American Cinematographer - May 2001 - 58

Earning Their Wings
film stocks

those used

by the
production's director of photogra¬
phy. "[Pearl Harbor cinematogra¬
pher] John Schwartzman [ASC]
liked
5274

to

use

for

to

Kodak

[Vision 200T]

daylight, and he used

[Vision 320T] 5277 and [Vision
500T] 5279 for real low-light mater¬
ial," Nowell recalls. "We shot [Kodak
EXR] 5245 for most of the aerial

including the plate shots.
in daylight, so I had
plenty of stop even with the prime
lenses and high speeds. ILM initially
sequences,

We were working

asked

us to

shoot the 5245

to accom¬

modate their

plates and CGI work,
seeing some of the first
composites, they felt we were getting

but after

too

much contrast,

so we

did the rest

of the

plate shots with 5274."
The security of a known f-stop
is about the only constant in Nowell's

format, which has been 2.35:1,
whether

anamorphic or Super 35, on
almost every feature we've done in
the last few years," he remarks. "It's a
matter of getting used to the format,
then making it work. If there are two
planes up and you've only got one in
your shot, you often have to look
away from your monitor to see
where the other plane is; at the same
time, you have to keep panning and
tilting instinctively with the one
that's already in frame, while letting
the other plane come in. Sometimes
I'll sense that another airplane is
about to enter the frame, and I know
that I've got to start to pan here"
Nowell's duties on the ground

just as rigorous. For Pearl
Harbor, he and his assistant Smith

were

positioned

a camera

equipped with

an

800mm lens

simulate air-to-air

atop a 10-story tower

line of work, in which every compo¬

to

sition is

then insisted that the P-40s and

"The

Zeros

designed, literally, on the fly.
composition depends on the

photography,

tion before

and away at
only way you
can
get that stuff is head on, when the
guy is coming straight at you then
breaks really hard," he says. "The
pilots knew where we were, whether
we were on the
ground or on a
mountaintop or cliff, and we had
them fly to and from our position to
get the perspective we wanted. I'd
the last

pulling

moment.

wait till the P-40

up

"The

was

full frame, call

his break, then wait for the Zero

chasing it to come through frame
and hang with it a little bit before
letting it go out of frame. We did the
same
thing in England with a
German

ME-109

and

a

British

Spitfire for the Battle of Britain
Michael loved it whenever
quite catch one of the
planes and had to hang back to find
it. He kept saying, 'You're making it
too perfect! Screw it up a little
sequence.

we

didn't

I rr>

more!

literally dive-bomb his posi¬

Unfortunately, Take One

was

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American Cinematographer - May 2001

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