American Cinematographer - November 1990 - 52

"We

just blew the win¬

dows out," Zsigmond says. "It
looks like daylight, and you can't
see outside."
Most
of
the
time,

Zsigmond was working with one
which is both his and

camera,

DePalma's

preference. The main
exception was longer dialogue
scenes, which were usually shot
with two cameras for coverage of
different cast members.
"Brian likes to use loca¬
tion sound as much as possible,"

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Zsigmond explains, "particularly
dialogue, which usually feels
more natural than dubbing."
Zsigmond couldn't recall
a
single instance where he told
DePalma that it wasn't possible to
give him a shot he wanted. "My
job as a cameraman is to say
'yes,'" he says. Though Zsigmond
admits there

were

times when he

DePalma a "what, are you
crazy?" look when the director
called for 360 degree coverage on
long moving shots.
One of the elegant sets on
gave

the Warner Bros, lot

was a com¬

plete two story version of the
McCoys' apartment. It had to be
built as sturdy as a real house,
since the crew was frequently
working with all of its heavy gear
on

the second level. There

were

a few wild walls, since De¬
Palma wanted the look and light¬

just

ing to be

as

natural as possible.

So, where did Zsigmond
hide

lights on those moving 360
degree shots? In some instances,
he borrowed a technique from the
live theater by surrounding the
set with lights on dimmer con¬
trols. That allowed him to avoid
camera shadows while he
kept
the backgrounds properly lit by

precisely orchestrating dimming
lamps on and off.
There's a scene early in
the film, where McCoy sees his
wife exercising. She's sweating
and

struggling to keep her body
shape, but he can see time will
eventually take its toll. In the next
in

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he's outside on Park Ave¬
couple of attractive fe¬
males jog by.

scene,

nue as a

The audience

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50

November 1990

sees

the

joggers through McCoy's eyes as
the camera speeds up from 24 to
48, and then 72 frames per second.
It happens in a few seconds. But
there's a lingering impression of
those fine-tuned bodies jogging
down the street.

Then, DePalma

drives the

point home with a
quick cut to a tight shot of
McCoy's face. The audience looks
into his eyes and reads his
thoughts.
Later in the film, McCoy
is thrown into a jail cell, which is
actually a Hollywood set. There
are some
bad-looking characters
sharing the cell, and McCoy can't
bring himself to look at them.
Instead, he grasps the
bars and brings his face between
his hands, putting him in eye to
eye contact with the lens. At this
point, DePalma intercuts a brief
fantasy scene, replicating a flash¬
back from the opera, "Don Juan."
McCoy is in the same position,
grasping the bars. Colors are desaturated. The look is almost
black and white, but behind him
flame is burning in a torpid
orange-yellowish hue. It's actu¬
ally a sheet of rippling Mylar re¬
flecting warm light.
a

As the lens

zooms

in

on

McCoy's face, Zsigmond ad¬
vances camera
speed from 24 to
72 fps. That briefly extends the
close-up of McCoy as Don Juan.
Then, the camera pulls back, and
McCoy's cellmates are seen wear¬
ing masks with the faces of de¬
mons. He thinks
they are closing
in to drag him off to hell. It's just
a
split-second aberration from
reality, but it's a compelling in¬
sight into his frame of mind.
There's another visually
interesting sequence shot in Pe¬
ter's apartment, which is another
set at the Warner Bros. Burbank

studio. The

camera

is

on a crane

looking straight down. Peter is
sleeping. It starts with an ultra
wide-angle view, and then the
camera simultaneously rotates
around the room, always tilting
toward the subject. The framing
comes in tighter and
tighter on
Peter's

floor.

sprawled body

on

the
American Cinematographer - November 1990

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