American Cinematographer - November 2013 - 72

◗

Seized at Sea
so it makes the camera look good."
On Captain Phillips, this
approach required some physically challenging maneuvers, including the
sequence when Phillips first inspects the
Maersk Alabama. "That shot is cut into
pieces, as usual, but it started traveling
down the corridor behind the captain,
and he almost slides down a kind of
ladder to the lower deck," says Ackroyd.
"We positioned grips dressed as sailors
who'd clip a rope pulley onto the back of
Cosmo's harness and lower him down
one deck, and there he was unclipped
and could carry on down another corridor. Then, when he got to another set of
ladders, he'd be clipped in and lowered
again. I remember coming back and
showing [the footage to] Paul, and he
said, 'Hmm, it could be a bit smoother.'
I said, 'Paul, this is hard to do!' Those
vessels are very hard, very unforgiving.
The number of bumps and scrapes you
could get was incredible. It felt like I
should be wearing a hard hat."
Filming on a small fishing vessel
was no easier. Custom-made by a
Maltese shipbuilder, each skiff had three
or four points to which the crew could
attach an A-frame scaffold with a T-bar
and change its position, even at sea. The
XTR Prod was hung from this by
bungee cords and positioned to sit on
Ackroyd's shoulder. "That way I was
free, as much as I could be, to swivel and
tilt and pan and struggle with the
camera to get the shots," he says.
Shooting Super 16mm with the
Canon 10.6-180mm zoom not only
gave the filmmakers the range to go
from a skiff interior to a cargo ship miles
away, but also allowed 11-minute takes,
which the crew fully exploited. "That
attack on the Maersk was more or less
done for real," says Driscoll. "We did it
three to four times with the actors and a
stunt driver." Here, as elsewhere, the
camera was encased in a Hydroflex
splash bag to protect it from the cargo
ship's water cannons.
A fishing boat equipped with two
cameras was sufficiently fast for wide
shots of the speeding skiffs, but for
closer work, the filmmakers used a

Top: The crew
and cast film
within the
lifeboat.
Middle: U.S.
Navy ships
surround the
lifeboat.
Bottom: The
crew readies a
night scene.

72

November 2013

American Cinematographer



American Cinematographer - November 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - November 2013

Contents
American Cinematographer - November 2013 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - November 2013 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - November 2013 - 1
American Cinematographer - November 2013 - 2
American Cinematographer - November 2013 - 3
American Cinematographer - November 2013 - 4
American Cinematographer - November 2013 - Contents
American Cinematographer - November 2013 - 6
American Cinematographer - November 2013 - 7
American Cinematographer - November 2013 - 8
American Cinematographer - November 2013 - 9
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American Cinematographer - November 2013 - 23
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