American Cinematographer - October 2007 - (Page 75)

Preparing to film Wade, Evans and the others as they make camp for the night. ors were shot in a second-floor set, further complicating matters for the crew. The crew flew 20'x20' and 40'x40' blacks to eliminate or minimize direct sunlight inside, and then four or five 18Ks were sent up on Condors or scissor lifts. The 18Ks were usually brought through Opal or light Hampshire diffusion and 1⁄4 CTS. This enabled the production to stretch six hours of daylight into 14hour workdays. Key grip Ray Garcia suggested Daylight Blue bounces, and Papamichael made extensive use of them throughout the shoot. “With New Mexico’s big, blue, open skies, those bounces made the light look much more natural,” he says. In exterior situations, Mangold often asked for tracking close-ups with the actors on horseback, sometimes with focus racks. The effects unit built a hydraulic rig with two saddles, but Crowe, an accomplished rider, didn’t care for it. On occasion track was laid, but that was difficult and time-consuming. Papamichael originally planned to use an Ultimate Arm, but the pro- ject’s reduced budget precluded that option for the most part. In the end, the filmmakers used Gator Utility Vehicles in conjunction with the Steadicam, which didn’t quite allow for the height Papamichael would have preferred. For moonlit exteriors featuring characters on horseback, Papamichael and his crew used a camera car with a truss hung with balloon lights that lit the actors with a soft, 3⁄4-toppy moonglow. Gaffer Cory Geryak recalls that the overhead helium-balloon rig allowed the horses to drift a bit and still stay within range of the light, which was important given the varied terrain. “The balloons were 8K tungsten tubes that were 12 feet long and 6 feet in diameter,” says Geryak. “There were four circuits, two per half, so we could turn sections off. We also had them on dimmers. I think we ended up going with just one circuit on each half of the balloon, so the full balloon was lit but to about half intensity. The bulbs are actually quite small — eight 1Ks. They’re 220-volt, so the cables that go to the balloon are much smaller and lighter, which makes it easy to float the balloons. Ray Garcia devised the truss system to hold them, and it worked quite well. The natural variations in distance and movement of the horses made it difficult for the operators and the camera assistants, but it gave the shots a more organic and realistic feeling.” The landscape in the deep background was raked with light from fixtures on Condors. “Bardwell & McAlister makes a 12-light MaxiBrute that we’ve fallen in love with for Condor work, because it’s really lightweight,” says Geryak. “I believe the head with the globes is about 45 pounds, and a traditional Nine-light Maxi is probably closer to 80 or 90 pounds. Another nice feature of these 12-lights is that they have interchangeable lenses instead of changeable globes; they use an HPL globe, the same technology as the Source Four Lekos. The different lenses give you different patterns of light, and a narrow lens is a very hot, punchy spot that’s good for distances. You can go from very narrow American Cinematographer 75

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American Cinematographer - October 2007

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