American Cinematographer - March 1995 - 58

Sami

trees in

Krieger,

director Les

Mayfield,
Attenborough
and Macat join
Mara Wilson at
the video
monitor.

be the

new

Santa Claus at Cole's,

and in a tense meeting with
Perkins' character he addresses
her lack of faith in the concept of
St. Nicholas. "If I can get you to
believe in me, there is

hope," he
says. Kringle then walks into his
Santa Village world, where moth¬
ers
bring their children to meet
him. Macat wanted this

scene

to

pop off the screen and serve as a
visual punchline that countered
the monochrome setting. He rea¬
soned that if there was a 70mm
release in key theaters, the 65mm

footage would visually empha¬
size that something beyond the
boundaries of everyday reality
was
happening in the scene.
"The logic was right," he
says. "The colors are vibrant, and
the images are bigger than life.
There is only one other place in
the story, when the little girl gets
her wish, where we emphasized
vibrant colors. They are literally
golden." Macat got a Christmas
present of his own when Fox
agreed to do a 70mm print for the
New York premiere at Radio City
Music Hall.

explains,
"They don't care about the
warmth or meaning of the holi¬
days. They just care about sales.
The

characters are almost
cartoonish."
The tale's main charac¬
ters are also basically the same.
Perkins has the role originally

essayed by Maureen O'Hara;
Dylan McDermott re-creates John
Payne's role as the boyfriend; and
Attenborough takes over for
Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle.
There was serious thought to
casting a boy in the part origi¬
nally portrayed by Natalie Wood,
but Mayfield and Hughes de¬
cided that such

a move

would

tamper with the integrity of the
story. He eventually cast Mara
Wilson (Mrs. Doubtfire) in the
role. "The chemistry between Sir
Richard and Mara was great,"

Although the story is set
in New York around

of the movie

Christmas,

was

American

Cinematographer

a scene

shot in Central

during the darkest part of
the night, Kris Kringle is shown
babysitting the little girl for the
first time. He brings out a tiny
music box, whose tune segues the
scene to a
choreographed iceskating sequence at Wohlman's
rink. Here Macat was shooting
with

a

14mm lens

on

the camera,

a quarter of the park.
The conventional way of lighting
such a large night exterior scene
is to use large crosslights on two

covering

opposing sides of the

but
approach
park look too

Macat felt that such

would make the

much like

a

scene,

an

baseball stadium. In¬

Macat

brought in three fog

chines and

March 1995

planted

a

discussions with

gaffer Mike
Moyer, the crew pre-rigged small
intensities to create

ma¬

few bare

some

separa¬

tion.
"In

filmed

in

quence in which Kringle goes to
the zoo to visit the reindeer,

adversary is the Shopper's
Express, a huge chain with thou¬

In

Park

units under trees and varied the

pate and was replaced by the fic¬
Cole's

floats, balloons and march¬

ing bands.

when there is emotion."

April and May in Chicago,
mainly on stages. As a result,
Macat found himself working
with undeniably healthy foliage
in what is supposed to be the
dead of winter. For a night se¬

Department Store.

were

stead, after Macat had extensive

original story's two
rival stores, with their contrasting
warm and cold
personalities, re¬
main, although Macy's, which
played a prominent role in the
1947 version, declined to partici¬
tional Cole's

72nd to 78th streets and Central
Park West to traffic for four days.
Besides some 2,000 extras, there

Macat. "That's a gift for any
cinematographer. One is always
inspired in the photography
says

most

The

56

sands of outlets. Macat

strategic places. He selec¬
tively added light to the dead
trees and a few other background
areas
using 20Ks. Fluorescent
lights on the ground gave a glow
to the rolling fog.
The production com¬
pany spent only five days in New
York, filming scenes which estab¬
lish the setting. The most compli¬
cated was the Christmas parade.
Some background filming was
completed during the real-life
parade, but when Macy's de¬
cided against participating in the
film, the department store re¬
fused to give the production com¬
pany rights to use the footage,
forcing the filmmakers to create
their own parade. The city closed

uplighting the trees,

had to make certain that the
tree trunks weren't too brightly
we

lit relative to their

positions," he
explains. "Mike is an excellent
gaffer, and he loves a challenge.
Illuminating a huge area like this
without making it look 'lit' ex¬
cited both of

us. It's
night, so it's
okay to be selective about what
you show the audience. Your eye
American Cinematographer - March 1995

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