American Cinematographer - June 2015 - 10

One of this spring's hottest movie trailers was the
thrill-ride preview for Mad Max: Fury Road, which
promised viewers a deliriously unhinged demolition
derby amid a sand-and-dust sci-fi dystopia last seen
onscreen in 1985, when the third film of the original
trilogy, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, was
released. Movie technology has advanced in every
area since then, but director George Miller and cinematographer John Seale, ASC, ACS - aided by a
crackerjack crew and an intrepid stunt team -
wanted to lend the movie's epic car chase a realism
that could only be achieved with live performers and
real vehicles.
"George and action-unit director and stunt
coordinator Guy Norris had spent the better part of
a decade developing and honing every aspect of the
film, as evidenced by the meticulous 3,500 storyboard frames," Seale tells Simon Gray ("Max
Intensity," page 32). Action-unit cinematographer David Burr, ACS reveals that custom-built
cars weren't the only casualties of the shoot's carnage, noting that car-mounted, Habbycamcaged Canon 5D Mark II cameras "were often going to get wiped out."
More summer-blockbuster mayhem is on offer in Avengers: Age of Ultron, a darkertoned sequel to the highest-grossing superhero movie of all time. Director Joss Whedon
tapped Ben Davis, BSC to shoot, and as Davis relates in Mark Dillon's coverage ("Avengers ReAssemble," page 50), the filmmakers took a new visual tack. "The first [Avengers] was a huge
success, so you don't want to remove yourself entirely from it," Davis says. "But this film has
a darker visual core that reflects the script, which is more about bad times and things coming
apart than things coming together. The tone is grittier and rougher."
On Tomorrowland, ASC member Claudio Miranda was tasked with helping director
Brad Bird achieve the "rich" look he sought for the visually ambitious sci-fi movie. Extensive
testing led Miranda to shoot 95 percent of the picture with Sony F65 CineAlta 4K digital
cameras. "We also had all these visual effects, and I was planning to use lots of low-level lighting and practical lighting tricks," Miranda tells Michael Goldman ("Picturing Tomorrow," page
66). "In these tests, you saw the strength of digital with available light. This movie is not about
being soft and mushy and squishy - it's really about an Imax-type, big-negative experience."
Denis Lenoir, ASC, AFC was after a more naturalistic look for Eden, a drama depicting
the life struggles of a Parisian DJ ("Trapped in a Groove," page 78). Although Lenoir crafted
colorful, stylized lighting schemes for the movie's dance-club scenes, he tells New York writer
Iain Stasukevich that the project's director, Mia Hansen-Løve, "has a very naturalistic idea of
beauty. She doesn't want anything too flattering or too enhanced, so the interior days and
nights were filmed without movie lights coming through the windows. There was no money
and no time [for movie lighting], but it was also an approach I was happy to take."
This issue also offers Debra Kaufman's update on the activities of the ASC Technology
Committee ("Stewards of Technology," page 90), a forward-thinking group that has helped
set the agenda for many significant industry advances.

Stephen Pizzello
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher
10

Photo by Owen Roizman, ASC.

Editor's Note
American Cinematographer - June 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - June 2015
