american cinematographer 01 2010 usa

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For up-to-the-minute screening information, go to: Awards.FilmInFocus.com

To read complete rave reviews from across America, visit: FilmInFocus.com

“��.ONE OF THE COEN BROTHERS’ BEST AND MOST PERSONAL FILMS.BEAUTIFULLY PHOTOGRAPHED BY ROGER DEAKINS. IT’S A MOVIE MITZVAH.”

-LOU LUMENICK, NEW YORK POST

MAZEL TOV.

©2009 Focus Features. All Rights Reserved.

BEST PICTUREBEST CINEMATOGRAPHY ROGER DEAKINS, ASC, BSC

“AN EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENT.It’s almost impossible to overstate the artistry that unfolds on writer-director Henry Selick’s screen. A darkly compelling fantasia in which every corner holds surprises.”

–Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

BEST ANIMATED FEATUREWritten ForThe Screen And Directed By

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHYPete Kozachik , ASC

For Your Consideration In All Categories Including

For up-to-the-minute screening information, go to: Awards.FilmInFocus.com

©2009 FOCUS FEATURES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Over 150 sets were built across 52 different soundstages. Spanning 183,000 square feet, the 52 different stages were the most

ever deployed for a stop-motion animated feature.

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The International Journal of Motion Imaging

32 Conquering New WorldsMauro Fiore, ASC tackles new technology on Avatar

48 Watchful SpiritAndrew Lesnie, ASC, ACS brings a bestseller to the big screen with The Lovely Bones

60 Super SleuthPhilippe Rousselot, ASC, AFC lends a kinetic look to Sherlock Holmes

70 The Right StuffCaleb Deschanel, ASC receives the Lifetime Achievement Award

DEPARTMENTS

FEATURES

— VISIT WWW.THEASC.COM TO ENJOY THESE WEB EXCLUSIVES —Podcast: Rodney Taylor, ASC and Lance Acord, ASC

DVD Playback: Easy Rider • The Samuel Fuller Collection • Homicide

On Our Cover: After inhabiting an alien body, Jake Scully (Sam Worthington) explores a distant planet in Avatar, shot by Mauro Fiore, ASC. (Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox.)

8 Editor’s Note10 President’s Desk12 Short Takes: Hyundai Sonata Campaign18 Production Slate: The White Ribbon • The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus84 Post Focus: Technicolor Hollywood • HPA Awards 88 Filmmakers’ Forum: Shane Hurlbut, ASC 94 New Products & Services98 International Marketplace99 Classified Ads

100 Ad Index102 Clubhouse News104 ASC Close-Up: Billy Dickson

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J a n u a r y 2 0 1 0 V o l . 9 1 , N o . 1

T h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l J o u r n a l o f M o t i o n I m a g i n g

Visit us online at

www.theasc.com————————————————————————————————————

PUBLISHER Martha Winterhalter

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EDITORIAL

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Stephen Pizzello

SENIOR EDITOR Rachael K. Bosley

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Jon D. Witmer

TECHNICAL EDITOR Christopher Probst

CONTRIBUTING WRITERSStephanie Argy, Benjamin B, Douglas Bankston, Robert S. Birchard,

Bob Fisher, Simon Gray, Jim Hemphill, David Heuring,

Jay Holben, Mark Hope-Jones, Noah Kadner, Jean Oppenheimer,

John Pavlus, Chris Pizzello, Jon Silberg, Iain Stasukevich,

Kenneth Sweeney, Patricia Thomson

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CIRCULATION, BOOKS & PRODUCTSCIRCULATION DIRECTOR Saul Molina

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ASC ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE Corey Clark

————————————————————————————————————American Cinematographer (ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 90th 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 inquiries (323) 969-4344.

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F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R A T I O NBEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

GREIG FRASER

“Campion’s award-winning young cinematographer, Greig Fraser,captures the vitality of Keats’ and Fanny’s world as well as its plainness.

But he also studs the film with gorgeous scenes of natureso startlingly good you could frame them.”

-Karen Durbin, Elle

“With its gorgeously framed shots and superb craftsmanship,‘Bright Star’ is a thing of beauty.”

-Claudia Puig, USA Today

OFFICERS - 2009/2010

Michael GoiPresident

Richard CrudoVice President

Owen RoizmanVice President

Victor J. KemperVice President

Matthew LeonettiTreasurer

Rodney TaylorSecretary

John C. Flinn IIISergeant At Arms

MEMBERS OF THEBOARD

Curtis ClarkRichard Crudo

George Spiro DibieRichard EdlundJohn C. Flinn III

John HoraVictor J. Kemper

Matthew LeonettiStephen LighthillIsidore Mankofsky

Daryn OkadaOwen RoizmanNancy SchreiberHaskell Wexler

Vilmos Zsigmond

ALTERNATESFred Elmes

Steven FierbergRon Garcia

Michael D. O’SheaMichael Negrin

MUSEUM CURATORSteve Gainer

American Society of Cine ma tog ra phersThe ASC is not a labor union or a guild, but

an educational, cultural and pro fes sion al or ga ni za tion. Membership is by invitation

to those who are actively en gaged as di rec tors of photography and have

dem on strated out stand ing ability. ASC membership has be come one of the highest

honors that can be bestowed upon a pro fes sional cin e ma tog ra pher — a mark

of prestige and excellence.

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Visceral suspense as well as explosive battlesequences and powerful performances...It is a hauntingly memorable film that is asvisually riveting as it is emotionally intense.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHYBarry Ackroyd, B.S.C.

Claudia Puig

Joe Morgenstern

F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R A T I O N

cinematography.

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’’

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’’For screening information,please visit:TheHurtLockerAwards.com

As you’ve probably noticed, this issue has a slightlydifferent look — streamlined and more contemporary, withupdated fonts, reconceived layouts and a variety of other subtleenhancements. It’s been 12 years since our last redesign, and inthe interest of maintaining a progressive philosophy, we askedour creative director, Marion Gore, to conjure up a freshaesthetic. After a series of brainstorming sessions with theeditorial staff, she responded with sample treatments thatearned enthusiastic kudos.

Cinematography is an artistic pursuit, and we’ve alwaysattempted to echo its visual flair in our pages; this issue starts

us down a path that stays true to the magazine’s traditions, blending informative articles withstylish presentations. As always, a great deal of care went into the selection of images toaccompany the text. Although modern Hollywood has an obsession with approval processesthe CIA itself might envy, we always do our utmost to dig for photos and other illustrationsthat best reflect a cinematographer’s creative intentions and methods. Allies in various public-ity departments helped us add pizzazz to this debut issue, and we thank them for theirsupport.

This month’s unofficial theme of “forward thinking” is aptly reflected in our coverstory, Avatar (“Conquering New Worlds,” page 32). Director James Cameron’s ambitious filmcombines motion capture, high-definition video and 3-D technology in ways that have neverbeen seen. For cinematographers, the production could mark a watershed moment in termsof technology’s impact on their craft; as Mauro Fiore, ASC reveals, most of his lighting strate-gies were planned on virtual sets, with 70 percent of the footage achieved via motioncapture. Nevertheless, he notes, the show’s futuristic look was heavily influenced by the live-action work he spearheaded in New Zealand: “Although the motion-capture work wasmostly finished, the actual look of the film was yet to be created. The footage we shot in NewZealand ultimately defined the overall style of the movie.”

Philippe Rousselot, ASC, AFC also took a non-traditional approach to Guy Ritchie’sSherlock Holmes (“Super Sleuth,” page 60), which adds a bit of brawn to the famous detec-tive’s brains. “How do I make Sherlock Holmes a Guy Ritchie film?” Rousselot muses. “I didn’twant it to look like a costume drama. I didn’t want it to look pretty. I wanted it to be grungy.I wanted it to look like RocknRolla or Snatch.”

Andrew Lesnie, ASC, ACS reteamed with Peter Jackson on The Lovely Bones (“Watch-ful Spirit,” page 48), in which a murdered teenager, trapped in limbo after her death, is ableto observe her family and her killer as the years pass. “Andrew and I have worked togetherenough that the basics don’t have to be discussed,” notes Jackson. “What we talk about isthe new ideas we want to bring into a particular project.”

Good ideas are consistently evident in the work of Caleb Deschanel, ASC, who will behonored Feb. 27 with the Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In an overview of his career(“The Right Stuff,” page 72), Deschanel shares some of the wisdom he has accumulatedwhile earning an ASC Award and five Oscar nominations.

Stephen PizzelloExecutive Editor

Editor’s Note

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Mark your calendars, because on Feb. 20, 2010, something huge is going to happen.Have you ever wanted to watch your favorite cinematographer light a scene and explain

his or her thought process? Are there questions you’ve always wanted to ask ASC membersabout their lives and careers? Do you wish you could find out the little tricks we use to make ascene truly memorable? Have you ever wanted to visit the ASC Clubhouse?

Well, all these things, and many more, have been dreams and requests we’ve received overthe years from American Cinematographer subscribers and, more recently, our Facebook fans,and we’ve been working feverishly on a way to make them possible. Next month, they will be.

“Friends of the ASC” is a new level of ASC membership that will open the door to theinner workings of the Society and its members. It will give you unprecedented access to new,exclusive content about lighting, camerawork and associated technologies, as well as access toindustry events featuring ASC members. Thanks to our partners, the vendors who support oureducational and outreach pursuits, it will also help you pursue your professional goals; these

partners will offer you discounts on their products and services.What will you get as a Friend of the ASC? The list of benefits is growing by the day, but here are just a few of them:

• A one-year subscription to the digital edition of American Cinematographer• A “Friends of the ASC” membership card granting access to exclusive discounts on equipment and services from the top

professional vendors in the industry, in addition to savings at the ASC Store• A free annual event at the ASC Clubhouse especially for Friends of the ASC, so you can meet and talk with ASC members

in person• Discounted admission to select ASC events• Exclusive access to Friends of the ASC content at www.theasc.com, which will include how-to videos about lighting featur-

ing ASC members; technical tips from industry professionals on subjects such as digital intermediates; and “Ask the ASC,” whereyou can address questions to specific cinematographers and have them answered

• Exclusive access to historic audio interviews with such ASC legends as James Wong Howe, Karl Struss and Ray Rennahan

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We plan to add even more features based on what our subscribers say is most inter-esting and important to them, including discounted admission to select ASC events. All of these benefits will be available for a $100annual fee. Regardless of your location, you can connect with the ASC in ways that were never before possible.

Friends of the ASC will be officially unveiled on Feb. 20 at the ASC Open House, where attendees will get a firsthand look ateverything this new level of membership offers.

You will be hearing a lot more about this fantastic new program in the near future. It’s been in the works for a few years,and the ASC staff has worked closely with the Society’s officers, board members, and active and associate members to make Friendsof the ASC the most exciting, informative and inspiring way for all filmmakers, emerging and established, to be closer to the Soci-ety and what we do.

I’m looking forward to having you join us!

Michael Goi, ASCPresident

President’s Desk

10 January 2010 American Cinematographer

Film. No Compromise.

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Launching the 2011 Hyundai SonataBy Curtis Clark, ASC

I love the challenge of using light to bring out a car’s person-ality and presence. You can put a certain amount of direct light ona car, but it’s the source that provides shaping and contouring. Thebigger the reflective element, the easier it is to manipulate thecontouring of the lines. When you raise the light, the reflection getssmaller; the closer you get to the car, the bigger it gets. The criticalthing is that the reflection has a clean, white edge to it. You cansee this in the commercials launching the 2011 Hyundai Sonata,for which I used an overhead soft box as my primary sculpting tool.In addition to providing direct light, soft boxes create the kinds oflarge reflections needed to effectively bring out a vehicle’s designfeatures.

One example of a soft box is a Fisher Light, a big unit thatcan be suspended and mounted in different ways, usually on achain motor or with a crane. It can be repositioned on the fly toprovide the cinematographer with a lot of lighting choices. You canprogram fades and chase sequences within the fixture, build intransitions, or dim down or shade off certain areas of the flicker-free color-balanced (tungsten or daylight) fluorescent globes toreduce intensity in certain areas.

If I were shooting in the United States, I would normally usea Fisher Light, but on the Sonata spots I had my own soft box, a30'x20' fluorescent unit built for a Hyundai commercial I’d shot in

Seoul, South Korea. This particular rig only has two settings, fullstrength and half strength. Compared to a Fisher, it doesn’t offermuch flexibility in shaping the light, but it’s bright enough that I’mable to shoot anywhere between T2.8-T8 at 250 ASA. Like a lot ofstandard fluorescents, the fixture’s globes have a green spike, so Ihave to be careful about matching my daylight-balanced lamps(which, for the Sonata spots, included 18Ks, Pars, Dedos andSource Fours). Because I can’t filter the soft box, I add Plus Greento all of the supplemental lighting and remove the green intelecine.

Using Kodak Vision3 250D 5207, I photographed twodifferent Sonatas, one with a diffuse, metallic body that gave mesoft reflections, the other with a glossy, red paint job that offeredclearer, more specular reflections. The opening shot of the silverSonata is a three-quarter view, lit with a combination of my softbox and supplemental lighting on the ground; the light is reflectedin the windshield and on the hood, and it casts a shadow patternbeneath the character line, a convex detail in the chassis that runsfrom the front wheel arch to the back of the car. The character lineis echoed with a highlight, a parallel line caused by the door panelcurving out, beneath which is a shadow caused by the door panelangling back in.

I positioned the soft box above the hood at a 45-degreeangle, favoring the driver’s side. This gave me the greatest degreeof depth of shadow and the right degree of highlight. The light’snot directly overhead, and it’s not on the side; if it were, the car

Short Takes

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CinematographerCurtis Clark, ASChad translucent

balloonsspecially made

for a commercialfeaturing the2011 Hyundai

Sonata. Keepingin mind the car’s

trajectory aswell as the

moving camera,the balloons

werestrategically

placed in theframe to reflect

along the side ofthe car.

I


would be too flat. If I moved the light tothe background, the image would be toocontrasty. You have to find a position thatwill give you the best balance amongst allof these choices.

In this first shot, the highlight onthe hood, above the headlight, marks thestart of the car’s A-line, which runs alongthe hood, up the windscreen, defines thecurvature of the roof and terminates at thetail light. That shape is very important —it’s almost like a vanishing point. How thelight and shadows converge around thatshape can evoke movement, even thoughthe car is stationary.

There is just a bit of highlightreflection on the grill with the Hyundaibadge, and beneath that is the air intake.The lower lip of the intake is an importantdesign feature of the car, so I needed todraw attention to its shape with highlightssurrounded by shadow. The left side of theintake is accented by bounce from a beadboard.

Bringing out a car’s importantfeatures is not just about the light. It’s alsoabout using the right focal length at theproper angle from the best distance.Before I photograph a vehicle, one of thefirst things I do is walk around it with mylenses (in this case, Arri Master Primes)and a viewfinder, looking to see whatangles, lens heights, distances and focallengths will best enhance the car’scontours. A lens that’s too long cancompress the car, which is less flattering.At the other end, if you get too close witha 14mm, you risk over-exaggerating theperspective. You don’t want to distort thevehicle to the point where it doesn’tresemble the one the customer sees in theshowroom. You’re there to enhance thecar’s intrinsic design features. Embellishthem, reinforce them and draw attentionto them, but always stay true to the actualdesign.

Once you’ve found a look for thecar, how do you maintain it once the carstarts moving? You have to make sure thelighting transitions reinforce your philo-sophical approach. The choreography ofyour shots should be fairly specific: youneed to know how far the vehicle ismoving and exactly how much of the areayou need to light. Make sure you’ve got a

Top: The crew positions the balloons onstage. Clark’s lighting also included an overheadsoft box (center, above the balloons) and 18Ks (left and right). Middle and bottom: For

another sequence in the commercial, Clark devised a 20'x30' grid of 80 fluorescent bulbs.The grid’s reflection on the car echoes a musical-scale graphic that was added in post.

mind the car’s trajectory and the cameraposition. I had to make sure my lightingwas in the right position to give me theproper reflective contouring. It can be a bitof a puzzle.

For the red Sonata, I used the samelighting tools, but the effect of the light onthe car was different, like lighting a redmirror. I wanted to create a look combiningthe effect of liquid light with the richnessand luminescence of an oil painting. Thecamera was on a Technocrane, and itneeded to look like it was constantlymoving around the car. Because of theroving camera and the rotating pedestal,the light from the soft box warps andundulates across the chassis, mimickingthe animated computer-generated patternon the 40'-long LED screen in the back-ground.

In the first shot, the car is on aturntable, moving left to right through theframe. Our focus is on the shape of theheadlamp, the shape of the light around it,and the shape of the fender going intoshadow. Even though we’re in a close-up,the combination of the A-line and thesharp border, which defines the shadedarea beneath the lamp and extends backacross the fender, gives a sense of thespecific elements’ connection to the rest ofthe design aesthetic.

The second shot still focuses on thefront of the car, but in a wider shot thattakes in the hood, the headlights and thegrill. I didn’t want to light the side of thecar because it would distract the viewer’seye. Instead, I let a simple accent createdby a chain of three fluorescent bulbs playalong the length of the car, providing asense of depth and elongation. A focalspot unit (like a Source Four) was used tobring out details in the rims and tires.

The approach to both spots wasimpressionistic. I wanted to presentspecific and dynamic elements of the car’sdesign. The viewers already know it’s a car,but by the time they see it in its entirety,those key design elements should be set intheir minds.

To view the 2011 Sonata commer-cial, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP21zS_V3qE. ●


long enough run with enough sources inplace to get direct light hitting the car andreflections bouncing off of it.

In addition to the overhead softbox, I designed a grid of 80 fluorescentbulbs that reflects a pattern onto thesurface of the car. The rig is simple, a20'x30' metal grid painted black andsuspended with an industrial crane. Itseffect is a poetic rendering of the light,echoing the floating musical-scale graphicsthat were added in postproduction.

I also had translucent, glowingballoons specially made for the commer-cial. As the car moves around the balloons,you see their reflections in the side of thecar. When I plotted out the design of thedriving takes, I had to make sure theballoon lights were properly positionedalong the length of the shot, keeping in

Above: Clark (right) discusses his plan withproducer Michael Song (center) and 1st AC

Jeoun Sung Ho. Right and below: The redSonata was placed on a rotating pedestal

and the camera was mounted on aTechnocrane to maintain a constant sense

of motion.

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Rural TerrorismBy Jean Oppenheimer

Set in northern Germany just prior to the outbreak of WorldWar I, The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band) concerns a small, ruralvillage whose orderly existence is shattered by a string of maliciousacts committed by unknown perpetrators. The rash of misdeeds —among them a barn fire, the kidnapping and torture of a child, anda horseback-riding “accident” that injures the town doctor —expose the bankrupt social order that lies just beneath the commu-nity’s respectable surface.

Winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival,The White Ribbon is the fifth collaboration between director/writerMichael Haneke and cinematographer Christian Berger, AAC, follow-

ing Benny’s Video, 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, ThePiano Teacher (AC May ’02) and Caché (AC Jan. ’06). When Haneketold Berger he wanted to make the film in black-and-white, “my firstreaction was, ‘Oh, nice, the old days!’” Berger recalls. “But shootingon black-and-white wasn’t possible because the producers wanteda color version for television. So we shot color and achieved theblack-and-white in the digital intermediate.

“The color negative actually gave us a crisper, cleaner lookbecause of its high contrast range and exposure tolerance,” hecontinues. “The rich color tones made for a very fine gray scale, andbecause candles, oil lamps and torches frequently were our onlysources of illumination, the stocks’ stable highlights and shadowsproved a valuable asset.”

Berger shot The White Ribbon in 3-perf Super 35mm usinga Moviecam Compact and Cooke S4 prime lenses. “I like theMoviecam’s simple handling and good viewfinder, and I think theS4s are still the best for avoiding lens flares, which was especiallyimportant given our practical light sources,” he says. “I also appre-ciate the look the Cookes achieve — not as hard as Zeiss Primes butstill sharp.”

To calculate the values for the final transfer from color tomonochrome, Berger shot tests of every material used for décor and

Production Slate

The

Whi

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ers.Above: Klara (Maria-Victoria Dragus), Martin (Leonard Proxauf) and

other local children are caught eavesdropping on a round of policequestioning in a scene from The White Ribbon. Left: Theschoolteacher asks Klara and Martin for information.

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costumes. “I wanted to retain all informa-tion, from the darkest, deepest black to thelightest white,” he says, adding that setdesigner Christoph Kanter and costumedesigner Moidele Bickel were “outstandingcollaborators.”

Haneke wanted to avoid any feelingof warmth or nostalgia, two qualitiesfrequently associated with period pieces.Instead, the filmmakers opted for whatBerger describes as “a kind of modernlook,” although he readily concedes, “I

don’t know how to explain ‘modern’ otherthan to say it’s not nostalgic.”

In addition to examiningphotographs from the period, Berger stud-ied Ingmar Bergman’s black-and-whitecollaborations with Sven Nykvist, ASC, aswell as two more recent black-and-whitefilms, The Man Who Wasn’t There (AC Oct.’01), shot by Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC, andGood Night, and Good Luck (AC Nov. ’05),shot by Robert Elswit, ASC. He found Unfor-given (shot by Jack Green, ASC) and 1900

(shot by Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC) especiallyhelpful in terms of lighting night exteriorswith oil-based sources.

Berger used the B&B Cine ReflectLighting System, which he developed adecade ago in collaboration with lightingengineer Christian Bartenbach and theBartenbach Light Research Center, for all ofhis movie lighting. CRLS relies on a power-ful HMI source — Berger used eight 1.2KHMI Panibeams — and a series ofaluminum reflectors that redirect the light towherever it’s needed. The reflectors areadjustable, can be remotely controlled, andcome in a variety of textures that givespecific shape and quality to the light. Nodirect light ever hits the set. Even with adimmer on the ballast that reduces the lightby 50 percent, direct light usually is toostrong, says Berger. “It’s very much likeusing different lamps. Some [of the reflec-tors] are hard, and some are soft; some haveoptical surfaces, and some don’t. Evenmultiple reflections are possible. I alwaysuse the same source, a parallel beamer.”

With the exception of the pastor’shouse, which was built onstage in Leipzig,the sets for The White Ribbon were built orfound on location in Netzow, Germany. Oneof Berger’s favorite scenes finds the doctor’schildren, Anna (Roxane Duran) and Rudi(Miljan Chatelain), in their kitchen, talkingabout death. “It was twilight, and wemanaged a very decent fill light inside theroom from above — the CRLS was bounc-ing off the sound insulation in the ceiling.There were no lamps inside the room, onlytwo small reflectors beside the cameracreating a modest eyelight for Rudi and hisbacklight. We had another three reflectorsoutside the window sending light into theroom. By combining the CRLS and naturaldaylight and changing the sheets of ND gelon the windows, we were able to conveythe onset of twilight.”

A disturbing sequence in the filmshows Rudi wandering through his house inthe middle of the night, calling out for hissister. He walks down the stairs, through anunlit salon and then into the dining room,where a single oil lamp is burning. Still insearch of Anna, he goes back into the salonand then walks down a dark corridortoward the kitchen. The scene ends whenRudi opens a door into a brighter room and

Top: Dinner atthe home of

the town pastor(Burghart

Klaussner).Middle: The

town doctor(Rainer Bock)

and hisdaughter

(Roxane Duran).Bottom: Whiteribbons make

Klara andMartin stand

out in thechildren’s choir.


tried to constantly modulate the contrastbetween it and the dark.” In the roomwhere Rudi discovers his sister and father,Berger augmented the practical lamp with asmall source hidden in the corner anderased the extra shadow in post.

Referring to Haneke’s penchant fordark images, Berger laughs and comments,“Michael dislikes technical restrictions andhas a tendency to just ignore them. Thatmakes life not so easy for a director ofphotography. More light on a scene wouldgive me more information for postproduc-tion!”

One key scene in the film takes placeoutdoors, in bright sunshine. It’s a villagedance, where romance starts to blossombetween the town’s schoolteacher (Christ-ian Friedel) and Eva, a shy governess (LeonieBenesch). “No reflectors were neededbecause Eva’s white blouse was reflectiveenough,” says Berger. “With the cameramoving 360 degrees, there was no opportu-

nity to use lighting, anyway! My favoriteSteadicam operator, Jörg Widmer, justdanced along with the characters, and he isa very good dancer. Gerald had to sit atopa tall post in order to follow with thefocus.”

Later in the film, a distraught Evagoes to the teacher’s quarters to tell himshe has been fired. He tries to calm her byplaying his piano. A single oil lamp illumi-nates the room. “Again, the room wasdark,” says Berger. “How do you light?How do you handle the shadows that comefrom a single oil lamp? You need anothersource, but you can’t put one in without asecond shadow appearing. The answer waspostproduction. We used two 12-volt halo-gen lamps to bounce light onto the actors’faces, and we erased the double shadowsin post.”

All of the post work was done atListo Videofilm in Vienna. For the DI, thenegative was scanned at 4K on a North-

discovers his father (Rainer Bock) and Annain a compromising position. The suddenglare of light is startling, underscoring thescene’s shocking content.

“That was very difficult to do,”Berger recalls. “Haneke kept saying, ‘Darker,darker,’ and I couldn’t see anything in theviewfinder, and the camera was constantlymoving, following this invisible boy. Theentire scene was one long shot. The lenswas wide open, and I had to underexposeby 2 stops using 5219. It wouldn’t havebeen printable the analog way!”

Berger used three “beamers” to lightthe shot, producing a shimmer of moonlighton Rudi as he descends the stairs andmoves through a patch of light on the rug inthe hallway. A bit more light filters in hereand there, but overall, the scene is very dark.“Holding focus under such conditions is verychallenging, and my first assistant, GeraldHelf, did a masterful job,” notes Berger. “Thelittle boy is wearing a light nightshirt, and I

Clockwise from top right: Director Michael Haneke(center) and Steadicam operator Jörg Widmerprepare to film; Haneke works with actors ChristianFriedel (left) and Leonie Benesch as Christian Berger,AAC (background) sets up the shot; the churchinterior; the CRLS setup used outside the church.

Join a community of fresh artistic voices who share your passion for making stories come to life.Success in fi lmmaking is as much about teamwork as it is about creativity. The programs in Film, Video, and Broadcasting at NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies (NYU-SCPS) off er a unique opportunity to collaborate with a variety of like-minded and aspiring producers, directors, cinematographers, and editors, under the guidance and expertise of a faculty of industry professionals. Visit our website to view a gallery of student work.

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FILM, VIDEO,AND BROADCASTING


light; the color-correction was done on aBaselight 8; and the 2K filmout was done onan Arrilaser. Berger notes that colorist WilliWillinger did a “superb job.”

There is a visual consistency to all ofBerger’s work with Haneke. Some of theirstylistic hallmarks are long oners and anavoidance of wide angles. “Michael makesvery precise storyboards, with arrows indicat-ing movements to the right or left,” saysBerger. “He draws them himself on the backof each page of the script; the entire crewgets a copy.

“The camera is kept at eye level orslightly below, and it never moves on its own— moves are prompted by an action or evenby the finest gesture in an actor’s face,” headds. “The 32mm and 40mm lenses are ourstandard because Haneke prefers the normalhuman perspective. On rare occasions, we’lluse a 27mm or a 50mm. A fluid head allowsthe camera to ‘breathe’ with the actor. So-called static shots are never really static.There are always tiny movements, andthey’re led by the actors.”

Berger admits that things can getstressful on Haneke’s set. There were timeson The White Ribbon when “Haneke pushedme to the limit, but I have to thank him forthat, because you never fall back on yourrepertoire of easy solutions or old tricks. Eventhe most common problem becomes a newchallenge.”

To meet those challenges, he stresses,one needs a good crew — “people you cantrust absolutely.” In addition to the afore-mentioned collaborators, he puts gafferKimber Lee Jerrett and executive producerMichael Katz in that category. “Michael Katzis an extraordinarily sensitive productionleader, and that’s quite rare,” he observes.“We had some complex problems on thisproject, and he was able to handle all ofthem.”

TECHNICAL SPECS

Super 1.85:1 3-perf Super 35mmMoviecam CompactCooke S4 lensesKodak Vision3 500T 5219, 250D 5207Digital IntermediatePrinted on Kodak 2302

Through the Looking Glassby Jon D. Witmer

It’s a cold, rainy day when AC arrivesat The Bridge Studios in Vancouver, BritishColumbia, where director Terry Gilliam isleading cast and crew through the secondhalf of a turbulent shooting schedule on TheImaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. A fewmonths earlier, the production came to anabrupt halt when its star, Heath Ledger, diedmid-shoot. Ready to throw in the towel,Gilliam was ultimately convinced tocomplete the film by his daughter, producerAmy Gilliam, and cinematographer, NicolaPecorini. “Heath’s work [on the film] was sobloody good, and I felt it would have beentotally unfair to Terry and to the film thatHeath wanted to make to not finish it,” saysPecorini.

Ledger plays Tony, an apparentamnesiac who joins a traveling theatertroupe headed by Dr. Parnassus (Christo-pher Plummer), who is aided and abetted byhis daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole); his youngassistant, Anton (Andrew Garfield); and hislongtime friend and confessor, Percy (VerneTroyer). The band takes its horse-drawnwagon through London’s modern streets,pausing hither and yon to stage a showfueled by the doctor’s unbridled imagina-

tion. “We didn’t start with a story in mind; itwas just an idea of a traveling theater arriv-ing in a modern city and nobody payingattention to this extraordinary, wonderfullittle show,” says Gilliam, who penned thescreenplay with Charles McKeown. “I wasdigging through my drawers of ideas that I’dnever used, and we’d stick things in.”

Parnassus divides its time betweenthe real world and the surreal Imaginarium,located on the other side of a magic mirroron the wagon’s stage. Scenes set in the realworld were shot primarily on location inLondon, whereas everything set in theImaginarium was saved for stage work inVancouver. When Ledger died, the actor hadalready completed the London portion ofthe shoot, and jumping through the magicmirror offered Gilliam a reason to havethree different actors step into the role ofTony: Johnny Depp, Jude Law and ColinFarrell.

The Imaginarium reflects the mind ofthe individual inside it, so the interior land-scape shifts radically each time it appearsonscreen. To achieve the different vistas,Gilliam, Pecorini and visual-effects supervi-sors Richard Bain and John Paul Dochertyopted to shoot against greenscreen andbluescreen with certain physical set pieces.(At the end of the shooting schedule, the

Left to right: Percy (Verne Troyer), Anton (Andrew Garfield), Parnassus (ChristopherPlummer), Valentina (Lily Cole) and Tony (Heath Ledger) update their traveling-theater showin The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

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filmmakers also shot extensive model workat Bray Studios near Windsor, Berkshire inthe U.K.) When AC enters the stage, a man-made hill fills half the floor, with Law restingat the top next to a gnarled tree, his facedirtied and his neck in a noose. Some 50space lights have been rigged from thestage’s ceiling and run through a board forselective control of ambience, while Kino FloImage 80s line the perimeter to illuminatethe bluescreen, which hangs along all fourstage walls. “We’re shooting mostly at T3.5or T4, and the screen is around that level aswell,” says Pecorini. “I always make sure thevisual-effects guys are pleased with thenature of the screen, because they’re theones who actually have to manipulate it.

“The light is almost constantlymoving or changing colors when we’re inthe Imaginarium,” he continues. For exam-ple, after wrapping out the scene on the hill,the crew moves on to a sequence that willultimately be set in a computer-generated

valley with ladders reaching up into rapidlymoving clouds. To simulate the clouds’effect onstage, Pecorini explains, “I optedfor a big piece of diffusion, about 40 by 25feet, made of different layers of Visqueen fordifferent densities, with some holes in it. Inorder to float it without producing a hardshadow, we had to support it with some-thing that was transparent as well. We cameup with helium balloons that we filled withdifferent densities of smoke, and so wecreated a cloud on a leash that we couldmove in front of the lights.” In addition toplaying in front of the space lights, the“cloud” is also walked in front of a row offour Jumbo lights mounted on a cherrypicker for a directional source. Provided bythe Rome-based company Iride, each Jumbocontains 16 600-watt GE aircraft-landinglights.

The filmmakers’ references for theImaginarium sequences ranged frompainters like Maxfield Parrish and Odd

Nerdrum to illustrator Theodor Geisel, a.k.aDr. Seuss. To keep their ideas in order,Pecorini assembled his “bible,” whichincludes references, notes, sketches andother material. “I do a bible for everymovie,” he explains. “I learned very earlyon, even before I was a cinematographer,that a lot of things get said during prep andthen forgotten. The bible is a way of keep-ing track of those ideas. We also put in all ofthe technical pieces we need in a scene, soit becomes a bit like an enriched creativebreakdown.”

The bible became especially densefor Parnassus, whose short shooting sched-ule and tight budget necessitated detailedstoryboards for every visual effect. “Becausewe had to be so precise, Terry and I actuallystuck to the storyboards and the prevismuch more than we usually would,” saysPecorini. “We normally do all of thesepreparations, and then on the day, we dowhat we feel like.”

Left: A Visqueen “cloud” was used onstage for a lightingeffect in an Imaginarium-set sequence with Tony (JudeLaw). Right: Tony (Johnny Depp) guides a woman(Maggie Steed) through the Imaginarium while directorTerry Gilliam looks on.

➣


Pecorini shot all of the visual-effectssequences on Kodak Vision3 500T 5219.“5219 has certain advantages, such asmore information in the undertones, lessgrain and better blacks, but [Vision2 500T]5218 has very little grain, too, and I thoughtit was also a good fit. We shot London atnight with 18 because it cost a bit less, andwe shot day exteriors on [Vision3] 250D5207.”

The mirror that bridges the Imagi-narium and the real world sits in the middleof Parnassus’ portable stage, which foldsinto the side of his wagon. Productiondesigner Anastasia Masaro built twoversions of the wagon, one with the stageopen, and the other with it folded up (forscenes in which the wagon actually moves).For performances on the open stage,Gilliam recalls, “Nicola positioned a bunchof lightbulbs around the set. It was crude,but it was great. It needed the sense of alittle traveling theater without any sophisti-cated lighting.”

Inside the wagon’s cramped quar-ters, which serve as the troupe’s home,Pecorini incorporated those same stage

lights for illumination, generally using 100-watt bulbs wired to separate dimmers,although he would often switch to 60- or40-watt bulbs if they were prominent in theframe. “Very often I would take one of thoserows of bulbs out of shot and put it on amagic arm at the height I needed,” heexplains. “We also used some coveredwagons, which are about 1-foot long andhave one or two 60- or 100-watt bulbs ondimmers, and the result is like a small Chinaball. Those were very easy to position, andwe could even clip them to the curtains.”

As the wagon carries the troupeaway from a performance one dreary night,its riders find Tony (Ledger) hanging from a noose beneath Blackfriars Bridge. “Icouldn’t pound too much light therebecause it would have killed the back-ground, but at the same time, we wanted tosee the river,” says Pecorini. “There was noway to bring a crane in, so we went to theroof of a nearby building and set up twoDC16s and four DC8s — we rented themfrom Iride, and they’re like Mini-Brutes, with16 and eight 1,000-watt Par 64s. Then Imade sure the real lights on and under the

bridge were properly working, and I had myguys put spun glass on some of those tomake them softer.”

Many of London’s day exteriors werefilmed at Battersea Power Station, a crum-bling, open-air structure where Parnassus’troupe sets up camp between perfor-mances. To help shape London’s overcastskylight, Pecorini “lit from the outside withJumbo Lights, often through Grid, and othertimes through 250 or 251,” he says. “Inever went higher than ½ CTB in correc-tion.

“The DI is so much faster thanphotochemical timing for evening out a dayscene,” continues Pecorini, who did thedigital grade at Technicolor London withcolorist Paul Ensby. Gilliam has alsoembraced the DI process, noting, “I love itcompletely. Shoot on film — it’s still thebest medium for gathering the maximumamount of information — and then gostraight to digital. I don’t ever want to seefilm projected again! I love the DI becausewe can fix all the bits that didn’t quite go aswell as we’d liked in the rush of the dailyshoot. I don’t want to sit there and changethings; I just want to tidy things up a bit.”

Pecorini rented his camera package— which included two Arricam Lites andtwo Arri 435 Xtremes — from TechnovisionRome. “I’ve known them for 32 years, soI’m very good friends with them,” he says.“When we got to Vancouver, I spoke withDenny Clairmont, and he has a long historyof collaboration with Technovision, so weactually got complete technical supportfrom Clairmont Vancouver while we were inVancouver with Technovision Rome’scameras. I thank Denny for that.”

Clockwise from above:A cluster of Concorde

and Jumbo lights createa shaft of illumination

for a flashback in amonastery; Parnassus

strikes a deal with Mr.Nick (Tom Waits) in a

setting inspired bypainter Odd Nerdrum;

1st AC Dean Morin(left), Plummer (center)

and cinematographerNicola Pecorini get cozy

inside Parnassus’wagon.

➣

Pecorini chose a set of Arri/ZeissUltra Primes, and he admits to using longerfocal lengths than he usually does on aGilliam project — although the 14mmremains the director’s favorite. “We used alot of the 32mm, 40mm, and at times eventhe 50mm and 65mm because we had notime and had to achieve a lot of shots,”says Pecorini. “I was always operating theB camera handheld with a longer lens tostay out of the way of [London A-camera

operator] Pete Cavaciuti, who most of thetime was on a 14mm on the Steadicam.We also managed to sneak in quite a fewsetups with the wonderful 8mm RectilinearUltra Prime.” (Pecorini’s other key collabo-rators in London included gaffer PhilBrookes and best boy electric Joe Judge.His Vancouver crew included A-cameraoperator Jay Kohne, 1st AC Dean Morin,key grip Mike McLellan and gaffer StuartHaggerty.)

Considering the wide-angleapproach that has characterized all of theirwork since Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas(AC May ’98), Pecorini muses, “Terry and Ihave come to the conclusion that we apply‘cinematic democracy.’ When you seethings in real life, your eyes give you a verywide angle of vision, and you decide toconcentrate your attention on one thinginstead of another according to your needs,your views, your interests and whatever it is

Left: Gilliamsupervises the

setup of aflashback to

Parnassus’younger days.The “rotating

dingles” at leftcreate a sense

of motion onthe stationary

gondola.Right: Tony

(Colin Farrell)reflects upon

his latestvisage.

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that strikes you at the moment. Terry likesgiving that option to the audience; hedoesn’t like dictating what has to be seen.”

“I don’t seem to be able to stopmyself from putting on wider-anglelenses,” Gilliam admits. “I look through thecamera and say, ‘I want to see more.’ It’salmost as if I’m trying to climb inside thefilm. And I don’t like showing things inisolation — I don’t think of the world inthat way. Things are always in relation toother things, and I think those relationshipsare just as important as the thing itself.”

Long after AC ’s set visit, Gilliamlooks back over the arduous productionand observes, with marked relief, that thefinished film is “an utter miracle. It’s actu-ally the film we set out to make, but itseems to have made a few quantum leapsalong the way. It’s much more of a wildfreak show than we set out to do. One ofmy huge regrets is that I’ll never get to seethe film we would have made if Heath hadlived through the whole process, but whatwe achieved is just wonderful.”

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Gilliam (atcamera)checks theframe whileLedgercatches a rideon the backof Parnassus’wagon.

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Adecade in the making, James Cameron’s Avatar requiredfour years of production and some major advances incinema and 3-D technology in order to reach the screen.Cameron spent much of the decade exploring the 3-D

format on the hi-def Imax documentaries Ghosts of the Abyss(AC July ’03) and Aliens of the Deep (AC March ’05). On bothof those films, he partnered with Vince Pace of Pace HD, whoadapted two optical blocks from Sony’s F950 CineAlta HDcameras to create a 3-D camera with controllable interoculardistance and convergence.

With an eye on Avatar, Pace and Cameron refined their3-D digital camera system considerably over the course oftheir collaborations. “A feature-based camera system needed tobe quieter and react more quickly to interocular and conver-gence changes than our original system did,” says Pace. “Theoriginal system was perfectly suited to Imax but a bit more

challenged for a feature, especially a James Cameron feature!”The result of their refinements is the Fusion 3-D

Camera System, which incorporates 11 channels of motion:zoom, focus and iris for two lenses, independent convergencebetween the two cameras, interocular control, and mirrorcontrol to maintain the balance of the rig (especially forSteadicam). The system can also be stripped down to facilitatehandheld work. “We also devised a way to have more controlover the interocular distance — on Avatar, some shots weredown to 1⁄3-inch interocular, and others were all the way outto 2 inches,” Pace adds. “With all of those elements combined,you’ve got an intense 3-D system.”

The Fusion 3-D system can support a variety ofcameras. For Avatar, the production used three Sony models:the F950, the HDC1500 (for 60-fps high-speed work) and,toward the end of production, the F23. All of the cameras

ConqueringNewWorldsConqueringNewWorlds

Mauro Fiore,ASC helps JamesCameron envision

Avatar, a 3-Dscience-fictionadventure thatcombines high-definition video

and motioncapture.

by Jay Holben

•|•

www.theasc.com January 2010 33

have 2⁄3" HD chips and record imagesonto HDCam-SR tape, but on Avatar,they were also recording to Codex digi-tal recorders capable of synced simulta-neous playback, allowing thefilmmakers to preview 3-D scenes onlocation. “We used the traditional side-by-side configuration in certain circum-stances, but that’s too unwieldy forSteadicam work, so for that we createda beam-splitter version that comprisedone horizontally oriented camera and,above that, one perpendicularly orientedcamera, forming an inverted ‘L,’” saysPace. “However, there was a change inbalance when the camera shifted

convergence or interocular distance, sowe created a servo mechanism with acounterweight to keep the camera inperfect balance. This Steadicam config-uration also allowed us to get the inte-rocular distance down to a third of aninch. There was a tradeoff: we lost 2⁄3 ofa stop of light through the beam-split-ter’s glass. And for really wide shots, weneeded a larger beam-splitter mirror.With that rig, we were able to get aswide as 4.5mm [the equivalent of 15mmin 35mm], which I believe is unprece-dented in 3-D. The oversized mirrorwasn’t really conducive to handheldwork, so we kept it on a TechnocranePh

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Ex-Marine JakeScully (SamWorthington,opposite) goesnative after hisalien avatar is sentto the distantplanet Pandora,where he forges aclose bond withNa’vi princessNeytiri (ZoeSaldana, above).The pair ultimatelyconfront a humaninvasion led byCol. Quaritch(Stephen Lang,middle). Below:Mauro Fiore, ASCmans an HDcamera.


most of the time.”Avatar is set roughly 125 years in

the future. The story follows formerU.S. Marine Jake Scully (SamWorthington), a paraplegic who isrecruited to participate in the AvatarProgram on the distant planet Pandora,where researchers have discovered amineral, Unobtainium, that could helpsolve Earth’s energy crisis. BecausePandora’s atmosphere is lethal forhumans, scientists have devised a way tolink the consciousness of human“drivers” to remotely controlled biologi-cal bodies that combine human DNAwith that of Pandora’s native race, theNa’vi. Once linked to these “avatars,”humans can completely control the alienbodies and function in the planet’s toxicatmosphere. Scully’s mission is to infil-trate the Na’vi, who have become anobstacle to the Unobtainium-miningoperation. After Scully arrives onPandora, his life is saved by a Na’viprincess, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and hisavatar is subsequently welcomed intoher clan. As their relationship deepens,Scully develops a profound respect forthe Na’vi, and he eventually leads acharge against his fellow soldiers in anepic battle.

For the film’s live-action work,Cameron teamed with Mauro Fiore,

◗ Conquering New Worlds

Theparaplegic

Scully regainsthe ability to

walk after hisconsciousnessis transferred

into a Na’viavatar.


ASC, whose credits include TheKingdom, Tears of the Sun and The Island(AC Aug. ’05). “Jim saw The Island andTears of the Sun, and he was apparentlyimpressed with the way I’d treated thejungle and foliage scenes in both films,”says Fiore. “They brought me in for athree-hour interview, and [producer]Jon Landau walked me through thewhole 3-D process, the motion-captureimages, the promos and trailers theyhad done. The next day, I had a 30-minute interview with Jim, and we hit itoff. They were already deep intoproduction on the motion-capturestages in Playa del Rey, [Calif.,] andthey were preparing to shoot the live-action footage in New Zealand.”

The technology employed onAvatar enabled Cameron to design thefilm’s 3-D computer-generated envi-ronments (created by Lightstorm’s in-house design team) straight from hisimagination. By the time Fiore joinedthe show, the director had been workingfor 18 months on motion-capturestages, shooting performances withactors who would be transformed intoentirely CG characters. Glenn Derry,Avatar’s virtual-production supervisor,contributed a number of innovations

that helped Cameron achieve what hewanted. With all of the locations pre-built in Autodesk MotionBuilder and allof the CG characters constructed, Derrydevised a system that would compositethe motion-capture information intothe CG world in real time. He explains,“With motion-capture work, the direc-tor usually completes elaborate previsshots and sequences, shoots the actorson the motion-capture stage, and thensends the footage off to post. Then,visual-effects artists composite the CG

characters into the motion-captureinformation, execute virtual cameramoves and send the footage back to thedirector. But that approach just wasn’tgoing to work for Jim. He wanted to beable to interact in real time with the CGcharacters on the set, as though theywere living beings. He wanted to be ableto handhold the camera in his style andget real coverage in this CG world.

“Jim used two main tools to real-ize his virtual cinematography,” contin-ues Derry. “One was a handheld ‘virtual

A virtualdiagram showsa pair of“remoteresearchstations” thatwere built in aformerMitsubishifactory in NewZealand. GafferChris Cullitonexplains,“Because wehad theseexact virtualmodels of thewarehouse andthe sets, wewere able todesign and testthe lightingandgreenscreenweeks beforewe arrived inWellington. Asyou can see, onthe real set wedecided to gowith 24-lightDino softboxesrather than20Ks on therolling truss;the ability tochange thebulbs and thediffusionallowed usmore optionsfor a soft,ambient push.Between theDinos, we alsohung 10K beamprojectors tocreate a hard,warm sunfeeling whereneeded.”


camera,’ which was essentially a monitorwith video-game-style controls on itwhose position was tracked in space.Using the virtual camera during the mo-cap portion of the shoot, Jim could seethe actors who were wearing mo-capsuits as the characters they were playing.For example, by looking through thevirtual camera, he’d see Neytiri, the 9-foot-tall Na’vi, instead of Zoe Saldana.He’d operate the virtual camera like aregular camera, with the added benefit ofbeing able to scale his moves to lay downvirtual dolly tracks and so on. Forinstance, if he wanted to do a crane shot,he’d say, ‘Make me 20-to-1,’ and whenhe held the camera 5 feet off the floor,that would be a 100-foot-high crane.

“The other tool was theSimulCam, a live-action camera withposition reflectors that could be read bymo-cap cameras,” continues Derry. “Itsuperimposed the CG world and char-acters into the live-action photographyby tracking the position of the live-action camera and creating a virtualcamera in the CG world in the sameplace. The two images were compositedtogether live and sent to the monitors onthe set [as a low-resolution image].” Forexample, when Cameron was shooting ascene in a set involving an actor and aCG Na’vi, if he tilted the camera downto the actor’s feet, the viewfinder wouldshow not only the actor’s feet, but alsothe Na’vi’s feet, the entire CG environ-ment and the CG details outside the set,such as action visible through windows.All of this could be seen in real timethrough the SimulCam’s viewfinder andon live monitors on the set, allowing thehuman actors to interact directly withthe CG characters and enablingCameron to frame up exactly what hewanted.

“With the SimulCam, you don’thave to imagine what will be compositedlater — you’re actually seeing all of thepre-recorded CG background anima-tion,” says Derry. “So if you want to startthe shot by following a ship landing inthe background and then settle on youractor in the frame, you can do that in realtime, as if it’s all happening in front of

Top andmiddle: AfterScully tames

a flyingBanshee on

Pandora (top),Neytiri shows

him how tomount the

beast. Below:Saldana takesa ride on the

motion-capture stage.


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you. On every take, the CG elementsare going to replay exactly as they’vebeen designed, and you can shoothowever you want within that world.”

Because the SimulCam becomesa virtual camera in a virtual world, it canbe placed anywhere in space. Standingmore than 9' tall, the Na’vi are largerthan humans by a ratio of 1.67:1. IfCameron wanted a shot to be at theNa’vi’s eye level, he would ask the

system operator to make him 1.67:1,which would reset Cameron’s height tothat level. In other words, he couldcontinue to handhold the camera on thereal stage floor while “standing” at aheight of 9' in the virtual world. “Jimused the SimulCam as a kind of virtualviewfinder to direct the performancesand get the shots he wanted, and then,in post, we’d tweak things further,” saysDerry. “We could redo the art direction

Quaritch talksto Scully

while testingan Armored

MobilityPlatform suit.This sequence

was shot inthe formerMitsubishifacility in

New Zealand,where

Culliton andkey grip

Richard Mallcreated theillusion of a

100'-tallspace byhanging

greenscreenteasers ofdifferent

lengths, whichhid the lightfixtures andthe real 22'

ceiling.



of the set by moving a tree, moving amountain, or adjusting the position of aship or the background players. For Jim,it’s all about the frame; what’s in theframe tells the story.”

Virtual camera operator AnthonyArendt, who also operated the Fusioncameras alongside Cameron in the L.A.unit, recalls, “After Jim was happy withhis takes from the SimulCam, they werestill far from ready to send to Weta. Wescreened every shot in 3-D with him in

a theater nicknamed ‘Wheels andStereo,’ and he gave us meticulous noteson every aspect of the shots. He gave thevirtual artist notes on the overall sceneand all of its detail; he gave stereogra-pher Chuck Comiski notes on the 3-D;and he gave me specific notes on thecamera moves. Because the recordedmotion-capture images lack depth-of-field, he also gave me detailed notes ondepth-of-field cues that would helpWeta down the line. We treated depth-

of-field as if we were shooting with oneof the 3-D Fusion cameras.

“As the project progressed, wefigured out ways to give Jim’sSimulCam shots the specific feel ofdifferent moves: Steadicam, Techno-crane, handheld and so on. We could dothat a number of different ways,depending on how the shot started andwhat Jim wanted to end up with. In thetheater, we’d play back Jim’s SimulCamshots through MotionBuilder and then


Military helicopters fire their missiles into Pandora’s toxic atmosphere. The “staggeredteasers” strategy was also employed for these greenscreen shots.

re-operate the shots according to hisnotes. He was very specific. For example,he gave me a note that said he wanted ashot from one of the Scorpion gunshipsto feel like it was shot from a Tylermount, not a Spacecam. His attention todetail was mindblowing!”

After 18 months of motioncapture, Cameron brought in Fiore toshoot live-action footage onstage atStone Street Studios in Wellington, NewZealand. “About 70 percent of the movieis motion capture, and the rest is live-action,” says Fiore. “Although themotion-capture work was mostlyfinished, the actual look of the film wasyet to be created. The footage we shot inNew Zealand ultimately defined theoverall style of the movie.”

Because all of the sets were createdin MotionBuilder long before any physi-cal construction began, Fiore was able totake a virtual tour of the sets and plan hisapproach. “We spent a good month inLos Angeles laying out the lighting planin the virtual sets,” the cinematographerrecalls. “We were able to position specificfixtures and see exactly what it would doin the environment. We had accuratemeasurements of the real stages, so weknew where we had to work around lowceilings or support beams, for example,and we could solve those problems wellbefore we ever set foot on the stages inNew Zealand. We also spent a great dealof time blocking scenes on the virtualsets. Basically, all of our tech scouts weredone virtually.”

This process revealed a problemthat Fiore and his gaffer, Chris Culliton,would confront in the Armor Bay set. Amassive armory on Pandora, this setpiece would stand 100' tall and holdhundreds of Armored Mobility Platformsuits, large, robot-like devices that thesoldiers can control. In reality, the set wasconstructed in a former Mitsubishifactory in New Zealand, and only twoAMP suits were made, one functionaland one purely for set dressing. The ceil-ings in the factory were just 22' high, sothe rest of the set had to be created digi-tally. “The challenge was that a lot of theshots in the Armor Bay were looking up



Top: Scullymakes his way

throughPandora’s

jungle foliagewhile trailedby Dr. Grace

Augustine(Sigourney

Weaver).Middle:

Director JamesCameron

offersWorthington

and Weaver ademonstration

of propermilitary

technique onthe motion-

capture stage.Bottom:

Worthingtonjumps a horse

also coveredwith mo-cap

sensors.

at this great expanse of a 100'-tall loca-tion that simply didn’t exist — we werelooking up into our lighting fixtures andthe ceiling,” says Culliton. “We had tofind a way to light from above yet stillhave a greenscreen up there so the restof the set could be added later.”

To solve the problem, Cullitonand key grip Richard Mall took a cuefrom the theater world and hung green-screen teasers of different lengths fromthe ceiling. The teasers were hung inbetween the rigging; the lights wereclear to illuminate the set, but from thecamera position, the teasers hid thefixtures. “We hung the teasers perpen-dicular to the ceiling, covering roughly150 feet of ceiling space, with about 6 to10 feet of space between each teaser,”says Culliton. “If you stood in the cornerand looked up, it appeared as a singlepiece of greenscreen. On the cameraside, between the teasers, we hung KinoFlos to light the green; we’d normallyuse green-spike tubes for greenscreen,but because of the lights’ proximity tothe actors and the set, we went withstandard tungsten tubes. To light theset, we hung 10Ks gelled with 1⁄2 CTB,and we had about 50 10-degree SourceFour Lekos gelled with 1⁄4 CTB and 1⁄4

Hampshire Frost hanging between theteasers. Those gave us little hits andhighlights throughout the set.”

Greenscreen, in abundant supplyon the shoot, was often placed close toactors and set pieces for particularcomposite effects, which led to concernsabout green spill. Fortunately, whiletouring the Weta Digital facility, Fiorefound a solution with the help of fellowASC member Alex Funke. “We wentover to visit with Alex, who shoots theminiatures for all of Weta’s work, and heshowed us this 3M Scotchlite material,the same highly reflective material that’sused in traffic signs and safety clothing.He put it around the miniatures and litthem with ultraviolet light, whichallowed him to pull really clean matteswithout corrupting the rest of the set.”

Using standard black-lightfixtures, Fiore and his team beganattaching the Scotchlite material to

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specific aspects of a set or environmentthat would need to be replaced in post.Nearby, they would hide a small UVblack-light fixture, which would retro-reflect the bright green from theScotchlite back to the camera withoutaffecting the area around it. “In somesituations, we also used green UV painton various surfaces to achieve the sameresults,” notes Fiore. “These areas weresmall enough that we could light themwith small sources. A 12-inch or 24-inch black-light tube was really all weneeded.”

The UV technology was alsoapplied to the avatar booths, tight,coffin-like enclosures that resembleMRI equipment. After a soldier liesdown on a table, he is inserted into thebooth, where his consciousness isprojected into the body of his alienavatar. Circling around the opening ofthese machines is a spinning display ofcolored liquid (a CG effect). Becausethe CG area was very close to the actorsand other set components, Fiore usedthe UV paint on the rim of the machineto prevent spill and create a clean mattefor the CG work.

At the onset of principal photog-raphy in New Zealand, a dailies trailerincorporating two NEC NC800C digi-tal projectors was set up so the filmmak-ers could view each shot in 3-D as it wascompleted. Playing back the recordedfootage via a synchronized feed from aCodex digital recorder, Cameron andFiore could experience the 3-D effectson location and refine them as needed,shot-by-shot. “We called it ‘the pod,’”Fiore recalls. “In the beginning, we werechecking on nearly every shot to makesure the lighting was solid and theconvergence and interocular werecorrect. It was a very laborious way tostart working, but it was necessary. Thecameras themselves were a bit finicky inthe beginning, and sometimes gettingthem to match up was a challenge. Ifone was even slightly off in terms offocus, the whole effect was ruined.”

Avatar was Fiore’s first digitalfeature — he had shot a commercial onHD — and his first foray into 3-D.


Virtual-production supervisor Glenn Derry (top) aims the SimulCam, which allowed the filmmakersto shoot live motion-capture footage and immediately see a low-resolution version of the CG

animation on a monitor (middle). Bottom: Cameron and Fiore review their work on set.

“One of the things that was really trickyfor me was the 2⁄3-inch-chip 3-Dcameras’ extended depth-of-field,” hesays. “It’s a lot like the depth-of-fieldyou get with 16mm. It’s really difficultto throw things out of focus and helpguide the audience’s eye. Shallowdepth-of-field is an interesting dilemmain 3-D, because you need to see thedepth to lend objects a dimensionality,but if you have too much depth-of-fieldand too much detail in the background,your eye wanders all over the screen, andyou’re not sure what to look at. I had tofind new ways to direct the audience’seye to the right part of the frame, andwe accomplished that through lightingand set dressing. We strove to minimizethe distractions in the background. Ilearned that if I controlled the degree oflight falloff in the background, I couldhelp focus the viewer’s attention wherewe wanted it. Instead of working withcircles-of-confusion, I had to createdepth-of-field through contrast andlighting levels, which was a really funchallenge.

“Once we started shooting, wequickly discovered that highlights in thebackground were a problem, becausedepending on the convergence of thescene, two distinct images of that high-light might diverge, creating a ghosting

effect that was very distracting,” contin-ues Fiore. “Even a practical fluorescentcould cause a problem. I tried a fewexperiments, like putting polarizing gelon the highlight sources and a Pola onthe lens and then trying to dial themout, but as soon as the camera moved,the effect was gone. So I had to bring insmoke, where I could, to bring downthe contrast.”

Fiore also had to rethink hisapproach to composition. “Anytimeyou’re in a position where one lens isobstructed by an object and the otherisn’t — say, when you’re shooting oversomeone’s shoulder or through a door-way — you get into a situation your eyescan’t comfortably handle in 3-D.Whenever we got into that type of situ-ation, we had to be very careful toensure both lenses were seeing both theobstruction and the clear view.”

Because so much of the film’sworld is virtual, Fiore was constantlymatching interactive lighting withelements that would be comped intothe image in post. An example of this isa plasma storm that takes place onPandora. “What is a plasma storm? Noone knows — it’s all inside Jim’s head!”Fiore exclaims with a laugh. “We had tofigure out a way to create a fantasticevent that no one had ever seen before.

45

One of Pandora’s fearsome creatures, a Thanator, takes Scully by surprise.

In the scene, Scully is in a remotescience lab with Dr. Augustine[Sigourney Weaver], and they see thestorm happening outside the windows.We had to find a way to create the effectof the storm on their faces.” He turnedto the DL.2, a DMX-controlled LCDprojector that acts like an automatedlight source. By utilizing a preset “anom-alous” pattern in the DL.2 and project-

ing the image through Hampshire Frostonto the actor’s faces, Fiore achieved aunique look for the storm’s lightingeffects.

Interactive lighting was alsocrucial for selling process shots insidevehicles, such as the military helicoptersthat swarm around Pandora. “The heli-copters were built on a gimbal system,”says Culliton. “The gimbals were strong

and capable of some good movement,but they only created about 15 degreesof pitch and roll. Jim’s paramountconcern is realism, and helicopters movea lot more than 15 degrees, especially onmilitary maneuvers. When they turn,they turn very quickly. We had to find away to represent that speed and velocitythrough light.” Fiore explains, “We puta 4K HMI Par on the end of a 50-footTechnocrane arm and used the arm’sability to telescope and sweep around toget the feeling of movement in the heli-copters. When the helicopter turned,that sunlight would move through thecockpit, throwing shadows from themullions onto the faces of the actors. Byexploiting the Technocrane’s arm, wecould quickly zip the light from one endto the other and create the impression offast movement.”

Because the light was positionedon a remote head controlled by standardcamera wheels, Fiore asked his cameraoperators to control the light. To assist


46

Augustineexamines

mission datawith Scully,

Spellman(Joel Moore,

right) andChacon

(MichelleRodriguez,

background).

the operator, a small lipstick camera wasmounted to the Par and fed back to theoperator’s monitor, allowing him tooperate the lamp just like a camera; hecould aim the beam precisely whereFiore wanted it to hit the helicopters.

For the climactic sequence, inwhich a human army descends onPandora to attack the Na’vi, the stages atWellington weren’t large enough to holdthe construction crane required to dropa mock helicopter full of soldiers.Instead, the production moved outsideto the parking lot, setting the sceneagainst a 400'-wide-by-50'-high curvedgreenscreen (built out of industrial ship-ping containers faced with plywood andpainted chroma green). The sequencetakes place during the day, but Cameroninsisted it be shot night-for-day. “At firstI thought he was insane,” recalls Fiore.“But when I thought about it, I realizedit made a lot of sense. We had to be ableto completely control the light withoutworrying about sun direction or cloud

coverage. As crazy as it might seem toshoot an outdoor day scene at night, itwas the right decision.”

Two 100-ton construction craneswere positioned to hold a lighting trussover the outdoor set. (A third cranesupported the helicopter.) “We built a60-by-40-foot truss structure completewith grid and walkways,” says Culliton.“We basically turned the outdoors intoa working greenbed! Above the truss,we suspended a 100K SoftSun througha large frame of Light Grid and ¼ Blue,mimicking the ambience of thePandoran sky. We also hung a combina-tion of 7K and 4K Xenons and 4KHMI beam projectors to get shafts ofdaylight through the vegetation, whichwas added later.”

“This entire production wasextraordinary, the most extraordinaryexperience of my career so far,” saysFiore. “The challenge for me, and whatreally got me excited about the film, wasto use the tools to tell the story in the

best way possible. It required a lot ofexperimentation and a reinterpretationof how I deal with composition andlighting. There were times when it wasa miserable experience, but I know thateverything from here on out is going tobe a lot easier! If you’re going to delveinto new technology and a new world,Jim Cameron is the guy to do it with.”

●

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1.78:1

High-Definition Video

Sony F950, HDC1500, F23;SimulCam

Canon zoom lenses

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47


Astory centered on the brutal murder of a 14-year old girlwouldn’t seem likely to yield a film for the whole family,but that was exactly director Peter Jackson’s intent withThe Lovely Bones, an adaptation of Alice Sebold’s 2002

novel. “I wanted to make a film my daughter could see, a filmwith hopeful things to say about life after death,” saysJackson. A coming-of-age story with a significant twist, thefilm is narrated by Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) after she ismurdered by a neighbor, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci).Unable to accept her own death, Susie is caught “in between,”in a kind of limbo between heaven and earth. “The book iswritten from Susie’s point-of-view, and she has a very strong,powerful voice,” says Jackson. “Her journey is reclaiming her

life from the man who killed her. How she escapes the label‘Susie Salmon, murder victim’ is the thrust of the film.”

Susie watches over her family as they struggle to copewith her death, which eventually shatters her parents’marriage. “The poignancy of the film is that Susie stays 14while her family grows older,” says Jackson. “Through theSalmon family, we see the years pass. When Susie is killed, in1973, her younger sister, Lindsey [Rose McIver], is 12, and bythe film’s conclusion, Lindsey is almost 20 and expecting ababy.”

The Lovely Bones is Jackson’s fifth collaboration withdirector of photography Andrew Lesnie, ASC, ACS, follow-ing the Lord of the Rings trilogy (AC Dec. ’01, Dec. ’02 and

Watchful Spirit

Andrew Lesnie,ASC, ACS

reteams withPeter Jackson on

The LovelyBones, in whicha murdered teentracks her killer.

by Simon Gray

•|•


Jan. ’04) and King Kong (AC Dec. ’05).“Apart from great skills and ideas, thevery best working relationships arethose based on trust and friendship,”notes the director. “Andrew and I haveworked together enough that the basicsdon’t have to be discussed. What wetalk about is the new ideas we want tobring into a particular project.”

Principal photography was sched-uled over three separate shoots. Thefilmmakers first shot on location inPennsylvania from late summer 2007through the following winter, takingfull advantage of the region’s dramaticchange of seasons. The set for the inte-rior of the Salmon house was also builtand shot during this stage of theproject. Lesnie’s key crew comprisedgaffer Jay Fortune, key grip GeorgePatsos, camera/Steadicam operatorKyle Rudolph and 1st ACs CarlosGuerra, Bobby Mancuso and MichaelAsa Leonard.

“Norristown, Pennsylvania, in1973 was a very particular pocket ofAmerica with a very specific culture,and I wanted to make sure we capturedthat completely,” says Jackson. One ofthe main requirements for thePennsylvania locations was that theyPhot

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Opposite:Susie(SaoirseRonan)approaches alighthouse inan “in-between”sequencethat leads toa grislydiscovery.This page,top: Susieand herfather, Jack(MarkWahlberg),bond in hisstudy.Middle:AndrewLesnie, ASC,ACS lines upa shot in theset withPeter Jackson(foreground).Bottom:GeorgeHarvey(StanleyTucci), Susie’smurderer, isseldomshown in fullview in thefilm.


have geographical proximity, especiallythe Salmons’ and Harvey’s homes.“That’s very important to the underly-ing sense of unease,” notes Jackson. “It’sdisturbing that Susie’s missing,presumed murdered, and Susie and theaudience are the only ones who knowit’s the guy living four doors down. Heeven has all the evidence of her murder,including her body, in his house.”

The cornfield where Susie’skidnapping and murder take place liesbetween the safety of the school andher house — Harvey, almost withinplain sight, has dug a small room underthe cornfield. Susie leaves school lateone afternoon, and as she walks acrossthe field towards home, she drops oneof her books, and a note from a boy shehas arranged to meet falls out andblows across the field. As she giveschase, the camera reveals Harvey,standing in the middle of the otherwiseempty field. He attempts to persuadeSusie to climb down into the under-ground room, which he has furnishedwith toys. Initially reluctant, she isfinally won over when Harvey tauntsher that the other kids will see it first.

Set in the late afternoon, thescene was filmed over two days in avariety of weather conditions. Lesniecombined a cool ambience (KodakVision2 200T 5217 with an 81EF filteron the lens) with warm tungsten light-ing in the background to provide sepa-ration. “From the cornfield, you can seethe school soccer field and some of theneighborhood houses,” he explains.“Jay’s crew rigged 10 unsnooted MolePars on each of four poles surroundingthe soccer field, and we also had tung-sten light — a mix of Nine-light Maxisand 2K and 5K Fresnels — emanatingfrom the nearby houses.”

Some time later, in a night scene,Susie is shown escaping from Harvey’sunderground room and running acrossthe cornfield. (It is, in fact, her spiritthat has escaped.) Lesnie lit the scenewith 12K Pars on two 135' Condors,with smaller HMIs and tungstensources backlighting the naturallyoccurring mist. He recalls, “Saoirse

◗ Watchful Spirit

Top: Harveykeeps an eye

on his prey.Middle: Susie

comes face-to-face with

Harvey on herway home

from school.Bottom:Harvey

successfullylures the girl

into hisunderground

toy room.


came out of that hole at full pelt, and Ifilmed her from the back of a quad-bike, handholding the camera. It was arough ride over an area the size ofseveral football fields. Letting her runin the semi-darkness or having herbacklit for sections of it was fine,because the shadows are telling thestory as much as the highlights.”

Lesnie’s main cameras wereArricam Lites and Arri 435s, and heregarded Angenieux Optimo zoomlenses, particularly the T2.6 15-40mm,as invaluable on the shoot. “We shotthe majority of the film on that lens.The 15mm end is nice and wide, andthe 40mm is close enough to get into ahead-and-shoulders frame size withouttoo much distortion. If I chose to ridethe zoom during a shot, we had thatoption.” (The production also carriedT2.6 17-80mm and 24-290mmAngenieux Optimos, as well as a set ofArri Ultra Primes.)

To capture scenes in a localshopping mall, the production tookover the MacDade Mall in Holmes,Pa., where only two shops were in use.Knowing Jackson’s predilection forroaming with a freewheeling camera,Lesnie established an unobtrusivehigh-level ambience in the shoppingcenter using practicals and fakeskylights created by productiondesigner Naomi Shohan. “I noticedduring the location scouts that some ofthe malls had skylights providing stabsof sunlight that livened everything up,”he recalls. This mall’s ceiling containedhalogen lamps with a green spike, andthe narrow ceiling space precludedhanging lamps. Fortune and Shohandevised what Lesnie describes as “aningenious solution.” He explains, “Weselected sections down the length of themall from which to remove the ceilingpaneling. The art department thenbuilt a circular structure made out ofsolid polystyrene that was attached tothe metal section of the roof. Wecrammed as many Image 80s and otherKino Flos as we could into the circle.”An egg crate helped focus the lightwhile maintaining its softness. The

Top: Preparing anight shoot inthe cornfield.Middle: Harveychecks on hissecret room.Bottom (fromleft): 1st ACColin Deane,cameraoperatorCameronMcLean, Lesnie,1st AC DeanMcCarroll andstillsphotographerPierre Vinetcapture Harveyat home.Stretched-muslin ceilingshelped theteam reducelightingtechnology inhouse interiors.

mall’s halogen lights were switched off,and the rest of the sources — practicalsand household fluorescents — were “acomplete mish-mash of color tempera-tures, with pools of what appeared to bedaylight coming through skylights,”says Lesnie. He kept lights off the floor,using the ambience in the mall to allow


long Steadicam, handheld and craneshots.

In keeping with the style ofhouses in southeast Pennsylvania, theSalmon and Harvey homes featuresmall rooms and low ceilings. “Peterlikes to choreograph scenes on themove — busy, chaotic family scenes

such as the kids getting ready for schoolthat roll from one room to the next,”notes Lesnie. “In order to reduce theamount of lighting technology in theset, we put up stretched-muslin ceilingpieces, which are light and look solid.They allowed us to add more fill ifrequired and provided easy access forother departments.”

For daylight scenes in theSalmon house, 5Ks and 10Ks werehung on TransLite rails outside the set,and at least one lamp was put in placefor each window. “It was very easy toslide the lamps into position, andbecause all the light was coming fromoutside, Peter could design complexchoreography inside,” says Lesnie.“The set became energized, and every-one got into a good working rhythm.”For night scenes, space lights hungaround the windows gave a soft bluerim on the window ledges, while prac-ticals and Jem balls illuminated theinteriors. “We used Jem balls all thetime for ambient light or to replicatethe light from the practicals,” saysLesnie. “They’re great lights — soft,compact and dimmable.”

In a particularly poignant scene,

Top: A gazebofigures

prominentlyin Susie’s “in

between,”serving as a

motif for hervarying

emotionalstates.

Bottom: Thefilmmakersprepare to

shoot onlocation in

New Zealand.

◗ Watchful Spirit


Susie’s father, Jack (Mark Wahlberg),sees her ghost reflected in the windowof his study, where he and Susie hadspent hours putting model ships inbottles. To replicate the light from thecandle Jack is holding, Lesnie used arod holding peanut globes that hadbeen dipped in orange ink. “Therewasn’t enough space between Mark andthe window to get a normal light in,” heexplains. “I could simply hold the wandin the right position so the lightappeared to come from the candle.”

Several of the bulbs were constantly on,and others pulsated through a chaser.

After taking a break forChristmas, the filmmakers resumedproduction at Stone Street Studios inWellington, New Zealand, where theyshot interiors such as Harvey’s under-ground room, his house, and someadditional scenes in the Salmon house.Lesnie’s crew for this leg of the shootincluded gaffer David Brown, key gripDion Hartley, operator/Steadicamoperator Cameron McLean, A-camera

1st AC Colin Deane and B-camera 1stAC Dean McCarroll. The third andfinal part of the shoot, also shot in NewZealand, involved Susie’s “in-between”sequences, a mix of studio and locationwork. For that material, the gaffer wasDanny Williams, the key grip wasTony Keddy, and the camera crewcomprised McLean, Deane and B-camera 1st AC Brenden Holster.

Harvey’s underground room is“not much bigger than a walk-incloset,” says Lesnie. “To get a master ofthe scene, I used a Libra head on a 15-foot GF modular crane looking up asSusie and Harvey come down theladder, then pulling back to see theentire room. We shot the rest of thescene with two handheld cameras.”The set is adorned with candles, whichLesnie augmented with dyed peanutbulbs hidden behind various ornamentsand wooden beams. The only otherlight was a 2' 4-bank Kino Flo gelledwith 1⁄2 CTO, with barn doors andblackwrap cutting spill. “Ideally, Iwould have kept the shadows towardscamera, but the space was prohibitive,so I kept the Kino right on the floor,”says Lesnie.

Above: Jackthinks he catches

a glimpse of hismissing daughter

in his studywindow. Right:

(from left) GafferJay Fortune,

Lesnie andJackson sit in

what Lesnie calls“the only safe

place during anexpansive

Steadicam shotaround the

Salmonhousehold.”

◗ Watchful Spirit

➣

A MEMBER OF THE ARRI RENTAL GROUP

Florida • Los Angeles • New Jersey • New York • North Carolina

www.arricsc.com

Cinematography by

Andrew Lesnie ACS, ASC

THE LOVELY BONES

Cameras & lenses

from


Although The Lovely Bones hasan overall tone of hope, Harvey is itsdark heart. “The audience learns whokilled Susie very early on,” says Jackson.“There’s no revealing the mystery, butwe do tease in the sense that we onlysee Harvey’s face for the first time whenSusie does. In a flashback scene, whenHarvey initially meets the Salmonfamily, we use various techniques to notreveal him — we see him in soft focus,or he’s obscured by foreground objects,such as flowers. Inside his own house,he is often lit almost in silhouette.”

As the years go by, Susie discov-ers she isn’t Harvey’s only victim; he is

actually a serial killer. In one of her “in-between” scenes, she is drawn toward alighthouse, and when she enters it, it’sHarvey’s house, and she is bombardedwith imagery of the other victims.Rather than undertaking a complicatedvisual-effects sequence, Jackson wantedthe encounters to happen in real time,with no cuts. “I wanted to blendHarvey’s house with the sites wherehe’d dumped the bodies: a swamp, aditch, underneath the floorboards, in anold shack, and underneath a freeway,”says Jackson. “I wanted to be able tofilm Susie in Harvey’s kitchen, then panacross and suddenly be in the swamp,

then pan back to be back in thekitchen. It was an idea that was almostimpossible to explain — the only wayto do it was to actually do it.

“Naomi Shohan worked it all outand built a fantastic set blending thehouse with the exterior locations,” hecontinues. “It was strangely simple:there’s a kitchen, and when the wall ranout, the set became a concrete freewayupright, then an old garbage heap witha body in it. At one point, Susie walksdown the stairs and trips and falls, andas she rolls out the bottom of the stairs,she keeps on rolling down into a ditchthat was built for real.” Lesnie notes,“Some of the transitions required light-ing changes from a house interior towhatever situation Susie found herselfin, in this case a ditch in the middle ofthe night that was moonlit and verydark.”

Much of the spectacular imageryin Susie’s “in between” is CGI createdby Weta Digital, but several elementswere live-action. “That imageryexpresses Susie’s subconscious desiresand changes depending on her mood,”explains Lesnie. Strange as it maysound, the object that links her “inbetween” with the real world is agazebo. The idea for this specific visual

Above: One ofJack’s ships-in-a-bottle takes

on surrealdimensions in

Susie’s “inbetween.”

Bottom:Filming in abarley field

that providedelements foranother “in-

between”sequence.

◗ Watchful Spirit

motif came about when Lesnie andJackson were scouting locations inPennsylvania. “We saw quite a fewgazebos on the corners, and we thoughtit was a great vehicle for Susie to travelto different places in and could itselfbecome a visual motif of her emotionalstates,” recalls Lesnie. Jackson adds,“She comes to realize that the gazeborepresents hope — when she’s killed,she is about to have her first date, andthe boy was going to meet her at thegazebo in the local shopping mall.When she feels alone and afraid, thegazebo is a refuge for her.”

Jack comes to suspect Harvey forhis daughter’s murder, and in one scene,he runs into the cornfield at nightbecause he thinks Harvey is destroyingevidence; Jack enters the field armedwith a baseball bat, only to run afoul ofa large teenager ( Jack Abel) with hisgirlfriend. To capture the scene, thefilmmakers built a large section of thecornfield onstage and used twocameras, one on a Technocrane thatfollowed Wahlberg and rose to revealthe entire field, and the other on a dolly

capturing Wahlberg in profile.“Because Susie wants to prevent Jackfrom pursuing his course of action, weneeded to keep her presence close tohim without letting her leave thegazebo,” says Lesnie. “Since we’re view-ing events from Susie’s perspective, wecould change the shape of the gazeboto allow her to run with her father, sowe physically reconfigured the gazebointo a long deck. In order to externalizeher state of mind, we made the land-scape quite violent; we had Dinossimulating firelight and LightningStrikes units buried in the cornfield.”

Early in her travels through her“in between,” Susie meets Holly (NikkiSooHoo), a teenager and fellow victimwho becomes a friend and roommate ofsorts. This sequence was shot in a forestin Glenorchy, on New Zealand’s SouthIsland, in the region’s 2008 winter. Thecombination of short days and tall treespresented Lesnie with some challenges.“The forest was so dark that I only hadenough light for an exposure after 10a.m.” he recalls. “I pushed [KodakVision2 500T] 5218 one stop and shot

57

“To simulate Susie drifting down through a watery environment, Saoirse was loweredslowly on a wire rig, with fans below taking out some of the gravity effect,” says Lesnie.

“We bounced HMI Pars into 10-by lamé reflectors loosely tied and shaken to create a rippleeffect. We filmed this at 120 fps with two Arri 435s, one on a Scorpio head on a Giraffecrane, which doubled the height of her fall by starting low and craning up to the ceiling,

and the other on a Steadicam, maintaining a slow-moving wide shot.”

without any filtration. It got dark againafter 3:30 p.m., and I needed sky in thebackground to keep the image alive, sowe put three 6K Pars on a large ridge-line in the forest and camouflaged thestands. When we weren’t doing shotsthat included the ridgeline, I used thosethree lamps to shoot down into back-ground, adding a bit of smoke. If wedid see the ridgeline, I turned off two ofthe Pars and had the other one point-

ing straight at us, as if it were the sungiving a hot spot. At one point I hadthe real sun on the horizon as well asthe Par while doing a long trackingshot; we slid the Par sideways so we’donly have one source coming throughthe forest at any one time! Rather thanusing lights in the foreground, I simplybounced ambient light onto the actors.It looked more realistic that way.”

Lesnie shot most of The Lovely

Bones in 4-perf Super 35mm, but two digital cameras, a Red One and a1080p C-mount Ikonix HD-RH1(outputting to an HDCam-SR-1 deckand viewed on an HD monitor), wereused for some material. Jackson usedthe Red to capture some landscapes inPennsylvania and New Zealand for the“in-between” sequences, and Lesnieused the Ikonix (with 2.8mm, 4mmand 8mm Fujinon lenses) to giveHarvey’s perspective a distinct visualmotif. “Peter and I were looking for away to make Harvey’s world look a littlebizarre,” says the cinematographer. “Forexample, we used the Ikonix to filmhim from inside the dollhouses hemakes for a living, dramatically empha-sizing the disparity of scale; having agiant Harvey looming outside the doll-house reinforces that he is master of hisdomain. The Ikonix was also great forshowing, in a very specific way, thingsthat were important only to him, suchas cuttings in his scrapbooks and the

◗ Watchful Spirit

Lesnieprepares tonegotiate a

shopping mallwith key grip

George Patsos(left) anddolly grip

Louis Sabat.

58

combination lock on the safe holdingSusie’s body.”

A little more fill light wasrequired for the Ikonix’s slightly aggres-sive contrast, and Lesnie was careful toavoid clipping the highlights, whichwere defocused during the 2K digitalintermediate to match the 35mmfootage. “Of course, the 1080p signalisn’t as high-quality as 35mm, but thedynamic, almost surreal shots have theirown look,” he observes.

Jackson also used the Ikonix toachieve an unusual shot early in thefilm, when Susie and Jack succeed inputting a model ship in a bottle. Thedirector wanted a shot from inside thebottle as the ship slides through theneck and the sails and masts are raised.Lesnie put an OConnor head on a 3'Slider Camera Movement System.With a long lens rod on top of thehead, the camera cable was fed throughthe tube, and the Ikonix was gaffer-taped to the end of the rod. “Peter, who

operated that setup, could then slide thewhole thing back and forth, tracking inas well as panning,” says Lesnie. “It’sthe equivalent of a dolly but on a 3-footslider.”

The production’s HD dailieswere graded by Sam Daley atTechnicolor New York and Jon Newellat Park Road Post in New Zealand.The final grade was done at Park RoadPost on Quantel’s Pablo by DavidHollingsworth and Florian UtsiMartin. Throughout the shoot, Lesniee-mailed a detailed report on each day’sfilming, along with graded stills, toDaley and Newell every evening. “I toldthem to grade the footage like theywere grading the finished film,” he says.“Sometimes people stare at ungradedimages for months on end and becomeso used to the film looking that way,they think it’s how the final productshould look. I wanted to avoid that.With our workflow, if an HD cut wasshown to the studio, they saw some-

thing much closer to the finished prod-uct. This approach worked so well thatsome of the looks Sam and Jon appliedto the dailies are in the final film.” ●

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Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and Dr. JohnWatson ( Jude Law) are riding inside a carriage. As theyexchange playful banter, we catch glimpses of Londoncirca 1890 outside the window. The scene cuts to a spec-

tacular wide shot from the London Bridge: in the backgroundis the giant Tower Bridge, under construction; on the Thamesbelow are cargo ships; and above is a dark, cloudy sky. Theimage freezes, becoming painterly. Sitting at the back of thedigital-intermediate suite at Technicolor in London, PhilippeRousselot, ASC, AFC muses, “It’s beautiful. Do we want tomess it up?” He turns to colorist Adam Inglis and adds, “Iknow a storm is coming, but after all, it is the middle of theday.” Inglis says, “Perhaps a little lighter?” The two men try afew variations and settle on a slightly more sunlit version of theimage, with a more upbeat feeling.

Spending time with Rousselot and Inglis during the DI

process for Sherlock Holmes gives one a renewed appreciationfor the range of finesse — and finessing — involved in color-timing a feature film. Some of their work involved matchingdisparate shots to provide seamless transitions, but much timewas also spent refining the contrast and color of the image toprovide just the right mood. The visual precision required isremarkable. Whereas traditional photochemistry involves aunit of one printer light, Inglis explains, “Our basic unit is ahalf printer light, and occasionally a quarter printer light.”Rousselot notes, “It’s like 1⁄9 tones in music: once you trainyour ear, you can hear them.”

Directed by Guy Ritchie, Sherlock Holmes gives ArthurConan Doyle’s famous detective a stylish, contemporary twist.Holmes is eccentric and athletic, and Watson, his roommateand assistant, is dashing. Their chemistry is at the heart of thefilm, and their exchanges are humorous, in particular when the

Super SleuthSuper Sleuth

Philippe Rousselot,ASC, AFC uses

creative deductionto craft a striking

look for GuyRitchie’s Sherlock

Holmes.

by Benjamin B

•|•


jealous Holmes repeatedly discouragesWatson’s affection for his fiancée, Mary(Kelly Reilly). Holmes has an adversar-ial relationship with his own love inter-est, Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams).

“The film is my interpretation ofConan Doyle’s vision,” says Ritchie.“I’m not sure it’s more modern; it’s just adifferent take. We’ve upped things thathave been previously marginalized. Forinstance, Conan Doyle’s Holmes was arather robust individual, an expert inmartial arts. We tried to be true to thatvision, so in a way this film might bemore authentic than previous produc-tions.”

The story follows Holmes’ effortsto debunk the alleged supernatural featsof arch-villain Lord Blackwood (MarkStrong), who, after being hanged,appears to come back from the dead toterrorize London with acts of blackmagic, ultimately endangering theBritish government itself. Holmes’intricate, brilliant deductions are illus-trated in stylish bursts of flashbackimages. “He’s an intellectual action hero,[and] I think most people are not usedto action heroes being intellectual,”notes Ritchie. “I don’t see why we can’thave our cake and eat it, too!

“This is what they call in thebusiness ‘a four-quadrant movie,’” theUni

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Opposite:Sherlock Holmes(Robert DowneyJr.) searches forclues, backed byhis loyalsidekick, Watson(Jude Law). Thispage: The duobrainstorm at221B BakerStreet, a setbuilt inBrooklyn.Bottom:PhilippeRousselot, ASC,AFC finds hisframe.


director adds with amusement. “I didn’tknow what that meant six months ago,but the idea is you can take the family.”(A four-quadrant movie is one thatappeals to all demographics: young andold, male and female.)

Rousselot, whose recent creditsinclude The Great Debaters (AC Jan. ’08),The Brave One, Charlie and the ChocolateFactory (AC July ’05) and Constantine(AC April ’05), was recommended toRitchie, and the director is enthusiastic,to say the least, about Rousselot’scontributions to the project. “Philippe isthe fastest cinematographer I’ve everworked with, and it was the leastamount of fuss I’ve ever had with acameraman,” he says. “He’s a bit of alegend, but he’s so humble — an egolessindividual. You won’t get me to shut upabout the positive aspects of PhilippeRousselot! He’s a gentleman, he’s smart,he’s hard-working, he’s fit, he’s tenaciousand he’s talented!”

Rousselot recalls that one of thequestions he asked himself at the outsetof the production was: “How do I makeSherlock Holmes a Guy Ritchie film? Ididn’t want it to look like a costumedrama. I didn’t want it to look pretty. Iwanted it to be grungy. I wanted it tolook like RocknRolla or Snatch.” Heinitially decided to ground his approachin realism, with the intent to re-createthe warm gas, oil and candlelightsources of the late 19th century. Helaughs as he recalls how these precon-ceived ideas fell by the wayside on thefirst day of location shooting: “Youshould never shoot on the first day ofshooting!” he jokes.

The location was a Freemasontemple where Blackwood takes over asect and demonstrates his powers with aspectacular feat. The marble interior,Rousselot recalls, “was beautiful, but Ireally struggled there, because everytime we placed a light it was reflected in

the marble. It’s as if you had mirrors allaround. Actually, it would have beeneasier with mirrors, because then wecould have lit the entire place with onelight!” To complicate matters further,Ritchie set up a long, complexSteadicam shot, “almost 360 degrees,which was cut in the editing. So the onlything we could do was put lights on thefloor or the ceiling.” Rousselot ended upusing two helium balloons hoveringabove and, when necessary, a few sourceson the ground.

“I started out on this film wantingwarm, soft lighting with dark corners,and contrast in the overall image, butthat was very difficult to achieve on thissequence, and I was never happy with it,”says the cinematographer. “When Iworked on it in the DI, I went the otherway; I made the image very cold.” Heassesses the scene’s final look as “180degrees away from what I thought atfirst. It’s completely different, but I feel ittells the story a lot better. It’s darker,more sinister. There are actually manyscenes in this film that ended up verydifferent from what I thought to do atthe beginning, I think for the best.

“What’s paradoxical is that it’s themethod that’s important, not the result… because the result escapes you,” hecontinues. “You can control the light, theexposure and the choice of film stock,but you can’t completely control every-thing that’s in front of the camera. It’s anensemble. So the result is something youdiscover when the film is finished. Moreso than on any other film I have done,the result in Sherlock Holmes is

◗ Super SleuthHolmes

often findshimself atodds with

the alluringIrene Adler

(RachelMcAdams),

and keeps aclose eye on

Watson’sromantic

prospects.Rousselotnotes that

he kept thelook of the

maincharacters’faces a bit

on the coolside: “I

prefer a coldskin tone toa warm one.

I find it moreelegant and

also closerto the period

— in thosedays, people

stayed out ofthe sun.”


completely different from what I imag-ined, even on the day of shooting. It wasa day-by-day discovery.”

The film’s images have a crisp,sometimes edgy look, with soft lightingand strong contrast; it’s a look farremoved from a traditional period piece.The look was completed in the DI byan occasional, slight softening of theshadows and some highlights, creating asubtle smear, and a grade that deepenedand sometimes gilded the blacks of analready-contrasty image. “Usually youwant detail in the blacks, but on thispicture we purposely lost detail,” notesRousselot. “It looks like those 19th-century paintings that used bitumen.”Bitumen, he explains, was a black paintmade from coal tar that degraded overtime, eventually damaging the works ofDelacroix and others who had used thematerial to create strong blacks in theirpaintings.

The location work in SherlockHolmes was shot in Great Britain, andthe soundstage work was shot across theAtlantic, on the Armory stages inBrooklyn. There, the production builtthe interiors of Holmes and Watson’sBaker Street flat and of the TowerBridge site where the third-act show-down takes place. Because of theproduction’s tight schedule, Rousselotworked with two gaffers, both longtime

collaborators: Chuck Finch in Englandand Jack English in America. Finchproudly claims to have been the one tointroduce Rousselot to Chinese lanternson Hope and Glory (1987). “Obviously,”says Finch, “he’s come a long way withthem since then!” Indeed, to many cine-matographers, the moving Chineselantern is Rousselot’s signature source.

Finch recalls that the SherlockHolmes team was often rapidly movingfrom one difficult English location toanother, and he uses a very Britishexpression to express the hectic pace:“Every day it was ‘kick, bollock andscramble.’ The most difficult thing wascoming in and out of places. It was a

challenge, and Philippe was the idealman for the job.” Noting Rousselot’sproclivity for soft light, he adds, “Ninetypercent of our lighting was done withChinese lanterns.” Other sources weremostly bounced; sometimes it was asimple 2K Blonde aimed at a poly-styrene board. The crew would occa-sionally add a frame of Lee 250 diffusionto soften HMI China balls.

Finch reports that when an actormoved across an interior, Rousselotwould often use a Fisher boom (normallyused for microphones) to move aChinese lantern with a 250-watt or 500-watt tungsten bulb to provide a constant,soft key above the actor’s face. ➣

To thwart the dastardly Blackwood (Mark Strong, far left),Holmes must also roll up his fists. Portions of this sequencewere shot in slow-motion with the Phantom HD camera.Bottom: Director Guy Ritchie (wearing tie) preps the scene.


Holmes’ athleticism is high-lighted in a spirited boxing match, asequence shot as a night interior in asmall hall. The scene is painted withdistinctive orange hues, motivated by anonscreen grid of peanut bulbs wrappedin muslin that mimics the luminouswire meshes of the gas mantle lamps ofyore. Rousselot’s lighting was character-istically simple: Rows of 500-wattChinese lanterns were in a skirted boxabove the ring, supplemented by a simi-lar arrangement above the bar on theother side of the room, and a few softsources dotted the floor. Here, as onmost tungsten interiors, the lights wereon a dimmer board, allowing Rousselotto quickly modulate the warm wash ofsoft light.

A Phantom HD camera wasused to create bursts of slow-motion intwo fight sequences, one during theboxing match and another at the verybeginning of the film. The Phantomwas ramped from 24 fps to 800 fps andback, and Rousselot estimates that herated the camera at 100 ASA, “althoughit’s difficult to say because it’s not film.”He used two 20Ks bouncing off 12'x12'Ultrabounce to provide the brief blastsof light required. “You can’t use sources

◗ Super Sleuth

Taking controlof a sinister

sect,Blackwood

demonstratesa mastery ofblack magic.

Heliumballoons were

used toprovideambient

lighting insome of the

show’s largerlocations.

under 5K, as they will flicker at highspeeds,” he notes. He adds that it was astruggle to match the Phantom footagewith the film footage in the DI.

A restaurant scene in whichHolmes rudely confronts Watson’sfiancée was shot on location in a tradi-tional “gentlemen’s club.” Rousselotplaced a 650-watt Chinese lanternbetween the seated actors and hung agrid of China balls from first-floorbalustrades to light tables around them.“I like to hang a Chinese lanternbetween the actors,” he notes. “If you getclose, you can get a T3.5-T4. I play withsome black wrap to get less light here orthere, or sometimes I’ll put a smalldiffusion frame on an arm underneaththe Chinese lantern to re-diffuse it.”

Like most setups in SherlockHolmes, the restaurant scene was shotwith two cameras. Rousselot likes thedesign of “two criss-crossing cameras,”in this case one on Holmes and one onMary. “When it’s possible, I love to dothat, because having both actors oncamera when they’re talking to eachother gives the scene an extraordinaryenergy.” The two cameras were usuallyboth wide or both tight. “We did thatsystematically. Most of the time you’regoing to edit the wide with the wide,and the tight with the tight. I willchange the lighting between the wideand the tight shots, but … let’s put it


Top: Framestorecreated digitalmatte paintingsof the buildingsand sky to adda 19th-centuryfeel to thisgrand view ofLondon’sHouses ofParliament.Middle andbottom:Watson signalsa warningwhileinvestigating aslaughterhouse,part of asequence shoton location atdocks inLiverpool.


this way, never in a way that would beoffensive. On the close-up, I mightlower the light to get more into the eyes.I try to put the light as close to the edgeof frame as possible, so when we’re tightI can lower it a bit.”

He adds that the restaurantconfrontation was “another scene thatwe rescued from the tradition of oillamps and rendered colder” in the DIthan what “realism” would havemandated. He describes the gradingchanges as adding “a little blue in thehighlights to help the skin tone” andsimultaneously diffusing the highlightsto “get the skin to glow a little.” Indeed,a subtle but distinctive trait of the cine-matography in Sherlock Holmes isRousselot’s treatment of the main char-acters’ faces, which are somewhat cool.“I tried to get away from the Hollywoodorange skin tone,” he explains. “I prefera cold skin tone to a warm one. I find itmore elegant and also closer to theperiod — in those days, people stayedout of the sun. So I avoided reds andpinks.”

One night-exterior sequenceinvolves Holmes and Watson arrivingon a ship and sneaking around docks toinvestigate a slaughterhouse. Rousselot

◗ Super Sleuth

The film’s climaxtakes place on

the upper levelof the

unfinishedTower Bridge, an

effect that wasrealized with

the help ofeffects artisis

at DoubleNegative, whocombined CGI

with live-actionphotography

shot on practicalsets. The

original platewas shot on an

exterior set atLeavesden

Studios, withthe actors filmedwalking against

a greenscreenwall. The rest of

the shot,including the

Thames River,the Tower of

London, the sky,the distant city,

the TowerBridge and eventhe foregroundbridge railings,are completely

CG.

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remembers the location scout inLiverpool well: “We were standing therein the drizzle, and we said, ‘Okay, theycome from the river, they get to the littlelighthouse and they see the big factoriesin the distance.’ So I’m looking at a shotthat covers 180 degrees of bare land-scape, with a huge factory building inthe distance, and it’s supposed to benight. And there are bodies of waterthat would require backlight. Lightingthat whole landscape was daunting,involving maybe eight or nine genera-tors, a huge amount of work … and theexpense! So I turned to Guy and said, ‘Ihave good news and bad news. The badnews is that I can’t light this — it’s toovast. The good news is that we can do itday-for-night.’

“Thank God,” adds Rousselot,“for the DI and CGI!” Because eachshot required CG elements to place thescene in the 19th century, the cine-matographer could rely on the visual-effects team to modify the sky, which isalways the big challenge in day-for-night photography. “If you want to sellthe idea of night, you have to sell thesky,” he observes. “On a moonlit night,the sky is bright, even if it’s almost black.Also, if you have practical lights, doingday-for-night is very complicated,because practicals can’t overpowerdaylight.” Knowing a DI lay ahead,Rousselot exposed the day-for-nightfootage “normally, although I certainlydidn’t overexpose.”

To create moonlight in the day-

for-night footage, he used backlight orsidelight. For a Technocrane shot ofHolmes and Watson on the deck of theboat, he used a 100K SoftSun on acherry picker to provide ¾ backlightfrom the moon. He used backlightingfrom the sun wherever possible and“pounded HMIs on a 12-by” to createbacklight on a closer shot of Holmesand Watson leaning against the light-house wall.

Visual-effects supervisor ChasJarrett explains that to create the nightskyline, 2nd-unit cinematographerAlan Stewart shot day-for-night back-ground plates. Two Arri 435s weremounted on a single Libra head “andshot across each other so we could stitchthe two shots together and pan and scanwithin a 4:1 image,” says Jarrett. 6KHMI Pars were placed on the shore inthe middle of the frame to create reflec-tions in the water. “We painted out theHMIs, added CG gas lamps, cloned thereflections and moved them around,”says Jarrett.

Inglis describes the day-for-nightgrading as a mixture of pale colors andsilvery darkness. He explains, “First wedesaturated a lot, because at night youdon’t see color, and then we added asubtle cyan wash. Finally, we broughtthe skies down, which was quite trickybecause they varied with each shot.Harsh sunlight turns to day-for-nightvery easily because it has a silvery qual-ity. Philippe noted that night isn’t reallyblue; it’s gray.”

While Rousselot was shooting inthe U.K., English was preparing thelighting on the sets being built inBrooklyn. “I had one day of pre-light, soI relied completely on Jack, a wonderfulgaffer who has been my collaborator for20 years,” says Rousselot. “I use himwhenever I shoot in the States. Hespent a month on the sets for SherlockHolmes, prepping the Tower Bridge andBaker Street sets.”

The apartment on Baker Street isthe setting for several scenes, includingHolmes’ elaborate experiments to testhis theories about the case. Thewindows look out on a TransLite back-

◗ Super Sleuth

An elegantgentlemen’s

club serves asthe setting

for aconfrontation

betweenHolmes and

Watson’sfiancée, a

sequence thefilmmakers

captured withtwo cameras.

ing. The filmmakers chose to notremove the ceiling of the set. The baselighting involved space lights justoutside the windows that could belowered for different ambiences, a fewNine-light Mini-Brutes through 216diffusion to provide fill on the sidefacing the windows, and occasionalChinese lanterns on the floor.

Jarrett encourages the use ofTransLites over greenscreen because hebelieves it’s more economical, and he

often had the visual-effects departmentmake the transparencies. A TransLitewas also used on a location, an officeoverlooking the Thames from whichHolmes makes a daring escape, butJarrett notes that the TransLite had tobe replaced with a greenscreen forseveral shots where the camera got closeto the window, “because we weren’t surethe TransLite would hold up with thatperspective.”

Jarrett estimates there are 300

greenscreen shots in Sherlock Holmes,many of them in the climactic sequencethat takes place on an upper level of theTower Bridge construction site. Thiswas shot on a set completely surroundedby greenscreen walls and floor.Rousselot’s team lit the set with a ceilinggrid of 300 space lights that were placedon dimmers. “I wasn’t using all the spacelights at once, but I needed to be able tohave lighting variations,” says Rousselot.“They were divided in rows andcolumns so that I could balance thegreenscreen and the actors.” Indeed,minimizing green spill on the actors wasa major challenge. The filmmakers triedto keep the set at least 20' from thescreen, which implied building it 20' offthe floor. Off-camera portions of thescreen were covered in black drapes.

The Tower Bridge sequencebegins with a Technocrane shot swoop-ing around Irene as she runs. Jarrettexplains that CG wobble, weave androlling were added to the image “to

◗ Super Sleuth

70

Rousselot(left) conferswith Ritchie

and anunidentified

crewmember.

make it feel as if it was shot with a heli-copter.” The multiple ironies of creatinga virtual helicopter move to add realismto a greenscreen set in a 19th-centurystory are not lost on the filmmakers.

Inglis notes that the last days of aDI are often fully occupied by a CGI-laden final act. “On a lot of films now,you end up with a very short space oftime to grade what is sometimes thehardest scene in the film: the big finale,”says the colorist. “And it’s often the hard-est thing because it’s mostly CGI.” OnSherlock Holmes, this process was greatlysimplified by the use of digital mattes;for a few key scenes, effects facilitiesDouble Negative and Framestore sentboth the final image with the compositeeffect and black-and-white mattes of theseparate elements. In the Tower Bridgesequence, this meant an outline mattefor the stormy CG sky, a second mattefor the CG bridge, and a third (fore-ground) matte of the actors’ silhouettescut out from the greenscreen. Inglis

could then use the mattes to, for exam-ple, grade the foreground actors sepa-rately from the CG sky or bridge.

After praising 2nd-unit cine-matographers Stewart and NealNorton, camera operator Des Whelan,and the other members of his crew,Rousselot assesses the evolution of themovie’s look: “Guy wanted to make thefilm realistic as opposed to stylized, buthe also wanted to give the film a recog-nizable look, which in a way is a contra-diction. But contradictions are alwaysinteresting! This meant we had to try tofind something that was neither realisticnor stylized, and I think we finallyfound it at the end of the DI.”

“As a filmmaker, I’m really tryingto get away from reality — I want tocreate an enhanced reality,” affirmsRitchie. “Philippe and I talked about alook, and, like all these things, you sortof change things on the day. It sort ofnaturally percolates. Lighting is notnecessarily an intellectual process. It’s an

art form, and I suppose with any art,you really have to put your intellect outof the equation. I don’t think it comesfrom the mind; it comes from some-where else, rather like music.” ●

TECHNICAL SPECS

Super 1.85:1

Super 35mm and High-Definition Video

Panaflex Millennium, XL; Arri 435;Phantom HD

Panavision Primo lenses

Kodak Vision3 500T 5219, Vision2 250D 5205


Printed on Kodak Vision 2383

71


On The Black Stallion (1979), his first feature as a direc-tor of photography, future ASC member CalebDeschanel had an opportunity to collaborate with adirector, Carroll Ballard, whose goal was the kind of

visually poetic feature cinematographers long to shoot. Afterwrapping the project, however, Deschanel was far fromcertain that an illustrious career awaited him. The produc-tion was difficult; many of the Canadian crewmembers weredeeply skeptical of Ballard’s improvisational approach, andthe director and cinematographer had begun to have theirown doubts. Deschanel was reassured, however, when hiswife, actress Mary Jo Deschanel, saw the finished film. “Shewas blown away by it,” he recalls, “and she got so mad atCarroll and me for having been so cautious, so negative.” Hewent on to win the Los Angeles Film Critics’ cinematogra-phy prize and earn BSC and BAFTA award nominations forhis work on the film.

Deschanel’s cinematography career, which so far

TheRight StuffCaleb Deschanel, ASC ishonored with the Society’s

Lifetime Achievement Awardamid his still-thriving career.

by Jon Silberg

•|•

TheRight Stuff


includes such memorable films asBeing There (1979), The Right Stuff(1983), The Natural (1984), Fly AwayHome (1996), The Patriot (2000), ThePassion of the Christ (2004), NationalTreasure (2004) and Ask the Dust(2005), has indeed been impressive,and it’s still going strong. Next monthhe will accept the ASC LifetimeAchievement Award, the latest honoron a roster that includes an ASCAward (for The Patriot), two otherASC nominations (for The Passion ofthe Christ and Fly Away Home), andfive Academy Award nominations (forThe Passion of the Christ, The Patriot,Fly Away Home, The Natural and TheRight Stuff ).

A native of Philadelphia, Pa.,Deschanel became interested inphotography as a boy after receiving aKodak Brownie Hawkeye as a gift. Hetook up the hobby in high school,shooting photos for the school news-paper and yearbook, but when hebegan considering colleges, he decidedto pursue a career in medicine. Heenrolled in Johns Hopkins University,thinking he would become a doctor,but his interest in the visual arts soontook hold, and he began studying artand photography. A meeting with NewYork-based photographer GeorgePickow led to an opportunity to work

as his assistant during summer breaksfrom Hopkins. “I knew I wanted to beinvolved in photography, but at thatpoint I hadn’t thought of it as a career,”says Deschanel.

Working in the darkroom andwatching Pickow shoot the eclecticassignments that were typical of asuccessful photographer’s shop in themid-1960s helped push Deschanelcloser to the idea of pursuing photog-raphy as a profession. “George did allkinds of stuff — catalogs, albumcovers, magazine covers,” recallsDeschanel. “He’d take six models andsome wigs out for a couple of days andshoot a year’s covers for one of the

murder magazines that were popular atthe time. He could use each model atleast twice by changing her wig.”Deschanel spent his free time in NewYork’s revival houses, where he mainlywatched foreign films; the French NewWave and Italian neo-realism made astrong impression. “Those films justfelt more accessible to me than the bigstudio movies of that time, and I reallyliked the themes and stories,” herecalls. “They were much more natu-ralistic. There was a certain casualnessto them, and it made me realize youcould actually do a movie like thatinstead of Ben-Hur. The French film-makers didn’t have the budget for 20Ph

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Opposite:CalebDeschanel, ASC(right) consultswith directorPhilip Kaufmanduring filmingof The RightStuff. Thispage, top:Kaufman andDeschanelflanklegendary pilotChuck Yeageron a breakduring theshoot. Bottom:Deschaneltakes to acrane tocapture a shotfor the film.


arc lights to fill all the shadow areas.Even now, the big studio films of the1950s and ’60s seem artificial to me.”

After graduating from Hopkinswith a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts,

Deschanel decided to follow twofriends and fellow Hopkins grads,Walter Murch and Matthew Robbins,to the University of SouthernCalifornia’s School of Cinema and

Television. “I wasn’t going to USCnecessarily to study cinematography,but I knew how to use a light meter, soI got enlisted to shoot a lot of studentfilms in my first year.” He also appliedhis experience to documentary workfor companies such as EncyclopediaBritannica and Churchill Films. Aftercompleting the requirements for hisUSC degree, in 1968, Deschanelenrolled in the first class at theAmerican Film Institute along withsuch aspiring filmmakers as DavidLynch and Terrence Malick. “Today it’sa real school with real classes, but atthat time it was more of a place to hangout,” he notes. “There was a greatscreening room, and we could drinkhot chocolate, watch films byHitchcock and John Ford, and tradeideas.”

He shot quite a few films at theAFI, including Malick’s first directorialeffort, the short film Lanton Mills. Theschool agreed to grant him a smallstipend so he could intern on a profes-sional movie set, but Deschanel’schoice of cinematographer provedunacceptable to the powers-that-be: hewanted to observe New York cine-matographer (and future ASCmember) Gordon Willis. At thatpoint, Willis had only two features tohis name, End of the Road and Loving,and “the AFI had never heard of him,”recalls Deschanel. “But I’d seen thosemovies and decided that was the kindof work I wanted to do, so I stuck to myguns.” He paid his own way to internwith Willis on The People Next Door. “Iobserved every aspect of what Gordondid on that film. I spent time with himat the lab, and I could see how heexposed film and where the printerlights were. I would go around the setand read all the lights, and then Gordywould call out, ‘2.8,’ and I’d think,‘Wow, that seems gutsy!’ He talked tome about his ideas on every aspect ofthe job. I realized that he’d set his expo-sures so that nobody could print it anydifferently than he wanted.

“The important thing I learnedfrom him, though, was how important

◗ The Right Stuff

Right: Deschanelat work on Being

There, his firstcollaborationwith director

Hal Ashby. Below: The

cinematographerglances up

during filming ofMore American

Graffiti, hissecond feature

credit.


it is to conceptualize the way you’regoing to shoot a film,” Deschanelcontinues. “Think about All ThePresident’s Men. It’s about the minutiaethat build and can bring down anentire government, and the wholevisual approach contrasts the smallwith the large, focusing on the finestdetails and then widening out to abroader perspective. If you conceptual-ize something like that and stick to it,the audience may never realize whatyou have in mind specifically, but yourchoices can still communicate it tothem on some subconscious level.”Willis remarks, “As a cinematographer,I’ve tried to do what I thought wasappropriate for a given story, and Ithink Caleb has always shared thatperspective. If I’ve helped, in somesmall way, to focus his thinking overthe years, I couldn’t be happier. Heunderstands the elegance of simplicity,and I think his visual choices have beensuperb.”

After shooting more short filmsand documentaries, Deschanel wrote,directed and shot Trains, a short filmthat won the Silver Bear at the 1976Berlin Film Festival. The next year,Ballard, a neighbor and collaborator onsome documentary films, brought himaboard The Black Stallion, Ballard’s firstfeature. The production was filmed inSardinia and Canada. “Back then, theToronto crew was used to TV produc-tions and that fast mode of working —they were used to directors who’d shootfrom a list of shots,” says Deschanel.“Carroll hated call sheets. He wantedto be able to change his mind andshoot what he felt like shooting. I’d say,‘Guys, Carroll is a really wonderfulfilmmaker,’ but they didn’t believe it.”

Ballard credits Deschanel for hisperseverance and ingenuity through-out the shoot. “Caleb has a tremendouseye, and he can invent things right onthe spot,” he says. “For example, therewas a scene where the boy [KellyReno] is supposed to get on the horsethat’s standing in the water, and we justcouldn’t get the horse in the water. Wedecided to shoot the scene from under-

water, where you could just see hoovesand feet, so we could use a differenthorse. Neither of us had ever done anyunderwater photography, but Caleb gotthis very old housing for the Éclair andjust did it with the most rudimentaryequipment imaginable. Really, some ofthe neatest shots in the movie arethings I didn’t even know he wasshooting.”

Ballard recalls a particularlyrough day when he was sure the entireproject had become a mistake. “I wasjust wiped out, and I was sure the filmwas a catastrophe,” says the director.“Caleb and I were walking together,trying to get back to the car, and wecame across this river that just seemedto appear out of nowhere. We had toget across the river to get to where wewere going, and Caleb said, ‘Come on.Get on my back and I’ll carry youacross.’ I’ll never forget it. He was kindof like that the whole way through thefilm.”

Once completed, The BlackStallion sat on the shelf for two years.“The suits at United Artists said it wasunreleasable,” Ballard recalls. “Theysaid, ‘What is this, some kind of artfilm for kids?’” It wasn’t until 1979,when Ballard’s friend Francis FordCoppola threw his support behind thefilm, that it reached theaters — andachieved critical acclaim and box-officesuccess.

Deschanel was offered hissecond feature by George Lucas, one ofhis classmates at USC. Lucas wasproducing More American Graffiti(1979), a sequel to his phenomenallysuccessful American Graffiti, and heand director Bill Norton wanted visualsthat were somewhat experimental:16mm newsreel, anamorphic 35mm,standard 35mm and multiple-screenpsychedelic imagery. (The film’s alter-nate title is Purple Haze.) “The 16mmmaterial really showed me what a greatmedium film is,” Deschanel notes. “We

Deschaneloffers hisdaughters,Zooey (atcamera) andEmily, aglimpse of lifeon the setduring filmingof TheSlugger’s Wife.


blew it up to 35mm and it still looked‘too good.’ We ended up making printsof the 16mm material and then strik-ing negatives from the prints to give itmore of the gritty, contrasty look wewanted.” The experience was valuable,“and I think a lot of the movie is cool,but I’m afraid it became a series ofmechanical devices that overtook thestory.”

While seeking his next cine-matography opportunity, Deschanelwas approached by Hal Ashby aboutshooting Being There. The two had metwhen Deschanel was still at USC,planning a documentary about filmeditors that never came to fruition;

Ashby had been a successful editorbefore moving on to directing. Ashbytook a chance on Deschanel despitethe fact that neither of his two previousfeatures had opened yet. Being There,which stars Peter Sellers as a simple-minded gardener who is mistaken for abrilliant political philosopher, “is prob-ably the film most influenced by myrelationship with Gordon Willis,” saysDeschanel. “The way I lit the film andour use of tableau-style shots were allinfluenced by my internship withGordy.”

Soon thereafter, Deschanelmade his feature-directing debut withThe Escape Artist (1982), shot by

Stephen Burum, ASC. Deschanel thenshot two more films for Ashby, theRolling Stones concert film Let’s Spendthe Night Together (1983) and thecomedy The Slugger’s Wife (1985). TheStones film offered him a chance tocoordinate multi-camera shooting atan array of large arena concerts.Deschanel recalls that Ashby wasdividing his time between the Stonesfilm and another project during prep,and the cinematographer often foundhimself planning coverage based onthe band’s frustratingly impermanentset list. The Stones weren’t alwaysdelighted to find themselves on camerawhile offstage, he adds. “At one point,Keith Richards spotted [Steadicaminventor] Garrett Brown filming himbackstage and turned and shoved theSteadicam really hard. Now, Garrett’s6-foot-6, and he doesn’t like peopleshoving his Steadicam. I saw theexpression on Garrett’s face, and Iknew he would really like to pummelRichards; I also knew that would notbe a good idea five minutes before theshow! I caught Garrett’s eye and shookmy head. Fortunately, he calmed down,regrouped and followed the Stones outonstage in front of 75,000 screamingfans. It’s an amazing shot.”

Philip Kaufman’s adaptation ofTom Wolfe’s nonfiction bestseller TheRight Stuff (AC Nov. ’83) offeredDeschanel the chance to try his handat an epic canvas. “The movie tries toget to what ‘the right stuff ’ means andwho has it,” he says. “There are twoperspectives: Chuck Yeager’s and theastronauts’. It’s two different eras butthe same idea. Yeager lives in a simplerworld, whereas the astronauts live in aworld of hype and bravado. But afterthe astronauts get squeezed throughthe hype and come out the other end,they survive with the right stuff, too.”

Asked about one of the film’smost famous images — the shot thatshows the astronauts walking down ahallway — Deschanel remarks, “Ithink those images only have meaningwithin the larger context of the wholefilm. You have to earn the right to say,

◗ The Right Stuff

Top:Deschanel

checks RobertRedford’s

light duringfilming of TheNatural as the

actor chatswith director

BarryLevinson.

Right:Levinson and

Deschanelline up a shot.

CALEB DESCHANEL, ASC

w w w . p a n a v i s i o n . c o m

Congratulations Caleb

on receiving the

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CINEMATOGRAPHERS

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Caleb

Congratulations on this distinguished honor. Your creativity and vision have inspired filmmakers throughout the world

Lucky for us your artistry will continue to excite us for years to come

,

. !!!


‘This shot means this.…’ And youestablish ‘this’ with all the shots thatcome before, the shots that show youthe everyday activities and humilia-tions these guys had to go through toreach the point where they becomeheroic and extraordinary. I think that’sa major difference between stillphotography, which is about the mean-ing of an individual image, and cine-matography.” Kaufman recalls that thefamous hallway shot came together atthe last minute, when he andDeschanel noticed the way the lightlooked in the hallway of the officespace they were using for preproduc-tion. “It was a totally improvised shot— it was never scheduled,” says thedirector. “I just said, ‘Let’s get the guysinto their suits and walk them down

the hall.’ It was probably a half-hour ofshooting time, but that shot ended upbeing talked about and imitated. Itworked because Caleb and the actorsreally shared an enthusiasm aboutgetting the film made.”

One of the shoot’s other unex-pected moments, Kaufman adds, was abit hairier. “We were shooting a scenewith chimpanzees at USC, and one ofthe chimps attacked Caleb as he wassetting up the camera. [The chimpwrangler] got the chimp away fromCaleb, and he just went right back tosetting up the camera!”

The Right Stuff went on to earneight Academy Award nominations,including Deschanel’s first, and wonfour statuettes. Deschanel notched hissecond Oscar nomination for his next

feature, The Natural (AC April ’85),Barry Levinson’s adaptation of BernardMalamud’s novel about a mysteriouslygifted baseball player, Roy Hobbs(Robert Redford). The story beginswith a bolt of lightning striking a treewhose wood is then crafted into a base-ball bat — one of many mythic imagesthat gave Deschanel the cue to apply asomewhat expressionistic approach tohis cinematography.

One of the film’s best-knownshots isolates Glenn Close, who playsHobbs’ first love, from the surroundingcrowd in the stands during a baseballgame. Deschanel used an etherealbacklight to illuminate her gossamerhat and blonde hair. “We figured a niceway to get Roy to notice her would beto put some intense light on her,”

Deschanel atwork on Carroll

Ballard’s FlyAway Home, a

production thatemployed

Ultralight aircraftto get unique

perspectives ofits winged

subjects.

◗ The Right Stuff

M E M B E R P O R T R A I T

Gil Hubbs, ASC

W W W . T H E A S C . C O M

TO SUBSCRIBE BY PHONE:

Call (800) 448-0145 (U.S. only)

(323) 969-4333 or visit the ASC Web site

stumbled into cinematographywhen a friend asked me to helpshoot an industrial film. We

had a Bolex camera and threelights, and I thought the processwas a lot more fun than workingas a waiter. After that, I bought anArriflex camera for $800 andstarted shooting anything I could,mostly working for free.

“My education has comefrom many people who have beenkind enough to share theirexperiences. Ron Dexter, ASCintroduced me to American

Cinematographer, and it was asif a magician’s secrets had beenrevealed. I realized the only limitsto my future would be the ones Iplaced on myself. AC continuesto be an inspiration and aconstant reminder that everycreative accomplishment startswith an idea.”

— Gil Hubbs, ASC

“I

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recalls the cinematographer. “[Co-costume designer] Bernie Pollack cameup with the hat she wears — it’s notreally even a hat, it’s just a white,translucent ring. I decided to put a185-amp Baby Arc in the stands aboveGlenn and have some of the extrasstationed between her and the light.On cue, one extra would move and the

light would get brighter, and thensomeone else would move and it wouldget even brighter. By the time all thepeople walk away, her hat and hair areexploding with light. She stands up,and Roy sees her because the lightbehind her has become almost blind-ingly bright.”

Deschanel joined the ASC in

September 1984 after being proposedfor membership by Burum, HaskellWexler and Conrad L. Hall. Shortlythereafter, he decided to spend moretime closer to home and took nearly adecade off from shooting. He started acommercial-production company,Dark Light Pictures, and took updirecting. During those years, he tack-led commercials, the 1988 featureCrusoe and some episodic television(including three episodes of TwinPeaks).

He returned to cinematographywith Andy Bergman’s It Could Happento You (AC July ’94) and then reteamedwith Ballard on Fly Away Home (ACJune ’97), which tells the story of a girl(Anna Paquin) who leads a family oforphaned geese back to their home.Ballard’s work methods remainedsimilar to those on their first collabora-tion, but this time, the two men werecompletely sure of their approach.“Fortunately, the kind of film we weremaking allowed Carroll to work theway he likes to work,” Deschanel says.

◗ The Right Stuff

Top: Deschanelmakes a

last-minuteadjustment to BaiLing’s crown for a

scene in Anna and the King.

Right: Thecinematographer

prepares a crane shot

on the show.

“We had a little girl, her father [ JeffDaniels], some geese and the Ultralightairplanes. It was like having a boy and ahorse — Carroll could drastically altera lot of the scenes at will and still haveeverything work out.”

After shooting Forest Whitaker’sHope Floats (1998), Luis Mandoki’sMessage in a Bottle (1999) and AndyTennant’s Anna and the King (1999),Deschanel signed onto RolandEmmerich’s The Patriot (AC June ’01),a Revolutionary War drama starringMel Gibson and Heath Ledger.“Roland was great to work with,” saysDeschanel. “He was used to working ina grand scale and made it seem easy.”The project provided the rare opportu-nity to shoot 65mm, which the film-makers used for the battle scenes.Deschanel notes, “We never struck a70mm print, but even when it’sreduced to anamorphic 35mm, 65mmgives you so much more detail. It’s likescanning film: even if you’re releasingin 2K, scanning at 4K or higher looksbetter.” He regards The Patriot as anexample of a particularly successfulcollaboration with a productiondesigner, in this case Kirk Petrucelli.“It’s always great to work with aproduction designer who understandswhat you need to be able to do withlighting. I’ve been lucky to work with alot of fine ones, and the house interiorsKirk did on The Patriot were just sowell designed. We were able to get lightinto all those spaces and still have themlook very natural while shooting fromany angle.”

Deschanel then shot the 2003features The Hunted (for WilliamFriedkin) and Timeline (for RichardDonner). After wrapping Timeline,Donner recommended Deschanel tohis friend Mel Gibson for The Passionof the Christ (AC March ’04). Deschanelacknowledges that he didn’t anticipatethe controversy Gibson’s film wouldgenerate. “I read the script and saw astory about someone who shoulders theburden of others’ pain and absolvesthem of responsibility, and that seemedlike an exciting premise to me,” he says.

“I was brought up as a Quaker, so the story was new to me. Quakers just sit around in excruciating silenceand hope peace will happen.” The film-makers’ approach emphasized a height-ened realism. “Mel wanted viewers tofeel as though they were there, andusing the Aramaic language certainlycontributed to that,” says the cine-matographer. “I was inspired by thework of some of the painters I’d studied

in college. At Hopkins, a wonderfulteacher named Phoebe Stanton got meexcited about many Renaissancepainters. Mel is a big fan of Caravaggio,and we thought The Passion was a greatchance to use that kind of imagery asinspiration for the visuals.”

Deschanel’s most recent cine-matography credits are the familydrama My Sister’s Keeper (2009) and thefantasy film The Spiderwick Chronicles

(AC March ’08). He has recentlyreturned to directing television onoccasion, including episodes of Law &Order and an episode of Bones, whichstars his daughter Emily. His youngerdaughter, Zooey, is also a successfulactress; she recently co-starred in (500)Days of Summer. Deschanel says he andhis wife neither encouraged nordiscouraged their children to work inthe business. “We impressed uponthem the idea that to do anything well,you have to love it and work hard at it.I think they understood that becausethey’d grown up seeing the hard workthat goes into making movies. They’reboth very talented, but they also knowtalent is only part of the picture; there’salso luck and a lot of hard work anddedication.”

Kaufman observes that Des-chanel’s daughters have a good rolemodel on all fronts. “Talk about theright stuff,” he marvels. “Caleb showedthat when we worked together. He wastotally committed and did whatever wasnecessary to get the movie done.” ●

◗ The Right Stuff


Top: Deschanellines up an

overhead anglefor The Patriot.

Middle: Thecinematographerchecks the light

on his wife, MaryJo Deschanel, foran interior scene

in theRevolutionary

War drama.Bottom:

Deschanel checksJim Caviezel’s

light duringfilming of ThePassion of the

Christ.


Inside Technicolor’s New Hubby Michael Goldman

An August story in the Los Angeles Times declared thatTechnicolor had recently “invested more than $200 million in itsproduction facilities” at a time when “much of Hollywood is scal-ing back.” The article referenced the debut of Technicolor’s new,six-story headquarters in Hollywood and expansions at other Tech-nicolor facilities around the world, and alluded to Technicolor’s goalof “keeping pace with the digital revolution that has reshaped theentertainment industry.”

The new building does retain some familiar components,such as two floors dedicated to traditional telecine systems and thecompany’s servicing of tape-to-tape color-correction. The building’sphysical location, near the venerable Sunset-Gower Studios, iswhere the film industry was born more than a century ago, and itsinterior walls, adorned with vintage photos, spotlight Technicolor’srich Hollywood history.

Still, a tour of the facility makes it clear that the companyhas embraced the industry’s inexorable move toward digitalproduction and post workflows and is offering comprehensiveways to manage those new paths. In truth, Technicolor was pursu-ing that agenda long before it moved into its new headquarters,which has become a foundation upon which the company’s vari-ous digital initiatives can finally come together. For the first time,Technicolor is able to plug its Creative Bridge on-set service andequipment-rental business, its DP Lights previsualization service, itsdata-centric Fanfare dailies-mastering system, its HD Dailies onDemand viewing system, and its evolving Web-based, remotecolor-timing collaboration system for digital-intermediate work-flows directly into a single, centralized, digital hub for clients in all

sectors, working in all formats and using a myriad of workflowapproaches.

“The concept is that we should have a data-centric model,but one that is agnostic,” explains Marco Bario, vice president oftheatrical postproduction for the company. “Once you build yourhub, it doesn’t matter if the material was acquired on film or digi-tally, or what your production workflow was. You can connect toour systems and we can turn the material into data, perform theservices needed and make it all look good coming out the back end.

“I’d like to say this was all figured out exactly when wedrew up plans for the new building, but in some ways, the eggcame before the chicken,” he continues. “We wanted a newheadquarters, but we couldn’t build it just for today’s workflows.This was an opportunity to start with a blank piece of paper andintegrate all these different solutions into one building. We’veessentially built a pipeline that resembles a DI pipeline, except itruns from the very start of the process to the very end.”

In planning the new facility, Technicolor knew many of itscustomers would continue acquiring on film while a growingcustomer base would be capturing digitally. “They would all needdifferent workflows, so the idea was to build something robustenough to let them do whatever they want to on the front end,knowing our pipeline here could support it,” says Bario.

DP Lights, a front-end previs system designed to give cine-matographers more color control throughout production and intothe DI process, now enables productions to emulate different filmstocks, grades and saturation levels during early testing, dailies,the editorial process and so on, all without altering the originaldata. “We’ve updated the system to export information in theindustry-standard ASC CDL format all along the chain,” says BrianGaffney, vice president of Technicolor Creative Bridge. “On set,clients can shoot however they want and get a color-correctionsystem that has real-time, dynamic film emulation integrated intoit. They can switch back to their original picture to see the blacksor the highlights with some true, meaningful value, and they canplug all of their data into our pipe with increased options.”

Through Creative Bridge, Bario says Technicolor is “main-taining a link” between production and post, allowing filmmakersto compare what they shoot with what they envision for their finalimagery, without having to continually develop proprietary meth-ods for doing so. Central to that concept is that any and all data,from any stage along the path, will be easily accessible at otherstages. Technicolor officials say the company has collaborated withvarious vendors to incorporate almost all currently significant fileformats and software tools into the pipeline.

Post Focus

Phot

os c

ourt

esy

of T

echn

icol

or.

Technicolor’s new Hollywood headquarters honors the company’sheritage while keeping pace with modern technology.

I

As data leaves the set and travelsthrough the Technicolor hub, thecompany’s Fanfare system plugs into theprocess to offer a single, integrated pipelinefor handling both film-acquired and digi-tally acquired dailies. By building a solutionfor dailies coming from either acquisitionuniverse, Technicolor intends to avoid theworst aspects of the process in both worlds;for example, the company will no longerneed to re-scan and re-grade film-acquiredmaterial that has already been telecined fordailies.

Built upon Technicolor’s BonesDailies technology, Fanfare aims to bringthe color, deliverables and archivingpipelines together in a single process. Atpress time, Technicolor was finalizing theelimination of videotape from the deliver-ables process, meaning that after initial filmscans, the entire approach will be file-based. “In traditional telecine, we makefiles from videotapes and send those to thecustomer, but in this workflow, we havefiles already,” says Bario. “We are well intodevelopment on having the ability to takethe files this system generates, bake in colorand other important factors, and thentransport [that new file] as a deliverable.This is more efficient and accurate andsaves a generation. Soon, we will have arender farm and a management systemthat will start making those files in the back-ground while the colorist continues work-ing. We expect to make the first two fileformats — Avid DNX and MPEG-2 for stan-dard-def DVDs — by early 2010, and we’llthen refine the GUI [graphical user inter-face] and add additional file formats.”

During AC ’s visit, Technicolordemonstrated the real-time, remote-collab-oration capabilities of its DI arm, which wasrecently used to color-correct the teaser forChristopher Nolan’s Inception. The projectallowed cinematographer Wally Pfister, ASCto work from Technicolor’s Soho facility,collaborating in real time with colorist ChrisWagley, who was using DaVinci Resolvecolor-correction technology at Technicolor’snew Hollywood headquarters. After thegrading session, 4K data was rendered outat the new building and simultaneouslysent to Technicolor’s Pinewood laboratory inLondon and answer-print facility in NorthHollywood for filmouts. Pfister calls the

experience “a great convenience that didnot exist in the past,” adding that hefound the session “flawless, functioningjust as if we were all in the same roomtogether.”

In keeping with the concept thatfilmmakers should be able to utilize dailiesanywhere, at any time, Technicolor hasconnected another tool to its hub: HDDailies on Demand. Essentially, that serviceallows users to receive and view Fanfaredailies on a standard computer through a

secure Web browser or, in a processdubbed Technicolor Remote Grading, aproprietary GUI. The approach revolvesaround offering content creators an HD-quality, high-encode bit rate playbackserver capable of supporting DMX-encoded content, played out any numberof ways, with that data then available tothe editorial team to maximize their abilityto take advantage of earlier work done onthose dailies. “Clients get a cheaperencode rate, because instead of making a

For international distribution

see www.chrosziel.com

Chrosziel GmbH | Klausnerring 6 | 85551 Heimstetten/Munich | GermanyTel. +49 (0)89 9010 910 | Fax +49 (0)89 4470 861 E-mail: [email protected] | Internet: www.chrosziel.com


tape for their dailies system and anotherfor the DVDs, plus digitizing all their mate-rial for their Avid, we make a single digiti-zation pass for editorial,” says Gaffney.“They can play content at full HD band-width or as full 2K files [off Technicolor’sFanfare server], and they can receive dailies[online] and drag them to their desktopwith the ability to scroll to any scene, reelor take, or see all clips at once.”

The colorist Sparkle, who in hisyears at Technicolor has worked on boththe film and broadcast sides, raves abouthaving such collaborative tools and theability to plug into the larger data pipe forhis commercial and television work. Hecalls Technicolor’s new hub and workflowparadigm “a global approach to the prob-lem. People can be off somewhere work-ing on their next project while they’refinishing the current project with us. Thisbenefits us in broadcast, commercials andfeatures, all of which have access to thesame [infrastructure]. There was a timewhen you came to us, did your [film] scansfor your feature, and then went to themarketing department, where they didtheir edit, and then you had to rescan yourmaterial. Now, everything is readily avail-able to all of us, anywhere.”

HPA Honors Post ProfessionalsThe Hollywood Post Alliance

recently presented its fourth annual HPAAwards during a gala event at the SkirballCultural Center in Los Angeles. The HPAAwards honor top post talent in features,television and commercials. Judges thisyear included ASC members Antonio

Calvache, David Darby, Fred Goodich,Levie Isaacks, Denis Maloney, Bill Neil andYuri Neyman.

ASC President Michael Goi andDaryn Okada, ASC presented the awardsfor Outstanding Color Grading to ASCassociate member Stefan Sonnenfeld ofCompany 3, for the Pepsi “Pass” commer-cial; Siggy Ferstl of Company 3, for the“Yankee Stadium Tribute: Yogi’s Bronx” TVspecial; and ASC associate member StevenJ. Scott of EFilm, for the feature Julie &Julia (AC Aug. ’09). Other nominees in thecategory were Valerie Junge of Big SkyEditorial (American Express, “MembersMoments”); Alex Bickel of Outside Editor-ial (Jaguar, “XJ Launch Film”); SergioCremasco of Rumblefish (“Four SingleFathers”); Tim Vincent of LaserPacific(Mad Men, “The Jet Set”); Dave Cole ofLaserPacific (Pride and Glory); and NatashaLeonnet of EFilm (Defiance).

Outstanding Editing awards werepresented to Chris Dickens, ACE, for Slum-dog Millionaire; Lynne Willingham, ACE,of Sony Pictures Entertainment, for Break-ing Bad, “ABQ”; and Neil Gust of OutsideEditorial, for the Jaguar ad “XF/XK.”

Outstanding Compositing awardswent to Nelson Sepulveda, Ben O’Brien,Matthew Brumit and Robert Hoffmeisterof Industrial Light & Magic (Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen); Thomas Tannen-berger, Olcun Tan, Shane Cook and JosiahHowison of Gradient Effects (Krupp, “EineDeutsche Familie”); and Colin Renshaw ofAnimal Logic (Toyota, “Ninja Kittens”).

Outstanding Audio Post awardswere given to Chris Jenkins, Frank A.

Montano, Scott Hecker and Eric Norris ofUniversal Studios Sound (Watchmen);Thomas Harris, Michael Ferdie, ChrisReeves, Mark Fleming and Tom Dahl ofWalt Disney Studio Post ProductionServices (Fringe, “Unleashed”); andNathan Dubin of Margarita Mix SantaMonica (Honda Civic, “Grooves”).

Three Engineering Excellenceawards were also presented. DVS DigitalVideo Systems earned one for Clipster, acomplete hardware and software turnkeyfinishing system capable of performinguncompressed image processes at up to4K resolution in real time. Signiant earnedan award for its Content DistributionManagement software, which was devel-oped to centrally manage, secure, acceler-ate and implement business-processautomation for digital media content.Finally, S.two Corp. earned an award forthe OB-1 Uncompressed Digital Recorder,which provides on-board flash-basedrecording and interfaces to a completeworkflow system for post and archiving.

Sound designer Ben Burtt washonored with the Charles S. Swartz Awardfor Outstanding Contribution in the Fieldof Post Production, and Paul Haggar washonored with the HPA Lifetime Achieve-ment Award.

“These awards honor those whomake the art happen, the collaborativepartners throughout the creative process,”says HPA President Leon Silverman, an ASCassociate member. “It is no small accom-plishment to contribute to a vision andmake it reality.” ●

Left: Fanfare Dailies offers a streamlined postworkflow. Below: Dan Lion, vice president ofTechnicolor Creative Bridge, reviews footage in adigital suite.


How Digital SLRs Can Change the Way We Make Moviesby Shane Hurlbut, ASC

I first saw the Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR at an ASCfunction at Samy’s Camera in Los Angeles, just prior to thecamera’s commercial release. The 2½-pound camera, which has a36mm x 24mm 21-megapixel CMOS sensor, can shoot1920x1080 video at 30 fps (recording to UDMA compact flashcards), and its ASA range is adjustable from 50 to 25,600. I havesince shot a number of projects with the 5D, and I’ve never beenso excited by the creative possibilities a camera offers cinematog-raphers. With its incredibly small footprint, which enables a light-ning-fast working method, this camera truly is a game-changer.

The lightbulb went on over my head when I consideredCanon’s long history in still photography. Motion-picture cine-matography originated with still photography, but HD technologyhas, by and large, been based on ENG videography, an awesomeachievement in documenting the news, but not the proper foun-dation for theatrical features. What we’ve been missing is an HDcamera born out of the still-photography tradition, and that’sexactly what we’ve been handed with Canon’s 5D (and 7D, but I’llget to that later).

The 5D’s small size and light weight make it infinitely versa-tile and nimble, enabling you to move quickly and captureperspectives that would be impossible with any other camerasystem, and its sensor size provides what are essentially the depth-of-field characteristics of VistaVision. It would be a good sensor inany body, but the fact that it showed up in a 21⁄2-pound stillcamera completely shifts the paradigm for moviemaking. You canhandhold the 5D in ways unthinkable with film cameras, and for

long periods without fatigue. Sure, you can still mount it on sticks,dress it up with a mattebox and create a monster, but that’smoving in the wrong direction.

As an example, let’s talk about car mounts. People havesaid we can throw away the speed-rail rig a film camera requiresand use a small suction-cup rig for the 5D, but that’s not going farenough. With the 5D, we can even throw out the suction cups.Shooting from a pickup truck, I can stand in the bed and reachforward to handhold the camera right outside the driver-sidewindow, moving the camera in ways not possible with a rig whilegetting closer than a pursuit arm could allow. Inside cars, too, youcan move the camera easily and capture perspectives no othercamera system can deliver.

My first chance to put the 5D through its paces came whenMcG asked me to shoot a series of 10 three-minute Webisodesthat served as an interactive marketing campaign for TerminatorSalvation (AC June ’09). We shot all 10 episodes in three days.After that, I used the 5D to shoot the feature-length documentaryCheech & Chong’s Hey Watch This, directed by Christian Charlesand produced by the Weinstein Co., and which mixes footagefrom the comedians’ live stage show (shot with Panasonic AJ-HPX3700 VariCams) with a series of backstage vignettes (shotwith the 5D). I shot the entire feature in three days.

I’ve also used the 5D to shoot a series of short recruitmentvideos for the U.S. Navy. One features a Navy swimmer perform-ing a water rescue; we follow him from the base, where he getsthe call, into the rescue chopper, out over the ocean and downinto the drink, where he rescues a downed pilot. We shot all ofthat action — including shots inside the helicopter, from one helicopter to another, and underwater — in three hours withseven 5Ds.

Filmmakers’ Forum

Phot

os c

ourt

esy

of S

hane

Hur

lbut

, ASC

.

Left: Shane Hurlbut, ASC adjusts a Canon EOS 5D Mark IIdigital SLR in a helmet-cam rig worn by a Navy SEAL. Above: Ahandheld rig is used to follow the action indoors.

I

The way I work fast is to increasethe number of cameras I’m carrying. OnThe Only Easy Day Was Yesterday, thefeature I’m shooting now for directorsScott Waugh and Mike McCoy, we startedwith seven 5Ds, and that wasn’t enough.When we went up to 15 cameras, webecame incredibly efficient. We keep ahandful of cameras stripped down andready for whatever unforeseeable mount-ing situation the day might call for, and allthe rest are built in a different configura-tion at the beginning of the day, so there’salways a camera ready to go for any situ-ation. We never have to waste timeswitching a camera from handheld modeto helmet-cam mode, Steadicam mode orwhatever the situation requires. Carryingso many cameras does not increase ourfootprint, however. With the 5D, I go inwith a crew of five to nine, and all of thecameras and their accessories fit in ninePelican cases.

Working like this requires an openmind and a back-to-film-school approachin which everyone is flexible enough totackle multiple jobs. The projects I’vementioned wouldn’t have been possiblewithout my elite team, which includes mylongtime camera operators, Gary Hatfieldand Rudy Harbon, and camera assistantsMarc Margulies, Darin Necessary andMike Svitak. When we go out on a shoot,I can give each of them his own camera,and we can knock out a huge number ofsetups in a very short time. Everyone has agreat sense of framing, composition andlight. We’ve also come up with kits foreach camera that fit everything you needto shoot a movie inside one Pelican case:ND, memory cards, backup batteries,chargers, etc.

Since the 5D is still new tomoviemaking, the way I use it is continu-ally evolving. For example, we made theTerminator Webisodes before Canonreleased the free, downloadable firmwareupgrade for the 5D that enabled manualadjustment of ASA, shutter speed and f-stop; this marked a huge step forward inmaking the camera production-friendly.Prior to the firmware release, we usedNikon lenses so we could at least set thef-stop on the lens itself, but we then hadto “trick” the camera into its other

for years, and asked if he had a Panavisionlens adapter for a Canon still camera. Itturned out there were two sitting aroundfrom the old Kodak/Panavision PreViewsystem. We were about to shoot aboardan aircraft carrier, so I took the Panavisionadapter and mounted a Primo lens to the5D for a Steadicam shot following twoSEALs all through the ship. When I lookedat the monitor, everything fell into place.This little DSLR camera was giving me animage that looked just like film.

Because of the 5D’s lightweightplastic body, the Primos can torque themount in a way that makes the FIZ motorpop off, so Guy McVicker and Dan Owensat Panavision Hollywood have designed amounting bracket that essentiallysupports the lens, with the camera hang-ing off the back of the Primo. I’m sure thisis a glimpse of the future of moviemaking,when we’ll literally mount a chip on theback of a high-quality motion-picturelens.

Because the 5D’s sensor is so huge,we figured the widest Primo we couldactually put on the camera was the


settings by panning it around until itsettled on 1⁄50 shutter and 500 ASA. Wethen locked the camera for the take, butas soon as we cut, the settings were lost.

Even with manual control over theexposure settings, the still lenses weretroublesome, most noticeably in terms offocus pulling. In our early days of workingwith the 5D, Gary Hatfield rigged a coffeestir stick to the lens that he could adjustusing three notches he made on the sideof the camera corresponding to full (infin-ity), half (2') and empty (8"). Though wemade it through with that configuration,this system was especially dubious consid-ering the camera’s extremely shallowdepth-of-field.

We worked with Panavision Holly-wood, first to put together some helmet-cam rigs for the Terminator Webisodes,and eventually to attach Panavision’s FIZremote-focus units to the cameras. WithFIZ units on still lenses, we went intoproduction on The Only Easy Day WasYesterday, which follows real Navy SEALson training missions and incorporates thatfootage into an overarching fictional

narrative. When we started shooting, weapplied a hybrid approach, using 5Ds tocapture unique and visceral angles tounderscore the action when the SEALswere on missions, and using 35mm for theexpository scenes that would set the stagefor the action.

The 5D’s small footprint gives usaccess to areas we’d never get into if weshowed up with a 35mm package and a50-person crew. Easy Day could not bemade with any other camera currentlyavailable; there’s no other way to capture,in such high quality, the sense of immedi-acy we want for the SEALs sequences. Wecan give helmet-cam rigs to the soldiers toget POV shots over the gun barrel and inother action; we can be in the chopperover the pilot’s shoulder; and we can be inthe river getting blasted with water. Wecan put the audience right in the thick ofthings and capture all of the action in realtime.

Keen to see where else we couldpush this camera, I called Dan Donovan,the senior marketing executive who hasbeen my contact at Panavision Hollywood

Hurlbut usedthe camera to

follow NavySEALs on theirmaneuvers for

the featureThe Only Easy

Day WasYesterday.

The cameraallowed a

wide varietyof angles tobe captured

quickly.

35mm. But then Canon released the EOS7D, with an APS-C-sized (roughly 23mm x15mm) 18-megapixel sensor that lets ususe the entire range without vignetting.So instead of going back to still lenses forthe wide work, we can use Primos foreverything (unless, of course, we’re usinga helmet-cam rig). The only drawback isthat the 7D’s sensor doesn’t seem as nicein its handling of underexposure andoverexposure. But the 7D shoots in 24p,so you don’t have to worry about convert-ing footage from 30 fps, and it also hasdual Digic 4 Imaging Processors and iscapable of shooting 60 fps.

The color space with both camerasis incredibly narrow: 8-bit color depth invideo mode. And if you don’t feed thesensor enough light, the camera cyclesinto lower bit depths to capture theimage, resulting in an even more fragileimage that stands almost no chance ofsurviving color correction. (Consequently,you have to constantly monitor thecamera’s color temperature and ensurethat what you’re shooting is as close aspossible to the desired final image.)However, the camera gives us a leg up inthat it can shoot at an ASA well over 500,and it’s better to increase the ASA, evenat the cost of increasing digital noise,because it gives you a tighter workspacewith your color.

On Easy Day, I’ve been shootingnight exteriors at 1,600 ASA, and tosmooth over the digital noise, I recentlyshot a test on Kodak Vision3 500T 5219,rolling a couple hundred feet on a graycard. Technicolor processed the film andtransferred it so we could play with it digi-tally, and with After Effects, we were ableto dial out the gray and extract only thegrain, which we then laid over thefootage from the 5D. The 5219 grainpattern totally absorbed the digital noise.

The 7D’s smaller sensor results ingreater depth-of-field compared to the5D, meaning you can shoot at a T2instead of a T5.6 and still have a fightingchance of keeping things in focus. Onboth cameras, though, the latitude ispretty extraordinary, and I’ve learned thatyou can’t use a light meter. I’ve been insituations where my meter read T.7 andwe were exposing at a T4, and the subject

looked like he was keyed.Shooting with still lenses, I was

seeing about 5½ stops below key andabout 3½ stops over. When we went tothe Primos, the latitude increased byabout 1½ stops in both directions. Afterseeing the Primo glass combined with the5D’s sensor, we’ve decided to shoot theremainder of Easy Day — even thesequences we’d planned to shoot with35mm — with a combination of the 5Dand 7D.

Bandito Brothers is the Los Ange-les-based production company I’veworked with on all of these 5D projects. Ilike to think of the company as a one-stopshop from prep through post, and itsmodus operandi is in keeping with thesmall-footprint mentality the 5D encour-ages. Everyone wears multiple hats on aBandito production, and the company’sfacility gathers everything you need tomake a movie under one roof: three edit-ing bays, an Inferno bay, a screeningtheater, a full color-timing suite, a cafete-ria, a conference room, and “productionoffices” set up in army tents.

We’ve recently been working onwhat we call the “sizzle reel” for The OnlyEasy Day Was Yesterday, an extendedtrailer that the producers can show topotential distributors. Honestly, every timeI watch it, I well up because of what we’vebeen through to get to this point. The 5Dand 7D are at the cutting edge, andthey’ve thrown me plenty of curveballs,but I’m convinced that riding this wavewill take us into whatever the future para-digm of moviemaking might be. Fallingoff the board is part of the ride. We getback up and keep going. We embrace thecameras’ quirks, and we push the camerasto be better, even as they push us.

To see footage shot with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, visit www.hurlbutvisuals.com. ●

Top andmiddle:

Working withPanavision

Hollywood,Hurlbut has

taken tomounting

Primo primesand zooms on

the camera.“I’m sure this

is a glimpseof the

future ofmoviemaking,

when we’llliterally

mount a chipon the back

of a high-quality

motion-picture lens,”

he writes.Bottom:

Hurlbut andcamera

assistant MikeSvitak (left)

set up a shotfor a U.S.

Navyrecruitment

video.


JOIN HOLLYWOOD’SPROFESSIONALS IN

2010June 4-5, Expo and Premier SeminarsJune 3-5, The Film Series & CompetitionJune 6, Master Class Seminars

The Studios at Paramount, Hollywood, CA

phone: 310.472.0809 fax: 310.471.8973 email: [email protected]


LiteGear Offers LiteRibbonsLiteGear Inc., a specialty lighting

company owned and operated by on-set lighting technicians, hasannounced the official availability ofits LED LiteRibbon system. The systemconsists of a flexible LED ribbon,flicker-free dimmers, and a completeline of power supplies and distribu-tion. LiteRibbon is available in WarmWhite, Cool White, Diffused Silicone,RGB and other color configurations.

Able to be cut into custom lengthsin 1" increments, LiteRibbon is complemented by LiteDimmer, ahigh-frequency, high-capacity LED dimmer capable of flicker-freeoperation regardless of camera speed, shutter angle or ramping.LiteRibbon strips are easily powered by 12 volts of DC power fromsupplies, batteries or automobile adapters. The system can also bemade waterproof.

Al DeMayo, LiteGear’s head of engineering, says, “Techni-cians like the ability to easily create custom light fixtures that meettheir unique needs. On the fly, guys can whip up something thatfits into a handheld prop, spaceship or even the [illuminated]power source for a certain iron superhero.” LiteRibbon has beentested and proven on such features as Star Trek (AC June ’09) andthe upcoming Iron Man 2 as well as such series as Bones, TheMentalist and Southland.

For more information, visit www.litegear.com.

Dadco Shines with 24K HMIsDadco, manufacturer of the Sunray line of HMI lighting

fixtures, has introduced two 24K HMIs, the Challenger SunArc andthe G4. Both fixtures are designed with a host of advancedfeatures, including a cost-effective convertibility allowing each unitto operate as a 12, 18 or 24K light.

Boasting 30-percent more light output than18K discharge lights, both the Challenger

and G4 are ETL listed to UL standards andbuilt by highly trained IATSE Local

Union craftsmen. In addition to the Sunray prod-

uct line, Dadco manufactures a line ofspecialty lighting fixtures and AC

power-distribution systems. For moreinformation, visit www.dadcopowerand

lights.com.

LEDZ Expands Brute LineLEDZ has introduced the Brute3,

a versatile, lightweight, 5500°K LEDfixture. The Brute3 boasts a circularbeam with a long throw, and the light’svarious accessories — including anonboard battery — make it useful in avariety of situations.

The Brute3 is available in differ-ent kit options, including a car kit withtwo head units and an extended batterythat clips to a belt or c-stand; theextended battery will run the fixture for up to 4 hours. Addition-ally, LEDZ provides the following photometrics for the Brute3:

Distance Footcandles Diameter2' 400 1.5'4' 90 2'6' 48 3'8' 30 4'10' 22 5'

All LEDZ products are available through worldwide distributor Hollywood Rentals. For more information, visitwww.led-z.com.

Panasonic Updates P2 MobilePanasonic has introduced the solid-state AJ-HPM200 P2

Mobile, a P2 HD mobile recorder/player.The HPM200 offers all of the popular features found in its

predecessor, the AJ-HPM110, and adds such functionality asenhanced editing with separate source and record windows, play-back from external disk drives,AVCHD compatibility (with the AJ-YCX250G option card), up-conversion of live video inputs inreal time, FTP and Giga-bit Ether-net interfaces for expandednetwork connectivity and 24ptime code input for productionapplications, including use as asource for a dailies process.

With DVCPro HD and AVC-Intra standard compatibility,AVCHD optional compatibility andexpanded input/output connec-tions, the HPM200 P2 Mobile is a

New Products & Services• SUBMISSION INFORMATION •

Please e-mail New Products/Services releases to:[email protected] and include full contactinformation and product images. Photos must be

TIFF or JPEG files of at least 300dpi.

comprehensive and versatile master-qualityHD field recorder that can be used with awide array of camera systems. The fieldrecorder offers 10-bit independent-frame4:2:2 quality recording in a variety of high-definition formats and frame rates, includ-ing 1080p (native), 1080i and 720p, aswell as standard-definition DVCPro50/25and DV.

With enhanced editing functionsand network capabilities, the HPM200 hasincreased appeal for use in productionfacilities, news, sports and live-event stag-ing applications. The HPM200’s split-

Camtrol Opens Operating PossibilitiesThe Camtrol stabilizing platform for

video and DSLR cameras is now available.Following a “no rules, only tools” philoso-phy, Camtrol offers users balance, supportand freedom while enabling dynamicshooting possibilities.

Features of the Camtrol include aLANC remote receiver, “true-feel” ActionControl Grip (ACG), fully articulated joint

system, channeledmounting plate andretractable “landinggear.” The ACGprovides for naturalhand positioning andcontrol, and thechanneled mountingplatform helps keepthe system centered,level and easy tohandle. The platformalso adds critical

weight for stability, and its cushioneddesign prevents camera slippage andunwanted vibration.

Camtrol’s three 360-degree rotatingball joints enable both low angle and over-head shots, and the four swing-out legsgive the user a quick and safe way to resetthe Camtrol in different positions. A verticalstabilizing bar properly adjusts the system’scenter of gravity and also enables two-handed control. Additionally, the sturdy T-6aluminum body offers protection andsupport in case the camera is dropped.

The Camtrol has a recommendedprice of $399.99. For more information,visit www.camtrol.com.


screen function displays both the sourceand recorded images simultaneously foreasier editing, and other new featuresenable clip exchange, multiple clip selec-tion, undo/redo last action, auto recordand text memo. The P2 Mobile also offerstwo-channel voiceover recording and real-time audio memory during playback.

In addition to the connectionsoffered on the HPM110 — including HD-SDI input/output, analog com-ponent/composite and audio, IEEE 1394and USB 2.0 — the HPM200 adds compat-ible AES Digital audio inputs and outputsas well as high-speed eSATA and Giga-bitEthernet. The P2 Mobile ensures high-quality recording with 10-bit 4:2:2 AVC-Intra or compatibility with existing DVCProeditors when connected to any HD-SDI-equipped camera, camcorder, deck ordevice; professionals can then randomlyaccess and view content selected viathumbnail clips on the unit’s built-in 9"LCD monitor.

Additional features include RS-422A for remote-control operation, arange of recording functions (includingloop record), eight 16-bit digital audiochannels, built-in waveform and

vectorscope, broadcast-level editingcontrols with a jog/shuttle dial (100xforward/reverse speed) and audio faders,an SD card slot and assignable user files.The P2 Mobile boasts a durable, compact,laptop-style design with a magnesium die-cast frame for easy transport. It operateson either AC or DC power and is backedby a five-year limited warranty program.

For more information, visitwww.panasonic.com/broadcast.

Atlas Supports, StabilizesCamerasThe Atlas Camera Support and

Stabilization System uses patented over-the-shoulder support — combining acomfortable harness with a flexible fiber-glass rod — to hold a camera. This designtakes the camera’s weight off the opera-tor’s shoulders and arms and distributes itto the operator’s core, enabling longerperiods of shooting without fatigue.

A Velcro strap with an attached D-ring wraps around the camera’s handleand allows the camera to be connected tothe fiberglass rod using an adjustablewebbing strap. The rod, which is held inplace with a tunnel casing on the back of

the operator’s harness, then absorbs vibra-tions before they reach the camera,making for smooth shots even whenmoving. The regular-duty Atlas can accom-modate cameras from 4 to 14 pounds,while a heavy-duty option works withcameras up to 30 pounds.

For more information, visitwww.atlascamerasupport.com.

Key Grip Systems Unveils MonotracksKGS Development, a subsidiary of

Key Grip Systems Belgium, has introducedthe Monotracks system.

Designed for ease of use, theMonotracks are precision machined fromcarefully chosen aluminum alloys. Thelightweight, rigid, symmetrical tracks boasta sleeper assembly allowing for fast setupin a variety of shooting situations. TheMonotracks’ high-resistance stainless-steelconnectors and pre-stressed mechanicalassembly contribute to the track system’sprecision, while plastic profiles guaranteethe tracks are protected during transport.

For more information, visitwww.kgsd.eu. ●

Sony Pictures Opens ColorworksSony Pictures Entertainment has

opened Colorworks, a full-service digital-intermediate facility located on its historiclot in Culver City. The 14,000-square-footcenter, housed in Stage 6, features state-of-the-art technology offering real-time 4Kprocessing in a full digital workflow.

The facility can scan and managefilm in 4K to ensure the highest qualityarchival and distribution product for newand restored motion-picture projects. To

manage the extraordinary size of digitizedmotion pictures, the DI center housesnearly 3.5 petabytes of computer storage.In fact, Colorworks’ digital-file-based work-flow leads the studio’s development of adigital production and distribution infra-structure called the Digital Backbone.

“Digital intermediate and masteringare a lesser known but critical piece of thefilmmaking puzzle,” says Gary Martin,president of Production Administration andSony Pictures Studio Operations. “We arethrilled to have our own center here on thelot, but more than that, the facility and thepersonnel are truly top of the line.” TheColorworks team includes colorists JohnPersichetti, Steve Bowen and Trent John-son; projects that have already gonethrough the Colorworks’ pipeline includeMichael Jackson’s This is It, Zombieland andCloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

For more information, visitwww.sonypictures.com.

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All classifications are $4.50 per word. Words set in bold face or allcapitals are $5.00 per word. First word of ad and advertiser’s namecan be set in capitals without extra charge. No agency commission ordiscounts on clas si fied advertising.PAYMENT MUST AC COM PA NY ORDER.VISA, Mastercard, AmEx and Discover card are ac cept ed. Send ad toClas si fied Ad ver tis ing, Amer i can Cin e ma tog ra pher, P.O. Box2230, Hol ly wood, CA 90078. Or FAX (323) 876-4973. Dead line forpayment and copy must be in the office by 15th of second monthpreceding pub li ca tion. Sub ject mat ter is lim it ed to items and ser vic esper tain ing to film mak ing and vid eo pro duc tion. Words used are sub jectto mag a zine style ab bre vi a tion. Min i mum amount per ad: $45

CLASSIFIEDS ON-LINE

Ads may now also be placed in the on-line Classifieds at the ASCweb site.

Internet ads are seen around the world at the same great rateas in print, or for slightly more you can appear both online and inprint.

For more information please visitwww.theasc.com/advertiser, or e-mail: [email protected].

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Advertiser’s Index16x9, Inc. 98

AC 4, 79AFI 87Aja Video Systems, Inc. 17Alan Gordon Enterprises

99Apparition 5Arri 41Arri CSC 55AZGrip 98

Backstage Equipment, Inc. 95

Band Pro Film & Digital 9Barger-Lite 6Birns & Sawyer 98Burrell Enterprises 98

Camera Image 97Canon 83Cavision Enterprises 29Chapman/Leonard Studio

Equipment Inc. 13Chapman University 19Chrosziel Filmtechnik 85Cine Gear Expo 93Cinematography

Electronics 89Cinekinetic 98Cinerover 98Clairmont Film & Digital 25Convergent Design 46Cooke Optics 6

Deluxe 39

Eastman Kodak 11, 67, C4Equipment & Film Design 27Evidence Productions 98

Film Gear 43Filmtools 91Filter Gallery, The 98Focus Features C2-1FTC West 98Fuji Motion Picture 53

Glidecam Industries 21

High Def Expo 103Hollywood Post Alliance 89Hochschule 95

Innoventive Software 91K 5600, Inc. 71Kino Flo 47

Laffoux Solutions, Inc. 98Lee Filters 59LitePanels 2

Movie Tech AG 99MP&E Mayo Productions 99MSM Design 91

NAB 101Nevada Film Commission 81New York Film Academy 69New York University 23

Oppenheimer Camera Prod. 98

P+S Technik 45, Panasonic Broadcast 37Panavision 77PED Denz 43, 99, Photon Beard 99Pro8mm 98

Rosco Laboratories, Inc. 58

Shelton Communications 98Stanton Video Services 6Summit Entertainment 7Super16 Inc. 98

Technicolor 15Telescopic 99Thales Angenieux 30-31Tiffen C3

VF Gadgets, Inc. 99

Willy’s Widgets 98www.theasc.com 70,

83, 95, 99

Zacuto Films 99ZGC, Inc. 6, 45Zipcam Systems 57

100

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Society Welcomes Denault Growing up in New York’s Hudson

River Valley, Jim Denault, ASC developedan early fascination with photography andreceived his first camera when he was 7years old. His passion eventually took him tothe Rochester Institute of Technology, wherehe earned a bachelor’s degree in photogra-phy.

Denault credits 2001: A SpaceOdyssey, which he saw at the age of 9, formaking him aware of cinematography. Butit wasn’t until 1986, when he was hired asthe boom operator on the low-budget inde-pendent feature Cheap Shots, that he real-ized not all filmmakers grew up in Holly-wood. He began working steadily as anelectrician, climbing the ranks to gaffer andthen cinematographer.

His credits as director of photogra-phy include the features Boys Don’t Cry,Real Women Have Curves, Maria Full ofGrace (AC May ’04) and The Sisterhood ofthe Traveling Pants 2. He earned an Emmynomination for his work on the seriesCarnivàle, and he shot episodes of the seriesSix Feet Under, In Plain Sight and RoyalPains.

Lukk Becomes AssociateNew associate member Howard

Lukk began his work with the ASC whileserving as director of technology for DigitalCinema Initiatives. Along with fellow associ-ate member Walt Ordway, Lukk contactedthe ASC to seek members’ input in theestablishment of standards for digital exhibi-tion. That collaboration led to the ASC-DCIStem test. Lukk is currently the director ofmedia systems at Pixar Animation Studios.

Tosi Honored in Fort LauderdaleMario Tosi, ASC was recently

honored with the inaugural LifetimeAchievement in Cinematography Award atthe 24th annual Fort Lauderdale Interna-tional Film Festival. The festival screened aretrospective of his films, including Carrie,MacArthur, The Betsy, The Main Event andThe Stunt Man. A native of Rome, Italy, Tosisettled in Fort Lauderdale after enjoying a

Clubhouse News

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Top to bottom: Jim Denault, ASC; Mario Tosi,ASC (right) and Fort Lauderdale International

Film Festival President Gregory von Hausch;Robert Primes, ASC; Lance Acord, ASC (left)

and AC associate editor Jon D. Witmer.

busy career in Hollywood. “This recognition… makes this town ever more my city,” hesays.

Deakins, Farrar Honored in L.A.The 13th annual Hollywood Film

Festival and Hollywood Awards recentlyhonored Society members Roger Deakinsand Scott Farrar. Deakins received theHollywood Cinematographer Award, whileFarrar took home the Hollywood VisualEffects Award for his work on Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen (AC Aug. ’09).

Deakins received another honor, the2009 Nikola Tesla Award in Recognition ofVisionary Achievement in Filmmaking Tech-nology, at the International Press Academy’s14th annual Satellite Awards.

Primes Dines with FilmFellasRobert Primes, ASC recently joined

cinematographers Trent Opaloch, PhilipBloom and Jens Bogehegn for Zacuto Films’Web series FilmFellas. The foursome talkedshop around the dinner table, discussingcreative freedom, the art of collaboration,and how to maintain a project’s vision. Alively debate centered upon DSLR cameras’impact on filmmaking.

To watch FilmFellas, visitwww.zacuto.com.

ASC Busy at HD ExpoLance Acord, ASC discussed his

work with AC associate editor Jon D.Witmer in a keynote presentation at HDExpo Los Angeles in November. Focusing onAcord’s continuing collaboration with direc-tor Spike Jonze, the conversation touchedon the features Being John Malkovich,Adaptation and Where the Wild ThingsAre.

Also at HD Expo, Rodney Taylor,ASC joined the panel discussion “3-D:Creativity, Imagery and Cinematography”;Yuri Neyman, ASC led an intensive work-shop on Gamma & Density Co.’s 3cPsystem; and associate member LarryParker participated in the panel “HardCore, Revolutionary and Indispensable:Must-Have and Must-See Gear.” ●

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When you were a child, what films made the strongestimpression on you?I can recall two, both very dramatic pieces: Bonnie and Clyde(1967) and Wait Until Dark (1967).

Which cinematographers, past or present, do you mostadmire, and why?There are so many great cinematographers it’s hard to say, butprobably ASC members Caleb Deschanel and Jordan Cronenweth,because when I was a young cinematographer, producers werealways asking me to make our movies look like the films shot bythose gentlemen. I loved to study their work.

What sparked your interest in photography?My uncle was a great amateur photographer. He’d takeKodachrome slides and come over to the house and set up hisprojector, and we’d all sit around the living roomwatching his slide shows. I was mesmerized bythe crispness and color of the photographs.

Where did you train and/or study?I attended Pasadena City College for two years,but I am mostly self-taught. I worked a graveyardshift at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and onslow nights, which were many, I read everythingabout filmmaking that I could get my hands on.At that job, I earned enough money to rentcameras, buy 16mm film and pay for processingso I could make short films. I ruined a lot of film.

Who were your teachers or mentors?I was fortunate to meet a cinematographer named HenningSchellerup, who was a great teacher. He was shooting movies fora company called Sunn Classics, and he asked me to work as hissecond camera assistant. Working at Sunn Classics was like film-maker boot camp; I learned so much. As an AC, I’d load film, pullfocus, set up cameras, and sometimes go off and shoot secondunit. It gave me the training no school could have given me at thetime.

What are some of your key artistic influences?I like to watch a lot of movies and television. I get the most fromseeing other cinematographers’ work. Good or bad, I learn a lot.

How did you get your first break in the business?I was officially moved up to director of photography on a TV movieby producer Andrew Mirisch and director E.W. Swakhamer. I hadbeen operating on movies of the week and met both men whilewe were shooting a series of Westerns, Desperado, for NBC. Theyliked my operating, looked at a demo I put together, and decidedI would be a good choice to shoot the next two Desperado moviesfor them.

What has been your most satisfying moment on a project?Once, when things were pretty tough and I thought my work

wasn’t very good on a series I was shooting, I came home to finda message on my machine from Woody Omens, ASC, telling meI’d been nominated for an ASC Award. I celebrated all night. Itvalidated the work I was struggling with. I kept that message onmy machine for the longest time and played it back whenever Idoubted myself.

Have you made any memorable blunders?Conveniently, I don’t remember most of them! On the first TVmovie I shot, I underexposed the night work on the first day. Feel-ing pressure from the producer, I rushed to get the scene done ontime — I wasn’t ready but shot anyway. The next day, I got the labreport, and my stomach sank. That’s the worst feeling a cine-matographer can have. They forgave me — ‘first day’ and all —but I have not underexposed film since then.

What is the best professional advice you’veever received?Stay true to yourself. When everything is crazyaround you and you feel like you’re being forcedinto making all the compromises, do what isright for you and make the compromises youcan live with. In the end, what people see on thescreen is what they remember you by.

What recent books, films or artworks haveinspired you?I’m a little weird in that trade magazines andtech books inspire me. Magazines like American

Cinematographer and Popular Science stretch my imagination andget me thinking.

Do you have any favorite genres, or are there genres youwould like to try?I would love to do another Western. I also love period pieces andsci-fi. I’d like to create my own vision of something with no realboundaries or rules to adhere to.

If you weren’t a cinematographer, what might you beingdoing instead?I always wanted to be an astronaut, but since NASA isn’t likely toaccept my application, I’d probably work in visual effects. I likedoing CGI.

Which ASC cinematographers recommended you formembership?George Spiro Dibie, Richard Rawlings Jr. and Sy Hoffberg.

How has ASC membership impacted your life and career?It has validated the 30 years I’ve been in this business. Being amember of an elite group of people is an honor in any field. Beinginvited to join the ASC is by far the best recognition I’ve everreceived. Having ‘ASC’ after my name is an honor and a privilege.

●

Billy Dickson, ASCClose-up

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M I C H A E L G O I , A S CONFILM

“I believe in magic. As a child, I watched 8 mm

movies projected on the living room wall at a

friend’s house and gazed at the frames as they

danced toward the light. That these images

on a piece of celluloid could tell stories, take

me to strange places, teach me about the

past, and inspire me toward the future was

absolutely magical to me. When I was 8 years

old, my parents bought me a secondhand movie

camera and I never looked back. ... The power

of cinematographic images circles the entire

world. It goes beyond entertainment, beyond

information. It is an indelible document of who

we are and what we believe; something that

cannot be erased – a work of art born from a

passion for light and shadow. … When I finish

a movie, I still ask the projectionist if I can

rewind the last reel so I can see the frames and

watch the cuts go by. The magic is still there.”

Michael Goi, ASC earned an Emmy®

nomination for My Name is Earl and ASC

Award nominations for the television films

The Fixer and Judas. He has earned more than

50 credits, including The Mentalist, Who

Killed Atlanta’s Children?, The Dukes, Red Water

and Expecting Mary. Goi is president of the

American Society of Cinematographers.

[All these programs were shot on Kodak motion picture film.]

For an extended interview with Michael Goi, visit www.kodak.com/go/onfilm.

To order Kodak motion picture film, call (800) 621-film. www.motion.kodak.com© Eastman Kodak Company, 2009. Photography: © 2009 Douglas Kirkland

american cinematographer 01 2010 usa

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