American Cinematographer - November 1998 - 48

Dream Weavers
Production

designer
Eugenio Zanetti
transformed a
decommis¬
sioned aircraft
carrier into a

portion of the
Shores of Hell.
To illuminate

the

enormous

carrier

-

a

nighttime setup
in

a

San

Francisco

shipyard -
deployed

Serra

five 15' helium
balloons fitted
with four 4K
HMI

lamps. The

cameraman

expounds, "The
balloons

were

controllable,
very easy to
use, and very
useful for

creating a
relatively soft
top light in a
big area. I also
used fire and
flares as

practical
though

sources,

not close

enough to the
actors to make

it

Kodak EXR 5298, which has

a more

bold and hard look, when

going
through Hell and for all of the darker
effects scenes. Finally, I used Vision
200T 5277 in

areas

area

that

were

more comedic. Those
situations where I normally

happy and
were

would have used

Fuji, but the
involved special effects."

scenes

Serra shot Dreams with Panav-

dangerous."

ision Platinum and Gold II

cameras

outfitted with Primo

prime and
zoom lenses. Additionally, the cine¬
matographer elected to use the Super
35 format to achieve

he had

a

2.35:1

frame,

his

previous collabora¬
Map of the
Human Heart, I thought we couldn't
go with the anamorphic because our

romance

in

meeting, their
Italy, marriage, and even

the death of their

two

children in

a

tragic car crash. "I used normal filtra¬
tion, sometimes

on

the bluish side,

and corals for happy, amorous scenes
and flashbacks," Serra details. "The

approach was to build the images so
that they followed the dramatic
structure

of the film, which meant

trying to find different types of light¬
ing, color, and technical solutions."
He employed a similar photo¬
graphic approach for Chris's entry
into Paradise, or "the Painted World"
CG

choice of lenses would be very

landscape of lush Monet style flowers and swirling Van Gogh
skies literally dripping with running
pigment. Since the Painted World is
based on Annie's artistic depiction of

limited," the cinematographer recalls.

their Italian rendezvous, Ward and

"And I knew Vincent would

Serra

as

on

tion with Ward. "On

use

want to

all of the lenses that you can

-

a

opted to shoot both

in the

same

location

sequences

-

Glacier

imagine, from the widest to the
longest - which we couldn't use if
we were stuck with anamorphic.

National Park in Montana

Also, the effects artists on Dreams
could have worked with anamor¬

Painted World, Serra decided to

phic, but they are happier with a flat
format, so I opted for Super 35."

effects in every

In the film's first 10

the

minutes,

cinematographer made

what he

terms

use of
"more traditional

lighting and composition" to detail
46 November 1998

Chris and Annie's first

-

to

subtly underscore the parallel themes.
While shooting within the
create

pronounced yet soft backlight
shot, with disregard

for motivation

or source continuity.
approach, which adds a sublim¬
inal impressionistic effect, was facili¬
tated by the fact that every shot was
to be heavily processed in postpro¬

This

duction, allowing Serra to simply
have in-frame

backlight fixtures

erased.
Serra filmed the sequences

with Annie and Chris in

straightforward

manner,

insisted that the

camera

relatively
but Ward

a

have free

reign when depicting the remarkable
Painted World, even though every
frame of Serra's original footage was
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