American Cinematographer - May 2014 - 39

The apartment set has no
windows, and "its walls consist largely of
back projections we created using
Stewart Filmscreen 150 RP material,"
says Hall. "There were 8-by-4-foot
panels of glass dividing the room into
various sections, and those also featured
projections.
"I realized we had to bring light
in through the ceiling," he continues.
"There were projectors coming through
the ceiling to project onto the glass, and
there was also significant rigging to
suspend the projectors above the ceiling
that limited our lighting options. Chris
Seagers and I collaborated to design
recessed apertures in the ceiling that
could accommodate lighting and
resemble practical fixtures if seen on
camera, and we cut various diffusion
panels and attached them with Velcro so
we could quickly exchange panels
depending on the size of frame; we'd
bring the larger, thicker panels of diffusion lower in frame for closer shots to
make the light spread more and soften
its quality further. It was problem solving, really - a collaboration involving
Chris' ingenious design, a lot of engineering help from key grip Ray Garcia,
and thorough planning of our intended
shooting angles for the respective
scenes," says Hall.
The ceiling in the all-white lab
plays as a compositional element, and
was built with four 120' lines of light
that gaffer Cory Geryak created with
Par Bars: Par cans every 11⁄2' aimed
straight down from above through milk
Plexiglas and Lee 129 diffusion.
Tungsten sources meant consistent
color temperature, but the light was a bit
warm after passing through the Plexi
and the 129, so Geryak used Lee ½
CTB gels to bring it back to white.
Custom light boxes using Par cans and
2Ks were integrated into the ceiling
design; these illuminated the various
booths and cubicles where the
nanotechnology experiments take place.
Smaller panels also served as architectural accents, and 1K Babies were positioned to shoot through narrow gaps
between the walls and the ceiling to

create hot lines of overexposed light.
"The Par Bars were the most
cost-effective way to rig it," continues
Geryak, a longtime collaborator of
Pfister's who had also worked with Hall
on several commercials. "We needed a
consistent color across the entire ceiling,
and that would not have been achievable with Kino Flos. It required a lot of
channels and Socapex connections to
control because we wanted the ability to

shut off [some lights] to give more
modeling and create more contrast in
closer shots, as well as the ability to
create brownouts and flickers when the
data center is being destroyed later in
the story."
The data center is connected to a
mainframe storage room that features
multiple glass shelves running the
length of the space, creating a kind of
infinite corridor. The edges of the glass

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American Cinematographer - May 2014

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