Rainbow (1996 film)

Infobox Film
name = Rainbow

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image_size =
caption = Rainbow promotional poster
director = Bob Hoskins
producer = Robert Sidaway
Nicolas Clermont
writer = Ashley Sidaway
Robert Sidaway
narrator =
starring = Bob Hoskins
Terry Finn
Jacob Tierney
Saul Rubinek
Dan Aykroyd
music = Alan Reeves
cinematography = Freddie Francis
editing = Ashley Sidaway
distributor =
released = 1996
runtime = 101 mins
country = UK
Canada
language = English
budget = US$8 million
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 136505
imdb_id = 0114228

"Rainbow" is a 1996 family adventure film directed by Bob Hoskins, written by Ashley Sidaway and Robert Sidaway and starring Bob Hoskins, Terry Finn, Jacob Tierney, Saul Rubinek and Dan Aykroyd. The story concerns four children and a dog whose journey in a magical rainbow results in an adventure that finds them on a race against time to save the world.

From a technical standpoint, it was also the world's first all digital feature film to be created using digital recording technology for both picture and sound.

Shot entirely with Sony's first Solid State Electronic Cinematography cameras and featuring over 35 minutes of digital image processing and visual effects, all post production, sound effects, editing and scoring were completed digitally.

The Digital High Definition image was transferred to 35mm negative for theatrical release.

Story

Mike is a rambunctious 10-year old living in Hudson Harbor, New Jersey. He has an eccentric magician grandfather, Frank, a loving, working mom, Jackie, and a 13-year old brother, Steve, an 'outsider' at school. One day after a rainstorm, Mike experiences a RAINBOW unlike any he has ever seen before. He's sure that it was 'real' and when he and his friends, Tissy and Pete, explore the spot he saw it land upon, they discover a scorched triangular crater thirty feet wide and a stray dog he adopts and names Mutt.

He brings the dog home, much to Jackie's concern. Tissy tries to explain to him that rainbows aren't real, but Mike knows what he saw. He saw it land.

Pete and Tissy try a science experiment on the scorched earth and they see it turn brightly colored and then disappear. They decide to search for the Rainbow with Mike, using home-made measuring equipment and school computers, knowing that the next time they'll have to get to the Rainbow quickly before it disappears.

One day during school, it starts to rain. The Rainbow appears and Tissy, Mike, Pete and Steve race out of school and tear off on their bikes in hot pursuit. After a race through the city, they catch up with the Rainbow and, stepping inside it, are taken on the ride of their lives. An exhilarating, dazzling, kaleidoscope -- a dizzying, whirling, rollercoaster ride through the air!

However, when they get to the end of the rainbow they find themselves in Kansas!

When Sheriff Wyatt Hampton of Sativa Falls tries to put them on the plane back home, the kids escape with their photos of the Rainbow ride developed at the airport's photo shop. Finally arriving home, they are met at the airport by Frank, Jackie and inquisitive reporters. Jackie 'grounds' the boys and no one believes their story. Steve sells some of the gold pieces he swiped from the Rainbow to a pawnbroker. A group of punks from his school steal two more from him. Their Science teacher, Sam Elliot starts to look into the kids story.

...meanwhile something begins to happen to the atmosphere...the temperature rises... and color begins to fade...

Sam, Jackie, Frank and the kids realise the missing gold from the Rainbow is the reason the Earth's losing its color. And if the Earth loses the color green, plants will be unable to conduct photosynthesis and production of oxygen will cease within seventy-four hours, of which sixty-nine have already passed. It's a race to save the world!

After breaking into the pawnbroker's shop and a fight with the punks from school, our gang recover the missing pieces of gold and Mike is drawn to the spot where the Rainbow first appeared to him. He replaces the gold.

Color is returned the Earth and Mike and Mutt are taken on another whirling ride which this time lands them way outside America...

The Production

Principal photography began in Montreal on September 21, 1994, the start of a nine week shoot that would take the cast and crew through to the end of November. This included two weeks of blue screen, or in this case green screen studio filming. Clarenceville, a 30-minute drive from Montreal, was the site of the important cornfield scenes (doubling for Kansas), and the opening and closing of the film features aerial footage in New York and Hawaii. The remainder was shot in Montreal.

Montreal was chosen for the production site due its ideal mix of architecture and weather conditions which closely approximated those in the script. "When the script was originally written, the locale was set in Washington D.C." Visual Consultant, 2nd Unit Director and Executive Producer David L. Snyder stated. "When we arrived in Montreal Bob and I made the decision to change the locale to New Jersey and not move the production around, as we had found everything we needed in Quebec. A fictional city located in New Jersey can be fairly nondescript and much less identifiable than Boston, New York, or Washington for that matter."

"Using composite photography, the view from New Jersey looks like New York. And Montreal was perfect in every way for our purposes; the suburb Outremont, where the school scenes are filmed, is an older, residential area which had a choice of schools to shoot in. Montreal also has both that traditional 1950's downtown look you find in so many American cities and hi-rise contemporary structures & municipal complexes"

"There's a schematic geography to all this," adds Snyder. "And we have all these different looks we've been able to achieve, plus the interior of a TVbroadcast studio (shot at the TVA building which houses working studios), commercial streets and the area where the diner and comic book store are. We wanted Jackie and her boys to reside in an urban environment at a specific economic level and we've been able to do that here."

Hoskins chose Snyder to establish the appropriate look after their experience working together on "Super Mario Bros".

Pre-Production commenced at Ealing Studios, London prior to the move to Montreal. The Ealing conferences dealt with script readings and visual concepts, including some preliminary filming of various 'practical' man-made rainbows.

Once in Canada, Snyder then met with Production Designer Claude Pare and asked him to turn his concepts into reality, which included design ideas for the Hudson Harbor settings. A primary task involved taking a French-Canadian city and replacing all the French language signage withEnglish language graphics and signage.

For a film that’s featured set-piece is a ride through the Rainbow and whose story features the loss of color to the world, costume designer Janet Campbell's role was especially important. Said Campbell: "I'm trying to impart a timeless look to the characters, because the producers want the film to become a classic to be watched forever. So I've avoided that heavy grunge look so prevalent among kids today [1994] . Instead, I've given them a classic look."

Each character's look was also designed to reflect his or her individuality. "Steve is one good example," says Campbell. "He's older than the other kids and is a rebel, so the colors I've chosen for him are darker. But toward the end, when his true nature begins to shine through, the colors of his clothing become brighter."

"Another example are the uniforms of the Tigers, the gang that Steve wants to join. Although they're quite similar, each one sports something colorful that shows that member's individuality, like a patch, a vest, a shirt or whatever. Yet, you can still identify them as the Tigers."

The best example of Campbell's attempts to showcase color came in the guise of Jack The Prophet, the character which warns about the impending advent of doomsday. "The Prophet is a street person, so we decided to have him attach the objects he finds on the street to his coat. His coat becomes a mass of bright ribbons, buttons and other objects and when the color begins to fade from the world you'll notice that his coat will become desaturated with color."

"Those small objects are proof that a designer's job is as much about good shopping as good designing. You'll notice in the film that the photoshop attendant in the Kansas airport scenes is wearing a camera shaped bolo-tie. I wanted to give the character a fast-food sort of look and while lying in bed one night, I thought of that bolo as a way of accomplishing it. It's a little thing but it imparts an overall look to the character."

In early October, in the area of Montreal known as the Plateau Mont Royal, the cast and crew spent several days filming both the inside and outside of an authentic American diner. The Galaxie Diner, transformed for the film into Ynez and Charlie's Galaxie Diner, serving Spanish-Chinese food, plays an important part of the film. It's the site where the kids first see the colors in the Rainbow's soil.

On day thirteen of filming, October 9, the cast and crew moved to the center of downtown Montreal and Square Dorchester (which features imposing statues of two early Canadian Prime Ministers). The warm sunny conditions were perfect for shooting the film’s pivotal riot sequence.

About seventy-five extras were needed to portray a mob brandishing baseball bats, overturning cars and generally causing havoc as the world turns headlong into disaster. Opposing them are 15 members of Montreal's actual SWAT team (many of them whom had prior experience working on films) and several mounted policemen.

The eight-strong stunt crew included veteran, five time world karate champion, Jean Frenette. He performed the motorcycle jump over a car and through the deadly ‘Wall of Fire’, with a pillion rider seated behind him. "It's very difficult because I've got another rider with me and I can't afford to slow down," Frenette admitted just prior to the stunt. "And I don't have a crash helmet. When the character sees the world coming to an end around him, he can't worry about the helmet."

To achieve the floating quality for the interior of the Rainbow, some scenes were shot underwater in front of a submerged green screen at a swimming pool located in Montreal's east end.

To help the kids adjust to this potentially hostile environment, the producers engaged the services of aquatic consultant Daniel Berthiaume. "I had to go underwater and push or pull them to keep under at first," says Berthiaume. "Later, we used weight belts, but it wasn't easy at first."

"So to help them gain confidence, I asked them to do things naturally, the way they wanted to. After a while, they were more confident." Floating, she says, was the most difficult thing for the kids to master and they had to be at the right level for the camera. So in tandem with a scuba diving team who could help them take off their mouthpieces at the bottom of the pool and then float upwards for the camera, Berthiaume succeeded in helping the crew get the necessary shots. Members of the local swimming team were also used as doubles.

Shooting under water lasted for two full days and Berthiaume was in the water for periods of three to five hours at a time.

For the visual special effects supervisor Steven Robiner, the pool shots are particularly exciting. "It was important because we had to accomplish that weightless look perfectly for the shots inside the rainbow. You can't do that by using a rigid harness. Just ask Bob, who was aware of that after two weeks wearing them in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. It was very uncomfortable for him and he hated it."

Royal connection

Autumn Kelly (age 16), later a member of the Briitsh royal family by marriage, has a small part as one of the Tigerette gang.

External links

*imdb title|0114228