American Cinematographer - August 1993 - 52

doors wide open that the globes on
the HMIs froze. We had heat packs
with special sleeves built for the

magazines. In 20 minutes, the packs
would go from being very hot to
frozen solid. One of the cameras

actually started freezing up on an
exterior shot, but, fortunately, it
at the end of the shot.

was

"All of our flying shots
done with 400-foot magazines
because that's what we needed to
fit inside the helicopter landing

Bogen Professional Cine/Video
Tripod delivers rock-solid sup¬
port all the way, thanks to tan¬
dem legs.
It weighs in at 11 lbs. But it's
no lightweight. It holds cam¬
eras up to 22 lbs. when used
with a Bogen 3066 Cine Video
Fluid Head. And greaterweights
when fitted with other heads.
There's more. A 100mm di¬

ameter clawball leveller. Vari¬
able leg angles with two click

stop positions. Stainless steel
fittings and enamelled cast¬
ings. Quick-flip lever leg locks.
And built-in leg straps.
For more info, seeyourdealer
or write: Bogen Photo Corp.,
565 E. Crescent Ave., PO. Box
506, Ramsey, NJ 07446-0506.
(201) 818-9500.

we don't

under

layers of green plastic, but the
humidity was so high that water
condensed on everything. The
and all the electronics were
soaked. At three in the morning we
camera

tried to clean it out. Then I

was

try¬

As fortune would have it, the
heavens opened with incredible
ness.

the dance. Herrmann was worried
about how to light the dancers and

glove off and brushed off the filters.
My hand didn't thaw out for a halfhour after I got back to the lodge.
Soon we were up among the Buga¬
boos, which are huge rock spires
that come shooting out of the
ground 2500 feet, like huge teeth
sticking up. We had to bring up
another helicopter to show how big
these things really are."
A spectacular aerial scene
shows a band of skiers speeding
over the mountains. To
keep the
shadow of the helicopter out.of the
shot, it was necessary to keep it
moving inside the edge of the
shadow of a slope. There could be

musicians because the

retakes because the ski trails

no

despoil the virgin snow.
The company next re¬
Hollywood, this time so
the cameras could be serviced
turned to

again for the tropics! The next loca¬
tion was among the terraced rice
paddies of Bali, where it was nec¬
essary to haul the camera in pieces
on a
specially made walkway. As

rays

across

sun

must be

directly overhead. "I knew I'd get
huge black eyesockets. Finally I hit
on an idea: to create a dance
plat¬
form for them to dance on and
cover it with unbleached muslin so
that the sun bounces back up and

gives them
structed
move

an eyelight. Foots con¬
little dolly so we could

a

in to

a

closeup. The sunlight

for about

an hour and a
half at exactly the right time of day,
and then it started raining again."
The next stop was Rio de

came

out

Janeiro and the famous Carnival.
The whole celebration

was lit
by
lamps which were
supposed to be balanced for day¬
light. As Herrmann quickly
learned, they weren't: "The correc¬
tion on them was something like

mercury vapor

two 85s and

50

magenta. I
get the exposure on 93
pushed the film a stop, and
a

couldn't

film. I

clown to about T3.5 on the
lenses. I was really bordering on

came

photograph the introduction of the
Balinese actress emerging from a

vignetting, just to get it into the
range where they could get a de¬
cent print out of it so that all the
blacks wouldn't mush out. We put

time-lapse sunset/sunrise,
storm began.

the camera on a float and hid it in¬
side a miniature volcano with a

the

as

bogen

we wouldn't

we were

two

off, but the air can was so cold that
it wouldn't blow, so I pulled my

at the same time. When we
took off, the headsets suddenly

cameras

rock and roll.

cancelled. We had

stopped working so we were yell¬
ing to each other. The snow had
blown in and landed on top of the
filters. I was trying to get the snow

loose snow out, then we'd set the
whole camera up and slate all nine

When you're ready to roll, the

was

tent and

of light as the clouds traveled
in time-lapse with one sec¬
ond between exposures. The rays
would start in one panel and walk
across two or three
panels like huge
fingers."
At the palace of the King of
Ubud, the fabled Legong dance
was
performed for the camera. The
sequence opens with a triptych of
the three young dancing girls being
made up, then opens out to 360 for

platforms. We had the helicopter
land in the space and blow all the

stamps out

a

ing to set grad filters in the dark¬

were

The Bogen
Professional
Cine/video
3191 Tripod

lapse shot
made

crew

if

members

were

about to

a

rain¬

"When it rains in Bali it's
turned a firehose on

someone

you," Herrmann winced. "It rained
all night, and so hard that the time-

sell anything
buy ourselves.

August 1993

little black

strip which

was

really

the mirrors

peering out. We had
3500 people in an almost trance-like
state from the beat of the music. We
American Cinematographer - August 1993

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