American Cinematographer - October 1968 - 78

FILMING "THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR"

worked very well, but the director felt that the action was
better in the take where I didn't make the change in stop

Continued from Page 743

-and that's the one that's in the final cut. However, it

QUESTION: What about scenes inside the cars, and the
problem of balancing interior-exterior light?
WEXLER: We made a lot of shots sitting next to the driver
with

a hand-held

camera.

We

mounted a

quartz light

with a suction cup onto the hood just to fill in his face. Oc¬

still looks all right-because of the fantastic latitude of
the color negative, which always astounds me.

QUESTION: When changing stops during a take, as
you described, isn't it always more successful if you
can make the actual change during a pan?

casionally we would try to put a neutral gelatin over the
window on the driver's side so that the exterior back¬
ground

wouldn't

burn

up.

However,

we

usually

didn't

know exactly which route we would be taking, so that the
light outside would be sometimes bright and sometimes
dim. Also, the gelatins almost always crinkled and gave
us away. For these reasons we just gave up on using them

WEXLER: Yes. If you change stops while the camera's not
moving, it will show. However, if you make the change
during a move, particularly a fast move or one that ends
up on a different surface, you can get by with quite a bit
by changing stop. Many cameramen vary the shutter an¬
gle to make such changes, but I've never gotten used to
doing it that way and I feel more secure by changing

after a while.

stops. When I assisted John Seitz, ASC, a long time ago,
he would pan from bright sunlight into shade and make

QUESTION: How, then, were you able to achieve a
satisfactory balance?

the change simply by keeping his hand on the shutter

WEXLER: I generally took a light reading on the actor's

panned.

control and varying the angle smoothly as the camera

face inside the car and then under-exposed him a stop, or
perhaps even a stop and a half. If a face inside a car is
fully lit it usually looks artificial and, on a sunny day,
you'll still burn up the exterior background. A Rolls- Royce
which

we

used

offered some special problems because

of the neutral no-glare tint of the window glass. We did
a lot of shooting through that glass and, especially in
night shots, the "filter factor" of the glass was deceptive.
It was only by taking meter readings on both sides of the
glass that I was able to compute the amount of light loss
in transmission. There was one night scene, for example,
in which we were shooting through the windshield at ac¬
tors sitting inside the car. Their normal reading at that
distance from the light should have been F/2.8, but ac¬
tually, the light was diminished as it beamed through the
windshield.

QUESTION: Did you use multiple cameras in any other
sequences besides the bank robbery sequence?
WEXLER: Yes. There were several sequences in which we
ended up by using multiple cameras. My original thought
in using them was to sort of speed up the schedule, but
the more we used them the more the director became
encouraged by the unusual effects we could get. Often,
we were both surprised by the results. During the polo
match, for example, we used four or five cameras and
each operator was given his instructions. However, since
the action was so unpredictable, we didn't know exactly
what we'd get. As it turned out, we were able to capture
some very intimate cuts of the action by using 400mm,
800mm and 1000mm lenses, in addition to the zooms.

With the camera pointing through the wind¬

shield also, it was like putting a neutral density filter over
the lens, as well-which meant that we had a double loss

QUESTION: Did you use hand-held cameras in filming
that sequence?

of light. To make things even more complicated, the scene
called for the actors to get out of the car and walk up

WEXLER: Not for the first day or two of shooting, but later

some stairs, with the camera panning them.

I did one

-yes. One of the unique problems was caused by the

take, changing stop as they got out of the car and it

helmets that the polo players wear, which tend to hide

(LEFT) A "grave" situation develops as the Director of Photography sets
sequence inside a sauna bath, which is devoid of steam, Wexler daringly
camera mounted on "roller skate dolly" which is actually an improvised
rapidly following a smoke bomb rolled down the corridor by one of the

up a high shot in atmospheric old Copp's Hill cemetery. (CENTER) For
suggested heat by filming by red light exclusively. (RIGHT) Grip pushes
device used for moving wild walls. A striking shot was achieved by
bank robbers.
American Cinematographer - October 1968

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