The Enticing Reality Of UNREAL And Fix’n It In Pre.
$5 says your first virtual production demo will conjure up memories of your most nightmarish shoot ever like it did for us. Kris Bargen of Cart and Horse – a friend and creative community colleague – gave us a sneak peek at their recent virtual production collaboration with Golden Hour, Lowing Light & Grip and a spattering of bonkers talented individuals utilizing UNREAL Engine to create breathtakingly realistic virtual sets resulting in six completely unique scenes shot in (here’s the kicker)… one day.
The phrase “one day,” triggers PTSD (AKA Production Trauma Stress Disorder) for both Mike and I since October of 2020. Granted, more so for Mike than me – he was on set living through the humidity induced fever dream that was our “Rickie Fowler on a Putt Putt Course” shoot while I sat on a comfy sectional in a climate-controlled, COVID-protocol compliant remote video village over 1,300 miles away.
He sweat through his polo and face mask. I ordered pizza.
It was a one-day shoot directed by Brendan Gibbons and produced by Station Films (as well as our own EP, Julie Etheridge). We had eight hours with Rickie and an amazing Putt Putt Course set constructed on a Golf Course parking lot. But then a little bit into the shoot we also had lightning strike… and not the good, creative kind.
The golf course and set had to be cleared, and according to rules needed to remain clear until XX minutes passed without lightning in the area. Everyone waited in the clubhouse as a storm rolled through. Once the all-clear sounded everyone went back to set with pep in their step as the one-day clock ticked down.
The shoot was stopped a second time a few hours later as another storm rolled through. That’s when deliverables started falling off the list onto the clubhouse floor.
From our cozy spot in Michigan, I watched people running frantically, scenes resetting at the speed of “oh shit,” and a small village of people rally to race the clock and get everything done, which they did.
In the end, there were “Nice to Have” deliverables left in the clubhouse and a lot more time and investment spent in post – cleaning up skies, rain puddles, lighting shifts due to overcast, etc. No matter how much preparation we put into pre-production to fit everything we needed and wanted into a one-day shoot, there’s no way to predict what mood Mother Nature is going to show up to set in.
Watching Kris’s demo seamlessly transition from a futuristic downtown exterior back in time to a Western-style sequence, then forward in time to a modern retail store interior started to transform the meaning of one-day shoots from terrifying to full of endless potential with help from technology that isn’t coming “One Day,” but is available now.
Here’s to fun new production tools in our creativity toolboxes and less production induced trauma in the future.
