The Big Portland Drop
A couple weeks ago we flew into Portland to produce a 130 by 26 foot backdrop for an upcoming feature film. It was a beautiful day to be on a roof top especially considering it rained for a solid two months prior yet stopped as soon as I landed. I always remember to pack great weather when I fly!
Now with any drop that size, there are going to be a few issues but this one had the added challenge of it being a backdrop for a corner set. This meant our view was going to be in two different directions, and we needed to maintain the perspective (at least partially) each way. For this, we used two different tripods for each side of the backdrop, one facing east and the other south, giving us the ability to keep all horizontal lines parallel in both directions. This was hardly the end of our challenges though.
Since the shape of objects will change depending the position of the camera, merging two different panos from different shooting positions can be tricky. So our next order of business was to make sure each tripod was at the same exact height. This is easier said than done, especially on a pitched roof with variable parapets. Fortunately the parapets were level, so we were able to use a simple tape measure to achieve this. A step in the right direction, but now we needed to figure out exactly where the two views would meet to help guarantee a flawless merge.
In the middle of the view there is a red brick building that was taller than our shooting position. Since we could not really see over it and it was near the center, this was the perfect spot to merge the two panos. We did have a tree and two distant buildings to deal with, but this allowed for a relatively easy merge in post.
Last, we had to account for the specific camera placements relative to our view. This was more of an issue for our view east since the church we saw in that direction had a gable roof on the main facade. Depending on where you were standing, the shape of the gable (actually the A-frame behind it) would change. Obviously having this shaped as if you were viewing it from the left would not work for any filming from the right side of set, and vice versa. So in order to avoid this “mistake” and give the production the greatest amount of verticality, our east facing tripod was place at the center of the gable, completely obscuring the A-frame behind it. The view south was more forgiving since the buildings in view were relatively far away. This meant the shape of things did not change as dramatically and we choose to place this tripod about two yards from the corner.
The following day when we started working on the print file, we had five different panoramas to merge into one. From each shooting position we generated a rectilinear and Vedutismo pano plus an additional rectilinear pano from the southern view but with our center directed at the intersection. The wings of the backdrop were sourced from the Vedutismo versions with most of the backdrop coming from the three rectilinear panos in the center.
Overall, it was a fun shoot, the production designer and art director were great to hang out with, and I even got some inside stories on shooting Portlandia, a favorite show of my wife and I. Artwork approval from the client was given yesterday and now the drop is in production for delivery in two weeks.