Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/680196
FILMMAKING www.postmagazine.com 17 POST MAY 2016 the video camera, which was a 4K cam- era, it would record proxies that were HD proxies, and we would get the hard drive with the high-res data later, whenever there was a Space X coming down. "It's a Canon 1D C. It's a standard high-end camera that is commercially available. We have an arrangement with Canon, but not beyond this project. That's capturing the Earth scenes in 5K." Are they using those inside or outside the Space Station? "They were all interior cameras. We have an EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) sequence — a space walk — which was all from little GoPros that the crews took outside with them, and we've enhanced that further." Is all of A Beautiful Planet's footage new, or did you use archival elements? "With the exception of maybe three shots in the film, it's all based on ma- terial that we shot. The cameras were active for a year. We started shooting in October 2014 and we finished pretty much November 2015, last fall." As the writer and editor, you must have the story already in mind. Do you come up with a wish list of shots? "How we do it is how we have always done our films. The crew is busy doing other things. They are not there at my beckon call. You develop a shopping list of scenes. This was an Earth-looking film, but it was also about life on the completed Station, so we had an interior list and an exterior list. The exterior list was very specific sights, and we trained them how to look for the optimum conditions. Over the course of the training, we give them everything they need to know about being film direc- tors. There were certain things we were looking for, like deforestation, and saltation in oceans, but also night-time shooting, which we had never been able to do on film because the IMAX 70mm was way too slow. You could never see stars or anything. It was just black. With this, it's just aston- ishing what you see, so we were filming all kinds of locations at night — cities, whole continents, aurora and stars. That's the thing when you ask me digital versus film, the digital palette is just so broad com- pared to what film was able to capture." What did you do in the past for those types of scenes? "When we did Blue Planet, we had a tiny, little, high-range video camera that belonged to NASA, and that was the only thing we could get lightning on. And it was a tiny postage stamp image on the screen. Now you have a whole, beautiful, full-screen of lightning all over the world. It's fantastic." What did your shot list include? "On our interior list, it would be beyond the normal sleeping, eating, life on the Station stuff. There were specific science pursuits that I asked for, like growing crops in space and medical things. You have to have that just to get support for the film. Obviously, you need to be able to tell the crews what your intention is and get them on board. We had the three best crews you could ever imagine. They were so wonderful, and supportive, and committed." Tell us about the crew? "(1 st Commander) Barry 'Butch' Wilmore was the IMAX digital camera pioneer. He tested it and was the first to use it, and found out all kinds of interesting things that we couldn't have known until it was brought into orbit. "Each crew seemed to have their fa- vorite parts of the world that they loved shooting. Butch loved the Himalayas and that area of the world. (NASA Commander) Terry Virts did a fantastic sequence on California. Kjell Lindgren, who was the last principle of our three crews, got the most difficult ones — the ones that the first two had tried to get and had been on the list forever. They tended to be shots where the weather was always awful. But he persisted and got us wonderful coverage for those scenes. They are the heroes." You have a history as the editor on these projects? "I always have. It's just easier. I'm not try- ing to be a hog or anything, it's just eas- ier than having to explain it all to some- body else I guess. I have two wonderful assistants on this film, who are both of 'the digital age,' and I'd be lost without them. They are doing the high-end image management, where I would be lost. I couldn't do that stuff. They are wonderful at all the edit lists, post production and the way the workflow is managed. It's very complicated." Where does post production take place? "In Toronto. I was an employee of IMAX until I am finishing this. We moved out of their technology center, where they Exterior shots were captured with GoPro cameras. Myers with (L-R) James Neihouse and Commander Butch Wilmore at NASA. European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti looking down at Earth.