American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 38

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Cutting-Edge Clarity

Top: Lynn and Shroom converse inside a Humvee. Bottom: John Toll and crew prep for the final scene in
the Humvee.

MXF files to Sony SRMemory cards.]
What stereo rig did you use?
Toll: We used the Stereotec
[Light Weight Rig]. This was a newer
rig. It was relatively lighter in weight
than existing rigs and had a smaller
profile. It also allowed the camera and
3D controls to be more easily accessible.
However, with both F65s and all the
accessories and controls in place, we
were still looking at a package that
weighed just over 100 pounds.
38

December 2016

We did our prep at Panavision
Woodland Hills. [ASC associate] Larry
Hezzelwood and everyone at
Panavision provided great support to
our crew - including camera assistants
Chris Toll, Clyde Bryan, Sal Alvarez
and Jamie Pair, as well as 3D supervisor
Demetri Portelli and his team - and
really helped pull everything together.
What ISO rating did you set for
the camera?
Toll: The majority of the time we
American Cinematographer

went with the basic E.I. of 800, but I
moved to 1,200 or even 2,000 when
absolutely necessary. We also calculated
a 2¼-stop exposure loss for the 120 fps
and a 1-stop loss for the 3D mirror, but
there was also a 1-stop gain from a 360degree shutter. Taking all of this into
consideration, we adopted a rough
working E.I. of 150. There were times
when we needed more exposure.
Hoping I had somehow made a mistake
in calculating the E.I., I would sometimes ask my gaffer, Jarred Waldron, to
recalculate. But, unfortunately, it always
came up the same.
Did you set out with a specific Tstop in mind?
Toll: Since one of our primary
objectives was to maintain maximum
clarity, depth of field was always a
primary consideration. I tried shooting
somewhere between T2.8 and T4.0
most of the time, but we often needed to
increase depth of field. In the stadium,
we did close-ups and tight two shots of
foreground characters with the rest of
the members of Bravo Company seated
behind them. We wanted them all in
focus and would try to build the T-stop
for shots like this, but building up the
light for foreground characters often
meant building the light level for large
sections of the crowd sitting in the background. There were limits to this. Acamera first AC Chris Toll did a great
job pulling focus and working out focus
splits, but I think he aged a bit in the
process.
That's an interesting mix of
cutting-edge technology with earlierera camera size and light levels.
Toll: That was one of the major
challenges of the project. We were
working with the most up-to-date technology available to us, but we were
always thinking about the future and
how additional tools for working in this
process would catch up to the need.
Camera mobility and levels of illumination were primary concerns, and we
were fortunate we had enough space in
the stadium for cranes. The cameras
pretty much stayed on telescoping
cranes and Libra remote heads. We used

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - December 2016