Ludovic Littee Creates a T-Bone Crash at Carstage

After long stints on House of Cards, Orange is the New Black and FBI:Most Wanted, DP Ludovic Littee is no stranger to the unique production challenges of carwork. Green screens had become the norm, but for the pivotal car crash episode on FBI:Most Wanted, they wanted something out of the box. With stages in Brooklyn, New York, they had heard about the Carstage just up the road in Long Island City. The line producer made the connection, and the camera team tried their hand at virtual production with Carstage.

Littee is a planner, which always helps when trying something new with multiple image angles, props, talent, not to mention cars. Rather than shooting against a green screen they would two step the process, but come out with fully composed footage in camera. The script called for a car chase where a van cuts off a car and the driver retaliates by t-boning the van which causes it to go over a hillside and roll-over.

For the ambitious crash, “the idea was to do multiple shots to marry the sequence together” says Littee. “The first step was to send the second unit out on a night shoot to capture the plates, he explains. “To build the sequence we shot the plates including car-to-car and pass-bys. For the actual T-bone impact, we shot in reverse so the stunt guys could really get into the action.”

The following morning Littee’s camera team drove the prop car and van onto Carstage and the tech loaded their plates into the server. The plates shot the previous night projected from the giant moveable LED screens surrounding the set.

“To match the plates and car on the LED stage was the biggest challenge,” says Littee. “We shot over the actors sitting in the front seats as the passenger turned to the driver and said, ‘Oh My God, the car is coming at us!’ I timed the LED screen so you could see the lights coming toward the camera in the car. Then we had grip and electric turn off the stage lighting as the headlights hit the actor’s face. The interaction with the actors and the light was extremely helpful.”

Shot after shot, Littee created multiple elements—overheads, side views, head-on closeups of cars with the actors, actors thrown on to cars. “We captured their reactions, as the airbags deployed—and all that. Seeing the plates through their windshield was very useful when it came to capturing the talent reacting to the chase—especially when they saw the car coming head-on. I got those reaction shots from both the chasers and chasees.”

He was pleased that all the elements came together to create something so realistic. “By doing it this way, the actors had elements to react to. They could see the car in the distance and we could time things properly. It also helped us get more natural reflections. Like with real life, things can go out of focus. Through the windows, you can add a wind effect.”

At the end of the day they walked out with everything they needed. “It was a learning curve, and I loved it!” concludes Ludovic Littee.