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The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques
Features 32 44 54 66
Bourne Again Oliver Wood keeps the adrenaline flowing in The Bourne Ultimatum
Cultural Immersion Teodoro Maniaci treks to India to shoot the indie Outsourced
Baroque Visions 44
Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC pays homage to an artistic icon in Caravaggio
Once Upon a Time in Bucharest Christopher Probst details his award-winning work on the Muse video “Knights of Cydonia”
Departments On Our Cover: International superspy Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) chases an assassin in The Bourne Ultimatum, shot by Oliver Wood. (Photo by Jasin Boland, courtesy of Universal Pictures.)
Visit us online at
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Editor’s Note Global Village DVD Playback Production Slate Short Takes Post Focus Filmmakers’ Forum New Products & Services Points East International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index ASC Membership Roster Clubhouse News Wrap Shot
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The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques • Since 1920
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American Society of Cinematographers The ASC is not a labor union or a guild, but an educational, cultural and professional organization. Membership is by invitation to those who are actively engaged as directors of photography and have demonstrated outstanding ability. ASC membership has become one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a professional cinematographer — a mark of prestige and excellence.
OFFICERS - 2007/2008 Daryn Okada President
Michael Goi Vice President
Richard Crudo Vice President
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MEMBERS OF THE BOARD Richard Crudo Caleb Deschanel George Spiro Dibie Richard Edlund William A. Fraker Michael Goi John Hora Victor J. Kemper Francis Kenny Isidore Mankofsky Robert Primes Owen Roizman Dante Spinotti Kees Van Oostrum Haskell Wexler
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Editor’s Note ames Bond is newly resurgent after last year’s worldwide hit Casino Royale, but Jason Bourne strikes back with The Bourne Ultimatum, a non-stop thrill ride that ups the ante in the international superspies’ box-office showdown. Cinematographer Oliver Wood, who has shot all three Bourne films, notes that he and director Paul Greengrass sought to maintain the series’ tradition of “unscripted, spontaneous” camerawork, capturing the action in an almost documentary style that would give Greengrass and the editors endless options in the cutting room. The production’s global reach — scenes were shot in the U.S., England, Germany, France, Morocco and Latvia — required Wood to coordinate closely with his second-unit collaborators, chiefly director/stunt coordinator Dan Bradley and cinematographers Mark Moriarty and Igor Meglic. He also gave considerable creative freedom to his A- and B-camera operators, Klemens Becker and Florian Emmerich, who often found themselves capturing handheld images on the fly. As Wood notes in his interview with Jon Silberg (“Bourne Again,” page 32), this strategy creates the illusion that the filmmakers were “lucky the cameras happened to be rolling at the right moment.” Although the independent film Outsourced didn’t visit as many countries as Bourne and co., cinematographer Teodoro Maniaci found that India provided plenty of visual stimulation. To prepare for the challenge of shooting a low-budget feature in a foreign land, Maniaci spent several weeks traveling from one end of India to the other. “I wanted to get a sense of the country’s rhythms and logic,” he tells AC senior editor Rachael K. Bosley (“Cultural Immersion,” page 44). “India really is its own universe. It’s a beehive, a whirling maelstrom of activity. It’s all experiences all at once all the time. By the time production came around I was able to stay incredibly calm in the midst of huge crises; all the intricacies and sound and fury of production seemed mellow in comparison to what I’d been through on my travels!” An international flavor also permeates Caravaggio, shot by master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC. Slated for broadcast on Italian television and future theatrical release, the production was mounted by entities in Italy, France, Spain and Germany, with scenes shot in Rome, Naples, Sicily, Malta and at Belgrade Studios in Serbia. In a wide-ranging interview with fellow Italian Giose Gallotti (“Baroque Visions,” page 54), Storaro says he leaped at the chance to trace the life of a monumental artist who had significantly influenced his own work: “I knew it would be an opportunity to study in depth the trajectory and work of this visionary protagonist of figurative art. Moreover, it would allow me to explore further the mystery of light and shadow, a theme that has always been at the center of my cinematographic journey.” Cinematographer and longtime AC technical editor Christopher Probst indulged in more whimsical forms of homage while shooting the music video “Knights of Cydonia” for the rock band Muse. Describing the song as “a cross between Ennio Morricone’s Spaghetti Western scores and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’” Probst notes that the offbeat music “stumped many music-video directors” but proved a font of inspiration for director Joseph Kahn, who submitted a treatment that featured “Barbarella-style warrior women, robots, unicorns, holograms, motorcycles, and a mysterious hero who appears in the guises of a rogue cowboy and masked avenger.” After assimilating this crazy quilt of influences on location in Romania, Probst was rewarded with the Music Video Production Association’s Best Cinematography Award. With abundant familial pride, we asked Chris to pen his own account of the unique shoot (“Once Upon a Time in Bucharest,” page 66).
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Stephen Pizzello Executive Editor
Photo by Douglas Kirkland.
J
Global Village The CSC Celebrates 50 Years
The late Fritz Spiess, CSC, one of the Society’s founders, is shown on top of a camera car circa 1957. Spiess specialized in commercial cinematography, and the CSC Award for that medium is named for him.
eorge Morita, CSC was a 20-year-old camera assistant when the Canadian Society of Cinematographers was founded in September 1957. He attended the meeting where the contentious bylaws that gave the CSC its structure were approved; in fact, he was the recording secretary, having been conscripted by the director of photography for whom he worked. Morita, now 70 and “mostly” retired from a career as one of Canada’s top commercials cinematographers, recalls that some of the CSC’s founders felt strongly that the new society “should be more elitist, that perhaps it should be reserved for full directors of photography.” He adds with a laugh, “As the debate went on, I realized I was
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10 September 2007
recording events that might lead to my demise as a member! I thought I might have to leave the room and record the minutes from the hallway.” As it turned out, the cameramen decided to include operators and assistants in associate and (later) affiliate categories of membership. That policy, says Morita, “is carried on to this day.” Inclusion has worked well for the CSC. Beyond the principle of democracy lies unvarnished reality: of the 34 charter members, who hailed from Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, only 13 were directors of photography who were immediately granted the CSC credential. This year, as the organization celebrates its 50th anniversary, membership across Canada has risen to nearly 500, more
than 300 of whom are associates or affiliates. Morita picked up his credential in the late 1960s, and his son, Rhett, is also a full member. “Everything the CSC stands for is well worth supporting,” he says. “Prior to the CSC, cameramen were distant. There wasn’t a sense of camaraderie, a sense of being part of a group. The CSC has fostered that and provided a venue for cinematographers to gather and discuss similar problems and share information.” CSC President Joan Hutton echoes the sentiment. “The Society is the one binding element among cinematographers in Canada,” she says. “It brings camerapeople together. Whenever you have a problem, you can always find someone who will give you advice or answer a question, and when you’re first coming up, that’s fantastic. [Assistants, operators and cinematographers] can meet as equals and chat about what they’ve worked on, what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.” She credits Barry Stone, CSC, now based in Northern California, for putting it best: “The CSC is always there to answer your questions, feed you new information and pat you on the back from time to time.” Stone was referring to the Society’s regular meetings, workshops, seminars and symposia, its magazine, and the CSC Awards. A golden anniversary is a milestone to be proud of, but Hutton notes that the focus of the celebration is as much about preparing for tomorrow as it is about celebrating yesterday. “Fifty years … [is] an achievement that gives us a good reason to anticipate the future while respecting the past,” she said at the CSC Awards gala in March. Hutton has been the CSC presi-
Photos courtesy of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers.
by Don Angus
“Because the F350 has time lapse, slow shutter and over and undercranking, I got more creative options and my client got higher production value for the budget,” Humeau says.
“With XDCAM HD, we shot a big show on a tight budget.” Thierry Humeau, director of photography and president of Télécam Films recently used his PDW-F350 XDCAM HD camcorders to create Bombs, Bullets & Fraud, a documentary on the US Postal Service Inspectors for Smithsonian Networks, a new HD TV channel from Smithsonian Institution and Showtime Networks. “They needed a big movie that had to meet their high standards of quality on a fairly tight budget,” Humeau says.“Some scenes we shot movie-style with a big crew, dollies and jibs. Some are ENG-style, following cops at night. Some are highly produced interviews. In every instance, the XDCAM HD camcorder came through.” The show’s producer, Tim Baney of Baney Media is also a fan. He says, “The camcorder is very producer-friendly. You can instantly play back a scene on the LCD monitor and say okay, good, let’s move on to the next take. It’s a huge time saver and safety net that gave me confidence, knowing we got it in the can.” And the Smithsonian Networks’ reaction? “They love it,” says Baney.“In fact, they’re already talking to us about another film.” To see a trailer of Bombs, Bullets & Fraud and find out how to receive up to $500 back on the purchase of an XDCAM HD camcorder, visit sony.com/xdcam.
© 2007 Sony Electronics Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Features and specifications are subject to change without notice. Sony and XDCAM are trademarks of Sony. Smithsonian Networks is a joint venture of Smithsonian Institution and Showtime Networks.
The late Reginald Morris (left), a charter member of the CSC, collaborates with director John Huston during the making of Phobia (1980), a thriller shot mainly in Toronto.
dent for 15 years. During her tenure, the organization has strengthened its status as a respected and influential association of professionals, and it has stayed true to its original objective: “To promote and foster the art of cinematography in Canada.” The Society’s founders were trying to make cinematography “a profession rather than just a job, and I think they did very well,” says Hutton, the first of five women to be made a full CSC member. The CSC was conceived in the lobby of a film studio, a former movie theater, in east-end Toronto. The studio was common ground for several cameramen who came to believe in the need for an organization dedicated to their special craft. When their paths crossed in that old theater lobby, they exchanged ideas and sharpened their focus on the future. It was the mid1950s. Theatrical features were scarce, and Canadian television was just starting to generate a commercials industry and some homegrown dramas. Film cameramen had few places to sell their skills. There was the National Film Board, turning out world-class documentaries; there were newsreel companies, which were quickly becoming obsolescent; TV news and sports; TV commercials; and a couple of out-of12 September 2007
studio series. Just as plans for the CSC were taking shape, the first major dramatic TV series produced on film in Canada aired on both the French and English networks of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. The show was Radisson. Then there was Cannonball, a weekly half-hour Canada/U.S. production that was shot in Ontario and ran for 39 episodes in 1958-59. Most CBC dramas and series were shot live in studio. The idea for the CSC originated with Herbert Alpert, ASC, CSC, who came to Toronto from New York in 1955. Alpert, now in his 90s, says it was “mostly out of pride” that he felt the need to establish a group similar to the American Society of Cinematographers, despite the small size of the film community in Canada. “Britain had the BSC; the Americans, of course, were the prime movers in that area with the ASC; and I think Italy was beginning to talk about having something similar,” says Alpert. “I thought it was time, in spite of the fact there were only about a dozen cameramen I knew, that we too should have some standards and a fraternal association.” Fifty years later, the Canadian film and television industry is a vastly different landscape. Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are major production
centers, and there is smaller but important activity elsewhere, such as Halifax, Winnipeg, Regina and Calgary. Most of the production is generated by TV programming both indigenous and foreign (mainly American). Theatrical features are predominantly U.S. “service productions,” while the national cry continues for a legitimate Canadian film industry to produce English-language movies that people want to see. Quebec films are much more successful at home and in Francophone countries, and many, like Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions (shot by Guy Dufaux, CSC), cross the language divide to screen successfully in the rest of Canada. Homegrown English-language features receive about 1-2 percent of screen time nationally. The Canadian industry has been on an economic roller-coaster ride since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, the SARS virus scare in Toronto, labor unrest, and, most recently, a soaring Canadian dollar. Nevertheless, the physical and human resources of the Canadian film infrastructure continue to be attractive. Canadian cinematographers such as Glen Winter, CSC and David Moxness, CSC, who shoot the U.S. series Smallville in British Columbia (see AC March ’07), are recognized as world class. They, and many others, have also been winners at the CSC Awards, where the 1957 spirit of inclusion is most evident. There are 12 competitive categories, including Spot News, News Essay, Student, Performance, Documentary, Docudrama, TV Series, TV Drama, Dramatic Short, Commercial, Music Video and Theatrical Feature. All of these categories make for a long evening, but no aspect of cinematography is excluded, says Hutton. Today, she says, “the CSC is more relevant than ever before. I think we’re just getting into our stride now.” Don Angus was the editor of the CSC News from 1994-2007. I
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DVD Playback The Third Man (1949) Special Edition 1.33:1 (Full Frame) Dolby Digital Monaural The Criterion Collection, $39.95 Devastated from the fallout of World War II, the crumbling city of Vienna is the destination for American pulp novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten). It’s 1949, and Martins is seeking his friend, Harry Lime (Orson Welles), who has promised him work. When he arrives at Lime’s home, he discovers that his friend recently died in an accident. Upset and confused, Martins heads to the funeral, where he meets several of Lime’s acquaintances, including the mysterious Anna (Alida Valli). As Martins begins asking questions about Lime’s accident, he learns more than he expected, particularly from pushy military police officer Calloway (Trevor Howard), who suspected Lime of terrible crimes. While Martins pursues Anna, Calloway pursues Martins, searching for a possible link to Lime’s criminal activities. The more people Martins speaks to, the more deceit he uncovers, and the strangest mystery of all is the identity of the “third man” who was reportedly at the scene when Lime died; two other witnesses are known, but no one can identify the third. In 1948, British producer Alexander Korda commissioned renowned writer Graham Greene to write a treatment dealing with post-war intrigue. 14 September 2007
Greene chose war-torn Vienna as the backdrop for his story, which eventually became The Third Man. Korda partnered with producer David O. Selznick on the project, and they offered it to British director Carol Reed. Determined to give the picture a unique style and sensibility, Reed tapped cinematographer Robert Krasker (Brief Encounter, El Cid ), with whom he had collaborated on Odd Man Out. Krasker, who won an Academy Award for his striking, richly detailed black-and-white photography on The Third Man, later credited Reed with suggesting the many canted camera angles that give the film a quality Krasker described as “lewd.” The filmmakers’ efforts to give The Third Man a unique visual texture included having three separate camera units shoot almost 24 hours a day for several weeks on location in Vienna. Krasker carried out the intense night shooting and carefully supervised the day unit and “sewer unit” headed by cinematographers John Wilcox and Stanley Pavey, respectively. The Criterion Collection released an excellent DVD of The Third Man in 1999, and the company recently reissued the title as a two-disc special edition that includes a slew of new supplements and a new transfer of the feature. Compared to the 1999 pressing, the new release has a slight edge, with better depth of field and a more broadly visible gray scale. The most notable difference between the picture transfers is that Criterion has decided to “window box” the 1.33:1 image on this new pressing. This process, which presents a slight black box around the image, allows for maximum, uniform picture information on all four sides; some of this information is occasionally lost on home screens, particularly standard 4x3 TV sets. The monaural audio on this new DVD is slightly better, offering clearer tonality. With this DVD, as with the 1999
edition, Criterion has chosen to present the original British version of the film, which is 11 minutes longer than Selznick’s 93-minute cut; the latter paints Martins in a more serious light. This package’s supplements are generous but occasionally redundant. They include most of the extras featured on the 1999 release: an introduction by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich; Greene’s abridged original treatment (read by Richard Clarke); radio-play features; Cotton’s voice-over from the U.S. version; stills; a press book; the U.S. trailer; an updated presentation of the film’s history from writer Charles Drazin; vintage newsreel footage of the sewers of Vienna; and a newsreel glimpse of Anton Karas, the zither player who performed the film’s legendary score. The new supplements start with two audio commentaries, one a detailed analysis by film scholar Dana Polan, the other a lively but only marginally interesting appreciation by filmmakers Steven Soderbergh and Tony Gilroy. Also new are a solid 30-minute Austrian documentary, “Who Was The Third Man?”; an excellent hour-long BBC Omnibus profile of Greene; printed essays by Drazin, Luc Sante and Philip Kerr; a glimpse of some of the scenes’ untranslated dialogue; and Frederick Baker’s 90-minute documentary “Shadowing The Third Man.” Baker’s piece is filled with brief interviews with cast and crewmembers, including Krasker, but it seems unnecessarily padded to feature length by far too many long clips from the film. This DVD update of The Third Man highlights the lasting importance of the film, which has long been considered one of England’s most accomplished pictures. This edition is ideal for longstanding fans and will certainly welcome new viewers to the sinister, romantic beauty of post-war Vienna, a city pictured from the heights of its gilded Riesenrad (a
famous Ferris wheel) to the depths of its labyrinthine sewer system. — Kenneth Sweeney
Straight Time (1978) 1.85:1 (16x9 Enhanced) Dolby Digital Monaural Warner Home Video, $19.95 Throughout its history, Hollywood has had a lot to answer for when it comes to romanticizing criminals, but the accusation could never be leveled at the uncompromising, considerably underrated gem Straight Time. Featuring Dustin Hoffman in a possibly career-best performance as Max Dembo, a jittery Los Angeles ex-con attempting to go straight, the film never once strikes a false note in its depiction of the sporadically exciting but ultimately desperate and sad life of an average criminal. Straight Time is resolutely a film of the provocative 1970s era, in that it explores the full spectrum of Dembo’s criminal psychology — the greed and stupidity that doom him, as well as the professionalism and exhilaration of a perfect “score” — while refusing to make easy moral judgments. At the start of the film, Dembo is released from prison and makes a sincere attempt to re-enter law-abiding society. But the crushing boredom of a minimum-wage job, combined with humiliating visits from a repugnant parole officer (M. Emmet Walsh), soon lures Dembo back to his old ways. When a jewelry-store heist with a loyal partner (Harry Dean Stanton) goes horribly awry, Dembo goes on the run, but the resignation on his face seems to augur that a return to prison is all but inevitable. Indeed, the film’s fatalistic last line and concluding frames imply that “institutional men” like Dembo are born rather than made. 16
Hoffman initially intended to direct and star in Straight Time, which is based on Eddie Bunker’s memoir No Beast So Fierce. But the actor soon found the combined demands overwhelming and turned over the directing reins to Ulu Grosbard, whose emphasis on low-key realism made him a perfect foil for Hoffman’s intense performance. Primarily a theater director, Grosbard favored letting many scenes play out in wide shots with few edits, a strategy that highlights both the bracing spontaneity of the performances and the tension of the narrative. In a commentary on this DVD, Grosbard notes that his visual approach was aided immeasurably by cinematographer Owen Roizman, ASC, who innately had a “great sense of what is real and what isn’t.” The filmmakers were determined to present the gritty underbelly of Los Angeles — disheveled Burbank backyards and dilapidated downtown rooming houses — and Roizman’s naturalistic style, honed on raw classics such as The French Connection and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, was perfectly suited to the task. It’s a relief to see that Warner Bros. has treated Straight Time with the respect it deserves; this transfer features superb clarity, nicely saturated colors and minimal age artifacts. Grosbard and Hoffman are both featured on the commentary, though it quickly becomes clear that they did not record it together, and that they don’t even seem to be watching the film as they make their comments. Commentaries like this gemerally lack good, specific observations, but Grosbard and Hoffman are expansive talkers, and this supplement is well worth the viewer’s time. Hoffman describes how he did extensive research with Bunker to try to understand the dark mindset of a character like Dembo; in one instance, the ex-con told Hoffman that even as the actor was talking to him, Bunker was thinking about what he could steal from him, how he could kill him, and how he could get away with it. Ever the Method actor, Hoffman began practicing this behavioral “exercise” on everyone he met. In addition to the film’s original theatrical trailer, the DVD offers an inter-
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esting period documentary on the making of the film, “Straight Time: He Wrote It for Criminals,” which looks at Bunker’s life, his writing, and his role in assisting the filmmakers. There is great footage of Bunker and convicted bank robber John Carlen instructing Hoffman on how to be convincing during the film’s centerpiece bank-robbery scene. (They must have given good advice, as the actors accidentally tripped the bank’s actual alarm and would have had a considerable lead on the cops if they’d fled the scene. One of the arriving cops tells Hoffman, “If you’d picked a bank closer to the freeway, you could have been in San Diego by now.”) Bunker is a fascinating fellow, but features like this sometimes run the risk of glorifying a man who committed some fairly reprehensible acts. Fortunately, ex-Los Angeles cop and crimefiction writer Joseph Wambaugh is on hand to offer some perspective. Responding to Bunker’s belief that lawabiding “squares” don’t face the moral choices of a man inside prison, Wambaugh notes, “Hell, Eddie Bunker has never lived as a square in his entire life, and he doesn’t know that square people have moral choices to make each and every day. It’s awful tough for a guy to raise six kids and come home dogtired and be morally responsible in ways that are beyond the ken of an institutional man.” — Chris Pizzello
Prince of the City (1981) Special Edition 1.85:1 (16x9 Enhanced) Dolby Digital Monaural Warner Home Video, $19.98 When director Sidney Lumet chose Andrzej Bartkowiak, ASC to shoot his law-and-order epic Prince of the City, 18 September 2007
the young cinematographer had big shoes to fill: Lumet had by then collaborated with ASC members Boris Kaufman, Owen Roizman and Victor J. Kemper, among others. Bartkowiak justified Lumet’s faith, however, with visually meticulous work, and the duo went on to collaborate on several more dramas about politics and the criminal-justice system, including The Verdict, Q&A and Daniel. Based on a true story, Prince of the City follows Daniel Ciello (Treat Williams), a morally compromised narcotics detective who decides to cooperate with an investigation into police corruption by wearing wiretaps and naming names. He finds that it is impossible for him or his beloved partners to remain untouched by the scandal; Ciello’s life is endangered because of the problems he causes the New York mob, and his own indiscretions and those of his friends threaten to send them all to jail. Lumet and co-screenwriter Jay Presson Allen chart the complex moral terrain with clarity and depth. Ciello and the supporting characters are all realistic, contradictory characters; people in the film with noble intentions often do horrible things; and gangsters and junkies are presented with sympathy and understanding. The large ensemble cast is further defined by a vivid, realistic context, thanks to precise details that make the milieu of crime and punishment come to life. One thing that keeps Prince of the City compelling for almost three hours is its ability to consistently surprise us. Things and people are never as they seem, and Lumet and Bartkowiak emphasize this idea by using short or long lenses that subtly alter perspective. (Lumet claims they avoided midrange focal lengths altogether.) Bartkowiak also steadily increases characters’ isolation via lighting: at the beginning of the film the backgrounds are brightly lit and the compositions favor the characters’ surroundings, but by the end of the movie Ciello and his associates are seen in darker, more tightly framed shots that convey every
punishing betrayal. Even in scenes where Ciello doesn’t yet know he’s in trouble, Bartkowiak hints at the real meaning of his actions by “imprisoning” him with shadows. The decision to shoot most of the exteriors at angles that eliminate the sky adds to the sense of oppression as Ciello makes one tortuous ethical choice after another. This gritty tale has suffered in previous video incarnations, but Warner Home Video’s new anamorphic transfer is solid and preserves the nuances of Bartkowiak’s work. The monaural soundtrack is relatively dynamic in spite of the lack of surround effects; evocative sound effects occasionally reinforce the brutal societal machine that traps and manipulates the film’s characters. The 167-minute feature is spread out over two discs, and disc two also features the half-hour supplement “Prince of the City: The Real Story.” This documentary includes interviews with Lumet and actors Williams and Bob Balaban, among others, and provides a concise but enlightening overview of the production. The only other supplement is the film’s theatrical trailer. — Jim Hemphill I
NEXT MONTH’S REVIEWS Ace in the Hole (1951) Cinematographer: Charles B. Lang Jr., ASC
To Catch A Thief (1955) Cinematographer: Robert Burks, ASC
Rio Bravo (1959) Cinematographer: Russell Harlan, ASC
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Production Slate
Institutionalized killer Michael Myers (Tyler Mane) terrorizes the small town of Haddonfield while tracking down his little sister in Halloween, a re-imagining of John Carpenter’s 1978 classic by director Rob Zombie and cinematographer Phil Parmet.
Michael Myers Returns by Jon D. Witmer It is the first day of spring, and director Rob Zombie stands in the snow outside a Los Angeles-area hospital. The snow has been provided by the art department on Zombie’s latest film, a “re-imagining” of John Carpenter’s horror classic Halloween. Stepping away from the bustle on set, director of photography Phil Parmet, who first teamed with Zombie for The Devil’s Rejects (2005), sheds some light on Zombie’s role in the Halloween franchise: “I think it’s been a challenge to make this film new, not just a remake — to make something that has artistic integrity but is still an homage to the original.” Zombie reveals that his own taste in horror favors Universal’s classic monster movies of the 1930s. “My refer-
20 September 2007
ence point for this Halloween was really Frankenstein,” he says. “That’s what horror movies used to be: the misunderstood monster.” Accordingly, Zombie’s Halloween focuses considerable attention on killer Michael Myers, depicting his childhood (when he is played by Daeg Faerch) as a period that clearly sows the seeds for his murderous tendencies. As in the original Halloween, we also see the adult Myers (Tyler Mane) escape from a mental institution and return home to terrorize Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor Compton), Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) and Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif). During their initial meetings about the project, Zombie and Parmet focused on evolving the techniques they’d used on The Devil’s Rejects to fit Halloween’s themes. They decided to stick with a gritty multi-camera shooting style and naturalistic lighting, but they
traded the Super 16mm of Rejects for 3perf Super 35mm. Additionally, Halloween was shot entirely on location and features very little CGI. “The impulse on Halloween, as on Devil’s Rejects, was to shoot a film that had the feel and texture of documentary photography,” says Parmet. Achieving the grittiness Zombie sought with 35mm proved a bit of a challenge. “I shot a lot of tests overexposing and underexposing, with and without bleach bypass, and we took those to [colorist] Lou Levinson at Post Logic,” says the cinematographer. “The first few tries were not to Rob’s liking; he felt 35mm just looked too polished. He wanted the picture to have a stripped-down, raw elegance, a look that was hard-edged and realistic.” Finally, with the start of production just days away, Parmet showed Zombie the final test. “Lou and I had added grain to make it look like an older emulsion, and we had also crushed the blacks, upped the general contrast, pulled out the greens and desaturated the image overall,” says Parmet. “I let out a long sigh of relief when Rob smiled and said we had finally nailed it!” To fine-tune the look they had in mind, the crew (and many of the cast) first tackled the tongue-in-cheek Werewolf Women of the SS trailer that was featured as part of Grindhouse. “It was a good chance to work out the kinks,” says Parmet. “We used the same lab and the same camera package, and we shot it the weekend before we started shooting Halloween. It was basically a shakedown cruise for the crew.” Parmet’s crew included “Orange” and “Black” camera operators David Daniel and B.J. McDonnell (who also operated the Steadicam) and 1st ACs Jay Levy and James Sprattley.
Halloween photos by Marsha LaMarca, courtesy of MGM/Dimension Films.
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Left: A young Michael (Daeg Faerch) starts killing early. Right: Parmet (in hat) watches over a two-camera take of Michael on Halloween night.
22 September 2007
(Levy had to leave to the production early because of a prior commitment and was replaced by Bob Brown.) Along with Daniel, McDonnell and Sprattley, Parmet’s key grip, Vince Palomino, also returned from The Devil’s Rejects. New to the crew was gaffer Curtiss Bradford. “I hired Curtiss because I’d seen his work and knew he could handle big lights,” says Parmet. “In my experience of doing independent movies all these years, nobody has the money to light up whole streets, so I thought I’d better get someone with a few tricks up his sleeve. As it turned out, we had more night exteriors on this movie than I’ve shot in my entire career as a cinematographer!” The production’s first night exterior was on a Pasadena street where Bradford and Parmet initially planned to use large backlight sources, including two Dinos and a Condor equipped with Maxi-Brutes. However, the practicalities of the location quickly forced the filmmakers to improvise. “The streets there looked beautiful during the day, but when you try to get a big backlight
in there at night, it just doesn’t break through the canopy of trees,” explains Bradford. “By the time we got to our second night exterior, we had a game plan: we rigged Source Four ParNels and Pars in the trees on dimmers to give the feel of streetlights on the sidewalk and on the street and the leaves, even though there aren’t any streetlights in the shot. Then we used our big lights to illuminate the background.” On the Maxi-Brutes and Dinos, he worked with checkerboard dichroic and tungsten Pars, which “basically come out 1⁄4 blue,” he says. “That way, we didn’t have to run a 1⁄4-blue frame in the Condors. As it was, we were putting the Condors right at the maximum weight with the guy [inside].” Pasadena, particularly the house that provided the exterior and some interiors of the Myers house, proved challenging for the grip department as well. Palomino recalls, “I was running two crews all the time. The second crew, 10 or 15 guys, would come in at 7 a.m. and tent the entire house in four hours so we could shoot our night interiors. Then we’d stagger guys during lunch so that by the time we got back, they’d have ripped the entire structure down and we could start shooting night exteriors. The next morning we’d start
all over again. For interiors, we used a lot of practicals and brought in whatever we could through the windows. We’d start with one setup that would pretty much stay the same for the rest of the scene; we’d change a few things every once in awhile.” To illustrate the point, Palomino and Bradford lead the way inside the hospital, allowing the art department to clear the snow as the crew sets up for a corridor scene lit primarily with overhead fluorescents. Referring to the Optima 32 tubes that are replacing the hospital’s fixtures, Bradford notes, “Their output is really more like 3000°K. The ballast isn’t quite as good as Kinos. “Lighting for two cameras is always very challenging,” he continues. “You just have to be ready to run in with a little fill for the eyes. For that we used small Litepanels LEDs or an LED Koloris Kit from Kino Flo. Phil loves these LEDs. We can rig them on a car with an inverter and not have to bat an eye, and because they use so little power we’ve been able to have our inverter in the trunk with one battery.” To expedite the tight 38-day shooting schedule, production granted Parmet a full-time rigging crew, which was led by rigging gaffer Aaron Schulte, a regular of Bradford’s electric depart-
Above: Michael is committed to a mental institution at the age of 10 under the care of Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell, center) with grim results. Below: After years of study, Loomis comes to believe Michael is the embodiment of pure evil.
24 September 2007
ment. Parmet notes, “I’ve never had this experience before: when I walk onto a set, everything we discussed on the scout is done, and it’s always exactly the way I talked about it!” Just as the grip and electric departments had their share of challenges, so too did the camera department. “We’d basically go with a freeflowing, organic rhythm,” says Sprattley. “Rob tells his actors what he wants to happen, and then he lets the operators find their shots. Sometimes we go in there with no rehearsals and no marks and just start shooting.” Parmet
praises Levy and Sprattley’s contributions to the film: “Both of them told me it was possibly the hardest show they’ve ever done, and they have some amazing résumés. Their work was really terrific.” Provided by Otto Nemenz in Hollywood, Parmet’s camera package comprised two Arricam Lites (with a third brought out for some night-exterior work), a full set of Cooke S4 primes, and long and short Angenieux zooms. For filtration, he used Tiffen Black Pro-Mists, “but never more than 1⁄2. Usually I’d combine them with [Tiffen] Soft/FX on extreme close-ups. Also, I shot mainly
with NDs to control the depth of field, and I didn’t use any 85s.” When filming outdoors during the day, Parmet maintained a T5.6 stop, and he shot at a T2.5 for night exteriors and dark interiors. He used two Fuji Eterna stocks, 500T 8573 and 250T 8553. “I underexposed by a stop, but [8573] is really amazing — it picks up the grain a little bit, but you can easily rate it at [ISO] 1,000.” Technicolor processed the production’s footage and Post Logic generated high-definition video dailies and carried out the digital intermediate (DI). For the dailies, Parmet refined the system he used on Devil’s Rejects, shooting stills on set with his Nikon D80, tweaking those shots in Photoshop, and sending off his corrected files for the dailies colorist to use as a guide. This time, though, a few additional pieces of hardware and software helped streamline the process. “The dailies timer and I each had the exact same Apple Cinema Display monitor, and our workflow was based on keeping those monitors calibrated to BT 709-5, the standard for HDTV color space,” says the cinematographer. An off-the-shelf hardware and software package called Spyder 2 was used to maintain the correct calibration. “A company called MeSoft transferred the footage to a proprietary hard-disk system so we could watch the dailies on set,” says Parmet. “I was able to go to the camera truck and see the HD dailies on the same Cinema Display I’d used for my original Photoshop corrections.” When the time came to do the DI, Parmet had started working on another feature and was unable to participate. “However, I gave a copy of my digital still files to Lou Levinson, and after working with Rob on several projects, I know he’s an artist in the true sense of the word. People tend to think of him as a rock’n’roller and musician, but he is an accomplished graphic artist and designer as well, and the choices he makes are informed by that background.” ¢
A Blue-Collar Bond by Jean Oppenheimer It’s an image straight out of John Woo’s Hard Boiled, only this time it’s Clive Owen cradling a newborn infant in one arm and a shotgun in the other. Sprinting across rooftops, rappelling down stairwells, dodging all obstacles, he fends off a seemingly endless supply of bad guys who have one thing on their collective mind: getting their hands on that baby. “When we first spoke, [director] Michael [Davis] told me he wanted to make a fast-paced action film with a contemporary tone and a blue-collar James Bond hero,” recalls director of photography Peter Pau, HKSC, whose credits include The Promise (see AC June ’06); Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (AC Jan. ’01); The Bride With White Hair, and The Killer. Davis readily
26 September 2007
admits that he envisaged Shoot ‘Em Up as “an American John Woo picture.” Citing Hard Boiled as his specific inspiration, he adds, “I needed Peter to steer me in that sort of Hong Kong action-film direction.” That “direction” ended up encompassing 11 action setpieces, all of them elaborate. Given the tight budget and 55-day shooting schedule (plus 20 days of second-unit work), Pau wanted to pre-light as much as possible. Davis, a former storyboard artist, boarded every shot and even animated a couple of the action sequences. He turned this material over to Pau four weeks into their 10week prep, which gave rigging gaffer Stephen Spurrell enough time to prelight the majority of the interiors (built inside an abandoned factory) and sets. Shoot ‘Em Up was shot in Super 35mm, and the lighting design was premised on the notion that two
cameras would be used on almost every scene. Pau favored big sources for night exteriors — mostly Dinos with mediumspot lights — and Kino Flos for interiors and stage work. “My gaffer, Chris Howard, always gives me dimmer-board control over his remote so that I can access individual bulbs almost immediately. It’s really handy and speedy between setups that way.” Shoot ‘Em Up was shot entirely in Toronto, and the locations were all within a 5-mile radius. During prep, Pau, Davis and production designer Gary Frutkoff worked out the color palette scene by scene. “I wanted to avoid blue moonlight for the urban look,” recounts Pau, who corresponded with AC via email from China, where he was shooting another picture. “Instead, we wanted a sodium-vapor feeling for night exteriors, and a dirty green/yellow look for interiors. Pretty much everything happens at night, and the sodium-vapor lights became our main source. To obtain a cold green look, I didn’t use an 85 filter on day scenes. In fact, with the exception of NDs, I didn’t use any filters on the lens. I mixed different color temperatures on the set in order to support the ‘dirty’ look we wanted.” Red is used sparingly but to great effect throughout the film. The first occasion is a skirmish on the roof of the abandoned factory that Smith (Owen’s character) calls home. Enormous neon letters spell out the name of the factory and even play a role in the ensuing gun battle. All of the scenes in the whorehouse, where a love interest played by Monica Bellucci lives, are bathed in red. Smith is on the run almost from the moment the film opens. “To make the action sequences work, Michael needed a lot of cuts,” observes Pau. “[I designed shots of] lengthy and continuous motion that could be cut into several separate elements.” To create a sense of urgency, the main cameras, an Arricam Studio and Arricam Lite, were handheld 80 percent of the time. “Michael wanted to give the film an unsteady look, but not make the audience dizzy,” quips Pau. Occasionally three cameras were pressed into service. ¢
Shoot ’Em Up photos by James Dittiger, courtesy of New Line Cinema.
Right: Smith (Clive Owen) fires at an enemy from a fast-moving conveyor belt in a scene from the actionpacked Shoot ‘Em Up. Below: A standoff between Smith and the villainous Mr. Hertz (Paul Giamatti).
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Cinematographer Peter Pau, HKSC finalizes his frame on location in Toronto.
Lead villain Mr. Hertz (Paul Giamatti) faces off with Smith more than once, and each encounter ends in a standoff. They first confront one another in a warehouse. “Michael wanted to have a 360-degree rotation of wide and close-up shots of the two men holding
guns on each other,” says Pau. “Steadicam operator Keith Murphy did some great shots [circling] the two actors. It was a tough lighting situation. It’s nighttime, and the only light source I created was a sodium-vapor street lamp outside the building. I hung 128 Par
lamps on an industrial crane that was tall enough to send the light through the warehouse’s high windows, giving me a T4.5 reading at 400 ASA, which is how I always rate [Kodak Vision2 500T] 5218 when I have a distance of at least 200 feet.” (He also used Vision2 100T 5212 on the show.) A skydiving sequence in which Smith parachutes out of a plane proved tricky, because although it was all shot on a greenscreen stage, Pau knew that any movement that looked fake would destroy the illusion. “I used a 50-foot Technocrane to accommodate most of the flying shots and lit the area to be as bright as possible [with space lights] to give us maximum T-stops for a daylight feel. I was able to shoot between a T8 and T11. The camera was mounted on a StepZ Head that helped stabilize it when doing fast moves.” Pau always tried to place the camera “where I thought the viewer would like to be sitting or standing to watch the action.” In one long sequence
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that shows the bad guys pursuing Smith through his building, the camera assumes the gunmen’s POV as they chase him. Bullets are flying everywhere, missing Smith but blowing up objects around him. Smith leaps over and slides under tables, grabbing guns from hiding places and firing back at the men. At one point he jumps onto a fastmoving conveyor belt, and eventually he runs to the building’s center stairwell, grabs a rope hanging over the railing, and rappels down four flights, exchanging gunfire with the villains all the way down. The sequence is a good example of Davis’ plan, which was to shoot few masters. “We were just shooting pieces,” says the director. “It was more about the editorial choreography than fight choreography. You see Clive in the warehouse, he jumps on the conveyor belt, he grabs the gun, he hangs upside down to shoot the guy behind him — all pieces.” Panavision Toronto provided the camera gear. In addition to the Arricams
(used with Wireless Remote Systems), the package included a set of Zeiss Ultra Primes, an Angenieux Optimo 24290mm zoom, and a Cooke 18-100mm zoom. The negative was processed at Deluxe Toronto, and a digital intermediate (DI) was carried out at FotoKem, where Pau worked with Walter Volpatto, whom he declares “an excellent colorist.” The cinematographer adds, “When we started shooting a DI wasn’t locked, but I prefer doing all the color control during shooting, anyway. I like to process the negative normally — no pulling, no pushing.” Pau praises his crew, noting that they had to be “exceptionally fast and very accurate, artistically and technically, on this film. I was lucky to have Chris Howard working with me for the third time; he’s always on top of everything. He, best boy Michael L. Hall and Stephen Spurrell meticulously followed my lighting design to rig all interiors and stages, which really helped make our
days go smoothly and quickly.” He also cites the stellar work done by operators Keith Murphy and Michael Hall, and “my two wonderful camera assistants, Ciaran Copelin and John Harper.” 2nd-unit director of photography Dave Herrington “seamlessly matched all my lighting and worked on a one-week reshoot when I wasn’t available. My key grip, Michael O’Conner, and his best boy, Jason Le Noury, had to get accustomed to my English style of separating the camera grip and lighting grip into their own groups.” Pau acknowledges that he likes to work fast. Working with a baby can put a crimp in even the most meticulously planned schedule, however. Smith carries the infant pretty much throughout the film — an animatronic baby was used during the action sequences — and the baby had to be not only well behaved but also awake. The key, says Pau, was “waiting patiently.” I
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TAKING ADVANTAGE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY… In an industry increasingly driven by change, Clairmont Camera endeavors to stay at the cutting edge of technology and provide customers with a complete range of state-of-the-art equipment. DP Michael Trim and DIT Ethan Phillips share some of their recent experiences with digital packages from Clairmont Camera. On the Showtime TV series “Weeds,” Trim and Phillips are starting their second season using Clairmont-modified Sony F-900 cameras. They also used a Clairmont Arri D-20 package for a recent pilot. Trim: “This is our second year using Clairmont’s F-900s on Weeds and they are truly dependable workhorses. I can’t say enough about them. One of the problem areas of the original F900 was with the viewfinder, but Clairmont has addressed that issue with their modified units. And the way that Clairmont has re-engineered the lens mount using a special hardened mount has eliminated the need to continually back-focus when you change lenses –a
time-consuming necessity with the non-Clairmont standard F900. There are a number of other key improvements that Clairmont has made to the camera that make it a pleasure to work with.” Phillips: “What I appreciate the most about Clairmont Camera is that you can go there and sit down with someone like Mike Condon, explain what you’re trying to accomplish, and he’ll come up with a fiber-optics and HD base station package that’s ideal for the shoot. The
high level of expertise that Clairmont’s staff has demonstrated over the years gives me complete confidence.” Trim: “Their technical support is awesome. Denny Clairmont, Alan Albert and Bill Sturke are always there for us if we have any problems, and truthfully I can’t think of one problem that we’ve had. They seem to be totally on top of the digital world, and everybody has an answer to your questions. The shift from film to digital has not been the smoothest transition for many of us, but Clairmont makes it easy with all of their help.” Phillips: “It’s been my experience that Clairmont always has the equipment we need readily available, it’s in top notch condition, and prepping goes smoothly.” Trim: “The Evertz fiber optic gear is a great asset. You can be sure that the fiber optics back saves a considerable amount of time on the set compared to dealing with conventional BNC cabling. With the fiber optic cabling we’re able to keep Ethan’s engineering station in one central location, which is convenient and it also saves time. I love the lenses Clairmont offers with the F900; the E-series Fujinon zooms and the digi primes. They’re easy to work with and deliver excellent results.”
Director of Photography Michael Trim is now in his second season with the hit show “Weeds,” using Clairmont-modified Sony F900 cameras. He has also worked with the Arri D-20, and shares his observations on the equipment and Clairmont Camera
Trim: “The Arri D-20 is a great camera. We used it on a pilot called Business Class and the director, Adam Bernstein, and I both loved it. In this pilot it was important for Adam to have a narrow depth of field to isolate the characters. We accomplished this with ease. Adam said he’d use it over a film camera at his next opportunity. Of course, it has the look and feel of a film camera along with the flexibility of a digital capture. And thanks to the D-20’s 35mm chip, it was nice to get back to the 35mm Cooke and Zeiss lenses. My focus puller was racking back and forth —something we haven’t done in Hi-Def for a while because of the smaller chips. Everyone also loved it because you could see through the optical viewfinder in a reflex mode.” Phillips: “The depth of the images with the D-20 was superb. One shot was of a businessman wearing a dark pin striped suit. You could make out every shade of black detail of the suit and virtually see the thread. This camera records a tremendous amount of image data, as the 35mm CMOS chip is about twice as wide as the 2/3" CCDs used in the popular HD cameras.”
Versatile DIT Ethan Phillips is also on his second season with “ Weeds”, and has likewise done projects with various digital packages from Clairmont Camera Trim: “The D-20 feels very much like the Arriflex 435, and essentially gives you the same choice in 35mm lenses. It’s definitely a major factor in being able to transition from film to digital with relative ease. And, by having the ability to use a full spectrum of lenses that directors and DPs have working experience with, it’s a lot easier to capture the desired vision.” Phillips: “From a DIT’s point of view the D-20 is great because if offers a
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Again Cinematographer Oliver Wood circles the globe for The Bourne Ultimatum, the third installment of the action franchise. by Jon Silberg Unit photography by Jasin Boland, David Lee and Abbot Genser
32 September 2007
ased on a character created by Robert Ludlum, the Bourne trilogy — The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum — focuses on a somewhat more cerebral agent than those found in most action movies, one who is always several steps ahead of those pursuing him. All three pictures were shot by Oliver Wood, who notes that “the franchise has an unscripted, spontaneous quality, like we were lucky the cameras happened to be rolling at the right moment. That applies not only to the cinematography, but also to the acting and the way the scenes are blocked.”
B
Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Opposite: Searching for clues to his past, amnesiac agent Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) makes a stop in Paris in The Bourne Ultimatum. This page, top: An assassin (Edgar Ramirez) takes aim in Waterloo Station. Below: On location in Morocco, director of photography Oliver Wood (right) confers with C-camera operator Mostafa Badreddine as focus puller Zakaria Badredine stands by.
This was especially true on the recently released Bourne Ultimatum, which reunited Wood with Bourne Supremacy director Paul Greengrass. Filmed on location around the world and featuring elaborate chases and other set pieces, the project commenced shooting last winter with a script that was still being hammered out and an early August release date looming on the horizon. “The way you make movies today is so fast,” says Wood. “An all-digital post compresses time. Everyone knows you can change things right up till the last moment. That can make it hard for a cinematographer to build in a look, but on this film that was okay. The style of these movies is a little offbeat, anyway.” In Bourne Ultimatum, amnesiac CIA agent Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) continues his quest to discover his identity and remember details from his past. This time the search takes him to Moscow, Paris, Madrid, London, Tangier and New York, and his efforts are hampered by the fact that he is wanted by lawenforcement agents around the
world, and by a group of deep-cover CIA agents supervised by Noah Vosen (David Strathairn). Greengrass’ preference for imagery that has a spontaneous feel gave Wood some leeway, in the sense that a fluorescent interior could go a little green, a composition didn’t have to be perfect, and focus could be a bit off for part of a shot, and it would all work within the overall visual style. “Paul trusts his designers and cameramen,” says Wood. “He’s more interested in what the actors are doing and the story of the scene than
the camera angles.” Wood and his crew captured the action in an almost documentary fashion, giving Greengrass and the editors plenty of coverage options in the cutting room. The cinematographer emphasizes that it requires an extremely skilled camera crew to create the illusion that something just “happened,” and he credits his operators and assistants for their talent and professionalism. “I worked with a mostly English and American crew on Bourne Ultimatum, and they were very attuned to the situation — they’d
American Cinematographer 33
Bourne Again Right: Bourne finally meets CIA supervisor Pam Landy (Joan Allen), who initially suspected him of sabotaging one of her operations. Below: The agent discovers his own file.
done a movie before, if you know what I mean. We were also lucky to have very good people on our second unit, especially [director/stunt coordinator] Dan Bradley and [cinematographers] Mark Moriarty and Igor Meglic, and we kept close contact with them. “The position of the director of photography nowadays is more that of an organizer and administrator,” he continues. “I’m brought into discussions very early on, and I go on prep whenever possible. But during shooting I might have to leave the set to prepare other stages, and I need to know I can rely on excellent Acamera operators who can run the camera department while I’m gone.” On Bourne Ultimatum, as on Bourne Supremacy, Wood’s right-hand men were A-camera operator Klemens Becker and B-camera operator Florian Emmerich. With Greengrass, the action is always covered with two or more cameras, usually handheld. “Sometimes we’d have a second camera, or a third and fourth, on a 34 September 2007
dolly with a 12:1 zoom, but we’d set it up to have that kind of loose feeling,” says Wood. Working handheld “is physically very demanding work. Being on a dolly or crane is a lot easier than picking up the camera and running around, zooming. Klemens and Florian are great. I would have been burned out in a few days trying to do what they did!” The cinematographer pulled focus early in his career and expresses a particular appreciation of that job, especially on films as kinetic as this one. “Pulling focus can be the most nightmarish position on the set. There are so many sleepless nights. Very few people know how hard it is to be a focus puller.” “On most shows everything has to be sharp, but Paul and Oliver gave everybody freedom,” says Acamera 1st AC Birgit “Bebe” Dierken, who also worked with Greengrass on United 93 (shot by Barry Ackroyd, BSC; see AC June ’06). “At first it’s hard to let things go out of focus, but after a couple of weeks you get used to it and realize it gives you creative input. Suddenly you’re throwing into
focus what you think is important, following your own instincts and those of the operator; if I felt a hand in the foreground should be more dominant, I’d focus on that. Oliver is very supportive, and he has so much enthusiasm for the job that it’s contagious. It makes everyone more excited and willing to experiment.” The production’s camera package was supplied by Arri Media in London. The main cameras — Arricam Lites and Arri 235s — were focused remotely with Arri’s LCS-3 wireless remote-focus system. Operators could control the zooms while shooting handheld, and the focus pullers would use their monitors and judgment to control focus. The picture was shot in Super 35mm full frame, without hard mattes. “I like to have everything on the negative,” says Wood. “I reframe things in the digital intermediate [DI] quite often.” The production carried Cooke S4 primes lenses and an Arri LWZ 15.5-45mm zoom, but the crew “mostly used lightweight zooms that I had specially made from two Nikon digital still-photography lenses, a 2870mm and an 80-200mm,” says
Wood. “Arri in Munich converted them to lightweight cinema-style zooms, and they work quite well. The Nikon glass is brilliant.” Dierken notes, “We called them the Oliver Lenses, and they helped the operators shoot everything handheld with the documentary approach Oliver and Paul wanted. Unlike other zooms, which are either too heavy or too slow, these zooms opened up to T2.8 and were quite light. Arri made the housings in six weeks, and the lenses turned out to be very sharp and the contrast was quite good. [Stillphotography] lenses turn the opposite of the way cine-style lenses do, which could have been unpleasant if we’d used a normal follow focus, but with the LCS-3 we were able to just reverse the gears. The lenses worked so well that we ended up shooting 70 percent of the movie with them, and now Arri is making more!” Wood shot Bourne Ultimatum on two Kodak Vision2 emulsions, 250D 5205 and 500T 5218. “I used to rate Kodak’s 500-speed stocks at [EI] 320 or 400,” he says, “but with the Vision2 stocks I don’t need to get quite such a thick negative to get the same result, so I actually rated them Above: Steadicam/ B-camera operator Florian Emmerich and a sound man stay in step with Damon. Left: Bourne heads into the London Underground in pursuit of an agent who tried to kill him.
American Cinematographer 35
Bourne Again In Morocco, Bourne races to prevent the assassination of an agent who has helped him against orders. Much of the chase was captured by 2nd-unit director of photography Mark Moriarty and his crew.
at what was written on the can.” One of the major set pieces in the film concerns a chase over rooftops and through a series of apartment buildings in Tangier, Morocco, overlooking the large marketplace called the Medina. Moriarty, the 2nd-unit cinematographer in England and Morocco, explains, “Bourne is following two people from afar, so we were on the rooftops about 70 feet up. The special-effects department posi-
36 September 2007
tioned a massive cable rig for the camera that spanned six buildings; it was held up on one end by a crane and on the other by the roof of a building. Dan Bradley likes to do setups many different ways and run at least three cameras for every take, so we got a great deal of coverage.” Moriarty notes that such work in a place like Morocco can present problems he wouldn’t expect to encounter in some other countries. “We wanted to get a Chapman
To work out a lighting plan for an action sequence filmed in Berlin (standing in for Moscow), German gaffer Ronnie Schwarz used Google Earth to communicate with Wood, who was filming in London at the time.
Lenny 2 crane on the roof for some shots, and we all agreed we could do it, but then all of a sudden someone got cold feet. The crane weighs a lot, and you can’t just check the building specs in Morocco like you can in Britain or America. The buildings are at least 100 years old, and they don’t have all that information.” The house-to-house chase also has Bourne jump from a rooftop into a window 12' below. He smashes through wooden shutters into a kitchen, and the chase continues through the apartment. This, too, was covered numerous ways, and Moriarty was particularly pleased with the subjective angle captured by Damon’s stunt double, who really made the jump with an Arri 235 strapped to his body. “I don’t know how it’s going to be cut together, but that shot really gives you the reality of
someone taking that leap,” he says. For the action inside the building, Moriarty had to make the best of certain limitations. “We couldn’t bring in big units — you can’t even get cars near that area,” he says. “The largest lights we could use were 4Ks. Since all the buildings are in close proximity, we could put some of these units in windows of other buildings and make it look like the kind of direct, intense sunlight they have there. It was restrictive, but it worked well.” Inside the apartment, the crew built a rig into the ceiling (upside-down track, essentially) that could guide an operator following an actor from room to room, around corners, into another room and across to the next building. One of the shots Moriarty is most pleased with made use of a very low-tech rig. When Bourne runs
across a roof and into a doorway leading to a walkway to the roof of the next building, it was important to be able to let Damon run at full speed with a camera staying ahead of him. “Obviously, you can’t have an operator running backwards as fast as a man running forward,” says Moriarty. “There was really no room for tracks in the doorway, plus you would’ve seen them in the shot. So instead, we rigged a two-wheel upright trolley, modified it with scaffolding poles and strapped an operator into it; we had three grips pulling it backward while Matt was running forward for about 50 meters. I’m quite proud of that shot and hope it’s in the film. Sometimes the simplest rigs work the best.” Gaffer John “Biggles” Higgins recalls that things got a little heated during the Morocco shoot. “There American Cinematographer 37
Bourne Again Right: On location in New York, the crew prepares to film the aftermath of one of Bourne’s narrow escapes. Below: After driving off the roof of the Port Authority, Bourne heads out on foot.
are good lighting people in Morocco who are very efficient, friendly and extremely helpful, but we were shooting during Ramadan, which wasn’t the best time to be in the area. During Ramadan Muslims don’t eat or drink during sunlight hours, and smokers aren’t supposed to smoke, either. Some fights broke out in the crowds around us when it was 3 in the afternoon and people hadn’t had a drink of water since 5 in the morning. There was no threat to the crew,
38 September 2007
but we kept police with us when we worked.” Of course, any country offers its own challenges to a production intent on shooting big action sequences in crowded locations. Higgins cites a scene set in London’s Waterloo Station, where Bourne has arranged to meet a reporter who might have valuable information. Their meeting is cut short when a mob of agents swarms the pair. “Waterloo is one of the busiest
stations in England, maybe all of Europe,” says Higgins. “So many people pass through there each day that we just couldn’t have any cables running through.” Wood adds, “We could only shoot between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and it was midwinter, so the sun was down by 3:30. At first I thought we could float lots of lighting balloons, but they forbade me to do it. So a few weeks before we were scheduled to shoot there, I went in at 4 p.m. and took some stills and light readings, and I discovered that even when the sun was down, the [practicals] in the station gave me a T2.8, and I knew we could work with that if we had to.” This was mainly achieved by adding small bulbs to the station’s existing lights. “Everything had to be run on batteries, so all I had were two Image 80 Kino Flo packs on shopping carts and two smaller HMIs with Chimeras. I used those four lights to pick up various things in the shot. Sometimes I didn’t use them at all, and sometimes I’d string all four of them behind the camera just to provide a little ambience.” Sometimes Wood found
himself shooting in one country while one of the gaffers was prepping a location in another. He was in London while German gaffer Ronnie Schwarz was preparing a large space in Berlin (standing in for Moscow) for the opening scene of the movie. “It’s a huge scene,” says Wood. “It picks up where Bourne Supremacy left off, with Bourne wounded in Moscow, looking for a drugstore, and getting into an altercation with the police. We made snow and lit enormous areas of Berlin; people from other productions were calling up asking when we’d be finished, because we had every 18K in Germany! We also had HMIs, MaxiBrutes and Dinos. I like to mix cold and warm color temperatures and often gel lights to make them blend with sodium or mercury-vapor streetlights.” Schwarz suggested to Wood that they use Google Earth to work out their lighting plan for the sequence. “We could both sit at our computers and zoom in to satellite pictures of the streets and discuss
exactly where we could put lights,” says Wood. “I’d say, ‘See where that red car is parked? Put a Condor two meters up from that.’ And Ronny would say, ‘We can’t get a permit that close to the other street, but we can do it three meters the other way.’ We
could zoom in on areas and see every alley and every building in perfect detail.” Higgins was the gaffer on most of the stage work, which was filmed at Pinewood and Shepperton studios, and he used the Light by
Stunt driver Kevin Scott at the wheel of the Go-Mobile, a rig that 2nd-unit director/stunt coordinator Dan Bradley and New York 2nd-unit cinematographer Igor Meglic used in three configurations to capture exciting shots for a car chase staged in the streets of New York.
American Cinematographer 39
Bourne Again Right: A Technocrane helps capture the action in a parking garage. Below: The GoMobile’s pod is used on the remote drive vehicle so a stunt driver can control the car while an actor appears to be driving it.
Numbers system to control all the instruments on set. “We had all the lights on dimmers, and with Light by Numbers we could go from day to night onstage in less than five minutes,” he says. “You can control everything with a PDA. It’s a fantastic tool.” Wood notes that he has encountered resistance to Light by Numbers from some gaffers in the U.K. and the U.S., and he thinks this is unfortunate. “I would love to bring Light by Numbers to the States, but some people in the business are reactionary and old-fashioned,” he says. “In some ways the film industry is like a dinosaur — way behind other industries in terms of technology.” Light by Numbers was effective for all the stage work, he contin-
40 September 2007
ues, particularly for the office, where the rogue agents led by Strathairn are headquartered. Full of desks, computers and people, portions of the space were surrounded by a TransLite of the Manhattan skyline. Depending on the time of day, the set was lit with rigs above, units outside and practicals inside. “With Light by Numbers, we could control all those lights from one spot,” says Higgins. “If Oliver wanted a little more light through one of the windows or a little less from a desk lamp, he could have it almost instantly.” Bourne Ultimatum climaxes with an elaborate car chase in the streets of New York, and many shots in this sequence were captured using a Go-Mobile, a picture-vehicle rig
that was used on Bourne Supremacy, Dukes of Hazzard (see AC Web exclusive, Oct. ’05: www.theasc.com/magazine/oct05.htm) and other features. “The Go-Mobile is an ingenious thing, and we used it in three configurations,” says Meglic, who shot the second-unit work in New York. “For some shots we used the pod from the Go-Mobile on the RDV [remote drive vehicle], which diverts the basic car controls from the driver’s seat to the top of the vehicle, where the stunt driver sits. For other shots we attached the picture car to the Go-Mobile structure, and in the third configuration the front part of the car was removed, including the windshield, and the cameras got close to Matt in different positions — shooting through the steering wheel, for exam-
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Bourne Again
Bradley (right) prepares some second-unit work with his crew.
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ple. We didn’t drive it faster than 50 mph because it was the streets of New York, but it’s got a 500-horsepower engine and can go faster. With it we could position a Technocrane that could get any kind of angle on Matt driving and go out toward another car in the chase. It enabled us to get a near-miss with another car coming just a couple of inches from the camera.” Meglic used Arri 235s and
435s for most of his work, occasionally supplementing them with Eyemos. “We would slightly undercrank to about 22 fps — any slower would have been obvious,” he says. “But the Go-Mobile really helps make the audience feel like they’re right there. The objective was to make it look like we were catching the action by mistake, and that’s actually really hard to do. You’ve got to have the camera in the right position at the right time yet make it look like you weren’t expecting anything to happen!” Deluxe Laboratories in London processed most of the production’s footage, and although hi-def dailies were generated, Wood seldom viewed them. “When I watch dailies, I start to correct things that don’t need to be corrected,” he says. “In my younger days, I’d see dailies and lose my nerve and think, ‘That’s too dark,’ and then when I saw the
print I’d kick myself for going brighter. I was lighting out of fear, and the only way to avoid that is by going with your gut feelings.” He did study negative reports to ensure the lenses were working fine and to check up on focus, and he also had Deluxe put his negative up on an analyzer to generate a set of timing lights. “I’ll usually watch dailies at the start just to see how the skin tones look, but once I know how an actor’s face works, I don’t want to see dailies again for the rest of the shoot.” The cinematographer says he enjoys the new freedom created by the digital-intermediate (DI) process. “I hated the old lab days. When I came into the business in the early ’70s, I wanted to shoot video because of the control you have with it in post. I was banging the video drum, but it wasn’t good enough. I still think film is the best recording medium, and with a DI I can pull out more infor-
mation and better information than I could with any of the digital formats I’ve tested. But I shoot film differently than I used to. I don’t use filters at all. The less glass you can put in front of the lens, the better, and I can do that kind of image correction in the DI.” He also makes a lot of lighting adjustments in post. “There’s a scene in this movie where Matt is sitting in an interrogation room with his head down, and you can’t see his eyes,” he says. “When we shot it, I tried to put an eyelight in, but I hated the way it made him look ‘lit.’ So I took it away, and in the DI we drew two windows around his eyes and created an eyelight. It worked very effectively and looked far less artificial than the real eyelight did.” On Bourne Ultimatum, there were occasionally frustrating moments in the DI because a lot of that work had to be done before material from reshoots and visual-effects houses became available. Working
with colorist Stephen Nakamura at Technicolor Digital Intermediates in Burbank, Wood had to contend with the fact that “every other scene had a big black card that said, ‘Missing.’ So much of timing a movie is about blending. I’ve shot sequences that were done half in a blizzard and half in full sunshine, and then I’d work with the timer to make it look consistent. That’s what timing is about. So when you’re missing a lot of shots, you’re limited in how much you can accomplish.” Nakamura adds, “If there are a lot of shots missing we can’t finalize a scene. Effects artists sometimes think their shots can just be cut in, but they still need to be color-corrected. It’s not enough for the shots to look good by themselves; the contrast and color have to work in the context of the surrounding shots.” Having said that, Nakamura adds, “I’ve used fewer windows and less video color correction for this
film than for any movie I’ve graded in the past three years. It’s the look of the franchise — if there’s a flare or if something is a little soft, that’s okay.” “I think that in the end, as long as it’s cool the audience will go for it,” says Wood. I
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43
Cultural
Immersion An American navigates a steep learning curve in India in Outsourced, shot by Teodoro Maniaci. by Rachael K. Bosley Unit photography by Ayesha Broacha and John Jeffcoat 44 September 2007
irected and co-written by John Jeffcoat, the independent film Outsourced follows an American worker who is sent to India to train the staff that is taking over his company’s customerservice call center, an operation he formerly managed. Reluctant to make the trip, Todd (Josh Hamilton) feels worse when he arrives and stumbles into India’s chaotic crush of people, vehicles, animals and alien customs; but over the ensuing weeks, as he spends time with his staff and hosts, he comes to appreciate the country’s complexi-
D
ties and develops a new perspective on his own situation. Except for a few days of principal photography in Seattle, Outsourced was shot in and around Mumbai with a predominantly Indian crew. One of the Americans by Jeffcoat’s side was New York director of photography Teodoro Maniaci, whose credits include the features Clean, Shaven and The Business of Strangers and the documentary Shaolin Ulysses: Kungfu Monks in America. “Teo came very highly recommended, and when [producer] Tom Gorai first told me
Photos courtesy of Shadowcatcher Entertainment.
about him he mentioned Clean, Shaven, which had really stuck with me for awhile after I saw it,” says Jeffcoat, who is based in Seattle. “It was exciting to know he’d done something that left an impression on me, and in looking at his other films I was impressed at how well he adapted his style to very different projects, like Tao of Steve and Claire Dolan. But as important as the quality of his work was, we were also looking for someone with the right personality who would be able to function in some difficult situations in a very different culture. When I first spoke to Teo on the phone, the rapport was pretty instant.” Maniaci, whose parents emigrated from Sicily to the States in 1955, has long cultivated an interest in other cultures, a curiosity that led him to shoot projects in Senegal, Japan and China. However, he had never been to India, so prior to the Outsourced shoot he spent almost three weeks traveling from one end of India to the other on his own on a very low budget. “I wanted to get a sense of the country’s rhythms and logic,” he says. “India really is its own universe. It’s a beehive, a whirling maelstrom of activity. It’s all experiences all at once all the time. By the time production came around I was able to stay incredibly calm in the midst of huge crises; all the intricacies and sound and fury of production seemed mellow in comparison to what I’d been through on my travels!” Jeffcoat had familiarized himself with India by directing and shooting a documentary about its film industry; that project, Bollywood & Me, is still in progress. “You’re always angling for a way to make your first film, and I think getting funding for Bollywood & Me was my way of scouting out the potential of shooting a feature there,” he says. “India seemed like a really good place to do an indie because of the lower costs, and the
research I did for my documentary definitely helped inform the ideas for Outsourced.” Maniaci notes that production dollars did stretch further in India than they would have elsewhere — “We were able to pull off some very big locations, like Mumbai’s Victoria Station and Chattrapathi Shivaji International Airport, and we were also able to afford an excellent local crew” — but he emphasizes that Gorai and executive producer David Skinner were instrumental in making it all work. “David and Tom were dream producers,” says Maniaci. “They’re smart, supportive and creative, and their chief concern was putting the
money where it was most important, where it would do the film the most good. Tom, who was with us the whole time, was really great at solving problems, and the shoot was fraught with complexity.” He cites the producers’ decision to take him, Jeffcoat, and line producer Gwen Bialic to Mumbai for a week of “pre-prep” as one that benefited the team considerably. “About a month before the official prep, we went over and spent a week sizing up all the parameters,” he says. They were able to do a preliminary location scout and liaise with a local production company, Highlight Films, that assisted them in a number of ways. “Highlight is essentially
Opposite: Todd (Josh Hamilton) goes for a swim after being ambushed on Holi, India’s festival of colors. This page, above: Cinematographer Teodoro Maniaci (riding the crane) and his crew prep the shot. Below: At Film City, Maniaci (at camera) preps another crane shot with (from left) 1st AC Amy Silverman, best boy grip Bhurji and camera assistant Tanaji S. Kshirsagar.
American Cinematographer 45
Cultural Immersion
Todd and his Indian counterpart, Puro (Asif Basra), try somewhat unsuccessfully to take cover during Holi, a time when balloons, squirt guns and other means are used to douse everyone with colored powder. At right is the storyboard Maniaci and director John Jeffcoat worked out for the sequence.
46 September 2007
a high-end commercial-production company, and using them as a conduit we hooked up with great lighting and grip teams,” says Maniaci. “My gaffer, Kamlesh Sadrani, and key grip, Ninad Nayampally [of Zoo Grips], were incredibly talented and hard-working. They’re accustomed to European-style gaffer/grip designations; the gaffer does all the lighting and cutting of light, and the grip is essentially a camera grip. “Ninad spoke very good English, and although Kamlesh spoke little English, he and I were still able to communicate well and do great work together,” he continues. “I’ve found with gaffers that once you’ve worked together a few days, you start to automatically understand each other and it becomes a wordless environment very quickly. The crew worked hard and fast and with enthusiasm, and they consistently went beyond what we asked of them.” Maniaci did his own operating and took just one crewmember from the States, 1st AC Amy Silverman. Highlight Films also led the production to Kodak’s lab in Mumbai, “a boutique operation that had just opened its doors,” says Maniaci. “I had a lot of trepidation about finding a lab because most of the ones we looked at were shockingly large factories with strange ideas about cleanliness in terms of
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Cultural Immersion
Top left: Todd’s room was a fourth-floor location in Mumbai that offered a great view of a natural pool but was otherwise less than picturesque. Top right: Production designer Fali Unwalla’s transformation of the space. Below: Outside the windows, the lighting team prepares to send some manmade “daylight” into the room.
handling negative. But the Kodak lab was immaculate, and their work was very detailed. At that point they were really just doing commercials, so they were set up to handle only about 5,000 feet of film a day, and occasionally we’d overwhelm them and they’d fall behind. But their quality control was excellent.” When it came time to secure a camera package, Maniaci discovered that most of the gear in India is tailored to anamorphic shows with non-sync sound. He very quickly found out why: “There’s so much noise in India they have to dub all their movies after the fact. During the shoot, we had to cancel numerous locations because we’d arrive to find it was next to a super-highway construction site or a temple with banging gongs. I have to give a lot of credit to our sound recorder, Judy
48 September 2007
Karp, because this was the most insane production to record audio for.” Although Jeffcoat was initially keen on a widescreen format, Maniaci and the producers convinced him to go with 1.85:1. “When you think about Indian films it’s hard not to think of widescreen,” says the director, “but we had a lot of night material, which would have made anamorphic tricky, and it was difficult to find two solid cameras that were set up for Super 35mm — we had to have two because we couldn’t afford to lose any days.” The production eventually obtained two Arri 535Bs and a set of Cooke S4 prime lenses. “When you rent a camera in India it comes with three attendants who maintain it — kind of like a first, a second and a loader — and if anything happens
to that camera those three gentlemen are out of a job, so the cameras are kept in great condition,” says Maniaci. “I was more concerned about lenses because the quality of the anamorphic lenses I’d looked at seemed kind of shoddy. But we got a new set of S4s, and the Arri rep in Mumbai put us in touch with a lens technician in Hyderabad who had trained in Germany, and he gave the lenses a ‘spa treatment.’ We ran tests and everything looked good.” While shooting tests, Maniaci discovered another effect of India’s non-sync-sound filmmaking: “Indian crews make a lot of their own small lights, and because they don’t use sync sound they build fans into the instruments to keep them cool. I kept hearing this buzzing and whirring during our tests and realized none of those lights would be
useful to us.” He adds that larger instruments, such as 18Ks, were the same ones found in other film industries. “Overall we used a lot of Indian equipment, though, because they tend to build their own gear because it’s so cheap,” he says. “You’ll see something that looks an awful lot like a Matthews C-stand, for example, but it’s locally made.” The filmmakers built a few sets on two stages at Film City, but they found that quiet wasn’t a given at the studio, either. “Film City is about the size of Central Park, and on a typical day there are loads of films shooting there,” says Maniaci. “One night we had some quiet scenes to shoot at the call center, which we built as a freestanding structure, and someone was shooting a horror movie about an acre away. Every so often we’d hear these blood-curdling screams and see smoke from their smoke machines drifting into our set.” On top of that, Film City is on the outskirts of a jungle, and studio guards occasionally light sticks of dynamite to repel leopards that come too close for comfort. “There are lots of signs around the lot warning you not to stray off the path because of the leopard problem,” says Jeffcoat. “Guards patrol the perimeter constantly, and when you hear a loud explosion you know they’ve spotted one.” One set built at Film City was the ground floor of the house where Todd stays, which opens out to a backyard garden. “Auntie-ji’s house was a major production issue because it had to be a sort of refuge for Todd, a tranquil place,” says Jeffcoat. “During prep we’d see photos of a location that looked suitable and then spend three hours in traffic to get there, only to find there was a major bus stop outside and it was the loudest place imaginable. Our production designer, Fali Unwalla, suggested building the living room at the edge of a soundstage and 49
Cultural Immersion
Above: The crew prepares to film Basra and Hamilton trapped in a traffic jam. When shooting a driving scene on the streets of Mumbai proved impossible, Jeffcoat rewrote the scene to take place during a traffic jam, and the crew quickly created a city-street façade at Mukesh Mills. “This was our only twocamera day,” notes Jeffcoat. Right: Maniaci (far left, wearing sunglasses) and his crew prepare to film at a temple housing a Shiva Lingam.
having it open up to the outside, and that worked well.” Scenes set in Todd’s room on the second floor, however, were shot on location in a building that offered a great view of a large pool fed by a natural spring. “The view from the window was amazing, but man, nothing else about that room was,” recalls Jeffcoat with a laugh. “That was one of Fali’s more impressive design jobs!” Maniaci adds, “That was the top floor in a four-story building, and because there are no Condors or lifts in India the crew had to build scaffolding that high to get light into the room. It was quite complicated to move all that scaffolding when we had to get it out of
50 September 2007
shots, but manpower in India is never an issue. In fact, I’ve never worked with such a large crew; labor is so inexpensive all the departments are huge. Crowds would gather while we were working on location, and often I couldn’t tell whether someone was a bystander or a crewmember!” In a scene that suggests Todd’s acclimation to India, he steps into the natural pool fully clothed and takes a short swim. Maniaci recalls, “We did that all in one shot: he walks down to the water, we crane over him and tilt down on him, and then, as he goes under, the camera goes down to water level. Then he surfaces into a close-up and turns and
swims away. It was a bit awkward to operate because there are no remote heads in India, so it was all done with me riding a [Giraffe] crane, and it meant turning 180 degrees to get the camera to look straight down.” One of the sets built outside Film City was erected fairly spontaneously at Mukesh Mills, an abandoned industrial complex, after production decided it would be impossible to film a driving scene on the streets of Mumbai. In the scene, Puro (Asif Basra), the callcenter manager, picks Todd up from the airport and drives him to Gharipuri, chatting all the way. “Gwen [Bialic] was pleading with
me to minimize driving scenes because the traffic in Mumbai is a nightmare, and it’s almost impossible to find a stretch of road that isn’t full of giant potholes,” says Jeffcoat. “Plus, it’s a long dialogue scene, and we knew crowd control would be difficult on location. Production assured me they could build a believable street façade on the lot if we could film it as a stationary scene, so I rewrote the scene to have them get stuck in a traffic jam caused by a herd of water buffalo — something that actually happens there — and Tom organized getting the animals. “I fought to keep one driving scene, when Todd and Asha [a callcenter employee played by Ayesha Dharker] take a taxi out of town, and we set aside one day to film all those shots,” he continues. “We’d found a long stretch of decent road near a border checkpoint and obtained the necessary permits, but after we got one shot off the police showed up and stalled us, then finally shut us down. To this day I have no idea why. In the States, once you get your permit you’re okay to shoot, but in India it’s not so clearcut. Something called Bakshish, a little extra tip, figures into their permitting process, and maybe we missed someone somewhere along the line. So we lost a day there.” Although the shoot was not without other surprises, Jeffcoat and Maniaci consistently benefited from the four weeks of prep they’d had in India, work that included storyboarding the first half of the shoot. “I’m a freak about taking tons of location stills, and sometimes I’ll even do 360-degree shots and stitch them together,” says Jeffcoat. “When we sat down to storyboard, I’d shuffle through iPhoto, Teo would draw, and we’d piece together how the scene should go.” This work proved especially valuable “when something fell apart, like if we lost a location at the last minute, or if the nec51
Cultural Immersion
Jeffcoat (standing), Maniaci and Silverman line up a shot of Hamilton.
essary props didn’t materialize,” says Maniaci. “Because we’d done all that prep, we understood what we wanted to get out of those scenes, and John could quickly rewrite and adapt the scene to the
explains, “We wanted to send Todd and Asha on the road and develop their romance, and originally we had them going to the erotic temples at Khajuraho [in northern India], but when we sat down to do the budget we realized we couldn’t afford to go there. Then we thought of using an existing temple set, but the ones we saw were a lot less detailed and ornate than the real thing, and they didn’t have the erotic element we wanted. We scouted the island of Elephanta, where there are Shiva Lingams and other statues in a great cave on top of a mountain. The historical society gave us permission to film there, and I rewrote the scene to happen in the cave, but when we went on a second recce to determine angles and figure out lighting, Teo was almost arrested for putting his mini-tripod on the ground. That’s when we discovered we wouldn’t be allowed to put sticks
new circumstances.” An example of this is a scene shared by Todd and Asha in a small temple housing a Shiva Lingam, a sexually charged symbol of the universe’s invisible energy. Jeffcoat
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down, and we’d have to shoot the whole scene handheld. Then the historical society realized the scale of what we wanted to do and pulled the plug. “Teo and I remembered passing a nice-looking temple in town that had a big Shiva Lingam, and we checked it out and realized it would work well, so I rewrote the scene again. But when we returned for the tech scout, men were dismantling the temple, and I lost it — I figured it was a Bollywood movie set and we’d been fooled into thinking it was the real thing. You just never know what you’re looking at in India! But we found out it was real, and it was just being refurbished by the historical society. They told us the work would be finished by the time we needed to shoot there, but I sent people there every day to check on the progress and make sure. When the time came, it was ready.”
“That scene is a perfect example of how disasters that befell us would lead to better solutions,” says Maniaci. “Kali, the goddess of destruction, is a figure that sort of haunts Todd throughout the film, and she destroys things so that new, more positive things can come forward. The shoot mirrored that idea; some of our huge plans had to be scrapped at the last minute, but our mantra became, ‘Actually, it’s better.’ “Even though these surprises created stress, they would always resolve in a good way,” continues Maniaci. “On some shoots there’s a synchronicity between the world around you and the project at hand, whereas on others the world and the project seem out of sync, like they’re fighting each other. On Outsourced, the universe of India offered up things that worked well for the film.” After premiering at the 2006
Toronto Film Festival, Outsourced went on to win audience awards for best film at this year’s Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles and Seattle International Film Festival. It was also named “Best of the Fest” at the 2007 Palm Springs International Film Festival. The picture will be released in U.S. theaters on Sept. 28. I
TECHNICAL SPECS 1.85:1 35mm Arri 535B Cooke S4 lenses Kodak Vision2 50D 5201, 250D 5205, 500T 5218 Printed on Kodak Vision 2383
53
Baroque
Visions
Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC, discusses his approach to Caravaggio, which traces the life of the revolutionary artist. Interview by Giose Gallotti Unit photography by Piero Marsili 54 September 2007
n international co-production involving entities in Italy, France, Spain and Germany, the new film Caravaggio, directed by Angelo Longoni and shot by Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC, explores the life of the 17thcentury painter (played by Alessio Boni). The picture screened in the United States for the first time at Lincoln Center’s Open Roads: New
A
Photos and frame grabs courtesy of Radiotelevisione Italiana.
Italian Cinema Showcase in June, and Storaro is scheduled to screen and discuss it in New York again on Sept. 24, this time at Columbia University, in conjunction with the New York Film Festival. A 200-minute cut of Caravaggio will be broadcast on Italian television this fall, and a 130minute theatrical cut will be released in the near future. American Cinematographer: What inspired you to sign on to this project? Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC: I would have accepted this project even if it had been simple graffiti on a wall, a drawing in sand, or an engraving on stone. My spirit is that of an eternal student; I’m always looking for new opportunities to broaden areas of knowledge, philosophy and the arts. Our immense potential is linked to the possibility of opening new doors when new projects are embraced. When Caravaggio was offered to me by the producer, Ida Di Benedetto, I knew it would be an opportunity to study in depth the trajectory and work of this visionary protagonist of figurative art. Moreover, it would allow me to explore further the mystery of light and shadow, a theme that has always been at the center of my cinematographic journey. Caravaggio’s shadow is the visualization of where the unresolved states of mind dwell … a condition innate in the human unconscious. I wanted to use a style of writing with light that would make the bodies emerge from the darkness — to make conscious what had for some time resided in the unconscious. You have spoken about Caravaggio and Vermeer as two fundamental poles for your own creativity. How much did Caravaggio’s work stimulate your own artistic journey? Storaro: Caravaggio and Vermeer confirmed for me the need to creatively search for answers to
Opposite: Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Alessio Boni) has a tormented moment. This page, left: The painter at work on Burial of St. Lucy. Below: Preparing to film the painting’s models in the studio.
my own questions about life. A few months ago, I finished copying my film ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore [1971] to a master video. The essential division between shadow and light was already inherent in that film, as well as in another film I made during the same period, Giordano Bruno. At that time, I had only just set out on my journey as a cinematographer, and I wasn’t aware of the profound symbolic and conceptual meaning of light, shadow and color, but I possessed a purely technical preparation from my studies in cinema and photography. It was then that I visited the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome,
where I made a discovery that changed my whole way of life and my approach to images. Through my analysis of a few paintings, I discovered how much the use of light and shadow — directed, concealed, or filtered on a subject — could underline and emphasize a concept written in words. What happened that day at San Luigi dei Francesi? Storaro: While I was walking around inside the church, I discovered the Contarelli Chapel, decorated with extraordinary paintings by an artist whose name I didn’t know at the time. One in particular took my breath away: The Calling of St.
American Cinematographer 55
Baroque Visions Right: Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC conducts a seminar on Caravaggio ’s use of light and shadow with The Calling of St. Matthew behind him as an example. Below: Judith Beheading Holofernes, which Storaro believes marked a turning point in Caravaggio’s creative journey, was the first in a series of paintings he made depicting decapitation. “I imagine he began to paint the scene in the natural light of day, as he usually did, but then realized the light was not right for the emotion he wanted to convey,” says Storaro. “I imagine he then closed the window and lit an oil lamp, using artificial light for the first time.”
56 September 2007
Matthew, which I later learned was a work by Caravaggio. The thing that struck me was the extraordinary vision of something that I was actually putting in scenes back then: a clean separation between light and shadow. I was so bowled over by that painting I felt immediately impelled to try to understand and deepen the relationship between these two elements. I had to take my studies to a level that enabled me to grasp the intrinsic significance of that representation. It was necessary in order to succeed in expressing the most profound meaning of what I was doing on the set, depicting conflicts and har-
monies with light and shadow. What impact did that moment have on your subsequent work? Storaro: The Calling confirmed for me something I’d read in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! The protagonist says: ‘ … Do you mark how the wisteria, sun-impacted on this wall here, distills and penetrates this room as though (light-unimpeded) by secret and attritive progress from mote to mote of obscurity’s myriad components?’ This phrase showed Faulkner was able to describe on a literary plane the ray of light that Caravaggio represented pictorially. Without having read that
phrase, without having looked at that painting, I would not have been able to make The Conformist or Apocalypse Now. How could I have described Col. Kurtz, who becomes the denunciation of how civilization hides within itself the appropriation of other cultures through oppression and violence? It was fitting to represent him not merely as a human being, but as a transcendent symbol denouncing horror and violence. Whereas Vermeer used suffused, wintry, Nordic light to show the way people lived through a unity of light and shadow, Caravaggio went precisely in the other direction with his sharp light. He expresses a radical division between our unconscious morality, represented by shadow, and the part of life we live searching for ourselves, expressed through light — a split between the matter from which we are formed and the divine for which we yearn. For me, Caravaggio’s ray of light visualized the relationship between the human and the divine. His genius caused an earthquake in the figurative arts, and they have never been the same. Caravaggio was ahead of his time, an artist who consciously decided to break with the Mannerist style of painting of that era. How did you represent this revolution in the film? Storaro: By seeking to learn why he took a particular artistic path, and to deepen my understanding of how he lived. Every work of art is linked to a precise moment of the artist’s life and therefore has a specific significance with regard to the artist’s trajectory. Creative steps forward and concrete steps in their own lives are never unrelated. I am not an art critic or painting expert, but my own analysis led me to a personal interpretation of how Caravaggio came to accomplish his works through a need to discover and understand the meaning of his
own life. One should never forget Caravaggio grew up in a small village near Milan, in a well-to-do family. When he was 6, he suffered the traumatic loss of two significant men in his life: his father and his grandfather. When he was 12, his mother sent him to Milan, against his will, to learn painting in the workshop of a Mannerist artist, Simone Peterzano. This was a terrible wrench, a premature severing of the umbilical cord that had a considerable impact on him. In those days, the teacher and students lived promiscuously, and I maintain that Caravaggio might have been subjected to sexual abuse and violence as an adolescent. Then he lost his mother when he was 18. This was a radical and violent transition from boyhood to adulthood that led him to decide to devote himself entirely to figurative art. He went to Rome and initially lived a life of privation; it seems he lived for a time outside the city walls in a Roman tomb on the Via Appia Antica. I see the tomb as a place that symbolizes the unborn, as well as the premonition of dying young, a vision that haunted Caravaggio throughout his life. The walls of Rome signified a new period of life for him. When he finally crossed [the border they represented], he began working as an apprentice in the studios of various artists, chiefly Cavalier D’Arpino, who did not allow Caravaggio to express himself as he wished. During this time he realized he was not inspired by ornamental objects, and he began to use real people as models, but in an untraditional manner. To make his paintings, he always studied his subjects reflected in a mirror. Why did he paint with the help of a mirror? Storaro: The eye sees the reality that is in front of it and relays that to our minds. It expresses life and not art, which needs a delimited
space to give expression to composition. The figures in a painting, photograph or film are positioned in a space that defines the composition. The same goes for the viewfinder on a camera. Caravaggio used a mirror to find the right composition in terms of volume and light. In many of his paintings we see figures arranged inversely to how they would appear in reality. In his first paintings he used a suffused Nordic light, that of the Lombardy region that he knew best. The light almost always comes from the left; the left is the symbol of the female, [and] reflection the symbol of the unconscious. His paintings never show a direct gaze, but there is a reflected composition, linked perhaps to a female vision and an undeniable maternal need. Caravaggio was discovered by Cardinal Del Monte, who became a new father figure to him. The cardinal brought him to his residence at Palazzo Madama and became his patron. However, Caravaggio’s personal well-being was increasingly reflected as the opposite in his painting. His subjects are always surrounded by a dark background; indeed, the external setting is of no importance whatsoever with regard to the figures portrayed. As he developed as an artist, he attributed less and less importance to the background, narrowing the light around his subjects.
Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in that period, and Caravaggio witnessed his execution, as well as the decapitation of Beatrice Cenci. From then on he painted the rite of decapitation many times, sometimes depicting himself as the victim [David and Goliath] or the executioner. The first painting he executed after those tragic experiences was Judith Beheading Holofernes. I imagine he began to paint the scene in the natural light of day, as he usually did, but then realized the light was not right for the emotion he wanted to convey. I imagine that he then closed the window and lit an oil lamp, using artificial light for the first time. To what do you attribute this change in his approach? Storaro: Caravaggio was a great filmmaker before there was film. He conceptualized the subject and the composition, chose the figures, designed the costumes and sets, and illuminated them like a master cinematographer, and like the filmmakers who came centuries later he eventually moved from natural light to artificial light. Beginning with Judith Beheading Holofernes, his subjects were almost always illuminated by a lantern. In fact, we see the full cycle in Caravaggio’s painting: first he used natural light as reflected in a mirror that framed his subjects; then he
The Decapitation of St. John the Baptist, the only painting signed by the artist, is widely considered to be his masterpiece. “Caravaggio was a great filmmaker before there was film,” says Storaro. “He conceptualized the subject and the composition, chose the figures, designed the costumes and sets, and illuminated them like a master cinematographer.”
American Cinematographer 57
Baroque Visions Top: Caravaggio and Lena (Sarah Felberbaum), his lover and model for Madonna and Child With St. Anne, the work in progress behind her. Bottom: Lena and a child pose for the artist.
gradually focused the light on his subjects, making the background ever darker; and finally he passed from natural to artificial light. He found his greatest creative expression in his first official commission from the Catholic Church, The Calling of St. Matthew and The Martyrdom of St. Matthew for the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi. Caravaggio was also continually torn between the diabolical and the saintly, a duality synthesized in the struggle between light and shadow in his paintings. How did you suggest this dichotomy in 58 September 2007
the film? Storaro: I adopted a philosophy of light that closely followed the course of his creativity and life. If we analyze the paintings in the Contarelli Chapel, we see he visualized The Calling through the natural light of day and depicted The Martyrdom with artificial light at night. Through light, he succeeded in transmitting the sense of the saint’s passage from life to death. The astounding effect of The Calling on the viewer stems from Caravaggio’s brilliant intuition of depicting a ray of light, symbolizing the divine, coming for the first time
from the right, like a ray of light at sunset. It is not a source of light that illuminates the subjects, but a pure, transcendental entity that slices through the darkness like a scalpel. At the top of the painting is a window that doesn’t emit light, but establishes a balance in the horizontal composition of the work. I photographed the painting, loaded the images into my computer, and used Photoshop to remove the ray of light, and that’s when I discovered that the painting was perfectly lit without that beam of light. How did you create that ray of light and suggest Caravaggio’s moment of discovery? Storaro: I was able to duplicate that beam of light with a Concorde light containing 24 Par-64 globes. We controlled it from our dimmer board, which allowed us to simultaneously follow the rising sun and the emotion of the actor playing Caravaggio. We imagined Caravaggio lying in his studio one morning, sick and tired, and being awakened by a ray of light entering through a small window and cutting across the foreground of the painting, superimposing itself on it. This gives him the idea for completing
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Baroque Visions
The crew prepares to film a scene in which natural daylight mingles with firelight in the kitchen.
60 September 2007
this extraordinary work. This was the revelation for portraying The Calling, the choice between the human and the divine. In the symbolism of light, which I have studied through the years, the rays at sunset represent the death of the father. I do not know whether Caravaggio wanted to direct a thought or a prayer to his father, or if it was inspired by the death of his father, but The Calling is the only painting in which he depicts a ray of sun coming from the right, and therefore at sunset. For his next painting, Madonna and Child With St. Anne, he once again needed to symbolize the divine, and he decided to make a hole in the roof of the garret where he lived to have a genuine beam of sunlight. In this case, however, the sun is almost at its zenith, and the beam does not fully illuminate the Madonna figure, who appears in front of it. What other types of lighting instruments did you use on the show? Storaro: The lights I use on location and in the studio were designed for me by my former gaffer, Filippo Cafolla, and built by the company Iride. These multi-fixture units comprise frames containing anywhere from one to 16 Par-64 globes in different configurations. I
also use Jumbos, larger units that are similar to aircraft landing lights and contain eight or 16 globes; or the Concordes, which contain seven, 16, 24 or 31 globes. I’ve been using these types of lights since 1982. In my first conversations with the director, Angelo Longoni, he suggested that all of our lighting should be similar to the way light is presented in Caravaggio’s paintings. After thinking about that, I suggested we light most scenes with Caravaggio to look natural, using sunlight or period sources like candles or firelight, and then, for scenes depicting how Caravaggio saw things, we would use soft light or artificial lantern light to make it look and feel a bit different. We show the audience what he sees when he closes a window to make the studio dark, fixes the lantern in relation to his model, and positions the mirror from his point of view as he prepares to paint. How did you try to approximate Caravaggio’s mindset? Storaro: I tried to put myself in his head and figure out how his artistry developed. Once he turned to artificial light, he was no longer locked into the journey of the sun, and that freed him to write with light. It looks like he painted The
Calling in daylight and The Martyrdom at night on two separate square canvases. I believe the idea was that when he put them together, he would have the story of the journey from day to night in the life and death of a human being. A sense of death certainly pervades his late work. Storaro: The most serious event in his life took place in Rome, when he dirtied his hands with the murder of Ranuccio Tommassoni during a knife fight. With a death sentence hanging over him, he left Rome under the protection of the Colonna family and went to Naples, then to Malta, where he was made a knight, thanks to the pope. From the time of his flight, he lived with a sense of imminent death. The only painting he created from memory is Magdalene in Ecstasy, and when he made it he had in mind Lena, the woman he left in Rome when he fled. Magdalene has an obvious belly, as if she is pregnant. When he was asked about having children, Caravaggio always said, ‘I don’t want to bring orphans into the world.’ He knew his life would be brief. Perhaps this painting expresses his longing for fatherhood. Resurrection of Lazarus, painted in Messina, represents another fundamental passage in his life. I believe he identified with Lazarus and felt within himself the possibility of rebirth, of a return to Rome and the possibility of finding Lena. Lazarus is illuminated by a ray of sunlight, this time from the left, a sunrise. If we analyze the sequence of the paintings we’ve discussed, Caravaggio’s journey appears to be a backward one: it starts with sunset, then the sun is at its zenith, and then it ends with dawn. In psychological terms, it seems almost as if Caravaggio moved from a relationship with his father to one with his mother and then to his own birth. I have always thought that creativity is therapy, and with Resurrection of
Baroque Visions
Storaro and an actor look on as the crew preps a crane shot.
62 September 2007
Lazarus I believe Caravaggio symbolically completed his creative journey. Where did you shoot Caravaggio? Storaro: First we went to Sicily, where Caravaggio lived and worked. We filmed scenes at exterior and interior locations, including a beautiful castle that looks the same as it did 400 years ago. There we shot scenes re-creating parts of his life in Naples and on the island of Malta. We were in Sicily and other parts of southern Italy for two weeks. We also shot in Rome for two weeks at locations that included an ancient church; the castle where Caravaggio witnessed the execution of Beatrice Cenci; and a beautiful, old building where we re-created the interiors of Cardinal Del Monte’s palace. After that we spent six weeks on the backlot at Belgrade Studios [in Serbia], where we recreated the center of Rome. [Production designer] Giantito Burchiellaro and I spent two weeks going through the film scene by scene, discussing the needs of every department, and the director was with us, making notes. We had to meet a second time after changes in the script created the need for dif-
ferent settings. How did your use of the Univisium 2:1 format affect your approach to the show, and how did it affect the postproduction? Storaro: I have photographed all of my films in Univisium since Tango [1998], and I have also transferred any anamorphic film I’ve ever done, including Apocalypse Now, Tucker and The Last Emperor, into 2:1 video masters. I have loved that [frame] since I first saw Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, and I composed all of those anamorphic films in 2:1 using a special ground glass. For Caravaggio, Technovision Rome supplied us with two Arri 535B cameras modified by Arri in Munich for the 2:1 Univisium aspect ratio. That was important because there are plans to release both television and cinema versions of the film. Audiences should experience films the way filmmakers intended them to be seen, whether they’re watching a cinema screen or a TV. With Univisium, the composition is exactly the same in the TV and cinema versions. We used two cameras because we only had 12 weeks to cover a long and complicated script; one camera was usually
on a close-up, while the other covered the entire scene. Because Univisium is a 3-perf format, we could shoot for 25 percent longer without stopping to reload. It also reduced the cost of film and lab work by 25 percent. Technicolor Rome processed the negative, and we saw film dailies in Italy and digital dailies on a 50inch plasma screen in Belgrade. I spent several weeks at Technicolor supervising the answer print with color timer Antonio Salvatori and the transfer to HD video master with colorist Nazzareno Neri. We did the answer print at 3-perf and printed the interpositive and master separations at 3-perf, then went to 4-perf for the internegative, maintaining the 2:1 aspect ratio within the frame. The release prints are standard anamorphic prints that can be screened around the world. Did you use Technicolor’s ENR process? Storaro: Yes. The combination of ENR and printing on [Kodak] Vision Premier gives the blacks a special kind of sheen that is important in Caravaggio’s paintings. We also use rich black backgrounds in scenes where we reveal the darkness in his soul. How did you simulate the light from the era in which Caravaggio lived and worked? Storaro: In 1600, there was natural sunlight and moonlight, and artificial sources such as torches and candles. We gave a lot of thought to the angles and colors of light, and whether a scene was happening in a place that was lit by one or 300 candles. I have been using a theatrical dimmer board since One From the Heart [1982]; it allows me to control lighting from a single place while we’re shooting. We designed lighting during rehearsals, and while we were shooting we used the board to control transitions from day to night and color changes. I used chromatic nuances ranging from red to orange
Baroque Visions Storaro and director Angelo Longoni confer in front of some of the cinematographer’s favorite lighting instruments.
to yellow to represent the sun, and one color only for the moon: white. In analyzing Caravaggio’s paintings, I noticed he never used the color blue. He opted for black, red, orange, yellow, and, in a few paintings, green, but he stopped there. So I saw to it that there was no blue in our film. Evenings are depicted with neutral or pale lights.
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Did you work with your regular crew on this project? Storaro: My crew included key grip Mauro Diamanti, gaffer Stefano Marino, lightboard operator Daniele Cafolla, A-camera operator Roberto Gentili, Bcamera/Steadicam operator Marco Martelli, video operator Vincenzo Vedovato, A-camera assistants
Stefano Lombardo [1st] and Simone D’Arcangelo [2nd], and Bcamera assistants Alessandro Chiodo [1st] and Bennet Pimpinella [2nd]. I learned very early that every movie requires a total commitment from everyone, but Caravaggio was something special; it was essential for me to relate closely with my crew because I was asking more of them than normal. I was completely dedicated to this project from the moment I woke up each morning until the moment I went to sleep, and even in my dreams. Many TV producers today are deciding not to conform the negative to the final edit, but we understand you did your final telecine from the original negative on Caravaggio. Storaro: I have to thank [producer] Ida Di Benedetto, who was supportive of the requests the direc-
because the cost of editing the negative is minimal. I think the decisions we made on Caravaggio demonstrate that you can produce a worthwhile project that can be released internationally and stand the test of time. I
TECHNICAL SPECS tor and I made, particularly that one. Something extremely disturbing is happening with films created for TV in Italy today: many producers are not cutting the negative and storing it as a legacy. After a time, video masters are irredeemably compromised because they do not have the capacity to preserve images for a long time. Furthermore, you in essence lose the darkest and brightest details on the negative when it is transferred to
video during the telecine process. It’s important to conform the negative to the video edit to preserve the asset for the future. I will never agree to create a film for TV where it is not possible to do the final telecine from the original negative, as we did for Caravaggio. HDTV is on our doorstep, and when it arrives many producers are going to discover their archives have a very limited or absolutely no future. It’s absurd,
2.40:1 (Matted to 2:1) Univisium 3-perf 35mm Arri 535B Cooke S4 lenses Kodak Vision2 50D 5201, 200T 5217, 250D 5205, 500T 5218 ENR Process by Technicolor Printed on Kodak Vision Premier 2393
The cinematographer (foreground) sets the frame as producer Ida Di Benedetto (left) and Longoni chat in the background.
OnceUponaTime in
Bucharest
Director of photography Christopher Probst details his awardwinning work on the stylish music video for Muse’s “Knights of Cydonia.” by Christopher Probst Unit photography by Richard Weager 66 September 2007
very so often, a project comes along that you just can’t pass up, and when I read the concept for Muse’s “Knights of Cydonia” music video, I knew it was one I had to shoot. Clocking in at more than six minutes, the song is definitely a departure from mainstream radio fare. A cross between Ennio Morricone’s Spaghetti Western scores and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the track stumped many music-video directors. Muse is known for their unconventional approach to both music and videos, so director Joseph Kahn submitted a treatment for “Knights of Cydonia” that featured Barbarella-style warrior women, robots, unicorns, holograms, motorcycles, and a mysterious hero
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who appears in the guises of a rogue cowboy and masked avenger. The band loved it, but they feared it would cost a million dollars to make. The solution was the fortuitous discovery of a Western town “backlot” that had been recently erected in Bucharest, Romania, where we could use set pieces left over from the feature Cold Mountain (see AC Jan. ’04). The “Knights of Cydonia” video was produced by Richard Weager of HSI London, and he and Kahn were able to take me and Dan Ming, my 1st AC/2nd-unit cinematographer, to Romania to execute the project on a relatively shoestring budget. Kahn’s treatment was rife with visual references to Spaghetti
logical mud-volcano formation a few hours south of Bucharest that provided a few hundred yards of cracked clay and mud — an ideal desert location. The local crews were experienced not only because of the influx of U.S. features shooting there to save a buck or two, but also because of Romania’s lucrative commercials market. However, the production imported an excellent English gaffer, Mark Taylor, and production designer, Morgan Kennedy. Our 21⁄2-day schedule began with a half-day load-in and skeleton-crew shoot, which we used to get a running start on our extensive ambitions. This half-day’s work comprised the video’s opening montage/dressing sequence inside the hero’s log cabin. With our hard
three-point lighting philosophy firmly in hand, we established a game plan: we would use large HMI units blasting unsoftened light at the characters for exteriors, and more old-school key/fill/kicker lighting for interiors. The cabin set had two small, boarded-up windows that provided source-lighting motivation, and we placed a 6K HMI outside each, sending shafts of slightly cooler daylight through the smoked interior. Inside, several 2K and 5K tungsten Fresnels were used to create warm, hard sidelight on the set, where Russell Bain, the actor portraying our nameless “hero,” performed some corny kung-fu-style moves for the opening-credit montage. On the first day of the main shoot, the company moved to the
Photos and frame grabs courtesy of HSI London.
Westerns; cheesy, metaphysical kung-fu flicks of the 1970s; and scifi influences like Buck Rogers, Planet of the Apes and Star Wars. In short, the video is basically a trailer for the kind of schlocky Seventies lowbudget movie ostensibly shot in a Soviet-bloc country and funded by shady, arms-dealing producers with misguided ambitions to be movie moguls. When Joseph and I began discussing how the visual design could support that idea, I was quick to pull out my DVD of Once Upon a Time in the West, mindful of its bold, widescreen compositions and hard, three-point lighting style. Kahn emphatically agreed, and that film became the launching point for our look. Once in Romania, we scouted our backlot, as well as an odd geo-
Director Joseph Kahn’s treatment for Muse’s “Knights of Cydonia” video called for Barbarella-style warrior women, a Spaghetti Western look and feel, and references to classic kung fu and sci-fi films of the 1970s. Below: The production prepares to film in the Western town backlot constructed outside Bucharest, Romania, using set pieces originally built for Cold Mountain.
American Cinematographer 67
Once Upon a Time in Bucharest
A unicorn and a mysterious hero also figure into the story. Below: Setting up the unicorn shot in a desert-like stretch of terrain a few hours south of Bucharest.
desert location to shoot sequences in which the hero — having been captured, stockaded and humiliated — is thrown out to die. Though graphic and alien-looking, the location was a fairly small geological anomaly amid the verdant Romanian mountains, so we chose angles that would allow us to keep any greenery out of frame. However, because of the site’s remote location and the production’s tight purse strings, only putt-putt generators could be used; this limited us to HMI units that were 4K or smaller. We scheduled carefully to utilize natural sunlight, modifying it as necessary. This approach proved more than adequate for the blazinghot desert effect we needed when the hero, thirsty and hallucinating,
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first encounters our Barbarella-style heroine. The second full shoot day comprised all the remaining sequences to be shot on the studio backlot. Our approach to these exterior daylight scenes was pretty uniform; most of the time, a scene was staged with the sun as a top/backlight and 18K HMIs aimed at the action as 3⁄4 hard frontlight. Hot edgelights were created with HMI Pars or via shiny boards redirecting the sunlight. The interior sequences entailed a typical saloon scene — including the mandatory bar fight — and a more intimate scene between our hero and his love interest. Having learned my craft in an era of ultra-fast lenses and highly sensitive/broad-ranged film stocks, I tend to prefer the more naturalistic feel of large, soft sources and wrapping bounced light, so shining raw units on actors’ faces was a bit of a departure. Doing something intentionally “ugly” is always a bit terrifying for cinematographers; I always feel I need to create the most flattering lighting and show just how slick I can be! However, as I was lighting the “love scene” in a loft in one of the cabin interiors, it occurred to me that perhaps I’ve been too harsh on
the old-school approach. The bedroom loft set had overhead wood rafters where I could rig several 1K and 2K Fresnels to provide the scene’s illumination. This dovetailed neatly with our three-point studio lighting strategy, and I was amused to find myself applying the idea with gusto: if a 1K was aimed at the duo as a key light and any resultant shadow on their faces was too dark, I simply aimed another 1K at them from another angle to create fill. This was a totally foreign approach to lighting for me, and I wondered if I had gone crazy. But after all the keying, filling and edgelighting was done, the result looked quite beautiful. Hewing to the eclectic aesthetic established in Joseph’s treatment, the saloon interior location was dressed as a bizarre hodgepodge of seemingly conflicting genres. The bar scenes feature neon signage, an electronic jukebox that projects holograms of the band, and a hurlyburly clientele. The sequence begins with the nameless hero entering through swinging doors and stepping into a tight close-up. This first shot was planned to include the waning throes of daylight and had to be shot before dark. Adding some toplight-bounced HMIs to raise the ambience of the room, we aimed a half-corrected 5K at a 3⁄4 angle for
The band appears as a holographic image in a saloon and as a hallucination in the desert. Middle: Cinematographer Christopher Probst (center, with back to camera) oversees the lighting of the “love scene.” Bottom: Filming the hero in the desert.
the hero’s end-position close-up and then flagged it off to create a dramatic slash of light across his eyes, evoking a more classical hard-lighting feel. From there, night quickly fell, and the rest of the sequence was shot night for day. We continued to apply a toplight bounce provided by two 4'x8' sheets of beadboard armed over the center of the set from a second-floor catwalk. Additional 2Ks were aimed from above to create pools of light for the bar and clusters of tables, and we also placed several of these units in corners to provide backlight when necessary. The holograms of the band were added in post from bluescreen performances captured in London after the Romania shoot. The long shoot day finished with a large night exterior scene showing our hero unearthing a robot and discovering what he’s been after: the futuristic technology of the compact disc! (Remember, the video is supposed to have been shot in the late Seventies/early Eighties.) Although we see the entire town lit up at night, Joseph decided not to shoot a wide master. Instead, we see the whole set in tighter shots that, because of the staging of the action, pan the expanse of the town. For these night shots, the production
obtained a Condor that looked like it should have been sent to a scrapyard 40 years ago. Still, it was enough to provide a high, half-corrected 18K HMI backlight to enhance the glows we placed in windows with 1K and 2K open-face Pars, and the “firelight” glows on buildings that we created with hidden 12'x12' and 8'x8' bounces and 10Ks on dimmers. To finish off the background lighting, we had about 60 extras holding torches. The foreground action was lit with low 4'x8' bounces and 2Ks warmed with various strengths of orange, red and yellow gels and controlled with Magic Gadgets flicker boxes. American Cinematographer 69
Once Upon a Time in Bucharest
The video includes a forcedperspective Planet of the Apes reference that Probst achieved with a $5 souvenir from Hollywood Boulevard and a 14mm lens stopped down to a T22. The hero’s discovery of a compact disc marks a change in his fortunes.
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Throughout the shoot, Joseph and I decided to adopt the shooting style of 1970s action and low-budget cinema, so we made ample use of zoom lenses and snapzooms in shot. We had two Super 35mm Arri 435ES cameras running full-time, and a full set of Zeiss Ultra Prime lenses to go with our two Angenieux zooms, a 25250mm T3.5 HR and a 17-102mm T2.9
Although Kodak’s Vision 200T 5274 stock has been discontinued in the States, I was able to obtain some to use as our main emulsion; for night scenes, I employed Vision2 500T 5218. To help “cheese up” our images, we shot everything with star filters on the lens. Even if we didn’t have a highlight in shot that would “bling” the star, the filters served as a mild contrast reducer and softening element.
A final significant contribution to the look of the project was our decision to have low-con prints struck from all of our camera negatives for the telecine transfer. Joseph and I had previously used low-con prints for a Jamiroquai video, and we both liked the quality of the creamed-out highlights. This technique was perfectly suited to the faded, bleached-out look we sought for the Muse clip. This idea was fur-
ther enhanced by input from Company 3 colorist Dave Hussey, who proceeded to “step on” the whites in the transfer and apply liberal amounts of magenta to the blacks, suggesting the look of an old print that was beginning to fade and shift to magenta. The icing on the cake was added in the online process, when Joseph and effects artist David Lebensfeld of Ingenuity Engine added some scratches, dirt, misregistered perfs and bad film splices. These effects were used sparingly
and spread throughout the video to keep them from being too obvious. For a cinema junkie like me, “Knights of Cydonia” was a sheer joy to create. Joseph and I have worked together since 1995, and our history together serves to increase our body of references from job to job. That, in turn, excites us to push each new project further. Collaborating with a visually adept director is every cinematographer’s dream, and Joseph constantly demands the best from me.
Christopher Probst won the Music Video Production Association’s Best Cinematography Award for his work on this project. I
TECHNICAL SPECS 2.40:1 Super 35mm Arri 435ES Zeiss and Angenieux lenses Kodak Vision 200T 5274, Vision2 500T 5218
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Short Takes Wilson’s Celebrity Portraits on Voom HD Networks by Elina Shatkin
ridging the gap between traditional portraiture and digital media, Robert Wilson’s Voom Portraits comprises 36 high-definition (HD) video portraits of actors, athletes, monarchs and artists that are designed to play out on 65" or 103" Panasonic plasma screens. In a gallery setting, the portraits screen on loops that last from 30 seconds to 30 minutes. Because the loops are imperceptible, the portraits look remarkably like still images until the viewer notices a glimmer of movement. Wilson, a renowned theater director and multimedia artist, was approached in 2004 by Ali Hosseini, an executive producer at Voom HD Networks (owned by Cablevision Systems subsidiary Rainbow Media). A fan of Wilson’s work for two decades, Hosseini wanted to develop a project that would showcase HD in all its million-pixel glory. “I was excited about the possibility of working with Robert,”
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says Hosseini. “He’s a visual innovator who’s well known for his use of lighting and color in a wide variety of media. I knew he’d come up with something unique that would push the limits of what HD can do.” Wilson and Hosseini considered several options — a vast projected backdrop for a Bach opera was nixed as too esoteric — until they hit on the idea of video portraits. “I have been interested in video as a medium for a long time,” says Wilson, who created video portraits of French filmmaker Patrice Chereau and Sony executive Akito Morita in the 1980s. “But the video technology available [in the 1980s] limited what I could do with lighting and setting up the image. It was only when Noah Khoshbin, who has worked with me for years, showed me what can be done in HD that I decided to create a larger group of works in this medium.” Although many of the works refer
to iconic paintings and images, the connections between the photos themselves are purely formal. Because each portrait is relatively short, Wilson could conceive and realize dozens of scenarios, from nearly monochrome black-andwhite portraits to some with shockingly vivid pop colors. “The relationship between the subject and the imagery is different from portrait to portrait,” he says. “They are inspired by the subject and my reactions to and associations with them. All the portraits can stand for themselves.” Wilson says he often has one or more specific images in mind when he conceives a portrait. The portrait of Mikhail Baryshnikov as a wounded St. Sebastian was inspired by the Andrea Mantegna painting, and the portrait of Robert Downey Jr. lying on an operating table with his muscles and sinews exposed was inspired by Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes
Photos courtesy of Voom HD Networks.
Actor Peter Stormare posed for one of Robert Wilson’s more disturbing hi-def video portaits, which were recently exhibited at galleries in Los Angeles and New York.
Right: Actress Winona Ryder was featured in a 25'-long portrait. Below: Isabella Rossellini in an Alice in Wonderland reference.
Tulp, which Wilson has “always liked for its subtle light. I almost always have an idea in my head. I then ask my assistant or other people I know for images, or sometimes for suggestions of who would make good subjects. Once I have a concept, I sketch it out in pencil on paper, almost like a storyboard.”
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The Voom Portraits, which are a work in progress, were begun at the Watermill Center, a laboratory for the arts and humanities founded by Wilson in 1992 on Long Island. Since 2004, Wilson has overseen shoots in Paris, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles for the project. “Producing a video portrait is really like a small film shoot, with a crew of more than 20 people in a studio,” says Wilson. “We normally need about half a day to shoot the raw footage and much longer in post to turn it into a portrait.” Using his drawings, Wilson turned to German lighting designer Urs Schönebaum to help him realize his vision. “There is nothing general about working with Bob,” says Schönebaum. “For most portraits, I had drawings he’d made with specific notes on lighting. We had discussions on set, where I could propose ideas or possibilities for how to light these portraits. For some we determined the lighting on the spot.” All of the portraits were shot on Voom’s in-house Sony HDW-F900 CineAlta camera using Canon wideangle HD Cine lenses, an HJ 11x4.7BKLLSC or an HJ 8x 5.5BKLLSC. A Miranda MDC-900 converter attached to the camera allowed the team to downconvert the 1920x1080i footage to standard definition and record it to a laptop, so that small,
highly compressed files were available for viewing. The images were shot at 16x9 for horizontal display and 9x16 for vertical display. In addition to a Sony BVM 24" CRT monitor on set, the crew had an Apple Cinema Display on which to view the captured footage. The images were processed on an Apple laptop equipped with an HD-SDI-to-DVI box from Blackmagic Design. A digital-imaging technician was on hand and often used a Leader LV5700A Multi SDI Monitor as an additional tool to adjust the gamma, black level and detail. “This workflow allowed our DIT to use the Apple display as a tool for evaluating the images,” explains Al Irizarry, director of production services at 11 Penn TV, a division of Rainbow Media. “This gave him two sources to simulate what the image would look like in its final form. The Apple display also allowed us to turn the monitor sideways to simulate what vertical portraits would look like.” The general format established for the video portraits was that they would be displayed on 65" screens, the largest HD plasma screens commercially available at the time. But some portraits, such as the series of nine black-and-white portraits of actress Salma Hayek dressed as a Mexican silent-movie diva, were shown on 42" screens. “That was so they could be displayed close to one another and
underline the connections between the individual screens,” says Wilson. “As technology advances, I hope to be able to use larger formats. I have experimented with a 103-inch screen that brings out another dimension in the works.” The portrait he’s referring to is a stunning 25'-long image of actress Winona Ryder wearing a headdress of flowers and standing behind a large earthen mound against a background of royal blue. Another portrait, in the 65" size, shows Princess Caroline of Monaco in a pose that reveals only her hands clasped behind her back and her eyelashes as she blinks. “I had several images in mind when I came up with the concept for that,” says Wilson. “One was John Singer Sargent’s famous Portrait of Madame X, his striking portrait of a socialite in very reduced tones. In my mind, this merged with the famous scene from Hitchcock’s Rear Window in which Grace Kelly tries to give James Stewart a vital clue by pointing to [Thorwald’s wife’s] wedding ring on her finger. And, of course, the portrait is made more poignant by the fact that I show Princess Caroline in her mother’s role.” The lighting equipment varied from portrait to portrait. The Hayek portraits were lit with an old 2K Conelight with no gel — “It took a long time to get it in the right position,” says Schönebaum — and a 2K Junior as backlight. The Princess Caroline sequence required a dozen lighting cues that were recorded on a lighting board. Seven Source Four Lekos gelled with Lee 174 were used as keylights, one 2K Junior provided a back- and sidelight, and some tungsten cyclights dressed with a variety of blue gels added highlights to the back wall. An image of Sumo wrestler Byamba Ulambayar doing splits against a hot pink background was lit from the front with two 2K Juniors gelled with Lee 763 and 206 and attached to dimmers. These were augmented by a sidelight, a 5K Conelight gelled with Lee 206, and a backlight of four Source Fours softened with frosted and purple 76
Artist Robert Wilson (left) poses with Greg Moyer, general manager of Voom HD Networks.
gels and targeted at the curtain behind Ulambayar. Wilson’s portraits were presented in Los Angeles and New York galleries throughout last winter and spring, and many will be broadcast on Voom’s various channels as interstitials. Greg Moyer, general manager of Voom HD Networks, explains, “The portraits are art, not commissioned work intended for advertising purposes. We don’t have our plans completely gelled, but we will air a making-of documentary, and we’ll present the portraits as interstitials or as short programming. You’ll most likely see several portraits referenced in a single spot.” I
Right: Kevin Bacon stars in the revenge tale Death Sentence (shot by John R. Leonetti, ASC), the first film to go through FotoKem’s upgraded digitalintermediate pipeline. The addition of Quantel’s Genetic Engineering shared-storage architecture trimmed the DI time by a third, notes colorist Walter Volpatto (below).
Genetic Engineering at FotoKem by Jon D. Witmer “It’s a dark story mostly based on revenge,” muses FotoKem colorist Walter Volpatto, referring to the film Death Sentence, the first project to go through FotoKem’s recently upgraded digital-intermediate (DI) pipeline. Fortunately, FotoKem’s integration of Quantel’s Genetic Engineering shared-storage architecture presents a much brighter vista. FotoKem has provided DI services for almost five years, and during that time it has used the traditional SANbased system. As Quantel Strategic
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Marketing Manager Mark Horton notes, the SAN left plenty of room for improvement: “The SAN shared architecture had some fundamental flaws. It couldn’t play back 4K, it couldn’t reliably play back 2K once it was more than half full, and it had lots of problems with metadata handling.” Perhaps the “Achilles’ heel” of the SAN architecture is sharing media across multiple workstations, a process that requires time-consuming copying of files that in turn clog disk space. According to Bill Schultz, senior vice president and general manager of FotoKem’s Digital Film Services, within the SAN-based workflow “we had to export from one machine to the SAN so we could then import [the media] into another machine. We spoke to Quantel on numerous occasions about the difficulty of this.” Naturally, FotoKem was not alone in desiring a better system, and, fueled by similar feedback from other post facilities, Quantel dedicated a team to circumventing the limitations of the SAN architecture. Around the end of 2006, the company emerged with Genetic Engineering. “They came up with their own idea of what a shared storage architecture should be, and it solved all the problems but was also a completely different
approach,” says Schultz. “It takes a little while to get your head around exactly what they’ve done. It’s a better way of utilizing technology that was already available. Most of the product is software; the hardware is essentially the same as what we had before. We just added a little bit more disk, and then we connected it in a different way.” (Loaded-up Quantel storage won’t have playback issues because of Quantel’s patented intellectual property relating to the management of fragmentation and scatter.) Central to Genetic Engineering’s design is its easy interoperability with third-party products. “It rather helpfully confuses some of our friendly competitors,” says Horton. “There isn’t any development you need to do for it — there’s no API [application programming interface] and no licensing — so basically it’s plug-and-play for third-party vendors.” For example, using MTI Film’s Correct Digital Restoration System (DRS) previously required a workstation and storage outside of the Quantel. Genetic Engineering allows the MTI Correct system to dust-bust images directly on the Quantel storage pool with no need to copy or export. To accomplish this feat, Quantel has introduced the “Sam” data server, which Horton describes as “the way of hooking everyone in together. Sam’s got a very unusual trick in that it doesn’t behave like it’s a Quantel device. Essentially, it fools a third party into thinking it’s working with its own local 10-GigE network-attached storage.” Within the Genetic Engineering architecture, media is stored in what is called the GenePool, which Sam links to all of the in-house, non-Quantel workstations. (Quantel workstations have their own additional direct connections that don’t require Sam.) Rounding out the new workflow is the Max assist station, which frees the creative suites
Death Sentence photo by James Bridges, courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox. Volpatto photo courtesy of FotoKem.
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versions have which new assets that you have to merge back together.” Volpatto explains the process that was worked out on Death Sentence: “We broke down reels and scenes so as I was color-correcting one scene, someone else could do editing or effects in another scene without us stepping on each other. As soon as something was ready for me [on another IQ], I could grab it in a couple of seconds and color-correct it.” By Volpatto’s estimation, the new workflow has trimmed the time needed for a DI by about one-third. “Death Sentence was the second movie I graded with [cinematographer] John Leonetti [ASC], and he certainly felt we were working a lot faster. On the previous film, Dead Silence, we had to intercut the edit session with the color session, and that really slowed us down.” The new system has also enabled FotoKem to take on more projects, he adds. “In the past two months we’ve done four features and several trailers, and before [Genetic Engineering] we probably would have needed four or five months to do that much. “Our GenePool now has 48 terabytes,” concludes Volpatto. “I’m currently working with only 1 percent of the space free, and the machine is flawless. There is no other SAN that can do that.” For more information, call FotoKem at (818) 846-3101 or visit www.fotokem.com. To learn more about Quantel, visit www.quantel.com.
Saving Sound Tracks by Robert S. Birchard Cinematographers are understandably interested in image permanence and motion-picture restoration, but ever since Al Jolson uttered the words “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” in The Jazz Singer 80 years ago, it has been a fact of movie life that sound goes hand in hand with picture. It is equally true that if a talkie lacks its sound track, there’s a fair chance the image will be left to rot as well. Although the artist may rebel at the notion, from a commercial perspective what’s the point of spending money to preserve the image if the dialogue, music and effects can no longer be heard? In many ways, sound elements are even more fragile than picture elements. For most of the last 50 years, movie sound was mixed and mastered on acetate-based, oxide-coated magnetic film stock, which is subject to the same sorts of degradation that can occur with acetate-based images: it can shrink, warp and become brittle. The adhesives that hold the magnetic coating can dry out, and the “rust” that carries the precious sound modulations can flake off and clog delicate sound heads, making it difficult to create a new sound transfer. “Vinegar Syndrome is the layman’s term for a complex chemical reaction that occurs in acetate-based film stocks and causes them to decompose,” says Thom Piper, manager of
Photo courtesy of Chace Audio.
Right: Motion-picture soundtracks on magnetic film stock are not immune to the effects of decay and vinegar syndrome. Here, the stock has become brittle.
by tackling such tasks as conforms, quality control and playout. Quantel offers Genetic Engineering in HD and DI versions; the latter, employed by FotoKem, features 2K and 4K capabilities. Other key tools in FotoKem’s DI workflow include an Arriscan film scanner and Correct DRS. David McClure, product manager at MTI Film recounts, “Quantel approached us in December 2006 to let us know what they were working on and that FotoKem was beta-testing it. We gave Quantel the license of Correct and walked them through the basics of the program. Once they had verified in their own lab that they were on the right track, I worked directly with [Quantel R&D Manager] Simon Rogers in FotoKem’s production environment to work out the last kinks and get them rolling.” FotoKem was still working with Quantel as Death Sentence was coming in, according to Schultz. “The clients were aware we were going to try something new, and Quantel had come up with a fail-safe plan wherein we could back out at any time with only a few lost hours if things didn’t work out,” he says. “As Simon and the R&D team were walking out, the clients were coming in, and fortunately, it all just worked.” Volpatto adds, “Quantel worked very hard to give us no [interruption] at all, and I was amazed at how well it has worked since day one.” With Genetic Engineering in place, FotoKem can scan footage at 4K on the Arriscan directly into the GenePool through Sam, which in turn makes all of the media immediately accessible to the various workstations. Once Death Sentence was scanned, the post work was done at 2K, and everyone working on the project was able to share their work by updating the media as it appeared in the GenePool. Schultz is quick to note that this “sharing” process can get users into trouble if a division of labor is not maintained. “Any time you share what you’ve been working on, it’s almost like an instant archive is created, and there are new problems that arise in terms of managing what you’ve got, where you’ve worked, and which new
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preservation and senior optical recordist at Chace Audio in Burbank. “As acetate film breaks down, it releases water and acetic acid, which causes the vinegar smell. This decomposition affects both picture and magnetic sound acetatebased films, but not equally — the catalyzing effect of the iron oxide in the magnetic coating of sound film can intensify the problem significantly. A 1,000-foot reel of 35mm acetate film can generate over a quart of ‘vinegar,’ and sound elements from as recently as 30 years ago are generating gallons of the stuff. As magnetic film decomposes, the plasticizers appear on the magnetic surface as a thick, white powder. During a transfer, this powder builds up on the sound head, causing loss of contact and dull, muffled transfers. “When a film comes into Chace for sound preservation and restoration,” he continues, “it’s logged into our vault and tracking system and then sent to our film-preparation department, where it is cleaned and repaired if necessary. We have proprietary procedures that can get rid of mold and water damage, reduce vinegar syndrome, and solve other problems. Film preparation is really the key to starting the preservation and restoration process. In extreme cases, with a track that exhibits strong indications of vinegar syndrome, once the film has been cleaned, repaired and exposed to air there’s only a short window of time in which to make a transfer. Decomposition takes place over time, but once it reaches a tipping point the process can accelerate significantly. Once the film has been cleaned, we’ll immediately have a copy made and bag the original to limit its exposure to the air.” Sound elements are also subject to the effects of mold and mildew, which can also make them unplayable. As part of the preparation for vinegary and moldy prints, Chace has developed a “magic box” they call the “Stinkerator.” Michele Winn, manager of Chace’s film-preparation department, explains, “The Stinkerator cabinet uses negative ions and UV-light technology to inhibit and neutralize the growth of mold and 82 September 2007
mildew. It also safely reduces the vinegar smell from elements prior to handling. Inhaling the vinegar fumes may have negative health consequences for the technicians handling the film, and we need to neutralize the acetic-acid smell as much as possible so they can safely do their work. Other safety precautions include air filtration and purification, eye goggles and breathing equipment. We also use our Multi-function Magnetic Film Cleaning Machine, which automates several processes needed to prepare magneticsound film for transfer. The unit can remove excessive dust and plasticizer in one pass, replacing what might otherwise take 40 hours of hand-cleaning.” But what to do if a soundtrack is essentially beyond recovery? Chace Audio was recently contracted by 20th Century Fox to restore the sound for The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), which won William C. Mellor, ASC an Oscar for black-andwhite cinematography and notched an Oscar nomination for composer Alfred Newman. “The 35mm four-track stereo magnetic sound master had sections with advanced stages of vinegar syndrome,” says Piper, “and the problem was so severe that in some areas the magnetic oxide was separating from the acetate base. Even the small amount of friction created by running this over a magnetic sound head caused an unsatisfactory ‘chatter’ or ‘screeching’ quality.” The track elements were effectively unusable, and there was a very real prospect that the soundtrack would only survive in monaural sound rather than the stereo format originally heard in theaters by road-show audiences. But Piper has developed a proprietary lubricant for use on deteriorated soundtracks that Chace Audio has dubbed “ThomSlick” in his honor. “It took me about a year, on and off, to come up with the formula,” says Piper, who declines to be specific about ingredients but says they contain no carcinogens. “Others have used WD-40 to lubricate mag film, but we’ve found petroleum-based products rapidly accelerated the decomposition
of the film. What we came up with doesn’t do that; it works as a lubricant, we didn’t get any buildup on the sound heads, and it didn’t affect the highfrequency response of the recordings. It doesn’t work for everything, but for mag films that are decomposing and generating a lot of head buildup, it works great. “ThomSlick is sort of like The Blob: it doesn’t like being contained, but once it’s on the film it stays there,” he continues. “The longer it stays on the film the better the film starts to look, because it causes the film to relax so it lies flat and runs more smoothly.” With a laugh, he adds, “When I first came up with the formula, I spilled some on the rubber floor mats in my truck, and when I got in the truck, I literally slid out as soon as my feet hit the stuff! I had to throw the mats out, but the stuff works wonders on deteriorating acetate film.” The application of ThomSlick revitalized Anne Frank’s aging stereo masters and allowed them to be transferred without screech or chatter, preserving the audio in the configuration the filmmakers intended. Chace Audio, (818) 842-8346, www.chace.com. MTI Control Dailies by Iain Stasukevich MTI Film’s Control Dailies is an all-digital solution designed to make the dailies process more reliable, efficient and responsive to the variety of deliverables customers request. Created by Larry Chernoff, the company’s CEO, and Kevin Manbeck, the company’s CTO, Control Dailies doesn’t attempt to reinvent the dailies wheel so much as improve on a tried-and-true design. The telecine process typically works in a linear fashion: the film comes in from the lab and is hung on the telecine machine, and the color is set by the telecine colorist or supervisor. The picture is synced to the sound elements, slated, matted and burned with timecode and keycode information before being laid off to a high-definition master or standard-def tapes. Most of the time,
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MTI Film’s Control Dailies can produce digital dailies in a variety of formats.
the colorist handles all of the busy work of entering metadata and syncing sound, in addition to the coloring. Control Dailies adds computer workstations and a dedicated storagearea network (SAN) to the pipeline, taking the linear workflow and “stacking” the mechanical elements of data entry, syncing, slating, burning and layoff, thus allowing them to be performed simultaneously with the coloring. An assistant technician
handles the logistical heavy lifting from his or her station, importing and preparing sound for picture sync and then logging scene, take, and additional shot information as metadata, freeing the colorist to concentrate on grading. The software on the colorist’s station drives the telecine process while the picture is colored and ingested to the SAN. With Control Dailies, the two stations are completely autonomous, yet the colorist and the assistant are able to work in
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tandem from the same data on the SAN. Film dailies are ingested in one of two ways, Select Takes or Full Reel. With film transferred in the Select Takes mode, audio and picture are automatically synchronized by Control Dailies based on sync points logged in the database by the assistant and colorist. In Full Reel mode, Control Dailies provides a one-click editorial tool to sync audio and picture. The Full Reel option was recently added to facilitate the post workflow on Rush Hour 3 at Company 3. To save money and time, many productions will transfer only the “circle takes,” that is, the takes that are going to be used in editorial. Control Dailies was originally designed to support this method of telecine, but on Rush Hour 3 every take from every camera roll needed to be ingested. Company 3 colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld does double-duty as the dailies supervisor and colorist on almost every feature he works on. This was
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also true of Rush Hour 3, which was shot by James Muro and directed by Brett Ratner. Postproduction on the film began in late 2006, but before the first camera roll came through the door, Sonnenfeld was working closely with Chernoff and MTI to meet the demands of what would become a rigorous dailies schedule (The cinematographer received dailies on HDCam, the director on DVD.). “Because of nature of the work that we do — challenging projects with demanding directors and unique workflows — we tend to have very specific needs,” explains Sonnenfeld, who is also Company 3’s managing director. “Directors like Brett Ratner and Michael Bay want every single shot on tape so they can cut everything and see everything. It’s very rare for people I work with to just do circle takes.” Moving several thousand feet of film for a single show on a daily basis has become standard procedure for Sonnenfeld, who often has as many as four features on his plate. In addition to
features, there’s a constant rotation of high-profile commercials and music videos moving through Company 3’s eight telecine bays. “Working with Control Dailies is a win-win situation creatively and from a business perspective,” says Sonnenfeld. “The real beauty of [Control Dailies] is that as a colorist, I’m able to concentrate on the creative aspect of the job — the coloring — then get it laid off and out of the room.” Once the picture has been ingested and the sound synced, the Control Dailies assistant station handles the dailies deliverables with three asynchronous video outputs, one hi-def signal and two standard-def signals. Mattes, slates and window burns are generated by the machine that creates the layoffs, eliminating the need for additional equipment. Because the signals originate from a digital source and are routed by three separate devicecontrol cards, each can be started and stopped independently of the other. Digital deliverables are handled by
Convey, a separate but integrated sisterapplication to Control Dailies that can encode sound and picture elements in almost any digital format to a hard or soft destination. All-digital workflows are possible as well. Control Dailies can slave a third-party color corrector (such as Pandora or Autodesk Lustre) to downcovert 2K scans to HD and SD color space, and is able to control VTRs for direct HD-to-network capture. Currently, MTI is in talks with Dalsa, Codex, S.two and Panavision to develop devicecontrol and metadata compatibility for the next generation of high-end digital cameras and field recorders. In addition to Company 3, MTI Film has strategic alliances and integration certifications for the Control Dailies system with companies such as Encore Hollywood, FotoKem, Avid, DVS, DataDirect Networks and Quantel. For more information, visit www.mtifilm.com. I
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Filmmakers’ Forum Shooting in “The Land of a Thousand Kasbahs” Soldiers land in a village and scope out the area in a scene from The Objective, an independent film set in Afghanistan that was shot in Morocco.
hen I was first approached about shooting the supernatural war film The Objective, producer Jeremy Wall warned me that there would probably be no other women in the cast or crew of the production, which would be shot in some of the most remote locations in the Moroccan desert. When he went on to pitch the project as “Apocalypse Now meets 2001: A Space Odyssey,” I was intrigued. When he added that we had an 28-day shooting schedule in more than 30 different locations, and that all of my crew would be locally hired, I trembled. But I cast all reservations aside, and The Objective proved to be one of the most challenging and rewarding collaborations I have experienced to date. Written and directed by Daniel Myrick (co-director of The Blair Witch Project), The Objective tells the story of CIA operative Ben Kitch (played by Jonas Ball), who arrives in Afghanistan on a classified mission four months prior to the 2001 invasion. Kitch enlists six Special Forces soldiers to accompany him into the mountains of Afghanistan, where they soon
W
86 September 2007
encounter an enemy they are illequipped to combat. The meetings Dan and I had during preproduction were instrumental in establishing the framework for our film. We drew inspiration from the photographs of James Nachtwey, YouTube war footage, and photos of Afghanistan and Iraq from the VII Photo and Magnum databases. The shot list we devised during this time served as a thematic foundation we returned to frequently during production. The camera style and production design were key in portraying the physical and psychological journey into the unknown. When the film begins, camera movement is fluid, with the camera primarily on sticks, Steadicam or dolly. As the soldiers venture into the desert, a handheld style predominates and is intercut with what Dan and I termed our “Desert POV.” The Desert POV represents the mysterious element that the soldiers search for and later try to escape; we achieved it with very wide, carefully composed dolly shots. As the story unfolds, the soldiers’ increasing despair is depicted via coverage on long
lenses, which also evoked the sense of being observed. The use of color also was essential in illustrating this journey. In the beginning, the color palette is saturated. Light sources here are electricity-driven, and our color scheme is drawn from both the production design and the available light sources. As the film progresses, the palette becomes less saturated and serves as another metaphor for the soldiers’ state of mind. Although production initially suggested shooting on high-definition video, we decided that film, with its superior latitude and reliability, was the best option, given that we’d be shooting in the desert in extreme and unpredictable weather conditions. We shot Kodak Vision2 500T 7218 for night exteriors and Vision2 50D 7201 for day exteriors and day-for-night work. Because extensive special effects would be used, production decided to finish the film with a digital intermediate. Two months prior to production, Dan, Jeremy, production designer Frank Bollinger and I headed to Morocco to scout locations. This stage of our process was very instructive because Morocco has such a rich filmmaking history. Every driver, waiter or storekeeper has an anecdote ready regarding Lawrence of Arabia, Kundun, Hidalgo, Gladiator or Ishtar. (Yes, even that last film remains a fond memory to many in Morocco!) Production support and equipment is on par with what you might find in Los Angeles. During the scout, we also got our first glimpse of the hospitable spirit of the Moroccans. In the middle of the desert, as we visited villages that are only now receiving electricity for the first time, people ranging from village elders to small children would always invite us into their homes
Photos by Francis Dreis and Jeremy Wall.
by Stephanie Martin
Above: In a helicopter, director Daniel Myrick (left) and cinematographer Stephanie Martin discuss shots while the lighting is set up. Below: Martin (right) and 1st AC Lilia Sellami film the soldiers preparing to depart the village. Jonas Ball is at left, with back to camera; Zinoune Chems Eddine is getting into the vehicle; and Matt Anderson is standing in the truck bed.
88 September 2007
for a cup of tea. With the exception of the opening and closing scenes, The Objective was shot south of the High Atlas Mountains, in what is known as “the land of a thousand Kasbahs” near the city of Ouarzazate. There we filmed in ancient Moroccan villages, an abandoned French magnesium mine, vast red-rock canyons, dry desert valleys, and lush green oases, among other places. At one time we’d considered shooting this film in California, but in the end we all agreed that it could only have been made in Morocco’s exceptional locations. As cinematographers, we bring our knowledge and skill to a set, but the eventual outcome of our work is due in great part to our crews. Although I had previously used local crews in foreign countries, most recently in Mumbai,
India, I was nevertheless a little nervous about hiring my entire crew locally. The Objective was one of my first opportunities to put my foreign-language skills to use as a cinematographer; I come from Argentina and grew up speaking Spanish, English, Portuguese and French. On this shoot French proved to be key, although English, Arabic, Italian, German, Portuguese and Spanish were all spoken on set as well. Often we communicated in five different languages at once, yet we somehow managed to understand one another! With the help of Moroccan producer Karim Debbagh and various contacts from the Cinematographers’ Mailing List, I was able to assemble a first-rate crew. My camera, grip and electric departments were exceptional. I found an ally, collaborator and friend in 1st AC Lilia Sellami, and nothing was impossible for key grip Rachid Mssiaidi and gaffer Marco de Fillipis. Whether we wanted our large Jumbo lights on scaffolding at the death’s edge of a mountain, or our dolly in the most remote of cliff tops, Rachid’s reply to our hesitant questions was always, “Pas de probleme, Stephanie!” (“No problem!”) We were very fortunate to have 1st AD Ahmed Hatimi at the helm of our production; he brought with him years of experience and his most kind and capable crew. His understanding of cinematography was instrumental in
making each day run like clockwork. The crew’s efficiency was vital in getting us through a string of obstacles. Camera batteries caught on fire, picture cars broke down, we were once rained out by a torrential rainstorm, we had to shoot through a sandstorm on our last day, we never saw dailies because the film was held up in customs, and six cans of film were fogged. Producer Andrea Balen still marvels that we had one of the lowest “L and D” (loss and damage) figures she’s ever seen. That speaks to the professionalism of our crew. Since my return to the States, many have asked about my experience as a woman cinematographer on a largely male set in a Muslim country. I can happily attest that I never felt that I was being treated differently because of my gender. My crew was very capable and respectful. Various crewmembers told me I was the first woman to shoot a feature in Morocco. I don’t know if that’s true, but it was satisfying to hear that they were happy to see a woman behind the camera. As it turned out, I did have some female companions on set: I was one of nine women in a 95person crew, and three of the others were, I’m happy to say, in my camera department. For me, the process is just as important as the product. My two months in Morocco allowed me to experience the country, capture the nuances of life there and form strong bonds that might last a lifetime. How many professions give you the opportunity to live in other countries and work closely with individuals from such diverse backgrounds? Many people just move on when the job is done, but I think it is important to cherish these experiences. It has been one month since my return to Los Angeles, and I speak to my new Moroccan friends on a weekly basis. I look forward to returning, and to many more shoots like this one. As they say in Morocco, “A la prochaine, Insha’alla” — “Till next time, God willing.” I
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Ugrip’s camerasupport system can be configured in a multitude of ways for a variety of cameras.
U-Configure Ugrip by Iain Stasukevich The Danish company Ugrip presented its self-titled flagship product at the 2007 National Association of Broadcasters show, touting it as “a unique and indispensable camerasupport system developed by photographers, for photographers, to make handheld shooting more flexible, stable and comfortable.” Ugrip R&D Manager Lars Malm-
90 September 2007
borg sought to create a product that would incorporate all video and motionpicture elements into one unit and ended up developing a support system that has at its core a modular, customizable design. In its most primitive form, the Ugrip is a baseplate, one or two arms, and one or two handgrips. Even with this basic setup, multiple configurations are possible, allowing the operator a number of shooting options. Assembly and reconfiguration of the Ugrip is simple thanks to the exclusive use of a 4mm hex bolt for every joint and fastener except one: the baseplate, which can accept either a 1⁄4" or a 3⁄4" screw, requires a wide flathead. Faster than you can say “Picture’s up!” the ergonomic, foam-padded handgrips can be flipped upside down, shortened, extended and rotated in any position. The Ugrip’s flexibility means it’s compatible with a range of cameras, from consumer-level camcorders like the Sony PC350 to prosumer cameras like the Panasonic HVX200, all the way up to the Arri 435. (A list of compatible cameras is available at the Ugrip Web site.) Conversely, the hex-bolt method of customization also lends a certain amount of unreliability to the Ugrip when dealing with heavier loads. In the field, a JVC GY-HD100 weighs about 20 pounds when equipped with a mattebox, rod support, follow focus, V-mount battery and Firestore drive. After about an hour of running around, the grips and the arms began to loosen on their own, even after a strong tightening with the hex wrench. For practical purposes, the Ugrip might work much better with smaller prosumer cameras than larger cameras. In all of the Ugrip’s assembly documentation, an HVX200 is shown, and cinematographer Marcel Zyskind’s endorsement refers to his experience using the Ugrip in conjunction with the Panasonic
DVX100. (However, he made use of a similar setup with the Arri 235 while shooting A Mighty Heart.) Concerning the Ugrip’s compatibility with larger cameras (i.e., 16mm, 35mm and hi-def video), despite the system’s inherent flexibility, the grip arms’ short reach could make for a slightly constricting experience, depending on the distance of the camera’s baseplate mount from the shoulder rest. The only way to be sure of this is to field-test the Ugrip before making it part of your camera kit. There are three price-point levels: Koral, Pearl and Diamond; the latter is the most complex and expensive (list price: $1,837). But at any level, you really get what you pay for: the Ugrip is rugged and elegantly conceived. Advanced packages include stackable slots for a Firestore drive or video and audio transmitters, a heavy-duty clamp for onboard lighting and mounting the Ugrip from the top of the camera, and a zoom mount for Bebob’s custom Ugrip zoom controller. For more information, visit www.ugrip.dk. A&I Photographic Offering Motion-Picture Stock for Stills by Iain Stasukevich For more than 20 years, RGB Color Labs in Hollywood was the place student and professional cinematographers went to when they wanted to develop still photos shot with motionpicture film. But RGB went out of business in 2005, leaving Los Angeles-area directors of photography no other local options to do still-camera emulsion testing. (Taking wedges down to the local one-hour is out of the question.) Cinema stocks use a process called ECN-2 to develop the negative, while the more common C-41 process is used for most still photography. The big
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difference between the two processes is found in ECN-2’s use of a Rem-Jet carbon backing — an opaque layer just below the negative base that prevents light from reflecting off the base and back through the emulsion to create an undesirable halo effect. The backing is removed in an alkaline bath during development. Attempting to cross-process either stock in the other’s chemicals might ruin both the developer and the film, so this practice is generally avoided unless done in a private darkroom. At the behest of American Film Institute instructor Charlie Rose and Mole-Richardson owner Larry Parker, Baret Lepedian of A&I Photographic in Hollywood has stepped forward with a new service that develops these shorter lengths of motion-picture negative for still cameras. Now A&I provides both Fuji and Kodak 35mm stocks in 36-exposure rolls at $3 and $6, respectively. Here’s how it works: Once the customer exposes the film and returns it to A&I, all the film for that week is edited into one large reel according to type. This means there can be no pushing or pulling or any other special process. Processing is handled by Deluxe for $15, and includes the negative and a positive print either mounted or in strips. For an additional fee, A&I will print the film to paper or scan to a digital source. The whole process takes about a week, although Lepedian says he anticipates a faster
92 September 2007
turnaround once the popularity of the service starts to grow. Keith Gilbey, A&I’s lab technician at Deluxe, cautions potential customers to be mindful of sprocket damage caused by older still cameras — in the interest of machine safety, Deluxe will not process damaged film — and advises them to return their film to the lab as soon as it’s been exposed. “The image will deteriorate if it sits around,” he says. The film stocks offered by A&I include Fuji’s Eterna 160T, 250T, 400T, 250D, F-64D, and Reala 500D. Available Kodak stocks are Vision2 5201, 5205, 5217, 5212, 25218 and Expression 5229. Mail-order services are available for out-of-state customers. For more information, visit www.aandi.com. Motorig Move ’n Shoot, a manufacturer of camera-rig systems, has introduced the Motorig, a motion-controlled rig that is mounted to the undercarriage of the picture car. It is compatible with the Mini Scorpio two-axis head (which is also recordable and repeatable) and Arri 235 and 435 camera combinations. (Other combinations are possible.) The maximum rig length is 5 meters (16.4') and a maximum speed of 80 kph (about 50 mph) is possible. Pan capability of the rig left and right is 220° in five seconds.
Tilt up and down 0-90° is accomplished in four seconds. (Specs are dependent on driving technique, road surface, acceleration and deceleration.) Setup time after one prep day is 1.5-2.5 hours, while allowing 15-45 minutes of program time per shot, depending on the complexity of the move and familiarity with the rig. Motorig is not frame-accurate per se, however, frame positions and vector data are memorized for each repetition and are usable for editing. Future plans include data exchange with 3-D programs for pre-configured camera movements. Motorig movements are as such: move to start, midpoints and end points, and all are saved as data. Up to four separate rig movement sequences can be saved. The Motorig also can run while memorizing camera head movements with joystick or wheels. Up to five separate camera head movement sequences can be saved. Motorig initiates the synchronized start of rig arm and camera head via a start button within the picture car, a wireless button outside the car, or a wireless beam trip for precise car positioning. For booking information, call (310) 283-3378. For technical information, call (213) 992-1702 or visit www.move-n-shoot.com. ¢
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Telescoping Jib Employed on the 2007 Academy and Grammy awards shows, the TechnoJib telescopic jib is a breakthrough in the world of remote camera jibs. Prior to the development of the Techno-Jib, camera jibs could only be built to fixed lengths, thus limiting their use to certain shots. The Techno-Jib instantly extends or retracts to obtain the best shot possible. For the first time, a single operator can control all aspects of camera movement, including telescoping the jib arm in and out. When fully retracted, it can easily be moved from set to set. There are two models of the Techno-Jib, T15 and T24. The T15 is ideal for use on multicamera shows such as sitcoms, where space is limited. Maximum height of the T15 is 18'. Maximum reach is 15' with a minimum of 6.5'. Telescopic travel is 9' at a speed of 5' per second. Total telescoped length is 20.5' and 10.9' when retracted. Maximum nose load is 70 pounds. The T24 can provide that extra reach for shots that previously only a telescoping crane could achieve. Maximum height of the T24 is 25.5'. Maximum reach is 24' with a minimum of 9'. Telescopic travel is 15' at a speed of 5' per second. Total telescoped length is 31' and 15.5' when retracted. Maximum nose load is 45 pounds. For more information, call (818) 917-5677 or visit www.telescop icjib.com.
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March of Time Collection Available Thought Equity Motion, a supplier of online motion-content licensing and management services, and HBO recently announced the online availability of the March of Time collection, an exclusive library of historic film footage from the famous newsreel and TV documentary series. Comprising nearly 70 million feet of film, the March of Time newsreels were shown to millions across the world prior to theatrical releases. The collection covers significant events in world history from 19131967. This launch also expands Thought Equity Motion’s existing relationship with HBO Archives to provide film and documentary producers, agencies, educational institutions and production companies with real-time access to relevant footage from the March of Time newsreel service. “With an average per-episode production cost of $750,000 in today’s dollars, the March of Time was one of the largest and most comprehensive news productions of its time,” states Kevin Schaff, founder and CEO of Thought Equity Motion. “By restoring and digitally mastering the collection, we are ensuring this historic content is available to storytellers in the most pristine format for all time.” The March of Time collection is available for online purchase and
download and can be delivered in a variety of formats, including film, video and HD. For more information, visit www.thoughtequity.com/MOT.
Cahiers du cinéma Online The venerable French film journal Cahiers du cinéma now has an English alter ego on the Web: e-Cahiers du cinéma. Publishing in English is, of course, a way to reach a large number of readers, but Cahiers hopes it also will be “a way of making a different voice heard in the world — a way of proposing a fresh, rigorous and contemporary approach to the cinema and its place in present-day culture.” The new e-zine features a search engine, interactive fields with links, video integrated into the pages, direct page access, intuitive page flipping, and much more. For more information, visit www.e-cahiersducinema.com. Panasonic AG-HPX500 Panasonic has introduced the AG-HPX500 shoulder-mount P2 highdefinition (HD) camcorder. With a suggested list price of $14,000, the HPX500 features 2⁄3" progressive imagers, a tapeless IT workflow, interchangeable lens, variable frame rates, and extended recording capability. Based on solid-state P2 technology, the AG-HPX500 is backed by a five-year extended warranty program. ¢
develop • package • finance • license • acquire • distribute October 31-November 7 • Santa Monica, California • www.americanfilmmarket.com © 2007 Independent Film & Television Alliance
Equipped with many of the popular features of the successful AG-HVX200 handheld P2 HD camcorder, the HPX500 delivers full, production-quality recording, with three 2⁄3" CCDs, DVCPro HD 4:2:2 image quality, independent frame encoding, and four independent audio channels. The HPX500’s progressive CCDs deliver high resolution and sensitivity, excellent low-light performance and a wide dynamic range. The multi-format camera can record in 32 high-definition and standard-definition formats, including 1080i and 720p in full bandwidth DVCPro HD. The HPX500 employs 14-bit A/D conversion, and its digital signal processor (DSP) employs 19-bit internal processing to deliver HD and SD images. It also offers 50/60Hz selectability for international use and a power consumption of only 22 watts. “The full-size AG-HPX500 is a highly-affordable, full production-quality HD camcorder that includes high-end features that video professionals could only find previously in more expensive cameras,” said Robert Harris, vice president of marketing for Panasonic Broadcast. “The HPX500 offers fast and incredibly flexible file-based, IT workflow with the ultra-reliable performance of solidstate recording. We’re so confident in the camera’s performance that we’re offering it with a free 5-year extended warranty program.” The HPX500 has a variable-framerate function that allows professionals to undercrank and overcrank the camera to create fast- or slow-motion effects. For 720p recordings, users can set frame rates at 24p, 30p or 25p in any of 11 steps
between 12 fps and 60 fps (or 50 fps). And with the camera’s advanced 1080/480 24pA mode, users have the option of using 2:3:3:2 pulldown, which allows most nonlinear editing systems to extract 24 frames on ingest. With Panasonic’s current delivery of its 16GB P2 card, the HPX500 delivers extended recording time without “hotswapping” cards. With four of these P2 cards installed, the camcorder can record up to 160 minutes at native 720/24pN in DVCPro HD, 128 minutes at 720p/30pN in DVCPro HD, 128 minutes in DVCPro 50 and 256 minutes in DVCPro, so recording capacity is now equal to and often longer than tapebased and disc-based media. The HPX500 provides users with the advantages of P2 HD’s IT workflow, including instant recording, thumbnail clip views and a host of recording modes, without the need for ingest. The 8.2-pound camcorder is equipped with eight gamma modes to address a wide range of shooting situations, including cine-like gamma to create film-like recordings. Key interfaces include IEEE 1394, USB 2.0, HDSDI, analog component and four audio XLR inputs. Its four 48-kHz/16-bit digital audio channels are independently controllable. The camera also features an SD memory card slot for saving or loading scene files and user settings and a variety of shooting assist functions and presets. The HPX500 features an automatic Chromatic Aberration Compensation (CAC) function that allows the camera to automatically optimize its performance with new CAC lenses. For more information, visit www.panasonic.com/broadcast.
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Codex Portable Digital Recorder Codex Digital, a specialist in high-resolution-media recording systems, is launching a new portable field recorder. No larger than a toaster, the Codex Portable’s cutting-edge design is packed with features and advanced technology, creating new opportunities for single- and multi97
camera production. The Codex Portable can work with virtually every digital camera from high-definition to 4K. The new system has been designed to meet industry demand for a compact and rugged field recorder. It complements the original Codex HD, 2K, 4K media recorder/server. Using visually lossless compression, the Codex Portable brings cinema-quality disk recording to every production where uncompressed recording is not an absolute demand, but total portability is. Constructed from carbon fiber and featuring rubber-sealed connections, the Codex Portable is tough, weatherresistant and weighs only 9 pounds (4 kg). It is powered from standard camera batteries and can be carried on an operator’s shoulder or back, or secured on camera equipment such as dollies and cranes. A large record button and illuminated status ring mean the Codex Portable is always ready-to-go, and nearsilent operation lets it get right into the action. Taking its key features from its larger sibling, the Codex Portable adds immediate full-frame playback and review of footage on a daylight-readable touchscreen. Also unique is its secure wireless system, which enables instant shot monitoring or remote control of the system from any networked computer or PDA. The Codex Portable also features a special “Mutter Track” microphone input, which allows the user to add comments during a take for shot-logging and notes. The Codex Portable packs all the benefits of the Codex tapeless workflow 98
into a remarkably small package. Topline features include two dual-link HD 4:4:4 inputs, Infiniband and Ethernet data-connections, 10Gbps optical I/O, time code and control ports, eight channels of audio, HD and SD monitoring of all formats up to 4K, and MP4 wireless video output. The Codex Portable is the first portable disk recorder to handle all formats up to 4K at cinema quality, and the first to handle both video and datamode cameras. Flexible I/O configurations enable it to record from virtually every digital camera available today — including all HD cameras in video mode, plus data mode from cameras such as the Arri D-20 and Dalsa Origin. It can also record Red Digital Cinema’s Red One camera in 4K data mode. Recording is made to hot-swappable, shock-mounted RAID disk packs that can hold up to three hours of continuous recording at the system’s highest quality. The compression method used is JPEG 2000, a waveletbased industry standard, which is visually indistinguishable from the original and comparable to the highest-quality mode of HDCam SR tape. The Codex Portable can record from two 4:4:4 cameras simultaneously — either independently for A and B cameras or locked together for 3-D stereoscopic acquisition. It can also record from four 4:2:2 cameras simultaneously, allowing complete synchronization of multiple recorders. With this feature, six synchronized Codex Portables can act as a 24-track video, 48track audio-recorder, enough to record an entire concert or sports event. The Codex Portable provides multiple standard file formats for the seamless transfer of shots to all post workflows. After recording, the disk packs can be plugged directly into the matching Codex Transfer Station. This copies them (much faster than real time), backs them up and then delivers the material, plus the associated metadata, across local or worldwide networks. In conjunction with the Transfer Station, the Codex Portable can deliver 99
shots in all industry-standard formats, including DPX, BMP, BWAV, QuickTime, AVI and MXF files. It can even provide native-mode files that editing systems can use with no importing at all. The result is a clean, fast system in which the production moves seamlessly between shooting and post, on set or off. “We have developed the new portable with a no-holds-barred approach,” says Paul Bamborough, a cofounder of Codex Digital. “There are huge advantages in shooting direct to disk, and we are making those available to all productions who want the highest quality and also need complete portability.” Codex Digital, in Los Angeles, (310) 449-8600, in London, +44 (0)20 7292 6918, E-mail: info@codex digital.com, Web site: www.codexdigi tal.com.
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Cooke/i Datalink Cooke Optics Ltd. has introduced the Cooke/i Datalink, which records camera data for use in post. It enables effects- and digital-intermediate artists to create more accurate, better-looking visual effects and saves significant time in the post process. The Cooke/i Datalink is a small box that mounts easily to any camera and records the focus, zoom and iris settings of each take from Cooke’s S4/i lenses or any i-enabled lens, all synced to time code. The data is recorded on a Secure Digital (SD) card, storing settings as metadata to pass along to post teams. The workflow has been developed in conjunction with U.K.-based company The Pixel Farm, whose tracking software, PFTrack 4.0, fully supports the /i Datalink technology. When used in conjunction with PFTrack, artists are able to sync the lens data to the 3-D camera data and therefore produce with greater speed a 3-D model that is more accurate. Cinematographer Devon Dickson has been working with Cooke and The Pixel Farm to test the use of the /i Datalink and PFTrack software as an end-to-end workflow. He recently shot a test project using an Arri 435 with a Cooke S4/i 15-40mm T2.0 CXX zoom lens, capturing lens data with the
/i Datalink. “Automatically recording vital information such as focal length can alleviate hours of time-consuming guesswork when it comes to combining 2-D and 3-D images in post,” he says. “It’s important not to underestimate the impact such a collaboration has on the production process as a whole. This is a huge step in bringing production and post together.” Cooke Optics Chairman Les Zellan notes, “The biggest benefit this system delivers is time. It takes a process that required manual recording on set and guesswork in post and compresses it in both areas, shaving time from the schedule. The fact that it also delivers more realistic-looking results makes it a positive advancement on the creative side as well.” The Cooke/i Datalink is available
from Cooke Optics and authorized dealers worldwide for $6,500. For details, visit www.cookeoptics.com. PFTrack 4.0 software is available from The Pixel Farm. For more information, visit www.thepixelfarm.co.uk. Nice Set of Wheels Arri has improved handling and mobility of its Series D Lighting Kits by providing wheels as an option on the compact cases. Previously, wheels were only attached to heavy-duty cases, but now even the smallest Series D kit has been made more portable. Rugged nylon inline skate wheels withstand the abuse of production demands, while molded protection bumpers and the reinforced wheelbase provide durability. Series D Softbank Kits are designed for use with modern digital-video cameras. The total wattage has been reduced for these more light-sensitive cameras with no loss of control or light quality. For more information, visit www.arri.com.
CineBags CB-22 HD Backpack LT CineBags has introduced the CB22 HD Backpack LT to accommodate new medium-sized DV cameras such as the Panasonic HVX200 and DVX100 and the Sony HVR-Z1U, as well as a laptop computer. Customizable inner compartments provide safe gear storage and external storage pouches keep the most important items within easy reach. Features include: padded, customizable interior compartment; laptop compartment; see-through compartments; large, padded shoulder harness; waterproof material; large, zipped opening for easy access; internal organizer pockets; tripod strap; and exterior bottle holder. Retail price is $199. CineBags, (818) 662-0605, www.cinebags.com. I
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Points East Little Rock Central, 50 Years After Desegregation Fifty years after the integration of Little Rock Central High, the school remains segregated. Angelica (right) is one of the few AfricanAmerican students in the school’s renowned advancedplacement track profiled in Brent and Craig Renaud’s documentary Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later.
n September 1957, Central High School in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas, became a focal point in the turbulent desegregation movement. Gov. Orval Faubus defied a federal court order to integrate the all-white school and sent members of the National Guard, under the pretense of student “protection,” to prevent African-American teenagers from stepping onto campus. A national standoff ensued, and it ended on Sept. 25, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower had soldiers from the 101st Airborne escort nine African-American students, known as the Little Rock Nine, to class. In Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later, documentary filmmakers Brent and Craig Renaud take a critical look at how far race relations have progressed at Central since then. Stripped to its essence, filmmaking is but a man (or woman) with a camera trained on a subject. The Renaud brothers adhere to this simple point-andshoot methodology, unobtrusively capturing the scene’s realism — no staged shots and no pre-lit sitdowns. “We know our films aren’t always going
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to have beautiful cinematography,” says Brent. “We flow with whatever the environment presents.” The cinéma vérité label often is misapplied in the film industry, but on the Renauds the tag sticks, reinforcing the notion that content is king. The content in the brothers’ documentaries has garnered them critical praise. Based in New York, they were mentored by Emmy-winning filmmaker Jon Alpert (Baghdad ER, Lock-Up: The Prisoners of Rikers Island, American Undercover series) before striking out on their own in 2001 on The Season, an ESPN series documenting college-football rivalries. They then spent 18 months trailing two drug-addicted couples on the streets of New York City to show the lengths someone will go to fuel a crack habit. Airing on HBO in 2005, Dope Sick Love was nominated for an Emmy and has since been adopted by social workers and rehabilitation centers as an educational tool. Off to War, a 10-part series that aired in 2005 on Discovery Times (it also aired on the Discover Channel as a one-
hour documentary), followed a unit of the Arkansas National Guard throughout its entire deployment in Iraq, as well as the families they left behind. Off to War won the International Documentary Association award for Best Series and the Overseas Press Club Carl Spielvogel Award for International Reporting. (Ted Koppel, Brian Ross and Lou Dobbs are some of the previous winners of the latter.) The brothers were also nominated for best documentary direction by the Directors Guild of America. Last year the Renauds followed a few war veterans during their campaigns for national office in Taking the Hill. With the 50th anniversary of the Central High crisis approaching, filmmakers and production companies were beating down the school’s front door, but the Renauds had the inside track: they grew up in Arkansas, and Craig was a Central graduate. Craig had also known the school’s principal, Nancy Rousseau, for many years. The brothers were soon granted exclusive, complete access to the school for an entire year. “We always wanted to do something about Central — it’s such a fascinating school,” Craig says. “I think it was important for the school to have someone that knows its history as well as the present-day situation [make the film]. Fifteen years have passed since I was in school there, so we had to be cautious about walking in and assuming to know what it was like. Things change. It was good to be an insider in terms of trust and access, but we also had to take a step back to try to be as objective as we could.” Central High has the distinction of being the only U.S. high school that is also a National Historic Site, complete with a visitor’s center and full-time park ranger, who happens to be the daughter
Photos courtesy of Brent and Craig Renaud.
by Douglas Bankston
of Minnie Jean Brown, one of the Little Rock Nine. The documentary opens with Minnie Jean surveying the campus and struggling to find the words to describe the lack of progress in eliminating the racial divide. “The idea was to have Central and the 50th anniversary as the anchor,” notes Brent, “but it turned into a film about the community dealing with issues of race and the discussion the school has spurred.” Central really functions as two schools in one. On one hand, the school’s advanced-placement (AP) track makes it one of the top 20 high schools in the nation in 2006, according to Newsweek. On the other, the regular and remedial tracks mark it as a poor performer. And a distinct racial segregation separates the two. Suburban white kids from affluent families drive to their AP classes and see the school as an opportunity to experience “diversity.” African-American students are bused in from the surrounding neighborhood, one where the predominant window treatment is the boarded-up look. “Most of the time, when the AfricanAmerican kids get to high school they are already so far behind that they can’t compete at the AP level,” says Brent. “That’s the frustration the principal deals with every day.” Little Rock Central is the first project the Renauds have shot in highdefinition (HD) video, a choice made to facilitate an HD delivery to HBO. The duo used Sony’s HVR-Z1U with a Sennheiser ME66 microphone onboard. Subjects were miked individually with Lectrosonics wireless mikes. “High-school kids are so used to these handheld camcorders that it really helps [establish] an intimate feel with the subjects,” Craig points out. Brent adds, “It’s about being so close you’re almost seeing things from the subject’s point of view. We try to disappear, to make it seem as though [the viewer] is the character and experiences things from that point of view; we want to remove as many barriers as possible. There is no crew. We do all of our own shooting and sound, and rarely will we ask questions — just something simple like ‘Where are we going?’ to spur them to start talking. What’s essential is
Brent Renaud (pictured at left) and Craig Renaud (pictured below) use an unobtrusive, stripped-down approach to filmmaking.
the wireless mike, because it allows the camera to drift to see the surroundings while they continue to talk.” The Renauds avoid the usual filmmaking accoutrements, such as tripods and lighting instruments. “Introducing those changes the environment,” Craig says. “You can tell in these classes that they’re forgetting about our presence.” Adds Brent, “We’ve spent a lot of time becoming as good as we can under these types of circumstances without trying to manipulate the environment.” Every take — about 200 hundred hours total — was digitized in standard definition for the offline, cut together using Avid Xpress Pro on laptops. After being pieced together like a puzzle, the final cut was onlined in HD. “We don’t add any voice-over in editing, and you won’t hear music in the body of the show,” Brent says. “We don’t want to use music to elicit a desired response or an emotion from the viewer; we would rather let the characters and the story do that organically. It pushes us never to get complacent or take shortcuts.” In telling the story without those aids, the Renauds make effective use of scene juxtaposition. For example, sitting
in her expansive house by her children, who attend Central’s AP courses, a white mother talks up the benefits of attending the school for its diversity and academic reputation, and of actively participating in her children’s education. The film then cuts to her at a PTA meeting in which the lone African-American mother sits isolated. This demonstrates the core of the community’s problem: people are either out of touch or avoiding the topic of race altogether, or some combination thereof. Another sequence shows one of the few African-American students who attend AP classes. Though she struggles with the coursework, she realizes that track will yield the best opportunity to go to college, but every day she goes home to a house with no heat and no running water. The documentary closes with Minnie Jean Brown standing before a class, again at a loss for words about what she is seeing: white students seated on the left, African–American students on the right — progress, but not quite. Little Rock Central will air on HBO on Sept. 25. I
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American Society of Cinematographers Roster OFFICERS – 2007-’08 Daryn Okada, President Michael Goi, Vice President Richard Crudo, Vice President Owen Roizman, Vice President Victor J. Kemper, Treasurer Michael Negrin, Secretary John Hora, Sergeant-at-Arms MEMBERS OF THE BOARD Richard Crudo Caleb Deschanel George Spiro Dibie Richard Edlund William A. Fraker Michael Goi John Hora Victor J. Kemper Francis Kenny Isidore Mankofsky Robert Primes Owen Roizman Dante Spinotti Kees Van Oostrum Haskell Wexler ALTERNATES James Chressanthis Stephen Lighthill Matthew Leonetti Russ Alsobrook Sol Negrin
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ACTIVE MEMBERS Thomas Ackerman Lance Acord Lloyd Ahern II Herbert Alpert Russ Alsobrook Howard A. Anderson III Howard A. Anderson Jr. James Anderson Peter Anderson Tony Askins Charles Austin Christopher Baffa James Bagdonas King Baggot John Bailey Michael Ballhaus Andrzej Bartkowiak John Bartley Frank Beascoechea Affonso Beato Mat Beck Dion Beebe Bill Bennett Andres Berenguer Carl Berger Gabriel Beristain Steven Bernstein Ross Berryman Michael Bonvillain Richard Bowen David Boyd Russell Boyd Don Burgess Stephen H. Burum Bill Butler Frank B. Byers Bobby Byrne Paul Cameron Russell P. Carpenter James L. Carter Alan Caso Michael Chapman Rodney Charters James A. Chressanthis Joan Churchill Curtis Clark Peter L. Collister Jack Cooperman Jack Couffer Vincent G. Cox Jeff Cronenweth Richard Crudo Dean R. Cundey Stefan Czapsky Allen Daviau Roger Deakins Jan DeBont Thomas Del Ruth Peter Deming Caleb Deschanel Ron Dexter George Spiro Dibie Craig Di Bona Ernest Dickerson Billy Dickson Bill Dill
Victor Duncan Bert Dunk John Dykstra Richard Edlund Frederick Elmes Robert Elswit Geoffrey Erb Jon Fauer Don E. FauntLeRoy Gerald Feil Steven Fierberg Gerald Perry Finnerman Mauro Fiore John C. Flinn III Ron Fortunato William A. Fraker Tak Fujimoto Alex Funke Steve Gainer Ron Garcia Dejan Georgevich Michael Goi Stephen Goldblatt Paul Goldsmith Frederic Goodich Victor Goss Jack Green Adam Greenberg Robbie Greenberg Alexander Gruszynski Changwei Gu Rick Gunter Rob Hahn Gerald Hirschfeld Henner Hofmann Adam Holender Ernie Holzman John C. Hora Gil Hubbs Shane Hurlbut Michel Hugo Judy Irola Mark Irwin Levie Isaacks Andrew Jackson Peter James Johnny E. Jensen Robert C. Jessup Torben Johnke Frank Johnson Shelly Johnson Jeffrey Jur William K. Jurgensen Stephen M. Katz Ken Kelsch Victor J. Kemper Wayne Kennan Francis Kenny Glenn Kershaw Darius Khondji Gary Kibbe Jan Keisser Jeffrey L. Kimball Alar Kivilo Richard Kline George Koblasa Fred J. Koenekamp
Lajos Koltai Pete Kozachik Neil Krepela Willy Kurant Ellen M. Kuras George La Fountaine Edward Lachman Ken Lamkin Jacek Laskus Andrew Laszlo Denis Lenoir John R. Leonetti Matthew Leonetti Andrew Lesnie Peter Levy Matthew Libatique Stephen Lighthill Karl Walter Lindenlaub John Lindley Robert F. Liu Walt Lloyd Bruce Logan Emmanuel Lubezki Julio G. Macat Glen MacPherson Constantine Makris Karl Malkames Isidore Mankofsky Michael D. Margulies Barry Markowitz Vincent Martinelli Steve Mason Clark Mathis Don McAlpine Don McCuaig Robert McLachlan Greg McMurry John McPherson Terry K. Meade Chris Menges Rexford Metz Anastas Michos Douglas Milsome Charles Minsky Richard Moore Donald A. Morgan Donald M. Morgan M. David Mullen Dennis Muren Fred Murphy Hiro Narita Guillermo Navarro Michael B. Negrin Sol Negrin Bill Neil Alex Nepomniaschy John Newby David B. Nowell Rene Ohashi Daryn Okada Thomas Olgeirsson Woody Omens Miroslav Ondricek Michael D. O’Shea Anthony Palmieri Phedon Papamichael Daniel Pearl
Edward J. Pei James Pergola Don Peterman Lowell Peterson Wally Pfister Clifford Poland Gene Polito Bill Pope Steven Poster Tom Priestley Jr. Rodrigo Prieto Robert Primes Frank Prinzi Richard Quinlan Declan Quinn Earl Rath Richard Rawlings Jr. Frank Raymond Tami Reiker Gayne Rescher Marc Reshovsky Robert Richardson Anthony B. Richmond Bill Roe Owen Roizman Pete Romano Charles Rosher Jr. Giuseppe Rotunno Philippe Rousselot Juan Ruiz-Anchia Marvin Rush Paul Ryan Eric Saarinen Alik Sakharov Mikael Salomon Harris Savides Roberto Schaefer Aaron Schneider Nancy Schreiber Fred Schuler John Schwartzman John Seale Christian Sebaldt Dean Semler Eduardo Serra Steven Shaw Richard Shore Newton Thomas Sigel John Simmons Sandi Sissel Bradley B. Six Dennis L. Smith Roland “Ozzie” Smith Reed Smoot Bing Sokolsky Peter Sova Dante Spinotti Robert Steadman Ueli Steiger Peter Stein Robert M. Stevens Vittorio Storaro Harry Stradling Jr. David Stump Tim Suhrstedt Peter Suschitzky Alfred Taylor
S E P T E M B E R Jonathan Taylor William Taylor Don Thorin John Toll Mario Tosi Salvatore Totino Luciano Tovoli Jost Vacano Theo Van de Sande Eric Van Haren Noman Kees Van Oostrum Ron Vargas Mark Vargo Amelia Vincent William Wages Roy H. Wagner Ric Waite Michael Watkins Jonathan West Haskell Wexler Jack Whitman Gordon Willis Dariusz Wolski Ralph Woolsey Peter Wunstorf Robert Yeoman Richard Yuricich Jerzy Zielinski Vilmos Zsigmond Kenneth Zunder ASSOCIATE MEMBERS Alan Albert Richard Aschman Volker Bahnemann Joseph J. Ball Carly M. Barber Craig Barron Thomas M. Barron Larry Barton Bob Beitcher Bruce Berke John Bickford Steven A. Blakely Mitchell Bogdanowicz Jack Bonura William Brodersen Garrett Brown Ronald D. Burdett Reid Burns Vincent Carabello Jim Carter Leonard Chapman Denny Clairmont Cary Clayton Emory M. Cohen Sean Coughlin Robert B. Creamer Grover Crisp Daniel Curry Carlos D. DeMattos Gary Demos Richard DiBona Kevin Dillon David Dodson Judith Doherty
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Don Donigi Cyril Drabinsky Jesse Dylan Raymond Emeritz Jonathan Erland John Farrand Ray Feeney Phil Feiner Jimmy Fisher Scott Fleischer Steve Garfinkel Salvatore Giarratano Richard B. Glickman John A. Gresch Jim Hannafin William Hansard Bill Hansard, Jr. Richard Hart Roman I. Harte Robert Harvey Don Henderson Charles Herzfeld Larry Hezzelwood Vinny Hogan Bob Hoffman Frieder Hochheim Robert C. Hummel Roy Isaia George Joblove Joel Johnson John Johnston Curtis Jones Frank Kay Debbie Kennard Milton Keslow Robert Keslow Larry Kingen Douglas Kirkland Timothy J. Knapp Ron Koch Karl Kresser Lou Levinson Suzanne Lezotte Grant Loucks Andy Maltz Steven E. Manios Robert Mastronardi Joe Matza Albert L. Mayer, Sr. Albert Mayer, Jr. Andy McIntyre Stan Miller Walter H. Mills George Milton Mike Mimaki Rami Mina Tak Miyagishima Michael Morelli Dash Morrison Nolan Murdock Mark W. Murphy Dan Muscarella F. Jack Napor Iain A. Neil Otto Nemenz Ernst Nettmann
Mickel Niehenke Marty Oppenheimer Larry Parker Michael Parker Warren Parker Doug Pentek Ed Phillips Nick Phillips Jerry Pierce Joshua Pines Carl Porcello Howard Preston David Pringle Phil Radin Christopher Reyna Frank J. Ricotta Sr. Colin Ritchie Eric G. Rodli Andy Romanoff Daniel Rosen Dana Ross Bill Russell Kish Sadhvani David Samuelson Peter K. Schnitzler Walter Schonfeld Juergen Schwinzer Ronald Scott Steven Scott Don Shapiro Milton R. Shefter Leon Silverman Garrett Smith John L. Sprung Joseph N. Tawil Ira Tiffen Arthur Tostado Ann Turner Stephan Ukas-Bradley Mark Van Horne Richard Vetter Joe Violante Dedo Weigert Franz Weiser Evans Wetmore Beverly Wood Jan Yarbrough Hoyt Yeatman Irwin M. Young Bob Zahn Nazir Zaidi Michael Zakula Les Zellan HONORARY MEMBERS Col. Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. Neil A. Armstrong Col. Michael Collins Bob Fisher Cpt. Bruce McCandless II David MacDonald Dr. Roderick T. Ryan Bud Stone Richard F. Walsh 109
Clubhouse News Fun on the Fairway In June, ASC members, associate members and guests descended upon Brookside Golf Course in Pasadena for the 24th Annual ASC Golf Classic. A wrap party was held at the Clubhouse, where the skilled (and/or lucky) winners picked up their prizes. The winners were: ASC members —
Low Gross (76) Don Burgess, Low Net (70) Bill Roe, 2nd Low Net (71) Aaron Schneider, 3rd Low Net (71) Michael Watkins; associate members — Low Gross (78) David Dodson, Low Net (68) Tim Knapp, 2nd Low Net (71) Brian Spruill, 3rd Low Net (72) Mark Murphy; Ladies — Low Gross (83)
Sandy Jones, Low Net (74) Margit Elo, 2nd Low Net (76) Rosey Guthrie, 3rd Low Net (77) Kathy Anderson; and Guests — Low Gross (68) Robert Presley, Low Net (69) Ha Maynard, 2nd Low Net (70) Darrel Dyer, 3rd Low Net (70) Tom Thompson. I
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5 1. Sandy Jones; 2. Larry Michalski; Matt Leonetti, ASC; Rich Ianniciello; 3. Woody Omens, ASC; Al Mayer, Sr.; 4. Aaron Schneider, ASC; 5. Bill Roe, ASC (center) and buddies; 6. Howard Anderson Jr. ASC; Kathy Anderson; Howard Anderson III, ASC; Bradley Six, ASC.
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12 7. Erik Saarinen, ASC; 8. Don Burgess, ASC; 9. Frank Johnson, ASC; 10. Howard Anderson, III ASC; 11. Brian Spruill; 12. Burgess claims his prize.
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Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) prepares to enjoy the onion rings at Holsten’s with his wife, Carmela (Edie Falco), and son, A.J. (Robert Iler), during the surprising final scene of The Sopranos. Below: During production of the final episode, director of photography Alik Sakharov, ASC (left) eyeballs a setup while writer/director David Chase uses a viewfinder to check the framing.
fter 6½ seasons and 86 episodes, The Sopranos went out with a bang. Or did it? The last episode of the acclaimed HBO drama aired on June 10, but the resulting controversy may live forever. In the now-famous final scene, depressive mob boss Tony Soprano arrives at Holsten’s, a New Jersey ice-cream parlor, to meet his family for a casual dinner. Waiting alone in a central booth, he flips through the songs in a jukebox, selecting Journey’s 1981 power ballad “Don’t Stop Believin’.” (What better choice for a softhearted Mafia don with a sentimental streak?) Soon enough, he’s joined by his wife, Carmela, and son, A.J. As Tony orders a plate of onion rings “for the table,” daughter Meadow struggles to parallel-park her car outside. Meanwhile, a potential hit on Tony is signaled by cutaways to ominous patrons: a suspicious-looking man wearing a Member’s Only jacket (a “member” of the mob?); a taciturn trucker sporting a “USA” cap; a pair of lingering African-American youths. After glancing at Tony, the man in the jacket strolls to the restroom, recalling an operatic murder scene in The Godfather. Meadow finally rushes through the eatery’s entry, causing the bell above the door to jingle. Tony glances up, but as the unbearable tension
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peaks — with Journey singer Steve Perry crooning the lyric “Don’t stop” — the screen cuts to black. Millions of viewers reacted with shock. Some thought their cable service had failed at the worst possible moment; others shouted at their TV screens, outraged that the show’s creator, David Chase, had left them in limbo. After the broadcast, countless Web sites were flooded with posts by obsessed viewers intent on solving the mysteries of the cryptic scene. Did the black screen mean that Tony had been shot? Would life for the Soprano clan simply go “on and on and on and on,” as Perry implied in his song? Or did the metaphysical ending mean the audience itself had been “whacked”? Chase wasn’t telling. In his lone post-finale interview, with Alan Sepinwall of the New Jersey Star-Ledger, Chase said he had “no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there.” Nine days later, however, I interviewed Alik Sakharov, ASC, the show’s longtime director of photography, who proved more forthcoming. When I suggested that the ending called to mind the ambiguous climax of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Sakharov clapped his hands with glee. “We talked about 2001 quite a bit,” he said. “You do certain things in the hopes that people will realize why you’re doing them.” The cinematographer noted that Chase was particularly intrigued by the surreal final scenes of 2001, in which astronaut David Bowman sees an older version of himself eating a meal in a strange room with 18th-century décor. This moment is echoed in The Sopranos by a curious edit that appears to show Tony observing himself in the booth. If Chase intended to blow viewers’ minds, he certainly paid homage to the right movie. Sakharov went on to confirm that the suspicious people in Holsten’s were intended to resemble past characters who had crossed Tony’s path, thus encouraging viewers to “retrace all of the elements of the show.” He also offered his own opinion that the black screen did in fact signal Tony’s fate: “To me, [it means] this person will die, whether he dies in the next second or [in] six months.” He added, “It’s not about whether he’s dead or he’s alive, really. It’s not even important. What’s important is the [thought] process. You know, [it’s] like you have very, very fine caviar: you eat it, and then you let it sit on the palate of your mouth, and then you begin to enjoy the aftertaste.” The rest of Sakharov’s comments about The Sopranos can be heard in a podcast posted on the ASC’s Web site: www.theasc.com. — Stephen Pizzello I
Photos by Will Hart and Craig Blankenhorn, courtesy of HBO.
WRAP SHOT
Set the tone.
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Autodesk and Lustre are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc./Autodesk Canada Co. in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product offerings and specifications at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. © 2007 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.
ONFILM U TA B R I E S E W I TZ
“I have always been inspired and fascinated by images. My parents instilled in me an early appreciation for the arts by turning most of our family’s European vacations into cultural fieldtrips. I have fond memories of sitting in wheat fields with my father, sketching and painting landscapes. This taught me to watch the light and how it changed during the day as well as how to compose an image. After finishing school I started working as an intern for a television production company. One day they put a camera on my shoulder, threw me in a helicopter, and had me cover a car race. After that, I was a shooter. One of the things I love about my profession is that it puts me in environments and situations that I would never experience in the real world. It is inspiring to do new things and push myself to find the right images. I like to challenge myself. A true moment of happiness for me is looking through the lens and seeing everything come together.” Uta Briesewitz was born and raised in a small industrial town in Germany. She studied at the Berlin Film Academy and the American Film Institute. Her credits include the independent features Next Stop Wonderland, Seven and a Match, Session 9, XX/XY and The TV Set, the television movies and pilots Homeless to Harvard, Life Support and John From Cincinnati, the miniseries Thief, the pilot and first two and a half seasons of The Wire, and the upcoming feature Walk Hard. For an extended interview with Uta Briesewitz visit www.kodak.com/go/onfilm. To order Kodak motion picture film, call (800) 621 - film. www.kodak.com/go/motion © Eastman Kodak Company, 2007. Photography: © 2007 Douglas Kirkland
