DRAMA | GEMI N I MAN
the set and then run over and grab it, which made it workable.” Portelli recalls that the hardest scene to film was the motorcycle chase in Cartegena, as they couldn’t use golf carts or have anything to do with any racing between cars over cobblestone streets. It had to be a motorcycle chasing a motorcycle. He adds: “I think the most stressful day was the first day we started, but we had a lot of help. The flight head guys from Ukraine built us a small remote head, a mini Apex, and we were the guinea pigs for that. The whole reason for us using Leica glass was to get the weight down so we could have a mobile shooting rig. “We had the Arri Ms and the Leica Summilux and Summicron lenses. The Summicrons were on the Steadicam and the motorcycle to take the weight down as much as possible to make it less dangerous. This is an ongoing conversation, especially when you use a two-camera mirror rig. How do we get the weight down and still make it indestructible?” Portelli says getting that footage back in to post-production was the most work he’d ever done, as the crew had to analyse how the footage reacted over bumps and The Summicrons were on the Steadicam and the motorcycle to take the weight down as much as possible IMAGES Stills and behind-the-scenes shots from Gemini Man. © 2019 Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved. Photo credit: Ben Rothstein
cobblestones, “especially when Weta [Digital, the visual effects company] had to comp in to a stereo image with a lot of vibration and things like that”. He adds: “But this is why we like to work with Ang. He challenges you, it’s like ‘this is what I want to do, you guys go and figure it out’.” WORKING WITH JUNIOR Placing a CGI asset into a 3D action movie is not an easy proposition, but this was the challenge for Weta Digital. Portelli had to help enable the knit, as he explains. “It’s really exciting. Guys like me who shoot stereo, if you’re lazy and if you’re not careful and you don’t understand every shot, the VFX element can really make horrible 3D. “I’ve got to run around and follow the first AD and the VFX supervisor to make sure there’s nothing happening I don’t know about, because I set the stereo based
22 The number of years the film took from conception to cinema release 48fps The frame rate of The Hobbit, the first widely released feature film series shot using HFR
36 DEF I N I T ION | NOVEMBER 20 1 9
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