American Cinematographer - October 2008 - (Page 22)

This wide shot of the hotelroom set shows the backing the filmmakers decided looked much better lit from behind than from the front. “We added crossing 20Ks coming through the window so we could choose which side to key from,” says Seckendorf. “That and a China ball was most of the lighting. The ceiling played in the wide shots, so we tipped it a little to force the perspective.” The top photo is the final frame; the other shot is Seckendorf’s original. warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, where the crew moved between eight separate sets that Seckendorf, gaffer Larry Wallace, key grip Rocky Ford and other crew pre-lit with Maxi-Brutes bouncing into muslins overhead. The team shot about 24 pages in six days, with two cameras running most of the time. Camera operator Dan Turrett says that going into the project, one of his concerns was the One’s viewing system, but he was pleasantly surprised. “Even though the camera doesn’t have an optical finder, the viewing system is quite excellent,” he says. “It has a color video monitor that’s the best I’ve ever seen.” Rather than changing the length of the viewfinder itself, as would be the case on an Arricam or a Panaflex, the monitor was on a sliding rail, so it could be positioned anywhere Turrett wanted it. The One is relatively small and light, qualities that were very important on this project. “One of the concerns, since we were going to do a lot of handheld, was that a lot of [the HD] cameras were never designed to be put on the shoulder,” says Turrett, “but I was quite impressed with the One in that sense.” Need for Speed is a racing game, so the cars in the live-action footage had to be well-lit. To bounce highlights into a car’s fenders, Seckendorf and Wallace used large, skinny muslins measuring about 4'x20'. They were able to determine where to put the light sources by using a laser pointer: from the camera’s perspective, Wallace would point at any area in the car that he and Seckendorf felt needed extra light, and the laser beam would bounce off the car and go to exactly where the light source needed to be. One pivotal element of the design and lighting was a Translite backing of the city where the game is set. The backing is most prominent in a hotel-room set, but it turns up in almost every other set, too — barely visible through an 22 October 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - October 2008

American Cinematographer - October 2008 Contents Editor's Note Short Takes: DirecTV's "Fourth Wall" Campaign Production Slate: Prison Break Production Slate: Need for Speed: Undercover Middle East Intrigue Kingdom of Light Memoirs of a Spook Landmark Gains Post Focus: An Overview of the ASC CDL Filmmakers' Forum: Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Ross Berryman

American Cinematographer - October 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.