Shifting into high gear
Sena was faced with a blank slate on which to design the picture's final high-speed pursuit, in which Memphis is chased by Detective Roland Castlebeck (Delroy Lindo). For one thing, the original script set the chase in Boston, and Sena had relocated the story to Southern California. "I wanted to construct the sequence a bit differently than most chases in films," he explains. "It was originally written for a lot of freeway chasing, but when you're on the freeway, your pursuers are always behind you, everybody is going the same way, and it can get pretty boring. I wanted to take the audience through the various environments of Long Beach and San Pedro and change those environments during the chase to add variety to the sequence.
"Some parts of the sequence are about careful maneuvering through tightly congested areas, and other parts are about all-out, 140-mile-per-hour driving. I looked closely at the great film chases of the past, like those in Bullitt, The French Connection, To Live and Die in L.A. and Ronin, to make sure I wasn't rehashing old ground. Of course, every chase is going to have its share of 180s and crash-ups, but I wanted to make this one as original as I could which was certainly challenging, because those four films set the bar pretty high."
In what was perhaps the most unorthodox move of the production, the filmmakers decided not only to shoot the final chase as a free-driving sequence (meaning little or no process or tow work), but also to place Cage at the wheel. This meant that the actor would be doing the majority of his own stunt driving with several cameras and lighting mounted on the car. "You can always tell when it's a stunt driver or a double doing the hairy stuff," Sena laments. "When you put the lead actor in a parking lot and have grips shake the car, while electricians are running alongside with lights to make it seem as if the car is actually moving, it all comes off very flat and fake. For a movie that has a car chase as a sub-element, that's fine, but this movie is about cars. It's about driving and chases, and it was absolutely imperative to make that final sequence as real as possible."
During one of Sena's early discussions with Cage, the actor revealed that he loves cars and is a good driver. "It turns out that he's a great driver, and with a little work he became an amazing driver. We sent all of the actors to high-performance driving schools before we started shooting, and we were extremely careful during shooting. There were certainly times when stunt drivers did the work, such as a shot requiring a car to fly into the air and crash down on the highway. But otherwise, it's Nick at the wheel.
"While setting up for each shot," Sena explains, "Nick would first ride along with the stunt driver and go through the action at one-quarter speed, then at half speed, and finally at full speed. Then Nick would try it alone, without any other cars involved, and he would practice the move several times. When he was comfortable, we would bring in the other drivers and do a few dry runs before we shot a take. It was all a process of building up to the action and finessing it to make it all as exciting as possible, and everybody was extremely careful. Because we put Nick behind the wheel, you can really feel that tension when you're watching the scene."
According to Cameron, there were usually two or three cameras rigged to the cars, in addition to lights. He credits Robinson with designing rigs that hugged the vehicles, avoiding the hazard of wind drag. Ordinarily, if a picture vehicle is being towed, lamps can be easily rigged on the towing car or on the trailer carrying the picture car to key the actors inside. If the towing vehicle does not provide power, a small generator can either be loaded onboard or towed along. However, with a free-driving picture car, the only power source available is the car's own 12-volt system. Gaffer Jeff Murrell cites the Lightning Strikes Soft Source 3.3K as his salvation on these sequences. "The 3.3K Soft Source is an amazing little unit," he states. "It's daylight with a proprietary short-arc lamp, so it comes up to speed instantly. There is no warmup time with the fixture, and that was crucial for us on this show, because we designed a 120-volt DC power pack to run the 3.3K while it was riding around on the car.
"Because of the limited power source available to us off a battery pack, we had to save the light between every take," he continues. "With normal HMIs, when you start and stop them, it takes time for them to get back up to speed; sometimes they don't hot restrike. These 3.3Ks immediately strike up and are at color temperature right off the bat. That saves time and power. In addition, they pack a strong punch without being overly sourcey. We were able to bring in Nick to a range where the backgrounds were holding and it still looked very natural."
In addition to the careful steps taken for the safety of the actors and drivers, the crew had to work hard to get the coverage necessary to assemble the final chase. Typically, Cage would drive through a sequence with two or three cameras covering him in the car. Then Eddie Yansick, Cage's stunt driver, would drive a POV car (permanently rigged for quick placement of cameras) with two or three more cameras on it through the same action, while the production crew rigged the chasing car. The filmmakers would then send the chase car through the sequence to get that coverage. In all, it took three weeks of principal photography and an additional week of second-unit photography to assemble the nine-minute chase.
"We had to get the footage with Nick on a daily basis," recalls Cameron. "It was the only way we were going to get all of the pieces we needed for the scene. The sequence takes place in the early morning, just as the sun is coming up, but we shot at every conceivable time of day: high noon, evening, dusk, in fog and in bright sun! We didn't have much choice if we had tried to shoot the whole sequence at dawn or magic hour, we'd still be out there shooting it now! We therefore decided early on that we would digitally color-time that whole sequence.
"I did extensive testing in prep on the look we wanted for the sequence," the cinematographer continues. "Working with various strengths of tobacco and chocolate filters, I found the look we wanted, then took it in to Bob Keiser, our colorist at Technicolor. I knew we were going to be shooting this sequence as fast as possible and under a variety of conditions, and I didn't want to have to worry about filtration on the cameras, so we dialed in a look in prep and shot the whole sequence clean during production. In digital timing with Stefan Sonnenfeld at Company 3, we were able to tweak all of the various lighting conditions into the original look I wanted. The power of the digital correction is just endless; we shot with blown-out skies, heavy clouds, fog and harsh, high-noon light. If we had timed all of that in the lab, there's no way we could have gotten it to match in contrast and color, but we dialed it all in just fine digitally."
Sena says that working in commercials has given him different expectations about color timing. "I've been spoiled," he says frankly. "[On commercials], I'm used to going into a telecine suite and having incredible power with my color correction. I can say, 'Okay, let's boost those highlights and crush those blacks, and let's take that orange in the background and make it a bit pinker, but leave the flesh tones alone.' You get into a Hazeltine suite, and the timer says, 'Do you want it darker or lighter?' [Laughs.] It's painful! They always do the best job they can, but the future of color correction is a digital all the way."
Highlighting classic cars
In order to accomplish their "mission impossible," the Raines brothers turn to car aficionado and expert Otto Halliwell (Robert Duvall), whose garage was one of the few sets that were built on stage for the production. The set consisted of a large, warehouse-type garage split into two sections. The warehouse was ringed with windows that had ostensibly been turned opaque by years of dirt and grime. Cameron designed a lighting rig consisting of a double-tiered box truss, one above the other, on two sides of the set just outside the windows. On each set of trusses, he hung 45 12-Light Maxi-Brutes, which were all custom-snooted to fire through just one window. In all, 180 12-light Maxis surrounded the exterior of the set.
Because the windows already had a warm art treatment on them, Cameron and gaffer Murrell didn't have to reach far to achieve their chocolate interior-day look. Each of the 12-light Maxis was covered with a cut of 1/2 CTS. Inside the set, Cameron keyed the actors with a combination of Kino Flo Wall-o-Lites and Image 80s, all gelled with 3/4 CTS. To add a feeling of sunlight from the windows, Cameron used an additional 12-light Maxi bounced into silver lamé on the garage floor, and then through a sheet of 1/2 White Diffusion (250) to provide a bit of uplight on the actors.
The majority of the film's day sequences are biased to Cameron's chocolate look, whereas most of the night sequences lean toward the blue-green mercury or sodium feel. Because the film deals with so many extraordinary cars, Cameron wanted to find a way to incorporate classic, commercial car lighting to show off the beauty of each vehicle, while at the same time staying true to the story. To do this, he often flew a 20' x 60' muslin flat 20-30 feet off the ground above the cars and lit the muslin from the ground with a 12K PAR or a 10K Xenon from just beyond the frame. These sources were often colored with the Plus Green and Cal Color Blue combination to create the mercury-vapor feel.
The concept of a large, powerful source just beyond the frame is a strong motif that runs throughout the picture. "Paul told me in the beginning that if we don't have a skip angle somewhere in the frame, we're missing something," recalls Murrell. "We used a lot of Xenons during both day and night scenes to get that skip angle from somewhere just out of frame, and add that hard kick on the edge of things."
"We worked a lot with those hot kicks and flares," Cameron confirms. "Over the years, I've developed a specific lighting style, especially for day or night exteriors I tend to put powerful sources, like a 10K Xenon, right at the edge of the frame in the background, pointing almost directly down the lens, to create a super-hot edge that's pretty off the scale stop-wise. That technique always puts you in danger of getting some violent flares, but if you handle it just right it adds tremendous depth to the image.
"Overall, the film is very contrasty," Cameron concludes. "I don't think I ever used any fill sources at all. As a matter of fact, when we were shooting some inserts toward the end of the shoot, I asked Jeff [Murrell] for a bit of fill, and he nearly had a heart attack! He said, 'My God! We've gone the whole picture with actors' faces in pitch blackness with no fill, and now you wanna fill this?!' He just shook his head and laughed at me! But I'm very proud of the look of the film; it's all about contrast and edginess. Dominic pushed me to go bolder with the visuals, and the result is a film that certainly stands up to be noticed."
