THE TERMINAL • page 2 • page 3 DVD • page 2 • page 3 |
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Nowhere Man |
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Photos courtesy of DreamWorks. Amid the chaos of New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, fresh-faced immigrant Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) is deplaning for his first steps onto American soil. He will soon discover, however, that his small Eastern European homeland of Krakozhia suffered a violent political coup while he was en route. His government has been overthrown, leaving Navorski with a visa that is no longer recognized by any acting government, which prevents him from legally entering the United States. Immigration officials don't know what to do with this lost soul, so Viktor finds himself stranded in a limbo that stretches on for months. Until his country's political climate stabilizes, he is unable to set foot outside the terminal.
To make The Terminal, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, ASC teamed with director Steven Spielberg for the eighth time; their collaborations began with Schindler's List, which garnered Kaminski an Academy Award in 1994, and the cinematographer has shot all of Spielberg's features since then.
Kaminski, a Polish emigre, says he appreciated The Terminal's rich subtext. "The story is very cute, but it's also a microcosm of American life," says Kaminski. "Navorski begins to understand the American people from his limited experience with them in a single environment. It's a new look at nearly everything Americans do and take for granted; for Viktor, even something as simple as buying a hamburger is foreign and awkward."
In the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, filming The Terminal in a working airport was an untenable idea, so the filmmakers came up with a unique solution: they would build their own terminal. "Steven wanted the movie to feel realistic because in order for the audience to buy into the story, they have to accept the world that Navorski is stuck in," says Kaminski. "So Steven and [production designer] Alex McDowell decided to create an almost fully functional airport terminal."
The massive set was constructed at Palmdale Airport in Hangar 703, which measures 750'x300'x70'. The hangar was originally built for the construction of B-2 bombers, but it has since been used to modify 747s and C-130s. The production's set measured 360'x270'x60', and the freestanding, atrium-style structure contained three stories of fully dressed sets. Some 650 tons of steel were used to create the terminal's framework, and a certified structural engineer had to approve the plans for the self-supporting set, which featured two sets of operational escalators. The floor included 58,000 square feet of polished granite imported from China, and approximately 112,000 square feet of glass opened out onto a view of the "airfield" - a 650'x48' painted backing. Created by JC Backings, the faux vista comprised an architecturally accurate amalgam of views from two airports, New York's JFK and Montreal's Mirabel; it was first designed as a 3-D CG model by artist Robert Stromberg and then painted by six painters over the course of 31 days. The backing also featured 2,000 miniature lights for night sequences. The construction project spanned 19 weeks, and during the final two weeks, 240 workers were splitting shifts to cover 24 hours a day, six days a week.
In order to meet the shooting deadline, set dressing began on the stores inside the terminal long before construction was completed. Some 25 set dressers worked over eight weeks with product-placement partners from each of the stores represented. More than 35 retailers and fast-food chains are represented in the terminal's mall, and some are even staffed onscreen by employees of the respective companies.
Lighting the set was another task of monumental proportions, and gaffer David Devlin and key grip Jim Kwiatkowski joined the production 16 weeks before principal photography began to work out a plan with Kaminski. "It was an incredible challenge, one of those jobs I can't imagine ever really being achieved outside of Hollywood," says Devlin. "We needed all the expertise we could muster here in town to get it done."
McDowell had incorporated a lot of windows into the terminal's design, so the feeling of daylight had to be both omnipresent and realistic. Kaminski's crew started with a 5600K base for daylight so they would have a very natural range of color temperatures for all interior lighting. "The main light had to be daylight," explains Kaminski, "because that was the only way that we could bring in other light sources and have them look right on film. If we had used all tungsten lighting to make our daylight, then any fluorescent or tungsten fixtures we brought into the interiors wouldn't have looked right; they wouldn't have fallen into the right color temperature, or we would've had to gel them all, and they still wouldn't have looked right. The color temperatures in a real airport are extremely diverse, and that's what we wanted to capture. I wanted to combine all the colors you see in real life - blues, greens and warmer hues - because I knew it would lend credibility to the story. Page 1 |
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