The Making of Gladiator II

Released in 2000, the feature film Gladiator starred Russell Crowe as Maximus, a Roman general who’s betrayed and forced into slavery, after which he rises through the gladiatorial ranks on a path toward vengeance. The film earned Best Picture accolades at the Academy Awards and the BAFTA Awards and was the first feature collaboration between director Ridley Scott and cinematographer John Mathieson BSC. In the years that followed, the duo would reteam for the features Hannibal, Matchstick Men, Kingdom of Heaven and Robin Hood before returning to ancient Rome for the long-anticipated sequel Gladiator II.

For the sequel - which takes place 20-some years after the original and tells the story of Maximus' son, Lucius (Paul Mescal) - the production worked with Panalux London for its lighting parcel and Panavision London for cameras, lenses and advanced solutions including the Panavision Wi-Fibre connectivity system. In this video interview, Mathieson discusses expanding the visual language of Gladiator by means of the tools available today.

Together Again

Prior to embarking on Gladiator II, Mathieson recalls, “Ridley never talked about it, and then suddenly I was called up to his office, and he's in there with [special-effects supervisor] Neil Corbould. They were already in a conversation about doing a sea battle in the Sahara in June. [Scott] knows I'm listening, and he said, 'Are you in?' I said, 'Yeah, what with?' And he said, 'Well, Gladiator II.' I said, 'Right. A sea battle in the Sahara?' And that's what we did, a sea battle in the desert."

Corbould was also a veteran of the original Gladiator, and the sequel would take the filmmakers back to some of the locations where they'd worked on the original. "We revisited a lot of the existing structures in Malta," Mathieson says, listing "the basic heavy construction of the Colosseum, the Forum they changed a bit, the palace was the same. So I kind of knew the sets. Of course, now we had faster telescopic cranes. We didn't have those back then. But the actual filming, the language of it, how you set about a scene was the same. If anything, film language got a bit faster.”

Multiple Cameras

Where the original Gladiator had been shot on 35mm negative, for Gladiator II, Mathieson’s primary cameras were Panavised Arri Alexa Mini LFs. "Ridley moves very quickly," the cinematographer observes. "He loves digital because he gets the big pictures, but he likes seeing everything. So that means he can deploy more cameras [and] huge, big monitors. He has six of them, and then he has a smaller set on the bottom, and he sits there like a vision mixer and calls the shots out. He's very proud of his background in TV, when he used to do live recordings, live drama.

"He doesn't watch it back quite often," Mathieson continues. "Sometimes he does, but if you watch each camera back, you do a two-minute take and you've got nine cameras, [that's] 18 minutes of like nothing. So each camera operator has to have command of their immediate environment. You mustn't tell them to try and get everything. Even 72 frames, three seconds at the end of this, are going to be really important because if we stopped and redid that, it would feel like an insert."

Asked how one manages so many cameras rolling simultaneously, Mathieson shares, "It's preparation, it's logistics. There's some cameras in shot, but it doesn't matter because their shot's dead. So you can cross or track right in front of someone if you know. It's choreographing that."

Lighting Design

With so many cameras, Mathieson acknowledges, "There are some shots in this film which I wish I could have gone in and lit better. What are you trading? You're trading speed, energy on the set, performance."

Mathieson and team worked with Panalux to source their lighting parcel for Gladiator II. The cinematographer explains that he favored a tungsten base that he and his crew could then manipulate with gels. "I've worked very hard on the colours," the cinematographer says. "We tried to keep the tungsten up because when you dial in a colour [with certain LED sources] the camera sees it different. HMI is balanced to be a bit of both, but the sun's always more close to a tungsten. And then we'd put in little ambient Quarter Green and a Quarter Blue, or just a 63, which is Pale Blue. Green's quite good to use because it actually kills colour, makes things look drab - and all these guys [in the film are] living in this fetid, stinky, underground, damp prison."

Given the story's time period, fire was a vitally important light source. "I don't like digital fire effects," Mathieson shares. "They just look hollow. I like the old tungsten ones. We'd be bouncing the Mini Brutes between about 30 and 70 [percent output], and then we'd put a 103 Straw on and a 188 Cosmetic Highlight, and that gave a different range of fire effects. Some warmer, some a bit more yellow, some a bit orange."

To manipulate their fire effects, he continues, the electric crew would "put in something clever through a DMX cable, or you just slide the thing up and down, or you have a guy just with a flag. That's the quick one because then you haven't got to wait for all that cabling to come through." 

Zoom Lenses

The lens parcel for Gladiator II included Panaspeed primes, which Mathieson complemented with a range of zooms - a critical approach when working with the number of cameras Scott prefers. "The digital cameras are fast as hell, and that's why we could use the zooms a lot," Mathieson enthuses.

He adds, "If people are moving around the set and there's a camera coming, you can edge-out that camera by just tightening the lens. You won't feel the zoom, but you're keeping the shot alive. And I was shooting deep, I was shooting [a T-stop of] 11-16 because a lot of the zooms will look better the more you shut them down."

Indeed, Mathieson doesn't shy away from zooms and happily embraces them as important creative tools. "Some of the most iconic images are shot on cranes," he muses. "You can bet they had a zoom lens on the end of that crane."

Bespoke Support

The cinematographer has a long history of working with Panavision. "Right from the get-go, they would always make you something," he says. "They make a bracket, they make a thing, or turn something round, or make a lens, or convert something. That was always good, the engineering side. And they've always had the enthusiasm for that."

As Mathieson observes, the enthusiasm he finds in his collaborators at Panavision helps amplify the crew's own excitement for the project at hand. He says, "You get excited when you're asked about something - 'You want to do that? Really?' You want that enthusiasm and attitude."

Ridley Scott’s Influence

Working with Scott has given Mathieson a unique vantage on the renowned director's methodology, but the cinematographer also holds onto a keen appreciation for Scott's impact on film audiences across the past five decades. "His influence over us is there, and we've been around him, you know - he scared the crap out of me when I was 17 or 16, watching Alien," Mathieson reflects. "His culture of film making is going to be with us and carry on, and people will be mimicking and looking back at [his films, asking] 'How did he do that scene?' But it's the way he puts the shots together."