Shelly Johnson, ASC

The opening of this film features a group investigating a strange and large object that is heaving out of the ice, after being buried for many years, in Iceland. Director Joe Johnston wanted a midnight sun effect on the horizon and the entire scene was taking place in a blizzard. The production had considered going to Iceland but the fact we shot this film in fall and winter didn’t help the extreme short days there. Nobody seemed to be wanting to think about this opening and so I suggested we shoot this on stage. To me, there were three basic elements needed to create a frozen plain. Skylight, the lit horizon & sun and the blizzard to blend it all. My suggestion was to build up the horizon line and put a late day glow on a white backing, use a Varilite on a dolly as the actual sun-ball seen on the horizon and track that along with our characters (to give the illusion the sun was 93,000,000 miles away instead of 100 feet). The elements were so simple that they were somewhat laughed-off and looked upon as though it would never work. I created a digital painting that emulated the type of light that Joe wanted and he approved that. I then did a test on a miniature set using the units I proposed and that seemed promising… But still Joe and Rick seemed extremely cautious about pulling the trigger on it. Several months passed and we were well into shooting. After some attempts to stage it outside (including an idea to shoot night-for-day as we did on our JP3 Falls Lake rig) it was decided to build the set on H Stage at Shepperton. We laid out our skylight (HMI’s bounced into Ultrabouce on the stage ceiling) our horizon glow (old fashioned cyc-strips dimmed to 20%) and our dolly mounted VL that tracked about 1/3 the distance the camera did, every time the camera moved… Even if it was only a foot or two. I must admit, without the blizzard turned-on it looked like it would never work. But with the blizzard blending these simple elements into one frame, it seemed to work fine.

Production Designer Rick Heinrichs creates the most fantastic concept art. Here is a scene from the opening of the film where a Sub-Orbital Bomber is discovered largely buried in ice somewhere in the arctic circle. Workers repel into a cut hatchway and Joe Johnston specifically wanted to see a very vertical beam of light penetrate the darkness. All too easy for Rick’s artists to paint as they had plenty of elbow room to keep their paintbrushes straight and parallel. A little different affair for me, as you will see in my next post. That aside, I’ve spoken many times about Rick’s vision and how he “suggests” his sets be lit and how his ideas are wonderfully inspired. Frequently while creating my lighting diagrams during prep, I’ll visit the art department walls and even have a quick conversation with Rick and Joe regarding their intent and even fire some ideas over their transom myself before sitting down to do the final renderings for the crew. In the case of Captain America, there were 115 sets and lighting diagrams… Which is maybe 30-40% more than found in a film of this type and 50-60% more than found in an average film. Therefore, the pre-visualization and pre-light renderings were massively important. Biggles and I knew that if we ever fell behind, we’d never catch up

On the Sub-Orbital Bomber set that we see iced-over in the beginning of the film, Director Joe Johnston was quite adamant about having I very parallel beam of light blasting into the freshly cut hole and slicing through and invading the set. This was the same Sub-Orbital Bomber set that was used for the flying scenes. Different than most plane cockpits, Rick designed this set to be large and organically shaped. The set itself was on a gimbal that was 14 feet high… And the set itself was 20 feet high on top of that. We only had a 42 foot tall stage so that only left me 8 feet with which to rig this light beam. Typically, to make a beam parallel, you need to back the light off… Maybe 60 feet, and shoot it in from that great distance. If the light is too close, the beam fans out in a cone pattern and the beam is not parallel… But has the look of a light set very close to the opening. We ended up setting a 6×6 mirror up in the ozone above the stage perms, then shot in a 36 inch HMI Molebeam from 60 feet to the side of the set and reflected that light 90 degrees thru the opening at the top of the set. Being in the ozone above the perms gave stunts some space to rig their repel rigs and that crowded 8 feet of stage space became workable for us. When Joe saw the light for the first time at our pre-focus he said, “oh. I’m pleasantly surprised. I was prepared to ask you to re-rig this for a straight beam of light. You seem to have done it somehow. Ok.” Whew.

I wanted to post some pictures from our makeup and hair test in The Wolfman. Because I had so little prep, these tests served as a manner to get a lot of the methodology down in terms of general look and feel of the film, as well as roughing in our film color grader to our look and density preferences. These are stills that I shot at the test then color corrected for the color grader as a point of discussion between us later that night. In these cases, I can walk them through the exact moves I make in Photoshop, then they can translate that to a working method on their equipment. Even though almost none of the techniques used in Photoshop are directly make-able in color grading, it helps them to know the image construction and basic recipe of the look.

These make up and wardrobe test stills were shot in the unfinished Talbot Hall set designed by Rick Heinrichs. The previous post showed Benicio in a wardrobe choice for a small scene where he plays Hamlet on the London stage. I’ll find a frame grab from that scene later, and you’ll see they ultimately made a different wardrobe choice. This is Emily Blunt in a proposed look for a funeral scene for her fiancée, Lawrence Talbot’s brother. I don’t think you can ever go wrong with black net over a woman’s face. Emily is an extremely nice person, very easy to work with and works in any sort of light really. In fact, she’s one of those actresses where, if you just get light close to her, she will manage to light herself from within. My job was quite easy when she was around.

These are the final make up and wardrobe test stills that I shot. Anthony Hopkins in a proposed look for around the house (or mansion in this case). Interestingly, because of my shortened prep, I went aggressive with the different looks on this test. The reason being that we were only a few days before production and I needed to get some viable feedback from Director, Joe Johnston and anyone else who wanted to chime-in on what I was proposing for the look of The Wolfman. Joe and the actors were on board but a few of the producers had questions about density and the old “too dark” issue we cinematographers seem to run into from time to time. These tests helped me navigate those waters and gave me a great idea as to where I stood with the different personalities involved with the production.

Based on the popular book series, the film stories follow Percy Jackson (played by Logan Lerman) on his various quests and his wanting to understand and reunite with his father. We really ran poor Logan through the paces on this one and he never once complained. We dragged him, hung him from wires, ran him through fire and here, stretched him between two halves of a speeding taxi driven by a maniacal threesome that share a single eyeball. Obviously, a fantasy based story which opened up the possibility for great visuals. In fact, I would have loved to have gone a bit further and more dramatic with this film, but the studio needed to consider the age of their young audience and wanted a look that more favored the fantasy component and less the dramatic themes. Totally understandable when making a film of this nature for a large studio. The movie was Directed by Thor Fruedenthal. I had a great Vancouver crew including Gaffer Drew Davidson, Key Grip John Westerlaken, operator Peter Wilke and First AC Taylor Matheson. These guys helped me to no end and really keyed-in to what we were doing and made my life extremely easy with regard to camera, lighting and grip. All very creative guys with great work ethics. Here is Logan Lerman on his way to the chiropractor.

We separated two halves of a stationary taxi against green screen and married that with speeding back plates shot by Roger Vernon. The taxi sequence is involved, had a lot of dialogue and a sweeping sort of back-lashing camera movement. We also had fast moving lighting affects with a 360 array of mirrors that surrounded the car to add reference to the fact that the taxi was moving at a fictional hyper-speed. We used cabs cut-away in various forms to accommodate our fast sweeping cameras and gimbal that tended to toss the actors not unlike socks in a dryer.

Another big pilot on Pilot Day. This was my 5th collaboration with Joe Johnston and I very much enjoy shooting movies for him. We had a high-pressure start on my first film with him and I remember the day vividly when I found his funny bone and made him laugh… Somewhere around the third week of Jurassic Park 3. It’s funny because on those films you’re faced with situations where your choice is to laugh or cry… And once we could laugh together (much at my expense, granted) we had access to see solutions. Now it seems no matter what we are faced with, we understand at least one of us will work up a good plan… If not both of us. Lumen was a large pilot for DreamWorks that was shot in New Zealand. It’s about a boy who figures a way to access the world of a famous fantasy novel series and helps his family in the process.

Great New Zealand gaffer Tony Blackwood really worked hard on this project. This location was remote and he had maxi brutes dotting the hillside and his crew worked very hard to get the placements I requested and power to this location. It was a set up that we got a lot of mileage from. In fact, one shot that was cut from the script was a wide shot of our group entering the camp in a remote area. At lunch time (around midnight), Joe Johnston told me he’d love to get that wide shot, and asked if there was some area within Tony’s rig several acres of lit forest that we could cheat that shot into existence. We explored during the lunch break and Joe found this tree that was wonderfully side lit and asked if I could make that work. Tony panned around some backlight and we got this shot rather quickly. Joe is great at finding the graphic element in a location or piece of action. He is art trained and knows his way around a composition and any set design. His vast ILM experience gives him quite the pedigree and he’s very exciting to work with. Tony was able to shake up a few lights that we could see and hide them behind foreground trees. We were able to walk our kids through the shot before we lost them to the child labor laws and we were happy to get the shot so quickly. I owe Tony a beer for this one.

Directed by Mark Williams, this is an exceptionally well written script by Bill Dubuque. The story largely takes place in the competitive world the boiler-room office and a father who is detached from his family must find a way to connect with his son when he’s faced with illness. The son has an interest in Chicago architecture and teaches his father about appreciating the simple beautiful things that are right in front of him. Gerard Butler plays the lead roll and was very excited to star in this very delicately written piece. I always enjoy seeing an actor take a chance and work outside their safety zones. For me, I try to take the camera on a similar journey in these cases… Work outside my safety zone as well and create a united front between the director, actors and myself so that they can feel safe and supported and have some faith that the camera will be there for them when they need it. It must be tough for these actors to challenge themselves like this and I try to constantly monitor what they might be needing so that the crew can help them. In addition, first time director (but quite experienced producer) Mark Williams had an intimate understanding of the material and since the characters all go through massive changes in the telling of the story, was enormously helpful in establishing the faceted arc for the narrative. Personally, I’d swear he’s done 10 films. He’s a natural. Ultimately this film is about understanding people and how the right thing is often not the easiest thing, and I think this same idea is what we strived for in the spirit in the cinematography as well.

Here’s a short frame for you. The great actor Alfred Molina eavesdrops on a telephone conversation and we wanted to really push his sense of despair, so we decided to push the anamorphic framing a bit. Interestingly, this shot was made on our first day of shooting. I think that when you push a frame like this early in the production process, you almost give the crew permission to think a bit outside the box and it fosters a spirit knowing their own suggestions can be a little more extreme. After we made this shot, I noticed Operator Michael Carella really click-in and search for opportunities where his framing would add layers to the storytelling. First AC Barrett Axford did similar things with his expressive focus-pulling that followed the meaning of the dialogue… And not necessarily the words. A film set is busy and distracting and it’s wonderful to have crew that thinks about story. In addition, our gaffer, Mike Hall and key grip Rico Emmerson were constantly finding creative solutions to technical challenges. Often when hiring a crew on location, I consider the personalities and group dynamic and try very hard to pair the right personalities with the specific project. So much of this is a gut call, since I’m often the stranger in these cases and know nothing of these people. I was very happy with how hard this crew worked on this project and helped Mark and Gerard through the process of making this film.

Please meet one of my key teachers, Allen Daviau, ASC. I met Allen in the late 70’s and he has been a constant presence ever since. He taught me much about the craft of cinematography with his coaching. How to be passionate about cinematography with his persona… And how to strive for artistic excellence with his images. I think we should all take a moment to thank our teachers and think about how we can extend that connection with young cinematographers. He even took a cab to Pasadena to watch one of my student films projected on an apartment wall. In this photo, Allen is paying a visit to the Jurassic Park 3 set on Stage 12 at Universal. A large-scale set lit for both day and night exterior shooting that provided a controlled environment for Stan Winston’s dinosaurs. The film was directed by the great Joe Johnston. Allen helped me enormously after I got offered JP3 and showed me the film Congo, that he shot where he had many stage-bound jungle scenes. He was very candid and honest about pointing out what he thought he did well… And where he felt he needed improvement. One of the true giants of cinematography.

The Big Bang was shot in Spokane, Washington with a largely local crew. Mike Vukas was the gaffer and he worked hard at embracing our unusual visual aspirations. Peter Green was the A Camera operator and Ronnie Dennis was the First AC. We all worked hard… including doing our own rigging during lunch, so that our Director, Tony Krantz, could come away with something he truly authored. On this shot, a red nightclub, I was told that the red gel I had ordered for the windows was too expensive. So, we sent some PA’s to the party supply store in downtown Spokane and they came back with a dozen or so plastic party table cloths that we could apply to the outside of the windows in lieu of the costly gel. It made the UPM happy and sometimes that’s what tips the scales of sanity on a film set. A pretty funny 99 cent solution.