American Cinematographer - November 1992 - 34

More expert

production
design is in
evidence

during

the film's

depiction of
Malcolm's early
days as a
flamboyant
street hustler.

Malcolm's life and in the dramatic
thrust of the film, but shooting in
Mecca required a Muslim crew.
"David Golea, a Muslim, was the
director of photography for the
Mecca shoot," Dickerson says. The
Mecca material, mostly wide cov¬
erage of the environment of the city,
was second unit. "The material was
shot before we started principal

photography

on

Malcolm,"

Dickerson continues, "so my

pho¬
tographic plan had to be laid out

production designer Thomas notes
that "this was an enormous job, bigger than it may appear on the
screen."

Thomas reveals that the
was the most dif¬
ficult to re-create. "We needed to
show a large intersection, and since
the camera angle gave visual access
to streets on all sides, we actually
had to re-create a significant section
of the city, complete with railroad
Boston material

well in advance."
Six months after the

sec¬

ond unit material in Mecca

was

tracks, houses, stores and every¬

shot, Dickerson and his crew went

thing else you'd be able to see."
While the logistics of cre¬
ating these environments were tax¬
ing, coordinating and setting up the

to

Cairo, Egypt. Three months were

spent negotiating and planning for
ten

days of filming in that city. The

125th Street.
"I put a Louma crane on
top of a Titan crane for the shot. The
Titan crane went up and then the
Louma crane went up even further.
The shot was huge, with the crowd
in period costumes and the period
and buses." Lighting these
crowd scenes required a number of
cars

12Ks and Maxi Brutes.
Lest anyone

think that

Malcolm X is all period costumes
and sets and huge lighting setups,
Dickerson points out that the film's
true focus is the man and the effect
he had on the people around him.
Dickerson notes that filming the

grisly assassination of Malcolm X
"had a profound effect on every¬
body, especially the guys playing

Cairo material doubled for the
Muslim cities of Jetta and Mecca, as
well as for the early Sixties version

shots for these sets, which were

peopled with huge numbers of ex¬
tras, proved to be a challenge for

the assassins. This sequence was
saved for the end of the production.
After we did the first take, the guys

of Cairo itself.

Dickerson and his crew. For a scene

playing the assassins excused

Though Egypt has been

in which approximately 5000 extras

modernized, Dickerson was able to

celebrate a Joe Louis boxing victory,
Dickerson recalls, "We started tight

themselves from the set, and, I un¬
derstand, went into the men's room

find

areas

that doubled for the

city

and started

crying like babies."

Malcolm experiencing what was

Dickerson recalls that

easy to solve when it
shooting the New York

going on, then went up and up and
up and up to get a wider and wider

and Boston sections of Malcolm's

view of our re-creation of Harlem's

"Denzel did something interesting
a take of the assassination scene.
The shot has the camera moving

in the film's
was

not

came

32

life. Locations had to reflect Boston
in the Forties and New York from
the Forties through the Sixties, and

to

American

period. That problem

so

Cinematographer

on

November 1992

in
American Cinematographer - November 1992

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