Deepwater Horizon

Enrique Chediak, ASC, and his collaborators create a convincing conflagration for the ripped-from-the-headlines drama of Deepwater Horizon.

In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and went down in flames in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven men died. Oil gushed for 87 days, destroying marine habitats and whole coastal economies in the worst oil spill ever. Eight months later, the New York Times published “Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours,” an 8,500-word exposé that tracked the cascade of safety failures that followed the initial oil and methane blowout. Despite being state of the art, despite having one of the best trained crews in the industry, “every one of the Horizon’s defenses failed,” the article states. “In the end,” it notes, “many lives were saved by simple acts of bravery.”

This human element is at the heart of Deepwater Horizon, a feature based on that New York Times story. “It was important to feel what these people went through—the heat and the sense of hell,” says director of photography Enrique Chediak. Encharged with lighting an infernal blaze so big it could consume a 32,588-ton oil rig, Chediak and his team came up with a novel solution: firelight by giant LED walls. [...] Continue reading below

Published in the October 2016 issue of American Cinematographer.