American Cinematographer - November 2008 - (Page 36)

Forging a Bond Top: During an elaborate foot chase, 007 leaps from balcony to balcony on an apartment building in Siena. Middle: Bond jumps from the building onto a moving city bus. Bottom: The crew prepares to capture another portion of the sequence on a tiled rooftop. section we might need later, depending on the lenses that we chose, to use as an undistorted background.” Once the second unit’s work on this sequence was complete, “my editor put the footage together so we could decide where we would cut to the DC-3 interior,” says Forster. “We had part of a plane on a gimbal at Pinewood, and we programmed it according to the cuts so the gimbal would move exactly like the plane moved in the exterior footage.” Inside the plane, three remote-head rigs were built for a few specific shots; for everything else, the Richmond brothers were trying to stay on their feet with the Arri 235. “It was very claustrophobic but very energetic — the camera being independent of the plane’s movement really gave the footage life,” says George Richmond. “At one stage, I was strapped to the nose of the plane with the 235 strapped to me, I was looking through the window, and we had the plane go from horizontal to almost vertical. Our key grip, Dave Appleby, was instrumental on all the rigs and made it safe for me to do that kind of work.” Forster is a great proponent of location filming, and, given Bond’s jet-setting lifestyle, this meant the production traveled all over the world, making long stops in Panama and Chile. “I think you feel the texture and character of a real location, and it’s very hard to re-create that on a stage,” says Forster. “I will often find a place I love that is very small and really challenging for Roberto to light, and the great thing about Roberto is that he values real locations and understands why I want to shoot in them. He adapts with all sorts of methods and is always prepared to take the chance and go with it.” “There were some restrictive locations on this film,” observes Schaefer. “For example, some of the old city streets in Panama are very narrow, and it was hard to do the cabling or get cranes in there. For lighting, we relied on Wendys, Dinos and 18Ks — pretty standard stuff. My general approach to lighting was to use a lot of fall-off. This movie features a lot more dramatic use of darkness than other Bond films.” One particularly cramped location was a run-down building in Colon that doubled for a hotel in Haiti. Bond gets caught up in a violent knife fight, and because the rooms were so small and the action so extensive, Schaefer’s only option was to light from outside. “I’d planned to use Condors with Arrimax lights and MaxMovers 36 November 2008

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American Cinematographer - November 2008 Contents Editor’s Note Letters Short Takes Production Slate Forging a Bond The Making of a President Thunder Down Under Habitat for Inhumanity Saluting Television’s Top Talents Post Focus New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up

American Cinematographer - November 2008

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