Director Simon West and cinematographer David Tattersall, BSC take wing in Con Air.

The premise of Con Air is enough to discourage the hardiest of frequent flyers.

The $80 million anamorphic action extravaganza begins as prison parolee Cameron Poe (Nicholas Cage) is about to be flown to freedom. He's just served an eight-year sentence for a self-defense slaying which he committed following his heroic return from Operation Desert Storm.

Fate, however, lands the Gulf War veteran aboard a prison transport plane full of the most heinous reprobates imaginable. Once airborne, the convicts commandeer the flying prison. Spearheading this revolt is Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom (John Malkovich), a criminal genius who has devised the hijacking plot in order to win freedom for another passenger — the son of a notorious drug lord — in exchange for a hefty payment and asylum on an island lacking an extradition treaty with the U.S.

Determined to end the siege, the authorities have threatened to blow the craft out of the sky. U.S. Marshal Vince Larkin (John Cusack) tries to defuse the tense situation and convince his superiors to proceed with an alternate course of action. In doing so, Larkin risks an epic disaster as the completely disabled plane heads for the bustling Las Vegas Strip.

The job of injecting heavy doses of testosterone into Con Air fell upon the shoulders of first-time feature director Simon West and cinematographer David Tattersall, BSC (Radioland Murders, Moll Flanders). Tattersall gained his earliest experience in England's music video and commercial scene during the mid-Eighties. He then progressed to British television and features such as The Bridge and The Wind in the Willows, a children's film directed by Monty Python alumnus Terry Jones.

Tattersall also shot some 30 episodes of the American TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in 16mm over a two-year period on various locations worldwide. This assignment eventually led to the plum project he will begin this summer: serving as George Lucas' director of photography on the first installment of the Star Wars "prequel" trilogy.

In the case of Con Air, Tattersall benefitted directly from his music video experience. Simon West had collaborated with the cameraman during the late Eighties on a "freebie" rock star-studded "charity video" (Life Aid Armenia) in Britain. Recalls West, "We had three small lights and it was black-and-white. I was so impressed with what he accomplished under those limitations that I knew I wanted to work with him again. However, David was always off around the world shooting Young Indy while I was directing commercials in England and America. I was pleased to be able to finally work with him on Con Air."

West and Tattersall devised a highly specific visual schematic for the picture that indicates the psychology of Cage's character during his ongoing plight. Explains Tattersall, "The film starts out with a gritty, realistic atmosphere and then, through a series of crazy and unpredictable events, becomes quite psychedelic by the time we get to Las Vegas. The story has quite a linear structure, so Simon developed some ways to keep things visually interesting. We varied the look from place to place, but kept each sequence very controlled within its own approach to color."

West adds, "The shifting visual styles of Con Air were intricately planned. Each section has a specific look; for example, the opening sequence recounting Poe's Desert Storm experiences (which mixes real war footage with staged shots depicting the character's heroism) is cast in a strong golden hue because of the desert aspect."

Poe's return to the States, and to his steadfast wife, is shown in dark, subdued shades; his subsequent prison time is seen in a very restricted palette of grays and blues. "His whole life has fallen apart; he is no longer the hero, and is at the bottom of society, in jail," notes West. "The prison sequences were art-directed and lit so that there would be no color. It's as if the color of his life has been drained away.

Moody, atmospheric touches dominate Con Air. Tattersall lit most close-ups in half-shadow, creating a compelling, noir-like look. Cage's strong facial features are often dramatically sculpted and chiseled with light, with certain planes of his face dropping into dark, rich shadows.

Once the action begins on the transport plane — a darkened, highly stylized prison with wings — Tattersall's use of half-lighting and small amounts of fill becomes even more pronounced. "We wanted a contrasty type of lighting throughout, but especially in the airborne sequences that focus on the bad guys," he explains.

This is especially true of the scenes in the belly of the plane, where the lighting is motivated by two rows of stylized round fixtures mounted in the floor. While not nearly as extreme as some examples of the currently popular "less is more" school of deeply shadowed and dimly lit action lighting, the plane sequences offer little or no superfluous illumination. Tattersall feels that this heavily shadowed approach "works well with this type of story. The guys on the plane are some of the worst psychos imaginable. We wanted a fairly edgy look to emphasize their underlying meanness and desperation."

The filmmakers augmented this hard-light strategy with harsh, disorienting angles achieved with long, space-compressing lenses. This strategy lent the plane interiors a truly chaotic, claustrophobic feeling. In line with this approach, very little lens diffusion was utilized. Notes West, "We went for the opposite of diffusion with the hard lighting on the convicts: I tried to play up their scars and black eyes, and the hard texture of their faces. It's not a pretty picture when you're in the plane with these prisoners, who are so utterly desperate to gain their freedom. Of course, we did use diffusion on close-ups of Poe's wife, Tricia (Monica Potter). She was made to look very soft and appealing, like an angel amid all of this hard action and evil."

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