American Cinematographer - January 2001 - 46

Sole Survivor
where you

dream of going to get
from it all, but in our film, it's
also a man's prison." Burgess there¬
fore decided to take two completely
different approaches; the first
encompasses the initial month of
Noland's captivity, and the second
unfolds after the four-year break. For
the early scenes on the island, the
cinematographer used Eastman

Top: Burgess
didn't use any
artifical lighting
for sunny day
scenes on

away

the

island. Instead, he

directed the
location's harsh

sunlight with
some

muslin and

Griffolyn bounces
set up a short
distance away,
and used 4' x 4'
headboard
bounce cards to
enhance close-

Kodak Vision 250D 5246
ProMist filter to

appeal. To render Noland's
four-year gap, the
cinematographer
switched
to

paddles his
way to the

Kodak's

EXR 100T 5248, sans
ProMist, to lend the island a bleaker,

deserted island.
For this scene,
crew

the

shot from

a

motorized

much dictated how we would shoot,"
he says.
"It

platform, but in
more

turbulent

surf, the

production used a
Carolina Skiff (see
photo
to

46)
keep Hanks

on page

safe from

spinning
propellers.

the

world after the

crewmember,
Hanks

accentuate

island's

helpful push
a snorkeling

a

from

his

working stock, employing a Vs White

Bottom: With

ups.

as

had

a

helped a great deal that I
background as a documentary

and that I'd done a lot
of outdoor, adventure-oriented
documentaries," Burgess adds. "The
cameraman,

idea of

going to Fiji to shoot was
appealing to me than
going to Stage 27.1 like those types of
much

more

adventures, which is half the battle
you have to like that kind of work
in order to avoid losing your mind

-

there. We

carefully crewed the
show with other guys who were into
that sort of thing, because it can be
incredibly grueling: the hours aren't
normal; you live on boats and trudge
out

through sand, water and dirt all day
long; and you have no life whatso¬

the

We worked from sunup to

out

ever.

sundown every

day in the heat and
terrain and boats
that were not even close to being
level. Certain people can do that and
enjoy it, and other people will just
hate it. There really are very few
things more difficult than taking
motion-picture equipment out to

water,

working

on

sea.

Aside from the show's

logisti¬
challenges, Burgess also had to
create two separate looks for the
island. "Fiji is a paradise," he asserts.
"It has beautiful, white sandy beaches
and palm trees. It's the kind of place
cal

more

contrasty look. "5248 is by far
contrasty tungsten stock
there, and switching from

most

daylight balance to tungsten [with an
85] lent the same location a totally
different feel," Burgess notes. "In
addition to switching to a highercontrast tungsten stock, we overex¬
posed by 1 to 1 72 stops to create a
very hot, almost desaturated look. I
had to find a way to turn this lush,
beautiful landscape into something
harsh and ugly, so I let the highlights
burn and the shadows fall pretty

deep. This island is no paradise - it's
Noland's

torment.

"For day scenes on

the island, I
artificial lighting at all,
with the exception of one rainy
sequence in which we needed some
backlight. I didn't use any overheads
at all; I just worked with the harsh,
raw sunlight at the equator. I did
play
with 12-foot-by-12-foot muslin and
Griffolyn bounces at a bit of a
didn't

use

any

distance. For close work, we also used
a lot of
4-foot-by-4-foot beadboard
bounce cards that we'd

fly in just to
source right
and to fill in the necessary details. I
like 4-by beadboards quite a bit, and
get

the direction of the

I used

a

lot of them when Tom

moved

through the set. They're easy
into the right position
as the shot is taking place.
"In
really high-contrast

to maneuver

44

January 2001
American Cinematographer - January 2001

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