NORTHAMPTON — Shows like “Orange is the New Black,” “Mr. Robot” and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” often feature scenes of characters behind the wheel using footage shot far away from the set.
Like at Smith College, for example.
On Thursday, a crew from Driving Plates, a Los Angeles-based company, was in Northampton to film streetscapes that eventually will appear in an unspecified — the team was not allowed to name the show — small screen program.
“The footage we shoot will end up on a TV show,” said Alicia Robbins, director of photography for Driving Plates, while her crew prepared a gray Ford Fusion for the task ahead of them.
As they attached nine 4 x high definition cameras to the four-door sedan in a local hotel parking lot, Robbins explained that the videography equipment will capture Smith College’s campus for use in what are known as “driving plate clips.”
“Smith College looks like Harry Potter,” Robbins said, describing the location’s appeal to her company.
The cameras film nine angles in sync.
“We like to call our cameras Google Street View on steroids,” said Robbins.
Robbins said her crew was in Northampton during a snowstorm a few weeks ago, and determined the city evoked a decidedly small town New England feel. But the team faced a race against time, she said. Given the current spring-like weather, Robbins’ crew was in a hurry to shoot footage before the snow melted away.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
