ICG
MAGAZINE
TIPS &
TRENDS ISSUE
KONG
featuring
SKULL ISLAND
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LIGHTING FOR
VR
SHOOTING
FIST FIGHT+
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Feb/Mar 2017
vol. 88 no. 02
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icgmagazine.com
Larry Fong, ASC, pulls some sleight-of-hand visual magic
for the latest incarnation of Kong, the great ape
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BY Matt Hurwitz
FRAME GRABS courtesy of Warner Bros Pictures
UNIT STILLS by Chuck Zlotnick
OTHER IMAGES courtesy of Larry Fong, ASC
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It’s hard to find a more enduring (and
misunderstood) movie monster than the
great gorilla, Kong, who made his debut
in Merian C. Cooper’s 1933 self-titled
feature and has reappeared on the big
screen twice since (by Dino De Laurentiis
in 1975 and again by Peter Jackson in
2005). Visual effects have been key to
Kong’s legacy since Willis O’Brien’s stopmotion magic first brought the big ape
to life; then Jackson’s own WETA Digital
VFX shop brought the monster to another
level 12 years ago. Now, in 2017, director
Jordan Vogt-Roberts, working with Larry
Fong, ASC, and a host of ILM effects
masters, has updated the timeless tale,
having the 100-foot tall Kong doing battle
on his home turf.
Kong: Skull Island takes place just after the
end of the Vietnam War. The plot involves a pseudoscientific organization (led by John Goodman) that sends
a group of former military explorers to a remote island in
search of strange and undiscovered creatures. Led by a former
British SAS tracker (Tom Hiddleston) and an American
colonel (Samuel L. Jackson), the misguided warriors trigger
Kong’s wrath when they drop explosives on the island from
whirling choppers. In response, Kong destroys the colonel’s
helicopter fleet (and a good many of his men). The remaining
team, including a photojournalist (Brie Larson), chance upon a
long-stranded American (John C. Reilly) and try to make their
way off the island.
Among the first decisions production company Legendary
Pictures made was to enlist Fong. Producer Alex Garcia
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says Vogt-Roberts wanted a “fresh look”
unrelated to Jackson’s version. “We wanted
someone with the ability to make the many
jungle locations really pop,” Garcia recounts.
“We were very fortunate to get Larry.”
In fact, Vogt-Roberts wanted to create
an island environment that wasn’t so much
fantasy as a fantastic place. “Almost like a
bastard child of nature,” Garcia adds. “Tactile
and beautiful, but also incredibly dangerous.”
Also Vogt-Roberts wanted to conjure a
different feel from previous franchises or
series. “Jurassic Park has owned the aesthetic
of Hawaii,” he notes, “and I wanted a
different kind of landscape.”
Kong’s look
has elements
of naturalism,
but [Fong]
veered the
visual style
into its own
world.
In fact, it took three countries to create Skull Island.
Shooting began in Hawaii where veteran A-camera
operator P. Scott Sakamoto, SOC, says they were able to
move efficiently through familiar territory. Along with
beaches and jungles, several key scenes were filmed on
Kualoa Ranch, including the film’s Boneyard Valley and
Fire Lake sequences, with a military base in Oahu used
for parts of the big helicopter sequence. A large amount
of 2nd Unit work, led by director Spiro Razatos and DP
Jacques Haitkin, also took place in Hawaii.
Joining Fong and Sakamoto was 1st AC Bill Coe and
B-camera operator Steve Adcock (who, like Fong, had
also worked in Hawaii on Lost) and gaffer Walter Bithell.
The company then moved to Australia’s Gold Coast,
with stage work at Village Roadshow Studios, including
the interiors of a freighter and that of the long-ago
shipwrecked Wanderer, which the locals use as a shrine
to their oversized ape god. Fong lit that impressive set
with striking shafts of light piercing through its rustedout hull using beam projectors, PAR cans and moving
lights. (Fong’s seasoned Aussie team included B-Camera
Operator Calum McFarlane, C-Camera Operator Damian
Wyvill, ACS, and Key Grip Toby Copping.)
When Kong: Skull Island moved to Vietnam, the
film’s look was fully solidified. Fong and Vogt-Roberts
were able to introduce numerous unique South Asian
elements.
“The landscape there, with those huge limestone
plinths,” McFarlane says, referring to the unusual rising
Karst towers in Ha Long Bay, to the north, “are hard
to describe. They’re 100 feet tall, almost like teeth, and
perfect for a character who’s that big. They let [Kong]
appear and disappear, and it looks not quite of this world.”
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Vogt-Roberts’ naturalistic vision
drew on 1970s-era films. Or, as he
describes it, “sort of a funhouse-mirror
version of Apocalypse Now – capturing the
beauty, but also something that’s digestible
and fun.” McFarlane calls the look Fong
captured “overripe. There’re elements of
naturalism, but it veers into its own world,
so you’re more prepared to accept fantastical
creatures,” he observes.
As Fong notes: “It was our intent to
emulate and embrace the style of 1970s films.
But in the end, though, you can’t completely
do that without becoming a parody. So
we didn’t hesitate to use more modern
film techniques, such as Technocrane and
Steadicam, that help tell the story as well.”
The director sent the B-camera unit to
capture additional nature for use as inserts.
He added DP Ross Riege to shoot nature
footage once ensconced in Vietnam. Riege,
who has worked extensively with VogtRoberts in TV and indie features, said the
director wanted “an autonomous mobile
unit he could send out to nab things he had
seen during the day’s shoot or on a scout. We
had an Alexa and would just bring with us
whatever lens Larry or Bill Coe could spare
for the day, or even for an hour.”
Fong and Vogt-Roberts credit Fotokem
colorist Dave Cole with helping pin down the
look, along with DIT Robert Howie, whom
Fong calls “my secret weapon.”
“He went out and developed LUTs for
certain scenes,” most of which were based on
a Show LUT from Steve Yedlin, ASC. “We
called it the S-LUT,” Fong chuckles.
Fong shot on ARRI ALEXA XT Plus,
supplied and supported by Panavision LA,
with occasional use of a Phantom for highspeed shots. Fong also turned to Panavision
for some custom anamorphic lenses. “I
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“Everyone thought [me
and Larry] were crazy
for wanting to shoot
anamorphic because
Kong was so tall.”
– Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts
always knew I wanted to shoot anamorphic – which everyone thought was crazy,
because Kong is so tall,” Vogt-Roberts reveals. “But I knew if we could find a way to
fit him in the frame, or use that frame to actually make him feel bigger, because he’s
being cut off, that would achieve what I wanted.” Fong adds that although “some didn’t
agree with the choice, we stuck to our guns, and I think the images prove us correct.”
On a visit with Dan Sasaki at Panavision, Vogt-Roberts saw elements from various
older lenses to create something unique, “one which allowed us to have a clean, modern
look, but with some idiosyncrasies that also feel vintage at the same time,” he recalls.
Fong adds that he and Vogt-Roberts “wanted a specific vintage look that no lens we
knew had.” As Coe explains: “We assembled the lenses with Cooke primes as the base
lenses of the whole series. We used a single-layer coating to give them the older-looking
amber flare that Jordan loved. And then Dan put the whole thing together in some old
B-series anamorphic cylinders, making what we called a ‘B hybrid set.’”
“They performed well – sharp, but not overly crisp or contrasty,” describes
Sakamoto. Adds McFarlane, “Putting this older glass in front of digital sensors gives a
real Seventies big-screen look, something like Close Encounters.”
Copping suggested an interesting camera-head system – CineMoves’ Oculus 4-Axis
Gimbal, used in conjunction with the company’s CineFlip head, mounted on their
Extreme Gator vehicle or a 45-foot Scorpio crane.
“It’s super stable,” Copping relates. “You can use it without a leveling head.
The CineFlip allows you to go from underslung to overslung in about 15 seconds.”
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“We used a single-layer coating
on the Cooke prime lenses for that
1970’s amber flare Jordan loved.
Then [Panavision’s] Dan [Sasaki] put
the whole thing together in some old
B-series anamorphic cylinders.”
– 1st AC Bill Coe
Adds Fong: “The Oculus is a game changer – quick, robust and
reliable.”
The Oculus – in combination with the diminutive G-F-M
GF-6 crane, as well as that company’s sliders – came in particularly
handy on the plentiful boat work in Vietnam. “Because of the
environments there, we couldn’t really use any large equipment,
such as Technocranes,” Copping continues. “I was only allowed
a minimal lighting and grip package,” Fong adds. “The Oculus
remote head and the crane arm lived on their own boat for the
duration. Without them, our boat scenes would’ve been fairly
pedestrian.”
Boats were the prime way to travel inside Vietnam,
both as camera and picture “vehicles” and as a “transportation
department,” sometimes helmed by the locals. The vessels moved
the team from one base camp to another and to scenic locations
in Ninh Binh, which included scenic caves and the waterways that
pass through the mountains. Gear was stowed in little wooden
boats, probably no longer than eight feet long, and paddled by
women who typically ferry tourists, not filmmakers.
“Every remote location in Vietnam was reached using
multiple boats,” Fong explains. “Larger boats were brought
in by our marine specialists for the crane and other heavy
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equipment. For the ancillary support crew, we frequently used
small, local skiffs and their friendly, helpful owners, who rowed
around by hand, and also their feet. I still can’t figure out exactly
how they were able to do that!” he laughs.
The locals also assisted on set – two bilingual Vietnamese
ADs were especially helpful with extras – and they got to enjoy
Fong’s legendary other passion – magic. “When given a chance,”
Sakamoto smiles, “Larry’s more than happy to entertain,” with
the local hosts being especially enthralled by his sleight-of-hand
tricks. “He would finish, and you could hear them all asking,
‘How did he do that?’ in Vietnamese.”
Big VFX elements in Kong were led by VFX Supervisor
Stephen Rosenbaum, working closely with Sakamoto and main
unit, while ILM VFX Supervisor Jeff White shadowed the 2nd
Unit camera team, led by Haitkin and his operator, Onofrio
(Nino) Pansini, along with other top operators as needed,
including veteran Henry Tirl.
Haitkin’s unit, which worked only Hawaii, shot with the same
ALEXA XT Plus that Fong did, and, as much as possible, with
the same anamorphic lenses. (Haitkin did use spherical lenses
for some VFX plates to take advantage of the XT Plus’s large
sensor.)
“We made a pledge to shoot anamorphic as much as we
could,” Haitkin recalls. “But when there’s a shot that will have
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multiple layers, [ILM] doesn’t want to be dealing
with an optical deficiency.” [White notes that
ILM went to great effort to pre-test the custom
anamorphic lenses and map unique color and
flaring qualities, to digitally reapply them in post
to spherically captured images.]
Providing more image data was also the key
to the many aerial sequences captured by David
Nowell. “We shot with the Alexa open gate to
account for any frame-line deficiencies,” Haitkin
informs. “We protect for 2.40, but if something
bumps the full-frame spherical shot, at the top
and bottom, there’re huge amounts of space that
you can dip into, optically, top and bottom, to
catch the action, without having to cut. I also
leave five percent on each side for any lateral
jumps.”
Pansini employed a specially modified Talon
two-axis repeatable (i.e. motion control) remote
head that could whip-pan as high as 560 degrees
in one second. “It’s rigid and powerful,” the
operator explains. “For its size and weight, it can
handle massive G force and not have motors
stall or slip. It is precise and records all the
moves,” something Haitkin favored for complex
crane moves.
The Talon was important for the complex
helicopter battle with Kong (which the crew
affectionately called “Flight of the Valkyries”).
Pansini would fly handheld, his feet duct-taped
to the skids of one of the three Huey helicopters
in the scene, to capture the actors inside. “That
was an exhilarating experience,” he adds, noting
the obvious!
Nowell, working with his longtime pilot,
Fred North, shot both action and VFX plates in
Hawaii and Vietnam. For single-camera 2nd-Unit
work, he used the ALEXA XT Plus housed in
a Shotover K1 6-axis stabilized gimbal system,
shooting with 11:1 zoom lenses that Panavision
modified for the occasion to a 26-300 mm. For
other plates, including landscape backgrounds,
Nowell used a system developed by his own
rental company, Team 5, with Shotover, known
as the Hydra. The system comprises two rows
of three toed-in RED Dragons. “It provides an
image that’s 152 degrees wide and 64 degrees
top to bottom,” Nowell explains. “Each Red
is 6K resolution, so that’s a 36K image.” Just a
few passes through a scenic Vietnamese canyon
would provide an image with nearly 270 degrees
of coverage. “Our time was tight every day, so
that was an incredible help,” ILM’s White adds.
Some action sequences required a
complex blend of Main and Second
Units. For the Valkyries, Nowell and North
found themselves capturing the three Huey
helicopters as they encircled Kong (sometimes
circling them in the opposite direction to ramp
up the energy) or flying with them to capture
their POV as a VFX plate. (Pansini was onboard
one of the birds, capturing detail.)
Afterwards, Fong shot a Huey mockup
inside an aircraft hangar with a 360-degree green
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Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts with actress San-TIAN JING
For the Valkyries
scene, Fong shot
a mockup inside
an aircraft hangar
with a 360-degree
green screen,
and Sakamoto
strapped to the
outside of the
violently shaking
Huey.
53
screen. Sakamoto was strapped onto the outside of the shaking
buck to capture the actors inside. “That thing shook so violently,
it was all I could do to hold onto the camera,” Sakamoto recalls.
(Adcock supplemented with Technocrane work.)
As for lighting the scene, Fong noticed during an aerial scout
a rotor shadow on the chopper pilot. “It was kind of pulsing,”
he remembers, “so we had Walter think of a way to get that
subtle pulse.” The gaffer devised a lighting scheme comprised of
AAdynTech Punch Plus 5500K and Chroma Q Color Force LED
units, with 18K Arrimax lights with HMI shutters, arranged to
fire in a chase sequence to mimic the movement of light through
chopper blades.
Fong says the entire sequence takes place in morning light and
took an “incredible effort and collaboration” between many teams
to bring to the screen. “Dave Cole with Fotokem was instrumental
in maintaining a sense of continuity to this ten-minute scene,” Fong
reveals. “It was easily our biggest undertaking of the film.”
Besides previs, Rosenbaum and White would sometimes make
use of a tool first introduced on Jurassic World called Cineview.
Though ILM initially considered using a more complex mocap
visualization system, White says, “we realized in remote areas like
Vietnam we would need to stay pretty lightweight.” Cineview allows
loading into the iPad- and iPhone-bound app a simple, crude static
image of a character, whose distance from the lens and choice of
lens can be set within the app and applied to the device’s camera
image to show the operator proper framing on site.
“It would also help with making positive corrections, when
you have an actor who’s reacting to something in the foreground
or background,” Adcock shares. In one suspenseful shot, Samuel
Jackson’s Colonel Packard is awaiting Kong as the latter passes
through the woods. “[Jackson] was clenching his fist,” Adcock
concludes. “When the shot starts, Kong’s at a certain point in the
background. I went down to get [Jackson’s] fist, and when I went
back up, I knew to give it a little more headroom, because Kong
was approaching.”
Bringing Kong back to life was something Larry Fong had
always wanted to do, expanding on his fascination with the magic
of Willis O’Brien’s work. “I’ve been a big fan of King Kong since I
was a kid. Hopefully some of that is channeled into this film.”
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CREW LIST
HAWAII
Director of Photography
Larry Fong, ASC
A-Camera Operator
P. Scott Sakamoto, SOC
A-Camera 1st AC
Bill Coe
A-Camera 2nd AC
Bobby McMahan
B-Camera Operator
Scott Adcock
DIT Assistant
Julian Lawrence
2ND UNIT
Director of Photography
Jacques Haitkin
Camera Operator
Onofrio (Nino) Pansini
Camera Operator/Steadicam
Colin Hudson, SOC
Camera Operator/Steadicam
Henry Tirl
B-Camera 1st AC
Tony Nagy
Key Camera 1st AC/
Technocrane
Greg Luntzel
B-Camera 2nd AC
Rylan Akama
Talon Camera 1st AC
Rob Sagaser
DIT
Robert Howie
Steadicam 1st AC
Brad Edmiston
DIT Utility
Will Wacha
Crash Cam 1st AC
Steve Wong
Unit Still Photographers
Chuck Zlotnick
Mario Perez
Long Lens 1st AC
Matt Berner
AUSTRALIA/VIETNAM
A-Camera Team
(same as above)
B-Camera Operator
Calum McFarlane
B-Camera 1st AC
Ricky Schamburg
B-Camera 2nd AC
Robbie MacKinnon
DIT
Robert Howie
Key Camera 2nd AC
Matt Fortlage
Talon 2nd AC
Andrew Crankshaw
Steadicam 2nd AC
Noah Hamilton
Crash Cam 2nd AC
Brandon Ho
Long Lens 2nd AC
Nigel Nally
DIT
Brook Willard
Stop Motion.
Tips & Trends Issue
Chuck Zlotnick
This photo was taken in Oahu, Hawaii at a location called “the bone yard
set.” Having shot the Hawaii portion of Kong: Skull Island in different
jungle environments as well as valleys and on beautiful mountain tops, I
especially loved this set (comprising Kong family members) because there
were so many wonderful practicals to work with, as this image shows. The
art department did a fantastic job!
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