Shooting Texas Rangers This story originally appeared on cinematographer.com. The myth of 1880s American West has had no greater promoter than the Hollywood film industry. But in recent decades the classic Hollywood oater had become an endangered species. Enter Texas Rangers, the re-enactment of the true story of the founding of the Texas law enforcement agency of the same name. This feature film by Dimension Pictures stars a hot young cast and hopes to draw a new generation of filmgoers into the land of six-shooters and ten-gallon hats.
Texas Rangers was shot in the Badlands near Alberta, Canada. The towns of Stavely, Brooks and Indus—about 100 kilometers south of Calgary—and Durango, Mexico, stood in for 19 th Century Texas. Principal photography lasted 58 days. The locations featured a desert-like tableland for the West Texas look, and undulating countryside for ranch scenes. The remoteness of the area required the production to construct a trailer city, referred to on the set as " Texas Town.”
Cinematographer Daryn Okada took his first steps into the film industry in 1976. Okada recalls working on no-budget horror films at night and watching art films during the day.
"It was a great juxtaposition," he recalls. "My friends and I would discuss composition and editing, and strive to use those lessons to make our films look better, work better and seem more expensive and together."
By the early 1980s, Okada was getting some second unit assignments and shooting occasional commercials. He displayed a knack for the camera and did some assisting, but says he was more interested in lighting.
"I knew that once I got out there, lighting was going to be the most important part," he says.
Other aspects of the filmmaking process intrigued him as well. He discovered that poorly cut films seemed unfinished, no matter the quality of the writing, acting, directing and photography. So, he spent a year hanging around editing rooms, furthering his education.
"I watched films to see what was usable, what worked, and why," he recalls. "I thought that if I got the opportunity to actually shoot an entire film, I would have the same amount of time, same amount of equipment as the next person. It was how I was going to use that time that made a difference. I saw which shots were used a lot.
"Once I started shooting, I knew when I could do a rough lighting setup for the wide shots, and concentrate more on the close-ups," he says. "I knew how to divide the time. Maybe that extra time could then be used for some detail—maybe just a hand tapping on a table—some detail that would give the director an opportunity to tell the story visually. The time I spent in editing rooms was well spent."
Since he began shooting in 1984, Okada has compiled more than 20 film credits, including Phantasm II, Boris and Natasha, My Father the Hero, Anna Karenina, Senseless, Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later, and Lake Placid.
About a decade ago, he met director Steve Miner, with whom he has made eight projects, including Texas Rangers. Okada points out that while they have developed a smooth, efficient working relationship, "Each film we've done together looks different from the others, which we like."
In designing the look for Texas Rangers, Miner and Okada were inspired by the work of Frederick Remington, the artist known for his dramatic, action-oriented depictions of the 19 th Century American West. Okada connected to Remington's images immediately, and began to work out the technical means of accomplishing that visual feeling using the tools of the cinematography trade.
"We took note of the fact that Remington's paintings always depicted some sort of action," says Okada. "In a moment, he found something that represented the whole action. So that was our inspiration. We wanted every shot to be dynamic and to depict the action of it. Steve also wanted it to feel real. As a result, we did quite a bit of handheld, which you probably don't see too much in Westerns. Okada also keyed off of Remington's use of color.
"Right away I saw we weren't going to mute colors like you might think in a Western," says Okada. "I knew we were going to keep them bold like they did it. If anything got muted, it would just be from the dust or atmosphere."
Miner and Okada gave considerable thought to the choice of format.
"We discussed doing it in 65 mm, which I have shot quite a bit of for effects work," says Okada. "But, with the short prep time, and our need to have two or three units shooting at once, it became a less viable option. Eventually we were totally sold on doing it in anamorphic."
Okada had photographed Anna Karenina in anamorphic format and Halloween H2O in Super 35. He says there are significant differences between the two, if you know what to look for.
"With anamorphic, I found that I could overexpose the original negative more and make it a more solid image in that respect," Okada reports. "I have found that I have an easier time making anamorphic film look three-dimensional. For a Super 35 film, I have to work harder to give it a 3-D look. For some reason it seems to flatten out faster. I don't know if that's because it holds more depth. There is something that happens psychologically.
"Of course, with Super 35, movement is easier because of the smaller lenses," he says. "When I got to the answer print on Halloween H2O, I was happy. When I got to the blow up, I had to work a little bit at that, trying to keep that together. I knew a lot of it was going to be dark and black, so I shot it that way and exposed it for that. I was trying to keep the blacks solid.
"For an exterior-based picture like Texas Rangers," he says, "you would see a bigger difference, even though you can use finer grain film because you have more light. For an interior picture, I think Super 35 is a totally viable way to go. For Texas Rangers, there was no question that we were going to do that anamorphic. We wanted to play it big. I wanted to get as much detail as possible. We want to really show the land off. In my mind, that says use as much of the negative as possible. That's how we arrived at that decision to shoot anamorphic."
In updating the classic Hollywood Western, Okada introduced elements of today's filmmaking styles, including more handheld, inside-the-action shots.
"We used more handheld shots than anticipated, especially for the battle scenes," he says. "Just the fact that you're making a period film doesn't mean you have to fight off any sign of reality. The handheld camerawork helped to do that. These guys were in a lot of trouble when they were in those battles.
"We also tried to combine as many of the characters in one frame as possible," Okada continues. "In the old Westerns, a lot of scenes are played in two-shots. Or one character rides in and the other one rides out. That was part of the 'lone cowboy' idea. We tried to incorporate many characters in each frame, as often as we could. We found that that gave the film realism as well. For every scene, as we looked at it and described it, we tried to find the most dynamic way of telling the story."
A second unit, headed by veteran director of photography Don McCuaig, worked full time, usually behind Okada's crew. There were plenty of weather problems that caused matching headaches. Okada reports that it was the worst weather he ever shot in.
"Eighty percent of the film is exterior, so it was a constant battle," he says. "The day would change in seconds—sun to clouds to rain to sun. Sometimes you just grit your teeth and shoot through it, or sometimes we'd try to set things up, and then move into trees. I knew usually by the afternoon if some kind of big weather condition was going to change. Or we would start off in rain, decide that we could shoot that particular whole scene in rain, and then the rain would stop. For a while, we actually carried rain towers with us for so that we could still continue shooting and maintain the consistency."
Okada shot some sequences using day-for-night techniques. He had previously shot day-for-night on Anna Karenina, and he thought it might be a visually appealing and "gutsy" move for Texas Rangers. "It has its own kind of reality," Okada says of the technique.
Okada found Kodak’s PreView System a useful tool. The system was developed by Kodak and Panavision and it is available for rental through Panavision. It is designed to give filmmakers on the set the best possible still print representation of a projected motion picture image. The system uses a high quality Kodak Professional DCS 520 digital camera to capture the images and software loaded into a laptop computer to apply high-quality simulations of various camera and postproduction methods to the images to preview looks or techniques.
"We used this system to find the right exposure for day and night," he says. "It showed us what three stops underexposed would look like, and what it would look like when you start to print down. It became very useful once we got it to match up. You could see where the day-for-night images would fall, and where they would look the best. In day-for-night, I have found that you usually have to go further than you might think. Being able to print out a couple of images and then say, 'OK, we're in the ballpark,' that became invaluable."
Okada worked with Panavision's Nolan Murdock on communication methods for Preview images. That allowed him to accurately send representations of his visual ideas via phone connections to Deluxe Labs. He also used it in deciding which film stocks and filtration to use.
"I knew I was going to try and limit my stocks to 5248 and 5279," he says, referring to Eastman EXR 100T and Kodak Vision 500T films. "The Preview System showed me some of the differences between the stocks. Being able to print out an image—or send it to the lab—and say, ‘This is the mood of the shot. This is the way I want the color bias,’ that is great, rather than calling the lab and saying, ‘This is a sepia brown look,’ or something. Now I can just 'make it look that way."
Okada also used the Preview System to carefully balance a subtle lighting nuance. The scene plays out along the side of a white house with an overhead awning.
"When we scouted the location, I thought for sure I was going to have to bring in a lot of supplemental light, and then light under this awning to balance the shadow and the bright daylight," Okada says. "The Preview System helped me determine how the stock would react. I saw that I wouldn't need the extra lighting. I loved the look outside and the stills I took with no lighting. I loved how it fell off and I could still see people's faces.
"Right there I was able to save production a lot of time by not even thinking of bringing out a bunch of lights," Okada says. "Not having all that lighting gave the director a lot of freedom, because we were able to dolly down the length of house. If I had lit it up, we wouldn't have been able to do it. In those kinds of ways the system can free you up to create more. You feel confident going in that you can get it. And sometimes you can do it with less."
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