Superman Poster # 6 Movie Christopher Reeve FLYING! RIP

Description

Superman (Christopher Reeve) takes flight over the city of Metropolis in Superman: The Movie. New York City doubled for Metropolis, while the New York Daily News Building served as the location for the offices of the Daily Planet. Brooklyn Heights was also used. The first test for the flying sequences involved simply catapulting a crash test dummy out of a cannon. Another technique had a remote control cast of Superman flying around. Both were discarded due to lack of movement. High quality, realistic-looking animation was tried, with speed trails added to make the effect more convincing. In the end, three techniques were used to achieve the flying effects. For landings and take-offs, wire flying riggings were devised and used. On location, these were suspended from tower cranes, whereas in the studio elaborate rigs were suspended from the studio ceilings. Some of the wire-flying work was quite audacious considering computer controlled rigs were not then available — the penultimate shot where Superman flies out of the prison yard for example. Although stuntmen were used, Reeve did much of the work himself, and was suspended as high as 50 ft in the air. Counterweights and pulleys were typically used to achieve flying movement rather than electronic or motorized devices. For shots where the camera is stationary and Superman is seen flying towards or away from the camera in the frame, blue screen matte shots were used. Reeve would be photographed against a blue screen. While a special device made his cape flap to give the illusion of movement, the actor himself would remain stationary. Instead, the camera would use a mixture of long zoom-ins and zoom-outs to cause him to become larger or smaller in the frame. The blue background would then be photochemically removed and Reeve’s isolated image would then be ‘inserted’ in to a matted area of a background plate shot. The zoom-ins or zoom-outs would give the appearance of flying away or towards the contents of the background plate. For shots where the camera is tracking with Superman as he flies (such as in the Superman and Lois Metropolis flying sequence) front projection was used. This involved photographing the actors suspended in front of a background image dimly projected from the front on to a special screen made by 3M that would reflect light back at many times the original intensity directly in to a combined camera/projector. The result was a very clear and intense photographic reproduction of both the actors and the background plate with far less of the image deterioration or lighting problems than occur with rear projection.

Near mint condition.