“It was crazy how much latitude we had with them.” Numerous Canon 5D and Nikon D800s DSLRs and Olympus PEN E-P5 cameras also found their way into the filmmaking fold, as did Blackmagic Cinema Camera. “The ARRIs were just fantastic for the interior of the cab, where 40-50 percent of the film takes place,” he says. The selection of the more light sensitive ARRI Alexa solved the contrast issues, and Seale had plenty of cameras supplied to the production: four ARRI Ms, six ARRI Pluses. “My testing was a simple contrast range test of the cameras.” “I'm not as enamored with the technicalities of the camera as I am with what the cameras are shooting,” he notes. He found the transition to digital rather easy. He's also photographed such films as Witness, Rain Man, The English Patient (for which he won an Academy Award), The Perfect Storm and Cold Mountain, among numerous others. Seale had been in the filmmaking trenches with Miller before on Lorenzo's Oil. So Panavision, just as always, swept us up and looked after us for the entire movie.” Voeten leaned over and whispered, 'They handle Alexas,' and I said, 'Probably Alexas, George.' I'd read enough to know that Alexas had been battle proven all over the world. “All I could say in front of 30 people at a big, high-pressure meeting was, 'Well George, I'm a Panavision man and have been all my life and I'll ring them,'” Seale recalls. The cinematographer, despite having never photographed a digital film, responded in the only way he knew how. Miller brought Seale aboard and put him on the spot with that question. Semler, however, had to withdraw shortly before production. But, the stereoscopic camera rig had contrast issues-an important technicality for a film with so many scenes set inside the dark cab of a truck against a hot desert backdrop. That question from George Miller momentarily caught veteran cinematographer John Seale, ASC, ACS off guard because the director, unbeknownst practically to everyone attending the preproduction meeting, had just scrapped his plans to shoot Mad Max: Fury Road in native 3D and instead opted for digital 2D.įor three years, Miller and his Mad Max series regular DP Dean Semler, ASC, ACS, along with designer/builder and fellow cameraman Paul Nichola, had been developing a custom 3D camera to capture the return of road warrior Max Rockatansky (this time played by Tom Hardy) to the big-screen apocalyptic wasteland. “Johnny, what kind of cameras are you going to use?”

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