DEFINITION THE VIRTUAL FRONTIER
gunfire. We had another scene in an abandoned Vault. It would have been prohibitively expensive to build those kinds of set,” he adds. Shooting on film and in a volume meant most questions were answered during pre-production. “The planning was fantastic,” stresses Smiczek. “Some of that came from the nature of working with film, having proper film tests and making sure the colour was good.” The rest of it came from creating virtual environments in advance and working with experienced teams at both Amazon and Keslow Camera, where the crew sourced their equipment. “We would prep for weeks or months sometimes on sets,” recounts McCleery. The virtual art department would design the backdrop content; then, they would liaise with practical artists to build one cohesive scene. “They had to be integrated, so we had to previsualise where the shadows would line up, where the sets would line up and how we would mask the blend lines. A lot of that had to do with understanding how lighting works. You’re creating depth.” Once the sets were designed, dressed and lit, it came time to block – because with film, there’s no real room for error. McCleery would test everything first on a RED V-RAPTOR, creating ‘a film emulation LUT to have that camera look as close
as possible to the film’, which was Kodak 5207 stock for day scenes and 5219 for night. They ultimately shot on ARRICAM LT and ST with Hawk anamorphic lenses. “Film is very organic,” adds Smiczek. “It’s a bit of an adventure. Every set and every load would push the camera in a different way, so that made things even more interesting. Those film tests were crucial.” When it came down to it, though, McCleery was grateful for the chance to shoot analogue. “Right out of the box, you get a really pleasing image,” he believes. “You don’t have issues like moiré and raster. You’d struggle to solve those artefacts with a digital camera.” SETTING RECORDS While McCleery’s primary role was as Fallout ’s volume DOP, he also served as cinematographer on episode 207 ( The Handoff ) and occasionally picked up
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