American Cinematographer - November 1990 - 88

shots in 15 minutes. Also, our

and my crew, 'You're the first
who ever got it,' and that's a real
compliment."
Murray believes the primary
reason for the favorable response (the
spot played at the Cannes Film Festival)

told

me

guys

was

that he used the

camera to

tell his

story emotionally, rather than relying on
stock commercial devices. "Because I'm
a

director/cameraman, I naturally look at

camera as an extension of my eyes,"
Murray says, "and TV commercials pre¬

the

great opportunities if you're a visu¬
Fortunately, I get to work on a lot of
spots where the photography is a big part
sent

alise

of the emotional involvement for the
viewer without being gratuitous. A lot of
work these days is just technique for

technique's sake, using the filmic vocabu¬
lary to the point of overkill, as in a lot of
rock videos. I try to bring a point of view
to my spots, so you don't get that film
grammar burnout. People think commer¬
cials are easy to do because it's such a
short medium, but it's actually very diffi¬
cult to communicate something in a one
second

or

half second shot

-

every

image has got to be a complete template
the spot will add up to a real experi¬
ence. Otherwise it's just a plethora of
shots coming at you."
so

"Plot Rod"

was

shot

over one

magic hour evening and one day, on a
flight training range outside Nellis Air
Force Base. "That commercial tended to
be John Ford-ish, so we tried to shoot

mostly in natural light," Murray explains.
"It doesn't get much prettier in the des¬
ert than at 7:30 at night, but to capture
that

84

on

film,

had to be ready to move,
needed to make five or six

we

because

we

American

Cinematographer

pilots were
only allowed to fly for 40 minutes, which
meant we only got three or four takes on
everything. They burn a lot of fuel in those
$30 million airplanes, so we had to be
very efficient.
"Another difficulty was having
to shoot through the following day and
keep a consistent look," Murray adds.
"Anyone can shoot five minutes a night
over twelve days, but we only had a day
and a half. We shot 50 percent of our car
footage at magic hour, so when we filmed
the other 50 percent in the middle of the
day, we kept our shots tight and used
grifflons to keep the look consistent."
To capture the natural dreami¬
ness of the desert landscape, Murray shot
everything on "Hot Rod" using low speed
daylight film. "Kodak's the only film I'll
shoot," he says. "I used the 5247 on the
ground and in the camera plane, and
some of those aerial shots of the desert
floor were undercranked to about 12 fps."
"Hot Rod" exemplifies Mur¬

ray's economical shooting technique as
well as his insistence on choosing exactly
the right tool for the job. "Although 'Hot
Rod' is told from the point of view of a guy

driving
camera

a car on the ground, I wanted
to be flying and moving all

the
the

time," Murray explains. "I didn't want any
static shots in that spot, so I used Clairmont's Power Pod, a remote control
camera head. The operator watches the

image
lates

on a

a

video monitor, and manipu¬

set of Worral wheels which re¬

motely control the head. It's a high tech
seemingly allows the camera
to fly, giving the viewer the feeling of
flight. The Power Pod was perfect for all
those moving POV shots, because ulti¬
mately the film is about what it feels like
to fly, the freedom of flight. I find I'm using
the Power Pod on every job, and on this
job in particular, it was exactly the right
tool which

wonderful shot that just takes you with it,
and I tried to keep that feeling through the
whole spot.

"Also,

my ode to Steven Spielberg, who
that in a lot of his movies. We did
four or five takes of that shot. The trick
uses

match his eyeline, because he was
supposed to be turning to watch the plane
fly by, but the camera was booming down
was to

at the same time. The Power Pod is great
for that kind of thing - it gives you very
fast camera acceleration, and the opera¬
tor doesn't have to deal with the

of his

To tell his tale of two kindred

spirits meeting up in an existential no
man's land, Murray would use almost any
appropriate technique, but he insisted
that there be no point of view shots from
the fighter plane's perspective. "I didn't
want that at all. Every shot of the airplane
had to be from the ground, because that
was the perspective of the hero of the
spot - the guy in the hot rod. We had
three axes of photography in the spot:
aerial photography of the ground, shots of
the fighter plane in the air, and little 8-9
frame shots where I whip-panned the
camera across

cutting pieces to create that feeling of the
dream of flight. It was a crude but very
effective technique."
Less crude but every bit as ef¬
fective was a startling rack focus shot
from the jet to the hot rod driver's face
using a 300mm lens. "The angle of accep¬
tance on that was four degrees," Murray
notes with pride, "and there wasn't a lot
of room for error since the plane was
flying at 300 knots. There's not much of a
whip in there - the plane flies right over
the actor's shoulder, and the camera

barely pans

November 1990

the desert floor with a
were used as little

600mm lens. These

face."

drops down and tracks with his
him. It's a

torque

body."

Murray used the Power Pod to
great advantage, shooting about 70% of
"Hot Rod" with it. "Every shot was de¬
signed to seem like it was floating, almost
like that feeling you have when you dream
you're flying," Murray recalls. "I used any
camera technique I could think of to im¬
part that romantic, dreamlike feeling of
flight. When you first see the car, the
camera's dollying along with it, and later,
when the driver gets out of the car, the
camera

the driver gets out of

was

tool."

feet and then floats up over

as

his car, I used a dolly-in/zoom-out shot to
create that sense of excitement - that

over as

it rack focuses

on

his

Murray admits the shot was
tough to make, but acknowledges it
would have been even tougher without a
good pilot - or without having a ground
advisor

on

radio communication with the

pilot to help get the plane into the correct
position. "I had a remote pilot who acted
my ground controller, and that really
paid off," Murray explains. "His job was
to watch the plane's action, give the pi¬
as

lot the correct coordinates and tell him,
'Pull back 20 knots and drop 20 feet,' so
American Cinematographer - November 1990

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