I didn’t do any of that color modification in the camera - like using coral or 85 filters on the lens - because there were times when I needed all the exposure I could get. By way of contrast, we printed the interiors warm. Printing those exterior scenes toward the blue side later helped give them a cold look. However, since we couldn’t depend upon overcast weather all the time, we had to shoot many scenes when the sun was not yet up or when it had already gone down. That helped a lot to create a cold feeling, especially when the sun was not out. The leaves are on the trees again.” That made us feel very, very good.īesides taking the green out of the landscape, we also tried to enhance the autumn feeling by wetting the streets down all the time. Later, when we were shooting in Thailand, we got a letter from the priest, who wrote, “Don’t worry. For example, surrounding the cathedral in Cleveland where the wedding in the film takes place there were many trees that had to be defoliated and we were afraid the leaves would never come back. The trees were more difficult, because the leaves actually had to be stripped off of them, and we were afraid that the trees might die. They sprayed the grass with certain chemicals and two weeks later it turned “California brown ” I couldn’t believe it.ĭirector Michael Cimino checks the frame as Zsigmond stands by. The only solution was to defoliate the trees and change the color of the grass - which we were able to do, thanks to the skill of a terrific greens man and special effects expert. We had hoped to find locations where there were no trees or vegetation, but unfortunately there were lots of trees and grassy areas in the Ohio River Valley locales where we had to shoot. One of my biggest problems in photographing The Deer Hunter was trying to get a cold, rainy, autumn look for the steel mill areas around Pittsburgh - while shooting in the middle of a very hot summer.
![deer hunter scene deer hunter scene](https://miro.medium.com/max/2000/1*XazLmpvNJJOSoed02mLJeA.png)
Some images may be additional or alternate. This article originally appeared in AC, October, 1978.
![deer hunter scene deer hunter scene](https://www.nme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/dee1978_co_tra_011.jpg)
Baker, the jam-packed streets of Bangkok and a raging river with water up to the matte box. The challenge included shooting inside a cramped trailer, an immense cathedral, a steel mill, the icy slopes of Mt.