American Cinematographer - August 2018 - 26

Left: The tower that houses the magician was realized
as a miniature backed by greenscreen.
Above: Alexander (left) and Thompson on set.

K 5600 Joker 400, which played through
the window as moonlight."
The challenge of integrating the
lighting of the stop-motion and live-action
footage was solved, quite simply, by
employing smaller-sized LiteGear LiteRibbons for the stop-motion material. This
allowed Alexander to capture the same
quality of light on a smaller scale and in a
more controlled environment. For
sequences requiring the robot to interact
with the magician, 1st AC Ona Isart's meticulous notes on each shot's lighting and
camera position proved key to achieving
proper integration of the two plates. The
actual compositing of the stop-motion
robot into the live-action footage was
handled by Rosenfeld, who added contact
shadows, slight motion blur, and other
subtle effects to merge the character seamlessly into the live-action environment.
"The work done at Union was
crucial to the project's success," Thompson
enthuses. "It played a big role in achieving
the very specific look we were after, and
their generosity toward our ambitious-yetmodest little project really can't be reiterated enough."
Employing Dragonframe software to
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August 2018

control camera settings, the stop-motion
portion of photography began two weeks
after the two-day live-action shoot, and
lasted for 10 days. Aiming to composite the
robot into the live-action footage necessitated the use of greenscreen, though the
character's shiny metallic surfaces became a
source of unexpected trouble. "It just lit up
green," Alexander laments. "So much
spill!" The key to solving the problem,
though, was deceptively simple. "We
simply put the character on a 'floating' glass
surface that Eliza built for us, and then
draped the greenscreen in the distance,"
the cinematographer explains. "To the
camera, it looked just like a full-body greenscreen shot, but really he's standing on a
glass platform."
Visual-effects artist Isaiah Kang was
responsible for compositing these shots,
using Adobe's After Effects with Video
Copilot's Element 3D plugin. Kang also
crafted the exterior shots of the barren
planetoid and outer-space sequences seen
in the short. These shots were achieved
through a combination of practical miniature elements and computer-generated set
extensions for the star fields, auroras and
planets - with close collaboration between
American Cinematographer

Kang, Thompson and Alexander to determine the final look.
The production's climax, a 360degree camera move around a stop-motion
hot-air balloon in outer space, proved to be
one of the more challenging shots to
capture. The solution Alexander arrived at
involved spinning the balloon rather than
the camera. "But to sell the shot, not only
did we have to animate the background
spinning around the balloon, we had to
keep the lighting consistent throughout its
entire turn. So the lights were all wirerigged to a lazy Susan, moving with the
balloon as it turned."
The production, Thompson says,
typifies why he enjoys working with Alexander. "He cares about the projects he works
on to an uncommon degree," the director
notes. "With Harper, you get a vested interest that goes beyond the quality of the
images, to encapsulate a project's success as
a whole. He's one of the first with whom I
share new ideas, and one of the final whose
opinion I will draw from in the edit bay. I've
been extremely fortunate to work with him
time and again. A real artist. A real friend."
As they look forward to continuing
their collaboration on an upcoming feature
project, Alexander is grateful for "the
perfect medley of luck, talent and fortuitous
circumstances" that helped them create this
magical music video.
To view "Blame the Author," visit
vimeo.com/238781188.
●

http://www.vimeo.com/238781188

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - August 2018