Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/714180
GHOSTBUSTERS www.postmagazine.com 21 POST AUGUST 2016 "A lot of times in movies, we try to introduce eff ects that weren't really there on-set, right? We try to fi gure out a way to practically have some kind of lighting eff ect on-set that can just go right in the fi lm or be manipulated in some way, rather than try to cheat lighting into photography when it's not there, which is very diffi cult. We do it a lot, but it's never going to look as good as if you can actually get the real eff ects lighting in there. So the trick is, how to create eff ects lighting in a shot on-set. "There are a bunch of diff erent ef- fects — the proton beings, the ghosts themselves, and we have any kind of environmental lighting that we had to put in, like if they're in [New York's] Times Square. We couldn't shoot in Times Square and, for the most part, we couldn't shoot in New York. So almost all of the Times Square set is digital, except for the ground and a few store fronts. So, as far as preproduction getting all of that ready to go, we bought a ton of LEDs. How the LEDs fi t is, based on what I learned from working on Watchmen [with Dan Kramer] and working on Dr. Manhattan in that fi lm, we sewed in something like 2,500 LEDs into this costume that Billy Crudup wore. We got all this interactive light and that was a real learning lesson for me. As we were watching dailies on that movie, we noticed that light would bleed off these LEDs and kept casting shadows in areas that we could have only guessed at what it was doing and never would have exactly matched it. And in some ways, it did things that we weren't expecting, but it always looked right, it always looked interesting and it always looked compel- ling. So, we thought, let's do that for the ghosts in this movie. "What was really interesting about Ghostbusters was that really early on, when fi guring all of this out, we wanted to be able to have these LEDs incorpo- rated in at a costume level where some of these ghosts, like Gertrude for exam- ple, actually had the LEDs sewn into the costume. So a good portion of what you see in Ghostbusters for the fi rst ghost in the haunted mansion, is actual photog- raphy. And most people think, 'Oh, it's a CG ghost' and you always think, 'Is this practical or is it CG?' And everything nowadays is a blend. "The line is so blurred that you have no idea. What we had on-set was, an actress performing with LEDs in the costume that would create a glow on the environ- ment and that glow went directly into the movie. We had an awesome eyeline for the Ghostbusters girls, they knew exactly where to look. They had a glowing, hover- ing lady in front of them. "Rather than spending tons and tons of money in post, and we do spend a lot of money in post, this gives us a leg up so to speak, so we don't have to add light- ing in to the environment, it's all there. So that scene [with Gertrude], when you look at it, and it feels right when she reveals herself to the girls. When you look around the rest of the scene, the frame, you see all these light kicks and refl ec- tions. It's all what we shot. It's probably one of the most practical, glowing ghosts you'll ever see on fi lm. "For the fi nal scene in Times Square, that we actually shot in Weymouth [Massachusetts] at a decommissioned naval air station, we built a section of Times Square there. Just the footprint. The ground was photograph-ready. We got these cargo containers. It was about a quarter to a half-mile of greenscreen surrounding the whole thing and we replaced the storefronts and the skyscrap- ers around it. That's what Dan's team had the challenge of doing." Dan, can you tell us more about the Times Square sequence? Kramer: "Imageworks did around 300 shots in the fi lm and one of the tasks was to build a fully digital Times Square — in two diff erent time periods — for a scene at the end of the fi lm. We had to build modern Times Square and then a 1970s version. The idea was, that the girls go into the ghost fi ght, with all these ghosts from the past coming forth and fi ghting the ghostbusters, and during that fi ght, not just the ghosts are coming from that past, but actually Times Square itself transforms into a Times Square of old. So, you'll see the old buildings, like a Nathan's hot dogs and all the things that were in Times Square at the time. It was quite a task, and we had to share that asset with MPC. Dave Seager at MPC (Read Post's full interview with Seager online at post magazine.com) headed up that group. We had a good collaboration where MPC would build certain buildings that were key for them and we would build certain buildings that were key for us and there was overlap there, but our action took place in slightly diff erent areas of Times Square, and as a result we were able to kind of build the assets at high res for our Gertrude (above) was part CG and part practical, with LEDs sewn into her costume; Feig on-set below.