|
 |
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
As is typical on a Scott film, at least three cameras were always rolling; the operating team comprised Mark Schmidt, Daniele Massaccesi, Marco Sacerdoti and Witt. “Actors like multiple cameras because they’re always on-camera, so they’re always in character and not wasting time off-camera,” says Witt. Gaffer Richard Cronn adds, “Sometimes multiple cameras can slow you down, but Ridley has been doing it so long he’s really mastered it. There were times we actually wrapped early because of that!” Schmidt, who was on the A camera, describes one setup: “There’s a great shot we did of Leonardo in the desert. He’s sitting on the desert floor, and I’m handholding the camera, looking down on him. The B camera is looking at him in a 3⁄4-back profile, and the C camera is shooting through my legs, getting a close-up. That’s the scene right there. That’s what Ridley does. He doesn’t do a lot of coverage because he gets it quickly [with] the three or four cameras.” Often, those cameras are on the move. “Some of them actually move across the other camera while we’re shooting,” says Cronn. “You’ll tell Ridley, ‘We’re seeing a camera!’ and he’ll say, ‘Don’t worry about it. We’re not going to use that piece.’” Schmidt adds, “Ridley will stand at the monitors and tell you what’s he’s looking for — he’ll look at four monitors and say, ‘I’m cutting from this to this to this.’ He knows exactly how he will cut it.” Witt speculates that the video monitors are one reason why Scott operates less than he used to. “He did a lot of operating because he’s a very visual director,” says Witt. “But after Gladiator [AC May ’00], he stopped, I think because he can see what he’s getting on the monitors. They’re especially helpful when you’re working with multiple cameras; you can immediately see what everyone is getting.” Sometimes on Body of Lies, however, Scott couldn’t help himself. Schmidt recalls, “He jumped on the crane once because he felt only he could get exactly what he wanted to get. I think that’s great — he’s a true filmmaker.” Arri headquarters in Munich, Germany, provided the production’s cameras, a mix of Arricam bodies, a 435 and a 235. An Arricam Studio was used during the first phase of the shoot, in Washington, but that was replaced by the Lite in Morocco, where handheld camerawork was the norm. Witt notes, “Ridley would love to have had four sound cameras, but that adds to the budget, so instead, you put a blanket or furniture pad down and use a long lens.” Witt’s lenses comprised Zeiss Ultra Primes (LDS) and Angenieux Optimo 15-40mm, 17-80mm and 24-290mm zooms. “If we’d had more cameras, Ridley would have used them, no matter what the situation!” Witt says with a laugh. “Even in a car, he uses three cameras for one person — you have one lens on him in profile, one is a 3⁄4-back, where you see part of the street, and the other is looking forward over the shoulder.” That left room to squeeze in a focus puller and the director, who was always present in the vehicle. In keeping with the filmmakers’ goal of authenticity, the lighting was kept simple and naturalistic. “Sometimes we used very little lighting, and often, like in cars, we used none at all,” recalls Witt. “We were usually just complementing the existing ambience.” To achieve the “rugged, dirty look” Scott wanted in Morocco, Witt and Max worked together to incorporate “lots of practicals, lots of bare bulbs — very primitive fixtures,” says Max. A case in point is Ferris’ torture at the hands of Al Qaeda, which occurs in a windowless room deep inside an ancient prison near Rabat. “We used two very strong flashlights to light the whole scene,” recalls Witt. The terrorists carry in the flashlights and then set them down on the floor during the interrogation. “We didn’t try to hide them,” continues Witt. “It was a small room, and we were running three cameras, so depending on where we were shooting, we just changed the angle a little. The only additional thing we did was use bounce cards to give some of the actors a little front light.” The filmmakers pumped in smoke to augment the location’s dusty atmosphere. “We used a lot of smoke throughout the shoot, but less than Ridley’s done before, especially on interiors, because he wanted to avoid a commercial-style look,” says the cinematographer. However, one of the drawbacks of smoke is that it diminishes contrast; Witt notes, “Ridley likes contrast that’s so strong it’s almost black-and-white. If you have a lot of backlight and create shafts of light, smoke looks good, but on exteriors, it makes everything flatter, so you have to be very careful.” Another torture scene, Ferris’ flashback to a brutal interrogation he witnessed in Yemen, relies on the greenish cast of uncorrected fluorescent light. “We lit that scene mainly with one fluorescent hanging in the middle of the room,” says Witt, “and we had a small fluorescent practical off to the side lighting Leonardo. We left things on the green side to make it uglier.” The filmmakers seldom took the time to correct existing fixtures. For nighttime street scenes, they used practical streetlamps as they found them. Witt recalls, “Ridley would say, ‘Well, they’re yellow lights. It’s normal! Why would we make them blue or use moonlight instead?’ He really didn’t want this movie to look like a movie.” When the production built sets inside locations, Witt worked closely with Max in determining the color and reflectance of wall surfaces. “We worked very hand-in-glove,” says Max. “Although we were in real locations, we redecorated them to suit our needs. For instance, we might age a place down so it wouldn’t be too bright and blow out.” Witt notes, “Arthur is a very good collaborator, very good about keeping close contact. I often wanted to make walls darker so we could just light the actor in the middle of the room without getting a lot of reflections from the walls.” When choosing locations, Scott often favored places that combined interior and exterior — where a character might look out a window or exit onto a balcony. Such was the case with a basketball stadium near Rabat, a location that served as the U.S. Embassy in Jordan. The outer perimeter, where concessions normally stood, faced massive plate-glass windows and an interesting metal armature. Here, the team built the CIA office housed within the embassy. “We wanted to see outside because we had tanks going by and people walking around,” says Witt. One scene used only the sun, coming through ungelled windows, as a source. “It’s a long scene, but we knew the sun wouldn’t change for four to five hours,” says the cinematographer. But even when disappearing sunlight might mean “rush, rush, rush, somehow Ridley doesn’t get bothered,” he adds. “The difficult part of balancing interior and exterior when the sun is going down is the color temperature, but with the DI, that’s becoming easy to correct later. Ridley understands a great deal about lighting, but he also knows a lot about the DI and understands what can be done [in post]. I believe that’s why he doesn’t worry about it so much.”
|
|
| |
<< previous || next >>
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
