PLUR1BUS Drops
On a Wednesday morning last February we got a call from Chet, an art director in Albuquerque, and he wanted to talk about custom drops. Always a great way to start a conversation!
Turns out, he needed to find a new backdrop company to produce two custom 18 x 120 foot backings of Volcano Cliffs for delivery by mid-April, and he wanted to know if we could meet this deadline. We said yes, but we needed to get moving on it fast. “Great, send us your price, contract, sign this NDA, and then we can talk.”
By Friday morning contracts were signed, a P.O. issued, and we were finally told this would be for Wycaro 339, Vince Gilligan’s newest show, now titled Pluribus. The show would run on Apple TV and was given a two season order, something unheard of in today’s media landscape. We immediately recognized that this show would be a big deal, once released, and understood what an opportunity it would be for us to work on it. Set plans and site images followed shortly thereafter, and the backings shoot was schedule for mid-February in New Mexico. However, this created a problem since the backings needed to look like late spring. Not to going lie, the initial site images had me worried, but we were assured all terrain work, including any sodding, would be completed by the time we arrived for photography. However, there would be no leaves on the trees or bushes, an issue that needed to be solved by our print deadline of mid-March.
To help with this, we brought in Anthony Morrow, of PXL House, for our retouching. Meanwhile Chet hired the greens team from Oppenheimer to start making silk leaves for the deciduous trees near camera; there’s no biz like show biz. Of course the trees would not be fully leafed out, more like 40%, but this would provide enough of that backlit translucent glow to help make our matte painting in post appear natural. Trees and bushes further away would be fully retouched in post, and given the smaller scale these would be in the backing, this would not be an issue. Now it was onto crafting the backing panoramas, both of which would wrap around the set on two sides.
To capture the backings, it was decided we would need to use two shooting positions for each. The entire backyard view was not visible from any one spot, and the front view had a tree close to the house that was going to be replicated as a practical on set and, therefore, could not be in the backing. Now, it is always best to have a tripod permanently placed in each spot so the night captures line up perfectly with the day (because they have to for printing purposes), bringing us to four tripods. However, it is also great to have an extra tripod just in case additional information is needed. So, that meant I was flying to Albuquerque with five tripods, which was interesting to say to the least.
Arriving in NM on a Sunday, I was able to tour the interior set and review the plans with Chet on Washington’s Birthday after capturing some nice views from Sandia Mountain in the morning. At this time, I was asked if I could stay an extra day to capture the 2nd story views in case they needed them for season 2. I always add in an extra day for weather when traveling, not to mention two more days on this trip to see Santa Fe, and happily added another day of photography onto the schedule.
Starting Tuesday at 8:30 for day one, I toured the exterior set, which is not located in any neighborhood but built ground up specifically for the show, with Chet to select the shooting positions for each drop. Likewise, I also met the rest of the production team, Dins & Denise, and the key greens foreman, Liloa, to determine how best to spread out his limited amount of leaves. As for the weather, it was a beautiful day with lots of cirrus type clouds diffusing the sunlight a bit. We did get some light and shadow, although nothing harsh, but photographed the day view at solar noon to minimize any shadows. Weather for day two was strikingly similar, providing great continuity for the 2nd story backings for when we eventually print them.
For the panoramas we had to capture 52 plates in total, 26 at noon and 26 at dusk, quite the undertaking. However, for the day versions with exposures of a 1/125 second, this was easy peasy. At dusk though, with the light changing from one capture to the next, the length of each exposure had to be progressively increased in order to keep the light consistent through all of the plates. This is where 20 years of experience working at dusk comes in handy, since there was no time to re-capture a bad plate or start over.
After arriving back in Philly, we got to work piecing together the backings, both digitally and physically. First step was to tediously align all day and night plates, and then create multiple panoramas for each view that would later be stitched in Photoshop to create the overall backings. While on location, I captured several iPhone images through windows and doorways, showing exactly what could be seen in each, and used these along with the set plans to guide me in the placement of objects within the overall backings. After creating the master files of each, they were then sent to Anthony to begin the long process of matte painting in all of the missing leaves while I worked on night masking and editing. After about two weeks, the retouching was finished with approval for print, Eric’s time to shine.
Printing and finishing took about two and half weeks. Eight panels were required for each backing, taking about five days total to print all 16. After each panel is printed, we then hang them for 48 to 72 hours to off gas before seaming. Seaming the backings is the most tedious process in the physical manufacturing, and this was completed over a few days. Last step is to reinforce the edges, install grommets every 18 inches and build two wooden crates for shipping. Each drop weighed about 135 lb. and took four days to get to Albuquerque.
After getting the initial call on February 7th, 2024, photography was captured on February 20th and 21st in New Mexico with retouching being finished and files approved for pre-press by March 11th. The physical backings were then printed, seamed, edged and packaged for freight pick up on March 28th with delivery by the first week of April 2024.
