Another shot from our recent test was a lot of fun to shoot. I love working with animal talent! For the most part all you can do is be patient and attentive so that you are ready to capture the right moment when it happens. This is not the first time I have worked with mice and rats. It is strange how when they are crawling through you attic they are disgusting rodents, but get a trained one on your set and they are adorable little actors… what is that about? At any rate, we built a set and spent a bit of time lighting it just right, and shot a few clean frames of it “without talent”. Then we set to the task of shooting the scene with a variety of different mice and baby rats to see who would look and work best. Even though we got very close to capturing the entire scene in one frame, we did end up compositing three pieces together. We did use the clean blank set, a single mouse shot for the body, and we shot a bunch of frames of just the mouse tails to get the right curve, and used one of those as well.

And as is the rule around here…. Credits-

Sets & Props – Oliver Martin
Animal Talent – Animal Savvy
Digital Retouching – Lisa Carney
Digital Tech – Dylan Borgman, Pixel Guru
1st Assistant – Jacob Rushing