American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 50

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Ultimate Survivor
Deakins and
crew shoot a
scene inside the
Omori POW
camp. The set
was built at
Fort Lytton,
a 19th-century
Australian
fortress
and gun
emplacement
near Brisbane.

shape of the ship's hull and used a crane
to fly it over the raft," says Conway. "By
drawing the raft closer and into the
shadow, we [created] the appearance of
the ship moving toward them."
Zamperini spent time in three
different Japanese POW camps. The
first, Kwajalein, was located in a jungle,
where he was locked in a small, box-like
cell that sat on the forest floor. Exteriors
for these scenes were shot in a private
rainforest in Queensland. A bit of the
cell's interior was also captured on location, but most of it was shot onstage at
Village Roadshow Studios.
"The cell is supposed to be a
completely dark room," says Deakins,
"but I asked Jon Hutman to build a cell
door that didn't fit quite properly, so
there was a slit above the door and one
below it that allowed two little slashes of
light to come in. That way I could get
some light into Jack's eyes as he tries to
peer out."
Conway adds, "To get a really
hard slash of light through a tiny gap, we
used a Source Four bounced into a
[concave] mirror. That created a very
sharp source by reducing the size of the
beam of light [that came] through the
50

January 2015

cracks and onto Louie."
From Kwajalein, Louie is transferred to Omori, which the Japanese
constructed on a man-made island in
Tokyo Bay. These scenes were shot at
Fort Lytton, a 19th-century fortress and
gun emplacement near Brisbane. Omori
is the site of the movie's central conflict
- the battle of wills between Zamperini
and the sadistic commander of the
camp, nicknamed Bird (played by
Japanese rock star Miyavi), who senses
Louie's tenacious spirit and singles him
out for particularly inhumane treatment.
"For daytime interiors, we lit the
prisoners' barracks by aiming 6K
[HMIs] from the roof into reflectors,
which then bounced light through the
windows into the building," says
Deakins. "The reflectors were just
[Styrofoam bead board], but the trusses
had to be solid because of the strong
winds." Conway used 250 diffusion on
the windows of the barracks to either
blow out or soften the light coming
inside, and occasionally used ¼ CTO to
add warmth.
Because the Japanese believed
they were immune to Allied bombings,
they didn't feel the need to institute
American Cinematographer

blackout conditions at night, and so
Deakins embraced practical fixtures for
night exteriors in the camp. "Roger was
really keen to use 1K filament bulbs for
the 'China hat' shades running along
the perimeter of the camp," says
Conway. The gaffer's Sydney-based
rental company, Conway Film
Lighting, provided an assortment of
globes, and Deakins also contributed
his own stash, which he had acquired
while shooting The Ladykillers. (Fox
Lighting Australia provided additional
lights for the production.)
The Japanese were caught by
surprise when the Allies bombed
Tokyo. Those in the prison camp could
see the fires and devastation across the
bay. A few stray bombs hit the island,
and the POWs were ordered to stamp
out spot fires on the barracks roof.
"About 250 meters from the set, we
lined up four 24K Dinos and 35 12K
Maxis, with ½ CTO on the edges and
¼ CTO on the middle lamps,"
recounts Conway. "We also added
smoke, which, when combined with
the light, beautifully silhouetted the
characters against the sky."
For the scene, Deakins says he
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