American Cinematographer - July 2013 - 67

Top and middle:
Exploiting his
widescreen frame,
Hubbs captures
Yeung’s POV as Saxon
attacks Yeung, placing
the viewer right in the
middle of the action.
The lines of whiterobed combatants and
fluttering yellow
banners add depth
and graphic interest.
Bottom: One of still
photographer Dave
Friedman’s many
heroic images of Lee
during the shoot.

movie, not even a scene from one,” says
Hubbs. “When I got to Hong Kong, I
think I saw The Big Boss in a theater, but
Bob and I didn’t really discuss it. We
knew we could do a lot better.
“The studio at Golden Harvest,
where we shot the film, was in a working-class neighborhood and very rudimentary, and I was immediately
concerned about the camera gear that
we were supposed to use,” he continues.
“They were Arriflex cameras, but they
were in poor repair, and the lenses were
terrible. The studio said it didn’t have
anything else, but that never resonated
with me.” Seeking an alternative,
Hubbs found Salon Films, a camerarental house in nearby Kowloon that
was an agent for Panavision, as it still is
today. However, he notes, “I had no
experience with Panavision equipment
because I’d never made a studio
picture.” A bigger problem was
convincing the producers they should
spend the extra money for an outside
camera rental. “I explained the situation
to Bob, and he agreed with me, but the
studio would have none of it,” Hubbs
recalls. But the cinematographer held
firm and ultimately got his Panavision
package, “two Arri 35 2-C cameras and
three anamorphic lenses, a 40mm [f2.5]
prime, a 50mm [f2.5] prime and a 50500mm [f5.6] zoom. I think I brought
a periscope finder with me. One of the
cameras had a variable-speed motor
that would get up to 30 fps on a good
day, but we shot almost everything at 24

fps. We rented a high-speed camera that
went up to 80 fps a couple of times.
That, 85 filters for daylight work, and a
few magazines sums up the camera gear.
It was the simplest package you could
imagine.”
The Chinese camera crew was
unfamiliar with the Panavision lenses
but “worked hard and learned quickly,”
says Hubbs, who operated the A camera
while Charles Lowe operated the B
camera. “All the exterior scenes were
shot simply, with just a little bounce fill
from white cards, as we didn’t have any
www.theasc.com

supplemental lighting or any grip equipment, not even a 12-by-12 — and no
grips, for that matter. The studio had a
pipe dolly, but it was only available to us
for special shots. I think there were two
other movies shooting at the studio at
the time, and I felt we were the least
important film on the lot.” And
although the crew was small, the division of labor was strict: “The camera
crew would never touch a light, and the
electricians would never touch the
camera.”
The shoot began slowly because
July 2013

http://www.theasc.com

American Cinematographer - July 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - July 2013