American Cinematographer - July 1992 - 60

great deal of time. Thomson's con¬
siderable ingenuity was taxed to its
limit to capture the hellish imagery
film. "We shot this sequence for
about four or five weeks, including
the second-unit work," he says.
"It's time-consuming to rest
on

charges and to figure out where to
put the cameras so they'll show the
flame to its best advantage. The
other problem is that there's some
action before the flames and
I couldn't

after,

expose for the
flames. I wanted to build the se¬
so

just

quence up so I could use a 5.6 for
the beginning and post-flame;
when the flame came, it was a bit

stopped down. The flames only
lasted a minute or two, so we had
five or six cameras rolling at once.
A lot of people tend to shoot flames
wide open, but I always feel you
lose the color of the flames that
way. I like to shoot it at minimum
of 5.6 so you get some color. As it
turned out, it's pretty exciting
stuff."

Recalling another sequel
film made by James Cameron,
the climax of Alien5 takes place in,
to

a

yes, a metal smelting plant. "It's
unfortunate that both Terminator 2
and our picture end up in a steel

mill," Thomson sighs. "We didn't
know that when we
the film; in fact, we

making
might've fin¬
ished our principal photography
before they did - we'll have fin¬
ished shooting the picture almost a
year before it comes out in May."
were

end of Terminator 2. We both did
more or less the same
thing,"
Thomson remarks. "The set was

quite huge. I had something like
pit,
which is quite a lot of light, but I had
a lot of red and
yellow filters actu¬
ally over the lenses which cut the
light down quite a bit. I also had
masses of steam in the
pit, and I had
to use dry ice to cool the steam
down a bit so it would stay over the
pit. There was so much heat com¬
ing from the fights that the steam
just shot up like smoke up a chim¬
ney. We were spending a thousand
pounds a day on dry ice! Apart
from the pit, I had about 20 dino
fights - 24 power, 64 fights all in
one unit
so we had a lot of
fight,
mainly because we were using
such heavy filters that they just
sucked the light out of there. It
looks quite good."
600 fade bubbles down in this

-

In December, months after
the production had wrapped, twoand-a-half weeks of additional pho¬

tography were required for shots
needed to round out the film. A

delighted Thomson found himself
shooting at the legendary 20th Cen¬
tury Fox Studios in Los Angeles. "It
was
quite exciting to be in a major
American studio shooting in Hol¬
lywood, and I was made to feel
very welcome. Shooting on the Fox
lot for

me was one

on

wasn't my first picture; I might've
been scratching my head a few
times! It wasn't easy, but I enjoyed

some 20 feet high
and 15 feet wide that scoops up the
molten metal and pours it into
molds for shipment to other plan¬

doing it very much, and it was nice

ets. It

WASHINGTON
STATE FILM OFFICE

his travails

opposed to the steel mill of T2.

moving gantry

call 206 464 7148.

as

The set, built at Pinewood Studios,
consists of a huge pit supposedly
filled with molten lead and a vast,

as

is so diverse, its
funny. Which means ifyou make it
here, you can make it look like
anywhere. For our location directory;

As far

Alien3

concerned, Thomson
smiles and remarks, "I'm pleased it

sequence was actually a lead plant,

The scenery around here

ex¬

dio like that."

The site of the film's final

not even

of the most

citing things I've done. I'd love to
do a picture in L.A. at a major stu¬

proved to be as challenging a
setting to light as that of its counter¬
part in T2, and not surprisingly,
Thomson found himself using tech¬
niques similar to those employed
by Adam Greenberg.
"I was reading an inter¬
view with Greenberg in American
Cinematographer [July 1991], and he
talked about the steelworks at the

2001 6th Avenue, Suite 2700. Seattle. WA 98121

July 1992

are

for me because it was a kind of bo¬
I was so disappointed and a bit

nus.

drained

emotionally because I was
looking forward to working with
David Lean. It
wasn't

was

nice that Alien3

picture because it
kept my mind occupied. And no
matter what the problem, we al¬
ways got around it; I've never met
the shot I couldn't do. You only
think you can't do it when the di¬
rector describes it to you, but you
always can."
A
an

easy
American Cinematographer - July 1992

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