Walter Murch - David Watkin and the mirrored throne room (125/320)

Описание: To listen to more of Walter Murch’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Walter Murch (Film-maker)  

Walter Scott Murch (b. 1943) is widely recognised as one of the leading authorities in the field of film editing, as well as one of the few film editors equally active in both picture and sound. [Listener: Christopher Sykes; date recorded: 2016]

TRANSCRIPT: There was a wonderful example of David, his approach in shooting on the location of the mirrored throne room. And this is a main location in the film. And the walls are mirrored, the ceiling is mirrored and the floor is mirrored. So, from a cinematographic point of view, this is a nightmare because, where do we put the camera so we don't see the camera? Well, there are ways to do it. The mirrors on the wall were flexible so when we had the shot lined up, there was moment where we said, 'I see the camera in panel eight.' And all you had to do was move panel eight by five degrees and the camera would disappear. And you couldn't tell that it was shifted five degrees. So there was that kind of procedure.

But Freddie Francis's style of lighting... and he tried to light the throne room and he had difficulty because of his point-source lighting, made it impossible to hide all of these, the lights that he was using. And the result, which... We did shoot one day with his lighting and it looked unfortunately kind of dreary. And that set has to be really alive and sparkling. And so I was I very nervous when I took David Watkin onto the set and said, 'Well, here it is.'

And he looked around and he said, 'Marvellous, I've been waiting all my life for this kind of a set.' 'What do you mean', I said. 'Well, here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to light this whole set with one light.' 'How are you going to do that?' 'It's simple; you're shooting over here in this direction. I will put a 10k, which is a very big light, over there and I will angle the light to bounce off the mirrors and the floor and the ceiling, so that it caroms perhaps seven times before it, the light hits the set, the action. By the time it hits the set, the mirrors' surfaces will have diffused the light so that the light is not a searchlight kind of a light. It's got this beautiful glow to it because of... Every time the light reflects, it, there's a spill that happens. And I'll be able to light this set in five minutes flat. And then I can go off and do something else or take a nap.' And that's in fact what happened and the results are what you can see in the film. But it's a fantastic illustration of the problems presented by certain kinds of very difficult sets and the solutions that different cinematographers come up with to solve these problems.