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M E M B E R P O R T R A I T

ELLEN KURAS, ASC

W W W . T H E A S C . C O M

TO SUBSCRIBE BY PHONE:

Call (800) 448-0145 (U.S. only)

(323) 969-4333 or visit the ASC Web site

hen I was a teenageI saw a film called

Billy Jack, and I

was enthralled by its power todramatize a real-life dilemma sthe viewers could be informedand swayed to question their owpreconceptions. At that point,cinematography seemed like aworld of magic that was accessibonly to those far away. Later,eager to learn how the big guysmanaged to shoot such amazing

films, Id sometimes sneak copieofAmerican Cinematographeout of equipment houses.

AC is a place wherecinematographers share ourknowledge in the spirit of creaticamaraderie, and it introducesour work to those outside of LosAngeles. Having your workacknowledged and recognized is

critical if youre going to continuworking creatively in the filmbusiness.

Ellen Kuras, A

W

photobyOwenRoizman,ASC

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28 WatchmakersLarry Fong films the unfilmable superherosaga Watchmen

44 Sum of All FearsSimon Duggan, ACS shoots the big-budgetthrillerKnowingwith Red One cameras

54 An Epic EndeavorA digital restoration brings the 1953CinemaScope epic The Robeback to full glory

62 Sundance 2009: 5 That ThrivedAward-winning festival entries make strongvisual impressions

Departments

Features

V i s i t u s o n l i n e a t w w w. t h e a s c . c o m

On Our Cover: Relentless vigilante Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) hunts for the killer of an ex-super-hero in Watchmen, shot by Larr y Fong. (Unit photography by Clay Enos, courtesy of Warner Bros.)

8 Editors Note10 Short Takes: Patiences16 Production Slate: Hunger

Crank High Voltage

78 Post Focus:Autodesk Updates Lustre82 New Products & Services92 International Marketplace94 Classified Ads94 Ad Index96 ASC Membership Roster98 Clubhouse News

100 ASC Close-Up: Thomas Ackerman 62

A P R I L 2 0 0 9 V O L . 9 0 N O . 4

The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques

54

44

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A p r i l 2 0 0 9 V o l . 9 0 , N o . 4The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques Since 1920

Visit us online at

www.theasc.com

PUBLISHER Martha Winterhalter

EDITORIAL

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Stephen Pizzello

SENIOR EDITOR Rachael K. Bosley

ASSOCIATE EDITORJon D. Witmer

TECHNICAL EDITOR Christopher Probst

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Stephanie Argy, Benjamin B, Douglas Bankston, Robert S. Birchard, John Calhoun,

Bob Davis, Bob Fisher, Simon Gray, Jim Hemphill, David Heuring, Jay Holben,

Noah Kadner, Ron Magid, Jean Oppenheimer, John Pavlus, Chris Pizzello, Jon Silberg,

Iain Stasukevich, Kenneth Sweeney, Patricia Thomson, David E. Williams

ART DEPARTMENT

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Marion Gore

DESIGN ASSOCIATE Erik M. Gonzalez

ADVERTISING

ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTORAngie Gollmann

323-936-3769 FAX 323-936-9188

e-mail: [email protected]

ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Sanja Pearce

323-908-3114 FAX 323-876-4973


ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Scott Burnell

323-936-0672 FAX 323-936-9188


CLASSIFIEDS/ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Diella Nepomuceno

323-908-3124 FAX 323-876-4973


CIRCULATION, BOOKS & PRODUCTS

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Saul Molina

CIRCULATION MANAGERAlex Lopez

SHIPPING MANAGER Miguel Madrigal

ASC GENERAL MANAGER Brett Grauman

ASC EVENTS COORDINATOR Patricia Armacost

ASC PRESIDENTS ASSISTANT Kim Weston

ASC ACCOUNTING MANAGER Mila Basely

ASC ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE Corey Clark

American Cinematographer(ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 88th year of publication, is published

monthly in Hollywood by ASC Holding Corp., 1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028, U.S.A.,(800) 448-0145, (323) 969-4333, Fax (323) 876-4973, direct line for subscription inquiries (323) 969-4344.

Subscriptions: U.S. $50; Canada/Mexico $70; all other foreign countries $95 a year (remit internationalMoney Order or other exchange payable in U.S. $). Advertising: Rate card upon request from Hollywood

office. Article Reprints: Requests for high-quality article reprints should be made to McNeil Group at (800)394-5157 ext. 26. Copyright 2007 ASC Holding Corp. (All rights reserved.) Periodicalspostage paid at Los Angeles, CA and at additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA.

POSTMASTER: Send address change toAmerican Cinematographer, P.O. Box 2230, Hollywood, CA 90078.

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Michael GoiVice President

Richard CrudoVice President

Owen RoizmanVice President

Victor J. KemperTreasurer

Isidore MankofskySecretary

John HoraSergeant At Arms

MEMBERS OF THE BOARD

Curtis ClarkRichard Crudo

Caleb DeschanelJohn C. Flinn IIIWilliam A. Fraker

Michael GoiJohn Hora

Victor J. KemperStephen Lighthill

Daryn OkadaRobert PrimesOwen RoizmanNancy SchreiberDante Spinotti

Kees Van Oostrum

ALTERNATES

Matthew LeonettiSteven Fierberg

James ChressanthisMichael D. OShea

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MUSEUM CURATOR

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American Society of Cinematographers

The ASC is not a labor union or a guild, butan educational, cultural and professionalorganization. Membership is by invitation

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Watchmen is one of the most hotly anticipated films of

2009, but its journey to the screen has not been easy.

Fans of the groundbreaking graphic novel have been

awaiting a movie version for years, and several high-profile

directors passed on the project after deeming the source

material unfilmable. Finally, flush with confidence after the

success of his action epic 300, Zach Snyder valiantly agreed

to take on the challenge, despite daunting odds that might

make even a Spartan warrior cringe.

Snyder asked 300cinematographer Larry Fong to rejoin

him on the creative battlefield, along with production designer Alex McDowell and

visual-effects supervisor John D.J. DesJardin. Fong was given just over two months to

prep for the massive show, which eventually required roughly 100 shooting days on

about 150 sets. Before anything was built, my crew and I would study the conceptual

drawings, paintings and blueprints, and Alex was really thoughtful about getting my

input on any lighting that would be built into the sets, says Fong. He and his key collab-

orators lay out the behind-the-scenes saga for associate editor Jon Witmer, a self-

confessed graphic-novel bergeek, who pursued the Watchmenprincipals with an

intensity that might impress even Rorschach, the tales most relentless vigilante

(Watchmakers, page 28).

ACreaders have been clamoring for more coverage of the Red One camera,

and we continue to oblige with this months feature on the thriller Knowing, shot by

Simon Duggan, ACS, one of the first cinematographers to employ the One on a high-

profile feature. The impetus, he tells Australian correspondent Simon Gray (Sum of All

Fears, page 44), came from director Alex Proyas: Alex is an avid photographer and uses

a digital stills camera with the same type of chip as the Red, a CMOS, says Duggan.

He is very impressed with the quality of the images, and consequently, he suggested

we test the Red as an acquisition format.

Five of the best-shot entries from this years Sundance Film Festival are spot-lighted in our annual roundup: Sin Nombre (shot by Adriano Goldman); An Education

(John de Borman, BSC); The September Issue(Bob Richman); Push: Based on the Novel

by Sapphire(Andrew Dunn, BSC); and Big River Man(John Maringouin). Witmer, New

York correspondent Pat Thomson and I braved Utahs freezing temperatures to see them

all on big screens (Sundance 2009: 5 That Thrived, page 62).

Students of film history will appreciate David Heurings piece detailing

the digital restoration of The Robe, the first motion picture released in the ultra-wide

CinemaScope format (An Epic Endeavor, page 54). 20th Century Fox and the Academy

Film Archive partnered with The Film Foundation to preserve this landmark film, which

has left a lasting impression on everyone who saw the original theatrical presentation.

Ill never forget going to see The Robeon its initial release, recalls director Martin

Scorsese, who aided the restoration by providing an original dye-transfer print from hispersonal collection. I sat there, and the curtains kept opening wider and wider and

wider. None of us, not me or anyone else in the audience, was prepared for the experi-

ence, and it changed the movies forever.

Stephen Pizzello

Executive Editor

Editors Note

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Patiences begins with a static wide

shot on a country road as a vintage

British auto pulls up to the front of a

rustic cabin. Its autumn, and thereddish-gold shade of leaves in the trees

and on the ground reflect the changing

of the seasons. A woman (Davina Stew-

art) gets out of the car and enters the

cabin. She appears to be waiting for

someone, and she snaps a series ofPolaroids and stretches out on the bed

to pass the time. Eventually, she closes

up the cabin and leaves.

One of the things that stands out

about Patiences, a title that refers to the

European name for the game Solitaire,

is how it takes its time to unfold. There

is no dialogue, and even at a trim seven

minutes, the moments seem to stretch

out in a relaxed, sensual way. Every

action and every shot has a purpose. It

makes for a keenly visual experience;this comes as no surprise because it

was directed by a cinematographer,

Peter Wunstorf, ASC, who also shot it.

Wunstorf met Patiencesscreen-

writer Sylvia Petit at the Cannes Film

Festival in 1992, and while the two

stayed in touch, Petit wrote the script for

what would become Wunstorfs directo-

rial debut. He recalls his first impression

of her script: I thought it was one of the

best scripts Id ever read. It had no

dialogue, just descriptions of action and

sound, almost like a shot list. I could

picture the movie in my head rightaway. But it was another 12 years

before he could film it. While working

as the second-unit cinematographer on

Ang Lees Brokeback Mountain,

Wunstorf shared the Patiences script

with Karen Redford, Lees personal

assistant, and she agreed to co-produce

it.

In order to get the film made,

Wunstorf had to call in a few favors;

Kodak provided the film stock, Vision

500T 5279, and Panavision Vancouverprovided the camera package, an Arri

BL-4 and Zeiss Superspeed prime

lenses. They were incredibly gener-

ous, says Wunstorf. The production

also benefited from the crucial financial

support of the National Film Board of

Canada and the Alberta Foundation for

the Arts.

Production finally got underway

in September 2006. Principal photogra-

A Cinematographer Directs Patiencesby Iain Stasukevich

Short Takes

A woman(Davina

Stewart) passesthe time while

awaiting a loverin the short film

Patiences,directed andshot by Peter

Wunstorf, ASC.

10 April 2009

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including the adjacent apartment build-

ings, he let the windows blow out and

asked for sheer curtains to be hung in

them. Window-screen frames from

Home Depot a tip I learned from

Stephen Burum [ASC] were lined

with ND gels and used to cut down the

overexposure and bring out the texture

in the curtains.

Any time the camera was

pointed away from the windows, it was

either before sunrise or after sundown.

The windows were gelled with 85 to

warm the daylight coming in and makeit easier to match the tungsten lamps

set up inside. It was easy to re-create

that ambience with 500-ASA film,

notes Wunstorf. In the interest of effi-

ciency, very low-wattage lamps were

used; only about 2K worth of lighting

was up at any given time, bouncing off

muslin or a ceiling or wall, or sometimes

directly through half or full gridcloth.

At one point, Wunstorf came up

with an idea for a poor mans space

light, utilizing a laundry hamper fromIkea. The hamper has no color, its very

light and portable, and it can be

compressed into a flat disk about 18

inches in diameter. You can hang it from

a C-stand or stand it on the floor. Ikeas

a great resource, especially when youre

working with a small budget.

In the winter months, after Stew-

art was cast, Wunstorf was unable to

shoot around the snow-covered grounds

12 April 2009

phy was split into halves because

Wunstorf wanted to capture the autum-

nal textures of Fort Edmonton Park,

where the house exterior is located, and

at the time, he hadnt yet cast the films

sole actor. I always imagined the film

taking place in the fall, says Wunstorf.

Its prettier, and it underscores the fact

that shes in a dying relationship with

the person who doesnt show up. By

the time he locked in the interior loca-

tion and cast Stewart, it was winter.

The interior set was the second

level of a heritage house in downtown

Edmonton. In the film, every room is

bathed in soft daylight, an effect that

was harder to achieve than one might

think. Some of it is daylight,

and some of it is re-createddaylight, says Wunstorf.

Using natural light meant

being lucky with the sun.

He and his 15-person

crew worked for four days,

taking 10 hours each day to

capture shots that would

comprise the films single

afternoon. The daylight

hours were short, from

about 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

When the sun is that low inthe sky, it penetrates the

room really nicely, but it also

moves really quickly! notes

Wunstorf.

He arranged the shoot-

ing schedule so the camera

would be pointed toward the

windows during the

daytime. To hide details

outside the windows,

Top left:Stewart enjoys a

laugh with thecrew, including

co-productiondesigner/chief

lightingtechnician Matt

Vest (indoorway), whom

Wunstorf callsmy MVP. Topright: Wunstorf

checks the lighton his subject.

Below: Thewoman begins to

suspect she iswaiting in vain.

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14 April 2009

of the house exterior. At the beginning

of Patiences, we see the womans hand

in close-up as she retrieves a key

hidden above the houses front door,

then we see her feet stepping across

the threshold. Once inside, she slips off

her shoes, cues up an LP record on a

turntable, and fills two flutes with

champagne all actions we see in

close-up. She settles in, and only then

does the camera find her face. We

dont reveal her face until about 10shots into the film, but it wasnt written

that way, says Wunstorf. After a

pause, he muses, I think its the way it

was meant to be shot.

The filmmakers also had to

improvise for a scene in which the

woman leaves the house and lies out on

the balcony. Again, it was too cold to

shoot this outside, and there was too

much background to avoid, so the scene

was set up inside, with the woman on

the bed, against the blown-out window.

The shot became the poster image for

the film and is one of Wunstorfsfavorites.

Because there is no dialogue, the

filmmakers had to find a way to help the

audience relate to the solitary character.

The camera, operated by Brett Manyluk,

follows her from a distance as she bides

her time, maintaining an observational

stance. If you want to create a sense of

loneliness, you need to keep the camera

static and removed, says Wunstorf.

Im a big fan of Gordon Willis [ASC],

and his work features a lot of tableaux;

the camera is never moving unless its

supposed to be. Working in the stan-

dard 1.85:1 aspect ratio, we rarely shot

wider than a 25mm or longer than an

85mm, he adds.

Directing was a bit terrifying

and intimidating, he observes. He

devoted a lot of time to preparing for the

new role. To gain tips on directing

actors, he enrolled in Judith Westons

Directing Actors workshop in Holly-

wood. You spend three days acting, so

you get to appreciate what its like to be

an actor, he explains.

As far as shooting, once he found

the locations, the plan was simply to

come up with a shot list and stick to it.

Id made a shot list a year in advance,

and I modified it a bit for the locations,

he recalls. During shooting, you usually

realize theres a shot you dont need, but

overall, the shoot didnt deviate much

from what Id planned. It also helpedthat I was working with a great team.

In particular, he cites Matt Vest,

who served as co-production designer

(with Rachel Livingstone) and chief light-

ing technician. Matt was my MVP,

says Wunstorf. He has an eye for what

looks good on camera. Some people are

purely technical, and some people are

just visual, but he was able to help me

with both. Plus, he just has good taste.

The productions footage was

processed at Studio Post and Transfer inEdmonton, and Wunstorf supervised the

photochemical finish at Vision Globale

in Montreal. Patienceshad its premiere

at the 2008 St. Louis International Film

Festival. I

Right: Wunstorflines up a shot.

Below: Alaundry hamper

from Ikea servesas a poor mans

space light.Ikea is a great

resource,especially when

youre workingwith a small

budget, notesWunstorf.

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16 April 2009

Taking a Fatal Stand

by Jean Oppenheimer

The conflict between Britain and

Ireland over the status of Northern

Ireland has raged for more than a century.

Protestants, who have long comprised a

majority in the region, wanted to remain

part of the United Kingdom, while

Catholics, feeling marginalized, wanted

to join the Republic of Ireland. The level

of violence escalated between 1968 and1998, a period known as The Troubles,

as extremists on both sides engaged in a

series of deadly attacks that claimed

thousands of lives.

Hungeris set in Belfasts infamous

Maze Prison, where members of the

outlawed Irish Republican Army were

incarcerated, in 1981. Specifically, it

covers the last six weeks in the life of

Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender);

responding to the British governments

revocation of their status as paramili-

tary prisoners, the inmates staged a

series of protests, and Sands began a

hunger strike that proved fatal.

Although there are many histori-

cally accurate elements in the film, we

did not want it to look like a documen-

tary, notes cinematographer Sean

Bobbitt, BSC, speaking from his home

outside London. [Director] Steve

McQueen wanted the license to createabstract visual concepts and more effec-

tive emotional elements. To distance

ourselves from a documentary feel, we

decided to shoot widescreen and

35mm.

Hungerwas initially budgeted for

Super 16mm, but the filmmakers were

able to shoot 2-perf Super 35mm after

Fujis London office agreed to give them

a deal. In order to reduce the grain of

Super 16, we wouldve had to shoot

1.85, which we felt was too close to the

look of widescreen TV [1.78:1], says

Bobbitt. The 2-perf Super 35 frame is

actually 2.39:1. Widescreen helps to

heighten the feeling of incarceration;

the cells in Maze are a mere 6-by-9 feet,

and widescreen gives the sense of

walls all around you.

Ive shot primarily with Fuji for

the past six or seven years, he contin-

ues. To my eye, Fuji stocks have a muchsofter color saturation and lend them-

selves to slightly more pastel shades.

For Hunger, he shot day exteriors

predominantly on Eterna 250D 8563,

day interiors on Eterna 250T 8553, night

scenes on Eterna 500T 8573, and hospi-

tal-ward scenes on Eterna 400T 8583.

8583 has a tighter grain structure, and

[I like the way it] picks up color, he

notes. It has more latitude and much

Willful Resistance and Amped-Up Action

Production Slate

H u n g e r p h o t o s c o u r t e s y o f B l a s t F i l m s H

u n g e r L t d a n d I F C F i l m s

Prisoner BobbySands (Michael

Fassbender,left) meets with

Father Moran(Liam

Cunningham) ina scene that

serves as thecenterpiece ofHunger, shot by

Sean Bobbitt,BSC. Most of

the 23-minutescene plays out

in a static,medium-wide

shot; thisproduction still

featuresslightly

differentframing.

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18 April 2009

softer blacks than 8573. For the

movies final scene, which shows Sands

as a child, Bobbitt shot Eterna Vivid 160

8543.

The production re-created Maze

Prison in a warehouse outside Belfast.

The filmmakers were allowed to walk

through the real Maze Prison to gather

visual reference materials, and Bobbitt

made sketches and shot stills to devise

his lighting plan for the set. He notes

that it was particularly helpful that

Hungers production designer, Tom

McCullagh, had built replicas of the

prison twice before and knew it inti-

mately.

The set had no breakaway walls,

but Bobbitts news-cameraman back-

ground had prepared him to fit into tight

spaces with a camera. He used an Arri-

cam Lite for handheld work, an Arricam

Studio for tracking and dolly shots (and

in cells, because the Lite proved too

noisy in close quarters), and an Arri 235

for a few other shots. His lenses wereCooke S4 primes and a Zeiss 100mm

Macro. The Cookes have a softness

and warmth, and I like the way the

focus falls off, declares Bobbitt. I felt

that posed an interesting contrast with

the brutality of what was going on

inside the prison.

Given the size of the cells, the

camera had to be quite close to the

actors. The 35mm S4 gives a very close

focus, so you can get in tight without

creating distortion, notes the cine-matographer. When I needed to get a

two-shot in the cell, the 12mm lens was

the only way to do it. We reserved the

100mm Macro for when we wanted to

get right into an eye.

During prep, McQueen gave

Bobbitt a book on 17th-century Spanish

painter Diego Velzquez to communi-

cate the kind of light he had in mind.

There is a physicality and texture to

the light in his paintings, explains

McQueen. Bobbitt designed the prison-

lighting scheme to mimic Velzquezs

reliance on single sources. He notes,

The cells really lent themselves to that

style of lighting; each cell had one small

window, and I put a 20K through full

grid outside and added CTB on the glass

to create a level of coldness. For night

scenes, he switched out the CTB for

CTO and Bastard Amber to mimic the

prison yards sodium lights.

The centerpiece of Hunger is a

conversation between Sands and a

priest, Father Dominic Moran (Liam

Cunningham), who are seated at a

table, facing each other. The scene lasts

almost 23 minutes, and the first 17.5

minutes comprise a single static shot

that holds the two men in a medium-

wide frame. Steve pointed out that

when hes listening to two people talk,

he doesnt stand up and walk around

the room, looking at them from different

angles he sits in one place and

listens, explains Bobbitt.

Windows cover the wall in the

background of the scene, and outside

them, Bobbitts crew positioned an 18K,

a 12K, two 6Ks and four 4Ks at different

angles. Framed against the windows,

the actors are in partial silhouette. I felt

the scene would work only if their faceswere partially hidden, says Bobbitt.

When viewers can almost, but not

completely, see the men, they project

their own emotions onto the characters,

and I think that keeps them engrossed in

whats being said. I added no fill light;

whatever fill exists is natural bounce

coming off the walls behind the

camera.

The cinematographer notes that

McQueen doesnt shoot coverage; the

director prefers to let a scene play out inone shot, usually in front of a stationary

camera. One such scene depicts Sands

being brutally beaten by guards and

then dragged down the corridor. The

camera seems to be right in the middle

of the assault, and it remains on Sands

face as he is dragged away. Id always

seen that shot that way in my mind

the camera looking up at Bobby as hes

carried down the hallway, says

Prison guardsmake inmates

run the gauntletas an extrapunishment. The

production re-created Northern

Irelandsnotorious Maze

Prison in awarehouse near

Belfast.

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Bobbitt. You get that wonderful mix of

light and shadow as he passes under

the ceiling lights. My fantastic key grip,

Steve Pugh, and I devised a system to

get the shot. The camera is on a

PeeWee dolly, and off the end of the

dolly is a little skateboard dolly with a

mirror on it. Its just under Sands, who is

facedown, almost comatose. I simply

pointed the camera into the mirror [as

the actor was being dragged].

At another point, a badly beaten

Sands is thrown into a bathtub to wash

off the blood. As he lies there, semi-

conscious, a guard continues to beat

him. The opposite side of the bathtub isagainst a wall, and the camera seems

to be inside the wall, looking down into

the tub. We pulled the bathtub away

from the wall just enough for me to get

behind it, explains Bobbitt. Then, they

pushed the bathtub onto me. I was liter-

ally wedged between the tub and the

wall, and I was covered in plastic so the

camera wouldnt get wet.

The filmmakers deviated from

their decision to not move walls only

once, for a shot of Sands lying in the

hospital ward. The camera looks down

on him from ceiling height but weaves

around the room in an elliptical fashion.

Steve [McQueen] wanted the camera

to feel like a bird flying around, trying to

escape, says Bobbitt. Steve Pugh and

I came up with all sorts of weird and

wonderful ways to move the camera

like that, but none of them was practi-cal. In the end, we removed the ceiling

and used a Technocrane.

The hospital room is bigger and

brighter than the cells and contains a

larger window. Its less oppressive, but

it still has an institutional feel, remarks

Bobbitt. His crew shined a 20K through

full grid through the window, and fluo-

rescent light floats into the room

through a doorway leading to the hall.

At night, the 20K was more heavily

diffused. I think we also had it on a

dimmer to warm it up a bit, and we used

scrims, adds Bobbitt.

During his walk through the

actual prison, Bobbitt noticed small

skylights in all the corridors, and he

asked McCullagh to incorporate some

into his set design. That allowed me to

mix color temperatures. The practical

fluorescent tubes lining the ceiling

provided the main source of illumina-

tion, of course, and we chose them

carefully. The cheap ones have a nasty

green spike thats generally considered

undesirable, but I wanted the green

because it created a grunginess that

contrasted nicely with the blue light

coming through the skylights. I think we

put two 1K Pups above each skylight

coming in at different angles, and we

made up frames of different levels of

CTB and diffusion that we could put on

the skylight to quickly change the qual-

ity and color temperature of the light.

The negative was processed at

Todd-AO in London, and the 2K digital

intermediate was carried out at DragonDI in Wales. I cant praise colorist

Geoffrey Case enough, says Bobbitt.

He is very skilled, very sympathetic and

very creative and fast.

At the end of the day, its the

crew that makes the film, he adds,

and in addition to Steve Pugh, I have to

thank my gaffer, Brian Beaumont; best

boy, Ian Glenister; and focus puller,

Conor Hammond, who did a fantastic

job under very difficult circumstances.

TECHNICAL SPECS2.40:1

Super 35mm (2-perf)Arricam System, Arri 235Cooke and Zeiss lenses

Fuji Eterna 250D 8563, 250T 8553,400T 8583, 500T 8573, Vivid 160 8543

Digital IntermediatePrinted on Kodak Vision 2383

20 April 2009

Right: Sands inhis cell. Below

(from left): 1stAD Mark Fenn,actress Helen

Madden,director SteveMcQueen andBobbitt work

out their

approach to ahallway scene.

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www.clairmont.com

Some rental houses are film and others are digital. We

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514-525-6556

Michael Condon, SOC

VP Digital Division

Andree Martin

VP Technical Servic

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An HDV Action Spectacularby Iain Stasukevich

In the final moments of the 2006

action film Crank, hitman-turned-hero

Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) takes a

mile-high swan dive from a helicopter.

The sequel, Crank High Voltage, picks

up right where that film left off, with

Chelios splayed out on the asphalt,

miraculously intact. Some Asian hood-

lums roll up, scrape him off the ground,

and take him away. When he comes to,

Chelios learns his organs are being

harvested for the benefit of a Triad mob

boss. He plots his escape, but the hitch

is that he has been fitted with an artifi-

cial heart that needs a steady supply of

electricity. For the next 90 minutes, he

finds increasingly weird ways to juice

himself while hunting down his real

heart, dispatching anyone who stands in

his way.

In planning CHV, co-directors

Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldinedecided the only way to top its high-volt-

age predecessor, which was shot on

high-definition video by Adam Biddle,

would be to use small prosumer and

consumer HDV cameras, mainly the

Canon XH-A1 and HF10. (A Sony PMW-

EX1 was used for high-speed work.)

Theres no way we could have shot this

movie the way we wanted to with tradi-

tional HD or film cameras, says Taylor.

Cinematographer Brandon Trost

was tasked with creating highlycompressed 1440x1080 images that

would be suitable for a final transfer to

35mm. A friend of Taylors since their

student days at the Los Angeles Film

School, Trost cut his teeth on digital

video; the first camera he picked up was

a Canon XL-1. My experience comes

from learning to make little cameras

look like big cameras, says Trost. Ive

learned how to use their strengths to

make them feel cinematic. Its more of a

feeling than something technical.

CHV was shot much in the

manner of a skateboarding video it

was the only way to keep pace with the

action. The camerawork was fast, loose

and handheld, and shots were made

mostly with available light. There was

one HD monitor on set that was used

primarily for playback. There were no

waveform monitors and no video village.

Interior locations and complicated light-

ing setups were kept to a minimum.

Some days involved as many as 100

setups, according to Trost. We would

do reverses without cutting we just

jumped to the other side of the action,

he says. We didnt want to have every-

thing planned; we wanted to stay in the

moment so you could feel that inten-

sity.

There were at least three

cameras running at all times, and the

main three were operated by Trost,

Neveldine and Taylor, who were respon-

sible for composing their own shots.

Trost explains, Our main concern was

getting enough coverage that we

wouldnt be stuck. After the camera cut,

wed check with each other, and if

someone had a two-shot and someone

else had a single, we knew we could

move on.The filmmakers created some

basic settings for the cameras, shooting

at -3dB, dialing up the detail, and pulling

the shutter down to 12000 of a second,

which helped to increase the images

apparent resolution and eliminate

motion blur. They didnt use cinema-lens

adapters in front of the XH-A1, opting

instead for the wide-angle and tele-

photo adapters that can be screwed to

the front of the cameras fixed lenses.

In terms of depth of field, we went toextremes either super-shallow or

infinite, says Taylor. Jumping back and

forth between ultra-wide and ultra-tele-

photo makes video more exciting. The

operators had to do their own focusing,

and on wider shots, they could set the

focus to about 312' and not have to

worry because of the deep stop, recalls

Trost.

Exposure was measured using

In Crank High

Voltage, hard-to-kill Chev Chelios(Jason Statham)

requires constantolts of electricityafter his heart is

stolen by aChinese mobsternd replaced with

a battery-powered ticker.

22 April 2009

C r a n

k H i g h V o

l t a g e p

h o t o s

b y

J u s t i n

L u b

i n

c o u r t e s y

o f L i o n s g a t e

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Real Time Digital Film Recorder/Printer

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24 April 2009

the A1s internal zebra meter; Trost had

previously shot four features with the

camera and was comfortable enough

with the function to use it almost exclu-

sively. I set my zebras to 70 percent,

he explains. Its where I try to get the

typical Caucasian face, just for a prop-

erly exposed image. They always tried

to nail the exposures on the dot, but

when in doubt, they usually opted to

overexpose.

Taylor notes he has never had a

problem overexposing video. Ive never

bought into shooting flat and planning to

pull the blacks out later you cant pull

the blacks out later. When you try, theimage gets noisy and gray. Ive found

you can overexpose video just like you

can overexpose film.

We had a very collaborative

working relationship with Brandon,

continues Taylor. We didnt want to

take decisions about exposure away

from him, but at the same time, he

understood our philosophy, so he gave

us the green light to overexpose in the

moment if we needed to.

Perfectionism limits video,

observes Trost. He did, however, test the

A1s to determine their latitude, and he

knew how to expose for them with a

light meter. If he found the need for

movie lights, he was able to provide the

gaffer, Justin Duval, with the proper f-

stop. Much of the controlled lighting in

CHV is fill light. Because a lot of theaction takes place outside, Trost often

bounced sunlight into silver lam or

used direct 18K HMIs for fill. Everyone

has a sweaty look in this movie, and the

addition of a harsh fill made them snap,

he notes. It worked really nicely with

the narrow shutter.

The cameras small sizes

enabled the filmmakers to remain spon-

taneous while hammering through

pages and pages of action. Aside from

tripods, which were rarely used, the only

other camera-support accessory on set

was a Manfrotto Fig Rig. Everything

else, including a crane fashioned with a

piece of speed rail, was devised by the

crew. There was an improvisational

vibe on the set, Taylor enthuses.

Several camera-support rigs

were devised on set from materials on

hand. Trost credits key grip Phil Miller

with consistently creating new ways to

affix a camera to a car or otherwise

create a mind-blowing shot. One of

Millers rigs allowed the operator to add

a handheld Matrix-style bullet-time

effect to a scene. The rig comprised a

half-circle piece of speed rail outfitted

with eight Canon HF-10s mounted to

Manfrotto mini ball heads at equal inter-

vals, framed at the same focal point. To

use the rig, all of the cameras were set

to record and then slated. While shoot-

ing, the cameras captured eight angles

of action simultaneously and allowed

the editor to pause the action, jump-cut

around the scene, and then land on anew angle at the same place where the

first shot left off. The filmmakers used

the effect for scenes that show Chelios

running or fighting which is to say,

quite often.

Another unusual rig came about

purely by coincidence. Robert Sharman,

the sound mixer, brought a remote-

control car to the set and was playing

around with it on a break. It caught

Trosts attention, and he realized the HF-

10 was a perfect match for the miniaturevehicle. They affixed the camera to the

toy and used it in chase scenes to create

shots where the camera zooms around

and under full-sized, fast-moving cars.

One of the shooting techniques

carried over from Crankwas Neveldines

rollerblading. For the first movie, a 60-

pound HDCam-SR deck was strapped to

Neveldines back and he skated up and

down the street, shooting with a Sony

Right:Cinematographer

Brandon Trostinspects a

customizedbullet-time rig

built from a pieceof 6' circular

speed rail by keygrip Phil Miller.

Six Canon HF-10camcorders wereatached to the rig

with Manfrottomini ball mounts.

Below: Co-director Mark

Neveldine addsthe element of

motion afterdonning a pair of

in-line skates.

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26 April 2009

HDW F-950. Using the Canon camerason CHV, Neveldine was freed from all

that weight. Nevs a madman,Statham marvels. Hell hang off theside of a car going 50 mph onrollerblades just to get a shot. He evenjumped off buildings with me. Hes gotno fear.

For one scene, I was rollerblad-ing between two low-riders going downthe highway, recalls Neveldine. I waspushing off the cars from Statham in thedrivers seat to the passenger seat of theother car, and then Id bring the camera

down by the wheels to get some cooldetails. You cant get those things with acrane or a Steadicam or any other tradi-tional technique. You can only get it bygetting a little crazy.

Mark brings the energy, thecrazy shots and the skater-videoaesthetic, notes Trost. On this shoot,we had no stagnant waiting time. Theday flowed, and that freedom made formore natural performances. Neveldine

adds, The actors love you and the crewloves you because youre shootingfaster and youre still getting what youneed.

The filmmakers decision toshoot a $20-million action movie withprosumer/consumer cameras raised afew eyebrows. HDV renders a 4:2:0 8-bit image, which leaves very littlewiggle room in post. What wasrecorded to tape had to be as close as

possible to what would end uponscreen. I was never trying to makethings look pretty, says Trost. I wasmore concerned with getting the rightlevel of contrast for the shot and keep-ing it snappy and electric.

Up-rezzing the Canons propri-etary 60i/24f (the internal HDV pull-down) for the final transfer to 35mmproved to be a challenge at first, butTrost, Neveldine and Taylor say they are

all pleased with the filmout. Peoplehave to get over the prejudice againstvideo, observes Taylor. If you act likeits real and you shoot it like its real,then its going to look real. Let the storybe what guides you.

The decision to shoot video wasmore about creating images peoplehavent seen before than it was aboutpixel count, he adds. Our motto is, Itsnot the resolution; its the revolution.

TECHNICAL SPECS1.85:1

(extracted from 1.78:1 original)High-Definition VideoCanon XH-A1, HF10;

Sony PMW-EX1Digital Intermediate

I

Left: Co-directorBrian Taylor

positions apole-mountedCanon XH-A1.

Right: Neveldinegets the jump on

Statham whilepalming a

camcorder.

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28 April 2009

The year is 1985, and the 37th

president of the United States,Richard M. Nixon, continues

to occupy the Oval Office, lead-ing a nation on the brink of

war with the Soviet Union. TheWatchmen, self-made vigilantes

who emerged in the 1930s, haverecently been outlawed, but some of

them continue to operate as either

criminals or secret governmentoperatives. Their ranks include

Ozymandias, The Comedian, NightOwl, Rorschach, Silk Spectre and

Dr. Manhattan.The new film Watchmen is

based on a 12-part comic-book

miniseries written by Alan Moore,illustrated by Dave Gibbons and

colored by John Higgins. DirectorZack Snyder says the project

made me realize comics can be somuch more than I ever dreamed. I

thought I knew what was possibleas far as superhero mythology and

how its experienced in pop

culture, but Watchmen showed meI had no idea what was possible

my mind got blown.Embracing the prospects of a

live-action rendition of thelabyrinthine story, Snyder gathered

a team that included cinematogra-

pher Larry Fong, a collaborator on

300(ACApril 06), and production

designer Alex McDowell andvisual-effects supervisor John

D.J. DesJardin. A director ofphotography has to be someone

whos going to raise the bar for meand care about the project as much

as I do, and Larry totally does, says

Snyder, whose friendship andcollaboration with Fong dates back

to their student days at the ArtCenter College of Design in

Pasadena, Calif.Fong was given a bit more

Cinematographer Larry Fong and director Zack Snyderreteam to bring the epic graphic novel Watchmen to the

big screen.

by Jon D. Witmer

Unit photography by Clay Enos

Watchmakers

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American Cinematographer

than two months of prep for theroughly 100-day shoot, and he

recalls filling the time with a lotof testing. We tested the costumes

[designed by Michael Wilkinson]and how they would photograph,

we did a lot of makeup testing, and

we even tested the colors of sets wed just shoot walls to see how

theyd come out on film, especiallywhen manipulated in the DI. We

also shot film for props, lightingtests and physical-effects tests that

included flames, explosions andrain.

Moores graphic novel isrich in detail, constantly sewing

visual clues into the background,and bringing the layered visuals to

the screen involved a great deal ofstill photography. So many loca-

tions had some kind of poster,photo or newspaper clipping in

the background, notes Fong. Istarted to shoot that material, but

it became a massive undertaking,so our set photographer, Clay

Enos, ended up shooting most of

it.We had more graphic

designers and more graphic-design time on this movie than

Ive ever had before, notesMcDowell (Charlie and the

Opposite, lefright: TheComedian (JDean MorgaSilk Spectre(Malin AkermDr. Manhatta(Billy CrudupOzymandias(Matthew GoNite Owl (Pa

Wilson) andRorschach (JEarle Haley)

page, top: A slow-motionopening-cresequence,bolstered byvisual-effectcompany CIScharts the hiof costumedheroes. MiddRichard Nixo(Robert Wisdstanding) mewith HenryKissinger (FrNovak, secofrom right) inwar room inby Dr. StrangBottom, left tright: DirectoZack Snyderproductiondesigner AleMcDowell acinematograLarry Fong w

the Watchm

PhotosandframegrabscourtesyofWarnerBros.

7/29/2019 AC apr 2009

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Were allpretty proud of

the shot of TheComedian

going out thewindow, says

Fong. Tocapture the

defenestration,Morgan was

suspended by awire rig and

dropped from aspecial set

piececonstructed 30'

above the stagefloor, and Fongused a PanArri

435 rollingat 150 fps ona Technocrane.

30 April 2009

Chocolate Factory, Minority

Report). I think a lot of why

Watchmen is such a great graphicnovel and has been so recognized

is that Alan Moores narrativeinstructions to Dave Gibbons are

all about how much story you canput in the pictures, and Zack

wanted to be true to that. Fongadds, Before anything was built,

my crew and I would study the

conceptual drawings, paintingsand blueprints, and Alex was really

thoughtful about getting my inputon any lighting that would be built

into the sets.All told, the production

called for the construction of some150 sets. The largest by far was the

New York City exterior, built fromthe ground up near Canadian

Motion Picture Park Studiosoutside of Vancouver. The film-

makers had flirted with shootingon location in downtown Los

Angeles or the Big Apple, or usingthe New York Street set on Warner

Bros. backlot, but they opted to

build the three city blocks fromscratch so they could faithfully

render the comics stylizedcityscape. It was really nice to be

able to completely design our ownworld, says McDowell. We liter-

ally poured the street. We were

able to get really broken-up side-walk and broken-up asphalt

the sorts of things youre compro-mised with on backlots and we

were able to build the streets at adecent scale. The set was 30-35

feet high, which allowed us to

contain close-ups and mid shots,but we knew there were going to

be set extensions in almost everyscene; we put greenscreen at the

end of every street so we couldextend streets to the horizon.

Fongs lighting objective forthe outdoor set was the clash of

fixtures typical in real urbansettings. We tried to make as

much of the city light itself aspossible, he says, noting that

Snyder suggested Taxi Driver(1976) as a reference. When

youre shooting at night in a realcity, youre usually trying to take

away all the weird colors and themultiple shadows to make your

shots look beautiful andcontrolled. In order to make this

look real, I decided to keep it raw.

To build the raw feel into theset, Fong, gaffer Denis Brock and

rigging gaffer Jarrod Tiffin super-vised the efforts of 24 set wiremen

before the lamp operators couldeven bring in any fixtures. It

Watchmakers

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became a real, wired place, says

Tiffin. We had the equivalent of36 1,200-amp generators, but we

did it all on hydroelectric power.We brought in an electrical

company and re-transformed

everything around the area, andwe dropped portable substations

in four corners [of the set]. Insteadof running cables all over the

place, we were selectively pickingzones based on the citys layout.

Once the lamp operatorscame in to rig the lighting fixtures,

we mixed fluorescents, tungsten,neon, gelled lights everything,

says Fong. We treated the days likeyou would in any city, with big

rags and bounces, but night iswhen it got tricky. Because of

budget restraints, we had to bespecific with the lights we put in

windows. We put 5K globes in ourstreetlights so they would do a bit

of lighting, and we had Condorswith simulated moonlight.

Positioned at the end of the city

streets, the Condors were fittedwith Bardwell and McAlister Mac

Tech HPL fixtures, which were alsoused to light the exterior green-

screens. According to Tiffin, eachMac Tech uses 12 575-watt HPL

globes, but the reflector insidecreates an output of 1K per bulb.

We had 42 Mac Techs, all wired tothe dimmer board, he adds. In

fact, all lighting in the city set including traffic signals and TV-

set effects visible through windows was run off dimmer boards

employing a wireless DMX systemTiffin had used on Fantastic Four:

Rise of the Silver Surfer (AC June07); the wireless transmitters were

blended into the buildings to looklike antennas.

In comic-book terms,

Watchmen is a very realisticgraphic novel, so we didnt want to

stylize the sets to the extent thatthey would feel fake, says

McDowell. We wanted the audi-ence to believe these superheroes

American Cinematographe

Top: To re-crthe graphicnovels stylizNew York Ci

three city blwereconstructed

the ground uCanadianMotion PictuPark Studiosoutside ofVancouver.Middle: Aideby the Owl

Ships halogheadlights, NOwl keeps aeye on a riotwhile TheComedian gehis hands diat street leveThe Owl Shiwas regularsuspended fcranes ormounted ongimbals. BotSilk Spectre

tours the Ow

Ships interio

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32 April 2009

exist in a real world with real

texture and grit. But the color gaveus a layer where we could make

the real world stylized enough tobelieve that someone who looks

like Nite Owl could be standing inthese streets. We basically said gray

is purple. In the street, we used areally extreme palette in the

secondary range purple, awarm yellow and a warm green

and aged it as you would a realis-tic, conventional set. It had an

underglow of a strong color thatLarry could bring out in the

timing, but for the purpose ofbelievability, it had texture and

aging.Respecting the source mate-

rials richness of detail often calledfor an increased depth of field.

We wanted more focus so we

could feel everything, and wewanted to be right in there with

the characters, says Fong. Weshot a lot with 27mm and 35mm

lenses. Generally maintaining astop of T2.8, Fong shot

Watchmen on two Kodak Vision2stocks, 100T 5212 (day exteriors)

and 500T 5218 (all other mater-ial). He and Snyder opted to shoot

in 4-perf Super 35mm for a 2.40:1release. The ideas in this movie

are big, and I wanted that feelingto come across in the motion

picture, says Snyder.The date is Oct. 12, 1985.

Edward Blake (Jeffrey DeanMorgan) a.k.a. The Comedian,

a government agent is sitting inhis high-rise apartment, watching

TV. Suddenly, his door gets kicked

in, and, after a fierce struggle, he isthrown out the window. Were all

pretty proud of the shot of TheComedian going out the window,

says Fong. To execute the move,Morgan was suspended from a

wire rig and pulled out of awindow frame (sans glass) built

30' above the stage floor. Key gripMike Kirilenko suggested using a

Technocrane. We followed[Morgan] through the window

and then tilted to follow himdown, says Fong. At some point,

the CG takes over, but for most ofthe shot, its the real actor. We shot

that at 150 fps.Theres a lot of speed-

ramping and slow motion [in thefilm], continues the cinematogra-

pher. That was tough because

every time you double the filmspeed, you need twice as much

light, and thats not something youcan just do on the spur of the

moment. We had to build that intoour sets, and for budgetary

Clockwise fromabove: Fong

rigged an HMIballoon light in avertical position

to suggest the

blue glow of a30'-tall Dr.Manhattan at

work in his lab.At normal height,

Crudup (secondfrom left) wore a

special suitfashioned by

Chris Gillmanand fitted with

LEDs andtracking

markers; threesuits were madeto allow multiple

Manhattans toappear in frame

at once. The suitallowed Crudupto actually lighthis environment,

so we didnthave to wave a

light around andmake believe he

was lightingpeople on set,

says Fong.

Watchmakers

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reasons, we had to commit ahead

of time to which scenes wouldhave slow motion. But Zacks

really good about planning thingslike that; he storyboards every

shot.

The rest of the action inBlakes apartment was filmed in a

fully dressed set constructed 8' offthe stage floor. There are practical

lights on in the kitchen and theliving room, but we determined

that most of [the apartment]should be moonlit, with [ambi-

ent] city light influencing it, saysFong. A greenscreen was rigged

outside the window for city exten-sions (done by visual-effects house

MPC in Vancouver), and to simu-late moonlight, the crew rigged

20Ks with Blue and some diffu-sion on an I-beam and trolley so

they could move the lightsquickly; a row of Image 80s with a

mixed-tube configuration alsohung above the set to provide soft

ambience. To suggest the street-

lights far below, the crew posi-tioned Par cans along the stage

floor and gelled them to affect asodium-vapor look.

In August 1959, Dr. JonOsterman (Billy Crudup) steps

into an experimental chamber inthe Gila Flats intrinsic-field test

center to retrieve a watch he leftbehind. Programmed to lock

automatically for experiments, thechamber door closes behind him,

and none of Ostermans fellowscientists can countermand the

programming. Within moments,every atom in Ostermans body

has been torn apart. A few monthslater, he successfully reconstitutes

himself, and his resurrectiongrants him a level of control over

space and time. He is truly the first

super-powered superhero, and theU.S. government quickly enlists

him as a nuclear deterrent, chris-tening him Dr. Manhattan.

When DesJardin beganpreproduction for Watchmens

visual effects, in April 2007, deter-

mining how to shoot Dr.Manhattans size-shifting, lumi-

nous body was among his firstpriorities. At first, I was less

concerned about his blue glow

than I was about the fact that hes30-feet tall when we first see him,

then he shrinks to normal size, andthen hes 200-feet tall when we see

him in Vietnam, recalls DesJardin.

And there have to be three of him

in a love scene! Zack and I decidedto make him an all-CG character;

the problems that solved weremassive.

Though his final form was

crafted in the computer at SonyPictures Imageworks (under the

guidance of SPI visual-effectssupervisor Peter Travers), Dr.

Manhattan still needed a presence

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34 April 2009

onstage. To aid the animators andCrudups fellow actors and facili-

tate Fongs lighting, the teamdecided to put Crudup in a special

suit fitted with motion-capturemarkers and blue LED lights. We

talked to Ian Hunter [at New DealStudios], who does a lot of physi-

cal effects and miniature work,and Ian led us to Chris Gilman [of

Global Effects], who builds space-suits for movies and museums and

exhibits, says DesJardin. Chris

was very familiar with buildingthings that were sort of strange,

and I told him we needed a suitthat would have 1,000 LEDs on it

the lights even needed to beon his feet so hed light the floor

as he walked. And the suit hadto be portable and production-

friendly.Gilman delivered three fully

functioning LED/motion-capturesuits, all of which were employed

in the aforementioned love scene.Hoping to please his lover, Laurie

Juspeczyk (Malin Akerman) a.k.a. Silk Spectre Dr.

Manhattan multiplies himself,sending two duplicates to bed

while a third continues working inhis lab. We had three suits made

so that three people could be in

the same shot, as though therewere three Dr. Manhattans,

DesJardin explains. Billy wasalways the featured one, of course.

We did little tricks to make themappear and disappear; for exam-

Top to bottom:Dr. Manhattan

abandons Earthfor the solitudeof Mars; in the

final film, thecharacter

appears as aCG creation

courtesy ofSony PicturesImageworks.The Martian

landscapecomprised a

40'-squarepatch of red dirt

surrounded bygreenscreen.

Afterteleporting her

off of Earth,Manhattanguides Silk

Spectre aboard

his self-madeglass palace,

which existedonstage as a

greenstaircase. SPI

created the CGpalace, based

on McDowellsdesigns.

Watchmakers

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36 April 2009

ple, one of them would drop downbehind Billy and wed turn his

lights off as he slid out of frame. Itwas hokey to watch, but it worked

well, saved a lot of production timeand it gave SPI the performance

data they needed for the initialcapture-tracking.

Throughout principal pho-

tography, Travers and a small crewfrom SPI were on set to manage

the witness cameras used for Dr.Manhattans scenes, and during

prep, Crudup spent a day at SPIrunning through a bunch of

motions and facial expressions,

says DesJardin. That led to a lot ofreally good hand animation on the

back end that tied the film perfor-mance into the CG character.

Fong adds, We shot all the close-ups of [Crudups] dialogue

conventionally, with him doingthe performance, and we didnt

have to wave a light around and

make believe he was lightingpeople on set. When necessary,

however, the crew was ready withadditional LEDs or other blue

fixtures to boost Dr. Manhattansglow. When he is introduced, for

example, he stands 30' tall in hislab, and Fong used an HMI

balloon light vertically to get abigger blue glow. I also often used

a mannequin dressed in one of theextra suits to save Billy the trouble

when he was off camera.At one point in the story,

tensions with the Soviet Unionpropel the United States to

DEFCON 2, and President Nixonretreats to a top-secret war room

that doubles as a nuclear shelter.The filmmakers modeled this set

upon the war room in Dr.Strangelove (1964). In Kubricksmovie, there are large graphics

showing maps of the world behindthe round table, and we tried to

figure out whether that was rear-projection or a hard set, says

Watchmakers

Top: Rorschach

interrogatesEdgar Jacobi

(Matt Frewer),formerly known

as Moloch theMystic. Middle:On stage, Haley

wore a facemaskwith eyeholes

and trackingmarkers.

IntelligentCreatures thencreated the CG

blots emulatingthe Rorschach

test. Bottom: TheRumrunner sign

shines outside ofMolochs

brownstone set.

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38 April 2009

Fong. When I showed our gaffer,Denis Brock, a photo of the

Strangelove set, he said, It was defi-nitely rear-projection. I asked,

How do you know? and he said,Because I was working the projec-

tor. I realized Id hired the rightguy!

To create the circular lightthat hangs above the table at the

heart of the war room, the crewwired Kino Flo tubes to a different

ballast. That helped us with the

off-speed shooting and helped usremain true to the look [of the

Strangelove set], notes Tiffin.McDowells set also incorporated

forced perspective along the edges;to make the space feel bigger, 4'-

tall actors were dressed as guardsand positioned against scaled-

down set pieces in the background.One of the Watchmen who

continues to execute his ownbrand of justice after vigilantism is

outlawed is Walter Kovacs, a.k.a.Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley),

whose costume includes a trenchcoat, a fedora and a white mask

that completely covers his headand features ever-shifting blots

(emulating a Rorschach Test).

Through testing, I determined wecould give Jackie eyeholes and put

some tracking markers on thecloth, says DesJardin. Then I

asked [visual-effects company]Intelligent Creatures to replace the

eyeholes only, take out the track-

ing marks and animate the blotsover that. Ultimately, they talked

me into replacing his whole head not the hat, not the scarf, but

the head itself. That worked 98

percent of the time; for a couple ofshots, we had to go back to my

original concept.As for the blots, he contin-

ues, Alex McDowell and I weregoing to get a library of real

Rorschach prints, but we foundout theyre all copyrighted, so we

worked with Intelligent Creaturesto create our own blots, which are

more or less duplicates of the onesDave Gibbons created for the

graphic novel. Using Maya andHoudini, the Intelligent Creatures

team found a way to process the2-D patterns to create noise

around the edges, like a saturated-cloth look. (Hollywood-based

CIS rounded out DesJardins teamof visual-effects companies,

handling wire removals and the

opening credit sequence, whichspans the four-decade rise and fall

of costumed heroes in a series ofsuper-slow-motion vignettes.)

In one scene, Rorschach paysa visit to Edgar Jacobi (Matt

Frewer), a reformed criminal whoformerly clashed with masked

heroes under the stage nameMoloch the Mystic. Jacobi now

lives in an unassuming brownstonethat is illuminated at night by a

flashing neon sign that adorns theRumrunner bar next door. That

sign followed me around every-where we went! Tiffin exclaims.

Measuring nearly 20' high, the signwas mounted on the backlot for

exteriors and onstage for interiors.It was a bright yellow and blue,

and we were able to get tons of

neon light out of it, recalls Tiffin.They were such overpowering

colors that there was really no needto [supplement the light]; the

apartment interior was lit with thatand a few practicals.

WatchmakersNite Owls

subterraneanheadquarters

was the only setwith a greenbed

around itsperimeter,

allowing thefilmmakers to

rig 5Ks and 10Ksfor backlight.

Fong also usedpractical

fixtures in theframe to lend the

space anindustrial feel.

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R AY E M E R I T Z

March 1,1918 February 12, 2009

We are thankful to have been a part of your amazing legacy

in the art and craft of cinematography. Your generosity

and kindness will always be remembered.

Your loving family at Panavision.

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40 April 2009

In the hours before

Rorschach visits Jacobi, Dr.Manhattan abandons Earth in

favor of Mars. For Mars, wecreated a 40-foot-square area of

red dirt and surrounded it with

greenscreen, says Fong. The land-

scape was then extended by artistsat SPI, who were also tasked with

realizing the glass palace, a float-ing, reflective edifice that Dr.

Manhattan raises out of the red

dirt. Onstage, the glass palace

comprised little more than a giantgreen staircase with mirrored

steps, says Fong. Shooting it allwith a Technocrane helped

because of the raised platform.Our glass palace is, as it was

in the graphic novel, some kind ofatomic clock that exists outside the

rules of physics, says McDowell.So we imagined parts of a clock

that were all able to intersect andpass through one another. In

animating McDowells design,Pete [Travers] and I realized it

was segmented enough that we

could do some collision avoidanceat the moment of intersection,

says DesJardin. That gave us areally interesting look; wed get

areas with a little bit of a flutter aspieces move out of the way of each

WatchmakersIn designing

Karnak,Ozymandias

Antarcticretreat, we

took the linesfrom Egyptian[architecture]

but said it wascast in

concrete, saysMcDowell. The

massive set waslit from abovewith 234 Kino

Flo Image 80s,which also

illuminated anadjacent snow-

bound set(below).

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other and then go back to their

normal motion.Before Dr. Manhattan goes

to Mars, Juspeczyk leaves him andgoes to stay with Dan Dreiberg,

a.k.a. Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson).

Over the next several days, againstthe backdrop of their mutual

attraction, Juspeczyk and Dreibergdon their old costumes and

Dreiberg dusts off his old head-quarters, located beneath his

brownstone in an abandonedsubway tunnel. That was the only

set where we had a greenbedaround the whole perimeter, says

Fong. We werent exactly surehow the scenes in there were going

to be blocked, and the greenbedsallowed us to be ready for

anything. Tiffin adds, Its a verylively place. We had nine to 12

space lights, which we warmed upa little, and we used Big Eye 10Ks

as backlights with 5Ks on the sides.Beneath the area where [Nite

Owls] costumes are stored, we had

1K nook lights coming up througha milk Plexiglas floor beneath a

metal grating. In the elevator shaft,we punched 2K Lekos into mirrors

to bring out the dripping water.Within Nite Owls lair rests

the Owl Ship, nicknamed Archieafter Merlins pet owl, Archimedes,

in The Sword and the Stone. Theegg-shaped aircraft has two cock-

pit windows, giving it the look ofan armored owl. Aside from a CG

version crafted by artists atMoving Picture Co. in Vancouver,

there was only one full-scale shipfor the shoot. I wanted as much

lighting built into it as possiblebecause I knew it was going to be

too tight inside to bring in a lot oflights, says Fong. The built-in

lighting included monitors and

buttons, all programmed througha dimmer board to light up in vari-

ous configurations, as well as KinoFlo tubes built into the ships floor,

ceiling and walls. We didnt wantraw, exposed tubes, so we created

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7/29/2019 AC apr 2009

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our own vented grill that we had

machined, notes Tiffin. The grillscould then be opened when tubes

were out of frame to boost theambience. For additional fill, says

Fong, we just squeezed Kinos inwherever we could!

Archies exterior features

headlights and taillights; the head-

lights were all halogens, threepositioned vertically down the

center and two underneath eacheye. The wiring needed to power

all the fixtures was hiddenbeneath a hatch inside the ship,

and hidden access ports on the top

and bottom allowed the Socapex

cable to be run from below whenthe ship was on a gimbal or above

when the ship was on a crane.Nite Owl and Rorschach

take the Owl Ship to Karnak, the

icy retreat of Adrian Veidt(Matthew Goode), an entrepre-

neur who used to fight crime asOzymandias. Fong describes

Veidts wintry manse, where Dr.Manhattan and Silk Spectre also

show up for the films finalconfrontation, as gigantic. It has a

glass ceiling, so theres a ton of toplight, and there are big stairs at one

end that go up to another level.The Technocrane was definitely a

lifesaver for the tracking shots upand down those stairs!

In the graphic novel, thelocation combines a late-70s

urban sensibility with Egyptianinfluences and a domed vivarium

full of exotic plant life. We

Watchmakers

42

At the dawnof a new worldorder, the staff

of the right-wing New

Frontiersmaneditor Hector

Godfrey (L.Harvey Gold,

left) and hisassistant,

Seymour (ChrisGauthier) enjoy some

takeout fromtheir

neighborhoodBurgers N

Borscht.

7/29/2019 AC apr 2009

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changed Karnak [from the graphic

novel] probably more than most ofthe sets, says McDowell. Zack

wanted to minimize the amount ofgreenery in the movie, so we didnt

do the vivarium, and we went even

more literally in the Egyptian vein.We imagined Veidt had taken a

contemporary architect out to theAntarctic, given him the brief of an

Egyptian building, and then flewin a lot of big sculptures from a

museum in Cairo.The Karnak set stretched

some 35' toward the stage ceiling,which was just over 40' high. We

had a catwalk system, but we onlyhad 5 or 6 feet of room to work

in, recalls Tiffin. We ended updismantling Image 80s, pulling out

the yokes and creating a custombracket that held them all flat. We

created one giant softbox with 234Image 80s, and the grips developed

a way to slide diffusion in and out

on aircraft cables. We used grid

most of the time, but if we wantedto thicken it up, we could pull the

string and bring in a whole newpiece of diffusion.

When Fong spoke to AC, he

was working onWatchmen

s digi-tal intermediate at Company 3,

where he was collaborating withcolorist Stefan Sonnenfeld. Of the

Karnak scenes, Fong says, Zackand I wanted it to feel dusky, like

the sun is going down, but still inicy Antarctica. It should be cool

and moody. When shooting, wefound the best color of light, and

tweaked it to achieve just the rightfeel while in the DI suite.

Were doing the DIpainstakingly, but there are already

so many visual elements in themovie that we havent been using

one overall extreme look, he adds.Each scene warranted its own

requirements, which I discussed

with Zack way back in prep. Seeing

it come together in the DI so manymonths later is very exciting, to say

the least.

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44 April 2009

Knowing, the third collaborationbetween director Alex Proyas

and cinematographer SimonDuggan, ACS, is a thriller that

explores the cycle of life andquestions whether our future is

indeed preordained. It is centered

around a mystery, the solving ofwhich takes the audience in an

unexpected direction, but it is acharacter-based story, with the

themes being represented throughthe characters relationships, says

Duggan.The film begins in 1959, with

pupils at a Massachusetts elemen-tary school being asked to illustrate

their versions of the future. One ofthe children covers the page in seem-

ingly random numbers. The pic-tures are then placed in a time cap-

sule. Fifty years later, the capsule is

removed, and the pictures are hand-ed out to the current pupils. When

the boy who receives the page ofnumbers takes it home, his father,

Prof. John Koestler (Nicolas Cage),soon realizes the numbers represent

a series of past and future dates of

disasters. Koestler comes to believethe world is ending, and when mys-

terious figures threaten his son(Chandler

Documents

AC apr 2009