Page 22 - Fujifilm Exposure_40 Golden Compass_ok

THE GOLDEN COMPASS
“We’re in a parallel world
where the night and even the moon is golden, as opposed to a silvery blue moon.”
continued from page 18
“I suppose for me coming on to this I’d had the cumulative experience of working before in the ice (with the Arctic doubling for Shackleton’s Antarctic), done a family movie (Nanny McPhee) and also something with com- plicated visual effects like Flyboys. You could say that those three things made this a kind of natural.
“In the end, it’s more about hav- ing a common ambition. That’s cer- tainly what I look for when I want peo- ple to work with me. I don’t expect them to come in with all the answers, but you expect them to have the right frame of mind, the correct general approach to the matter in hand.”
At the core of the story set in a parallel world with powerful ties to our own is 12-year-old Lyra Belacqua (newcomer Dakota Blue Richards), a rebellious orphan, whose adventure, together with her friendly daemon Pantalaimon (voiced by Freddie Highmore) begins in Oxford before moving North to icier climes as she investigates a cruel kidnapping.
Also stirred into the colourful tale are a whole raft of human, animal and quite otherworldly characters - heroes and villains - portrayed by a mixture of well-known stars such as Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green and Sam Elliott.
From the inception, the visual palette for The Golden Compass involved varying moods that changed in subtle ways throughout Lyra’s jour- ney. Braham worked with Weitz to bring into focus the vast canvases he sought while never losing touch with the psychology of the individuals in the scene.
“The colour at the beginning is rich, golden, warm tones,” Braham describes. “We’re in a parallel world where the night and even the moon is golden, as opposed to a silvery blue moon. That is the Oxford world.”
In London, Lyra is dazzled by the dramatic change in scenery from Oxford. “She goes on this fantastic physical journey to Mrs. Coulter’s (Kidman) London, which is sparkly and seductive,” he explains.
“With the practical lights, we burned them out a bit so they’re kind of white and crisp. But when she escapes from Mrs. Coulter, the night- time London in our parallel world has a much greener light.”
As she moves north, the land- scapes become “cold, silvery, blue hues, which is a romantic version of the north,” Braham describes. “I’ve
spent some time on the ice in the Arctic and it’s actually very beautiful. There is a lot of colour in the ice.”
Planning for the substantial visual effects was worked intricately into the production plan, so that tests could begin even prior to physical production.
“Fundamentally, the process of how we were going to do something and, more importantly, why we were going to do something, was decided a lot earlier,” recalls Braham. “Some scenes required a huge load of visual effects painting, and pre-visualisations helped us all stay on the same page.”
Braham says that the references for the ‘look’ were ‘the pre-Raphaelites and that heightened reality. That’s Pullman’s theme, really – everything based in reality. It’s a parallel universe, a world that combines Edwardian art nouveau and those kind of vernacu- lars. However, this is also a manufac- tured world – every prop in the world was manufactured – and that’s one of the complexities of conceiving it.
“It was an incredibly concentrated and difficult pre-production, with always these thoughts in mind: ‘What is the reasoning behind everything that comes up?’ and ‘How do you then execute it in a way that seems real and doesn’t draw attention to itself?’”
Around two-thirds of the film, Braham estimates, was shot on stages at Shepperton. Locations included Oxford (of course, utilising various colleges and streets) and Greenwich as well on the East coast of Norway just north of Bergen (for some plate work) and Switzerland’s Jungfraujok.
Originally scheduled at 20 weeks, filming actually took nearly up to a year including some pick-ups this past summer.
“Yes, Daniel became a star [in Casino Royale] while we were shooting. That was great, they thought. Write up his role? You bet. ‘Let’s have more of him’ they thought. Also Dakota grew a head height while we were filming – and she also grew as a person. She was very impressive and the way we used her required a very impressive piece of scheduling.
“Nicole Kidman had also to be carefully scheduled but she was also there a lot of the time because her character comes and goes a fair amount. She’s quite a villainess – dan- gerous, devious, scary and also glam- orous. Everything that’s in the book.
“There’s also animation in every frame. Once you enter that world, any-
thing’s possible because each charac- ter has its own alter ego – what Pullman calls a daemon. That was, of course, part of the complexity. Not only were you blocking a scene for what the actors were doing but also for what the daemons had to do. It was tough on the actors.”
Braham was keen to try and ‘visu- alise’ another of Pullman’s concepts – something he called ‘anbaric light’ which was the equivalent of our elec- tricity in Lyra’s world.
“My take on ‘anbaric light’ is rather than just a bare electric bulb there is a light source that has a feel to it; it’s constantly moving. There are some wide shots of this huge dinner scene where there are thousands of these bulbs. If you’ve ever been to The Painted Hall at Greenwich, imagine all the tables all the way down and if you look carefully everything is just mov- ing, just pulsing very slowly.”
Braham returned, as he has so often on past projects, to Fujifilm. “I was,” he admits, “very keen originally to shoot it digitally, but this was always conceived as a film project and there were enough things to worry about without that too. So, yes, it was mostly on the fast stock – the ETERNA 500T as well as ETERNA 250D – which is fine grain and very flexible.
“On anything visual effects orient- ed, you have to deliver a negative that’s very flexible. Flexibility for everyone is imperative so you have a responsibility to give everyone a lot of latitude in the negative.”
Paying tribute to both production designer Dennis Gassner and senior visual effects supervisor Mike Fink with whom he enjoyed a very close collaboration, Braham noted what was for him one of his greatest challenges.
“I think that has to be the first entrance of Mrs Coulter in Jordan College. It’s great. Nicole Kidman is the sort of actress who can carry that off in style, so it was a dream to photograph and great fun to do.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
The Golden Compass, on release in the UK from December 5, was originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA 500T 8573 and ETERNA 250D 8563 as well as using our new Intermediate filmstocks, RDI & ECI and will be released world-wide on 3513DI Positive Film
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