Post by greenguy on Oct 18, 2006 11:35:39 GMT -5
Flying Effects For The Greatest American Hero by Chuck Champlin in American Cinematographer
The situation facing the producers of "The Greatest American Hero" in the fall of 1980 was simple: if they couldn't make their hero fly, they couldn't do the show. Well, actor William Katt as reluctant superhero Ralph Hinkley does fly. It's not with the greatest of ease thanks to some legal battles with another caped wonder, Superman, but he does get to one crisis to another without visible means of support.
Chris Nelson is the producer of the show for Stephen J. Cannell productions in Hollywood and as he tells it the flying only happens because of the superpowers of some special effects people in Hollywood. The saga reveals a lot about the solving of cinematic dilemmas, TV style, and it also provides a look at two very different effects systems at work: the Ultimatte video compositing unit, and the Zoptic front projection technique developed by Zoran Perisic and used in the "Superman" movies and now available in Hollywood.
When ABC gave the go ahead for a pilot of "The Greatest American Hero", the producers, then Cannell and Alex Beaton, began a search for an effects house to which they could contract the flying effects. Their requirements were speed and cheapness. As Nelson put it, they had to be able to shoot today and see the results tomorrow. That left out traditional film blue screen, with it's three-week turnaround and costs of approximately $2,500 per composited shot. Also, it was thought that a superhero with frizzy blond hair would make a terrible matte. The only solution that seemed practical was to shoot a flyer suspended in front of a blue screen and use a video compositing system to marry that foreground with backgrounds of aerial photography shot from a helicopter.
Cannell Productions finally contracted with Magicam (then on the Paramount lot and fresh from much blue-stage work for public television's "Cosmos" series) to produce flying scenes and other special effects for the "Hero" pilot. Magicam's Stage 29 on the Paramount lot already contained a three sided cyclorama about 30 feet high with a 60-foot back and 40-foot sides. The floor was cast epoxy, sanded perfectly smooth and painted blue. Overhead, a carriage supporting a wire flying harness ran along a 65-foot track, it's motion controlled by ropes. Later, an electric motor was installed to propell the carriage and hydraulics were added to raise the harness.
The harness itself, supported by two thin, high test wires, was "a very painful, high tech jock-strap," according to Magicam's director of photography, Alex Funke. Actor Katt had to wear a lead plate on his back(GREENGUY NOTE: His back? All the pictures I have, except one show a pole running to Katt's stomach and attaching to a plate there. Although I do have one picture not currently posted that shows the pole running into his back as he is being filmed upside down so it's possible 2 kinds of metal plates existed)so he could tilt into the proper flying position. Fans ruffled his cape and hair. Filming was done with 35mm Panaflex X cameras, sometimes mounted on a Louma crane for shots where a floating effect was desired. The most significant flying scene produced at Magicam was the first in the pilot, where Katt actually learns to fly using the magic costume given to him by spacemen. He was to fly erratically down an alley and crash into a billboard, but because it was his first flight it was thought important to show his feet leaving the ground. This presented special problems because the composited image would have to be rock steady, any slippage of the actor's feet against the ground would destroy the illusion. (GREENGUY NOTE: You can sort of see this feet slippage in the pilot as the camera looks down on Katt as he runs and leaps into the air to fly over the mansion wall. Look at Katt's feet as he runs, they don't quite look like they touch the concrete he's supposed to be running on, it looks a little like he's running on air over the ground.) In normal flying scenes, motion against the background would be interpreted as floating.
First a background plate was shot in an alley with a young boy explaining how to fly to an empty spot Katt would occupy: "No, that's not how you do it. Like this. One, two, three, jump!" At that point, the camera lens zoomed back, supposedly following Katt's progress into the air. That lens movement was then duplicated exactly on the Magicam stage as Katt ran and jumped and was lifted into the air on the wire harness, all in front of the blue backing.
Then came the compositing step. The footage shot in the alley was transferred to 1-inch videotape using a specially modified Mitchell camera. The Mitchell movement's high-speed pulldown locked the film firmly into position during the milliseconds in which the video camera prepared to make its scans of the film frame.
The ponderous, projecting contraption, designed by Magicam, became affectionately known as the Dieselflex, because it was so noisy and would only move the film at 24 frames a second, forwards or backwards. Then, the background plate recorded on 1-inch videotape, the foreground image of the actor in his harness in front of a blue backing was likewise projected into the video camera and routed as an RGB signal into an Ultimatte video compositing system. The unit processed the two signals, foreground and background, and mixed them electronically to make the composite which was then recorded onto 2-inch videotape. The last step in this process devised by Magicam was to transfer the composited video image to film, which was done by Image Transform in North Hollywood. While that company is the best at this process in the business, everyone agreed, tape to film transfers are "the wrinkle in the whole business of video opticals," as Chris Nelson put it. Since the show was being produced and edited on film, there was no choice but to get the image back from video to film, despite the increase in graininess and reduction in contrast. The loss of quality was deemed acceptable for television.
For the "Hero" pilot, several days of filming were done on the Magicam blue stage. That included shooting foregrounds for combination with about eight specific background plates: to show Katt flying over walls and into bushes, carrying co-star Robert Culp, etc. Also, whenever possible, Funke shot foregrounds for a library of generic flying shots that could be drawn from later and composited with new background plates.
When ABC ordered seven episodes of "Hero" as a midseason replacement, before the pilot even aired, then-producer Alex Beaton decided to shoot two more days at Magicam, hoping that, and perhaps another pair of shooting days would give him enough foreground library material to serve for the seven shows. At approximately $75,000 to set up and shoot on the Magicam stage, he wanted to get his money's worth.
Because he didn't know what sort of background the flying would be matted with, Nelson, who directed the shoot, and Funke, had no choice but to light Katt very flat and even, with no suggestion of a dominant light source.. But they got a little of everything: Katt flying towards the camera, flying away from the camera, across, below, entering from the right, the left, the top, coming from far away, flying close and then over the camera. All angles that were possible were shot, using the harness or Katt lying on a blue board. Also, since Cannell Productions was being sued by Warner Bros. Over the alleged similarity between "Hero" and Superman," none of the flying that Katt did could be straight line flying. Cannell's defense against the suit was that the two characters were not similar because Katt flew erratically, but now he could never be shown flying straight, even for a moment, which put restrictions on what they could film. (GREENGUY NOTE: I have no idea how the author of this article came up with the flying straight statement, as we all know Katt flew in a straight line, not erratically, many many times, even in the pilot movie, and throughout the series run) Nelson got his money's worth out of the two day shoot at Magicam. He got enough generic foreground shots of Katt in front of blue backing to draw from for the first seven shows ABC ordered, and then for the next full season of 22 shows. But not because he planned it that way. He never had time or money to go back. The compositing process changed shortly into production of the first seven shows. Magicam realized that the "Dieselflex" rig was not working quickly enough in transferring the film to video for compositing, and in the meantime, Nelson got a good offer from Bill Hogan, director of Ruxton LTD. In Burbank, to do the conversion and compositing of the images. For virtually all the 29 regular shows, images were combined at Ruxton, using a Rank-Cintel, film-to-tape transfer device and the Ultimatte compositing system.
To meet those emergencies where a new script required a shot of Katt flying in a specific situation-holding something, for instance, or reacting to a certain background-the first unit grip truck carried a 12-by-12 foot blue screen and frame that could be set up on locations. They could only shoot Katt from the chest up as he lay on a board(GREENGUY NOTE: Not quite true, this is how they shot new blue screen flying F/X in the 2nd season to handle specific scenes, such as: Ralph reeling in the boat with it's rope in The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea, Ralph carrying Debbie in There's Just No Accounting, these among others show a lot more on the screen that just Katt from the chest up) but for short inserts it worked and it solved the problem of springing Katt from the set and saved the expense of going to the blue screen stage.
Another system that Nelson devised to try and improve Katt's flying technique was not so successful. Nelson set up a small blue screen out in a large parking lot and hung Katt down on wires in front of it. A camera on a Continental mount was placed on a insert car and driven towards or away from Katt, which Nelson hoped would crete the illusion of flight over longer distance to or from the camera. The camera's view did not have to be completely filled with the blue backing since a "window control" on the Ultimatte compositing unit can fill out the blue backing artificially if the foreground object is at least surrounded by blue. But many problems -including bumps in the parking lot, difficulty keeping Katt in front of the screen and finally lack of time to try the experiment again forced Nelson to give up the experiment. By and large, the system that evolved to get The Greatest American Hero into the air for a pilot and 29 regular season shows was a remarkable achievement of improvisation and compromise. As Nelson said, the results were acceptable and given the pressure of getting the shows on the air, there just wasn't time to try anything else.
And for the price it couldn't be beat. Ruxton's Ultimatte system rents for about $800 an hour. Bill Hogan at Ruxton said there was one 14-hour day when they turned out 112 different composited pieces at about $100 per shot, on 2 -inch tape, which still had to be transferred to the film negative by Image Transform. That's compared to the $2,500 per shot for blue-screen film shots composited on an optical printer. Hogan also recalled occasions when new background plates would be shot on a Tuesday, for instance. He would have the developed film transferred to 1-inch video tape on Wednesday, combine the background on the Ultimatte with appropriate foreground clip of Katt, take the composite on 2-inch tape to Image Transform on Wednesday night and get a film negative back by Friday, in time to cut it into the show which would be delivered to ABC by Monday for airing on Wednesday. That meant it took less than a week to go from raw elements to national television.
But about the time production on the first 29 shows was winding up in early 1982, Nelson heard that the Zoptic front projection system that had solved the flying problem on Superman I and II was being wooed to Hollywood by Paramount. Nelson contacted the designer, Zoran Perisic, and began negotiating, despite his fear that it would be too expensive. The Zoptic system was perfect for the needs of "Hero", if Cannell could afford the $10,000 a day basic rental fee. It was designed just for flying, and as a front projection system it took care of the compositing in the process of filming the foreground, a step that had to be taken anyway with blue screen.
Perisic's design works by creating motion in depth with zoom lenses and camera rolls, pans and tilts, while the foreground subject remains still. As with a normal front-projected compositing system, a projector puts a background scene up on a screen of highly reflective material. By using a two-way mirror, the axis of the camera is the same as the axis of the projector so the foreground object exactly masks it's own shadow on the screen in the view of the camera. Perisic's contribution to front projection special effects, which he has patented, is a pair of zoom lenses, one on the projector and one on the camera, synchronized electronically to zoom in and out in unison. When the zoom lens on the projector is projecting a large image of the background plate on the screen, the cameras zoom lens is viewing a wide image, too. As the projection lens zooms in either direction, so does the camera lens, and the background does not appear to change size inside the camera. But the camera zoom does bring the foreground subject closer or farther away, creating the illusion of motion in depth against what appears to be a fixed background. By zooming in towards the subject, it can be made to appear to fly towards the camera and then over the top of it.
Perisic has also developed an elaborate mounting system for the camera so it can pan, tilt and even roll over 360 degrees. Through camera moves alone he, can film a scene in which a flyer appears to enter the frame to the left, does a complete loop and then flies out the frame to the right. All the while, the flyer is mounted in a body mold on the end of a steel pole stuck through the front projection screen. He can be evenly lit and rest comfortably, free from fear of swinging into the rafters. Moreover the scene can be viewed on monitors as it is being set up so that lighting can be matched to the background. If the flyer is to move through a shadow,(GREENGUY NOTE: see Live at Eleven and Wizards &Warlocks to see the very effective scenes of shadows passing over Ralph when he's flying down the LA river) key lights can be dropped out to match this.
In April of 1982 Perisic set up his system on the Paramount lot. Cannell Productions found they could afford the rental since the costs of image transferring and electronic compositing would be gone. All of the compositing in the shoot on Perisic's stage. Still, Nelson confessed that their overall costs were slightly higher with the Zoptic system, but he felt that the results warranted it. This production schedule on the flying effects, for shows that began October 29, was much more straight forward. They still shot background plates from a helicopter, employing veteran pilot Jim Gavin, filmed slightly slower than normal to increase the feeling of speed in the air. For the new season, Gavin flew some spectacular scenes, down the Los Angeles river and under a series of low bridges, and straight at the Hollywood sign in another shot.(GREENGUY NOTE: The footage of Ralph flying past the Hollywood sign was never used in the series, but a rare photo of this scene can be found in the IMAGES section) The plates were then developed and put into the projector of the Zoptic system with a 1,000 watt, tungsten halogen bulb at 3,200 degrees kelvin that matched the color spectrum of the key lights used on the foreground character. The plates for "Hero" were standard 35mm, considered good enough for television.
For "Superman II," Perisic projected and filmed in Vistavision. Color correcting was possible using filters on the projector.
The actor was then put into his steel-ribbed fiberglass body mold, four of which were made for "Hero" at a cost of about $1,500 each. This mold was hidden inside the flying costume with pockets and slits so that it couldn't be seen at all. The mold fit on the end of a steel pole sticking through the front projection screen. The actor's body blocked the cameras view of the pole so he looked like he was floating in mid air. The pole holds him about 20 feet off the soundstage floor and a gantry slid into place to service the actor or the air tubes which ruffled his cape. Then, as the background plate was projected on the screen, the camera in it's special rig panned and tilted and rolled to create the flying motions. The actor didn't move, though he could be banked slightly, or angled relative to the camera using a knuckle joint on the end of the pole. However that joint was usually only employed to set the proper attitude of the actor, before the action began.
Nelson was euphoric about the flying scenes he was getting from the Zoptic system. He said he never really felt that Katt was flying before but thought that with Zoptic the illusion was very convincing. With the sensitive camera moves that are possible, and the ability to see the composite as it is made, the flying could be fine tuned so that the geometry was correct. After four days of shooting on the Zoptic stage (as of October), Nelson said he thought the camera operators were becoming very smooth and confident in their flying.
There are some drawbacks to using the Zoptic system, primarily the loss of flexibility. Though turnaround is very fast because of the composited image is ready as soon as the film can be developed, it takes a full shoot on the stage to get the composite. It would have been difficult for Nelson to get a specific shot for a late season show the way he did under the old system by setting up a blue screen out on location. He would have had to do a setup on the Zoptic stage with a full crew.(GREENGUY NOTE: So were many scripts already finished by the time shooting was held with the Zoptic system? You can see very specific flying scenes created by Zoptic, Ralph flying with the Helmet cam in The Newlywed Game, Ralph flying Pam on his back in Heaven is in Your Genes, and Ralph flying with the torn curtain over his head in Wizards & Warlocks, plus some others) Also, while he could build a library of composited shots using the Zoptic process, he couldn't draw on a catalog of basic flying positions to set against new backgrounds.(GREENGUY NOTE: Which is why we see several shots of Katt flying close up with a white background, for example as seen in The Newlywed Game and Desperado) The Zoptic system could theoretically be used with a blue gel in the projector to create the equivalent of blue screen behind the actor, and provide a foreground image that could be combined with new background plates using Ultimatte. But Nelson said he has no plans to do that. He felt that careful planning would provide him with the flying scenes he needed from the Zoptic setup, without having to return to video compositing and tape to film transfers.
The situation facing the producers of "The Greatest American Hero" in the fall of 1980 was simple: if they couldn't make their hero fly, they couldn't do the show. Well, actor William Katt as reluctant superhero Ralph Hinkley does fly. It's not with the greatest of ease thanks to some legal battles with another caped wonder, Superman, but he does get to one crisis to another without visible means of support.
Chris Nelson is the producer of the show for Stephen J. Cannell productions in Hollywood and as he tells it the flying only happens because of the superpowers of some special effects people in Hollywood. The saga reveals a lot about the solving of cinematic dilemmas, TV style, and it also provides a look at two very different effects systems at work: the Ultimatte video compositing unit, and the Zoptic front projection technique developed by Zoran Perisic and used in the "Superman" movies and now available in Hollywood.
When ABC gave the go ahead for a pilot of "The Greatest American Hero", the producers, then Cannell and Alex Beaton, began a search for an effects house to which they could contract the flying effects. Their requirements were speed and cheapness. As Nelson put it, they had to be able to shoot today and see the results tomorrow. That left out traditional film blue screen, with it's three-week turnaround and costs of approximately $2,500 per composited shot. Also, it was thought that a superhero with frizzy blond hair would make a terrible matte. The only solution that seemed practical was to shoot a flyer suspended in front of a blue screen and use a video compositing system to marry that foreground with backgrounds of aerial photography shot from a helicopter.
Cannell Productions finally contracted with Magicam (then on the Paramount lot and fresh from much blue-stage work for public television's "Cosmos" series) to produce flying scenes and other special effects for the "Hero" pilot. Magicam's Stage 29 on the Paramount lot already contained a three sided cyclorama about 30 feet high with a 60-foot back and 40-foot sides. The floor was cast epoxy, sanded perfectly smooth and painted blue. Overhead, a carriage supporting a wire flying harness ran along a 65-foot track, it's motion controlled by ropes. Later, an electric motor was installed to propell the carriage and hydraulics were added to raise the harness.
The harness itself, supported by two thin, high test wires, was "a very painful, high tech jock-strap," according to Magicam's director of photography, Alex Funke. Actor Katt had to wear a lead plate on his back(GREENGUY NOTE: His back? All the pictures I have, except one show a pole running to Katt's stomach and attaching to a plate there. Although I do have one picture not currently posted that shows the pole running into his back as he is being filmed upside down so it's possible 2 kinds of metal plates existed)so he could tilt into the proper flying position. Fans ruffled his cape and hair. Filming was done with 35mm Panaflex X cameras, sometimes mounted on a Louma crane for shots where a floating effect was desired. The most significant flying scene produced at Magicam was the first in the pilot, where Katt actually learns to fly using the magic costume given to him by spacemen. He was to fly erratically down an alley and crash into a billboard, but because it was his first flight it was thought important to show his feet leaving the ground. This presented special problems because the composited image would have to be rock steady, any slippage of the actor's feet against the ground would destroy the illusion. (GREENGUY NOTE: You can sort of see this feet slippage in the pilot as the camera looks down on Katt as he runs and leaps into the air to fly over the mansion wall. Look at Katt's feet as he runs, they don't quite look like they touch the concrete he's supposed to be running on, it looks a little like he's running on air over the ground.) In normal flying scenes, motion against the background would be interpreted as floating.
First a background plate was shot in an alley with a young boy explaining how to fly to an empty spot Katt would occupy: "No, that's not how you do it. Like this. One, two, three, jump!" At that point, the camera lens zoomed back, supposedly following Katt's progress into the air. That lens movement was then duplicated exactly on the Magicam stage as Katt ran and jumped and was lifted into the air on the wire harness, all in front of the blue backing.
Then came the compositing step. The footage shot in the alley was transferred to 1-inch videotape using a specially modified Mitchell camera. The Mitchell movement's high-speed pulldown locked the film firmly into position during the milliseconds in which the video camera prepared to make its scans of the film frame.
The ponderous, projecting contraption, designed by Magicam, became affectionately known as the Dieselflex, because it was so noisy and would only move the film at 24 frames a second, forwards or backwards. Then, the background plate recorded on 1-inch videotape, the foreground image of the actor in his harness in front of a blue backing was likewise projected into the video camera and routed as an RGB signal into an Ultimatte video compositing system. The unit processed the two signals, foreground and background, and mixed them electronically to make the composite which was then recorded onto 2-inch videotape. The last step in this process devised by Magicam was to transfer the composited video image to film, which was done by Image Transform in North Hollywood. While that company is the best at this process in the business, everyone agreed, tape to film transfers are "the wrinkle in the whole business of video opticals," as Chris Nelson put it. Since the show was being produced and edited on film, there was no choice but to get the image back from video to film, despite the increase in graininess and reduction in contrast. The loss of quality was deemed acceptable for television.
For the "Hero" pilot, several days of filming were done on the Magicam blue stage. That included shooting foregrounds for combination with about eight specific background plates: to show Katt flying over walls and into bushes, carrying co-star Robert Culp, etc. Also, whenever possible, Funke shot foregrounds for a library of generic flying shots that could be drawn from later and composited with new background plates.
When ABC ordered seven episodes of "Hero" as a midseason replacement, before the pilot even aired, then-producer Alex Beaton decided to shoot two more days at Magicam, hoping that, and perhaps another pair of shooting days would give him enough foreground library material to serve for the seven shows. At approximately $75,000 to set up and shoot on the Magicam stage, he wanted to get his money's worth.
Because he didn't know what sort of background the flying would be matted with, Nelson, who directed the shoot, and Funke, had no choice but to light Katt very flat and even, with no suggestion of a dominant light source.. But they got a little of everything: Katt flying towards the camera, flying away from the camera, across, below, entering from the right, the left, the top, coming from far away, flying close and then over the camera. All angles that were possible were shot, using the harness or Katt lying on a blue board. Also, since Cannell Productions was being sued by Warner Bros. Over the alleged similarity between "Hero" and Superman," none of the flying that Katt did could be straight line flying. Cannell's defense against the suit was that the two characters were not similar because Katt flew erratically, but now he could never be shown flying straight, even for a moment, which put restrictions on what they could film. (GREENGUY NOTE: I have no idea how the author of this article came up with the flying straight statement, as we all know Katt flew in a straight line, not erratically, many many times, even in the pilot movie, and throughout the series run) Nelson got his money's worth out of the two day shoot at Magicam. He got enough generic foreground shots of Katt in front of blue backing to draw from for the first seven shows ABC ordered, and then for the next full season of 22 shows. But not because he planned it that way. He never had time or money to go back. The compositing process changed shortly into production of the first seven shows. Magicam realized that the "Dieselflex" rig was not working quickly enough in transferring the film to video for compositing, and in the meantime, Nelson got a good offer from Bill Hogan, director of Ruxton LTD. In Burbank, to do the conversion and compositing of the images. For virtually all the 29 regular shows, images were combined at Ruxton, using a Rank-Cintel, film-to-tape transfer device and the Ultimatte compositing system.
To meet those emergencies where a new script required a shot of Katt flying in a specific situation-holding something, for instance, or reacting to a certain background-the first unit grip truck carried a 12-by-12 foot blue screen and frame that could be set up on locations. They could only shoot Katt from the chest up as he lay on a board(GREENGUY NOTE: Not quite true, this is how they shot new blue screen flying F/X in the 2nd season to handle specific scenes, such as: Ralph reeling in the boat with it's rope in The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea, Ralph carrying Debbie in There's Just No Accounting, these among others show a lot more on the screen that just Katt from the chest up) but for short inserts it worked and it solved the problem of springing Katt from the set and saved the expense of going to the blue screen stage.
Another system that Nelson devised to try and improve Katt's flying technique was not so successful. Nelson set up a small blue screen out in a large parking lot and hung Katt down on wires in front of it. A camera on a Continental mount was placed on a insert car and driven towards or away from Katt, which Nelson hoped would crete the illusion of flight over longer distance to or from the camera. The camera's view did not have to be completely filled with the blue backing since a "window control" on the Ultimatte compositing unit can fill out the blue backing artificially if the foreground object is at least surrounded by blue. But many problems -including bumps in the parking lot, difficulty keeping Katt in front of the screen and finally lack of time to try the experiment again forced Nelson to give up the experiment. By and large, the system that evolved to get The Greatest American Hero into the air for a pilot and 29 regular season shows was a remarkable achievement of improvisation and compromise. As Nelson said, the results were acceptable and given the pressure of getting the shows on the air, there just wasn't time to try anything else.
And for the price it couldn't be beat. Ruxton's Ultimatte system rents for about $800 an hour. Bill Hogan at Ruxton said there was one 14-hour day when they turned out 112 different composited pieces at about $100 per shot, on 2 -inch tape, which still had to be transferred to the film negative by Image Transform. That's compared to the $2,500 per shot for blue-screen film shots composited on an optical printer. Hogan also recalled occasions when new background plates would be shot on a Tuesday, for instance. He would have the developed film transferred to 1-inch video tape on Wednesday, combine the background on the Ultimatte with appropriate foreground clip of Katt, take the composite on 2-inch tape to Image Transform on Wednesday night and get a film negative back by Friday, in time to cut it into the show which would be delivered to ABC by Monday for airing on Wednesday. That meant it took less than a week to go from raw elements to national television.
But about the time production on the first 29 shows was winding up in early 1982, Nelson heard that the Zoptic front projection system that had solved the flying problem on Superman I and II was being wooed to Hollywood by Paramount. Nelson contacted the designer, Zoran Perisic, and began negotiating, despite his fear that it would be too expensive. The Zoptic system was perfect for the needs of "Hero", if Cannell could afford the $10,000 a day basic rental fee. It was designed just for flying, and as a front projection system it took care of the compositing in the process of filming the foreground, a step that had to be taken anyway with blue screen.
Perisic's design works by creating motion in depth with zoom lenses and camera rolls, pans and tilts, while the foreground subject remains still. As with a normal front-projected compositing system, a projector puts a background scene up on a screen of highly reflective material. By using a two-way mirror, the axis of the camera is the same as the axis of the projector so the foreground object exactly masks it's own shadow on the screen in the view of the camera. Perisic's contribution to front projection special effects, which he has patented, is a pair of zoom lenses, one on the projector and one on the camera, synchronized electronically to zoom in and out in unison. When the zoom lens on the projector is projecting a large image of the background plate on the screen, the cameras zoom lens is viewing a wide image, too. As the projection lens zooms in either direction, so does the camera lens, and the background does not appear to change size inside the camera. But the camera zoom does bring the foreground subject closer or farther away, creating the illusion of motion in depth against what appears to be a fixed background. By zooming in towards the subject, it can be made to appear to fly towards the camera and then over the top of it.
Perisic has also developed an elaborate mounting system for the camera so it can pan, tilt and even roll over 360 degrees. Through camera moves alone he, can film a scene in which a flyer appears to enter the frame to the left, does a complete loop and then flies out the frame to the right. All the while, the flyer is mounted in a body mold on the end of a steel pole stuck through the front projection screen. He can be evenly lit and rest comfortably, free from fear of swinging into the rafters. Moreover the scene can be viewed on monitors as it is being set up so that lighting can be matched to the background. If the flyer is to move through a shadow,(GREENGUY NOTE: see Live at Eleven and Wizards &Warlocks to see the very effective scenes of shadows passing over Ralph when he's flying down the LA river) key lights can be dropped out to match this.
In April of 1982 Perisic set up his system on the Paramount lot. Cannell Productions found they could afford the rental since the costs of image transferring and electronic compositing would be gone. All of the compositing in the shoot on Perisic's stage. Still, Nelson confessed that their overall costs were slightly higher with the Zoptic system, but he felt that the results warranted it. This production schedule on the flying effects, for shows that began October 29, was much more straight forward. They still shot background plates from a helicopter, employing veteran pilot Jim Gavin, filmed slightly slower than normal to increase the feeling of speed in the air. For the new season, Gavin flew some spectacular scenes, down the Los Angeles river and under a series of low bridges, and straight at the Hollywood sign in another shot.(GREENGUY NOTE: The footage of Ralph flying past the Hollywood sign was never used in the series, but a rare photo of this scene can be found in the IMAGES section) The plates were then developed and put into the projector of the Zoptic system with a 1,000 watt, tungsten halogen bulb at 3,200 degrees kelvin that matched the color spectrum of the key lights used on the foreground character. The plates for "Hero" were standard 35mm, considered good enough for television.
For "Superman II," Perisic projected and filmed in Vistavision. Color correcting was possible using filters on the projector.
The actor was then put into his steel-ribbed fiberglass body mold, four of which were made for "Hero" at a cost of about $1,500 each. This mold was hidden inside the flying costume with pockets and slits so that it couldn't be seen at all. The mold fit on the end of a steel pole sticking through the front projection screen. The actor's body blocked the cameras view of the pole so he looked like he was floating in mid air. The pole holds him about 20 feet off the soundstage floor and a gantry slid into place to service the actor or the air tubes which ruffled his cape. Then, as the background plate was projected on the screen, the camera in it's special rig panned and tilted and rolled to create the flying motions. The actor didn't move, though he could be banked slightly, or angled relative to the camera using a knuckle joint on the end of the pole. However that joint was usually only employed to set the proper attitude of the actor, before the action began.
Nelson was euphoric about the flying scenes he was getting from the Zoptic system. He said he never really felt that Katt was flying before but thought that with Zoptic the illusion was very convincing. With the sensitive camera moves that are possible, and the ability to see the composite as it is made, the flying could be fine tuned so that the geometry was correct. After four days of shooting on the Zoptic stage (as of October), Nelson said he thought the camera operators were becoming very smooth and confident in their flying.
There are some drawbacks to using the Zoptic system, primarily the loss of flexibility. Though turnaround is very fast because of the composited image is ready as soon as the film can be developed, it takes a full shoot on the stage to get the composite. It would have been difficult for Nelson to get a specific shot for a late season show the way he did under the old system by setting up a blue screen out on location. He would have had to do a setup on the Zoptic stage with a full crew.(GREENGUY NOTE: So were many scripts already finished by the time shooting was held with the Zoptic system? You can see very specific flying scenes created by Zoptic, Ralph flying with the Helmet cam in The Newlywed Game, Ralph flying Pam on his back in Heaven is in Your Genes, and Ralph flying with the torn curtain over his head in Wizards & Warlocks, plus some others) Also, while he could build a library of composited shots using the Zoptic process, he couldn't draw on a catalog of basic flying positions to set against new backgrounds.(GREENGUY NOTE: Which is why we see several shots of Katt flying close up with a white background, for example as seen in The Newlywed Game and Desperado) The Zoptic system could theoretically be used with a blue gel in the projector to create the equivalent of blue screen behind the actor, and provide a foreground image that could be combined with new background plates using Ultimatte. But Nelson said he has no plans to do that. He felt that careful planning would provide him with the flying scenes he needed from the Zoptic setup, without having to return to video compositing and tape to film transfers.