American Cinematographer - October 2021 - 10

Shot Craft By Jay Holben
Anatomy of a Scene: Loki
was abandoned in favor of a more
intimate foot chase interspersed
with several moments of hand-tohand
combat.
" Kate stepped back at one
point and asked, 'What does this
sequence mean? What role does it
have to play in the story?' And we
realized we might be throwing too
much at it, " recalls Durald Arkapaw.
" We decided to make it more
humanistic, and that's when we
dropped the motorcycles and went
with a foot chase. "
In a single continuous sequence,
Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Sylvie
(Sophia Di Martino) attempt to
escape a dying moon.
Thor's mischievous brother, Loki
(Tom Hiddleston), has found himself
in quite a predicament. He's been
arrested by the Time Variance
Authority for veering off his fated
path and starting a new timeline
" branch " that would have spurred
the beginning of a multiverse. It's a
crime he'd never heard of and had
no intention of committing. Now he's
on the run.
Episode 3 of Loki - Disney Plus'
latest series within the Marvel Cinematic
Universe - sees our titular
antihero teamed up with Sylvie (Sophia
Di Martino), a female " variant "
of Loki from yet another timeline,
as they attempt to escape an
inhabited moon that's on the verge
of destruction. They race through
the chaos of a neon-splashed city
to reach the last space-bound
transport.
The screenplay for the episode
10 / OCTOBER 2021
- titled " Lamentis " and written by
Bisha K. Ali - described this run
for their lives as a long-take action
sequence. In this month's Shot
Craft, we'll take a detailed look
at this three-minute continuous
sequence, which was photographed
by cinematographer Autumn Durald
Arkapaw.
Determining Direction
The first season of Loki was directed
by Kate Herron, a relative
newcomer whose previous work
includes the series Sex Education
and Daybreak. Alongside her for the
entire season was Durald Arkapaw,
whose credits include The Sun Is
Also a Star (AC June '19) and the
upcoming Black Panther: Wakanda
Forever. The duo began discussing
how to capture this sequence in
" Lamentis " when they commenced
prep for the entire season, and
Herron embraced the " oner " concept
very early on.
Prep began in October 2019 but
was soon halted by the Covid-19
pandemic. Herron, Durald Arkapaw
and production designer Kasra
Farahani stayed active during lockdown,
however. The planning for
this oner sequence officially took
about one year - from the start of
prep until the shoot in November
2020. The extensive rigging
and pre-lighting took four weeks.
Farahani kicked off the process by
designing a 350'x200' circular city
set that would ultimately be built
on the backlot at Pinewood Atlanta
Studios (now Trilith Studios), and
by creating a cardboard-and-Styrofoam
miniature the filmmakers could
use to previsualize the sequence.
The early concept for the sequence
involved a motorcycle chase
through the streets, but that idea
Planning and Preparations
Several iterations of 3D previsualizations
were created for the
sequence by The Third Floor. The
discussions started with the general
blocking: Where would the characters
enter, which path would they
take, what obstacles would they
face, and how could the shot be
broken down into smaller pieces to
be shot over several nights?
" Certain aspects became
givens, " Durald Arkapaw says. " In
the story, the dying moon is about
to be destroyed by a crumbling
planet above it, so we've got to
look up several times to see what's
coming. Since we're shooting in
2.39:1, that meant a tilt up, so there
are moments when we knew we
were going to look at the planet,
and those could be natural stitch
points because we'd be looking at a
completely CG creation.
" Then Richard Graves, the
assistant director, timed out the
sequence, so we knew when the
practical-special-effects or visual-effects
moments would happen,
and when the actors would be
running into a certain area and out
of that area into the next, " the cinematographer
continues. " Ultimately,
we decided there would be seven
IMAGES COURTESY OF DISNEY PLUS/MARVEL STUDIOS. PHOTO ON THIS PAGE BY CHUCK ZLOTNICK.
American Cinematographer - October 2021

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