American Cinematographer - December 1997 - 40

with just

tungsten anymore; it sim¬
ply isn't practical. Tungsten fix¬
tures don't put out enough light -
especially these days, when every¬
body wants soft light and deep
stops. We ended up bringing in
generators from the States. To give
you an idea of the power we were
consuming, the lighting for the
ship riser alone took 40,000 amps."
Importing equipment
quickly became a major headache
that would continually trouble the
production. "Logistically, we ran
into problems," Carpenter con¬
cedes. "Due to the delays in cus¬
toms, we often had to decide what
needed weeks in advance. We
couldn't just call up a rental house
and have something there the next

we

day." With
Above: Jack

a

and Rose

a

struggle to
escape the
rising waters.
For the lighting

transmitted the Titanic's last des¬

perate S.O.S. signals.
At the south end of Tank

One,

flooding

Titanic set

scenes,

Carpenter
reports that
"there

was one

specific
technique that
was

used in The

Abyss that
used

on

we

Titanic,

and that was
the bouncing

of

light off the
water surface

and into the
faces of the

bounce effect
worked best
hard

a

source, so we

used

HydroPars.
By the time the
light bounced
up onto the
actors, it was

doing some
interesting
things. The
walls

duplicate stern section of the
was built on a gimbal
capable of inverting the structure
to a 90-degree angle - replicating
the position of the ship just before
it fully slipped below the surface.

very

came

alive and

the set!"
The most effec¬
tive solution to this

on

problem was to
keep an arsenal of
production equip¬

Additional interior por¬
tions of the vessel

(such

as

the

ment

grand staircase, ballroom and din¬
ing room) were built in Tank Two,
a
30'-deep, 4.5-million-gallon pool
fully enclosed in a 32,000-squarefoot soundstage. The sets were con¬
structed upon a hydraulic platform

without being used,
but there were also
times when we had
the two Akelas, a

Baja Studios was built over
100-day period, and as Carpenter
recalls, "The facility was still under
a

we

arrived.

shooting you
noise of buildings

as we were

could hear the

going up."
The need for

a

reliable

itself was built
in Tank Two

which

(right).

Churubusco Studios in Mexico

light." The set

things sat around

traditional stages.

Even

were

shot

primarily at

City. "My predecessor had

come

tested the power," says Buckley.
"The first thing we did was to put

testing device on the current com¬
ing off the Mexican grid. We found
a

that it had fluctuations of 40 volts
and 30

cycles, which is completely
unacceptable for HMI and fluores¬
cent lighting. We could have gotten
around the power problem if we'd
shot

exclusively with tungsten

sources,

because we'd have been

up with some distribution designs
for the studio, but no one had really

immediately

American

December 1997

Cinematographer

hand. As

the border, it would
be just about time
for it to come back.
There were days when

sinkings. Dry sets were con¬
structed in two adjacent, more

construction when

on

Carpenter notes,
"By the time we got
certain pieces of
equipment packed
up and back across

of the tank that could
lower and raise them for repeated

power supply was a major concern,
as it had been on such films as
Dune and Total Recall, both of

danced with

38

teriously 'show up'

a

at the bottom

actors. The

with

to say that a piece
of gear sometimes
wasn't just thrown
in the back of a car
so that it could
mys¬

identical to the model that had

below-deck

knowing smile, the
cinematographer
adds, "That isn't

stunning crystal chandelier, and
brass-detailed Marconi system

used in the

a

aware of the output
fluctuations. But you can't shoot

Wescam,and the Technocrane all
on the same
day."
About half of the Baja Stu¬
dios crew was from Mexico. "I re¬

in action

spected them, and we got along
tremendously," Buckley says.
"They knew what they were doing,
but in the beginning it was hard
because

some

of the

[American]

seemed elitist. Part of that
due to the language barrier.

crew

was

The Mexicans would

bring the
equipment and the L.A. guys
American Cinematographer - December 1997

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