American Cinematographer - March 2008 - (Page 28)

Magical Mystery Tour The first to become aware of some mysterious goings-on in his family’s new home, Jared discovers a dumbwaiter (above) that leads to Spiderwick’s secret study (right). with the mysterious happenings around them, the children travel to see an aunt, Lucinda (Joan Plowright), a longtime resident of the Spiderwick home who has been moved to a sanatorium. The scene was originally written to include Jared, his twin brother, Simon (also played by Highmore), and their sister, Mallory (Sarah Bolger), but after part of the scene was shot in Montreal, it was rewritten to feature only Jared and Mallory, necessitating reshoots. Plowright, who lives in London, was unable to travel to Los Angeles for the reshoots because she had the flu, so the filmmakers had to shoot the new elements of the children’s coverage in L.A., then travel to London and shoot Plowright’s portion, using stand-ins for the kids. “It’s certainly not easy to do things that way, but it keeps you on your toes,” says Deschanel. Several of Deschanel’s recent pictures have involved extensive visual effects, and he notes that the most difficult aspect of such work is “framing for things that aren’t there. You’ve got to set focus and focus racks for things that don’t exist. We have special slates that we shoot to let the lab and editor know we’re deliberately shooting something totally out of focus as a plate for a future CG element; otherwise, they’ll think it was a mistake or useless footage. But it’s hardest on the actors. I have to deal with odd compositions, but they have to act across from nothing or a little doll on a stick. That’s a lot harder than my job!” Jared eventually finds the mischievous culprit who is causing the Grace family’s woes: Thimbletack, a gnome-like creature about 1' tall who lives in the walls of the Spiderwick home and guards Arthur’s book with his life. “Thimbletack was entirely CG, and in order to shoot his scenes, we filmed one pass of the shot with a doll of his shape and size moving around on a stick, then filmed another pass clean,” explains Deschanel. “That way, we could get the composition and camera movement down. We tried to do very little with motion-control and work more organically. It all takes a lot more time in the day, but the doubling was the worst.” The “doubling” refers to Highmore’s dual roles, Jared and Simon. “Every scene that featured both of them had to be shot twice, once with Freddie as Simon and once with Freddie as Jared,” says the cinematographer. “That was certainly one of the more challenging aspects of the film for me. We fell behind in our first few weeks because we had to double so many shots. To some degree, the script was revised as we went along to minimize the number of shots with both characters in frame, but we also found a rhythm that made those scenes go more smoothly as we went along.” The filmmakers used several techniques to help Highmore play scenes against himself, including incorporating audio playback from his performance of one character to get proper timing and performance for the other. When he was performing as Jared, for example, the crew would place a speaker in his eyeline where Simon was supposed to be standing, and then play back the audio of Simon’s dialogue so Highmore could respond appropriately as Jared. Deschanel recalls, “When we were doing the digital intermediate at EFilm, I’d ask people 28 March 2008

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

American Cinematographer - March 2008 Contents Editor’s Note Short Takes: Bill Viola’s Ocean Without a Shore Production Slate: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days Production Slate: Chantal: A Night at the Pyramids Magical Mystery Tour Some Kind of Monster Tantalizing Television Making Sitcoms “Sexy” Post Focus: Mega Playground Helps Set Look for Sibling Post Focus: Visual Effects Society Launches White Paper New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index In Memoriam: John McPherson, ASC ASC Membership Roster Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Wayne Kennan

American Cinematographer - March 2008

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