American Cinematographer - December 2009 - 12

Short Takes An Ambitious Trailer for Halo by Iain Stasukevich journalists and filmmakers embedded in various areas of Iraq. Not wishing to appear jingoistic, the filmmakers chose to shoot in a non-specific setting (actually near Budapest, Hungary), placing European actors in the most otherworldly locales they could find. “Rupert and I worked hard to find interesting locations,” says Fraser. “Halo is set in a foreign, futuristic world, so we tried to find oddly futuristic locations. We even considered filming at Chernobyl!” He found his inspiration for ODST in Russian cinema, specifically the World War II drama Come and See and the sci-fi thriller Stalker. He even used a set of lenses made in St. Petersburg, Optica Elite primes. The production shot for three days, using minimal crew and equipment. The first scene they filmed was the military funeral, set in an intergalactic cathedral of concrete and steel; in actuality, it was the base of a cooling tower for a decommissioned nuclearpower plant in Hungary, dressed with gravestones (repainted road markers rigged with Bic lighters) and an open grave. “That place was real — it’s a concrete funnel that goes 600 feet straight into the heavens,” says Fraser. “Part of the joy of shooting there was that we had everything we needed, but if we’d pointed the camera in the wrong direction, we would have given away the game.” Fraser’s primary concern was maintaining balanced compositions, and he strove to keep extraneous information out of the 1.78:1 frame while retaining a sense of place. There was almost no lighting to be done. “We talked about bringing in construction cranes with hundreds of kilowatts of light on them, but the biggest film crew in the world 12 December 2009 Photos by Rob Moggach. Photos and frame grabs courtesy of Asylum Effects and MJZ. The trailer for Halo: We Are ODST follows a soldier through his years with the United Nations Space Command’s Orbital Drop Shock Trooper Squad, examining what compels him to battle the alien race known as the Covenant. ar is hell, but for a soldier it’s a way of life. In the Halo: We Are ODST trailer, director Rupert Sanders and cinematographer Greig Fraser attempt to imbue a video game about war with some of the hell of realistic battle. War films are a favorite subject for Sanders, who also directed 2008’s Halo: Believe ad. “Believe was about fighting alongside a hero,” he says. “With ODST I wanted to examine what compels a soldier to fight.” W We Are ODST tells the story of a soldier named Tarkov. As a young boy, he attends a military funeral, which inspires him to sign up for the United Nations Space Command’s elite Orbital Drop Shock Trooper Squad. After succeeding in boot camp, he endures years of combat against an alien race known as the Covenant and grows into a battlehardened veteran. Sanders drew inspiration for ODST from news footage captured by

American Cinematographer - December 2009

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