reverse the schedule, and our delivery time frame went from three weeks to three days. This was simply not enough time to finalize the artwork and print the backdrop. Although the project fell through at the last moment, we did consider this a great educational exercise on solving a pretty unique problem. The client also liked our response, and said they will reach out to us in the future.