American Cinematographer - July 1998 - 42

Cinematographer John
Schwartzman, ASC
with director
Michael Bay to

reteams

Earth to a
planet-threatening
expose

asteroid in

Armageddon.
by David E. Williams
Photography by Frank Masi

espite being

|

a

dauntingly

a

asteroid in half,

really cool one?"'
Their

than $100 million, the

astronomers

more

tale

opens

discover

a

as

Texas-sized

A NASA team

for the sci-fi adven'
ture film Armageddon seem¬
ingly dropped out of the sky.
Director Michael Bay recalls, "After
The Rock, I didn't want to do just

object hurtling toward Earth: a
"global-killer" asteroid like the one
which wiped out the dinosaurs. In
an early indication of the threat,
shards of the stupendous slab rain

drills into the

another action movie, but I couldn't

down

concept

center of the

threatening
asteroid. The
remarkable set
was created by

production
designer
Michael White.

40

did

complex project budgeted at

July 1998

find
with

a

story I

liked. I

Hensleigh, trying to
an

was

working

[executive producer] Jonathan
come up

with

idea, and he said, 'You know

those horseshit

asteroid-destroys-

the-world movies? Well, what if

we

perforate New York City.
Mankind's survival strategy is to
launch a pair of next-generation
space shuttles, land on the plane¬
to

toid's surface, sink
core,

and insert

The blast is

a

shaft into its
nuclear weapon.
a

designed to split the

causing the pieces to
by Earth. Tapped to join the
landing team is a crack oil driller
(Bruce Willis), who insists on bring¬
ing along his band of roughnecks
(including characters played by Ben
pass

Affleck, Steve Buscemi and Will

Patton). The first half of the picture
illustrates NASA's attempts to train
this motley crew for the mission,
while the second witnesses their
brave attempt to
tous occasion.

rise to the momen¬

"The scary

global killers

thing is that these
all the time,"

pass us



American Cinematographer - July 1998

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