The Crazy Gadgets and Stunts of Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol

The Mission: Impossible films, which follow the globe-trotting adventures of agent Ethan Hunt, are known for their high-tech gadgetry and insane action sequences. And Mission: Impossible?Ghost Protocol?the fourth in the series, already showing in IMAX theatres and available everywhere else Dec. 21?doesn't disappoint for that regard.

IMF's High-Tech Gadgets

The IMF team in Ghost Protocol is fully equipped with consumer technology available to us all, including iPads and iPhones. But they've also got bionic contact lenses, gloves that stick to any surface, and a BMW with a touchscreen interface integrated into the windshield. "We used a couple of ideas that [scientists are] working on," Bird says. "The camera that fits on a contact lens, that's a real-world thing. But then there are other things where they have the principles working and they've done experimentation, but they're years away from getting it?like the gecko gloves. And then other things were just crazy ideas that we had, and we tried to make them look believable."

The Beemer with the touchscreen windshield, however, is not just a crazy idea: It's an i8, which BMW plans to put into production. "We consulted with them: Can we show this? What will this look like when it's all done?" Bird says. "And that was a bonus, because it looks like a car that's designed for these movies, and in fact it's one of their actual upcoming cars."

Swinging on the Burj Khalifa

At 2716.5 feet, Dubai's Burj Khalifa?which serves as a hotel, a conference center, and a residence?is the tallest building in the world. In the film, Ethan Hunt must access the hotel's server room from where it's most vulnerable: the outside of the building. This means scaling the exterior from the 123rd floor to the 130th floor. Initially, Bird planned to film the scene on a soundstage and fill it out with visual effects. But after talking to people in Dubai, he found out he had the irresistible chance to film the stunt in real life. "We could film Tom on the actual building," Bird says. "The more we started to think about that, the bigger our eyes got. Tom became really fixed on the idea of doing this amazing stunt and training for it."

While Bird planned out the shots and the stunt team scouted the Burj Khalifa for a place to shoot, Cruise got busy practicing for the climb. The production designer built a replica of the portion of the Burj for Cruise to practice on, and heated the set to simulate the actual conditions Cruise would face when doing the stunt for real (at times, the glass was as hot as 100 degrees Fahrenheit). The actor rehearsed the moves for months and trained with a rock climber to make sure his technique was accurate.

The base for the stunt was the Burj's 123rd floor, which was unfinished at the time of filming. "We could take our camera equipment and cranes and bash them around a bit and not hurt anything because the floors weren't finished," Bird says. The production crew had to remove 15 windows to gain access to the exterior of the building, rig the wiring for Cruise's safety harness, and extend the camera jibs outward.

While shooting, Cruise wore a harness attached to a cable system. A cable the size of piano wire was attached at various points along the length of the building; it was attached to Cruise's harness through a miniature pulley called a belly sheave, to control how tightly the actor was held against the building as he climbed. But climbing wasn't all Cruise had to do. For one shot, he also had to fall four stories; for another, he had to run across the face of the building and launch himself through an open window.

Bird says he wasn't nervous watching the star perform this crazy stunt?he was simply too nervous about getting the shot. "I didn't want to be the weak link that screwed up all this incredible infrastructure and preparation. So it wasn't until about 4 in the morning, when I was deep asleep, and suddenly my eyes snapped open and I went, ahh! What are we doing? When it was happening, I was just focused on not screwing up my part of it."

The crew filmed 13 shots over the course of four days on the outside of the Burj. "We planned it almost like a military invasion," Bird says. "I think the success of it is largely dependent on two things: getting cooperation from the people of Dubai, and then also having a star who's willing to go that high up and swing around on a very thin wire. It's a weird perfect storm of events, and I don't think it'll probably ever happen again."

Shooting in IMAX

When Bird came on board to direct Ghost Protocol, he knew he wanted to shoot some sequences in IMAX, just as Christopher Nolan did for The Dark Knight. "That's the way I first saw it," Bird says. "The sharpness of the image and the sheer size of the screen was mesmerizing to me, and I wanted to see if I could play with that kind of canvas." About 25 minutes of Ghost Protocol was shot on the 70-mm format, including the opening sequence in Budapest, the scenes on the Burj Khalifa, and a climactic action sequence in a Mumbai parking garage. "Anyone who sees it in IMAX will recognize which sections we shot," he says.

While shooting in the format was ultimately very rewarding?and provides a great viewer experience?it wasn't without its challenges. "The IMAX cameras are big and cumbersome," Bird says, "and the negatives are so large that the film rolls don't last very long?so you can't roll very long before you have to get the action underway. And if it was a helicopter shot, you had to go back to base to change the magazine."

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/digital/visual-effects/the-crazy-gadgets-and-crazier-stunts-of-mission-impossible-ghost-protocol?src=rss

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