American Cinematographer - September 1992 - 76

Honey Incorporates Hi-Def
In order to facilitate faster and

more

flexible

special effects, the visual
team on Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
turned to Sony High Definition Fa¬
cilities.

According to Walt Disney
producer Tom Smith,
"Sony's technology helped us
quickly preview and edit a number
of shots which might have been
much more time-consuming with
traditional processes. With more
visual effects

than 200 effects shots in the film, we
knew we'd need extra flexibility to

adjust and correct certain shots.
"We were very intrigued
with the potential of Sony's technol¬
ogy applied to film," Smith added.
"Electronic compositing methods, in
general, are one of the most impor¬
tant new advances in our industry.
Many of the Sony shots - there are
about

a

dozen in the film

-

are

in¬

distinguishable from optical visual
effects, with greater creative flexibil¬
ity and the potential for faster turn¬
around.
I'd
say
electronic
compositing is a method with great
promise."
A good example of the
high-definition effects work occurs
during a scene in which the giant
child picks up a traffic detour sign as
he confronts a battalion of police and
awestruck onlookers

on

his way to

Las

Vegas. The scene involved four
layers. The child and the sign were
shot on the forced-perspective road
set

(see main article for details), and

the foreground observers were shot
with blue screen. Sparks emanating
from the sign after the child drops it
to the

were created via
Paintbox, and then stars were added
to the night sky. The original layers
were shot on film and then trans¬
ferred into the high-definition realm
for manipulation.
"With most effects, you
can't see the results until the entire

ground

process is completed," noted Bill
Connelly, chairman and CEO of
Sony High-Definition Facilities. "If
the results aren't quite what you
want, you have to go back and start
all over again. With high-definition,
it's possible to review the effects im¬

mediately, which is

an

time-saver."

74

American

Cinematographer

invaluable

Valencia. The
set consisted of

Strassman, a
Shalikar twin,

ment," he revealed with

110-yard ap¬
proach road,
complete with

stylishly coiffured
Lloyd Bridges
reflect upon their

"We painted

billboards, that

and
scene!"

converged from
full scale to a point where the build¬
ings of Vegas were only six inches
high. "People ask, Why didn't you
just shoot that on location in Ve¬
gas?'" Dilley recalled. "There were

Adam's eye; as he follows it out of
town, the spotlights follow. "We
rebuilt the lights, disguising them
to look more like military equip¬

ors

a grin.
them camouflage col¬
stuck them right in the

The production's main
complications, said the cinematog¬
rapher, were more logistical than
technical in nature. When Kleiser

a

Moranis and the

misadventures.

First, we'd never have

surveyed Las Vegas, he decided to

two

include the Hard Rock Cafe, with
its towering guitar-shaped sign.

found an actual road of that length
with the billboards and buildings
the way we wanted them. Sec¬

Unfortunately, the crew later found
that the street that led to the tourist
attraction was inaccessible due to
its proximity to highways.

"We had

to shoot a little bit at the actual Hard

Rock and create the bottom of this

giant guitar in San Fernando,
where we found a T-shaped inter¬
section," he said. "We matched that
intersection to the one in Las Vegas,

imitating the light as if it were com¬
ing from buildings that weren't re¬
ally there. We had to fake up the
pink glow for the neons ourselves,
and tie together those two locations
which were 400 miles apart."
Production
designer
Dilley earned his keep while pre¬
paring for the sequence in which
the runaway toddler first heads for
the bright lights of Wayne

-

Newton's favorite haven. After

consulting with the rest of the pro¬
duction team, Dilley constructed a
huge forced-perspective set in

September 1992

reasons.

ondly, if we'd done it that way, it
would have been a humongous job
to light it all."
Horn, who was shooting
in Vegas while the set was being
prepared, collaborated on the light¬
ing design with the help of some
basic tools: a phone and a photo¬
copy machine. "The whole Las Ve¬
gas skyline was lit in miniature on
the forced-perspective set," he said.
"We had army soldiers and the
police gathered up at the intersec¬
tion in front of this background.
Since we were in Vegas, we had to
light that by telephone and have
them Xerox diagrams back and
forth. I had them shoot some expo¬
sure tests, and then we were
pretty
well ready to go. We finished in Las

Vegas, traveled the next day and
started shooting that night in
Valencia."

To

complete scenes of the
American Cinematographer - September 1992

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - September 1992
