Bonnin, 47, has been involved in the productions of films such as the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, the “Spider-Man” movies, and the “Transformers” sequel. He has filmed action sequences for several movies, including the upcoming Tim Burton film “Alice in Wonderland.”
Bonnin specializes in operating a libra head, a three-axis stabilized camera platform that can be mounted on nearly anything, such as boats, crane arms, motorcycles, ATVs and flying camera rigs. With a remote control, he can control the camera to film action scenes without getting in the way of the actors.
“It gives you really a lot of room to be inventive and come up with shots that you wouldn’t normally do,” Bonnin said. “It allows the stunts and action moves to actually proliferate because a cameraman or a person doesn’t have to be in harm’s way as much as he used to.”
For the most recent film he worked on, “Alice in Wonderland,” Bonnin shot the actors performing indoors with a green screen in the background. He said that computer animators would digitally fill in the background during post-production.
However, during the film shoot, Bonnin had no clue what the final scenes would look like.
“As we shot it, we didn’t see any of that background,” Bonnin said. “We saw the actors. We saw the crazy costumes and the makeup, but we didn’t see any of the computer-generated characters. So I’m looking forward to seeing it just to see the visual aspect of it. It’ll be interesting to say the least.”
