American Cinematographer - May 2008 - (Page 46)

A Need for Speed Right: Speed and Trixie slow down for a romantic interlude. Below: Speed leads the pack in his supercharged Mach 5, which is specially modified to help him survive a dangerous cross-country rally known as The Crucible. help of [technical consultant] Fred Myers, Vince also custom-tweaked settings and internal components to suit our particular needs.” In keeping with the look of Japanese animation, the Wachowskis wanted certain sequences to have an infinite depth of field. However, Tattersall notes, “Shooting at extremely deep stops can be tricky; the amount of tungsten light needed to maintain a T5.6 stop for high-key sequences on large stages can get uncomfortably hot for everyone. I tried to keep the kilowatt count down and hovered around T4 or less on medium-wide Zeiss Digiprimes for most of the shoot. When we weren’t throwing a zoom or looking for extreme compression or a bendy distortion effect, Larry and Andy would invariably land on one of two focal lengths, the 14mm or the 20mm.” (These focal lengths are equivalent to 35mm lenses of 35mm and 50mm, respectively.) What enabled the filmmakers to achieve extreme depth of field was a method visual-effects co-supervisor John Gaeta (The Matrix, Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions) dubbed “photo anime.” Separate foreground, mid-ground and background elements were shot, all in sharp focus, and then composited to create an image with a depth of field well beyond normal optical limits. “When we looked closely at Japanese animation, we noticed that a lot of it is done with a large painted background and modified layers on top of that, like traditional cel animation,” says Gaeta. “It puts everything in focus.” Not everything in Speed Racer looks that way, however. Visualeffects co-supervisor Dan Glass (V for Vendetta) explains, “We learned quickly that if you present the whole film in super-deep focus, people don’t know what to look at; you lose the traditional filmmaking language of utilizing focus to direct the audience’s eye. So some sequences were 46 May 2008

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

American Cinematographer - May 2008 Contents Editor’s Note Global Village: The Fall Short Takes: ASC Laszlo Kovacs Short Takes: Heritage Award Winners Production Slate: Anamorph Production Slate: Fugitive Pieces Heavy-Metal Hero A Need for Speed Kink and the City Beautiful Minds A Hollywood Homecoming Post Focus: Paramount Restores The Godfather Filmmakers’ Forum: Levie Isaacks, ASC Teaches Marines to Shoot Movies New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Antonio Calvache

American Cinematographer - May 2008

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