From American Cinematographer, The Root of All Evil by Jay Holben (December 1998)
"We used a helium balloon light for the night exteriors on the roadside. It was logistically tricky location because we were on a small road with two snow fields on either side, so there was no place to drive in a crane or a Condor. The balloon seemed to be a perfect solution. We could fly it up so that it would hover just above the road, and then hide the black cable in the night sky. What I didn't expect was that it got really windy during the night we were shooting. I was operating the second camera, looking at the wide shot of the sheriff's truck approaching, and as the wind was gusting I kept seeing the balloon getting lower and lower in the frame. It never quite dropped into the picture area, but it made me very nervous. Then, at one point in the middle of the first take, the wind blew the balloon into a power line and it made a huge spark. Thank God no one was hurt and there was no damage, but we did lose quite a bit of time. We really hadn't factored the wind into the equation, and because of the white snow surrounding the area, we really couldn't attach extra lines. I thought the light that the balloon provided was perfect-- a nice ambient glow and a beautiful night softness-- but I was very uncomfortable with it after that first night. On the second night, when we returned to shoot the reverses, I went with a more traditional approach."
- Alar Kivilo, CSC
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 wind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wind. Show all posts
26.5.09
Peter Biziou: Jet Engine Storms
From American Cinematographer, This Is Your Life by Eric Rudolph (June 1998)
In an attempt to get the water-shy Truman to turn the boat back toward shore, Christof orders up some nasty weather, escalating the tumult as the undaunted star soldiers forward. Finally, horrendous hurricane-force winds are dialed up from the Truman Show control room. To create the tempest, Biziou explains,
"We had two jet engines on trucks, as is common these days, which screamed across the water and just took the tops of the waves off and gave them a nice cresting. These engines are extremely noisy and smelly, but I'd recommend them any time; they're wonderful machines. It was a joy to see a proper thrusting wind. That, coupled with the blasting of fire hoses into the jet engine stream, which would just get energetically strewn across the whole scene, gave us some wonderful storm footage."
- Peter Biziou, BSC
In an attempt to get the water-shy Truman to turn the boat back toward shore, Christof orders up some nasty weather, escalating the tumult as the undaunted star soldiers forward. Finally, horrendous hurricane-force winds are dialed up from the Truman Show control room. To create the tempest, Biziou explains,
"We had two jet engines on trucks, as is common these days, which screamed across the water and just took the tops of the waves off and gave them a nice cresting. These engines are extremely noisy and smelly, but I'd recommend them any time; they're wonderful machines. It was a joy to see a proper thrusting wind. That, coupled with the blasting of fire hoses into the jet engine stream, which would just get energetically strewn across the whole scene, gave us some wonderful storm footage."
- Peter Biziou, BSC
12.5.09
Oliver Stapleton: 'Dingle' Branches
From American Cinematographer, Enchanted Forest by Chris Pizzello (May 1999)
"I knew that the forest was supposed to feel artificial. The lighting concept was intentionally very artificial, with these very warm golden night exteriors, so I wasn't bothered by that. And then Oliver figured it out. He said, 'Nothing's moving.' And that was a major, major [discovery]. How are we going to make the forest move, yet not ruin the dialogue?"
- Michael Hoffman
Stapleton's solution was a simple but effective illusory technique known in England as "dingle" lighting.
"In England, when you set up a branch in front of a source and you get the shadow of a tree, we call it 'dingle.' In both of the forest worlds, dingle was one of the psychological tricks I used to make the scenes feel like night without going too dark. That way, I could use directional light that would feel like moonlight, rather than just having soft light blasting all around the place. Through the whole movie, I could be seen carting around dingle number 1, dingle number 2, and so on, like a kit of gels. I had branches of certain leaves and certain shapes that I would use in different situations, depending on whose face was in the scene and what kind of effect I wanted. I don't think I made a single shot throughout A Midsummer Night's Dream without some sort of branch in my hand!
We then had to figure out how to get a sense of movement in the frame. Fans make too much noise, particularly the ones they make in Rome! Instead, we had dozens of Italian crew members holding pieces of wire strung between all of the leaves and trees, and they would shake them to make the woodland move. They did this for weeks on end, which was quite tedious! But I had to make sure that was always happening, because if there was no movement in the trees, the scenes immediately felt quite dead and stagey."
- Oliver Stapleton, BSC
"I knew that the forest was supposed to feel artificial. The lighting concept was intentionally very artificial, with these very warm golden night exteriors, so I wasn't bothered by that. And then Oliver figured it out. He said, 'Nothing's moving.' And that was a major, major [discovery]. How are we going to make the forest move, yet not ruin the dialogue?"
- Michael Hoffman
Stapleton's solution was a simple but effective illusory technique known in England as "dingle" lighting.
"In England, when you set up a branch in front of a source and you get the shadow of a tree, we call it 'dingle.' In both of the forest worlds, dingle was one of the psychological tricks I used to make the scenes feel like night without going too dark. That way, I could use directional light that would feel like moonlight, rather than just having soft light blasting all around the place. Through the whole movie, I could be seen carting around dingle number 1, dingle number 2, and so on, like a kit of gels. I had branches of certain leaves and certain shapes that I would use in different situations, depending on whose face was in the scene and what kind of effect I wanted. I don't think I made a single shot throughout A Midsummer Night's Dream without some sort of branch in my hand!
We then had to figure out how to get a sense of movement in the frame. Fans make too much noise, particularly the ones they make in Rome! Instead, we had dozens of Italian crew members holding pieces of wire strung between all of the leaves and trees, and they would shake them to make the woodland move. They did this for weeks on end, which was quite tedious! But I had to make sure that was always happening, because if there was no movement in the trees, the scenes immediately felt quite dead and stagey."
- Oliver Stapleton, BSC
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