American Cinematographer - November 1988 - 82

alone, but further review convinced Michael
Hampton, the agency art director, that the
could be improved. "In the edit, we
determined that the scene just needed
scene

some more snap," says Linden. "We
thought it would be nice if we could roll the
ball across the plaza. In the final version, the
giant ball comes in from the bottom of the
frame, just misses the men, and bounces off
those bumpers and lights them up. In order
to put the ball in, we went back to the
footage that we had shot overhead on the
pinball game itself, and found a scene of the
ball rolling through that seemed to be the
right perspective. The Harry operator iso¬

lated it with a series of circle mattes, stole it
from that scene, designed the proper trajec¬

tory, and dropped it in on the walking scene.
He also retouched the

bumpers so they
light up at the exact moment of
impact. In this case, the ball already had the
proper reflections, because the shot it was
stolen from took place in a pinball game. It

would

made for

Above:

Sizing up a
shot of "Hell" from

terrific transition between the

wished we could do, and darned if that
machine and a good operator weren't able
to do it."
we

inside the elevator.

Right: Pyrotechnician Peter Stolz

The next cut goes to a ground
level shot of the entire skyline of the city.
The pinball rolls around the perimeter of the

ignites alcoholsoaked Duvateen
on

a

opening street sequence and the final game
scene. It wasn't quite an afterthought, but it
was something that we saw in the edit that

the Hell set.

buildings on a specially designed wire rack.
This shot is a setup for the final scene
displaying the actual pinball game with the
city rising up from its center. "The big trick
for this scene was getting the city backlit,''
recalls Linden. "Stop-motioning the ball
would have made it wobbly, so we had to
shoot in real time, which meant we needed
a lot of light. There were lots of 1K's pointed

from below into the game elements. We
built a contoured light box in the shape of
the city silhouette, so that the lights in the
up

rect

problems like that and preserve the
was all happening at the

illusion that it
same

time.
After the street scene, the

"city
game" illusion continues as the two
men walk over a brick plaza, past the giant
"pinball bumper" planters. "The men were
filmed walking on the plaza," says Linden.
"The existing planters actually had flowers
in them, but we black-wrapped the flowers
in

a

sure they wouldn't hang over
the concrete. I wanted some part of that

just to make
scene

bumpers

80

support the illusion of the

to

American

-

we

could have just popped

Cinematographer

but I wanted some
bumpers to be
existing in the initial scene. That's why we
picked that particular location, because
these six-foot-diameter planters were there.
So this scene was originally made up of two
elements: one was the guys walking by the
planters on the bricks, and the other was the
three bumpers. The bumper element was
bumpers in anywhere

-

of the architecture of the

city windows could be activated from be¬
hind without spreading a lot of light around
the back half of the game. It was also tough
giving the pinball game itself enough light to
register on film. None of those lights were
real pinball game lights. The lighting de¬
signer changed hundreds of bulbs to small,
hotter quartz lights. There was no retouch¬
ing in the shot - it was all taken directly
from film."

footage of 4x5 chromes of actual bumpers
that we had borrowed from a gamemaker."
The concept of the original

The final pinball game sequence
example of a scene that strayed
from the original plans. Following the design
integrity of a pinball game was an initial
guideline for Linden, but practical concerns

fulfilled by this action

caused the team to rethink their literal

shot

on

the animation stand, taken from

storyboards

was

November 1988

is another
American Cinematographer - November 1988

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - November 1988
