American Cinematographer - March 1993 - 79

of unevenness over the rocky sur¬
face in the plate. Interactive explo¬
sion lights were timed using mo¬
tion-controlled variacs to corre¬

J.L.

Fisher, Inc.

Motion Picture and Television

Equipment

spond precisely with the flaming
outbursts in the plate. At one point
model tower had to be added to
hide a bit of scaffolding, filmed ac¬
a

cidentally during plate photogra¬
phy of the large-scale castle set in
the San Fernando Valley.
Unfortunately, this added
a new

set of headaches to the com¬

posite since the colors and bricksize had to match

precisely, espe¬
cially when the two explosions
went off in frame. Nose-grease was
added on the glass to help achieve
the blend, in addition to soft-edge
cross-hatching of the mattes. Spill
light bouncing off the models and
hitting the background image on
the screen also had to be duplicated
on the
secondary projection screen
carrying the foreground image. The
explosion interactive on the model
tower had to be exactly matched by
eye to the explosion light on the
full-size tower in the plate. The
variac would rise to full intensity in

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about three frames, hold at this
level for about ten frames, then

slowly decrease in voltage as the
explosion in the plate lessened in
intensity. A shadow of smoke even
had to pass over both tower pieces.

SPECTRA® PROFESSIONAL IV
STILL THE CHOICE OF PROFESSIONALS

control all the variables,
Kleinow needed three hours to ani¬
mate each one-second, 24-frame

To

MEASURING RANGE
*F-STOP: f0.5 to f90 in 1/10 stop
increments and 1/3 stop increments on

explosion.

Analog scale.

Another problematic ef¬
fect involved a scene in which the
skeletons drop their makeshift

*

*

*

bridge over the moat. Halfway
through the shot the skeletons de¬
cided to quit; their legs buckled and
gave out. The wooden bridge had

24, 25 and 30.
*

*

*

...

the humans in the castle, Kleinow's
subconscious tribute to the stopmotion in Flesh Gordon.
When Sheila is carried off

(This is later

to 30 min.

readability at extremely low light levels.
Memory store and recall.
Error Protection System
designed to
prevent accidental change of programed
ISO, FPS and exposure time.

humorous touch featured one of
the skeletons "giving the bird" to

screen.

sec.

*

the foursome's thin skeletal arms
could not support the weight. A

Scotchlite

EXPOSURE TIME: 1/8000

FEATURES
Convenient backlit* liquid crystal display
with large easy-to-read numbers, allowing

to be remade out of bamboo since

by a Winged Deadite, a pole con¬
taining forward-backward and roll
movement was poked through the

FOOTCANDLES: 0.1 to 70,000.
LUX: 1 to 100,000.
ISO: 3 to 8000; FPS: 2 to 360 including

*

optional

SPECTRA
PROFESSIONAL IV

SPECTRA, serving the industry for over 50 years.

SPECTRA CINE, INC.

re-

Digital Multi Function

Exposure Meter

^k
W/k 820 North Hollywood Way
■Hi fli HI Burbank, CA 91505
MM

mrn Phone:

Hi

(818) 954-9222

Fax:(818)954-0016
77
American Cinematographer - March 1993

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