In The Heart Of the Sea (2015)

Feature Film

Our Role
Main Unit onset DIT and Equipment Services

Directed by
Ron Howard

Cinematography by
Anthony Dod Mantle

Shooting format
Arri Alexa XT - Arri Raw
Canon C300 - H264
Indiecam - cDNG
NovoCam - H264

Experience

Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle teamed up with director Ron Howard for the second time on this exciting Warner Brother Studios feature film. Filming took place mainly in Leavesden Studios London, with a 6 week location shoot in La Gomera in the Canary Islands.

This was a very technical film that through up several challenges for Digital Imaging technician Dan Carling. Images were captured on a variety of cameras and formats. Arri Alexa XTs were chosen as the primary format and were the A, B and C cameras that played on all setups throughout the film. Recording Arri Raw internally to the 512GB Codex capture drives. Anthony also ran a full time ‘Mini Cam’ department consisting of 3 Canon C300s, 4 Indiecam POVs and 2 Novo Cameras. 

During filming, Anthony would use up to 7 cameras at any one time. Up to 3 Alexa cameras and up to 4 of mini cameras,  this meant that a new custom built colour and exposure management workstation was needed in order to monitor all these camera feeds simultaneously. All components were mounted in a 8U flight case that sat on a senior magliner when filming on land. For the 5 weeks in La Gomera filming took place out at sea. Here all DIT and video equipment had to be rigged into a support boat that would follow the action on the hero ship.

Images of up to 7 cameras were wireless transmitted from the hero ship back to DIT on the support boat, images and exposures set then Dan Carling could transmit back any camera feed to Anthony who was on the hero ship to check the frames at his request. To make matters more complex all mini camera rigs had to be totally water proofed as some shots involved the cameras being submerged for long periods of time.

Data management of the mini cameras was taken care of by the data wrangler but overseen and the workflow designed by Dan Carling. The workstation was always setup adjacent to his colour and exposure workstation even whilst on the support boat.

A magnificent shoot which over came many technical obstacles.