American Cinematographer - November 2013 - 86

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Hard-Rock Apocalypse

During the song "Master of Puppets," illuminated crosses emerge from "the Swiss Army knife of stages," as Hetfield dubbed the
versatile performance platform.

their own shots," he says. "These are
noisy, fast-paced concerts. It's difficult
to communicate in the moment, so it's
not like I was always on the intercom
telling them what to do."
Nevertheless, Pados and Antal
would feed instructions to the operators
via headset from a "mission control"
room set up elsewhere in the arena
complex. The camera blocking was
based around the stage and lighting
design for each song; one number might
get heavy Steadicam coverage, but the
next one might include heavy pyrotechnics on the stage, requiring the cameras
to pull back. "What initially seemed like
a limitation for us actually turned out to
be quite a gift because each song,
through whatever limitations the stage
antics presented, ultimately led to a
unique visual language for that scene,"
says Antal.
"It was helpful to hear ahead of
time what Gyula and Nim were looking
for, because then you can start thinking
about how to shape your approach," says
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November 2013

Taylor. "They wanted to draw the audience in by developing each shot and
letting them go longer, as opposed to
cutting between them. It's not to say
that you can't cut quickly with 3-D,
because you can, but to me it's better to
let the shot evolve through camera
movement.
"There's a lot of choreography
going on in terms of the staging and
what the band is doing, but it's not like
the Hannah Montana shows where
each one was exactly the same," Taylor
continues. "A Metallica show is all about
how they interact with the audience, so
you have to be able to react to the band
and still keep in mind the shots you
were asked to provide."
Taylor operated one of the
concert's two 50' Technocranes in
Vancouver, with the help of two technicians (one for swinging and one for telescoping the arm) and a camera assistant
(Terry McEwen, pulling focus and
zooming). The communication of
verbal and nonverbal signals amongst
American Cinematographer

the crew was critical, "but you don't have
time to describe every kind of movement, so I encouraged my crane operators and assistant to start feeling the
music," says Taylor. "Telling them
exactly what I'm looking for works, but
it all works better when everyone is just
feeling it."
Because verbal communication
between camera teams wasn't always
possible, Taylor had to remain
cognizant of where the other cameras
were and stay out of their shots while
finding a complementary frame. "If I
saw that Mitch's crane was up high,
then I'd go lower," he says. "We wanted
to give the editors more choices."
The two 50' Technocranes were
equipped with the Optimo 17-80mm
lenses, which aided in their ability to
stay back and out of the other cameras'
way, although Pados encouraged Taylor
and Amundsen to stay within the 2740mm focal range and move the
cameras closer to the stage rather than
zoom in from afar. "We got really close
American Cinematographer - November 2013

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