|
|
| |
|
|
| |
The Hedonistic Wilson finds a cause beyond women cocaine and Manhattan cocktails when he visits an Afghani refugee camp at the Pakistan border. Production filmed some refugee camp scenes in Morocco, but had to abandon the location due to bad weather conditions. "We had this whole set and about 800 Middle Eastern extras in Morocco for the refugee camp scenes, ' recalls Edlund, "but we got blown out of that location when we were only about halfway through. This was in late October and early November, and we had every possible weather pattern - everything from beautiful, sunlit, Koda-chrome skies to fog to snow to rain. Finally, there was a terrific windstorm that blew away the catering tent and the wardrobe tent. We just couldn't shoot there anymore; and so we had to get the rest of the refugee camp stuff back in California, at Mystery Mesa."
At Mystery Mesa - a barren site frequently used by filmmakers - the art department build a city-block-square refugee camp set, which was populated with homegrown extras made up and bearded to look like the original Moroccan 'refugees'. The initial refugee camp shot starts on Tom Hanks in the foreground, then pulls back to reveal hundreds of thousands of displaced Afghanis living in makeshift encampments and tens. "It is the greatest shot of a refugee camp ever done, I think," said Edlund. "Tom looks around; and as he's looking, we pull back and back and back, revealing people and tents going on to infinity. It is a very vibrant shot."
Whodoo composited and animated a matte painting, multiplying the few hundred extras to hundred of thousands of refugees, and extending the block-square set to an equal number of tents dotting the terrain all the way to the horizon. "It was a pivotal moment in the film," observed Helena Packer, "where you literally see Charlie shifting his world view. As the camera racks focus and zooms out, your focus shifts from Charlie in the foreground and at the center of attention to Charlie engulfed in the immensity of the camp. Because it was so important to the movie, it became a very scrutinized shot. Mike Nichols was very concerned, for example, that it didn't become too generic as the camera pulled back. When you pull back from thousands of tents, at some point, everything just looks like topography. He was insistent that all the little vignettes of what was going on with the people register on the audience. So we played with the timing of the pullback and made is pretty slow at the beginning so that the audience would be able to see all of these people going about their lives in the refugee camp." |
|
For the complete Cinefex article please purchase the magazine by visiting the Cinefex website. |
|
| |
|
| |
| © Whodoo Efx 2009 - 2712 Wilshire Blvd. Santa Monica, CA 90403 - 310-828-6060 - info@whodooefx.com |
|
|
|
