American Cinematographer - July 1988 - 32

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angle

up so it would perfectly
match the background plate with

bones, a black silhouette on clear
film, was projected through orange

the broken bottle in it, we placed a
film clip of that background plate in

gel into clouds of liquid nitrogen
that moved up through the frame
the way flame would, which made
the skeleton appear to be on fire.
We superimposed that element
over the
background plate of the
villain twitching, so the complete
effect looks as if these spirits have

the

gate of our camera and matched

to that."

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Once the spirits are free
of their Canaris, they coalesce out
of the air into a single ball of energy
which then attacks the evil voodoo

priest. "We created that effect by
filming an explosion of magnesium
on the
ceiling of our stage at high
speed," Gutierrez says. "The cam¬
era was on the floor
looking up at a
black ceiling, shooting at 120
frames per second. The explosion
sent lots of fine bits of magnesium
flying through the air like twin¬
kling little stars. We took that foot¬
age and reversed it, so these
twinkling little fairies seemed to
coalesce out of the blackness and

rush towards this

explosive event.
thing that
reacting to and

This element became the

Zeke Mokele
which

seems

was

to chase

after him

before it condenses and penetrates
into his body."
Since Gutierrez conceived
the

regrouping and attack of the
spirits as an implosion, he

Canari

wanted the death of the voodoo

priest to
"First,

an

occur as an explosion.
element was shot in the

Dominican

Mokele

Republic

of

his body, which then explodes re¬
vealing a flaming skeleton as he
drops to the ground in flames. It
was
very effective."
By far the most complex

effect of all

was

that of 'the rain¬

bow,' the ultimate moment when
the villain's death results in the
lease of the rest of the

re¬

prisoners

from their Canaris. "The effect

oc¬

background plate of the
was supervised on lo¬
cation by our effects director of
photography, Rich Fichter," Gutier¬
rez says. "We needed to create the
illusion of dozens of little spectral
spirits being released, an effect we
curs over a

room,

which

achieved back here

on our

stages in

post-production. Using a quartz
slide projector as a light beam
source, we projected its light into a
prism so that it refracted and sent a
beam of spectral light into a black
tent.

"In

Zeke

tried

this

black

plastic

number of differ¬

as if he's being
attacked," Gutierrez remembers.

room, we
ent

media to make the beam show

"We

up

better, including water

twitching

frame of that
element, creating matching anima¬
rotoscoped

every

tion of the skeleton inside him.
That

30

coalesced out of the air and entered

July 1988

animation

element

of

his

a

vapor,

liquid nitrogen, C02 and talcum
powder. Each of these created very
interesting, distinct kinds of ef-
American Cinematographer - July 1988

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