American Cinematographer - May 2016 - 20

Production Slate

First-Person Mayhem
By Noah Kadner

The feature Hardcore Henry is depicted entirely from the firstperson perspective of its title character, who wakes up with amnesia
and must frantically run, jump and shoot his way through Moscow.
Henry fights to rescue his wife, Estelle (Haley Bennett), from warlord
Akan (Danila Kozlovsky) while receiving assistance from sardonic
sidekick Jimmy (Sharlto Copley).
Russian director Ilya Naishuller is both a filmmaker and leader
of the punk band Biting Elbows. After directing first-person point-ofview music videos for his band's songs "The Stampede" and "Bad
Motherf---er," Naishuller wanted to apply a similar visual perspective
to a feature film. Acclaimed director-producer Timur Bekmambetov
offered to produce the film, after which Naishuller acquired further
investments - and then secured finishing funds via crowdfunding
through Indiegogo. The project was completed after a year and a half
of sporadic shooting. Hardcore premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and promptly set off a bidding war, ultimately
resulting in U.S. distribution via STX Entertainment.
Naishuller drew stylistic influences from both first-person
video games and features, including Kathryn Bigelow's sci-fi movie
Strange Days (AC Nov. '95) - shot by Matthew F. Leonetti, ASC -
which depicts a commoditized virtual-reality technology. "My
primary inspiration had to be film, as I love movies more than video
games," notes Naishuller. "I've seen every first-person POV film, but
my favorite was always Strange Days. It captured the feeling I was
aiming for, where I'm really there as the robber or I really feel that
fatal jump."
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May 2016

Naishuller shot Hardcore on location in Moscow over three
distinct periods from July 2013 through the end of 2014. Due to
scheduling conflicts, each portion was photographed by a different
cinematographer: Vsevolod Kaptur, Fedor Lyass and Pasha Kapinos.
The majority of the film was shot with off-the-shelf GoPro Hero3
Black Edition cameras.
"This was Ilya's first feature, it was going to be technically very
complicated, and he knew that I could take care of the kind of difficulties we would be going up against," recalls Kaptur, who shot
Hardcore's first segment and had previously collaborated with
Naishuller on music videos. "I wasn't put off by shooting a theatrical
feature on a tiny consumer camera, but we knew we'd need GoPro's
tech support. Gregg DiLeo from their [marketing] department facilitated our contact with engineer David Newman, who gave us some
[prototype] exposure software, which has since been incorporated
into later generations of GoPro cameras."
The production team captured Hardcore with a custom,
magnetically stabilized helmet mount fitted with two GoPros for
redundancy and multiple levels of exposure on certain longer takes.
"We put a lot of effort into stabilizing the mount," says Naishuller.
"We did that to make sure that the audience could watch without
getting dizzy, because even I get motion sickness very easily."
Kaptur adds, "We hired an engineer friend of mine, Vladimir
Kotihov, who was an American football player, so he knew about
helmets. The first one looked like a medieval torture device before
we got it to where we needed it.
"I then did the first shooting block - a little over half the film
- in the summer of 2013," Kaptur continues. "I had to leave due
to a prior commitment, so I passed the baton to Fedor Lyass. He shot

American Cinematographer

Hardcore Henry images courtesy of STX Entertainment.

Rebuilt with
military-grade
robotics and
afflicted with
amnesia, Henry
fights his way
through Moscow
to rescue his
wife from a
maniacal
telekinetic villain
in the firstpersonperspective film
Hardcore Henry.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - May 2016