Brushing Off the Rust in Pittsburgh
Just before Thanksgiving we had the opportunity of working with a new crime drama taking place in the Rust Belt. Now that the show is expanding into its second season, new filming locations are being added, creating the need for new sets and, most importantly, backdrops. So it was off to Pittsburgh for a couple of days.
As with any drop, we had to solve a couple problems, first deciding on how to deal with the many electrical wires just outside the location. Initially the team felt it would be best to shoot from a scissor lift in the street using a super wide lens, however doing so would make it impossible to have a matching day and night image. Not to mention, the street in the edges would be more compact while also having extension distortion. So in the end we decided to shoot from the window and remove the electrical poll and wires in post.
Thankfully the building was under construction and we had access to the entire second and third floor. This allowed us to capture additional images from a few different locations and heights, greatly helping with the retouching.
Additionally, we were looking across a parking lot with nothing to break up the vanishing lines. Typically it is best to avoid vanishing lines whenever possible since they draw the eye to the backdrop. In this situation, we choose to warp the center of the image a bit to force the street and building lines to be less angled. We also removed the white fence in the distance and the rear portion of the grey house, which helped a lot in obscuring the effect.
Last, we touched up some of the leaves on the ground and de-saturated the background a bit for a wintry feel, removed a few cars, logos and political posters, and turned the construction site a less distracting grey.
Altogether, the retouching took about a week to complete, and then it was off to the press. Printed at 20 by 60 feet, the drop is now hanging on set ready for filming.