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Photo of Robert Primes by Joel Lipton exclusively for Schneider Optics
“I’ve been a Schneider fan for 50 years – from my first 4x5 format lens to precision glass filters for HD and 35mm work, to Century Achromatic Diopters for DV. There are effects that only filters can create. For day exteriors, I rotate a Tru-Pol in my hands and look through it to see how it affects the color saturation of the sky, water, trees, and shiny objects like cars or glossy paint. On ‘Baadasssss!,’ the Classic Soft ® allowed me to diminish distracting artifacts on an elderly Ossie Davis’ face, without compromising the integrity or power of his character. I love the sense of surrealism the Black Frosts can render. On a ‘Night Stalker’ flashback, we blew out the windows and added a Black Frost. It created a sometimes subtle, sometimes powerful image without compromising the sharpness and deep blacks. For the short film ‘Cry of Ecstasy,’ I wanted to dynamically portray an artist’s canvas. By adding the Century Achromatic Diopter to the Panasonic DVX100, I got really dramatic edge-to-edge sharp full-contrast images without fringing. From Achromatic Diopters to filters, Schneider is an important addition to this cinematographer’s toolbox.” TM
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The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques
On Our Cover: Michael C. Hall portrays a justice-seeking serial killer in the television series Dexter, shot by Romeo Tirone. (Photo by Jim Fiscus, courtesy of Showtime.)
Features 30 46 56
Departments
8 10 12 18 64 68 72 80 81 82 83 84
Cutting-Edge Camerawork Cinematographers from the TV series Dexter, Life on Mars, True Blood and The Unusuals analyze their strategies
A Life Full of Miracles Robert F. Liu, ASC receives the ASC Career Achievement in Television Award
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A Very Active Member Isidore Mankofsky, ASC reflects on his life’s work after receiving the Society’s Presidents Award
Editor’s Note Letters Short Takes: Clap Your Brains Off Production Slate: Gomorrah
46
Tokyo Sonata Post Focus: Alien Trespass Filmmaker’s Forum: Peter Sova, ASC
New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Peter Wunstorf
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The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques • Since 1920
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Editor’s Note erial killers are not generally known for their charm, but the protagonist of the Showtime drama Dexter (played by Michael C. Hall) could give even charismatic ladykiller Ted Bundy a run for his money. To illustrate the dual nature of the show’s homicidal vigilante, cinematographer Romeo Tirone takes a different approach to the two worlds Dexter occupies. “By day, he’s kind of a nerdy lab tech, and by night, when he’s on the prowl or in the kill room, he’s a powerful, sinister figure,” notes Tirone (“Cutting-Edge Camerawork,” page 30). “I use lighting to differentiate the two [looks]. When he’s in the everyday world, we use a lot more front light and see pretty much his entire face. When he’s on the prowl, we toplight him.” Our special focus on television production also includes an overview of ABC’s Life on Mars, a series whose look has been crafted by three accomplished ASC members: Kramer Morgenthau, who shot the pilot, and Frank Prinzi and Craig Di Bona, who alternate shooting regular episodes. Although the show concerns Sam Tyler (Jason O’Mara), a detective who time-travels back to the 1970s, Morgenthau didn’t attempt to mimic the look of Seventies cinematography while setting the visual template: “We could’ve gotten away with snap zooms, fog filters and so on, but we didn’t do any of that .... The camerawork has more to do with what Sam is feeling because he’s in a completely alien world.” “Sexy,” “sweaty” and “saturated” are a few of the adjectives that best describe the look of True Blood, HBO’s Southern-Gothic vampire series. Checco Varese, AMC lent an abundance of atmosphere to the show before passing the camera to first-season cinematographers Matt Jensen, John B. Aronson and Amy Vincent, ASC. For the upcoming second season, Jensen will share the load with Tirone, who knows a thing or two about bloodletting after his stint on Dexter. “So much of the first season of a show is trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t,” Jensen observes. “We try to continue to refine the look to keep it fresh for us and the audience.” The Unusuals, a new show premiering in April on ABC, has also evolved since its pilot was shot on film by Peter Levy, ASC, ACS. Regular weekly episodes are now captured on high-definition video by Roy Wagner, ASC, who employs Sony’s F23 and EX3 cameras. “The EX3 can be managed and manipulated with the same paintbox technology the F23 uses,” Wagner says. “However, we’re not painting on the set at all; all image manipulation is done in front of the sensor. This is not unlike old-school film cinematography. Manipulation is created through exposure, lighting and filtration.” Two other masters of classic techniques are profiled this month: Robert F. Liu, ASC, who received the Society’s Career Achievement in Television Award at last month’s ASC Awards ceremony (“A Life Full of Miracles, page 46) and Isidore Mankofsky, ASC, who accepted the Presidents Award for his contributions to both the big and small screens (“A Very Active Member,” page 56). Both men are devoted Society stalwarts whose participation enriches us all. Those of you seeking further enlightenment are encouraged to visit your local arthouse cinema to catch Gomorrah and Tokyo Sonata, two fine foreign films featured in this month’s Production Slate section (page 18), and read this month’s Filmmakers’ Forum by Peter Sova, ASC (“Shooting Push in Hong Kong,” page 68).
Stephen Pizzello Executive Editor 8
Photo by Douglas Kirkland.
S
Letters Schaefer Joins “Grumpy” List Regarding the letters you’ve published by John Toll, ASC, and Jim Stinson about the recent Filmmakers’ Forum by John Bailey, ASC [“The DI Dilemma, or: Why I Still Love Celluloid,” AC June ’08], I have this to add: I, too, am a grumpy cinematographer, and I have some additional reasons to be grumpy. I agree with Mr. Bailey and Mr. Toll about the eroding control we have over the quality and integrity of our images. I agree when Mr. Toll takes on Mr. Stinson for being so cavalier when he writes, “ … the cinematographer’s level of control depends on his contractual and personal relations within the production. So get control, already.” Possibly Mr. Stinson was just trying to be provocative when he wrote that, but I find it annoying and insulting, as well as simplistic and naïve. A case in point is my work on Quantum of Solace [AC Nov. ’08]. I’ve shot every film Marc Forster has made so far; we have an unusual and wonderful working relationship, and on his films, my responsibilities include controlling the framing and grading of the film. I am expected to follow through all of the post to make sure the images correspond to what we discussed and I set out to achieve in production. I am expected to make sure the visual-effects work conforms to my original photography in color, contrast and tenor. I am expected to do a grade for HD previews as well as the final DI corrections and the grades for the home deliverables (i.e., pan-and-scan, DVD, Blu-ray, cable and airline versions). The problem is that although the director, editors and visual-effects supervisors remain on the payroll throughout post, the director of photography does not. The studios and producers have commended me for doing such a wonderful job of delivering a great film, yet they won’t reach into their pockets to compensate me for my time, which was considerable. They say they 10
refuse to set precedent. Some cinematographers have been paid for their DI work, but most have not. When I go off the production’s payroll, I need to find another job, and that usually means I won’t be available to do what my director expects me to do and I also want to do. With the tools available in the digital realm, it is too easy for anyone in post to change the images in terms of framing, color, frame rate, etc. Now, with the specter of largeformat digital acquisition looming on the horizon, there is talk of “capturing” images in formats comparable to Imax and then just “finding” the desired image within the larger frame. We now use large-format imaging for visualeffects work, to capture plates that can be repositioned later for specific needs, but considering that as a way to do principal photography is frightening to me. If Mr. Stinson could include me in his mailing list when he explains how to “get control, already,” I would be grateful. I also think that the ASC and the IA Local 600 should take proactive roles in trying to set agreements with the studios and producers to protect the cinematographer’s role. This truly feels like a “Wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am” way of being involved in the creative process. Roberto Schaefer, ASC Venice, Calif. Letters to the editor can be sent to: Letters, American Cinematographer, 1782 N. Orange Dr., Los Angeles, CA, 90028. Letters must include your full name, address and telephone number. AC reserves the right to edit submissions for length and clarity.
Short Takes Creating “Clap Your Brains Off” With Canon’s Mark III
The DJ gods, portrayed by NSM PSM band members Pato (in green) and Kay Watson, scan their vinyl collection to craft an appropriate mash-up for the music video “Clap Your Brains Off,” directed by Frank Beltrán and photographed by Khristian Olivares. In the video, the album covers come to life and break into the Droste effect, as inspired by M.C. Escher’s Print Gallery.
12 March 2009
nless you’re an animator, it’s easy to forget that a single motion picture is made up of hundreds of thousands of individual pictures. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge needed 12 still cameras to capture the entire stride of a galloping horse, and today,
U
there are many directors and cinematographers who are still experimenting with the same creative tactics. Frank Beltrán and Khristian Olivares are two such filmmakers, and their video for Mexican party band NSM PSM’s “Clap Your Brains Off”
finds its inspiration in a number of unique visual works. First, a bit of back story: Beltrán had been working steadily as an assistant director in the Mexican advertising industry while the members of NSM PSM built up a strong fan base with their lively mash-ups. They’d all met previously at parties and through mutual acquaintances, so when the time came for NSM PSM to make a video for the first single off their first album, Beltrán was a natural first choice. “I didn’t have all the ideas on hand,” Beltrán recalls, speaking by phone from Mexico City. “The video started to transform as we shot it, and the band liked each idea I presented.” The concept behind the video is that there are DJ gods who are mixing an album with different records. Every time they pull a record off the shelf, we get pulled into the cover, seamlessly segueing into a musical number featuring the band. Each scene is a different take on a circular, repeating pattern. “I wanted to style several key scenes after Sebastian Perez Duarte’s pictures,” says Beltrán. “He’s a photographer I found on Flickr.com who employs the Droste effect, inspired by M.C. Escher’s Print Gallery, in some of his pictures. I learned how to apply the complex mathematical equation he used to get the effect through Josh Sommers’ tutorials, which I also found on Flickr.” Sommers had released the equation to the public as a plug-in for Gimp, an open-source photo editor. Beltrán explains the steps involved: “First, you had to take the pictures in a certain way, then you had to center them, cut them and crop them. Then you had to write down the math
Photos by Roger Gómez, Adrian Lejarazu and Frank Beltrán, courtesy of Beltrán.
by Iain Stasukevich
Above: The filmmakers prepare a shot with a crane specially built by industrial designer Javier Romero. Below: Inspired by French photographer Denis Darzacq’s Hyper photo series, Beltrán staged a group of break-dancers against a checkerboard floor and had them perform a series of identical moves in front of the locked-off camera.
14 March 2009
formula in a program called MathMap that runs through Gimp. To make matters worse, it took up to 15-20 minutes for each image to process!” He did the math: If NTSC video runs at almost 30 fps, and each frame took at least 15 minutes to process, then he was looking at 450 minutes to process 1 second of footage. Beltrán’s research led him to Bill Horne, another member of the “Escher’s Droste Print Gallery” group
on Flickr. Horne had written a Droste code in the Java programming language that takes 11 seconds to process an image instead of 15 minutes. “[Bill] became the main reason I decided we could do it,” says Beltrán. The director turned to a programmer friend, José Manuel Silva Vela, to rewrite the code for automation and on-the-fly effects, such as rotation and zoom increments. Once he knew he’d be able to
achieve the effect he wanted, Beltrán had to figure out how to actually shoot the video. He decided to use Canon’s D1-EOS Mark III, which is capable of capturing 10 fps for up to 110 continuous shots. That way, he could capture a 10-megapixel image, use 35mm lenses, and have the ability to adjust the ISO from 50 to 6400. “Canon gave me an EF 28-200mm zoom lens as sponsorship and loaned us an EF 1635mm lens,” says Beltrán, adding that most of the video was shot with the latter. A Canon EF 35mm USM wideangle lens was used for some shots. Beltrán wasn’t comfortable taking on the photography himself, so he turned to a friend, cinematographer Khristian Olivares. The two had met on a commercial shoot in Mexico City, when Olivares was a camera assistant. By the time “Clap Your Brains Off” came along, Olivares had shot several commercials and music videos. “I needed a real cinematographer in order to get things right,” says Beltrán. Some of the Droste scenes were photographed on a soundstage at the Universidad Intercontinental, Beltrán’s alma mater. For this work, Olivares rigged the Mark III to the lighting grid and shot straight down at the floor as actors danced around the
Roberto R ober o to Schaefer, Schaeferr, ASC | D Director irector of P Photography hotogrraphy “When I saw w the Nila light I was pr pretty ettyy impr impressed essed that LEDs could be as pow powerful as these. I thought t the Nila lights would ld be b a rreally eally ll good d thing to use on the moving vehicles in Quantum of Solace because of their durability durability, y,, rrobustness, obusttness, size and punch. W We e took a chance and d looked at them. I a am m glad we did. I used the Nila N lights mostly for ccar ar shots but I also used them t at times in place e of an HMI or tungsten n light on stage and on n location. location So I was mix mixing xing it with other sour sources rces and it worked quite q well. I found them m very controllable contr ollable e with the inter interchangeable changeable lenses. I rreally eally liked d that the lenses wer were e so customizable customizab le for shots. I was also pleased p with their size,, the fact that you can putt them anywher anywhere; e; they y ar are e the size of a small bookshelf b speaker speaker.. The e built-in electronic electr onic dimmer d is also a nice plus. p For Quantum of o Solace I had bracketss made that allowed d me to put them toge together ether like a Nine-Ligh Nine-Light. ht.
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Schaefer’s work Schaefer’s w includes Quantum of Sola Solace, ce, Finding Neverland d, Stranger Than Fiction, T he Kite Kite Runner, Ki Runnerr,, Neverland, The W aiting F or G uffman, B est IIn nS how an nd For Y o our Waiting For Guffman, Best Show and Your Cons sideration. He was nominated fo or a BAFT TA Consideration. for BAFTA for his work on Finding Neverland.
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Along for the ride, Beltrán aims the Canon Mark III dSLR at two band members seated on a carousel. The camera recorded 3456x2304 JPEG images at 10 fps.
surface of a large record album. Another scene was shot at a swimming pool, where Olivares placed a homemade camera crane on the edge of the diving board to get an overhead shot of some synchronized swimmers. In both cases, he was able to operate the camera and monitor the picture by running long remote-control and video cables from the camera to a video village. Another source of inspiration was the photo series by Denis Darzacq called Hyper, wherein break-dancers were photographed mid-break at high shutter speeds. Without the telling motion blur, the resultant image 16 March 2009
depicts the dancers magically frozen in air. Beltrán was amazed by the photos and wanted to add the element of motion, and also stop-motion, to them. A group of break-dancers was asked to perform a series of identical moves in front of the locked-down camera. In a riff on the Muybridge experiments, Olivares photographed each dancer’s performance three times, and then the frames from the best takes were essentially shuffled in postproduction. After one dancer begins a move, every few frames, the footage from another dancer performing the same move is cut in. It was a difficult effect to achieve, given the
complex nature of the dance moves. To assist the dancers, Beltrán staged the action on a checkerboard floor. “They knew which square they had to put their hands on,” recalls Olivares. “They had a lot of problems getting the moves just right with all the spinning around.” One of the album-cover scenes takes place on a carousel with the members of NSM PSM. For this scene, Beltrán and Olivares used a special lens adapter normally used to create virtual-reality Quicktimes for realestate presentations. The adapter, manufactured by 0-360.com, requires that the taking camera be placed on its back, shooting up into a cone-shaped mirror mounted in the center of the lens’ field of view. A special plug-in is needed to unwrap the image, which in the video can be seen as the ultrawidescreen shots of the band on the carousel. It’s a true panoramic image — if the left and right side of the screens were connected in a loop, one would have a complete 360-degree view of the playground. “Clap Your Brains Off” was photographed in JPEG format to allow for the highest resolution and an extended continuous shooting capability. Fix Comunicación in Mexico City turned Beltrán’s 3456x2304 and 3888x2592 processed stills into 720x480 QuickTime image sequences at 29.97 fps (played back at 10 fps). The video was edited on Final Cut Studio, and Red Rentals Mexico did a 2K online for the HD master. The final product is decidedly lo-fi, just as the filmmakers intended. “I didn’t want the video to look stylish or have the usual color-correction,” says Beltrán. “I wanted a video that would look like we’d just grabbed a camera and started shooting.” Olivares agrees, adding, “These kinds of projects should look different than anything you’ve seen before. I loved working with the still camera, and I’m really happy with the results.” I
Production Slate Italian Crime and Japanese “Face”
Demythologizing the Mafia by Patricia Thomson When most people hear “Mafia,” they think of Sicily’s Casa Nostra, but far more powerful is the Camorra in Naples. Responsible for 4,000 deaths, the Camorra network reaches deep into the European economy, earning $200 billion through illegal activity and profiting from legitimate enterprises such as construction, fashion and tourism. But it wasn’t until Neapolitan writer Roberto Saviano wrote the exposé Gomorrah, in 2006, that the public took notice. More than a million copies of the book were sold in Italy, and it has since been translated into 33 languages. Thrust into this unwelcome spotlight, the Camorra responded with a death threat against Saviano, who now lives under full-time protection. 18 March 2009
When Italian director and cameraman Matteo Garrone read Gomorrah, he saw it as “an important, powerful book [that was] full of strong images,” he says. “I’m a visual director; I used to be a painter. So when I read the book, I thought there was the possibility of making a Mafia movie different from those I’d seen before.” Shot in the periphery of Naples, the movie makes use of practical locations, non-professional actors, realitybased storylines and a spare cinematic language that Garrone devised with cinematographer Marco Onorato, AIC, a frequent collaborator. Onorato earned David di Donatello Award nominations for his work on Garrone’s The Embalmer (2002) and First Love (2004), and he has shot seven of the director’s eight fictional features. (The exception was Roman
Summer. “I was occupied with another project,” Onorato says. “I’m sorry about that, because it’s a film I love.”) As it happens, Onorato is Garrone’s stepfather. When Garrone started out in the film business, Onorato hired him as camera assistant. When Garrone began directing, he, in turn, hired Onorato as director of photography. “We work well together,” says Garrone. “He’s a great director of photography, and we share the same ideas about cinema.” On Garrone’s films, the duo discuss all aspects of cinematography but divide the work; Onorato handles lighting and Garrone operates the camera, which is typically handheld. Onorato observes, “I think a cameraman is an executor, whereas a director who also operates camera is a creator. So it’s
Gomorrah photos by Mario Spada, courtesy of IFC Films.
Two young gangsters in Gomorrah, Ciro (Ciro Petrone) and Marco (Marco Macor), try to emulate Scarface’s Tony Montana in all that they do.
Left: Two characters maneuver through the notorious Scampia housing project, where most of the film was shot. Below: A tailor (Salvatore Cantalupo) works with his Chinese associates.
critical to put him in a position where he can feel free. [On Gomorrah], Matteo and I sought to find the right locations and create the right atmosphere so he could be free to move with the camera according to how he felt.” Garrone says his decisions about camera moves are intuitive. “When I shoot, it’s important for me to be on camera because I invent. Also, the actor doesn’t always make the same move, so every shot is different.” But on Gomorrah, Garrone was careful to ensure that camera moves and other visual elements never upstaged the story. “The raw material … was so visually powerful that I merely filmed it in as straightforward a way as possible, as if I were a passerby who happened to find myself there by chance,” he wrote in the press notes. “We wanted to shoot the movie like a reportage of war, like a documentary,” Garrone tells AC. “We think that’s close to the soul of the book, which is a kind of reportage and denouncement. We wanted to give the audience the feeling of being inside, seeing and smelling, so it was important to be very simple when shooting, to be invisible. When you try to show how good you are
at moving the camera or framing, the audience immediately comes out of the movie. That, for me, was sometimes very difficult because my strong point is making the frame.” One touchstone was Roberto Rossellini’s Paisà, shot in 1946 in various parts of Italy. “The lesson from Rossellini was very important,” says Garrone. “Through those characters, he showed the situation of the country, but without judging. That, for me, was the most important thing: without judging. In Gomorrah, I leave the viewer the
freedom to have his own opinion. The material is so strong it doesn’t need any comment; every time I tried to comment on what I was shooting, it became banal.” Like Paisà, Gomorrah follows multiple storylines. Focusing on five characters from the book, Garrone and his team of screenwriters (including Saviano) show various low-level drones who depend on the Camorra for their livelihoods: Don Ciro, who delivers money to families of imprisoned clan members; 13-year-old Totò, who
American Cinematographer 19
Left: Cinematographer Marco Onorato, AIC, who shot the picture with director/ cinematographer Matteo Garrone. Right: Franco (Tony Servillo) is the intimidating manager of a toxic dump.
20 March 2009
desperately wants to join the local clan; Marco and Ciro, two loose cannons who worship Scarface’s Tony Montana; Roberto, a college graduate who takes an apprenticeship in waste-management and discovers its illegal underpinnings; and Pasquale, a tailor who works under the table for the clan in high fashion but secretly trains Chinese competitors. Gomorrah was shot in Super 35mm with a single Arricam Lite. The filmmakers considered shooting Super 16mm and finishing with a digital intermediate as a cost-saving measure, but they were dissatisfied with the test results. They shot Kodak Vision3 500T 5219 and had the ENR process applied to release prints at Technicolor in Rome. “We did a 90-percent application of the ENR process on Kodak [Vision] Premier,” says Onorato. “Shooting widescreen was important because there were some frames that needed widescreen, such as the scene at the beginning of the film that shows the children in a swimming
pool,” Garrone notes. The camera starts tight on the children playing in a plastic pool, and as the shot moves wider, it reveals the pool’s location on the roof of a vast, squalid housing project in Scampia, where most of the film was shot. “It’s one of the most famous places in Europe for drug dealers, so it’s a kind of symbol,” says Garrone. He also singles out a shot of a dump where hundreds of barrels of toxic waste are being illegally buried in a quarry. The scene begins with truck drivers walking off the job because of an accident, and the project manager recruits children to drive the eight-wheelers instead. From atop the quarry, a wide shot reveals the scope of the ecological nightmare and the line of trucks snaking down a switchback, their barely-adolescent drivers already in the clan’s employ. “Locations are very important because they tell something more about the story and characters,” says Garrone. “For instance, the two boys who pretend to be Tony Montana are anarchists, so they’re surrounded by open space. That’s completely different from the story of Totò, who wants to go inside the clan. That’s like going into the army or prison, so it was important that [his environment] be claustrophobic.” Garrone and Onorato prefer to use prime lenses, in this case Zeiss Ultra Primes, and avoid zoom lenses.
“The only filters I usually use are NDs and polarizers,” adds Onorato. They favored the 20mm, 32mm and 40mm primes. “We didn’t use wide angles very much because, again, we wanted to be invisible,” says Garrone. “I was often very close to the [actor] and pushed the background out of focus. We worked a lot on staying close to the actor.” Many shots in the film run long and without cuts, and the camera moves are always motivated by the characters’ actions. “We worked a lot [of the details] out on location,” says Garrone. “But then we shot like it was something happening in that moment.” A PeeWee dolly, a 13' Robin crane and a 36' Sky King crane with Panther remote head were used, but infrequently. “They’d stick out, so we used them only when we thought it was very necessary,” says Garrone. For example, the PeeWee’s hydraulic lift allowed Garrone to follow Totò as he climbed up a wall to fetch a gun, and a crane provided a key overhead perspective after a clan massacre. “It was important to be above to see all the bodies the character is walking between,” says Garrone. The housing project the production used was slated for demolition, so most of the residents had vacated. “It was like an empty studio — perfect for
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22 March 2009
Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) languishes in a long unemployment line after losing his job.
The Sorrows of a Salaryman by Chris Pizzello Few directors can conjure an atmosphere of supernatural menace like Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the filmmaker behind such uniquely disturbing, existential horror films as Cure and Pulse. With his new film, Tokyo Sonata, the director lends subtler terror to a more commonplace drama: the unraveling of an ordinary family whose complacent existence implodes when the patriarch, Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa), is “downsized” out of a job. Mortified by his loss of “face” and paralyzed at the prospect of informing his wife (Kyoko Koizumi) and sons (Yu Koyanagi and Kai Inowaki) about this development, Ryuhei decides to avoid the issue by pretending nothing has happened — he leaves home each morning in a suit and tie and spends his daytime hours searching fruitlessly for work and killing time in public parks with an old friend who has also lost his job. But the ruse eventually catches up with Ryuhei, as the strain of preserving his secret tests the fraying bonds within his family. A film with a familial theme was a new challenge for Kurosawa, and he called on cinematographer Akiko Ashizawa, JSC, who had also shot his films Loft and Retribution, to help imbue
the seemingly commonplace milieu with a fresh visual aesthetic. Born in Tokyo, Ashizawa is one of the few female cinematographers in Japan. “When I was a student, I had no interest in film, but that all changed when I saw Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le fou,” she recalls via e-mail. “I started working as an assistant in independent film productions as a student, and then began working professionally as an assistant director of photography in TV commercials. A female assistant director of photography was an anomaly, but because it was a relatively new field, there was less sexism there than in other sectors of the film industry. However, there were times when I made mistakes, and someone would comment that it was because I’m a woman. That, of course, bothered me.” Kurosawa contacted Ashizawa after seeing her work in Kunitoshi Manda’s Unloved, and the two have since enjoyed a harmonious collaboration over three films. “I think Kurosawa and I both believe in ‘the catharsis of perfection,’” says the cinematographer. “There are numerous parts involved in a shot, from writing to art direction to camera operation, and if each crewmember made perfection the single goal, it would not necessarily be beneficial to the project as a whole. If perfection is 100 percent, then we’d
Tokyo Sonata photos courtesy of Regent Releasing; Ashizawa photo courtesy of Flavor of Happiness Film Partners.
shooting,” says Garrone. When lighting this and other interiors, Onorato strove for naturalism. “If you observe light, you realize every environment exists naturally by itself; consequently, in a film where you should be invisible, you try to make the most of the natural light sources and intervene to reinforce them when necessary, but always with discretion,” he says. Many interior scenes take place in the housing complex, a labyrinth of walkways, stairways and apartments. “I took advantage of the windows, at times reinforcing the light with some Kino Flos positioned outside, and we eventually used the practicals inside as well,” says Onorato. “Most of the time, the crew teased me about how I covered the set. They said, ‘Marco doesn’t place light; he takes it away.’” He typically relied on small units, often “Kino Flos and neon lamps. A couple of times, I projected a 4K HMI to create a moon effect, but I don’t believe I ever used more than a 10K. It just wasn’t necessary. “For night exteriors, I asked the production designer to re-establish some of the neon lights that used to be part of the housing complex, then I cut into that with warm light coming from the apartment windows facing the corridor,” adds Onorato. “Overall, it was very stimulating. Bellissimo.” Since its premiere at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Gomorrah has won many honors, including the European Film Award for Best Cinematography. The picture was Italy’s submission for this year’s Academy Award for Foreign-Language Film.
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