Sky’s the limit in ‘Dunkirk’ battles
Dazzling dogfights captured with bulky IMAX cameras
The dazzlingly authentic and up-close aerial dogfights between British Spitfires and German planes are among the most awe-inspiring scenes in director Christopher Nolan’s Dun
kirk, a $314 million box-office hit worldwide.
Shooting the furious flying action with real planes, often over the location of the pivotal Battle of Dunkirk, was challenging enough without computer effects or green-screen technology.
But mastering the feat with bulky IMAX cameras that brought vivid images to the large screen was a victory that compelled Smithsonian’s Air &
Space magazine to say: Dunkirk boasts “some of the most thrilling aerial engagements ever staged.”
Here’s how Nolan and his team pulled them off: THE SPITFIRES ARE REAL Three working World War II Spitfires were brought in to depict much of action for the RAF pilots played by Tom Hardy and Jack Lowden.
“Most of what’s in the film was done with real Spitfires,” says Nolan. “The planes are in incredible condition and can do all the dogfighting, all the aerobatics.” CAMERAS IN THE COCKPIT Nolan wanted to get up-close with the Spitfire pilots as they fend off German Messerschmitt Bf 109s attacking the mass evacuation of Allied troops below. He incorporated a lookalike Yak-52, a two-seater Soviet-era aircraft, for added space, dressing it to look like a one-seat Spitfire.
“The Yak had an open twoperson cockpit. So we could put the camera right over the (actor’s) shoulder and got up in the air with these guys,” Nolan says.
IMAX cameras allow for only three-and-a-half minutes of film shooting at one time, so the process was drawn-out — each short shoot required a landing, review and film reloading.
“There were literally hundreds of take-off and landings,” says actor and aerial coordinator Craig Hosking. WINGING IT Hosking had never seen an IMAX camera successfully mounted to a plane’s wing before Dunkirk.
“I thought maybe a GoPro with some duct tape. But are you kidding me? An IMAX camera on the plane wing?” says Hosking. “You wouldn’t believe it would fly with this hunk of steel.”
Flight action views were captured with cameras facing outward, on the plane’s side and even peering through the gun sight. AN EXTRA HAND Much of the air battle movement was captured by a Piper Aerostar specially equipped with IMAX cameras on the front and back.
“That’s the view that gives the audience the sense of being right in the dogfight, with super-realistic steep banking and rolling,” says Hosking.
Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema were on the Piper giving Hosking real-time instructions (and excited cries during high speed turns).