American Cinematographer - December 2017 - 52

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Hammer Time

Right: Thor is
held prisoner by
the demon
Surtur, who aims
to trigger
Ragnarok, the
destruction of
Asgard. Below:
The crew shoots
the god of
thunder as he
flies into action,
having escaped
Surtur's chains.

have been shot digitally on units such as
Red's Weapon and Arri's Alexa, Thor:
Ragnarok is the studio's first to employ
Arri's Alexa 65 - with its sensor area
equivalent to 5-perf 65mm film - as its
primary camera. "I suggested the Alexa
65 because of the immense amount of
visual information that needed to be
acquired," notes Aguirresarobe. "In
order to cover that large 54.12mm x
25.58mm sensor, we needed special
medium-format lenses. So we
combined a set of [Vintage 765] lenses
- [originally] made by Hasselblad, Arri
and Zeiss [and adapted for the Alexa
65] - with a package of new [Arri
Prime 65] lenses ranging from 24mm to
300mm." Arri London supplied the
lenses and camera bodies.
To maximize the depth of field
and exposure quality of the Alexa 65,
Aguirresarobe was determined to light
52

December 2017

to a relatively high T-stop of 5.6, while
rating the camera at ASA 1,250.
Garside recommended the extensive use
of LED lighting, including Arri S60
SkyPanels and Outsight Creamsource
Sky units. "We chose the SkyPanels for
their great consistency and versatility,"
Aguirresarobe says. "For our floor units,
we built soft boxes with two and four
SkyPanels in [each]. These had interchangeable diffusions and were moved
around on stands. On the other hand,
we had 8-by-4 and 8-by-8 soft boxes
that were hung on single-winch motors,
which were attached to Bomac track,
which in turn was attached to the dolly
beams in the roof. This enabled the
boxes not only to be raised and lowered,
but also to be moved up and down the
stages. It also enabled us to switch diffusions easily."
To light the massive amounts of
American Cinematographer

bluescreen surrounding most of the sets,
Garside chose Kino Flo Image 85s with
5,500K tubes. "We used a GrandMA2
Light dimmer board for the picture and
also had them for the second and
rigging units," the gaffer notes. "[Board
operator] Glen Bielenberg sat with
Javier and me in the DIT tent so that
Javier could issue last-minute instructions. We gave Javier his own six-channel board and always put his main key
and fill lights on it so that he could alter
his ratios at any time." Aguirresarobe
explains that he, along with Bielenberg
and Greg Daley, the head console
programmer, invented many color
presets for the LEDs on the GrandMa
- with such whimsical names as Surtur
Blue, Musphelium Fireable Sakaar,
Sunset Asgard and Hulk Pool.
The movie opens with the
cavernous world of the fire demon
Surtur. Of this environment,
Aguirresarobe observes, "It's a grim and
dark cavern, which turns to fire when
Surtur comes alive - then the deep
blue of the cavern's ambiance shifts to
extremely warm tones. When Thor
finally gets out of the cave, he lands on
a reddish surface reminiscent of Mars,
with warm, orange tones."
Thor's home realm of Asgard
subsequently endures a brazen attack
from Hela, the goddess of the dead.
"Asgard is a place that expresses a
certain melancholy," Aguirresarobe
notes. "It reminds me of a medieval and

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - December 2017