American Cinematographer - July 2016 - 20

Top: The crew prepares to shoot in the water tank at Village Roadshow Studios in
Queensland, Australia. Bottom: Cinematographer Flavio Labiano (second from right) and
crew survey the scene.

possible to reduce the volume in postproduction," Collet-Serra explains.
After four weeks of prep, principal
photography began in Australia on Oct. 28,
2015 - and wrapped before Christmas.
Lord Howe Island provided turquoise water
and rocky, verdant landscapes for establishing shots, while Queensland's Village Roadshow Studios offered large water tanks
where 80 percent of the movie was shot;
the main tank was surrounded by bluescreens four containers high, arranged in a
horseshoe configuration optimized for
backlighting. "When you're shooting in the
ocean on boats, the tides make it very hard
to control anything," Labiano says, "so we
planned out how we'd reproduce [that realistic ambience] on a tank set. We story20

July 2016

boarded the whole movie and mostly
followed those boards. We also shot the
locations 360 degrees on plates at every
time of day, so when we went to the tank,
we knew the position of the sunlight."
The crew ran two cameras, manned
by A-operator Marc Spicer and B-operator
Simon Christidis, ACS, the latter of whom
also served as underwater cinematographer
in the tanks and ocean. Much of the abovewater tank work was captured on Arri Alexa
XT Plus and M units on a pair of cranes. The
Alexa Mini was often used for handheld
and for some underwater work.
An Alexa XT M on a Supertechno 50
was used for overhead shots that show
Nancy looking around the rock as the shark
circles. "Since the XT M's main camera body
American Cinematographer

is separate from the head, it allowed faster
reloading of cards and [adjusting of] settings
without having to bring the crane down,"
notes digital-imaging technician Pete
Harrow. Additionally, a handheld Alexa Mini
allowed Spicer to get up close with Lively on
the rock. The Mini recorded ProRes Log C to
256GB CFast 2.0 memory cards, while the
XT Plus and M recorded ArriRaw Open Gate
to 512GB Codex XR Capture Drives.
Labiano is no stranger to the XT
system, having used it on Pierre Morel's
feature The Gunman (AC April '15). "On
that film, we used the whole sensor and
anamorphic lenses," he explains. "But on
The Shallows, we wanted to get really close
to the actor, so we used spherical lenses and
only part of the sensor so it was easier to
shoot and more flexible."
Meanwhile, the movie was ColletSerra's first feature not shot on film. "There
was no other choice," the director says. "If
it had been on film, I would still be there
shooting. It was so easy handling the Alexa
cameras. We could shoot for 20 to 30
minutes at a time. When we were on the
ocean, if a cloud came by, we'd wait and
not cut. Shooting on film, you would have
to cut, bring the camera back, dry it and
reload."
The main underwater system,
dubbed "the Beast" and weighing 198
pounds, featured an XT Plus in
Christidis' custom housing; it was sometimes mounted to an underwater scooter
for shark POVs and high-speed plate shots.
The lighter "Little Girl" housed a Mini for
surf sequences and could also function as a
C camera when occasions arose to shoot
upwards from the water surface. The "Little
Cousin" could take either a Mini or an XT M
- crane-mounted with a HydroFlex HydroHead - and could track Lively from underto above-water during swimming
sequences, with no droplets in the frame
thanks to the Wetport lens port developed
by Christidis. The in-and-out-of-water shots
proved particularly tricky for 1st ACs Chris
Child (A camera) and Ronald Coe (B), and
2nd ACs Bradley Andrew (A) and Zachary
Peel-McGregor (B).
To establish the setting as an island
paradise in The Shallows' early scenes, a Red
Epic Dragon, recording RedCode Raw files
at 120 fps and 150 fps, captured slow-

American Cinematographer - July 2016

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