American Cinematographer - November 1998 - 52

Dream Weavers
with the CG. We shot
when the boat
set,

was

normally
against the actual

but sometimes the

shot

against huge
placed in the set."
The sequence

reverses were

greenscreens

avoid any blue backlight or
rimlight, which again would be, for
me, too glamorous for the journey

to

to

also demanded

Hell. Hell

was an area

in

a

kind of

day, not
night. I tried to give it consistency by
a

permanent twilight - not

the twisted, battered hulks of old
vessels. "I did

a
rough drawing of the
ship graveyard, some of which I

knew

would

be

constructed

as

models, but what could I do when we
got close to them?" Ward recalls. "If
built a set, it could only be so

we

large. Fortunately, Eugenio found
abandoned aircraft carrier that

an

was

going to be chopped up for scrap
metal, and came up with the really
fantastic idea of redressing it so that
we

had this

enormous

real-life loca¬

tion." To illuminate the
carrier

enormous

nighttime setup in a San
Francisco
shipyard - Serra
deployed five 15' helium balloons
fitted with four 4K HMI lamps. The
cinematographer expounds, "The
-

balloons
to use,

a

controllable, very easy
and very useful for creating a
were

relatively soft top light in a big area. I
also used fire and flares as practical
sources, though not close enough to
the actors to make it dangerous. Still,
shooting there was dangerous
because the ship was in such poor
condition. For safety reasons, the
areas

we

could

use

were

quite

limited."
Above: Another

perspective on
the library set,
as seen

in the

finished film
with CG
extensions.

Right: Chris and
Albert meet
with Tracker,

(Max

von

Sydow), who
leads them

extensive wirework

to

practically glide to the top of the
stacks, where they find the dour
Tracker hovering amidst the upper¬
most

shelves. After the characters

reached their destination, the actors

small crane plat¬
form, which bobbed up and down to
lend a floating feeling.

were

through the
afterlife.

(later erased),

which enabled Chris and Albert

placed

on a

When the three adventurers
take the sailboat

into the open

out

they traverse a canal formed of
rising to infinity, an
effect achieved by cleverly reconfig¬
uring the setpieces, then placing a
sea,

bookshelves

greenscreen at

the end, where the

open sea was added
the trio is attacked

digitally. After

by swarming
actually shot in a
swimming pool elsewhere - they
Hellions

land

on

-

a scene

the

grim shores of Hell,

which Serra illustrated with minimalistic colors. "I

50 November 1998

was

always trying

always having some top light, but my
key preoccupation was always to
make Hell

as

monochromatic

as

After Chris, Albert and the
Tracker rise up in an
side the derelict ship,

elevator along¬
they push past

hordes of damned souls and reach

possible."
The initial dilemma for Ward

and Serra was how to film the shores

the Sea of Faces, a desolate
strewn with living human

of Hell,

gazing upwards at

a vast

landscape dotted with

a

plain
heads
bleak sky. "The
American Cinematographer - November 1998

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