Prior to principle photography, the production team and visual effects crew conducted motion control and camera movement recording tests at Tippett Studio in Berkeley, California. Preliminary full-dress rehearsals were held in the East Bay suburb of Walnut Creek, using General Lift's motion-control equipment. Joe Lewis provided two RotoFlex Field Units with nodal pan-and-tilt rotators, encoded pan/tilt handles (wheels), and focus stepper motors with encoders. Each system was totally enclosed inside rugged, all-weather, rack-mounted systems containing a CPU, keyboard, accessory drawer and four Point Blank drivers designed by Steve Kosakura. "Someone dressed up as one of the soldiers and we did some pre-programmed moves using all of the digital markers that the CGI people used for tracking," Lewis recalls. "We used bright orange tennis balls for reference. We did a full rehearsal of all the procedures we would follow on location, because for this type of effects photography, you must have a complete slate and intensive camera reports that provide pertinent information: the time of day, angle of sunlight and camera position."
To facilitate their effects work, Tippett's crew had to map out Hell's Half Acre with an aerial radar-based scanning device prior to shooting. Notes Hardin, "This gave them a precise topographical mapping of the area's terrain which allowed them to identify various features in the landscape. Prior to that, they had placed sensor markers on those landscape features which stood out on the 'topo maps.' By using these features as target points, they were able to reference the camera position against their tracking markers from where they took their measurements. These tracking markers correspond to paths where CGI bugs would later be placed."
For first-unit photography, most camera moves were encoded live rather than prepro-grammed. According to motion- control operator Mark Hardin, this process often left him feeling more like a "data sponge" than a programmer. "My duties consisted of recording and playing back the moves generated by the camera operator's pan and tilt, and the AC's focusing. This accommodated the CGI crew under the direction of Phil Tippett so that they could have accurate data to plug into their Softimage systems; every action on the background plate would have an equal reaction on the CGI data. Everything we did was replicated for both the first- and second-unit camera packages with identical Kuper systems, pan/tilt heads, and drivers, so that everything was the same."
Hardin operated the first-unit motion control during the first 100 days of location shooting in Hell's Half Acre and the Badlands; I personally took over during the final two weeks. Portia DiGiovanni handled all of the second-unit Kuper systems operation in the desert, as well as the four months of live-action filming which followed on stages at Sony Studios in Culver City, California.
According to Joe Lewis, the second-unit camera operator sometimes preferred using an encoded O'Connor 100 fluid head instead of the typical wheels arrangement. The encoder was calibrated exactly to the motorized head so that 90 degrees on the O'Connor would equal 90 degrees on the Pacific Scientific stepper-driven head. The operator could then adjust the gain sensitivity and smoothness of the encoder. Noise from the steppers was not a concern due to the reverberation of live ammunition rounds taking place during the shots. Says Lewis, "Second-unit director of photography Anette Haellmigk would say which move she liked and we'd just play back the same move and let the actors perform to the camera move, especially when there was a shot involving pyro effects; special effects consultant John Richardson would have to time either an explosion or a squib to the move."
In another unusual effects sequence, Lewis' six-axis GenuFlex with track, boom, swing, pan, tilt and focus was utilized for a shot in which trooper Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) is having his shattered leg mended by an "auto-doc" robot. "We programmed a move starting from his head, down his body to his leg," Lewis explains. "The first pass was shot live; the second pass was done with a prosthetic leg featuring a huge, gaping wound so that Pete Kuran of VCE could later composite the two."
During shooting in Wyoming and South Dakota, the motion-control equipment was normally set up on the back of a four-wheel-drive RV unit so that it could be positioned anywhere on the location. When the RVs were unavailable, or the desert-like terrain became too rugged, the systems sat on Magliner hand-trucks and were physically muscled into position. "The systems could be set up fairly quickly," recalled Joe Lewis. "More often than not, we were ready before the first unit was ready to do the shot."
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