The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the first film in the Spider-Man franchise to shoot entirely in New York State, was filmed on locations in throughout New York City and Rochester, as well as on sound stages and backlots on Long Island and Brooklyn. It is also perhaps one of the last of the blockbusters to be shot on actual film. One of the pivotal sets, Oscorp’s power plant, was built on the production’s back lot at Gold Coast Studios in Bethpage, NY. To fully realize the aesthetic of the power plant scenic design, the film’s production designer Mark Friedberg collaborated with City Theatrical’s Gary Fails.
A Study in Contrasts
“One of the starting points for me on this film was the contrast,” describes Friedberg. “It’s about the contrast of Peter Parker living in small, low, middle-class home in Queens and Harry Osborn and Oscorp’s sort of world dominion. For Oscorp I had a sense that they would have the vibe of high design in their corporate exploits, including the power station. As we were trying to figure out the design for the power station, I wanted it to incorporate kinetic lighting.”
Friedberg knew early on that the design would present some challenges, not the least of which was getting the lighting to synch with the 24 frame-per-second world of the film camera. He explains, “The lighting solution had to be dimmable so that it would work within the overall lighting scheme of the camera department. What we see with our eyes is not the same thing that the camera sees. So the frequency and intensity has to be figured out with meters. If the lights aren’t handled properly with the 24 frame-per-second camera, and in this particular case we were shooting film—perhaps one of the last movies that will ever do that—we end up with a flicker, which is undesirable and the cinematographer is unhappy. And unhappy cinematographers lead to long days.”
He contacted Gary Fails, president of City Theatrical, Inc., to collaborate on the design idea and to help engineer the solutions to the challenges the design posed. “We talked with Gary at the beginning about ways that we could use his products and his engineering prowess to help figure this out,” states Friedberg. “He worked pretty hard; in fact he hired his own camera crew to come up with a way to get his lighting to work with the shutter of the camera and he did it effectively. We also worked with him to design the LED tape into the power grid pylons that we designed for the practical part of the power grid set.”
Scaling it Up
Fails recalls, “I was brought in to Spider-Man by Mark to help realize his vision; he really is quite an artist. The scale of this movie was just unbelievable, and what they were doing was just huge. He knew what he wanted it to look like but was not sure how to accomplish it. I showed him examples of LED fixtures and tape, and we decided to experiment with LED tape for the Oscorp power plant scene. I mocked up an oil drum in my shop to represent the pylons in the power plant, and in fact the actual scenery ended up being constructed from oil drums welded together end to end and stacked up 20 feet high. We took the oil drums here in the shop, rigged up test pieces, and I took some videos to show them. He said that ‘Yes, that was the right idea.’ We designed and fabricated several mockups for Mark and his team to view, and the revisions and updates continued until just before the shooting.”
For filming, there were a total of 34 towers as part of a huge outdoor set at Gold Coast Studios, though in the final film there appear to be an endless array of pylons through the magic of the CG world. Fails describes the actual set pieces and how they incorporated the LED tape and dimming. “The towers had horizontal rings spaced every few feet, and vertical channels. The LED tape was placed in those spots. The horizontals were covered with perforated mesh as a scenic element, and the verticals were covered with diffusion. A total of 312 rolls of LED tape were used, in warm white, natural white, and cool white, depending on the location. We provided CTI low voltage D-3 Dimmers for control as well as power supplies, and custom wire harnesses. It was wired DMX and controlled by the electrics department as part of the lighting of the whole scene. We worked along with the crew out there on set to get it installed and make sure everything went okay.”
Chris Prampin was the gaffer on this massive production. For the power plant setup, Benoit Richards was the programmer and Steve Greenberg was the set electrician responsible for the LED tape installation and testing. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was directed by Marc Webb with Dan Mindel, ASC BSC as Director of Photography.
Above and Beyond
Friedberg was very pleased with the solution and impressed with Fails’ commitment to the project. “Gary really put on his engineering hat to solve the creative problems. He was my superhero on this one. Up until the 11th hour I wasn’t sure how we were going to handle that scene, and we were just trying to figure it out; in the end Gary figured it out. That was the great thing about this process. A lot of times vendors are just vendors; Gary took the time to figure out how this would work in our industry, in film. This was a bit new for him; he mostly focuses on theatrical equipment. That was cool to bring in that mix of theatre and film. He’s a kind of genius to figure out what the issue was and to sort it out. He came up with some technology that’s really useful.”
In fact that technology is now part of City Theatrical’s product line. Since the filming of the power station sequences in late spring of 2013, City Theatrical has now launched ColorFlex LED Tape. “The movie is what motivated us to launch our line of LED tape and expand our line of dimmers,” comments Fails. “I am really pleased to have had the opportunity to work on the film and working with Mark Friedberg was a blast. His creative vision is immense. I have to say I am fortunate to have been able to do what I have done my entire lighting career: work closely with a designer to help him achieve his creative vision.”
The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which opened in the U.S. on May 2, 2014, is a presentation from Columbia Pictures of a Marvel Entertainment / Avi Arad / Matt Tolmach production.
UPDATE: City Theatrical has released a number of behind the scenes images from their work on the Amazing Spiser-Man 2. Read their write up and view addition photos here.
