Sometimes, actors want to participate in the best and most fun role in the set, which is the cinematographer. A piece of solid evidence for that is Ambulance’s star, Jake Gyllenhaal, who took the RED BayHem camera from the hands of Michael and shot some of the action scenes by himself. Anyone can blame him?
Cinematography – By the star of the film
According to an interview with Ambulance co-star Yahya Abdul-Mateen to Esquire, the main star of the film, Jake Gyllenhaal, shot some action scenes by himself. Yahya said that Jake took the camera from the hands of director Michael Bay, and acted as a cinematographer. Ambulance’s Director of Photography is Roberto De Angelis who was the camera operator of Bay’s 13 hours and 6 Underground. However, as we know Michael, is very pedant with camera work, and most of the time he loves to shoot by operating his own cameras. However, this time, Jake has taken over. “Jake made the entire set his playground, and not just in front of the lens,” said Yahya. “Jake loves the camera. There were times when he would take the camera from Mike. And then you look around and Jake is shooting the scene. I had never seen anything like that before” he added.
Shot on RED
As explained, Michael Bay loves shooting. In the initial chapters of Transformers, he was using his own ARRIFLEX 235. He likes to shoot handheld, holding the camera in two handles from the side, and just shoot. In his last movies, he moved to RED cameras. Michael Bay loves RED, and RED loves Michael, so it made him a specialized camera – the BayHem (with an 8K Helium sensor). Recently, RED Digital Cinema has developed the Komodo BayHem, also specially made for Michael. In Ambulance, which will be screened in theaters on April 8, both of the cameras have been used. The big RED was paired with Panavision anamorphic glass, and the small RED (=Komodo) was extensively utilized for the FPV (First Person View) aerial shots, by an FPV drone.
Pure action flick
‘Ambulance’ tells the story of a bank robbery that gets complicated when a cop gets shot. Then the robbers steal an ambulance to use as a getaway vehicle when the heist goes worse. As expected from a Michael Bay film, the action is real and full of explosions. You all remember that insane and dangerous action scene that was uploaded to Bay’s Instagram (nobody was injured though). Now, when Bay has found the marvel of Cinema FPV, we can expect even more intensive camera kinetics in Ambulance. Check out the most recent (Super Bowl) trailer released a week ago:
We can’t wait to see this!
Product List
Here’re the products mentioned in the article, and the links to purchase them from authorized dealers.
- RED Digital Cinema KOMODO 6K
