American Cinematographer - December 1999 - 44

Galloping Ghost

Above:

Suspended from
heavy-duty
construction
cranes,

three

giant softboxes
illuminate

Sleepy Hollow's
town

center, a

highly detailed
exterior set built
on

location in

Marlow,

England. (See
complete
diagram on page
51.) Each
softbox
contained arrays
of Maxi-Brutes
that served to

duplicate the
toplight strategy
that Lubezki and

gaffer John
Higgins had
devised within

the

production's
soundstages.

Right: Ichabod
demonstrates his

rather advanced
detection
methods with

artificial feel that would pay homage
of his favorite horror films,

which included various titles from

elements, such as the color and
contrast, as well as the seasonal
elements, like the fog and wind. Tim

the Hammer Films archives,

wanted the whole movie

to some

as

chiller Black
with the

gadget.

atmospheric 1960
Sunday. "I was familiar

most

famous Hammer

as Tim is,"
Lubezki admits. "I find them to be
as

big

a

fan of them

fall/winter

season.

control the

struction, it's
the great

a

a

a

We also wanted to

amount

movie. It's not

be in

of

reality in the

historical

recon¬

fantastic tale. One of

things about the movie was
making it on very stylized sets. We

within

our

reality
theatrical

own

completely

a

world."
Toward that end,

production
designer Rick Heinrichs (Fargo, The
BigLebowski) worked closely with his
old friend Burton to design elaborate
sets
both in soundstages at
England's Leavesden and Shepperton
-

Studios, and on location in Marlow, a
small town

During

think Hammer intended them to be.

Heinrichs constructed

Our

biggest frame of reference was
Sunday. That film is really
interesting, because the images are
very clear and strong.
"In actuality, I don't think
Sleepy Hollow resembles the
Hammer films, except in the way that

highly detailed miniature models
depicting the film's major settings,
which include Sleepy Hollow, the
spooky Western Woods, a stylized
windmill, and various dwellings.
"The models helped to capture the

it was

we were

Black

made," he maintains. "We did a

lot of work
tried

to

on

soundstages, and

emulate that 'classic movie'

feel. The Hammer films
that way
those

we

were

made

because the filmmakers

on

pictures didn't have a lot of
We did it because Tim liked

money.

the idea of creating a synthetic,
us

picto¬
Shooting that way also gave

control of the various visual

the

just outside London.
preparation stage,

funny and a bit campy, which I don't

rial look.

40 December 1999

well

films, like their Frankenstein and
Dracula movies, but I've never been

the

help of a
newfangled

as

Mario Bava's

to

wanted to find

texture, the

a

series of

forms, and the colors that

trying to get in the final sets,"
Heinrichs says. "They also gave Tim a

chance

to

see

sions before

and

to

ous

scenes.

work

the sets in three dimen¬

they were actually built,
out the logistics of vari¬
A lot of ideas

began at

that stage of production, because it's
much easier to deal with miniatures

than full-sized
you want to

sets. For

example, if

chop something off

a
American Cinematographer - December 1999

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