Snowflake

To bring New York City to the Paramount backlot for the new Wayans Brothers comedy "Snowflake", Production Designer Aaron Osborne turned to Rosco.

The Challenge

Extend one of Paramount's backlot streets to create the illusion of being on the streets of New York for a "Fame"-type dance sequence, while covering a decidedly un-New York office building.

Assessment

Art Director Erin Cochran, and Rosco's veteran problem solver Phil Greenstreet surveyed the site, and measured the surrounding buildings. As the budget would not cover the cost of a New York shoot, Phil then scouted locations in downtown Los Angeles to find streets that would provide a good New York feel.

Photo shoot

The need for shots taken from the middle of the street meant that Phil headed downtown with his camera before sun up one Sunday morning. Two locations were captured which offered an appropriate selection of buildings.

Care was taken to capture the buildings at a scale and distance comparable to the geometry of the set up on the back lot.

Image Manipulation

The two different shots of downtown Los Angeles were combined to form the required file. Illustrator signage files provided by the Art Department was then dropped in to complete the illusion.

Particular care was taken to match the floors of the right hand foreground building to the existing forced-perspective structure from the backlot.

The images were also corrected to a more midday color temperature rather than the cool morning look of the originals.

Simulation

As a final check, the file was inserted back into the original shot of the scene.

Installation

The Snowflake riggers constructed a large truss and scaffold framework, and attached the drop to the front.