American Cinematographer - May 2014 - 50

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Alien Ways

Top: Vehicle supervisor Ben Dillon (seated) prepares for a shot with Purvis and A-camera
operator Stuart Howell. All of the motorcycle POVs were shot with One-Cams mounted to the
bikes' handlebars or rear fenders. "They were very small and didn't compromise the rider in any
way," says Landin. Bottom: For scenes shot at the Buchanan Galleries shopping center, the crew
operated One-Cams hidden in shopping bags, mop buckets and safety cones. Pictured (from left)
are 2nd AC Simon Surtees, Howell, Smith and One-Cam technical supervisor Louis Mustill.

long black glass floor in panel sections,
into which was sunk an 8-foot-deep
tank filled with black, Methocel-based
liquid. The liquid's surface was at the
same height as the black glass, so the
men were able to step from one panel to
the other. They were then lowered 7 feet
on hydraulics into the liquid by Asylum
[Models & Effects] - a very frightening descent! Jonathan was very specific
that he didn't want to do a lot of CGI,
that everything should be done incamera if possible. So the wide shots of
50

May 2014

Scarlett and the men were done in two
passes: one with Scarlett walking backward on glass, and one with the men
walking forward into the black liquid.
We kept the camera in one position so
we could maintain the same perspective,
and then the screen was split in the edit.
How did you light those scenes?
Landin: We used two overhead
light boxes, with 36 double-blackskirted 4.8K space lights in each truss
frame, to toplight the actors. These were
kept at 8-foot centers, with egg crates on
American Cinematographer

the bottom to keep the light from
spilling sideways. They were all
programmed so that when necessary,
the toplight could move with the actor
so it wouldn't be in the back of the shot
as the camera moved. The shots in the
liquid were done by underwater specialist Mark Silk at the Underwater Studio
in Basildon. It was important that those
sequences didn't feel like they were
actually filmed in water; the substance
beneath the surface is more like an
unknown gas. For 'The Swimmer,'
prosthetic-effects artists at Asylum
made a wig of steel wire so his hair
wouldn't sway in the water. We filmed
at 25 fps, 33 fps and 50 fps, creating a
similar toplight with underwater Kino
Flos so we wouldn't get a ripple effect in
the lighting.
Once the alien leaves Glasgow
for the Highlands, the film's scope
broadens, but the environments, such
as the castle and the Quiet Man's
home, become more solitary.
Landin: Our location manager,
Eugene Strange, really strove to get to
the right locations rather than ones that
were just handy for the unit. In a lot of
cases, the local crewmembers were
going to places they'd never been before!
Jonathan felt very strongly that we
should let the actors react to their environments, so our approach with the
Quiet Man's home was very much
driven by the kind of man who would
have lived there. It was a very small
house, and one of our conditions was
that we wouldn't alter a place any more
than we had to. The house possessed
certain qualities that we wouldn't have
necessarily chosen on our own, so the
limitations ended up informing our
visual style.
In what ways?
Landin: We were inspired by the
practicals, even though they weren't
always the only sources for filming. We
were emulating what we found in the
kitchen, the living room and the
bedroom. Authenticity triumphed over
beauty in a good way. In the livingroom scene when they're watching TV,
we could have really played with the TV



American Cinematographer - May 2014

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American Cinematographer - May 2014 - Cover1
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American Cinematographer - May 2014 - 1
American Cinematographer - May 2014 - 2
American Cinematographer - May 2014 - Contents
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