American Cinematographer - October 2007 - (Page 38)

Western Destinies Right: Crewmembers set up a crane shot on a set depicting a street in St. Joseph, Missouri. Jesse’s house sits atop the hill at left. Below: The crew prepares an Aerocrane for Deakins. The cinematographer notes, “I’ve been using the Aerocrane a hell of a lot for 10 years or so, because I find it to be an incredibly versatile way to move the camera.” justification for that source. Andrew wanted a very particular, silvery look for night scenes, so it wasn’t realistic in that sense. That was one scene where the digital intermediate [DI] really came in handy, because I could use Power Windows on the horses to bring them up a bit, and on the actors’ faces to take them down some. If you’re trying to track a man on a horse for 200 feet, he’ll get brighter and brighter as he approaches the light unless the source is a mile away, and that just wasn’t feasible. But in the DI, I could compensate. Throughout Jesse James, the camera is moving in interesting ways. What kinds of cameramotion systems did you use on the show? Deakins: The preamble to the train-robbery sequence, when Robert Ford first meets Jesse and his gang at a campsite in the woods, begins with a long Steadicam move that starts on Ford’s feet. He sits down to introduce himself, but they all get up and leave him sitting there. The camera then tracks around Ford to show the gang behind him, and that move was done with a little Aerocrane with a remote head. I’ve been using the Aerocrane a hell of a lot for 10 years or so, because I find it to be an incredibly versatile way to move the camera; it’s like a 14-foot sectional jib arm with a PowerPod remote head. Another part of that whole scene is a dialogue in the woods between Charley Ford [Sam Rockwell] and other members of the gang. That was mostly improvised as a way to introduce some of the characters. We had to get all of the shots pretty quickly before the sun went down, so I just did it all handheld. There are some really nice time-lapse shots of the sky and clouds throughout Jesse James. Who shot that footage? Deakins: Our Steadicam operator, a Canadian named Damon Moreau. When we didn’t have any Steadicam stuff for him to do, or if we were waiting for Andrew to get the actors ready, we would send him off to shoot some time-lapse footage. It was looking really great, so we had 38 October 2007

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American Cinematographer - October 2007

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