American Cinematographer - February 2009 - (Page 36)

2 Worlds in 3 Dimensions Passingham’s lighting of an “Other” house night exterior is enhanced by True Blue-gelled moonlight, fiberoptic stars punching through black backing and a horizon glow. that appears to emanate from the ghosts. Chris activated glow-in-thedark stars on Coraline’s sweater with UV tubes and augmented with bluegelled movie lighting. With each frame so dearly bought, stop-motion lighting usually strives to see character detail throughout, and this is sometimes in conflict with dramatic purposes. Peter Williams took a walk on the dark side with Coraline running down a midnight hallway, letting her pass through pools of toplight and areas where she is a dim silhouette. Overexposing highlights — normally to be avoided — helped Peter Williams and Frank Passingham create a flawless white limbo for some sequences. At the point where highlights reached their maximum pixel value, they had no retrievable detail, thus hiding shadows and imperfections in the set. In one such scene, Coraline wanders out of an Other World forest and discovers the artificial world to be unfinished beyond what Other Mother needs to carry out her deceit. 36 February 2009 The forest gradually simplifies as Coraline moves further into it, and it eventually devolves into white nothingness. Frank created that void with a table made of milky Plexiglas that was underlit by Kino Flos and surrounded by a white wall. He was almost able to eradicate the table edge in-camera with exposure, and visual effects finished it off. Echoing that, another scene features a climactic chase in a giant spider web that is suspended over a featureless, milky void. On multiple sets, both cameramen used front light on white cycs to create the limbo effect. Because Coraline crawls through a portal to get to and from the Other World, there are a lot of tunnel scenes in the film. Chris Peterson shot the friendly version, a cushy, organic-looking tunnel that glows with moving purple and cyan patterns projected by Source Four Lekos from behind its translucent wall. (The magazine’s cover shot shows this look.) He created the patterns by taping scraps of color gel onto pairs of large Plexiglas discs that were motion-controlled to counterrotate against each other. Later, when things go bad, the portal is dusty, dark and full of cobwebs. Peter Williams hid sources wherever he could, relying on hidden cutouts and small hidden sources within the tunnel. This was one of many sets where white LEDs were put to good use. They worked well as Obie lights, too — right on the lens. For an even darker tunnel, Peter used a candle carried by Coraline as the only source. He mounted a tiny, high-current lamp at the tip of the candle and hid it from camera with an equally small piece of blackwrap. The lamp got so hot it had to be turned off between exposures. With a candle flame added by the visual-effects team, the source looks genuine, with natural falloff. The last shot in the movie was actually shot last. Mark Stewart set up on five stages to shoot elements that would be combined into one long, meandering camera move that would go through a garden party

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2009

American Cinematographer - February 2009 Contents Editor's Note Short Takes: Circus Production Slate: The International Reverte 2 Worlds in 3 Dimensions Dead Reckoning Embracing Anamorphic Citizen of the World Post Focus: Restoring Manhatta New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Peter Suschitzky

American Cinematographer - February 2009

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