American Cinematographer - May 2010 - 37

of creating contrast and suggesting conflict, and the character arcs in Iron Man 2 are rife with turmoil. “There’s always a conflict within [Stark], whether it be physical illness or complete irreverence, so I introduced more of a conflict of color in his world as well, but more subtly than I did with Vanko. I’ve always been a believer in a controlled palette, so if I’ve introduced two colors, I’ll avoid introducing a third in the same frame.” Believing the technology that powers the Iron Man armor was stolen from his family, Vanko constructs his own “Whiplash” armor and confronts Stark in a spectacular action sequence at the Monaco Grand Prix. Filming the sequence required the second unit, shot and directed by Jonathan Taylor, ASC, to shoot background plates and shots of a speeding Rolls Royce along the actual Monaco circuit. (See sidebar on p. 32.) Taylor recalls, “The Monaco police force and auto club were very cooperative, but because it’s a working city, we had only an hour or two for each section of track. It was just frantic, and we literally had only one hit at it. Second-unit first AD Michael Moore and I planned the whole thing at Manhattan Beach. It was a question of getting all the equipment set up and having a well-oiled machine.” Taylor’s equipment list included a highspeed camera-tracking vehicle, a Porsche 928 rented from Propulsion in Paris, driven by Jean-François Dubut and mounted with VistaVision cameras from Geo and Procam; an insert car rigged with VistaVision cameras, Arri 435s and Canon EOS 5D Mark IIs; and a Mercedes SUV-mounted Russian Arm rented from Bickers Action. Additionally, ground cameras were positioned to grab shots of the Rolls speeding by, and even a helicopter, rented from Flying Pictures, was employed for aerial shots. “We had all the toys, and we ran a whole convoy around the track,” Taylor continues. “It was quite a trick to pull the whole thing off.” In addition to the location work, a section of track was constructed at Downey Studios, where both units completed the sequence. For lighting,

A Technocrane is employed for an earlymorning scene in which Iron Man enjoys a balanced breakfast courtesy of Los Angeles’ famous Randy’s Donuts.

“Tana floated 40-by-60 Light Grids to try to control the overall ambience and keep it soft,” says Bauman. Equipmentwise, however, the second unit had its hands full. Taylor details, “We used a couple of Photo-Sonics cameras for some high-speed crashes with the racecars. We also had a high-speed track alongside and synced with the racecars so we could launch everything at the same time and run parallel to the cars. [Second-unit key grip] Richard Mall built the track, and we had four cameras on it: a VistaVision, a Phantom and two Arri 435s.” Taylor also incorporated Canon EOS 5D Mark II DSLRs, fitted with Canon lenses, as crash cameras. “One of the problems with doing action stuff is
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finding interesting places to put the camera,” says Taylor, adding that he could “actually put the 5Ds on the cars we were going to crash. We cut holes for the lenses in small Pelican cases that we painted to match the cars. We got some amazing shots. Of course, it’s not film quality, but for a 12-frame cut in an action piece, it holds up very well.” After Whiplash makes his auspicious debut, Hammer enlists him to create an army of drones for the government. Whiplash instead pits the drones against Iron Man, who by film’s end is backed up in battle by Rhodes, now sporting his very own “War Machine” armor. “We were talking about CG characters with War Machine, Iron Man and the drones, so the question was,
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American Cinematographer - May 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - May 2010