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
50 • LMGI COMPASS | Spring 2021 In retrospect, knowing what I now know, if I was to do another show like this, I would make sure I was staffed appropriately and have dedicated assistants just for VFX. There was a point where the weather had turned unseasonably foul and the "completely dry planet" I had scouted and everyone was excited about was being drenched by rain and even snow! The crew started splintering to try and work around the weather and I was stretched between four locations. One of which, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was a 3.5-hour drive away! At that point, the VFX lead for the LiDAR scanning process for all sets mentioned they would like to just stop at various interesting features wherever they saw them off the side of the road to scan them. You know, hop a fence or two—no big deal. As I watched the LiDAR crew scan the locations to the nearest mm, I wondered about the future of film and shooting on location. Is it possible that the studios direct the VFX or art department team to carefully archive and tag the photogrammetry and LiDAR data files for easy recovery from a library? I mean, the detail is insane. I reached out to Brent Walmsley, whom I sourced for the VFX department to do the LiDAR scans on Lost in Space. Brent, now with GeoVerra in Ontario, refreshed my memory on the technical details. "We collected 1 million 3D points/second with professional-grade, highest quality 3D scanners. Now, it's possible to measure up to 1 km with that equipment. Lower end scanners are around 30,000 pts/sec with 50 m range and offer less detail accuracy. With final, processed and merged together scan files, we're looking at a 0.1mm resolution. Regardless of resolution though, we generally process these files into very high poly-count mesh geometries that can be refined by VFX teams." Where We Go from Here… So, is the future of our profession in jeopardy? When studios spend millions to travel hundreds of people to remote areas only to be faced with crazy weather outside all historical norms which threatens the tight schedule, will it make more sense to keep it indoors on volume stages as with a show such as The Mandalorian **? The younger generations that may prefer to use tech over risking being on a physical location still have a decade or two before they start to steer the ship. Every director and DP I know wants to shoot their own establishing shot or sunset on the location that fits the emotional qualities of the film. I see The Mandalorian as an interesting case study, but as actual VFX supervisors like Jabbar Raisani would tell us, "The reality is that solutions like The Mandalorian are incredibly expensive and technically difficult to achieve. Mass adoption of these techniques is unlikely in the near future." Yes, COVID is creating a lot of buzz around the subject and people will undoubtedly use the tech to help solve some of our current travel restrictions. But most productions can't afford this type of post-production technology, at least not in the near term. Virtual production is similar to green screen. Currently, every production has the technology to film everything on a stage in front of green screen. But when we can, we typically prefer to film real people in real locations. I posed the question of whether or not LMs will be looked at to shoot photogrammetry/LiDAR scans for production to Brent, an industry outsider/LiDAR contractor. "With the use of reality capture technology, there is a track record of blending automation with creativity; powerful results with growth and innovation," he says. "Within the TV/film industry, I think those ideas could be first manifested by location managers who become early adopters of the technology. "Location managers have a unique opportunity to revolutionize the work they do, and create new opportunities for themselves, like building their own resource of digital location assets generated from 3D scanning LiDAR data that they have embraced." Based on those thoughts, location pros may want to think about a "Shutterstock for Photogrammetry"—there's already 360 stock footage for sale online. Jabbar adds, "If a company went out and started scanning environments for the express purpose of licensing them to productions, we may see a shift to more of a stock photography scenario, but thus far, there hasn't been a demand for such assets." Talking Tech and Scouting On At the end of the day, maybe there's the potential for new revenue- generating opportunities using LiDAR and photogrammetry in conjunction with location scouting, but I'm personally not interested in getting into the business of selling digital locations as a type of stock footage asset. The hardware & software costs are a legitimate barrier to entry. I looked into the newest, lightest LiDAR scanners and Leica has the BLK360 for a cool $25K. Then you're looking at the software to create a digital mesh. The BLK360 which Jabbar's team carries in the kit actually spits out a full-colour scan to a Wi-Fi-synched iPad as the scan is being done. So, is photogrammetry on its way out? "Photogrammetry is relatively simple, and doesn't require expensive equipment, so I think it's here to stay. A 5D gives you more resolution and better color depth—for now," says Jabbar. I believe that I couldn't have sold the locations for the Red Planet, as well without using the drone to convey the size and scope of the epic landscapes that Alex Graves was insistent on having.