BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE PRODUCTION
simple shot of a shrinker in a chair is an actor with an animatronic face on. That’s one actor performing and then two or three animatronic puppeteers working the eyes and nose, mouth and head movement to make it realistic. Most people would think that’s a visual effects shot, but it’s made completely in camera. Combine that with the various lighting cues and every shot is a challenge. This is also the first film I have ever worked on where there is almost not a single deleted scene; we used almost every shot we ever made.” Lighting for the film was split into two categories: the afterlife and the real life. Zambarloukos wanted to take it a step further with the afterlife colour, ensuring it always pulsed. “To do that well and with cohesion took a lot of programming, work and experimentation, then showing Tim the results,” he describes. “Every light was an LED and numbered to a channel. We wanted to have something organic as well so we used plenty of real firelight. SFX would bring what we called witches’ fingers, which was five copper tubes connected to a gas canister. They give off a flame, but you can control it. With copper wires, you can twist and bend them to angle it a certain way. There wasn’t that much firelight in camera, but there was the effect of it. The idea was to have something that pulsed – that was organic and very different from all the electronic and digital technology we were using.”
THIS IS THE FIRST FILM I’VE WORKED ON WHERE THERE ARE almost no deleted scenes ”
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