The guys over at Comicus were given the opportunity to speak with Haris Zambarloukos, the director of photography for 'Thor'. He goes into detail about his inspiration for the visual look of the film, and what it was like to work with Kenneth Branagh and the rest of the cast.
Thor story takes place in two different worlds: Asgard and the Earth. In the case of Asgard, can you describe to us, in terms of lights and shadows, how did you portray Thor’s realm? Well, we had to create a Utopian world in Asgard and many of the influences for the lighting came from paintings that had these references: a shadowless, glowing world; one where there are no obvious sources of light other than fire, moon and sun. Earth is a mix of cyan mercury lamps, florescents and incandescent light coming from all directions... Asgard has the opposite... single source, soft glow that wraps around our characters faces and has an intangible origin. I was also very inspired by David Dubilet's underwater photography, it's amazing how deep space and the ocean have a similar mystery.
In a movie like Thor, that is played in 3D in cinemas, is there any extra problem for a cinematographer? How does your job proceed in this case?
What kind of tools did you use for Thor’s cinematography? We decided to convert to 3D in post and found that what creates depth and dimension in tradition photography creates great dimensionality when it is converted... you can't give depth to a flat image. Minor adjustments were made but this method of post conversion does not create any problems during the shoot. We used a veritable arsenal of tools, we shot on Kodak stock with Panavision XL cameras and G Series Anamorphic lenses, Photosonics for the high speed work, liberal use of Steadicam, Technocranes, Scorpio remote heads and 2 megatons power of lighting to name a few.
As your job concerns the final look of the film, did you use as reference some of the thousands pages from the comic book produced in these last decades? Yes I got read books upon books of comics for work!!! I was particularly inspired by the trippy and imaginative illustrations of Jack Kirby, his bolness of design was our main source of inspiration. I also am really fond on Walt Simonson's run, its rougher and more ethereal, plus JM Sracynski for the obvious earth bound sequences, Ken and I love Edward Hopper's americana landscapes and the comics that JMS has created seem to capture that.
What was it like to work with the cast? In particular Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins? The cast was superb, both in talent and in their humanity and sense of team spirit. I think everyone on the film was happy and inspired to be there and we all gave our utmost to its creation. Ultimately having this calibre of artists to light and photograph is the ultimate in film making.
It's quite a lengthy interview so be sure to click the source to head over to Comicus for the full thing.
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