American Cinematographer - July 1988 - 74

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Johnston got a little frustrated and
said, 'Let me do it!' and got it on the
first take! Prior to this, we'd gone
six or seven takes, so the model was
pretty trashed. Fortunately, we had
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lot of hot

glue in the back room, so
just kept putting it back togeth¬
until they got what they wanted

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scene,
sau¬

crawling along the edge of the

stove, " Jein continues, "we used
the same wrecked model we tossed

Emmy/Cinematography
Never Cry Wolf
Filming
James Bond
Stunts/Doubles
For Your Eyes Only
Props/Post Prod. The Deep

Production
D i recti ng

STOCK FOOTAGE
800,000 feet and 60,000 transparencies of whales,
sharks, dolphins, wrecks, coral reefs, -and more.

yellow

pass,

buildings

we placed
for the miniature

ture

around it
lights in
those buildings, and a pass for a
puppet of actor Frank McRae who
is seen standing on the sign. Then
we added enhancements with
light

and

onto

some

of the 3-D surfaces.

Since each of these passes had to be
cued into the basic swish pan move

recorded in New York, this became

bunch

lem Ellis had with the billboard

shot, for example, was that the pan

remote controlled arm to it so it

our crew

detailed it. It took

at the same

time,

had to

cue

pyrotechnics for the little sparks it
giving off. Ken Pepiot, who
handled all the pyrotechnics for the
show, basically used squibs with
lots of wires that camouflaged

was

themselves with the other debris in
Pa's 'wounds'."

either built

saucers were

ex¬

actly to the size they were to appear
to be in the

film

double that size

for

shot in New York wasn't

quite right
begin with: "The original pan
wasn't that smooth, so we optically
removed the bumps. That was a bit
to

difficult."
The only other difficulties
plagued optical throughout the
post-production process was deal¬
ing with the color and reflective
properties of the ships. "The colors
of the saucers ranged from copper
to gold," Ellis says, "which made it
that

difficult for

far

the blue

specific effects sequences, the
only real "miniature" in Batteries
Not Included was a L'Eggs billboard
sign ILM matted into Times
Square, for a sequence when the
baby saucers first venture into the

screen

heart of New York. The shot follows

bit of trouble with the color range
the ships.

the babies
and

they fly past the sign,

built onto

was

edges went - we had to
come back
occasionally and do a
blue spill mask to keep the light
from spilling onto the model. Also,
because we're limited to certain col¬
ors

in blue

live action

swish pan move of Times
recorded on the Tondreau

Square
System

"There's

allows any move recorded
field to be duplicated on the

in the
motion
control stage. In this way, the cam¬
era seems to swish pan with the
saucers as they fly by the miniature

teractive

billboard.

effects tricks

passes,"

Nicholson relates. "We used
illuminated

gels in

our

rear-

Vs scale,

6'xlO' billboard model, to simulate
neon

lights, and I needed to extract

matte

July 1988

for each

primary color.

had

little bit of

just

about every type of effect in Bat¬
teries Not Included," Ellis concludes.
We had to

required a lot
effects supervisor

work,

screen

field recorder. This device, first
used at ILM on The Golden Child,

"This shot

red and

matte

people to operate because it had
lift the saucer up and crawl and,

again

glued it together yet
and Tad Krzanowski added
-

Oddly enough, since all

AL GIDDINGS

was

pass for the whole sign.
We also added passes for the minia¬
a

actually looked as if it was dragging
itself along. Tad built the arm and

the set

of the

UNDERWATER

and

big test for the Tondreau System."
Plotting in all of the sepa¬
rate passes in that shot was Bat¬
teries' optical supervisor John Ellis,
who found his load relatively light
on this
project. The only real prob¬

to
TELEX OR FAX

the

"For

which showed the wrecked Pa

list:

mixing, transfers
*

our

film!

There

composite a lot of mar¬
velous animated shadows and in¬

light. When all the
finally came together, it
really was impressive."
elements

Aside from its state-ofthe-art usage

of such newfangled

motion control and

radio control, many

of the most

successful effects moments in Bat¬

teries Not Included

were

actually

rather low-tech. In fact, most of the

trickery

was handled, in the
fashioned conjurer's parlance,

wires and mirrors.

oldwith
A

American Cinematographer - July 1988

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - July 1988