American Cinematographer - January 2008 - 41

ing tactics: ‘Let’s just light it up and go for it.’ “Because the derrick was made of wood, I knew that even if we managed to put the fire out, the structure would smolder through the night and possibly collapse. As it turned out, we picked a night that was about as windy as we could tolerate, and the flames all blew to one side of the derrick. We put water on it and got the flames to go out, but we couldn’t guarantee the derrick would still be there the next day, so we had to keep going to get the shot where it collapses. “We let the derrick burn for as long as we could before we had to pull it down. The crew kept filming while Paul let the actors try different things; he’s a bit of a renegade, and he wanted to play it out to the bitter end. I was standing behind him while the derrick was crackling and popping, and he kept looking back at me to make sure it was okay to keep going. Finally, I said, ‘It’s time. If we don’t drop it, it’s going to drop on its own.’ He wanted to try one more scene that took about two minutes, and I was sure we were going to lose the derrick. But he finally said, ‘Okay, drop it.’ We had the derrick hooked up to a crane with a couple of cables that allowed us to pull a weak-knee out from under it. It dropped like a dream. “For reverses of the actors shot the next day, we just lit up our jet nozzle again. All crewmembers anywhere near the fire wore Nomex fire-protection suits, but the actors were just wearing wardrobe that had been flameproofed. The closest actors were about 120 feet from the fire, but it was still extremely hot at that distance. Trust me, you can’t get close enough to actually get burned because it gets very uncomfortable. My guys probably got within 60 feet of the fire, and they could only stay that close for a short time.” — Stephen Pizzello Dan after we’d done some tests with them. The 43mm lens definitely had a vintage look — desaturated, lowcontrast, vignetting and low-resolution.” Sasaki explains, “The main modifications I made [to the C- and E-Series lenses] involved replacing the old taking lenses with more modern glass, but we also changed the cylinder prescriptions a little to make the lenses flatter. The Es were optimized for maximum fidelity, but we made the Cs more vulnerable to flaring with modifications that would cause the light to scatter a bit more; in some of them, we introduced reflective material, and in others, we removed the anti-reflective coatings from the lenses. Paul didn’t want the flares to look like the kind you might see in a music video; he wanted the controlled, organic look you’d get from a dated lens. “The 43mm from the Pathé camera was really interesting,” he continues. “Once we removed it from the camera, we added an old cylinder assembly from the 1960s. I have to say, Paul and Robert did some of the most extensive testing I’ve ever seen to nail in a look with the lenses. It was one of the most challenging shows I’ve ever done.” Elswit notes, “We did six or eight shots with the Pathé lens. One in particular that’s really nice is when Plainview is sitting in a train with Left: A pair of 12' tungsten Skylight balloons lend the derrick some ambient glow. Gaffer Robby Baumgartner notes, “We didn’t use their full output because Bob didn’t want a key from them. He just wanted to make it seem as if the practical lights on the derrick were carrying a bit farther.” Below: Crewmembers set up a pair of special flicker units built by Baumgartner. To create a natural-looking flicker, the gaffer ran the units on six circuits and covered them with hand-cut pieces of party gel. American Cinematographer 41

American Cinematographer - January 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 2008