Satsop Nuclear Power Plant / SOMA (Patreon)
Content
Check out this weirdness!
The Satsop Nuclear Power Plant is an amazing zone a bit over an hour from me. It was never completed due to budget reasons (I've heard folks cite a shift in public opinion due to Chernobyl as well, but I dunno), and has been sitting vacant for 40 years.
They let film crews rent it out, though, and it's been my dream to shoot there for years, now. It's $100 an hour, which is fairly affordable, all things considered, but also a bit prohibitive for a hobbyist. But thanks to you guys here at the patreon I can actually think about it!! Crazy exciting; it'd be so great to shoot there for a day or two. And can you imagine combining some of these images with digital extensions? Zones like this? It'd be so surreal! (and talk about tracking markers)
These photos are all from when I got a chance to tour it back in 2014 when we were location scouting for the SOMA Transmissions. Imagos Films made a short webseries to tie in with Frictional Game's SOMA game (anyone played it?), and it was mostly filmed underground at the reactor (it goes like 5 stories underground. It's so weird)
Oh also- I spent a bunch of time doing post on the episodes- feel free to check them out if you want. The turn-around times were super intense, but there's robots and digital extensions and screen replacements and such (might not make much sense if you haven't played the game, though). You'll recognize Josh Truax, if you've seen Dynamo! He gets to go nuts- it's great.
It's weird looking back and old work and thinking about how I'd do it differently if I were to do it now. A lot's changed in 5 years!
Oh also they filmed some Transformers shots there. What's wild to me is that the cement wall would be the EASIEST thing to do in CG, and that's the only practical element, haha