American Cinematographer - July 1992 - 46

Near

acters in the film

right: Boss

Film president
Richard Edlund,
ASC tipped the

company's
repeatable, live-

system on its
side in order to
a

complex move
up the side of

soundstage," Bruno recalls. "Bo
Welch created a city on paper that
extended upwards of 600 feet, but
the only way we were going to be
able to show it was by using matte

the Schreck

building. The
new

system -

dubbed the
"elevator rig" -

paintings or miniatures."
Bruno opted to use very
large 1 / 24-scale miniatures to give

gave the
filmmakers the

ability to move a
camera

ing the computerized Tondreau
motion control system. "It took the

pieces on cue. Again using 96, the
Chandler Group shot the apocalyp¬

Gotham Plaza the proper scope.
"Initially, I suggested that we build
our miniatures in 1/12 scale but
that was quite expensive," he re¬
calls. "It would've been 25 feet up

better part of a week/' Scheele says.
"We shot the move on Kodak 96,
and the exposures themselves were
about six seconds long, so each
frame took about 12 seconds to turn
over for a maximum depth of field.

tic

to the

at

speeds up to 1G.
Far right:
Another view of
the elevator rig,
next to the

Shreck building
set on Warner

Bros.'Stage 16.
The final shot

required
separate camera
moves

and

multiple
elements to

convincingly
convey the
fictional scale of
the

department

store. Bottom

right: Puppe¬
teers Craig
Talmy (left) and
Lane Liska
create the

illusion of flight
with a model of
the Caped
Crusader.

Tim

Angulo, who shot the move,
high-contrast
lighting of the principal photogra¬
phy so the model would look good
and yet match the visual tone of the
scenes around it. Though that was
a
very blue-biased look, Tim was
encouraged to go warmer to bring
out the yellow color of the duck
gondolas suspended over the zoo,
and permission was granted to hit
the polar bear on top of Arctic
modified the bleak,

World with

an

unmotivated

Godlight. Tim also came up with
the idea of opening the shot with
the warmth of a single lit streetlight
outside the zoo, in contrast to this
cold blue light of the abandoned
zoo, as

if to say, 'Here's where the

normal world ends.'"
After
capturing
model's pristine beauty on

the
cellu¬

loid, the crews from Stetson Visual
Services and the Chandler

Group
pleasure of blowing it
up for the climax of the film, enlist¬
ing the pyrotechnical skills of
shared the

explosions with an Image 300
and a battery of high-speed

running at 72 frames

grinning cat head at the top
building. That was
our
cap; I did all my angles on my
little foam-core mockup of the min¬

which gave the
footage as possible to

iature set from that cat head, and I
told everyone we'd never build

camera

Panavision and Mitchell

cameras

per second,
editors as much

work with.
Everything seen on-screen, includ¬
ing the barrage of missiles flying in,
was

done in-camera. "The rockets

were on

guide wires," Scheele says,

"and Mike Fink

ing."
One of the
shots that con¬
cerned Tim Bur¬

the rockets and
the explosions
worked. It took
about half a day

ton most

on

in the street and

then zooms up
the tower to re¬
veal the cat on

was

maintaining

a
consistent tone

among the bevy
of shots that
took place in
Gotham Plaza,
a task he
consigned to Boss
under the supervision of one

Film
of its

founders, John Bruno. Bruno, who
pioneered the team effort as visual

designed the Chrome Man effects

als like

for Terminator 2, was at ease

acid, Ian Hunter made several pa¬
vilions that would

American

literally

Cinematographer

go to

doing
specific effects for Batman Returns.
Realizing that one of the main char¬

July 1992

the Shreck

building. The
shot begins on a
crowd of people

for each setup."
One
of
Fink's biggest
concerns

was a

complex tilt up

effects supervisor on The Abyss and

plaster and stearic

anything higher than that ball. If we
had to go any higher, we'd just do
a
painting or obscure it with smoke
since Gotham City is always cloudy
and depress¬

especially mak¬
ing sure that the
sequencing of

Viscosil.

snow

of the Shreck

got deep into it,

Using common breakaway materi¬

Thaine Morris and Joe

44

Gotham City

Shreck's Department Store, Bruno
wanted to use his effects to enlarge
the canvas of the film. "I thought
it7d be fun to do Gotham City above
the 40-foot level they had on the

action motioncontrol dolly

facilitate

was

itself, topped by the ever-present
leering cat head adorning the 100storey pinnacle of the nefarious

top, from an im¬
possible angle
looking down
at the city be¬
low. The original plate photogra¬
phy was shot on the Gotham Plaza
set at Warner Bros.' Stage 16, using
a
revolutionary new downshooter
rig designed by Boss Films presi¬
dent Richard Edlund, ASC. The rig
essentially utilizes Boss' encoded
dolly - a repeatable live-action
motion-control system-tipped on
American Cinematographer - July 1992

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