American Cinematographer - August 1985 - 58

VV3, which is a Mitchell VistaVision camera owned, I believe, by
Paramount, and the compact But¬
terfly VistaVision camera - all for
the effects work. Then, we used
the Ultracam for all of our loca¬
tion stuff up in Petaluma, a
Moviecam which will shoot sync
sound backwards (used for most
of the stuff in the flying of the
Thunder Road and for a reverse

smooth and then everything
long slide
would jump. It was an accidental
inside the alien ship.
thing, but we finally decided we
liked it because it made the images
a little more bizarre."
In addition to having to
Presson has just
taken

a

shoot the bizarre alien sets, Hora
also had to film the aliens them¬

created by Rob
Bottin. Bottin, who had worked
with Dante previously on The
Howling and the Twilight Zone
segment, also did the makeup ef¬
fects in John Carpenter's The
Thing and Ridley Scott's upcom¬
ing Legends. For Explorers, he cre¬
ated Wak, Neek and their father.
More specifically, Wak is a giant
green being with a smiling face, an¬
selves,

creatures

and

tennae

Neek,

on

two

eyes on

the other hand, is

stalks.
a

bub¬

ble gum pink with the Valley girl
look of long green hair and a styl¬
ish dinner jacket. The father, who
comes to take his misbehaving
kids home (they took his sports

ship without permission)

car

re¬

sembles a middle aged Wak with
beard stubble, a beer belly and a

it, then

you

For the

creature to

just don't see enough.
play and for all
the sculpturing and artistry to
show, you've got to have enough
light to see it, but you don't want
it

to

ever

look like

a

rubber

The
these

key

creatures

to

the lighting of

was

to

use

a

fill

light from below

to fill in the area
of the face between the actors'
real mouths and the tall eye stalks
that tended to overshadow the
area in between. Sometimes Hora
also had to take into account ele¬
ments of the set that affected the
look of the aliens. For instance, a

large silver chair that resembles a
love seat tended to pick up the
color of the lights and reflect them
onto the aliens, flattening their
own colors out, especially on
Neek.

We

(Neek) wearing elaborate foam

tion,

rubber suits with mechanically op¬
erated heads that weigh up to 60

stock were used
Eastman 5247
for the exteriors and all of the in¬
terior effects plates shot by ILM

The

creatures were actu¬

proved to
problem
aggravated by the fact

pounds. The
be difficult

that

was

creatures

to

light

-

a

that the

tight production schedule

did

allow time for extensive

not

lighting

tests.

"You always have trouble
with rubber because you're work¬

ing

at cross

"One

ments.

really

purposes," Hora

see

American

com¬

thing is that if you
it, you see the rubber,

Cinematographer

Throughout the produc¬
two

different kinds of film-

(anything blue screen must be
done on 47), and 5294 for the re¬
maining interior footage. While
the filmstocks numbered just two,
the number of cameras used
the film did not.

on

As Hora

Explorers
ILM

sons

it

currently available.
"There were specific

rea¬

for each," he adds. "A lot of

was

just

me.

I always figure that

camera.

For

instance,

a

we

perfect
used the

Mark II that had been steaditested
and was satisfactory for ILM for
almost all of our 4-perf effects
work. And we used the Empireflex
or the high speed Empireflex for
all the high speed stuff. There are a
lot of inconveniences with it. First
of all, the blimped, quiet Em¬

pireflex is about the noisiest cam¬
era you've ever heard on the stage.
It's just almost impossible to re¬
cord any dialogue, especially if
you are working close to people.
That one runs with a belt drive
and when it broke down which
-

"The light would just
bounce off the silver and come
back on Neek and flatten her out.

ally

actors Bob Picardo (as Wak
and the father) and Lesley Rickert

that is

for each shot there is

mask."

finally had to line all the areas
of the silver chair that didn't show
on camera with black cloth to kill
the reflection."

disposition.

mean

56

which isn't any good. If on the
other hand you hide too much of

gravity sequence that was cut from
the film) an XR-35, a Panavision
Golden Panaflex, a Mitchell Mark
II, an Arri 2C, an Arri 3, an Arri
BL, a Steadicam, and a CM3
35 mm Eclair. By the time we were
finished, we were within four or
five cameras of using every camera

we

explains, "On
ended up using the

Empireflex and the high

speed Empireflex, the VistaVision
August 1985

happened several times because we
were sharing it with the Cocoon
production - we had to substitute
the high speed Empireflex which
was gear driven and really noisy. I
mean, it was unbelievably noisy.
So you don't have any good di¬
alogue recorded usually with it."
For one sequence show¬
ing the kids lifting off in a full-size
Thunder Road, Hora also used the
camera
system called the
Shakicam. "We might have actu¬

ally been able

to do the same thing
with the Steadicam except that
this way the operator didn't have

the camera because it was
boom that could be moved

to wear
on

a

around.

Ray Tostados, who built
it, has several different rigs that he

calls

Shakicams, which are all me¬
chanically simple. The one we
American Cinematographer - August 1985

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - August 1985
