CharlesPapert
Director of Photography
This was a two day shoot in January, on the backlot of Paramount Studios and at an abandoned car dealership in Pomona. We shot on an Arri Amira in UHD to allow for zooming/repo's in the frame etc (spot was finished at 1080). I like to set a 90% marker so that we are always shooting a safety border; if something clips frame we don't have to do another take, and it provides for post-stabilization of any shot.
The falling-towards-money shot was done by pushing the actor back on a skatedolly towards a vertical wall of money, with the falling bills shot against green as a separate element. This can be seen in the BTS video below. The shot of the actor pivoting back to upright was a bit of a surprise on the day but my amazing key grip Bodie Hyman whipped up a rig that worked perfectly.
The driving shots were shot process against green screen. It was a little backwards in that we had to shoot the background plates on our first day on the backlot and the foreground with the actors on the second day (scheduling issue), so we had to line up the various shots with the car and take notes on height, inclination, distance, focal length etc. then duplicate the angles with a Steadicam on golf cart to shoot the plates, and then recreate everything the next day against green screen. Again the extra resolution helped because I shot everything a little wide to give a fudge factor for the compositors if they needed more in one or another direction. They did a good job with the reflections in the car that really help sell that it is moving. Incidentally I took pains to make sure everyone in the car was lit (the gal in the middle of the backseat was the trickiest, with the darkest complexion in the middle of the car) and then the choice was made in post to knock down everyone but the driver to draw attention to him on the side angle! That made sense for the spot but it would have saved me time on the day if we had known...
Lighting was pretty simple--using Psy videos as a reference since this was a K-pop influenced piece I saw that the look was clean and a little poppy but generally not too far from natural. I used two 18K's bounced or through double diffusion depending on whether we were in sun vs shade. I was able to work the schedule on the backlot so we were always avoiding direct sunlight in the foreground which gave me plenty of control. The living room set was a tragically small practical room on the backlot--the Steadicam operator had his back against the wall in the wider shots with the dancing! I pushed the 18K's through the right side windows and had three M18's hung above camera pushing into a bleached muslin bounce for front fill, scrimmed down as required.
A young gent roving with a Ronin and A7S got some very nice behind the scenes footage of the shoot:
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