American Cinematographer - February 1995 - 55

Rafting Down The River Wild
Filming mighty rivers in Montana and Oregon requires
ingenuity, inventiveness and determination.
by Brooke Comer
Montana's Smith River is remote,

beautiful and

dangerous. Accord¬
ing to writer/fly-fisherman Denis
O'Neill, whose article for Fly, Rod
& Reel magazine inspired The River
Wild, "Once you get on that river,
you can't get off. You have to travel
the length of it."
The

film, like the Smith
nonstop, adrenaline¬
pumping roller coaster. The story
river, is

a

is

simple. Gail Hartman (Meryl
Streep) grew up navigating the
river's treacherous rapids. Now, in
an effort to
salvage her troubled
marriage, Gail takes her husband
and son (David Straithairn, Joseph
Mazello) on a whitewater rafting
expedition. When they meet Wade
(Kevin Bacon) and Terry (John C.
Reilly), danger is suddenly per¬

filmmaking know-how. "In a
way, this multimillion-dollar pic¬
ture

was

successful thanks to

simple good

and good grip
work," he submits. Grip Gary
Dagg brought his experience as a
car
photographer to the project.
Says Elswit, "He approached
shooting off the raft as if we were
shooting driving shots with cars.
He built aluminum speedrail struc¬
tures that allowed us to put the
camera
anywhere we wanted."
sense

Hanson and Elswit knew

they wanted to shoot in a wide¬
screen format. The
question was
whether to use Super 35 or an-

enough lenses
ried less about

lenses can be slower, but most of
the scenes were outdoor exteriors.
"We were lucky," he recalls. "We
didn't break anything."

Thankfully, that list of
unbroken items included bones:
while figuring out how to place
in various locations to

cameras

shoot the

perilous "Gauntlet" se¬
quence that climaxes the film, the
crew had to scale rock walls. For
that sequence alone, camera place¬
ment became the great adventure

of the film, with grips and camera
assistants up to their necks in freez-

ing water or
tied to slippery
rocks.
Crew
members
would plunge

sonified.
Most of the film

into the

was

ids while

Rogue. While in Montana, the
production became the first ever

chored above

on

eras

on

grounds not be revealed.
Initially, Universal execu¬
tives had targeted Idaho's Payette
River for its accessibility, but di¬
rector Curtis Hanson

Leainfdr

felt that the

Payette wasn't visually exciting
enough for the film he'd envi¬
sioned. Production designer Bill
Kenney scouted rivers around the
country before finding the
Kootenai, whose rocks and crags
made for difficult access but pro¬
vided the

of

cam¬

were

an¬

jutting rocks

and on plat¬
forms that ex¬
tended off cliffs
above the wa¬
ter. Additional

the Kootenai Indians'

sacred ground. The tribe allowed
the filming on the condition that
the exact location of the sacred

byNPhoetisl

icy rap¬

shot on location on two rivers:
Montana's Kootenai and Oregon's

to film

UMnoeiocvslieeurslfaatyl,

on hand. He wor¬
light. Anamorphic

amorphic, and anamorphic won.
"Theoretically, Super 35 allows
you to work at wider stops, with
more depth of field," notes Elswit.
"The tradeoff is the loss in resolu¬
tion from

blowing up for release
print. We didn't want to make the
tradeoff. We were willing to live
with anamorphic lenses. We went
for the biggest negative. Because
it's

an

outdoor movie and

we were

attached to

amphibi¬
ous camera
operators and grips.
Several anamorphic mov¬
ies were in production when The
River Wild began ordering equip¬
ment; Wyatt Earp and other big fea¬
tures had already cornered the
market on anamorphic lenses. "We
got some older lenses, because not
everything was available," says
cameras were

Elswit. He tested the E and C series
and wound up

foreboding nec¬
to turn sublime nature into

looking at wide shots, grain struc¬
ture would be more apparent."

Despite the complexities

Once the decision was
made to shoot anamorphic, a

using both. "With
anamorphic lenses, it's important
that you do extensive tests," he
says. "Each focal length is different,

Panaflex Platinum, two Panaflex

and the contrast is different, so of

sense

essary
a force of evil.

of shooting on a river that roared
with whitewater, cinematographer
Robert Els wit says the production's
success resulted less from
sophisti¬
cated technology than from basic

Gil's,

a

Panastar and

a

Pan-Arri III

course

job.
Under the rough and wet condi¬
tions, Elswit worried about having

There's

February 1995

American

camera were

chosen for the

they perform differently.
a

certain amount of barrel

distortion. You have to get familiar
with them to figure out how much

Cinematographer

Opposite:
Meryl Streep
(in fore¬

ground)
watches

as

crew

members set
up a

precarious
perch to film
some

whitewater

action.

This page:

Waist-deep
in Montana's
Kootenai

River,
director
Hanson (with

beard) and
the

camera

crew
a

line up

shot.

53
American Cinematographer - February 1995

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