The Alamo is a faithful and intimate portrayal of Davy Crockett, James Bowie, General Sam Houston, Col. William Travis, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and other larger than life characters who played leading roles in a real-world drama that changed the course of history. Imagine it’s February 23, 1836, and some 150 Texas defenders are in a mission called the Alamo. They are staking a claim in a battle to break away from Mexico and make Texas an independent state. The story takes an optimistic turn when 32 defenders evade Mexican army patrols and enter the Alamo. But, the outcome is never in doubt.

The Alamo was directed by native Texan John Lee Hancock. The cast includes Billy Bob Thornton portraying Crockett, Dennis Quaid as Houston, Jason Patric as Bowie, Patrick Wilson as Travis and Emilio Echevarría as Santa Anna. The cast was reinforced by hundreds of re-enactors playing Mexican soldiers and Texan defenders.

Dean Semler, ASC, ACS was shooting Bruce Almighty in Los Angeles when he was asked if he was interested in filming The Alamo.

“I remembered seeing John Wayne’s The Alamo (1960), but as an Australian, it didn’t mean a lot historically,” he recalls.

Semler’s first scout to Austin, Texas, was on a weekend while Bruce Almighty was still shooting. There was only time for a whirlwind tour of the sets and brief visits to other potential locations. Semler met with producer Mark Johnson and Hancock. He had worked with Johnson on Dragonfly, and was impressed by Hancock’s deep feelings for the characters and knowledge of the nuances of the encounter.

“John Lee (Hancock) is a great storyteller,” says Semler. “I loved hearing him talk about the events leading up to and then all of the details of the final, tragic battles and his powerful vision which would become the movie.”

Semler went into a short, compressed pre-production period for The Alamo immediately after completing Bruce Almighty. The movie was mainly filmed on a 51-acre compound. Sets included a stone-for-stone replica of the Alamo and Bexar, the adjoining town. Production designer Michael Corenblith had been crafting the sets for almost a year, resulting in an incredibly accurate re-creation of the moment in time.

All interiors were practical locations built into the sets. Buildings that didn’t contain sets were designed to house 40-foot trailers filled with weapons, props, wardrobes, cameras, and grip, electric and special effects gear.

Hancock had a very strong vision for how he wanted The Alamo to look and feel and had many sequences storyboarded. “One of the first boards he showed me, was a POV of a cannonball from the second it is fired until it lands in the Alamo,” Semler says. “We filmed it with a unique SpyderCam flying rig.”

They made a quick decision to film The Alamo in anamorphic format.

“I’ve got a great set of anamorphic lenses at Panavision that (assistant cameraman) Tony Rivetti has put aside over the years,” says Semler. “It’s important because every lens has slightly different characteristics. I think we have the best anamorphic set available.”

Wayne also directed the 1960 production of The Alamo, and William Clothier, ASC earned an Oscar nomination for his artful imagery. Semler and Hancock didn’t feel a need to view the original film together. Semler explains they wanted to tell the story in their own way. Historians on the set made certain that the smallest details were accurate.

The shooting schedule was 101 days, beginning in January 2003, and running through May. “The most daunting part was the final battle, which took place at night and finished at the first light of dawn,” Semler says. “We shot for seven weeks on the largest set I’ve ever had to light at night in the most inconsistent weather I’ve experienced. We had rain, snow and ice. We were working in mud a lot of the time. In the end, we were working in dust, and shooting in 100-plus degree (Fahrenheit) temperatures with high humidity. We all felt sorry for the cast and extras in their heavy winter costumes. We were able to stay hydrated because of the best craft service team in the business.”

Semler routinely covered exterior scenes with three cameras and as many as ten cameras on the many big action sequences. Because of strategic camera placement, which gave optimum coverage, there were rarely second takes.

His camera package included three Panaflex Platinums, a lightweight Panaflex, a complete set of Primo primes and some E, C and zoom lenses, including the 3:1 (270 to 840mm), affectionately nicknamed “The Hubble.” The package also included a couple of ARRI cameras usually deployed in crash boxes for close-in action.

Semler decided to use the then-new KODAK VISION 2 500T Color Negative Film 5218 for everything except visual effects shots, which were recorded on KODAK VISION 200T Color Negative Film 5274 and EASTMAN EXR 100T Color Negative Film 5248. He rated the 500-speed film for an exposure index of 400 in daylight with a number 85 color correction combined with an ND6 glass filter on the camera lenses. That combination effectively made it a 64-speed film. On night scenes, he rated the 5218 negative for an exposure index of 1000. That was important, he explains, because it allowed the firelight, candlelight, and torchlight to illuminate more, and enabled him to use longer lenses, which have smaller apertures.

“The producers were very accommodating in allowing me to bring many of my regular crewmembers from Los Angeles––the same guys who worked with me on We Were Soldiers, XXX and Bruce Almighty,” he says, “Mark O’Kane was a tower of strength operating both A-camera and the Steadicam. My first AC on A-camera was Rivetti, who as usual, came with a built-in guarantee that there would be no focus problems. He also tirelessly organized and maintained the many cameras, lenses and auxiliary equipment provided by Panavision in Los Angeles and Dallas.

“My B-camera team was operator Richard Merryman (a.k.a. “Dick Deadeye”), who first started working with me on The Road Warrior (1981) and Fred McClane, the first AC, would constantly pull off near-impossible shots on long lenses. C-camera operator Jerry Callaway also ran the splinter/cleanup unit, and was responsible for 90 percent of sunrise, sunset and magic hour shots. He was assisted by local first AC Peter Simonite, who really stood his ground with the Los Angeles-based focus pullers and did a great job. Both of these teams were soon well-established masters of those ‘catch-and-grab’ special moments that the B and C cameras were free to capture.”

His camera crew also included three women, Theda Streetman, Megan Forste and his daughter and frequent collaborator, Ingrid Semler, who was responsible for loading over one million feet of film used on the picture. Streetman and Forste became the “Crashbox Team.” They would wait nervously and, immediately following the major action sequences, retrieve their cameras placed in hazardous positions.

William “Bear” Paul was key grip with his son Eddie as best boy and Kim Heath as rigging grip. Semler has done over 20 movies with this team.

“This was a grip’s picture,” notes Semler, “with an abundance of tracks and sweeping crane shots operated by dolly grips Moose Howery and John Murphy.”

From the beginning, Semler suggested timing the film in a digital suite at EFILM in Los Angeles. He was speaking from experience, having already collaborated with EFILM colorist Steve Bowen and Deluxe’s Mike Stanwick while timing We Were Soldiers and XXX, and they were slated to time Bruce Almighty together.

Hancock, Johnson and executive producer Philip Steuer supported Semler’s suggestion, and Touchstone Pictures agreed. Because that decision was made up-front, it influenced his day-to-day approach to filming. It didn’t affect composition, exposure or lighting, Semler explains, but he knew there was flexibility for fixing certain shots in post. There were many day scenes where events occur simultaneously at several locations that were filmed at different times.

“There’s a shot that I would not normally have been able to execute, in terms of matching,” he says. “It’s a wide shot looking past Davy Crockett and his long musket towards Santa Anna with the town of Bexar in the distance as his epaulet gets shot off. Because of dull weather, I had played the close coverage of Crockett on very long lenses and easily lit it for sunshine, which we were hoping to have for the rest of the sequence. When we had no sun for the wide reverse, I had no choice and shot it anyway, knowing I could re-shoot it if it was a bad mismatch. Bowen did a timing test for me, he built up the contrast a little, increased the color saturation on the buildings and grass. It’s not sunny, but it feels sunny and bright, and did not need to be reshot.”

Every evening at dusk, Santa Anna, using psychological warfare, instructed his men to play a mournful, haunting piece of music called “Deguello,” which means “throat slit.” He used it to taunt the Texans and would immediately follow the song with canon fire. After several days, Crockett, an accomplished violin player, decided to lighten the moment by climbing onto the wall over the main Alamo gate. He accompanied the distant band by playing harmony on his fiddle.

“Mark O’Kane moved around Billy Bob Thornton in a continuing 360-degree Steadicam shot as the sun dipped below the horizon with a fabulous Texan blood-red sky,” explains Semler. “If the film was exposed for the sky, Thornton would have been seen in silhouette. Hancock wanted the audience to see the expression on Crockett’s face, so I let the sky blow out by three to four stops. Thornton’s face was a stop-and-a-half to two stops underexposed, but there were enough details to see his expression. I knew the sky could be brought back to its full color saturation in digital timing. Once again, a test from EFILM proved this to be true, and an impossible shot was achieved.”

Semler also took advantage of digital timing when shooting daylight interiors. He generally motivated light with 18Ks and 12K PARs coming through windows. Sometimes he let the windows blow out, three or four stops overexposed, knowing he could bring out more detail in the exteriors during the digital intermediate process.

“The quarters where Travis and Bowie lived were tiny, but thanks to Michael’s design, we always had some breakaway walls that helped with lighting and camera angles,” Semler says. “About half of Bowie’s screen time was scenes of him in bed, where he was already dying of pleurisy and pneumonia. We had a doorway looking out to the Alamo courtyard and only one window in a very thick wall in the shape of a cross.”

At night, the basic source of light was a few candles burning on a little altar next to Bowie’s bed. Semler found the HMI soft tubes ideal for use in Bowie’s small room, leaving them clean for daylight and adding double CTO for candlelight effect.

“My favorite interior set was Santa Anna’s house, which had very deep ochre colored walls with a very slight gloss,” says Semler. “There were several candelabras placed strategically throughout the room and a fire burning in a very large fireplace. At 1000 ISO, there was almost enough light to shoot in the practical firelight sources.”

Semler found that by simply bouncing a redhead into a piece of 4 x 8 bounce card on the ceiling and lifting up the ambience to one-and-a-half stops under key exposure, the combination of 5218 stock and Primo lenses gave him enough detail in the shadows. It didn’t flare out the flames, and provided exposure on faces with the fire sources reflecting off the walls, tables and even their own faces.

In the very early stages of production, the producers buried thousands of feet of cable underground from generators concealed in Corenblith’s buildings, running through the entire Alamo and Bexar sets. This made access to power very easy for gaffer Jim Gilson and best boy Joey Martens. Joey’s twin brother John Martens, who was the rigging gaffer, placed under Gilson’s supervision, controlled upwards of 150 flicker boxes used to create the illusion of interior lighting by candles and fireplaces seen in windows and doorways during night exterior shots of the Alamo and Bexar.

Eighty percent of the movie was shot at Ramer’s Ranch at Dripping Springs, 30 minutes outside of Austin, including sets for the Alamo, Bexar, Gonzales and San Felipe. Several important scenes were also filmed at practical locations in Austin, including a sequence in the Paramount, which represented a theater in Washington, D.C. In the scenes filmed there, a large audience is responding to an actor’s portrayal of Crockett, who had become a folk hero long before the battle at the Alamo was fought. Unbeknownst to the actor, the real Crockett, was in the audience.

“The art department installed about a dozen footlights at the front of the stage,” Semler says, “and Lars Anderson (SFX supervisor) and his team, created a yellow gas light, emitting from each source––a beautiful color like limelight. But even at 1000 ISO, the light source, as beautiful as it was, needed a little warm, soft fill light.”

The play was followed by a reception where the Crockett and Houston met and began discussions about moving to Texas. That scene was filmed at the Driscoll Hotel, in Austin, in a large, pillared reception area with a 20-foot high ceiling. The grip team blacked out the windows and Semler shot day for night. There were cast-iron columns running from the floor to the ceiling. Because of the historic nature of the building, attaching light and light fittings to surfaces was taboo. Semler decided to hide single-strip Kino Flos behind the columns and block them from view with actors, flowerpots, plants, etc. They used little magnets and clips to hold the lights against the columns. They cost 30 cents each at a retail store. They put two clips and a magnet on each four-foot tube, and attached them to columns in seconds.

Semler credits assistant director K.C. Hodenfield and his team, along with the producers with doing an extraordinary job of training and motivating the extras who portrayed Mexican soldiers and Texan defenders.

“They went into boot camp in chilly November/December for training, and they came out ready to shoot the picture in January right into June and the oppressive summer heat,” notes Semler. “They arrived at some ungodly hour every morning for costuming, propping, and makeup, and returned home very late every evening. They stayed with us on bitterly cold days, standing in the rain and mud, the sleet and ice and also the heat and dust when it was almost too hot to breathe.

“For the first time on a movie, I had the luxury of using a 50-foot Super Technocrane from Andy Romanoff at Panavision Remote in Los Angeles,” continues Semler. “It’s a fantastic moviemaking tool, especially suited for the extra reach we needed on The Alamo, enabling me to get the camera up and over the walls very easily. The crane was mounted on a Chapman Maverick self-leveling vehicle that could drive on uneven, rocky terrain, and be level and ready to shoot at the push of a button.”

The Technocrane operator was Steve Welsh. Semler always used it with the Libra head, operated by Chad Rivetti. Semler turned to the Strada crane to capture the moment when Santa Anna’s men hoist a flag high above the church tower in the center of Bexar square. The camera starts on the feet of Mexican soldiers on a ladder ascending the steeple and continues up over them to hold the flag in the foreground and the Alamo far back in the distance. The camera, mounted once again on a Libra head, finished up at between 80 and 90 feet in the air. This was another Hancock signature shot.

For night shooting, Semler decided to use two 15-light and two 9-light Muscos. The smaller units could quickly be moved from one location to another where they were hidden behind trees or greened out by the greens men. There was a sloping hill almost a half-mile long on the side of the Bexar/Alamo set. This is where the big Muscos were placed. There were four basic positions, but they would only be moved during the day, leaving them locked in a single position at night.

The Muscos were almost 2,000 feet from the set. Semler decided not to use gels because he didn’t want to reduce the intensity of the light, knowing that he could correct the color and remove objectionable blue light in the digital intermediate process.

The two smaller Muscos were used as portable units that could move quickly during night shooting. They were on flat ground opposite the large Muscos.

The decision to use the Musco lights paid huge dividends the first time a light mist rolled in. They had the muscle to penetrate the fog and leave enough light to keep shooting. Every morning the B-camera assistants put grayscales on as many rolls as possible, while Callaway was probably out shooting sunrises. Semler would speak with Adam Clark of Deluxe Lab every morning, and with dailies timed to the grayscale, the timing process was pretty smooth. Film dailies were projected on an eight-foot wide screen in a mobile trailer at lunchtime every day. The operators and first assistants and gaffer were always the first there, keen to see their work from the previous days.

“We’d look for everything, especially matching light problems because of the weather inconsistencies, and the first ACs got a chance to check their focus work, of which there was never a problem,” says Semler. “Finally Gilson and I would get a chance to see the extensive amount of lighting in the night sequences. Film dailies are important to get a sense of how it’s going to play on a screen when the film is projected. It’s also uplifting and inspiring for the crew to see film dailies together. It motivates everyone.”

Hancock carefully planned the filming of Santa Anna’s attack on the Alamo as though it was a real military campaign. He prepared a precise battle campaign that Semler used to plan camera positions and moves, choice of lenses and lighting.

The first part of the final attack was on the northern wall. The Mexican soldiers, with bayonets fixed, began with a stealthy walk, and at a point, broke ranks and charged towards the wall. A and B cameras dollied on the same 200-foot long tracks parallel to the Mexican soldiers, one wide and one close.

“I didn’t put any fill on them (the soldiers), just heavy rim light from the distant Muscos, because I knew we were going to get lots of color off their costumes and kicks off the bayonets,” he says. “We followed the Mexican troops attacking the wall from every angle. The track continued until the troops arrived at the base of the wall and started climbing the ladders. There were also two crash boxes strategically placed near the wall, so the action was in three-quarter backlight. Callaway was on top of the wall shooting a direct profile of the attack. For all of the big action set pieces, I brought in an extra camera operator, Gary Jay, with whom I’d worked on Lonesome Dove. Bit by bit, night after night, they got closer and closer to the walls, repelled by canon and musket fire, but with huge numbers in their favor––finally assaulting the wall and entering the Alamo for the final deadly attack. Once the battle started, we established a formula for placement of cameras and lights. We had blue light from the Musco outside of the Alamo and warm firelight inside of the walls.”

Semler used smoke more than he anticipated. “I hate using smoke when it’s not justified, but sometimes it evokes a special feeling, and our night areas were so flat and large that it really helped. Smoke was justified by the many fires around the Alamo and Bexar. When hundreds of muskets fired in unison, and when canons and muskets fired, the smoke they created was almost too much.”

Two months after Santa Anna won the fight at the Alamo, he and 1,500 of his finest troops clashed with some 780 Texans led by Houston at San Jacinto. Semler used the SpyderCam, and the team led by Todd “Hammer” Semmesto to cover the expanse of the field that stretched some 800 yards. The camera came down from high above the field to around eye level, tracking profile with Houston who was riding at a gallop towards the Mexican encampment. Semler notes the shot could only be achieved using the computer-driven precision of the SpyderCam system in conjunction with the Libra head with O’Kane on the wheels and Rivetti stabilizing. The fight then spills into the muddy Peggy Lake, which was about 30 yards wide and several hundred yards long, where Mexican soldiers trying to escape are being annihilated by a vengeful group of Houston’s men, screaming for blood and revenge, crying, “Remember the Alamo!”

Semler covered the fight with eight cameras from several angles. The sky was overcast. It was complicated and dangerous; there were horses and men plunging into the muddy, murky waters. Because it’s a climactic battle, coverage from a second take was needed. They were ready when the sun came out and painted the ground with hot, mottled light, hard shadows and glimmering highlights. It was the last setup of the day, and there were still several hours of daylight left. Semler waited for the matching overcast light. Even EFILM couldn’t help in this situation. ADs and producers were anxious to get the scene completed, but with no likelihood of clouds in the sky. Semler’s only chance was to shoot when the area was in total shadow, with the sun almost below the horizon. He knew the light level would be low, and put fresh rolls in all cameras to be pushed one stop in the lab, rated at 1,000 ISO. All filters were removed from the cameras. It was almost magic hour when they shot the second take of the final battle with lenses wide open, but matching perfectly with the first take. It was the longest Semler had ever waited for a shot, and he felt very uneasy at the time, but notes it cost nothing and the results were well worth it.

THE LAST WORD: “There’s a classic painting in Austin’s City Hall of Santa Anna’s surrender, and we re-created the scene,” Semler says. “In our re-creation, there was an extra standing next to a tree, behind Houston and not far from Santa Anna. He seemed to be waiting for something, so I walked up to him and he told me that in 1836 his great-great-grandfather is in the painting and stood exactly where he was when he witnessed Santa Anna’s surrender, and he wanted to be right there at that place in the movie. There were many emotional moments like that on this film which I will never forget.” •