American Cinematographer - February 2015 - 34

High-Flying Heroics

Top: To capture the necessary plates for an aerial
chase through downtown Chicago, the production
worked with Pictorvision and devised the "Panocam"
six-camera array. Bottom: A rooftop camera gets
another angle for the "Shadow Chase" sequence.

34

February 2015

Chicago alley that serves to introduce
Caine. The character wears boots that
allow him to fly, and in the alley, Toll
explains, he "bursts out of a door,
bounces off the wall and jumps about 20
or 30 feet in the air, then lands on a fire
escape and has a gunfight."
On the receiving end of Caine's
guns are three intergalactic bounty
hunters, one of whom (played by Doona
Bae) rides what looks like a flying
motorcycle affixed with a spotlight. In
order to create the interactive lighting
effect on location, an electrician first
operated a 400-watt Jo-Leko with a 14degree barrel as a follow spot from a
Condor. However, the Condor had to
be removed when a wire rig was
installed to fly Tatum. Onstage in
London, the crew had utilized a Clay
Paky Sharpy moving light to create a
transport-beam effect, and here again
the crew opted to use the fixture, this
time mounting it - along with a small
witness camera - on a Libra head on a
Technocrane. Toll explains, "Camera
operator Faires Sekiya operated the light
as if it was mounted on Doona Bae's
flying device and chased Channing with
it as he flew around the alley."
The alley location, Toll adds, "was
American Cinematographer

great in terms of storytelling, but it was
extremely difficult to shoot. It was very
narrow, and locked between 10- and 15story buildings. It also had a curve in it,
and because of that construction, one
typical lighting approach - getting a
light down at the end as far away and as
high as possible - was out of the question."
The alley runs beneath Michigan
Avenue, where the crew was able to
place a Bebee Night Light. "We brought
the Bebee light as close to the set as
possible," Toll notes. With only a few of
the Bebee's globe's illuminated, he adds,
"we took the light as high as we could
and then leaned it in over the set until we
were essentially using it as a straightdown toplight."
"Some guys are very formulaic,
but John's not that way," Thomas opines.
"He carefully thinks about what we're
doing, what he would like it to look like,
and what's the most efficient way to get
there. Even with all the pressure of
getting through the day, John would take
a second and think about it. He took a
very practical approach. He never let
anything rattle him - and he was
thrown a lot of curveballs on this
project!"
The U.K. portion of the shoot also
provided its share of challenging locations, among them the Ely Cathedral in
Cambridgeshire and London's Natural
History Museum. The first provided the
backdrop for a wedding ceremony
aboard Titus' spaceship. Finch explains,
"We blacked out the whole cathedral
and lit from one side with 18K HMIs on
the top triforium. Then we had 6Ks on
the next two levels down, so it was all
hard, directional light [motivated] from
the windows." Running the length of the
cathedral, Finch adds, "we also had six or
seven 5K HMI balloons [each containing four 1.2K globes]."
The Natural History Museum
had to remain accessible to visitors
during normal operating hours, so the
crew could only occupy the facility from
6 p.m. to 9 a.m. "Nothing was allowed to
be left in there [during the day]," says
Finch. The museum's Hintze Hall

Top photo courtesy of Pictorvision and Lewis Communications.

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