American Cinematographer - June 1991 - 72

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dancers, and the

room was

filled

with mirrors. It was very nice.
"Another thing I'm proud
of is the handheld work that we do.
Steve Peterson and I have been

doing handheld for 19 years. A re¬
late 70s, Kissrock'n'roll motif, and we shot a

cent show featured a
era

concert sequence at

the Long Beach

Civic Auditorium. We did a lot of
handheld there, and they're putting
three of those songs on MTV.
"In the episode about Viet

Nam,

we

handheld 99% of the

show. We handheld a 250mm lens,
did all the action, running along

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often on television and in features.
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with a Panaflex on my shoulder -
with a video tap. It was arduous.
There were two shots in that show
that were not handheld - one of
which is one of my favorite shots."
The shot comes at the cli¬

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running towards the waiting
helicopter. It's a shot we've seen

why cinematography is such an
important part of Quantum Leap
despite the tough schedules.
"We used

a

400mm lens,

real late day, and we ran up to
about 36 fps. You see reeds and tall

everything sitting there ab¬
solutely perfect, with that softness
as it moves. Then abruptly you hear
fire-all you hear is the BAM BAM
BAM BAM going off -and they
come running into the frame, just a
little overcranked. Suddenly, the
reeds in front of us just lie down,
horizontal, and the helicopter
lands. We're looking straight
through the door, and the guy is
blasting away with his gun. You
can see the shell casings ejecting, a
little bit off speed. The characters
come running right into a head
shot, and the helicopter lifts up and
grass,

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Oli

Laperal, Jr.
Salamin Bldg. 197 Salcedo St., L.V.
P.O. Box 973 Makati', Philippines
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rolls off, and we follow it out.
"Focus was not a problem
and that's the gift of having a

-

guy like Steve Peterson. We laid a
lot of white board down, and we hit

gold reflectors, let the sun do
just walked
away from it. I was probably
working at around a 4 or a 5 stop,
some
a

lot of hits, and we

with the 45 film, rated at around

bit of star effect, from the sheen
the grass.

of

"It's a treasure of a shot for
me,

and how we got it at sunset and

everything makes it even more
amazing. The chopper landed 20
feet from us, and he just came in out
of nowhere. It's a real dramatic
scene."
A big part of the show's
success is the special effects se¬
quences which draw the audience
into the suspension of disbelief. The
titles and straight opticals for

Quantum Leap are done by Howard
Anderson

Company, but the sig¬
"leaps" and other work are
handled by Apogee, Inc. Certain
episodes call for more effects work,
but each show requires Stockwell's
entry through the white door, his
appearance in the show as a "ho¬
lographic image," and Bakula's
leap in and leap out. Apogee's part
of the leaps usually comes in dur¬
ing post production, the visuals
being done with traditional ani¬
mation, and then optically com¬
bined on film. The "holographic
image" is accomplished mainly
through blue screen techniques.
Roger Domey supervised
the optical department at Apogee
nature

for twelve and

a

half years, con¬

tributing his talents to innumerable
productions of every size and
scope. When he became effects su¬
pervisor for Apogee's work on
Quantum Leap, he found less and
less time to contribute to other

projects. "The show is very timeconsuming," he says, "mostly be¬
cause
everything has to happen in
a
very short period. It's a lot of fun,
but it's not a half-time job."
Dorney and Apogee's
producer Denny Kelly get involved
from the start of each episode, at the
preproduction stage. "They start by
laying out what they want to do for
a particular show. Television
being
what it is, sometimes the scripts are
still wet when I get them. We talk
with the director about ways of
accomplishing that, maybe give
them some suggestions, and then
choose the way that's right in terms
of the story and the budget. Once
production starts, we're out there

100. The

supervising the plate shoot - the

I

blue

even

Tel. 632-816-3737, Fax 632-816-0090
June 1991

light was not a problem -
had nets on, to get the little

screen

backgrounds

-

and
American Cinematographer - June 1991

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