By Pauline Rogers

"It’s not his quick-cut music video style of presentation," remarks cinematographer John Schwartzman, ASC of the Jerry Bruckheimer production Pearl Harbor, his latest pairing with long-time friend and director Michael Bay. "Of course, the story is based on the events that happened at the Pearl Harbor naval base on the morning of December 7th, 1941. But despite the death-and- destruction, this is a human story "Michael was adamant about featuring the people and their individual lives – above the event itself." To this end, screenwriter Randall Wallace and Bay conceived a tale of two friends — US Army Air Corps aviator Danny Walker (Josh Harnett) and American Eagle Squadron pilot Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) — both of whom have fallen in love with Navy nurse Evelyn Stewart (Kate Beckinsale).

Filming on Pearl Harbor occurred over 106 days in Hawaii, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Texas, and the gigantic water tank built in Baja, Mexico for Titanic. The Bruckheimer/Bay reputation for authenticity and patriotism even broke down the barriers of military reserve, allowing the company access to government property in Oahu — Middle Loch Naval Hospital, Wheeler Field and Fort Shafter Army Base, Ford Island. For the first time, a movie-company camera ship was even permitted to set down on a Navy landing vessel. "Despite all that, Pearl Harbor was a simpler job than Armageddon," states Schwartzman. "As far as lighting went, the technical challenge was the shear mass of shots, the weather, the unheard-of-before scope that Michael wanted to achieve, and the volume of material that we had to make authentic. We were always keeping in mind that everyone viewing the picture has had some experience with this historical event."

Even today — months after the last frame of film has been shot, and while on to a smaller, single-camera film — the cinematographer can hardly contain his excitement about production of Pearl Harbor. "This is a period picture, with a lot of little pieces," he notes with enthusiasm. "I’ve always wanted to do one. The canvas of this picture was really large, and the sets were interesting. For the most part, one of the biggest lighting challenges was in finding the right time of day and the right location, then embellishing the exposures in the range we wanted."

"The only reason we could get the huge amount of footage on our schedule was that everyone pulled together to make the shots happen," Schwartzman continues. "Often times, we were on two complex locations in one day. Sometimes, Mitch Amundsen doing second unit was shooting right alongside us, with David Nowell up in the air and Pete Romano under or just on top of the water [for further info see sidebars "Empire of the Air" and "Below the Murky Depths"]. We really had to know where everyone was at any given moment.

"Once each department was up to speed on what we needed, they went off and did what they had to do in order to make this picture in the time and budget allowed. You can’t micro-manage a film like this. Much like the quote about directors — casting is 99 percent of your job — fighting production to spend a dollar more an hour to get a technician whose experience can save production thousands is my job. The hypocrisy is that nobody argues about an actor’s million dollar per diem package, but the dolly grip with 25 years experience can’t get 50 cents more an hour and that makes me angry."

"One of the first things that Michael showed me was a book called The Carrier War in the Pacific," recalls Schwartzman. "It had color photos from the 1940s. In designing the look, we worked off these dye-transfer photographs. The idea was to get a soft, muted color with a tonal palette indicative of the colors of that world — in architecture as well as wardrobe. To carry this image as far forward as possible, we also explored the idea of doing Technicolor dye-transfer release prints. We wanted to find out what would happen to the prints done this way, in terms of saturation."

"I worked with Dr. Dick Goldberg at Technicolor to create a new magenta dye so that we could control the saturation of the red channel. Dye transfer gives you discrete color control because the yellow, magenta and cyan channels are separate and therefore there is no cross-curve contamination. And, you are laying color back onto clear acetate with no inherent color masking. The real surprise was the physical registration of the matrices, resulting in sharper prints than contact prints made off of the original negative."

Schwartzman utilized a compliment of Kodak emulsions for Pearl Harbor, but photographed most of the war picture on Vision 320T (5277). "Kodak has improved the latitude in the shadows and the shots were so big, day exterior, there was no way to light them. The 5277 gave me a little more edge in changing light conditions. We used the [Vision 200T] 5274 for anything that had digital work and [Vision 500T] 5279 for the night work."

Budget rumors not withstanding — with the most recent reports placing the figure somewhere at $140 million — Schwartzman and crew ran their department in the small-budget mentality. "Five years ago John would have had $50,000 dollars a week to work with," admits Schwartzman’s longtime gaffer Andy Ryan. "Now, a picture like this goes at about $25,000. So we had to be as low tech as possible. To stay true to the period, John decided to use a lot of tungsten lamps and arcs rather than Xenons and KinoFlo lights." HMIs figured into their schematic only when DC generators proved unavailable."

"We couldn’t have done this picture without Evan Green at Pascal Lighting," Ryan continues. "The company gave us a price we could live with and was still able to supply us with every piece of equipment needed. At one point, we literally ran out of lights and Evan went out and bought more of what we needed for his company, so he could fulfill our order. Pascal was able to supply us with everything from 18Ks to 200-watt Pars in the HMI range and 20Ks to MiniMoles in the tungsten family. With a few arcs thrown in for good measure. And, that didn’t include the Musco light or the ‘little’ lights that were created ‘on the fly’ so to speak."

Adds key grip Les Tomita, "That kind of cooperation and support came from every department. At any given time, we had as many as 12 or 13 cameras going at once. Some were on the ground, high above, still others in the air or even underwater at the same time. Communication was crucial, and even more important when we had ‘little issues’ like explosions. If the radio frequencies were off, or someone left something out, we could easily have set off the charges prematurely. This picture was a testament to this kind of cooperation, and adherence to the safety rules on a daily basis."

During the Hawaiian portion of production, most of the logistical troubles surfaced when filming the Japanese squadron’s initial strafing run on the Pearl Harbor base, as shot from the perspectives of 12 separate cameras. "We named the shots ‘BF1’ and ‘BF2’ — you can guess what the letters stood for!" indicates Schwartzman. "In the first shot, we blew up several full-sized ships that were about 600 feet long. The shot was all about timing — perfect timing. We prepped with ILM ahead of time and had two half-days to shoot BF1 and BF2. By putting real people in these shots, we were able to reveal scale and make the shots look real. First, we had to make sure we were in a location where the Sun was in the right place, and that the weather cooperated as much as possible. Then, it was a matter of getting the rigging ready, and shooting when the explosions went off. We had 13 cameras, on this shot. On Armageddon, every time we did an explosion it seemed we were over cranking but here our effects were full-scale and I think we ran only one or two cameras at 36 frames-per-second.

"The second shot of the day, was a bit smaller," responds the cinematographer with sarcasm. "This time we blew up four ships. Fewer ships, but in a way more spectacular because of what special effects had in mind. John Frazier, Jim Schwalm and I worked together on Armageddon, so it was a reunion of sorts on Pearl Harbor. These guys are the crème de la crème and an absolute pleasure to work with. This movie could not have been made without them and their crew. Since this shot was a one-time deal, getting enough coverage was crucial. So it was making what we got look like it was — real — not like shooting miniatures. To that end, when we were framing for shots, we were always trying to keep a piece of reality in the shot, everything from a ship’s buoy, to a person on deck or on shore. This would show the audience that the shot was not fake."

Much of America’s Pacific Naval fleet met its demise during a two-week shoot at Fox Studios at Rosarito Beach which saw the forces of the Rising Sun obliterate the USS Arizona and USS West Virginia while also capsizing the USS Oklahoma. Along with Romano’s array of aquatic apparatus, the crew also brought along an arsenal of heavy equipment that included a Musco lamp, Technocrane, Wescam and the trusty Akela crane with the Libra head. "The Akela was an invaluable tool on these Baja shots," attests Schwartzman. "It sat some 35 feet above the water, and could be rolled around and do at least a 160-degree shot. It could fly over the set and give the huge scope and sweep that Michael wanted. We used the Akela with the Libra III in combo, extensively for the Oklahoma rollover scene. It allowed us to get dynamic moves around a ship capsizing with real stuntmen falling off."

Appends Tomita, "All the equipment was rigged off floating barges. We even had the Akela and the Titan on the barges, as well as the dollies and the dolly track. I remember getting up one morning and looking out at the Sun rising over every piece of equipment floating in the tank! When we were shooting, we had people in the water, walking these barges around into position. We had techs available at all times. Because you are dealing with the water buoyancy levels, and big equipment, weight distribution was always a concern.

"At one point, Michael wanted Pete Romano’s Hydroflex rig to go from underwater to above like a crane shot. We had to work out the buoyancy logistics for this one. What goes underwater has one level of buoyancy, which doesn’t match with gravity in the air. To make this work, we had to be in constant communication with Pete. As he comes up with the underwater power pod [with him on the Giraffe crane], I actually became a human ballast. We locked the crane arm down to sync with the camera housing and, as Pete started to crane up, I ran back off the arm to neutral buoyancy out of water. It was like playing human teeter-totter! It was quick and worked. Who needs high-tech all the time?

"We had another shot where we had the Wescam off a 180-foot tower crane," Tomita continues. "It worked like a motion picture crane, going from water level up and over three-fourths scale ships. Communication on this shot was complicated. It became a ballet between John, myself, the operators, the Wescam operator and, everyone else. We were able to get helicopter shots, without a helicopter, as long as everyone was in agreement. The challenge was keeping the field-of-view and perspective in line, as the angle changed. That’s where having everyone on the same page is so important."

Schwartzman and crew always had to improvise at a minute’s notice, often times creating extremely inventive approaches of bringing Bay’s vision to the screen in the low-tech manner originally promised. Their aim for authenticity took them to the Texas town of Corpus Christi where they occupied the USS Lexington, a still-surviving World War II aircraft carrier that is now berthed as a permanent historical museum of sorts. "As a way of adding tension to the eminent Japanese attack, and to sell the feeling that we were moving the lights outside the bridge porthole, we needed windows to move up and down as though the ship were at sea," details Schwartzman. "Normally, that is not too hard. But on an aircraft carrier the War Bridge is 40 feet below the end of the flight deck. So Les had to devise a system to hang lights 40 feet down below the front of the carrier, make them adjustable and allow them to tilt up and down in a synchronized way. We needed a big light so Les built us a ‘poor man’s Musco.’ By designing an Arbor system, cantilevered off the back of the ship with speed rail, hinges, and Condors, we were able to pan a series of banks of lights simultaneously, as if the light were hitting a ship in the middle of the ocean."

After the 6K sources had been appropriately placed, crewmembers simply manipulated them by hand with rope attachments. By using pipes, Condors and a little bit of elbow grease, production managed to get that rocky ship movement without having to resort to the extra expense of remote heads. Given Bay’s penchant for frequent camera movement, the illumination within the warships was designed with ultimate flexibility in mind. "Inside, we used a series of Bat Strips — little incandescent bulbs with magnets on them that are attached to a piece of wood," the cinematographer comments. "We could just stick the magnets to the wall, and as often as not, they could appear to be part of the practical lighting. When we moved on to another spot in the ship or on a location, we pulled them off and they moved with us." When setting up shots within the hulking Queen Mary, he continued the classical lighting established for other character shots. "We turned one of the ballrooms into a nightclub," Schwartzman recalls. "It was beautiful. We lit it with light sources like you would see in old dance halls, using spotlights and footlights from the band and putting practicals on the tables. We used a bit of smoke and, combining our lights with the color tones of the wardrobe, we got that ochre feeling of the time period."

"When getting into the close-ups or ‘human element’ shots, we decided to continue the classic lighting tradition of hard light," Schwartzman points out. "We would use a lot of 407 Babies through diffusion or Par Cans to play the edge of the beam. It’s the ‘classical’ way of lighting, and looks great on the ladies. It’s quite a different style of lighting for me, and I enjoyed it. One of my favorites is a sequence between Ben and Kate, on the last night before he ships out. They are standing in an alcove of a hotel, and there is steel grating on one side. We placed 2K open-faced Blondes through the grating to create a shadow pattern. It isn’t what I would normally do, but it was what you would see in the films of that period, and it worked for the story. We did a lot of this kind of lighting with Kate. We would hit her hard with something small. We didn’t have to cut the sources and they worked well for the shot."

Of the time spent in the greater Los Angeles area, the Linda Vista Hospital in Boyle Heights doubled as the on-site infirmary at Oahu Island where Nurse Stewart and her comrades tend to scores of battered-and-bloodied military men. Though production primarily augmented the existing space, an additional wing was added to the clinic. "The hospital had 12 giant arched windows that were about five feet by ten feet," the cinematographer reveals. "The shots were all day interiors. The issue became what to do with the lighting. We could have approached it in a number of ways, one of which was to rig 18Ks on parallels. Instead, we parked the Musco light across the street. This way, we weren’t tripping over our equipment. And we had a source that covered all the windows from far enough away that it would feel like a single source. Even if the lamps had color temperature variations, they still hit the building as one source, which is what we needed."

After viewing the nearly complete cut of Pearl Harbor, Schwartzman found the finalized effects sequences to be quite breathtaking to say the least, particularly the sight of hundreds of naval officers scurrying along, over and around the deck of the up-ended USS Oklahoma. "We had the VistaVision camera on the Wescam on a 175-foot construction crane. We were wide up and over, catching foreground explosions. Eric Brevig and team then added a lot more shots. The effects work is so organic that it gives us the sense of movement that is so real. We had that because Eric was with us while we were shooting. He could see what we were doing, and feel what we were feeling. When he went back to ILM to work with his team, he was able to bring that to the CGI world.

"I can’t say enough about the tremendous group of people that worked with us on this picture," the cinematographer concludes. "I wish I could take credit for all of the beautiful work in this film, but I had a lot of help from technicians whom I love and respect. Mitch Amundsen shot second-unit with ILM’s Eric Brevig, David Nowell did aerials, and a cadre of great operators, Robert Presley, Kim Marks, Michael Stone, Pete Romano and, of course, my aces-in-the- hole Richard Mosier and Thom Lairson. I would also like to mention the incredible still photographs Andrew Cooper took all through this difficult shoot. He managed to capture what we were trying to put on film in haunting and emotional single frames.

"Movies take on a life of their own while you are filming them. You have good days and bad days. But in the end what lives forever is captured on 12,000 feet of celluloid, and it was my great pleasure to work with the best and most dedicated technicians at the best of their abilities. Twenty years from now, when I look back on this chapter of my life, the memories that I will have will be of standing amongst friends."