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A M E R I C A N C I N E M AT O G R A P H E R • J A N U A RY 2 0 0 9 • R E V O L U T I O N A RY R O A D ; T H E C U R I O U S C A S E O F B E N J A M I N B U T T O N ; D E F I A N C E ; J A C K G R E E N , A S C • V O L . 9 0 N O. 1

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© 2008 Sony Electronics Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Features and specifications are subject to change without notice. Sony, CineAlta, HDNA, the HDNA logo, XDCAM and XDCAM EX are trademarks of Sony.

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On Our Cover: Businessman Frank Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio) finds his marriage crumbling in Revolutionary Road, shot by Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC. (Photo by François Duhamel, SMPSP, courtesy of DreamWorks LLC.)

Features 28 42 58 70

Departments

8 10 16 80 84 88 89 90 92 94 96

Close Focus Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC captures a couple’s downward spiral in Revolutionary Road

An Old Soul Claudio Miranda exploits cutting-edge technologies on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

42

Brothers in Arms Eduardo Serra, ASC, AFC frames a true tale of World War II heroism in Defiance

A Cut Above Jack Green, ASC receives the Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award

Editor’s Note Short Takes: Triangle of Need Production Slate: Frost/Nixon, The Wrestler Post Focus: HPA Awards, Still Me New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index In Memoriam: Robert C. Jessup, ASC Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Gabriel Beristain

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BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Harris Savides,

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For up-to-the-minute screening information, to read Dustin Lance Black’s original screenplay, and to hear Danny Elfman’s score and more about this extraordinary film from director Gus Van Sant, go to: www.FilmInFocus.com/awards08 ARTWORK ©2008 FOCUS FEATURES, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

“A TOTAL TRIUMPH, BRIMMING WITH HUMOR AND HEART. IF THERE’S A BETTER MOVIE AROUND THIS YEAR, WITH MORE BRISTLING PURPOSE, I SURE HAVEN’T SEEN IT. ####. Camera genius Harris Savides, gives the film a tribal vibrancy. Shooting on the streets Harvey walked in San Francisco, and blending in archival footage, he drops us into the cartwheeling culture of the 1970s with a dizzying sense of time and place. An American classic.” —Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE

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Editor’s Note irector Sam Mendes first explored the illusions and delusions of American suburbia in American Beauty (1999), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Achievement in Cinematography (for Conrad L. Hall, ASC). On his latest project, Revolutionary Road, the English filmmaker teamed with Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC to focus a pitiless lens on the crumbling marriage of an outwardly enviable couple (played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) in suburban Connecticut in 1955. Based on Richard Yates’ novel, the picture led Mendes and Deakins to spotlight the actors’ performances while avoiding stylistic flourishes in their approach to the period. “I hate the idea that you have to make the photography colorful because it’s the ’50s, or that you have to make it gauzy and sepia because it’s an earlier era — I’ve never seen the point of that, really,” Deakins tells senior editor Rachael K. Bosley (“Close Focus,” page 28). Mendes seconds the motion: “I didn’t want to have any shots that said, ‘The 1950s: weren’t they extraordinary!’ I simply wanted it to be where these characters live.” In an insightful sidebar (“Furnishing a Plain Period Look,” page 36), set decorator Deborah Schutt confirms, “We all wanted to make a period movie that didn’t look like one.” David Fincher and cinematographer Claudio Miranda had to convey the look of eight different decades while turning back the clock on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which stars Brad Pitt as a man who is born in 1918 and ages in reverse. While the film offers plenty of period ambience, Miranda notes, “The intention was to be as naturalistic as possible. Our initial influence for textures and framing was [painter] Andrew Wyeth.” Of course, the filmmakers also had to come up with a way to make their main character age and regress believably, which involved some complex technologies. Miranda and post supervisor Peter Mavromates pull back the curtain in their comments to contributing writer Douglas Bankston (“An Old Soul,” page 42). World War II is the timeframe explored in Defiance, shot by Eduardo Serra, ASC, AFC for director Ed Zwick. In telling a true story of Jewish resistance fighters who take refuge in a forest, Serra rebuts the notion that exterior cinematography offers fewer opportunities to be creative. By pushing Kodak’s tungsten-balanced 5279 stock two stops and eschewing an 85 filter, he added grain and contrast to exterior images and created unpredictable changes in the negative’s red, green and blue curves. “The changes are subtle, but they’re there,” Serra explains to Paris-based correspondent Benjamin B (“Brothers in Arms,” page 58). “With film, it’s important to have the three color curves perfectly parallel, and in this picture, they really aren’t.” Bold choices are often rewarding, as ASC member Jack Green quickly learned after he gave up barbering for a life behind the camera. What the world lost in tonsorial technique it has gained in memorable Hollywood moments. Green entered into a long and rewarding collaboration with Clint Eastwood, beginning as a camera operator and eventually advancing to cinematographer on a number of Eastwood’s films, including Bird, Unforgiven and The Bridges of Madison County. His record of excellence has earned him this year’s ASC Lifetime Achievement Award, and Green shares some of his recollections with contributing writer Jon Silberg (“A Cut Above,” page 70).

Stephen Pizzello Executive Editor 8

Photo by Douglas Kirkland.

D

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Short Takes Forging Triangle of Need for Catherine Sullivan

Above: Mistresses bid farewell from a barge in Triangle of Need, an installation piece directed by Catherine Sullivan and photographed by Raoul Germain. Below: One of the installation’s three rooms at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

10 January 2009

n 2002, five years after Catherine Sullivan transitioned from live theater to producing and directing conceptualvideo works, she began developing her first commission, which became Five Economies (big hunt/little hunt). With a larger budget than she had previously enjoyed, she decided to expand her work into a multi-screen project that would replicate the experience of watching a theater piece. To capture the complex

I

imagery the project required, Sullivan turned to cinematographer Raoul Germain, whom she had met when Germain was gaffing an independent feature for a mutual friend. When their collaboration began on Five Economies, Sullivan was a bit cryptic about the subject matter, says Germain. “Most of the time, she would just say, ‘These are the images we’re going to shoot.’” Germain was finally able to see

Five Economies from Sullivan’s perspective when the piece premiered at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles — on five 20'-tall screens. “I was astounded,” he says. “I got the concept and the way it moved around you as a viewer in the center of it all. Once I saw the fruits of our labor, I was so excited and proud of the work that I really wanted to keep the relationship going.” Four collaborations later, in August 2007, Sullivan and Germain introduced their latest and largest installation, Triangle of Need, at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center. Like Five Economies, Triangle was conceived as a multi-screen fine-art experience involving the layering of many different storylines and locations playing simultaneously on multiple projectors and television screens. According to the artist’s statement, Triangle “delves into corporate corruption and the idea of conforming old ideals to new ones in a modern age.” Triangle’s genesis can be traced to when Sullivan was invited to make a piece at the Villa Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, a 16th-century Italian-style estate built as a winter home for American industrialist James Deering in Biscayne Bay, Fla. When Sullivan first encountered Vizcaya’s main house, formal gardens, lagoon and derelict village, she was inspired by its potential as a location for one of the pieces. The project comprises several short films that form a cohesive whole. In one room, a six-minute looped projection intercuts 16mm shots of a spinning figure skater with blown-up Super 8mm footage from a Quinceañera (a traditional Latino coming-of-age celebration for young women) at Vizcaya. In an adjoining chamber, three flat-screen

Photos and frame grabs courtesy of the filmmakers.

by Iain Stasukevich

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Top to bottom: A production still showing Neanderthals cleansed by mistresses in the secret garden at Florida’s Villa Vizcaya Museum and Gardens; an orphan passes on in a color segment shot at Villa Vizcaya; a frame grab of the Neanderthals’ arrival at Villa Vizcaya, shot on Kodak Double-X 7222; a frame grab from the Quinceañera sequence, which was shot with Porst 40D Super 8 film.

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high-definition TVs show the “Chicago” portion of the work, set in a tenement apartment inhabited by early 20th century workers from Deering’s agricultural-equipment factory; these three scenes (each running 20 minutes) were filmed in black-and-white and focus on a family of Gypsies, a trio of Neanderthals, and French emperor Napoleon and his wife, Josephine. The third and largest room features four hi-def digital projectors showing color and black-and-white scenes shot in and around the Vizcaya estate. In these scenes, each of which runs about 30 minutes, the “Chicago” characters appear opposite a new cast of what the filmmakers describe as “anachronistic degenerates.” For the 16mm footage of the figure skater, shot inside the Chicago Ice arena, Germain used Kodak Double-X 7222 black-and-white film. He recalls that these shots were relatively uncomplicated, while the Quinceañera footage was much more involved. On a conceptual level, a lot of Triangle’s content deals with matters of extinction, and Sullivan felt it would be interesting to work with an expired film stock. Via the Internet, she discovered a subculture dedicated to obsolete Super 8 stocks, and she acquired several rolls of discontinued Porst 40D film. Germain was game, but he wasn’t sure what kind of image he would get — if any — from a film stock that went bad in 1982. His plan was to overexpose and overdevelop the film by 2 stops, and he planned to do a snip test at Film Rescue in Indian Head, Saskatchewan. Even though it was her idea, Sullivan went into the test less optimistic than Germain, but her fears were ultimately dispelled. “It looked very much like an impressionist painting,” she says. “The image broke down to these blunt formations of shapes and lines.” “When we got to the telecine [at Color Lab in Rockville, Md.], we didn’t want to correct it at all,” says Germain. “We just wanted to let it do what it was doing. The colorists were trying to get the best image out of it, and they were complaining that the grain was gargan-

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Steadicam operator B.J. McDonnell maneuvers through the main house at Villa Vizcaya.

tuan and the color completely shifted from one shot to the next. The emulsion was extremely degraded, but we ended up getting a really beautiful texture.” (Ben Hadden, Ben Kolak and Sean Tice provided additional Super 8 photography for the project.) The “Chicago” portion of the work is closer to the style of Sullivan and Germain’s earlier collaborations, which often featured extensive use of the Steadicam. When Sullivan was developing Five Economies, her goal was to capture long, meandering takes, and the same was true for Triangle, where the action in the Chicago tenement moved through hallways and followed characters in and out of apartments. For some shots, Steadicam operator B.J. McDonnel had to stand stock-still for three or four minutes before beginning a threeminute move across a 30' span of apartment while sidestepping actors in the wings and on the ground. Using Germain’s Aaton XTRprod, a Canon 11-165mm zoom and a set of Zeiss Super Speed primes, the filmmakers planned to photograph 360 degrees of the tenement location, meaning all lighting had to be off the floor or dressed as part of the set. Adding to the complexity, Sullivan worked out precise blocking for as many as 13 actors at a time, and if the actors missed their marks, they would end up in total darkness. Fortunately, the building they were shooting in was being renovated, 14 January 2009

leaving the crew free to knock out ceilings and walls. To speed the filmmakers’ progress from one room to the next, gaffer Andy Cook created a wood grid with 2-by-4s above the ceiling line and strung cables through holes in the ceiling and walls to other grids in adjacent rooms. Germain and Cook fitted the grids with a mix of 650-watt, 350-watt, 150-watt and 1K tungsten units on Variac dimmers, while a 1.2K HMI was stationed on a lift outside the secondstory window to push hard “daylight” into the rooms. All lights were left clean to produce hard shadows, and these scenes were also shot on Double-X 7222. As Triangle’s cycle concludes, the Chicago workers, Gypsies and French sovereigns find themselves transported to Vizcaya, where they engage in reconstructions of scenes from old Pathéscope films as a tribe of Neanderthals is forced by the villa’s lord to reproduce. (Deering ordered silent-film reels from Pathéscope for screening at Vizcaya.) Because Sullivan was working on a commission, she and her crew had unlimited access to the entire estate. “The villa drove a lot of the content,” she notes. For the exteriors, Germain planned to shoot Kodak EXR 50D 7245 with an Arri 16SR-3 and the same lenses he used in Chicago, but he and Sullivan hadn’t accounted for Miami’s unpredictable weather. On a clear day, the color stock provided vibrant, satu-

rated shots of the blue skies and green gardens, but footage from hazy days was lackluster — unless it was shot in black-and-white. (Night exteriors, lit with 4K HMIs and 10K tungsten fixtures, were shot on 7222.) The main house at Vizcaya is part of the villa’s museum, which made shooting interiors problematic. An allseeing Steadicam was required for more than 90 percent of the camerawork, and everything in the house was a valuable antique, and no one was allowed to move or touch anything. To make matters worse, heavy storm grates outside every window acted as “huge scrims that just stopped down light,” says Germain. Unable to bring in big fixtures or rig anything to the walls or ceilings, he had to carefully strategize his lamp placement on the floor and shoot with a fast stock, in this case Kodak Vision2 500T 7218. “For some scenes, I had to simply shoot wide open [T1.3] and hope the film would saturate enough for our needs,” says the cinematographer. “Sometimes I’d bounce a single 1.2K HMI into the ceiling for fill. When we lost light, I had to place 2.5Ks outside windows that were dressed with 216 diffusion to simulate the blowout of bright daylight.” In post, all the Super 16 footage was mastered at 2K resolution by Nolo Digital Film in Chicago and down-rezzed to 1080p for digital projection. Nolo also handled the integration of Color Lab’s 1080p Super 8 transfer with the 2K footage of the figure skater for output to 16mm. Asked what the best way is to view the work, Sullivan pauses, then says, “A lot of it is about your judgment as a viewer — what you connect to. It really is an experience that’s ultimately driven by your own connection to the work.” For Germain, Triangle of Need was “a dream job. It isn’t often a cinematographer can create images simply for the sake of creating them, without any selling of products or movie stars. There were no producers telling us we needed more skin or action. It’s just pretty pictures.” I

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Production Slate Right: British talk-show host David Frost (Michael Sheen, left) listens as former U.S. President Richard M. Nixon (Frank Langella) analyzes his tenure in the White House. Below: Assisted by Mark Santoni, A-camera operator Andrew Rowlands, SOC captures the reverse angle on Sheen as a second camera stands at the ready. Cinematographer Salvatore Totino, ASC often employs two cameras in dialogue scenes, noting, “I especially like to do ‘overs’ with two cameras; I feel you get great performances out of the actors … it gives them a ‘live’ feeling, almost as though they’re onstage and this is their one performance.”

16 January 2009

Historic Conversations by Jean Oppenheimer A full year after wrapping Frost/Nixon, cinematographer Salvatore Totino, ASC is still jazzed about shooting

it. His enthusiasm is palpable, even on the phone. “Do you know how much fun that was?” he exclaims after describing a particularly tricky shot. Adapted from Peter Morgan’s stage play, Frost/Nixon recreates the

1977 television interviews that British talk-show host David Frost (Michael Sheen) conducted with Richard M. Nixon (Frank Langella) three years after Nixon resigned from the U.S. presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The film also covers the leadup to the interviews, including the initial contacts and the subsequent preparations made by each camp. Frost/Nixon is Totino’s fourth collaboration with director Ron Howard, following The Missing, Cinderella Man (AC June ’05) and The Da Vinci Code (AC June ’06). Since wrapping the picture, the two have made a fifth feature together, Angels and Demons, the sequel to The Da Vinci Code. “Ron is 10 years older than I am, but he has the energy of somebody 20 years younger,” the cinematographer says with a laugh. “Keeping up with him is a challenge ¢ unto itself.”

Frost/Nixon photos by Ralph Nelson, courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Confronting an Ex-President and Grappling with Reality

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Above: Frost (far left) sits down for a strategy session with his team, which includes (left to right) author James Reston Jr. (Sam Rockwell), producer John Birt (Matthew Macfadyen) and consultant Jack Zelnik (Oliver Platt). Below (from left): Santoni, Rowlands, Totino and 1st AC Dominic Aluisi at work.

18 January 2009

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“Energy” also describes Frost/ Nixon’s guiding principle, and for Totino, that meant “moving the camera, handholding the camera whenever possible, making the viewer feel he’s in the room with the actors, and rolling on the first rehearsal and letting everything develop from there. We didn’t want a documentary feel; we just wanted to make everything feel a bit more visceral, a bit more spontaneous.” By way of example, he points to the scene in which Jack Zelnik (Oliver Platt) and James Reston Jr. (Sam Rockwell), two consultants hired to educate Frost about Nixon, meet Frost for the

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first time. The scene takes place in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, a set that was built onstage at Century Studios in Culver City. “We decided to not block the scene,” recalls Totino. “I had watched Ron rehearse the actors, and he said, ‘Let’s just start shooting and see how things fall in, and we’ll build on that.’” Acamera operator Andrew Rowlands, SOC was handholding an Arricam Lite in the room as Platt and Rockwell entered from the hallway, followed by Totino on another Lite. “I yelled out, ‘I’m coming through the door! Make sure you don’t see me!’” recounts Totino. “Andrew and I moved around the room, falling into

different shots, building the scene [as we went along]. Somehow, we never got in each other’s way. It was like excellent couple’s tennis!” Totino was working with Rowlands for the first time, and he says, “Andrew is an incredible operator. I did Angels and Demons with him after that, and I hope to do the rest of my films with him! We work well together, just instinctually.” Using two cameras is a hallmark of Totino’s style. “I especially like to do ‘overs’ with two cameras; I feel you get great performances out of the actors that way. It gives them a ‘live’ feeling, almost as though they’re onstage and this is their one performance.” One sequence — a long, late-night phone conversation between Nixon and Frost — was actually shot live, with Langella on one set and Sheen on an adjoining one. Nixon is in his San Clemente home when, fortified with a few drinks, he picks up the phone and calls Frost at the hotel. “Ron suggested we shoot both ends of the conversation at the same time, and it was a great idea,” says Totino. “The sets were right next to each other, and I put two cameras on Langella and two on Sheen.” (All four cameras were on dollies.) The cinematographer kept the lighting simple. Nixon was lit by moonlight coming through a window (5K Fresnels gelled with light CTB) and a small practical (a lamp holding a 40-watt bulb bolstered by a small Kino Flo behind it), and Frost, sitting in his hotel suite, was lit with practicals and a small Kino Flo. According to Totino, the lighting goal throughout the shoot was “to make it feel real.” Because most of the film takes place in Southern California, that meant a lot of sunshine. Nearly all day interiors, whether on location or onstage, were lit through windows with 12-light Maxi-Brutes and a 20K Fresnel. Inside, Totino occasionally added a 2K Fresnel bouncing off bleached muslin. “When I was looking toward the windows, that gave a little wrap around the actors.” Night interiors were lit with practical lamps inside and a bit of moon¢ light outside.

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K_\cfZXk`fej%K_\Zi\nj%K_\ `e]iXjkilZkli\%K_\]`cd$dXb`e^ kiX[`k`fe%K_\kXo`eZ\ek`m\j%8e[ fg\e`e^jffe#JkX^\('%I\cXo% E:=@CDF==@:<%/--%+-/%)).*

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Nixon hangs up on Frost after drunk-dialing his interrogator before their final interview. To lend this sequence a live feel, the filmmakers shot Langella and Sheen simultaneously on adjoining sets.

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Totino occasionally softened sunny day exteriors by placing a 20'x20' frame of Soft Frost over the actors, “but we didn’t have a lot of time, and we needed to look almost 360 degrees, so we couldn’t bring in big construction cranes to control the sun with silks. On this film, my work was more about finding camera angles that would suit the lighting that was there.” To the surprise of just about everybody, the current owners of La Casa Pacifica, Nixon’s Western White House in San Clemente, agreed to let the production shoot there. “It’s so unique, particularly in the courtyard area and the entrance,” notes Howard. “We couldn’t find anything that would replicate it.” The production spent two days at the compound and filmed several sequences in the exact spot where the real events had taken place. Other practical locations included the Nixon Library and the Beverly Hills Hotel. Totino shot Frost/Nixon in Super 35mm. He initially tried to convince the studio to allow him to shoot 3-perf, “but they were reluctant. They felt it wouldn’t give them any wiggle room in post.” The footage was processed normally at Deluxe Laboratories, and the digital intermediate was carried out at EFilm. “Doing a DI allows me to be a little quicker on the set — I don’t have to spend a half-hour flagging a little

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shadow on a wall, because I know I can fix it later.” He timed the picture with colorist Steve Bowen, a regular collaborator since The Missing. Clairmont Camera provided the cameras and lenses, which included Cooke S4 primes, Nikkor 200mm and 300mm lenses, an Angenieux 12:1 Optimo (24-290mm) zoom and a Cooke (18mm-100mm) zoom. With the exception of the late-night phone call, which was shot on 100mm and 150mm lenses, Totino generally stayed with medium focal lengths. The production had a 40day shooting schedule but managed to finish two days early. In one of Totino’s favorite shots, Frost arrives at the house where the interviews will take place. The actor was driving the car, and Totino was next to him, handholding the camera. The passenger door was tied open and the camera battery was taped to the roof. “Focus puller Dominic Aluisi was in the passenger seat behind me with a remote follow focus,” recalls the cinematographer. “You see a jogger running by, and I tilt down and show Frost’s hands as he starts turning the steering wheel. I tilt up and show the reporters on the lawn through the windshield. The car comes to a stop, and I pan back to Frost’s face. He acknowledges his producer, who is theoretically sitting where I am. At that point, I lean back

and pass the camera out to Andrew, who is waiting for us on the sidewalk. He takes the camera, and Dominic passes the follow focus out to another camera assistant on the sidewalk. Frost strides across the street. Zelnick, Reston and John Birt (Matthew Macfadyen), Frost’s producer, come around from the back of the car and also cross the street. Then Nixon’s motorcade drives up. “Originally, we went into a whole over-the-shoulder into Nixon, but that part got cut — the shot was just too long,” adds Totino. “But that whole sequence was so much fun to do.” Another of Totino’s favorite shots finds Nixon lying on a gurney as he’s rushed into a hospital. The grips built a speed-rail rig over the gurney, and as the EMTs push the gurney forward, the camera, on a remote head, is looking back toward the emergency entrance they just used. The camera tilts down to Nixon’s face. At that point, the scene cuts to a tight shot of one of the wheels on the gurney as it races down the hall. To get this shot, Totino lay on a doorway dolly and held the camera, following the wheel until it turned the corner and exited frame. He praises Aluisi, his longtime focus puller, noting, “I always like to move quickly, which makes it doubly hard on Dominic. Plus, all of our night scenes were shot wide open at T2!” Totino says he and Howard have developed a way of working together that serves them well: they drive to the set together every morning, along with the 1st AD, and talk about the day ahead of them. “We get to the set early, jump out of the car and get right to it,” he says. “As we drive home at the end of the day, we recap what we’ve done and talk about the next day. Ron is always really well prepared, and working with him is fantastic.” TECHNICAL SPECS 2.40:1 Super 35mm Arricam System Cooke, Nikkor, Angenieux lenses Kodak Vision2 500T 5218, 100T 5212 Digital Intermediate ¢

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Why do I like to get my camera equipment from Clairmont? Because I know and like the people who work there, and have a long relationship with them. They go out of their way to make sure I get the gear I need. Because I know the equipment will be new, wellserviced, and backed up by a large inventory. Because they buy the newest film and HD equipment, and often modify it to work better than when it comes straight from the manufacturer. Because Clairmont has been very helpful in educating my colleagues and me on the newest digital equipment - demonstrating both the benefits and limitations, and giving us an honest assessment of what they like and don't like. Whether a project calls for film or digital, 16 or 35 mm, high budget or low, Clairmont has always been very supportive. And support is something we all appreciate, whether from production, crew, or rental house. I would like to thank Denny and everyone at Clairmont Camera for all the help and support they’ve given me over the years. Michael Bonvillain, ASC

www.clairmont.com Hollywood 818-761-4440

Vancouver 604-984-4563

Toronto 416-467-1700

Albuquerque 505-227-2525

Montreal 514-525-6556

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On the Ropes by Claire Walla There’s very little in professional wrestling that screams ‘realism.’ Participants use fake, hyperbolic names (i.e., Sgt. Slaughter); dress in flashy, skintight costumes; and perform an array of choreographed moves that range from Bodyslams to Tombstone Piledrivers. But for Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke), the main character in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, the world outside the ring is painfully real.

22 January 2009

We meet The Ram nearly two decades after the peak of his fame. He’s still wrestling, but his real livelihood is a minimum-wage job at a local supermarket. He’s trying to foster a connection with a sympathetic stripper, Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), and when his troubles take a turn for the worse, he makes an effort to repair his relationship with his only child, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood). In developing a look for The Wrestler, cinematographer Maryse Alberti says she and Aronofsky “wanted

to keep the mood of each space,” whether it was a wrestling ring or the Acme Market where The Ram works. Shooting Super 16mm, she avoided filtration and relied primarily on existing light at the locations, bolstering it when necessary. For a scene in which The Ram joins a number of his aging colleagues for an autograph session at a local VFW hall, Alberti “tried to preserve the drabness of the room” by adding only a few Mac 2000s “to get the light up to speed.” She adds, “For the most part, I was not afraid to come in and say, ‘He looks great; I don’t need to do anything,’ or add just one little bulb and say, ‘It looks fine.’” The filmmakers’ decision to shoot Super 16 was influenced by the production’s modest budget, but the graininess of the image also served to create the semi-documentary feel Aronofsky had in mind. The mix of documentary and feature credits on Alberti’s résumé made her “a perfect match for the material,” says the director. “I was excited about the prospect of working with Maryse because she had done features I was a big, big fan of, Happiness [1998] and Velvet Goldmine [1998],

The Wrestler photos by Niko Tavernise, courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Right: Brokendown wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) leans heavily on the top rope while trying to recapture some of his old magic in the ring. Below: The Ram attempts a reconciliation with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood).

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and she had spent many years working in documentaries.” (Her credits in that discipline include Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Taxi to the Dark Side.) He and Alberti spent about five weeks scouting locations and planning some shots, but roughly 40 percent of The Wrestler was entirely unscripted. “There were many ways I could have chosen to tell this story, but Mickey [Rourke] is very much in the moment — he’s very unpredictable between ‘Action’ and ‘Cut,’” notes Aronofsky. “I wanted to create a visual language that would be as free as possible to capture that.” The director’s quest for realism

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led the filmmakers to shoot The Ram’s performances in the midst of real wrestling matches, or “promotions.” Alberti explains, “We would go in with Mickey in the middle of a match, shoot a little bit, get out, and then come back in to shoot a little bit more.” They shot sporadically because The Ram’s matches were so physically demanding, and because the time lapse allowed the real wrestlers to get back into the ring while the crew reloaded. The wrestlers were thus able to rile up the crowd for when the camera got rolling again. “It’s hard to shoot in the middle of a screaming crowd when you have to keep a pace, because the people had come to

see a show, and they only had so much patience for the film crew,” recalls Alberti. “But we were on top of everything, and nothing went wrong.” Aronofsky’s desire for an improvisational feel extended to the lighting of a number of scenes. A-camera operator Peter Nolan recalls, “To get a shot of Mickey at a phone booth at night, we literally rolled up in a couple of vans, the prop guys pulled out the phone booth, and Maryse lit it with two 1-by-1 Litepanels LEDs. It was a very quick setup, but it was right for the shot — we weren’t skimping in any way.” Alberti often does her own operating, and when she signed onto The Wrestler, she planned to do that, “but I very quickly realized Darren does a lot of takes, and that physically it was going to be too demanding — I wouldn’t have had enough time to really look at the lighting,” she says. “I was very lucky to have Peter.” A longtime operator on the FX series Rescue Me, which emphasizes handheld camerawork, Nolan reports that he was “basically shooting with my handheld bag of tricks to make sure I could deliver the shot.” With the help of key grip Chris Skutch, he was able to bring some techniques he uses on Rescue Me to The Wrestler. For instance, he often maneuvered around scenes with half an apple box tethered to his waist so that whenever he sat down, he would always have a flat surface on his lap where he could rest his arms. “It looks very funny on set, obviously, but it’s a great technique, and it works,” says Nolan. “When you’re in a very low seated position with the camera on your shoulder, your center of gravity is often too high for you to stand smoothly and travel with the actor,” he continues. “I devised a system where my D-ring belt could stick up out of my back brace, creating a handle the dolly grip could use to physically boom me up and down. For quick height changes, I found that by unlocking the medium eyepiece on the Arri 416 so it could swivel freely, I was able to use it as a left-hand grip while cradling the camera with my right

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Near right: Cinematographer Maryse Alberti. Far right: The Ram seeks emotional solace from a stripper (Marisa Tomei) who has also experienced her share of hard times.

hand; that allowed me to go from higherthan-shoulder to almost floor height or anywhere in between while following the action. Every single shot in this movie was handheld, and it was the first time I’d used the 416. I love that camera!” Alberti’s camera package, supplied by Arri’s Camera Service Center in New York, included Zeiss Ultra 16 prime lenses and two Angenieux Optimo zooms, a 15-40mm Lightweight and a 2876mm. Inspired by the camerawork in the Dardenne brothers’ L’Enfant, the filmmakers wanted the camera to be fixed on Rourke most of the time, often following him from a very close angle. “We wanted a strong sense of intimacy and intensity,” says Alberti. This created some challenges for Nolan during the wrestling matches; he was following the action from within the ring on a wide-angle lens — most of the movie was shot on a 12mm prime — which meant he had to be very close to the actors in order to get good close-ups. “It was very tricky,” he recalls. “Even when glass and debris were flying everywhere and the wrestlers were throwing each other down, I had to try to finesse the shot so I wasn’t throwing shadows, getting hit or allowing [the actors] to bump into me. There was often some kind of contact between us, but you can’t see it in the film because it happened below the lens.” For the lighting of the wrestling matches, Alberti relinquished much of her control to the wrestling promoters, who have their own set of lighting standards. “Different venues do different things, but it’s always a slight variation on the same theme of having lights directly on the four corners of the ring,” she says. “Sometimes I changed the ratio of light in each corner in order to 26 January 2009

add a bit more contrast or a little more definition, but I basically used what was there.” The final match in the film, when The Ram confronts The Ayatollah (Ernest Miller), was a different story. This was the only match that wasn’t filmed at an actual promotion; it was shot at a New Jersey theater the production rented. Production designer Tim Grimes fully constructed the ring, and Alberti and her crew spent three days lighting it. She strove to maintain the lighting configuration used at the promotions, but because this was the film’s climax, “we had to add a little more panache,” she says. She achieved this by creating a horseshoe-shaped rig of colored lights that the wrestlers would walk under on their way to the ring. The Ram, who represents America in this final match, is awash in red, white and blue, whereas The Ayatollah is doused in red and green. One of the more challenging scenes to shoot takes place in the strip club where Cassidy works. In the scene, the camera follows her in a long take as she performs a striptease. None of the crew saw the choreography until the day of the shoot, so in a very short amount of time, Alberti and Nolan had to figure out how Nolan could circle Tomei without throwing any shadows on her body — tough to do in a room full of moving colored lights. “She’s standing up, she’s on a pole, she’s crawling on her belly, she’s in a squatting position and then she’s standing up again,” Nolan recounts. “We decided to mount a monitor on the camera but quickly found that as I went off-axis while viewing, the screen would go black. So we mounted another on the other side,

angling one to serve from full high reach to just below chest height, and I would look to the other for all the lower-angle coverage of Tomei’s performance.” As for the shadows, “we had a grip flagging and then unflagging lights as I moved around,” he continues. “After 26 takes, we were eventually able to pull it off without giving away the fact that there’s a camera following her around.” Alberti says she is thrilled to work in a field where stories like The Wrestler come her way. “In the last two years, I did a film on soccer and ended up at the World Cup, I did a film on religious leaders and met the Pope and the Dalai Lama, I did The Wrestler and a movie about truckers, and now I’m doing a documentary on Eliot Spitzer. I like that film takes me in so many different directions, because to me, these are all interesting stories. Whatever genre it is, I want a good script with a good story.” TECHNICAL SPECS 2.40:1 Super 16mm Arri 416 Zeiss and Angenieux lenses Kodak Vision3 500T 7219, Vision2 200T 7217 Digital Intermediate I

Erratum In our coverage of Australia in the November issue, we inaccurately credited all of the photos to Douglas Kirkland. James Fisher took some of the shots.

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Close

Focus

For Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC, finding a visual style for the domestic drama Revolutionary Road was a matter of simplicity. by Rachael K. Bosley Unit photography by François Duhamel, SMPSP 28 January 2009

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reat novels pose singular challenges to those who seek to adapt them for the screen, and some would say Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road, published in 1961, poses more than most. Spare and unsparing in equal measure, the portrait of an unhappy marriage in suburban Connecticut in 1955 is a mainly interior drama whose characters and conflicts are rendered with piercing clarity and little sentiment. The novel’s observational stance was, in fact, an early concern for cinematographer Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC, who reunited with director Sam Mendes to help bring the story to the screen. “When I read the book, I was concerned the audience might not be drawn into the characters because there’s a sort of distance from them,” says Deakins. “It’s an interesting problem, really, and Sam and I talked about it a lot.” The key, says Mendes, lay in staying close to the main characters, Frank and April Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet), and telling their story as simply as possi-

G

Photos courtesy of DreamWorks LLC. Lighting diagrams courtesy of Roger Deakins.

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ble. “The novel is about a marriage, a period and a community, and I wanted to make it primarily a story about a marriage,” says Mendes. Referring to his previous films, American Beauty (AC March and June ’00), Road to Perdition (AC Aug. ’02) and Jarhead (AC Nov. ’05), he

continues, “I’d directed an original screenplay and [adaptations of] a graphic novel and a memoir, but I’d never done a film adaptation of a great novel, and I was wary of that. After all, a novel can be great for the opposite reasons a movie is great. But I was drawn in the end to the simple

Opposite: Frank and April Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) enjoy a rare harmonious moment in the kitchen. This page, top: The mentally unstable John Givings (Michael Shannon, gesturing at left) pays a disruptive visit to the Wheeler home with his parents (Richard Easton and Kathy Bates). Below: Director Sam Mendes (left) talks over a scene with Bates and Winslet. At the door to Mendes’ left, Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC checks the “daylight” flooding the room.

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Close Focus

Top: Arri Compact 12Ks bouncing off Ultrabounce send light through the windows for dayinterior work at the Wheeler house. “The rags would also cut the sun at the same time,” notes gaffer Bill O’Leary. Middle: Frank tries to reassure his wife in one of the film’s many kitchen scenes. Bottom: With bounce light from small instruments inside augmenting the window light, Deakins lines up the shot.

30 January 2009

center of the story — a man and a woman in a room. I knew the heart of the movie was going to be in the close-ups, and I’d never done a movie in which that was the case.” In form and content, Revolutionary Road could not be more different from Mendes and Deakins’ previous collaboration, the Gulf War drama Jarhead, but Mendes notes Deakins “is a master at cutting a suit according to its cloth. Just taking his oeuvre with the Coen brothers as an example, you can’t believe the same person lit Barton Fink [1991] and Fargo [1996]; one is highly stylized and the other is totally observational, and yet they’re both perfect. Roger’s ability to morph himself, to shape his style according to the requirements of the script, is extraordinary. I suppose there are parallels amongst directors; some have a single style and impose it on whatever material they’re dealing with, and others adjust their style to the requirements of the story. I’m in the latter category, and Roger is, too.” On Revolutionary Road, the requirements of the story, and Mendes’ desire to tell it in an “unadorned” style, led to a visual approach Deakins calls “very straightforward.” The cinematographer notes, “It’s a film about a marriage falling apart in this supposedly idyllic suburbia, and when you’ve got two great actors in a story like that, you don’t want to do much with the camera. You just want to photograph it as best you can to let the audience see the characters and the performances that give you the characters.” The close focus on Frank and April also led Mendes and Deakins to make decisions about shots only after the director had thoroughly rehearsed DiCaprio and Winslet in the space at hand. “It wasn’t like working with the Coen brothers, who decide in advance exactly how something will be staged and shot,” says Deakins. “This wasn’t the kind of film where you were

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going to impose anything, really, on what the actors were going to do.” The filmmakers were united in their desire to extend the mandate for visual simplicity to their depiction of the period. (See sidebar on page 36.) “One of the great dangers of period design in movies is that for many of us, our notion of how something looked in the ’30s or ’50s is a received notion based on what we’ve seen in movies,” observes Mendes. “I thought it was very important to try and unlock some [reference] material that wasn’t other movies’ versions of the ’50s.” Researchers for Mendes and production designer Kristi Zea assembled a variety of still photographs from the era, and Zea brought in a copy of Saul Leiter’s Early Color, which proved to be a key reference for the film’s overall feel. In addition to his general concerns about period design, Mendes believed presenting the ’50s with any kind of flourish in Revolutionary Road would take the emphasis away from “the heart” of the story. “There’s a way of reading the novel which is to say it’s actually about the ’50s, but I don’t agree entirely with that,” he says. “The period obviously serves as a backdrop, but I felt the period details should be almost thrown in, observed as though from a distance. When there are big shots that show a lot of period detail, like Frank making his way through Grand Central Station or through the crowded streets of New York, I was ruthless with them in the edit. They’re not lingered on or fetishized; they’re simply our character on his way to work. I didn’t want to have any shots that said, ‘The 1950s: weren’t they extraordinary!’ I simply wanted it to be where these characters live.” That was fine with Deakins. “I hate the idea that you have to make the photography colorful because it’s the ’50s, or you have to make it gauzy and sepia because it’s an earlier era —

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Top: In the elevator that leads to his office, Frank is checked out by a young secretary (Zoe Kazan). Middle: Frank makes his move. Bottom: Amid an array of 800-watt HMI Jokers bouncing off muslin, Mendes checks the shot as Kazan and DiCaprio run through the scene.

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Close Focus Right: April heads for an interview in Manhattan that she hopes will lead her and Frank in a new direction. Below: Deakins prepares to film the scene with one of his favorite tools, a Power Pod remote head.

I’ve never seen the point of that, really,” says the cinematographer, whose recent period credits include the current release Doubt, set in 1964, and last year’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (AC Oct. ’07). Deakins shot Revolutionary Road clean and had the negative (Kodak Vision2 200T 5217 and 500T 5218) processed normally at DuArt Film and Video in

32 January 2009

New York, a favorite lab when he is working in the area. Keen to create as much reality on the screen as possible, Mendes decided to shoot the picture on location and, with few exceptions, in continuity. “It was good for the movie that we committed to shoot on location, but it’s a merciless decision to make on a period film, especially one set mainly in a small

suburban house,” the director acknowledges. “I wanted the atmosphere and claustrophobia of a real house, and I was willing, for the first time, to occasionally sacrifice the ‘look’ of a scene for psychological accuracy and mood. We were often twisting ourselves into pretzels and cramming ourselves into corners, but I feel the reality of the situation is there onscreen.” As for shooting in continuity, he continues, “My job was to help Leonardo and Kate create a convincing marriage and then, as the story progressed, watch them gradually, bit by bit, destroy each other. That seemed, for obvious reasons, to be anathema to the idea of shooting the end of the story at the beginning.” Frank and April’s arguments grow more intense as the story progresses, and Deakins notes that shooting in continuity facilitated “a subtle evolution” in the camerawork, most of which he accomplished with the Power Pod remote head/Aerocrane Jib Arm combination he has favored for several years.

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Close Focus Right: April and Frank argue over their plans to move to Paris. Below: Deakins works with O’Leary (center) and electrician Scott Gregoir to fine-tune a ringlight comprising 60watt bulbs that acted as an overhead source in the house.

“Sam and I originally thought of shooting the whole movie static to give it the same observational feel as the book, but once we started shooting, we agreed that felt a bit dead,” says Deakins. “So [the style] starts off static and gradually becomes more fragmented. Films like this have their own organic way of progressing; you

34 January 2009

can fight it, but that’s the wrong thing to do. “We tried to stage quite a bit in single takes, with the camera going from one character to the other as they moved within the space, and I shot quite a bit with the remote arm,” he continues. “By the end of the film, when things get

really intense between April and Frank, [the camera is] mostly handheld.” Mendes adds, “I wanted a real rawness in Leo and Kate’s performances in the last half-hour of the movie, and when we reached that point, I told Roger I didn’t want to make any decisions [about shots]; I wanted it to be handheld, and I wanted to let the actors be explosive and unpredictable. Roger is a brilliant operator, and I think he was excited by that, and that’s very much there in the film; the transition to handheld has quite an intense emotional impact.” Though shooting in continuity had its benefits, in the Wheelers’ house “it was kind of a nightmare logistically,” says Deakins. “We’d do a scene in the downstairs front room, then we’d go upstairs to do a scene, then we’d come back down again for another. If it’s a lovely day and [the rest of the crew] can go outside while you’re shooting, it’s fine, but when it’s raining and everyone has to squeeze inside, it can be really difficult to move around.” (The shoot, which took place in

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During prep, Deakins sketched plans for an overhead source that would stay out of frame at Vito’s, a roadside bar where the Wheelers and their friends go for drinks and dancing. “I use these drawings as a reference for my gaffer and key [grip] to say, ‘This is what we’re thinking,’” says Deakins. “We had to shoot a lot of work at this location in two or three days, and this rig allowed us to change the feel and color of the light quite quickly.” In the photo, April and Shep (David Harbour) share a dance under the rig as the camera circles the action.

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Furnishing a Plain Period Look

A subdued color palette and streamlined design characterize the look of the Wheelers’ home. “We ruled out anything that hit you over the head with the period,” notes set decorator Debra Schutt.

36 January 2009

esign and décor are often among the most-talked-about aspects of a period film, but on Revolutionary Road, the talents in those departments strove to make 1955 look as plain as possible. “That was a concept [director] Sam Mendes and [production designer] Kristi Zea had from the beginning, and I thought it was great,” says set decorator Debra Schutt. “We all wanted to make a period movie that didn’t look like one.” The interior of Frank and April Wheeler’s home, where much of the story takes place, was particularly important and, says Schutt, the most difficult to sort out. “There weren’t many details in the novel or the screenplay about what it should look like,” she notes. “We had to really figure out who those characters were.” In concert with Zea, she determined that the Wheelers, a young couple who had reluctantly abandoned the city to settle in suburbia, would maintain a home that looked “streamlined and simple.” Referencing mid-1950s style

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magazines, design books, and Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs, Schutt chose furnishings that were “stylish for the time but did not scream ‘the ’50s.’ We ruled out anything with bright colors and anything that hit you over the head with the period. The look is really quite plain.” Working in a real suburban house and shooting in continuity affected Schutt’s work “in a number of ways,” she says. “The furniture had to keep going in and out because the house was so small, and logistically, it was rather a mess because it rained quite often, so we had to find ways to protect everything outside. But I find it easier to work on location; it’s easier to envision what a space is going to be when I can see the actual thing.” Given that Mendes made decisions about shots on a scene-byscene basis, Schutt and her team had to be ready for anything, but she says that is her habit, anyway. “Sam would call me a Method decorator,” she says with a laugh. “You could open any door or cabinet in the house, and it

was there. Also, we had a great prop person, Tom Allen, and on-set dresser, Ruth Ann DeLeon, who made sure we were prepared no matter what [the actors] did.” Revolutionary Road was Schutt’s first collaboration with Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC, whose preference for using practical sources whenever possible is well known. “I find half the job now is working with the set decorator to get the right kind of practicals,” says the cinematographer. Schutt recalls Deakins inquired about the light fixtures as soon as she came aboard the show. “Like every other cinematographer in the world, he was interested in the lampshades and the quality of light they would create, but he also wanted to look at every single light fixture, and I hadn’t come across that in a cinematographer before,” she says. “I could tell he considered the practicals the most important part of his lighting,” she continues. “He spends time thinking about them, and he’s quite specific about what he wants. For instance, for the night scene by the side of the road, he wanted streetlights that would give a rectangular, tapered light, and for an argument in the Wheelers’ front room, he wanted a ceiling fixture that would send light down and out in a fan shape with a hard edge.” (In the end, the ceiling fixture wasn’t visible in the latter scene, so Deakins used an 18" ring of 60-watt bulbs surrounded by silver foil instead.) “It took me a while to figure out that for Roger, it’s about the shape of the light as much as the quality of it,” says Schutt. “It’s more like architecture for him. He’s the architect of light.” — Rachael K. Bosley

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Left: Frank and April’s first encounter is presented in flashback. The scene’s soft overhead source was a 6'-long-by4'-wide oval ringlight of 60watt bulbs, some of which were dimmed to create a warm feel. “We teased it with muslin to cut spill and send some fill back to the center, where the actors played the scene,” notes O’Leary. Below: Mendes checks an angle on a scene depicting one of the couple’s liaisons in Frank’s apartment.

Connecticut and New York City in the summer of 2007, experienced a fair share of rain.) “I didn’t really feel shooting in the house was confining in terms of what we could do with the camera, but it was sometimes frustrating in terms of how I could light it,” continues Deakins. “Locations like that only look good for about a half-hour or an hour at a certain time of day on a good day, but you can’t allow for that. It takes an enormous amount of light to maintain a naturalistic, consistent daytime feel inside, and the house was backed up against a hill, so getting light into the upper rooms and into the kitchen around back was tricky.” To accomplish this, his electrical crew, led by gaffer Bill O’Leary, bounced 12K Arri Compact HMIs off 20'x20', 12'x20' and 12'x12' sheets of muslin or Ultrabounce set outside the windows. “For the ground-floor scenes, we worked off the grade, and on the second floor, we worked off a scaffold,” says O’Leary. “The rigs danced about a bit to accommodate the shots, and the beauty of a single-camera show is that this is possible; the closer one can work to the edge of the frame,

the better.” Because every shot in the house depended on the scene and the blocking, pre-lighting was out of the question. “We had the house stripped apart and rewired so we could use the sockets in the walls, and we also put power points in the ceilings so we didn’t have to run cables in the room,” says Deakins.

“We used no big lights inside, mainly 200-watt or 400-watt Jokers. A huge amount of the film was lit by practicals in the shot.” These practical table lamps and floor lamps held standard household bulbs ranging from 60 to 200 watts, according to O’Leary. “We used no tricks or special gags — it was all standard fare but properly applied, so it worked,” notes the

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Close Focus Right: Following a particularly savage argument, Frank pensively awaits his wife’s return. Below: April retreats to the woods behind the house to escape her husband.

gaffer. “For fill, we usually bounced Tweenies off 4-by-4 muslins, and the lamps and bounce material were often hung from the ceiling to leave the floor clear for the actors and the camera.” Deakins and O’Leary used a similar strategy at another location that called for a consistent daylight

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feel, Frank’s office, a large, open space subdivided by a sea of cubicles. The location was the fifth floor of a municipal building in Lower Manhattan. “I initially thought we could position cranes to send light through the windows, but the city refused to shut any portion of the street below,” recalls Deakins. “The

sound department had to put ¾inch Plexiglas on all the windows to create a sound baffle, and we had to add on to a scaffold that was in place on the first floor for a construction project. We ended up with a platform outside the windows that ran the length of the building.” On the platform, O’Leary’s crew rigged about a dozen 12K Arri Compacts bounced off 12'x12' muslins to send even daylight into the office. “It was the only way we could work,” notes Deakins. “There wasn’t enough natural daylight in the morning, and there was too much of it in the afternoon.” A location that posed a different sort of lighting conundrum was a stretch of highway in Connecticut that served as the setting for one of the film’s earliest scenes, an argument between Frank and April that starts in the car and continues on the side of the road after Frank pulls over and follows his wife out of the car. The scene takes place at night and, given that highways were not well lit in 1955, potential sources were limited. “The most important choice

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was how you saw the scene,” says Deakins. “I decided we could do it with three practicals, a little tungsten bounce off a sheet of polystyrene, and car headlights passing by in the background.” The three practicals were period streetlights manufactured by the art department that each held four 2K 3200°K bulbs (standing in for the 8'-long fluorescent tubes that would normally be used in the fixtures); the lights were positioned along a gravel turnoff that had also been created by the art department. “In some shots, you can see about a mile and a half down the road, and there’s no way we were going to light that, so we just let the passing cars’ headlights be the background,” says Deakins. “Of course, because they’re period cars, we had to replace the headlights with stronger bulbs, tungsten Par 36s, run off batteries and inverters.” O’Leary adds, “We outfitted about two dozen period cars [that way]. It’s probably the iffiest situation a film electrician can get into — batteries and inverters are notoriously unreliable — but it all worked.” The filmmakers considered shooting the driving portion of the scene practically, but Deakins suggested using poor man’s process instead. “What we needed to create in the car was the feeling of Frank’s headlights bouncing back from the road onto their faces, and I knew I could do that in a barn,” says the cinematographer. “We found one that gave us about 40 feet of space, and we did the shot very quickly in a couple of takes. We’d scheduled two days for the same scene when we planned to shoot it on the open road; at that time of year, darkness lasts little more than five hours.” To create the feel of headlights approaching and taillights retreating behind the Wheelers’ car, the crew put four Tweenies (two for headlights and two gelled red for taillights) on dollies that were pushed back and

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Close Focus Seated on an ATV, Deakins prepares to track Winslet on her flight into the woods. “We used a beach ball as a camera support — a poor man’s Wescam, if you like,” he says.

forth behind the car as the lights were dimmed up and down. A little dust was added to the rear window to slightly blow out the lights. “For the front,” says Deakins, “I did exactly what I’d have done if we’d shot on the road: I put a fluorescent tube on the [hood] and had it moved up and down very slightly to give the light on

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their faces a bit of life.” Another scene Deakins and Mendes discussed at length ahead of time depicts April’s liaison with a neighbor, Shep Campbell (David Harbour), in a car outside Vito’s Log Cabin, a popular local bar. Deakins recalls, “We were struggling with how to cover it. Should we do a number

of cuts looking toward the car? Should we see it in a wide shot of the car? Should we see the glass misting up? When we got there, Sam started working out the blocking with Kate and David, and I was watching them from the back seat of the car. There was a slightly observational quality about that angle, a matter-of-factness, that made the whole thing feel really sad. I pointed it out to Sam, and we ended up shooting the whole thing from the back seat in one shot. Sometimes, on the day, I find I see something that’s much simpler than what I’d imagined and, I hope, much, much better.” The filmmakers had access to 35mm dailies throughout the shoot, but Deakins was unable to watch them every night — he spent many evenings digitally grading two other pictures, Jesse James and In the Valley of Elah, on a portable system EFilm had set up for him nearby, in

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Stamford, Conn. “Doing that at night and on weekends during the shoot was really tiring, but it was actually better than working at EFilm itself because we had a dedicated system to ourselves and didn’t have to wait as long as we normally would for stuff to render!” he says with a laugh. To make his intentions clear to Revolutionary Road’s dailies timer at DuArt, Steve Blakely, Deakins used his Leica M8 to take digital stills of his lighting setups with the stand-ins in place, “did a bit of work on them in Photoshop and then e-mailed them to Steve,” he says. “I’ve worked with him so many times he didn’t really need them, but it was quite a good reference.” Deakins was able to supervise Revolutionary Road’s 4K digital intermediate in person at EFilm, and the facility’s remote system was transported to New York so he and Mendes could view the results

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together. An enthusiastic proponent of the DI, Deakins notes the process was especially useful on this picture. “All the work in the house was a constant chase against the light, and the DI was the final tool I could use to make all those shots match a bit better and give the light an even feel. It was about giving the film as much reality as we could.” Marveling at Deakins’ ability to “elevate images without losing a sense of the real” both in the DI suite and on the set, Mendes emphasizes that such subtlety is just one characteristic of the cinematographer’s work that makes it unique. Beyond Deakins’ considerable skill with the tools of his trade lies something that is perhaps less obvious but, says the director, just as remarkable: selflessness. “It’s stating the obvious to say Roger is a great cinematographer, but his work is never self-advertising,” says Mendes. “He won’t ever

stand between the picture and the audience and say, ‘Look at the way this is lit. Look at the way this is shot.’ The effect of the movie is therefore cumulative; you can’t pull any single shot out because it doesn’t mean anything taken out of context. It’s the whole film that is the statement.” I

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Old Soul Cinematographer Claudio Miranda and post supervisor Peter Mavromates crack The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which presents a main character who ages in reverse. by Douglas Bankston Unit photography by Merrick Morton, SMPSP he $150 million film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is only Claudio Miranda’s second feature as a director of photography, but its director, David Fincher, had the utmost confidence in him — they had actually been working together for years. Miranda worked his way up in the electrical department and had been a gaffer on Fincher’s Seven, The Game and Fight Club, and he had also shot additional photogra-

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phy on Zodiac and many of Fincher’s commercials. “It is a big step, and you can almost panic yourself about taking on such a big movie,” acknowledges Miranda. “But I had a reasonable amount of prep to work out the logistics, and I was surrounded by a great support system, a talented crew who had done huge jobs. I knew I could count on them, whether it was one space light or a hundred.” That crew included operator Kim Marks, gaffer

Christopher Strong, key grip Michael Coo and 1st AC Jonas Steadman. Benjamin Button, which draws its inspiration from a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, begins in New Orleans in 1918 with the birth of the titular character, who emerges from the womb as an infant with the physical appearance of an elderly, ailing man. Horrified by the sight, Button’s father dumps the baby at a home for senior citizens, and myste-

Photos courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros.

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riously, Button’s condition gradually improves as he ages — physically, he ages in reverse, getting younger with the passage of time. At the heart of the story is a romance with a childhood sweetheart, Daisy, who grows up with Button but cannot, because of his ailment, grow old with him. Although Benjamin Button spans eight decades, the filmmakers decided against using a variety of technologies to create different period looks. “The intention was to be as naturalistic as possible,” says Miranda. “Our initial influence for textures and framing was [painter] Andrew Wyeth. I took my still camera to the locations, documented the natural light and figured out what I wanted to add or subtract. I didn’t want it to feel like we were beaming in light anywhere. When you bring in 40-footers and lights and cables, the original [look] sometimes gets muted.” Most of the picture was captured with the Thomson GrassValley Viper FilmStream, which Fincher and Harris Savides, ASC had used on Zodiac (AC April ’07). Benjamin Button was shot in 4:4:4 FilmStream mode with the camera’s CinemaScope option, which yields a 2.37:1 aspect ratio at 1920x1080 resolution. Miranda’s lens of choice was a 6-24mm Zeiss DigiZoom, and he frequently used

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the 10mm, 12mm and 14mm focal lengths within the zoom range. He turned to faster Zeiss DigiPrimes when the situation called for extra speed. For monitoring on set, Miranda had a look-up table, nonbaked, that would add a light contrast to the images and take away some of the Viper’s green cast on the screen. “If I had left the image flat, it would have been hard to judge,” he says. “The LUT wasn’t great or perfect, but with it, we knew what we could get out of the imagery. “Like all of David’s movies, this movie features very exact framing, and camera moves go from a definite Point A to a definite Point B,” continues Miranda. “The only

handheld work is Tarsem’s, the travel-around-the-world sequence.” The shots to which Miranda refers were made on film by director Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall); when Fincher found out lead actor Brad Pitt was touring the Far East and Singh was in the same area, he asked Singh to shoot footage of the actor in exotic locations to enhance the appearance of Button experiencing the world. According to Miranda, film was chosen for those segments because using a Viper in those locales wasn’t feasible. Miranda also shot some 35mm on the show, using Kodak Vision2 50D 5201 and Vision3 500T 5219 in Arri 435s to achieve some slow-motion effects. “I don’t

Opposite: While aging in reverse, the youthful but elderly-looking Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) admires his improving physique. This page, top: Button has a drink with a stranger who turns out to be his long-lost father. Below: Director David Fincher (in gray ski cap) and cinematographer Claudio Miranda (black ski cap) crank up a vintage Victrola for a period funeral scene.

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AnOld Soul

Above: An exterior view of a revival tent shows the warm glow produced by strings of vintage, clear 60-watt bulbs hung from the ceiling. Below: Inside the tent, a preacher (Lance E. Nichols) exhorts the frail, 7-year-old Benjamin to arise from his wheelchair.

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know what film stock Tarsem used,” adds Miranda. “He was on his own mission.” For scenes in which Button sails the high seas in an effort to become worldly wise, the boat actually never touched water — it was mounted on a motion-controlled gimbal inside a Sony Pictures soundstage. Nevertheless, Miranda singles these sequences out as the most challenging to shoot. “They were tricky mainly because of all the different looks we had to create to suggest he is traveling around the world — completely overcast, night, night with snow, night with full moon, night with fog, high noon, sunset, and sun

coming from various angles.” For a confrontation with a German U-boat, the movements of Button’s tugboat were programmed into a computer, and these movements would trigger certain lights. “Its motion would trigger Lightning Strikes units and other lights that would simulate gunfire during the encounter, for example,” says Miranda. “There were lights to simulate explosions, and though there was no pyro, it actually looks like there was!” Faking moonlight can be tricky, particularly within the confines of a soundstage. “A lot of people do the soft moonlight with balloons, but David and I talked about

a harder moonlight,” says the cinematographer. “The hardest lamp I could think of was a Shadowmaker, which is basically a 7K Xenon in a black box with no reflectors. I shot tests with it, and David loved it. It was a little unnerving to light a 90foot boat with it — I was on the brink of underexposure — but it looks pretty cool. “For sunlight, we used a couple of Arri T24s and T12s with some color on them,” he continues. “The overcast look was just space lights, about 160 up in a grid, that were gelled with 1⁄2 CTB. At one point, I used four Dinos for a look, and I also used a single 24K tungsten gelled with ¼ CTB. I mixed it up. Everything was mounted on track overhead. We had blacks, blues and even some whites that could be brought around the boat.” Atmosphere is a big part of the look during Button’s early years in New Orleans. Though there was electricity at the time, oil-based and gas-based flame fixtures were still common, creating a smoky haze outdoors and indoors. For one striking scene, Miranda kept the atmospheric haze but ditched firelight for electricity to great effect. Button, age 7 but looking 70 and riding in a wheelchair, ventures into a warmly lit church revival held in a large,

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Left: Diffused light illuminates a close-up of Pitt. Below: Benjamin and his first paramour, Elizabeth Abbott (Tilda Swinton), grow closer during a series of late-night tête-à-têtes over tea.

white tent. Along the ceiling were crisscrossed strings of vintage clear 60-watt bulbs. “I barely got a T1.4 or even a T1 out of the whole tent being lit up,” recalls Miranda. “We had to crank the voltage up to 140 to get some sort of exposure out of them. The bulbs got very, very warm.” What makes this remarkable is that this was actually a visualeffects shot — sitting in the wheelchair was an age-appropriate child actor wearing a blue hood with tracking marks. Pitt’s head would

come later. No additional movie lights were used for the scene, but for this and other blue-hood effects shots, the number of Vipers was increased from two to four; the additional two served as witness cameras recording in the 4:2:2 HDStream mode. Throughout the shoot, Miranda would light the set first, often with only small practicals, and then let the actors play within that light. “We had all these Andrew Wyeth references, but when it came

time to shoot, it was more a matter of figuring out the best way to light the room naturally,” he says. “That’s what I liked about the Viper — I could put a bulb in the shot and actually light someone with it, and the image wouldn’t be horrible.” Miranda did provide a slight kick for the actors on many occasions. “I’d put a clear bulb kind of far away so it didn’t add any exposure but put a little glint in the eye,” he says. But overall, he notes, “we liked toplight a lot. Sometimes I

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AnOld Soul Right: Elizabeth signals for help while attempting to swim the English Channel. Middle: The crew captures a shot in the Paramount water tank. Bottom: After being pulled from the water, Elizabeth reflects upon her failed attempt while speaking to a reporter on Calais Beach in France.

used toplight because it looked good on Brad, [but] sometimes sidelight looked good on him. Sometimes it was just a bulb or a candle we helped out with the little-light-behind-thecandle trick.” Part of the story takes place during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At that time, Daisy (Cate Blanchett) is lying on her deathbed in a hospital. These scenes, which have a slightly steel-blue cast, serve as a framing device for the telling of Button’s story. To shoot them, Miranda switched to a quieter Sony 4:4:4 CineAlta F23 (using the same

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lenses) because the filmmakers found that the Viper’s fairly loud fans couldn’t be turned off for long takes without the camera overheating. The workflow remained unchanged. About half the shots in Benjamin Button feature digital effects. In some instances, an actor’s performance in one take was isolated and merged with another actor’s performance in a different take via splitscreen. Many shots also featured bluescreen components for future background composites and set extensions. “What I tried to do was light [foreground elements and actors] with a black pulled over the bluescreen and make sure they looked right,” says Miranda. “Then, we opened that up and lit the bluescreen last.” The Workflow When Fincher decided to use the Viper again on Benjamin Button, he and his collaborators transplanted the workflow from Zodiac to the new picture, according to postproduction supervisor Peter Mavromates. He notes, “The main difference was that on Zodiac, when we ingested dailies, we had to copy them off the hard drives and then render our edit media, which took

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hours and hours. For Benjamin Button, S.two developed a real-time batch-digitize process with audio to create our edit media.” Images captured by the Viper were recorded via dual HD-SDI links to an S.two digital field recorder, which holds a 400GB hard drive known as the Digital Film Magazine System, or D.Mag. Each drive can hold about 30 minutes of footage. Dailies were instantly accessible. The system also allowed the production to forego the use of clappers, which helped keep the

shooting momentum going. “The speed at which David works is phenomenally fast,” says Mavromates. “Wayne Tidwell, the data-capture engineer, entered in basic information about the scene and the take. When David said, ‘Cut,’ the system went back and burned in that slate information on frames two through six. Frame one was always a framing chart. The system auto-increments the take every time, so within seconds, David was rolling on the next take.” When a D.Mag became full, it

Above: A final composite from the film shows Benjamin welcoming his young friend Daisy (played at age 10 by Madisen Beaty) aboard the tugboat Chelsea, where he’s found employment as a deck hand. Left: Scenes of the tugboat in motion were shot on a Sony Pictures soundstage with a prop ship mounted on a motioncontrolled gimbal. General ambience was provided by overhead space lights, but the motion of the boat could trigger specific lighting cues, including gunfire and explosions.

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AnOld Soul

Top: The tugboat’s commander, Capt. Mike (Jared Harris), is astounded to learn that Benjamin has never slept with a woman. Middle: The jaunty Mike promptly takes Button to a bordello, where he shows off his body art. Bottom: Mortally wounded by a German U-boat’s guns, Mike offers his friend some final words of wisdom.

48 January 2009

was delivered directly to what Mavromates called the “digital lab,” also known as the edit room. The material was real-time batch-digitized into the DVCPro HD codec and into an Apple Final Cut Pro system. That media was then backed up at full resolution with no compression onto two LTO tapes, which were then geographically separated. Once the media was confirmed to be safely in the Final Cut system and backed up, the D.Mag was sent back to the set. Production typically used 15-25 D.Mags, depending on how far the set was from the digital lab. If they were shooting on location in another city, the D.Mag was cloned before being sent to the digital lab. The 35mm footage was telecined to D-5 tape and ingested from that. Dailies were distributed via the Web. “We had secure Webbased dailies distribution called Pix,” says Mavromates. “In Final Cut Pro, assistants created a media file that was uploaded to the Pix system, and access was given to specific individuals.” Benjamin Button was edited on Final Cut Pro and conformed on Iridas Speedgrade. “S.two wrangled a custom piece of software, a ‘negative pull’ application written by someone in New Zealand,” recalls Mavromates. “All the digital dailies were backed up on LTO tapes — it

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AnOld Soul Right: A giant silk diffuses the light for a daytime street scene. Below: The crew captures a nighttime walk-and-talk between Benjamin and Daisy on a cobblestone street.

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was about 500 terabytes of material, and it was not reasonable to keep all that online.” Injecting “Bradness” At first glance, Button might appear to have little in common with popcorn tycoon Orville Redenbacher, but both belong to an extremely small club of people who have had their heads digitally replaced. In the case of Redenbacher, it was for a commercial Fincher and Miranda shot two years ago — more than 10 years after Redenbacher died. ConAgra Foods wanted to resurrect his image, so to speak. “David saw the ad as an opportunity to test how one could replace the head of a live performer on the set with someone else’s head,” says Mavromates, who was not involved with the ad. “David likes to joke that he learned how not to do Benjamin Button after that commercial. The software used worked well on short tests, but once they did the whole commercial, it wasn’t a very accurate representation of the original performance.” Throughout Benjamin Button, it had to appear as though Pitt was playing the role at every age, and, of course, the adult actor didn’t physically match the younger Buttons. The solution was to have size-appropriate actors play the character on set and then replace their heads in post with a properly scaled Pitt head that was entirely computer-generated. Digital Domain created the CG heads, working with performances by Pitt that were shot separately. (Digital Domain’s visual-effects supervisor, Eric Barba, declined an interview request.) “There is a well-known study that basically boils down humans’ facial expressions to 156 different ones, and we brought Brad in and captured him making those expressions,” says Mavromates. “When the Digital Domain team applied them, however, they felt those 156 did not cover all the emotions the film need-

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AnOld Soul Top: Benjamin is treated to a private performance by Daisy (played as an adult by Cate Blanchett), who has become a dancer with the Moscow Ballet. Middle: A China ball helps to illuminate Blanchett during a rehearsal scene. Bottom: Benjamin visits a hospitalized Daisy after her career is cut short by a traffic accident.

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ed, so we had to bring Brad back and shoot more stills of him making very specific facial expressions. They then plugged those into the CG rig of his head, which could go from expression number 99 to 123 to 72, or whatever was required.” The CG rig was created using a combination of methods. A lifesized bust of Pitt was scanned in a geodesic dome at the University of Southern California that captures the interplay of light on the face and head under every lighting condition. The actor was later brought in to ImageMetrics to shoot his performances, which mimicked the various actors who wore blue hoods on set. “ImageMetrics has sophisticated software to analyze faces,” notes Mavromates. “We shot Brad against black with four cameras in a semicircle in front of him. They analyzed that and converted it into data that could be handed to Digital Domain and injected into the CG model. The value of doing that was largely to maintain audio sync. David got that and he got Brad’s performance, which he referred to as ‘the Bradness’ of a shot.” During the shooting of the original plate, Fincher directed the actor wearing the blue hood. Those scenes were then edited in preparation for shooting Pitt, who could watch that footage on a monitor as he acted. Mavromates recalls, “David

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AnOld Soul

Top: Having finally reached compatible ages, Benjamin and Daisy consummate their longsimmering love. Middle: The lovers bask in the afterglow of passion. Bottom: A shaft of light guides the invigorated Benjamin toward a motorcycle.

54 January 2009

would direct Brad by referring to the video and saying, ‘Here’s what I need you to match,’ or, ‘Here’s what I didn’t get.’ Part of it was about matching the dialogue, and part of it was about David pushing the performance — within certain boundaries — to where he wanted it. He couldn’t change Brad’s head movement drastically because it was locked into what was shot with the other actor. Even if the actor wearing the blue hood turned his head drastically, Brad didn’t do that when we shot him against black because what we needed was his facial performance. “Eric and his team got to know Brad’s face so well that they found he carries his head at about a 5-degree tilt, and when they didn’t apply that little tilt to the CG head, it felt a lot less like Brad,” he continues. “They strove to capture all the subtle details of his demeanor. The goal was to create a digital Brad from the neck up.” Lifeless eyes are often a problem with CG characters, and Mavromates notes that the visualeffects team took pains to avoid this drawback. “They learned how to make the eyeballs moist and how to make CG moisture accumulate on the lower eyelids,” he marvels. “With that, they suddenly looked photoreal and not synthetic.”

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Daisy’s head treatment was more traditional. Over the course of the film, she becomes an accomplished ballerina, and because Blanchett is not a ballerina, her face was tracked and composited onto a dance double’s. For the character’s younger years, Blanchett was made to look more youthful through digital manipulation. For Daisy’s golden years, a combination of makeup and digital retouching was used. Finishing Touches Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging handled Benjamin Button’s 2K digital intermediate, with colorist and ASC associate member Jan Yarborough manning the controls of a FilmLight Baselight 8. Because the Viper records a raw image that has a bit of a green cast, what you see is not exactly what you will get until the LUT is applied downstream. “Initially, we kind of struggled with the LUTs to get the look we wanted,” recalls Miranda. “I took my concerns to Peter, and we made up a new LUT that gave us a lot more color range. It was like a whole world had opened up.” “As raw images, they’re not showing you a colorimetry that is conducive to having visual-effects work or anything else done,” notes Yarborough. “Therefore, we had to apply the LUT to the files through the Filmlight, and we also supplied all the visual-effects vendors with that LUT. In some cases, we made color corrections specific to David’s direction, then rendered that and gave that rendered color file to the visual-effects vendor.” After applying the LUT to the images, the types of color corrections applied were standard fare. “Claudio was extremely good at painting a picture with light, and he and David worked hard on set to get the look they wanted,” says Yarborough. “Quite a number of the images I received could almost be called ‘pre-painted’ as far as light and exposure goes.” At the time of these interviews, 55

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AnOld Soul

An aged Daisy cares for Benjamin in his waning days of life.

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Fincher and the post team were focused on approvals for background-plate composites, and the filmout process, which was also to be handled by MPI, was not a concern. Mavromates notes, “These companies have done a really good job with the DI in the last 18 months, so the nervousness about the process has mostly evaporated. I still worry

about it, though, because I’m the one who has to manage the cost of the filmout, and if people don’t like the filmout, it’s a five-figure expense!” In post, about 80 percent of Benjamin Button was put through grain-reduction and sharpening processes at Lowry Digital, whose artists had done similar work on Zodiac (Post Focus, AC May ’01).

“Even if David had shot all of Benjamin Button on film, he would have wanted to do the Lowry processing because it unifies something that is slightly distracting to him — it makes the visual palette more consistent,” notes Mavromates. “This movie covers eight decades and jumps to different places on the planet, so the goal was not to unify everything; it was more about unifying certain sections of the story.” “Regardless of whether you capture on film or a digital format, there are variances in noise and detail from frame to frame,” says Alan Silvers, Lowry’s director of business development. “If you can find the best detail of each frame and average it across all the frames, then you can bring out fine detail that isn’t apparent to you in playback. It’s remarkable how much information is in the capture; you just have to know how to dig it out. We manage

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picture detail independent of grain or noise and provide the filmmaker with broad control over how much grain or noise remains on the final images.” Lowry would get a FireWire drive from MPI that held 10-bit log 1920x1080 anamorphic DPX files that had been color-corrected, but not with the final grade. “The first step is to run the frames through our noise-reduction process so they are flicker-free, noise-free and artifactfree,” says Patrick Cooper, Lowry’s lead project director on Benjamin Button. “The next step is detail enhancement and the noise — or grain — addition. I enhance the images and put a nice, even amount of noise on the picture, and then the files are loaded back onto the FireWire drive and shipped back to MPI.” (The 2K scans of the 35mm material went through Lowry’s processing. At press time, the Sony F23

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footage and select scenes shot with the Viper were not scheduled for processing.) Visual-effects plates needed a few extra steps. “The only thing different with the pre-composite effects shots is that I didn’t add any noise back into the image,” says Cooper. “That way, there was a sharpness target the compositors could match, and the noise-free imagery made it easier for them to do things like pull mattes. Once we go the shot back with the effects completed, we’d put an amount of noise on it equal to the noise in the surrounding shots.” Sharpening shots of the title character was treated more delicately. “If it’s a close-up or a shot of somebody with a lot of makeup, we want to be careful about how much we sharpen it,” notes Cooper. “I vary the enhancement on a shot-by-shot basis.” Sometimes, enhancement wasn’t applied at all. Mavromates

notes, “There’s a love scene with Daisy and Benjamin when they’re in a warmly lit bed covered by mosquito netting, and we all agreed the look had a beautiful softness. That softness accented what’s going on in the scene, so we didn’t want to mess with it.” I

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Brothers in

Arms

Defiance, shot by Eduardo Serra, ASC, AFC, tells a remarkable true story of Jewish resistance during World War II. by Benjamin B Unit photography by Karen Ballard 58 January 2009

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Opposite: Brothers Tuvia and Zus Bielski (Daniel Craig, top, and Liev Schreiber) take to the forests of Belarus after their families are massacred by Nazis in Defiance. This page, left: Tuvia and his brothers help a growing number of Jews escape the Nazis. Below: Cinematographer Eduardo Serra, ASC, AFC on location in Lithuania.

n February 2007, director Ed Zwick had dinner in Paris with two collaborators, production designer Dan Weil and director of photography Eduardo Serra, ASC, AFC. Both Serra and Weil are based in France, and both had worked with Zwick on Blood Diamond (2006). Weil recalls that over dinner, he and Serra asked Zwick about a project the director had discussed with them, a striking story about Jewish partisans during World War II. “Eduardo and I asked Ed, ‘Why don’t you do it?’” says Weil. “Six weeks later, I received the script for Defiance.” In an interview at his home in Paris, Serra shares his enthusiasm for the project, and for his dinner mates. “Working with Dan is formidable,” he says. “We are always talking. He never imposes anything; there is a real collaboration that I have rarely experienced.” The cinematographer also marvels at Zwick’s mastery of his métier. “Ed is a very remarkable person and I’ve never seen anyone like him — he can place

Photos courtesy of Paramount Vantage.

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six or seven cameras in seconds, knowing exactly how each will be used. I once told him I was amazed by his technical capacity as a director, and he said, ‘Remember, before my first film, I shot 200 hours of television.’” Defiance is the latest highprofile project for Serra, a Portuguese-born cinematographer

who is sought out by directors on both sides of the Atlantic. He has earned two Academy Award nominations, for The Wings of the Dove (AC June ’98) and Girl With a Pearl Earring (AC Jan. ’04), and a shelf in his home is heavy with other awards, including two Camerimage Frogs. Based on the book by

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Brothers in Arms Right: Tuvia and his younger brother, Asael (Jamie Bell), meet with Shamon (Allan Corduner), a rabbi, in the camp built by the Jewish resistance. Below: Tuvia’s leadership is tested when one of the camp’s foragers tries to take more than his share of supplies.

Nechama Tec, Defiance recounts the true story of the Bielski brothers (played by Daniel Craig, Jamie Bell and Liev Schreiber), Jewish farmers who lived in what is now Belarus, an area that was invaded by the Germans in 1941. After the Nazis massacre their families, the brothers

60 January 2009

hide in the nearby forest. Initially, the Bielskis are intent on revenge and resistance, but soon, they offer a growing number of Jews a chance to escape certain death by setting up a haven for them in the forest. The partisan group must move ever deeper into the woods to escape

Nazi attacks. Over time, the forest community grows into a “new Jerusalem,” a vibrant village of wood cabins. Woven into the story is the evolution of the brothers’ relationships, the life of the community and a complex relationship with another Russian partisan group. At the end of the war, the Bielski partisan group reportedly numbered about 1,200. Serra notes that Zwick usually likes to shoot widescreen, as he did for Blood Diamond and The Last Samurai (AC Jan. ’04), but the director chose the 1.85:1 aspect ratio for Defiance “because he wanted to be closer to the period,” and because he wanted to respect the vertical nature of the forests in which the film takes place. Serra shot the picture in Super 35mm, framing for a final 1.85:1 extraction in the digital intermediate. He used the Arricam Studio and Lite, adding Arri 435s and 235s for action scenes, and Arri Master Primes and Angenieux Optimo zoom lenses. During preproduction and production, Weil worked in close

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Left: Tuvia and Zus air their grievances publicly. Below: The crew prepares to film the brothers’ fight. Serra worked with large silks to shape the light in the forest.

collaboration with Serra, sharing his preparation research and digital sketches. After considering locations in Hungary and Romania, Weil found suitable locations within 15 miles of Vilnius, Lithuania. The idea, he says, “was to be as close as possible to reality, and Lithuania’s forests resemble those in neighboring Belarus.” This penchant for realism marked the entire filmmaking process, and Weil recalls that his crew imagined the partisans working as they built the forest-village set. “We tried to put ourselves in their shoes,” says the production designer. “How would you build a hut? We did it ourselves, like Boy Scouts.” He explains that the wooden huts, zemlyankas, were a form of lean-to that could easily be dug in the sandy soil of the forest. In keeping with the realistic approach, the filmmakers made an unusual decision to forego makeup for the actors. “That was Ed’s decision, and I don’t remember if we even discussed it,” says Serra. “It

seemed obvious. We tried makeup in one specific scene, but we later took it out digitally because it was inappropriate. There was some dirt on the actors’ faces, but that’s all.” He notes that although makeup serves to diminish “the differences in flesh tones, which can be very distracting, I think Defiance works without makeup. The characters are in trou-

ble — they’re dirty and hungry. Having clean, made-up faces would have been almost obscene.” The filmmakers sought to find a look for the picture that would convey the historical era and the travails of the partisans. “Something I share with Ed is that we both like to search for references, and it’s a pleasure discussing the

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Brothers in Arms After parting ways with his brothers, Zus continues his fight against the Nazis, taking up with a band of Russian partisans.

62 January 2009

look with him,” notes Serra. They studied Russian films of the era and looked at the early “Sovcolor” process. “They didn’t have Technicolor, but they had a version of Agfacolor,” explains the cinematographer. “It was often blue and pink. We discussed simulating it, but it wasn’t appropriate.” Serra also wanted to obtain a more organic look than what could be achieved with the DI process. “Nowadays, with the DI, it’s easy to give an ‘old’ look to a film. The process can be totally controlled, but it can be a little mechanical, and I didn’t want that. We didn’t want a very perfect modern image; we wanted something that evoked the period. On Blood Diamond, I had tried to let things get a little out of control, and Defiance was an opportunity to go further.” For exteriors, Serra decided to use the same technique he had adopted for one of the battle scenes in Blood Diamond. “I used Kodak [Vision 500T] 5279, pushed it 2 stops and left out the 85 filter,” he says. With a laugh, he notes, “5279 is a tough stock! Ten or 15 years ago, we’d use it because it was high-contrast and high-speed, with heavy blacks, but whenever there was a close-up of a woman, we’d change stocks. Pushing 2 stops is edgy, but it becomes radical without the 85. The image is a bit grainy, it’s contrasty, and the interesting thing is that the slope of the film is not perfect — we’re a little off of what’s acceptable. Almost all the exteriors in Defiance were shot that way.” Serra notes that shooting tungsten-balanced 5279 without an 85 filter, in addition to pushing the stock, creates unpredictable “color changes” by varying the red, green and blue curves differently. “The changes are subtle, but they’re there. With film, it’s important to have the three color curves perfectly parallel, and in this picture, they really aren’t. So sometimes you get shadows or

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Brothers in Arms Right: Tuvia helps Lilka (Alexa Davalos) escape from a ghetto. Below: When Nazis discover the camp, Lilka helps shepherd the children to safety.

highlights that are a little blue or a little pink, for example. You never know what the result will be; it depends on the time of day or the sun or the shadows. You can see something, but it’s not obvious — you don’t say, ‘It’s pink.’ It’s just not the usual image. It has a texture that

64 January 2009

isn’t clean or modern.” Serra overexposed the pushed 5279 by rating it at 1,000 ASA or lower. With a smile, he notes, “It’s one thing to take the risk with color, but one thing I don’t play with is exposure! I don’t want to be on that edge.” To get a thick negative, he

usually rates the stock at least 2⁄3 of a stop lower than recommended. Most of Defiance takes place in forests, and one of Serra’s chief challenges was giving these scenes visual continuity. “For daytime scenes, the first thing I did was cut the sun because I wanted to avoid shadows moving every two minutes.” He adds that an “incredible team of grips,” some of whom had worked on Blood Diamond in Africa, assisted him. His outdoor lighting was bold and simple. “We used a huge silk to kill the sun and big silks to bounce light.” At first, his team tried cutting the sun with a gigantic silk hung above the set, but that proved unwieldy, as well as ineffectual with wider crowd scenes. Serra then had the silks positioned vertically, acting as a curtain against the low northern sun. The cinematographer bounced two or three 18K HMIs on big silks to create diffuse light that acted as a fill. “That’s it — no crosslights, no backlights … just light to clean up.” He notes that for reasons of convenience,

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Director Ed Zwick works out his camera placement.

he sometimes obtained a similar lighting effect by punching the HMIs through a silk. He mainly used Alpha HMIs from 5600 Lighting “because they allow the widest spread.” Serra sometimes moved a fill light during the shot, as in a scene where Tuvia (Craig) hides from a German street patrol in a dark doorway and then emerges. The cinematographer asked his gaffer, Michel Atanassian, to put a Kino Flo into position for the darkest part of the shot and then move it away. “I often do that — have a small moving light operated by someone like Michel, who understands very well what we’re doing. It’s often faster and easier to light that way. When Craig is deep in the doorway, Michel is on him to get a minimum exposure, and then he turns the light away as soon as Craig comes out. I’m scared of creating a small shadow, so the light is very diffused.” When it comes to light sources, Serra has a deep commitment to simplicity and naturalism. He strongly believes that a single soft source allows for more storytelling to happen. The soft-spoken cinematographer hesitates, and then elaborates, “I don’t like to use big words, but my job is to create mean-

ing. That’s what I’m there for. It’s great if the image can also be beautiful, but meaning comes first. And I don’t think that you can create meaning if the audience can see multiple lights and shadows and all that trickery. I believe sharp shadows, spots of light or rimlights are totally distracting because they’re not part of our life. I don’t want to have the audience distracted by all that.” A simpler image “allows more possibility to give meaning.” This passion for a single soft source means that Serra will never place sources on both sides of camera. “For me, the other side of camera is the forbidden zone. I just can’t bear what two sources do to a face.” In his search for authenticity and simplicity, he avoids hard backlights, eyelights and other secondary light sources. “I don’t do spots of light, and I don’t usually add other sources … maybe a bounce board, but not a light. Or I might bring the big silk a little closer for a close-up. I don’t want to have the woman in the foreground who is 1 or 2 stops brighter than the background. Every new light fixture creates a shadow, and every shadow can distract us.” Although he will often place “a frame, a little luminosity, near or behind camera,” he avoids “brilliant

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Brothers in Arms Right: Forced to abandon the camp, the partisans emerge from the forest only to stumble into a Nazi ambush. For the film’s climactic battle, Serra discarded his large silks in favor of sunny sidelight and backlight. Below: The crew angles in on a German tank.

eyes” — eyelights that result in what he jokingly calls “the werewolf effect.” He has a similar aversion to backlight “halos.” He notes, “They were appropriate in black-andwhite films to separate people from the background, but nowadays, why

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make everyone a saint?” Musing that a single soft source “is closer to life,” he hastens to add that soft lighting “does not mean flat lighting. My lighting is usually very soft but very contrasty.” Serra emphasizes that in addi-

tion to contrast, the placement of the source creates the mood of the shot. “The height of the light is important also, but it’s especially the angle that changes everything. A soft light in front of the character doesn’t mean the same thing as a soft light from behind. The general mood will bring meaning. If you have a frontlight, a sidelight and a backlight, there is no room left for meaning. It’s mostly a question of the triangle between the lens, the light and the eyes of the actor. A soft light behind camera doesn’t seem like much, but move it away from the camera, and already you’ve changed the mood. If you move a 4-by frame by 2 or 3 meters, it’s not the same mood at all. That’s the sort of thing I’m interested in modulating.” In the forest exteriors of Defiance, he usually placed the big bounced source close to camera or slightly to the side to provide a fill that brought out the actors’ eyes. For Defiance’s climactic daytime battle, which took a full week to

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shoot, Serra discarded the giant sunblocking silk and opted for sunny sidelight or backlight. Light from the side or behind, he explains, “models and gives more depth to the action. Otherwise, it’s too flat. The battle is not like the other forest scenes, in which we were working with the nuances of a face. This is the epic moment.” When shooting dusk exteriors at the encampment, Serra complemented onscreen campfires with “fire lighting” offscreen: gas pipes with holes for flames. “It’s a very simple setup that I used a lot on The Wings of the Dove and Map of the Human Heart.” He adds that he is cautious with flicker machines. “If you mix them with real fire, they can help with background areas, but I don’t use them close to camera.” Some interiors in Defiance have a gentler quality than the forest footage; to contrast with the gritty, imperfect look of the exteriors, Serra shot inside with Kodak Vision2 500T 5218 and developed it normally, yielding a smoother image with finer grain. In one key indoor scene, Tuvia tries to persuade the ghetto leaders to let the Jewish community escape with him to the forest. Serra lit the large room entirely with four 18Ks through the heavily frosted windows, creating a dramatic sidelit image. He used no lights inside, only some bounce boards. The scene was shot with two cameras to pick up reaction shots, but the cinematographer confesses to “cheating” for the close-up of Lilka (Alexa Davalos) as she looks intently at Tuvia, her future lover. “It could have been shot with the second camera simultaneously, like we did with other characters, but I discussed it with Ed, and we quickly decided to give her a special treatment. So we moved her a step ahead and slightly changed the position of the fill light.” Though the close-up is not radically different from the other shots, the delicate lighting on Davalos’ face is softer

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Brothers in Arms Craig reclines in a hut under the soft glow of a Chinese lantern.

and a little more frontal than the lighting of the wide shot. The forest-hut interiors were lit through the doors and windows for day scenes and with oil lamps and candles supplemented by soft sources for night scenes. Serra set one romantic love scene awash in golden tones motivated by an oil lamp. “You have to cheat a little. I

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used the lamp, but I augmented it a little. Otherwise, the image would have been too extreme. I used a Chinese lantern clothed in black to control spill on the walls.” Night exteriors in settings without practical lights are always a huge challenge for cinematographers. “In the city, you can take advantage of night lighting, but in

the country, there is no good solution!” Serra laughs. Wistfully noting his admiration for the dim nocturnal toplight Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC created in Children of Men (AC Dec. ’06), he adds, “We couldn’t do that in a forest.” Serra used any element of the nighttime scenes to help his lighting, be it firelight, car headlights or even a burning vehicle. “I try to use everything available in the scene before bringing out new sources.” For some scenes, he floated three 20K heliumballoon lights above the action, and he recalls that the first night shoot with the balloons started badly: “It was a stormy night, and we arrived just in time to see two balloons fly off into the distance! One of them went to a nearby village, where it cut the electricity for a few days. The other ended up in Estonia!” Once the balloons were back on set, Serra avoided placing them in the fore-

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Some say the DI gives you the option to shoot ‘flat’ and create your look in post, but I believe in doing the opposite. How can I light if I don’t know what I want at the end?” I

Craig, Bell and Mark Feuerstein receive their marching orders from Zwick and Serra.

TECHNICAL SPECS Super 1.85:1 (Super 35mm for 1.85:1 extraction) Arricam System; Arri 435, 235 ground, preferring a toplight from the side or back. Defiance marks Serra’s third digital intermediate, and he did the work at EFilm with colorist Natasha Leonnet. “I’ve always enjoyed timing, and the DI is a gift,” he remarks. “I don’t use it to try to find a look; I use it to ‘clean up’ things that would

be time-consuming to fix on the set. For example, on some hazy nights, light from the balloon was visible at the top of the frame, and we cleaned that up. Sometimes the exposure is a bit edgy at night, and you can get better blacks [with digital tools]. Or sometimes we needed to match footage shot by several cameras.

Arri Master Prime and Angenieux lenses Kodak Vision 500T 5279, Vision2 500T 5218 Digital Intermediate Printed on Kodak Vision 2383

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A Cut

Above Jack Green, ASC, once destined to be a barber, advances to cinematography’s pinnacle as the recipient of the ASC Lifetime Achievement Award. by Jon Silberg n 1982, Jack Green, ASC, this year’s recipient of the Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award, did something few aspiring cinematographers would ever think of doing: he turned down an offer from Clint Eastwood to move up from camera operator to cinematographer because he felt he needed a little more experience. “I honestly didn’t feel ready,” says Green. “I didn’t know if Clint would give me another shot, but I loved being his operator, anyway; operating is a great job and doesn’t have the responsibilities of being the

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director of photography. You’re part of the creative team, but you’re only responsible for getting the shot, and you know right away whether you’ve got it — you can sleep at night! I asked Clint to let me do a little more maturing in my mind first, and to his credit, he did, and he made the offer again when he decided to make Heartbreak Ridge [1986; AC Jan. ’87].” Those who have worked with Green find him confident but unassuming, despite having shot some very memorable films, including Eastwood’s Bird (1988), Unforgiven

(1992; AC June ’93) and Bridges of Madison County (AC Aug. ’95). Green doesn’t think of the more than 20 years he spent learning the craft as an assistant and operator as drudge work or paying his dues; he talks about the time as an essential part of his development, noting that it taught him not only to light and shoot but also to manage the creative and political challenges of heading the camera department. He eventually shot 14 films for Eastwood as well as an eclectic mix of other features, including the blockbuster Twister (AC May ’96),

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Bird photos courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Opposite: Director of photography Jack Green, ASC. This page: Two scenes from Bird, which tells the story of jazz musician Charlie Parker (played by Forest Whitaker). “If I could be remembered for my work on one film, it would be that one,” says Green.

the intimate drama Girl, Interrupted (AC March ’00) and the raucous comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005). Cinematography was not something Green thought about during his childhood in Daley City, Calif. It was understood that he would attend barber college and work in one of the barbershops his father and uncle owned until it came time for him to take over the family business. His only connection to photography was sharing his father’s photography hobby; as a youth, he shot black-and-white pictures with his box Brownie and made prints in his father’s darkroom. “For my dad, the darkroom was about the two of us doing something together,” he recalls. “I don’t think he knew that was how I felt, too. I still get misty-eyed when I smell vinegar!” His interest in photography continued in high school, spurred by a better camera and the school’s more sophisticated darkroom, but

Green had settled into the notion that the tools of his trade would be clippers and scissors. Shortly after he started working as a full-time barber, a former combat cameraman named Joe Dieves helped change the course of Green’s life when he came in for a trim. Dieves had set up shop

in the San Francisco Bay area shooting documentaries, industrials and educational films for local clients. It took Green months to talk to Dieves about camerawork, but the man was a repeat customer, and eventually, Green talked himself into a parttime job as his camera assistant.

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Above: Director/actor Clint Eastwood and Green at work on Pale Rider. Below: A scarred prostitute (Anna Thomson) tends to Will Munny (Eastwood) in Unforgiven.

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“We’d go out on a job, and he’d make sure I was never ignorant about what was necessary,” recalls Green. “He was a gentle teacher. Soon, I asked my father and my uncle if I could move to one of the back chairs and work part-time.” They agreed. “Over a few years, I became a very part-time barber and an almost full-time camera assis-

tant, and in 1965, I got into the union in Northern California, and it became a full-time job.” Green was soon assisting for a variety of companies, including some that specialized in aerial photography. Assisting on some helicopter exteriors for the film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) led to the opportunity to work for John Lowry

Productions, an aerial-photography company based in Los Angeles. The move, says Green, “was an opportunity that I think filmmakers of every kind outside Hollywood think about. My wife and I packed up and moved to Southern California. My mom, dad and uncle were all very happy I had an opportunity to do something I loved.” The early 1970s saw Green assisting a lot, predominantly on aerial units, and working fulltime for Tyler Mounts. “Then, in 1972, there were huge layoffs,” he recalls. “The industry was in really bad shape, as bad as it is now. Maybe worse.” He managed to keep busy freelancing as an assistant, and in 1975, cinematographer and future ASC member Michael Watkins moved him up to operator on Roger Corman’s Fighting Mad (1976). It was a baptism by fire in the craft of operating incredibly quickly under chaotic circumstances. Cinematographer Rex Smith then hired Green to operate on Eastwood’s The Gauntlet (1977). Green subsequently operated on every Eastwood film until he moved

Pale Rider photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Unforgiven photo courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

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up on Heartbreak Ridge. Green was immediately impressed with Eastwood’s attitudes about and approach to filmmaking. There was very little talking about how “artistic” something should be; the focus was on craft and efficiency and always using imagery to support the story. Eastwood hired the same crew as often as possible so that discussions could be conducted in shorthand. “Clint could describe eight shots in eight words,” notes Green. It was through operating on these films that Green learned about lighting. He recalls cinematographer Bruce Surtees (Pale Rider, Tightrope) “standing on a set and giving instructions to the gaffer using his hand as if it were a paintbrush. You would swear there was paint coming out of his fingers! Bruce was a lighting minimalist. If he walked onto a set and saw four lights burning, he’d tell the gaffer to turn one off. I realized the fewer lights you had, the fewer complications there were. It was fascinating to see how Bruce expressed himself to his gaffer and electricians. To this day, I try to duplicate that as best I can.” Green listened to how Surtees and Eastwood would describe lighting in emotional terms. “In Pale Rider, Clint was talking about the scene where the bad guys are standing in the mayor’s house at a fireplace, planning what they’re going to do. He described them as ‘the devil’s advocates,’ and he wanted them surrounded by this boiling firelight. I learned from him and Bruce how to think about lighting in an emotional way.” Green also made it a point to watch movies with real audiences as often as possible to see how lighting affected people. “There’s a shot in Tightrope that I did with a Steadicam in which Clint’s character, the detective, is walking down a dark hallway full of deep shadows. The killer isn’t hiding in the shadows, but the fact

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that there is so much darkness in that scene really makes the hair on your arm stand up. I could see in the viewers’ faces how riveted they were.” When Surtees recommended Green to shoot Heartbreak Ridge, Green sensed it was now or never, and he accepted the job even though he still felt he had a lot to learn. He credits his wife, Susan, with helping him overcome his trepidation. “She is my best friend, and she’s very smart and wise. She knew I was just nervous as a cat, and while I was home, thinking about this leap I was

going to make, I heard a little thump on the door, and there was Susan with her arms full of art books — and there were more in the car. She had gone out and gotten every art book she could find at the library and bookstore. She said, ‘Now is the time to put yourself through art school! If you want to do photography that will last in people’s minds, you’re going to have to study the classic painters.’ That was as influential on any style I might have developed as anything else.” From the books, Green developed a fascination with “using shad-

Above: Green zeroes in on the action in the driver’s seat on the set of The Rookie. Below: Green at work on Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

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A Cut Above

ow to shape light.” This dovetailed nicely with Eastwood’s affinity for very black blacks and deep, dark shadows. Bird, about jazz great Charlie Parker, was Green’s third film as a cinematographer, and he relished the challenge to work on the film in part because it was a departure from what audiences had come to expect from Eastwood. “I

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knew exactly what kind of visual style Clint wanted before we even got together to discuss it,” says the cinematographer. “I had grown up in the Bay Area, as he had, and we’d gone to the same jazz bars. I’d read Bebop and Downbeat and knew what jazz photographs of the period looked like — they were almost silhouettes with very sharp edges of

light. I knew that would be what Clint wanted, and when he started describing that look to me, I said, ‘Let me shoot a test, and we’ll use it as a guide to make adjustments.’ “So we borrowed a camera from Panavision, and [lead actor] Forest Whitaker, [gaffer] Tom Stern and I went to a recording studio at Warner Bros. and used the dark maroon curtains they use as sound dampener as a background,” he continues. “We put Forest in front of it with a chair and a saxophone and gave him just a bit of an edgelight, a tiny bounce off the saxophone to give the instrument some reflections. My gosh, it was so pretty. Clint saw it and said, ‘That’s it!’ Throughout the picture, I worked on building strong compositions and strong lighting. “Everything in Bird was about hard lighting against dark objects — lots of contrast,” continues Green. “There’s a scene where Charlie Parker is at a desk, trying to call his wife on the phone while he’s on heroin, and his mistress comes to the door and stands there; it’s just a very strong silhouette of her in the

The Bridges of Madison County photo by Ken Regan, courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Right: Photojournalist Robert Kincaid (Eastwood) charms an Iowa housewife (Meryl Streep) in The Bridges of Madison County. Below: Eastwood and Green talk over a scene.

A Perfect World photos by Jane Bovingdon. Top photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Bottom photo courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

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doorway and him lit by a little lamp on the desk. Images like that carry so much emotion. We did a closer shot of her and put a tiny little light on her eyes, but Clint wanted to turn that off and just put her in silhouette in her close-up, and that’s what ended up in the movie. There’s not even a hint of light in her eyes, and it’s so powerful because the audience can feel her emotion without seeing more of her face. That’s the kind of work I love to do. If I could be remembered for my work on one film, it would be Bird.” Bridges of Madison County, which stars Eastwood as a renowned photojournalist and Meryl Streep as the Iowa housewife with whom he has a passionate affair, allowed Green to photograph another change of pace for Eastwood: a love story. Unlike most such stories, however, the drama was presented from the man’s point of view. For Green, that meant avoiding the warm, glowing beauty light that often illuminates the romance genre. “There is a lushness to a lot of the picture,

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but really, the only scene I warmed up in that romantic kind of way was the one that shows the two of them dancing in her kitchen,” he notes. “They’re under tungsten light and the room is mostly yellow.” Eastwood’s overall approach to what is arguably his finest film,

Unforgiven, was essentially the same as his approach to all his films, says Green. It was shot quickly and efficiently because Eastwood and the cast and crew were all very experienced and very prepared. “We shot that movie in 42 days, and we had no long days,” recalls Green. “On a

Above: Green and Eastwood on location for A Perfect World. Below: In a scene from the film, escaped convict Butch Haynes (Kevin Costner) bonds with his young hostage (T.J. Lowther).

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Above: Green (left) and director Jan De Bont, ASC (at camera) on location for Twister. Right: In a scene from the film, Bill and Jo Harding (Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt) struggle to escape the terrifying funnel cloud.

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Clint Eastwood movie, a long day is nine hours. “We used very old-fashioned Western techniques on that movie,” he continues. “If you go back to some of the John Ford Westerns, you see some huge landscapes with small figures in them or a small town set against huge mountains, and we did a lot of that. We maintained that epic Western look all the way through but also made a serious attempt to tell the story like we were telling a Western for the first time. I always tried to strike a balance between making it feel familiar and letting it make its own artistic statement.” In one scene in Unforgiven, notorious killer William Munny (Eastwood) explains to a young, hotheaded acolyte (Jaimz Woolvett) that murder isn’t a glamorous game. “Munny says that when you kill someone, you don’t take only that person’s life, you also lose something of your own,” says Green. “When we were shooting the scene, there was a Chinook, a snow eater, far off in the distance — a huge change in the weather where it can go from 25°F to 75°F in less than an hour. We saw it coming — a huge line of clouds as clear as night and day — and it was coming fast. It was such a terrific moment for the scene, so we all moved as fast as we could to keep that Chinook over Clint’s shoulder all the way through the scene. That’s something that couldn’t happen on most sets. Some directors would be watching playback and making decisions with a committee, and that Chinook would have been over the Yukon before we got the take! But Clint could see we were marching in a direction, and he stood in the perfect spot and made the speech. He could do that because he trusted all of us to make something like that work.” Although movies laden with visual effects cannot take advantage of such natural accidents, Green believes those types of projects offer

Twister photos by Ron Batzdorff, SMPSP. Top photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Bottom photo courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

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JOHN SIMMONS, ASC hile I was in college, at Fisk University, writer/director Carlton Moss would come from Hollywood and teach a film course on a monthly basis. His enthusiasm for the contribution of cinematography to the storytelling process was contagious, and the first time I saw the flicker of the shutter through the eyepiece, I knew cinematography was what I wanted to do. “Carlton gave me my first subscription to American Cinematographer. Through the pages of the magazine, I got my technical introduction to the art and craft of cinematography. It was an inspiration at that time, and I still look forward to reading it each month. AC continues to educate me.”

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©photo by Owen Roizman, ASC

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Top left: A young woman (Winona Ryder) struggles with depression in Girl, Interrupted. Top right: Green (center) and his collaborators prepare to film. Below: Green and director James Mangold on the set.

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great creative opportunities — it’s just that more of it must happen in prep. “I came onto Twister after a lot of the preparation had been done, but on Space Cowboys [2000], we had binders full of information so that the artists at Industrial Light & Magic and I could make sure everything worked together,” he says. “The astronauts were going outside the capsule day and night, so sometimes they stepped out in sunlight, and

sometimes it was moonlight. Every 90 minutes, they’re making a circle of the earth, so that affected the direction and quality of the light. For someone who likes to go with his gut, it was a totally new way of working, but I enjoyed the challenge. I was determined to make it work.” Green also welcomed the challenge of shooting Joss Whedon’s Serenity (AC Oct. ’05), which he describes as “a Western in space. Joss has so many ideas, but he listens to other people, too. We gave it a kind of comic-book feel. Not a lot of people saw it, but I think it’s a terrific picture, and I had a great time working with Joss and making it all come

together with the visual-effects people at ILM.” Green credits his success as a director of photography to the time he spent working his way up through the camera department. “People who come out of a graduate program and start at the top as a director of photography can have problems when they get to a real movie set,” he observes. “It can work, but crews don’t particularly like it because that cinematographer might not know how to speak to a crew, and the crew knows he or she hasn’t done any of their jobs. There can be misunderstandings on both sides. In this business, there’s a real advantage coming up through the school of hard knocks. You’ve been part of a crew, so you know how the grip or the electrician feels about something, and you know how to speak to them in ways that make them feel good about the jobs they’re doing.” Although he is tickled to be honored with the ASC Lifetime Achievement Award, Green emphasizes that he intends to keep shooting for a long time to come. “I’ll retire when they pry the light meter out of my cold, dead hands!” he laughs. I

Girl, Interrupted photos by Suzanne Tenner, SMPSP, courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

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Flanked by ASC president Daryn Okada (left) and Richard Crudo, ASC, EFilm’s Steven J. Scott poses with his HPA Award for Outstanding Color Grading, earned for his work on Iron Man.

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HPA Honors Excellence in Post by Jon D. Witmer At the third annual Hollywood Post Alliance Awards, held in early November in Los Angeles, ASC associate member and HPA President Leon Silverman noted, “We’re here to debunk the myth of the magic of Hollywood.” Over the next couple of hours, in front of an audience comprising professionals from all corners of the industry, the ceremony did just that. Actor, writer and director Wil Shriner set a comedic tone as the evening’s host, and the jovial atmosphere was maintained by the ceremony’s many presenters, including Joshua Pines, an ASC associate member and vice president of imaging research and development at Technicolor Digital Intermediates. Presenting the Engineering Excellence awards to Quantel (for the Pablo Stereoscopic 3-D system), FastSoft (for the E Series Internet Accelerator) and Panasonic (for the AVC-Intra 100 Video Codec), Pines looked at the two

teleprompters in front him and joked, “It’s like a bad 3-D movie — luckily, it’s a fad!” The joke prompted a response from Rob Engle, Sony Pictures Imageworks’ digital-effects supervisor, who accepted a Judges’ Award for Creativity and Innovation in Postproduction for the stereoscopic post pipeline developed for Beowulf 3D. “Some might call it a fad,” Engle said. “I call it a revolution!” Judges’ Awards were also presented to DigitalFilm Tree and CBS/Paramount for the development and implementation of a modern datacentric post network and workflow, and to LaserPacific Media Corporation for AccurateImage, a color-calibrated endto-end process that delivers digital cinema-quality dailies that look like film. Glenn Kennel, LaserPacific’s vice president and general manager of feature film, offered special thanks to ASC President Daryn Okada for serving as AIM’s “very first customer — and first guinea pig.” Okada later stood at the podium alongside Richard Crudo, ASC to present the awards for Outstanding Color Grad-

ing. Alex Bickel of Outside Editorial won for the Jaguar “XF Hush” commercial; Joe Hathaway of LaserPacific won for the Pushing Daisies episode “The Fun in Funerals”; and ASC associate member Steven J. Scott of EFilm won for Iron Man. Saluting the efforts of his fellow feature-film nominees — ASC associate member Stefan Sonnenfeld (Sweeney Todd) of Company 3 and Mike Sowa (The Kite Runner) of LaserPacific — Scott saved his greatest thanks for Iron Man’s cinematographer, Matthew Libatique, ASC. “There could be no better inspiration,” said Scott. “This is his vision, after all, and I was happy to be his conduit.” Other nominees for Outstanding Color Grading were Siggy Ferstl of Riot (“ESPN: The Masters”); Sowa (The Andromeda Strain, Part 1); Sean Coleman of Company 3 (Travelers Insurance, “Delivery”); and Sonnenfeld (Farmers Help Point, “Drowned Circus”). Outstanding Editing awards were presented to Lee Smith, ACE (The Dark Knight); Stuart Bass, ACE (Pushing Daisies, “Pie-Lette”); and Neil Gust of Outside Editorial (Jaguar, “XF Hush”). Patrick Poulatian and Robert Sethi of Brickyard VFX took home the Outstanding Compositing in a Commercial award for the Pontiac “Shwayze” spot. Outstanding Audio Post awards were handed out to Ben Burtt of Pixar Animation Studios and Tom Myers, Michael Semanick and Matthew Wood of Skywalker Sound (Wall-E ); Mace Matiosian, Ruth Adelman, David Vanslyke, Bill Smith, Yuri Reese and Jivan Tahmizian of Todd-AO (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, “Cockroaches”); and Tony Rapaccioli and Warren Hamilton of Wave Recording Studios and Tonic (Audi RS6, “Gymnast”). The HPA inaugurated a new award this year in memory of Charles S. Swartz. The prize honors a person, group, company or technology that has

HPA photo by Ryan Miller, courtesy of Capture Imaging; Still Me photos and frame grabs courtesy of the filmmakers.

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made a significant artistic, technological, business or educational impact on post and was presented by screenwriter Howard Rodman to Elizabeth Daley, dean of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. Capping the ceremony, ASC associate member Ron Burdett received the Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented by Silverman and Fred Rheinstein, last year’s recipient. In his remarks, Burdett looked ahead to the future of the post industry and, paraphrasing Robert Frost, encouraged the attendants in all their endeavors. “We have promises to keep and many miles to go before the end of the journey,” he said. FotoKem Transfers Still Me by Jim Hemphill When cinematographer Chun Ming Huang began work on Still Me, a 20-minute character study about a stroke victim’s difficult rehabilitation, he envisioned the story on film, but the production’s limited resources dictated that the project be shot and edited on 24p standard-definition video. After the

Cinematographer Chun Ming Huang (sitting) and director Beth McElhenny confer with soundman Bill Soares during production of the short film Still Me.

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short attracted attention by winning awards at three festivals, director Beth McElhenny began to think about submitting it for Academy Award consideration, and the Academy requires a 35mm print. “We had no idea the movie would get this much buzz, and until we found out we might actually have a chance with the Academy, we had no plans to transfer to film,” says Huang, who shot the picture at 24p with a Panasonic AG-DVX100. “Originally, we planned on going straight to DVD, so I lit with the intention of outputting to video only.” The filmmakers took the project to FotoKem, where Huang worked closely with in-house producer Rico Hernandez, who supervised the transfer from MiniDV to a 35mm composite print. “In this case, the source material we received was a standard-def QuickTime file,” says John Nicolard, head of digital production for FotoKem. “We loaded that into Final Cut Pro and output a standard-def DigiBeta to start the process.” The DigiBeta was upconverted (via a Teranex box) to HDCam-SR tape. During the tape-to-tape color correction on the da Vinci 2K, Huang was primarily concerned with preserving the look of the original footage and prepping it for a different medium. “We didn’t do anything too dramatic,” he says. After the color correction, the filmmakers gave Hernandez all the text that needed to be laid into the movie, and FotoKem created HD end titles in After Effects that were added to the color-corrected master. An audio master was created as a 35mm SR optical track, and everything was brought into a DI suite to create a filmout file. To record out to film, says Nicolard, “we have a FotoKem-specific linear-to-logarithmic conversion.” The conversion was done on a Quantel Pablo, where the digital files were prepped with a film look for 35mm recording. “We could have used this session for further color timing, but we avoided it because everything was done nicely during the da Vinci session — and because the cost would have 81

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Frame grabs from the finished short, which focuses on Jack and Rosanne (Scott Kling and Tina Gloss) as they struggle to cope after Jack suffers from a stroke. The footage, captured on MiniDV, was transferred to 35mm film at FotoKem.

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rocketed up!” says Huang. The logarithmic DPX files created in the Pablo were exported to a server, and an Arrilaser was used to record the file onto Kodak 2242 internegative stock. Finally, the SR optical soundtrack was married to the 35mm negative, and the final print was made on Kodak Vision 2383. “The most expensive part of the entire process was the filmout,” notes Huang. The cinematographer adds that ending up on 35mm subtly changed the image quality for both better and worse. “I had to give up some information in the highlights and shadows, which is unfortunate, because the image gets a little washed-out. Using available daylight as much as we did, some things just had to give.” On the plus side, he was happy with the grain structure the image gained. “You can’t get that nice, true grain shooting video, and it helps a little in softening out the edges and getting rid of that video look. But it was a big challenge to make sure I retained as much of the detail as possible during the transfer process.” Huang recommends that filmmakers shooting on MiniDV who intend to transfer to 35mm keep a sharp eye on the shadows and highlights. “You have to make sure you give the colorists plenty of information to work with. It’s hard for me because my style can be quite contrasty; I light by eye, so I’ll usually take the exposure that looks good to me and go with it.” He also recommends shooting on 24p HD in 16x9 whenever possible because that eliminates some stages (and expenses) in the transfer process. Nicolard echoes these sentiments, though he also advises that independent filmmakers shouldn’t get too hung up on technology when embarking on their projects. “Anyone who’s shooting MiniDV is generally doing it for budgetary reasons, because if they had more money, they would shoot HD or film. The most important thing is just to get your project made. If it’s good, people will respond to it.” I

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New Products & Services Codex Unveils Digital Lab Codex Digital, a specialist in high-resolution media-recording and workflow systems, has extended its product family with the Codex Lab, a digital film lab in a box that forms the hub of fast, efficient tapeless workflows. The Lab is modular, offers enormous recording capacity and provides all deliverables needed for production, post and archiving. The Lab can ingest digital production material from Codex recorders, tape, telecine or other digital systems. It can be expanded to store more than 500 hours of digital cinema footage or 1,000 hours of high-end broadcast material, plus audio. When used in standard-definition applications, the Lab can hold 3,600 hours of recordings. All material stored in the Lab is immediately available for on-demand daily deliverables and reprints. When an offline edit is complete, the Lab automatically generates the required finishing files from the EDL in a matter of minutes or hours. It will also play out to multiple channels of video (HD or SD), with automatic processing of shot lists or EDLs. The Lab converts formats ranging from standard-def to 4K into editing files for Avid, Apple or Adobe, or into finishing or archive tapes or viewing files. Output file formats include DPX, MXF, DNxHD, QuickTime, AVI, JPEG, BMP and BWF, with full metadata, resizing, color-space conversion and LUTs for look management. Additionally, the Lab offloads HD footage up to 10 times faster than real time, with SD over 20 times faster, and it can produce multiple deliverables in parallel. Codex has designed the Lab so it can be configured and upgraded according to the changing needs of users. It can be ordered with one or two dual bays for Codex Portable diskpacks and a dual bay for Codex Recorder diskpacks. The Lab will 84 January 2009

also hold up to four internal LTO4 tape drives and control external LTO4 robots. Additionally, high-speed RAID6 storage is expandable to over 100TB in removable blocks of 12 or 24TB. The Lab can manage a range of broadcast productions or digital motion pictures; multiple productions can also be handled on one unit. It is designed for easy integration into the MCR of an editing or visual-effects facility, and it can also be directly connected on set or on location. For more information, visit www.codexdigital.com. One-Touch Backup Nexto DI now offers the Nexto ND2725 Video Storage, a portable batterypowered device that backs up footage at the touch of a single button. Compatible with such camcorders as Sony’s PMWEX1 and EX3 and Panasonic’s HVX200, the Video Storage can connect directly to the camcorder via USB cable. It checks the integrity of the footage as it records, and it can also detect faults and potential future hard-drive errors. A browse function enables users to verify when backup is complete, and the ND-2725 features an ESata interface that increases the data-transfer speed to and from a computer by three times compared to a USB 2.0. The Nexto Video Storage is available in 160GB, 250GB, 320GB and 500GB, and it is forward-compatible up to 2TB. Compatible with PC, Mac and Unix platforms, the device can store video, photos, data, music and games. Available through International Supplies, the 320 GB ND-2725 Video Storage has a suggested retail price of $799. It comes with a one-year warranty, a carrying case, long and short USB cords, a USB extension cord and an AC adapter. Auxil-

iary batteries and car chargers are also available. For more information, visit www.nextodiusa.com. Alacrity Media Intros Van, Ninjas Alacrity Media has introduced its customized Road Grader van, a mobile implementation of the company’s databased production and post pipeline. As a complete digital-intermediate suite on wheels, the Road Grader is designed to meet the 4K camera and real-time post needs of filmmakers using data acquisition to create their projects on location. The key components of this new data methodology are the Red One camera and Assimilate Scratch, which supports RedCode native files, enabling a real-time Scratch/Red data workflow. “Traditional methods of creating motion media have been undergoing fundamental changes, with 4K data acquisition quickly moving into the limelight as the means to make cost-effective, quality product,” says Blair Paulsen, founder and owner of Alacrity Media. “While these changes are occurring in large and small studios around the globe, we’re taking this new 4K data technology a step further by going on the road and on location to give clients immediate feedback and results.” Key features of Road Grader include primary color grading of 4K footage in real time with full-quality debayering at 2K or 1080p, using a proper control surface for lift, gamma and gain; a complete Final Cut Studio editorial system for creating EDLs for conforming in Scratch; an ECinema color-evaluation monitor in a proper viewing environment with color correction applied in real time; an HP DreamColor monitor for viewing images in full 10-bit space; and real time layoff to tape via uncompressed HD-SDI

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in 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 color space. The Road Grader hits the road supported by a team of “4K Ninjas,” a coop team of 4K camera and DI experts. Paulsen explains, “Any of the Ninja pros can interface with the [cinematographer], camera team, sound mixer, playback operator, effects supervisor [and] colorist and support on-set editorial right in the Road Grader. We recommend an on-site camera Ninja and a Ninja data manager to handle the downloading, organizing and verifying of footage.” For more information, visit www.alacritymedia.com or www.4knin jas.net. MovieCockpit Ready for Liftoff VideoAssisTech has unveiled the latest product under its Cockpit banner, MovieCockpit, a software application that turns the user’s computer into an all-inone, resolution-independent, live production switcher with multi-channel record and playback capabilities. Based on CockpitCube, MovieCockpit is the company’s first application aimed at the consumer level. The software finds and visually lists any available audio/video I/O device connected to the computer, including DV cameras, DV conversion boxes, Web cameras and computer sound cards. Each device can then be fully configured in terms of input, resolution and frame rate, from standard definition through 2K. Users can create separate live views for any of the inputs simply by dragging and dropping a chosen device into the work area. Each view can be separately configured for recording codec, file type and storage device, and each view can be recorded independently. Additionally, multiple live views can be easily grouped together — with no limit to the number of groups — to make synchronized recordings. Offering straight cuts, manual or 85

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automatic wipes, and manual or automatic cross-fades, MovieCockpit enables chroma key work as well as graphics and text overlay. Recorded clips and the sync playlist are stored in the application’s database, which supports multiple thumbnails, an unlimited number of usercustomizable metadata fields, and nested sorting and text search. Users can instantly reload recorded clips for playback, and clips can be output to external monitors; output formats are completely independent of input formats. The application can currently play back most available video codecs. For more information, visit www.moviecockpit.com. New Studio in Long Beach Long Beach Studios is expecting to roll cameras during the first quarter of 2009 in its new, state-of-the-art facility. Housing more than 1 million square feet of production, postproduction and support space, the studio will include 40 soundstages and the largest water-filming facility in California. “Long Beach is the perfect location for a major production studio,” says Jack O’Halloran, chairman of the studio. “Being close to three major airports, major freeways and Metro Rail makes us the most convenient production facility, and we are thrilled to become a part of this amazing and vital city.” For more information, visit www.longbeachstudiosllc.com. S3D Studios Sunset Gower and Sunset Bronson Studios have teamed with Iconix Video to open S3D Studios. With a full array of stereo-ready rigs, Iconix cameras, and stereo recording and playback devices, 86 January 2009

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S3D’s stages offer a turnkey solution for shooting and testing stereoscopic production in a controlled environment. “We are committed to providing state-of-the-art facilities that allow for greater ease in capturing digitally,” says Howard Stern, president of Sunset Gower Studios. “We want to make it easier to produce stereo and enable the creative community to work in a controlled environment that makes shooting easier and more dependable.” “S3D stages allow us to integrate our new generation of stereo solutions in one easy-to-use package,” adds Bruce Long, CEO of Iconix Video. “S3D Studios will allow producers to move into stereo with their same crews and teams. Our goal is to support, not supplant.” S3D’s stages at Sunset Gower and Sunset Bronson are equipped with on-set pre-post services for stereo dailies. Full stereo post is provided by Stereoscope Studios in Burbank, which also offers an S3D insert stage to facilitate simultaneous compositing of effects. Additionally, the S3D stages will utilize Iconix Video’s handheld stereo rigs, developed in association with Doggicam Systems. Other available rig options include tripod-mounted rigs and Doggicam’s new High Def Dolly system, which has been configured to mount Iconix’s 3-D HD system. For more information, visit www.iconixvideo.com. Gemini Creates 3-D Camera Gemini LLC has teamed with MSM Design Inc. to create a film-based 3-D camera system. The compact system weighs 44 pounds in Steadicam mode and 54 pounds when fitted with a viewfinder and 1,000' film load. Designed for easy setup and reloading, the Gemini 3-D camera is compatible with conventional 35mm remote heads, nose mounts, dollies, cranes and Libra heads. The Gemini has been designed with a digital post pipeline in mind. The camera photographs 24mm-by-36mm images onto two strips of 35mm film; each frame has 8 perfs. The film movements incorporate

a vacuum back and an ultra-steady design, and the camera also features a 180-degree mirror shutter. Internal electronics control iris, focus and convergence functions, ensuring proper alignment of the left- and right-eye images. Users can access the electronic interface through controls on the camera body or with a smart remote, which offers complete feedback while the camera is running. Coaxial mags reduce weight and size while enabling quick reloads. The Gemini also boasts a unique, ultra-lightweight clip-on mattebox that can hold one 6" round filter and two 6.6"x6.6" square filters. (The camera also accepts the Arriflex MB-14 mattebox.) Lenses, batteries and an underwater housing round out the Gemini’s accessory package, and everything is available for rent through Gemini LLC. For more information, visit www.gemini3dcamera.com. Sony Enables 3-D Theater Projection Sony Electronics has unveiled a single-projector 3-D adapter designed to work specifically with its 4K projectors in movie theaters. The new adapter uses the full height of Sony’s 4K imaging device, with the ability to display full 2K images for the left and right eyes simultaneously and in parallel, from top to bottom. Comprised of two new lens units — models LKRL-A002 (X1.1-1.9) and LKRL-A003 (X1.9-3.3) — the 3-D adapter consists of an optical and mechanical assembly for each left- and right-eye image. It is designed to meet DCI specifications for 3-D digital projection while overcoming the bandwidth and resolution limitations of 3-D systems currently on the market.

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rope? ntral Eu e C in g Filmin Work, ts That der! For Shoo rket Lea a M ’s y n Germa Contact B R O A D C A ST S E R V I C E S W E ’ V E G OT YO U R B AC K .

Compatible with all Sony 4K projectors now in the field, the 3-D adapter was developed to give exhibitors the flexibility to easily switch between showing 4K and 3-D content. The adapter attaches onto the projector’s lens mount, and it can be removed or re-attached within minutes. When used with Sony’s integrated media block (LMT-200), the SRXR220 4K projector is able to achieve 4:4:4 RGB signal path while avoiding the “triple-flash” artifacting of other 3-D solutions. The projector can also deliver a 60p 3-D display that is especially effective for stereoscopic displays of sports or other fast-moving content. The 3-D adapter is designed to work with a maximum screen size of 55'; it is expected to ship in March 2009. Sony Electronics’ Digital Cinema Solutions and Services group has also entered into separate and non-exclusive digital-deployment agreements with 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures Entertainment. The agreements will provide certain operational and financial resources to encourage exhibitors to implement digital cinema systems featuring Sony’s DCIcompliant 4K SXRD projection technology. For more information, visit http://pro.sony.com. I

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International Marketplace

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American Cinematographer 89

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Advertiser’s Index AC 77, 92 Alamar Productions, Inc. 88 Alan Gordon Enterprises 88, 89 Arri 49 ASC 83 Backstage Equipment, Inc. 85 Barger-Lite 67 Burrell Enterprises 88 Camelot Broadcasting Service 87 Cavision Enterprises 27 Center for Digital Arts at Boston University 6 Chapman University 25 Cine Gear Expo 63 Cinekinetic 4 CinemaGadgets.com 88 Cinematographer Style 93 Cinema Vision 89 Cinematography Electronics 67 Clairmont Film & Digital 21 Cooke 6 CPT Rental Inc. 89 Deluxe 23 Eastman Kodak 13, C4 Entertainment Lighting Services 88

90

Filmtools 85 Flying-Cam 6 Focus Features 5 FTC/West 89 Fuji Motion Picture 51 Glidecam Industries 17 Goldenanimations 88 Hybrid Cases 88 JEM Studio Lighting, Inc. 81 K 5600, Inc. 40 Kino Flo 57 Konrad Wolf Hochschule 67 LA Shorts Fest 69 Laffoux Solutions, Inc. 88 Lee Filters 65 Litepanels 2 MP&E Mayo Productions 89 NAB 91 New York University 15 North Carolina Film Commission 19 Oppenheimer Camera Prod. 88 Otto Nemenz, Intl. 53 Panasonic Broadcast 33 Paramount Studios 11 Paramount Vantage 9 PED Denz 39 Pille Film Gmbh 88 Pro8mm 88

Samy’s DV & Edit 41 Sony C2-1 Stanton Video Services 39 Stwo 55, 85 Sundance Film Festival 79 Super16 Inc. 89 Superflycam 55 SXSW 95 Tiffen C3 VF Gadgets, Inc. 89 Videocraft Equipment Pty 88 Walter Klassen FX 56 Weinstein Company, The 7 Willy’s Widgets 88 www.theasc.com 55, 68, 81, 87, 90 Zacuto Films 89 ZGC, Inc. 6

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In Memoriam Robert C. Jessup, ASC, 1930-2008 obert C. Jessup, ASC, who lent his talents to features, commercials, telefilms and series over the course of four decades, died on Aug. 14 at the age of 78. Born on May 23, 1930, Jessup grew up in New Jersey before moving to Des Moines, Iowa, to attend Drake University. In 1951, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was assigned to the 1st Combat Camera Unit as a sound mixer. Later that year, he was assigned to the 2nd Photo Squadron in Japan, where he worked as a sound recordist and a camera assistant in the Documentary Film Unit. Jessup was then reassigned to the 1354th Video Production Squadron, where he worked as an audio engineer before transitioning to television cameraman. After an honorable discharge in 1955, Jessup worked as a cameraman and lighting director at TV stations in Florida and Indiana. In 1958, he settled in Dallas, Texas, taking a job as a camera assistant with Jamieson Film Co. Climbing the ranks in Jamieson’s camera department, he advanced from operator to cinematographer in 1960, and he headed the department for most of the next decade, notching credits on such projects as Night Fright (1967) and the telefilms In the Year 2889, Creature of Destruction and Mars Needs Women (all 1967). In 1969, Jessup’s work on The Banyan Tree earned him a cinematography award at the Atlanta Film Festival, and he set out to work as a freelancer. By the mid-1970s, he was president of Film Production Services Inc., a company that provided crews and equipment to productions shooting in the Midwest and South. That didn’t slow his accomplishments behind the camera, however; earning first-unit credits on such features as

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Sugar Hill (1974), Race With the Devil (1975) and Drive-In (1976), he also shot second unit for such cinematographers as Robert Surtees, ASC (The Great Waldo Pepper, 1975) and Ernest Laszlo, ASC (Logan’s Run, 1976). After their collaboration on Logan’s Run, Laszlo recommended Jessup for ASC membership, and Jessup was officially made a member on March 1, 1976. In a letter to Lester Shorr, ASC, the Society’s president at the time, Jessup wrote, “This is an honor I do not take lightly, and I can assure you that I will do everything in my power to live up to the ideals, standards and goals represented by the ASC.” Over the next two decades, Jessup returned to his TV roots, shooting episodes of the series The Dukes of Hazzard (1979) and Dallas (1978-79) and a number of telefilms, including two directed by Ron Howard, Cotton Candy (1978) and Skyward (1980). Other credits include the theatrical features The Big Brawl (1980), Deadly Blessing (1981), Silent Rage (1982) and Porky’s Revenge (1985). Jessup is survived by two brothers and one sister. — Jon D. Witmer I

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Clubhouse News Lieberman, Neyman Join Society The Society has welcomed Charlie Lieberman and Yuri Neyman as active members. After earning a B.A. in anthropology from Northern Illinois University, Charles Lieberman, ASC settled in

Chicago to pursue a career in still photography. He landed a series of jobs in camera shops and advertising studios before setting out as a freelance photographer. One of his first assignments was to photograph indigenous cultures in small villages across 14 countries for a series of anthropology books. Returning to Chicago, Lieberman displayed his work in a gallery and was subsequently hired as a still photographer on a documentary about Olympic athletes. This first taste of motion-picture production prompted Lieberman to change tacks, and he began working as a cinematographer in documentary, industrial and educational films. His first break in features came with Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986). He remained in Chicago, primarily shooting commercials, until 1989, when he relocated to Los Angeles. Since then, he has earned credits on such features as South Central (1992) and Love is a Gun (1994) and on such series as My So-Called Life, Party of Five, Joan of Arcadia and Heroes. Born in Kharkov, Ukraine, Yuri Neyman, ASC studied cinematography 94 January 2009

and photographic engineering at the Moscow State Film Institute. After graduating with honors, he began notching director-of-photography credits on features, including the critically acclaimed Mayakovsky Laughs (1975). Neyman’s work was considered by the state to be “ideologically dangerous,” and he was forced to emigrate from the U.S.S.R. as a political refugee. Landing in New York City, Neyman began his stateside career at the bottom rung of the camera department. He quickly climbed the ranks, however, and began shooting documentaries and commercials before enjoying his feature breakout with the cult hit

Liquid Sky (1982). Other credits include the features D.O.A. (1988), Brittle Glory (1997) and Civil Brand (2002), and the telefilms Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald (1993) and Scattered Dreams (1993). For more than a decade, Neyman has applied his scientific knowledge to help cinematographers maintain control of their images through all stages of production. Through his company, Gamma & Density Co., he has developed the Thorough Control System and the Cinematographers’ Color Correction Process, or 3cP. He is also an instructor at the American Film Institute.

Ngai Becomes Associate Tony Ngai, marketing manager for Hong Kong-based Salon Films, has joined the ASC as an associate member. Active in Hong Kong’s motion-picture industry since 1969, he has served as section chair of SMPTE’s Hong Kong chapter for most of the last decade, and he is an active member of the advisory board of Hong Kong’s Institute of Vocational Education. Ngai’s other affiliations include the British Kinematograph Sound and Television Society, the Digital Cinema Society and the Chinese Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. ASC Onstage at Expos Glen MacPherson, ASC and Peter Anderson, ASC recently shared their insights about 3-D cinematography at the HD Expo in Burbank. MacPherson sat down with director Eric Brevig and visual-effects coordinator Eric Torres for “Myth Busting 3-D,” a discussion moderated by Vince Pace, founder of PaceHD. Later that day, AC contributor Douglas Bankston interviewed Anderson about the cinematographer’s wide-ranging 3-D credits. ASC members also participated in the recent DV Expo, where they conducted a series of master classes. George Spiro Dibie, ASC moderated the sessions, each of which featured clips from cinematographers’ work followed by a discussion. ASC members Richard Crudo, Allen Daviau, Michael Goi, Richard Kline, Daniel Pearl, Robert Primes, Owen Roizman, David Stump and Rodney Taylor participated in the classes. Stump also participated in the “Full Resolution HD Workflow Workshop” with cinematographer Joe di Gennaro and post supervisor Peter Mavromates; the discussion was moderated by Thomson Grass Valley’s Mark Chiolis. I

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ASC CLOSE-UP Gabriel Beristain, ASC, BSC

Which cinematographers, past or present, do you most admire? Luis Cuadrado; Gregg Toland, ASC; Freddie Young, BSC; Chivo Lubezki, ASC, AMC; and Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC, to mention just a few. What sparked your interest in photography? Politics. Although I was familiar with filmmaking through my mum’s acting career, I wasn’t interested in it as a child; I was more impressed by my parents’ love for the stage. But when the time came to express myself, the only satisfaction I could find was in documenting the events, the passion and energy that came during the late ’60s, which were crucial in my life. My weapon: an Ikarex with Zeiss lenses. Where did you train and/or study? Centro de Capacitación Cinematogràfica in Mexico and The National Film and Television School in the United Kingdom. Who were your early teachers or mentors? For cinematography, Alexis Grivas in Mexico and Brian Probyn and Billy Williams, BSC, in the U.K. For directing, Antxon Ezeiza in Mexico and Karel Reisz and Sandy Mackendrick in the U.K. What are some of your key artistic influences? Caravaggio, Turner, Constable, Eisenstein, Visconti, Modotti, Cunningham, Irving Penn, Mahler, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Whitman, Garcia Márquez, Plácido Domingo, and Mexico — the whole country is one of the most spectacular canvases I have ever experienced. How did you get your first break in the business? I interviewed for a film called Christmas Present (1985) at the newly created Channel 4 in the U.K., and at the time, my only credits were my film-school background and an unseen Colombian feature. Writer/director Tony Bicat and producer Barry Hanson interviewed me, saw my material and offered me the job — no recommendations, no contacts, no friends in the right places, no special favors. Good ol’ Britain was very good to me! What has been your most satisfying moment on a project? During the filming of Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio (1986), we were at a cold warehouse in the Isle of Dogs, East London, and we were lit for the painter’s beautiful Maria Magdalene. Tilda Swinton came in, sat down, and assumed the position of the model in the painting. We started rolling, and Tilda was still for an impossible time — the effect was perfect. Suddenly, she turned her head gently and said, ‘Can I have a cig?’ Derek and I cried, and costume designer Sandy Powell and camera 96 January 2009

assistant John Mathieson (future BSC) embraced, for we were in front of a film miracle. We had given life to a Caravaggio painting. Have you made any memorable blunders? In Sligo, Ireland, my gaffer and great friend Louis Conroy and I were lighting a gigantic set in a manor house. Our director, Christopher Morahan, strode in in military fashion and very curtly said, ‘We are shooting in the other direction. You know that, don’t you?’ I was speechless, but Lou said, ‘What do you expect, Chris, when you have an Irish gaffer and a Mexican cameraman?’ I think Morahan laughed. What’s the best professional advice you’ve ever received? Kate Nelligan, a superb actor, once told me that if I could light women beautifully, I would not only help many careers, but I would also definitely help mine. What recent books, films or artworks have inspired you? Brian Friel’s plays, in particular The Faith Healer; The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón; the exquisite literary trilogy by Jasper Fforde about the character Thursday Next; the recent Graciela Iturbide exhibition at the Getty Museum and Wilfredo Lam exhibition at the Museum of Latin American Art; Henner Hofmann ASC, AMC’s passion for teaching; La Vie En Rose (2007); Mongol (2008); and the last season of the Los Angeles Opera. Do you have any favorite genres, or genres you would like to try? My favorite genre is the musical. My dream is to do an epic period film based on history or on a great novel. If you weren’t a cinematographer, what might you be doing instead? A practitioner of alternative medicine, a hotelier, a teacher or a politician. Which ASC cinematographers recommended you for membership? Guillermo Navarro, Steve Bernstein and Robert Stevens. My acceptance process went really smoothly and the committee was kind, complimentary and welcoming. It was a sharp contrast to the battle Walter Lassally, BSC fought on my behalf 10 years earlier at the BSC. How has ASC membership impacted your life and career? My life and career have had many chapters. When I was invited to become a member of the ASC, I turned the first page of a new life, my life in America, surely the most interesting and promising one. Here, I have started everything again; my children, Max and Victoria, are very young, my career is relatively new, and being an ASC member is like walking on the shoulders of giants. I

Photo by Henner Hofmann, ASC, AMC.

When you were a child, what film made the strongest impression on you? My first pet, a tomcat, was called Lucifer, so I guess Cinderella (1950) made a big impression on me. As for live action, I loved The Red Balloon (1956) and, later, Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Cabaret (1972).

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New Tiffen Hot Mirror IRND Filters Make All The Difference. Now say goodbye to IR pollution with Tiffen’s innovative new line of Hot Mirror Infrared Neutral Density filters. The Tiffen HMIRND combination filters are the complete solution to the IR pollution problem, blocking both the near IR and IR regions of the spectrum. Designed for high definition cameras, especially those that don’t incorporate an internal IR blocker, exclusive Tiffen HMIRND filters block unwanted IR light and have matched IR and ND components to assure accurate color reproduction in the near infrared region. The new Hot Mirror IRND filters incorporate Tiffen’s unique ColorCore™ technology that — unlike surface coated filters — sandwiches the coating within the filter for safe, easy cleaning without fear of damaging the filter. This also allows Tiffen

HMIRND’s to be ground and polished to assure perfect parallelism. Used in almost every major movie and TV production around the world, Tiffen filters have earned two Technical Achievement Awards and a Scientific and Engineering Award from the ©Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences® for their ColorCore Filter Lamination Process (1985, 2000) and Ultra Contrast Filters (1993) repectively, as well as a Prime Time Emmy® Award (1998) for filter engineering excellence. The Tiffen HMIRND filters are available in popular motion picture sizes, in densities 0.3 to 2.1, and are backed by Tiffen’s 10-year warranty. For more information about the hottest new filters in the business visit www.tiffen.com today. ®

The Difference is Tiffen 1-800-645-2522 • tiffen.com

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