◗ Grand Battles Top: A Dark Elf Ark ship touches down on Earth. Middle: Malekith walks from an Ark on Svartalfheim. Bottom: Jane, Thor and Loki enter Svartalfheim aboard an Asgardian skiff. 78 December 2013 American Cinematographer through those paneled windows. It was inspired by walking into a cathedral and studying the light inside. Light is like power inside the Throne Room; these guys rule the universe, and light radiates around them." Morgenthau heightened the cathedral feeling by using smoke to delineate the shafts of light and soften the image. Smoke is "an expressive way to feel the sources," he observes. "It brings a real texture to and takes some of the electronic edge off the digital image." The H Stage lighting plot was designed for flexibility. Higgins recalls, "When we rigged those stages, we had to be able to light from either side because it was going to be reused as different sets. There must have been six or eight revamps." 20K Molebeams and 20K Fresnels were lined up along the stage walls to simulate sunlight through windows. All of the fixtures were on motorized trapezes that allowed their height to be changed remotely, although a scissor lift was needed to change the tilt of the head. The 20K Molebeams were higher than the Fresnels in order to create steep shafts of light hitting the floor. "If the Molebeam had come too deep into the space, it would have overlit it, so we put it at a really steep angle," explains Morgenthau.