Musco Lighting - The Alamo

Spectacular cinematography
key for “The Alamo”

Two Musco Lights™ and two Mini Muscos™ delivered the punch needed to help re-create the 1836 nighttime battle at the Alamo.
Photos by Jerry Caddy

Recreating the historic moonlit siege for the newly-released film, The Alamo, resulted in the biggest night shoot ever for Director of Photography, Dean Semler. “I needed some pretty heavy firepower out there, and Musco lights are the only ones that could deliver the punch through 2000 feet of atmosphere,” Semler explained.

The script's battle scenes demanded seven weeks of nocturnal filming in a gigantic 51-acre battlefield in Dripping Springs, Texas, near Austin. Semler's original plan of elevating conventional tungsten lights proved too susceptible to high winds.

Crews rotated two Musco Lights™ through four strategic positions along sloped terrain approximately 1,500-2,000 feet from the set. The flexibility of two Mini-Muscos™ allowed Semler to relocate them within 20-30 minutes for specific needs in smaller areas.

Projecting a high volume of quality light coverage across a sprawling field was one of the film's greatest challenges.

His greatest challenge was projecting a high volume of quality light coverage across the sprawling field. “The bigger Muscos covered the whole area and gave me the F-stop the camera lens required.” High winds, which prevented the use of gels, actually helped create a dramatic nighttime effect. The larger Muscos emitted 5,600 Kelvin degrees of light made blue by excessive gun smoke, yet the burning skyline measured 2,600 degrees. “I had huge extremes, but it worked because the blue of the ‘moonlight’ and the orange of the firelight was really quite pretty,” Semler added.

The massive set and difficult weather conditions made this film very challenging. “We had winds, rain, snow, and sub-zero cold, but the lights just kept burning. We never had to bring them down because of wind.”

The Alamo is currently playing across the country. •