Shooting The Hurt Locker

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Fri, 02/12/2010 - 19:00 -- Nick Dager

For the second year in a row the two films widely considered the front runners for top Oscar awards including Best Picture Best Director and Best Cinematography were shot using at least some digital cinematography. That the 3D blockbuster Avatar shot digitally is well known. What is somewhat surprising and has received less coverage is the fact that the gritty war film The Hurt Locker used digital cinematography in some of its most powerful scenes. For the film director Kathryn Bigelow sought to immerse audiences in her words into something that was raw immediate and visceral. She said she was impressed with cinematographer Barry Ackroyd's work on United 93 and The Wind that Shakes the Barley and invited him to shoot The Hurt Locker. The decision to shoot the movie documentary style came long before the production started and was one of the reasons that director Bigelow chose Ackroyd for the project. “That’s my style ” he says. The film used multiple Aaton S16mm cameras to capture multiple perspectives. Bigelow says That's how we experience reality by looking at the microcosm and the macrocosm simultaneously. The eye sees differently than the lens but with multiple focal lengths and a muscular editorial style the lens can give you that microcosm/macrocosm perspective and that contributes to the feeling of total immersion. Filming began in July 2007 in Jordan and Kuwait. Producer Greg Shapiro says It was interesting telling people we were going to make the movie in Jordan because the first question everybody asked was about the security situation here. Often four or more camera crews filmed simultaneously which resulted in nearly 200 hours of footage. Although the filmmakers scouted for locations in Morocco Bigelow sought greater authenticity and decided to film in Jordan because of its proximity to Iraq. Some of the locations were less than three miles from the Iraqi border. The Hurt Locker shoot lasted 45 days. Temperatures were routinely over 100 degrees with 100 percent humidity. “The condition were quite difficult at times ” says Ackroyd mainly the heat and humidity. This was especially true when they were shooting in Kuwait and were within a few miles of the Iraqi border. While the majority of the film was shot with the Aatons the explosion scenes were shot in slow motion with the high-speed Phantom HD camera. “That technology supersedes film technology in slow motion ” he says. Although the slow motion shots make up only a small percentage of the overall movie their impact is powerful. “The slow motion had a real purpose for the story ” he says. “They were absolutely the right effect. You have to find a way to integrate digital technology into the story ” he says something he feels they were able to do with The Hurt Locker. He gives a lot of credit for this to the special effects supervisor. All of the equipment held up beautifully. That the Aatons came through was not a surprise to Ackroyd who has used them frequently in the past. They are workhorses from countless documentary shoots. He was pleased that the same was true of the Phantom which was rented out of Lebanon. After all he says the camera is essentially a computer and was used mainly to shoot explosions. Ackroyd says the Phantom operator who also came from Lebanon took special care to protect the system from the shocks and dust from the blasts by covering it as much as possible with a small tent. Ackroyd loves shooting film and recently completed shooting two movies on film using Arriflex cameras. The first was Green Zone with director Paul Greengrass starring Matt Damon. The second was The Special Relationship with director Richard Loncraine and stars Michael Sheen and Dennis Quaid. Ackroyd has shot digitally in the past on commercials and other projects. He’s used a number of digital cameras including the Red and although he loves the look of film he will shoot digitally in future projects when that choice is dictated. He’s especially enamored with Canon’s professional digital still cameras that are also capable of shooting 1080p high definition video. Among the applications he sees for a camera like that are scouting locations and creating simple storyboards. “You can use it to shoot a little bit of a film or just to shoot stills ” he says. “That’s a fantastic tool to have.” Still says Ackroyd “I like the texture of film” and he compared it to sculpture. For one piece a sculptor will work in marble for another bronze. “What’s brilliant at the moment is we have choices.”