American Cinematographer - November 1995 - 52

sequences. I'd like to get a feel for
how you technically pulled them
off.

JV: There are three dance
numbers, all filmed on a rented
stage at the Horizon in Lake Tahoe,
and there

were

several different

kinds of

lighting used in these se¬
lighting, computercontrolled lighting and standard
motion picture lighting. I needed
help with the computer-controlled
lighting - they are complex in¬
quences: stage

struments and have to be handled

differently - so we hired a show¬
lighting expert, Peter Morse. On
that one stage we had about 1,000
lights, with five guys controlling
them at small consoles. There

were

kinds of computerized
lights, which were programmed to
many

RC: I

see more

and

more

cinematographers using this re¬
mote-controlled theatrical lighting
for
example, Stephen

-

in Las Vegas. So I would fly up to
Tahoe to see their progress every
week. I would also send a crew over

all three numbers

tests, which we screened at a
local theater. Unfortunately, the lamp

out, the whole scene dims down and

in the

is

new

lights to coordinate. What kind of
research did you do to achieve the
look for the stage shows? Did you
decide to just cook something up
out of your heads or did you go see
some shows to see what
they do

set for each different

on

that?

JV: I looked at several
dance places and clubs in Vegas,
but there were no real shows like
this. So we went from scratch,

starting with what the content of

had to
shoot between the dance numbers
so the
lighting could be done cor¬

rectly.

how could she do this without the

It took about
so we

RC: That's

impor¬
tant thing. You had to make the
decision to say, 'This isn't ready to
shoot' and you had the support
from the director to get the time
you needed. Did you shoot tests of
these setups? I take one look at the
'Goddess' scene and want to say, 'I
think I'm going to go through here

mantic, golden and warm; the

location to

'Avenging Angel,' has the
girls in these leather costumes and
motorcycles and is sort of an icecold, S&M thing; and the last,
'Bliss,' is a very light cathedral de¬

lighting

designing the ba¬
sic layout, rigging and program¬
ming by himself while I was still
shooting in Vegas.

week to redress the

part of show,
find other things to

colors, the necessary lighting ef¬
fects, their timing and movement.
Then he started

a

and shoot still

or

see

a

very

movie tests of the

where the

practical
alive.'

comes most

JV: Yes, because unless
you

do,

lost. While Peter
setting up
Horizon, we were shooting
you are

Morse and his
at the

crew was

Cyclorama

r
HMI Follow-spot

□
□
□
□
□
□
□

A

Bluish-white
HMI Follow-spot

HMI Follow-spot

□
□
□
□
□
□

6K HMI
Backlight
Main Volcano
Dancer

□

EMERGING
CL
LL

FROM

m

o

z Z

□
□
□
□
□
□
□

g

VOLCANINC
EXPLOSION

9-light;

Gelled 9-lights
ON SEQUENCERS
UNDER LAVA.

1=0 □

13
■

**-

2 2

(5

o

□
□
□
cu
□
□

□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□
□

Perspex dance floor
"CRACKS" FOR

WITH

dancers, who

were still rehearsing
Angeles? So we were
shooting this amazing stage and light¬
ing with just maybe a few crew
people standing in there so it
wouldn't be completely empty. Fortu¬
nately, we had videotapes of their re¬
hearsals which we could use to guide
our
pre-lighting.
RC: Your stop must have
been way, way open for the stage

back in Los

numbers.

JV: Not so much. In shooting
Super 35 you have to have a good

"Lava"

recycled to

SHOWGIRLS STAGE SET
FOR GODDESS' SEQUENCE
DIMENSIONS: 120 X 80 FEET

u

9

Amber-gelled HMI FollowSPOT 150' BEHIND AUDIENCE.

Cyc Lighting: from above and below (changing shape and color).
Set Lighting: from above and between rocks (pyrotechnic effects).
Dance Lighting: from above, sides and underneath (fire cracks in floor).

was

beautifully lit.

JV: Well, before she

comes

mostly lit from underneath,
through the stage floor, which was
designed to look like a lava flow, with
glowing red cracks. There were 300 or
so
lights under there - anything we
could get - fitting in a very small
space. A lot of them were mini-brute
type lights, which were very hot, and
everything was gelled very dark red.
So at the appropriate moment, one of
the volcanoes explodes with a com¬
pressed air device and real steam -
cooled by liquid nitrogen so it
wouldn't dissipate too fast - and the
actress is lifted through the set on a
little elevator. We had a lot of 9-lights
inside the volcano and then a 6K HMI
directed up just behind her to

corners

of the

stage, so she was

rimmed from three

a

some

we

almost

overexposed negative.
RC: Did you have any filtra¬
tion to enhance the lights?
JV: In general I used a quar¬
ter ProMist, depending on the focal
length of the lens. Sometimes is was
an
eighth or a half. When you shoot
into the lights it gives you a nice halo,
so
you get more of a feeling of the
light. But I also like a little filtration
because it takes the edge off the toosharp lenses we have these days. We
used Arri BL4s and Zeiss lenses,

partly because
cameras
or

we needed so many
and didn't want availability

financial

problems.

angles. She was
slowly revealed in the front with
another HMI follow-spot placed be¬
then

hind the audience

on

the other side of

specifically
about 'Goddess' and how the lighting
was
developed for it.

spots from the sides, but they

a 2500bulb, has tremendous out¬

put and would be useful for any film
work. But these

lights are priced ac¬
cordingly, of course. Since we used
50 of these moving-mirror lights -
some on the floor, some
projecting
different shades and colors

much.

RC: How did you

deal with
temperatures?
JV: Well, what you normally
do when shooting a film is think
about matching lights and tempera¬
ture, but in this situation I just forgot
about it. I used them as they were; an
the different color

unfiltered HMI became

a

blue

spot.

However, the HMI

follow-spots on
the lead dancer were gelled, which
gave her the only white light on the
stage and made her stand out even
RC: Now there is also a huge
framework above the stage. How

which are xenon-based; Vari-Lites,
Telebeams and Telescans, all HMI-

everyone.

based; and many others, which we
got from the Obie Company. These

many trusses

on

the cyc,

but

mostly from trusses overhead -
this was the highest lighting bill I
have ever had. The rigging for all this
was
very complicated for Peter
Morse, and his work had to be com¬
pletely done before the art depart¬

afterwards.

so

that, and at one moment, from out of
volcano, the star appears to save

light her

so they have a tremendous
in all directions. Inside, they
have highly sophisticated dichroic
color changers, so you can mix hun¬
dreds of colors, like the timing printer
in the lab; it's the same principal.
They also have an iris to pinpoint a
spot, diffusers, and rotating gobos so
you can project all kinds of moving
patterns. They also have high-speed
shutters which can create nice light¬
ning effects. The strongest of them,

range

didn't matter

effects all over the place - it's the end
of the world. So the dance reflects

RC: How did you

beam,

because

very

did you have for the
computerized lighting?
JV: I had six above for the
stage and then another two or three
above the auditorium, for steep front
lights. So here we had the Xescans,

a

a small
motorized mirror, which directs the

old carbon arcs and were
not reliable, so they were used more
for effect lighting. If they failed, it
were

more.

RC: Let's talk

static and in the front there is

the Telescan Mark IV, with

this, with all of its colors,

an

not

watt HMI

color saturation. So with

need

are

a strong backlight from under¬
neath. At the same time, we had two
manual HMI follow-spots on her
from nests in the right and left back

give

the room, which were dimmed up -
you just open the iris. We also had

film like

all

projection-spot type lights that
normally used in making
movies. Usually when you need a
moving light, you have an electrician
sitting up there doing it. But these
lights have been developed specially
for stage work and rock concerts. And
with most of them, the light itself is
are

was

healthy negative for the optical blow¬
up, so I was at about an f4, but the
5298 gave me that range. My printer
lights were very high, in the mid-40s.
It helps to have a strong negative also,
because otherwise you are losing

JV: In this first number there
are volcanoes, a lava stream
running
through the stage and pyrotechnic

TOP OF VOLCANO.

reography? It

to shoot

projector was just a 1000-watt
tungsten bulb - so everything was
brown, especially with all these warm
colors we were using. But in any
shoot there is a moment of panic.
Even worse, Anette Haellmigk, our
second-unit cinematographer, had to
shoot lighting tests of this show. But

our three dance numbers would
be. The first, 'Goddess,' has this
volcanic landscape and is more ro¬

next,

each with

programming, of course - as
they were all shot on the same
stage with only limited access to
the lights after the set was built in.

than 100 different music
cues. To
begin, I told Peter about
the dance story, about prominent
more

-

Goldblatt's work on Batman For¬
ever. These
rigs seem useful for
situations where you don't want to
have a light operator stranded in
the distance or just have too many

and extend

for that reveal to make her stand out
amidst all this chaos of light and cho¬

sign in blue and purple. But the
lighting design we came up with
would have to basically work for

ment could

come

access

in to build the sets,

would be very

limited

RC: How did you determine
what your exposure should be for
some of these effects with the
top

lights? You surely must have just
by eye, on an intuitive level.

done it

JV: Well, with this many

lights, you really have no chance to
get a reliable reading. At different
times or places, you can find 100 dif¬
ferent readings between plus or mi¬
nus 4
stops. So, hopefully, what the
eye likes, the film will like as well. So
you just have to get an impression of
what looks good.
RC: Did you study tradi¬
tional or contemporary dance films
for some kind of inspiration for doing
this scene?

JV: Not at all. A lot of people
do that, but I always have the feeling
that I will be guided into something
that has been done before, away from

something I might otherwise do. You
inspired by the result of
somebody else's inspiration.
&
shouldn't be
American Cinematographer - November 1995

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