American Cinematographer - August 1996 - 52

Learn

to

SHOOT FROM
THE MASTERS

the center of the elevator shaft and
shot that as one pass. Then we shot

beauty pass of the elevator with
just light on it without the laser,
a

and then

we

also shot

a

UV matte

The far background was a
digital matte painting."
Upon reaching ground
pass.

Kodak

Cinematography
Master Class

Series

by 180 degrees of images

for

Drama

for

Location
Lighting with
Geoff Burton

also

screens

serve

to mask the

screens.

Mean¬

while, close-ups of the "real"
Terminator and John play on a
Jumbotron in the left wall, as
their doubles in the theater interact

Studio Lighting:
A Comparative
Workshop with
Donald

McAlpine

and Denis Lenoir
with

Wolves

with Dean Semler

with

onscreen

Says Lyster of the video
images, "That was all live-action
footage that I shot with Jim
Cameron. We actually shot with a
Betacam. I thought it would be bet¬
ter if

we

shot

on

film, both

as a

safe¬

Lighting
Dead Poets
Society with

ement within movie

John Seale

supposed to be

itself; it

was

a video screen."
As envisioned by Gilford,

videotapes only

S279
$149 for any 4; $49.95 each
VISA/MC/AMEX (shipping and handling extra)

today!

800-777-1576
First

Light Video Publishing
phone: 310-558-7880 fax: 310 558-7891

Skynet is a futuristic, multi-storied
environment containing both an
assembly line for manufacturing
terminator-style war machines and

president of
themepark operations.

1000; it had

more

a sense

of

a

that this

matte blue-

hue. We also had a yellow
spinner light on the left-hand
gray

that it was thrown
off by the spinner.
Little visual cues
like that help con¬
vince audiences

age

right and center

screens

for the

entire climax of the show. With
no

perspective changes,

orders, call South London Filter Ltd. at
August 1996

camera

en¬

Additional animation
added life to the static

Skynet back¬
ground. "The lights were animated
on

the CPU

were

on the center screen, as
the robotic arms on both the

right and left screens," Millstein
explains. "That was all background
animation. The primary animation
was

the creature itself."
The beast in question

is

the T-l Million (or

T-Meg), a men¬
acing 50' tall liquid-metal spider -
the guardian of the Central Pro¬
cessing Unit, Skynet's computer
brain. "We not only had to devise
a

film environment that could hold

three screens," Millstein
also had to create a 3-D

CG creature that could

huge central chamber

real

Skynetlooks
photo-realistic, but the best break¬
through was its tremendous sense
of depth. Even when viewers zero
in on points beyond the subject, the
image remains sharp. "We used a
lot of depth cues," Millstein re¬
veals. "We pushed the bound¬
aries of our technology so audi¬
ences could look
deep into that
infinite, cavernous space, and it
would stay in focus."

them. The

reality, a static 3-D CG im¬
spreading across the left,

a

vironment."

up across
says, "we

is, in

active

yellow light on
screen
right, the
implication being

the brain-center that controls

011-44-171-620-3060
48

events.

guard and to preserve the clarity of
the image, but there wasn't too
much concern because they were
using [the video footage] as an el¬

For PAL

feature and

producer Andrew Millstein

fighting machines, live actors dou¬
bling Schwarzenegger and Furlong
climb columns on the stage. Con¬
sistent with the Skynet "set," the
breaks between

call

ducer and DD's vice

that it's

Allen Daviau and Denis Lenoir

8

Millstein, T2 3-D's executive pro¬

only had to devise

executive

-

White with

we

Skynet's interior, we had to
light and texture it with all of the
nuances we could
imagine to
make it believable," says Andrew

screen, so

Realism

Fantasy with
Sacha Vierny and
Denis Lenoir

Lighting Dances

difficult. "After

a
film environment that could
hold up across three screens,
we also had to create a 3-D CG
creature that could move from
screen to screen!"

dlrtST"
and

which had lowered

"We not

with Allen Daviau and
Sacha Vierny

Shooting

screens

stealthily in the darkness. As our
heroes attempt to destroy the Cen¬
tral Processing Unit controlling the

w

Black

more

place really could conceive and
manage a war. We made the room
less silvery than the chrome T-

a 3-D computer-gen¬
erated environment across three

Robby

for

much
built

jectors cast

Peter James
Shooting

three

audiences,

"We had to create

Muller and

4?

as

cuts to distract

Digital Domain's task became that

sets of twin interlock 70mm pro¬

50'

OOTING

with

the audience is surrounded

zero,

moves or

screen

move

from

to screen!"

Once Gilford
the T-l Million,

designed

Digital Domain's
sculptors created a "real world"
maquette, which lead animator/
American Cinematographer - August 1996

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - August 1996
