American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 64

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Shot Across the Bow

Top, from left: Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and Sparrow join forces with Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario) to
find the legendary trident, the only weapon that can destroy Salazar. Bottom: A telescoping crane is
employed for a cliffside scene.

this project was "nothing like KonTiki," the 2012 movie he and Sandberg
co-directed, and a production for which
"we were out on the ocean for six weeks
[with] a tiny crew, close to the water.
With the resources available to us [for
Pirates], in a movie that features so
many giant ships high above the water,
where extended dialogue and action
take place, with a basically out-of-focus
horizon in the background - and with
CG being so great these days - there
was never any doubt in my mind it
should be shot on land, with bluescreen.
We saved so much time doing it, and
64

June 2017

Paul had the technical expertise. He's
[worked on] this kind of [project]
before."
"During the initial scouting
phase, I think the script only had five or
six ships in it," Cameron recalls. "Then
as drafts started to come in, suddenly
there were seven ships, then nine, and
then 11. Then they took a hiatus and
prep shut down for six months - and
when we [regrouped], suddenly it was
14 or 15 ships. From a practical standpoint, it soon became obvious that the
turnaround it would take to re-dress
each ship for another ship would take a
American Cinematographer

lot longer if we were using actual boats
on the water, and our schedule didn't
allow for that. So we explored the idea
with Gary Brozenich, our visual-effects
supervisor, about whether it would be
possible to handle this amount of plate
work and background work for all the
ship photography. Eventually, everyone
got comfortable with the idea that we
could do it bluescreen, with some water
work tied in." In the end, just a few days
were spent capturing plates at sea.
The directors wanted the ships
built "as large as the budget would
allow," Cameron says, though no
soundstages along the Gold Coast were
spacious enough to accommodate such
large-scale shooting work. And with all
parties in agreement that the production should take advantage of natural
light as much as possible, an innovative
plan came together to build exterior
"bluescreen arenas" near the Village
Roadshow Studios stages in Helensvale,
Australia. In the facility's larger arena,
which was approximately 120' long,
bigger ship sets were swapped in and
out, and rotated on a 40'-high gimbal.
Smaller ships were built to fit into a
smaller arena, which was about 90' long,
and these set pieces were rotated manually by grips on a chassis/caster system
on a concrete pad.
"The big arena was massive,



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - June 2017

Contents
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - Intro
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 1
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 2
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - Contents
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 4
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 5
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 6
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 7
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 8
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 9
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American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 17
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 18
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 19
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 20
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 21
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American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 30
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 31
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 32
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 33
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 33A
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 33B
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 34
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 35
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 36
American Cinematographer - June 2017 - 37
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American Cinematographer - June 2017 - Cover3
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