◗ War Horses Above: Statham rides in the open nose seat of a Grumman Albatross seaplane to capture a harrowing dive-bombing sequence in-camera on location in Brazil. Below: The villainous Munroe (Eric Roberts) holds the Expendables’ contact, Sandra (Giselle Itié), captive in an inner sanctum lit entirely with candles. Referring to this approach as “multi-camera craziness,” Nobles describes shooting the action as “chaotic. Sly likes bumps on zooms and is stylized about camera movement. There really is no A or B or C camera in that sense. Everyone’s running an A camera, for the most part.” No sequence better illustrates this embrace of improvisation than the climactic battle, which takes place in front of the presidential palace in the fictional country of Vilena. The palace’s inner courtyard, where the battle begins, was a location in Rio de Janeiro. The action then moves to an expansive outer perimeter, a set that covered almost an acre in a New Orleans parking lot; this is where the pyrotechnics and complex action pieces were filmed. Both locations posed major lighting challenges. To light the expansive New Orleans set, Kimball’s crew rigged an HMI helium balloon specially 56 September 2010 American Cinematographer