VFX Plate Shoots for Like Moles, Like Rats

So I spent all day today with JimTorres (Like Moles, Like Rats's Director) shooting reference photos, texture photos, and background plates for Like Moles, Like Rats.

I must say, it was quite a fun experience. First off, we starting shooting reference plates and textures of the Times Building in downtown Huntsville, Alabama. We shot these reference plates and textures on a Nikon D100, which is a great still camera. That whole process took about 20-30 minutes, and then we headed back to the office to dump the images back onto the Macs.



Once that was done we went onto the roof of one of the buildings across the street of the times buildings, so that I could photograph more background plates and textures.

After shooting from one angle of the roof, I used a ladder to get a higher vantage point of the roof. I must say, that was quite scary. I had the weight of the camera slung on my back, and it felt like I was going to fall backwards the entire time.




I finally made it to the top, from which I took some pictures of downtown Huntsville for background plates and matte paintings. From after that it was time to go back down the latter, and that was very scary. I do not like heights.






So after all the roof photography was complete, it was time to drive out to Dallas Mill which serves as an evil hideout for the villains of LMLR. I had lots of fun at Dallas Mill, because I got to use the Panasonic AG-HVX200 DVCPRO HD camera that I have been wanting to get hands on experience with for a long time. I finally got that chance.











We shot plates of Dallas Mill from multiple angles and multiple exposures to ensure proper coverage of angles and lighting for the visual effects shots. The cool thing about the final shot on Dallas Mill, is that it will include miniature trucks, and I have been dying for an excuse to use miniatures in a film project for a long time. I'm excited.

Once plate photography was done, we took the camera gear back to our production office to dump the footage into the Mac workstations to that visual effect work to be done onto the raw plates.





Stay tune for more updates as I complete the miniatures for these shots, I will be posting a Work in Progress here.

Well, that's it for this blog, thanks for reading.