The other significant set constructed for the film was an incomplete interior high-rise office that overlooks a mammoth cityscape TransLight measuring nearly 130' wide by 36' tall. "The TransLight was almost a total disaster," recalls Cronenweth. "We sent out an 8 x 10 photographer, who shot the elements used to create a 'skyline' that we liked. We then shot some tests of individual 1' by 8' strips made with different tones and densities; from those tests, we determined which density and color we liked best. The TransLight was then custom-made in two sections. Unfortunately, the final TransLight was delivered much later than we expected—just two days before we were supposed to shoot the scenes! I then sent Claudio back to shoot a test. We lit the TransLight with 144 5K Skypans aimed through an enormous silk. However, when we screened those tests the next day, we were all horrified to discover that half of the TransLight was two stops denser and a lot cooler than the other, and the entire TransLight was too blue overall. Of course, we found this out the day before we were to shoot that entire sequence!
"As a desperate solution, we had a rigging crew come in that night and change out 86 of the Skypans to 2K globes and add 1/2 CTO to the bluer side of the TransLight. When we shot the actual scene, I used an 81EF filter on the camera to correct for the entire TransLight being too blue, which meant I had to add 1/2 CTB on all of the tungsten sources inside the building. Finally, we hung a net about five feet in front of the TransLight to slightly diffuse it. If the net moved slightly, it gave the appearance that the city lights were twinkling."
With the TransLight's color and density issues corrected, the production proceeded to shoot the nighttime opening and closing scenes in the 'still-under-construction' set. "Inside, we used these yellow, dual-headed construction work lights with little quartz bulbs in them, as if the construction workers had them hanging around," says Cronenweth. "Those lights worked out quite well, and we played a lot of them into camera to create flares, or let them play against a wall to silhouette the actors. There was some subtle ambient moonlight coming into the set, generated by 18 Image 80s, covered with full CTB and muslin and hung across the top of the windows. Additionally, we used about six 4', four-bank Kino Flos with 1/2 CTO on them to simulate sodium-vapor lights from the 'street' below. We also had some Kinos inside to accent things here and there, but most of the scene was lit with the work lights on the floor. The idea was that there were no existing light fixtures working in the office space yet, so they just used all of these plug-in practicals."
Fight Club also features some subtle but effective rearscreen process work. Building upon Fincher's process experiences on The Game, Miranda and Cronenweth devised a simple yet elegant solution to this age-old cinematographer's nightmare. Incorporating Fincher's idea of mapping out each shot's size and focus prior to the shooting of background plates, Cronenweth photographed the Long Beach background VistaVision plates out-of-focus at the predetermined focus distance of the final shot, using a SpaceCam mounted on a Shotmaker camera-car. "In addition to our rear-screen projection, we had rain pouring down on the process car, and then the actors inside the car," Cronenweth says. "We achieved a fairly sophisticated look with interactive light by using scenic projectors fitted with rain and water patterns. We aimed the projectors into these Mylar boxes, which we constructed to control the rain effects from contaminating the rear-screen element. The boxes, however, also made the image sort of shimmer as it bounced around in there."
Miranda adds, "In addition to the scene projectors aimed into the Mylar boxes, we had some hitting the actors directly. Next, on each side of the car we had 15' cyc-strips controlled by dimmers that we 'chased' in series past the car, as if streetlights were passing by overhead. It's always nice when you can automate and streamline the lighting so that things can be timed out and controlled interactively. It's much less random than a guy waving a flag or panning a light. In the case of the cyc-strips overhead, we actually had the lights in a hard-to-reach area over a raining set. We didn't have to have an electrician on a ladder trying to animate the light.
"The cyc-strips had 250-watt globes in them, which could be brought up and turned off reasonably quickly," Miranda continues. "So when the light chased by, it looked like one continuous streetlight source moving past. We continued that light at the end with a 2K, which we controlled with a scroller. Again, the scrollers were a bit more elegant than moving flags in front of the light. The scrollers, which are fairly primitive devices, had a blackout, a clear section and then another blackout at the end of a roll. After the cycs chased by overhead, the scroller would do a wipeout in front of the 2K and then reset. Between the projectors doing their water-rippling effects, the cyc-strips chasing and the physical rain effects, it was quite convincing."
While looking for his next big-screen project, Cronenweth will continue to shoot music videos and commercials. Commenting on the path he took to his first feature film, he relates, "I knew that both John Schartzman and Robert Brinkmann had started shooting documentaries, industrials and whatnot right out of film school, while I was a camera assistant working my way up the ladder in a more traditional sense. Even though I wasn't shooting, I was working on $30 million and $40 million pictures. Interestingly enough, we all sort of arrived at the same place in almost the same amount of time.
"There's always sort of a toss-up between which is the better way to go. Obviously, the sooner you start shooting, the sooner you gain experience that you cannot get as an assistant. But, at the same time, how does someone who has done documentaries, industrials or even music videos deal with the scope of a $60 million film? I suppose it ultimately depends upon what your goals are and how you want to achieve those goals. Is it important to you to gain the knowledge that you get working up the system, or are you anxious to get in there and do it yourself?"
