American Cinematographer - January 2016 - 48

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Left for Dead
Top: Lubezki
lines up a shot
of Glass' son,
Hawk (Forrest
Goodluck).
Bottom: A
Technocrane
was utilized to
finish off the
filming of the
attack on the
trappers'
encampment.

According to Lubezki, interior
light was accomplished with the help of
production designer Jack Fisk, whose
crew built a fort and two Native
American villages in such a way that
firelight, moonlight and sunlight could
enter and illuminate to maximum
effect. Interior scenes were staged near
windows or doorways, or the production would cut out sections of the set to
allow ambient light to stream in.
"For interiors, we built the fort
with the windows facing south, because
we knew we would have direct sunlight
at certain times," Lubezki explains.
"Beyond natural sunlight, we used only
fires and candles for illumination. Jack
built smartly designed sets that basically
lit themselves."
Lubezki also praises gaffer
48

January 2016

Martin Keough, who lent his expertise
despite the lack of motion-picture lighting rigs. Among other duties, Keough
performed the crucial task of lighting
wilderness trails so crewmembers could
maneuver safely after dusk, and helped
with the HME headset communication
system and other electronics. In addition, some night scenes with real fires
were augmented by Keough with lightbulb clusters or 6" tubes filled with
household bulbs, used to mitigate
frequency changes caused by the fire's
flicker in windy conditions.
According to key grip Ray
Garcia, the production also carried a
collection of bounces, diffusion and
negatives that were painted as needed to
resemble naturally occurring environmental colors. Lubezki notes that the
American Cinematographer

way Garcia "prepped and supported the
movie under these conditions was
something I had never experienced
before." Sakamoto adds that Garcia
"was responsible for engineering the
placement and execution of the
Technocranes - and on many locations
that were not near roads or even access
trails. Our dolly grip, Ryan Monro,
worked the back or front end of the
cranes like a surgeon, threading them
between people, horses, trees and
branches, or scraping them along the
ground. That allowed us to have our
camera dance around our actors with
flow and intent."
Garcia explains that much of the
challenge involved finding ways for his
rigging team to transport cranes to various locations where movement was
restricted. "We had to disassemble a 23foot [Servicevision] Scorpio telescopic
crane and high-line each piece to the
location, because we were not allowed
to walk in the stream that ran up to the
set," he recalls. "A series of towers were
made out of truss at every redirect point
until the crane finally arrived at its position. Decking was also high-lined to
build a platform and ramp for the crane
position. No off-road vehicles were
allowed in the area, and the use of
heavy-lift helicopters was also prohibited because of the impact to wildlife, so
the use of high lines became the norm
in these instances. On other occasions,
we built rafts to ferry Technocranes
across rivers."
Garcia adds that "the tools necessary to achieve what Alejandro and
Chivo described" included the 23'
Scorpio telescopic crane; a 35/45
MovieBird on a CineMoves Extreme
Gator with a Libra 5 remote head; a
Mini Libra; a selection of Technocranes
and Chapman/Leonard Hydrascopes,
the latter of which were employed in
combination with Raptor and Maverick
tracking vehicles; various cable-cam
rigs; a GF Jib; a Performance
Filmworks Edge Crane mounted on a
Toyota Tundra, operated by Allan
Padelford Camera Cars; an Allan
Padelford Camera Car Biscuit rig; an
American Cinematographer - January 2016

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