The Location Managers Guild International (LMGI) is the largest organization of Location Managers and Location Scouts in the motion picture, television, commercial and print production industries. Their membership plays a vital role in the creativ
Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1359265
44 • LMGI COMPASS | Spring 2021 The Water Is Cold… Heartland LM Brian Dunne reminded me that I didn't need to look far for a direct comparison to just how fast digital filmmaking has come. Scenic and oft-filmed Elbow Falls is actually close to where we both live. He had worked on The Bourne Legacy, which featured Jeremy Renner as the Bourne character, emerging from a very cold river pool below the falls after doing a little Wim Hof Method** in the first two minutes of the film. The waterfall has the appearance of being much taller than it actually is due to another frozen tier added in the background, along with some mountains and other pretty things. This was Brian's first experience with LiDAR. The LiDAR head was suspended from a helicopter by cable. There may have been some early application of photogrammetry to help map the environment as well, but that's unclear as per his recollection. Fast-forward to spring 2019 when we shot the same location for Jumanji: The Next Level. Believe me, for their scene beneath the falls, the Jumanji cast did not have to take the plunge into those frigid waters as Mr. Renner bravely did nine years earlier. The VFX crew took care of that! Beware: Going Guerrilla On a practical note, although we were too busy with the main unit crew above tree line in the alpine to be with the VFX unit at Elbow Falls that shoot day, I did take the team to the location during prep where we walked the area to determine camera positions and drone flight paths. We also had the mountain safety team along who would have to get people down a steep slope to the river bottom below the waterfall on the day. Because of my experience on Lost in Space the summer before, I noticed pretty quickly when the cameras came out of the bags and it escalated from "a few reference shots" to something that more closely resembled an exercise in data collection/ photogrammetry. Photogrammetry is a reality capture workflow which involves taking hundreds or even thousands of photographs using handheld DSLR cameras* to create a point cloud*, which turns into a mesh*, that is then refined and textured using specialized software. It's a commercial activity. We were in a provincial park for which our permit was stamped with a different date for the filming. We were supposed to be there for a "look-around." The VFX crew would only have a day to actually capture the area, so they wanted to take advantage of the fine weather on that scout day. Kudos to Mark Breakspear, leading the VFX team that day, who pushed for usable assets* in a discreet way, but shut it down when the public started showing up. A complaint would have jeopardized our permit with Alberta Parks. Because photogrammetry is done using pretty much any good quality DSLR, you may see a small team of three or four VFX people joining a recce** without too much other gear along. If you plan to have a location liaison present for the survey, it could possibly get weird and even jeopardize the deal, something VFX doesn't necessarily think about. I understand the temptation to go guerrilla-mode, but I feel it's important for a scheduled, permitted, paid-for and insured dedicated time period for VFX to do their thing. It all worked out well on the shoot day. But when you watch the scene, it isn't clear looking at the final edit on the big screen how much of the physical environment was used and how much was constructed and enhanced using CG. The waterfall looked very unaltered from its current natural state. The nature of discovery presented angles that couldn't be filmed easily or safely. Also, by Augmented Elbow Falls, as seen in The Bourne Legacy