endearing though it is in person , Chicago can seem like a drear , grey place on film . So when the Wachowskis decided to take cardinal moment of their newfangled movieJupiter Ascendingthere , they did n’t just wait for the most beautiful light — they built a whole new eccentric of camera to capture it .
Really , that should n’t storm anyone . The Wachowskis have given us some of the most memorable and compelling visuals of the past two ten in their films — from the bullet - time shots of the Matrix to the textured cityscape of Cloud Atlas . Their late pic , the exotic - gentry - versus - earthly - underdogs infinite opera Jupiter Ascending , is the kind of movie you ’d expect to be fill with rotatory , whiz - bang VFX . Less anticipate ? That it would rely so much on fit filmed in meatspace — with a camera unlike anything that ’s been build before .
If you ’ve seen the movie , you make love that an elfin Channing Tatum expend a significant lump of it above Chicago , hurtle between towers thanks to a pair of rocket boots . The Chicago you see in those scenes is n’t contrived . It was filmed with a tv camera carriage build byPictorvision , a Van Nuys - establish tv camera company .
Pictorvision specializes in building electronically stabilized systems to shoot aerial scenes . Its most well - known rig , the Eclipse , let director take what type of film or electron lens to use during ethereal shot , and controls the camera with a specialized system for stabilizing the vibration - prone helicopter shots and more sensitive controls . The Eclipse has been hugely pop over the past few years — it was used in shootinghalf of the top ten highest grossing action filmsin 2011 .
A picture of the internals of the MultiCam raiment shows stabilisation control .
But as Pictorvision ’s president , Tom Hallman , explained to me latterly , the party set out to build up something completely unique for Jupiter Ascending — roughly six times as unique .
The camera Pictorvision built for the Wachowskis — called the Multicam Array — habituate six off - the - ledge 5 K Red Epics , arranged in two rows of three . Each individual shot is stitched together , thanks to Pictorvision ’s software , into a exclusive plentiful , bird’s-eye shot — almost up to 36 super acid , according to Hallman .
A test shot over LA evince the Array ’s six Red Epics .
But let ’s back up for a second . Why would any director need that much answer ? What do all those extra pixels add together to Jupiter Ascending ? The resolution lie , surprisingly enough , in how the Wachowskis wanted to capture Chicago .
mouth toMeredith Woerner at our sis site io9 , Lana Wachowski explained that the goal was to shoot Chicago as it really look for a few arcminute at aurora :
So we went up there ’s this one menses , right before the sunshine fault , where the Sunday is reverberate off the lake and the sky and it lights up the sky in this Indigofera tinctoria , robust blue . And the L gearing and all the metropolis lights are still orange . And the blink of an eye of the metropolis slow going down and the sun slowly coming up . This transitional period is finely beautiful . We ’re with John Toll and he ’s saying , “ Oh my god it ’s amazing . What do you require to germinate : a kiss scene , a Latinian language setting ? ” And we say “ We want to shoot the following ! ” And he said , “ No , really ? ” And he looked at his watch and the period of time lasted about 6 minutes .
In other discussion , the entirety of Jupiter Ascending ’s aerial city scenes had to be take insix minute increase . Six minutes , hovering over the country ’s secondly biggest city , every break of day , until they get the shots they needed . face up with an entire summertime of aerial shooting , a camera that could film at an astoundingly high settlement became a priceless tool .
“ The problem we solved was the ability to get very high resolution collection plate shots passing rapidly , ” Hallman order . “ commonly , when time is not an issue , we would simply do multiple passes . In this event we were capable to get everything they involve in one or two passes , while the firing agree . ”
But the visual event team on the movie did n’t stop over using the Multicam Array when the aerial shot were done — shoot at such a high-pitched resolution had unforeseen benefits , and the crew terminate up using it elsewhere , too , like on a shoot from a gravy holder in the Chicago River .
Because of its ace - wide , super - detailed , super - high - atomic number 75 output , the Array made it possible for the squad to crop a 2 K or 4 K “ thumbnail , ” as Hallman calls it , out of a given shot and blow it up to full size .
“ In other words , they can take it once then re - do the composition ( frame ) as many time and as many different ways as they want , ” Hallman tell . “ That ’s really helpful especially when doing shooter where CGI things that fly will be added later . ”
Since Jupiter Ascending wrapped up shoot , the Array has spread — it ’s now been used in the filming of Annie , Avengers 2 , Jurassic World and Fast and Furious 7 . That ’s no huge surprisal , in light of the sheer disbursal and time it accept to represent an ethereal shoot — any shoot , really — in a picture . A photographic camera that let you reframe and choose certain dowery of footage is a bonanza .
So if you see Jupiter Ascending this weekend , pay close attention to those aerial shots . The lighting , the colors , the grit of its aging towers — it ’s all real , and it was all beautiful enough to inspire a camera that ’s change how movies are filmed .
CamerasCinematographyjupiter ascend
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