a complex balance
Complicated scenarios meant that ilm had to work in new and exciting ways, reveals Cinematographer Jonathan sela
Shooting blockbuster action movies is not unusual for cinematographer Jonathan Sela (Deadpool 2), who frequently collaborates with filmmaker John Moore (Max Payne); however, having to incorporate a Transformer into the frame was a new experience.
“We have poles that represent the height of our characters with 3D model faces on them so you know right away who is at what height,” explains Jonathan. “In this set-up, I’ll go down, but I can only do it this much so you get enough head room. We also shot a lot of the movie in IMAX, which means a lot more vertical space, that helps with those characters. For the cameras, we went through a mix of Panavision and IMAX. We had one 3D IMAX rig, which was two ALEXA 65s together. That had never been done before. We could only get one because it’s extremely expensive. Then we had three RED 3D rigs. They went through different configurations. It was more about lens choices as far as being wider or lighter or tighter, so you could have a bigger or smaller rig that could be put in the open or on a crane. Then we had some 2D IMAX ALEXA 65 and carried quite a lot of other single RED cameras. We had anamorphic and spherical lenses. The ALEX 65 IMAX can only use the ARRI 65 lenses. The RED 3D can only use the Leica lenses.”
“Usually, you try to use your IMAX 3D ALEXA 65 for your big wide shots, which are the most expensive ones to compose,” explains Jonathan. “We try to do as much native 3D as we can. We would always start with the ALEXA 65 3D and one or two of the RED 3D. You have to compensate for the fact that each mirror takes colour differently. In the 2D world, we went anamorphic and spherical, and that was for different kind of looks.
“Michael tried to do anything opposite to what we represented, meaning the more it’s mixed up and not exactly perfect, the better he likes it. It’s capturing the right moment at the right time. Michael is the perfect guy to be on the set with because he can make a movie with one guy and a camera, and then you need 600 people the next minute. You go back and forth from the most complicated biggest scenario to the simplest thing.”