American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 70

◗

Universal Translator
practical set element and as diffusion.
For a scene in which Louise brazenly
removes her Hazmat suit and greets the
aliens by placing her hand on the screen,
the crew threw up Plexiglas to give her
something
firmer
to
touch.
Additionally, they placed Full Grid
Cloth directly on the lights and another
72'x40' Full Grid on a truss 6' from the
screen for three layers of diffusion. "You
could go up close to that screen and put
your hand in front of your face, and it
was still shadowless," Gagnon submits.
"It was beautiful."
The lights were controlled from a
dimmer board. When the actors were at
the front of the tunnel, all of the lights
would be up at 100 percent, and as they
neared the screen, the output was
dimmed down to 20 percent. "We had
hard, super-sharp light when they enter
the tunnel, which gave us lots of opportunity for falloff and to play with
contrast and no fill," Young says. "As
they enter the chamber, metaphorically
it opens up, becoming gentler and more
delicate. It was difficult to figure out
how intense the light should become as
we got closer. Those are the challenges
when you have a structure bending light
in a particular way."
Most shots aboard the alien craft,
including close-ups, were taken via
crane and remote head; the occasional
dolly work for these sequences became
high-maintenance maneuvers, with
massive rubber mats laid down to
protect the silicon floor. The majority of
the rest of the movie was shot on a dolly
with an Aerocrane Jib Arm and remote
head. "With the dolly work, we were
trying to be more procedural and
methodical, so we would have small,
delicate moves or none at all," Young
says.
Steadicam shots were incorporated very specifically. Peter Wilke came
in to operate for a couple of days on
scenes in the university where Louise
teaches, and Frédéric Chamberland
handled the rest. The longest Steadicam
shot has Banks - after arriving at the
base and seeing the spaceship for the
first time - entering a busy, computer-

Young, director
Denis Villeneuve
and a stand-in
work out a scene
in which the aliens
bring Banks aboard
their vessel.

70

December 2016

American Cinematographer



American Cinematographer - December 2016

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

Contents
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 1
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 2
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - Contents
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 4
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 5
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 6
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 7
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American Cinematographer - December 2016 - Cover3
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