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Production Details
Here's another behind the scenes look with some lighting details from Director of Photography, Maryse Alberti. This article comes from American Cinematographer magazine, so it is a little technical (1Ks, 5Ks, Tweenies and Dedos are lights) but it gives a lovely idea of the thinking behind the scene:
In another highly symbolic sequence, Slade descends a winding staircase as he performs a song in the decadent "Grand Ballroom," a metaphorical backdrop suggesting the singer's (and the glam era's) impending fall from grace. To plan for the sequence, Alberti and Haynes first blocked the action out on a scale-model set. "Todd and I had a small video camera, and we made a little 'man' out of cardboard," Alberti describes. "Todd would hold the little man and walk him down the staircase of the miniature, and I would tape him with a Hi-8 camera so that we could find the right timing and camera moves. I asked Todd, 'What is the Grand Ballroom?' And he told me that it represented decay and the end of an era. The scene depicts a last little creative burst or spark. My idea was to light the decaying ballroom as if it had just burned down, so I lit most of the scene from underneath. The set, which was on a soundstage, was basically two huge, flat panels that were painted quite beautifully in perspective. I used a lot of 1Ks and tweenies coming up through the cracks of the staircase, so Slade would be crossing through all of these little 'flames.' I had a couple of 5Ks in the rear. Todd wanted to change the color of some part of the set at the bottom of the staircase, so I used a couple of green gels there to offset the red paint. Slade eventually jumps onto a chandelier rising up from darkness. The chandelier is lit with strings of Christmas lights, and I hid little Dedo lights in there so that once again Slade would be lit from below."
Here is the exquisite scale model of the set by scenic artist Simon Hague.
In another highly symbolic sequence, Slade descends a winding staircase as he performs a song in the decadent "Grand Ballroom," a metaphorical backdrop suggesting the singer's (and the glam era's) impending fall from grace. To plan for the sequence, Alberti and Haynes first blocked the action out on a scale-model set. "Todd and I had a small video camera, and we made a little 'man' out of cardboard," Alberti describes. "Todd would hold the little man and walk him down the staircase of the miniature, and I would tape him with a Hi-8 camera so that we could find the right timing and camera moves. I asked Todd, 'What is the Grand Ballroom?' And he told me that it represented decay and the end of an era. The scene depicts a last little creative burst or spark. My idea was to light the decaying ballroom as if it had just burned down, so I lit most of the scene from underneath. The set, which was on a soundstage, was basically two huge, flat panels that were painted quite beautifully in perspective. I used a lot of 1Ks and tweenies coming up through the cracks of the staircase, so Slade would be crossing through all of these little 'flames.' I had a couple of 5Ks in the rear. Todd wanted to change the color of some part of the set at the bottom of the staircase, so I used a couple of green gels there to offset the red paint. Slade eventually jumps onto a chandelier rising up from darkness. The chandelier is lit with strings of Christmas lights, and I hid little Dedo lights in there so that once again Slade would be lit from below."
Here is the exquisite scale model of the set by scenic artist Simon Hague.