Long after humanity’s extinction, a buoy and a satellite meet online and fall in love.

As filmmakers Sam & Andy demonstrate in their wildly imaginative debut feature, telling the love story of a smart buoy and an orbiting satellite that spans a billion years and probes the mysteries of being and consciousness requires legit storytelling dexterity. Love Me’s whimsically philosophical, shape-shifting structure ingeniously weaves together the real, the virtual, and the surreal. Its star-crossed, web-paired metallic protagonists inhabited in different forms by Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun awkwardly navigate romance and companionship, equipped only with untold petabytes of archived web data, social media, and online videos. Awash in these mediated experiences and fabricated expressions of love and identity, they yearn to understand who they are, whether their feelings are real, and for that matter, whether they are real.

When I was first approached about the project, it was envisioned as a fully CG production, with discussions about incorporating animatronics on a large stage to bring a more practical approach. Given the variety of locations in the film, this initially seemed like the best option for ease of shooting. However, as costs for a sizeable water tank set began to add up, and with CG still needed to build out the environments it became clear we needed another solution.

I took a risk and suggested shooting the animatronics on location instead. I would later regret this decision while supervising the ice shoot in bitter cold for four days, but the results speak for themselves. The sense of presence is undeniable. I told the team, “It’s much easier to remove a few mountains than to recreate an entire environment.”.

With that, we set out to capture the ice, water, and desert sequences on location, while only the condo and space scenes would be filmed on stage.

Virtual Production and Rear Projection

A unique aspect of the film is when the main characters become aware of their avatars and transition from animated figures into live-action. Since performance was paramount to the directors, we explored various performance capture techniques to ensure authenticity.

Rather than using a prebuilt stage, we partnered with Neil at Arc VFX to bring volume capture directly to the set. In addition to real-time visualization in Unreal Engine and performance capture, we also filmed the actors within the set as if we were shooting a traditional live-action scene. This approach allowed Germain, the Director of Photography to shape the look by choosing the lenses, framing, and lighting so that everything seamlessly carried over into the animation.

The other location that required we shoot on stage was space. For these, we used a large rear projection setup to display real NASA footage, which helped create natural reflections on our satellite prop. Later, this footage was replaced with approved and enhanced stock imagery.

On Location

Our first location was a remote lake for the ice sequence, where we endured four days of freezing temperatures and high winds. The directors arrived with a meticulously detailed shot list, which helped the team move efficiently despite the harsh conditions.

Having worked on several productions with artificial snow, I can say without a doubt there’s no substitute for the real thing. You can feel the cold, the isolation, the sheer presence of the frozen landscape, and that authenticity translates directly to the screen.

The water shoot took place mostly in open water, filming from a camera boat toward a buoy anchored underwater to minimize VFX paint-outs. The remaining shots were primarily night scenes and were filmed just off a barge in West Vancouver.

After a bit of a hiatus, I was pleasantly surprised to hear from Sam and Andy about the film. They reached out about some film emulation and flare work I had done previously, and from there, we ended up taking on nearly 300 shots for the film.

Our work covered everything from set extensions and flares to look development and full CG shots. In the end, we contributed to nearly every sequence in the film from the ice, water, and space scenes to the animation and void sequences.

It is very rare that you come across a project like Love me, Im used to projects that you have to stay in your lane but this one constantly tried to pull you out of the box and try something new. It was a great pleasure to work with everyone on the project and we are looking forward to more like it.