American Cinematographer - June 2006 - 32

screws on

the cast in certain

scenes

to

amplify the drama. "We would try to
extend time on camera," says Ackroyd.
"We'd call out, 'It's now 9:20,' and

knew that at 9:28, something
going to happen, so the actors
would be seething in anticipation. It
was like keeping the lid on a pressure
pot, and we kept filming so that when it
did blow up, it blew up in a big, big
way."
everyone

was

The most obvious such moment
at the point when the passen¬
decide to attack the hijackers, and
the "blowup" was almost more than
Ackroyd bargained for. "When they
comes

gers

made the

Above: In

a

soundstage at

big, and as they
charged down the plane our assistant

Studios,

director, Chris Carreras, screamed at
them to stop because there was only so
far they could go. But it was all done in

overhead space

lights provided
skylight
ambience. For

the

spirit of the film. By that stage they
concentrating on one thing, and
that was the belief in what they were
shooting, and our duty was just to be

direct

sunlight, a
large bank of
was

into

were

rolled

place to

simulate the

play of light as
the plane

there and film it."

Ackroyd notes that United 93's
physical demands were extreme
enough to require shooting on film

banked and
rolled.

Right:

The passengers
make their
move.

almost like theater directors do. Given
the strict

chronology of the events on
the plane, they decided during
rehearsals to shoot the action mostly in
sequence. "We rehearsed with a clock
and read out the timeline for the actors
and

crew:

This is the time and this is

what the

plane's doing now,'" explains
Ackroyd. "We also filmed some of the

again, I've never done that in an
airplane, and certainly not in a fake one
that's being thrown around on gimbals
in a studio! Our approach to United 93
was physically and mentally challeng¬
ing, and I didn't know if we could
achieve it until we actually started
doing it.
"In

some

of the takes toward the

get a

end of the film, there were six mag

doing."
The rehearsals led Ackroyd to
suggest staggering two cameras during
principal photography, which allowed
Greengrass to run uninterrupted takes,
some as long as 40 minutes. "I'm very
used to doing very long takes," says the
cinematographer. "Ken Loach's style
frequently involves 10-minute takes,

changes," he continues. "At times, [Acamera operator] Klemens Becker and I
were fighting to keep each other out of
the shot and keep the story going. We
always knew there'd be two or three

rehearsals with video
handle

and

on

we

what

cameras to

we were

often reload

a camera or even

lens without stopping the
action; our approach is about the
camera serving the performance. Then
change

28 June 2006

toward the front of the

actors were very

Pinewood

20Ks

move

cabin, they literally ran over us, over the
cameras," he recalls. "Some of those

a

minutes where each

camera

had its

completely because the
was reloading, and we could

own

space

other

one

make the most of that time."

The filmmakers'

tight grip on
their timeline, along with the tight quar¬
ters of the Boeing airframe they were
shooting in, allowed them to tighten the

rather than
facilitated

a

format that would have

longer takes, such as
high-definition (HD) video. In fact, he
and Greengrass never seriously consid¬
ered any digital medium. "Anything can
even

HD, but the hi-def

be done

on

I've used

are

cameras

very temperamental," says

Ackroyd. "Imagine a 50-foot section of
an airplane being vibrated and thrown
around 20 degrees north, south, east
and west, and the camera's banging into
the side of the walls and banging into
your head. I'm a very strong supporter of
film because it's been tested for

over a

hundred years,

rock solid. I don't want to
put HD down, but this just wasn't that
kind of picture."
Ackroyd shot United 93 in Super
35mm 2.35:1. "Widescreen suited the

plane's dimensions - everything is laid
out in neat rows and lends itself to a

strong horizontal composition," he says.
"It also helped us get layers of perfor-
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