American Cinematographer - August 2012 - 8

Editor’s Note
After raising the visual bar for comic-book movies with
Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, director Christopher
Nolan and cinematographer Wally Pfister, ASC still felt
they had room to expand the Caped Crusader’s universe.
For the final film of their Gotham City trilogy, The Dark
Knight Rises, the dynamic duo decided to up the ante by
shooting significantly more footage in 15-perf 65mm
Imax, a format they had used for select sequences on The
Dark Knight. “This is storytelling on an epic scale,” Pfister
observes. “Chris and I wanted to present the action in a
way that would have the most impact on the audience,
and we strongly believe Imax is the most immersive
format.” New York correspondent Iain Stasukevich inter-
viewed Pfister, Nolan and other members of the filmmaking team to create a comprehensive
overview of the technical challenges they faced while shooting with large-format cameras
(“Batman to the Max,” page 30).
The makers of The Amazing Spider-Man swung in a different direction while
updating Peter Parker’s arachnid adventures. John Schwartzman, ASC and his aptly named
director, Marc Webb, opted to give Spidey an extra dimension by capturing in digital 3-D.
After watching test footage from Spider-Man 2 that had been converted to 3-D, Webb and
Schwartzman decided to go native. “Everyone realized this movie had great 3-D potential,”
Schwartzman tells Michael Goldman (“Web-Slinging in Stereo,” page 46). “However, with
a big visual-effects picture, there is never enough time to do a good conversion by the time
everything else is finished. You need about 12 weeks to do a good conversion, and what
big-budget visual-effects film is finished 12 weeks before release?”
Caleb Deschanel, ASC also sank his teeth into the world of digital 3-D on Abra-
ham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, a cheeky rewrite of Civil War history directed by Timur
Bekmambetov, but, for various reasons, the production opted for 3-D conversion in post.
“Abraham Lincoln is a ‘big’ film, but we did have limited time and a limited budget,”
Deschanel tells David E. Williams (“Vampire Veto,” page 68). “Because we could shoot more
quickly in 2-D, we decided to do that and convert in post. The rub with that is that you have
to leave time in post to do a good job; that has to be built into the schedule.”
Paul Cameron, ASC and director Len Wiseman initially intended to shoot Total
Recall, an ambitious remake of Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 sci-fi classic, on anamorphic 35mm.
However, a week before production began, they were required to switch to Red Epics, and
they ultimately used 35mm only for stunt sequences involving crash cams. “Production was
convinced there would be a significant savings for us because of all the visual-effects work
we required, but it was a big trade-off,” Cameron tells Jay Holben (“Memory Upgrade,”
page 58). “I’ve shot a lot of projects digitally, but this was a brand new camera I’d never
used, and we had to start shooting in eight days.“ Thankfully, he notes, “Red was very
supportive. They sent a tech to us for the first two weeks to make sure we got rolling
smoothly, and they responded very quickly to any questions or problems we had.”
Stephen Pizzello
Executive Editor
8
Photo by Owen Roizman, ASC.

American Cinematographer - August 2012

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