American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 35A
Gaffer Dwight Campbell checks the DragonFrame interface on set for
Buddy Thunderstruck at Stoopid Buddy Stoodios.
I
"Stoodio" Lighting
By Kelly Brinker
Buddy Thunderstruck gaffer Dwight
Campbell has worked in set lighting for
more than 30 years. He moved to California to attend the American Film Institute,
after which he made his way into feature
films, commercials and television as a
gaffer and a key grip. His credits include
the features The Abyss, Backdraft and Far
and Away, and the television series Boomtown, Las Vegas and Robot Chicken. AC
spoke with Campbell about his current
work in stop-motion animation.
American Cinematographer:
How did you get started with Stoopid
Buddy Stoodios?
Dwight Campbell: My original
partner after attending AFI was a motioncontrol cinematographer. My first 15 years
in California involved a lot of motioncontrol work with miniature models and
cities. After several years of doing title
sequences, I found myself working odd
days on the television series House doing
motion-control work with an extended
lens for showing [patients'] interior body
parts. This is where I crossed paths with
cameraman Helder Sun. Helder was eventually hired by the 'Buds,' and he brought
me over to work on Robot Chicken and
eventually Super Mansion.
When I first came into the buildDigital Exclusive
April 2017
ing, it was completely empty. They asked
me what I could do to help them set up
18 stages, so I put in all the steel and
arranged for all the power. I then went
off to work on four small features or
films made for television and returned as
a day player on Robot Chicken. When
Super Mansion was coming together,
they asked me to be a full-time gaffer, so
I stayed on as long as I could and that led
to almost four years of work. I would
leave to do commercials and pick up the
union days, and then I'd come back to
the animation world. Stop-motionanimation production feels very natural
to me because of my earlier work in
motion control.
How is it different working on
a stop-motion production as
opposed to a feature film?
Campbell: The job itself is the
same - it's just a question of picking
your units to do the same job on a
smaller scale. For example, having a 1K
on a stop-motion set is like having a 12K
or a brute arc on a live-action set. The
exposure is so much slower for stop
motion, so everything is minimized. It's
always hard to get smaller lights for
smaller sets; we use many tricks to make
it seem realistic.
Do you like having everything
linked to and controlled by the
DragonFrame software system?
Campbell: DragonFrame is an
American Cinematographer
amazing program and an incredibly
useful tool to have. I've met its inventor;
it didn't exist in the old world of motion
control that I remember. It was a huge
leap for the stop-motion-animation
process when DragonFrame became
available. We used to have Video Lunchbox, which was a very different kind of
experience. DragonFrame basically takes
relatively inexpensive cameras - the
Canon cameras or the Nikon cameras -
and gives you the ability to do some
incredible things with stop motion and
even time-lapse photography.
What challenges did you
encounter while working on Buddy
Thunderstruck?
Campbell: The biggest challenge
was trying to achieve a completely different look than the previous shows that
were made at the studio. It was a challenge convincing them to put in night
and day backings to create the new look.
Originally, there were three hard cycs
with blue skies and clouds that needed
to be repainted. We had to convince
them to tear them out and spend the
money to buy the rails and curtains
necessary to create a really smooth-looking background of a day or a night sky
for Buddy Thunderstruck. When they
finally agreed, there was a rush to get
everything ready in time for production.
It was worth the efforts because it
changed the dynamics of that studio
from basically being a really small momand-pop kind of stop-motion studio with
everything being one-off, to having the
ability to create very stylized looks on 25
stages simultaneously. That change was
crucial; otherwise they would have had
no skies, and they needed skies in 20 out
of the 25 stages.
How was it managing the
lighting on all 25 stages?
Campbell: Well, you can't do
them all at the same time. I would
normally touch four to five stages a day
- the major 'flip' stages. Flipping a stage
means we either change a day scene to a
night scene, or change to a completely
new scene, a new episode and a new set.
This process can take several hours and
involves many departments working until
we get a locked angle.
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - April 2017
Contents
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - Intro
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 1
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 2
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - Contents
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 4
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 5
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 6
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 7
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 8
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 9
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 10
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 11
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 12
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 13
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 14
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 15
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 16
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 17
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 18
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 19
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 20
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 21
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 22
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 23
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 24
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 25
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 26
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 27
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 28
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 29
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 30
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 31
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 32
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 33
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 34
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 35
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 35A
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 35B
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 36
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 37
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 38
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 39
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 40
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 41
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 42
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 43
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 44
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 45
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 46
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 47
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 48
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 49
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - 50
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American Cinematographer - April 2017 - Cover3
American Cinematographer - April 2017 - Cover4
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