|
 |
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
This level of complexity, wherein single shots are completed by multiple units and span many weeks of production time, required meticulous notes and constant communication. “Like any large movie, there is no scene in Spider-Man 3 that was shot in one place, ever,” says Pope. “Every scene has bits and pieces that are picked up someplace else. Every scene has some effect in it or some cutaway. When Spidey takes off and lands, each element is shot on two different stages in two or three different cities. It became a major task to keep track of continuity between units. “On the Sony lot, there was always action on at least two stages and usually three or four simultaneously,” he continues. “By the end of shooting, we had five or six stages at Sony all working at the same time, in addition to a unit in Cleveland and another one picking up plates in New York. I was constantly walking from set to set, from stage to stage, trying to keep everyone on the same page. The ADs assigned a PA to me whose only job was to follow me around and keep track of me. We also had a guy whose sole responsibility was to create lighting diagrams for every setup on every stage. Bobby [Finley III], my gaffer, had laminated key lighting diagrams hanging on a lanyard around his neck like backstage credentials at a rock concert.” “We had an incredible team,” says Finley, one of Pope’s longtime collaborators. “Joshua Thatcher, our dimmer-board operator, and his assistant were responsible for making sense of my rough lighting diagrams and creating computer-generated ones for a massive book we kept on every scene. If a unit came in behind us, or if we had to go back to the sequence for later work, we’d refer to the bible of diagrams. Hardly an hour went by that I wasn’t on the phone with [2nd-unit gaffer] Dan Riffel or talking to him in person. We also heavily relied on [rigging gaffer] Frank Dorowsky and [rigging grip] Kevin Erb. With so many changes happening constantly, those guys and their teams just rolled with the flow, and they kept us shooting.” On a project of such complexity, “you use everything you’ve got to keep the details straight,” says Pope. “You’ve got animatics, you’ve got lighting diagrams, you’ve got at least one person with each unit whose sole job it is to make the diagrams … you use whatever you can to communicate with all the other units. Whenever possible, I tried to make sure I started shooting any given scene so I could set the look and pass that on to the rest of the units. When the other units were shooting close to main unit, I’d go to the stages and keep abreast of what they were doing and line up a few shots, or shoot something myself. We were certainly all kept on our toes.” Some units were too far from the principal unit to allow for in-person consultation. One major sequence, which involves the Sandman robbing an armored truck and Spider-Man racing to foil the crime, required several city blocks to be shut down for the staging of major vehicle stunts. It proved impossible to accomplish such a feat in Los Angeles, so the production set out on a nationwide search to find a city willing and able to cooperate. Cleveland took up the challenge. “It wasn’t just a matter of blocking traffic,” says Pope. “We couldn’t have some pedestrian stroll out of a store in the middle of a stunt, so we had to completely shut down a grid of several city blocks, main streets and side streets. Cleveland was willing to do that, so we sent our second unit there to shoot the stunts. I never had the chance to go myself. All of that work was shot by Jonathan Taylor [ASC], who also did second unit for us on Spider-Man 2. He’s amazing, and I had total trust in him. The shots of the actors and the stuff inside the armored car were shot onstage at Sony, and plates for the sequence were shot in New York.” Early on in Spider-Man 3, Harry Osborn, who has taken over his father’s insane alter ego, Green Goblin, goes after Spider-Man, seeking revenge for his father’s death. He confronts Spider-Man, and the two engage in a violent battle that stretches several city blocks and progresses down a tight alleyway. Like many action sequences in the film, this alleyway fight comprises many different elements shot in many different locations, including a practical alley in downtown Los Angeles. One of the challenges for Pope was creating interactive lighting on the characters throughout the chase — their fight takes them from street level to rooftops all the way down the alley. Plates and some stunt work were shot on location, but most of the close action was shot onstage at Sony in front of a bluescreen. To simplify the coverage, the actors mainly remained stationary and a motion-control camera rig moved around them to create the feeling of movement and speed. “Flying through the alley, they go by windows, skylights above, and streetlights below,” recounts Pope. “All these light sources are passing them by, and our interactive lighting had to be carefully coordinated with the background plates and then tied to the actors’ movements. I broke the alley into different sections and into individual buildings that they pass. We looked at the real alley and tried to reproduce the light patterns [created by] the existing buildings. We’d say, ‘This is the building they’re passing by when they do this moment, and this is the building they’re passing by at this moment,’ and so forth. As much as possible, I used real lighting effects to get the interactive feeling of windows and [other sources].” To achieve this effect, Finley and his crew set up a stretch of 8'x16' light gridcloth diffusion on either side of the actors hanging in front of the bluescreen, and lined up two rows of three High End Systems Cyberlights on scaffolding on each side. The Cyberlight animated fixtures moved to create the feeling of the actors flying past lights. “I originally wanted to use Martin MAC 2000 fixtures, which are brighter than the Cyberlights, but they simply couldn’t move fast enough for us to create the real feeling of speed,” notes Finley. “When we tested them, Josh Thatcher went so far as to try to change the fixture’s protocol, but they just weren’t fast enough.” Unlike the MAC 2000, which moves as a full fixture, the Cyberlight is a moving-mirror fixture, and this enables it to make much faster moves. “We’d cycle through the series of Cyberlights and run them in patterns that would simulate the actors passing by windows,” says Finley. For different sections of the alley, Pope and Finley tapped other fixtures for interactive lighting effects. When the action moves high above street level, Finley used batten strips with MR-16 globes under the actors to simulate streetlights below. When the actors got closer to the ground, the gaffer turned to Source Four Pars and Bardwell & McAllister Mac Tech HPL fixtures to create a streetlight effect that appeared to be closer to the actors. “I really like the HPL,” attests Finley. “It’s like a redesigned Maxi-Brute, but it uses the HPL Source Four-style globe. Unlike a Maxi, it has interchangeable lenses, so I can use whatever lens I want from a spot to a stipple. There are six- and 12-light fixtures, and because the bulb is smaller and the filament is so small they react really fast to dimmer control, which was crucial for these sequences.” Pope adds, “We set up 10 different dimmer-chase patterns that went with 10 different sections of the alley. We dialed each chase for a different speed and different building configuration, and then just pulled up each pattern when we were shooting elements for that section of the alley.”
|
|
| |
<< previous || next >>
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
