American Cinematographer - July 1984 - 61

"One of the

making that
locking the

secrets

to

realistic was not
camera down. There
are many mount shots that study
Indiana and Willy in closeup.
There are no process shots in the
sequence at all. I used master shots
with run-bys, or the camera was in
the car, or running next to the car
with the

scene

actors

in the

"Before

we

car.

shot,

we

did

a

steady

test. What we discovered
that we could not get the cam¬

with

yellow light. Then I'd ask
Dougie to change all the gels in his
lamps and go totally straw, and
we'd do another pass in straw
light. Then we'd come back and
I'd ask Dougie to light half the set
in

straw

they

and half with red

were

as

if

going through fissures

where lava rivers flowed beneath.
Then on the same boring circle,
we'd go around with the actors
and they'd do the dialogue involv¬

hi e because the camera
shook so much when it was in the
mine car. Everyone said, 'Gee, this
looks terrible.' And I said, 'No, it
doesn't look terrible. It looks ab¬

ing the red color. Every time I
around the track, Dougie
kept varying the lighting. The mar¬
velous thing was that just by
changing the position of the light¬
ing and the color gel over the light,
you never felt you were in the
same part of the circular set more

solutely realistic. 1 took several

than

rides in the mine car and this is
what it looks like. It made my fill¬

changed, though we did build a
section of parallel track for what
we called the taffy
pull with Short

was
era

the

steady. The photography on
first day of testing was almost

unusa

ings fall out. This is what it feels
like to be in a mine car without
shock absorbers, racing downhill.
I loved the fact that the camera

went

once.

The

set

itself

never

loosen the mounts as we shot
so
it would register more
vibration.
"For the run-by shots, I
found when I used a wide angle

Round between the two cars and
the live action footage was supple¬
mented with miniature footage.
The high overhead shot of Short
Round between the two cars going
over the lava
pit, for example, is a
miniature.
"One day, accidentally,
the actors went through a large

lens, it

lump of smoke. The effects

never was

steady. We

even

began

to

was too

smooth. It

was

like

boat-to-boat shot on a calm
lake. So, I only shot from the dolly
to the mine car with 75s, 100s,
and 180-millimeter anamorphic
lenses. This in itself made it hard
for Chic because he was struggling

a

keep the

in frame. But it
gave a very realistic effect. Then
Dougie and Paul Beesen, who
both helped to shoot the se¬
quence, put very hot lights every
20 or 30 yards so there would be
sweeping shadows as the people
went through different colored
lights. We were careful to change
the color of the gels so the actors
never went through just white
light. They went through reds, or¬
anges, yellows, and greens. This
gave the feeling of speed and vari¬
ety of location.
"Since we were going in
only one direction, and never
faster than ten miles per hour for
safety reasons, what we did was
shoot an entire loop of the track
to

actors

tot

-

IM a

man

didn't take the B-smoke and prop¬

erly paddle it evenly

across

track, ffe created

cloud that

a

hung in the air. When the mine

the
car

hit the cloud it created a con trail
which flowed off the shoulders
and hat of Harrison Ford, and I

just loved it. It

accident,
had the effects
man lump his clouds in mid air.
"Even though the mine
car wasn't going fast, it looked fast
because we shot parallel to and
very close to rock walls. When
you drive in your car, you can be
going five miles an hour out of
your driveway, but if you've got a
retaining wall, it looks like you're
was an

but from then on, I

going 45 miles an hour. That's
why we shot a lot of the sequence
flat

except the dialogue. This made
look faster than it really was, but

it
it

also meant that the actual amount
of screen time it takes to go
around the track is even less. So
out of about 12-second bursts of

film, I built
lasts
film.

seven

up a sequence

that

minutes in the finished

For the miniature work,
"Joe Johnston, the art director in
California, and I storyboarded
shots, like the leap over the miss¬
ing section of track. Then Joe
went

back

to

San Francisco from

wall.
"It would take about 25
seconds to make a complete circle
around the track but 1 under¬
cranked the camera to about 12 to
18 frames a second for everything

little cardboard set. The tape
was transferred to film and I cut
the videomatics with Mike Kahn

July 1984

American

to a

Spielberg had every

shot ,n the f'lm
storyboarded.

Fondon, and shot
what

we

eotaped
in

call
a

a

an

animatic,

or

videomatic. He vid¬

little cardboard mini-car

a

Cinematographer

59
American Cinematographer - July 1984

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