American Cinematographer - December 2004 - 58

A Darker Side of Fantasy
The

orphans

offer their aid to

Josephine
(Meryl Streep)

Aunt

after she's

kidnapped by
Olaf and

confined to a
cave. "The cave
was the one set
we didn't have a
chance to prep,
so I had some
worry

going into

it," Lubezki
admits.

stalls

on a

set

of train tracks just as a

locomotive

approaches. Though a
forced-perspective miniature, the
circular faux field was still quite
large, some 50 yards in diameter and
configured to be shot in 360 degrees.
Overhead, dozens of space lights
hung closely together offered even
illumination, with an underlying
cover
of full gridcloth further
smoothing out the light to create the
illusion of a bright overcast sky. This
effect blended smoothly with the
ceiling-hung eye. "We overexposed it
to get a totally white sky," Lubezki
says. "I'm not yet sure whether it will
be left that way, or whether some
digital clouds will be added. We tried
to

do

most

of those kinds of effects in

though there were some
exceptions, such as a hurricane
sequence that we shot against bluescreen. But until the film is totally
finished, I can't say what will be
replaced. Some of the backings were
very hard to light evenly. We lit from
above in part because there was so
little floor space between the sets and
the backings, and also to retain the
feeling that the sky is its own illumi¬
camera,

nation."
54 December 2004

"Our

toplight from the space
lights gave us an overall ambience of
about T5.6," says Buckley. "Then
we'd add our accents, usually with
backlight." Of course, it wasn't that
simple - not only did Downey
require major structural work to
simply support the overhead light¬
ing, but once it was in place, "fire was
a chief concern," Buckley explains.
"We had

more

than 1,800 space

lights and a big silk under the whole
thing. A lot of the lamps were
specially made for us, and during the
manufacturing process there was a
problem with the pin tolerances -
there was no heat shielding over the
solder connecting the pins together,
so when heat built up, the solder
came apart and the lights shorted
out. We were having full-blown fires,
and it was a problem we actually
started having at Paramount.
Because of the

silk,

we

couldn't

see

lem

fixed."

was

Lubezki says

the fairly shallow
depth of field allowed by his lighting
helped sell the miniature field, but
"it didn't really need much help
because it was so beautifully made.
Cinematography is so much about
what you're shooting - great sets
and wardrobe give you a head start
on the camerawork, because you're
not fighting what's in front of the
camera."
Other

seaside

scenes

cave, a set

blocks of polystyrene

Lubezki. "We couldn't maintain
look
had

the water. The
we

didn't have

cave was
a

Luckily, we didn't have

some

worry

way to

the

one set

chance to prep, so I

out a

any major fires, but we lost 60 or 70
of the space lights before the prob¬

our

by lighting from shore, so we
to bring our sources out onto

tor

us.

foam that were

Gunderson had to create all kinds of

afraid of it, and I

could alert

a

platforms to light from," recalls

had

down to Scott Barnes, so he

in

finished in dark earth tones. "Mike

cameras

ran

set

carved, texture-coated and then

the fires

right away, so we put video
up there so we could moni¬
everything. The camera feeds all

are

fashioned from

going into it. I was
just never figured

make it look as good as

it could have. There's

between

a

difference

lighting and illuminating
something, and I think I just illumi¬
nated that set."
American Cinematographer - December 2004

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