American Cinematographer - June 1985 - 32

scene,

lit with just natural light

from the windows."
At Hoover Dam, one of
the few Steadicam sequences in
the film takes a documentary-style
look at Brooks and Hagerty argu¬

ing over the loss of their "nest
egg." "What I liked about that
scene," Saarinen recalled, "was the
point at which, angry at both her¬
self and at her husband, she puts
her thumb to hitch
With the camera behind
out

see a car
we

way over on

deliberately did

a

ride.

"artificial moon"

hung from a crane lit
night scenes at the
Safford motor court.

hand, it would have been

an

im¬

possible task
move.

on such a long tilt-up
Saarinen removed the wheel

assembly from the rear Panahead
tilt gear, and installed a J-4 electric
zoom motor in its place. "The
motor gave us control over the tilt
in a repeatable situation," said
were able to set it
do the move in say, 45 seconds,
ten times in a row. The crawl
doesn't come on until we've

to

pulled back to show the entire
street and skyline, so the tilt up
had to move at a steady pace, or
else the background and fore¬
ground would have been moving
at different speeds. It worked out
beautifully."
Saarinen's staging tech¬
nique is illustrated in several addi¬
tional sequences. In the scene in
which David gets himself fired,
which consists of 11 pages of
rapid-fire, ascerbic comic dialogue,
Saarinen's goal was to keep camera
movement to a

the

same

time

minimum, but

not

at

allow boredom

into the long scene. "We
planned that scene with single
camera coverage from just two
master angles, to keep the perspec¬
tives fresh and the relationships
dynamic. We shot our master
from an angle behind the three ac¬
tors, and shot each close-up from
the same distance and height,
which was a way of keeping it un¬
obtrusive. About five pages into
the scene, we dollied across the
proscenium line to the other side
to

creep

of the

room,

half of the
tion. It's

30

American

and shot the second
from that posi¬

scene

an

extremely funny

Cinematographer

tween

changes entirely, of
car stops to pick

The fight that ensues be¬
Brooks and the redneck

who picks up his wife provided
Saarinen with another opportunity
to work out some comedic stag¬

ing. Seen from Hagerty's POV, the
fight has only one punch
thrown, which unfortunately
lands square into Brooks' nose,
after which the pair pursue each

actual

other around the motor home.
"Once we decided to do the fight
this way, there were several ways
we could have covered it," re¬
called Saarinen. "We could have
used a Steadicam to follow them

around,
camera

could have put a
atop the Winnebago, and
or we

then dollied around the back. But
the simplest possible way was just
to have one camera at the front
end of the mobile home, and do a
short dolly move from one side to
the other, picking up the action as
it came around. It was a dynamic
way

get

of shooting it, and it didn't
way of the dialogue."

in the

Some of Saarinen's most
intricate staging involved the night
scenes in the Safford motor court.
A huge artificial moon, first devel¬

oped by Haskell Wexler, ASC, for
Coming Home, and rigged for Lost
in America by key grip Gary Dodd,
was

used

to

shoot the

which Brooks and

June 1985

wrapped frame were a half-dozen
4K HMIs, and it was hung from a
150-foot crane supported by a
heavy tractor. When hung at a
height of 80 feet, it produced
long 150-foot dolly
Julie walking
together. It's very rare to see such
a long dolly shot at night because
of all the lights and rigging re¬
quired. We keyed at two and a
half stops under, hand-walked a
little fill, and used the light from
the practical as well. It gave a nice
soft moonlit glow."

not pan over

when the
her up."

Saarinen. "We

manager at a Der
Wienerschnitzel, respectively. The
moon was trapezoidal in shape, 1 5
feet across at the bottom, and iz
feet high. Inside the muslin-

about six foot-candles. "We used

stop. If I had adopted a 'privileged
camera' angle, that would have
been the first giveaway of reality.
course,

sistant

we

include the car more centrally,
because that would have tipped off
the audience which, like Brooks,
has no idea that the car is going to

The situation

day's work as a
guard and an as¬

the right, but

her,

to

Above: Huge,
muslin-wrapped

from their first
school crossing

scene

in

Hagerty return

it

light

to

a

shot of Albert and

One cannot talk about
the shooting of Lost in America
without a discussion of the Win¬

nebago which
cipal prop and

the film's prin¬
major character as
well. "For me, casting the motor
home was just as important as
finding the right actors was for Al¬
bert," Saarinen said. Three 3-foot
"Winnies" were purchased; one
for run-bys, one for location inte¬
riors, and a third for stage interiors
on weather days. All had flat wind¬
was

a

shields rather than curved ones,
with the specific purpose in mind
of being able to capture the reflec¬
tions of the Las Vegas lights at

night.
Lighting inside the Win¬
nebago was accomplished by
hanging fluorescent tubes through
the interior, wherever they didn't
interfere with shooting, right
down to the frame line sometimes,
and these helped provide the im¬

pression that the light

was

coming

from the front windows. All the
ballasts were moved to the rear of
the Winnebago to keep away
noise.
Because of the bar sepa¬

rating the
Saarinen

two front windows,
limited in the camera

was

positions he could

use

Brooks and Hagerty as
side

in filming
they sat

by side driving along. As it

turned out, master shots from in
front of the Winnebago as they
American Cinematographer - June 1985

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