American Cinematographer - November 2004 - 36

and shoot from their
we

point of view. After

made all of these efforts to shrink

them down, we wanted to

keep the

audience in this microworld, even when
went to the super

close-up."
Phillips, "Instead of typical
macro lenses, which are usually quite
telephoto, Peter's snorkel system was
great because it used wide-angle
lenses, yet we could get within maybe
five, six inches of the praying mantis,
keep it sharp and still keep most of the
background sharp as well as using a
tight inter-axial, maybe a third of an

some amazing tests on it and was
itching to do stereo on it for some time.
"We created these tiny sets of
either leaves or twigs or tiny branches,
or a raindrop. In fact, one of my favorite
shots in the film is of an ant drinking
from a raindrop. The ant then gets

inch."

excited and decides to stick his whole

we

Adds

To

Sean

Phillips with the Iwerks rig on the
stage in England.

using Parks' massive three-ton Macro
Bench system. Explains Slee, "It's basi¬
cally a microscope that photographs a
stereoscopic image and puts it off to two
different large-format cameras. The
image is split with a system of prisms, a

provide

of contextual
scale for the insects' activities, a jungle
hut served as the setting for many of the
scenes. When the Borneo portion of the
shoot was completed, the hut was
disassembled and shipped to England,
where it was reconstructed on a stage in
Witney, outside Oxford. There, the film¬
a sense

makers concentrated for three months
on

the

bugs' behavior.
Many of the shots were executed

David Eubank with his 6" Cinemonitor III
starring Dustin Hoffman.

on

device that Peter built a while back. He'd
done

head into the

raindrop until he's almost
it. This is all happening on
our stage, the size of a postage stamp,
which is part of the bench system. The
way we focused the shots was by
moving the stage rather than the

swimming

cameras,

on

which allowed

us to

track and

Instead of

moving the lens
system, we were actually moving the
whole object and cast and setting."
Says Parks, "Permitting the
zoom.

"I

V Huckabees"

"The

image on my 6" Cinemonitor III is
good that some Directors choose to
direct scenes standing beside the camera
instead of from Video Village. Just like in
the old days
so

"I own both a 5" Rainbow and a
6" Cinemonitor III and have used them
on

dozens of shows with

no

problems.

fact, / purchased my first Transvideo
on-board monitor 7years ago and tens
In

of thousands of hours later it still works

flawlessly.
They are, without question, the best film
equipment investment I have ever made".
David Eubank was B-camera 1 st AC
"I V Huckabees". He is currently
A-camera 1 st AC on the new Rob Reiner
on

movie.

FRANCE

USA

Z.l BP 526

10700 Ventura Blvd #2A

27135 Verneuil
32

Website: www.trqnsvideointl.com

Tel: +33
Fax: +33

S/Avre
(0) 2 3232 2761
(0) 2 3260 1479

No.

Hollywood, CA. 91604
Tel: 818 985 4903
Fax: 818 985 4921
American Cinematographer - November 2004

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - November 2004
