it recently came to my attention that bbc merlin’s director of photography dale mccready has a website called the merlin archive with over a hundred behind the scenes pictures from on set! here’s the link for any interested fans :)
I can't remember if you have posts about your picture taking process but I'm really curious how did you get a lot like Prosper Room so crowded and look so lively. Do you pose everyone or do you just get them there and leave them be?
I would love it, if you have time and motivation of course, if you showed us your process for setting a scene and taking pics. I never did those in any sims game tbh and I always love seeing behind the scenes things.
Love you and your work to bits!! ❤️ ❤️
I don't think I have made any posts about my picture-making process because prior to today I don't think anybody has ever asked! But I really appreciate you sending me this ask and your lovely comments. Thank you so much!
For these particular scenes I have 16 Sims in the active family. (I did originally have 20 as stated here but my game kept freezing.) For anyone reading who may be unfamiliar with this process, I add the Sims to the household by clicking on my active Sim and then selecting NRaas>Master controller>Household> Add Sim. I then filter by age and gender so I have a decent cross section of Sims, and enable testing cheats so I can teleport each Sim to the active lot, in this case the Prosper Room. I have a decent gaming rig and can usually add 20 Sims to a lot before my game starts to protest, but as mentioned in an earlier post I had to reduce the number of household Sims in this case to 16, I suspect because the Prosper Room already contains a number of service Sims.
Once all the Sims have been teleported to the lot, I then set about dressing them. This can be a laborious process but I usually have a couple of Sims in the household who have a dozen outfits in their inventories for this very purpose. It is then a simple process using Nraas to transfer one of those outfits to another Sim in the household. I click on my active Sim and then choose NRaas>Master controller>Intermediate>Transfer clothing. A box will then appear as shown below asking for details of the 'Destination Sim' and I then choose 'current lot.'
A list of Sims will then appear of the same age and gender and I just choose the one I want to transfer the outfit to. You can also choose them all if you want!
Now, for my current Prosper Room scenes, I placed meals on all the tables using Nraas Debug enabler: Nraas> Debug enabler>Options sim> make food. (Again, quite a laborious process, because I like there to be a good variety of dishes!) I then instructed the majority of my Sims to sit at the tables and start eating the meals placed in front of them, as seen in the below pic.
Once they have finished eating, I can make them stay in their seats by having them converse with each other (which is probably the best way of making the scene 'lively') or by using Nraas animator: Nraas>Animator> Animation by category> Play Specific Idle>Seated Idles>a_chairdining_idle sigh_x. The wonderful thing about using Animator is that you can direct Sims where to look, too. (I know you can do that using pose player add-ons if you choose to pose your Sims instead, but if you use Animator the Sims continue looking until you cancel the animation).
I tried to illustrate my answer by using more screenshots but I kept getting warnings that I'd exceeded my character limit, so if anyone reading this needs more clarification of my process please don't hesitate to ask! Thanks again for the wonderful question @oasislandingresident!
Do you remember this scene? Of course you do. With more than one memorable dialogue and exceptional line deliveries like “What a strange girl you are. Flung out of space”, who can forget? 😉
Filmed the 1st of April 2014 (this is no April Fools), Maury’s Tiny Cove Steak House served as the set location for Carol & Therese’s first date (Scotty’s on Madison).
The scene infamously featured our two favorite ladies order “Creamed Spinach Over Poached Eggs & a dry martini with an olive”. Sure, Maury’s been serving their patrons dry martini, but the former was not on their regular menu, so they had to whip it up specially for the scene.
But did you know that during filming, the air-conditioning and cooler at Maury’s had to be unplugged the entire day? It was because the equipment that Todd and Ed used to film this scene were so sensitive to noise, and everything that’s not scene-related had to be quiet. Maury’s owner, Mr. Matt Huesman was so kind to share that Cate, Rooney and the rest of team ‘Carol’ were so nice and there were a lot of funny outtakes, and during one take — Cate Blanchett fans would love this — at one point the camera was rolling and somebody flushed the toilet upstairs, but it ended up sounding like the flush came right from the downstairs room that they were filming in. So the team had to yell “cut” and Cate, who had just taken a bite of the creamed spinach had to spit it right out on her plate then said “I’d really rather have a cheeseburger”. 😆 🍔
Well, that’s that for that creamed spinach! Cate’s a cheeseburger girl. How about you? Have you tried creamed spinach over poached eggs?
Follow my instagram for an extensive look on the film ‘Carol’.