Sharks on a aircraft! Cinematographer Andrew Rodger talks cult hit ‘No Method Up’

We shot No Method Up in 2022, earlier than the brand new Alexa 35 got here out, so we shot the entire thing on the Arri Alexa LF. 

I actually just like the Alexa system. I have been utilizing them on TV and movie each time I can – they’re very predictable and strong and I knew that we might be underwater and shaking them round and hanging out of helicopters, and I knew that the Alexa would be capable of deal with that. Within the manufacturing facility after they they construct an Alexa, they put it in a paint can shaker they usually simply shake it about – after which if it would not crumble, it passes!

Typically whenever you make big-budget motion films the aircraft set sits on a gimbal that may spin round on robotic arms. Nevertheless, we simply did not have the finances so we explored all types of how of shaking the digicam to get that turbulence impact. 

When you connect a drill to the digicam with an off-center bit, you’re going be must battle towards it. However I needed to have the ability to preserve the dialogue through the aircraft crash; when you’ve obtained a loud drill operating then it simply ruins all of the sound.

The rig was me! (Laughs). No cage. I feel it was simply moose bars! I do a whole lot of handheld work after I can and I just like the digicam to be as small and as gentle as attainable. The Alexa LF is kind of a small digicam so we simply shook the cameras! These Alexas have been have been unbelievable. There was by no means an issue – no boards fell out and no lenses got here off.

One of many first issues that Altitude Movies mentioned was, “We would like it to be anamorphic.” It has to have this sort of Eighties / Nineties motion film really feel, and I really like that interval of cinema – that is a giant affect for me. So the lenses we used have been known as Caldwell Chameleons. 

I feel that on the time there have been solely ten units of those on the earth, however they’re these full-frame anamorphic lenses. When you hit anamorphic lenses just like the Chameleons with a powerful gentle they’ll flare with a sort of Panavision-style horizontal blue flare. Which is kind of thrilling!

One other advantage of the Chameleons is that they are all the identical size and identical weight I feel as effectively. So whenever you’re going between gimbals, steadicams and underwater housings, there isn’t any have to rebalance the digicam. 

If you’re on a movie set or massive business you’ve got obtained your digicam and all these add-ons, comparable to distant observe focus items and video senders, so you find yourself with this massive mass of cables. So having one thing that did not change saved a whole lot of time and it helped us get extra photographs.

Anamorphic lenses might be tough as effectively, as a result of anamorphic lenses do not usually do not focus very intently. It’s important to be a few meters away from the topic for it to focus, however usually I used to be three toes from the actors and as you say – if it is a wide-angle lens you get all this distortion and folks do not look good. 

So taking pictures full body helped as a result of it meant the lenses I used to be utilizing did not must be as broad as a result of the gate – the chip – was larger, so every little thing is extra rectilinear. Every thing is straight, there isn’t any barrel distortion.

There are two foremost units used within the movie. There is a dry set, which was the set in-built a warehouse on a platform for the airplane, after which a unique moist set dipped into a giant water tank, so I will dip the digicam just under the floor.

Because the cinematographer I would must get into the moist set first, the sound would get in, then all of the solid would get in after which they’d decrease the airplane set into the water. This took ten minutes, so if I needed to change one thing it could be “Everybody out!”, So it was necessary to have the ability to have a lens and digicam setup that will simply work for no matter I wanted.

That was performed in a factor known as a ‘dive bag’. It is principally a giant bubble however on the aspect of it’s a little fan that exchanges the new air for chilly air, so the entrance of it’s glass after which behind it’s only a massive plastic bubble.

We additionally used fairly a number of gimbals within the film. We used a conventional Steadicam within the airport part and we used a DJI Ronin gimbal on the airplane. My gimbal and Steadicam operator is a man known as Nathan O’Kelly, or if I would like a drone he is the man.

That is sort of a horror film; it is an motion film and there are sharks, so it wanted to have a temper and be a bit scary. And lightweight clearly performs an enormous half in that. There’s additionally a race towards time within the film, so the lighting modifications. As a result of the aircraft’s not that deep underwater, there’s gentle from the floor coming in – so you’ve got obtained daylight after which later moonlight. 

Then there are the purple lights on the wings of the airplane that are available later. I really like purple gentle in movies, I feel it heightens issues. We have been going for that sort of Eighties really feel as effectively – typically you need that sort of emotional realism in a movie. That individual lighting won’t truly occur, however I needed that really feel. So under the floor are principally PavoTubes.

They’re “water-proofed”! So Bernie Prentice, my gaffer, had a load of those items made up, they usually’re principally inside waterproof tubes. Then above the floor, we had Nanlites on the land subsequent to the water tank. These lights have been taking pictures in by way of the aircraft’s home windows to supply all the daylight and moonlight.

Within the film everytime you look in the direction of the [shark-infested] water it is the underwater set. If you search for in the direction of the galley [where the survivors were huddled], the galley is not there – that’s again on a separate dry set. So we needed to match the lighting to make each units seem like they have been in the identical location. Plus a whole lot of that was all the way down to the grade.

All of the lights have been on an iPad management unit, so you would dim them up and down, and there was a lighting desk as effectively for a few of it, so it meant that we might dynamically change the lighting. Because the aircraft was sinking deeper we might dim issues on the desk and on the iPad in order that it felt prefer it was getting darker. 

The one factor within the airplane that was a lighting supply have been these two home waterproof emergency strips down the middle. They have been RGB, so you would change the colour; 80% of the lights got here from these strips in many of the underwater scenes.

On the finish of the film, the aircraft fills fully with water. And the best way to try this is to sink the factor on this massive rig. So I used to be getting pushed beneath the bags compartments, as a result of I used to be sitting within the seats with my digicam, so I needed to have a diving regulator. I would begin the shot above water after which by the top of it I used to be fully underwater to movie the actors swimming out. I should have performed it 10 or 15 occasions in a few days, in order that was a whole lot of enjoyable. 

It was fairly tense and there have been a whole lot of shifting elements, however it’s a giant workforce so you may depend on folks. There was a security diving workforce. So we shot the escape sequence underwater. Then as a backup, we ended up utilizing this digital manufacturing stuff – the sort of equipment they use on The Mandalorian. It is a completely huge LED display screen.

You do get gentle off the screens, and that is a part of their promoting level. However you may’t use the sunshine off it as a result of the screens haven’t got a excessive CRI [color rendering index] like an LED gentle would have. [Andrew gestures to the Hobolite Mini that I’m using to film the interview, which has a CRI of 96 out of 100.] 

So the sunshine high quality emitted by a digital manufacturing LED display screen will not be trustworthy, you do not get good pores and skin tones out of it. So you continue to must gentle round it. However you do get reflections and issues off it.

Yeah. It meant we have been capable of do the shot of Eva [actress Sophie McIntosh] swimming up from the fully submerged aircraft. Usually this is able to be a ‘”breath maintain” underwater, which we simply could not do. And she or he needed to drown on digicam and we did not wish to drown her, in order that was performed “dry for moist” with smoke and backlight and these LED screens to imitate an underwater setting.

So usually if you are going to shoot an airplane, you set a inexperienced display screen outdoors the home windows and each shot turns into a visible results composite. However there simply wasn’t the finances to try this – there would have been 150 VFX photographs. So, it is fairly low tech truly, we did entrance projection, which is a Stanley Kubrick 2001 factor. 

We had 4 projectors down the aspect of the airplane. Connected to utterly huge scaffold towers constructed the size of the aircraft was a 20-foot-high display screen fabricated from extremely bounce – which is a reflective materials stretched throughout each side of the aircraft like an enormous lengthy tablecloth. After which we front-projected footage of clouds going previous onto that [which could be seen from any angle inside the plane set].

It is beautiful! We shot this movie a few years in the past – it is all the time the best way with this stuff that they arrive out later. Nevertheless it’s performed a US cinema run, the Center East, everywhere in the world. So for it to come back right here after which be on streaming – as a result of everybody’s been asking me for the final 12 months or two, “When’s it popping out?” – for them to activate Prime and see it on the primary web page at primary, it is beautiful!