American Cinematographer - November 2021 - 57

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER ASCMAG.COM
Cinematographer Craig Kief, ASC (right) oversees a setup in the volume.
mobile mini-walls for additional
lighting and reflections. The ceiling,
as well as the side and mobile walls,
each comprised Absen 4.68mmpixel-pitch
panels - a lower-pixel-count
solution " because they
were more cost effective and would
never be photographed, " Kief says.
To capture the performances
in the LED volume, Kief deployed
an Arri Alexa LF camera with Panavision
Sphero 65 lenses. " I had
Panavision's Special Optics team
modify two Panaspeeds - 29mm
and 35mm - to match the look
of the Spheros so that I could get
to a T1.4 for a shallower depth of
field than the native T2.8 of those
Spheros. The main reason to do this
on a volume is to avoid moiré. "
Virtual Challenges
Kief notes a number of technical
hurdles the production encountered
as they familiarized themselves with
the new technologies and workflow.
" One of our early issues was visible
scanlines and trying to genlock
everything to eliminate them, " says
Kief. " I learned so much through
this experience. One of the key
takeaways was that these setups
are incredibly complex integrations
from different providers, and
everything has to work together at
a high-performance level, or you're
dead in the water. "
Kief ringed the set ceiling with
Kino Flo FreeStyle LED lights,
controlled via DMX to synchronize
with the onscreen content. " There's
a bit of a misconception that the
volume does all the lighting for
you, " he says. " But if you increase
the brightness of the screens so
[they're bright enough to sufficiently]
light the subject, you could end
up contaminating other parts of
the volume, including the screen
" One of the key takeaways was that these setups are incredibly complex
integrations from different providers. "
itself. Also, the color rendition of the
panels is not nearly as full-spectrum
as current LED cinema lights.
" I have a long history in lighting,
and I even worked as a consultant
for ETC when they designed their
fos/4 line of fixtures, so I know
a lot about color rendition, " Kief
continues. " The color quality of the
emitters used in current LED display
panels is very narrowband, like the
first generation of LED movie lights
from a dozen years ago. "
Digital Designs
Production designer Darcy Prevost
re-created the iconic architecture of
the Haunted Mansion in SketchUp
using a variety of reference material
provided by Disney. " Disney had a
Matterport photogrammetry scan
of the ride at Disneyland, so I could
look around each area and see
curves, textures and understand the
layout, " says Prevost. " At the time,
the park itself was shut down [due
to Covid-19], so we weren't able to
visit for ourselves.
" I'd model everything as close to
'within an inch of its life' as possible,
and then export as an OBJ 3D file, "
Prevost continues. " ARwall had
two modeling teams transforming
the OBJ models into Unreal Engine
models: Mark Allen at Allucinari and
the Dastoli brothers at Dastoli Digital.
We had lots of review meetings
where Craig could ask for things like
practical lights, and the set decorator
and I could choose a specific
sconce in digital form to add - in
that sense, it's not much different
than working traditionally. If you're
doing a virtual-production project,
you really can't cut your prep short. "
Visual-effects and postproduction
supervisor Brooke Stone led
Muppets Haunted Mansion across
the finish line. " A lot of our work
was fixing little 2D glitches and
puppeteering rod removals, " says
Stone - though she adds that her
team's work also helped create the
otherworldly appearance of hundreds
of Muppets " ghost " elements,
which were ultimately placed into
the show during postproduction.
About the volume shoot as a
whole, Stone says, " It's impressive
how everything worked with the
LED wall, as opposed to a completely
greenscreen environment,
because [with greenscreen work]
it takes much longer for the final
shots to come together in post. "
Adds Kief, " In the instances
where something wasn't working
perfectly in the volume, the
on-camera panels could be turned
green or blue for us to pull keys
from, while the off-camera panels
gave us the accurate interactive
lighting to complement the background
environments that would be
composited in afterwards. It was
the best cohesion of foreground
lighting and green- or bluescreen
work I've seen. "
NOVEMBER 2021 / 57
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American Cinematographer - November 2021

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