American Cinematographer - August 1993 - 30

Award nomination for his collabo¬
ration on the landmark sci-fi classic
Blade Runner, had the warehouse

facings painted over and appropri¬
ately aged, and later stenciled in a
pair of salmon logos near the han¬
gar-like doors of each structure. To
the left of the warehouses, the pro¬
duction built a shanty-type struc¬
ture on

existing pier. Housed
the special-effects rig¬
gings required for the dock col¬
lapse. The setting's background
featured a manmade jetty, com¬
plete with residential dwellings.
"At that particular loca¬
tion we basically took an existing
area and
completely reworked it,"
says Pauli. "The look we wanted
was of a
very decrepit and aban¬
doned place. The [production de¬
sign] crew got out there about a
month ahead of shooting. We ex¬
inside

Above:

chase, is

Steadicam

operator John
Clothier tracks

a

showdown
between the
movie's
detective duo

(Richard

Dreyfuss and
Emilio Estevez,
center of frame)
and the
villainous

Tony

Castellano

(Miguel Ferrer),
who holds Gina
Garret (Rosie

O'Donnell) at

gunpoint. Right:
The

camera

captures a
watery death

crew

scene.

a

perfect example of this

In essence,

stay true to the

Stakeout concept, which offers a mix
of gritty police drama and slap¬
stick."
In order to attain the more

exaggerated look he sought for the
dock scene, Wagner deployed a
variety of lighting units. Overall
ambience was provided by a
Wendy light, which offers the glow
of four groups of 16 lamps sus¬
pended on a 150-foot crane arm.
(According to chief lighting techni¬
cian Stephen Jackson, the Wendy
provides 10 footcandles of light at
a distance of 300
yards.) Open-

Lighting along the dock was pro¬
vided by practical bulbs within
stylish "china hat" coverings
vided

pro¬

by production designer

Lawrence W. Pauli. As a final, fan¬
ciful touch, Wagner underlit the

belly of the dock with rim lights to
lend some sparkle to the water.

American

Cinematographer

the special ef¬

fects coordinator and his unit
needed to build a dock that fea¬
tured an end section that would tip
and a middle section that would

takes place, has elements of fantasy.

faced IKs were used to back the
warehouse windows; to highlight
the heavy wooden beams behind
the windows, the crew set up rows
of 5Ks along the warehouse floors.

28

tended and reinforced the dock and
eliminated some of the other piers
that were there. The last two weeks
of our preparation was devoted to
what John Thomas and his special
effects crew were doing."

type of graphic, non-comedic ap¬
proach to photography. This par¬
ticular dock scene, due to the out¬
rageous nature of the action that
But Tve tried to

an

were

collapse entirely. "We had to figure
out a way to raise and lower the
tip¬
ping section, and to control it at
various heights," Thomas relates.
"After installing one winch, we
added a second so we could drop
the thing in stages. The middle

dropping section consists of a sus¬
pension system off of steel beams.
We used

a

pneumatic ram system

to make it shake."

"When you

have a setting like this
at your disposal, you want to ex¬
ploit every inch of it," Wagner
notes.

Indeed, both Pauli and the

special effects technicians went to
great lengths in transforming the
Celtic Shipyards, sited along
Vancouver's Fraser River, into the
Sosna Salmon Company

(a fictional

entity named, in the typically jovial
a Badham
production,

fashion of

after long-suffering assistant direc¬
tor David Sosna). Pauli, whose
resume

August 1993

includes

an

Academy

To complete the illusion,
the special sections were given bro¬

ken, splintered edges that only be¬
visible as the rig began col¬
lapsing. In the filmed scene,
Estevez' character is brought out to
came

the dock at gunpoint, but is saved
from certain doom by Dreyfuss,

who

roars

onto the dock in the

Mercedes.

During the ensuing
mayhem, Estevez ends up in the
water; from this vantage point, he
sees

that the end of the dock is be¬

ginning to give way under the
weight of the car. After climbing
back onto the dock, he manages to
American Cinematographer - August 1993

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - August 1993
