American Cinematographer - December 1999 - 48

Gallop ng Ghost
Top: Bathed in
warm

toplight,
Ichabod

examines the

Headless
Horseman's
handiwork.
Bottom: A view
of the ceiling
within Stage H
at

Shepperton

Studios, where
than 500
dimmercontrolled

A Little Princess. On this

first thing that came to my mind was,

learn from what

though, Tim, Rick and the
costume designer, Colleen Atwood,
were already a team; I was the only
new person in that group, so I was
more like a pupil who was learning,
and I stayed a bit quiet. When I began
seeing all of the various models, the

'Stop this insanity, tell Rick to create
a window, or to make the
ceilings
higher.' All of those instincts of mine
were working almost against the
process, though, because Tim and
Rick were creating very complicated
designs. I decided to just sit back and

rather than

Bo Welch
one,

on

they wanted to do,
throwing out ideas that
would be obtrusive. They were open
to my suggestions, and they agreed
with most of them, such as painting
all of the trees inside the soundstages
black. But in general, I stood back
and listened
done

on

"One

more

space
were

lights

installed

to illuminate

various sets,

including the
Western Woods.

This strategy
was

duplicated
within the

largest stage at
Leavesden.

ing with
about

a

bit

than I've

more

other movies.

day

we

everyone,

building

had a big meet¬
and we talked
everything at

Leavesden Studios. When

we

went to

England on the first scouting trip,
they showed me the sets on the
stages, and I thought they were
joking - all of the stage ceilings were
really low, and the sets were less than
20' high. That created some big limi¬
tations, and as a result, I had to throw
my initial plans for the lighting.
My first idea had been to employ
huge sources, most of which would
out

come

from the back

to create

silhou¬

ettes, and to use very

little fill light.
However, the approach I eventually
adopted worked out much better: I
decided to create a huge toplight,
which I had

never

done before. The

stage ceilings were so low that we
couldn't

really hide lights in the
greenbeds. Instead, we created a huge
sense of
sky for the exteriors shot in
the stages. We installed over 500
space lights up in the ceiling, very
close to each other, and then pumped
smoke into the rafters to

create

a

false

sky and obscure the fixtures. That
way, all of the light would seem to be
coming from the sky, as it would in
reality. Being low helped me because
I was getting the stop I wanted, and it
was

easier to control the smoke."

This array

of space lights,
supplied by Lee Lighting, was
controlled by computerized dimmer
systems. Complete systems of space

lights and dimmers were installed
within the largest stage at Leavesden,
as

well

order

as

in

Shepperton's Stage H. In
match

this

toplight
approach while shooting real exteri¬
ors, Lubezki and Higgins devised
their softbox strategy. "Once I real44 December 1999

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