The Making Of: The Walking Deadvertisements
Camera: RED Raptor XL, Raptor, Gemini
Lens: Arri Master Anamorphic & Canon Cine Zooms
The Maximum Effort team had come up with an exciting concept for these special event commercials and everyone was eager to bring them to life. The scripts called for some specific looks to match the show but in a very compressed timeline. We had less than a week to prep and shoot while the post team had only 2 days to finish 4 commercials which ended up being 5. We had some heavier VFX in one spot so everything needed to be well thought out and prepped to make it a smooth process. Lastly we wanted to shoot Anamorphic for some of the characteristics. To make sure we captured all of the lenses glory we shot on the RED Raptor XL VV Sensor. It allowed us to shoot in 7k 6:5 2x Anamorphic.
Overview & Challenges:
Location with unpredictable weather
Heavy VFX
2 days to shoot 5 commercials
Pre-Production
We hit the ground running on this project as soon as we found out it was happening. While most companies have 2 weeks to prepare for a shoot this team thrives in quick turn arounds and the team knows the deal. We generally have the same crew on every shoot which has allowed us to be focused on the goal and know how to achieve it quickly. At one point everything was going to be on stage but we ultimately decided that our door dash spot would be more effective at a practical location. Every other set was being built on stage so it was an easy scout but our practical mountain location gave us our first challenge of the shoot. It was of course raining in LA for the first time in months and this location was 20 minutes off the main road. This meant we were hit with so much fog we could barely see 30 ft in front of you. We ended coming back 2 days later to perfect weather. Shoot day came around and it was completely different.
Here is the breakdown that I sent my entire G&E team and camera department. I wanted everyone on the same page for what to expect. First was the mood board for each set. These were separate from what art department put together. There was the need to ride the line between commercial high key and more moody cinematic and i think we found a happy balance. All of these were rough ideas of particular lights and placement based on my original thoughts. These did change a little during the pre-light and budget but generally this is what we worked with. If i recall the biggest change was for the windows on the Ring set because we didn’t have a translight or anything besides some greens.
Because we need to move fast we also shoot every spot with at least 2, if not 3 cameras. This always presents some additional challenges on where you can light from as well as your angles. It really helped speed up our day on this one. We shot with the Raptor XL as our main camera which i specifically wanted for it’s built in ND. We couldn’t get another so settled for the Raptor which is basically the same thing. And finally because of budget reasons we went with the tride and true, DSMC2 RED Gemini as our 3rd. We were supposed to only use camera 3 for TED but ended up using for some pickup shots both days.
Shoot Day
Day 1 rolled around and i was excited for our exterior day. Of course the weather was nothing like we had scouted either of the days. As i drove up into the mountains it got windier and winder which immediately worried me. We weren’t really running any lights but had big bounces and negative fill to control the sun. I showed up and went straight to my key grip Brandy and asked, what’s the biggest thing we can fly today. She replied, “MAYBE a 4x4 with 2 people on it.” We only had 4 grips so instead of getting my 20x or 12x12x i was forced down to 4x4s. Thankfully I also planned to shoot backlit almost all day besides one turnaround shot. This ended up hugely saving our asses because otherwise we would have had a lot of problems for VFX with the shadows. The other challenge we had we getting out talent into the ground enough that his head could lay flat in the dirt. At one point we were going to dig an entire hole for his body but ended up with a smaller one for his shoulder and part of his body. He was a trooper because lots of dust and dirt got kicked up in his face. At one point we built a box around him for his close up and to protect his eyes. The wind ended up calming down in the middle of the day which also helped a lot. The other problem we ran into was Silverstack, the DIT program for offloading and verifying footage gave us an issue. It wasn’t copying over all the files it was supposed to. Thankfully the software checksum worked like it was supposed to and caught it, along with our DIT doing his own checks. Otherwise the shoot day went flawlessly and we ended early. I went home that night and did my own composites in photoshop to make sure the head cutting out would go well with our plates and it worked perfectly.
Day 2 we didn’t have to battle the freezing cold winds and could relax a little. We spent the time to dial in every set flawlessly that we were ready to roll once cameras loaded in. The big hiccup this day was our main talent for commercial 2 tested positive, which meant they not only had to find another person, they had to spend the hours doing prosthetics later than expected. Tim Martin and his team killed it though and got it done in time. We were doing so well we ended up repurposing a set and using it for another commercial that got added that day. This often happens on Maximum Effort shoots and it’s part of the thrill.
Post/Conclusion
I didn’t have much to do with post except some last minute problem solving but the team had already started the night before. We ran all 3 cameras through Frame IO C2C or Camera 2 Cloud program. We did have a few clips that didn’t upload because the signal from the teradek had an error but otherwise the post team had cuts before I woke up the next morning. The team had it cut and ready to ship within a day and a half which is insane! Big ups to everyone on the team, couldn’t have done this tight turnaround without you!
