By Pauline Rogers

It isn’t as far-fetched a combination as most people think. Ali brings together hard driving energetic reality based director Michael Mann (The Insider, Heat, Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans, Thief) and dramatic, romantic, artistically driven cinematographer Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki, ASC (Sleepy Hollow, The Birdcage, Great Expectations, Meet Joe Black, A Little Princess, Like Water For Chocolate). The two had actually been flirting with working together since Mann saw a low-budget American film Lubezki shot in Mexico some years ago called The Harvest.

“Michael was about to work with director David Marconi (from The Harvest) on another project when he saw my work,” Lubezki explains. “He wanted to talk about my experience on The Harvest. He saw something in The Harvest, probably the shots that emulated elements of Thief.

“Over the next few years, he sent me scripts like Heat and The Insider although he decided that Dante Spinotti, ASC would be a better fit on those projects. However, when Ali came along Michael was sure this was finally the right project for us to do together.

“I know it sounds corny, but when I first read the script I felt that this was the movie I always wanted to make,” Lubezki continues. “The period of the Civil Rights movement fascinated me. And, I found it would be a chance to reinvent the way I worked. This would be a wonderful challenge – to create a certain realism and naturalistic approach to this great man’s story. The look would have to be genuine and not just stylized and beautiful. The camera would be moving constantly – with a lot of hand held work.”

Before Mann and Lubezki began the pre-production process the two studied a room full of reference pictures that Guzmano Cesaretti (Michael Mann’s visual consultant) put together as well as a library of video footage. “Ali is one of the most documented people in the world,” says Lubezki. “We looked at five hours of out takes from When We Were Kings and a documentary by William Kline called The Greatest.

“Also, all during production I would be lucky enough to have Howard Bingham [see sidebar], Ali’s best friend and personal photographer with me as my bible. I knew I would be able to turn to him and ask anything I wanted. When we got to scenes like when Ali met with the boxing commission in Texas I would have the real picture and would use them as reference.”

Early in pre-production, Mann toyed with the idea of shooting the picture in anamorphic – a format Lubezki favors. But, when he took a camera to the warehouse-boxing ring where Will Smith had been practicing for over a year to play with camera angles he found an unexpected answer. “I realized very quickly that anamorphic lenses and equipment would not be the right approach,” he explains. “Because, one moment we would be going from a full shot to six or eight inches distance from the boxer. The camera had to be agile. That’s not something we could do with anamorphic. And we also wanted to get a depth of field you can’t get in anamorphic.”

The logical compromise would be Super 35mm. “In a funny way, the texture of the opticals might even have helped the movie.”

As Lubezki did his research, he realized each fight had a different texture. “To show the life of one person with so many chapters and episodes we needed to use a variety of stocks,” he explains. After much testing, he opted for Kodak Vision 500, 200, a little 50 ASA, and some Fuji 500 ASA “for the grain structure and color rendition when you push it to 1000 ASA,” he explains. “Some of the scenes are flashbacks, they go into his infancy or childhood, and we didn’t want to put diffusion or a brown filter on, so the mixture of stock would help. We even decided that, in some very specific areas, we would integrate shots done on HD.”

Because Mann wanted to be able to shoot with multiple cameras at any given moment the camera package carried from Los Angeles to New York, Miami to Chicago, Houston and even Mozambique was more than adequate. “Especially when we were shooting the various rings,” says Lubezki. “We started with the Panavision XLs, what we called the ‘Jimmy’ camera, extra bodies with three or more cameras, high speed cameras. When we finished the boxing we changed the XLs to Platinums, which are the most reliable, especially for traveling.

“Even our lenses were all over the place,” he adds. “We would be doing a lot of zooming - short zooms during the boxing and longer ones in other areas.”

The addition of possible HD shots came out of a scouting session. “We had a non-professional DV camera with us as we were looking at images at night,” he explains. “You can put a lot of gain in the non-professional cameras and shoot at night. The shots might be noisy and grainy but you can see.”

So, Emmanuel Lubezki took a crash course in HD and then showed what he’d learned to Mann. “He was immediately excited about the possibilities,” Lubezki says. “We could get some incredible documentary-style shooting without lighting at night. Yes, the gamma is different in HD – you see so much into the shadows. The Afro-American skins look great in this darkness because they are still separated from the background.

“Although I don’t believe HD will replace film,” Lubezki admits. “It is still just another good way of capturing an image. And that was what we were looking for.”

At first, Lubezki did extensive testing and planning for the massive amount of fight sequences. The idea was to find a way to define both the locations and the time period with subtle but very different lighting techniques. “We were all prepared for this approach, then a week before we started shooting I got a call from Michael. He had something to show me.

“It was a still photograph that emulated exactly what he wanted to go for – a harsh overhead top light with hot over exposed highlights. Even though it was a little unappealing for the boxers, it was energetic and powerful and extremely dynamic. The truth is – supporting the drama and what was happening in Ali’s head at the moment was the most important thing.”

Lubezki didn’t mind throwing out the carefully planned stylized lighting, he was energized by Mann’s vision. “That’s something you learn from working with Michael,” he says. “It doesn’t matter how much you do to plan something, if a better idea comes along you go with it. Michael was right on this one, as he usually is.”

The lighting rig over the warehouse ring was a 20 by 20-square truss. It was created to match the research photos. “In our tests, the rig carried 35 period Mole Richardson Scoop lights,” says key grip David Merrill. “Michael Mann thought the look wasn’t right and we made the decision to replace them with over 200 ParCans.

“We could do that overnight, with one real problem. The roof of this building would support 13 pounds per square foot. The new rig would weight 10,000 pounds. Since the building was only 22 feet high, there had to be a complete bridge structure built outside above the roof, so that only cables went through. This ParCan rig became our staple ring light. It went with us everywhere – including Africa.

“The Africa ring and canopy changed constantly, as we filmed,” Merrill continues. “I would stay in touch with the engineers and send them new drawings daily with my Palm VII. It was the only way to keep in touch with England, South Africa, Mozambique and our shooting schedule.”

“Depending on the fight, we used slight diffusion in the heads of the ParCans,” Lubezki adds. “And, depending on the shot and the F-stop, we would either lower the rig to have more light or raise it up for less light. It was easy, because everything was on motors. In all of the shots we exposed for the light that was bouncing on the ring using the bounce back from the canvas as my exposure meter.

“That ring bounce was a challenge,” he adds. “We couldn’t use the normal white flooring for the rings, the bounce was too much. So, we used either a dark gray or a brown. By over exposing that fabric it looked white. It was always a trick to find the right relationship between the amount of light and the amount of bounce from the floor.”

An additional challenge in the ring shots was the lack of enough extras to fill the audience. Lubezki was constantly trying to make it look and feel like there were more people than there really were. “We had a couple of rows with real people,” he explains. “They had to be lit, but darker than the ring. Then, we had to let the light fall off for the cardboard cut outs. Again, it was getting the right amount of light on the two-dimensional characters to create the illusion.”

Lubezki and crew reinvented the camera wheel, so to speak, in many of the boxing sequences. “We had what we called the ‘Elmo’ camera for some shots,” he explains. “This was two PAL cameras shooting parallel. The shots will then be stitched together digitally, doubling the amount of resolution.”

“One of the biggest challenges for my department was making a matte box system for the Elmo cameras,” says Merrill. “Since they were so small, the gain was such that we would have to put in neutrals to compensate. We also needed a shade system for flares.” Over Christmas, Merrill machined mounts for the Elmo cameras. They were attached via spring steel and Velcro to Smith’s waist and above his ear. “Since we always had multiple cameras, our rigs for the Elmo could not be seen,” Merrill added.

“For the Houston Astro Dome, we used the Los Angeles Sports Arena,” he continues. “We created opposing Pentagons of truss, one inside the other. The large one was 135 feet each side. The small one 60 feet each side. We had two ParCans every foot. The whole thing was articulated through chain motors.

“We also had four 240 foot runs of space light for the audience lighting and general exposure. Everything was on motors.”

Throughout the shooing day, the visual effects crew were in the stands shooting plates. They created everything above the Pentagon lighting rigs. “In-between our shots at the Sports Arena came the big game between USC and UCLA,” Merrill recalls. “So, after a 22 hour day on Thursday everything had to disappear for the Friday night game and reappear for the Monday shooting. Without the cooperation of the IA crew at the arena our schedule would have been ruined.

“To mask our trussing on these shots, we would hang black pipe that was made into an over-under truss ten to fifteen feet below studio truss. The chains or cables were disguised with rope to match our reference photos.

“Because, with Michael Mann, you have to be ready to shoot all angles simultaneously at any speed up to 120 frames per second, with up to five cameras. We would all be dressed in period hats and coats. John Buckley and Chivo would be ringside running dimmers on all venues. Look for them!”

For the fight sequences, Steadicam operator Jim McConkey created a rig for what was a “highly modified lightweight Arri 2C,” says McConkey. “It was a modified camera from S/L Cine, utilizing 200 or 400 foot mags. With it I was able to do wireless speed changes in conjunction with Preston Cinema’s F/X Box. With this box, whether on Steadicam or hand-held, Michael Mann could change speed on the camera from four to 72 frames per second via remote control, while either Gary Jay or I danced with the fighters.”

Not all of the shots in Ali were huge and harsh. When Mann and Lubezki got into the personal side of the story they fought to add a sensual and human tone to the sequences. “There is one wonderful scene where Ali romances one of his wives, Sonji (Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith),” he says. “We went to the place where the two used to dance together. It’s a club called The Tiger Lounge in Chicago.

“Although it had been closed for many years, Michael wanted to use the real location. Using photographs from the early days, the art department cleaned it up. It looked great but was very small,” he continues. “It couldn’t have been more than 15 feet wide and 40 feet long. Add musicians, six actors on the dance floor that are over six feet tall, and the tiny space is almost too tiny for shooting.

“To make the sequence shootable, I worked with production design to create lamp holders to be put in various places to hold our lights. We put KinoFlos in the holders with a special cocktail of blue filters. Most of the light is top light, much softer than anything else we have used. Jimmy McConkey and Gary Jay shot the sequence, wide open, with 500 ASA stock. A perfect lead in to a love scene.

“The music venues were a great challenge for Jimmy and Gary,” Lubezki adds. “The idea was to get really close to the actors and make the camera work to have a mixture of flexibility and quickness.

“Camera work in the movie feels very spontaneous,” Lubezki continues. “But the truth is there is a secret precision behind every move. Here, Michael gave Jimmy and Gary very specific, almost frame by frame parameters, telling them what elements he wanted in the frame. One of the things that we were constantly battling was not to make these shots look like they were consciously selected.”

“When I first started the movie, there was a learning curve to get to the composition that Michael Mann demanded,” McConkey admits. “Every shot has to be specific to telling the story. Extraneous information was pared away to harness the inherent theme. Each shot had to pull you into the fight, into the head of Ali, and into the story.”

The musical elements in Ali run the gamut from intimate and sensual to massive and throbbing. “One of my favorite moments came about almost by accident,” Lubezki recalls. “We were in Mozambique scouting, when we came upon a building that almost literally shook from the vibrations of the music inside. We found some 60 young dancers, men and women, moving to the beat of drummers. We stood there watching for two hours. We literally couldn’t move. Michael knew that this would be perfect for the concert sequence we were planning. It was to be part of the festivities surrounding the delayed fight between Ali and Foreman.”

Ask Lubezki about some of the most memorable sequences in this epic film and he’ll go to several that stand out in his mind for pushing the envelope. One is a love scene shot against a window at night in a tower building in Chicago. “We wanted enough depth of field to see the background as well as this intimate moment between the two actors. If we had shot the sequence on film, we would have had to use lights. Or, we would have to have built the set on stage and put a green screen outside. We then would have had to shoot plates so we could see out the window during the love scene.

“That type of piecing sequences together isn’t Michael Mann’s style,” he adds. “When I suggested we use the HD, Michael was ready. Hand held against the windows in a real building in a room where we couldn’t fit a dolly was more important than a smooth transition of formats.”

The second scene that he recalls, was a very important story point and had Lubezki and other people involved in crafting the scene, break into a sweat. “My feeling from reading the script is that this is the first time Muhammad Ali realizes that Black people in Africa are free,” he explains. “The moment takes place in a plane as it approaches the coast of Africa.

“Ali is riding in first class. He walks towards the cockpit and the stewardess invites him in. When the door is opened, he sees that the two pilots are Black. As he looks past them he sees the sun coming up over the coast of Africa.”

The natural assumption would be to build a mock-up of the plane and green screen the coastline, letting ILM deal with the marriage of the elements. “Not with Michael Mann,” Lubezki laughs. “He wanted to do this with a real plane at 30 thousand feet, with cameras there as the sun comes up.

“We had to find the right exposure and the right frame and would have ten minutes of time to shoot. And, we had to do it with a period plane and two actors who could speak perfect French!

“We got that together – the only concession was that we had to do it off the California coast instead of Africa.”

Could Lubezki balance the light without ND on the windows? Could he arrange the frame so Mann could see the entire cockpit? Did they have enough time? “It became what Michael loves the most, guerilla filmmaking,” Lubezki laughs. “We brought enough light for the plane. But, as often happens, Murphy’s Law prevailed. Will Smith sent Jeffrey Wright (as Howard Bingham) in stitches of laughter as he told a joke to Mario van Peeples (Malcolm X). By the time we were ready to turn the cameras on, the whole plane was laughing.

“Michael wanted to shoot, so we tried to turn on the lights but nothing happened. When you work with Michael, you don’t say stop, we have to do it again. You go. Fortunately, Mother Nature also knows about Michael Mann’s ability to push his people to the creative limit, so she sent this little ray of light through the window. I quickly asked people to open a few more windows for more rays.

“When I looked at the meter it was telling me to go home. I’d been there before when I was working with Cuaron. I knew that we could and still see something. The next day, at dailies, we had the beautiful shot – probably more beautiful because it had natural light.”

Lubezki also recalls another scene where Mother Nature’s light was in the right place at the right time to give them magic. “It is a driving shot through the Chicago streets,” he recalls. “Ali is listening to music in his car and he sees people gathering. He stops and opens the window and hears that Malcolm X, one of his dear friends, has been killed. He starts the car but can’t drive. He parks at the curb and starts crying.

“As we started to shoot, it was completely overcast. But, when we turned the cameras on, the sun suddenly came out – just in the right position. When Will parks the car, we had three cameras shooting close up, medium and tight. The sun was low on the horizon. The light came through the windshield and just hit his eyes.

“If we had tried to do this with lighting, it would have been really stylized looking. We had real light – for just enough time. By the time we finished, the mood was gone. It was spooky, how perfect the lighting was. We didn’t plan it.

“Michael seems to attract moments like this,” Lubezki adds. “He pushes you to the creative and emotional limits and you know it is for the sake of the project. He knows what needs to be normal and what needs to be enhanced so that an audience can see and feel what is most important to the story.

“Thanks to people like John Barkley, David Merrill and Lionel Portugal, Gary Dalquist (rigging gaffer), Harry Zimmerman, Eric Brown, John Grillo and Danna Kruger (assistants) and Jimmy McConkey and Gary Jay, everything a creative genius like Michael Mann wanted on Ali was possible.” •