American Cinematographer - August 2002 - 44

Emotional Triggers
Mendes.
American

"The

compositions

in

Beauty were very symmet¬

rically controlled, which created a
formalized claustrophobia; the char¬
acters were often placed in the dead
center of the frame with something
like a tree or a lamp on either edge.
The story we're telling in Road to

thematic transition. The shot lasts

Perdition doesn't have that kind of

about 40 seconds and

real. The second location,

marries two separate

Street, made for

rigidity, so we were open to whatever
seemed

to

work for the scene."

"Every shot needs to tell a
story," declares Mendes. "There's a
good quote attributed to Conrad,
and it's

true

with him most of the

time. Someone asked him, 'How

do

know where to point the
camera?,' and he responded, 'I point

you

it at the

story.'"
Filming exteriors in Illinois in
the winter and spring meant that the
filmmakers were often filming in real

snow, rain and mud. "We all got very
wet," Mendes recalls. "It was very cold

and

really tough, but this is a movie
more through images than
words, so I shot more film.
Consequently, I pushed the crew
that's told

much harder than I had

on

American

Beauty."
uRoad

to

Perdition is the hard¬

effects shot that marks

Michael

Sullivan, whom
a car

into the

city; his

in addition to

large number of
high-frequency ballasts. The crew
often hid the ballast lines by covering
them with

a

snow.

"I think the soul of the movie
is

expressed in the exteriors," says
the skies, the
[production
designer] Dennis Gassner chose and

Mendes. "That goes for
rain and the way that

controlled the exterior locations. In
way,

the landscapes

express

a

the

emotional states of the characters."
The town of Pullman, on

the

crucial

we

see

Most viewers will not realize

on

LaSalle Street, the back¬

a more

on

Belbow

interesting

background and also made the transi¬
tion from open space to the city more
dramatic. Our challenge was to figure
out a way to get this shot without
compromising Conrad Hall's lighting
and without taking a whole lot of

became visible.

The camera was placed on a
period city required both Technocrane mounted on dolly track.
high technology and many hours of The car invisibly transitions from its
painstaking effort. "Sam Mendes really standing position to motion as the
loved the way the canyon looked," says boy's face wipes through frame. The
Mike McAlister, visual-effects supervi¬ Technocrane accelerates as the car
sor on Road to Perdition. "The trouble
picks up speed, simultaneously extend-

reveal of the

lot of different color-corrected tubes,

a

that

ground looking in the other direction
for the first part of the shot was really
boring, so they couldn't do the shot for

windshield as he drives
son is sleeping in the
back seat, and Lake Michigan passes by
in the background. Reflections of the
city's buildings play on the outside of time."
The live-action portion of the
the car window, and the boy, partially
obscured by them, awakens and sees shot was done at the LaSalle Street
the city for the first time. The car has location. For the first part of the shot,
been traveling from the countryside, the car was rocked gently, but was not
and the boy's face is filled with wonder moving forward. The vehicle's
and awe at the skyscrapers that have windows were lined with tracing
materialized
outside
the
car.
paper that would later be replaced
Meanwhile, the camera continues to digitally. There were no glass windows
pass along the side of the car. As the in the car, partly because they would
have reflected the camera and crane.
auto pulls away, the camera cranes up
Some of the tracing paper had to be
to reveal the LaSalle Street bridge,
perfectly framed by the canyon-like ripped off during the shot to reveal
the desired backgrounds when they
cityscape beyond.
through

"Rain is

really interesting work that required
us to hide lights behind trees." The
crew used many different sizes of
fluorescent lights, most of which
were 40 watts. They also employed a

was an

seamlessly
locations in
Chicago. It begins on Hanks' character,

that the

from the front, and Conrad did some

August 2002

Cinesite's most important contribu¬

est

picture I've done," agrees Stern.
fairly easy to light with backcrosslight, whereas snow has to be lit

40

was

tion to Road to Perdition

scene

is an effects shot, but this
American Cinematographer - August 2002

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - August 2002
