American Cinematographer - November 1990 - 30

necessitated emotional col¬
of their own. Again, Steiger's

scenes

ors

flexibility worked to maximum
advantage. "The lighting chal¬
lenge was tough," he admits,
"especially the exteriors." A
heavy rainstorm complete with
lightning effects was rigged up
outside scoundrel Frank Suttton's

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reds,

ex¬

"We used

blue and

Musco stadium

light
individually remote-controllable light fixtures,
and gelled the lights - that really
lit up the whole county."
Steiger used a very
strong blue for Sutton's shack in
the moonlight. "Night light is an
abstract thing," he observes. "If
you have no light, you have noth¬
ing on film. You have to have
some light to shoot the film, or
you can't see. That's always a
conflict: how do we treat the light
when someone's walking through
a dark area?" He
opted for the
ambient, blue moonlight outside.
a

yellow. Because the
shooting took place in an actual
club, where the lighting was vertually nil, Steiger used disco lights
for background, along with
smoke, mainly to light the air, and
allow beams of color to pour

through.
Color Pro, an Austinbased firm, built the computer
controlled spotlights that enabled

For interiors, he used a well-

Steiger to get the beams of color
exactly where and when he
wanted them. "They're very inter¬
esting," he explains. "With one
light, you can get every possible
color in the spectrum; there are
red, green and blue sources in¬

placed

side, with three dichroic filters.

source outside a window.
"We'd have a very yellow light

even if it was
unmotivated." That color was
dictated by Taylor's sodium va¬

Like a color corrector, they're
mixed to different intensities,
instead of having a wheel with
different gels rolling in from

por street lamps which photo¬
graphed very yellow.
Once Steiger decided to

light." Steiger was then able to
program in color changes, at dif¬
ferent speeds and rhythms as

yellow as a
continued to use

desired, to beam the colors across

coming through

night color, he
yellow, even to
light a tree in the country far from
town, to keep the consistency of
the night mood. "You have to
speak to a look," Steiger explains,
"and once you've addressed it,
you keep it throughout the film."

use

Pink became another
crucial color that, once addressed,

the

and the dancers.
Maddox is an arsonist/

room

bank robber, and in one scene he
sets a

building on fire for distrac¬

tion while he robs the bank.

Shooting real flames didn't bother
Steiger a bit; "the real trick was
shooting in small locations, like
The Yellow Rose, and Sutton's

triggered the

presence of Dolly
Harshaw (Madsen), even if she
wasn't actually in the scene. "Pink

shack, where there simply wasn't
much room," he explains. "The
fire was simpler to shoot because

is

it

Dolly's color," Steigler explains.

"Her bedroom is pink, so the light
that spills out and down the stair¬
case is
pink. She and Don have a

very

important backseat love

complicated. Oddly
enough, scenes that are frighten¬
ingly big are easy when you have
so
many pros around who've
was so

done it before. For the fire

we

had

in the car lot at night, so we
made the fluorescent lights over¬

a

head

might have been tough for the

scene

pink

as

well." He credits

gaffer Jim Grace for coming up
with the pink theme; "We did it

Equipment
*

no

For continuity, he also used colors
he'd already addressed - pink,

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Steiger used

cept to light scenes inside The
Yellow Rose, a local topless bar.

(Bill Sadler) shack in the country.
with about 18

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without telling anyone. I never
discussed colors with Dennis - a
lot of our communication was
nonverbal-but he really liked its
effect."

(303) 778-8616
November 1990

special effects crew who make a
living at that sort of thing." What

production
other

crew became yet an¬
of creative inspira-

source
American Cinematographer - November 1990

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - November 1990
