Was there a designed look for the Rocky films, including the fight scenes?
BUTLER: I dont consciously try to create looks for pictures or characters. It is much more intuitive than that. You simply pick your best shots. At the end of a picture, the look is what you thought was right for that story at the moment it was happening. In the fight scenes most of the light came from overhead. It was hot and glaring just like the audience expects in a real fight. We wanted the fighters to be hot and sweaty. The problem was that overhead lights made the fighters eyes look like big, black holes, so I also hung two pipes on opposite sides of the ring with a string of lights on each. They provided fill light in the ring and spilled onto the faces in the first 10 to 15 rows of the arena. No matter which way the fighters turned we had the right light on their faces. ICG: What about The Thorn Birds, a classic miniseries that you shot in 1983? BUTLER: The Thorn Birds was another television project that I couldnt pass up. It took place in exotic places in Australia in past an
