American Cinematographer - July 2017 - 66

◗

Cannibal Run
Arlen develops
feelings for
Miami Man amid
the ruin.

tant mothers. In a world where water is
at a premium, Reeves' cool, blue-tinted
palace includes an indoor swimmingpool room - the setting for a scene in
which Arlen discusses joining The
Dream's household.
The pool room's lighting design
was inspired largely by an initial scouting photo of the location, in which two
rectangles of light struck the pool
through a skylight. The scene was ultimately shot at night, so the effect was
re-created with eight daylight-balanced
K 5600 Joker-Bug 800 units with Buga-Beam adapters, allowing the lamps to
fit into ETC Source Four ellipsoidal
units. Key grip Eddie Apodaca then
used frames of silver Mylar to create the
additional effect of light bouncing off
the rippling water. A 24" China ball
draped with bleached muslin was used
to key Arlen and The Dream.
For the movie's many daytime
exteriors, key light was typically the
relentless sunlight. "Lily said from the
beginning that the world of The Bad
Batch is extreme, raw and harsh," says
Vincent. "I think we captured that. For
daylight exteriors, sometimes we would
have a little bounce or some negative fill
to give a little contrast, but a lot of times
we just went with it and let it be what it
was."
That less-is-more approach
extended to the production's use of
visual effects. While digital set extensions - such as the wall of cargo
containers that fortifies Comfort -
66

July 2017

were ably performed by visual-effects
house Engine Room, Amirpour pushed
to achieve as much as possible incamera. Arlen's amputated limbs, for
example, were accomplished through a
mix of visual effects and old-school
trickery. Waterhouse spent much of her
time portraying Arlen with one arm tied
behind her back and a prosthetic residual limb in its place. For a scene in
which Waterhouse lies on the dusty
desert floor, a hole was dug in the
ground for the actress to place her real
leg in, while a prosthetic appliance -
made by Los Angeles-based Alterian -
was seen on camera.
"There's a lot of CGI used to
clean up and enhance the limb removal
- and we had amazing digital artists to
make that happen - but I wanted there
to be a prosthetic on my actress in every
shot," Amirpour says. "When something is entirely CG it looks different
and synthetic. So if there's a way to do it
in-camera, with a magic trick or sleight
of hand, with an angle to shoot or an
illusion to sell, then that's my preferred
method."
Sleight of hand is also how
Amirpour achieved a shot in which the
camera tracks with a Momoa-hurled
butcher knife, as it hurtles end-over-end
toward a desert nomad who has
attempted to trade a can of gas for
Arlen. "That butcher-knife shot is such
a classic trick," the director says. "You
put the knife on a simple crank and then
one guy runs alongside and spins [the
American Cinematographer

crank] manually while the camera op
runs toward the subject. It's a gag used
in all the old kung fu movies. In those
old movies they would frame out the
crank, so you just see part of the knife
spinning in and out of the shot. But I
shot the entire knife and had the crank
removed in post. So it's taking an analog
trick and using CGI to make it even
more slick."
While the butcher-knife scene
was storyboarded in advance, The Bad
Batch's final shot was an example of
embracing on-set discovery. The sunset
setup found Dropkin trekking backward
with his Steadicam in low mode with a
Kenyon KS-8 Gyro stabilizer attached
to counteract the wind.
"The shot started as a close-up
and then I walked backwards for as long
as I could," Dropkin recalls. "I just kept
going and going. Various crewmembers
were grabbing equipment and moving it
as I went backwards, so the camera
wouldn't see it. Finally, I was just
completely exhausted and I let the
camera tilt into the sky, and Lily loved
it!"
●

TECHNICAL SPECS
2.39:1
Digital Capture
Arri Alexa XT
Panavision C Series, D Series,
Macro Auto Panatar
American Cinematographer - July 2017

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