American Cinematographer - February 2013 - 33

Unit photography by Jonathan Olley.
Photos and frame grabs courtesy of Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Entertainment.

In these frames from Zero Dark Thirty, Navy SEALs fly into action and land
at a walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that is believed to house
Osama bin Laden. Low-light and no-light/night-vision looks differentiate
objective and subjective perspectives during the raid. Far right: Director of
photography Greig Fraser, ACS.

nearby — in fact, we would be as far
from technical support as we could get!
So I wanted a tried and tested system
that would be simple to use on location
in a run-and-gun situation. Film is
tried and tested, of course, but we were
going to be in heat and dust and far
from labs, often shooting in locations
we hadn’t been able to scout, and often
in very low light.”
These considerations led the
filmmakers to opt for digital capture
with Arri Alexa Plus and M cameras,
which they rented from Panavision
U.K. “In testing, we found the low-light
capabilities of the Alexa to be quite
amazing,” Fraser says. “The camera has
a reach into shadows that film does not
have, and a key portion of this movie
takes place in the dead of night, with no
motivation for light whatsoever. The
raid on the bin Laden compound actually took place on a moonless night.
“We also had to deal with the

harsh light of the Middle East for many
scenes that are set in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, so we had to be sure our
format would work suitably well with
highlights,” he adds. “The Alexa just
made the most sense for this show
because it works so well in both
extremes.”

“Greig was a real
lifeline on a difficult
production.”

In choosing a format, Fraser had
another important requirement: “an
idiot-proof workflow” that would not
impede the filmmakers during the
shoot. He planned to run four handheld
cameras for many scenes, and he
believed a sophisticated video village
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was neither feasible nor conducive to
the cracking pace the production
required. He therefore asked Codex,
Digilab Services of London, and videoassist company Video Hawks of Los
Angeles to help devise a methodology
that would allow Bigelow to view what
was being shot in the least invasive way
possible.
Video Hawks had just come off
World War Z (shot by Robert
Richardson, ASC), another Alexa show
that also needed to work “light and tight
and fast,” says Video Hawks co-owner
Glenn Derry, and the company sent one
of the custom backpacks developed for
World War Z to Fraser’s camera crew in
the U.K. so they could try it out. The
pack was attached to a diving vest and
held a Codex recorder, camera batteries,
video transmitters and other accessories,
with only one lightweight cable running
to the camera head. “We decided that
backpack was too heavy for our film, as
it was going to be mainly handheld, so
we had to come up with a lighter
version,” recalls 1st AC Jake Marcuson.
“After trying quite a few different packs,
we decided on lightweight running
packs. Each held a small plywood frame
on which we mounted the Codex, two
Gold Mount batteries and the transmitter.” The transmitter was either a
short-range wireless unit or a longerrange Cobham Technical Services unit
that could transmit the camera image to
handheld Sound Devices Pix 240
monitors.
The running packs made it possible for the production to record
February 2013

33
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American Cinematographer - February 2013

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