American Cinematographer - February 2011 - 8

Editor’s Note
Hollywood studios continue to green-light superhero movies at a swift pace, but Michel Gondry’s The Green Hornet is packed with enough eye-popping action and entertainment to ensure that the genre won’t die anytime soon. John Schwartzman, ASC served as Gondry’s wheelman on the show, steering the hero’s famous car — a heavily armed, mid-1960s Chrysler Imperial dubbed the “Black Beauty” — through levels of inventive mayhem that rival the automotive destruction in The Blues Brothers. (According to one report, a dozen Imperials were used on the movie, many of which were totaled in the line of duty.) Working from a smart-alecky script by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, who also stars as the Hornet, Gondry and Schwartzman freshen up the picture’s comic-book premise with in-camera trickery and an impressive array of eccentric perspectives. Schwartzman says he was well prepared for the project’s fight sequences, demolition derbies and old-school effects work by his collaborations with a notoriously energetic filmmaker who made his name with amped-up action scenes. “In our early years, Michael Bay and I had to create more for less because we didn’t have a lot of money,” Schwartzman tells Iain Stasukevich (“Masked Men,” page 26). “We played around with forced perspectives and used miniatures quite a bit.” Although The Green Hornet was converted from 2-D to 3-D in post, Alister Grierson’s thriller Sanctum was shot in native 3-D by cinematographer Jules O’Loughlin, ACS, who employed the Fusion 3-D system developed by Vince Pace and James Cameron. “From the beginning, Alister and I wanted to use 3-D to immerse the audience in a world they’ve never seen before, a world they would respond to viscerally,” O’Loughlin tells Simon Gray (“Total Immersion,” page 36). “The audience should feel that they’re inside these caves with our characters, but not to the point where it’s too uncomfortable. As soon as you physically strain an audience using 3-D, you’re in real danger of drawing them out of the picture.” A troubled female singer takes center stage in Country Strong, whose director, Shana Feste, reteamed with esteemed ASC member John Bailey after their harmonious duet on her 2009 debut film, The Greatest. “I’ve been very lucky to get John for my first two movies,” Feste tells Michael Goldman (“Behind the Music,” page 46.) “I trusted his setups to tell the story, and that allowed me to do my job as a director and focus on the actors. John has worked with lots of first-time filmmakers, and he’s particularly gracious.” John Seale, ASC, ACS is also held in high regard by the many collaborators he has worked with during his brilliant career, which began in the mid-1960s. He will receive the ASC’s International Award on Feb. 13. Already immortalized in the ACS Hall of Fame, Seale reveals that he got his foot in the door through sheer persistence. “When I’m asked for advice on how to get into the business, I say, ‘Ring somebody who can give you a job every week until they finally throw their hands up in the air and give in,” he tells Jean Oppenheimer (“A Cinematic Passport,” page 54).

Stephen Pizzello Executive Editor
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Photo by Owen Roizman, ASC.
http://www.theasc.com
American Cinematographer - February 2011

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