American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 74

◗

Get Small
Right: After the
reunion, Paul
and Dave discuss
the benefits of
downsizing.
Below: Sudeikis
sits atop a largescale cracker
box. "The actor
was ultimately
rotoscoped and
placed onto a
real, normalsized cracker
box," says
visual-effects
supervisor James
E. Price.

freed Papamichael to shoot as low as 3
fps and at a T16 aperture. All this
allowed for the creation of a depth-offield palette, "so that depth of field could
be controlled during postproduction,"
Price says. Papamichael adds, "The
perceived depth of field was not necessarily mathematically correct, but rather
dialed-in by eye, to what seemed right."
When it came to shooting scenes
featuring characters of both sizes, the
camera tended to assume the perspective of the character the audience is
meant to identify with. In this regard,
Price explains the idea of "big camera,
small camera." At the reunion, for
example, it's "big camera," because the
74

January 2018

audience takes the perspective of Paul
and Audrey at normal size, and the
small characters exhibit appropriately
shallow depth of field. In the downsizing chamber after Paul's procedure,
however, "the scene is photographed
with a 'small camera' - a camera that is
[capturing at] the same scale as the
small characters - and the normal-size
nurse appears huge," Price says.
When big and small characters
interacted, they had to be covered separately. Ample studio space was required
to accommodate the upscaled setups.
Eschewing digital doubles in favor of
real-life actors, the crew "first shot the
normal-scale backgrounds with the
American Cinematographer

actors who were meant to appear fullsize," Price says. "Detailed camera
measurements were taken and then
scaled-up by a factor of 14 for greenscreen elements. The increased camera
distance meant the greenscreen subjects
appeared '14x' smaller, and gave the illusion of a 5-inch-tall person when
combined with the original full-scale
background."
To accomplish this, a theodolite
was used to measure sets; logs were kept
of lighting setups, as well as focal length,
T-stop and camera angles; and instrument distances, inclinations and bounce
sizes were recorded so calculations could
be used to replicate the setups in
upscaled dimensions. Papamichael
notes, "If, for example, we used a 4-footby-4-foot bounce card to light the plate
[for a shot featuring a downsized character in the normal-sized world], then the
bounce-light source on stage, when we
shot the actor, had to be scaled up as
well, to 56 feet by 56 feet."
As a visual aid for matching lighting, Price reports, two versions of the
traditional visual-effects "gray ball" were
constructed and photographed - one
with a 2" diameter and one 14x larger.
When the crew was lighting the greenscreen elements, images of the two balls
were displayed side-by-side on the video



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 2018

Contents
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - Intro
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 1
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 2
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - Contents
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 4
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 5
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 6
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 7
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 8
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 9
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 10
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 11
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 12
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 13
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 14
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 15
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 16
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 17
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 18
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 19
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 20
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 21
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 22
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 23
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 24
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 25
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 26
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 27
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 28
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 29
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 30
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 31
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 32
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 33
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 34
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 35
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 36
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 37
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 38
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 39
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 40
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 41
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 42
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 43
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 44
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 45
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 46
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 47
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 48
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 49
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 50
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 51
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 52
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 53
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 54
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 55
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 56
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 57
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 58
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 59
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 60
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 61
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 62
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 63
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 64
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 65
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 66
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 67
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 68
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 69
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 70
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 70a
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 70b
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 71
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 72
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 73
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 74
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 75
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 76
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 77
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 78
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 79
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 80
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 81
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 82
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 83
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 84
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 85
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 86
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 87
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 88
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 89
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 90
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 91
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 92
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 93
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 94
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 95
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 96
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 97
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 98
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 99
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 100
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 101
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 102
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 103
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 104
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 105
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 106
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 107
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 108
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 109
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 110
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 111
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 112
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 113
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 114
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 115
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 116
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 117
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 118
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 119
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - 120
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - Cover3
American Cinematographer - January 2018 - Cover4
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