American Cinematographer - January 2009 - (Page 47)

lenses) because the filmmakers found that the Viper’s fairly loud fans couldn’t be turned off for long takes without the camera overheating. The workflow remained unchanged. About half the shots in Benjamin Button feature digital effects. In some instances, an actor’s performance in one take was isolated and merged with another actor’s performance in a different take via splitscreen. Many shots also featured bluescreen components for future background composites and set extensions. “What I tried to do was light [foreground elements and actors] with a black pulled over the bluescreen and make sure they looked right,” says Miranda. “Then, we opened that up and lit the bluescreen last.” The Workflow When Fincher decided to use the Viper again on Benjamin Button, he and his collaborators transplanted the workflow from Zodiac to the new picture, according to postproduction supervisor Peter Mavromates. He notes, “The main difference was that on Zodiac, when we ingested dailies, we had to copy them off the hard drives and then render our edit media, which took hours and hours. For Benjamin Button, S.two developed a real-time batch-digitize process with audio to create our edit media.” Images captured by the Viper were recorded via dual HD-SDI links to an S.two digital field recorder, which holds a 400GB hard drive known as the Digital Film Magazine System, or D.Mag. Each drive can hold about 30 minutes of footage. Dailies were instantly accessible. The system also allowed the production to forego the use of clappers, which helped keep the shooting momentum going. “The speed at which David works is phenomenally fast,” says Mavromates. “Wayne Tidwell, the data-capture engineer, entered in basic information about the scene and the take. When David said, ‘Cut,’ the system went back and burned in that slate information on frames two through six. Frame one was always a framing chart. The system auto-increments the take every time, so within seconds, David was rolling on the next take.” When a D.Mag became full, it Above: A final composite from the film shows Benjamin welcoming his young friend Daisy (played at age 10 by Madisen Beaty) aboard the tugboat Chelsea, where he’s found employment as a deck hand. Left: Scenes of the tugboat in motion were shot on a Sony Pictures soundstage with a prop ship mounted on a motioncontrolled gimbal. General ambience was provided by overhead space lights, but the motion of the boat could trigger specific lighting cues, including gunfire and explosions. American Cinematographer 47

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 2008

American Cinematographer - January 2009 Contents Editor’s Note Short Takes: Triangle of Need Production Slate: Frost/Nixon, The Wrestler Close Focus An Old Soul Brothers in Arms A Cut Above Post Focus: HPA Awards, Still Me New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index In Memoriam: Robert C. Jessup, ASC Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Gabriel Beristain

American Cinematographer - January 2008

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