American Cinematographer - February 1984 - 62

Matte shots such
these

were

as

used to

create scenes

of

nuclear destruction
in

i nc

uay MTxcr.

like Godzilla

speed.
Six weeks

required
to shoot the explosions. The colored Hquids quickly contaminated
r

«

were

i

i

i

the water after each blast,

it

i

*

making

to replace all the
after each take. Eight hours
needed to filter the water for

mandatory

coming over the
hill," Blalack groaned. The prob¬
lem

was

that the live action por¬

tions, involving landscapes and

printing. The dyes

people, appeared

into the

to have no real
connection with the matted-in ele¬

water

ments

(the explosions). The

were

swer

to

the larger tank, which permitted a
maximum of two shots per day.
Three or four shots a day could be

managed in the smaller tank.
The explosions were
filmed against blue screen back¬
grounds so that male and female
traveling mattes could be made to
permit compositing with the live
foreground shots. Any con¬
taminating colors in the water
unwanted holes

would

cause

appear

in the mattes.

to

The rushes of the explo¬
sions were excellent. The clouds
hurtled upward ponderously and
atop a horrendously
chaotic stem. To the eyes of the

turbulently

technicians, of

course,

they

oc¬

curred swiftly and were dispersed
in a few seconds, but the slowmotion effect revealed convincing
details and conveyed a sense of
scale that in the words of Chris
-

Deardorff, head of Praxis' optical

department

-

managed "to com¬
enormity of the

municate the

event."
The first

were

composite tests
less encouraging. "It looks

ecuted by Pinkham, also were
done in the tanks and matched to
the action footage via optical

the

dilemma

an¬
was

animation, by which

means it was
possible to show the effects of
light and heat radiating from the
explosions to affect the surround¬
ing area.
Kathy Kean, assisted by
Peggy Regan, did the painstaking
job of adding the lights and shad¬

each of the live action
scenes which had been matched to
the various explosion shots. Ob¬
ows

to

jects in the foreground, such as
trees, automobiles, buildings, etc.,
were given strong backlights as
well as deep shadows that race
the landscapes, lengthening
with explosive speed. To create
the blinding light of the nuclear

across

blasts, Optical Supervisor Chris
Regan and Operators Betsy Brom¬
berg and Beth Block burned in
areas on individual frames using
exposures as long as three minutes
per frame. The animators found
that some of their best work had
the effect of making the explo¬
sions appear more beautiful than

terrifying, so some of the finer
points of their animation had to
be dropped. All of the optical
printing was extremely intricate,
requiring careful matching of
many different elements. Sarah
Pasanan and Peg Hunter were re¬
sponsible for the optical lineups.
David Grafton crafted special op¬
tical designs for the production.
The missile contrails, ex¬

February 1984

were

injected

through specially
designed hydrodynamic jets,
which were moved rapidly
through the water to leave tur¬
water

bulent trails. The jets could be
turned and twisted as the pres¬
surized dye was released, creating

convincing

movements when the
contrails were matted into the
Kansas skies of the first unit

photography.
All of the tank work

was

complex that Mark Madel de¬
signed a special computer system
to time each step accurately.
For scenes depicting the
so

aftermath of the nuclear

attack, it
views
of destruction, both of the cities
and the surrounding countryside.
A matte artist, Jenna Holman, was
was

necessary to suggest vast

commissioned
rence,
sas

to

reduce Law¬

Kansas City, and other Kan¬

real

estate

to

rubble

-

in

a

series of

paintings. Live action ele¬
ments were combined optically to
produce the versions shown in the
finished production. The results
are frighteningly
convincing.
The results of the months
of work the Praxis team contrib¬
uted to the film totals about eight
minutes of screen time. When in¬
tercut with dramatic action, docu¬
mentary footage, and some special
made by Movie Magic in
which human figures become skel¬
etons for an instant before vapor¬
scenes

izing, those eight minutes become
key elements of the whole. With¬
out them, there could have been
no The Day After.
■
American Cinematographer - February 1984

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 1984
