American Cinematographer - July 1999 - 62

Island of Lost Souls
'stage' built inside the grocery store. It
very small, so there was hardly
any room outside the set walls. For

Donna's

daughter, Noelle

was

(Vanessa
Martinez) reads

certain firelit shots inside the cabin, I

from a diary
discovered in an
abandoned cabin
on the island

tried

cabin interior
was also

would

while

constructed
within the
grocery storeturned-

soundstage.
Here, dappled

daylight filters
between the
shack's creaky
boards. For other

"firelight"
generated by
both real flames
and small, CTO-

gelled units

on
dimmers.

light - unless, of course, one overex¬
poses the way you did.
Wexler: Well, I'll add that
Limbo

first experience with
print stock. The fact
that everything was pretty soft to
begin with, along with the added
the

was

new

contrast

my
Vision

of the

new

stock,

seems

give the final print much
contrast

than

we

had in

our

much

to

buildings, the trees, the
the wardrobe has

even

do with the illusion of what

the

light is like.

use

Vision 500T 5279?

AC: For the interiors,

did you

aware

of that,

having done A Civil Action just before
timed your picture. I agree that
the new prints stocks are much more
contrasty. In fact, I was shooting
when they made the change, and I
had to figure out how to overcome
that. Eastman Kodak provided me
with a new [negative] stock, a batch
of 79 that was five percent less
contrasty. That helped a bit.
AC: Haskell, did you shoot all

Hall: How did you

of the exteriors for Limbo

on

the

Vision 250D?

view

[EXR] 5245. I'd usually
tell the loader [Viki Redding] to put
on

up some 45, then maybe
shot or two in before the

a

'production

duck back behind
we'd have

end, I decided that I wanted to go

place that I'd worked with
even
though that decision
resulted in dailies arriving a day later.
a

-

AC: Was there

a

distinct

that you were trying to create
first half of the film that you

tone

in the
inten¬

some

go to

In the later scenes, the look seemed to

be much cooler and darker

-

we'd get
sun

are

lit

didn't

I

consciously. The
because it

was

such

do

that

look changed
a

different loca¬

tion. The island is
as

dimmer

a

a

Panavision

own

a

Moviecam

supposed to read
'hardship' and 'isolation.' You

mentioned the

use

rior of the cabin

zoom lenses: a
Cooke 18-100mm and an Angenieux
25-250mm. I used the

of fire. The inte¬

was

again

on our

zooms

for

almost

everything except a few lowkey shots.
Hall: Is there an advantage to
owning your own equipment?
Wexler: Well, since

we were

working in a relatively inaccessible
place like Juneau, it was a distinct
advantage for the producer! We had
to decide early on what additional
equipment we needed, since ship¬
ping in and out of Alaska was not
terribly fast. Fortunately, I get incred¬
ible backup from Denny Clairmont,
so
every additional item we rented
from him arrived fully checked-out
and compatible with my gear. For
instance, we shot
the film's

a

lot of material for

opening credits, during

which you see

by firelight.
Wexler:

clouds and

the 250D. In
general, I prefer to use 45 whenever I
can, because I really like that stock.
So much really depends upon what's
in front of the camera. The sky can
be essentially the same sky, but the
to

had

we

portable projector. We would get
dailies about three days later. There's
no really fast way to get up to Juneau.
We processed the film at CFI in
Hollywood, although I did do some
tests with a good lab in Seattle. In the
a

except, of course, for the interior
cabin scenes, where the characters

a
would

Wexler: I

your

tionally changed in the second half?

Wexler: No, I also shot some

on

Compact and two

Wexler: We had

before

electrician

shoot?

dailies?

with

an

changed the density. There were a
couple of times in the cabin where
Noelle was reading from a diary by
the firelight and I wanted to see her
eyes. For those shots, I wrapped
some
rope-light around the mattebox to get a glint in her eyes without
producing an obvious source. I loved
lighting Vanessa. I really liked her
face and expressiveness. I worked to
give her a good eyelight whenever
she would reveal them. Revealing her
eyes was an essential story point.
Hall: Was Limbo

Wexler: Yes.

[5386]

you

July 1999

roads and

office' in this warehouse, and

Hall: I'm well

of them

color of the

to

more

dailies.

60

light with the fire itself and

light the actors, I had one lamp that I
wave my fingers in front of

purgatory. The

sequences,
Wexler dimly
illuminated the
characters with

to

flame bars off-camera. When I did

underwater.

salmon swimming

The

camera

underwater, and then
surface. We used
with Zeiss

comes

begins
to

the

periscope fitted
Superspeeds. Denny rents
a

[special filter attachment] that we
jokingly referred to as a 'condom.' It
has an optical flat that screws onto
a
American Cinematographer - July 1999

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