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24 Big GunsDante Spinotti, ASC, AIC arms himself with digitalcameras on Public Enemies
34 Impressionistic CinemaDarius Khondji, ASC, AFC lends lush, romanticlook to Chri
44 Risk and ValorBarry Ackroyd, BSC brings tense, handheld aestheticto The Hurt Locker
52 Terror on the TracksTobias Schliessler, ASC confronts complex logisticson The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Departments
Features
V i s i t u s o n l i n e a t w w w. t h e a s c . c o m
On Our Cover: Notorious bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) is armed and dangerous in PublicEnemies, shot by Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC. (Photo by Peter Mountain, courtesy of Universal Pictures.)
8 Editors Note10 Short Takes: Puppy Love14 Production Slate: Moon and Sraphine60 Post Focus: Mega Playgrounds DP Dailies64 New Products & Services
68 International Marketplace69 Classified Ads70 Ad Index72 In Memoriam:Jack Cardiff, BSC74 Clubhouse News76 ASC Close-Up: Mark Irwin
52
J U L Y 2 0 0 9 V O L . 9 0 N O . 7
The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques
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J u l y 2 0 0 9 V o l . 9 0 , N o . 7The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques Since 1920
Visit us online at
www.theasc.com
PUBLISHER Martha Winterhalter
EDITORIAL
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Stephen Pizzello
SENIOR EDITOR Rachael K. Bosley
ASSOCIATE EDITORJon D. Witmer
TECHNICAL EDITOR Christopher Probst
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Stephanie Argy, Benjamin B, Douglas Bankston, Robert S. Birchard, John Calhoun,
Bob Davis, Bob Fisher, Simon Gray, Jim Hemphill, David Heuring, Jay Holben,
Noah Kadner, Ron Magid, Jean Oppenheimer, John Pavlus, Chris Pizzello, Jon Silberg,
Iain Stasukevich, Kenneth Sweeney, Patricia Thomson, David E. Williams
ART DEPARTMENT
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Marion Gore
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CIRCULATION, BOOKS & PRODUCTS
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ASC ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE Corey Clark
American Cinematographer(ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 89th year of publication, is published
monthly in Hollywood by ASC Holding Corp., 1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028, U.S.A.,(800) 448-0145, (323) 969-4333, Fax (323) 876-4973, direct line for subscription i nquiries (323) 969-4344.
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OFFICERS - 2008/2009
Daryn OkadaPresident
Michael GoiVice President
Richard CrudoVice President
Owen RoizmanVice President
Victor J. KemperTreasurer
Isidore MankofskySecretary
John HoraSergeant At Arms
MEMBERS OF THE BOARD
Curtis ClarkRichard Crudo
Caleb DeschanelJohn C. Flinn IIIWilliam A. Fraker
Michael GoiJohn Hora
Victor J. KemperStephen Lighthill
Daryn OkadaRobert PrimesOwen RoizmanNancy SchreiberDante Spinotti
Kees Van Oostrum
ALTERNATES
Matthew LeonettiSteven Fierberg
James ChressanthisMichael D. OShea
Sol Negrin
MUSEUM CURATOR
Steve Gainer
American Society of Cinematographers
The ASC is not a labor union or a guild, butan educational, cultural and professionalorganization. Membership is by invitation
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With HD cameras becoming more prevalent and more
sophisticated, the old question Film or digital? is
taking on a new complexity for cinematographers at
every level. On Public Enemies, Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC and
director Michael Mann initially discussed shooting on 35mm
film, but ultimately chose HD after conducting comparison
tests geared toward the specific narrative and stylistic
requirements of the period gangster tale. With digital
cameras, there arent any steadfast rules, and I believe that
gives me a huge amount of freedom, Spinotti tells Jay
Holben (Big Guns, page 24). The medium is romantic,
interesting and beautiful, but it also looks real. And theres
so much you can do in post! Film has a certain kind of quality that cannot be matched by
digital technology, but at times, the advantages digital has over film are important for the
language and the contents of the story youre telling, and that determines your choice.
For the romantic drama Chri, Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC adopted a more tradi-
tional approach, composing in widescreen anamorphic (which he deems wonderful for
faces, for intimacy) and manipulating three film stocks to create the pictures painterly
frames. I didnt want the image to be too sharp or the light to be obvious, Khondji notes
in his interview with European correspondent Benjamin B (Impressionistic Cinema, page
34). I wanted very, very soft light, as though its filtered through time, like a hazy memory.
The light was often bounced or going through two layers of diffusion, and it was always
wrapping around.
Barry Ackroyd, BSC took an entirely different tack on The Hurt Locker, a tense war
story that follows a U.S. Army bomb squad through a series of nerve-wracking missions in
Iraq. To immerse viewers in the hard reality of the soldiers experiences, Ackroyd and his
operators shouldered 16mm cameras and marched straight into the fray: I said, Lets make
it physical. I figured the cameras would be handheld 90 percent of the time, and they were.
Director Kathryn Bigelow further emphasized the films firsthand feel by deploying multiplecameras to capture a variety of perspectives. Thats how we experience reality, by looking
at the microcosm and the macrocosm simultaneously, she explains to New York corre-
spondent Pat Thomson (Risk and Valor, page 44). The eye sees differently than the lens,
but with multiple focal lengths and a muscular editorial style, the lens can give you that
microcosm/macrocosm perspective, and that contributes to the feeling of total immersion.
Film was also chosen by Tobias Schliessler, ASC on The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,
a modern update of a memorable thriller from 1974. Tony came in not to remake the movie,
but to retell the story, and he definitely wanted to put his stamp on it visually, Schliessler
relates in a detailed account penned by Douglas Bankston (Terror on the Tracks, page 52).
I love the look Owen Roizman [ASC] gave the original film, but we didnt necessarily refer-
ence it. Tony wanted to show the energy of the city, and gritty or not, it feels on film like
New York. Achieving that authenticity involved quite a feat of logistics, according to gafferBill OLeary, who is based in the city: New York has its own set of challenges, and know-
ing the ropes makes it easier. In a way, its about compromises and playing the hand the city
deals you. This job took that to a new level, though. The thick bureaucracy of the MTA and
working in The Hole, as they call the subway tunnels, were especially tough.
Stephen Pizzello
Executive Editor
Editors Note
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Theres no relationship like the rela-
tionship between a dog and its
master, a point made by Puppy Love, a
comedy series on LStudio.com, an online
channel sponsored by Lexus. The show
is about dog lovers and the people wholove them, explains cinematographer
Jendra Jarnagin. Each episode of the
show, which is set in New York, follows
a different cast of characters.
The series was created by
writer/producer Amy B. Harris and
produced by Grace Naughton, who met
Jarnagin on the set of the HBO series
Sex and the City, where Jarnagin was
working as an electrician. Because she
was shooting projects on the side at the
time, Jarnagin tried to shadow the cine-matographers with whom she worked.
I talked to them about their work when-
ever I could find an appropriate opportu-
nity, she says.
Despite Puppy Loves low budget,
the producers wanted to evoke the look
of Sex and the City by portraying New
York in a romanticized way: everything
and everyone is beautiful, and colors are
bright and saturated. Although the show
was conceived for the Web, Harris and
Naughton planned to enter individual
episodes in festivals as stand-alone short
films, so they wanted images that would
also look good on the big screen. Jarna-
gin decided the Red One camera would
be ideal; it offered the cinematic look of
35mm depth-of-field and an extended
dynamic range, could yield high-quality
deliverables in a variety of formats, and
would work well with Jarnagins
personal set of Cooke S4 prime lenses.
In the first episode, a woman
(Famke Janssen) finds her romantic
exploits thwarted by her loyal canine
companion. That episode gave us the
opportunity to do moody lighting,
whereas a lot of the other episodes have
normal day interiors, says Jarnagin.The first episode has a lot of date
scenes and romantic interiors. And
Famke is a joy to light.
The cinematographer notes that
there are just a few basic differences
when it comes to lighting men and
women. People stress the importance of
lighting women more carefully because
female beauty is so important in our
culture, she says. Of course, actors are
generally conscious of how they look
because thats directly related to theiremployability. The secret to making
someone look his or her best is to really
study the face the way shadows
penetrate the face, the way light wraps
around the nose, and so on and notice
how those things change when the
person moves.
For day interiors, if it was a
broadly lit scene, Jarnagin used a book
light, bouncing a light (often a 1.2K HMI)
Shooting Puppy Love With the Red Oneby Iain Stasukevich
Short Takes
Above: In thefirst episode of
Puppy Love,Famke Janssen
portrays awoman whose
romanticexploits arethwarted by her
caninecompanion.
Below:CinematographerJendra Jarnaginshoots the Webseries with the
Red One camera.
10 July 2009
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She allows me to do my own thing, and
if she doesnt like it, shell tell me. There
were very few situations where we
didnt get what she wanted.
One thing Jarnagin found herself
wanting was an optical viewfinder, the
absence of which is inherent to most
digital cameras. Even at 720p, the Reds
monitoring output is only a fraction of the
resolution of the 4K image, which makes
judging the image quality difficult. This
led to a few surprises at the color-correc-
tion stage, when Jarnagin noticed that
the image tended toward the sharp side.
I think it plays into the level of detail
youre capturing, she says. With film,
you get random, organic grain patterns
that average together for a smooth look.
With digital, you have very precise points
of light and color that are repeated frame
by frame, leading to a harsher and
sharper look.
To counteract this, she used a
Tiffen Soft FX filter in front of the lens for
close-ups. Soft FX filters look natural
they dont give themselves away, she
observes. They dont diffuse the light as
much as the detail.
Puppy Love was graded on a
Scratch system at Offhollywood Digital
in Manhattan. With colorist Robbie
Renfrow at the controls, Jarnagin super-
vised the color-correction of the entireseries. We took a pretty straightforward
approach, she says. Our main goal was
to use Power Windows to finesse the
things that were rushed on set. We
never put a heavy hand on things. The
look is supposed to feel natural but
bright and happy.
The series was shot at 4K in 16x9
using the Redcode 28 setting. Even
though the Redcode 36 codec is less
compressed, Jarnagin decided 28 would
be more flexible. At the time we shotthe series, you couldnt shoot 4K in the
16x9 aspect ratio to compact flash cards
at 36. If you wanted that, you had to
shoot directly to the Red Drives.
Every camera and format has its
strengths and weaknesses there is
no such thing as a perfect camera, she
adds. But in terms of the evolution of
digital cinema, Red is on the right track.
I
12 July 2009
into a beadboard and through a diffu-
sion frame between the bounce and the
actor. For low-key night interiors, she
used 4-by-4 Kino Flos and Fresnels with
Lee 250 or light grid diffusion in front of
them to give the light more directional-
ity. Famke can take directional light
very well, she notes, and I like using
light grid because it diffuses the most
with the least loss of light.
She recalls that the Red Ones
extended dynamic range really came in
handy for shooting outdoors during the
day; she shot these scenes in the protec-
tive shade of trees and buildings, or
backlit her actors and exposed for the
highlights. The Reds range meant Icould bring up the shadow areas. I asked
our Red technician, Sam Kretchmar, to
do a curve in the RedAlert software that
would bring up the faces, so in the
QuickTime dailies, we could see the
image the way we intended it to look.
We didnt always have the guns
to match the exteriors, adds gaffer
Meg Schrock. We tried to augment
sunlight rather than try to beat it. Wed
soften it up with a 1.2K HMI and light
grid. Sometimes, the only way to get
light into an actors eyes was to walk
next to the actor with a bounceboard.
The core production crew on the
series comprised Jarnagin, Kretchmar,
Schrock, key grip John Shim, two best
boys and two camera assistants. Jarna-
gin often did her own operating and
came to rely on Shrocks ability to antic-
ipate the next lighting setup. Meg and
I had a good understanding of eachothers taste, says the cinematogra-
pher. Most of the time, Id outline what
I was looking for and trust her to figure
out how to do it. Schrock adds, Jendra
is really good about communicating.
Right: Jarnaginstrove to keepthe actors in
backlight andexpose for the
highlightswhenever day
exteriors couldntbe staged in
the shade.
Below: Jarnagin(standing on
dolly) anddirector Amy B.Harris (center)
plan theirnext move.
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14 July 2009
Clones in Spaceby Patricia Thomson
On Moon, his first theatricalfeature as a director of photography,Gary Shaw confronted challenges thatwould make most first-timers blanch. Forstarters, the set, built at Englands Shep-perton Studios, was a white box builtwith fixed walls and 8' ceilings. Even
more daunting was the overall mission:shoot a science-fiction film featuringmotion-control, CGI and miniatures for$5 million in 33 days.
Fortunately, both Shaw and thedirector, Duncan Jones, had years ofexperience with visual-effects work they had met on a Carling beer commer-cial that presented CG robots kickingback in a practical pub. Jones had made
a name for himself as a commercialsdirector, and Shaw had a long trackrecord as a commercials cinematogra-pher, with stints at The Mill MotionControl Studio and Geoff Axtell Associ-ates in London.
Jones wrote Moon with a cost-saving premise in mind: The story isabout clones, so one actor would playmultiple roles. In the film, which is set inthe near future, Lunar Industries is
mining the moon for Helium 3, whichhas become Earths primary source ofenergy. Manning the base is a loneastronaut on a three-year contract, SamBell (Sam Rockwell), who is assisted bya robot named Gerty. After an accidentstrands the astronaut in his lunar Rover,another Sam Bell is activated andrescues him. Back at the base, there istension between Sams 1 and 2, whowere previously unaware they were
Cerebral Sci-Fi and Painterly Drama
Production Slate
M o o n p h o t o s b y M a r k T i l l i e c o u r t e s y o f S o n y P i c t u r e s C l a s s i c s S p r o g p h o t o c o u r t e s y
o f C i n e s i t e
Right:Astronaut Sam
Bell (SamRockwell) useshis lunar Rover
to investigate amission
problem inMoon, shot by
Gary Shaw.Below: Model
photographysupervised by
miniaturesspecialist Mark
Talbotproduced
convincingshots of the
moons surface.
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clones. Ultimately, they form an alliance
to change their fate.
In developing a look for the
picture, Jones sought a retro aesthetic
that would recall films such as 2001: A
Spacey Odyssey, Silent Running and
Outland. Production design centered
upon a sturdy, concrete look rather thanthe sleek touch-screen technology of
today. We decided to shoot most of the
movie on the most readily available but
soon-to-be-discontinued film stock we
could find, which was Kodak [Vision
200T] 5274, because we wanted the
image to have that older look, says
Shaw.
Jones wanted a widescreen
aspect ratio to provide an epic feel, so
Shaw shot 3-perf Super 35mm. That
gave us a feel that was as close toanamorphic as we could get without
spending the money to shoot anamor-
phic, says the cinematographer. A
Panaflex Millennium XL was the main
camera; an Arricam Lite facilitated
handheld work; and an Arri 435 was
used for high-speed work. The lenses
comprised Primo primes and Primo 4:1
(17.575mm) and 11:1 (24275mm)
zooms.
To give the white set a wide vari-
ety of looks, Shaw used colored gels,
perforated metal grills, layers of light
and dark in adjoining work-bays, and
practical lighting accents. His more
specialized skills came into play in the
creation of multiple Sams. In addition to
sharing the screen, Sams 1 and 2 phys-ically interact playing Ping-Pong,
fighting and so forth. We wanted it to
look believable, not tricksy, says Shaw.
Some shots were accomplished with a
double and clever camera angles;
others required frame-accurate motion-
control. However, because the budget
allowed only five days with a motion-
control rig, the filmmakers devised a
poor mans motion-control for the rest
of that work, which required very
precise camera operating from Shaw.
The tight quarters called for thesmallest mo-co rig possible, and visual-
effects supervisors Gavin Rothery and
Simon Stanley Clamp brought in a new,
portable model, the Sprog. Shaw had
previously worked with the portable
American Cinematographe
Left: The steretro aesthe
the moon baemphasizes isolation. BeShaw eyebasetup.
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16 July 2009
Milo system, and he found the Sprog to
be even handier. Because its based on
a Panther dolly central column, its pretty
unique and very quick to use, he notes.
Operationally, the Sprog
seemed very intuitive, says Clamp.
Gary was able to drive the unit using
hand wheels to control the remote
pan/tilt/roll head, with the grip perform-
ing tracking dolly moves all recorded
for consistent repeat action for themultiple passes necessary for the clone
and Gerty shots. The servos made a
really cool sound when the unit reset to
its start position, so much so that the
sound department recorded it to use as
an element for the Gerty robot traveling
around the moon base.
In scenes with the two Sams,
Rockwell would first perform whichever
character drove the action. An improvi-
sational actor, he was given a loose
leash on this first pass. Then, Rockwell
would change his makeup, rehearse to
playback on a video iPod, and perform
the other Sam utilizing marks and
precise eyelines. Clamp used Apple
Shake on his laptop to create simple,
temporary composites for editorial.
For the poor mans motion-
control, Shaw would mimic the earlier
passes manually, looking at a monitor
and concentrating on the background
rather than the actor when doing the
moves. We had to be very strict about
how we moved the cameras, knowing
what the consequences might be, he
says. We didnt want the effects team
to have to do any zooms or changes of
perspective. Clamp notes, Although
[zooms] arent impossible to deal with
as software improves, it adds huge
overheads to postproduction.
To help facilitate visual-effects
work, Shaw always shot clean plates.
It takes me a minute to do it, and it can
keep [the effects team] from spending
days trying to fix something, he says.
You just need to get everyone off the
set for 10 to 15 seconds to shoot a clean
plate. You might also shoot an overex-
posed pass and an underexposed pass,
or some light movements. Its simple to
do and can save serious time andmoney.
Gary is always thinking ahead,
says Clamp. He knows Ill always want
a clean pass under exactly the same
lighting conditions as the principal
plates, and that tiles of the scene are
useful. Its so hard to go back and repli-
cate the lighting at a later stage. Also,
we shot HDRI [High Dynamic Range
Imaging] and chrome-sphere plates for
lighting reference, and Gary never struck
the lighting until they had been shot. Healso shot lens grids for all the lenses,
which helped us put distortion into our
CG and helped with tracking calcula-
tions.
Several scenes in Moonoccur on
the moons surface, when Bell exits the
base to check on the helium harvesters,
and the filmmakers used greenscreen
and miniatures to realize them. The
most important lighting reference for
Top: Rockwelland director
Duncan Jonesparse the script.
Middle: Bellexamines thechurch from aneighborhoodmodel he haspainstakingly
constructed inhis spare time.Bottom: As his
three-yearlifespan winds
down, Sam 1begins to
deterioratephysically.
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Mark Irwin, ASC, CSC, reflects on advantages of global resourcing
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these scenes was Michael Lights book
Full Moon, which features NASA photos
from Apollo missions. To re-create the
stark light that is unfiltered by atmos-
phere and surrounded by darkness, we
used a single 20K lamp, says Shaw. It
had to look unrelenting, quite hard and
nasty. There were a few supplementary
pieces and quite a few practicals inside
the Rover; we used flashing lights, a very
small Kino here and there to fill in, and
the odd bit of poly to bounce it back.
Shaws biggest challenge with
the greenscreen work was not losing
Rockwell in his reflective helmet. It
was like a chrome bowl covering his
entire head, and it took a lot of flagging
to keep the green off it, says the cine-
matographer. We brought in big blacks
and isolated the area where Sam was.
That was the only way to do it.
Miniatures specialist Peter
Talbot was brought in for five days of
model photography, and for that work,
too, harsh light was paramount.
Having studied just about every photo
and footage of the moons surface, I
knew Id have to achieve long, hard,
deep shadows to emphasize the clarity
created by the lack of atmosphere and
the sheer distance of the sun, says
Talbot. Naturally, thats the hardest
thing to create in a studio. Standard
Fresnel studio lamps dont give the hard,
sharp light, especially at close-up
inspection. In lunar photography, there is
no atmosphere to create fill, so the suns
light is the dominant source, and any fill
comes from the moons surface. Thehigh contrast ratio was a very delicate
balance.
When lunar vehicles drive to the
dark side of the moon, that balance
shifted. There, I used a soft, overhead
key light with a slightly higher-than-
normal fill ratio to bring out the subtle
tones and deep shadows, says Talbot.
Although a soft light was used, it had
the appearance of a hard light source, so
visually, the moons surface was slightly
darker than the millions of stars andgalaxies visible in the sky. Scenarios like
that are where Kodak [Vision3 500T]
5219 comes into its own. Talbot
photographed all the miniatures work on
the new 500-speed stock. The moons
surface, having a monotone texture,
needs a film stock that has an incredibly
clean tonal range, from the deepest
black to the brightest highlight, without
contaminating the scene with colored
18 July 2009
Above left: Bellbegins to
question hissanity as eventsaboard the ship
take a mysteriousturn. Above right:
The astronautsonly companion
on the mission isa robot, Gerty.
Below: Toachieve shots of
the two Samclones interacting
in the relatively
cramped set,visual-effects
supervisors GavinRothery and
Simon StanleyClamp employedthe Sprog, a new
motion-controlrig.
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grain artifacts, explains Talbot. By
adding subtle colors of occasional sun
flares on the camera lens, we delivered
a very realistic visual experience.
Talbot also devised a solution
for visually conveying the moons grav-
ity, which is 16 that of Earths. Because
all miniature photography relies on a
scale film speed to neutralize and bring
the scale size back to full size, a new
mathematical formula had to be
devised, he explains. I came up with
a formula utilizing 16 gravity and
combining it with the regular
scalespeed formula. This new formula
could be altered, depending on which
scale model we were using. Of course,
the effect resulted in a considerably
higher-than-normal shooting stop, even
for miniatures. As a consequence, all
the vehicles were fitted with high-
powered LED technology; that was the
only way the vehicle headlights would
expose comfortably with the lunar
sunlight. The space-station building
was fitted with low-voltage dichroics,
which scaled well to industrial practi-
cal-lamp fittings. Both LEDs and
dichroics have a unique color tempera-
ture and are a perfect match to vehicle
lights and interior light fittings, elimi-
nating the need for any color-correcting
filter.Shaw says Moonprompted him
to take his career in a new direction.
Before we did the movie, I wondered
if I really wanted to spend 33 days
working on one thing, he recalls. I
thought it might feel like working in a
factory, going in there every day. But at
the end, I was sorry it was over! I was
a changed person.
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.40:1Super 35mm (3-perf)
Panaflex Millennium XL;Arricam Lite; Arri 435
Primo lensesKodak Vision 200T 5274,
Vision3 500T 5219Digital Intermediate
Printed on Kodak Vision 2383
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Above:Sraphine
(YolandeMoureau)
brings one ofher new
paintings toGerman
expatriate artdealer William
Uhde (UlrichTukur). Below:After the war,
Uhde tracksSraphine
down to see ifshe is still
painting.
Outsider Art in Franceby Jean Oppenheimer
The drama Sraphinewas unlike
any project Laurent Brunet, AFC had ever
undertaken. It was really an experiment
for me, he confesses, speaking with ACby phone via a translator. Despite an
extensive list of credits, including La
Belle Personne(2008), Le Fils de lpicier
(2007) and five films with Raphal
Nadjari, Brunet had never worked on a
period piece. Trying to feel and re-
create another time period [forced me]
to think about lighting in a way I never
had before, he says.
Based on the life of an obscure
20th-century French painter who spent
the last decade of her life in a mental
institution, Sraphinewon seven Csars
last year, including Best Picture and
Best Cinematography. On one level,
the film was quite easy technically,
notes Brunet, explaining that he used
one camera, a few lenses, a single film
stock and a modest lighting package,
and finished the picture photochemi-
cally. Budgetary constraints definitely
influenced creative decisions but rarely
compromised them, he adds.
The film begins shortly before
World War I, when Sraphine (Yolande
Moureau), a devout Catholic, begins
housecleaning for William Uhde (Ulrich
Tukur), a German migr and art dealer.
At first, Uhde is unaware that Sraphine
is an artist she claims to have taken
up painting at the behest of her
guardian angel and when he sees
her canvases, bursting with colorful but
disturbing images of fruit, flowers and
plants, he is stunned by their primitive
beauty. He offers to pay her living
expenses so that she might devote
herself full-time to her art, but war inter-venes, and although Sraphine eventu-
ally enjoys some success as a painter,
her deteriorating mental state soon
gains the upper hand.
Sraphinehas a painterly qual-
ity, with darkness often dominating the
frame. Brunet says this was not a
conscious attempt to imitate a particular
artist, and director Martin Provost, in a
separate interview, concurs. People
didnt have electricity back then, so they
used sources with a limited range, like
candles and oil lamps, and I wanted to
remain true to that, says the director.
Brunets lighting package
comprised 6Ks, Jokers and Lucioles,
which are lighting cubes made by
Maluna. Although they have yet to
penetrate the American market, Luci-
oles have become increasingly popular
in Europe, according to the cinematogra-
pher. I chose the smaller sizes in order
to avoid spilling light all over the place,
says Brunet, but getting the right level
of warmth was very important. I went
with 250-watt bulbs.
He points to a late-night scene
that shows Sraphine climbing the
stairs in her rooming house. Its pitch-
black except for a small oil lamp she
carries that provides the faintest outline
of her. The scene was shot on a practi-
cal staircase, with two Lucioles
suspended above the actress. The
cubes were on boom sticks held by two
electricians, and the 250-watt bulbs
were on dimmers, recalls Brunet,
adding that he often shot wide open.At that time, people made do
with whatever natural light came
through windows and doors during the
day; as a result, day interiors could be
quite dark. Similarly, Brunet relied on the
light coming through the windows,
always exposing for the outdoors. That
was one of our guiding principles, and
with 500-ASA film, you can manage a
lot of shots with natural light, he notes.
An example of this is a late-afternoon
scene that shows Sraphine riflingthrough papers on Uhdes desk. The
scene plays out in one shot. The desk is
right in front of a window, and I relied
solely on the light coming through it,
says Brunet. She is opening his note-
books and entering his world for the first
time, and I wanted to suggest a certain
intimacy. Exposing for the outdoors put
Sraphine in silhouette, creating just the
ambience I wanted.
20 July 2009
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22 July 2009
One daytime sequence that takes
place inside Uhdes living room covers
several hours and is intercut with other
material. Uhde is seated at the piano in
the foreground while a friend stands to
the right of the piano. Further inside the
room is Uhdes sister, Anne-Marie (Anne
Bennent). Natural light coming through
French doors illuminates the room; the
doors are not visible in the shot, butwhen we revisit the scene a short time
later, we see that one of the French
doors has been opened. There was a
lot of sun that day, and I worked with
reflectors set up on the lawn, says
Brunet. I considered supplementing
with a 6K, but it wasnt practical or, in
the end, necessary. Whatever fill light
there was came from natural light
hitting the reflectors and bouncing into
the room. We simply moved the reflec-
tors to suggest the passage of time.
Martin wanted a very simple
mise en scne, and he was reluctant to
use too many close-ups, continues
Brunet. Most of the close-ups show
Sraphine as she paints, and these
scenes presented some challenges,
given that she usually placed her
canvases on the floor and painted on her
knees. One of the most complex scenes
of her painting was conceived and
filmed as one shot, but was later cut in
editing. In her tiny room, which was a
practical location, we had two Lucioles
provide backlight. The camera is
suspended from a mini jib arm I washolding. We start on her back, then
swing around slowly to reveal the shrine
she maintains for her guardian angel.
The camera turns back toward her and
goes over her shoulder, settling on her
hand as she paints. At that point, the
film cuts to a close-up of her face that
pushes in ever so slightly. We really get
into her emotions in those tight shots.
Aside from these intimate
moments, the camera maintains a
somewhat observational distance fromits subject. Provost explains that he
wanted to emphasize Sraphines piety,
not her hysteria. I didnt want to exac-
erbate the tragedy, and I certainly didnt
want her ever to look pathetic, he says.
I was trying to show that this woman is
reaching for something thats just escap-
ing her. Her inner world is expressed
most directly through her artwork, which
features deep reds, blues and oranges
the only bold colors that appear in
the film.
Brunet shot the picture on Fuji
Eterna 500T 8573. I knew [I needed a
fast stock because] we wouldnt have
many lights, and we would be shooting
all day and into dusk, usually in very
small spaces, he explains. He tested
several stocks but liked Fujis color the
best, particularly as rendered by Cooke
S4 prime lenses. The S4 series has a
kind of softness and gentleness but still
remains sharp, he observes. He did his
own operating, usually using a 32mm or
40mm lens.
The only visual reference Provost
gave Brunet during prep was a book of
contemporary Russian photographs
taken by a man who took his camerathrough the most impoverished areas of
his country. Martin said, This is what I
want the film to feel like, recalls
Brunet. Provost adds, I wanted to avoid
the beautiful historical reproduction
that so many period films have. There
was something about Laurents previous
work that was a bit on the rough side,
and that corresponded exactly to what I
wanted.
TECHNICAL SPECS1.85:135mm
Arricam LiteCooke S4 lenses
Fuji Eterna 500T 8573Printed on Kodak Vision 2383
I
Top left: Theartist at work in
her home. Topright: Sraphinestops in to pick
up some artsupplies. Below:
Csar Award-winning
cinematographerLaurent Brunet,
AFC (left) and
director MartinProvost on
location.
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24 July 2009
Projects such asMiami Vice (ACAug. 06), Collateral(ACAug.
04) and televisions Robbery
Homicide Division have
cemented Michael Mannsreputation as an advocate for digital
capture, but when he begandiscussing his latest picture, Public
Enemies, with cinematographer
Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC, the direc-
tor was inclined to shoot 35mm. Inour early discussions, Michael
mentioned several times that he wasthinking of going back to film,
recalls Spinotti. He was consideringit, I think, because he initially envi-
sioned classical, more set-in-stone
kind of imagery. We spent a lot of
time discussing the pros and cons.Spinotti had recently used
high-definition video (via thePanavision Genesis) on the features
Deception (ACMay 08) and Flash of
Genius, but his previous feature
Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC captures period action digitally forMichael Manns Public Enemies.
by Jay Holben
Unit photography by Peter Mountain
Big
GunsBig
Guns
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collaborations with Mann TheInsider(ACJune 00), Heat(ACJan.96), The Last of the Mohicans (ACDec. 92) andManhunter were all35mm productions. Just prior to
Public Enemies, Spinotti and Mannshot a commercial on HD using
Sonys CineAlta F23, a 23" 3-CCD1920x1080 camera that records 4:4:4
RGB or 4:2:2 Y/Cb/Cr to HDCam-SR tape. (The camera has a 23" bayo-
net lens mount, and the SRW-1 deck
can be mounted directly to thecamera, like a film magazine.)
Michael likes images to be sharp,and he likes shooting with smaller
chips because he likes the deep depthof field, so we became fans of the F23
American Cinematographer
on that commercial, says Spinotti.
For Public Enemies, Spinottidecided to shoot side-by-side
comparison tests of HD and Super35mm, using an F23 for the digital
work and Kodak Vision3 500T 5219in the film camera. He set the two
cameras up in the parking lot behindManns office and started shooting in
the early afternoon, using stand-insattired in period wardrobe and
several period cars; the testing
continued through twilight intonight. The digital and film footage
were taken all the way through post,with Stefan Sonnenfeld handling the
color-correction at Company 3. The35mm material was scanned at 2K,
color-corrected and recorded back
out to film; the filmmakers dialed inlook-up tables to match the final
filmout to what they were seeing onthe monitor.
They decided to compose thefilm in 2.40:1, which meant the F23s
1920x1080 resolution had to becropped to 1920x800, costing a little
over 25 percent of the vertical imageinformation. Despite that slight loss
of resolution, the footage from the
F23 was very, very sharp, saysSpinotti. It didnt have the full tonal
range of film, but its response to thenight material was very interesting.
Digital cameras read into the shad-ows very differently; theres an
Clockwise fropposite pagFederal agenMelvin Purv(Christian Bapulls the trigduring a gunbattle withgangsters;Americas mwanted, JoDillinger (JoDepp), takesfrom the run
board of anautomobile;Dante SpinoASC, AICbrandishes hweapon ofchoice whileharnessing tsuns rays.
Photosan
dframegra
bscourtesyo
fUniversa
lPictures.
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Right: Dillingersgang piles into a
getaway carduring their
bank-robberyspree in the
Midwest. Below:The outlaw
spares some
time for romancewith Billie
Frechette(Marion
Cotillard).
26 July 2009
incredible elasticity there that youdont have with film you can
adjust gamma curves and gain andreally gain incredible control over
the image. In the end, the F23srendering of night scenes sealed the
deal. This movie has a lot of night
action, including a lot of gunfightson city streets, so the digital cameras
higher sensitivity and ability to seeinto shadows was a major benefit,
says Spinotti. Also, we believed digi-tal would facilitate a more dynamic
use of film grammar while giving us
a hyper-realistic look. (Ed. Note:Some visual-effects work, supervised
by Robert Stadd, was shot on35mm.)
Set in the 1930s, Public
Enemies follows charismatic bank
robber John Herbert Dillinger
(Johnny Depp) and his gang as theyrob banks all over the Midwest and
try to evade the authorities, who areled by federal agent Melvin Purvis
(Christian Bale). We wanted thelook ofPublic Enemies to have a high
level of realism, not an overt period
feel, notes Spinotti. Among thehistorical aspects are a lot of action,
romance and drama, and Michaeland I talked about achieving an
immediate feel.One thing you can do with a
digital camera that you cant do with
film is shoot with a 360-degree, orno, shutter, he adds. We tested that
with gun-muzzle flashes from themachine guns and some flares that
we planned to use to light a fewscenes, and the 360-degree shutter
had a really great look in those situa-tions.
The filmmakers also foundthat shooting digitally enabled them
to make the most of zoom lenses,which they used for most of the
picture. There are a number ofzoom lenses for digital cameras
that are around a T2 but alsocompact enough for handheld
camerawork, says Spinotti. Theproductions camera package, rented
at Fletcher Camera in Chicago,included two sets of Zeiss DigiPrime
lenses, but Spinotti was so impressed
with the capabilities of the FujinonHAe10x10 10:1 (T1.8) zoom that it
became his main lens. Its sharpnesswas unbelievable, he attests. Ive
found that when shooting digitally, Irarely have to go to primes because
Big Guns
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the digital zoom lenses are so sharp,fast and compact. We had some very
complicated handheld momentswhere wed be following the gang in
an action sequence, and the opera-tors would have to jump on the side-
board of a car and drive away withthem. These cameras and lenses were
great for that.We shot most of the picture
using three F23s, but we also had a
Sony F950, which we used with theT950 adapter, and a Sony EX1; we
used those as D cameras for actionpieces and in tight spaces the EX1
was especially great for car interiors,he continues. In terms of image
quality, the cameras were very, veryclose. There was a little difference in
dynamic range, but we could easilysmooth that out in post. Once the
images were colored, the exposurewas enhanced, the grain was mini-
mized, and the details wereenhanced, the images were indistin-
guishable from each other, and thefootage intercut perfectly. (The
projects final DI workflow, carriedout at 2K, comprised the scanning of
35mm material at LaserPacific, adigital grade at Company 3, and a
filmout at EFilm. Release prints were
made at Technicolor.)Mann chose to stay in the Rec
709 (ITU-R BT.709) color space asopposed to shooting in a film rec.
We prefer shooting in video colorspace because we can always see on
set exactly what were going to get,says Public Enemies co-producer
Bryan H. Carroll, a longtime collabo-rator of Manns. The monitor shows
us the final image, and that allows usto bulletproof the system more easily.
Being able to see the final image onset means you can push the medium
further than you would otherwise,because you can see exactly when
certain image characteristics start to
become undesirable.The filmmakers decided to
establish the storys period primarilythrough the use of practical loca-
tions. In addition to periodwardrobe, vehicles and props, practi-
cal locations add heavily to theatmosphere, says Spinotti. By
shooting digitally, we were able towork with the existing lighting at
many locations and maintain a levelof realism that is very hard to achieve
with movie lighting. Very few thingssuggest an atmosphere better than a
real location; the way things arepainted, the relationship between
interior and exterior, and all of theother physical details tend to estab-
lish visual truth in a very tangibleway. Shooting digitally, you see loca-
tions in a different way. When you
walk into a location and know youregoing to shoot film, you have to set
little rules for example, youllneed to get an exposure herethats at
least T2.8 at 500 ISO but not sowith digital.
The production traveled tomany of the actual sites where
Dillinger and his gang had theirexploits, including the Little
American Cinematographer
A road flareilluminatesDillingersarrival at anairport after is captured b
the authoriti a major nevent that dr
a media throSpinottiexplains, Oprop master,Peck, found 1933 newsreabout Dillinggang and broit down framby-frame, anwe discover
that they litsome of thenews scenewith large fl road flare
basically. Ouspecial-effecoordinator,Bruno VanZeebroeck,
tracked dowsome very bmilitary flare
that createdlight that waquite beautif
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28 July 2009
Bohemia Lodge in Wisconsin, where
they hid out for a period of time.Purvis planned to ambush the gang
at the lodge but lost the element ofsurprise when some of his agents
opened fire prematurely. A brief but
fierce gun battle broke out, and theoutlaws managed to escape.
Re-creating the famous battleat the actual location posed a
number of logistical challenges forSpinotti and his crew. Most of the
gun battle takes place outside atnight, and it is followed by a car
chase that covers nearly 2 miles offorested road. It was a very challeng-
ing scene, says Spinotti. For thelighting along the main stretch of the
road, Bob Krattiger, my gaffer,suggested the Bebee Night Light,
which I hadnt used before; its veryversatile and has a huge amount of
power. We put it on a nearby hilltopand allowed the light to filter
through the trees to cover 200-300yards of road. When we initially
scouted the location, in late February
or early March, the foliage was prettysparse, but when we arrived a couple
of weeks later to shoot, it was shock-ing to see how much the trees had
grown in! I was afraid we wouldnthave enough light to punch through
the leaves, but the Bebee has a lot offlexibility. We turned the camera
shutter to 360 degrees and increasedthe gain to +3dB, and it worked
fantastically. You really dont need alot of light to get the right density on
your waveform with these cameras.Spinottis crew positioned a
second Bebee Night Light about halfa mile down the road, but instead of
aiming the fixtures at the ground,they pointed them at the night sky.
The existing cloud cover and humid-ity enabled them to achieve a soft,
ambient glow over the entire area.
We actually didnt do much lightingof the road I called it black-hole
lighting, laughs Spinotti. To lightthe actors, I really wanted the muzzle
flashes and car headlights to do mostof the work.
Top to bottom:Purvis strides
into action witha supreme sense
of purpose;Purvis consults
with FBI directorJ. Edgar Hoover
(Billy Crudup) onthe steps of a
courthouse;crew members
capture twoangles of the
scene, one witha handheld
camera andanother with a
Steadicam.
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The escape sequence required
coverage both inside and outside thecars, as several of Dillingers gang
members stood on the cars side-boards, firing back at the federal
agents as they made their escape.
Taking a page from the playbookASC members Paul Cameron and
Dion Beebe used on Manns
Collateral, which features many
scenes inside a taxicab, Spinotti usedRosco LitePads, thin squares and
rectangles of plastic with hundredsof dimmable, color-corrected LED
lights, inside the car. The ELDpanels they used on Collateralcreated really beautiful light, but theyrequired a lot of equipment,
converters and extra car batteries,notes Spinotti. The Rosco LitePads
did the job in a very interesting waywith precise dimmers, and they were
easy to gel and didnt require addi-tional power sources. We could tape
them up anywhere.For shots looking back at
the drivers of the cars or the men
riding on the sideboards, Krattigermounted Kino Flo Diva-Lites to the
car bumpers as a bit of augmenta-tion. We mounted the Divas hori-
zontally to just lift the levels enoughto get details in the actors faces and
eyes, says Spinotti. We kept themlow to play them as the car head-
lights reflecting off the road.Krattiger replaced the headlights on
many of the cars with stronger,dimmable lamps that were
controlled from inside the vehicles;most of the main cars were rigged
with these stronger lamps, and whenthe camera was inside the car and
shooting through the windshield,the electricians ramped the head-
lamps up to full to light the roadahead. When the camera was look-
ing at the headlights directly, the
crew dialed them way down so theywould read realistically.
Spinotti used some less-orthodox lighting techniques as well.
He recalls, Our prop master, KrisPeck, found a 1933 newsreel about
American Cinematographer
Top to bottomsharpshootehas Dillingercrew in hissights; therobbers retufire; the gunm
take coverbehind humashields.
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30 July 2009
Dillingers gang and broke it downframe-by-frame, and we discovered
that they lit some of the news sceneswith large flares road flares, basi-
cally. Our special-effects coordina-tor, Bruno Van Zeebroeck, tracked
down some very bright militaryflares that created a light that was
quite beautiful. They threw off a lotof smoke, and we had to stop down
quite a bit so you could actually seethe flare, but the look is really beauti-
ful. We used them for the scene whenDillinger lands at an airport and
runs into a large group of journalistswaiting for him. Its a spectacular
scene; the flare light is dynamic andvery dramatic, which really adds
energy to the story.Spinotti and Krattiger worked
with production designer NathanCrowley and set decorator Rosemary
Brandenburg to select practical
lighting fixtures for each locationthat could serve double-duty as
decoration and principal lighting.Rosemary did an incredible
amount of research on period light-ing fixtures, and we collaborated to
see what worked best, recallsSpinotti. Bob and I did a lot of work
on the practicals to make sure theyhad the ideal intensity, shape and
Big Guns
Top left: A 360-degree shutter
was used to lend
a dynamic lookto gun-muzzleflashes. Top
right: Baby FaceNelson (Stephen
Graham) bitesthe dust during a
shootout at theLittle Bohemia
Lodge. Right:Purvis briefs his
men beforeattempting to
ambush Dillingerat the Biograph
Theater inChicago.
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Fletcher and PACE
Congratulate
Michael Mann, Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC
Bryan Carroll, Julie Herrin
and the rest of the production team.
Thank you for allowing us
to support your camera production needs.
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control. We used them as keylightson main players and for filling in the
darker areas [of the scene]. Wewanted to massage the practicals so
that we could keep our Hollywoodlighting absolutely minimal. We
designed some practicals to haveopen tops that would spill a certain
amount of light onto the ceiling; thatlight would then bounce into the
room and add just the right detail in
the shadow areas. We did as much as
we could with practicals and thenadded a little extra to make the scene,
but not so much that we were over-powering the real atmosphere.
The cinematographer used a
number of classic sources at eachlocation, and for fill light, he repeated
a technique he devised on Deception:stringing tiny Christmas lights across
empty 8'x8' and 12'x12' frames. Wemight have bought out all the
Christmas lights in town, but theresult is an amazing, golden fill light
sometimes even a key that hasa wonderful energy to it, he says. Its
not just a soft light because there arehundreds of tiny, sparkling bulbs,
and it has an organic feel. I triedusing them for some of our night
exteriors, but the cars gave us somany reflective surfaces we couldnt
keep the reflections out of the cars!They are really wonderful, light-
weight sources that you can tuck in a
corner or even shoot through for a
great effect.For a scene in which
Dillingers girlfriend, Billie Frechette(Marion Cotillard), visits him in jail,
Spinottis initial plan was to use a
soft toplight. To keep up with thedemanding schedule, the produc-
tion was leap-frogging sets, with apre-lighting crew working ahead of
the principal unit and then strikingthe previous location when the
production moved forward. Spinottiand Krattiger often led the pre-light-
ing crew, and when they arrived atthe jail-scene location, Spinotti real-
ized that soft toplight wasnt theright choice. It just didnt work
the scene is very emotional, and thetoplight felt boring to me, he recalls.
The location was very small andhad blue tiles on the walls, and it was
difficult to come up with an alterna-tive lighting scenario.
After some experimenting,
Big Guns
2
DirectorMichael Mann
grabs a piece ofthe action.
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Spinotti pulled out a Source Four
HMI ERS and bounced it into thetiled wall. Suddenly, the light was
very interesting. It bounced off thetiles and felt like light coming
through the door; it was crisp but
also somehow soft. It played great onthe actors faces and was extremely
effective. Michael really loved it, andwe ended up shooting the scene with
that single source. As we movedaround for coverage, Bob [Krattiger]
would adjust the light right and left,according to the angles.
The scene in which Dillingerand Frechette meet was shot at
Chicagos historic Steuben Club.Unfortunately, the location is so
historic we couldnt mount anythingto the walls or alter the existing light-
ing, and the camera was lookingeverywhere, laments Spinotti. It was
a very tricky situation, but Bob and Icame up with a solution. They hid
an 8'x8' frame of full gridcloth and an
LCD crate behind a pillar in the loca-
tion, then placed a Source Four(warmed up to match the practicals)
behind another pillar, projecting thelight across the room into the diffu-
sion. That gave us a very thin piece
of equipment that could be hidden,and by using the Source Four from a
distance, we could keep all the hard-ware out of the shots, says Spinotti.
With digital cameras, therearent any steadfast rules, and I
believe that gives me a huge amountof freedom, he concludes. The
medium is romantic, interesting andbeautiful, but it also looks real. And
theres so much you can do in post!Film has a certain kind of quality
that cannot be matched by digitaltechnology, but at times, the advan-
tages digital has over film are impor-tant for the language and the
contents of the story youre telling,and that determines your choice.
I always emphasize to
students that the technology is only a
minor part of the job and its theeasy side, really. The hard part is the
art of storytelling. Once you work outhow to tell your story, the rest is just
putting that plan into action. I
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.40:1
High-Definition Video andSuper 35mm
HD:Sony CineAlta F23, HDC-F950,
PMW-EX1Fujinon and Zeiss lenses
Super 35mm:Arri 435, 235
Cooke S4 lenses
Kodak Vision3 500T 5219
Digital Intermediate
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34 July 2009
A doomed love affair takes center stage in Chri,directed by Stephen Frears and photographed by
Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC.
by Benjamin B
Impressionistic
Cinema
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Chri begins with a humorous
voiceover by its director,Stephen Frears, who describes
famous French courtesans asthe Parisian celebrities of the
early 1900s. During a phone inter-
view, Frears laughs and admits, Iam, as it were, Maurice Chevalier in
Gigi, referring to the lighthearted1958 musical set in the world of
Parisian courtesans. But Chri is noGigi, and Frears deceptively breezy
introduction leads into a nuancedfilm about an impossible love
between a middle-aged woman(Michelle Pfeiffer) and a man
(Rupert Friend) roughly 30 yearsyounger than she.
La de Lonval (Pfeiffer) is acourtesan in the waning days of her
career, and Chri (Friend) is the dis-solute son of a friend and retired
courtesan, Charlotte Peloux (KathyBates). The story, based on two nov-
els by Colette, begins with Chrisseduction of La, and the couple
continues to live together happily for
six years, until Charlotte arranges aprofitable marriage between her son
and the teenaged Edmee (FelicityJones). The film intercuts between
the lovers after their painful separa-tion, with Chri setting off on a hon-
American Cinematographe
Opposite: Ch(Rupert Frienmakes his mon longtimefamily friend(MichellePfeiffer). Thipage, top: Thframe grab,showing LaCharlotte (KBates) entera garden, is
the mostimpressionishot in the fiand for me, creates a wworld ofimagery, saDarius KhonASC, AFC.Middle: In thunit-photogrshot of a latemoment in thsame sceneCharlotteexplains tha
has arrangemarriage forChri. Botto(left to rightKhondji, direStephen Freand cameraoperator AlaRae discussapproach.
PhotosbyBrunoCalvo.Framegrabsan
dphotoscourtesyofMiramaxFilms.
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36 July 2009
Impressionistic Cinema
eymoon and returning to dissatisfy-
ing married life, and La trying tobanish her sorrow with a young
suitor in Biarritz. When La returnsto Paris, it looks as though she and
Chri might renew their relation-
ship, but Chri cannot hide his new-found sensitivity about their age dif-
ference.Frears previously worked
with Pfeiffer and Chri screen-writer Christopher Hampton on
Dangerous Liaisons (shot byPhilippe Rousselot, ASC, AFC; ACMay 89), and although that filmand Chri are both period love sto-
ries that play out in opulent settings,Frears succinctly differentiates the
two: Liaisons is a melodrama; Chriisnt. Colette was an impressionist.He describes choosing Darius
Khondji, ASC, AFC for Chri aspure instinct. The challenge of
filming this story, he continues, lay
in finding the right nuances of light-ness and gravitas. A lot of the film
has to do with tone because it dealswith someone who is frivolous and,
as it were, tragic underneath. I wasconstantly trying to get the tone
right.Explaining Chris richly tex-
tured look, Khondji says the ideawas to have an impressionistic
touch. I didnt want the image to betoo sharp or the light to be obvious.
I wanted very, very soft light, as
though its filtered through time, likea hazy memory. The light was often
bounced or going through two lay-ers of diffusion, and it was always
wrapping around.
Khondji combined and var-ied lighting, lenses, film stocks and
processing to modulate the picturessubdued look, which he developed
in concert with production designerAlan MacDonald and costume
designer Consolata Boyle. With fewexceptions, the soft lighting of the
interiors has a limited range of tonalvalues from dark gray to muted
whites. Khondji shot principallywith Cooke anamorphic prime lens-
es, which he chose in part for theirrendering of faces, and for their soft-
ness. He opted for Fuji negatives,using mainly Eterna 250T 8553,
which he sometimes pull-processedfor additional softness. He used
Eterna 400T 8583 when he wantedto reduce the contrast in day exteri-
ors or heavy-backlight situations,
and occasionally used Eterna 500T8573, which he sometimes pull-
processed for additional softness.1st AC Vincent Gallot tested
three sets of anamorphic lenses pro-vided by Panavision Alga Techno in
Paris: Technovision/Cooke Classic,Cooke Xtal Express and Kowa.
Gallot laughs as he recalls tellingKhondji about the loss of definition
when the lenses were wide open.Darius said, Thats what I want.
Thats when I realized it was allabout the imperfections. I was try-
ing to find matching lenses, butDarius actually wanted to have dif-
ferent looks. Khondji ended upusing a mix of lenses but favored the
Classics, which, he notes, are steepedin cinema history, housing 40-year-
old glass that was used by Italian
directors Visconti and Antonioni intheir later films.
Frears readily acceptedKhondjis suggestion to shoot in the
anamorphic format. Im quiteinexperienced with it, but when I
Above: La andChri enjoy
another happymorning
together. Below:Chri and hisyoung bride,
Edmee (FelicityJones), pose for
a wedding photowith guests.
Both of theseshots are unit
photography.
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look at the film, Im thrilled, says
the director. Khondji notes thatanamorphic is wonderful for faces,
for intimacy. He accentuated thelenses shallower depth of field by
shooting between T2.8 and T4,
thereby isolating the characters evenmore from the backgrounds. I
wanted to observe the main charac-ters like fish in an aquarium and
make the background watery andsubdued, says the cinematographer.
I felt their psychology changedbetween the beginning and end of
the film, the way light and colorchange on fish as they move around
in the water. And the anamorphicframe was like a long, horizontal
aquarium.For Khondji, the anamorphic
format is often more powerfulthan spherical ones. You can open
up the frame with a landscape, oryou can close it with people in the
foreground or elements in the set.You can make the frame intimate
and close it with two characters
together. You can carry that fromscene to scene, and then suddenly
open the frame into a vista of Parisor a cliff by the sea. Then you can go
back into a room with faces andthe aquarium.
Charlottesconservator
the setting ffew key scein the film, twhich aredepicted in
top and midphotos. Top:unit-photogshot of one films firstscenes, wheChri interruLas visit whis mother.Middle: A frgrab of a latscene depica strange teparty. BottomDinos througwhite silkprovideconsistentlighting in thconservator
American Cinematographe
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to ask how we did it. I told him it was
just an old 75mm Kowa! Khondjienhanced the softness of the image
by shooting at a wide-open stop withan ND.9 filter on the lens.
The difficulty with lightingMaxims restaurant was that the
camera moves freely about, turning360 degrees in a room full of mir-
rors. Khondji and his gaffer, Franck
Barrault, decided to create toplightwith dozens of household bulbs
strung on wires overhead. Its theprinciple of the Dino or the Wendy
Light: shadows dont exist becausethere are too many sources, explains
Barrault. The bare bulbs weredimmed down, providing a soft,
warm light that was supplementedby the practicals on the tables.
Chris seduction of La takes
place in Charlottes glass-enclosedwinter garden, or conservatory,
which is also the setting for a bizarretea party later in the movie. The chal-
lenge for Khondji was to provideconsistent lighting in the conservato-
ry throughout the lengthy dialoguescenes, and to handle varying back-
light. He had the offscreen part of the
conservatory covered with a whitesilk through which he shone several
Dinos gelled with CTB, providingsoft, slightly warm daylight that was
partially compensated for with anLLD filter on the 75mm Classic lens.
The outside lights could be dimmedor increased to follow the weather.
The seduction scene also has a fewstrokes of bright sunlight on the
Khondji acknowledges many
painterly influences on the pictorialstyle of Chri, and a couple of
sequences readily evoke painters ofColettes era. A brightly colored
sequence with world-weary Chriseated in the famous Maxims
restaurant reminds one of Renoir,and when Charlotte and La walk in
a lush garden, it looks like a Monet.
That shot in the garden was foundby Alastair Rae, our camera opera-
tor, recalls Khondji. He wentscouting with his finder, and when
he showed it to me, it was wonder-ful! It is the most impressionistic
shot in the film. For me, it creates awhole world of imagery. Gallot
adds, That shot was so beautifuland so strange that the lab called me
38 July 2009
Impressionistic CinemaThese framegrabs of two
different scenes Charlottes
lunch with La(top) and Chris
breakfast withhis mother afterhis honeymoon
(bottom) illustrateKhondjis
approach toCharlottes home,
where the goalwas a gaudy
and dark interior,slightly on the
cool side,says the
cinematographer.Relying on hues
a bit warmer anda bit cooler thanthe 3200K rating
for his Fuji filmstock, Khondji
used amberbackground
practicals tocomplete the
color range. Inthe top frame,
note the gleam ofsunlight on thewall at right
the only touch ofhard sunlight in
the room.
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couch and plants; these were created
with MoleBeams and Xenons.Khondji comments that the
second conservatory scene, the teaparty, reminds me a little bit of
Visconti theres a richness, almosta decadence. I was happy to film it
with the lenses he actually used in his
later films. To reinforce the strangemood, he created no spots of bright
sunlight and added a bit of smoke fordepth. He shot both conservatory
scenes on the 400-speed Eternabecause he found its lower contrast
could better handle variations in theweather. Stephen uses anamorphic
to its full advantage he fills theframe up without a problem, he
adds.For a scene showing La enter-
ing the hotel dining room in Biarritz,Khondji had to contend with a bank
of large windows. He opted to put upa wall of Dinos to provide direction-
less fill. I didnt want to make it low-key, he notes. I like coming back to
an era when the lighting was a littleflatter. He had some of the windows
fitted with hard ND gels to bring
down the outside when the sun gotbright. He also added a touch of
smoke to give the restaurant a three-dimensional quality.
The films dominant mood isdefined by the subdued interiors:
dining rooms, bedrooms and
boudoirs. MacDonalds productiondesign favors cool pastels in Leas
house and gaudy hues at Charlottes.When La comes to Charlottes for
lunch, the contrast of the frame islimited. 4K open-faced Goya HMIs
with Lee 129 Heavy Frost diffusion
shine through the windows to evokegloomy northern light; Kino Flos,
also through Lee 129 diffusion, pro-vide a soft, underexposed key on
Bates; a touch of orange is providedby a practical on a dimmer; and a
MoleBeam creates a single gleam ofhard sunlight on the wall. Khondji
describes his goal as a gaudy anddark interior, slightly on the cool
side, slightly purple.After La learns of Chris
engagement, she shares a meal with
him at her house, a scene dominated
by pastel, silvery colors. There issomething very sad, very faded
there, notes Khondji. Its the sad-ness you have in middle of day, with
a dying sun behind clouds. Its notcontrasty a little timeless. In
lighting the interiors, Khondji and
Barrault always began by imaginingwhere the sun was, and for this
scene, they settled on cool northernlight, says Khondji. The soft light
falling on La is without direction,and she doesnt seem lit, which
Khondji attributes to both the levelof the lighting and its diffusion. At a
certain balance, we found thatMichelles skin was delivering the
glow, he notes. If wed overpow-ered the light, she would have looked
lit.
American Cinematographe
Above: A fragrab showinLas visit toBiarritz, wheshe searchea new suitowho can heher forget CBelow: Khonand Frearsprepare to fianother balcscene at theseaside reso
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40 July 2009
Khondji favors Lee 129 HeavyFrost diffusion, which he believes is
close to the 1000H tracing paper heused on Seven (ACOct. 95). My
favorite is real tracing paper youget really soft light and the subject
doesnt feel lit but gaffers dont
want to use it because its too flam-mable, he says.
Sometimes I put a little softtungsten light with the direction of
the practical, a little rim that is veryunderexposed, because I cant stand
when its too backlit, he continues.It feels like its from the lamp, but
the lamp doesnt give it to you unlessyou shoot really wide open. With
anamorphic, you have to create thesekinds of subtleties.
Upon returning from hishoneymoon, Chri has breakfast at
his mothers, and the soft daylightfrom the windows is brighter and
slightly cool. Khondji explains thathis color scheme for the movie often
involved hues slightly warmer andslightly cooler than the 3200K rat-
ing for the film stocks. Daylight was
4000-4500K, rarely more, and thelamps were generally 2800-3000K.
He likes to tint daylight slightly, andfeels it helps the negative. Film neg-
ative is a little weak on blue, so Ialways add some blue, he says. He
completes the color range byputting a touch of amber from a
bulb in a practical.Toward the end of the film,
when La sits in a chair and consolesChri at her feet, the morning effect
is much brighter. The scene was shot
on a soundstage in Cologne,Germany. Outside the windows,
there was a big truss with a row ofunderslung tungsten lights that were
extremely diffused, recalls Khondji.Barely visible outside the window is a
giant TransLite that required a lot oflight. Pfeiffer is lit by a softbox that
gives gentle direction to the fore-ground light. Orange practicals in
the background add a touch of colorcontrast. Khondji notes that in this
scene, as in others, he added a subtlecolor contrast to the image in the
digital grade, which he carried out atDeluxe in London with colorist
Adam Inglis. I put a little bronzegold in the highlights and a bit of
blue in the midtones and darks tocreate a more 3-D effect with color,
says the cinematographer. Adam
had what I was looking for: a sensi-tivity to nuance and the desire to
make a work of cinema, not a prettyfilm with boosted contrast and
video-like saturation.Stephen and I decided to do a
DI because a lot of effects shots wererequired around Las house in order
to re-create the atmosphere of Paris atthat time, continues Khondji. But
the truth is that even with a 4K DI, theimage quality never really matched
the quality of the pure anamorphic
image we saw in the dailies. My adviceis to avoid doing a DI on an anamor-
phic picture unless you really have to,and we had to on Chri.
One striking scene breaks withthe subdued quality of the films over-
all look. In it, Chri comes home andcarries his young wife to bed through
a bright, sunlit corridor. When scout-ing the location, Khondji noticed the
timing of the morning shafts of sun-light, and he asked Frears if the shoot
could be scheduled according to theweather. We did it on a sunny morn-
ing, and we had to be very light onour feet, says Khondji. The only
lighting he added to the scene was agold sconce in the background for a
color contrast.The film is punctuated by a few
bright exteriors, including Las gar-
den in Normandy, a dazzling helicop-ter shot of her car on a country road,
and the seaside hotel in Biarritz. Buteven some exteriors feature limited
contrast, as when La looks over thebalcony at the beach in Biarritz and
This framegrab, showing
Chris return tohis young wife,
illustrates arare departure
from thesubdued look
thatcharacterizes
the rest of thepicture. Able totime the shoot
to take
advantage of asunny morning,Khondji added
only the goldsconce in thebackground.
Impressionistic Cinema
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the overcast image reflects her sad-ness. Barrault notes that Khondji
almost always shaded the main char-acters in exteriors. To add fill, the
crew often used Gaffair balloons,which could be moved on booms to
follow the characters. Instead of thecustomary 85 filter, Khondji some-
times uses an LLD or 812 filterbecause they barely correct day-
light, giving a day exterior a slight
blue tone.Arguably, the films most
striking cinematographic accom-plishment is its portraiture. In many
ways, the faces define the movie,Pfeiffers more than any other.
Khondji believed the film shouldhave very few close-ups. I feel that
anamorphic close-ups sometimesmagnify too much. You have to be
careful with them. Its a rule with all
formats in general, but with anamor-
phic, the close-up is especially power-ful, and you have to hold the power
back. You shouldnt go into a strong,tight close-up unless you need to.
With a chuckle, Rae recalls,
Darius and I decided early on thatwhen Stephen asked for a close-up, it
would be a shot from the waist up,and we would only do two or three
shots that were closer we reallysaved them. Stephen would say, Cant
I have a close-up? and wed say, Thisis a close-up. And hed say, Oh, is it?
He generously allowed us to do that.The rare close-ups were filmed with
an Xtal Express 152mm without anydiffusion filters.
Khondji and Barrault devised aspecial Michelle light for some early
scenes in the film. Inspired by thesequence at Maxims, Barrault con-
structed a lightbox comprising a rec-tangle of 20 150-watt household
bulbs arranged in an arc that focused
Impressionistic Cinema
For the diningroom in Biarritz,
depicted inthis frame
grab, Khondjisgoal was
directionless fill.I like comingback to an era
when the lightingwas a bit flatter,he says. I didntwant to make it
low-key.
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soft light on Pfeiffer, giving her a
unique glow that retained thepiquant of the bare bulb, says the
gaffer. This arrangement could not beused easily on the soundstage in
Cologne, where scenes in Las bed-
room, bathroom and boudoir wereshot. For those sequences, a similar
arc of soft light was often created withKino Flo units and Lee 129. We had
to be careful not to come too closeand not to be too sharp on the skin,
notes Khondji.When the broken-hearted La
returns from Biarritz, the lightingbecomes less soft and the camera
comes closer to her, revealing a fewwrinkles here and there from side-
light. When Chri comes back to seeLa, he kisses her on the floor. After so
many wider shots, the softly lit dualclose-up is powerful. The highlight
with a liner on Rupert is almost overthe top, says Khondji, adding that the
difficulty lay in flagging Friend while
keeping a soft light from diffused
Kino Flos on Pfeiffer. He remarks,Green can be sexy on the skin. I use
underexposed green all the time.Toward the end of the film,
La comes to see herself as an old
woman, in a one-shot sequence infront of the mirror. Khondji explains
that the remarkable transition wasachieved very simply with a gradual
shift from frontal light to toplight; ablack cloth covered white gridcloth
lit by a distant, frontal Wendy Light,while at the same time, flags were
moved to unveil an eight-tube KinoFlo Wall-o-Lite above. The seamless
transition makes La subtly agebefore our eyes.
Chris subject is age, and thefilm could not have worked without
an older actress willing to show herage rather than hide it. I take my hat
off to Michelle, Frears says of hisstar. He adds that the film only real-
ly came to life once all the elements
had been added: images, editing and
Alexandre Desplats music. Khondjihad a similar epiphany when he saw
the film recently. You dont really doit all intentionally, he muses. Its
only when you see the finished film
that you realize what you have creat-ed together as a group. I
Save the Date:
September 17, 2009
The New Yorker, New York, NY
November 4-5, 2009
Burbank Marriott, Burbank, CA
A world where entertainment technology and creative vision converge.
the future in hand | createasphere.com
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.40:1
Anamorphic 35mm
Arricam Studio, Lite
Technovision/Cooke Classic,Cooke Xtal Express and
Kowa lenses
Fuji Eterna250T 8553, 400T 8583, 500T 8573
Digital Intermediate
Printed on Kodak Vision 2383
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44 July 2009
Veterans frequently describecombat as the most vivid, fully
lived experience of their lives.Some get hooked on it. As for-
merNew York Times war corre-spondent Chris Hedges writes in his
book War Is a Force That Gives Us
Meaning,The rush of battle is often
a potent and lethal addiction, forwar is a drug.Those are the opening
lines of The Hurt Locker, a dramaabout U.S. Army specialists who dis-
mantle improvised explosive devices
in Iraq. Directed by KathrynBigelow, the film follows members
of the Bravo Company in 2004, anearly and particularly bloody stage
of the war. Often called in to defuseIEDs 10 or 20 times a day, soldiers in
the Explosive Ordnance Disposalsquads endure lives of unrelenting
intensity.
The Hurt Locker focuses on
three characters: newly arrived StaffSgt. William James (Jeremy
Renner), whose impressive record ofdisarming 873 bombs is offset by a
reckless bravado; Sgt. J.T. Sanborn(Anthony Mackie), a seasoned sol-
dier who worked in ArmyIntelligence for seven years; and Spc.
Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty),
who is looking for a role model. Thefilm moves through seven missions
that are interspersed with momentsof downtime back on the base.
Visually, it combines the jaggededges of war reportage with inti-
RiskandValor
Barry Ackroyd, BSCuses Super 16mm
and handheldcameras to lend
intensity to The Hurt
Locker, which followsa U.S. Army bomb
squad at workin Iraq.
by Patricia Thoms