Vacano then worked with Cameron to integrate his lighting ideas into the set’s design. "My approach was to try as much as possible to shoot the sets with an ’available light’ feeling," he says. "I wanted the sets lit so that the light was part of the architecture. Of course, we never used the set’s available light by itself, but when I saw all of the tunnels’ round structures, I said, ’How can we light them so that wherever we look, we can see the lights and they fit into the design?’
"First, I knew I wanted to use fluorescent lights, because they really worked with both our [practical] ’available light’ strategy and a modern, high-tech look. Allan and I knew we couldn’t just go to a hardware store and buy fluorescent fixtures that fit the design style we had to develop something. Allan then suggested that the fixtures be curved like the tunnels. Everything was curved and round, so it fit nicely that our light fixtures would follow that structure. We had the art department build several hundred round, fluorescent fixtures that we then hung up everywhere.
"However, with all of the lighting from above," Vacano continues, "everything was top-lit, and that doesn’t always look good. The fixtures alone would be fine, if it were just one scene playing there and it was lit from overhead. But with about 80 percent of the film taking place in the lab, that would get boring very quickly. I began thinking that we needed to light the structure itself, the whole corridor and the walls. The sets needed some graphic feeling that would allow viewers to see how the corridor’s perspective went along and curved. With that in mind, I suggested we place some light bands on the sides of the walls just one or two fluorescent fixtures, 6 or 8 feet long, depending on the length of the tunnel segments, and covered on the front so that the light would only bleed out onto the wall. Because the walls were curved and mostly metal all of the newer surfaces in this film were metal and glass the light was distributed and reflected around very nicely. I was then able to get a feeling of how the corridors would look. Knowing we had some big corridors and some smaller corridors, I also suggested that the big corridors should have two of these light bands, while the smaller corridors should have only one band."
Further advancing the idea of new technology built within the remnants of old technology, Vacano distinguished between the two disparate eras with his use of light and lighting instruments. "In the newer structures, the cool fluorescent light flows out through the glass windows and lights the old concrete bunker walls in the background a bit," he details. "But I also lit the old areas with old, dim tungsten lights, and the concrete itself was a little bit beige-colored. I consciously created a difference between the colors of the new technology and those of the old world. For the old-world areas, we’d use the dimmed tungstens and 2,900-degree Kino Flos to lend those environments a warmer feel; the modern portions had a colder, more technical touch of metal and glass, and we used standard 3,200-degree [Kino Flo] tubes. Also, in the older, untouched tunnels and sections of the shelter, we had old-fashioned work lights such as Chinese hats, just to provide a different feeling."
Because so much of the film takes place in the laboratory, Vacano was concerned that the scenes within those sets might become too similar in look and feel. In an effort to prevent that, the cinematographer devised several different "moods" of light that corresponded to different times of day and different stages of suspense. These included a daytime "active" look and a nighttime "non-active" look. "When you are shooting a film in one set and everything looks the same all the time, it can get pretty boring," Vacano opines. "You need to have the possibility of different day or night looks in your lighting scheme but in an underground set, day or night doesn’t work because there are no windows. You can never look out, and there is no daylight at all. I figured we could just imply that there were times of activity and times of non-activity, with most of the activity taking place during the day."
He elaborates, "During prep, I had the whole set pre-lit for five weeks or so, rigging more than 1,000 Kino Flo tubes, all on different ballasts and dimmers. That was done way ahead of time just to help give me a feeling for the sets, so that when I thought about the story and read the script again and again, I could get [a better] feeling of how things should look. Paul is a wonderful partner in this process because he is not terribly specific about it. He says, ’Okay, you’re doing the lighting, just let me know what you think and tell me what you’re preparing.’ So I told him, ’Maybe we could work in some situations with just the overhead lights on, in others with just the side lights on, and in still others with different combinations of those lights.’"
Vacano shot Hollow Man with Arriflex cameras, carrying a package that consisted of a 535B (which served as the first unit’s A-camera) to 435s, BL-4s and a Moviecam Compact for Steadicam work performed by operator Mark Emery Moore. The cameraman employed Zeiss Standard-Speed T2.1 lenses for most of the production, but he occasionally switched to Zeiss T1.4 Superspeeds when he needed an extra stop. Vacano’s camera crew consisted of operator Tom Yatsko, first assistant Greg Irwin, second assistant Joy Stone and loader Jerry Patton. The cinematographer also continued his longtime association with former assistant/operator Anette Haellmingk, who served as second unit director of photography.
Given the multitude of effects shots in the film (nearly 600 in all), Vacano elected to shoot the film almost entirely at 200 ASA, utilizing Kodak Vision 200T 5274 for non-effects shots and the comparable SFX 200T effects emulsion for shots involving Bacon in a greenscreen suit or scenes that would later be manipulated in post. Vacano also utilized some high-speed Vision 500T 5279 for night exterior scenes shot on location in Washington, D.C., but those sequences comprise just a small fraction of the film.
"It’s interesting that I shot most of the film on 200 ASA stock," notes Vacano. "Normally, when working with this type of set, 500 ASA would be perfect, but because there were so many effects shots in the film I knew I would have to light for the 200 ASA SFX stock anyway; the effects people always have a problem pulling good mattes if you use the normal high-speed stocks with bluescreen or greenscreen. At that point, I thought, ’Okay, if I have to do this shot for this scene at 200 ASA, then I might as well do the rest of the film at the same rating. I therefore decided to use the Vision 200T in combination with the SFX 200, and they matched very well."
[ continued on page 3 ]