American Cinematographer - February 2007 - 26
Right: Director of
photography M.
one's
discusses
going to think it was an effect,
exactly how it looked. It's like a
but it's
David Mullen,
ASC (left)
Technicolor sunset.
a
"The trouble was, we didn't
setup with
have time to shoot the
Michael Polish,
Mark Polish and
against the sunset,
1st AD Andrew
so
out how to re-create
Coffing. Below:
Farmer gets his
flight plan off the
ground despite
close-up of Billy
I had to figure
it," he continues.
"I ended up putting a white backing
behind his head at night, and I lit it
through gobos to project patterns of
orange and red on the white cloth. It
government
opposition.
looked
a
bit like
a
Star Trek sunset from
the old TV show, but it was out of focus
enough to cut to and look like the same
sky behind his head."
After the production wrapped,
the filmmakers were given a greenlight
for
tions
galore. Knowing that any rig
placed outside the capsule's window
it offered
plenty of other opportuni¬
ties for creativity. Taking his cue from
-
would reflect in the mask, Mullen set to
a smoke machine and a fan.
the work of Caleb Deschanel, ASC on
The Right Stuff, Mullen integrated his
"Reducing the amount of smoke oil and
putting in a higher mix of water, we
blew what was essentially steam past
the window," says Mullen. "Then I
trained some Par cans with orange gels
right on the smoke. By using it as a
bounce, the bright-orange smoke blow¬
ing past the window actually created
the key light on Billy's face."
Despite the capsule's close quar¬
ters
"It was like shooting in a bath¬
room: we had two angles," says Mark
interior
work with
-
lighting into the capsule,
disguising small fluorescent fixtures as
work lights. Additionally, for a shot in
which the
sun
moves
across
the
capsule window, the cinematographer
"put a 1K Par can on a menace arm rig
and swung it across the window. The
window was tented in, and I wrapped
everything in black so you can only see
the light. You actually do see the Par
reflected in his helmet, but at the
time you see his face light up, so
it works as the sun."
can
same
Another tool Mullen had at his
disposal
was a
Panatate from Panavi-
2K for the color correction
on a
Base-
light," reports Mullen, who viewed the
results via a Christie projector. Colorists
Jan Yarbrough and Mark Dinicola
carried out the grade with the filmmak¬
ers, and although the directors were
impressed with the range of options
the Dl presented, Michael says
Mullen's original footage provided a
stable foundation. "One thing about
working with David is that the original
negative is always really good. He's
always exposing the film like that's the
final deal. We'd never had the luxury of
a
Dl before, and we weren't
we'd have it
on
even sure
this film, so he wasn't
looking for fixes."
sion that the
overly stylize
using the Dl process," says
Mullen. "We just tried to enhance
what we captured outdoors in New
Mexico and match things a little better.
Probably the most extreme thing we
had to do was change the color of
some trees. We started shooting in
September, and by October most of the
crank the handle, it rotates around the
gear."
The brisk
shooting schedule had
shooting late into the
day, enabling them to capture some
magnificent magic-hour exteriors. "The
film ends with probably the most
gorgeous sunset I've seen in my entire
life," says Mullen. "We were getting a
wide shot of the family car pulling up
the filmmakers
next to
the
February 2007
Dl at Warner Bros. Motion Picture
sion, which was used to create the illu¬
capsule was spinning.
"The Panatate is a ring-shaped device
that attaches to a geared head, and it's
geared itself," he explains. "The
camera is set in this rig, and when you
26
a
Imaging. (Lab work was done at Tech¬
nicolor.) "The negative was scanned at
4K on a Spirit and then down-rezzed to
Farmer, and behind all of that
sky was blood red. I
assume every¬
"We didn't want to
the movie
green trees on our ranch location had
turned a brilliant yellow. At first we
thought about correcting the yellow
trees to match the earlier green ones,
but then
we
decided that it would look
better to make the green trees
instead."
yellow
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