Last driving plates for Mom

Well, all good things eventually end and our time shooting driving plates for the Warner Brothers show Mom has wrapped. After running 8 seasons, we shot the plates for the final episode which aired just this last month. This was a pretty good show to shoot driving plates for, as they have quite a few driving scenes in them, much more than Young Sheldon, Bob Hearts Abishola, or any of the other WB shows we occasionally work for. Hopefully a new Chuck Lorre show will take its place and that show has lots of driving scenes.

As usual, we shot these on a RED Gemini with a 14mm Sigma Art Cine lens. This wide field of view gives the post production team some room to reframe as needed. The camera is mounted on a DJI Ronin 2 on a Flowcine Black Arm system to keep everything smooth, with us matching the camera height and angle of the original photography.

When we're shooting, we are provided with footage of the scenes that were shot on green screen, so we know the angle the camera was at, how long the scene runs (so we know how long of a continuous run to make), and if there are any vehicle maneuvers we need to make (such as pulling over, swerving, sitting at a stoplight/stop sign, etc) and when those maneuvers take place. Of course, we have police escorts involved to make sure everything is done safely and in a controlled manner.

Generally, we try not to fly the camera with an eyebrow, as even at low speeds and using our mesh eyebrow, the motors in the gimbal work hard, especially if the camera is facing forward. But all these shots were shooting backward and to the sides, and speeds were fairly low, so we were able to get away with the eyebrow on the camera. When we can't have an eyebrow, and due to the wide field of view on a 14mm, we have to plan the time of day carefully to both match the lighting of the already shot show footage while also avoid shooting into the sun as we can't have flares.

While these sorts of shoots are more technical in nature than creative, I enjoy putting that side of my brain to use, solving technical issues and not worrying about how I'm going to light a scene, for instance. Fortunately, I have a mix of projects that allows me to do both technical as well as creative work.

So, what do the final results look like? Well, here are some screengrabs from the episode this shoot was for, with all the backgrounds being the footage we shot that day.

The Glamorous World of Driving Plates!

The past couple years I developed my skills shooting driving plates. While I had done them before, I started doing a lot of shoots for several of Chuck Lorre's Warner Bros. television shows (Bob Hearts Abishola, Young Sheldon, Mom) along with occasional episodes of other television shows. If you aren't familiar with what driving plates are, here's the lowdown.

Often, on television shows that have driving scenes, those scenes are shot in a car on a greenscreen stage. This keeps the actors safe and also allows for a controlled environment, since the car isn't actually moving on the road. But since they need to look like they're driving, background plates of the moving street needs to be composited in behind them. So what happens is we get the edit of the driving scenes and we match the camera height, angle, and replicate any driving "movement" (such as swerves, pulling up to a curb, etc) so that the background can be properly matched to what they shot on the greenscreen. This takes us from city streets and freeways to suburban neighborhoods, parking garages, and even the drive thru. Whatever the story calls for, we shoot.

For most of our shoots, we use Jack Carpenter of Carpenter Camera Cars and rig up a RED Gemini on a DJI Ronin 2 with a FlowCine Black Arm. The Ronin keeps the camera stable and level while the Black Arm absorbs the larger side to side and up and down movement. The RED Gemini, with its dual gain sensor, allows us to shoot night driving plates on darker streets while keeping the sensor noise under control.

There are many options for lens choices, as each production calls for different parameters. The majority of my shoots want to shoot wide plates that they can then zoom in on and shift around the frame, giving them a lot of placement flexibility in post. For this, we generally use the Sigma Cine 14mm T2. We run a matte box at all times, during the day to be able to add ND filtration and block out sun flares, and at night just to reduce flares from street lights (so no ND). When we're not doing Gemini on the Ronin, we tend to also shoot Arri Alexa hard mounted to the truck, oftentimes with 2-3 cameras simultaneously. Again, depends on what the client asks for.

So maybe the world of driving plates isn't that glamorous after all, but it's an interesting part of the filmmaking process, one that most people don't even think about. I'm glad I've been able to develop this skill and enjoy the process and the wind blowing through my hair as we drive down the road (well, maybe I enjoy it a little less during the winter night shoots...😉). But the team we've put together to shoot these is all great and I love working with them.