Isidore Mankofsky, cinematographer on The Muppet Movie and Muppet*Vision 3D has died. Though his name may not be familiar his work surely is.
In 1979, producer Jim Henson called upon the cinematographer to shoot The Muppet Movie, the popular television characters’ first big-screen adventure, directed by James Frawley. Henson’s hit The Muppet Show was shot in broadcast video and had a high-key, live-TV look that everyone knew wouldn’t translate to the big screen, and Mankofsky had to devise more cinema-appropriate visuals. The only caveat Henson had was that the Muppets’ distinctive colors — especially Kermit the Frog’s signature lime hue — had to remain true. “Green on film, especially at night, can be tough, and Kodak stocks at the time weren’t particularly sensitive to green,” noted Mankofsky.
“But it was great working with the Muppets. First of all, no one complained about the light in his eyes or how long he had to stand in — you just stuck them on a pole. And the puppeteers were really nice guys. When I asked Henson to move Kermit to the right a little for a better frame, Henson [who personally operated and voiced the character] wouldn’t answer — Kermit would answer.
“Henson didn’t want any visual effects,” Mankofsky continued. “He wanted everything live [in front of the camera]. For example, when Kermit was driving an old Studebaker, four or five puppeteers were working the puppets from the floor of the car, so the car had to be modified so it could be driven from the trunk. The wide-angle lens of a video camera poked out of the car’s distinctive grill so the driver could see.
“The question I’m asked most about The Muppet Movie is how Kermit rode the bike. We took a crane with an arm extended out, and monofilament ran from that down to the bike. Kermit’s feet were strapped to the pedals, and the pedals would turn as the bike wheels turned. The voice and mouth movements were remote-controlled; we’d just pull it along:
“However, the shot I’m most proud of is the one that shows Kermit sitting in a director’s chair on a big soundstage. Where’s Henson? I did that in such a simple way, and no one has figured it out. I put a couple mirrors in [below the chair], and Henson is behind the mirrors. I lit it so the shadows in the mirrors looked like they continued past the chair legs.”
In 1991, Mankofsky reunited with the Muppets to shoot a special-venue film in 3-D, a new format for him. On MuppetVision 3-D, which played the Disney Hollywood Studios park for almost two decades, Mankofsky was the creative cinematographer while Peter Anderson, ASC served as the technical cinematographer. “Peter wanted to shoot tests every day, but the producer came in and said, ‘Just shoot, and if it doesn’t turn out, then that can be considered the test,” Mankofsky remembered. “We only had to reshoot one day out of the whole schedule, and that was because the [interlocked] cameras went out of sync.”
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| Using a twin-camera 65mm rig custom-built for the project, the top unit is shooting down into a mirror. The film stock in this camera was run backwards, take up to feed, in order to correct the mirror's flipped image, thus avoiding a quality-degrading optical in post. |
Mankofsky remembered the massive amount of light needed for the shoot: “On a big outdoor set where Miss Piggy is fishing, I had 100 coops that each held six 1,000-watt bulbs just to get the fill-light level where we wanted it. For a key light, I had an 18K, and for back light, I had a Xenon. It got so hot up in the permanents that we had to stop shooting; it overpowered the air-conditioner! I needed 1,600 footcandles and had no idea how to get that, but after turning on all those coops, I put my meter up, and it read 1,600 footcandles exactly. Whew!”
Mankofsky received the ASC's Presidents Award in 2009 for his leadership and service to the organization.
Isidore Mankofsky was 89.
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