DEFINITION August 2019

Aerials shot were taken by Helicopter Film Services, with Jeremy Braben as the aerial director of photography. The team shot in locations such as London, Morocco and Ischia, as well as Italy for a speedboat scene with actor Chris Hemsworth. Shooting was done in conjunction with the main and second unit, where the second unit director was Wade Eastwood and the second unit DOP was Lucas Jogalla. Helicopter filming used the Arri Alexa 65 and Alexa Mini on a Shotover mounted on an Airbus Squirrel. Drone filming used the Aerigon heavy-lift drone with a Movi Pro gimbal carrying an Alexa Mini and Master Prime lenses. Alan Perrin was the drone pilot. The drone sequences were all filmed in Morocco, with some aerial plates filmed in the desert dunes. And in Marrakech, plates were filmed for action sequences in the Medina. In London, the team filmed plates for the Hyperloop sequence – an underground train that moves at hyper speeds. The team used the Shotover K1 gimbal with the Arri Alexa 65. However, there were location issues, as travelling between locations was difficult in Morocco – from Tangier in the north to the desert. The team battled with local congestion, crowds and sandstorms that appeared out of nowhere. The locals seemed to know when a storm was on its way before the production. Jeremy Braben, comments: “When it came, it was like having wet sand hurled at you at 50mph. There were a lot of rashes on the legs of crew and sand in equipment!” MIB – FROM THE AIR

me, but once we became ‘international’, it becomes much more opened up in places like London, and especially Morocco.” Being true to the previous movies meant lots of VFX, a task made easier thanks to virtual production introducing many aids for filmmakers. “It’s getting easier,” Dryburgh says. “I’ve been dealing with VFX on a crude level with chromakey and Ultimatte since I was shooting TV commercials back in the eighties. We used to shoot chromakey for film and Ultimatte in the digital realm, so I’ve done all that for a long time. There’s a lot more tolerance from the VFX side – you don’t have to have a perfectly exposed blue or green screen, On one level, you need to be true to the franchise and to the style of the franchise, but this was a reboot

large amount of data. “As I do with all my Alexa 65 shoots, we use LTOs and archive at 4K,” he explains. “No one wants 6.5K. It’s great as a form of oversampling of the image at the capture end, but there’s really no particular value in keeping it that way. I have offered studios an archive of the 6.5K just in case they ever need that resolution, but no one has been that keen to spend money on extra storage.” MIB CHALLENGE With a new director and DOP, what could they bring to the MIB franchise without changing it too much? “On one level, it needed to be true to the franchise and to the style of the franchise – recognisably from the same stable of movies, but this was a reboot,” says Dryburgh. This meant none of the original characters were used, except Emma Thompson. But how do you inject new life into it? “That was certainly [director] Gary’s aim and was his brief to ABOVE Actress Emma Thompson is the only cast member remaining from the previous films

IMAGES Left and middle: drone and aerial crew, including Jeremy Braben (aerial DOP); Alan Perrin (drone pilot); Oliver Ward (chief aerial technician – helicopter); Taylor McClean (drone camera assistant) and Derek Desmond (aerial operations). Right: actor Chris Hemsworth in a speedboat, shot from above

14 DEF I N I T ION | AUGUST 20 1 9

Powered by