American Cinematographer - June 2008 - (Page 40)

APrince in Peril In the real world, Peter Pevensie (William Moseley) is relentlessly bullied, but in the magical realm of Narnia, he finds his inner hero. assistant, Greg Lundsgaard and Greg Irvin, respectively. Also, in New Zealand, B-camera operator Richard Bluck, focus puller Dean Mc Carroll and 2nd AC Phillip Smith helped us get off to a great start; and in Eastern Europe, B-camera operator Jakub Dvorsky and focus puller Jan Carda did a wonderful job along with the other Czech crewmembers. Our 2nd-unit director of photography in the Czech Republic, Milan Chardina, had to shoot complete sections of big sequences and matched our work with great care.” Though Lindenlaub used Sunpath software to try to plan the daily shooting schedule according to the sun’s movements, he had four Arrimax 18K HMI lights transported to all the locations. “I’m not saying the look I could achieve with them out in a forest somewhere exactly replicated sunlight, but I knew from experience that I could create something that had the feel of the same light direction and then change the contrast a bit during the digital intermediate [DI]; I could use power windows to add extra highlights and shadow details to keep the look of dappled sunlight alive. So I used the 18Ks for fill light and backlight throughout the entire movie, basically every day. I often set up a light where the sun was coming from but didn’t always use it; if the sun disappeared, though, the light was in place and we could keep going. Working with a big budget, you don’t have the luxury of waiting too long for perfect light because the daily costs are so high. Fortunately, Andrew was sympathetic to my concerns.” Given that the story features talking creatures and epic battles, Prince Caspian required a significant number of visual-effects shots, many of which were shot on location. One of two visual-effects supervisors, Dean Wright and Wendy Rogers, was always on set with his or her team. “We didn’t do any on-set motion-capture on this film,” says Wright. “Instead, we used several 24p high-definition-video cameras as ‘Witness Cams’ to photograph multiple angles of the areas where we were going to add CG elements. That allowed us to triangulate the information during post.” The effects teams were constantly gathering visual information on the set. Lindenlaub recalls, “Sometimes, in the middle of a shot — at the top of the frame on a castle wall, for example — we’d notice someone standing with a video camera. We’d ask, ‘Isn’t this a problem?’ and the effects people would say, ‘No, we need him there. We’ll paint him out later.’” Working with Rogers and Wright, Lindenlaub helped Arri develop a prototype DCS-2 datacapture box that was mounted on the film camera and recorded metadata for every shot. “That was invaluable information,” says Wright. “It told us everything about how the camera and lens were set for each take — focal length, focus, everything.” “We were blessed because the camera crew was so accepting of our needs,” notes Rogers. “Walter was really gracious; we even have images of him holding our reference balls on 40 June 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - June 2008

American Cinematographer - June 2008 Contents Editor's Note Short Takes: "100 Days, " Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings Production Slate: Mongol Production Slate: Greensburg Vintage Indy A Prince in Peril Women's World 90 Years of Precision Post Focus: A 3-D Imax Work Flow for Wild Ocean Post Focus: 3cP Incorporates ASC CDL on State of Play Filmmakers' Forum: John Baily, ASC New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index ASC Membership Roster In Memoriam: Gayne Rescher, ASC Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Rob McLachlan

American Cinematographer - June 2008

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