American Cinematographer - December 1997 - 82

it. The

Sailing into
infamy. Says
Legato, "Jim
[Cameron]

camera was on one

both subs

are

sub, but

in the movie; we're

doing all of the shots that feature

wanted to sell

both subs, as well as the wide shots

the audience

Jim couldn't get because it was

pitch black down there. Because
he's using real footage, ours has to
match impeccably. He's going to be
cutting back to back, so there's
nothing to hide behind. It's been a
long haul just establishing the
methodology."

the illusion of
how great it
would be to
take

a trip on
the Titanic, so
we decided to

basically make
a

commercial

for the

Often, it's the almost in¬

ship."

visible details that make for effec¬
tive effects. After studying
Cameron's footage of the actual

wreck, Legato realized that the
sion 500T 5279

stock, which

times,

even

after we'd done tests

worked so well for the night shots
of the 45' Titanic, presented prob¬

and gotten a shot approved, we'd
shoot it and it would be grainy be¬

lems on the smoke stage. "It's got
a few quirks in the blue layer,"
Nash explains. "There's a magic

yond belief."

spot on the curve of the film that
gets incredibly grainy at a certain

dry-for-wet shots with 35mm twoperf footage of the actual Titanic

density in the blue layer. Above

wreck. Cameron commandeered
two Mir mini-subs down to the
wreck in the summer of 1995, and
shot the footage himself. "That real

that it's

fine, and below that it's

fine. There were so many variables
with the dry-for-wet work in
terms of smoke density, blue fill
and the little sub lights that some¬

Our exclusive
120°corner

The greatest challenge for
the effects team was matching their

footage is going in the movie,"
Nash says. "We're just augmenting

images had a specific blue haze
which suggested the immense vol¬
ume of water; after some tests, he
learned that it was impossible to re¬
create that

same

look

on

the

dry-

for-wet

stage with lighting alone.
Legato's solution was to flash the
film

-

in-camera,

during lengthy

motion-control moves. "We did the
flash in one light pass on the blue

layer of the film," Legato explains.
"We used a blue-and green-gelled
Kino Flo backlight that was maybe
six stops underexposed, so dim

DON'T

expands your
options.
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Compactness of a 3.5' system,
giving a 5' radius corner
Eliminates parabolic noise reflec¬
but

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Large radius is

to light

*

Open 120° curve gives a larger
background area in a small space

*

Allows talent to

easy

move more

freely and closer in
*

3.5'

or

custom
*

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available or
instruction manual/video

Installation
use our

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NASA, Tyee Productions, KPTV
American Cinematographer - December 1997

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