American Cinematographer - March 1989 - 78

design actually becomes manifest
Eyth admits. "In this
particular show, it was closer to 95-

versus

in the set,"

same

100% most of the time, which was a
treat! I tried to keep the budget in

concrete

mind when I did the sketches, in¬

cluding things that I knew we could
get at surplus stores. I tried to work
inexpensive, off-the-shelf items
into my sketches - the faucets for
the sink are actually based on real
cleaner nozzles. In

vacuum

some

instances, I'd have put a nebulous
blob in the

drawing, and Mike and
come
up with the
perfect sprinkler head or some¬
thing that could fill in. There were a
his

Use A

Tyler Vibration-Free

camera

stabilizer when

shooting in the air or on water.

Major Mount-
For major shooting with a
Mitchell 35mm MKII camera.
-Middle Mount

Vibration free, smooth

tracking, finger tip controls for
film or video cameras.

Nose Mount-

Shoot straight ahead or
tilt180° for film or video,
with cockpit controls.

crew

would

16mm mount with

finger tip

charmed

-

we'd find

shot. Because of economics, the de¬

signs get diluted, which I find real¬
ly sad. I wanted to put every little
line Ed drew in his sketches into the
made

example, the telephone was
exactly the way Ed designed

it, from his sketch
out

other plans
well."

-

-

we

didn't have

and that worked

Hollowhead home lurks the

grim
reality of the basement. It is there
that Grandpa, a decrepit old crea¬
ture who should have dropped over
the edge eons ago, is permitted to
linger on life support by the guilt-

seem

Production Services -Atlanta

a

void,

didn't have

we

really had to

tended. It

falling into the rock
and we felt we had to
bring it back a little bit."
The only foray outside the
claustrophobic environment of the
was

video range

Hollowhead household is

a

brief

trip to the Pumping Station - the
film's only exterior. Eyth designed a
few matte paintings of the Pump¬
ing Station, incorporating sugges¬
tions for foreground miniatures
into his already detailed sketches.
These designs were something of a
challenge for Eyth, since he had
never
imagined an outside to "The
Edge." "Until we got to the Pump¬
ing Station, we never had to consid¬
what it looked like outside,

because outside

always dark

was

and void," Eyth admits. Eyth's
sketches depict a landscape of criss¬

some

plenty of tubing,

was the set
betrays the film's influ¬
the dank atmosphere of

ences:

Alien and Eraserhead. "The director
wanted to establish the premise
that

everything inside the house
clean and well taken

care

of,"

EQUIPMENT RENTAL

Eyth says, "while outside the house

SALES & SERVICE

and down in the basement, every¬

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like

and

thing

was slightly less kept. The
difference is like riding in a car

2000 LAKEWOOD WAY,

76

vertical look be¬

ment, replete with Grandpa's den¬
tal chair rigged with a respirator

was

404/622-1311

a

a

focus on how the set should be lit
because it started to go in a little
different direction than we had in¬

that most

AVAILABLE FOR ALL MOUNTS

had

crossing tubing stretching above
and below to infinity. "These
sketches were given to the matte
painter," he continues. "Although I
gave him complete flexibility to
change them, he stayed pretty close
to the sketches, occasionally
adding

ridden Hollowheads. The base¬

FILM & VIDEO CAMERAS

of

on more

spiral staircase that
led up to the Hollowhead house.
We hung more pipes to give it
depth. Since it was supposed to

er

very

Beneath the well-ordered

Water-proof, fully automatic
sea stabilizer for boats,
corrects horizontal pitch.

took

cause we

than usual. Ed and I

was

things. The lack of money breeds
ingenuity."
It also helps to have an
ingenius art director like Stuart,
whose respect for Eyth's designs
drove him toward perfection in re¬
alizing the sets. "I love production
design," he explains. "With so
many films, if you go back and see
what the original sketches were
like, you realize they're so much
more
interesting than what was

any

cameras

real

show

focus, & variable speed zoom.

New Tyler seat base allows
quick installation of video

a

lot of instances where it seemed the

controls for camera, motorized

Video Mount-

"Since there wasn't

drawing and we were run¬
ning out of room, we ended up not
having the space we needed to
build Grandpa's room on stage ex¬
actly as Ed designed it," Stuart re¬
calls. "Although Ed's original
design was more horizontal, the set

those dense textures, so there was a
lot more room for interpretation

set. For

-Mini Mount

riding underneath that

car."

March 1989

variation to enhance them."

The
was

Pumping Station set

created from

an

abandoned

fish cannery

in San Pedro. Eyth,
Stuart and the art department crew
dressed the disintegrating struc¬
ture, basing their freehand, sponta¬
neous
design on Eyth's matte
painting concepts. "We used those
sketches as a jumping-off point,"
Stuart affirms. "There

were

already
American Cinematographer - March 1989

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