American Cinematographer - July 1999 - 60

Island of Lost Souls
sinks?

Right: Actress
Mary Elizabeth

Wexler:

Mastrantonio

provided vocals
for the film's

soundtrack,

including songs
for performance
scenes involving
her character,
Donna de

Angelo. The bar

degrade the imagery somewhat and

set was

constructed
inside an empty

make it stand
Hall:

grocery store,
which served as
the production's

soundstage.
grip
Steve Lang
pulled double
duty in the film,
and is shown
as

Vic, the

bartender at
Juneau's local

watering-hole.

out.

didn't

It

look

very

degraded...
Wexler: I

talk

to

Bob

because he
were only about four
hours of what we would call real

dark!'

night. We were shooting day-fornight scenes at 10 p.m.! When we

used various grads, tree branches

Nights.' There

were

in the woods, we

didn't have the

budget to put larger units on indus¬
trial cranes or cherry-pickers to plow
some strong 'moonlight' through the
trees. Of course, without putting
some light in there, we ran the risk of
making the nights look fairly muddy.
Hall: How did you deal with
the day-for-night work under those
circumstances?

and

[Laughs.] Since it

overcast

with

framed-in hillsides
down

a

no

to

was rainy
blue skies, we

knock the

one

sky spots through the trees in
of the

scenes

in the woods.

grad I had set went into

[actor] David Strathairn's head,
had

to

I

a tree branch
instead, but the

yank it. We put

in close to the

camera

leaves weren't thick

enough. All of
shot

the night scenes except one were
in the 'day' time.

effect of, 'Geez, in Alaska, it never gets

comes

Hall: Was that
the

so

scene

up

exception
[Strathairn]

one

in which Joe

in the water after his boat

scene a

speeds, and I think
John ended up step-printing the
scene

for further effect.

actually didn't realize

the effect that the overall look of
Limbo had
out

Wexler: Yes, in that instance,
the ND .6

know, in doing
day-for-night, you have to fight the
sky. I actually asked John if we could
have an actor say something to the

Wexler: As you

hot

[ASC],

several different

Hall: I
some

Richardson

really knows how to do

that stuff better. I shot the

bit.

Hall: I did notice

little

and
sky

also surprised
degraded. I should

was

that it didn't look

Below: Key

here in character

Right! That scene was

flashback, and it was the only scene
we shot in real, black night, because
John wanted it to have a darker look.
He wanted it to look different, but
not too different. I used [Vision
500T] 5279, which I pushed to 2000
ASA, and added a net to try to
a

on me

until I

walking
thought about
to finally feel
was

of the theater and

how nice

it

was

sunshine. The film had

a

kind of

pervasively claustrophobic gloom
that lent to the quality of the charac¬
ter's lives. There's something about
the sun hitting your face that makes
you feel wonderful. As you said,
though, that feeling wasn't some¬
thing you waited for - it was created
by the 'gaffer in the sky.' Did you
shoot when the

sun was

out too?

Wexler: As you

know Conrad,
in a way it can be easier to have over¬
cast light for exteriors...
Hall: I'm

not sure

if I agree

with that,

actually. I think it's harder
to get contrast in overcast conditions,
and I'm always interested in contrast.
The only contrast you do get on an
overcast day is color contrast - blue
against green, for example. If I had a
day like that, I'd throw

large black
them in a
darker silhouette against the brighter
background in order to change the
almost pervasive beauty of the situa¬
tion, because the [natural scenery] is
so colorful. In a way, the colors can be
over

more

58

July 1999

the

actors

a

and put

saturated in that

even, overcast
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