American Cinematographer - April 2015 - 10

A sentient robot no longer seems like something
we'll only see in sci-fi movies, but hopefully when
that day comes, the result will be more like the helpful TARS robot from Interstellar than the hubristic
HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In Chappie, cinematographer Trent Opaloch
reteamed with director Neill Blomkamp to envision
an artificial intelligence that thinks, feels, and learns
on the fly. Extensive effects work was required to
help the filmmakers present a fully convincing robot
the audience can root for, and Blomkamp's preference for lighting sets to accommodate 360-degree
coverage added further complexities to Opaloch's
role. In discussing the project with Mark Dillon
("Electric Hero," page 36), Opaloch notes that
South African actor Sharlto Copley and stunt double
Ian Stock performed the titular robot's movements
before they were digitally replaced with the animated Chappie in nearly 1,000 shots. Opaloch
adds that Copley's on-set ad-libbing often drove scenes in new directions but didn't leave
much time for adjusting lights. "In a studio approach you would say, 'We're going to re-light
for that,' but we couldn't with the way Neill likes to move. Gaffer Alan Barnes would send in
a lamp op to follow actors with a handheld light so we could read their expressions."
Florian Ballhaus, ASC faced his own set of challenges on another big sci-fi movie: Insurgent - the sequel to last year's Divergent, shot by Alwin Küchler, BSC. The filmmakers were
encouraged to pursue new visual strategies that would expand the saga's world while putting
a new spin on the simulated-reality environments (or "Sims") introduced in the first film. As
Ballhaus relates in an interview with Michael Goldman ("A Wider World," page 54), his plan
involved the strategic mixing of anamorphic and spherical lenses: "In a movie that effortlessly
switches between levels of reality, both physical and emotional, we wanted to subtly set the
Sims apart from the real world. I felt that the synthetic nature of computer-generated projections ... lent itself to the clean look of spherical lenses versus the more analog, imperfect feel
of the anamorphics."
Ellen Kuras, ASC takes viewers not into the future, but the past, with A Little Chaos, a
17th-century romance that paired her with actor-director Alan Rickman. In a Q&A session with
Jean Oppenheimer ("Star-Crossed Love," page 68), Kuras details the approach she took to
keep the story resonant for modern audiences. "Although everything was authentic to the
period - there were no anachronistic elements - Alan didn't want the film to feel like a
rarefied period piece with no relevance to contemporary life," she says. "He wanted it to feel
like a story that could happen just as easily today as in the 17th century."
In the fascinating historical piece "Visions of Grandeur" (page 82), Jason Apuzzo
revisits The Big Trail, an epic Western shot by ASC co-founder Arthur Edeson in the 70mm
Grandeur format. An extremely innovative film that featured John Wayne in his first starring
role, Trail is celebrating its 85th anniversary, and Apuzzo's meticulously researched piece offers
readers an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at a production that large-format aficionado John
Hora, ASC lauds as "monumental."

10

Stephen Pizzello
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher

Photo by Owen Roizman, ASC.

Editor's Note
American Cinematographer - April 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - April 2015
