Simon Duggan ASC, ACS Uses Arrays of RED Cameras for George Miller’s Furiosa

my interview and words for RED Digital Cinema

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Director George Miller’s visual flair fuels every scene of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga with one spectacular sequence topping the rest. The film’s centerpiece is a thrilling chase in which Furiosa (Anya Taylor Joy), on board the 18-wheel War Rig, is attempting to outpace the Biker Horde of Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) speeding across the Australian desert.

The 15-minute sequence required 308 set ups and took 64 days to shoot by cinematographer Simon Duggan ASC, ACS and second unit DP Peter McCaffrey using arrays of RED cameras.

“We required lighter and more compact cameras for many of the action sequences and tight shooting environments such as under the War Rig and its driver’s cabin,” Duggan says. “The KOMODO and V-RAPTOR were perfect for this. We knew we had full control of the image with such a large sensor size and could easily shape it or add grain in the DI.”

To meticulously plan the set piece Miller pre-visualized it using 3D creation tool Unreal Engine in collaboration with second unit director Guy Norris. They input all the details of the real location, plus angles of the sun, camera angles and lenses, camera tracking vehicles, the actual vehicles and their speeds.

“George used this virtual world to put together a realistic animation of the sequence and to test his ambition to always keep the camera moving with the action and actors as if the camera was one of the characters itself,” Duggan explains. “The previs was designed to prove that it was physically possible to create all the camera angles and movement in the real world. It informed all the crew how to execute the scene and it minimized the amount of rehearsals and takes required to achieve it.”

Most of the sequence was shot on a 4km highway near the town of Hay, New South Wales. Duggan and McCaffrey broke down the whole sequence with sun angles, continuity and dynamic camera movement in mind.

Two V-RAPTORS were assigned to the main unit and another to the second/action unit. A total of eight KOMODOs were deployed including a five camera KOMODO array rig for shooting 240-degree background plates.

“The V-RAPTOR especially came into play when we used the two Steadicams, one with a Trinity arm attached. Operators Mark Goellnicht and Simon Harding wore the Steadicams for many hours on actor performance days including a one take shot lasting several minutes. We also used V-RAPTOR when the Edge Arm camera tracking vehicle was extended to its maximum for high flying shots around the War Rig.”

A second array rig of KOMODOs was built to scan the actors faces for any VFX face replacement requirements. KOMODOs were also mounted on intricate camera sliders which were attached to the undercarriage of the hulking War Rig vehicle. Working to Duggan’s brief, RED developed RED Control Pro, an app especially for the production to control the multiple KOMODO’s settings simultaneously with an iPad.

On the V-RAPTOR they shot Arri DNA primes and Fujinon Premista zooms while the KOMODOs were variously fitted with Canon RF primes, Zeiss compact CP3 primes and an assortment of Tokina, Angenieux, Sigma and Zeiss compact zooms. Duggan shot Spherical 2:39 while protecting for 16:9 to allow reframing for VFX purposes. “Each camera was set for maximum resolution and the lowest REDCODE Raw compression depending on the frame speed we were shooting,” he details.

Furiosa is much more complex visually than Fury Road with many locations only talked about in the previous film now shown on screen. The film opens at the Green Place from which Furiosa is abducted. It is a lush green Oasis on the edge of the desert appearing in stark color contrast to the barren red landscape.

Duggan continues, “We travel through a heavy orange dust storm to discover Dementus’ Encampment with tents made from translucent plastic. We see the ‘day for night’ look established in Fury Road yet with a more subtle cyan tint. There are satellite towns connected by roadways through the desert to the Citadel Fortress, one called Bullet Farm which is an ammunition factory with rusted steel infrastructure and red brick smelting chimneys.

Another, called Gas Town, is surrounded by a black oil moat supplying fuel and made up of filthy chrome piping and chimneys with leaking black oil over every other surface. We find a more complex interior to the Citadel with interiors, tunnels and grotto’s carved into the rock mountain.”

With this expanded playground, Duggan and onset DIT Sam Winzar created looks for each setting to accentuate the color and tonal differences. “We decided not to engage a dailies colorist as we knew the digital files were heading straight to the VFX team which our final colorist Eric Whipp was keeping a close eye over. As each post VFX sequence began Eric would step in to adjust the grades along with George. This included detailed fine tuning of the red earth landscapes, the orange dust storms and the blue/cyan ‘day for night’ look as well as general fixes such as sky enhancements and addition of blue-sky reflections to the chrome War Rig when shot on cloudy days.”

Another factor that came into play on Furiosa was the harsh and unforgiving desert environment. “We were mid El Nino with a repeating cycle of massive winds blowing red dust and rain creating sticky red clay followed at times by harsh sunlight,” he says. “The RED cameras handled the extreme conditions well. They were well protected from the rain and our grip, Adam Kuiper, developed his own ‘air blade’ system to keep the dust out of the lenses. The cameras and lenses had to be cleaned nightly, but we never had any problems.”