{"id":6739,"date":"2017-01-17T22:36:24","date_gmt":"2017-01-17T22:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/?p=6739"},"modified":"2021-05-30T20:12:24","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T03:12:24","slug":"the-space-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/the-space-race\/","title":{"rendered":"The Space Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mandy Walker, ASC, ACS, helps bring the proud black women heroes behind NASA\u2019s early space program out into the light<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Mandy
Mandy Walker on location in Atlanta<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

February 20, 1962. Fledgling astronaut John Glenn, dressed in his \u201cspace suit,\u201d approaches the launch pad in Cape Canaveral, FL, about to be the first American to orbit the Earth and return home safely. But then he pauses, concerned about some lingering questions over mathematical computations generated by the first IBM computers at NASA. What does America\u2019s first real superhero do? Glenn picks up the phone to Launch Central, and says: \u201cGet the girl to check the numbers. If she says they are right, then it\u2019s a go.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The \u201cgirl\u201d for whom Glenn asked for was Katherine Johnson, one of a handful of \u201chuman computers\u201d (all African-American women) NASA had tucked away in a basement room to make computations with monumental consequence that drove our nation\u2019s first journey into space. The new Fox film Hidden Figures<\/em> tells the powerful true story of three of these women \u2013 Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Mary Jackson (Janelle Mon\u00e1e), and Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) \u2013 who all navigated through the Jim Crow South to become the unsung heroes of the American Space Program.<\/p>\n

\"hiddenFIGURES_1\"<\/p>\n

The word through is an important part of their story. Chosen by director Ted Melfi (St. Vincent<\/em>), it \u201cdefines the cinematography and tone,\u201d he explains. \u201cEverything in the film is shot through things. Characters go through things. The story begins with the characters always behind things \u2013 a little girl [young Katherine] seen through trees as she picks up a pinecone and counts numbers, women walking through hallways or being seen through glass. Until they have gone \u2018through\u2019 everything \u2013 and come out on the other side, clean, unobstructed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cinematographer Mandy Walker ASC, ACS (multiple ACS award winner and ECA winner, known for Australia<\/em>), and Melfi chose to shoot on film \u2013 Kodak 100D, 250D and 500T \u2013 overexposed 2\/3 of a stop \u2013 with Panavision cameras and E-series, T-series and Primo Zoom anamorphics. According to 1st AC Larry Nielson, Walker\u2019s overall concept was straightforward camerawork. \u201cWe weren\u2019t trying to reinvent the wheel but to allow the camera to tell the story,\u201d Nielson states. \u201cNot a lot of whip pans, handheld or tight close-ups. The camera movement wasn\u2019t distracting.\u201d<\/p>\n

A-Camera\/Steadicam Jason Ellson says Walker\u2019s approach was to create a balanced frame that maximized the anamorphic format, and then let the action play within it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMovement was kept to a minimum. There were no unmotivated camera moves unless we were moving with the actors,\u201d Ellson recalls. Most shots were on dollies, with running and dialogue scenes in corridors mainly done on Steadicam. \u201cFor dialogue scenes, to preserve the eye lines, we would swing a lens on the A-camera rather than try and force two cameras together at the same time, compromising the angles,\u201d Ellson adds.<\/p>\n

Echoing his director, B-camera operator Mick Froehlich says the Walker\/Melfi plan was to \u201cuse strong shapes and heavy foreground elements, to look through the sets as an observer. We also used vertical lines integrated into the production design to create a frame within a frame,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

This visual approach, although relatively simple, took intense planning.<\/strong> Walker recounts how she and Melfi drew from various influences. \u201cWe watched archival NASA footage and [Civil Rights Era] documentaries like Eye on the Prize<\/em>, along with still photography by Saul Leiter, Gordon Parks and Danny Lyons,\u201d she says. \u201cThen we watched contemporary films like Paris, Texas<\/em> for composition. We built what we called a \u2018production bible\u2019 of stills from our storyboards, extra location frames and angles, and written slugs that Ted would put in that described the scene in emotional and dramatic terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker says their visual style can be traced back to those stills. \u201cThe look really resembles Kodachrome more than anything else,\u201d she offers. \u201cProduction Designer Wynn Thomas and Costume Designer Renee Kalfus worked with us to create the color palette, texture and images. Color and saturation in lighting was carefully planned to support each location and the story of what the women were going through in each moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the biggest challenges was re-creating NASA in Langley \u2013 seven locations strung together to make the campus. \u201cThe Space Task Group is probably the biggest location \u2013 bright and white and somewhat cold \u2013 representing, for that time, the space-age environment,\u201d explains Walker. \u201cWynn built this in a gym in an abandoned school across from the Atlanta production office. The next biggest, Tracking Control, was built in a room at an old mental asylum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lighting for the bullpen, the Space Task Group (STG) and Al Harrison\u2019s (Kevin Costner\u2019s) office (a fully constructed set) offered unique opportunities. Gaffer Chris Culliton says that \u201cgiven many of the scenes in Space Task Group would be dynamic and that Wynn\u2019s circular design lent itself to those beautiful anamorphic wide shots, it was important to have a lighting scheme that was integrated into the architecture.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focal point was a large \u2018oculus\u2019 that hung in the middle of the room,\u201d he continues, \u201cjust below the datum line of the side walls. Imagine a circular frame with a 30-foot seamless bleached muslin stretched over it. The muslin was backlit by around 40 ARRI Skypanels placed at a sufficient distance to eliminate hot spots.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Culliton adds, the main weakness of such broad top light is that it\u2019s often too flat. \u201cIn a top-lit room, such as the STG, or the fluorescent-lit office spaces, you have to introduce contrast to give the space a sense of depth,\u201d he observes. \u201cLighting is often more a question of creating shadow and separation by switching off fixtures, or using negative fill, to focus the eye on what matters in the story. We worked closely with the Art Department to find desk lamps and practicals that would give hits of hard, warm light at the camera level, in order to add another layer or dimension.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most stunning moments in Hidden Figures<\/em> takes place in the STG and Tracking Control room. \u201cKatherine is the first black woman to come out of the basement and be invited to work in NASA\u2019s technical world, which is all [white] men,\u201d explains Walker. \u201cSo these women\u2019s struggles are never more telling than right here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The technicians not only refuse to share their coffee machine, but the numbers she checks have been redacted, limiting her chances for accuracy. On top of that, there is no \u201ccolored women\u2019s bathroom\u201d in the building, so she must run half a mile (sometimes through the rain) to use the \u201ccolored\u201d facility, further fueling Harrison\u2019s rage when he needs her.<\/p>\n

\"hiddenFIGURES_6\"<\/p>\n

As Walker describes the key scene: \u201cWe wanted to make Katherine a jewel in a sea of white men, in white shirts, in a gray room. We made sure she popped with her colored outfits and bright red lipstick\u201d [even brighter than Walker\u2019s trademark, if that\u2019s possible].<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had discussed an idea that early on in the movie\u2019s story line,\u201d Ellson adds, \u201cwe would shoot our three leads slightly below eye level when interacting with Caucasians. The idea was to subtly create the feeling that the white people looked down on these ladies. As the movie progresses, the women become more empowered and we raise the camera higher to subconsciously create the visual to the viewer that everyone is equal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Froehlich says he and Ellson were always looking for ways to work together to shoot through different set pieces and to support the visual clues.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my favorite shots,\u201d Froehlich remembers, \u201cis in Kevin Costner\u2019s office,\u201d during one such crisis moment. \u201cWe start on Kevin sitting in his chair from behind with his lunch, and then he walks out to call Katherine into his office. She is looking through his windows observing him for a few moments before he decides what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are many more similar \u201cmoments\u201d that, when pieced together, form Walker\u2019s heart-rending visual tapestry. Like when Mary Jackson challenges a Jim Crow judge to let her attend night school, so that she can become the first woman engineer (which she did).<\/p>\n

Or when Johnson, the unacknowledged mathematical genius behind NASA\u2019s computations, runs to the Track Control Room with the correct figures, only to have the door slammed in her face after she hands the pages through it. The emotional ante is raised by a tight CU profile of Henson that ends in complete shadow.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking of shadows, everyone from Executive Producer Mimi Vald\u00e9s to the entire Local 600 camera team singles out the moment when the three women come out of the shadows and into the light. The scene focuses on Dorothy Vaughn, who has quietly trained herself and her flock of human computers to work on IBM machines. When the supervisor, Vivian Michael (Kirsten Dunst) offers Vaughan a chance to become a supervisor, i.e., to train the men or white women on the system, Dorothy only agrees if she can bring along her trained black colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my favorite scene,\u201d says Vald\u00e9s. \u201cDorothy informs the colored computers they\u2019ve been reassigned, and they march down the hallway like superheroes. The way Mandy chose to shoot [the scene], you can\u2019t help but cheer these women on. It\u2019s one of the most brilliant examples of female empowerment we\u2019ve ever seen in cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n

The moment is transformative.<\/p>\n

Dorothy leads her peers out of their dingy basement offices (with no windows), and up the stairs from outside (in dark silhouette), through the glass doors and into the brightly lit hallway. Ellson says Walker found a Gordon Parks photograph \u2013 a high angle of a group of nuns walking in a large group with one leading \u2013 that was used as a reference. \u201cWe mounted the Steadicam to the dolly,\u201d Ellson recounts, \u201cusing a riser to get as high as possible \u2013 almost scraping the fluorescent ceiling fixtures. I kind of wrapped myself around the boom arm like a koala,\u201d he laughs, \u201cas dolly grip Jeff \u2018Moose\u2019 Howery pulled the dolly backward down the hall, preceding the women.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker and her team also expertly blended flashbacks and archival footage. One of the most impactful is an introduction to young Katherine, a mathematic savant, as she counts with a pinecone in her hand. \u201cShe\u2019s nine years old,\u201d the DP relates. \u201cWe shot it in Super 16 millimeter with a 2.40:1 extraction from the full frame, so it became quite grainy. Then in our DI we stripped most of the color out and added a sepia look to the images.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another unique shot was reminiscent of the 1956 Judy Holiday film Solid Gold Cadillac<\/em>, in which the two main characters exit their company\u2019s building in black and white and immediately turn into color as they enter their solid-gold Cadillac. In this case, it is archival footage of the NASA capsule blended into the astronaut\u2019s training room that was color corrected in post to transition from that footage to the film\u2019s 35-mm footage.<\/p>\n

\"hiddenFIGURES_5\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Archival footage (and locations) lent an added reality to Hidden Figures, such as when the production shot in a place that mirrored the fabled wind tunnel NASA used to train their astronauts. Walker says they found a functioning wind tunnel near their Atlanta base, at the facility of aerospace giant Lockheed Martin. Prepping the scene mirrored a similar moment in the movie, when a massive plastic-wrapped IBM machine is too big to fit through the doors of the new computer room.<\/p>\n

\u201cA 24-foot crane, two full camera packages, dollies and lights,\u201d Walker recalls, \u201call had to come up in a lift over two days and enter a small door that was all of five feet, and then squeeze through the wind flutes to the large tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Culliton remembers the wind tunnel as both curse and blessing. \u201cVisually, it was stunning, but it was a logistical nightmare,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a 60-foot metal tube with a massive wind turbine in the background. There was no lighting in the tunnel at all except for a few glass windows that were blacked out. The only way to light the scene around the Capsule was to place practicals with some scientific verisimilitude.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a series of rather scientific looking open face lights around the capsule that we made by resurrecting some old Mole Richardson Scoop Lights; they have a beautiful bell housing and an oversized tungsten bulb,\u201d Culliton adds. \u201cAlong with some floor based MR16 cyc lights, softened with 216 and CTO, we tried to achieve a clinical or pragmatic look to the practicals while retaining warmth and, hopefully, a sense of intrigue. In the background we placed an Arri T12 behind the actual fan; it created a dramatic background for silhouettes and added a sense of drama, especially as the fan blades created an undulating pattern of shadow and light along the surface of the tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when Mary Jackson, in period dress and high heels, gets caught in the grating as the \u201cwind\u201d starts blowing, Froehlich says the scene came alive. \u201cThe big fan and Chris\u2019s incorporation of practicals and movie lighting inspired me to look for moments,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

No doubt such visuals will be the audience\u2019s main takeaway from Hidden Figures<\/em>, which reveals some of American history\u2019s most inspiring and (until now) unseen moments. Oscar nominee (and Golden Globe winner) Taraji P. Henson speaks for the entire production team regarding the social importance of the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t be more proud to bring the story of Katherine Johnson to the attention of the world,\u201d she says. \u201cOur team was blessed to have the artistry of cinematographer Mandy Walker. A woman behind the camera, to help guide and shape the story of the brilliant women \u2018computers\u2019 of NASA, was a perfect addition to our creative team [who were all mostly women].<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the most rewarding and \u2018wet\u2019 scene in the movie that we describe as \u2018running\u2019 [when Johnson must race to and from the \u2018colored\u2019 bathroom above]. And Mandy ran along with me \u2013 over and over. [Walker] and our director, Ted Melfi, brought the Sixties to life. I know the audience will see Mandy\u2019s hidden eyes behind the hidden figures.\u201d<\/p>\n

by Pauline Rogers<\/em>
\nphotos by Hopper Stone\/SMPSP<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CREW<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director of Photography
\nMandy Walker, ASC, ACS<\/p>\n

A-Camera Operator
\nJason Ellson<\/p>\n

A-Camera 1st AC
\nLarry Nielsen<\/p>\n

A-Camera 2nd AC
\nMatt Jackson<\/p>\n

B-Camera Operator
\nMick Froehlich<\/p>\n

B-Camera 1st AC
\nTony Rivetti<\/p>\n

B-Camera 2nd AC
\nMarc Casey<\/p>\n

Loader
\nAustin Swenson<\/p>\n

Unit Still
\nHopper Stone\/SMPSP<\/p>\n

Unit Publicist
\nDeborah Simmrin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mandy Walker, ASC, ACS, helps bring the proud black women heroes behind NASA\u2019s early space program out into the light February 20, 1962. Fledgling astronaut John Glenn, dressed in his \u201cspace suit,\u201d approaches the launch pad in Cape Canaveral, FL, about to be the first American to orbit the Earth and return home safely. But then he pauses, concerned about some lingering questions over mathematical computations generated by the first IBM computers at NASA. What does America\u2019s first real superhero […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6740,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[431,37,432],"class_list":["post-6739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-hidden-figures","tag-icg-magazine","tag-mandy-walker-asc"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Space Race - ICG Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/the-space-race\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Space Race - ICG Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mandy Walker, ASC, ACS, helps bring the proud black women heroes behind NASA\u2019s early space program out into the light February 20, 1962. Fledgling astronaut John Glenn, dressed in his \u201cspace suit,\u201d approaches the launch pad in Cape Canaveral, FL, about to be the first American to orbit the Earth and return home safely. But then he pauses, concerned about some lingering questions over mathematical computations generated by the first IBM computers at NASA. 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