From American Cinematographer, This Old House by David E. Williams (August 1999)
"I generally try to light stages to look like locations, but because time was such an issue on this film, having all of those lights burning was a bit of a trap sometimes. At certain points I got nervous, and when that happens, a cinematographer will start to play it too safe and maybe overlight things. In retrospect, I wish I’d had five extra minutes on each shot to stand back, study the lighting and figure out how to make it look more natural. Nature never looks overlit; movies do. I think the film turned out well, but everyone always wants to do better. Hopefully, it will also be believable and scary for the audience we’ll see!"
- Karl Walter Lindedlaub, ASC, BVK
I read, discuss, and discover new things about cinematography everyday. Most of it, I consider incredibly interesting. Everyday I will share one of those things, maybe more if I have time.
Showing posts with label stage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stage. Show all posts
22.5.09
Janusz Kaminski: Artificial Nautical Movement
From American Cinematographer, Breaking Slavery's Chains by Stephen Pizzello (January 1998)
"We mainly did day exteriors on the ocean. Night exteriors and interiors involving the ships were all done on stage."
- Janusz Kaminski
Kaminski found it even more difficult to re-create the feeling of sea travel on dry land. An 85 percent scale model of the Amistad was built in the Van Nuys hangar, while a similarly sized hull section, used for interior scenes, was constructed in Universal's Stage 12. The ship in Van Nuys was built on a system of air bags which could be inflated and deflated to provide the appropriate rocking motion.
"The air bags under the ship gave us really nice movement, and we used the big tanks to dump the water over everything. We would do one or two takes with all of the effects, but then it would take 20 minutes to reset everything."
-Janusz Kaminski
... "On a few occasions we would put a slightly harder light on a Chapman crane and move the crane across the masts and ropes to create some shadow movement. It was all very subtle, because I didn't want the lighting to be vulgar. I just wanted to create a bit of movement, especially when Steven didn't want to wait for the air bags to get moving."
- Janusz Kaminski
Equally classic methods were used to generate authentic ambiance for interior scenes on the Stage 12 ship set. Since this set was not on a motion base, the crew created a sense of movement by choreographing the actors and the lighting.
"For day scenes involving the ship's hold, we used T-5 beam projectors to create hot shafts of light streaming through the openings in the top of the ship. We hung those from trapezes with rope, and I had all of these fellows on top of the boat moving the beams back and forth so you'd get the feeling that the boat was moving in relation to the sun. Aside from the T-5 projectors, we didn't use too much; we'd use the Seven-Minute Drill when we wanted to see into the shadows of the hold a bit. The day scenes, of course, had the sun as an obvious source. In terms of the night scenes in the ship's hold, if you're willing to accept some moonlight coming through the portholes, I think we've completely succeeded in creating a poor man's process on the boat. It really seems as if the boat is on the ocean."
- David Devlin, Gaffer for Janusz on Amistad
"We mainly did day exteriors on the ocean. Night exteriors and interiors involving the ships were all done on stage."
- Janusz Kaminski
Kaminski found it even more difficult to re-create the feeling of sea travel on dry land. An 85 percent scale model of the Amistad was built in the Van Nuys hangar, while a similarly sized hull section, used for interior scenes, was constructed in Universal's Stage 12. The ship in Van Nuys was built on a system of air bags which could be inflated and deflated to provide the appropriate rocking motion.
"The air bags under the ship gave us really nice movement, and we used the big tanks to dump the water over everything. We would do one or two takes with all of the effects, but then it would take 20 minutes to reset everything."
-Janusz Kaminski
... "On a few occasions we would put a slightly harder light on a Chapman crane and move the crane across the masts and ropes to create some shadow movement. It was all very subtle, because I didn't want the lighting to be vulgar. I just wanted to create a bit of movement, especially when Steven didn't want to wait for the air bags to get moving."
- Janusz Kaminski
Equally classic methods were used to generate authentic ambiance for interior scenes on the Stage 12 ship set. Since this set was not on a motion base, the crew created a sense of movement by choreographing the actors and the lighting.
"For day scenes involving the ship's hold, we used T-5 beam projectors to create hot shafts of light streaming through the openings in the top of the ship. We hung those from trapezes with rope, and I had all of these fellows on top of the boat moving the beams back and forth so you'd get the feeling that the boat was moving in relation to the sun. Aside from the T-5 projectors, we didn't use too much; we'd use the Seven-Minute Drill when we wanted to see into the shadows of the hold a bit. The day scenes, of course, had the sun as an obvious source. In terms of the night scenes in the ship's hold, if you're willing to accept some moonlight coming through the portholes, I think we've completely succeeded in creating a poor man's process on the boat. It really seems as if the boat is on the ocean."
- David Devlin, Gaffer for Janusz on Amistad
14.5.09
Emmanuel Lubezki: Artificial Sky
From American Cinematographer, Galloping Ghost by Stephen Pizzello (December 1999)
"One day we had a big meeting with everyone, and we talked about building everything at Leavesden Studios. When we went to England on the first scouting trip, they showed me the sets on the stages, and I thought they were joking-- all of the stage ceilings were really low, and the sets were less than 20' high. That created some big limitations, and as a result, I had to throw out my initial plans for the lighting. My first idea had been to employ huge sources, most of which would come from the back to create silhouettes, and to use very little fill light. However, the approach I eventually adopted worked out much better: I decided to create a huge toplight, which I had never done before. The stage ceilings were so low that we couldn't really hide lights in the greenbeds. Instead, we created a huge sense of sky for the exteriors shot in the stages. We installed over 500 space lights up in the ceiling, very close to each other, and then pumped smoke into the rafters to create a false sky and obscure the fixtures. That was, all of the light would seem to be coming from the sky, as it would in reality. Being low helped me because I was getting the stop I wanted, and it was easier to control the smoke."
- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
"One day we had a big meeting with everyone, and we talked about building everything at Leavesden Studios. When we went to England on the first scouting trip, they showed me the sets on the stages, and I thought they were joking-- all of the stage ceilings were really low, and the sets were less than 20' high. That created some big limitations, and as a result, I had to throw out my initial plans for the lighting. My first idea had been to employ huge sources, most of which would come from the back to create silhouettes, and to use very little fill light. However, the approach I eventually adopted worked out much better: I decided to create a huge toplight, which I had never done before. The stage ceilings were so low that we couldn't really hide lights in the greenbeds. Instead, we created a huge sense of sky for the exteriors shot in the stages. We installed over 500 space lights up in the ceiling, very close to each other, and then pumped smoke into the rafters to create a false sky and obscure the fixtures. That was, all of the light would seem to be coming from the sky, as it would in reality. Being low helped me because I was getting the stop I wanted, and it was easier to control the smoke."
- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
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