American Cinematographer - December 1997 - 92

The Postman

picks up the
outgoing mail.
The shot

was

photographed
with

an

extremely long
lens at 110 fps
to stabilize

the

image and
make Costner's

expression
readable to the
audience.

entirely. Windon notes that
biggest
night shoots that he or gaffer Jim
matter

The Postman involved the

Gilson had

ever

executed. "At

one

point, we had to light an enor¬
mous, old, open copper mine -
located just outside Tucson - that
was over

1Vi miles

across

and 1,200

feet

deep. It was basically like a
huge crater that took 25 minutes
just to drive down into! In the
story, the mine served as the camp
of General Bethlehem's army."
For nighttime scenes at
the mine, Windon wanted to bathe
the location in a blue moonlight
ambiance. However, he opted

against setting up Muscos or other
large night-illumination fixtures
because he feared that the lighting
would be too flat. Instead, he
"ended up using about 25 6K HMI
Par lamps, which were very con¬
centrated in their intensity. Jim
Gilson placed a ring of these fix¬
tures around the mine's perimeter,

shining down into the crater. The
Pars created little pools of light,
which gave the mine more texture
than one or two really big sources
would have produced."
Bethlehem's camp was
also filled with campfires that bil¬
lowed smoke and offered addi¬

tional illumination solutions. "We

a number of Maxi
Brutes behind buildings and in
rock canyons," submits Windon. "I

positioned

put orange gels on them and

placed large smoke machines in

one

scene,

Bethlehem's troops

watch films

projected onto a huge
screen set up on a ridge beside the
body of water. A projector was set
up on a floating dock anchored
some 350' away from the screen.
"Kevin and I originally wanted to
play the movie live while filming,"
recalls Windon. "Even though I
shot tests in preproduction, I could
never
get a bright enough exposure
from the projected image - even
with the latest and greatest projec¬
tors

-

because of the distance and

scale of it. So I had to simulate a
beam of light coming out of the

projector with a 2.5K HMI Par and
smoke added to the air. I then lit
the screen with white light to give
the visual effects people a clean
matte line around the screen for the

images to be added later with CG."
Save for the projected
movie in Bethlehem's camp, the
post-apocalyptic world of The Post¬
man

is rendered without

onscreen

electricity: moonlight and camp¬
fires provide the only illumination.
For "firelight," Windon used tung¬
sten lights covered with full CTO
gels, which were bounced off gold
reflector boards "to get a really
red/gold look." The lamps sat on
low stands just off camera; grips
would then tap the reflectors or
give them a little shake to create the

front of them, which created mas¬
sive orange glows coming out from

effect of fire.

behind the canyon

in the Metaline Falls location,
Windon had the grip crew rig an

me

88

The expansive mine floor
encompassed a lake which
the production decided to incorpo¬
rate into the film's visual design. In
even

walls and
big light sources."

American

Cinematographer

gave

To achieve the

December 1997

enormous,

40'

x

20' moonbox. "I

had seen the moonbox in a lighting
rental company in Vancouver
when I was doing Firestorm,"
Windon adds. "It was the only one
I knew of in existence, so I had it

shipped down for The Postman."
The box
ver,

was

fashioned out of

a

sil¬

foil-like reflector material

which was then stretched over an
aluminum frame; the cube was sus¬

pended from a 210'-high crane and
contained 60 IK lamps. "I put full
CTB gels on each of the lamps,
which created a big, diffused light
source

at around 4300° Kelvin."

To aid in the unit's flex¬

ibility, each of the moonbox's IKs
individual dimmer chan¬
nels. Although Windon normally
had all of the globes switched on,
he could adjust the amount of light
were on

coming from the moonbox by ei¬
ther switching banks of lights on or
off, or dimming them. By hiding
the crane behind buildings along
the street, an entire two-block area
could be illuminated. The moonbox,

however,

was

used only for the

widest shots in the sequence. For
closer action, Windon bounced
HMIs

(partially corrected with Vi
gels) off a 20' x 20' Griffolyn
which could be more easily placed
CTO

and controlled.
As The Postman's

story

the film's color scheme
undergoes three major shifts, re¬
flecting the emotional changes in
the narrative. The early Tucson

progresses,

have a coolish blue, mono¬
chromatic feel; Windon had toyed
scenes

night scenes

with the idea of
tion in

shooting this

sec¬

black-and-white, but ulti-
American Cinematographer - December 1997

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - December 1997
