American Cinematographer - June 2010 - 45

cross shooting, and the actors and the editors loved it because it’s more organic. The main challenge, of course, is lighting for so many cameras, but that’s solved by lighting 360 degrees — at least, it is when you have a gaffer like Mo Flam. The bigger challenge is lighting a bigger background, especially if there are lots of visual effects. But I’m finding there are little things you learn when cross shooting, like how to use one person’s backlight as another person’s fill. The bottom line is, if you use multiple cameras and cross shoot, it’s going to work out if you know what you are doing, light ahead in your mind, and make sure each of those cameras is productive.” Prince of Persia’s technical requirements grew even more complicated once the project landed at Pinewood, because enormous sets were built on those stages. Newell calls that leg of the shoot “a huge circus and a colossal shebang,” noting that multiple stages and units were active almost constantly. At the center of the madness was a crucial action sequence, Prince Dastan’s storming of an ancient Indian castle. Originally, the filmmakers hoped to build the castle set in Morocco, but early in production, they realized that was impractical — the most suitable location was in a windy region, close to some mountains. “We were very worried the set might blow over,” says Newell. Therefore, the sequence was moved to Pinewood and changed from daytime to nighttime to make it more logistically feasible. On Pinewood’s James Bond Stage, production designer Wolf Kroeger and his crew created a massive set piece representing the fortified Eastern gate of the castle, and the top of the set was just a few feet from the large lighting grid that was required for the sequence, which starts at night and finishes in morning light. “The lighting rig was a problem,” concedes Witt, whose second unit filmed much of the action at the castle. Extensive bluescreen was required to hide the grid and lighting equipment, but in some areas,

The film’s 1,400-plus visual-effects shots, supervised by Tom Wood, often called for sky replacements and the seamless blending of practical photography with CGI.

the set was too close to the grid to utilize bluescreen adequately. “It’s a big action scene that involves a lot of actors, stuntmen, horses and fire,” says Witt. “Most of the lights hanging from the ceiling were skirted space lights, and we dimmed them or turned some on or off to suggest changes in time of day. For sunlight and highlights, we used about 10 20K Molebeams and 15 20K lights on scissor lifts, adding CTO as necessary. In the
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end, they had to do more work in post than they originally intended to take out the rig and clean up some shots. In that sense, almost every shot in the sequence is an effects shot.” Seale notes that the nature of the set made it virtually impossible to correctly light all of the bluescreens, and occasionally the bluescreens proved useless. “The set, in places, was within 2 meters of the grid; it was a nightmare to light and fully cover the actors’ backJune 2010 45

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American Cinematographer - June 2010

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