We did a lot of work in pre-production to make sure that we would get the most out of our very limited time and budget on Carolina Parakeet. For an example, let's break down the Storage Room sequence.

We had two scenes in two separate locations to shoot on this day, with a total of 4 actors, 20 extras, 8 makeup artists and a full camera crew. It was crazy. There was no money in the budget for additional days If we didn't get every shot we needed, so it was very important that we used our time wisely.

Location Scout

I fell in love with this hallway the second we walked in. With stark white brick walls, identical metal doors with cold war era locks and exposed pipes at the ceiling; it was perfect. We took detailed measurements and a lot of photo reference. The scene was originally set in a boiler room, so I rewrote it to fit the new location.

I drew storyboards for about half of the scenes in the film, but this scene was not one of them. I decided to go with full previs for both sequences we were to shoot on this day.

Virtual Set Build

Using the measurements, photo reference and a little blueprint I sketched at the scout, I recreated the set virtually in Autodesk Maya. My Producer Tefft had to go back a couple of times for measurements I forgot to take, so take this as a lesson to you: you can never be too thorough. The goal here was not to make it photorealistic, but to make it quickly and accurately so we could virtually block in the scene. You also want the scene file to be light so you can work efficiently. You can check out a comparison between the location and the previs set below.