American Cinematographer - February 2001 - 62

Mountain
would

High

only last for

onscreen

one minute
look consistent - even

though they had been shot over 10
hours throughout the day, as the light
changed from one side of the sky to
the other. It was tough to keep any
sort of continuity from the first shot
to

the last shot of the

scene,

with the

weather and the

light quality chang¬
ing hourly. We were constantly
adjusting our exposure, filtration
and film stocks throughout the day."
Tattersall used Kodak EXR
5245 stock for those

day exteriors. "I
grain, and while
shooting at 50 ASA we generally had
exposure to spare and good depth of
field. I used 5246 for the low-light
like the 45's fine

exteriors, and the FX 200 stock for
stage work. We chose the 200 because
there

was

a

reasonable

bluescreen work

on

amount

of

two sequences,

and there's
a

no doubt that you can get
clean, better-quality matte with that

stock. I find the untweaked look of
FX 200 a little hard; my favorite stock
for stage work is ordinarily 5277. But
once the 200 was scanned into the

digital realm, [visual-effects supervi¬
sor] Kent Houston digitally adjusted
the gamma to reduce the contrast."
No matter how demanding
shooting was on a given day, the crew
was always done by mid-afternoon.
"By 3:30 or 4 o'clock in the after¬
noon, depending on the complexity
of the shot and how much

equip¬

had been

one or

two actors

left, and we'd try to

that shot before we took the very
last chopper off the mountain."
get

However, it was riskiest shoot¬

ing at the higher elevations near
magic hour. "As soon as the sun sets,
the temperature drops 20 degrees,"
Tattersall points out. "The chopper
60

February 2001

stalled and the blades froze,
the risk of spending

we ran

the night

on

the

mountain."

Many times Campbell and
Tattersall would

begin shooting

a

stations, but even if you take all of the

precautions with mountain weather,
you've got a better chance of predict¬
ing things if you simply roll some
dice!

"Fortunately, we had two very
experienced guides: Guy Cotter, a
New Zealander who's been to the top
of Mount Everest twice, and Ed

sequence, only to be instructed to
scramble off the mountain when the

Viesturs,

weather turned

12 of the world's 14

ugly. In the best-case
scenario, grouses the cinematogra¬
pher, "we'd often finish shooting
without having completely finished
our
coverage. There were probably a
dozen
to

times where

or more

we

had

get off the mountain quickly, so

lots of sequences were

shot

on

the

"We were
stranded at 9,000

feet, 14 miles from
base camp. It

complete

was a

whiteout;

we

could

barely see 25 feet
-

an

American who's climbed

highest moun¬
oxygen! The safety
climbing team tied us all together
and led us out of there, gingerly
prodding the snow with 12-foot
poles to check for hidden crevasses.
tains without

Then, for about

an

hour,

we were

walked down

through the clouds
along the edge of the glacier, each of
us carrying one or two rucksacks, to
a clearer area where the choppers
were able to pick us up.
"We weren't able to carry all of
our equipment out, and it wasn't
until three days later that the chop¬
pers were able to get back in. When
they did, they found the cameras
completely buried in 15-foot snow¬
drifts. The terrain had changed so
much that if it weren't for GPS

in front of us."

[Global Positioning Satellite] and
beacons, they would never have
found the

David Tattersall

gear! Thankfully, we had a
package at the hotel,
and we went to 'weather guard.'"
reserve camera

second attempt at a

tion;

different loca¬

shots look the same."
The filmmakers did confront
the

on

scenario one day,
they found themselves trapped

worst-case

when

the mountain and unable

themselves

to

get

their

equipment off.
"We'd received instructions to pack
or

quickly and prepare for the chop¬
take us out, but the clouds
came up from the valley below, and
the choppers weren't able to get in,"
up

pers to

he recalls. "We were stranded at 9,000

feet, 14 miles from base camp. It was
a

complete whiteout; we could barely

see

25 feet in front of

us.

We had

full-time weather staff that
constant

and

On

had to cheat to make the

we

and how many crew

members
brought up, we'd start to
ferry off equipment," Tattersall says.
"We'd try to schedule things so that
the last shot of the day took place
with the actors against the setting
sun. There would probably be one
camera, one assistant, two safety
mountaineers, myself, Martin and
ment

pilot had to keep the helicopter's
blades running while the sun was still
in the sky, because if the chopper

radio

even

the

contact
most

was

a

in

with the local

distant weather

occasions, the weather

rare

actually helped the production. In a
particularly providential instance,
one

of the film's weather-cover

was

impinged

itself. A

serac

sets

upon by the weather
field is created when a

glacier slides over a rocky step on its
way down into a valley, producing
huge ice blocks that can crumble,
crack and break off, creating a very
jagged, treacherous minefield. Such
areas are
particularly deadly in the
winter months, when snow bridges
cover the smaller cracks, making the
terrain appear even and safe. Early on
in Vertical

Limit, three characters

(played by Robin Tunney, Bill Paxton
and Nicholas Lea) make a hasty
descent down K2 and fall into

a
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