Tell us about shooting The Hills Have Eyes II.
We shot on film. We used three ARRIflex cameras,
two ST sound cameras and one high speed camera.
It was a 50 day shoot so we completed it in ten
weeks. I was in Morocco six weeks before
production began doing prep.
Throughout
preproduction, I was shooting digital stills,
grading them, and sending them to Sam McCurdy,
the DP, who was still in London at the time. Sam
arrived two weeks before shooting began and we
spent hours every day with SpeedGrade OnSet
discussing looks for the film.
We planned to
use FrameCycler to view the dailies with the
looks.
How did you work with the looks during
the shoot?
Once we were in productions we took
several digital stills of every set-up and
played with those in the evenings. We worked
from looks we had already established, but
adjusted for the specific weather and lighting
of that day. We sent our film out to London for
transfer on the only flight out at 6:00 am each
morning. Several days later, we would download
the dailies - which took about 6 hours each
time. Then we could play these back with
FrameCycler and try out the looks with live
action shots.
Color was a big part of your
production pipeline.
Yes, this technology
allows for a very active relationship with your
looks. The studio loved what they were seeing.
They had a great idea for a teaser about the
film while we were shooting. Our second unit
shot the footage they needed and they graded it
exactly the way we were doing the principle
photography.
How did you share your looks with
the producers?
Very early on I showed the
producers production stills we had graded with
SpeedGrade OnSet to show them how we would treat
certain scenes. We sent the same ideas and test
pictures to the studio to get them involved as
well.
What was it like filming in Morocco?
It was great, although shooting in a remote
location has its challenges. We had to put up a
whole cast and crew for two months and the
process of sending out our film for transfer is
a lot harder if you are so far away. I'd hoped
to see more of Morocco, but the work schedule
didn't really leave us time.
The location was
amazing and the material looks really stunning,
so I think we all felt it was well worth the
extra effort.
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