American Cinematographer - December 1988 - 78

"There

starts to

go up. In this one shot
between 60 and 70 ele¬
ments. Most of them are done with
there

are

animation.

"We used old elements
from the first show for the mother-

ship because it appeared so infre¬
quently in the original," Farrar
admitted. "We only made one new
miniature and that

was

for

a

shot

where the doors of the

be effects shots

Full Duplex Wireless
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mothership. Once again the stars
ripples are all produced in

animation."

blue

"This sequence is one of
the reasons the show ended up be¬

plains, "For

Integrated Duplex Antenna,

bedsheets

No Rat Tails!
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lot of articulate mattes for all of

the alien shots to

last

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Multi channel full

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The end sequence was

the wire

scene we

into

a

there

pro video camera
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When

you're
really serious...

sequence

three or four optical ele¬
Explains Farrar, "First there
is an innercore
a little crystalline
piece, then there is an outer glow
are

ments.

flicker element. That

doesn't include

everything that was
produced by the animation camera
department. Pat Myers, our anima¬
tion cameraman, did a great deal of
work. Bruce Walters was also doing
a lot of the
shooting and program¬
ming for the ascending comets.
That is one place where you do need
computers to help out. We can pro¬
duce programs that are coordinated
with one another and yet have a
certain elegance. Wes Takahashi is
the head of animation. He and Tom
-

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are produced by either
photography or the ani¬

Full articulate mattes

are

produced by the animation depart¬
ment by hand. This is one process
that can't be helped much with a
computer. There is so much finess¬
ing that must be done on a framehave to be refined

December 1988

is in the

foreground and Tahnee
background. The cut
that she walks to his right

so

glances over - like he saw some¬
thing out of the corner of his eye and reacts. That little bit of
acting
and editing really makes the scene
fit together. Other than that, it was
just careful production planning to
have all the perspectives right
when Brian

was

shot. We

use

blue

quite a bit around here, but
putting Brian in with other charac¬
ters is a little bit
unique."
The challenges for the op¬
screen

tical

department were slightly dif¬
ferent and Vecchito, whom Farrar
praised highly for his ability to step
into Gordon's

shoes, had his

own

ideas about

"outstanding shots."
"My favorite shot in the film is of

Phil when the scientists first
open
the cocoon. They bring it to the lab

open.

mation artists."

FAX # 408 378 6980

try to get them to look the
best possible in the scene.
Dennehy
was shot
very well to match the
background plate. There is one
scene that
really fools you. Brian

some¬

screen

(408) 378-8091 / TELEX 4970334 SWINTEK SUVL

than

usual to

thing in it and start to cut it

back in and retouch all the

95008

might

we

more

and determine that there is

-

by-frame basis that even if it could
be done by machine, it would still
587 DIVISION STREET/CAMPBELL, CA

-

mattes

they have to

things that
blue

our

ex¬

traditional

who is the head of the

rotoscope animators
come

Vecchito

was a

from behind and off frame. He

that turns

Brutino

it

technique

have finessed

works

people

Farrar.

For each person

a

screen

us

had to turn 13

comet in the last

and then

blue

team.

screen

Welch is in the

-

the WORLD'S SMALLEST

straightforward for the opti¬
department than it was for the

more

whatever, and in that

into comets," says

260 mhZ
*

remove

rigs, we had to have glows that just
fit on the aliens and didn't spread
to other people or to blankets and

Features
*

a

added

we

and the

cal

animation

and

ripples and stars to replace the jet

It worked fine for this show.

heavy workload for the
department. We needed

-

-

black behind the Manta and the

mothership
We re-photographed the old
elements, changed the sync of the
lights and ran the film backwards.

a very

26 shots in the

plus we took
four-perf shots - four-perf means
regular Panavison live-action shots
that weren't originally intended to

open.

ing

are

end of the film alone

by hand.

We cut from

wide-shot

high-angle
looking at the cocoon being opened
to a close-up of the open cocoon.
"The original background
plate had a lot of smoke in it and the
alien was brightly lit inside the co¬
coon.

a

The inside of the

cocoon was

bright white. The rest of the back¬
ground was out of focus and dark.
Not

black, but dark.

use

the

"At first the idea

plate

the alien

was

was

to

as it was. We thought
hot enough, but then
American Cinematographer - December 1988

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