American Cinematographer - May 2013 - 43

spotlight of an interrogation chamber.
The spotlight was a household LED
R40 Par, which “had a cold, synthetic
feel that I really liked,” says Miranda.
“Joe wanted the rest of the room to be
pitch black, so that light was all we used.
Then, when we see Beech for the first
time, he lights himself with a single
match. That reflection of Tom in
Morgan’s glasses was actually done incamera. We just moved Tom a little
closer, kept him lit with the LED lamp
and got that beautiful reflection. I joked
with Tom that he was the world’s most
expensive bounce card!”
When the lights in the room
suddenly come on, Beech’s army of
survivors is revealed. Hundreds of
people stand in the rafters around the
room. Some architectural lights were
worked into the set for this moment,
but keying the crowd was a large soft
box overhead holding six Kino Flo
Image 80s. “Even that was too much
light, so I turned off all but one bulb on
each of the Image 80s,” Miranda recalls.
“That’s one of the wonderful things
about shooting digitally: you can work
in very low-light situations and get
some beautiful images. I love film, but I
know I couldn’t have shot Oblivion on
film.”
The filmmakers worked with two
F65s throughout the shoot. Miranda
says he prefers to incorporate the B
camera as additional coverage after the
A camera is set. “If we can get B cam in
there for a second shot, that’s great.
Sometimes, if the scene is emotional,
we’ll do dueling coverage, but I prefer to
avoid that. We did it for a couple of
scenes between Tom and Olga so we
could capture both performances in the
same shot. It’s nice for the director to be
able to optimize that connection
between the actors. It’s not always the
best for lighting, but it is sometimes
more important for the performances
and the film as a whole.”
Harper uses a helicopter/spaceship hybrid to get around Earth, and in
one sequence, he ends up in an aerial
dogfight in a canyon. Miranda had his
gaffer, Chris Strong, and key grip,

Michael Coo, build three moveable
walls of light that were each 40'x60' and
lined with 50 Philips iW Blast TR
intelligent LED fixtures. One wall went
on each side of the ship’s cockpit, and
one was positioned above it. The iW
fixtures have a combination of LED
lamps so that they can color shift from
2,700°K to 6,500°K on command. This
gave Miranda the ability to create whatever hue of interactive lighting he

desired. He recalls, “We could move the
walls around as needed, and all the
fixtures were connected to a dimmer
board, so we could program chases and
light changes. I wanted them moveable
so we could adjust them around to the
right angle on the action.” Direct
sunlight was created with PRG’s Bad
Boy automated lights.
Miranda’s team used previz
sequences of the CG canyons that the

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American Cinematographer - May 2013

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