American Cinematographer - September 1986 - 68

Irwin

construction manager

Kirk Che¬
considerable (the set had
a large window where the axis had
been concealed on every other re¬
volving room ever filmed, from
Royal Wedding to A Nightmare on
Elm Street, necessitating a major
redesign), but Irwin had to light

uses

wheelchair for
smooth

ney were

going with

hand-held

camera.

the environment. "Because of the

lighting necessary for the Fly
makeup, I couldn't use a source
light that was soft and smooth; it
had to be shadowy and myste¬
rious, "Irwin said. "The trouble
the rotating stage was not an
open cage that offered me exterior

was,

in which to light. When the
was
placed inside the
Culvert, I was left with only 4' in
which to arrange very hard, direc¬
tional light for the area." Irwin
handled the situation by having
the wall opposite the action lined
with six 4x10' plexiglass mirrors,
their surfaces patterned with expressionistic streaks of tape. The
tape allowed the illumination re¬
flected from a single 10K light,
with lens pulled, to suffuse the set
with a built-in system of myste¬
space

room

blades that could crab; we did
8's with that thing. For

Fig¬

The
Fly, Chapman wouldn't authorize
our changes, so we had to obtain
written permission. We searched
and, finally, my key grip [Mark
Manchester] found wheels that
ure

would fit inside the hubs; the final
result was double-wheeled with

eight soft rubber tires. [These were
additionally smoothed and cut
along the tread so that they could
track accurately, as during certain
line-up shots requiring brake pre¬

speed, and it

was dead smooth. It
the freedom to move
forward, diagonally or lead some¬
one for 40-50 feet, without the
actor having to step between track
or myself
having to cheat with my
angle to avoid seeing track as it
spans out behind them. The free¬
dom for my director is also much

also gave us

broader, because I don't

want to

tell him where he can't go with the
camera. So I've drawn out of this a

dolly I can use on location, even
though it was built for a studio

made those shots unusable.
"When I saw White

that was built to be like a location.
It's a backward route, but I got
there!"
The pneumatic tires
make all the difference in the
finished film. The laboratory
scenes have a lush, almost levitated
feel to them and, remarkably, con¬

Nights, I saw a lot of crabbed
dolly moves on this obviously real
dance floor, and they jumped, vi¬

sidering the spatial limitations,
Spier's set afforded Irwin only one
removable wall
offering a wider

brated and didn't hold

into the bedroom
which was seldom used.
The kitchen and skylight
sections of Brundle's lab were re¬

cision within

a

half-

or

quarter-

inch.] The result won't look any
different than a conventional dolly
shot but, the vibrations we
would've picked up without the
pneumatic tires, to me, would've

win recalled. "It

watch,
sure.

for

even

They

PeeWee,

a

frame," Ir¬

was

hard

to

laymen, I'm
have had a

some

must

Hustler

or a

Fisher with

hard wheels and, tracking really
fast over those boards, it showed
we

did

wheels and

we

up.

All

was

replace those

could track

at

any

-

access
area

-

markably replicated inside a re¬
volving 28' Culvert steel cylinder
for those shots in which the

meta¬

morphosing scientist scales the
walls and ceiling with his bare
hands. The difficulties imposed

66

American

Cinematographer

September 1986

on

rious shadows. The

cameraman

(who, for this effects insert,

was

Irwin's former assistant Robin

Miller) and

an

placed inside

a

associate

were

steel carriage at¬
tached to a ferris wheelstyled
brace affixed to the set's facade,

which executed
apace

a

200°

curve

with the interior. Though

the cameraman was not turned up¬
side down with the room, the
camera

naturally

was,

its motions

dictated according to the live feed
from a video monitor couched
within the carriage.

Sadly, one of Irwin's
cleverest passages will not be in¬
cluded in the theatrical release of
The Fly. In this scene, Brundle ad¬
heres to the outside wall of his six-

warehouse, until a sudden
him to slip down onto
a ribbed awning, where a third
leg
moistly hatches from his
story

pain

causes

side which he removes with his
teeth. This outrageous scene
-

(which is promised for the film's
"unrated" video release version)

accomplished with the help of
tall, 40' wide wall, erected on
450 angle. With his camera

was

a
a

26'
American Cinematographer - September 1986

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - September 1986
