PERCY JACKSON PRODUCTION
crew demonstrate through flashbacks, eyeline shots and voiceovers. “My job is to immerse myself in the character, and I do a lot of it intuitively,” he shares. “This allowed me to focus on portraying the world from Percy’s perspective.” In his lookbook, “all the photos really emphasise the eyes,” states Gill. “It’s something I am extremely proud of in Percy Jackson ; you can see the eyes clearly in many shots and the emotions are clear to the audience.” For instance, Gill talks us through the Minotaur chase scene in episode 1, which borrows its title, I Accidentally Vaporise My Pre-Algebra Teacher , from the first chapter in The Lightning Thief . “The eyes of Percy, his mom and Grover all show how emotional that sequence is for them,” argues Gill. “A lot of that was achieved by the choice of lens and how close I went with the lens to the actors.” GODLY GEAR Gill recalls testing ‘hundreds of lenses’ before eventually settling on the Cooke Anamorphic/i S35 range. His primary consideration was what would work best in a volume rather than on location,
EVERY DAY WHEN I READ THE SCENES WE HAD TO DO, I WAS becoming Percy Jackson ”
MAKING OF A MYTH At its core, the Percy Jackson story is a modern take on ancient mythology, with contemporary settings like New York City and Las Vegas taking on a new, fantastical form. LED Volume played a significant role in bringing the impossible to life. “Disney knew right away that the volume was something they wanted to use,” begins Gill. But up to this point, it had mostly been used for fantasy and exteriors.” Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the VFX company founded by George Lucas, worked with Gill to create virtual interiors, specifically of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met), which appears twice in the first episode. “All the
as many of the show’s more mythical scenes are computer-generated. He chose to shoot anamorphic because ‘it keeps you close to the actors and their emotions’ while still being able to deliver on the essential ‘scope’. Gill selected the Sony VENICE 2 as the show’s main camera – a ‘great mix’ with the Cooke anamorphics. “They are a little harder to work with because they are heavy – but they are beautiful, soft for the faces, and I thought they were perfect,” he admits. To reduce flare, Gill shipped the optics to Alex Theodore, a technician at Vancouver’s William F White, who “spent thousands of hours tweaking four sets of lenses for me. It was an absolutely huge undertaking.”
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