Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1013519
www.postmagazine.com 20 POST AUGUST 2018 the BMW sedan down a set of stone stairs, the art department had to construct a protective layer to cover the real steps. "We had to remove that layer and make the stairs look original," Johnson reports. New Zealand's South Island was the site of some thrilling helicopter stunts, with the location doubling for Kashmir. The "long line" sequence featured Hunt climbing up a rope dangling from a helicopter flying at about 2,000 feet and then free-falling 40 feet onto the payload at the end of the rope. "When we were scouting an airport in a remote glacial field with the director we saw amazing pilots long lining big payloads: The only way to bring big cargo into these locations was by helicopter," notes Johnson. "Chris (McQuarrie) got the idea of Ethan falling from a helicopter and grabbing onto the payload. A lot of work was in- spired by amazing locations with everyone want- ing to push things to the next level and coming up with more and more outrageous ideas. "I didn't think there was any way for Tom to fall and catch onto a bag the size of a large wardrobe," he continues. "But the answer was always, 'Yes, we can do that.'" A six-helicopter cavalcade captured material to use in the harrowing stunt. As in Paris, "We need- ed to capture as much data as possible," Johnson says. "We had six Red Weapon cameras shooting 6K, each with a Canon 24mm lens, mounted on stabilizing Eclipse heads to get live-action plates of canyons and glaciers out into the ocean and into the clouds." Dneg built CG helicopters used in parts of the sequence, removed safety harnesses and cameras from the shots, and extended locations with the live-action plates. A dramatic helicopter chase through the treach- erous canyons of New Zealand's Southern Alps took six weeks to shoot. "We added tracer fire and machine gun hits on the sides of rocks," Johnson explains. "We also added snow or clouds at times — the weather changes very quickly there so sometimes we had to add digital weather to help the story." At the end of the aerial chase Hunt and Walker's helicopters collide and crash into the top of a mountain. The production headed for Norway's Pulpit Rock, a small plateau with a razor-sharp cliff that drops almost 2,000 feet into a fjord, to shoot the intense fight scene between Hunt and Walker that follows. "The only way in was by helicopter and the rigging team built a little town on top of this remote mountain," Johnson recalls. "We filmed for three days and were harnessed at all times because of the sheer drops on all sides. As we were leaving the weather came in — the last helicopter wasn't able to get out so 30 people marched down the mountain for six hours in the snow." Dneg was charged with removing all evidence of the logistical support required on the mountaintop. "We had lidar, textural references and photogram- metry of the entire area for extensive clean up," he says. "We added a CG helicopter to hang over the edge. We also did some bluescreen work in the UK toward the end of production when a couple of changes were made in the story to add personal drama. So we used our source material to recon- struct the Pulpit Rock environment." After all the high-risk stunts he performed, Cruise's rooftop chase in London seemed relatively straightforward by comparison. But it was during this stunt that Cruise broke his ankle — after nailing the stunt. "We had a lot of A-list locations to shoot in London in a short amount of time, so they maxi- mized the number of camera angles and positions, but that meant there were often cameras and crews The payload sequence was captured with Red Weapon cameras. Dneg served as the lead VFX vendor. McQuarrie and Cruise, on-set The new release is the sixth film in the franchise.