American Cinematographer - July 1998 - 60

Space Chase
pan-tilt head which recorded the
move; McClung's motion-control
team then applied that location data
to

the model and locked it in.

Similarly, NASA rolled out
(the

enormous

a

crawler

tracked vehicle that

takes the shuttle from the vehicle

assembly building to the launch pad)
at night, and Bay Effects added in the
miniature shuttle.

Quest's 5'

City, McClung and company dealt
differently-sized minia¬
tures of the two "next generation"
space shuttles which are sent to ren¬

"next-genera¬

dezvous with the asteroid and oblit¬

Finishing
touches

are

added to one
of Dream

tion" space
shuttles. The
models -
which com¬
bined a "mili¬
taristic" look
with the reallife orbiter

design,

were
fabricated
from epoxy
and fiberglass
and featured a

six-point
mount for

motion-control

shooting.

reserved for the launch

test.

Once

we

worked

Philipp would shoot several
on

out

motion-control match-move,

the shuttlecraft models:

passes

one

pass

itself, wherein Bay Effects match-

for the miniature

moved their sleek 5' miniature shut¬

the big klieg spotlights on the ground
in the background plate; a really hot

lights representing

the

object before it reaches
Independence and the
Freedom shuttles represent NASA's
"duality" concept - send up two of
everything in case one fails - taken
to a new extreme. The military shut¬
tles have the same configuration as
current NASA ships, but their more
detailed design is sleeker and more
erate

Earth.

The

streamlined; the movie shuttles also
feature additional booster

engines
expanded cargo bays capable of
carrying large vehicles. The minia¬
tures were supervised by master
and

Digital Domain

on

True Lies, Apollo

13 and Dante's Peak. "Alan built four

space shuttles - two for us
and two for Dream Quest, which did

5'-long

kinds of shots," McClung
recalls. "He also built a 1/i2-scale, 10'-

the

same

long version for our high-speed shots
of one of the shuttles crash-landing
on

the asteroid."

Bay Effects executed a series of
Apollo 13- style shots at NASA's shut¬
tle

launchpad, matching their minia¬
full-scale, live-action footage
involving the space agency's special¬
ized equipment and facilities. In cre¬
ating the illusion that the redesigned
model shuttle was hanging in the
vehicle assembly building, the build¬
ing was captured with a Panavision
tures to

July 1998

another

with several

model builder Alan Faucher, who
served as McClung's crew chief at

58

were

perspective was correct. We had a
playback and compositing sys¬
tem on stage. Our motion-control
camera had a
videotap so that we
could see what we were doing in
terms of lining things up with the
background plate, and then we
would go look at the film and do
our

However, the most spectacular
shots

the

video

tles (which were

totally redesigned
except for the main booster engines)
to real footage of actual space-shuttle
boosters firing on the launch pad.
Director of photography John

bright glow over the entire shuttle as

Schwartzman mounted

it lifted off."

cameras

in

the

pad's large fireproof housings
and shot 35mm anamorphic footage
of NASA's shuttle blasting off. Bay
Effects then digitally doubled every¬
thing to produce the illusion of twin
shuttles taking off from side-by-side
launch pads. Of course, getting the
miniature elements to line up with
the moving production cameras and
the escape-velocity shuttles was quite
a job, in and of itself, on these 10

pass

the

that

was

source

and

a

burnt-out from where
engines would be;

of the

separate pass to create a very

"I did the beauty pass with the
backlight and fill all in one," Timme
adds. "I only split that up when Pat
thought he would have to deal with
them later in post, because shooting
VistaVision gave us a very shallow
depth of field, and therefore very
long exposures. Fortunately, I had a
very good first A.C. who was able to
let

me

shoot

able

at

around

an

fl6,

so we

keep the passes down to
a reasonable
length. We didn't have a

were

to

extremely complex and critical shots.
Explains McClung, "We could get the
gross match-move very quickly, but

pass that was longer than 40 minutes.
On top of greenscreen, practical light

then

and

we

had

and tweak

to

look back

at

the film

everything to make

sure

a

beauty passes, I did what I called
reference pass - basically a front-
American Cinematographer - July 1998

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