How A Rosco SoftDrop^® Created A 360º London Background For “The Union”

Netflix’s action spy comedy, The Union, follows the story of Mike (Mark Wahlberg) whose peaceful life is disrupted when he encounters his high school sweetheart, Roxanne (Halle Berry), who now works for a top-secret government agency called “The Union.” The operational headquarters of the agency in the story is set inside London’s iconic BT Tower, which – thanks to its large, curved windows – provides commanding views of many familiar London locations. Below, Cinematographer Alan Stewart BSC shares how they used a Rosco SoftDrop to provide the 360º panoramic views of the London skyline that the filmmakers needed outside the windows of their BT Tower set inside Shepperton Studios.

Creating A Realistic London Background

From the off, overall, the film was to be grounded – everything was to be 'blue collar.’ Obviously, we were not setting out to make a documentary, but neither were we setting out to make a long commercial. So, there was always an element throughout pre-production that we keep it real. One of the main sets was, of course, the operational HQ of 'The Union' inside the BT Tower… 360° of glass windows looking out over the London skyline.

The Union’s fictional headquarters is set inside London’s cylindrical BT Tower with windows on all sides.

We needed a continuous background to cater for this 'all round’ BT Tower view and a few methods were discussed. Whatever way we were going to go, my gaffer, David Sinfield, and I knew that it was going to be a nice challenge. We wanted the freedom to shoot anywhere within the set and possibly travel the full circular interior in one shot, if desired.

“Piece of cake. I mean… unless it isn’t,” says Actor J.K. Simmons’ character inside the BT Tower set.

With this in mind, various methods were discussed and many factors were taken into account when considering the background – type, cost, time, flexibility, etc. Production Designer Morgan Kennedy and his team, along with the VfX team, were all advocates of using a 360° Rosco SoftDrop – so the SoftDrop route was chosen.

Producing The London Backdrop Imagery

A 295’ x 38’ (90m x 11.5m) Rosco SoftDrop provided a continuous, 360° view of London outside of the BT Tower set for The Union.

Once the decision was made to go SoftDrop we knew that it would have to cater for the night interiors, day interiors as well as everything else in between, a tall order. Creating the photographic material to create the SoftDrop was handled by Rosco, this presented a nice physical challenge for them as photographing the actual view from the top of the BT Tower could not be done.

One of my main issues with any false background when viewed from interior sets out through set windows, be it Green Screen / CGI, painted backdrop etc, is for that background to have believable focus drop-off, contrast and colour in the final image. The SoftDrop met those challenges for me and my team.

A Custom Day/Night Rosco SoftDrop provides both day and night views outside the BT Tower set.

Lighting The SoftDrop Strategically

We invested a lot of time to enhance the SoftDrop, especially for its night work, by putting dozens of small red LED lights onto buildings to simulate the building’s aircraft warning lights – some constant, some flashing, some bright, some dim. The more distant LEDs had a slight flickering exposure pulse to them to simulate the heat haze over the city. This was all programmed through the lighting desk by Grandmaster Desk Operator Adam Baker and his team.

The glowing aircraft warning lights on the buildings added a sense of depth and realism to the background.

Also, for the night scenes, we helped the illusion by lighting on to the SoftDrop a blue colour graduation in the night sky and lighting a warm glow to the city landscape below. Various buildings and the skyline had hotter light sources and colours directed into certain areas from behind the SoftDrop, some of these sources could be switched off or on in shot to help give the impression of city life.

The SoftDrop, backlit with different light sources and colors, created a vivid nighttime London background.

Flexible Set Construction

VfX also added some movement and aircraft into the night sky on one scene. Although the 360° SoftDrop background was almost 295’ long and about 40’ high, we had a large removable section of about 20’ wide, which allowed better access to the set during construction, rigging, and lighting. This section could also be brought in and removed relatively quickly and easily during the shooting days to cater for scene changes and lighting setups. The main BT tower set, you could say, was a very straightforward but complex rig. Thankfully, however, due to the incredible ability of the rigging team, rigging electricians, and desk operators, it was a really efficient set to shoot on.

A 20’ wide removable section enabled easy access to the set during construction, rigging, and lighting.

Overall, the SoftDrop did meet our needs and expectations, it was probably pushed hard beyond our original brief as, inevitably, scenes evolve and some are added as production progresses. We did end up making some Mattes for certain scenes so that we could manipulate the exterior background separately from the foreground to a much finer degree and this worked very well.

Watch The Union on Netflix to see the vibrant London background that filmmakers created using Rosco SoftDrop. To learn more about Alan Stewart’s work, visit his website: www.alanstewartdop.com or follow @alan.stewart.5209 on Instagram. For more information about the product that the filmmakers used to provide the realistic, sweeping London skyline for The Union, please visit the SoftDrop product page on the Rosco website.