American Cinematographer - July 1992 - 45

Opposite top: A
miniature of

Shreck's

Department
Store (1/24
scale)
dominates this

completed
composite shot.
Opposite below:
A

crew

member

applies finishing
touches to the
Gotham Plaza
miniature. This
page: The
Gotham Plaza

miniature

was

large enough to
actually
accommodate
an

actor,

allowing Boss
Film co-founder
John Bruno to

engineer this
striking forcedperspective shot
over

Batman's

shoulder.

and amusement

park which
welcome opportunity
to escape the studiobound limita¬
tions of the principal photography.
The miniature was skillfully ex¬
ecuted by the staff at Stetson Visual
Services, who had previously
worked with Burton and produc¬
tion designer Bo Welch in building
cus

provided

a

the memorable miniature castle for
Edward Scissorhands. As on that

project, Welch and art director Rick
Heinrichs provided Stetson with a
small, detailed model from which
to construct the miniature that
would actually appear in the film.
The zoo is rampant with Burton's
trademark design touches: a series
of twelve "pavilions" capped with
weird statuaries, a giant crab here,
a

vast

ribcage there. "The decrepit

nature of the
were a

zoo site meant there
lot of trees, bushes, and

other things we could work on
quickly and sketchily so we could
focus on detailing the pavilions,
which is much

more

fun to

a

modelmaker," says Mark Stetson,
co-owner

of the company

that

bears his name.
The miniature zoo set was
built to 1 /8 scale, which would al¬

low the maximum amount of detail
and enough room to pass the Chan¬

the fluid motion-control photogra¬
phy. Before this elaborate move

dler Group's snorkel lens through
the crab claws of the Shrimp and
Crab Pavilion and the monolithic

could be executed, however, a spe¬
cial T-shaped rig featuring a 24-

ribcage of the Meat Eaters Pit. "The
model was 78 feet long at the very
back and 50 feet deep, and took
about eight weeks to build," says
Ian Hunter, who supervised its
construction. "The tallest building
was the
aviary, designed after St.
Basil's Church in Russia, which
ended up being 11 feet tall. We built
it that size to allow the snorkel lens
to ride through the model at what
would be 'eye level' - five inches
above the surface. In addition to the

pavilions,

we had six snack bars,
two dozen park benches, and at
least two dozen streetlights and sta¬
dium lights. We also had 950 trees,
which took two modelmakers three
weeks to build. 2800 pounds of salt

foot-high tower with a 22-foot-long
overhead boom

arm was

built to

the snorkel camera over the
large-scale miniature. While the
carry

camera

itself moved to create the

pan and tilt axis, roll was mani¬
fested by motion-controlling the
movements of the lens via pitching

optics and

a stepper motor.

This

meant that the camera could pass

through tighter spaces with greater
fluidity of movement, since the
snorkel tapered down to the width
of the Nikon lens at the end. "The
snorkel lens glided past these little
snack shacks and a stone bridge,
and over these weird amphi¬

theatres, ending up at Arctic World,
which is where the Penguin's hide¬
out

is," remembers John Scheele,

snow; it behaved
like snow whether we put it on dry
or wet."

of the three principals of the
Chandler Group who worked on

The model was completed
in sections at Stetson Visual Ser¬

give our moves a true floating feel,

represented the

the stage of the

Group, which handled

programmed by Josh Cushner us-

camera-ready

July 1992

Batman Returns. "We always like to
and roll is what makes it feel disem¬
bodied."
The elaborate move was

vices, then assembled and made
Chandler

one

on

American

Cinematographer

43
American Cinematographer - July 1992

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