American Cinematographer - October 2007 - (Page 35)

would create sparks as it started braking. There’s one shot where the train is coming toward you and seems to hit the camera and carry it down the tracks; on the tracks, we set up a camera-platform rig with a big, soft buffer, and the train actually hit the platform and started pushing it along. In that particular shot, you can really see the warm glow of the bulbs underneath the engine. We also positioned a little silver reflector that caught some of the bounce from the 5K on the train, just to create some reflected light that would reveal the front of the train — otherwise, there was nothing else to illuminate it. We had a steam generator on the train so that when it stopped, we got this big cloud of steam that Jesse disappears into. The rest of the sequence, including the interior scenes, was basically lit with dummied lanterns with bare bulbs inside. Inside the train, all the oil lamps had little tin hats on top of them; inside those were pieces of silver foil and a ring of five 300-watt bulbs dimmed down with flicker generators. Those read really well onscreen, but if you looked closely at the actual lamp it wouldn’t make sense, because the light was coming from the tin hat and not from the lamp itself. I chose those in collaboration with the art department because I knew Andrew wanted to do a constant move through the train with Frank James [played by Sam Shepard]. The only time we used conventional film lights in that sequence was when we were running with the outlaws down the hill toward the train. The robbers are supposed to look as if they’re being lit by the light at the front of the train, and I think we used a 10K bounced off a white card to create that sort of effect amid the steam. When we finally show the train carriage, you can see the passengers amid this golden light coming through the windows. That light was provided by 175-watt mushroom bulbs mounted on 10-foot strips positioned all the way down the interior ceiling of the train carriage. We could rely on our dummy lanterns when we were inside the train, but when we shot that exterior we had to really project the light out into the atmosphere. That shot of the passengers was inspired by one of Andrew’s photographic references, and I think it’s one of the most successful shots in the film. When we were doing it, though, it filled me with dread, because I was concerned that the light would just burn out the passen- gers and it would end up looking silly. The opening scenes of No Country provide an interesting contrast, because you were dealing with a large desert basin that was lit partially by the lights of modern pickup trucks. Deakins: That was kind of frustrating, because that whole sequence — when Moss [Josh Brolin] goes back to a crime scene at night and is pursued by drug dealers — had to go from night through dawn and then into full daylight. I wracked my brain about how to do that, because the area we were filming Above: Members of the James gang use weapons to announce their intentions. The golden light seen through the train windows was generated by strips of mushroom lights mounted on the ceiling of the carriage interior. Below: Prior to the robbery, Jesse bonds with accomplices Wood Hite (Jeremy Renner, left) and Charley Ford. American Cinematographer 35

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American Cinematographer - October 2007

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