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This challenge was especially pronounced inside Stark Expo, particularly when Stark first appears onstage. Backed by a contingent of female dancers, his entrance called for a light show set to AC/DC’s “Shoot to Thrill.” “The most elegant light show I’ve ever seen was Radiohead’s at the Hollywood Bowl,” says Libatique. “Bauman figured out that they used Versa Tubes, which look like fluorescents but have LEDs inside; you can send video patterns through them, change their color or make them solid.” The Versa Tubes were integrated into the set in a proscenium configuration complemented by moving fixtures that Libatique strove to integrate as graphic elements within the frame. “What I worked on more than anything was configuration, and Bauman chose the lights,” says Libatique. “We ended up using close to 300 moving fixtures, in addition to about 1,000 Versa Tubes,” says Bauman. “It was a constant discussion with [production designer] Michael Riva, because most of the stage was going to be defined by the lighting and video elements. [Lighting previs program] ESP Vision proved critical in that discussion. We used 1,500-watt and 700-watt Clay Paky Alpha Beams, augmented by High End Systems Showguns and Showbeams for strong shafts and beam effects; Varilite VL3000s and VL3500s mixed with Clay Paky Alpha Profile 1200s as general key and fill; and Mac 2000 Washes for ambience.” Lighting programmer Scott Barnes was charged with designing the light show for the dance number, and Libatique says Barnes’ work was “spectacular. It was like a big demo, a big palette of movement, and we could take the best pieces and put them into the portion that was actually going to be in the film.” Behind the stage was a 30'-high-by-74'-wide screen comprised of FLED io11 LED tiles, through which the filmmakers ran video images. While Barnes handled the dimmer board controlling the moving fixtures, lighting programmer Joshua Thatcher was the “gatekeeper,” Libatique says, of the content on the LED wall. Bauman adds, “Josh handled three different media servers: a PRG MBox for the FLEDs and two Catalysts for the Versa Tubes. He was able to use a lot of MBox effects and layering to get looks that Matty and Jon wanted.” “I couldn’t imagine doing a movie of this size without Al, Josh and Scott,” says Libatique. “Obviously, there were a lot of people involved, but in broad strokes, the ideas would come from me and Mike, the problem-solving would come from Al, and the execution would come from Barnes and Thatcher.” Stark’s cutting-edge technology also extends to his home, in particular in his workshop, which has undergone some remodeling since the first film. Favreau explains, “We wanted to up the tech level in Tony’s workshop so it looks like he’s taken a technological leap.” Libatique adds, “On the first film, they discovered this potential for holographic technology as a way for Tony to work with materials in a non-monitor situation. On this movie, Riva came up with this idea for the floor, making it a giant tablet Tony could walk across, and wherever he went, he could have a holographic image pulled up in front of him.” Onstage at Manhattan Beach, LEDs were installed in a grid pattern — meant to represent the holograph projectors — beneath the Lucite floor and wired to custom-made LED dimmers controlled by a Whole Hog III. Thatcher controlled the floor via pixel mapping, treating each LED as a pixel that was fed content from a media server, which also fed data to other interactive sources. Meanwhile, Barnes controlled fixtures rigged from three movable pieces of truss hung from the set’s ceiling. Each rig held “two Clay Paky Alpha 1200s and some Kino Flo VistaBeams — it really gave us a ton of flexibility,” says Bauman. Libatique adds, “We could position them in various parts of the room and bounce the moving lights into cards. Very seldom did we use them direct; we’d use them as sort of movable Source Fours we could control from the dimmer board, which Mike and I like to do because we can keep everything off the set and still have control without putting guys on ladders. “No matter how complicated the rig, I want to be able to improvise when I get on set,” the cinematographer adds, noting that the moving fixtures allowed him to quickly “blade the light down or change the color temperature to match a practical on the floor.” The Clay Pakys were also used in combination with Versa Tubes to create, in-camera, a sense of interaction with the holographic effects that would be added by Sirrs’ team in post. Having such interactive cues on set, Sirrs enthuses, “really sells the final effects. Subconsciously, those little cues tie everything together.” Cutting-edge lighting design is evident throughout Stark’s seaside manse. “His house was more dialed-in than anybody’s house could ever be,” says Libatique. “One of the best examples where everything came together from a lighting perspective is the scene where Tony has a birthday party, and his house looks like a club. All the can lights were Clay Paky Alpha Profile 300s built into the set, so they could turn into this moving-light extravaganza.” The party is interrupted when Rhodes, frustrated with the host’s irreverence, decides to take the Mark II Iron Man armor and personally deliver it to the government. A brawl ensues between Stark, in his Mark IV armor, and Rhodes, in the Mark II, but Rhodes manages to get away with the suit and present it to Hammer at Edwards Air Force Base. Shooting on location at Edwards was kept simple. Libatique recalls, “We ended up shooting scenes at the hangar doors, so there was already a relationship between light and dark, and even when we shot inside the hangars, we would find a space with as much depth as possible, and I’d use a lot of existing light. When they’re analyzing the Mark II, we put two VistaBeam 600s on [Matthews] Max menace arms as toplight, and we got the stop up to around T8.5 so we could bury the background a bit.” Taking his exposures with a reflective-light meter, Libatique typically maintained a shooting stop of T2.8. “I think it’s a nice compromise — I like as little depth of field as possible, but it’s still fair for the focus puller.” Bauman notes, “With Matty, there’s really not a lot that’s ever at key exposure. Usually Gwyneth and Robert were 1 or 1½ stops underexposed.” Libatique explains, “Key light doesn’t feel genuine to me. Even though I was doing a big movie with major stars, I wanted it to feel as if we’d just walked into a location and found that lighting. One way I do that is by trying to keep the faces down.” The production shot 4-perf Super 35mm using a camera package from Panavision Hollywood. Panaflex Millennium XLs served as the A and B cameras, which almost always ran simultaneously. Libatique carried a set of Primo primes, “but we primarily used [Angenieux] Optimo 15-40mm and 28-76mm zooms. We used them as variable primes, and they gave us some flexibility with the actors’ improvisation.”
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