American Cinematographer - May 2018 - 31

crossed the interior of the barn, where
they stretch from one end to the other.
The strings held hundreds of bulbs;
some strands consisted of white bulbs,
while others had red. The whites, which
were clear 40-watt household bulbs,
were dimmed down for a warm look and
feel. The reds were clear-red 25-watt
household-type bulbs augmented with
Lee 106 Primary Red gels. Almeida
notes, "We used small Arri 650-watt and
1K tungsten lights with Lee 106 gel to
augment the 25-watt red clear bulbs
when we needed a bit more exposure
with red light."
In addition to providing illumination for the family, the stringed bulbs are
part of a communications system Lee
has devised. "The white lights signify
safety, and the red ones danger," notes
gaffer Bill Almeida. "They get switched
on in the second half of the movie when
things start to get tense. The different
colored strands were hung parallel to one
another and ran not only through the
barn but also outside. At night the white
lights illuminated the various sand paths
that Lee had laid down to allow the
family access to different areas of the
farm.
"We also created a flickering effect
that occurred whenever the creatures
were in the vicinity," Almeida continues.
"The pulsating bulbs were caused by the
creatures themselves - some sort of
electro-magnetic interference they put
out."
To boost exposure, Almeida and
his team hung a combination of Jem
Balls, Chinese lanterns, Lowel Rifas and
Chimeras from the ceiling - out of
sight but close to the practicals. "We
warmed up the tungsten lamps with
CTS, rather than CTO," Christensen
says. Practical lamps were scattered
throughout the barn interior as well.
In addition to the indoor lighting,
units were set up outside the barn to
create sun and moonlight through the
windows. "The barn had seven or eight
windows along each side, and there was
a large door on both ends," Almeida
recalls. "For day scenes, we picked one
side of the barn to be the sunny side and

Top: With the farm under siege, Regan and Marcus run for safety.
Above: A camera vehicle keeps ahead of the young actors.

used Arri M40 HMIs; sometimes we
went with hard light, and sometimes we
put Lee 250 on 4-by-4 frames to soften
them a bit. The windows on the opposite wall became our 'fill' side, and we
used Arri M18s through diffusion,
usually [Opal]. We placed 18Ks outside
the barn's two big doors as well. For
night scenes, we employed Arri
SkyPanel 60s to create a moonlit glow
through the windows. We dialed in a
blue to get the feel we wanted."
According to Almeida, many of
the day exteriors were also lit.
"Sometimes we used a 20K tungsten
Fresnel or Maxi-Brutes to create warm
splashes of sunlight in the background,
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or as edge on the actors. At other times
we went with two Arrimax 18K PARs
with 1⁄2 CTO on condors." Arri Rental
in New York provided the lighting
equipment for the production.
Some 50 to 60 percent of the film
was shot using two cameras; the more
intimate scenes relied on a single camera.
A scene of the family eating at the
dinner table was shot on a single circular
track, with A and B cameras on different
dollies. The A camera captured the tight
shots on each character, while B camera
was right next to it, handling the wider
shots. "The family itself is a main character in the movie - as a unit, not as
individuals," Krasinki says. "That was
May 2018

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - May 2018
