| Blind
Man’s Bluff Clairmont’s team, headed by Alan Albert have had some interesting challenges that have allowed them to create tools that are now staples in the company’s catalog. There is the Squishy lens that Nicola Pecorini (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) tested and Matt Leonetti (Species 2) used to deform images for greater emphasis.
Then, there is the time they built a rig to allow the cameraman to spin the camera down a fairway to capture the POV of a golf ball. “We also put an Eyemo in a foam ball for the point of view of a dog inside a sewer pipe rolling down a hill for Homeward Bound,” Albert adds. “And it has even been tethered to a rope and ‘thrown’ off a cliff for the point of view of falling off the rocks.” And, there is the Image Shaker, which safely allows the camera operator to capture hair-raising moments like an earthquake (recently seen in an episode of Monk), or capture explosions during the heat of battle as in Saving Private Ryan. “Traditionally, to get a realistic effect, you have to physically shake the camera,” Clairmont explains. “With the shaker lens, we optically shake the image allowing the operator to keep his eye in the eyepiece and capture a more realistic image.” This lens shook a car apart on The Fast and the Furious and provided some hair-raising chase sequences in another of cinematographer Ericson Core’s visuals in Daredevil. Clairmont and Albert admit they had a lot of fun finding creative solutions for their latest challenge. It has resulted in what will be called the “Daredevil” lens in their catalog. “Ericson wanted to find a way to show the point of view of a blind man,” Clairmont explains. “The character had to ‘see’ things the way sound is reflected.” “We had that challenge once before,” says Albert. “For Dante Spinotti’s movie Blink, we came up with the point of view of a woman who has just had eye implants and is beginning to regain her sight. For this image, we drew on the techniques of the first movie cameras and made a series of four lenses with four different focal lengths. Each one had a single lens element. This allowed Dante to create the halation you used to see when the old cameras focused on something like a woman in a white dress.” “Ericson’s images were far more complicated,” says Clairmont. “So, Allen and his team began to experiment.” “We took pieces of glass and heated them in a kiln,” says Albert. “We also put chemicals on the glass and partially dissolved them. And, we even embedded wires in the glass to deform the lenses even more.” “The concept worked out great, but for a variety of reasons our final product couldn’t be used in the picture,” adds Clairmont. “Still, we’ve added the Daredevil lens to our catalog. We’re in the process of creating a video to show what the lens can do.” Creating new tools is only part of what Clairmont is all about. The company prides itself in having some of the most unique pieces of movie-making technology ready to make the image work. “Ericson had many unusual challenges,” says Clairmont. “At times, he knew what he wanted to achieve and it was just up to us to find the right tools for him to use.” To that end, Clairmont supplied everything from the Moviecam compact cameras, which allowed Core to get into some very interesting places to the Strobe light system for the confrontation between Fisk and Daredevil. “He pushed the technology a little farther than anyone has so far,” says Albert. “To make the shots even more exciting, we came up with a way for Ericson to sync several cameras to work with the strobes, getting different points of view at the same time.” “He also used the Revolution Lens system for extreme moving close ups throughout the film,” Clairmont adds. “Similar to the Fraiser lens, it allowed him to do extreme moving close ups throughout the film.” “One of the more unique challenges was when he needed to tie Daredevil to his childhood,” adds Albert. “Director Mark Johnson wanted to use the human eye as the focal point and then pull back to reveal a young Matt. “Ericson had extreme limitations in this shot,” he continues. “There was a difficult dolly move. However, he was able to accomplish it because we put the Schneider 1.6 diopter together with the 12 to 1 Optimo zoom. The equipment is so fine tuned that it allowed for quality resolution of the image and could still be done with maximum zoom range.” Clairmont’s VistaVision cameras also provided Core with more exciting footage for the visual effects part of the picture. “We have the two fastest and most modern models,” says Albert. “This allows cinematographers to capture sequences at as much as 200 frames per second. This VistaVision camera goes up to 100 frames per second.” “We really enjoyed working with
Ericson Core on this extremely complicated movie,” says Clairmont. “For us, it
is more than just pulling the equipment out of the warehouse. It is a lot of fun,
and coming up with solutions to interesting problems makes us part of the creative
process. The end result is, hopefully, interesting moments on the screen and new
tools to fuel the next cinematographer’s creativity.” • |
There
is the Crazy Horse rig, developed for cinematographer Tom Burstyn. “We developed
a rig that allows two cameras to see the same image differently,” Clairmont explains.
“Tom could put two cameras, one above the other, shooting through partial mirrors
and seeing the exact same image. One camera could carry normal film and the other
infrared. When the shots were cut together in post, the audience saw Crazy Horse
going in and out of his emotional journey.