American Cinematographer - December 1988 - 82

By invitation...

complicated and slightly different
than what happened in the first
show.

The American

Society

of

"We tried to have

colors and
motion

Cinematographers

to

more

changes in speed and
indicate changes in

mood. When it slams into the wall

the

shape changes and sparks fly
I think it's going to be a pretty

Vecchito, "The fireball

actually turned out to be
easier than we thought it was going
to be.

The director and the pro¬
us to do a lot of
interactive light in the restaurant.
ducers didn't want

They weren't looking for us to
change the overall lighting in the

has members available to

off

conduct seminars

nice scene."

in the

In any scene where an ef¬
fect is introduced after the fact, ILM

Since

we

color,

we were

prefers to work from storyboards.
They carefully lay out the choreog¬
raphy to make sure all the timing is
right. Continues Farrar, "As we did

restaurant toward the red side.

on

the

phases of
cinematography.

many

"Our
is

expertise in this field
amalgamation of
experience and artistry,"

an

says

Harry Wolf,

-

for the final shots, Dan and I spent a
lot of time working out shot-by-shot
how

we

would cut the sequence

President, A.S.C.

together. You can't shoot a bunch of
shots and hope it will cut together
later as you sometimes do in live

Call and let us help you
teach others.

action. You have to know where the
cuts

will be because

once

you

shoot, you're locked in. You have to
Ask for Leslie Larson

(213) 876-5080

This
Publication...

make sure you have allowed
enough time for something that is
not there to travel through the
scene at a
projected speed that
matches the cut you envision later.
"The only way to do it is
just walk it through, step-by-step
and shot-by-shot deciding where
the fireball is going to hit and
where there are going to be practi¬
cal explosions on the set. Then, of
course, you have a room filled with
extras.

You have to make little

speeches over and over again:
Where the fireball is, where they
supposed to look, what their
are, etc. Everybody just has to
imagine it. And they can - if you
are
very clear on where the fireball
is going to be and what it is going to
be doing. You hope that everybody
can
help you with the look that you

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complete information

write:

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restaurant like

"In

animation," he

with

slit

a

and make sure that
eye is going is where

scene

where your

the audience's eye
said Farrar.

December 1988

will be going,"

ex¬

model. Then to add

scan

as the fireball flew around
things, pieces of the fireball
would splatter off. The animators
created the splatters. There is a spot
where they did some interactive
light on the floor and on the piano.
It is probably the longest shot in the
sequence. It is a wide shot of the

impact

and hit

restaurant and

we see

the fireball in

the back of the restaurant
towards

careening

and

knocking people
over. As it
gets closer to us we see
some interactive
light as well as the
us

reflection in the piano and on the
floor. They also added a vapor path
so as

the fireball streaks around the

room,

it leaves

a

wispy trail behind

it.

"For the

optical part of the
used a generic vapor
path, which is what we used when
we were
making the alien. It's the
process we

effect

same

study the

able to just tint the

plained, "they actually shot the
fireball. They flew it around to
match the perspectives of the room

but instead of

"To help determine if ev¬
erything was working we used a
video playback. With it we could
check and see if everybody's sight
lines were right. Shots don't work
perfectly every time and you have
to be able to say, all in all, this take
works better than the previous
three takes. You have to really

had done before

sequence in Cocoon I.
didn't have to change the

are

achieve.

we

pool

cues

want to

80

For

sequence

we

used

on

the

alien,

having an alien we
just filled the frame up with the
effect. The fireball is either fully or
partly matted in and its exposure
changes when it is either nearer to
the camera or farther away. A color
change was built into the fireball in
animation. Instead of being all red
or
orange there is also some green maybe Kitty is also jealous...,"
Vecchito adds.

Passion, jealousy, aliens,

spaceships, old

age

and youth

-

Farrar and Vecchito agree this film
has it all, but Farrar warns, "Don't

forget

your box of tissues, you're
going to need them. I just know
my
mother-in-law will love
this film."

A
American Cinematographer - December 1988

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