Pyro

Last week I worked on pyrotechnic and miniature shots for the movie Battleship. E....1....HIT!  These were all done on film, because slow-motion pyro still looks better on film than in HD video. We used an ancient Mitchell camera and a more modern 435 and, crazier than ever, a Photosonics high-speed film camera, a camera I haven't seen in about 8 years since all high speed stuff these days is done with a Phantom HD camera. This camera actually has a setting called "OUCH!"-- the highest speed possible--where everybody stands back and waits for all the screws to back themselves out, and hopes the whole thing doesn't explode.

The producer actually made the point that film is coming back into style for the moment, for 18 months at least, when he estimates that HD will kill off film forever. For now, though, the high-speed pyro on film is the best technology for the job, even though it's the oldest technology. He also pointed out that while we could go to the moon in 1969, there's no way we could go to the moon now, even though it's been 42 years, an eternity. These two comments were related somehow.

Our unit was a little ragtag and rough around the edges, but being in a parking lot with a large water tank and bluescreens surrounding us while blowing up miniature spaceships (I guess there are aliens involved?)--it reminded me of old still photographs of shooting Star Wars miniatures at Industrial Light and Magic. Hirsute men, shirtless, in short cutoff jeans, baking in the California sun, working over 1/6 scale X-wing fighters in some unglamourous parking lot.

That's us! Hirsute!