Summer in the city

Over the past few months I’ve had a chance to work on a couple of high profile projects, both of which heavily featured Seattle. In July, Grey’s Anatomy returned to film a collection of scenes for their upcoming 14th season.   Although it is set in Seattle, Grey’s shoots primarily on soundstages in Los Angeles.  It had been a while since their principal cast had been up here, so it was great to get them back out into the city.  We shot several different locations, including Gasworks Park, Bell Harbor Marina and onboard the Seattle-Bainbridge ferry.  A particularly fun but challenging sequence took place on the Fremont Bridge.  With the help of both the bridge operators and the Seattle police, we were able to film a scene right in the middle of the bridge.

Later in the summer I worked on a movie called “Where’d You Go, Bernadette,” based on a novel written by local author Maria Semple.   One scene took place at  Sky City, the revolving restaurant at the top of the Space Needle.   Getting all our crew and equipment up there was no easy task, but the result was some beautiful footage.   One tricky element was managing the restaurant’s spin.  Normally, the restaurant makes one complete revolution about every 45 minutes.  But as our actors needed to be shot over and over again from various angles, we needed to ensure that the background out the window remained the same each time.  After each take we had to stop the giant motor that spins the restaurant, then put it in reverse to get the windows aligned in their original position.  All of this was done with a handheld remote control, which is kind of amazing.