American Cinematographer - June 2006 - 92

Wrestle Mania
Right: Nacho
and

Esqueleta
admire the

Gypsy Castle.
Below: Grobet
lines up a
on

shot

location

in Oaxaca,
Mexico. The

cinematographer
has a personal
connection to
lucha libre:
his mother,
Lourdes Grobet,

recently
chronicled the

phenomenon in a
book of still

photography.

the

"The first
panned the
camera maybe twice," he says. "The
rest was completely locked off.
That's Jared's style: things happen in
to

wrestling

scenes.

week of the shoot, I

the frame and the

nothing. Then
scene

camera

day,

does

shot

a
where Jack Black runs into a
one

we

and there's

action

going
just
to help the motion, and on the first
take I panned a little bit, about 5
degrees, when Jack ran in. Jared
said, 'Oh, Xavier, that was really
good, it really helped the motion.'"
Similarly, during the shooting of the
first fight, "We started with very
room
on.

some

I decided to do

static frames, but I

a

small pan

found that didn't

work because you miss a lot of the
action. So I started doing very pre¬
cise pans,

static pans from point A
to point B in one motion. The first
light was shot that way, and it's very
funny."
As Nacho starts moving up to
bigger matches, Grobet ratcheted
up the style. "One of the matches
became like a handheld light, but
we never
got too cra2y. We never
used crane moves or anything like
that. I used a crane to put the cam¬
era on different spots in the ring so
we

could avoid the

[camera] vibra¬

tion when the wrestlers jumped

and
stayed away from
any fancy moves." For the handheld

landed, but

we

work, Grobet used Panavision's

Lightweight Zoom II (T2.8) 17.588 June 2006

34mm. "I'd do
to

a really quick zoom
increase the action and motion in

the

scene.

As Nacho gets more expe¬

rienced and

improves his skills, the
style becomes more elaborate, and
the last [fight] is the most fancy, let's
say, in terms of using the zoom and
the handheld style."
Three wrestling arenas were
used in the production. The first, an
amateur ring where Nacho starts
out, was an

structed in

outdoor

arena con¬

courtyard next to the
monastery set. For this sequence and
other night exteriors, Grobet used
lighting balloons and the Kino Flo
Blanket-Lite, "which gives a really
nice fill light." He also used Par cans
extensively on night scenes. "I'd
rather pinpoint areas in the frame
with Par cans than use a huge single¬
source backlight or fill light so you
can see
everything. I think that looks
fake. I like
frame and

a

to accent areas

of the

keep it a bit moodier."
As Nacho moves up the
luchador ladder of success, the rings
get bigger and move inside. Setting
up in a makeshift warehouse stage,
Grobet tried to give the arenas more



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