By Pauline Rogers • Photos By Frank Masi

Lt. A. K. Waters (Bruce Willis) has a problem. A veteran officer of a Navy SEAL unit, he is used to following orders. Yet, when he gets to war-torn Nigeria to rescue Dr. Lena Kendricks (Monica Bellucci), she refuses to leave without the refugees under her care, and his conscience kicks in. The question is whether Waters, his team, and the people they are unwittingly guarding can survive the already hazardous mission.

“The Tears of the Sun story is very real,” says cinematographer Mauro Fiore, who last teamed with the film’s director Antoine Fuqua on the feature Training Day. “It is deeply routed in the political conditions in Nigeria. To me, being able to bring a real story to the screen and expose those conditions would be powerful, interesting and riveting.”

At first, Fiore and Fuqua discussed going to Africa to shoot the story, but the logistics––not to mention the political tenor around the world––lead them to Hawaii. “Since at least 80 percent of the story takes place in the jungle and much of it at night, we needed something that was closely related to reality,” Fiore explains. “The jungles of Hawaii had similar landscapes and we could work within the structure of the moments to achieve a look that fit the events.”

To develop their approach to the story, the team looked at movies such as Platoon and The Last of the Mohicans, trying to understand the visual challenges of night in the jungle. “We thought about doing some of the night sequences day for night as they did in Mohicans,” Fiore explains. “We even went to Hawaii to shoot in the environment for a preliminary scout and test.

“We used both Kodak’s 5246 and 5274 and the Fuji counterparts 8562 and 8552. We also tried Vision 500, because of the Tungsten balance, since we would not be correcting for daylight in the day for night.

“I finally decided to go for the 5246, for most of the daylight. It holds the conditions from dark jungle to open areas. I simply played with the stock as far as ASA went, pulling to lower contrast for the deep jungle, so we didn’t have to change them.”

When Fiore brought the tests back to Los Angeles, they sent one roll to a regular film lab and processed it normally and another of the Fuji and Kodak to be timed digitally and scanned to film. “We sat and color corrected it in the telecine way. I was impressed with the amount of control we had, but once it was scanned back to film, it wasn’t really the proper reproduction of what we saw on the monitor.

“So, we decided to do the regular processing at Technicolor since I have a great relationship with John Bickford, who was so helpful in the dailies process of Training Day, and in the answer print.

“Even though the lab roll was great, it was a bit too stylized for the sequences in our movie, which centered on the nights and the darkness as a part of the story.”

As if night in the jungle wasn’t difficult enough, Fuqua and Fiore also decided to shoot the film in anamorphic. “We knew if we tested everything enough and knew exactly what we wanted, anything was possible,” says Fiore. “We got an amazing set of lenses from Panavision–– everything from C-series to E-series and a whole range of Primos, in order to make a full package that could be carried with us. From the tests, we knew that specific focal lengths in each series worked better than others. And, we also knew that we couldn’t fly the Primos on the Steadicam. So, the large package was important.”

Having to bring everything to the remote areas of Hawaii was a particular challenge for Fiore and crew. Because so much was inaccessible, what they freighted over and carried in was all that they would be able to use. “We even brought our own trucks and generators,” Fiore recalls. “Nothing was left to chance.”

For Fiore, who started out as a gaffer on such projects as Schindler’s List and has been both a key grip and operator, accomplishing the impossible isn’t all that difficult, as long as he has the support system and tools to make the shots real. To accomplish the impossible, Fiore brought along two key personnel; gaffer Mike Bauman and key grip Stuart Abramson. “Mike solved the uneven lighting situations and Stu the terrain problems,” says Fiore.

“We really blew the envelope up, so to speak, in terms of the amount of balloons we used on this shoot,” says Bauman. “When we got over there to shoot, we found that the environment that Antoine Fuqua wanted to work in was not only difficult logistically, it was constantly changing. We knew we wouldn’t be able to handle either situation the normal way.

“Cranes were out because of the location,” Bauman continues. “So, our best option was balloons. Mauro and I had long discussions with production, and when they realized the cost (150 thousand dollars) would give us the flexibility needed, they allowed us to rent both HMI and Tungsten balloons for both day and night shots.

“Through the course of the day or night, we would put up as many as 20 balloons, some as ambient light, others not lit, but simply to plug holes in our ‘canopy’ to make a more diffused light. We would simply throw the lights up in the air and bounce PARs into them, creating a false ceiling. It was crazy, but it worked great.”

To solve the logistics problem, deep into the jungle, Stuart Abramson went back to his roots in the grip world and created racks that would accommodate cameras and equipment wherever the company worked. “We simply couldn’t use the steel rigs and rock and roll lighting that would normally be needed on huge shots such as the jungle sequences,” Abramson says.

“So, we did what they did in the old days, used an awful lot of wood, to construct runs that were at least 200 feet long and some 40 feet in the air. This way, we had solid footing and could hold what was necessary, and it could also be torn apart and reassembled in another location. On this picture, one of the most constant sounds was that of chain motors, ripping apart wood and putting together racks.”

Another of Fiore’s challenges was to provide an environment to support the story when the only architecture available was a jungle. “One of the most important tasks of a cinematographer is to be able to create shots that use backgrounds effectively,” says Fiore. “Look at what John Seale did in Witness as an example. He used the bathroom stall to create an architecture and environment for the child. How the young boy was placed against the wall effectively said certain things to support what the character was going through.

“That is extremely difficult when all you have is a jungle as a background,” he adds. “We were constantly working with production designer Naomi Shohan to create the environment that was more than green and trees and vegetation. She was able to give us different environments that showed how the story was progressing.

“We were constantly trying to create a composition that supported the story by cutting limbs or light to give the actors a strong foreground. Often times, it was as simple as moving someone a little to the right or to the left, so that an archway of trees was composed around them, allowing us to give the shot definition and support their emotional arc.”

For Fiore and crew, one of the strongest images is the introduction of Bruce Willis’ character. He has just parachuted from a plane and comes out of a “swamp” in full combat gear with his face painted black. And, of course, the shot was done at night. “A night shot. With a black face. And on an anamorphic lens,” says Fiore. “Interesting challenge.

“We used the reflected levels of the face and a glint of highlights to see him,” he explains.

“Mauro likes reflections to separate things,” Bauman adds. “He doesn’t like to put up a lot of back light. So, with this shot, he wanted to use water reflections to separate Bruce from the background. To do this, we floated a couple of barges with 20Ks and shot PARs across on a piece of land behind the location for water kicks.”

“And we put in a little smoke for more separation,” Fiore adds.

Several of the jungle sequences could not have been accomplished without Bauman’s overhead blanket of balloons. “There is one particular fight sequence where the environment really challenged us,” says Fiore. “Antoine likes to do long stretches of uninterrupted action for fights.

“In this particular moment, our hero team is working in one direction and the guerillas are working in another direction. Antoine wanted the camera to work a lateral move, capturing all the action in a smooth dolly move. The idea was to maintain the observing camera through most of this, so when the camera movement broke, it would support the emotional break of our characters.”

To make this move, Abramson laid an incredibly long dolly track, allowing the camera to connect the action and move through the special effects and the explosions. The balloons allowed Bauman to maintain a level of light overhead so that the two weeks they spent on the sequence was matchable.

“The jungles were so thick and covered by hillsides and trees that we had maybe four hours of direct sunlight,” says Fiore. “The balloons cut the seven stops hotter in the sun to the shade extremities and allowed us to extend our shooting time.”

For Fiore, one of the biggest challenges was the night sequence that he had at first thought of doing day for night. “The challenge was to find lights and color from back to key without a motivating source,” he says. “We had no choice but to do everything without gels and work with brightness as opposed to color.

“When we were on the location, everyone thought what we had was too bright, but we had to remind people that we were working with anamorphic lenses. The light levels had to be set for the stock and the lens. We wanted to have enough light so that the actors could move and that meant that we couldn’t be working at minimum focus. The lowest we could go was a T4.

“As much as I trust the post house, I didn’t want to rely on digital timing to ‘fix things,’” he adds. “I feel that, the more people say ‘we’ll fix it later,’ the less opinion the cinematographer will have on the set, in regards to, when the light is adequate for photographing a scene.”

Mauro Fiore enjoys the tools that have been provided for the filming. The balloons saved the day (or night) in many cases. So did Earl Wiggins’ SpyderCam.

“Antoine wanted a sequence for the end battle that he conceptualized as one long continuous lateral movement observing the action as the camera would slowly keep moving on a long run with the ability to boom up and down. Earl Wiggins came out with his SpyderCam rig, which allowed us to attain this exact shot that had been generated on a computer through an animatics program.

“But all this equipment would be just that, without my very talented crew, including A-camera operator Kirk Gardner, SOC, B-camera operator Maurice McGuire, SOC, 1st AC Emile Hampton and 1st AC B-camera Gary Ushino,” Fiore adds enthusiastically.

“Which brings us to a serious moment in the story, where we started subjecting our cameras into viewing and participating along with the SEAL team, in the horrors created by civil war on a tribes people village. In this sequence, Antoine wanted to show the devastation and horrors that resemble situations of civil wars in Africa, where tribal warfare and complicated political systems are destroying the nation.

“It is in this part of the story where the SEALs take an active role in stopping the rape and pillaging of the tribes people. At first, Antoine and I discussed switching to Super 35mm, allowing the operators more freedom to get in closer to the actors and allowing the audience to experience the horrors close up and free us from the technical limitations of the anamorphic format. We decided that the visual departure on this part of film would happen in regards to camera involvement.

“He realized that the best way was to make the shots become handheld as they see the horrors close up. This was a challenge because the village huts were out in the open and there was no cover,” he explains. “If we had a sunny day, we would have been in trouble. Fortunately, we lucked out and we had torrential rains. The downpour did great things for the environment.

“This was one of the few times that we went inside,” Fiore laughs. “We had two sequences with interiors and this one was when the SEALs go into a hut and see the horror of what the guerillas have done to other human beings.

“Naomi created a hut with an opening above so that we could get soft light in. And, the set painter gave us clever ways to separate the actors from the background by accentuating parts of the set through color and reflective surfaces.”

Ask Fiore about some of the other interesting sequences, and he will point to some of the work done by aerial cameraman Larry Blanford, who was able to do Wescam shots air to air with both Navy and Army pilots as well as shoot take offs and landings of F18s off the Harry S. Truman. “The shots really opened up the story,” says Fiore. “Larry did some interesting things that allowed us to do more shots in less time,” he adds.

“We did tests,” says Blanford. “We shot Navy fighters going at 600 mph at a variety of frame rates and then we took the shots to ILM and laid them together in the plate process, so that we could define what frame rate worked best for the elements. When we went back to do the real plates, we had the right frame rate and had taken the guesswork out of the shots. This way, we could get interesting moments, save film stock and money, and know that we had what ILM needed to make exciting plates on the first run.”

For Mauro Fiore and crew, the making of Tears of the Sun was an interesting exercise in talent, tools and making the technology work for the story. Although things got a little brutal at times––both in the story and in the logistics of filming it––Fiore and crew were up to the task. Bringing reality to some of the horrors inflicted on human beings in the name of power was important. They hope that the more people know, the more active they will become in stopping such abominations from happening all over the world. •

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