You may not have guessed that the dystopian state of Los Angeles filmed in Blade Runner 2049 is a real place, just smaller. The scenes, from Los Angeles to the Trash Mesa and Wallace Tower were built to scale in Wellington, New Zealand by Weta Workshop, the massive ‘miniature’ sets were then filmed by cinematographer Alex Funke.
Alex Funke states that working in a scaled set of miniatures has all of the inherent flaws of filming anything; real surfaces, illuminated with real light, with all the issues of tiny specular reflections. He goes on to explain how each scene can be shot in layers to have hyper-control of ambient and artificial light, to be adjusted independently to create the perfect effect.
