American Cinematographer - July 1990 - 47

Opposite: Sch¬
warzenegger
Ve-

comes to

nusville,

one

of

the 35 sets built
in Churubusco.
Above: Venusville
lit by a combina¬
tion of neons,
fluorescents and
more traditional
Vacano
behind the
sources.

camera.

smash. And everyone says

the
script is really good, if unbelieva¬
bly ambitious. Jost (pronounced
Yoast) Vacano (who also shot

Robocop)

agrees, but he wasn't
attracted to the project solely by
the story.
"Paul Verhoeven has
been one of my favorite directors
for a decade or more," explains
Vacano. "I started with him in
1976 or so with Soldier of Orange
and it's still one of my favorite
films. Then I did Spetters with
him. It's very funny, he likes to
work with two directors of pho¬

tography, Jan DeBont and me. He
always does two pictures with
each of us, then he switches.
"I met him by accident

through a producer in Germany.
Holland and Germany are very
close and the mentality is very
similar. The languages are alike,
even a few words are the same,"

laughed Vacano in his soft Ger¬
man accent. "Paul has very good
common sense

and

we

have

a

great understanding of each

other-our good sides and our
bad sides. Total Recall was a very

interesting script and we both felt
that if we could get a grip on the
ending, it could be a terrific film.
The ending was a major chal¬
lenge and it still is - like in most
movies!"

The entire project was a
"major challenge" from the more
than 35 stage sets to the hundreds
of effects shots. Vacano explains,
"Normally in films like this you
have long sequences that are very
straightforward and then you
have, as a highlight, effects
scenes.

This time, effects are

everywhere, every time, espe¬
cially for the ending. When I saw
the rough cut about four months
after we finished shooting, the
last two reels

were

full of 'scene

missing, scene missing, scene
missing!' There was nothing
there but

some

music!"

sound stages filled to capacity
four or five different times for 3
to 5 days of shooting each time

daunting prospect even to
who shot Never Ending
Story and Das Boot. "When you
read a script the first time, you
don't pay so much attention to
the sets. But when you've read it
many times, it occurs to you, all
this must be happening in a huge
place! It's like a city! And it's on
was a

the

man

Mars! Where will

we find a stu¬
dio so big that we can build a
whole city there? A closer look
told us that it wasn't just one city.
It was a lot of large areas of the

colony

-

part city, part mine,

whatever.
"We had

a

schedule of 80

to 90

days. That meant we could
expect to go to a new stage every
three to five

days. Of course,
everyone expected that when we
left one stage and moved to the

According to Vacano,
the really big story of this film is
the 35 sets by production de¬
signer William Sandell. Eight

next, it would be all lit and we
could start shooting. This was
one of the moments I almost lost

July 1990

American

my

confidence."

Cinematographer

45
American Cinematographer - July 1990

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