American Cinematographer - September 2000 - 34

pulley on the spot, which he operated
from the back of the car. To do this, he

For a Panorama
Tour sequence

shot on the

had to wrap himself around the rig,
squeezing into an impossibly small space

Amalfi coast
near

Italy,

Naples,
custom

between metal supports.

a
mount was

used to

place

The

the

front of

hand-cranked

shot in the final film.

the Iwerks 8Perf/65mm
camera on

He repaired the

motor, but we used the

Necessary,

a

driver

Volkswagen
Passat.

-

driver is in

car

was

driven by Glen

a great and aptly named
on a film like this one, your
a sense

your camera

operator.

Necessary has set speed records at the
Bonneville Salt Flats, but off the track, he

obeys the traffic laws. His head is the
driver's head that appears in the film.
The POV shots from the front of
the

captured with a pan-and-tilt

car were

head, allowing Nowell to anticipate the
turns for the street

driving shots and
more gradual
transition works better cinematically and
reduces the strobing that is always a big
issue in large-format work. Nowell also
used a speed/aperture control, allowing
us to increase the sensation of speed.
The film was shot for 30 fps projection,
make them smoother. The

and sometimes

we

cranked down to 24

18

fps. This format lends itself well to
accelerated speed, but again, strobing is
a danger, so we had to be selective about
using it.
or

The fact that the finished film will
be

Monument

Byrne created a telescoping rig. The shot
starts out in the back seat, looking over

created

the driver's shoulder

client chose

Tamalpais

(near

San

Francisco),

Valley and Lake Powell were
using a SpaceCam operated by
remote control at 5-perf/65mm. One of
the shots required a Tyler mount on the
outside door, while the rest of the film
was

shot

camera.

using an Iwerks 8-perf/65mm
The final release is projected in

5-perf/70mm, extracted from the larger
frame. The extra perfs allowed us to
readjust the frame in postproduction; it
also keeps options open for an 8/70

as

the

car

travels at

slalom course and then
moves forward, passing the driver and
pushing out over the dashboard and the
front of the car to get a clean POV shot.
Our rig had a motorized truss usually
used for rock 'n' roll stage lighting, and it
protruded some 15'-20' from the back of
m.p.h.

the

car.

on a

With the windshield and dome

by key grip Hugh
Byrne. Byrne has worked on a lot of car

light removed, it fit perfectly with about
W clearance. (Chopping off the roof
wasn't an option.) The director and cine¬
matographer were in the back seat, on
either side of the rig.
Of course, the day we found
ourselves driving in a hailstorm on the
Nuerberg Ring, facing 30 m.p.h. winds

commercials, but I believe this

with

version in the future, which is useful
because Iwerks simulation theaters are
all 5/70 or 8/70.
There are

from

an

a

lot of POV shots done

automobile, for which

we

used

custom car mounts built

first time he had to mount
camera

on a

VW

Passat wagon.
30

70

September 2000

-

an

was

the

80-pound

in this

case, a

For the opening shot,

no

windshield, the truss motor

shorted out.
can,

Byrne grabbed

and while

we were

a

70mm film

in motion at 70

m.p.h., he improvised a hand-cranked

experienced in tandem with moving
seats colored everything we did. The
a

six-axis motion base, and

co-director Takata spent a

lot of time
studying its capabilities. He rode the
base over and over, using a stopwatch to
calculate how long it took to perform
individual

He

movements.

referred

a special splitscreen video:
side of the image showed a pre¬

frequently to
one

existing motion film, while the other side
displayed the movement of the base for
that film.

Certain characteristics
to

common

all motion bases have to be taken into

account at all times.

We

to create the illusion

of travel within the

were

shooting

physical limitations of motion simulation.
actually go
anywhere, and each movement has to be
recovered from before it can be repeated.
You can't, for example, turn right three

The motion base doesn't

times in

a

row.

You have to maintain
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