 David Geffner ICG Magazine (USA) June, 2008 The Spy Game Dean Semler, ASC, ACS pushes the genesis to the limit for Get Smart  Fans of the 1960 s era TV show, Get Smart, will recall the sitcom s infatuation with gadgetry, often with hilariously comical results given how poorly the new technology performed in the hands of its bungling protagonist, Agent 86. The new feature film, Get Smart, from director Peter Segal and starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway, is, like its source, filled with visual wizardry. (...)(...) The sky would appear to be the only limit when it came to the thousands of feet of film shot for insert and background plates for Get Smarts action scenes. Second unit DP Don McCuaig credits a small methanol powered remote-controlled helicopter called the Flying-Cam for platework and point-of-view action shots captured in challenging industrial terrain. Designed by Belgian engineer Emmanuel Previnaire nearly twenty years ago, the Flying-Cam was created to give cinematographers the option of close-range aerial filmmaking. Its tiny size, about six feet, and weight, about thirty pounds, allows it to get into locations full-size choppers cannot access. For one such example in a Vernon rail-yard, Flying-Cam pilot Remi Epron was strapped into the back of a high-rail pickup that drives backwards along the track while a freight train is chasing them down. Epron had to keep the Flying-Cam helicopter (controlled by an RF signal) at a precise distance from the front of the train while moving backwards. I ve done a lot of complicated shots, but never while being chased down by a train, Epron notes. McCuaig says the Flying-Cam was also used to capture tricky point-of-view shots through and alongside the Schuyler F. Heim Lift Bridge in Long Beach Harbor, a no-fly zone for full-sized helicopters that was only available for twenty minutes before Cal-Trans officials lowered the bridge. The POV from the plane that Max uses to chase down 99 and Agent 23 in the SUV had to fly on a knife-edge between two narrow bridge supports, so the Flying-Cam was the best solution for a challenging location, McCuaig explains. Flying-Cam operator Michael Kirsch says the great thing about the remote aerial system is its ability to get access to rare shooting positions, which for Get Smart also included low-hanging electrical wires that presented numerous safety issues for a full-sized helicopter mount. (...) |
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