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M. David Mullen, ASC s an undergraduate, I spent many hours in the UCLA library reading and re-reading old issues of American Cinematographer, going all the way back to the 1920s. The magazine was really my first film school, but more than a technical education, what I discovered in those pages were the people who would become my mentors, artistic heroes and role models. “The human element of cinematography should never be ignored. Ultimately, it’s the people behind the cameras that have a far greater impact on the images created than the tools they employ.”

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©photo by Owen Roizman, ASC

— M. David Mullen, ASC

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Call (800) 448-0145 (U.S. only) (323) 969-4333 or visit the ASC Web site

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Photo of George Mooradian by Joel Lipton exclusively for Schneider Optics

I’m a big believer in filters. As soon as I discovered Schneider’s DigiCon I knew it was the magic that “The Bill Engvall Show” deserved. It allows me to create a much more filmic look. I no longer have to reign in the highlights. And I can open up the blacks. I can light bolder – 2 to 3 stops now becomes 4 or 5. Our kitchen has always been a challenge—too flat. Not with the DigiCon. We have depth and separation. Thanks to the DigiCon, when we do exteriors the pavement can be hotter and the foliage plays nicely. We can really get a sense of location. My engineer loves what he sees on the monitor. And so does our colorist. The DigiCon allows us more of a range to play with and to create a stronger, richer image. Thanks to Schneider’s DigiCon, I can now create the beautiful image that “The Bill Engvall Show” deserves.

Director of Photography George Mooradian is a three time Emmy Award nominee for the hit series According to Jim. Before moving into the multi-camera world, he was cinematographer on over a dozen movies. He credits operating for

high-profile cinematographers such as Vittorio Storaro, ASC (Dick Tracy) as the foundation for the feature look he brings to his sit-com projects. Mooradian is now in his third season of The Bill Engvall Show. B+W • Century • Schneider

For George's DigiCon chat visit:

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The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques

On Our Cover: Julia Child (Meryl Streep) demonstrates the proper way to debone fowl in Julie & Julia, shot by Stephen Goldblatt, ASC, BSC. (Photo by David Giesbrecht, courtesy of Sony Pictures.)

Features 28 38 46 54

Departments

8 10 12 18 60 64 70 72 72 74 76

Fellow Foodies Stephen Goldblatt, ASC, BSC cooks up gourmet visuals for Julie & Julia

Exposing a Secret Slaughter Brooke Aitken leads a covert cinematography team on 38 the documentary The Cove

When Not in Rome Visual-effects supervisor Angus Bickerton helps Salvatore Totino, ASC find religion on Angels & Demons

Robots Run Rampant Ben Seresin and ILM’s Scott Farrar, ASC wreak havoc in 15-perf 65mm for Transformers sequel

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Editor’s Note Letters Short Takes: “Carousel” Production Slate: ASC/BSC Panel and Stingray Sam Post Focus: Technicolor’s DP Lights 2.0

New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Aaron Schneider

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The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques • Since 1920

Visit us online at

www.theasc.com ———————————————————————————————————— PUBLISHER Martha Winterhalter ————————————————————————————————————

EDITORIAL EXECUTIVE EDITOR Stephen Pizzello SENIOR EDITOR Rachael K. Bosley ASSOCIATE EDITOR Jon D. Witmer TECHNICAL EDITOR Christopher Probst CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Stephanie Argy, Benjamin B, Douglas Bankston, Robert S. Birchard, John Calhoun, Bob Davis, Bob Fisher, Simon Gray, Jim Hemphill, David Heuring, Jay Holben, Noah Kadner, Ron Magid, Jean Oppenheimer, John Pavlus, Chris Pizzello, Jon Silberg, Iain Stasukevich, Kenneth Sweeney, Patricia Thomson, David E. Williams ————————————————————————————————————

ART DEPARTMENT CREATIVE DIRECTOR Marion Gore ————————————————————————————————————

ADVERTISING ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Angie Gollmann 323-936-3769 FAX 323-936-9188 e-mail: [email protected] ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Sanja Pearce 323-908-3114 FAX 323-876-4973 e-mail: [email protected] ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Scott Burnell 323-936-0672 FAX 323-936-9188 e-mail: [email protected] CLASSIFIEDS/ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Diella Nepomuceno 323-908-3124 FAX 323-876-4973 e-mail: [email protected] ————————————————————————————————————

CIRCULATION, BOOKS & PRODUCTS CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Saul Molina CIRCULATION MANAGER Alex Lopez SHIPPING MANAGER Miguel Madrigal ———————————————————————————————————— ASC GENERAL MANAGER Brett Grauman ASC EVENTS COORDINATOR Patricia Armacost ASC PRESIDENT’S ASSISTANT Kim Weston ASC ACCOUNTING MANAGER Mila Basely ASC ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE Corey Clark ———————————————————————————————————— American Cinematographer (ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 89th year of publication, is published monthly in Hollywood by ASC Holding Corp., 1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028, U.S.A., (800) 448-0145, (323) 969-4333, Fax (323) 876-4973, direct line for subscription inquiries (323) 969-4344. Subscriptions: U.S. $50; Canada/Mexico $70; all other foreign countries $95 a year (remit international Money Order or other exchange payable in U.S. $). Advertising: Rate card upon request from Hollywood office. Article Reprints: Requests for high-quality article reprints (or electronic reprints) should be made to Sheridan Reprints at (800) 635-7181 ext. 8065 or by e-mail [email protected]. Copyright 2007 ASC Holding Corp. (All rights reserved.) Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, CA and at additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA. POSTMASTER: Send address change to American Cinematographer, P.O. Box 2230, Hollywood, CA 90078.

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American Society of Cinematographers The ASC is not a labor union or a guild, but an educational, cultural and professional organization. Membership is by invitation to those who are actively engaged as directors of photography and have demonstrated outstanding ability. ASC membership has become one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a professional cinematographer — a mark of prestige and excellence.

OFFICERS - 2009/2010 Michael Goi President

Richard Crudo Vice President

Owen Roizman Vice President

Victor J. Kemper Vice President

Matthew Leonetti Treasurer

Rodney Taylor Secretary

John C. Flinn III Sergeant At Arms

MEMBERS OF THE BOARD Curtis Clark Richard Crudo George Spiro Dibie Richard Edlund John C. Flinn III John Hora Victor J. Kemper Matthew Leonetti Stephen Lighthill Isidore Mankofsky Daryn Okada Owen Roizman Nancy Schreiber Haskell Wexler Vilmos Zsigmond

ALTERNATES Fred Elmes Steven Fierberg Ron Garcia Michael D. O’Shea Michael Negrin MUSEUM CURATOR

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Editor’s Note ur publicity pals at Sony Pictures could not have picked a better time to alert us to an early screening of Julie & Julia, a foodie’s delight that stars Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as one of her most motivated disciples. My mother was in town for a visit, and as a longtime fan of Child’s, she was the perfect test viewer. As tantalizing images of Paris bistros and gourmet cuisine glided across the screen, Mom sighed with contentment. Suffice to say, the movie should be a hit with its target audience. Stephen Goldblatt, ASC, BSC, the man responsible for the sumptuous cinematography, was so enthusiastic about the project that he contacted us early on to offer a sneak peek at the “special sauces” he and colorist Steve Scott were whipping up at EFilm. AC contributing writer Jean Oppenheimer and I made several trips (wisely, after lunch) to absorb the full flavor of their approach, which is detailed in Jean’s main course on the film (“Fellow Foodies,” page 28) and side dish on the DI (page 32). Sometimes it’s better not to ask how certain foods end up on your plate. The daring documentary The Cove uses covert cinematography to expose mass killings of dolphins in Taiji, Japan, where the aquatic mammals’ meat — which contains toxic levels of mercury — is sold to customers who may not know the risks. Director of photography Brook Aitken and his cohorts recount their adventure for New York correspondent Pat Thomson (“Exposing a Secret Slaughter,” page 38). This issue’s special focus is innovative CG effects, and London correspondent Mark Hope-Jones details the collaboration that allowed Angels & Demons to film sequences set in Vatican City, the Passetto di Borgo and other locations in Rome on a soundstage in Los Angeles (“When Not in Rome,” page 46). Visual-effects supervisor Angus Bickerton and his team coordinated with cinematographer Salvatore Totino, ASC, who managed to fool even a veteran effects expert with some car-chase footage. “When I told him it was all CG, he didn’t believe me and had to watch it again,” Totino recalls. “It was fantastic that such a trained eye couldn’t tell!” Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen also employed extensive CGI for key action sequences set in exotic locales, including the pyramids in Egypt. Cinematographer Ben Seresin consulted with ILM visual-effects supervisor Scott Farrar, ASC, and his team to produce two major battle sequences shot in 15-perf 65mm and VistaVision as well as anamorphic 35mm. “The grand scale of Imax really appealed to us, and the huge physical scale of these robots seemed perfect for the format,” Seresin tells Jay Holben, who also interviewed Farrar (“Robots Run Rampant,” page 54). Judging by the picture’s boxoffice returns, the promise of a big-screen spectacle still draws a crowd.

Stephen Pizzello Executive Editor

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Photo by Douglas Kirkland.

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Letters End of an Era? I am writing regarding your May ’09 article about the Atom Egoyan film Adoration, shot by Paul Sarossy, BSC, CSC. First, I must say I love Paul‘s work, particularly The Sweet Hereafter, which is one of my favorite films. I have studied that film many times, and it has been an inspiration for a lot of my own anamorphic work. I do believe there are errors in the article regarding photochemical timers. Regarding a photochemical finish, Paul says, “The great timers at Deluxe [Canada], Chris Hinton and Art Montreuil, are gone.... We just wanted to shoot it, develop it, time it and print it. That proved to be almost impossible.” The article goes on to say the filmmakers had to digitally time two reels because of dirt introduced at the negative-cutting stage. Then, Paul says, “Two summers ago, I photochemically timed Charlie Bartlett at Deluxe Hollywood, and that was a great experience, but I was led to understand that we were using the last timer still working, Chris Regan.” He continues, “Even in Hollywood, it’s the end of an era, and I mourn the passing of this absolutely beautiful medium. It’s not over yet, but you can see the future evolving.” There is no doubt that there are many advantages to a digital intermediate — it is a powerful tool, as Paul notes — but you can still time a film photochemically, and for some dramas, it is a beautiful and creative choice. I timed the anamorphic feature That Evening Sun photochemically at Deluxe this year, and there are still many timers working there. In fact, I asked Harry Muller, the timer with whom I worked, how many photochemical timers still work at the lab. In an e-mail, he responded, “Deluxe Hollywood has 18 photochemical timers, eight of which I would classify as veteran timers.” I also asked Terry Haggar at Technicolor to comment. Terry wrote, “I can assure you the crew I am working with now is technically the best 10

there is — not the characters of old, but very good. Three have been digital colorists. All in all, we have 11 timers, and we handle a lot of film.” By the way, you should see the smile on a timer’s face when you arrive for a photochemical finish. I look forward to more films from Paul Sarossy, and I even hope we’ll see another with a photochemical finish. If I had a print of The Sweet Hereafter, I’d watch it this afternoon. I guess a DVD will have to do. Rodney Taylor, ASC Los Angeles, 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 “Carousel” Showcases Philips‘ New Widescreen TV by Iain Stasukevich

roduced to show off the features of the new Philips Cinema 21:9 widescreen television, the 2½-minute spot “Carousel” (www.philips.com /cinema) begins with a gang of robbers, dressed in jumpsuits and clown masks, trapped in an alley by a police blockade. As a gun battle rages, the camera moves into an adjacent hospital, where more criminals face additional resistance. Rather than presenting the action with quick, kinetic cuts, director Adam Berg chose to focus on a moment in time and survey the violence with a fluid, extended take that ends on the same frame with which it begins. Cinematographer Fredrik Bäckar, FSF recalls his initial impression of the idea: “I didn’t know if we were going to be able to do it in the short amount of time we had.” But Berg had executed a similar concept — albeit on a smaller scale — for a European jeans commercial, and he brought that spot’s visualeffects supervisor, Richard Lyons of Stockholm’s Redrum Post, to “Carousel.” With only three shooting days, the crew set to work in a building at a university in Prague that would serve as the

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12 August 2009

Photos by Mark Pytlik. Photos and frame grabs courtesy of Stink Digital and Tribal DDB Amsterdam.

Right: A criminal sends a police officer through the window of a nurses’ station in “Carousel,” a spot for the Philips Cinema 21:9 widescreen television. Below: The crew prepares to shoot the nurses’ station; a university building in Prague was redressed to serve as the hospital.

The commercial begins outside the hospital, where an armored car is captured midexplosion. With actors and vehicles suspended from wires, cinematographer Fredrik Bäckar, FSF utilized a Milo motioncontrol rig and filled the back of the armored car with tungsten Pars to simulate the explosion, which was enhanced by visual-effects supervisor Richard Lyons at Stockholm’s Redrum Post.

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hospital; Berg worked out the actors’ blocking while Bäckar, Lyons and production designer Petr Kunc, working from detailed storyboards, measured every nook and cranny of the space. An animatic was assembled that showed the filmmakers exactly how the shot would play out, with the dimensions of the wire-frame building exactly matching those of the practical building. The camera move actually comprises seven separate shots stitched together in a Flame console to create one seamless take. “We wanted to make it work repeatedly, with a reveal at

the end, so when the film ends, you learn something new and can watch it again with a different perspective,” says Berg. Bäckar adds, “The linearity of the shot is true. You can walk [the location] the way it’s played out in the film.” “Carousel” begins with the camera focused on the face of a police officer atop the roof of a patrol car. The camera then pans left to reveal an armored truck in mid-explosion, its shockwave launching nearby bodies and vehicles into the air. Pushing through flames and burning cash, the camera maneuvers around a wrecked station

wagon from which a masked bandit is pulled. All of this action was captured in the first shot, and much of what ended up onscreen existed practically on the set, leaving the visual-effects team to handle wire removals, a few set extensions, and environmental effects such as fire, shattering glass and bullets. “We had a bunch of people hanging from cranes and wires,” recalls Bäckar. “And we had cars on cranes, hanging from wires. We filmed [those elements], cleared the set and then filmed it again.” Using a Milo motion-control rig, the first pass was shot with an Arri 435 rolling at 50 fps to help the actors maintain their poses. A clean pass was then photographed at 12 fps, and effects artists later filled in background elements that were obfuscated in the first pass. Working with what was essentially a static image allowed Bäckar to get creative with his lighting, and he knew the lamps would ultimately be masked by digital fire effects. He filled the back of the exploding truck with tungsten Pars pointed in every direction. “I let them flare into the camera, knowing all of the lights I was using were emanating from the source of the explosion,” he says. “In a sense, that made things easier. If we’d actually blown that car up, it would have had to come down,

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Although “Carousel” appears to be one long take, the spot actually comprises seven different shots. Among the setups, a dollying Scorpio crane with a 3-axis manual head captured a robber pushing a SWAT officer over a second-story ledge (above), and a Milo motion-control rig was used to move through a hallway on the second floor (below).

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and to continue lighting the scene, we would have needed lights on the ground or on Condors, which would have been a lot harder to hide. “Although we wanted the images to have an otherworldly look, we wanted naturalism in the blown-out highlights around the explosion and the way the explosion spreads across the scene,” continues the cinematographer. In the background, the crew placed tungsten 12Ks to rake the walls, along with 650-watt, 1K and 2K lights for accents. “If you scroll through the film, you’ll notice I’m not using a tremendous amount of backlight to lift objects out of the background — light falls the way it would if this were actually happening,” he notes. “It was intimidating because everyone could see every possible mistake I could make. I went through each shot with my gaffer, Pavel Kroupa, about a thousand times!” The second shot, which takes the camera inside the hospital, begins on a SuperTechnocrane 50 manually operated by Bäckar. To match the final position of one shot with the first position of the next, 1st AC Franta Novak marked the lens location with a lens donut rigged to

a C-stand arm; when the first camera was moved, the donut would remain to give the crew the proper position for the next setup. Editor Paul Hardcastle, who was on set with an Avid Xpress system, took a feed from the video tap and created low-resolution transitions to make sure the positions matched as closely as possible. “All of these transitions are very open,” Lyons emphasizes. “We didn’t use the standard frame wipe to hide the move from one shot to another.” Once inside the hospital, the third shot again had the camera on the Milo, this time for a 360-degree move around a nurses’ station, where a robber kicks a cop through the glass enclosure; the CG debris was rendered in 3ds Max by Lyons’ team at Redrum. A dollying Scorpio crane with a 3-axis manual head then picks up where the Milo leaves off, revealing a SWAT officer and a clown vaulting over the edge of the secondfloor staircase. In addition to erasing the actors’ harnesses and wires, Lyons’ team had to create a CG ceiling because the real one was blocked by a truss. On the second floor, the camera returns to the motion-controlled Milo for

a hallway shootout, then goes to a Fisher dolly, and finally ends on the SuperTechno for a dizzying push out of a window and back down to the officer atop the patrol car seen in the film’s first frame. Bäckar shot “Carousel” in Super 35mm. The Philips TV boasts a 2.33:1 aspect ratio, and the filmmakers planned to use the extra space on the bottom and top of the frame to reposition the shot if necessary. Bäckar originally wanted to shoot the spot in anamorphic, but he couldn’t rationalize the economic and logistical tradeoffs. “You need to stop down an anamorphic lens above T4 to make it sharp, and with this kind of setup, we couldn’t do it,” he explains. Instead, he maintained a T4 and shot with two Cooke S4 prime lenses, a 21mm for interiors and a 27mm for exteriors. He shot the commercial on Kodak Vision3 500T 5219, which he chose for its “tremendous latitude” and “crisp detail,” he says. “It holds details below stop in a very good way. Also, it fit the look I wanted: there’s a beautiful, pastellike transition between the shadows and the mid-tones.” The film went through two 1080p telecine transfers at The Moving Picture Co. in London under the supervision of senior colorist Jean Clement Soret. The first transfer produced a flat, technical grade for the visual-effects team and to bend the shadows and highlights toward the desired look. The digital footage was then up-rezzed to 2K and printed back to film, then telecined at 1080p a second time. Bäckar explains, “By that time, we had all of the effects in there, and when we transferred it again, it helped blend the CG work with the live-action elements.” Considering the effort that went into “Carousel,” Berg muses, “We spent a lot of time on small things that a casual viewer might not notice, because we figured others would stop and look at it frame-by-frame to see how everything works together. It was a great challenge, but it was also a joy to make.” I

Production Slate Members of a joint ASC/BSC panel discussion held during the Cine Gear Expo gather around the cakes celebrating the societies’ 90th and 60th anniversaries, respectively. From left: George Spiro Dibie, ASC; Daryn Okada, ASC; Dick Pope, BSC; Phil Meheux, BSC; ASC President Michael Goi; Nancy Schreiber, ASC; BSC President Sue Gibson; Nic Morris, BSC; Allen Daviau, ASC; Guillermo Navarro, ASC; Owen Roizman, ASC; John Daly, BSC; and Joe Dunton, BSC.

ASC, BSC Celebrate Milestones by Jon D. Witmer It’s been 90 years since a group of 15 cameramen transformed the Cinema Camera Club and the Static Club of America into the American Society of Cinematographers, and 60 years since 55 British cameramen followed their lead and established the British Society of Cinematographers. The two milestones were recently celebrated by members of both societies during the Cine Gear Expo in Hollywood. The anniversary panel was moderated by George Spiro Dibie, ASC, and comprised ASC and BSC presidents Michael Goi and Sue Gibson, respectively; ASC members Richard Crudo, Allen Daviau, Guillermo Navarro, Daryn Okada, Owen Roizman and Nancy Schreiber; and BSC members John Daly, Joe Dunton, Phil Meheux, Nic Morris

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and Dick Pope. The discussion captured the sense that today’s cinematographers are part of a tradition born with the cinema, and one that will continue for as long as audiences watch moving images. As Goi observed, the role of the cinematographer is essentially “no different now than it was in the 1900s, when cinema was starting; in 1927, when sound came into it; when two-strip and then threestrip Technicolor came in; and when widescreen formats came in. There has always been evolution and change in the industry; that’s a given. We’ve always found ways to tell the stories we want to tell in the way we want to tell them in an evolving atmosphere. “At the ASC and the BSC, we embrace that,” Goi continued. “We analyze [a new development] for what it is, and we research it and see where it might go. Our job is to keep track of it and inform producers about these tech-

nologies and their capabilities.” After agreeing, Pope added, “The job remains the same as it was in silent-movie days: it’s telling the story in images. That’s the be-all and end-all of it. Whatever the technology is, that’s the job: realizing the dream of the director, realizing his vision … and putting 100 percent of your experience and skill into it.” During the 90-minute panel, the audience asked the cinematographers questions covering an array of topics, including digital intermediates, 3-D movies, the future of 16mm film, collaborating with visual-effects supervisors, and the societies’ responsibilities to future filmmakers. Addressing the latter topic, Goi said, “It’s something we all take very seriously. It’s a responsibility to give back to the community, to encourage and educate the next generation of cinematographers, and to preserve and honor our history … which is really the history of world cinema.”

Photos by Alex Lopez.

Transatlantic Allies and a Sci-Fi Serial

Left: Daly takes the microphone to answer a question from the crowd. Below: Dibie keeps the audience — and the panelists — entertained.

Perhaps the biggest concern of the day was how cinematographers can protect the integrity of their images through digital post workflows and later repurposing for home viewing. “We’ve got to protect that imagery because it’s all that we’ve got as cameramen,” said Meheux. “What you need is a director behind you who’s going to support you.” Daviau agreed, noting, “On the most successful collaborations I’ve had, I was in total agreement from the beginning with the producer and the director. We’re all in this together.” “We seem to be far more involved now in postproduction and workflows than we ever were,” added Daly. “We used to be talking about film stocks and cameras, and now it’s workflows and raw data. You just have to keep reading up and communicating with each other. We can’t afford to sit back.” Many of the panelists also participated in the BSC-sponsored panel “Preserving the Future of the Moving Image,” which focused on the cameraassessment tests recently undertaken by the BSC; this discussion touched on the Camera-Assessment Series that was recently undertaken by the ASC and the

Producers Guild of America (AC June ’09). “I think it speaks to international concerns … that the ASC and BSC virtually simultaneously embarked on camera-assessment tests,” noted Goi. “It’s going to be an interesting exchange of information. Ultimately, we’re doing all of this because it’s important for cinematographers to maintain control of the images we create and how we create them. We’re in an atmosphere right now where networks or other factions are starting to dictate [the technology we use] to shoot, and that has always been the purview of the cinematographer. We

make those decisions because we know what will be best for a particular project and most cost-efficient for the producers.” During the two-day expo, ASC members also participated in other panel discussions. Rodney Taylor, Shane Hurlbut and Okada sat down with ASC publicist Bob Fisher for “A Creative Choice: DI or Traditional Optical Timing”; associate member Michael Bravin moderated “Band Pro Presents SI-2K”; Fisher returned to the stage for “A Renaissance of the Techniscope Format” before moderating a discussion

American Cinematographer 19

Goi and Gibson smile for the cameras before digging into the cakes.

between Roizman and Tobias Schliessler, ASC, “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 : Then and Now”; Scott Farrar, ASC joined “Visual-Effects Supervisors and Directors: How They Collaborate,” moderated by Richard Edlund, ASC; Bill Roe, ASC and Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC dissected “The Anatomy of a Television Pilot: Eastwick”; and Steven Poster, ASC moderated “Transitioning to the Future: The Role of the ICG.” Several master classes were also held in conjunction with Cine Gear. Participating ASC members included Ron Dexter, who presented “Cinematography Survival Skills You Can Learn on Your Own”; Christopher Baffa, who presented “Glee : From Ambitious Pilot to the Reality of an Episodic Series”; Yuri Neyman, who presented “3cP and its Color and Workflow Management for Arri, Panasonic, Panavision, Red and Silicon Imaging Digital Cameras”; and Michael Bonvillain, who participated in 20

a lighting workshop. Before ending the ASC-BSC anniversary panel, Gibson took the microphone to express her gratitude: “Thank you very much to the ASC and to George Spiro Dibie for inviting us all over here and making this such an enjoyable occasion.” Members of both societies then gathered outdoors to enjoy an anniversary cake. Gibson told AC, “I became a member [of the BSC] in 1992 — I was given my BSC certificate by Freddie Young, one of the founding members — and it’s a great honor that I should be here as the first woman member of the BSC, and now president. “There’s 150 years of experience in cinematography” between the two societies, she noted, and both “are still going strong and delivering on what they set out to do, which is to make the highest standards in cinematography and further the art of filmmaking.” ¢

An Outer-Space Adventure by Iain Stasukevich Billed as a film for “screens of all sizes,” Stingray Sam was born of musician/filmmaker Cory McAbee’s involvement with the Sundance Institute’s Global Short Film Project, which encourages filmmakers to produce content for mobile distribution. For his second

22 August 2009

feature (following the 2001 musical The American Astronaut), he began thinking about a multi-platform release. The model lends itself well to an episodic format, so McAbee decided to break Stingray Sam into six 10-minute vignettes that can be viewed individually or as a whole. “The sections work together as a consistent unit, but each episode still needs its own beginning,

middle and end, and has its own philosophies and technologies.” Stingray Sam is the tale of two space convicts, lounge singer Stingray Sam (played by McAbee) and perennial scoundrel The Quasar Kid (Crugie), who must earn their freedom by rescuing a little girl (Willa Vy) from a sinister, genetically engineered aristocrat named Fredward. Some singing and dancing are involved, but McAbee wanted Stingray Sam to stand apart from The American Astronaut, so he turned to the singing cowboy stars and Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s and 1940s for inspiration. “I wanted to make a project that embraced American culture but also criticized certain elements of it, such as privatized prison systems, pharmaceuticals and the depletion of natural resources,” says the director. Cinematographer Scott Miller was brought aboard by producer Becky Glupczynski, who had worked with him on Maria Full of Grace. (On that film, Miller was the gaffer for cinematographer Jim Denault.) It was October 2008, and Stingray Sam had been accepted — sight unseen — into the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, which gave Miller just over a week of prep for the 18-day shoot.

Stingray Sam photos by Alex Wright. Photos and frame grabs courtesy of BNS Productions.

Right: Stingray Sam (Cory McAbee) entertains the staff of a fertility clinic with a song and dance. Below: The evil Fredward (Joshua Taylor) tries to thwart Sam’s rescue of a little girl (Willa Vy, left).

    

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Above: Collages designed by John Borruso bookend Stingray Sam. Here, Fredward stands between the police and his tuxedoed cronies inside his secret lair. Below: Cinematographer Scott Miller (on ladder) finds Sam’s frame after the intergalactic lounge singer crash-lands in the desert.

24 August 2009

Schedule and budget considerations led the filmmakers to shoot digitally instead of on film. (A short sequence was shot in Super 8mm using Kodak Tri-X Reversal and Pro8mm’s Max8 Classic.) After considering Arri’s D-20 and Red’s One, they decided a simpler post workflow would be the best route to take. “We tested the Sony EX3 and the Panasonic HPX3000, and with the Panasonic we noticed a more fluid capture of motion, especially with any kind of pans from left to right,” says Miller. “The AVC-Intra 100 codec also seemed to handle contrast fairly well; knowing we would be shooting outside, I wanted that extra image control.” The filmmakers’ main challenge

was figuring out how to shoot a piece that would retain its effectiveness on a mobile-phone screen as well as a movie-theater screen. One idea was to limit extraneous camera movement; looking at the old serials, they noticed frequent wide, medium and threequarter compositions and decided to incorporate them into Stingray Sam. In keeping with the classic serials, they composed their shots for a 1.33:1 frame and decided to finish in highcontrast black-and-white. “Having the opportunity to work with an aspect ratio the industry has left behind was a real treat,” says Miller. Except for The Quasar Kid’s tincan spaceship, a set that was built in a

recording studio, the picture was shot on location. To maintain the shallow depth of field needed to keep viewers’ attention on the characters, the actors were kept close to the camera, and Miller used a P+S Technik adapter with 16mm and 40mm Zeiss lenses open at T2.8 or T2.8/4. Each episode takes place in a different alien world. The settings include a seedy Martian bar, an industrial male-fertility clinic, and a planet that bears a striking resemblance to Brooklyn. Miller worked with production designer Molly Page to create the interstellar settings in New York City locations. “We decorated walls with interesting and bizarre patterns, and kept signage and other recognizable things out of the frame,” says Page. The fertility clinic is an example of a location with a built-in look. Shot in the hallway of a public high school and the basement of a church, the scenes are meant to feel sterile and cold. “That episode has a lot of white on white,” notes Miller. “[Wardrobe designer] Stephani Lewis had created a lot of white costumes, and we were in a space that was meant to look simple and higher-key. We also lit it a bit brighter and timed it a bit brighter than some of the other episodes.” In the high-school hallway, Miller placed 1.2K Arri Pars at the end of the corridor to create a sheen along the floor and walls, and filled in shadow areas with 2'x4' tungsten Kino Flos. The scene in which Stingray Sam regales a large gathering of the clinic’s faculty with a song-and-dance number was shot in a church basement. The ceiling was too low to facilitate lighting from above, so Very Narrow Spot Pars and Source Four Pars were aimed into silver reflectors affixed to the ceiling. Miller filled in the scientists with roving tungsten Kino Flos and by bouncing light off two 8'x8' Ultrabounce frames. Despite its high-key lighting and stark production design, the image rarely clips in the highlights and exhibits remarkable detail in the midtones and shadows. “If I could keep the image just below the 90 to 95

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McAbee, who directed Stingray Sam’s six 10minute vignettes, stands at the ready for a camera test while Miller checks the frame.

percent IRE range, the picture seemed to hold together 5 or 6 stops of latitude below that. Another thing that seemed to work was shooting with a soft, directional contrast, knowing that more contrast would be added later in post; I tried to keep the shadows about 3½ stops under key, knowing we could take that to black later.” Fredward’s secret lair is the visual opposite of the fertility clinic. Working in the wood-paneled conference room at Manhattan’s Gershwin Hotel, Miller had to light a dark location against bright costumes and light skin tones — the pasty-faced Fredward and his tuxedoed cronies are clad in white, while The Quasar Kid wears a skintight, sequined jumpsuit. Gaffer Cait Davis and key grip August Popkin rigged eight 36" China balls with 500-watt tungsten bulbs, creating an even toplight that would allow the actors to move around freely. The dark walls acted as negative fill, while the action was separated from the background using daylight-balanced Kino Flos and Source Four Pars bounced off soft silver reflectors. Our heroes part company after they rescue the girl, and Stingray decides to return her to her father. After crash-landing in the middle of a desert, Stingray and the girl find themselves on the wrong end of Fredward’s anti-matter pistol. The production found a stretch of beach on Long Island with enough open space to stage the standoff, and Miller set all of his shots above the actors’ eyelines to mask incongruous terrain. “It solved the problem of seeing anything 26 August 2009

we weren’t supposed to see, and it also reduced the background to the texture of the sand,” he recalls. The low winter sun was used to frontlight the actors, and tungsten Pars were used to fill in the shadows when necessary. The scene gave Miller one of the most striking compositions in the series: a long, wide shot of the beach set against a dark sky, with a line of sand at the bottom of the frame to hide the ocean. Fredward and the girl are on one side of the frame, and Stingray is on the other. At first glance, the background seems otherworldly enough to be a painted backing, “but it was a real sky!” says Miller. “I used an old 85mm Zeiss lens for that shot,” he continues. “When you’re recording to video with a long lens on a small chip, and there are only two planes of focus to a shot — the actors and the sky — the P+S Technik adapter gives you a greater sense of compression. If there had been a third element between the two of them, it wouldn’t have looked as good.” The combination of gentler lenses and the adapter created a thick bokeh around the edge of the glass and added halation to the hot spots, enhancing the “older film look” Miller and McAbee sought. Miller also used Schneider Double Fog filters (1⁄ 8 for close-ups and 1⁄ 4 for wider shots) to accentuate the ethereal quality. He took a similar approach to photographing the rest of that world — Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood — using 85mm and 135mm lenses to compress locations

into paintings and backdrops. The filmmakers did manage to work in some practical 2-D elements. The film is bookended by Terry Gilliamstyle collages that were designed by West Coast artist John Borruso. Though McAbee originally intended to integrate them into the movie, he eventually decided they didn’t fit the design of the rest of the picture. Glupczynski had another idea. Miller explains: “The P+S Technik adapter’s oscillating ground glass adds an organic texture to the video image, and we decided to use the HPX3000 with a zoom controller and a dolly to photograph each collage. The human control seemed to bridge the gap and create a cohesion between the two worlds.” Stingray Sam was onlined at Final Frame in New York, with colorist Will Cox at the Nucoda Film Master. Because the final image would be blackand-white, Miller used mixed color temperatures for his separators and fill lights throughout production. By putting them on a different color channel in post, he was able to better isolate and adjust them. Stingray Sam was completed in time for Sundance, where it was projected digitally. McAbee would like to see the film get a multi-platform release, but for now, he is hand-delivering the HD master to every festival screening. “I just hope people have a chance to see this movie,” says Miller. “Whether they see 61 minutes or 10 minutes, they’ll feel it’s a complete, fully realized world. All of our decisions were geared toward keeping the audience within the small universe Cory created.” TECHNICAL SPECS 1.33:1 (16x9 original) High-Definition Video and Super 8mm Panasonic AJ-HPX3000, Pro8mm Max8 Classic Kodak Tri-X Reversal 7266 Zeiss Standard Speed lenses I

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Fellow

Foodies I

Julie & Julia, shot by Stephen Goldblatt, ASC, BSC, illustrates how the legendary Julia Child impacted the life of an acolyte. by Jean Oppenheimer Unit photography by Jonathan Wenk

28 August 2009

t is often said that the most important person on any film set is the catering chef — fine cuisine doesn’t guarantee an easy shoot, but it goes a long way toward improving the crew’s mood. On Julie & Julia, the crew dined on delicacies that included boeuf bourguignon, pate de canard en croute and lobster thermidor, and that was before breaking for lunch. Perhaps not since Babette’s Feast has food played such an important role in a film. “On most movies, you might use a special filter to shoot close-ups of the actresses,” notes Stephen Goldblatt, ASC, BSC, “but on this one, food became the real beauty shot.” Based on real people and events, Julie & Julia tells the parallel stories of two women who lived 50 years apart but shared a passion for cooking: Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and Julie Powell (Amy Adams). In 1951, Child was living in Paris, where her husband, Paul (Stanley Tucci), a career diplomat, had been assigned after the war. With little to occupy her, she decided to take a class at the Cordon Bleu Cooking School. In 2001, in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States, New Yorker Powell was searching for an activity that might lift her spirits. She decided to make every recipe in Child’s landmark cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and document her efforts online. Her daily blog became so popular that it was turned into a book, which served as

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures.

the basis for the film. Directed by Nora Ephron, Julie & Julia jumps back and forth between the two women’s stories, documenting not only their culinary endeavors but also their relationships with their respective husbands. “We shot the Julie story first, and only after we completed it did we start shooting the Julia story,” says Goldblatt. He wanted each section to have its own mood and look, which he describes as “harsh American sunlight and bold, contrasty colors for Julie’s life in Queens, and pastel tones and a soft, overcast light for Julia’s life in Paris.” The cinematographer achieved both looks with the same film stocks, using Kodak Vision3 500T 5219 (rated at EI 320) for all interiors and Vision2 250D 5205 and 50D 5201 for exteriors. For the Paris sequences, he added a light Tiffen Black ProMist (1⁄4 or 1⁄8) to the lens “to give a little glow to the light and flatten things out a bit,” he says. “I like shooting at T2.8, and today’s stocks make that easy to achieve,” continues Goldblatt. “My favorite stock at the moment is 5219; it has an extraordinary ability to dig into shadows and highlights, and it takes the digital intermediate so beautifully.” With the exception of a small amount of Paris footage that was processed at Deluxe London, all of the production’s footage was processed at Technicolor New York, where Goldblatt has a long-standing relationship with Joey Violante and Martin Zeichner, who timed select print and high-definition dailies, respectively. (Julie & Julia was shot in Super 1.85:1, and the first few weeks of dailies were printed.) “Technicolor provided us with a beautiful HD projector,” notes Goldblatt. “Nora and I would watch projected dailies at lunchtime on a 12-foot-wide screen.” Camera equipment was provided by Panavision, a team

Opposite: Bloggerturned-chef Julie Powell (Amy Adams) pays homage to her idol, Julia Child (Meryl Streep), while visiting an exhibition in Child’s honor. This page, top: The boisterous Child whips up a dish. Bottom: Stephen Goldblatt, ASC, BSC meters the leading lady while co-star Stanley Tucci (portraying Child’s husband, Paul) contemplates lunch.

effort involving Phil Radin in Woodland Hills, Calif., and Scott Fleischer and Gail Savarese in New York. The production’s package comprised two Panaflex Platinums, a Lightweight for Steadicam work, Primo prime lenses, a low-angle prism and four zooms (Primo 4:1, 11:1, 3:1 and Macro). “I’m not as crazed about lenses as I used to be because we can make such radical changes in the DI,” says Goldblatt. “Certainly, the lenses need to be sharp, not too contrasty, and comfortable for the assistants, but I don’t see such a vast difference nowadays between Primos and Cookes. Production design, lighting and wardrobe have far more effect on the final image than the subtle differences between very good American Cinematographer 29

Fellow Foodies Right: A squeamish Powell prepares to boil her first lobster. Below: Powell’s husband, Eric (Chris Messina), samples some chocolate frosting. The couple’s small kitchen was part of an apartment set built onstage at Silvercup Studios in New York. “It was like a closet!” recalls Goldblatt. “We tore every single wall out again and again just to get our coverage.”

lenses. Those differences were much more of an issue in the days before the DI.” The Paris and Queens apartment interiors were built onstage at

30 August 2009

Silvercup Studios in New York. Child’s residence, which was modeled on her real home, is Lshaped and spacious and boasts large, leaded-glass windows. Every

wall in the set was wild, and all of the windows were specially built with real leaded glass. “In addition to looking more authentic than any kind of substitution, the leaded glass helps diffuse what we see outside the windows,” notes production designer Mark Ricker. “For winter scenes, we dabbed a kind of wax mixture onto the glass to give it a frosted look.” Two sides of the set included exterior façades. Dolly shots made from an elevated platform could track past several sections of façade while following the actors from room to room. “That helped give real dimension to the set,” observes 1st AC Larry Huston. Gaffer Gene Engel was responsible for conjuring the soft light Goldblatt wanted for the Paris scenes on the New York stage. “We probably had 900 units operating on that set, and they were all on a dimmer system, right down to the outlets in the walls,” says Engels. Two layers of bleached

muslin covered every ceiling, and 20Ks were suspended at different angles above them to create directional light. For keylight, 5Ks and other Fresnel lights were set to rake across a 12'x25' frame of rippled bleached muslin. “Raking the light across rippled muslin is what produces that soft, shadowless effect,” explains Engel. “A camera can dolly to within 2 feet of an actor without the operator or assistant casting a shadow, and two actors can stand 6 or 8 inches apart and cast no shadows as they talk. Rippled muslin also takes every wrinkle out of every face; it makes actors look good, and it makes the set look good. “I never bounce off anything flat,” adds the gaffer. “Sometimes I’d throw a 10-by-10 rag on the floor, kick it into a bunch and bounce into that.” Goldblatt’s crew often had to pull walls to facilitate the best lighting for the actors. For shots of Streep in Child’s 10'x12' kitchen, for example, a wall would come down and a

12'x25' frame of rippled bleached muslin would go up, with a 5 or 10K gelled with 1⁄8 or ¼ straw behind it. “It looks as if the light is coming from a window,” says Goldblatt. One concern was how to make Streep appear as tall as Child, who was 6'2". The actress wore platform shoes in every scene in which

her feet weren’t visible. When standing still, she stood on ¼ apple boxes or pancakes. When she had to walk alongside another character, she walked on 4"-high walkways that snaked through the sets. Even when seated, Streep was elevated — she always sat on a pillow. To help sell the illusion, “we often filmed Meryl

The Childs celebrate life in a stylish French bistro, which was actually a restaurant in New York. Goldblatt says the location’s mirrored walls “nearly drove me crazy,” but gaffer Gene Engel provided a solution: “We had to bank the lights off two or three mirrors to avoid seeing the light and camera shadows. The look of the scene was really made by the Linestra tubes; I revamped them and made them into incandescents so they could be dimmed. That’s why the scene has a warm look.”

American Cinematographer 31

Innovations Spice Up Julie & Julia’s DI odak’s high-contrast Vision Premier print stock would seem to be an unlikely choice for a film such as Julie & Julia. As Steven J. Scott, EFilm’s supervising digital colorist, notes, “When you’re trying to make the leading ladies look as soft and beautiful as possible, Premier isn’t the first stock that comes to mind, as its stronger blacks and saturated colors can result in a harsher, less flattering look.” So why Premier? Because the filmmakers believed everything around the actors — including colorful Paris bistros, stylish period dress and décor, and, perhaps most importantly, the food — was best served by Premier’s vibrant color and strong blacks. However, Kodak’s standard Vision promised a gentler look and smoother skin tones. Director of photography Stephen Goldblatt, ASC, BSC wanted the best of both worlds, and in the end, he got it, thanks to a digital filter developed by Scott, his longtime collaborator in the digital-intermediate suite. “With our software and proprietary filter, we could tap the advantages of each stock wherever we wanted,” says Scott. Scott had been tinkering with the idea for some time, and Julie & Julia seemed the perfect film on which to try out the new tool. After testing both print stocks, the filmmakers decided to print on Premier using the new DI filter. During the digital grade, Scott and Goldblatt used EFilm’s proprietary Premier Deluxe look-up table and added Scott’s new filter, which allowed them to selectively emulate some of Vision’s characteristics, even though they were printing on Premier. As an example, Scott points to a scene in which Julia Child (Meryl Streep) and her husband (Stanley Tucci) sit in a corner booth in a French bistro. “Stephen wanted the rich, saturated

K

32 August 2009

colors of the décor and the deep color of Meryl’s dress to come through, but he also wanted Meryl and Stanley’s skin tones to be soft and luminous. With this filter, we were able to get both. The scene has an almost threestrip Technicolor look.” (The results were so impressive that Scott used the filter again on the next picture he graded, Night at the Museum 2, whose entire Imax run was printed on Premier.) Goldblatt was also pleased with something else Scott worked out for Julie & Julia’s DI, a “sunshine effect.” The production spent its last two weeks in Paris, shooting exteriors, and “I prayed to the gods of weather that we would have the dull, overcast skies that are so wonderful for actors’ close-ups,” recalls Goldblatt. “The gods listened to me, but I found that the wide shots, the architectural shots, needed some bite, and dull light didn’t give it to them.” The first use of the digital sunshine effect can be seen right after the opening credits. The Childs arrive at their new Paris residence in a powder-blue American sedan that rounds a corner and pulls up to the front gate; the camera starts low and wide on a crane at street level and tracks out as the arm booms up. Goldblatt wanted subtle streaks of sunlight to grace the buildings in the wide shot, and he wanted shafts of light hitting the walls of the house as Julia enters the courtyard. But on the day of filming, there was no hard sunlight. Scott solved the problem by creating a series of articulated mattes that moved through the scene. “You’d think it was real sunlight,” says Goldblatt, “but it was a matte done on the fly during the DI.” — Jean Oppenheimer

Fellow Foodies from a slightly lower angle than might have been entirely flattering, but she encouraged it,” says Goldblatt. “Julia Child was not a small woman, and Meryl wanted to be true to that. When we wanted her to look her best, we raised the camera.” Whereas Child’s apartment is roomy, the studio apartment where Powell lives is a modest 43'x19'. The kitchen is 6'8"x6'3" — tight quarters in which to cook, much less to shoot. “It was like a closet!” recalls Goldblatt. “We tore every single wall out again and again just to get our coverage. On a 27mm lens, with one wall taken out and [the camera] back a couple of feet, we could just get everything into frame.” After a pause, he laughs, “Actually, at times it was rather a challenge to keep the small space from looking bigger than it was.” Outside the kitchen’s sole window were three 5Ks shooting up at beadboards or rippled muslin. For the rest of the apartment, 5Ks and 10Ks were aimed through windows, replicating harsh sunlight. Ceilings of the Queens set comprised bleached muslin, with lights positioned above them. Two small skylights, never seen on camera, serve as additional light sources. Smaller and darker than the Childs’ apartment, the Powells’ home relied more heavily on practicals. A 50' Technocrane with a Scorpio Head was used for perhaps the most ambitious setup: a nightexterior shot in Queens that starts extremely wide on Powell’s building and ends with a close-up of her at her computer, seen through a second-floor window. This is the only shot of Powell’s apartment that was filmed on location. To help define the Con-Edison power station visible in the distance in the wide view, eight 12K Pars were grouped together on the ground about ¾ of a mile away. To light the

Bottom photo by Mark Ricker.

exterior of the apartment building, 20Ks with apricot gels raked the walls through 12'x12' frames of rippled bleached muslin. The Technocrane was parked across the street on a 25' dolly track. The shot starts wide, with the 4:1 zoom set at 21mm. As the crane dollies forward, the telescoping arm is extended and raised; at the same time, the lens zooms in. The shot ends with the camera 25' above the ground and the focal length at 75mm. 1st AC Huston had his work cut out for him. “Focus was about 7 feet and was accomplished by attaching a laser to the remote head to mark the camera’s position,” he says. “I calibrated the relationship between the laser marks on the street and Amy’s focus upstairs by running back and forth between the street and the second floor, taking measurements. I used a wireless video attached to my Preston radio focus control to see the composition.” It takes 25 seconds for the camera to reach the window through

which Powell is seen. Apart from the practical desk lamp next to her, the interior is lit with Linestra tubes. (A Chimera pancake was mounted to the camera and dialed up as the camera got closer to Adams). Goldblatt is pleased with the result: “It’s a beautiful shot because there are no cuts, and it really is Queens.”

A later shot of Powell through the same window was filmed on the soundstage. She is again typing at her desk, and we again see her through the glass, but this time the window is reflecting the lights and buildings of Manhattan — mini cutouts placed just behind the camera to reflect in the glass. “It’s a

Left: In one of Goldblatt’s favorite scenes, Child takes a cooking course at the Cordon Bleu Cooking School, where she towers over her male classmates. The scene was shot on set at Silvercup, where Goldblatt took advantage of a custom-built bay light built by gaffer Engel. “Because the room is white, it naturally fills itself in, and we only needed one big light source,” notes Goldblatt. “I loved what I could do with bounce light in that set.” Below: Throughout production, the crew came up with a variety of ways to give Streep a lift in her portrayal of the 6'2" chef.

American Cinematographer 33

Above, left and right: A 50' Technocrane was used to capture an ambitious nightexterior shot that pushes in toward Powell’s apartment window until we see her typing at her desk; a later shot of Powell seen through the same window was filmed onstage, where mini cutouts were used to create reflections of the Manhattan skyline. Middle and bottom: Lights deployed on a rooftop helped the filmmakers capture a scene in which Powell serves up a feast for her friends.

34 August 2009

way to trick the eye into believing it’s a real location,” says Goldblatt. “We did a combination track and zoom into Amy, and the reflections give the shot a real sense of place.” In one of Goldblatt’s favorite scenes, Child attends her first class at the Cordon Bleu Cooking School. She is the sole female standing in a row of male students, and she towers over them all. The set, built at Silvercup, was based on photos of the real location. The room is almost completely white, with shiny tile on the walls. “Because the room is white, it naturally fills itself in, and we only needed one big light source,” notes Goldblatt. “I loved what I could do with bounce light in that set.” Engel custom-built a 6'x6' bay light comprising 12 2K nooks going through rippled muslin. “We could actually dial in which section we wanted to use with our dimmer system,” says the gaffer. “We made it almost the size of the room and then just teased it off the walls so it had a nice ‘down’ look without giving the actors raccoon shadows. We never used a light directly over the actors.” The production moved to Paris for the final two weeks of the shoot, and most of the movie’s exteriors were filmed there. One exception was a train station that’s

Middle photo by Stephen Goldblatt.

Fellow Foodies

Fellow Foodies

Goldblatt positions a finely cooked fowl for its close-up.

36

supposed to be in Paris; the filmmakers originally planned to shoot at La Gare du Nord in Paris, but the train station in Hoboken, N.J., whose architecture was strongly influenced by the Beaux Art movement, proved to be ideal — and much less expensive. “With its decorative molding, the shape of its windows and its iron staircases, the Hoboken station gave us the feel of a French train station,” says Ricker. (A different section of the station was used for a scene set at a Boston terminal.) All interior scenes set in France were filmed in New York. “One of the useful things about New York is that so much of its classic architecture is French,” says Goldblatt. Finding rooms and buildings that could pass for Paris locations proved remarkably easy, but one location proved particularly challenging: a restaurant with

mirrored walls where Child dines with her husband. “That scene nearly drove me crazy,” recalls Goldblatt. “We couldn’t light Meryl and Stanley directly; we had to aim light at a mirror and bounce it onto them. Just getting the camera in position so we could photograph the actors without seeing ourselves was a nightmare. I honestly can’t imagine doing a shot like that without Gene Engel.” “It was like playing pool,” says Engel. “We had to bank the lights off two or three mirrors to avoid seeing the light and camera shadows. The look of the scene was really made by the Linestra tubes; I revamped them and made them into incandescents so they could be dimmed. That’s why the scene has a warm look.” With a laugh, he adds, “During the shot, most of the crew were lying on the floor to avoid being reflected in the mirrors.”

Another sequence that pleases Goldblatt shows Child’s sister (Jane Lynch) getting married in a large, outdoor pavilion. Ricker stumbled upon the location in Brooklyn. “In the center of the roof was a nice, round opening, almost like a skylight,” recalls Goldblatt. “You couldn’t see it on camera, but it provided a perfect spot to hang a spherical helium balloon and lower a remote head to get shots of people dancing below.” The scene took place during the day, and Goldblatt switched to the 50-ASA stock. Ten 18Ks going through 20' x 40' frames of quarter grid cloth were placed on the lawn close to the pavilion. As daylight faded, straw gels were added to the lamps. Finally, what would a film about gourmets be without shots of sumptuous-looking food? Goldblatt, who shot quite a few food commercials when he was starting out in the

business, wanted to handle the food photography himself rather than turn it over to a second unit. (One food shot in the final cut was made by 2nd-unit cinematographer David Dunlap, whom Goldblatt also credits with “making a couple of spectacular Manhattan cityscapes for which I am grateful.”) “There is nothing mysterious about shooting food except the desire to do it,” Goldblatt notes wryly. “It’s really just still photography. Of course, the real key is having a brilliant chef and food stylist.” He made the beauty shots with an 11:1 zoom — usually used at a fixed focal length — and upped the exposure to T5.6 to get a bit more depth of field. A single light was usually sufficient to illuminate the subject. Typically, an electrician held a pancake light over the table at a variety of angles, and Goldblatt would look through the lens to determine the right angle. The size of the bulb varied, ranging

from 50-2,000 watts. These were some of the most pleasurable days of the shoot. “After we photographed the food,” says Goldblatt, “we ate it.” I

TECHNICAL SPECS Super 1.85:1 (Super 35mm for 1.85:1 extraction) Panaflex Platinum, Lightweight Primo lenses Kodak Vision3 500T 5219; Vision2 50D 5201, 250D 5205 Digital Intermediate Printed on Kodak Vision Premier 2393

37

Exposing a

Secret Slaughter

Filmmakers, activists and other experts join forces on The Cove, a documentary that exposes the brutal killing of dolphins in Taiji, Japan. by Patricia Thomson hen director Louie Psihoyos decided to bring Colorado-based cinematographer Brook Aitken aboard The Cove as the director of photography, he weighed Aitken’s agility and athleticism as carefully as he did his technical expertise. “We needed people who were like pirates because we were essentially breaking and entering,” says Psihoyos. The target was a heavily guarded cove in Taiji, Japan, where local fishermen slaughter an estimated 2,300 dolphins every year as part of an effort to locate bottlenose females, which are in demand at marine parks around the world.

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38 August 2009

After luring scores of dolphins away from their migratory path, the fishermen herd the creatures into the cove; separate out the bottlenose females; and spear the rest of the animals to death and sell the meat, which contains toxic levels of mercury. Led by Richard O’Barry, who trained dolphins for TV’s Flipper in the 1960s, conservationists have attempted to stop the slaughter, but so far they have failed. Psihoyos, a top National Geographic photographer, cofounded the Oceanic Preservation Society (based in Boulder, Colo.) with Jim Clark, the venture capitalist behind Silicon Graphics and Netscape. The Cove is an OPS proj-

ect, and as mission-driven documentaries go, it was lacking neither funds nor talent. To make the movie, which took close to three years, Psihoyos assembled what he called an “Ocean’s 11” team; in addition to O’Barry, his collaborators included an electronics wiz who customized some of the cameras; expert moldmakers who created camera housings that could pass for native rocks; two champion free-divers who placed cameras and hydrophones underwater at night; and Aitken, who had to ensure that everyone understood the essentials of camera operation because everyone was shooting. “Traditional roles went out the window pretty quickly,” Aitken

Photos and frame grabs courtesy of the Oceanic Preservation Society and Roadside Attractions.

acknowledges. Every member of the team had to be “somebody who wasn’t afraid to hang off a cliff, sleep outside in a camouflaged spot, and eat nuts and berries,” notes Aitken. As the director of photography, he also had to be able to shoot run-and-gun while composing impeccably framed shots under Psihoyos’ supervision. “Louie has a very particular eye, and we’d spend hours, days and weeks shooting certain shots or time lapses,” says Aitken. “I learned a lot from him about how to make every single pixel count.” The project’s main format was high-definition video. “We wanted to get as high a resolution as possible and have media that was easy to store, review and duplicate,” says Aitken. The production purchased four Sony PDW-F350L cameras, which use Sony Professional Discs with blue-laser technology; at 23GB, each reusable, single-layer disc can hold 60 minutes of HD-quality imagery. The package also included thermal-imaging cameras, nightvision cameras, a remote-controlled mini-helicopter cam, and a remotecontrolled camera mounted to a blimp that was painted to look like a dolphin. The Cove begins by providing some background on dolphins, O’Barry and Taiji, a fishing village of 3,000 that boasts a whale museum and dolphinarium just yards from the killing cove. This section of the movie features underwater footage of dolphins shot by free-divers Kirk Krack and Mandy-Rae Cruickshank. Psihoyos notes that successful underwater photography requires clear water, good light and a rebreather, a closed breathing system that regulates the amount of oxygen and scrubs out carbon dioxide. Its purpose is to prevent bubbles, and for photographers, that’s good for both keeping the frame clean and not disturbing the animals. “Whales and dolphins consider bubbles a sign

Opposite: Worldchampion freediver Mandy-Rae Cruickshank, whose skills include the ability to hold her breath for over six minutes, was a key member of the team behind The Cove. This page, top: Cinematographer Brook Aitken sets up a shot on location in Japan. Bottom: This angle of the cove shows the green tarps that are unrolled to help hide the killing.

American Cinematographer 39

Exposing a Secret Slaughter Top: Once in the cove, dolphins who aren’t deemed desirable for marine parks are stabbed to death. Middle: Fishermen use an array of tricks to divert dolphins from their migratory path, which hews to Japan’s coastline, and herd them into the cove. Bottom: Local police post bogus “danger” signs to keep unwanted spectators away from the area.

of aggression — you never want to be around a big whale that’s blowing a lot of bubbles,” notes the director. The rebreather is not for beginners, however. “It’s super-dangerous,” says Aitken. “There are computers that calculate the levels, but you can kill yourself if you don’t know what you’re doing.” When filming dolphins, mobility is key. “They get bored really quickly, and if you can’t keep up or entertain them, they take off,” says Psihoyos. “And you can’t chase an animal that just swam down from Greenland!” To stay lightweight, the filmmakers worked with Sony’s HVR-A1U HDV camera, which weighs 3 pounds. “If you shoot with a rebreather and carry a Sony F900, you probably have about 110 pounds of gear,” says Psihoyos. “It’s like trying to push a Volkswagon through the water!” Also featured in The Cove’s first section is time-lapse photography of Japanese fish markets, including Tsukiji, the world’s largest. This footage, which shows the unimaginable volume of fish caught and sold every day, was shot with Psihoyos’ Canon EOS-5D Mark II digital SLR; the camera was mounted on a plate 40 August 2009

attached to a small motion head that was programmed to rotate over a set period of time. “Unfortunately, that had to be hooked up to a laptop and hard drive, because it was capturing so much information we couldn’t store it all on memory cards,” recalls Aitken. Time-lapse shots of the Taiji fish market, Tokyo’s famous Shibuya Crossing and various landscapes were captured with the F350L. “That camera was nice for time lapse, because with Blu-ray, I could shoot 1 fps and go for more than 24 hours straight,” notes the cinematographer. “We had to just let the exposure go and auto-compensate, but it worked out well, given the circumstances.” One unanticipated advantage to the time-lapse work is that it gave the filmmakers a convincing alibi when they were stopped by local police, who constantly tailed them. “If people were curious about what we were doing out in the middle of the night, we’d say we were going to look at our cameras in the fish market,” says Aitken. The Cove also documents the covert operation that was necessary to record the dolphin slaughter. The team planted gear in the cove seven times, going in one night to place it, and retrieving it the next. Nightvision and thermal-imaging cameras were critical to this phase. Night vision was done with the A1U, set in its Night Shot mode. Aitken explains, “There’s an infrared light built into the camera, but we supplemented that with a hot-shoe-mounted infrared light [a Sony HVL-Irm Battery IR] for a little more punch.” Because the camera relies on bounced rays, it’s good for only short distances. “The falloff is maybe 20 feet,” says Aitken. “It’s not like the FLIR, which works on a heat signature.” The FLIR, or ForwardLooking Infrared P640, was initially intended only for night-time sur-

Above: Director Louis Psihoyos (left) and special-effects artists discuss the design of a “rock-cam” housing that will blend in with the native rocks at the cove. Middle: Charles Hambleton, the designated coordinator of “clandestine operations,” prepares a rock cam. Bottom: Aitken and Psihoyos at work.

American Cinematographer 41

Exposing a Secret Slaughter

Top and middle: A night-vision camera was necessary to capture some of the team’s work. Bottom: A frame from an infrared camera shows free-divers Cruickshank and Kirk Krack getting ready to sneak into the water.

42 August 2009

veillance, so the OPS team could spot approaching security guards and make an escape. “The FLIR is very sensitive in terms of heat signatures,” says Aitken. “Using the temperature spectrum on the menu, you can change the sensitivity for different temperature ranges. It saved us a few times as we were sneaking around in the dark. We were able to see if there was a guard or dog — or sometimes just a bird in a tree — half a mile away.” In the end, Psihoyos decided to incorporate some of the infrared footage in the film; it appears in its black-andwhite mode. “The first model we took to Japan couldn’t shoot color, and although the second one did, Louie decided to keep it in sync with the first.” At night, the team would plant up to four cameras. On the cliffs, they positioned XDCams mounted with either a Fujinon telephoto lens (18x5.5mm) and 2x extender, or a super-wide-angle Fujinon (3.3x13mm). Cameramen wearing full camouflage and face paint spent the night in blinds and had some close calls with security guards. Closer in, they used five “rock cams,” Sony HDR-SR1s in housings that were custom-created by two special-effects artists at Kerner Optical, Nelson Hall and Danny Wagner. “One of my friends, Wim van Thillo, used to work at Industrial Light & Magic, and part of that spun off into Kerner Optical,” explains Psihoyos. “Nelson and Danny made the camera housings under the supervision of Kevin Wallace.” Made of foam molded around Pelican cases, the housings matched the color and texture of Taiji’s rocks exactly; the filmmakers gleaned the necessary details from satellite photographs. “They really outdid themselves,” marvels Psihoyos. “When we went back to retrieve the rock cams, we had to pick up the rocks to tell which were real.”

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Exposing a Secret Slaughter The filmmakers planned to capture aerial footage with a mini-helicopter and a blimpcam, but windy conditions kept the blimp out of circulation.

The SR1 has four hours of battery life, which wasn’t enough to meet the filmmakers’ needs — the cameras had to be switched on in the dead of the night and then run until dawn, when the slaughter occurred. (Aitken notes, “We had to pray they were framed correctly in the dark.”) The filmmakers took the cameras to Wyndham Hannaway of GW

44

Hannaway & Associates in Boulder, Colo. “Wyndham is a genius,” says Aitken. “He was literally pulling circuit boards out of cameras and hotrodding in 11-hour batteries.” These expedition-grade batteries were duct-taped around a souped-up hard drive. “When you opened up the rock, it looked like a bomb — it was full of these large batteries that

looked like sticks of dynamite,” says Psihoyos. “If we’d been caught with that thing, I’m sure we would have been shot!” For covert underwater work, they placed an A1U and Sony’s larger HVR-Z1U, shooting in HDV mode. These cameras, too, needed camouflage. Attempting a poorman’s version of the rock-cams, director of expeditions Simon Hutchins had the team buy instant cement and chicken wire at a local shop. Aitken recalls, “We borrowed a busboy’s tub from the hotel restaurant and got lots of chopsticks, and we were able to make a synthetic rock in the hotel room, mixing the cement with chopsticks.” Those underwater cameras successfully captured the sickening tide of blood that washes through the bay during the slaughter. Another powerful shot is an aerial reveal, when the camera pass-

es over a cliff to show the crimsoncolored cove; this footage was captured by a small JR Voyager Z260 helicopter that had an A1U on its gyrostabilized Airfoil Prolight camera mount. Attempts to capture similar footage with the dolphin blimp failed, however, because conditions were usually too windy. However, the blimp did provide an entertaining diversion when local police threw up a road block and insisted on inspecting the transport truck. “The hydraulic door opened to reveal this 30-foot dolphin blimp, and all the cops started laughing,” recalls Psihoyos. “How could they arrest any of us after that?” More often, though, police and town officials were hostile. The filmmakers fired their translator after they began to suspect she was reporting their movements, and the crew was never sure whether it was police or maids who visited their

hotel rooms. As a result, they never tested the reusability of the Blu-ray discs. Instead, all discs and tapes were hidden in a hotel air vent, then hand-carried the next day to FedEx in Osaka or Tokyo. The digital-intermediate scanning and color-correction were handled by Final Frame in New York, where Psihoyos worked with colorist Will Cox. At press time, the filmout was underway at Technicolor Los Angeles. After making its premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, where it won an audience award, The Cove landed a coveted slot at New York’s New Directors New Films festival and a theatrical release through Roadside Attractions. Because the goal is to reach as many viewers as possible, OPS is also considering making a Japanese-dubbed version available on YouTube in Japan. “We want four things,” says

Psihoyos. “We want to shut down the cove, reduce demand for dolphin parks by encouraging people to boycott them, educate people to eat lower on the food chain so they can avoid toxic seafood, and help people understand that seafood is toxic because of human endeavors.” I

TECHNICAL SPECS 1.85:1 (16x9 original) High-Definition Video Sony PDW-F350L, HVR-A1U, HVR-Z1U; FLIR P640; Canon EOS-5D Mark II Fujinon lenses Digital Intermediate Printed on Kodak Vision 2383

45

When Not in

Rome Angus Bickerton leads a team of digital-effects artists on a quest to create convincing locations for Angels & Demons, shot by Salvatore Totino, ASC. by Mark Hope-Jones

46 August 2009

ngels & Demons was the first of Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon novels to be published, though it is the second to be adapted for the screen, following the success of The Da Vinci Code (AC June ’06). Many from the original production team reassembled for the sequel, including Ron Howard and Salvatore Totino, ASC, for whom it marked a fifth feature-film collaboration. Called once more from academic life to solve a European murder mystery, symbologist Langdon (Tom Hanks) finds himself in a race against time to unravel a sequence of cryptograms and locate a bomb that threatens to destroy the Vatican. His chase takes him to a succession of

A

famous Roman landmarks as he retraces the “Path of Illumination” described by an ancient secret society that may be trying to unseat the Catholic Church on the eve of a papal election. “Originally, we were set to repeat the M.O. of Da Vinci,” says visual-effects supervisor Angus Bickerton. “That is, go to a European city — in this case, Rome — shoot there for a few weeks, and then return to Shepperton Studios in London. But the writers’ strike halted the production, and at that stage, the decision was made to shoot in Los Angeles instead of London. [Visual-effects producer] Barrie Hemsley, [production designer] Allan Cameron and I were

Photos and frame grabs courtesy of Sony Pictures, Moving Picture Co. and CIS Vancouver.

Opposite and this page: Visualeffects artists at Moving Picture Co. were tasked with making it look as though actors Tom Hanks and Ayelet Zurer are running through the streets of Rome in these scenes from Angels & Demons.

pretty much the only people kept on from the initial preproduction setup at Shepperton.” With much of the film’s action centering on Vatican City in Rome, the filmmakers knew they would not be granted permission to shoot at a number of important locations. During the few weeks of prep at Shepperton, Bickerton, Hemsley and Cameron made significant progress in deciding how to solve the problems this would create. “It was because we’d made those key decisions that we were kept on,” says Bickerton. “We transferred a lot of the planning from Shepperton straight to Sony Studios.” The fact that many locations would be inaccessible to the production meant that Angels & Demons would require many more visualeffects shots than its predecessor. A total of 917 shots made it into the final edit, with the work split fairly equally between Bickerton’s inhouse team and four facilities: Moving Picture Co., Double Negative and The Senate in London, and CIS in Vancouver. Bickerton, who also supervised the visual effects on The Da Vinci Code, knew the effects work would have to fit smoothly into Howard and Totino’s well-established methods. “Ron works very quickly,” notes Totino. “He comes to work very prepared, and the whole day is just non-stop, so we didn’t

want anything to slow us down, especially visual effects. We couldn’t always do multiple passes for backgrounds and greenscreen work, and that made Angus’ job much more difficult.” “We had discussions in prep about moods and feels for certain

locations, and Sal put together reference pictures for us — images from commercials and films,” recalls Bickerton. “As the sets were being built, we’d go down and discuss the practicalities — how to get greenscreens in and how Sal would light them. I tried to study everything Sal

American Cinematographer 47

When Not in Rome

Top to bottom: Input elements (first and third photos) and final shots (second and fourth photos) show MPC’s work on a Sistine Chapel sequence, carried out under the supervision of MPC’s Richard Stammers and Angus Bickerton, the film’s visualeffects supervisor.

48 August 2009

was doing in order to learn his lighting style and mimic it in our 3-D environments.” The Sistine Chapel scenes serve as a good example of how CG elements were blended with sets and practical lighting. “Allan’s crew built a fabulous set that went up to 40 feet high, and MPC had to digitally create the ceiling and build some detail in the windows,” says Bickerton. “Essentially, we used the same methodology for all of those locations: we’d go out and accrue as much photography as possible and then image-project that onto as low a resolution geometry as we could get away with. There’s a lot of online reference material for the Sistine Chapel; with a bit of concentrated searching, you can find fairly detailed imagery. Thousands of tourists take pictures of it every day, even though you’re not allowed to, so we passed ourselves off as tourists to get pictures of that, as well as the Pantheon, St. Peter’s Basilica and St. Peter’s Square.” Of the six windows along each side of the Sistine Chapel, only one was physically built into Cameron’s set; the rest were CGI. “I had to put in several lighting units to replicate the sunlight that would be coming in those windows,” says Totino. “I used a 20K beam projector coming through the one window we had and then several others in a row for the windows Angus would be adding.” Bickerton, working with MPC visual-effects supervisor Richard Stammers, put in the CG windows and some lighting effects that were blended with the physical beams from Totino’s lights. Among other architectural treasures glimpsed during Langdon’s hectic dash around Rome is the Passetto di Borgo, an elevated walkway that links St. Peter’s Basilica with the Castel Sant’Angelo. Owned by the Vatican and the city of Rome, parts of the Passetto were accessible to the filmmakers, but the area was

too cramped to accommodate a large crew, and the surrounding streets would have been difficult to control. Therefore, a greenscreen set was built onstage in L.A., and the MPC team set forth to gather as much photographic material from the real location as possible. “The environment we created was a combination of multiple bracketed stills taken at different times of day,” says Stammers. “Although it’s a night scene, we shot daytime and nighttime stills and blended them to get day-for-night moonlight; there was no visible moonlight at the location at night, so by adding a percentage of daylight, we gave it a more lit feel, which Sal would have wanted from the location.” Bracketing still images served not only to imitate the look Totino might have achieved on a real night shoot, but also to give the images a much wider dynamic range. “On some occasions, we combined up to seven bracketed shots, in theory creating a greater dynamic range than film could have captured,” says Stammers. “But generally, three bracketed exposures at stops above and below the mid-exposure gave us a pretty good range.” The largest location to which the production was forbidden access was St. Peter’s Square, the vast piazza in front of the basilica. “One of my big concerns was how we were going to track the shots,” says Bickerton. “We were potentially going to go handheld and Steadicam, wandering for up to 100 meters through the square with a crowd of 300 people blocking our markers.” After exploring a few realtime tracking options, Bickerton dismissed them as too cumbersome. Instead, he fixed on the notion of attaching AVCHD camcorders to all of the film cameras and doing the tracking in post. “Angus approached us one day and asked if we’d mind if

he put small, consumer HD cameras on our cameras,” recalls Totino. “There was a little extra weight when we were handheld or on Steadicam, but by doing that, Angus was able to track the cameras and see everything they were seeing. My guys were too busy to keep turning the HD cameras on and off, so

Visual-effects artists at CIS Vancouver, working under the supervision of Mark Breakspear, tackled a car chase. “Angus shot tiled background plates that we stitched together, and combined with delicate practical camera moves, added vibration and environmental reflections, the shot looks like it was shot for real,” says Breakspear.

American Cinematographer 49

When Not in Rome

The challenge this shot posed to the CIS Vancouver team was “conveying the sense of space by continuing the crowd back down the nave while continuing the practical lighting achieved on the set,” says Breakspear. “2-D artist Thierry Muller allowed painted shafts of light and slowly wafting atmosphere to gently build up over distance to achieve the volume we were looking for.”

50 August 2009

Angus’ team did that with remote controls.” Initial tests were shot with a Sanyo AVCHD camera that Bickerton had bought at Heathrow Airport, where the idea first occurred to him. After Double

Negative reported back that the footage could indeed be used for tracking, Bickerton purchased nine of Canon’s newly released HF10 camcorders. “At 17 megabits per second, it was the least compressed of all the AVCHD cameras,” he says. “It

was even smaller than the Sanyo, and as long as we bought them in the States, they were 24p, which meant I didn’t have to worry about any synchronizing issues. Every morning we mounted those cameras with wide-angle adapters on top of the film cameras. The premise was that if Sal wanted to shoot with a long lens, or handheld, or anything where tracking markers might not be obvious, we would track off the HD camera. Double Negative told me about half of their St. Peter’s Square shots were tracked from those cameras.” A sequence involving CGI that Totino is especially pleased with is a nighttime car chase through Rome. “I fought really hard to shoot it practically, but shooting driving sequences at night in Rome would have been too expensive,” he says. “My problem with nighttime processed car interiors is that the cameras are always inside the car, and the CG backgrounds just don’t look right. So when they decided to shoot it processed, I fought to get the

cameras outside the car, handheld. We basically sat on the hood with the cameras on a sandbag, panning back and forth to give it movement. That created a huge challenge for Angus because he then had the backgrounds and also the reflections on the car, but it allowed me to use interactive lighting and make it feel real. We set up two lighting rigs parallel with the car, connected them to a computer and created a chase sequence so the lights would move over the car.” Bickerton worked with the second unit to photograph plates that could be used for backgrounds and windscreen reflections. “The scene called for some specific actions as this convoy of police cars weaves its way through the traffic,” he says. “We decided we needed 360-degree plates, but we couldn’t shoot one side plate, the other side plate and then the back view because it would have meant multiple passes with completely different action going on; it was better to capture as much as possible in one go. We found a Fiat van with two side doors, and by shooting with five cameras, we were able to get approximately 200 degrees of coverage. There were three cameras with 21mm lenses on a plate at the back of the van and two cameras with 25mm lenses shooting out through the side doors. That allowed us to limit ourselves to just two passes: 200 degrees facing backward with the first pass and 200 degrees facing forward with the second, with a slight overlap of the side cameras. In addition, we had a sixth camera with a 14mm lens mounted at 45 degrees above the front three cameras for windscreen reflections.” Once the greenscreens were shot, Bickerton and Mark Breakspear, visual-effects supervisor at CIS, began assembling the composite images. By shooting 360-degree plates, they had given Totino complete freedom with his camerawork; if a shot encompassed two plates,

then they were simply stitched together. “It’s important to give filmmakers that freedom for these kinds of shots because they can get very staid otherwise,” says Bickerton. “It was complicated, but I think it was worth it, and I hope no one thinks about them as

Creating a sense of space using light and darkness was also the challenge on this shot, which was achieved by the CIS Vancouver team. “We wanted to hint at the massiveness of the nave, not show everything,” says Breakspear. “For this shot, the floor looked too ragged, so we ended up replacing it with a CG version. 2-D artist Stephen James used this shot to set the look and feel for the other shots in the sequence.” American Cinematographer 51

When Not in Rome “As the Camerlengo [Ewan McGregor] appears inside the nave, we were faced with the problem of making a tiny set in Los Angeles look like a huge church in Rome,” says Breakspear. “We ended up replacing everything except Ewan and even rebuilt him for the first few walk cycles in order to remove a practical lamp that he walked behind. We added new reflections and lighting to match Salvatore’s lighting of the practical set.”

52 August 2009

process shots.” Although all the plate shots were photographed with as much in focus as possible, Bickerton and Breakspear paid a great deal of attention to depth of field in post. “If you’re actually shooting actors in a car at night, wide open and with no depth of field, you focus on the actors in the foreground, and lights

in the background just become circles of confusion,” explains Bickerton. “You get some very interesting little artifacts, and we tried to put in all those little subtleties to make it feel absolutely real.” Totino could not be happier with the result. “This driving sequence presented a huge challenge, and Angus really rose to the occasion

as a collaborator,” says the cinematographer. “When I was at EFilm doing the digital intermediate, I had a visit from a visual-effects supervisor who has been in the industry for an extremely long time. I showed him the car sequence and asked what he thought. He liked it, but when I told him it was all CG, he didn’t believe me and had to watch it again. It was fantastic that such a trained eye couldn’t tell!” For Bickerton, the success of the sequence illustrates how close collaboration between the visual effects and camera departments can only benefit a production. “Sal is part of Ron Howard’s trusted team, and they’re both very quick and very creative — they keep the set moving,” he says. “They discuss a lot beforehand, but they also like to find things on the day, and it’s important that visual-effects work doesn’t stop any of that. Going with the flow means our work is more likely to fit in with the tone of the movie.” I

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Robots Run

Rampant

Cinematographer Ben Seresin and Industrial Light & Magic’s Scott Farrar, ASC tackle 15-perf 65mm for two sequences in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. by Jay Holben

Unit photography by Jaimie Trueblood and Robert Zuckerman nspired by the Imax sequences in last year’s The Dark Knight (AC July ’08), director Michael Bay and cinematographer Ben Seresin decided to embark on their own large-format expedition on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen by shooting two battle sequences in 15-perf 65mm and VistaVision as well as anamorphic 35mm. “The grand scale of Imax really appealed to us, and the huge physical scale of these robots seemed

I 54 August 2009

perfect for the format,” says Seresin. The two sequences selected for Imax photography by Bay, Seresin and Industrial Light & Magic visualeffects supervisor Scott Farrar, ASC, were a forest battle and the climactic showdown between the Autobots and Decepticons over the Great Pyramids in Giza, Egypt. “Compared to the choice you have with 35mm equipment, the equipment choices for 15-perf 65mm are definitely limited,” says

Seresin. “65mm is considered a relic from the past, so the industry as a whole hasn’t concentrated on developing cameras that can take [horizontal] 65mm film. We used Imax [MSM 9802 and MKIII] cameras and the Iwerks IW5A system. Largeformat cameras are designed primarily for documentary and landscape type of filming, not a Michael Bay action picture, but they performed fantastically.” One of the idiosyncrasies of

Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

the Iwerks camera is the viewing system, he notes. “There’s a very odd ground glass in the viewfinder that designates the image’s sweet spot, which is about one-third of the way up the screen, favoring the center. I was a bit skeptical about this sweet spot at first, but there is some truth to it; the way most Imax theaters are designed, most of the audience is sitting at a height about one-quarter of the way up the screen, and in that location, it’s most comfortable for your eyes to fall a little below the center, at that sweet spot. “Composing for 15-perf 65mm is a whole new discipline,” continues Seresin. “You have to be very careful to compose the shot in such a way that the viewers’ eyes will be able to follow the action naturally; in general, that means avoiding staging a lot of action at the edges of the frame or too high in the frame and not having action move too quickly across the frame. In addition, with the scale and amount of detail in the frame, it’s important to structure the action carefully so the audience knows what to look at. Unfortunately, the viewfinder markings that guide these compositional rules can be very distracting for operators who aren’t used to the format. The other problem with the viewfinder is that it’s very dark, especially at the stops we were shooting at, which ranged from T16 to T32 — it was often very difficult to see anything through the viewfinder. “15-perf 65mm is really about detail and scale, and if you’re shooting with narrow depth of field, you can put so much of the screen out of focus that it can be disconcerting and uncomfortable for the viewer,” he says. “We found that the best focal lengths were 80mm and 110mm, which are close to the normal field of view.” The production used Hasselblad lenses with the Imax and Iwerks cameras. Farrar, who supervised the

Opposite: Heroic Autobot leader Optimus Prime staggers during a battle in a forest, one of two sequences director Michael Bay and cinematographer Ben Seresin chose to capture in 15-perf 65mm and VistaVision as well as anamorphic 35mm. This page, top: Devastator, an evil Decepticon, causes a stir near the Great Pyramids in the film’s other large-format sequence. Middle: Optimus Prime gets acquainted with the Sphinx. Bottom: Autobots Skids (left) and Mudflap scope out the sights.

American Cinematographer 55

Robots Run Rampant

Above: Bay calls action as operators Jacques Jouffret (right, in white hat) and Lucas Bielan wield their cameras, and 1st AC John Connor (in orange shirt) keeps the image sharp. Below: The crew prepares a crane move at the base of a pyramid.

56 August 2009

visual-effects work on both largeformat sequences, notes, “Sharpness is definitely the key attribute to Imax imagery, and that becomes an issue when you have fast motion in an action sequence. You can have so much motion blur that it becomes really uncomfortable to watch on such a big screen. We realized we

would have to carefully adjust the amount of motion blur in all of the effects that we did. Some people doubted we could do it, but we found that we could get away with it if we made very careful adjustments. If you get rid of all of the motion blur, the action has a kind of staccato representation that doesn’t look

right, but if you have too much, it becomes ugly quickly — it all depends on the object and how fast it’s moving through frame. With dynamic adjustments, sometimes within single shots, we could finetune the amount of motion blur for each movement and action, and it worked really well.” Both Imax sequences also incorporate VistaVision footage as well as 35mm anamorphic footage. “We couldn’t get enough Imax and Iwerks cameras to cover what we wanted, so we used VistaVision as a kind of intermediate between Imax and anamorphic,” explains Seresin. “For the 35mm material, we were shooting around a T8 to T11 to match the depth of field of the 15perf 65mm material.” Kodak Vision3 500T 5219 was used for all three formats. “That’s really a testimony to the performance capabilities of that stock,” says Seresin. “It stands up amazingly well even in Imax projection, with very little grain and so much detail.” The filmmakers studied The Dark Knight to plan how to transi-

Left: Bay (gesturing) and Seresin (right) find their next setup. Below, (from left): Seresin, actor John Turturro, Bay, and actors Megan Fox, Ramon Rodriguez and Shia LaBeouf work through a scene.

tion between the 2.40:1 anamorphic aspect ratio and the 1.43:1 Imax aspect ratio. “Before I saw The Dark Knight, I didn’t believe it would be possible to sit through those transitions between formats without being distracted,” says Seresin. “Christopher Nolan and his team were very careful about the placement of those transitions, and we took some cues from their work. When we go from a close-up of Shia [LaBeouf] to a wide, spectacular action shot, we might jump from 2.40:1 to 1.43:1 between those two shots.” When the screen nearly fills a viewer’s peripheral vision, camera moves are a risky undertaking, because every move translates to a near physical reaction in the viewer. Given Bay’s penchant for highoctane action, this made the Imax format an obvious challenge. “The rules for Imax generally state that you shouldn’t move the camera, and if you do, you must be very careful and deliberate about it,” notes Seresin. “This turned out to be the area where we did the most testing! Unfortunately, we were already into

production by the time we decided to integrate Imax into the film, so we didn’t have a lot of test time. We needed to find out where our limits were, and all in all, we learned there weren’t as many limitations as we thought. “We had to be somewhat careful about panning because strobing was an issue, but we real-

ized there were a lot of moves we could do successfully,” he continues. “We avoided handheld work and fast pans, but beyond that, pretty much anything was OK. The cameras aren’t as large and heavy as people seem to think they are; we had to adjust the remote heads a bit to accommodate the larger magazines, but apart from that, we were able to

American Cinematographer 57

Robots Run Rampant Near right: Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) and Mikaela Banes (Fox) run for cover during a Decepticon attack. Far right: Banes checks to see if the coast is clear. Below: Autobot Bumblebee prepares to roll into action.

use the cameras on all the gear we wanted to use them on. “As far as lighting goes, we had to do very little to accommodate the larger format,” he adds. “Because we were shooting day exteriors, it wasn’t hard to get the T16 or T22 stops with 5219.” The greater resolution of the 15-perf 65mm negative led to significantly longer render times for those shots at ILM, according to Farrar. “The negative area is roughly 10½ times larger than 35mm anamorphic, and the amount of detail in these robots that showed up in a single frame was incredible,” says Farrar. “It was taking us six times

58 August 2009

longer to render each shot. In some cases, we have shots with a fully synthetic background and a very complex, animated character in the foreground; there’s a lot of information in those frames. Sometimes it took 72 hours per frame to render. “We did things on this film that we’ve never done before,” he continues. “The Devastator character is the largest and most complex character we’ve ever rendered — he’s about 150 feet tall standing up. We’ve never had a bigger staff of modelers, painters and animators on one film. Everything about this project is huge; for the first Transformers film, we hit about 20

terabytes of information, and on this one, we passed 150 terabytes! Each shot has taken months and months of man hours to complete.” “In all aspects of filmmaking, you’re always learning, and this project was no exception,” concludes Seresin. “Each new job takes on a life of its own, and you experiment with lighting, camera moves and so forth. We took on Imax and learned the rules as we went along, and the results are quite impressive. For image quality, there’s really nothing better.” I

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Post Focus

Exploring Technicolor’s DP Lights on Takeo by Jon Silberg When cinematographer Kristina Schulte-Eversum decided she wanted to flash the negative on Takeo, her American Film Institute thesis project, she quickly discovered what other cinematographers have learned the hard way: the technique makes people nervous. Producers are reluctant to build something into the negative that might prove difficult to fine-tune in post, and labs worry that something can go wrong. As it happened, Technicolor’s Creative Bridge division was looking for a way to beta-test its upgraded DP Lights previsualization system on a film project. The system, designed to help cinematogra60 August 2009

phers build a look on set that can be codified and attached to the images as they travel through the post pipeline, had been used on a number of projects that originated digitally, but Takeo became its first film venture. Schulte-Eversum was confident she could process her negative normally and come very close to creating the desired effect in the final timing, but she was worried that the final look would not be reflected in the dailies. “It’s a very dark story, and I was concerned that the faculty, the producer and the editor would become accustomed to the look of the dailies and then be shocked after I did the final color-correction,” she says. Technicolor’s DP Lights comprises software that can be loaded onto a Mac or PC laptop and a properly calibrated

external screen/display. On the set, the cinematographer (or digital-imaging technician) can dial up a look that they can discuss with collaborators. The system incorporates the ASC CDL (Color Decision List), which means the cinematographer can adjust the image using 10 values (AC Oct. ’08). The resultant look is displayed on the console, and the data from the single manipulated DPX file is saved in the system and e-mailed to the dailies colorist. If the final product is to be released on 35mm, DP Lights can also apply Technicolor’s proprietary film-emulation look-up table. “It’s about protecting the cinematographer’s intent,” says Brian Gaffney, who helps manage the deployment of DP Lights. “You can set a look on set, and there’s an exchange media

Photos courtesy of Technicolor.

Technicolor’s Creative Bridge division has introduced the DP Lights system, which comprises a portable console incorporating the ASC CDL. Cinematographers can use the system to time images on set and send CDL information to Technicolor, where it is used to time the dailies without baking the look into either the film or the original scan.

that allows that intent to be protected. It’s not creating a LUT and sending it to a post facility on a USB stick. DP Lights allows the user to have his or her intent carried through to the end.” For a film-originated project that uses DP Lights, the production’s footage is sent to Technicolor for processing and 2K scanning, and then Technicolor creates individual still frames (10-bit DPX files) representing the various camera setups and posts them to an FTP site. The cinematographer can download the stills and view them on a calibrated Apple Cinema Display. The computer contains proprietary Technicolor imaging software that the cinematographer can then use to fine-tune the look and generate a CDL, which can be e-mailed back to Technicolor, where that vision can be baked into the dailies without affecting the original scans. Schulte-Eversum shot Takeo in 3perf Super 35mm using a Panavision camera package and Fuji Eterna 400T 8583. “I usually like a more saturated, graphic image, but a softer look was more appropriate for this story,” she observes. “My work was about bowing down to the story in every sense. And now that I’ve become used to Eterna 400, I’ve fallen in love with it.” Throughout the week-long shoot, when Technicolor sent the 10-bit DPX files (still frames) back to the set, Schulte-Eversum would “sit down when I had the time, open the software, do the color-correction and then send back my CDL,” she recalls. “Once I had the system, I realized I could control the flashed-negative effect in ways that hadn’t occurred to me — I could saturate the earlier scenes more and then desaturate as the story progresses. If I’d really flashed the negative, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve that kind of gradation unless I’d shot more than one film stock.” She adds that the system could facilitate a dialogue with the colorist if he or she sent back a suggestion in the form of another CDL. “The important thing is that even though I was 70 miles outside Los Angeles, I was confident that what I was seeing on my monitor

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Cinematographer Jon Felix (at console) worked with the DP Lights system on the feature Radio Free Albemuth, which at press time was in postproduction.

was what they were seeing at Technicolor,” says the cinematographer. “And I knew the dailies would look exactly like that.” The raw scans provided by Technicolor also gave Schulte-Eversum the necessary information about exposure and color balance in her negative; she could access all of the picture information in the scan. If she wanted to know what it would look like printed up or printed down, those options were at her fingertips, too. “I’m glad I was able to see the look in dailies and talk about it with the director, the talent and the producers as we went along, but it’s also good that we had the freedom to alter the look in the final timing,” she concludes. “When you’re shooting, you can’t know how everything will be cut together, and it’s great that we didn’t have to lock ourselves into a look too early. Instead, we were able to see a proper visualization of our ideas early in the process.” I

62 August 2009

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