American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 44

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Cosmic Avengers

The cockpit of the Milano - the Guardians' starship - maneuvers atop a gimbal and in front of bluescreen, with
overhead LED panels providing interactive lighting cues.

rarely used included the Panavision
Primo 70 Series 28-80mm (T3), 70185mm (T3.5) and 200-400mm (T4.5).
The crew switched to Leica
Summicron-C lenses for Phantom shots
because the Primo 70 Series didn't
match that camera's chip area.
Braham saw T4-4.5 as the sweet
spot for the Weapon's larger-format
depth of field. He shot without filtration
- save for occasional NDs - and
generally eschewed even a matte box. "I
tend to have an open lens like a stills
camera," he notes. He could go as wide
as a 14mm, fearlessly embracing aberration at the edges, as in an establishing
shot of Ayesha seated on her golden
throne and flanked by two servants as
she addresses the Guardians.
The production employed two
cameras - with Braham operating the
A, and Kent Harvey both manning the
B and serving as splinter-unit director of
photography - but it mostly ran only
one. Braham felt this approach "suited
the immersive, fluid style Gunn was
looking for, and kept the camera close
and connected to the actors." For stunts,
multiple cameras were pressed into
service.
"In general, I'm very planned-out
44

June 2017

and precise, and by focusing on a single
shot I can get exactly what I want," Gunn
notes. "I want to be involved in every
shot, and we basically know what those
shots are long before [we're] on set."
The director adds that Braham's
double duty as operator saved time.
"Sometimes in the past I've talked to the
camera operator more than the director
of photography," Gunn says, "but with
Henry I don't have to worry about that.
Communication is much clearer, and I
feel like I get what I'm looking for more
often."
For the Eclector vessel, 60'x30' set
pieces were built on steel frames with
wheels tucked up underneath them so
they could be efficiently reused for different sets. "That was amazing," says
Atlanta-based gaffer Dan Cornwall,
who was collaborating with Braham for
the first time. "We'd shoot a few days on
one section and return to Pinewood, and
they would come in with forklifts, rotate
the pieces and push them back together
again. [When we came back] there
would be a whole new section made
from the same pieces in the same space.
We embedded power and wireless
systems into all of them so that all we
had to do was disconnect from one point
American Cinematographer

for each piece. When a piece was rotated
there would be a whole set of practicals
on the other side. We would repower it
and it would be ready to go - controlled
by lighting programmer Scott Barnes."
For daylight exteriors on stage,
Braham prefers to fill the stage with
overhead light and diffusion to create a
large ambient base. The Guardians shoot
employed approximately 1,500 Kino Flo
Image 87s with Magic Cloth diffusion.
Cornwall credits rigging gaffer Tom
Fendley, key grip C. Alan Rawlins,
rigging key grip Kent Baker, and their
crew for spending 2½ months setting up
the various stages.
"The rigging crew mounted the
lights into the ceiling," Cornwall says.
"We never came below the ceiling
beams, so that the beams would be available to stunts and anyone else who
needed them."
For the Sovereign power station
the Guardians would defend, Chambliss
designed a large floor with built-in
programmable practicals. One of the
pulsating battery generators was physically constructed, with VHO Pro
LiteRibbon LED rigged inside of it,
while the remainder were digital duplicates - each represented on set by a

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