posted 04-29-2004 12:07 PM                       

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Van Helsing
How Allen Daviau, ASC Created a Fantasy Look
Get ready for a breathtaking journey to the past. The year is 1898, and Dr. Abraham Van Helsing is in Transylvania in Eastern Europe, determined to find and defeat Count Dracula. It’s not an uncommon theme.

More than 200 motion pictures in almost a dozen languages have featured Dracula in their titles during the relatively short history of film. Many other movies have focused on Frankenstein, Wolf Man and Hyde. All of those scary fictional characters, their minions and adversaries have roles in Van Helsing.

“My first impressions when I read the script were that it’s a homage to the Universal Studios horror films of the 1960s, and a huge opportunity to entertain and involve the audience in a compelling adventure,” says Allen Daviau, ASC.

His connection to Van Helsing began with a phone call from executive producer Sam Mercer. They had met when Daviau lensed Congo in 1995. Van Helsing was a different type of story for the cinematographer who has earned Oscar nominations for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Avalon and Bugsy, in addition to rendering images for such memorable films as The Falcon and the Snowman and Fearless.

Mercer outlined the story and asked Daviau if he was interested in reading the script and meeting with the film’s director Stephen Sommers. Daviau explains that he was a childhood fan of the genre. He saw most of Universal’s 1960s monster films more than once, and can still recite the stories, describe the moods, and comment on the “tremendous” performances.

He met Sommers and producer Bob Ducsay on the same day. Sommers has written and directed such thrillers as The Scorpion King, The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. Ducsay edited three of the director’s previous films.

Kidding with the genre
In the early Dracula movies, Van Helsing was an older, professorial scientist who was determined to bring Dracula down. In Sommers’ screenplay, Van Helsing is a younger man hired by the Vatican. He is accompanied by a monk who is a scientific whiz. Van Helsing meets Dr. Frankenstein, his hapless servant Igor and the monster they created. He also confronts the Wolf Man, and battles with Hyde in the belfry and on the street in front of the church at Notre Dame. Anna Valerious is also at the hub of the story. Her family spawned Dracula 400 years ago, and none of them can pass through the gates of heaven while the vampire is alive and claiming victims. Dracula and three of the vampire’s beautiful brides come onto the scene a little later.

“There’s a joy in Steve’s writing,” Daviau says. “He doesn’t mind kidding with the genre, but there is also tremendous depth in the characters. They are people you can understand and that helps to sweep the audience into the story.”

During pre-production they viewed a number of the older Dracula, Frankenstein, etc. films, including some of the more obscure ones that Daviau had never seen before. He also referenced his own laser disk collection and found inspiration in the original Dracula, photographed by Karl Freund in 1931.

They made an early decision to be true to the story and the mood. They decided the script called for an almost monochrome look with night and interior lighting mainly motivated by torches, oil lamps and sometimes colder, blue moonlight. There are occasional splashes of color in scenes like a costume ball for vampires.

“Allan Cameron (production designer) and I suggested composing Van Helsing in Academy widescreen ratio 1.85:1 with faster spherical lenses,” Daviau says. “It’s a homage to 1930s movies with vertical castles and towers. There are also scenes with people flying. Vertical space gave us more freedom to tell the story. We shot a few tests, showed them to Stephen (Sommers) and he agreed.”

During Daviau’s first meeting with Ducsay, they discussed the possibility of finishing the film in a digital intermediate process, which would enable the cinematographer to put final painterly touches on an almost monotone look. He shot a test that was scanned and converted to digital files at EFILM in Los Angeles. Daviau timed the film, and experimented with the look in collaboration with digital intermediate colorist Steven Scott.

Additional testing was done in conjunction with Industrial Light & Magic Co., which ultimately provided many visual effects shots, including wire removal and seamless compositing of blue screen elements with the flying vampire’s brides.

Torchlight
“Kodak introduced the VISION2 (500T 5218) film while we were in pre-production,” Daviau says. “I shot a test, and decided it had the right characteristics for a digital intermediate process, including an extended contrast range and minimal grain.”

They scouted locations in Prague and found architecture, including castles, high walls, streets and interior settings in an old cathedral that were right for the look and mood of the film. While scouting, Daviau realized how important having the right torchlight was going to be in very large interiors. His gaffer, Larry Wallace, took charge of that situation by assembling some experts who helped design a torchlight with a dimmer control and built-in flicker circuit. They used standard light bulbs that were dipped in orange dye that acted like a CTO filter.

The torchlight was designed to operate with the 220 volt, 50 cycles electrical system used in Europe, for torch lit scenes in Anna Valerious’ castle and several other locations. Daviau also combined the lamps with real torches with flames in many scenes.

Sommers cast Hugh Jackson as Van Helsing, Kate Beckinsale as Anna Valerious, Richard Roxburgh, a Shakespearian actor from Australia, as Dracula, Shuler Hensley as Frankenstein, Will Kemp as the Wolf Man, supported by a talented ensemble cast. Daviau shot costume and make-up tests with the main cast before leaving for Prague.

“Most of the costumes are black, brown and dark grey, because those were the colors used in that time and place,” Daviau says. “Gabriella Pescucci, the costume designer was fabulous. She designed a dark brown leather coat for Van Helsing. It had a luminous glow that is visible in very contrasty scenes. We had most characters dressed in black in most scenes. The 5218 (film) has an incredible contrast range that really helped in those situations.”

Daviau consulted with cinematographer Dean Semler, ASC, ACS, who had filmed XXX in Prague, about locations and for advice on augmenting his American camera crew.

“Dean had good things to say about Barrandov Studios and the lab they operate, which provided great film dailies and a screening room,” he says. “We built a few sets in the studio, including a cave with various shafts leading to the outside and some castle interiors that were not shot on location.”

About half of the film was shot in and around Prague, and the rest on sets in Los Angeles. Daviau notes that at the beginning of spring, they worked with assistant director Artist Robinson to schedule shooting at dusk and dawn when the sun was low on the horizon.

“Near the end of our time in the Czech Republic, we were shooting in a Transylvanian village that Allan (Cameron) designed outside of Prague,” Daviau recalls. “We used a Cablecam for an exciting scene where the three brides of Dracula shock everybody by attacking in daytime. They were flying around, snatching people off the ground and biting their necks. We pre-visualized those shots and flew the Cablecam with tremendous whirls and twirls and barrel rolls. It required quite a rig.”



Dramatic
A dramatic Cablecam point-of-view shot shows the audience a scene from the perspective of one of Dracula’s brides as she flies into the village from the next town. The shot begins high on a hill. She plunges into the village, weaving to avoid buildings, while chasing Van Helsing across the square towards the church. In another shot, Van Helsing fires an arrow and the Cablecam tracks with it to its destination. Key grip Jim Shelton also employed 30 and 50 foot Technocranes for additional dynamic camera moves. The basic Panavision package used by operators Paul Babin and Tom Connole included Panaflex Platinum and XL cameras and an ARRI 435 mainly for ramping slow-motion shots, and a complete set of Primo prime and zoom lenses. The second unit led by cinematographer Josh Bleibtreu carried a similar camera package.

“The vampire’s costume ball was staged in a former cathedral,” he says. “It was absolutely fantastic, but there were priceless 400- to 600-year-old paintings in the small lofts and altars that we used for lighting positions, so we had to be very careful. Allan Cameron dressed it to resemble a great ballroom in a castle. He gave us places to hide lamps, including torchlights with flicker circuits that kept the light in subtle motion.”

They viewed film dailies every day. Daviau explains that it gave everyone a much better idea of how visual nuances worked when a film print was magnified and projected on a big screen. Ducsay also watched every foot of dailies. Daviau notes that there are many ways that a video transfer can miss the mark, particularly when you’re shooting at low light levels and shadow details are important.

They shot big interior scenes on stages at the old Hughes aircraft construction plant where the Spruce Goose was built near Los Angeles, including about two weeks of bluescreen shots for visual effects sequences of Dracula’s brides flying. They also filmed interior scenes that were supposed to be in Dracula’s palace on a big exterior lot at an old McDonnell Douglas plant in nearby Downey, California.

“We had torches and fire fixtures that provided flame sources,” Daviau recalls. “There was a huge bridge nearby that we used as a platform for some big Bebee lights. I’m a big believer in the big light theory, because that puts the law of Inverse Square on your side. When you have big lamps far away, there is a consistency in lighting throughout the scene that looks and feels believable without unexplained shadows. It’s an old fashioned way of lighting that worked for Van Helsing because the new stock enabled us to use real flames in conjunction with the cold moonlight.”

Daviau tried to avoid shooting wider open than T2.8, because he believes that’s where the lenses work best, especially when there are actors moving around. On some big night exteriors, he opened up to T2.0. The cinematographer used very little filtration or diffusion. Daviau says he had that flexibility, because he knew it would be relatively easy to fine-tune the images while he was timing at EFILM.

“I believe Steve Sommers has succeeded in creating a story that will scare the audience and make them laugh at the same time, and that isn’t easy to do,” he concludes.

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posted 05-09-2004 03:58 PM                    

quote: Kamakshipalya Dhananjay

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10. Van Helsing.
A sheer nonsense. These kind films have always been. Only that few films really preserved the deceitful tradition of making you feel there is something really in such films. Van Helsing will not be one of them. In fact, if people are waiting for the realisation that they have been watching trash all along and expecting more of it, this film could just be the flick that will deliver this sacred realiastion to the masses.

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posted 05-10-2004 01:06 AM                    

quote: Ron Lacheur

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I've never really understood the importance of a big opening weekend and movies not making back what they produced.

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posted 05-11-2004 02:08 PM                    

quote: Kamakshipalya Dhananjay

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So, I still maintain it is going to find it difficult to breach that 100 million mark.

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quote: Richard Greco

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the US estimates are 54.6 million. Adding to that the 53 million dollars overseas and you've got yourself 107.6 million dollars on opening weekend worldwide.

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