American Cinematographer - June 1986 - 65

"The writer generally
doesn't describe what things look

like,

as a

The

Century neon
trappings as realized
by production
designer John Lloyd.

rule," he commented,

"so it's left open to our interpreta¬
tion. We supply detailed drawings
to

lead in and

scenes.
over to

out

ancient-looking

idol with Twentieth

of the effects

Then, storyboards take
establish camera angle, size

relationship and character of the
lighting. This provides a flow of
continuity and allows us to con¬
struct a proper size perspective
and composition. In most cases we
storyboard the action before the
sets are built to get a head start on
the effects. I received blueprints of
the sets from production designer
John Lloyd so we used his
floorplans to establish where our
action would take place. This
storyboard, in effect, becomes our
Effects Bible."
The idea for the

two

hovering, spiritual warriors squar¬
ing off in the great arcade was
added about three-fourths of the

into production. The script
originally called for two fighting
dragons, but Jenson suggested this
stronger alternative to John Car¬
penter. The amorphous, sharding,
light on light colors, swirling be¬
hind the transparent duelling fig¬
ures, proved better than showing
the two aged characters, Lo-Pan
and Egg Chen, kung fu-ing each
way

other

to

the death.

against the

To

help visualize the idea,
Jenson chose to illustrate the ef¬
fect with a full color painting.
Since the warriors

were

to

be

strongly backlit, looking more
spiritual than real, he wasn't too
concerned with showing much de¬
tail in the masklike faces. Indi¬
vidual color schemes for the
costumes were noted on a
separate black and white pencil
sketch for instances when the

stylized

clashing swords flared and illumi¬
nated the warriors with animated

light. Makeup artists used an
iridescent paint to catch flashes of
the sharding colors.
"This

ceptually on paper first, before
they could succeed on film.
Jenson relied on large 5
by 12-inch blowups of the back¬
ground plate to help plan how big
the figures should be within the
frame. Even though he prefers the
more pleasing 1.85 aperture for
composition, the long horizontal
65 mm format worked splendidly
for
the
two-character
confrontation.

Though Edlund utilized
VistaVision when he

was at

ILM,

cept to

understand on film, so a
painting proved the best way to

he prefers not to use it at Boss. On
Star Wars, VistaVision seemed the
cat's meow. Cameras could be

sell it," he reflected. Since the

bought for as little

background called for was ex¬
tremely hot, there would be diffi¬
culty in getting costumes to read

and one had
able 35mm

was a

difficult

strong backlight as all
the colors additively crossed over
and became white. All these prob¬
lems had to be worked out con¬

con¬

as

$1000 apiece

access to

all the avail¬

stock. But 65mm is

Edlund's favorite film format.
When owner Douglas Trumbull
asked him to become a partner
and assume command of the Ma¬
rina Del Rey facility, the existing
was like an ex¬
whipped cream on an
already tempting dessert.
"Although VistaVision
does avail you of a large negative,
there are lots of technical prob¬
lems with it," he pointed out.
"The film is difficult to keep steady
in the gate since you're hanging

65mm equipment
tra

dab of

the film off

one

end with

of

situation in VistaVision without

Estar, when the film shrinks the
perfs deform, making it impossible
to

maintain steadiness.
to shrink more

it tends

June 1986

one set

registration pins. The only way to
keep it steady is to use three pins
in the printer with an Estar base
film. Estar has virtually no
shrinkage. If you have a third pin

American

Cinematographer

Also, since
lengthwise
63
American Cinematographer - June 1986

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