Stomping Manhattan
The production began four weeks of filming in New York City in the spring of 1997, but the shoot proved to be problematic due to the size and scope of the production. Traffic was stopped dead as Godzilla shut down portions of Madison Square Park, Central Park, Wall Street, 5th Avenue, the Broadway area, and the Flatiron District. The local news included nightly updates about the show's filming schedule so people could avoid traffic jams.
With artificial storms forecast throughout the Godzilla shoot, rain deflectors were essential in order to ensure the sharp images needed for the ensuing digital work. These devices typically incorporate a high-speed rotating optical glass disc mounted in front of the lens, which throws the water off via centrifugal force before the image is blurred. "We had every rain deflector in the world on this show, and none of them worked very well," Steiger recalls with a smile. "Panavision had several versions, including a little one for the Steadicam. We also had a deflector which blasts water right off the lens using compressed air. It works well for about 10 seconds before the air valve freezes shut. It's also very noisy.
"This was another reason to use zooms," the cameraman continues. "Switching lenses would have required us to continually remove and reattach the rain deflectors, which takes far too much time."
The constant downpour began to impact the schedule on other technical levels as well. "We had a large camera department, and waterproofing the gear was difficult," Steiger says, "particularly when it came to the remote-controlled equipment. We had a technocrane [from the Telescopic Crane Corporation] throughout the whole shoot, which is a tremendous tool. There were a lot of things we couldn't have done without it. For example, on the Madison Square Garden set, there was so much wreckage and rubble all over that it was much too time-consuming to lay dolly track, and difficult to navigate with the Steadicam. The only way to effectively move the camera in there was to use the technocrane, which we could position and then utilize in almost any direction.
"All of these tools are great if you have nice weather, but whenever you shoot a movie it's usually not like that. On the technocrane, the cables for the FTZSAC, rain deflector, video tap and remote head were all running down the arm. If just one of those systems went down, a lot of people were waiting and not happy, so the pressure was intense. My first AC, Joe Sanchez, worked hard to keep it all going. I was just dying sometimes, but fortunately, Roland was patient because he understood."
Illuminating the cityscape for the digital G's later inclusion was an undertaking that demanded two separate lighting strategies. Explains Steiger, "Our creature is hundreds of feet tall or taller, as the effects people will cheat his size depending on what looks best in any given shot so there was no way to light the entire area he might walk through. The space would be just too big. Jim Grce and I decided to light the streets and buildings to create a frame for the action, but we also had to invent separate sources for the monster.
"We had large night exteriors while shooting in New York, because the only reason to shoot there was to utilize the landmarks. Literally every shot we had there was a big setup looking down Broadway for blocks and blocks and then panning 180 degrees to look up the street so see another 20 blocks. Depending on the shot, we would sometimes just light three or four blocks of buildings, our rain, something in the far distance, and then our main subject. It was a cheat and a constant compromise, but that's part of the job."
Gaffer Grce elaborates, "Our experience on the preproduction tests told us that we didn't have to light everything, which cut our expected lighting order in half. Because we're always looking up to see Godzilla, we couldn't often use lights on rooftops or Condors, since we would see them. That actually saved us a lot of time, though. We wound up creating an architectural effect on the buildings by using about 50 Maxi-Brutes on low stands right on the sidewalk. We then gelled them with 1/2 CTO or CTS to match the warm sodium-vapor streetlamps.
"We could sometimes use Condors with Pars 64s to backlight the rain. To create separation, the rain was generally in a cool 1/2 blue range, which contrasted well with the buildings. We'd also sometimes sneak in the Bee Bee Light which has three 18Ks or a Mini-Musco.
"We'd then pick out the biggest object we could find in the distance and light that up very brightly. On Park Avenue, it was the Met Life Building. So we had our foreground and background lit, and on a long lens it looked as if we'd lit the whole street. That approach generally got us up to a stop of around a T3.5, which provided some depth."
After these enormous scenes were set up, the actors were lit, primarily with Kino Flos. "They're just quick to bring in and use," Grce states. "We'd just bring in a couple of four-bank units on stands, color them up to match the street lighting and start shooting. They also allowed us to easily do a combination of soft and hard lighting in the frame."
Recalls Steiger, "We did our biggest night sequence in front of the Flatiron Building, in which the Army baits a trap for Godzilla with piles of fish. In that scene we were literally looking 360 degrees, so our lighting solution was to use practicals. For our key, we disguised two Mini-Muscos as military work lights which we could have in the shot. For the area around the trap, we built five Army-style mini-lifts with a rising column fitted with lamps."
"Those were made by building three nine-lights into a triangle and then mounting them to big theatrical crank-o-vators," Grce explains. "We put hoods on them and painted them olive drab. So whenever the military was around, we were able to bring these things out and use them as practicals, which gave us a base light.
"As for the Mini-Muscos, we tilted each of the lamp heads a bit to diminish the flare into the lens and gelled them with ND 9 so they didn't just burn out. We even have a few shots showing them unfolding and rising up, which is pretty dramatic and adds some production value to the show."
"We utilized practicals throughout the New York scenes," Steiger continues, "primarily 1K Xenon searchlights mounted on Humvees, which we could use to motivate sketchy lighting for Godzilla as the Army chases him through the city. Of course, that created a lot of work for the CG crew because our beams of light had to interact with the digital creature, but Roland helped push the idea through."
Each of the Humvee-mounted 1Ks ran on two 12-volt batteries coupled with a power inverter. Grce explains, "It took some testing to get the right inverter, but they worked well. Between the Xenon flashlights carried by the characters and our Xenons on helicopters and Humvees, we were able to create a moving beam in frame whenever we needed to." This was another technique that had been devised during Godzilla's preproduction test shoots.
The gaffer adds that different Xenon flashlight sources were assigned to specific parts of the cast: "The American military carried [Mag-Lite style] Sure-Fires, while the French team carried Xenotech's [larger, handheld] model. We also added a 1/2 CTS gel to them just to bring the color temperature down."
Steiger additionally credits Godzilla's East Coast team (including gaffer Rusty Engles, rigging gaffer Ken Connors and key grip Dennis Gamiello) for the successful completion of the New York portion of the shoot.
[ continued on page 4 ]