American Cinematographer - January 2008 - (Page 59) Left: Todd finds himself at home in his old digs, situated above the pie shop owned by Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter). Outside the window, gaffer John “Biggles” Higgins positioned 96 space lights behind projection material that the art department painted as a sky backing. Below: Todd and Lovett await their “customers.” to work with Tim — somehow, we had the same references, even though he grew up in Burbank and I grew up in Poland! We must have been watching the same films.” In particular, the pair looked at a number of films noir. “The Third Man [photographed by Robert Krasker] was referenced quite often,” Wolski notes. As Ferretti and his crew began construction on eight stages at London’s Pinewood Studios, Wolski assembled his team for the 56-day shoot. Many of his collaborators had previously worked with Burton on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (shot by Philippe Rousselot, ASC, AFC; AC July ’05). Among them were gaffer John “Biggles” Higgins, key grip John Flemming, A-camera operator Des Whelan, Bcamera/Steadicam operator Vince McGahon, and A- and B-camera 1st ACs John Conroy and Carlos De Carvalho, respectively. Hewing to the story’s somber tone — as well as London’s meteor- ological reality — Wolski and Higgins created a soft, toppy daylight ambience with overhead space lights. “We had about 300 [space lights] on some of the bigger stages, down to about 150 on the smaller ones,” says Higgins. Each space light originally was fitted with six 800watt bulbs, but “we took one bulb out of each space light and ran them all on two circuits, wired to dimmers,” says the gaffer. “That way, we could put two, three, or five bulbs on [in each light] at any time, giving American Cinematographer 59
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