Can you describe some of the looks you achieved on Blade Runner 2049?

RD: It has a wide variety of looks and atmospheres for the many different environments that action plays in. There’s the grey, foggy, smoggy dystopian city by day and night, and all manner of rain and snowstorms. The character Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), who builds the replicants, is blind, and I thought it would be ironically interesting to bathe the massive concrete building where he works with a warm world of moving sunlight, which Denis ran with.

The sets each came with their challenges. Sometimes we’d be lighting a set with 250 space lights and 32 x 12 light Maxi Brutes, sometimes with 76 ARRI SkyPanels, with 238 x 300W Betweenies, with a bare 24Kw bulb rigged to the bottom of a moving truss, or with just a few 2ft LED tubes supplied by Lightgear in London. We used lines of Colour Blast LED lights or Bad Boy spotlights to create the effect of overhead flying vehicles passing by. One set is lit by a 40’ x 30’ LED screen playing back an image we shot in pre-production, again similar to something we had done in Skyfall. Then there are variously settings where the overall cast is red or orange and for these we needed to gel every light with a specific filter pack.

There’s a scene set in a big stage show, for which we just used theatrical spotlights. That was interesting for me as we spent a lot of time in pre-production, working on a special lighting previz, so we knew exactly how the lighting had to be rigged with only a short time between rigging and shooting. The lighting had to be carefully choreographed and programmed, so that it was both in-sync with the action and repeatable on separate takes. We worked with Light Design Kft., a local company specializing in show lighting, and they did a fantastic job. I’ve done VFX previz before, and did some for the opening sequence, but doing a ‘lighting’ previz of a set was a new one for me.

How did you motivate the camera?

RD: I can’t say we took a particular approach to moving the camera. Overall, Denis’ style is sparse. He prefers wide shots, and likes to let the action play out in front of camera – nothing frenetic – which gives the actors space to perform, and gives the audience a relationship with the overall frame.

I operated, with Andy as my first AC. For a lot of the time I had the camera on my preferred Aerocrane. This is a sectional jib arm that can extend to around 14ft, and I use it in conjunction with a Power Pod remote head. It’s fast to set-up and you can reframe and make changes quickly as the scene develops. You just need a good dolly grip like Bruce Hamme, and a key grip like Mitch Lillian, to make it work. They were both very ably assisted by Attila Szûcs. When we needed a second camera or Steadicam I was fortunate to have my longtime friend and expert Steadicam operator, Peter Cavaciuti.

Otherwise we used specific gear for specific shots. A 50’ Tehnocrane came in handy for a couple of sequences and, on the other extreme, we used a drone for some shots.

What was your main challenge on this production?

RD: The challenge of any film is to sustain an aesthetic over a period of time, with consistency and unity. I do obsess and agonise about what I want to do and how best to achieve it. Blade Runner 2049 was especially challenging – due partly to the sheer diversity of looks, and partly to the schedule. The production was relentless. Our schedule was for a 91-day shoot, quite ambitious for what was on the ‘wish list’, but we really cracked along at a good pace, given we were hardly on one set for more than a few days at a time. So I have to thank my gaffers – Bill O’Leary and Krisztián Paluch – plus the various rigging gaffers from Hungary, New York City and Italy.

A special thanks to production designer Dennis Gassner and his team of brilliant art directors, which included Paul Inglis and Rob Maclean, as well as our set decorator, Alessandra Querzola, who was a valued and tireless help.

The storm scene set at sea and at night was only one example of a sequence that provided a specific challenge, because of the elaborate effects rigs necessary to float cameras close to the water, whilst being pounded by effects waves, as well as shoot from beneath the waves in a vehicle whilst it was sinking. For this we had two 50ft cranes with remote Hydro heads, plus an Aquacam MK5 housing for the Alexa XT, plus two Nauticam housings for the Alexa Minis, so each could cope with the waves and submerge when necessary. We’d originally planned to shoot this complicated sequence in the existing facility in Malta, but we ended-up actually building our own tank on the backlot of a studio in Budapest. Our problem was with our schedule and facilitating a difficult move from Budapest to Malta and back. With an array of wave makers and dump tanks and with misters and smoke machines it was quite a number.