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SHOOT STORY THE SHAPE OF WATER
MOVEMENT FOR EDIT In fact most of the shots are
really well especially at the beginning as we were setting this weird tone. We just wanted to warn the audience that this is a normal movie but a little bit weird at the same time. It’s a little bit unsettling from the start.” “There is a tank used in the middle of the movie when Sally’s character and the merman are together but of course the problem using real water is that people can’t perform. You can’t really open your eyes properly. That middle sequence was just a matter of coming up for air and getting through it. In the opening she is lying on the sofa for about two minutes and that would never be possible under water. “We couldn’t afford to build a big tank and there were no really big tanks around Toronto where we shot. A lot of people I’ve spoken to, even filmmakers, didn’t know it was faked. They were saying, ‘that tank must be pretty big’. It works really well and the first shot is a long Steadicam shot so the camera’s really floating in there.”
Steadicam or shot with a jib arm on a dolly with a hot head on. “Most of the shots are designed by me and Guillermo. The way he is editing the movie is to shoot in a linear fashion, all set-ups are designed to go next to each other. The takes are more or less the length that they will be in the movie. The only person who can design that is Guillermo because he’s got to cut it together. Guillermo is so precise about his editing, the design of the shoot is mostly from him. He is shooting very chronologically so we have to turn around a lot. Of course that’s a bit painful as a cinematographer because you have to come back to the same lighting set-ups and some of those were pretty complicated to replicate. But you get used to that. Normally you shoot in one direction in the morning and then you’re turning around in the afternoon. We’re turning around all the time!”
TOP Sally Hawkins and Richard Jenkins. ABOVE Guillermo del Toro, Dan Laustsen, cast and crew.
THE PROBLEM OF COURSE USING REAL WATER IS THAT PEOPLE CAN’T PERFORM. YOU CAN’T REALLY OPEN YOUR EYES PROPERLY
DEFINITION APRIL 2018
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