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LMGI COMPASS
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Spring 2021
exist, the wolves and trainers would have had to travel to the
shooting crew in Europe. The crew of GOT in Europe didn't have
to worry about shooting a live animal, as well as all the other
crazy logistics on location.
Not every job will stretch our skillset to the max, and I welcomed
the respite. I got to see their setup, grab a couple pics of the GOT
Direwolves, hand out some cheques and hang out organizing my
overflowing scouting files.
Landing on the Red Planet
Before Perseverance
I realized early on that I was scouting for something really special
with Lost in Space. I was tasked with finding epic landscapes
devoid of any vegetation to play for the Red Planet, which would
appear in four episodes in Season 2.
What a fun assignment! I've scouted and shot in the Alberta
Badlands in the past but mostly for mountain biking, car
commercials or as a double for New Mexico or Utah in a Western.
I'd always hoped for a "space" show because the unusual
features always looked otherworldly to me!
After viewing my scouting images, the producer and director
were excited to see more. I couldn't have asked for a better team
to work with: seasoned director/producer Alex Graves, "been
there, done that" designer Frank Walsh, young gun VFX savant
Jabbar Raisani, and the progressive even-keeled producer/PM
team of Brad Van Arragon and Dennis Penney/LMGI.
Jabbar's team would be taking care of photogrammetry in-house.
They started shooting the different location options early using
their DSLR cameras to create digital environments for not only
their own discussions but to aid in pre-production planning for
every department. My stills and video using the drone helped to
create boards and facilitate discussions toward final decisions
on the hero locations.
I asked Jabbar if there was anything we, as scouts, could do to
facilitate the search for these types of proposed environments.
"Using drone stills and video would be a minimum, but going
further and using photogrammetry/LiDAR would be even better
so we can virtually scout in 3D programs and VR (Virtual
Reality)*
if necessary," he advised.
Lessons Learned
But there was more. I was caught off-guard when I was told
that we needed to have all of the locations LiDAR scanned
sometime after all of the sets and dressing were in place and
Lost in Space, Alberta Badlands, Canada
