American Cinematographer - January 2000 - 38

Smash-Mouth Football
other film to sway or persuade my
thinking," he says. "I also wanted to
stay away from Oliver's previous
work. I'm a very big fan of his films,
and I think Bob Richardson is
incredible

an

genius.
He's come up with his own style, and
I thought it was very important for
me

I

not to

am or

cameraman

-

a

mimic that. That's not who

where I think the film should

have gone. But I did watch Raging
Bulla lot, because that film evokes a
certain

feeling, and I think a lot of
Any Given Sunday is about feelings."
Totino reports that Stone
encouraged this intuitive attitude
toward the subject matter during
preproduction. "Some directors are
more

verbal about their visual ideas,

but Oliver tries to
Above: A

weatherproofed
is brought
into play. Below:
A low angle
captures the
Sharks marching

camera

toward the line of

scrimmage in
Texas Stadium.

Stone says

he
sought to lend
the film an epic
feel reminscent of
classic Hollywood
films such as
Ben-Hur.

greater good.

started to make the whole

The film's punishing 65-day
production schedule was highlighted
by five different staged football
games in Miami's storied Orange
Bowl and the newer Pro Player

ence a

Texas Stadium in

Oliver

Stadium,

as

well

as

Dallas. The

enormity of the shoots
sprawling second unit to
scenes involving thousands of

required
shoot

a

extras on

crowd. "It

more

real for

me.

It

was a

huge project, and we had great
support from Warner Bros, and the
film's producer, Clayton Townsend. I
had

full-blown second unit, but

a

initially kept them with our
first unit, because all of the footage
has to fit and marry together on a

In

order

to

observe

some

conscious decision to

gridiron action and capture
footage for inserts, Stone and
Totino brought a camera crew to a
Dallas Cowboys game at Texas

cross-referencing other sports-

Stadium last December. "The real

During the
who calls himself

fan, made
avoid

bring you into an
experience," Totino describes. "Going
down to Miami and spending time
with him in preproduction brought
out a certain feeling. He kept on
saying, 'This is Miami, it's sun, it's
warm, it's hot! The reality of our lives
before and during the film were
brought into the film."
actual

film of this size."

the sidelines and in the

was a very tough, difficult,
agonizing process, as well as a logisti¬
cal nightmare," Totino admits. "I just
saw the trailer last night, which

bit

experi¬

a

prep stage,
a

Totino,

"casual" football

themed films. "I didn't want any

crowd

actually much slower than
would think," Totino attests. "I
was frustrated being on the sidelines
with only certain lenses and a mini¬
mum of movement. I thought it was
important to bring the viewer onto
the field by getting the camera inside
the plays, which is very difficult. You
have 22 men crashing into each other,
which is a huge amount of weight
being thrown around. It's hard to get
the camera in places where you can
make interesting shots."
To bring the game's groundwar ferocity to the fore, the filmmak¬
ers employed a variety of "trick
plays" in their shooting strategy. A
game was

you

mm

small, modified Arriflex IIC dubbed
the "Ratcam" (built

operator Jimmy
36

January 2000

by Steadicam
Muro) could be
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