American Cinematographer - March 2016 - 57

living creature. So that footage was
shelved and not used until [a later
home-video] release. It was disappointing at the time, but he was quite right in
the decision, and it was an incredible,
unique learning experience."
Toll and Daviau would reteam
on the anthology feature Twilight Zone:
The Movie for segments directed by
Spielberg and George Miller, and the
spy drama The Falcon and the Snowman,
directed by British filmmaker John
Schlesinger. "Allen was great to work
for," Toll says. "Not only was he an
incredibly talented cinematographer,
but he understood how to make the
most of the people working with him.
He encouraged me to be in all the
creative conversations regarding staging
and coverage with Schlesinger."
Another of Toll's collaborators in
the early '80s was Jordan Cronenweth,
whom he met while working on an
ambitious Dr. Pepper commercial
directed by Melvin Sokolsky. "Melvin
had previously worked as an excellent
still photographer and usually lit his
own commercials," Toll notes, "but he
would call in a cinematographer if the
production was really complex, and this
one was. So he had Jordan there to
oversee the lighting."
The commercial, Toll explains,
was inspired by the classic 1951 Fred
Astaire musical, Royal Wedding. "In that
movie, Fred Astaire appears to dance up
the wall of a room and upside-down
across the ceiling. This was originally
done with the set built inside a huge
revolving drum and a fixed camera
inside the set. Melvin had been shooting a series of Dr. Pepper commercials
set to music with dance numbers, and
someone came up with the idea of a
revolving room with several people
dancing up the walls and across the
ceiling.
"All the previous Dr. Pepper
commercials had dolly moves that
punctuated the 'drink shot,' so Melvin
had a dolly designed and built that was
mounted on an extension to the revolving set so a camera could move in and
out of the room," Toll continues. "This

Top: Toll, Jordan Cronenweth and Sokolsky on the set of Peggy Sue Got Married.
Bottom: Francis Ford Coppola consults with Toll on the set of Jack.

dolly was remotely operated and capable of doing a move as the set was being
rotated 180 degrees. However, the telescoping cranes, remote heads and focus
controls that we use today weren't yet
available, so the camera needed to be
operated manually. The camera operator - yours truly - and the first AC,
[future ASC member] Bing Sokolsky,
rode on the dolly through the rotation.
At 90 degrees, a tilt became a pan and a
pan became a tilt, and when fully upside
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down, a tilt up on the head became a tilt
down on screen. It was pretty wild.
"Safety was obviously a primary
concern," he adds, "so we began by
securing ourselves to the dolly with a
harness and straps. We were definitely
safe, but I couldn't move to operate the
camera. Melvin came up with the idea
of mounting a piece of speed rail across
our laps. We loosened the straps a little,
and as the dolly went upside down the
bar supported most of our weight across
March 2016

57
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American Cinematographer - March 2016

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