American Cinematographer - December 1988 - 63

\

Opposite

page and
left: The villainous

Hans (Alan Rick¬
man) meets his
spectacular demise
in this
blue

in the various arts and crafts that

there'll

make up a complete effects team.
"We had to pull out all the

us.

A1 DiSarro, who was the pro¬
duction effects man, did a number

by using

tricks we've

of the shots that have

er.

years

come

across

in

our

of experience for Die Hard,"

Edlund remarked after the picture
wrapped. "There are 35 or 40 ef¬
fects shots involving about six
months of focused involvement. It
was

nan,

fun

working with John McTier-

the director, and Joel Silver,

the

producer. For one thing, Joel
requires an attitude of exaggerated
reality, and he knows that to make
an audience
whoop and holler you
really have to sock it to them. Even
though the picture is very violent,
it's stylized in such a way that I can
appreciate it. The last person really
capable of doing that was Sam
Peckinpah, whose violence in The
Wild Bunch was outrageous, but it
was
stylized in such a way that it
was
engaging.
"It takes

a

team

make any movie, and
shows on this project.

effort to

it certainly
Joel has a

group that has worked with him on
several pictures and it's really im¬

portant to have that kind of team.
I have that same luxury here - to

always be plenty of work for

big explosions
on the
building, such as the long
shot where you look across the city
and see a big explosion on top of the
building.
He
did
that safely - and they just shot it. But
you can't blow the top off of a real
building, so when that happens
those

shots." Brent Boates,
Boss visual effects art director,

design

these shots.
The

scenes

in which the

top of the building is blown up,
which also involves

helicopters, one
building
destroyed in the explo¬

of which first attacks the
and then is

sion, demanded

some

unusual

techniques. Many of these involved
miniature settings and models,
the

were

built in house under

supervision of Mark Stetson, of

Bladerunner, 2010, and Ghostbusters
fame. Edlund described the

com¬

what's outside the windows in clos¬
We had

a

nose

mount under¬

neath the

chopper for certain
approach shots. Because of a logis¬
tical problem; we missed getting
one
particular plate which was cru¬
cial, so we had to use another plate
and do a reverse action and flop it to
make it work for that
"There
where

one

was

shot.

one

shot,

looking at the top of
the building when the explosion
went off just before we cut to a shot
of the helicopter coming toward us,
which was actually a 35mm shot
from production. There was no ex¬
plosion on the roof, however, so we
we were

had to add it in

-

that

was an

after¬

thought. One helicopter was fairly
high above the building, and the
other copter was in front of the
building with the whole of Century
City and Los Angeles in the back¬
ground. We had to rotoscope the
helicopter in front of the explosion.
Also, there was a camera move in
the shot, and that identical move

ter down the main streets of Centu¬

had to be in the

have fabulous

worked

in 200 feet of the
scenes

blue

inside the

screen

Boss, then

building. The
chopper were all

shots that

we

we

did at

did the background

explosion as well,
one to shoot."
The miniature explosion
work was by Thaine Morris, named
by Edlund as "the best - I've work¬
ed with him since The Empire
so

it

was a

make the

shots with the 65mm

do

December 1988

hand¬

tough

Strikes Back. He knows how to

plates from the helicopter. Our di¬
rector of special effects photogra¬
phy, Bill Neil, made the helicopter
camera

shot.

Tyler mount. He cheated
a longer lens to bring

plexities of the work:
"We could fly the helicop¬
ry City and then make a right turn,
but we weren't allowed to get with¬

people who have
together for a long time and
really know how to think on their
feet and can come up with an an¬
swer
right now when it's necessary.
We try to make the movie the best
way we can, so I don't try to steer
the director into making every¬
thing into another shot for us -

on a

are our

worked with McTiernan to

which

held

composited

screen

explosions look right as to
speed, how to slow them
properly for scale. We had to

color and

down
a

little bit of

American

printer correction to

Cinematographer

61
American Cinematographer - December 1988

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