American Cinematographer - June 2001 - 49

in constant

backlight. The
always silhouetted with
three-quarter backlight.
camera

dancers

were

"None of the

scenes

in the film

what

you'd call 'normal,'" Mathis
drop out of
big theatrical numbers into typical
over-the-shoulder coverage! I think
are

adds. "The film doesn't

the

most

bedroom

normal set is Satine's

-

and that's all red velvet

and mirrors."

highly stylized world of
a number of
lighting challenges, but Luhrmann's
improvisational approach encour¬
aged the crew to tackle them in a
variety of ways. "Working with Baz
means that
you can do anything, as
long as it fits," McAlpine says. Mathis
Rouge posed

adds, "Baz

even

to

need

seven

saw

on

the schedule that he'd

only have one night to do it. He said
he simply couldn't do it on that

on our

actually made a rule that we'd
never turn off a light in his presence,

Foundation!

darker than

New Gear

actually shoot. I turned off a
light once when Baz was there, and
he said right away, 'I like that!' Don

you can

came

over

to me

and said with

TCS

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a

laugh, 'Now you've done it!"'
to

"heightened" reality rather
pure reality meant that some

effects

could

simply. "There's

be

achieved

TCS adds personnel to service you
better with 24/7 availability.

quite

tcsfilm.com

night

sequence in
which Christian and Satine dance,

then

sort

a

shopping
rental when
you subQiit an equipment request online.

actors

real

doorway, then proceed to
stage full of miniatures.
We floated fog on the ground and
had a night-blue backing behind [the
city]. Someone suggested that we add
some twinkling stars, so we
simply
cut holes in the backing, hung Mylar
behind the backing and aimed hard
light and fans at the Mylar. We got
our
twinkling stars."
The show's most complicated
lighting job was one that McAlpine
and his crew initially thought they
wouldn't have to worry about.
McAlpine explains, "In the film,
Zidler builds a legitimate stage in the
very back of his club, which is where
he wants to stage real theatrical
'float'

a

TCS offers online rental and sales

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of fly off above the streets of

Paris," Mathis details. "The
leave

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look of
than

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*

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Luhrmann's desire

roughly two days to
light that set, and Steve Mathis and
the Australian crew worked through
the night to do it," McAlpine contin¬
ues. "We
initially thought we'd start
off the performance with little foot¬
lights to be historically correct, but
the style of the film had by then
developed into one of extreme exag¬
geration, so the initial idea wasn't
going to fit. It instead became a very

days of rehearsals on the
perfect his lighting, which is
what he typically does in the theater.

likes mistakes. Don

set

"We had

stage to

and I

because he likes the

timetable, so everyone turned to me.
I said, 'Well, it's what I do.'

be shot, he said he would

were

We

The

Moulin

productions. Early on in production,
Baz asked the top theater-lighting
designer in Australia to design the
lighting for the production that takes
place on that set. He went to work on
it, but a few days before those scenes

over a

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