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MARCH 2006
M A R C H 2 0 0 6 V O L . 8 7 N O . 3
The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques
Features 30 An Angry Young Man

Lance Gewer lends emotional intensity to the
South African drama Tsotsi
42 Heart and Soul

Ellen Kuras, ASC captures a memorable
concert performance in Neil Young: Heart of Gold
50 Retro Sexy
Mott Hupfel frames an erotic icon in The Notorious
42
Bettie Page
58 A Master’s Palette
Jack Cardiff, BSC recalls his stunning work with
three-strip Technicolor
66 A Style of Subtlety
Sydney Pollack is honored by the ASC for his
filmmaking achievements
Departments
8 Editor’s Note 50
On Our Cover:
10 President’s Desk
A young South 14 DVD Playback
African gangster
(Presley Chweneyagae)
20 Production Slate
experiences major life 72 Short Takes
changes in Tsotsi, shot
by Lance Gewer.
76 Post Focus
(Photo by Blid 81 New Products & Services
Alsbirk, courtesy of
Miramax Films.)
86 Points East
90 International Marketplace
91 Classifieds
92 Ad Index
93 Clubhouse News
94 ASC Membership Roster
96 ASC Close-Up
58
Visit us online at
www.theasc.com
M a r c h 2 0 0 6 V o l . 8 7 , N o . 3
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 Douglas Bankston
TECHNICAL EDITOR Christopher Probst
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Stephanie Argy, Benjamin B, Robert S. Birchard, John Calhoun, Bob Davis,
Bob Fisher, Simon Gray, Hugh Hart, Jim Hemphill, David Heuring, Jay Holben,
Ron Magid, Jean Oppenheimer, John Pavlus, Chris Pizzello, David Samuelson,
Jon Silberg, Kenneth Sweeney, Patricia Thomson, David E. Williams
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ART DEPARTMENT
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Marion Gore
DESIGN ASSOCIATE Erik M. Gonzalez
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ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Angie Gollmann
323-936-3769 FAX 323-936-9188
e-mail: gollmann@pacbell.net
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CLASSIFIEDS/ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Sanja Pearce
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CIRCULATION, BOOKS & PRODUCTS
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Saul Molina
CIRCULATION MANAGER Alex Lopez
SHIPPING MANAGER Javier Ibanez
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ASC GENERAL MANAGER Brett Grauman
ASC EVENTS COORDINATOR Patricia Armacost
ASC PRESIDENT’S ASSISTANT Delphine Figueras
ASC ACCOUNTING MANAGER Mila Basely
ASC STAFF ACCOUNTANT Diella Nepomuceno
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American Cinematographer (ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 87th year of publication, is published
monthly in Hollywood by ASC Holding Corp., 1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028, U.S.A.,
(800) 448-0145, (323) 969-4333, Fax (323) 876-4973, direct line for subscription inquiries (323) 969-4344.
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4

Vince Pace
Chooses Band Pro
When creative minds like James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez want to take High
Definition to extremes, they turn to noted cinematographer and innovator Vince Pace.
And when Pace looks to push the envelope, he turns to Band Pro. “I do the things others
say can’t be done,” says Pace. “Having the right support to make the director’s vision a reality
is invaluable. No one understands the intricacies of High Definition equipment like Band Pro.”
From top HD tools like Sony F950 cameras, Zeiss DigiPrime® and DigiZoom™ lenses
to SR-1 technology, it’s all in Band Pro’s warehouse. “I know I can always turn to them for
the quality tools my projects dictate,” Pace explains. But what really makes the difference,
he adds, is the unmatched experience of Band Pro experts like Jeff Cree and Michael Bravin.
“When taking HD to the extremes, that experience is invaluable. It’s the support I can depend
on while pushing the boundaries—like the Pace Technologies adaptation of
the Sony F950—the Advantage camera.
“Having a resource like my relationship with Band Pro is
essential in such a challenging field,” he concludes. “Band Pro
is a welcome advantage.”
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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.
A Complete Line of Super Soft Light Sources for Chimeras OFFICERS - 2005/2006
(Six and three-light models) Richard P. Crudo
President
in New York & New Jersey: Owen Roizman
Vice President
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Camera Service Center NY Shadowstone NJ
CPML Lighting NJ The Light House NJ Curtis Clark
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Russ Alsobrook
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MEMBERS OF THE BOARD

Russell P. Carpenter
Curtis Clark
Richard P. Crudo
George Spiro Dibie
Richard Edlund
Francis Kenny
Isidore Mankofsky
Daryn Okada
Woody Omens
Owen Roizman
Nancy Schreiber
John Toll
Roy Wagner
Haskell Wexler
Vilmos Zsigmond
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John Hora
Stephen Lighthill
Michael Goi
Kees Van Oostrum
Russ Alsobrook
MUSEUM CURATOR
Steve Gainer
6

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Dale Brooks, ABC-TV / Walt Disney Co
Editor’s Note
T
his month’s special focus on independent productions
led us to investigate a number of intriguing projects
that reflected the indie ethos either in concept or
budget.
While attending the AFI Fest in Hollywood last
fall, senior editor Rachael Bosley was impressed by
Cinesaddle Lance Gewer’s cinematography on the South African

drama Tsotsi, which tells the story of a young gangster
The Perfect who begins to change his violent ways after taking
charge of a newborn baby left behind during a carjack-
ing (“An Angry Young Man,” page 30). The film’s
Camera Mount imagery reflects the teen’s emotional and psychological
evolution in understated ways. “The cinematography of Tsotsi lies in interiors, the
emotional states of the characters,” says Gewer, whose earlier work had earned the
1. The Cinesaddle is easy to use; to set it up admiration of director Gavin Hood. “There isn’t much camera movement, and when
just put it down. there is a move it’s always dictated by the choreography of the characters and the story.
Our work was more about keeping the camera quite still, exercising restraint, studying
2. Available in five different sizes. Works with the characters and trying to get to know them quite intimately. We worked with the
all video, film and still cameras. emotional beats of the story, trying to catch every nuance and implication.”
Inner emotions are also on display in Neil Young: Heart of Gold, a visually raptur-
3. Small - Compact - Portable. Weighs less ous concert film shot by Ellen Kuras, ASC for director Jonathan Demme (who previously
than two pounds. demonstrated his innovative approach to the genre with the 1984 Talking Heads film
Stop Making Sense). The cinematographer’s ardent enthusiasm for Young’s music is
reflected in her evocative work on the picture, which represents a record of two shows
4. Super versatile camera mount. Get shots
staged at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium. Kuras took full advantage of a series
not possible with any other camera support. of painted backdrops created by Michael Zansky: “They’re like landscapes of memory,
which echoes the Canadian prairie/childhood Neil sings about, without being literal.
5. Cinesaddle absorbs vibration. Use it on a We wanted each song to be like a painting within a painting.” She offers many other
car, bike, boat, helicopter, anything. Mounting insights in a piece penned by New York correspondent John Pavlus (“Heart and Soul,”
kit included with all professional models. page 42).
The Notorious Bettie Page also demonstrates an affection for its real-life inspi-
ration, a pinup model who became an erotic icon after posing for a series of fetish
photos during the uptight 1950s. Despite the project’s modest budget, cinematographer
Mott Hupfel and director Mary Harron took an ambitious approach to the picture’s visu-
als, shooting primarily in black-and-white but also employing splashes of vivid, eye-
catching color. Hupfel detailed his full range of strategies for New York scribe John
Calhoun (“Retro Sexy,” page 50).
Other notable indie projects are also on offer in this month’s installments of
Production Slate (page 20), Short Takes (page 72) and Post Focus (page 76).
This issue also features salutes to a pair of cinematic titans: cinematographer
Jack Cardiff, BSC, who recalled his triumphant work in three-strip Technicolor for histo-
Visit Cinekinetic’s website: rian Robert S. Birchard (“A Master’s Palette,” page 58), and producer/director/actor
Sydney Pollack, who was profiled by David E. Williams after earning the ASC’s Board of
www.cinekinetic.com Governors Award (“A Style of Subtlety,” page 66).
Photo by Douglas Kirkland.
and view streamed video clips of the

Cinesaddle in action.
Cinekinetic USA
345 W. 85th Street
New York, NY 10024
Stephen Pizzello
Telephone: (212) 202-0675 Executive Editor
Email: info@cinekinetic.com
8

President’s Desk
C
urrently, a movement is afoot in the United States to make the camera operator a negotiable,
elective position. The adoption of this practice will essentially put an end to the operator’s pres-
ence on our crews, save for exceptional cases. In my opinion, there is no possible way to justify
such a misguided idea. If this horrifying prospect actually becomes reality, it won’t just be the oper-
ators who will feel the repercussions — the entire industry will suffer.
While the tiniest percentage of cinematographers still choose to keep their own eyes to the
finder, the rest of us (myself included) believe strongly in the vital, indispensable role of the camera
operator. There are a number of reasons why this way of working has been the industry standard
for more than 80 years, and any one of them is compelling enough justification for the mandatory
inclusion of this individual on our crew.
Camera operating is a full-time, full-attention job. Maintaining composition; enforcing
eyelines; executing smooth moves; watching focus; noting errant shadows and objects; flagging
anomalies in hair, makeup, costumes and set dressing — all of these duties are performed in real
time as the camera is running. Operators must also serve as fully deputized liaisons with the other
departments; help to determine equipment needs; help to refine blocking; and otherwise assist the cinematographer in any of a
hundred different ways. Plainly, these responsibilities require the complete and undivided attention of a single person.
From their position behind the lens, camera operators are the first to see our work, and they do so in infinitely greater detail
than anyone in video village; only their word is immutable when it comes to the question of whether you’ve got the shot. Most
cinematographers have done their share of operating on low- or no-budget films. Speaking from experience, much of the execu-
tion is intuitive — similar, in a sense, to making music. If any distraction is indulged, even for an instant, the shot will already be
blown. From any perspective, serving as cinematographer is an all-encompassing pursuit; when you do both jobs at the same time,
one or the other is inevitably shortchanged.
Camera operating is a unique talent and is not part of every cinematographer’s skillset. Ever see someone new to the
geared head attempt to use it? It’s like watching a camel try to climb a ladder. Even the relatively simpler fluid head demands a
tremendous sensitivity in order to be handled effectively. While most cinematographers like to think of themselves as good oper-
ators, the truth is that many of us are better at imitating camels.
Although there are aspects of the operator’s job that can be learned and improved upon, the essence of it is nothing short
of a God-given ability. The qualities that elevate some operators are the same intangibles that allow certain cinematographers to
achieve greatness: superior taste and artistry. The best operators always move their eyes during the shot and make literally
hundreds of minute and organic adjustments on the fly. Their ability to think on their feet — not only to flirt with perfection, but
to rescue what might surely end up as a busted take — makes them worth 10 times their pay in their real value to a production.
Then there are the overtly physical attributes. Hand-to-eye coordination is a given, as are a good set of legs and a strong
back. Operators often find themselves working from some unusually contorted positions. And imagine shooting a 90-day sched-
ule, sometimes completely handheld. If lighting that much of a film isn’t enough to kill you, I promise that the additional wear and
tear of operating at the same time will do the trick.
The camera operator saves time and money by freeing up the cinematographer. The days of the cinematographer sitting in
a chair and pointing to the greenbeds are long over. Here in the U.S., most of us confer with the director to establish the frame or
choose the camera move. After that, our work really begins. As anyone who has recently lit a set of almost any size will confirm,
this act requires more of our involvement than ever before. Hi-def shoots in particular require the cinematographer to spend an
inordinate amount of time in a dark tent, glued to a monitor. Without a camera operator, it’s impossible to work effectively in this
fashion.
Let’s end right now the ridiculous perception that camera operators work only while the shot is happening. Their contribu-
tion is equally significant while we’re lighting; this is the point when their penchant for finding faster, more efficient ways of doing
things really shines. Plus, the extra set of eyes helps us avoid mistakes that can lead to delays. Listen up, producers: this saves
time and money! If anyone ever sat down to figure out how much is gained by having a seasoned camera operator on hand, I’m
sure an Act of Congress would guarantee their presence on every set.
Still not convinced? If the camera operator helps save an average of five minutes per setup over the course of a 25-setup
day... well, you do the math.
And then there’s everything else. In large part, the camera department has hewed to the tradition of making its members
advance through the ranks before attaining the status of cinematographer. Operating represents a crucial step in the learning
process. Furthermore, serving on a camera crew in any capacity demands a lot of double-checking and backup. The operator’s
perch provides a rare view of the entire enterprise that often serves as an early-warning system for the cinematographer. With
the operator at the eyepiece and the cinematographer standing close by, it becomes easier to spot anything that might negatively
affect the frame.
To state the case best, there has yet to be a movie made on which the camera operator’s technical savvy and creativity
didn’t contribute in many substantive ways to making the whole show better. Need I say more?
Richard P. Crudo, ASC

President
10 March 2006

© 2004 ARRI Inc.

Introducing the ARRIFLEX 235
35mm motion picture camera.
Actual Size
Actual facts: www.arri.com

DVD Playback employ subtle changes in lighting and strong stereo mix is featured as well.
camera placement that shift the viewer’s An outstanding audio commen-
identification from one character to tary is provided by film-studies profes-
another. Although Lifeboat is a wartime sor Drew Casper, who combines biogra-
thriller and Hitchcock was fiercely loyal phy, historical context and aesthetic
to Britain and the United States, the analysis. Even avowed Hitchcock schol-
complexity of the screenplay and the ars will gain new insights and learn
artistry on display prevent the film from new facts from Casper’s thorough
becoming didactic. investigation of what he unhesitatingly
MacWilliams’ black-and-white calls one of Hitchcock’s masterworks.
cinematography is stylish yet extremely Casper’s insights are comple-
Lifeboat (1944) functional; whenever he uses light to mented and expanded upon by a 20-
1.33:1 (Full Frame) express character or theme, the light is minute documentary, “The Theater of
Dolby Digital 2.0 practically motivated rather than purely War,” in which he is interviewed along
20th Century Fox Home Video, self-conscious. In one shot, for example, with Hitchcock’s daughter and grand-
$19.95 a shadow passes over the duplicitous daughter. The featurette is brief but
German’s face, emphasizing his dual informative, and allows viewers a look
Alfred Hitchcock was never one nature, and it is caused by a realistic at the tank on the Fox lot where the
to back away from a technical or logisti- source: a sail blowing in the wind. entire film was shot. Steinbeck scholar
cal challenge, but on the 1944 produc- Images like this abound in Lifeboat, and Robert Demott provides a bit of back-
tion Lifeboat, he faced a problem that light, camera movement and content ground on Steinbeck’s role in the
was particularly daunting. The film has become inextricably bound to one production. (Contemporary viewers may
just one extremely small location — the another. be surprised to learn that Lifeboat was
titular lifeboat — and nine characters, 20th Century Fox’s new DVD not particularly popular at the time of its
so the question for Hitchcock and his captures many of these images beauti- release because many misinterpreted
collaborators was how to make such a fully, though the disc is far from perfect. its political stance.) A theatrical trailer
limited canvas visually and dramatically Scratches and other artifacts in the and gallery of photos complete the
compelling. A screenplay by acclaimed source material are particularly evident in supplements.
writers John Steinbeck and Jo Swerling the opening scenes, and there are minor — Jim Hemphill
certainly helped generate tension, but picture flaws throughout the movie.
what really gives the film its energy is Nevertheless, there are many striking
an innovative visual approach, which passages in which the richness of
brought Oscar nominations to both MacWilliams’ photography is impecca-
Hitchcock and his cinematographer, bly captured, particularly in scenes where
Glen MacWilliams, ASC. he uses extreme contrast to convey the
Lifeboat ’s premise allows for a moral ambiguity of the characters.
classic Hitchcockian moral exploration: The use of sound in Lifeboat is
the eight survivors of a German bomb- every bit as impressive as the visuals,
ing are stranded in a lifeboat, where and in some ways extremely audacious
they pick up a ninth passenger, a for a Hollywood studio film of that era.
stranded Nazi. Within the confined The filmmakers eschewed a traditional
setting, MacWilliams rarely repeats score in favor of a dense combination of The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)
compositions or angles, which is one of overlapping dialogue, ambient noise, 1.33:1 (Full Frame)
the reasons the movie doesn’t feel and silence — in fact, some of the most Dolby Digital Monaural
stilted or theatrical. Another is the dramatic moments in the picture are The Criterion Collection, $39.95
picture’s sophisticated manipulation of distinguished by a nearly total lack of
point of view, as Hitchcock and sound. The DVD’s monaural soundtrack Romantic obsession and the
MacWilliams (who had previously preserves the intricate sound design doomed attempts to grasp it is the core
collaborated on Waltzes From Vienna) with clarity and precision, and an equally of Michael Powell and Emeric Press-
14 March 2006

burger’s vivid adaptation of Jacques to achieve distance effects. After deter- audience, it is refreshing to be reminded
Offenbach’s opera The Tales of Hoff- mining that a wide-ranging use of light of such a well produced, artistic and
mann. In making the picture, Powell and would be essential for Hoffmann, the clever film treatment of an opera. In the
Pressburger (the legendary British film- cinematographer set up one of the storied career of The Archers, this is a
making team known as The Archers) most elaborate arc-light grids in the crown jewel.
built upon the fantasy elements of their history of British cinema. Indeed, Chal- — Kenneth Sweeney
earlier films, particularly The Red Shoes, lis noted in his autobiography (Are They
to create an entirely unique atmosphere Really So Awful? ) that at the time of
in which to mount the stories of poet production, no other British film had
E.T.A. Hoffmann as seen through Offen- ever used as many lamps for the Tech-
bach’s eyes. nicolor palette.
In a surrealistic theatrical space, The Criterion Collection recently
Hoffmann (Robert Rounseville) fancies released Hoffmann on DVD with excel-
three different women for each of the lent results. The dual-layer DVD-9
opera’s three acts. In Act 1: The Tale of boasts an effective home-screen real-
Olympia, he is infatuated with a radiant ization of Technicolor’s three-strip
dancing doll (Moira Shearer). In Act 2: process. Challis’ extraordinary lighting
The Tale of Gulietta, he is bewitched by is well realized in a consistently pleas-
a Venetian courtesan (Ludmilla Tcherina) ing picture transfer. The nearly pristine The Bird With the Crystal
and desperately tries to win her affec- source material from the British Film Plumage (1970)
tion. Finally, in Act 3: The Tale of Anto- Institute’s restoration internegative is 2.35:1 (16x9 Enhanced)
nia, Hoffmann passionately proclaims crisp, featuring rich colors and deep Dolby Digital 5.1, 6.1 DTS-ES,
his love to an ailing singer (Ann Ayars). shadings. The monaural audio track is Dolby Surround 2.0, Monaural
Each of these acts, as well as a prologue free from age-related defects and plays Blue Underground, $29.95
and epilogue, set Hoffmann up with an smoothly.
idealized woman, only to have her Borrowing from its 1992 Two Italian masters of cinematic
consumed by an older male with sinister laserdisc edition of Hoffmann, Criterion style, writer/director Dario Argento and
intentions. Played in each vignette by has included an excellent audio cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, ASC,
famed ballet dancer Robert Helpmann, commentary by director Martin Scors- AIC, conspired on the unusual 1970
this older man — a crazed dollmaker, a ese and film-music historian Bruce thriller The Bird With the Crystal
satanic Svengali, and a seductive doctor Eder. Both men make interesting points Plumage, the auspicious feature debut
— foils all of Hoffmann’s attempts at about the film, with Eder focusing more of both filmmakers. This new two-disc
romance. on the film’s place in the musical and DVD from specialty distributor Blue
To mount this dark, operatic opera-film genres and Scorsese noting Underground serves as the best-yet
fantasy, The Archers enlisted production numerous creative and technical flour- video incarnation of the film in any
designer Hein Heckroth to create a lush ishes. In addition to the film’s theatrical format, making it a unique and invalu-
arena where song and dance could trailer, supplements include production able introduction to both men’s careers.
convey the narrative to the camera. stills, a collection of Heckroth’s design Loosely based on the 1949 short
Heckroth had won an Academy Award sketches, a solid essay written by film story “The Screaming Mimi,” which
for his work on The Red Shoes, and his scholar Ian Christie, Powell’s 1956 short was first adapted by Hollywood in 1958,
bold, rich design for Hoffmann would film The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and a Crystal Plumage opens as Sam (Tony
earn him another nomination. Heck- charming interview with cult horror Musante), an American writer living in
roth’s plans required an expert cine- filmmaker George A. Romero. (Romero Rome, inadvertently stumbles upon a
matographer, and The Archers chose gushes over Hoffmann and notes its murder taking place in a chic art gallery.
frequent collaborator Christopher Chal- unusual influence on his own films.) Inside, he can see a beautiful woman
lis, who had previously shot The Small Criterion has once again dusted (Eva Renzi) grappling with a black-
Black Room, Gone to Earth and The off a title from its laserdisc library and garbed figure at the top of a treacherous
Elusive Pimpernel for them. Aware that updated it for DVD with superb results. stairway, each fighting to control a long-
each act of the film was designed The Archers’ unique fantasy of seduc- bladed knife. Shot in Technicolor Rome’s
around a single primary color, Challis tion and betrayal is not for all tastes, proprietary two-perf Techniscope
sought to convert the lighting effects of but it is certainly a landmark in its widescreen process — used here
a staged musical or opera to the cinema approach to storytelling, musical under the trade name Cromoscope —
frame. He noted that in live theater, the performance, cinematography and the film immediately takes advantage of
human eye could read the subtlest of production design. At a time when its 2.35:1 frame in this harrowing scene,
shadings, and low light was often used musical films have difficulty finding an
16 March 2006

Same great content
Convenient new form

as Sam tries to enter the gallery which features an anecdote-rich inter-
through the double glass doors of its view with Argento; “Painting With
atrium-like opening. He is immediately Darkness,” a more conceptual discus-
trapped between them, with the resul- sion with Storaro; “The Music of
tant enclosure transformed into a trans- Murder,” an interview with composer
parent prison from which he helplessly Ennio Morricone; and “Eva’s Talking,”
watches the bloodied woman suffer featuring actress Renzi. In their respec-
after the killer flees the scene. It has tive interviews, both Argento and
been said that Argento conceived of Storaro are candid about their frustrat-
Sam’s predicament while watching fish ing-yet-fruitful collaboration, and each
circling in an aquarium, and Storaro’s offers genuine admiration for the
compositions perfectly capture this other’s abilities while politely skirting
concept, as the gallery’s glass-walled any specifics.
chamber fills the frame edge-to-edge, — David E. Williams
presenting our ostensible hero as a I
human “exhibit.”
After the police fail to find their
suspect, Sam decides to investigate the
case on his own, and he soon gains the
attention of the maniac and those who
seek to conceal his identity. NEXT MONTH’S REVIEWS
Designed by production
designer Dario Micheli, the film’s care-
ful yet pervasive use of primary blues,
reds and yellows adds a distinctive
visual touch that foreshadows Storaro’s
color-rich work in subsequent films.
Indeed, it’s not every picture that
features a mysterious nocturnal assas- An Unmarried Woman (1970)
sin (Reggie Nalder) clad in a Day-Glo Cinematographer:
yellow jacket, a bold sartorial selection Arthur Ornitz
that ultimately ensures his escape from
Sam.
A later chase sequence offers
one of the film’s most facile yet effec-
tive images: the darkness of a jet-black
frame is suddenly pierced as Sam
bursts through a doorway in the
distance, the bright amber light casting
him in a tense silhouette as he seeks to The Sisterhood of the
find his assailant. Without warning, the Traveling Pants (2005)
lights come up, revealing that the Cinematographer:
fiendish killer has cleverly led Sam back John Bailey, ASC
to the art gallery for nefarious reasons.
A lively and highly informative
audio commentary by film journalists
Alan Jones (author of the authoritative
tome Profundo Argento) and Kim
Newman not only succinctly dissects
the production but also places it in the
context of the times, crediting the film’s
many innovations and explaining how Mysterious Skin (2005)
they later impacted the genre. Cinematographer:
Disc two offers four brief Steve Gainer, ASC
featurettes: “Out of the Shadows,”
18

Production Slate
Maximum Ingenuity on Minimal Budgets
Right: Dr. Philip Masterson), a scientist who discovers
Latham (Andrew that the center of human intelligence is
Parks)
sympathizes the forehead rather than the brain.
with Dr. Sheila Bexter isolates this untapped power by
Bexter’s (Fay means of an extract she calls “Fore-
Masterson)
theory of headizene.” Her amorously inclined
“foreheadial” boyfriend, Dr. Philip Latham (Andrew
intelligence. Parks) is a willing guinea pig for Bexter’s
Below: Latham
and Bexter work experimental potion in hopes that his
on isolating the cooperation will lead to more than a
untapped power goodnight kiss. The serum transforms
of human
intelligence. Latham’s puny human head until it
becomes all forehead. In the end, it’s
the foreheads from outer space vs. The
Forehead from Earth in a battle to the
finish. Will civilization as we know it
When Foreheads Collide ately overlit. We didn’t need to worry survive?
by Robert S. Birchard about unnatural light sources; we had The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra,
Trail of the Screaming Forehead photos by Robert Deveau and Robert Birchard, courtesy of Larry Blamire.
heavy backlight and often unmotivated shot on MiniDV and produced on a
“A cinematographer will never keylights. My gaffer had a problem with miniscule budget, was picked up for
get a job off the projects Larry does,” the look of the picture, but we assured distribution by Sony Pictures in 2001
laughs cinematographer Kevin Jones, him it was supposed to look that way.” and gained a small but avid cult follow-
who has shot two pictures with Shot in the imaginary “miracle of ing. A press agent could make much of
writer/director Larry Blamire. “The Lost CraniaScope” with the imprimatur “Ray the fact that the budget for Blamire’s
Skeleton of Cadavra was in black-and- Harryhausen Presents,” Trail of the new film is nearly 20 times higher than
white and had a deliberately cheap, Screaming Forehead tells of an earthly the production cost of Cadavra, but
underlit look [see AC April ’04], and Trail invasion by alien foreheads and has a don’t imagine some mega-buck Holly-
of the Screaming Forehead is deliber- subplot involving Dr. Sheila Bexter (Fay wood blockbuster. All in all, Forehead
cost well under $1 million.
“The idea for Forehead came to
me just after I finished Lost Skeleton,”
recalls Blamire. “Lost Skeleton was a
takeoff on the ultra-cheap Ed Wood
style of film from the 1950s. Forehead is
in a similar vein but more polished. I
wrote it for the principal cast from
Skeleton, but it doesn’t have the inten-
tionally stilted acting style of that film.
This was envisioned in color with the
bright look of early 1960s CinemaScope
and more sophisticated special effects,
including stop-motion animation. Stop
motion is magic, and it has a different
feel than the digital effects being done
today.”
Although it only amounts to 10
20 March 2006

and after all, you only go around once.”
Although Forehead was origi-
nally scheduled for 23 days of principal
photography, line producer Betsy
Mackey convinced Blamire it could be
shot in 18. “It may seem like stating the
obvious,“ says Mackey, “but the draw-
back of working on a low-budget film is
the low budget. You can’t simply throw
money at a problem. There was no way
we could spend 23 days shooting if we
were going to get the locations we
needed and the caliber of crew we
wanted.” Mackey scouted locations
herself, only hiring a location manager
for one week to make sure the proper
Above: Latham’s or 12 shots and less than two minutes and real love stories. Even though the permits were obtained. “We were fortu-
brow
unexpectedly
of footage, the stop-motion animation budgets were small and the effects nate to find locations we could double
begins to expand is what led Harryhausen to attach his were often terrible, the actors never up on,” she says. “There were some-
after he serves name to Forehead. It was also the hook winked at the camera. They believed in thing like 30 locations described in the
as Bexter’s
guinea pig.
that brought Chiodo Bros. Productions what they were doing.” script, but ultimately, we only had to
Below: — Charles, Richard and Edward Chiodo Script, principal cast and special make four moves.”
Cinematographer — into the project. The brothers have effects aside, getting even a low-budget Obviously, the shorter schedule
Kevin Jones
frames up a
lent their talents as visual-effects film off the ground requires belief and presented challenges for the production
forehead. wizards, animators, and character and faith of a more tangible sort. Financing team. “You never have enough days, and
prosthetic designers to such projects as came from “Lucky” Swift, an attorney cutting back from 23 to 18 days [lost us]
Team America: World Police (AC Nov. who “wanted to get out of the law busi- the opportunity for more coverage,” says
’04), Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Robocop ness.” Swift explains, “I started to Jones. “Fortunately, Larry storyboards
and Killer Klowns From Outer Space. watch Lost Skeleton, and I almost turned everything, which is a huge plus on a
For Forehead, Charles Chiodo it off after the first 10 minutes, but then low-budget picture because you don’t
designed the forehead prosthetics and I got hooked. My husband and I were have a lot of time to experiment. But we
the three stages of Latham’s transfor- impressed with Larry’s work, and we weren’t slaves to the boards; Larry was
mation based on an illustration by tracked him down and became open to suggestions, and we also looked
Blamire. “We love the older science- acquainted. He showed me the script for for setups we could eliminate.”
fiction films so much that even with the Forehead, and I found it intelligently Jones shot Forehead on a Sony
limited budget, we were eager to work goofy. When his original investors fell HDW-F900 Series 3 high-definition (HD)
on Forehead,” says Stephen Chiodo. through, I told him I’d finance the picture. video camera that was rented from HD
“Larry really gets what these films were Every one of my financial advisers coun- Cinema in Santa Monica. The rental
about. They had real drama, real threats seled against it, but it felt right to me, house was close to one of the
company’s major locations, the Veterans
Hospital in West Los Angeles. “We shot
24p and composed for 2.35:1 with
masks on the monitor and in the
viewfinder,” says the cinematographer.
“I was a little concerned that we would
be sacrificing some of the 16x9 image
area by composing for 2.35. Canon was
coming out with an anamorphic adapter,
but it wasn’t yet available. George Lucas
and others had used the Sony system
with 2.35 framing and proved it would
work, so we went that way.
“The idea was to get the look of
a picture like Jerry Lewis’ The Nutty
Professor,” he continues, “so we chose
22 March 2006

Rev. Beaks A Period Hi-Def Project
(James Karen, by Noah Kadner
right) serves as
host to one of
the many alien The setting for Formosa is Albu-
foreheads querque, New Mexico. It’s 1951, and
invading Earth.
Clay Crawford (Jamieson Stern) is on
the run from the law when he happens
upon Formosa, a social-guidance-film
studio on the skids. Eagerly adopted by
studio chief Sid Silver (Steven Gilborn)
and his daughter, Anne-Marie (Jessica
Kiper), Clay lends his bad-boy aura to
Formosa’s previously inhibited and
static 16mm black-and-white teen
films. In the process, he woos Anne-
Marie and becomes the studio’s top
actor.
middle-of-the-road camera settings that footage we were shooting. That would Formosa was my feature-direct-
we found on Band Pro’s Web site, band have been a budget concern if we’d ing debut, and to make the digital
prodigital.com, emphasizing primary been shooting film. On the other hand, production I teamed with director of
colors over a wider range of colors. The there are more steps required in post to photography Tyler Oliver. “I love a chal-
sets and costumes had strong blues and get an HD production to a theatrical lenge,” says Oliver, “so when you came
reds and pure whites. The flesh tones release, and there are fewer lenses to me with an indie set in the Fifties
were not necessarily flattering; they available for the cameras. with a large cast, lots of greenscreen
were kind of warm. I lit the principals “Also, HD’s power requirement compositing, and almost no money, I
using Straw gels on the lights. is higher and the camera is cable-bound said, ‘Let’s do it!’”
“We did the best we could to get a fair amount. We didn’t need to sync to Oliver and I had worked on
a film look, and we may be able to do an external recorder. We recorded the several short films and industrials
more in post,” Jones continues. “[3⁄4" production sound in the camera, but that together, and we share a philosophy of
CCD] HD cameras have virtually unlim- meant we were also wired to the sound using limitations as creative inspiration.
ited depth of field, which of course mixer. Fortunately, it wasn’t a problem On a recent project for the United
detracts from the film look. We had a because we were working close to the Nations, we created a short espionage
good Canon cine-style zoom lens that sound guy. We carried a generator all thriller to illustrate proper security
went from 25mm to 100mm. We used the time except for the last day, and protocols. “I think the U.N. was expect-
the long end of the zoom and shot wide most of the time the camera was ing a dry corporate video,” says Oliver,
open at a shutter speed of 1⁄48 of a plugged into AC power, but we did have “but we incorporated recognizable
second with an ASA rating of 320 at a batteries to use as needed. I always talent, CG effects, expressive camera
T2.2 aperture to compress the depth of took a battery-powered monitor on loca- movement and cinematic lighting.”
field. There are ND filters built into the tion so we could go mobile.” As a first feature, Formosa
camera that you can dial in, but we also Jones is enthusiastic about the presented a greater set of challenges
used ND filters on the lens. The Canon F900’s performance but notes that there than our previous projects. The film
zoom wasn’t always as long as we was one baffling breakdown. “Equip- incorporates many production elements
needed it to be, but we also did a lot of ment is always going to break down that low-budget films typically avoid. A
wide-angle stuff, and it was good for from time to time, and there’s never a period setting alone can be a recipe for
that.” right time for it to happen,” says the production headaches, even more so
Jones and his crew — camera cinematographer. “One day we started when combined with complex scenes
operator Gianni Trutman, first assistant getting some electronic glitches where featuring a large ensemble. For Oliver,
Frank Chritchlow, and second assistant the camera seemed to overheat and the biggest challenge was maintaining
Tony Denham — found there were shut off. I’d never had that happen a classic Hollywood look on a shoe-
advantages and disadvantages to work- before. We swapped out a couple of string budget and tight schedule.
ing in hi-def video. “We shot at a 10:1 components and shaded the camera, “Everything needed to work: camera
ratio, 26 rolls of 45-minute tapes — and that seemed to solve the problem, movement, set design, lighting and
191⁄2 hours of footage,” says Jones. but we’re still not quite sure what makeup,” he says. “This wasn’t a gritty,
“There was never a consideration for caused it. Overall, though, we had a handheld drama where we could ‘run
the number of takes or how much pretty good production record.” and gun.’ We knew the entire project
24 March 2006

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The “before” film. Happily, the contrast range trans-
frame is a 16x9 lated to digital in a really pleasing way.”
anamorphic
native frame in Choosing the SDX900 also
DVCPro50. The meant we could afford to rent two
“after” frame cameras throughout the shoot. We
shows the same
image with initially intended to use the B-camera as
scratches, a backup, but before long we were
desaturation rolling both cameras at least half the
and film-grain
filters applied time. “I don’t quite understand the
and is matted to physics of it, but two-camera coverage
approximately seems to give you an exponential
1.33:1 to
emulate the amount of footage,” says Oliver. “Many
16mm films of scenes had more than a dozen charac-
the social- ters interacting, and we knew going in
guidance era.
that the script would be difficult. By
using two cameras, we were able to
comfortably shoot the larger scenes and
rack up generous amounts of additional
footage.” Oliver credits 1st AC Chris
Shaun, who also operated the B
camera, with keeping the camera
department running smoothly despite a
hectic pace and harsh locations that ran
the gamut from chilly nights to dusty
desert vistas.
Shooting digitally also allowed
would be compromised if the images Hollywood style. “There’s a misconcep- us to give the actors additional creative
looked cheap or video-like. It would tion that you don’t need to light digital freedom. Because we were constantly
take the audience right out of the as much as film,” he notes. “If anything, rolling tape, they could experiment and
story.” you need to be more careful with your improvise and be confident the editor
We considered shooting on lighting when shooting 24p. At the very would be able to cut their performances
35mm but hoped to preserve our least, you need to approach a digital into coherent scenes. The actors had to
modest budget for talent and produc- project with the same attention to detail be on their game at all times because
tion design rather than film stock and as a 35mm project.” we constantly moved cameras around
postproduction costs. As an early Oliver and Houghton utilized from character to character, catching
adopter of Panasonic’s AG-DVX100 24p strong backlight, hair lights, toppers, moments of spontaneity. Of course,
MiniDV camcorder, I was intrigued by and other old-school lighting techniques there’s a danger of overcoverage, too,
Formosa photos by Noah Kadner, courtesy of High Road Productions.

the more advanced AJ-SDX900. Oliver to give Formosa a classical Hollywood and that’s where 1st AD Marty
and I determined via testing that the feel. “Normally I use one large, soft key Vesselich helped me set the pace prop-
SDX900’s 4:2:2 color space, native 16x9 and minimal backlight, but this film erly. When I’ve shot 35mm, money
CCD chips, and high-definition lenses required a different approach,” says the concerns often caused me to cut at a
would be our best option. “We felt the cinematographer. “For inspiration and moment’s notice and maybe skip that
Panasonic was a camera that could, if reference, we looked at Bugsy [shot by additional take. For filmmakers like me
treated professionally, capture footage Allen Daviau, ASC] and L.A. Confiden- who are just starting out, these 24p
comparable to 35mm and in line with tial [shot by Dante Spinotti, ASC, AIC]. cameras are miraculous.
our budget,” says Oliver. We also watched a lot of 16mm black- We shot Formosa in 20 days,
He wanted to push the digital and-white social-guidance films from with one week onstage in Los Angeles
medium as far as possible. “I’m an intu- the Fifties. I was curious to see how the and the remainder on location in New
itive shooter, but I’m also technical, and camera would handle hard light Mexico. The biggest challenge on loca-
I felt that if I could bring both sensibili- because softer is usually better with tion was the film’s period setting. “We
ties together I could really push the video. But with minimal tweaking, the couldn’t afford to dress an entire street
envelope on Formosa.” Enlisting gaffer camera delivered. I think that’s largely as 1951, so we’d get to a location and
Trevor Houghton, he set out to create a due to the SDX900’s Cine Gamma establish maybe a 90-degree field of
lighting strategy that was both cost- curves, which are designed to mimic the view,” explains Oliver. “We might have
effective and beautiful in the classical response curve and exposure latitude of a few picture cars and a building façade
26 March 2006

Cinematographer projection for driving scenes, we opted
Tyler Oliver for greenscreen compositing. We also
(right) and 1st AC
Chris Shaun shot a scene set at a drive-in on the
prepare to shoot greenscreen stage when it proved diffi-
a background cult to find a vintage drive-in theater in
plate for the
process- the area. “We found a huge warehouse
photography in New Mexico that could accommo-
driving scenes date all the picture cars and the minimal
from the back of
a stakebed truck drive-in set,” says Oliver. “Trevor and his
on the outskirts crew really rose to the challenge of
of Albuquerque. quickly and beautifully lighting the
greenscreen setups. The cars of the
Forties and Fifties are loaded with
reflective chrome and polished wood,
which can be difficult to control spill on,
but it worked out with careful flagging
as background. In staging our reverse picture car at the bottom of the frame in and rigging of silks.” The crew shot
shots, we took ‘cheating’ to a whole the foreground, and staged the actors background plates on rural roads
new level. As usual, the limitations perpendicular to the camera. We outside Albuquerque. It was seriously
forced us to find creative solutions. I embraced the ‘flat’ composition instead thrifty, little more than a high hat
remember one shot in particular where of fighting it, and it came together with strapped on the back of a stakebed
we literally had one wall to shoot an almost Edward Hopper feel. The truck. Luckily, we were able to use
against, and it was white — a cine- emotional beats in that scene happened image-stabilization software in post to
matographer’s nightmare! But we found to suit the look. Sometimes you get help smooth out the camera shake.
a section of wall that had a red line lucky.” Formosa also features a mix of
painted on it, positioned the hood of a To simulate 1950s-style rear vintage and modern-day re-creations of
28

Fifties social-guidance films. These unexpected advantages. In addition to
movies were typically 15 minutes or editing natively in 24p using Apple’s
less and were shot on 16mm black-and- Final Cut Pro, color correction in the digi-
white; they highlighted issues such as tal realm was essentially a digital inter-
premarital sex, alcohol abuse, and mediate (DI) without the scanning costs.
cheating on tests at school. These films Colorist Andrew Lichtstein at Techni-
were part of my original inspiration for color Digital Intermediates graded
Formosa, so it was important to me that Formosa on a da Vinci 2K in just 10
we re-create them in look and tone. hours. “I’m a child of the digital age —
Oliver did this by changing his lighting to I grew up with Macs and Photoshop,”
a flatter, less complimentary style says Oliver. “When I first discovered
specifically for these scenes, which printer lights, I was baffled by how
were also captured with the SDX900. “I crude the system was. I was always
had to fight my normal instincts and asking, ‘Why can’t we just telecine it?’
think like a social-guidance cinematog- Finally, that day is here, and not just for
rapher would,” he says. “That meant big-budget films.” print, which was soft from edge to edge Red (Saginaw
very static compositions, ‘bad’ lighting To be honest, we hope people and visibly grainy and faded. After Grant, left) and
Sven (Erik
with harsh shadows, and masking the will watch Formosa and assume it was watching Formosa on monitors for so Holland) capture
16x9 frame to the 1.33:1 aspect of the shot on 35mm. Luckily, it passed the test long, we all breathed a huge sigh of the action at
original 16mm films.” In post, the color for Oliver and me at a recent festival relief. I Formosa Studio.
was removed and digital dust, hair, screening, where it was projected from
gate-weave and scratches were added DigiBeta on Christie’s 2K digital projec-
to the footage to create a reasonable tor and directly followed the screening
facsimile of the vintage films. of a 35mm feature. Our images were
The rest of the post workflow pin-sharp and vibrantly colorful, notice-
brought additional challenges and some ably better than those of the 35mm

An Angry
Young
Man
D
A streetwise criminal epicting a few days in the life of
a young gangster on the streets
stows the infant in his dilapidated
shack, and over the next several days,
comes of age in of Johannesburg, Tsotsi is set in as he tries to figure out what to do, he
the South African a world many filmmakers
might have rendered with
begins grappling with an entirely new
set of feelings: empathy, responsibil-
film Tsotsi, visceral camerawork, an extreme ity and remorse.
photographed by color palette and dizzying editing
patterns. But the story, which
Although violence and insta-
bility pervade Tsotsi’s life, the film is
Lance Gewer and comes from a novel by Athol Fugard, an intimate study of his emotional
directed by called for another tack. The days in
question follow a carjacking that
and psychological evolution, and this
focus on the inner realm led direc-
Gavin Hood. leaves the gangster, Tsotsi (Presley tor/writer Gavin Hood, who adapted
Chweneyagae), in possession of a Fugard’s book for the screen, to offer
by Rachael K. Bosley newborn boy who was tucked away the project to director of photogra-
in the back seat when the car was phy Lance Gewer, a fellow South
Unit photography by Blid Alsbirk stolen. Panicked over the find, Tsotsi African whose work he had admired
30 March 2006

for some time. “Lance and I had world goes on all the time, but the continued to compile cinematogra- Opposite: Tsotsi
mutual friends in the industry, and I feature world doesn’t necessarily. phy credits, Gewer regularly returned (Presley
Chweneyagae)
bumped into him at the lab or the There have been eras of bad films and to the industry ranks to assist, but in scans the crowd
studio every so often, but I was aware eras of almost no films, but there have 1993 he decided to pursue cine- at a train station
of his work, particularly his early been periods when a flux of films matography full time. “I had to kind in search of his
next victim. This
short films, before I actually met enabled one to learn the ropes. I was of leave the mainstream industry to page: After
him,” says Hood. “He has a very clas- lucky to enter the industry during become a cinematographer because I choosing a mark,
sical eye, as well as a certain restraint one of those periods, the mid-1980s, found that trying to work my way Tsotsi and his
gang (from left),
that really allows the performances in and I worked on 13 features and through the industry held me back. Boston (Mothusi
the pieces he photographs to shine, almost 200 commercials as a camera I’d take a step away and do what I Magano),
and that’s very much what I needed assistant.” could do, and then I’d have to find my Butcher (Zenzo
Ngqobe) and Aap
for Tsotsi. I wanted to achieve a beau- By that time, however, Gewer way back in again.” (Kenneth Nkosi),
tiful film that you only think about as had left the cinematography program Before notching his first keep an eye on
beautiful after you’ve come out of the at Pretoria Technikon Film and feature credit on Beat the Drum the man as
passengers
story.” Television School and was already (2003), Gewer shot documentaries prepare to board
Born in Johannesburg, Gewer shooting and directing independent such as Mapun-gubwe — Secrets of the train.
has honed his skills on South African projects.A number of these were low- the Sacred Hill and White Farmers,
film and television projects for 20 budget 16mm features produced for Black Land, and short films such as
years. Although the country’s favor- African audiences and destined for Sacrifice and Come See the Bioscope
able weather and proximity to distribution in villages and town- (both of which he also directed). It
Europe have made it a favorite desti- ships, where they were typically was Gewer’s work on short films that
nation for commercial shoots, Gewer projected in people’s garages or caught Hood’s eye at film festivals
Photos courtesy of Miramax Films.
notes that apartheid and its compli- community halls. “We shot them in and other showcases in the region.
cated legacy have created an unusual three to five days with a crew of four,” “When I looked at Lance’s work, I felt
training ground for aspiring cine- he recalls. “The shoots were really we had a very similar way of seeing,”
matographers. “Working your way quick and nasty yet were an incredi- says the director. “I want every
up the industry ladder, especially ble experience. It was great to shoot moment in a film to count, and I
during the changes South Africa has film and work within those limita- attribute that to my background in
gone through in the time I’ve been tions because that’s ultimately what still photography, where you’re trying
involved, is not your normal experi- filmmaking is about: making the to capture an emotional moment.
ence,” he says. “The commercial most of what’s at your disposal.”As he You could freeze almost any frame in
American Cinematographer 31

An Angry Young Man
Above: In his Lance’s movies and it would feel like a I knew I needed an actor with an with a much bolder move.“The cine-
shack, Tsotsi
attempts to care
beautiful still that could stand on its extraordinary ability to communicate matography of Tsotsi lies in interiors,
for an infant that own. That’s a particular sensibility; thoughts, and, in order to read those the emotional states of the charac-
was left in his others see the world in a much more thoughts, a cinematographer who ters,” says Gewer. “There isn’t much
hands during a
carjacking.
kinetic way. would light and frame and shoot so camera movement, and when there is
Below: The “Tsotsi appears to be a gangster that we as director and cinematogra- a move it’s always dictated by the
smooth-talking story, but it’s actually much more an pher were not on display, but rather choreography of the characters and
Fela (Zola,
second from
intimate, coming-of-age story,” Hood the performance was on display.” the story. Our work was more about
left) takes continues.“Tsotsi transitions from an This emphasis on the internal keeping the camera quite still, exercis-
advantage of angry young man who does some led the filmmakers to develop a style ing restraint, studying the characters
Tsotsi’s
downtime by
really terrible things to a young man so subtle that a slight, slow push in on and trying to get to know them quite
trying to recruit who finally begins to know himself, a character has the kind of dramatic intimately. We worked with the
Butcher and and to make that transition believable impact that is more often achieved emotional beats of the story, trying to
Aap to work
for him.
32 March 2006

catch every nuance and implication.” The camera
moves behind
Hood adds, “When people heard a colored-glass
what Tsotsi was about, a number of mobile to
them said, ‘You should shoot it like assume Tsotsi’s
point of view
City of God,’ but stylistically our film as he watches
is closer to Central Station, more of a Miriam (Terry
one-on-one relationship movie. City Pheto) nurse
his new
of God is a great film and the hand- charge.
held style was appropriate for it, but
Tsotsi is not a chaotic story apart
from its opening scenes. We had to
get the audience right into Tsotsi’s
mind, and he’s initially somebody
most viewers feel is very different
from them. I didn’t want to use
handheld because I didn’t want the
audience to feel we were in the room,
documenting; I didn’t want to look
at the character in a vérité way.”
One of the first decisions the
filmmakers made was to shoot in
Super 35mm. Gewer explains,
“Gavin’s intention was to make an
intensely emotional and engaging
psychological thriller set in a world
of contrasts — love and hate, wealth
and poverty, revenge and forgive-
ness, anger and compassion — and
widescreen was the only way we
could visually tell that story. We
needed to get a sense of the charac-
ters in the space and the broadness of
that space; it’s a world vulnerable
people inhabit.” Noting that the
production’s original budget was
even more modest than the final one
of $3 million, he adds, “We didn’t shot, and if you’re tracking with an boards, which the director describes
have enough money to shoot actor you can push in during the as “bad South Park drawings”
widescreen, but the producers [Peter movement and disguise a zoom.” He intended to indicate “what the
Fudakowski and Paul Raleigh] went cites his focus puller, Pam Laxen, for emotional beats of the scene are.” He
out and raised it. They were behind her excellence in the field. “Pam has elaborates, “I had a lot to say about
us all the way.” worked on about 50 features and is the angles because I feel the way you
Most of Tsotsi was filmed with an incredibly good assistant. We shot photograph an actor has a huge
a single camera, a Moviecam roughly 80 percent of Tsotsi at night, impact on the emotion conveyed by
Compact, and Zeiss Variable Prime and we were shooting wide open. We his performance. There’s a time when
lenses. Gewer also used Angenieux were always taking the stop right you know you want to be in tight and
5:1 17-102mm and 10:1 25-250mm down for extra depth. Pam copes a time you really want to back off;
zooms and a Canon 400mm prime, with this situation extremely well and that decision is emotional, and out of
but the Variable Primes carried the is also very good at running the space that decision you then compose the
day. “Our shoot was about eight around the camera for me; she helps image to be also beautiful. I talk with
weeks, and the Variable Primes others do what they need to do in an my cinematographer a lot about
helped us save time,” he notes. un-chaotic way.” framing and composition because
“Instead of physically moving the The filmmakers occasionally that to me is part of the emotional
camera you can slightly reframe the worked from Hood’s rough story- core of the storytelling. On Tsotsi, we

An Angry Young Man
Right: Setting up
a crane move
that will track
the gang as it
leaves Tsotsi’s
shack are
director of
photography
Lance Gewer
(foreground),
gaffer Oliver
Wilter (center)
and key grip Ari
Stavrinos.
Below: In
preparation for
the shot, Gewer
checks the light
on the actors.
favored being very wide or pretty

tight. There’s not much in between.”
Tsotsi was shot mostly on loca-
tion in Kliptown, Soweto, during
South Africa’s winter. When Gewer
began scouting the area, he found
himself on some of the same streets
he had haunted while filming low-
budget features two decades earlier.
“In those days, we’d drive around and
look for a suitable location — some-
thing that could pose as a hospital or
police station, for example — and
when we found one we’d transform it
a bit and just start filming. By chance,
we ended up using many of the same
sites for Tsotsi, and they hadn’t really
changed.”
As they developed their light-
ing scheme, Gewer and his gaffer,
Oliver Wilter, took their cues from
the locations, which included an
urban train station, a middle-class
suburb, and the impoverished town-
ship on the outskirts of the city. “The
lighting in those areas is all very
different,” notes Gewer. “The town-
ships have a mix of sodium and
mercury light — oranges and greens
— radiating from the big security
lights that illuminate these large
34 March 2006

areas. Even today, many people still one of his friends, Boston (Mothusi Gewer. “For the first part of the shot, After a thought-
provoking
don’t have electricity in their homes, Magano), at a neighborhood bar. we used a Steadicam [operated by encounter with a
so they use oil lamps, candles and coal After Tsotsi runs out of the bar, the Deon Vermeulen] to follow Tsotsi as homeless man
fires inside. We looked at 8 Mile for camera picks him up and follows him he runs into shot and down a narrow near the train
station, Tsotsi
the way it made use of mixed lighting; through a dark alley, then down alley between the shacks. At the end heads back to
we wanted that kind of texture, as through a river and out across a large, of the alley, the camera loses sight of the township for
gritty a feel as we could achieve. Tsotsi grassy expanse that separates his him for a moment and wipes over a the night. For
most of the
is an antihero, and we felt it was very township from a distant suburb. “We sheet of corrugated iron, where we picture, the
important to be honest to the charac- combined two shots to achieve this dissolve to the next shot. The second filmmakers
ter. We used a lot of sodium and and used a disguised wipe/dissolve so shot was done with my operator, strove to keep
the character
mercury bulbs in practicals on set, it would appear as one shot,” says Marc Brower, using an Arri geared dead center in
but we used them mostly in the back- the frame, “as
ground while keeping the skin tones though he’s on a
track he can’t get
clean and natural. off of,” says
“Oliver and I have done quite a director Gavin
few productions together, and he and Hood. Left:
Gewer and Hood
his team were incredible,” Gewer discuss their
continues.“We were working very fast next shot.
and usually at night, and we didn’t
have Wendy lights or helium
balloons, so we lit really big night
exteriors with 18K and 12K HMIs,
20K incandescents, and 6K and 4K
CinePars that were mounted on high
riser stands and kept as far from the
subject as possible. This gave us quite
an interesting, contrasty effect. The
terrain — the fields, the grass and the
roads — became quite gritty as
opposed to soft.”
The film’s largest setup was a
night exterior that appears early in the
film, after Tsotsi has savagely beaten

An Angry Young Man
Right: Taken by right from the alley, where we used a
Gewer with his
mobile phone lot of small [150-watt, 300-watt, 650-
during a location watt, 1K and 2K] incandescents — as
scout, this photo well as a few small HMIs for ‘moon-
of a butchery in
Kliptown light’ — out to the big field, which we
inspired a illuminated with a variety of HMIs,
lighting motif CinePars and 20K incandescents.”
that appears
throughout While scouting in the town-
Tsotsi in several ship, Gewer came upon a lighting
variations. motif that he decided to use through-
Dubbed
“butcher’s pink,” out the picture to subtly underscore
the motif Tsotsi’s psychological state. “While
underscores driving around Kliptown at night, we
Tsotsi’s growing
awareness of came across a little butchery that was
what’s missing set apart by its green and pink fluo-
from his life. rescent lighting. This inspired a
Below:
“Butcher’s pink” recurring theme in our lighting. It’s
enlivens the look quite subtle, but you’ll notice a hint of
of Miriam’s pink light in the background of many
shack as Tsotsi
watches her shots — we called it ‘butcher’s pink.’ I
bathe his infant. think of it as a suggestion of the love
and compassion Tsotsi yearns for in
head on a [31-foot] Giraffe crane. It “As he runs across the field, it his harsh world.” It was quite a chal-
begins by wiping over the same sheet begins to rain; we used two rain lenge to get the pale-pink hue to
of corrugated iron [to accommodate machines in the foreground to create register on film, however. “It’s a diffi-
the dissolve] and climbs into the air the effect. This shot was done around cult color to work with and needed to
to reveal Tsotsi running away from midnight on one of the coldest nights be carefully exposed and timed to
the camera. He runs down a hill, of the year, and the water from the read right on film, even down to the
through a river, up the embankment rain machine froze as it landed! I was projector lamp; if the lamp was too
on the other side, and across a using Kodak’s Vision2 500T [5218], bright, it would cause the pink to read
massive, burnt field toward the which I rated at [ISO] 400, and lit the as an off-white pink. On set, I found
suburb in the distance. scene to about T2. We had to light myself using two or three times more
36 March 2006

gels on the sources than I expected to shack belonging to Miriam (Terry little nest, a place that had the Above: A hint of
“butcher’s
just to get it to read.” Pheto), a young woman in the town- elements Tsotsi was searching for in pink” is cast on
One example of the “butcher’s ship. After spotting her with her own life: love, compassion and normality,” the background
pink” motif can be seen in a night- baby, Tsotsi follows her home and says Gewer. “We built the interiors of wall as Tsotsi
tracks a
exterior wide shot in which Tsotsi forces her at gunpoint to help care for Miriam’s and Tsotsi’s shacks on a wheelchair-
follows a wheelchair-bound homeless his. Though their relationship is stage, and [production designer] bound
man under a highway bridge. Many initially antagonistic, he is drawn Emilia Weavind and the art depart- homeless man
underneath a
practical fixtures were used in the back to her home because it exudes ment did a fantastic job of it. That’s bridge. Below:
shot, and one is a fluorescent fixture everything that is missing from his where we had most of the scenes with Gewer prepares
that casts pale-pink light on a wall far life. “Miriam’s shack had to suggest a the baby, and Gavin wanted to be able for one of the
film’s many
behind the action. “On the wall, we night exteriors.
placed practical fluorescent tubes
gelled with two sheets of Lee Flesh
Pink and enough ND filtration to
sufficiently dim the color so it would
read as pink on film rather than
blown-out white,” says Gewer. “We
supplemented this with a 5K Fresnel
gelled with two layers of Flesh Pink to
create the pink falloff on the wall
under the fluorescent light. I believe
we also added some CTO to enhance
the color. We shot this scene on 5218
and exposed it at T2 to capture the
existing lights and natural ambience
of the city. To suggest the isolation of
the characters in the vast and threat-
ening space, I used 10mm and 14mm
lenses for wide shots and long lenses
for full shots and close-ups.”
Another place where
“butcher’s pink” appears is in the

An Angry Young Man
Ensconced in his Everything is designed to not pull
shack, Tsotsi you out of what’s going on in his
contemplates his
options. “Presley head.” Lighting Tsotsi’s shack “was
is quite a unique about creating another world, a
character, and world in which this character lives
I’ve never
worked with an but loves very little,” says Gewer. “It
actor like him,” also had to suggest a haven, a place
Gewer says of where he feels safe, secure and in
Chweneyagae,
who had never control. It’s the place where he comes
been in a film to terms with himself, and the light-
before. “He was ing changes a lot from scene to scene
always in
character, but it according to his mood. I feel lighting
didn’t distract can be quite imaginary in that sense
him when — it’s sometimes about creating
someone talked
to him; he did to what’s in the mind of the character as
a T what we well as suggesting reality. We had to
asked him to do, get at what each scene was about: is
and he did it
without losing Tsotsi feeling vulnerable or secure?
character.” “In the moodier scenes, the
shack is dark except for a single
candle on the table that appears to
light Tsotsi’s face — I used 150-watt
incandescent lamps to re-create that
feel — and shafts of light created by
several HMIs coming through little
holes in the corrugated-metal walls,”
continues the cinematographer.
“Depending on the time of day, we
also used smoke. People in the town-
ships make coal and wood fires every
day at about 4 a.m. and then again in
the afternoon, thousands and thou-
sands of fires. In winter you can
hardly breathe, let alone see more
than 30 meters in front of you,
because of the smoke these fires
to work very closely with the actors sources and incandescent lamps create.”
on those scenes.” through the windows, and we placed Throughout the shoot, Gewer
Miriam’s shack features pale different colored glass in some of the used a 150-watt Pepper as an eyelight
blue walls and curtains, and the frames.” for Chweneyagae, who appears in
“butcher’s pink”is created by sunlight In Tsotsi’s shack, Weavind almost every scene. “If anything was
coming through a window made of limited the color palette to rusts and my brief, that was it: we had to see
pink glass. “Homes in the townships reds.“Emilia, Lance and I talked quite Presley’s eyes at all times. His eyes are
are made of materials other people a bit about how to get into Tsotsi’s the world of the story. We kept the
have disposed of, so you see lots of mind without using voiceover,” says Pepper’s intensity very low. All it had
corrugated metal and window frames Hood. “I really wanted to feel every to do was twinkle in his eyes to bring
with glass that isn’t the norm,” notes flicker of thought in his head, which them out.”
Gewer. “Miriam’s and Tsotsi’s shacks meant the audience had to focus on Tsotsi was finished with a digi-
had to suggest that homemade qual- the actor as rapidly as possible in tal intermediate (DI) at The Video
ity. Her shack is warmer and a lot every scene. We chose to strip down Lab in Johannesburg, but the deci-
more colorful than his, partly because the interior [of his shack] and use sion to do a digital grade wasn’t made
of the colored-glass mobiles she has three or four shades of the same until after the shoot got underway.
made for her baby. For day scenes in color. Similarly, the only color he “Video Lab was considering bringing
her shack we filled in with soft wears apart from black is red. in a [Discreet] Lustre, but it didn’t
38 March 2006

become a certainty until after we’d
started shooting,” says Gewer. “When
they got the Lustre we ran some tests,
and for me it was quite a tossup.
Gavin and I both felt the footage that
was timed photochemically was tech-
nically superior, but we knew what
we stood to lose if we didn’t do a DI.
We wouldn’t have been able to effect
shots the way we did, and we would-
n’t have been able to give the picture
the same consistent grade.” Hood
adds, “From the producing/delivery
point of view, we thought the DI
would be helpful in the event Tsotsi
sold around the world. We were
shooting in widescreen and had to
deliver multiple versions, including
an HD 16x9 version, a 4x3 version,
and subtitled and non-subtitled
versions. In all there were about nine
versions of the film, and when you
can store all nine versions in the digi-
tal world, it makes your file delivery
that much easier.”
Nevertheless, Gewer embarked
on the shoot with a photochemical
finish in mind. “We shot the film as
though it would be finished on film,
and that forced us to be quite disci-
plined during the shoot,” says the
cinematographer. “We achieved the
look we wanted [on the negative] and
enhanced some scenes, especially in
Tsotsi’s shack, during the digital
grade.” The DI also enabled Gewer to
even out South Africa’s harsh, toppy
sunlight on day exteriors. “We often
darkened the foreground to achieve
greater depth in the image so the eye
would travel off into the distance. We
didn’t use many filters on the lens.”
Hood notes that the DI was
particularly helpful for a tricky exte-
rior that was shot in waning light. In
the scene, Tsotsi takes the baby to one
of his childhood homes, a set of large,
concrete construction pipes on the
outskirts of the township. The pipes
are inhabited by several young
orphans who approach Tsotsi with a
mix of curiosity and suspicion. “We
had to shoot that scene in a single
afternoon, and it’s full of little chil-
39

An Angry Young Man
pressure to maintain the feel of late- colorist, but the team, which was
afternoon light for the whole scene, working from a hi-def monitor, had
and he did a brilliant job. We got the to start from scratch after the initial
wide shots with great, late-afternoon film-outs revealed inaccuracies in the
horizon views that give the scene look-up tables. “We’d had DVD
depth; then, as the sun slowly disap- dailies telecined at 2K [by The Video
peared, we framed to keep the sky out Lab] throughout the shoot, and even
of some remaining close-ups and though focus wasn’t critical and the
Lance kept giving us light, knowing color rendition wasn’t accurate, they
that as long as the scene was well lit proved to be a very good reference
and well exposed he would be able to during the grading process,” says
manipulate it [in post]. He filled in Gewer. “When problematic shots
with reflectors and then, when the arose in the grade, Gavin and I knew
sun was actually gone, with two 18Ks. what the negative really looked like
Gewer and 1st dren who’d never been on camera There’s no doubt the original images because we’d seen the rushes.
AC Pam Laxen
share a laugh before,” says Hood. “In fact, some would have held up, but the DI was a “The grade took 12 weeks
between takes. were orphans who actually lived in marvelous tool for bringing lighting altogether, and after setting the look
and around the area. We had to get continuity to that scene.” with Gavin and Brett, I had to move
wide shots, close-ups and reverses, The production’s footage was on to another project,” he continues.
and the sun was going down. It’s the processed by The Film Lab, The “Because of limited storage we
kind of scene you would shoot over Video Lab’s sister facility, and was couldn’t have all the reels up at one
two or three days if you had the subsequently scanned at 2K on a time, but we eventually got to the
budget, but we had to get it in about Spirit DataCine. Gewer spent about point where we could do four at a
five hours between midday and four weeks in the DI suite with Hood time. It was the first DI carried out on
sunset. Lance was under enormous and Brett Manson, a dedicated Lustre the Lustre in South Africa, and Brett

did amazingly well. Seeing the this,” he says. “When it came around, have to look through the camera to
process through from film to the we just knew — we didn’t know how feel it. We knew we were making a
digital domain; integrating all the great it would be or that it would really good film that would be impor-
effects, titles and subtitles; and then achieve what is has achieved, we just tant for a long time to come.” I
recording out to film was a big test.” knew it would be a great film to
The color-corrected files were trans- make. It’s an opportunity I’m
ferred to 35mm with a Kodak completely thankful for and
Lightning 11 Laser Recorder. Festival humbled by.
prints were made on Kodak Vision “It was definitely the most
Premier 2393, and general-release difficult film I’ve ever done, but also
prints were made on Vision 2383. the most rewarding,” continues TECHNICAL SPECS
Tsotsi made its U.S. debut last Gewer. “Every setup was intense Super 35mm 2.35:1
fall at the AFI Fest, and Miramax emotionally; there were no cutaways
Films began releasing it in the States or simple establishing shots. Moviecam Compact
late last month. It was South Africa’s Fortunately, the actors were incredi- Zeiss, Angenieux and Canon
submission for this year’s Academy bly good, our producers had real lenses
Award for Best Foreign Language respect for the medium and didn’t Kodak Vision2 100T 5212,
Film, and Gewer was recently invited hold us back, and our director had a Vision2 200T 5217,
to discuss his work at the very strong visual sense and knew Vision2 500T 5218
Camerimage Film Festival, where how to tell a story collaboratively. The
Tsotsi was screened in competition movie required of all of us everything Digital Intermediate
with 14 other features from around we had to give, and making it had a Printed on
the world. “Many of us who worked profound effect on everyone. The Kodak Vision Premier 2393 and
on Tsotsi had been in the industry for spirit and energy were tangible every Vision 2383
a long time, searching for a film like minute we were on set; one didn’t
41

Heart
and Soul
Ellen Kuras, ASC captures Neil Young in concert at
Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium.
by John Pavlus
Unit photography by Ken Regan

Additional photos by Ellen Kuras
W
hen friendly locals in the It’d be great to have an opportunity the live-performance arena for Block
village of Nyack, New York, to work with him someday.’ A week Party, Michel Gondry’s quasi-docu-
shoot the breeze, it might later, Jonathan called and asked if I’d mentary performance portrait of
lead to a game of cards or a like to work with him on a concert comedian Dave Chappelle, and was
backyard barbecue. But film with Neil Young! Jonathan’s the able to bring that experience to bear
when the locals are Ellen Kuras, kind of person and director who on Demme’s film. Their collabora-
ASC and director Jonathan puts things into action right away.” tion turned out to be a “concert
Demme, it can lead to a once-in-a- Demme, of course, is no film” in name only, fusing grand aes-
lifetime collaboration with a leg- stranger to concert films, having thetic flourishes with disarming inti-
endary recording artist. Such was created one of the genre’s contem- macy to pay tribute to the famous
the genesis of the concert film Neil porary classics, Stop Making Sense Ryman Auditorium and the musi-
Young: Heart of Gold, which Kuras (1984). Shot by Jordan Cronenweth, cian Kuras calls “one of the greatest
filmed in Nashville’s historic Ryman ASC, that film famously eschewed musical, political and spiritual inspi-
Auditorium last fall. “Jonathan was audience cutaways and other con- rations I’ve ever had.”
kind enough to loan me a room in ventional coverage in favor of a The director of photography
his editing suite in Nyack for two more stylized approach to its sub- on such films as Eternal Sunshine of
months, and he and I often talked jects, The Talking Heads. Although the Spotless Mind (see AC April ’04),
over coffee,” recalls Kuras.“One day, Heart of Gold marks Kuras’ first Blow (AC March ’01) and Summer of
during one of those chats, I said, foray into rock-concert cinematog- Sam (AC June ’99), Kuras earned
‘I’m such a huge fan of Neil Young. raphy, she had recently worked in plaudits for her work in digital video
42 March 2006

on the features Personal Velocity (AC Super 16] and three 25-250mm [50- dichroic glass wedges. “I was very Opposite: An
overview of the
April ’02) and Bamboozled, but she 500mm in Super 16] Angenieux particular about the difference stage shows the
took a determinedly analog approach HRs. “I was lucky to get those because color doesn’t feel as deep or effect of a
to Heart of Gold, shooting in Super Optimas — thanks to Charlie round when it’s electronically gener- carefully lit,
richly hued
16mm. “A lot of the mikes and mon- Tammaro at CSC — because we ated,” says Kuras.“I even asked a per- backdrop. Ellen
itors in the Neil Young world are ana- were on a tight budget. son to stand onstage and lit half his Kuras, ASC says
log. He uses old instruments that “The Ryman was formerly a face with a gelled Par can and the the intention
was to create
have an distinctive timbre, a round- tabernacle church, and given that it’s other half with a moving light, and I the feel of “a
ness to their sound,” she says. “In a such a small venue, we had ordered found the feeling just wasn’t the series of
way, some of my work has been in the a number of moving lights to save same.” Fortunately, John Nadeau, paintings within
a painting.” This
same vein — I still used the old space so we wouldn’t have to hang Kuras’ longtime gaffer, came to the page, top: Close-
[Eastman EXR 200T] 5293 stock 10 lights for different focus positions rescue. With less than two days left ups provide an
when [Vision 200T] 5274 became or color,” she continues. When it before showtime, Nadeau proposed intimate view of
the performer.
available — so I was very excited to came time to rig the Ryman’s light- replacing most of the moving lights Below: Bathed
keep the feeling of this concert with- ing grid, Kuras was compelled to with Par cans and Lekos. Kuras in an orange
in the analog world.” She didn’t use reconsider using gelled tungsten Par admits she was slightly incredulous glow, Young
belts out a tune.
5293 this time, but she did choose cans rather than the electronic mov- at first. “I looked at him cross-eyed
another Kodak stock, the high-speed ing lights, which comprised 32 and said, ‘Can we really afford that
Vision2 500T 7218, to wring the
maximum range out of low light.
“Neil is ultra-sensitive to bright light,
so I didn’t want to blind him. Super
16 is so good now that I knew we’d be
fine with the digital blowup, yet I
knew it would still be a struggle to get
a good stop.”
The tough stop was exacerbat-
ed by the production’s zoom-heavy
Photos and frame grabs courtesy of Paramount Classics.
lens package; at T3.5, some of the

zooms were considerably slower than
their corresponding prime lengths.
“And I knew I didn’t want to shoot
the older 35mm Angenieux zoom
lenses wide open,” adds Kuras. “The
real sweet spot is closer to a T4,
although the Optimas still perform
spectacularly at T2.8.” Her 35mm
optics, which she chose “not only for
their clarity but also for their throw,
because there wasn’t enough stop to
put extenders on Super 16 lenses,”
included three 24-290mm Angenieux
Optimas [equivalent to 48-580mm in

Heart and Soul
Above: The use kind of time?’ At that point, we had This task was no small feat, given the show,” explains Kuras. “Our show
of varied just two more hours till the band layered visual concept Demme had wasn’t an advertisement, but [the
backdrops and
lighting cues would come in to rehearse. But John conceived with Kuras, which backdrops] lent so much to the film
allowed the said, ‘I know how important this involved massive, richly hued back- thanks to Michael Zansky’s paint-
filmmakers to film is to you, and you’ll live with it drops sliding in and out behind the brush. They’re like landscapes of
create a diverse
array of looks for the rest of your life, so why not musicians “like a series of paintings memory, which echoes the
for the concerts. do what your intuition says?’ So for within a painting.” However, the Canadian prairie/childhood Neil
Below: Young the next two hours, the electricians filmmakers were eager to visually sings about, without being literal. We
performs
“Falling off the just went crazy. I can’t tell you how reference the Ryman’s storied musi- wanted each song to be like a paint-
Face of the relieved I was when I saw the differ- cal history, even at the expense of ing within a painting.”
Earth.” ence it made the next morning.” simpler logistics. “When the Ryman In further homage to the
By that time, Kuras and used to do old radio concerts, the Ryman’s radio-show tradition,
Nadeau had just 36 hours to design backdrops were advertisements for Demme moved the musicians
and light the entire 20-song concert. whomever was sponsoring the around the stage for every song. In
44 March 2006

the old days, musicians would shuf- Kuras and her crew toiled for got the cue to put the lights on Kuras, a
fle around in a similar fashion while 20 hours straight the day before the behind the curtain! So all of a sud- longtime
admirer of
waiting their turns at the mike. “I show, grabbed six hours of rest, den we were frantically trying to Young’s music,
couldn’t just use the same lights in and then began again at 6 the fol- reset that cue so the musicians could says the
the same spots for the bass player or lowing morning, continuing “liter- see what they were doing behind the performer was
intent on
background singers,” says Kuras. “In ally until the curtain opened.” curtain before it opened. Steve’s fin- celebrating the
addition to being quite a lighting Lighting 20 song-scenes in one sus- gers were going like wildfire.” Ryman’s history
challenge, the dynamic choreogra- tained burst “was about serious “I started prep on the film while also
reflecting upon
phy was an invaluable learning expe- intuition,” laughs the cinematogra- after Ellen had been living with the his own life
rience about the spatial relationships pher. Of course, it also helped to album for weeks,” recalls Nadeau, experiences.
of sound and how musicians work have a lighting-board operator, “and in our first conversation, we
together.”But the old concerts had at Steve Leiberman, who “was pro- both gravitated to the mood of the
least one element in common that gramming all the cues in at light- song ‘Falling off the Face of the
made Kuras’ job slightly easier: they ning speed.” That particular skill, Earth.’ Ellen described the feeling as
all used stage footlights.“Those were Kuras adds wryly, helped avert a ‘the very last ray of light before an
our secret light source; they meant near-catastrophe just before show- eclipse.’What imagery. We ended up
we had consistently perfect eyelight time: “When we started shooting, with a deep-blue horizon back-
for Neil.” we had the front lights up but for- ground, which silhouetted the band,

Heart and Soul
Kuras strove for a stylized
approach, but unlike Stop Making
Sense, which was assembled from
takes captured over several concerts,
Heart of Gold is a record of just two
performances. Although nine Arri
SR-3 cameras ensured a variety
of compositions, Kuras’ lighting
couldn’t possibly be tailored to all of
them. “In the end, John [Nadeau]
and I decided that our ‘series of
paintings’ concept meant we should
light for the wide shots rather than
the close-ups. We also had to accept
that having cameras covering 360
degrees meant we would sometimes
be fully lit on the camera side. But
the close-ups from the two wing
cameras were terrific because we
were able to capture an intimacy.”
Choreographing the posi-
tions and framing of the nine cam-
eras was actually the last element of
Above: Kuras and a skid/book light — a Leko Candidate, lighting the massive con- Heart of Gold to come together.
(seated, front) going into a reflector through Opal vention scene. “Jeff was fantastic, During a two-week prep, Demme
and Young pose
with several
diffusion — for Neil.” especially in helping us pick out and Kuras plotted out compositions
other members A Los Angeles lighting music cues to accentuate the lighting for seven cameras, but they later
of the camera designer, Jeff Ravitz, was brought in and giving advice on moving lights decided to order two more in order
crew (standing,
from left):
to help Kuras with the unique prob- and specific units we weren’t accus- to give more attention to the back-
operator Jack lem of mounting a concert. Ravitz tomed to using,” says Kuras. “He ground musicians. “Originally
Donnelly, 1st specializes in concerts and awards helped us tailor the look so it would Jonathan said he wanted 80 percent
AC Peter
Morello, 1st AC
shows and had worked with translate as a stage show as well as of the movie to be about Neil,” says
Jay Feather, Demme on The Manchurian for nine cameras.” Kuras, “but one of the things I love
operator about the film is that Jonathan chose
Charlie Libin,
1st AC Dave
to highlight some of the musicians
Mellow, you’d never see in a concert film. To
operator Peter be able to see the bass player and his
Agliata
(partially
little idiosyncratic movements is
visible), fantastic.” At one point, the movie
operator Alison even awards a roadie his close-up as
Kelly, and
1st AC Kip
he carries off one of Young’s guitars
McDonald. during a scene change and then
Seated next to stands in the wings, enjoying the
Kuras is Rick
Gioia, her
next song.
1st AC. Eight of the camera positions
Right: Kuras were to be fixed, while a Steadicam
goes over some
details with the
roved the stage and wings through-
crew. out the performance. However,
Demme’s desire to establish musical
relationships in the frame spurred
Kuras to mount four of the fixed
cameras, including two in the wings,
on dollies. “Jonathan really wanted
to show the relationship between
46 March 2006

Heart and Soul
Kuras covers a cussed framing with the eight other
talking point camera operators — ASC member
with director
Jonathan
Declan Quinn, Chris Norr, Charlie
Demme. Libin, Alison Kelly, Tony Janelli,
Peter Agliata, Jack Donnelly, and
Mark Schmidt — as well as
Steadicam operator Kyle Rudolph.
The crew had just one camera run-
through during the concert’s final
dress rehearsal.
Very long takes were a given
for covering the musicians’ continu-
ous performance, and Kuras’ crew
outfitted most of the camera maga-
zines with 800' loads. Demme also
wanted continuous coverage of
Young throughout the show, so
using the dress rehearsal as a refer-
ence, camera assistant Rick Gioia
conferred with the film’s editors to
devise staggered coverage that would
Neil and the horns, or Neil and the changed from song to song. The rest prevent rollouts from occurring
background singers, so we had to be of the cameras were placed on plat- during key moments. “A couple of
able to move the cameras slightly to forms in the audience, just below the cameras started rolling a few
reframe, given that the blocking Neil’s eyeline.” Demme also dis- minutes before the concert even
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48

started, just to make sure we would when I asked to see his dailies!” chance of a lifetime,” says the cine-
be covered within the staggered sys- What plays out over the film’s matographer. “Both men have
tem,” says Kuras. closing credits is a coda comprising greatly influenced my creative, per-
Bookending the concert are nothing but Young, a guitar and an sonal and professional life, and I was
two interludes that establish the empty auditorium. “Jonathan envi- ready to do whatever it took to make
film’s themes of simplicity and inti- sioned this moment to happen this film the best I could. I was
macy. Heart of Gold begins with a immediately after the last audience thrilled to have an opportunity to
grainy, handheld view of Nashville’s member left the Ryman,” says Kuras. work with both of them.” I
modest skyline from the window of “I didn’t have time to light it as a sep-
a moving car, and then proceeds arate piece, so I ran around and
into a suite of vérité -style interviews turned off lights.” Although three
(also conducted from the passenger cameras were hastily set up onstage,
seat of a car) with individual musi- the song plays out in a single, unin- TECHNICAL SPECS
cians as they converge on the Ryman terrupted take. Facing the empty
1.85:1
to unload their instruments. With seats and framed by the Ryman’s Super 16mm
Kuras’ encouragement, Demme magnificent painted windows,
filmed all of this material himself on Young strums an abbreviated ver- Arri SR-3
MiniDV.“He really wanted to be the sion of “Old Laughing Lady” before Canon 16mm lenses;
only one in the car with the musi- packing up and exiting the building. Angenieux 35mm lenses
cians, so I just set [the camera] up as Young was so impressed with Kodak Vision2 500T 7218
much as I could and said, Kuras’ work that he has since asked
‘Godspeed.’ At the time, I was in the her to light his performances on Late Digital Intermediate
middle of trying to get all the light- Night with Conan O’Brien and
ing organized, so I certainly had my Saturday Night Live. “Working with Printed on Fuji F-CP 3513DI
hands full. We laughed together both Jonathan and Neil was the

Retro
Sexy
Cinematographer Mott
Hupfel re-creates the
visual essence of the
1950s for The Notorious
Bettie Page, which details
the life and times of an
erotic icon.
by John Calhoun
Unit photography by John Walsh
50 March 2006

A
s she demonstrated with the Opposite: Pinup
films I Shot Andy Warhol and model Bettie
Page (Gretchen
American Psycho, Mary Mol) strikes a
Harron is not a director lack- playful pose.
ing in stylistic vision. For her This page, top:
Photographer
latest project, The Notorious Bettie Paula Klaw (Lili
Page, she wanted to construct a time Taylor) and her
capsule of the 1950s. “Mary’s idea husband, Irving,
recruit Bettie as
was that you would feel for a a fetish model.
moment that this is an old movie Bottom: Bettie
from the Fifties that we’d found and also catches the
eye of Miami-
are showing to you,” says director of based
photography Mott Hupfel.“That led photographer
us into decisions we were advised Bunny Yeager
(Sarah Paulson).
against but fought for valiantly.”
Shooting in black-and-white for the
bulk of the movie, which charts
Page’s brief, infamous career as an
S&M pinup girl and stag-film star,
wasn’t in itself a controversial deci-
sion, but the filmmakers’ insistence
on using black-and-white negative
was considered risky. The picture’s
occasional shifts to vivid color fur-
ther complicated technical matters,
as did Harron and Hupfel’s attempts
to avoid any kind of digital finish.
Their visual scheme was nothing if
not ambitious, especially given the
project’s $6 million budget.
But the duo considered their
ambitions crucial to capturing the
distinct vibe of the period, and of a
culture that considered the spectacle
of a wholesome-looking American
girl in a black pageboy haircut and
bondage gear so scandalous. The
Notorious Bettie Page follows the
erotic icon (played by Gretchen
Mol) from her youth in Nashville,
through her career as a New York
photo model and eventual target of
a 1955 U.S. Senate investigation into
pornography, and her fade into con-
tented obscurity at the end of the
Photos courtesy of Picturehouse.
decade.
Prior to The Notorious Bettie
Page, Hupfel had only one high-pro-
file feature to his credit: the black-
and-white picture The American
Astronaut, which brought him an
Independent Spirit Award nomina-
tion in 2002. The New York
University film-school graduate

Retro Sexy
Right: The spent much of the 1990s assisting issue for Harron.“I don’t think Mary
demure, cinematographers Lee Daniel and would have gone anywhere else,”says
guileless Bettie
waits to testify Mike Spiller before breaking out on Hupfel, who is based in the city.
at Senate his own with music videos and doc- “She’s Canadian and she’s not one to
hearings umentaries.“Mary and her husband say no to Canada, but she was very
probing the
impact of watched American Astronaut,” says adamant about telling this story in
pornography on Hupfel, “and her husband said, ‘You New York.” The storefront studio
the nation’s should check this guy out.’ I think where Bettie did much of her work
youth, where
some of her she was reluctant, but we met and for Irving Klaw (Chris Bauer) and
fetish photos really got along. At the end of the his sister, Paula (Lili Taylor), was re-
serve as prime meeting, I said, ‘It’s going to be hard created in a Bleecker Street location,
examples.
Below: Page to get me [approved] for this and the production also ventured to
takes charge. because I haven’t done very many other areas in Greenwich Village,
movies,’ but she said, ‘Don’t be so where Page took acting lessons, and
sure.’ I soon learned that when Mary the beach at Coney Island, where she
says something will happen, it will posed for her first photos.“Trying to
happen.” find locations in New York where
Filming on location in New there isn’t a single modern amenity
York was another non-negotiable is impossible,” notes Hupfel.“On the
beach at Coney Island, we’d move
the camera four feet in one direction
so that the streetlight a mile away
would be hidden behind a tree
branch.”
The film’s production sched-
ule ran 32 days, with a week in
Miami at the end of the shoot.
(Scenes set in Tennessee were shot in
Haverstraw, New Jersey.) Several
weeks of prep gave Hupfel time to
conduct tests and determine the best
approach for the monochrome visu-
als. “Mary and I talked about black-
and-white movies we liked, and our
main references were old Sam Fuller
movies like Pickup on South Street
and Underworld, U.S.A. Other
movies we looked at were Buñuel’s
Wuthering Heights, for the formality,
and Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of
Petra Von Kant, for the fetishization
of shoes.”
But the Fuller films, particu-
larly Pickup on South Street,
remained the primary point of refer-
ence.“It’s the period and the [visual]
economy,” explains Hupfel. “In
terms of lighting, those movies
weren’t really classic, super-contrasty
black-and-white; they were kind of
overlit. I tried to keep some of that
[quality].” Possibly responding to a
remote quality that he and Harron
found appropriate for their story, as
52 March 2006

well as an air of tawdriness that
echoed Page’s work, Hupfel saw
something else while watching the
Fuller movies: “I think we were
looking at old prints or mediocre
video transfers. The windows were
blown out in a certain way, and I
tried to put some of that into the
movie so it’s almost like you’re
watching an old, bad print of a
movie. I worked really hard to make
sure all the windows and lamps and
reflections on floors burned out just
a bit more than they should. We
used a lot of diffusion, we pushed
the film stock, and we did all sorts of
things to make it look slightly
degraded.”
The studio’s initial suggestion
that the filmmakers shoot on color
stock and pull the color out in a dig-
ital intermediate (DI) was rejected
because Harron believed the result
would not look enough like the
Fifties. Yet because Bettie Page
includes color sequences, printing
on black-and-white was never a
realistic option. “Woody Allen [and
Gordon Willis, ASC] did it on Zelig
— cutting A and B rolls of black-
and-white and color,” says Hupfel.
“It can be done, but it gets really
complicated. Not all theaters have
the dual-system sound that’s neces-
sary to project it. Also, it would have
been necessary to splice black-and-
white into color in some instances,
and HBO [Picturehouse] was con- Plus-X 5231, pushed two stops, as gets smoothed out.” To cut down on Bettie enjoys a
cerned about sending prints full of their camera negative. “Then I used the contrast added by printing to moment of
romance on a
splices all over the country, which is different diffusion filters, Tiffen color, Hupfel and his gaffer, beach in Miami.
understandable. It was always in the Black Pro-Mist 1⁄8 to 1⁄2, depending Timothy Berg, used “an absurd Cinematographer
back of my mind that we were going on the tone of the scene, to help the amount of fill light,” says the cine- Mott Hupfel
strove to lend the
to get a black-and-white print for lights bloom and take the edge off matographer. “Everyone on set film’s Florida
festivals, but we never did.” the grain we picked up by pushing thought it was too much, but I’d scenes the
The testing process did exam- the stock. We had to get the different done the test and had figured out brightly hued
look of picture
ine all options. “We tested every blooms just right in order to make the math. It was normal black-and- postcards.
possible scenario,” says the director the images feel like an old, crappy white lighting — a lot of direct light
of photography. “We tested five version of Pickup on South Street.” and not a lot of bounce — but with
different film stocks, we pushed and Hupfel notes that he used a lot of fill light. On color exteriors,
pulled, and we developed it and Plus-X pushed two stops on The there was an 18K HMI over the
digitally graded it every possible American Astronaut, “but because camera all the time, sometimes
way with different filters to come that movie was printed on black- two.”
up with what Mary wanted.” and-white, it has a grittier feel. Once When photographing Mol,
Eventually, they settled on Eastman you print to color film, everything Hupfel used old Mitchell B and C

Retro Sexy
Above: Hupfel filters to help give the actress a peri-

gives director od look. “I lit her like they used to
Mary Harron a
peek through his light Olivia de Havilland. They put
viewfinder. the filter on, and she’d have to turn trick is to limit your “big guns” to a tion — in from the sides. That gave
Right: Bettie her head a certain way, and this light few days on the schedule, adds the us the exact feel we needed.”
struggles to
grasp the was up here, and there’s the special gaffer. “We only had two Condor In terms of camerawork and
Stanislavski light for the eyes: classical days on the entire film. I’ve worked shot setups, Hupfel also harkened
Method after Hollywood lighting. Gretchen loved as an electrician on huge films like back to the “old days” — specifically,
enrolling in a
class taught by it and Mary loved it, and the make- War of the Worlds, where we had 10 once again, to Fuller.“There’s a scene
an acting coach up artists said, ‘How did you do Condors laid out over five blocks, in an office in Pickup on South Street
(Austin that?’ I said, ‘I did it like the guys 50 and we just didn’t have that kind of that starts off on a two-shot,” says
Pendleton).
years ago.’ It’s like my old Czech film option on this show.” Hupfel. “When someone talks, it’s
teacher taught me at NYU: there’s Of course, many of Bettie covered in a single, then the camera
only one way to do the close-up, Page’s locations couldn’t even dollies back out to a two-shot. Then,
with seven different lights — but in accommodate large movie lights. In when a third person comes in, the
school we only had four lights in the the Klaw studio and other small sets, camera dollies out to a three-shot,
kit. Gretchen was often lit with a the filmmakers often used fixtures and then back in to a two-shot. It’s
bounced 2K and an additional devised by Berg and referred to as basically one dolly move doing all
direct Tweenie or Inky to pop her “wagon trains” or “covered wagons.” the coverage. In movies made today,
eyes. I liked to do low, soft rimlights, The gaffer explains, “It’s a strip of if the actor feels like he wants to walk
either heavily diffused Inkies or 2- batten with a lightbulb every 6 inch- over there, then we must let him.
by-2 Kino Flos, just behind her es, and we wrapped chicken wire But in that scene, the actors are
shoulder and just out of frame.” around them so we could use diffu- doing things in order to fit into the
In certain locations, such as sion. The strips look like covered shots that had been set up.” Hupfel
the courtroom at Brooklyn Borough wagons would if you took the mate- and Harron often tried to mimic
Hall (where the Senate hearing rial off them.” Hupfel says, “Those this style, using a master dolly in
scenes were shot), the production units were really great. Timothy had many scenes even if they also did
needed large sources.“We spent a lot some that were 2 feet long, some 4 coverage. In one example, Page is
of time prelighting the courtroom feet long, and some 8 feet long. It’s tied up for a photo shoot in the Klaw
to get a feel for it, and we paid a lot basically like an old-fashioned Kino studio, where she has a friendly con-
of attention to showing the intrica- Flo. In a lot of places, we were able to versation with the photographer
cies of the woodwork in order to put them up in the ceiling to create a (Jared Harris) about Jesus. “We cov-
overcome the heavy contrast that’s level of light, and then I could bring ered that whole scene in a single
created by printing black-and-white classical hard light — Fresnels rang- dolly shot,” says the cinematograph-
onto color stock,” says Berg. When ing from a Dedolight up to a 2K, er. “We go back and forth — when
shooting on a modest budget, the depending on the size of the loca- we’re on her, we’re on her, and then
54 March 2006

when he moves back, there’s a semi-
circular move and we’re on him.”
The production re-created
several of Page’s bondage movies,
notably Sally’s Punishment, using a
hand-cranked Bolex and Eastman
Double-X 7222 pushed one stop.
For the rest of the picture, Hupfel
used Arricam Studio and Lite cam-
eras and Cooke S4 prime lenses.“We
stuck pretty exclusively with three
lenses: we did all of our close-ups on
a 75mm and most of our coverage
on a 27mm, and when we needed to
get somewhere in between, we used
a 40mm. Setting everything up with
the same lenses somehow felt more
old school.”
At the close of the New York
shoot, Hupfel shot his first color
scene for the film, a sequence where
Page has an epiphany during a
church service in Miami. He found
himself at a disadvantage because
none of the Miami material had
been filmed yet, yet he had to match
the look of it in the church.“When I
got to the location, I realized what I
had planned wasn’t really working,
and I ended up using all the lights
on the truck to achieve the look I
wanted in color,” he says. “We had
seven 10Ks hanging off the ceiling,
an incredible amount of soft light,
and used [Tiffen] White Pro-Mists
to milk out the colors. It was difficult
to keep that wildly overlit feeling
and give the church some dimen-
sion; it took lots of very broad and
well-placed strokes. But it’s my
favorite scene; I love the mood of it.”
One reason Hupfel needed
so much light was that his color
negative, the since-discontinued
Eastman EXR 5248, is rated at ISO
100, which worked well for the
Miami scenes. “I asked Kodak to dig
up the oldest color film they could
find, and it was 48, which just looks
great — the colors really pop,” he
says.“I find all the Kodak stocks a lit-
tle crazy compared to the way real
life looks, but the craziness of 48 was
right for this movie.” The look of
55

Retro Sexy
Hupfel makes a Miami, the 100-speed tungsten
point while stock operated more in the 50-speed
discussing a
scene with daylight realm, and once again,
Harron. Hupfel “filled it in absurdly. I’d be
sitting with the camera in the day-
light, and right behind me would be
two direct 18Ks. The sky was read-
ing as 64, Gretchen was reading as
64, and everything was brought up
to the brightest. The crew said,
‘You’re crazy, she’ll burn!’ But she
never did.”
Some of the other techniques
the filmmakers devised didn’t go as
well as hoped. Visual shifts from
black-and-white images to color
magazine covers were achieved opti-
scenes set in Miami, where Page milked out the tiniest bit. I guess cally, but some had to be digitally
works with a female photographer that’s what diffusion and fill light do. enhanced. And the attempt to print
(Sarah Paulson), was inspired by By that time, [makeup designer] black-and-white on color stock
period postcards. “It’s not really a Nicki Ledermann had worked out without doing a DI brought up
Technicolor look,” says Hupfel.“The such good makeup with Gretchen other issues. “The problem is, when
postcards almost look like there’s a that she had a sheen to her face, like you shift from a very bright shot to a
layer of wax over them; they’re everything was coated in some sort dark one, the color shifts even if the
bright colors, but somehow they’re of a film.” In the bright sun of printer lights don’t change a lot,”
56

says Hupfel. “The scene prints negative.” The major loss was the and-white looks the way I imagined
slightly green, or slightly blue or blooms Hupfel had so lovingly it except for the highlights, and the
pink. The timer has to make subtle crafted for the Pickup on South color is what I hoped it would be.
changes, and that change will affect Street look. “I spent a long time [in There are eight or 10 shots I’d like to
the next shot. We never did get a the DI suite] trying to get the high- fix, but aside from that, it’s pretty
decent black-and-white print, even lights back, but the video couldn’t perfect.” I
though we had prints in our test that really handle the different levels, and
looked fine. we’d lost that information. In the
“When we were doing the courtroom, I’d fought to have high-
color timing [with David Poltz] at wattage bulbs put in all the little
DuArt in New York, we were also lamps, and the strong glow I was
doing the DVD transfer from an IP after now just looks like a flat, white
in Los Angeles, and that transfer lamp shape with a slight bloom TECHNICAL SPECS
looked gorgeous,” he continues. around it.”
1.85:1
“Everyone up and down the line had Still, the cinematographer 35mm and 16mm
been seeing the prints and freaking doesn’t regret shooting the picture
out a little bit, and all of a sudden the way he did. “If we’d done it the Arricam Studio, Lite; Bolex
they saw this perfect-looking DVD. way we were originally asked to, we Cooke S4 lenses
So the decision was made to do a DI would have shot on color and done
at LaserPacific, but it was done by a DI in New York,” he says.“The way Eastman Plus-X 5231, EXR 100T
using the video files for the DVD we did it was unique, and I was able 5248, Double-X 7222
transfer rather than by scanning the to control [the images] better; you Digital Intermediate
negative. LaserPacific did an incred- lose so much control if every deci-
ible job, but I would like to have sion is being made on that comput- Printed on Kodak Vision 2383
been able to go back and scan the er. Even in this version, the black-
57

A Master’s
Jack Cardiff, BSC
reminisces about
his achievements
with Technicolor’s
three-strip process.
by Robert S. Birchard
Palette
R
enowned British cinematogra- 2001, Cardiff was awarded an hon- (1947). On his recent visit to Los
pher and director Jack Cardiff, orary Oscar — a first for a cine- Angeles, Cardiff sat down with AC to
BSC recently visited Los matographer — for his singular discuss his career.
Angeles to help celebrate achievements in color cinematogra- “It’s a perfectly true story, and
Technicolor’s 90th anniversary phy. Nominated three times for perhaps unbelievable, but I started
with special events at the Academy Oscars in that category, he won for as a child actor in 1918 when I was 4
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences his work on Michael Powell and years old,” recalls Cardiff. “By the
and the American Cinematheque. In Emeric Pressburger’s Black Narcissus time I was 14, my acting career was
58 March 2006

behind me and I was working as a Opposite: In
tea boy on The Informer [1929], one Black Narcissus,
a prime example
of the last British silent films — a of three-strip
part-talkie, actually. The German Technicolor
director, Arthur Robison, had stom- photography,
Deborah Kerr
ach trouble and had to drink Vichy plays Sister
water, and I used to bring it to him Clodagh, an
on a tray. I heard the boys in the Anglican nun
who spearheads
camera department went abroad a an effort to
lot, and I thought that sounded establish a
great. So I got into the camera religious
community in the
department as a number boy, not Himalayas.
because I was interested in photog- According to
raphy, but because I thought I might the film’s
cinematographer,
get a fling at traveling abroad. Of Jack Cardiff, BSC
course, for the next two years I only (pictured at left),
managed to get to the Isle of Wight, the three-strip
system
and just for one afternoon.” sometimes saw
Cardiff would go on to colors differently
become a cinematographer noted than the eye.
“Before we
for masterful three-strip Technicolor started Black
films such as A Matter of Life and Narcissus, I
Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) knew we had to
be very careful
and The Red Shoes (1948), and he because nuns
also became a director of note. don’t use
Although his name is synonymous makeup,” he
says. “If the
Frame grabs courtesy of Technicolor and ITV (Granada International). Production stills courtesy of ITV.
with the golden age of British cine- audience could

ma, he says that his influences were tell they were
largely American. “We were making made up, we
were dead. We
very economical little films at the tried to ban
time and Hollywood was sending lipstick, but we
over these big classics with wonder- cameramen, and the French cam- and junior cameraman, and I discovered
during testing
ful sets and lighting,” says Cardiff. “I eramen, too, were sort of ‘itty-bitty.’ would occasionally do odd inserts that Technicolor
got to realize the photography of George Perinal was considered one for features. A German, Count von exaggerated the
certain people, among them [ASC of the best cinematographers at the Keller, came to Technicolor with his reds a bit so that
the nuns’ natural
members] George Barnes, Harry time, but he used dozens of lights — wife; they’d been traveling around lips looked like
Stradling and Gregg Toland. a little bit here, a little bit there — with a 16mm camera shooting lipstick. We
Eventually I worked for Stradling as and it didn’t look natural. A big amateur movies, and their friends ended up having
to add a bit of
an operator on a number of pictures director who had been a camera- advised them to get a proper color flesh color to the
in England. He was a delightful man. man came over from America to do camera and a cameraman to go lips to take down
“At the same time, I formed a a screen test, and when this director with them. They were told they the reds.”
terrific love of painting, particularly came on the set, he said: ‘Are you couldn’t borrow a three-strip cam-
the impressionists. They were dar- ready, Peri?’ Peri said, ‘Yes.’ Then the era, as there were only four in
ing, they had audacity, they had director said to the gaffer, ‘Kill that Britain. The Kellers said, ‘Alright,
ideas. This was great training, and I one, kill that one …’ and he killed we’ll pay for it.’ I was assigned to go
said to myself,‘Audacity is the ticket.’ about 10 lights. Watching that was a touring with them. We had a van
I started to paint and still do. I had lesson to me: simplicity.” and a whole Technicolor crew, and
this sort of general education about Although Cardiff cut his teeth we shot travelogues.
light and also saw the way light in black-and-white cinematography “The Technicolor authorities
worked in films. as an assistant, his path toward at Westbury didn’t want their cam-
“There are several aspects of becoming a director of photography era treated carelessly — the beam-
lighting. There’s a broad sweep that’s began when he went to work for the splitting prism was a very delicate
sort of impressionistic and reason- English branch of Technicolor. “I thing. The camera had to be
ably realistic, but some of our British was working as a kind of operator checked in the bedroom of the

A Master’s Palette
The vibrant
hues of the
three-strip
process are
evident in this
scene from
Black
Narcissus, in
which Sisters
Clodagh and
Ruth (Kathleen
Byron) consult
with Mr. Dean
(David Farrar),
a local
government
official who
becomes the
object of Ruth’s
erotic fixation.
assistant cameraman, who also had wanted Claude to photograph The love affair gone bad; the character
to clean it every couple of days. Great Mr. Handel in Technicolor, but had gone around the world shooting
Technicolor ordered us not to ever Claude was a black-and-white man. animals to forget his lost love. The
put the camera in a dangerous posi- He said, ‘I’m sorry, but I haven’t got animal heads had horns, and [they
tion, but I disobeyed all the rules. I any color photography background were] very difficult to shoot because
took it on top of Mount Vesuvius and don’t want to take a chance on every light I put on [them] made
during an eruption! Technicolor was that.’ Then he had the idea of work- duplicate shadows — horns all over
furious, and I was about to be fired, ing on it with me. He said, ‘Let Jack the bloody wall — but I had all day
but then they sent a telegram saying photograph the first two weeks of to do it. Eventually I heard someone
they’d been impressed with the the picture and I’ll watch.’ And that’s say, ‘Very interesting,’ and I turned
dailies and my job was secure, at how I got my first break as a lighting around and there was Powell. He
least for the moment. Those little cameraman on a set. said, ‘Would you like to photograph
travelogues were exciting work and “After that, it was back to my next film?’ It was A Matter of Life
gave me an opportunity to light shooting inserts and doing second- and Death.”
what I liked. I gained great confi- unit work, which is very dreary Technicolor’s three-strip sys-
dence in my abilities, but I wanted to because the first unit does all the tem utilized three separate rolls of
photograph a big production. exciting things. I was working sec- black-and-white film to create color
“I had worked with a very ond unit on one or two exteriors separation masters in the camera;
good cameraman, Claude Friese- and Michael Powell came to super- the color was achieved in printing.
Greene, as a focus puller and opera- vise, and I think he sort of liked my Yellow, cyan and magenta dye-
tor. His father, William Friese- work because I worked very fast and soaked matrices struck from the
Greene, arguably developed one of was confident. One shot I had to do original separation negatives were
the first cameras to record motion in was of a wall with animal’s heads brought into contact with a blank
England. Director Norman Walker mounted on it. This shot depicted a roll of film in a process that was sim-
60 March 2006

ilar to color lithography. Cardiff has times necessary, and I got used to
great respect for the vibrant color doing it. Once or twice Powell want-
Technicolor could achieve, but he ed someone very close in the fore-
acknowledges that the three-strip ground sharp and someone in the
system made for a difficult working background sharp, and the poor the blimp was just adequate. Top left: Sister
environment. “The Technicolor actors were almost burned alive! It “We didn’t stop to reload Clodagh tends to
business. Above:
camera needed an enormous was a tough, tough way of working. film. We had two cameras all the Cardiff adjusts
amount of light — I think it was 650 “We also had a big blimp that time, and when we needed to reload an arc light on
footcandles at a lens aperture of 2.5. was bloody difficult. There was a we’d slide out one camera from the the set of the
Technicolor
Generally we were forced to use arc certain lack of freedom in moving blimp and replace it with the other. production The
lamps to get enough light, and that the camera around. You couldn’t That saved a lot of time. If we hadn’t Magic Box
could be a problem with the actors. dolly with it, not like you can with done that, we would’ve had to stop (1951), based on
the life of
In a two-shot, for example, one per- the average small camera. There was at least every 15 minutes to reload William Friese-
son wouldn’t take any notice at all, no reflex viewing, and the the camera. Greene, a British
but the other would say, ‘I’m sorry, rangefinder system on the side of “Technicolor also laid down a inventor who is
often credited
but the lights are so strong! Take it with inventing
down a bit.’ I did all I could to make cinematography
it easier for the actors; I had barn in Britain. In
fact, Friese-
doors on all the lamps so I could put Greene
a little lid over them or take out glare. developed a
“Black Narcissus was shot at a sequential
camera that was
time when everyone used arc lamps a precursor to
and hardly any Inkies. The noise motion pictures.
from the arcs was such that the sound Left: A lobby
card for Black
people routinely said, ‘We’ll have to Narcissus
dub this later.’ We also had a lot of trumpets the
haze from the carbon dust — every glories of
Cardiff’s
half an hour we’d open the stage cinematography.
doors to let the dust haze get out.
“To achieve a higher
diaphragm setting to get more depth
of field, we had to increase the light.
Most cameramen don’t like to
change their levels, but it’s some-

For this
overhead shot,
the three-strip
camera is
unblimped,
cutting down on
weight and
cumbersome
bulk. Because of
the considerable
noise generated
by both the arc
lamps and the
Technicolor
camera, much of
the film’s
production
sound was good
only as a guide
track for
postproduction
looping.
lot of strange laws. They were inter- very meek and just made occasional the rushes, there was a pilot shot that
ested in showcasing their process, suggestions.” would give us an indication of the
not necessarily in the requirements Even though some filmmak- general colors,” recalls Cardiff.
of filmmakers. If an actor was sup- ers resented the presence of the color “Sometimes the director would ask
posed to wear a white shirt, we had consultants, Technicolor’s rules were to see an entire scene printed in
to deal with different grades of important because the three-strip color, but that happened only very
slightly grayish whites because system sometimes saw colors differ- occasionally. The monochrome
Technicolor dictated we couldn’t use ently than the eye. “Before we start- rushes were printed from the cyan
pure white. But after a while, when ed Black Narcissus, I knew we had to record, and that could sometimes
we were shooting outside, we’d be very careful because nuns don’t give you a shock. When I first start-
notice that passersby wearing white use makeup,” says Cardiff. “If the ed, I photographed a commercial
looked all right [on film]. So eventu- audience could tell they were made film called Steel, and I filmed in a
ally we were able to have whites on up, we were dead. We tried to ban factory that had big, flaming-hot,
studio sets.” lipstick, but we discovered during bright-orange ingots. When we saw
Like other cinematographers testing that Technicolor exaggerated the rushes, there was nothing to be
working in the three-strip process, the reds a bit so that the nuns’ natu- seen — the ingots just disappeared!
Cardiff also had to contend with ral lips looked like lipstick. We ended We were terrified, but then we real-
what he terms “a so-called color up having to add a bit of flesh color ized the cyan record didn’t pick up
expert.” Natalie Kalmus, ex-wife of to the lips to take down the reds.” yellow at all.”
Technicolor co-founder Herbert One major frustration in A hallmark of Cardiff’s style
Kalmus, received credit as working with three-strip Techni- was his audacious use of colored
Technicolor consultant on Black color was that the cinematographer lights to add dramatic impact to a
Narcissus, but Cardiff says she was and director saw most of their scene. “When I had a lamp effect, I
never on the set. “Natalie would be dailies in black-and-white. It was used a warm filter on what were
floating about, but a lot of directors standard practice for the Techni- supposed to be the source lights and
said they didn’t want her on the set. color laboratory to supply mono- then sometimes used a very pale
[On Black Narcissus] there was a chrome work prints for most of the blue filtered light to fill. You could
woman called Joan Bridges who was footage. “At the end of each scene in build up a lot of [visual] interest just
62 March 2006

by the color relationship itself. Top: The
“I had a system for lighting exterior of the
“house of
candle effects. Overhead I had a full women,” former
spot, soft, gelled with an amber filter home to the old
to create light that looked as if it general’s wives
and set aside as
were coming from the flame. Then a convent by the
I’d get a painter to paint the candle a new general.
dark ochre so it looked like the Onscreen, the
backlot sets
shadow a candle would cast. I give a near-
emphasized it by painting it dark perfect
and then gradually easing off so that impression of
being in the
when it got to an inch from the top, mountainous
it was clear. That looked like the regions of
thing was on even before we lit it, northern India.
The illusion was
and I had the light on a dimmer further
going up and down during the enhanced by the
scene. It was very complicated. I large wind
machine.
even had an electrician with a long Director
stick punch the rope holding the Michael Powell
overhead spot so it wangled a bit to is to the left of
the camera,
make it look like the flames. Oddly wearing a white
enough, even with the high light lev- shirt and dark
els required by Technicolor, we had Ascot. Bottom:
In this closer
no problem picking up the actual angle of the
candle flame. wind machine,
“There’s one shot in Black Powell
(kneeling at
Narcissus that makes me go ‘Ugh!’ center) confers
every time I see it: the long shot with Cardiff
when the nuns are carrying candles. (wearing
sunglasses).
It’s a very long shot and it’s all arc-lit,
and I couldn’t get any effect of the
candles. If we did that today we’d
have an actual candle and an Inky
that was very low, but in those days
we were bothered so much with the
Natalie Kalmus [edict] that there
couldn’t be any positive black. You and then fillers, and he said this one that lipstick on became extraordi-
had to light everything, and if the lamp would do it. They had just one narily successful. A lot of people
shadows were left without any light unit and were making a second one. who have nothing to do with the
at all there were occasionally times I thought it was marvelous, and he cinema say, ‘Oh, I know that film, it
when they looked a bit green or red. sent over the first two Brutes.” has that terrifying shot with the nun
I used to take a chance with that a bit One of the most visually putting the lipstick on.’”
and let the shadows go, because oth- exciting moments in Black Narcissus Black Narcissus is set in India,
erwise it’s just like a theatrical pan- occurs when Sister Ruth (Kathleen but except for a few exteriors that
tomime and not realistic. Byron) puts on a red dress she has were shot in Ireland, nearly all of the
“By the time we made The ordered by mail and, with awkward film was filmed on soundstages and
Red Shoes, my third picture with determination, applies lipstick on the backlots at the Denham and
Powell, the Brute lamp had come before she attempts to seduce Mr. Pinewood studios in England. Art
out, and I loved it. I learned of it Dean (David Farrar), the English director Alfred Junge’s sets and
when I was in Hollywood for some adviser to the local Indian prince. scenery achieve credibility even
reason, and Pete Mole at Mole- “The scene is purposely larger than though they were conceived in a
Richardson said he’d made a new life,” says Cardiff. “We thought we theatrical, painterly vein. Part of the
lamp and offered to show it to me. It needed that exaggeration. Funnily illusion was achieved through the
was big, but I like to use one lamp enough, the shot where Ruth puts matte paintings of Percy “Papa”Day.

“The backlot of any studio is usually ble to do exteriors on a stage, but I
in dreadful condition,” notes think I made it work,” says Cardiff.
Cardiff. “There were trucks and bits “To make it look natural, I had a lot
of rubbish all over the place, but we of lights above with bluish filters —
had one thing in our favor: Papa like a sky reflection — that illumined
Day. Like the early days of glass the tops of [the actors’] heads, and
shots, we just made a matte with a what was absolutely necessary to
piece of black cardboard that blotted give an effect of sunlight [were units
out the background, Day would with] amber filters [lighting] the
paint the missing parts of the actors.
scenery, and we’d make a reverse “In A Matter of Life and
matte with the cardboard and shoot Death, there’s a scene where David
it. Many viewers thought we’d gone Niven is supposed to be in a garden
out on location — in fact, Powell got and the magician casts a spell that
a letter from someone who said he’d freezes Niven in time. Well, as it was
lived in that particular place, and he magic, it obviously had to be some-
thought it was all real. Day was great; thing very different from ordinary
everyone called him ‘Papa’ because light. I suggested to Powell that I use
he looked about 150 years of age, a lemon filter for sunlight instead of
The bell tower outside the Himalayan convent appeared to be but he was quite sprightly and he amber so the light wouldn’t look
hundreds of feet above a deep canyon, but the set was built
only a few feet off the ground on the backlot at Denham Studio.
was probably 60.” that natural, and he loved the idea.
The illusion of height was supplied by Percy Day’s matte Because Black Narcissus was Not many people noticed it, really,
paintings. The unblimped Technicolor camera is lashed to the “studio-bound,” several “exteriors” but it was there.”
parallel to prevent an accidental fall. The light-hungry
Technicolor three-strip system required supplemental light on
were shot in the great indoors of a Even though Cardiff was
day exteriors — note the large pile of arc lamps at the ready. soundstage. “It was asking for trou- closely associated with Technicolor’s
64

three-strip system and won an The always-
Oscar for his cinematography on dapper Cardiff
recently shared
Black Narcissus, he was not particu- his memories of
larly sorry when the three-strip Black Narcissus
cameras were retired in the early prior to a
screening of the
1950s. “We were very happy when film at the
Eastmancolor came in because we Academy of
could use 10Ks instead of big arc Motion Picture
Arts and
lights and have it quiet. I was work- Sciences in
ing on a three-strip film with Beverly Hills.
Hitchcock, Under Capricorn [1949], Presented by the
Academy in
and Ingrid Bergman was in it. Every association with
scene we did was with arc lights, and the British Film
because of the noise on set most of Institute, the
event was part of
the sound recordings were just a salute to
guide tracks and to be dubbed after- Michael Powell.
wards. Ingrid put her foot down on
one sequence. She said,‘I don’t want
to act this scene knowing it has to be

dubbed. I’d like this sequence shot
with incandescent light.’ Now, it So I said, ‘Sure.’ I used 5Ks on the time, even with the huge blimp, we
wasn’t impossible; you could use spot rail and one or two smaller heard the noise of the Technicolor
incandescent light on a very small lamps downstairs. It was difficult, camera!” I
set, but very few people did it but I did it. Ironically, the scene had
because it required so many Inkies. to be retaken because for the first
65

A Style
of Subtlety
ASC Board of Governors honoree Sydney Pollack
deftly balances plot and performance with picture.
by David E. Williams
“I
don’t mean to be coy about
it, but I was never what I
would call a great shooter
or great visual stylist,” says
director Sydney Pollack,
recipient of this year’s ASC Board of
Governors Award. “There are many
other directors who are very techni-
cally proficient in terms of lighting
and the camera, and I do have a
good basic knowledge, but my head
had always been more in the drama.
The shooting of a film is a tool for
telling that particular story, so I’ve
never really come up with a particu-
lar style that’s as extreme as what
other directors are known for. That
side is simply more intuitive for
other people. All I really knew as a
director when I started was some- worked with an array of ASC greats, When asked which film first
thing about acting.” including Loyal Griggs (The Slender made an impression on him because
The Board of Governors Thread), James Wong Howe (This of its cinematography, Pollack
Award, which Pollack accepted late Property Is Condemned), Phil replies, “It was probably A Place in
last month at the 20th annual ASC Lathrop (They Shoot Horses, Don’t the Sun, or maybe Shane. What’s
Outstanding Achievement Awards, They?), Harry Stradling Jr. (The Way interesting is they were both shot by
is bestowed upon individuals who We Were), and Owen Roizman the same cameraman, Loyal Griggs
have made significant and lasting (Three Days of the Condor, The [working under William C. Mellor,
contributions to the art of filmmak- Electric Horseman, Absence of Malice, ASC], who was the cinematographer
ing. Previous recipients include Tootsie and Havana). More recently, on my first movie, The Slender
Gregory Peck, Charles Champlin, Pollack has collaborated with ASC Thread [1965]. I didn’t select him
Fay Kanin, Steven Spielberg, Martin members John Seale (The Firm), because of that, it was just chance.
Scorsese, Jodie Foster, Robert Wise, Giuseppe Rotunno (Sabrina), Loyal was very old at that time, and
Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Philippe Rousselot (Random that was a black-and-white picture
Altman and Gilbert Cates. Over the Hearts) and Darius Khondji (The — the only black-and-white film I
course of his career, Pollack has Interpreter). ever made. There was emotionality
66 March 2006

Opposite:
Pollack plots a
sequence in the
United Nations
General
Assembly room
while filming
The Interpreter,
shot by Darius
Khondji, ASC,
AFC. This page,
top: Pollack and
Dustin Hoffman
work out a
scene for the hit
comedy Tootsie
(1982), which
showcased not
only a hilarious
script but also
the Oscar-
nominated
cinematography
of Owen
Roizman, ASC.
Bottom: Pollack
and Roizman
(center) on
location in the
Dominican
Republic while
making their fifth
in those two pictures of his that I I’ve ever worked with. He under- Slender Thread. You have to take feature together,
didn’t understand at the time and stands the camera and camera Dramamine to watch it! We were the steamy
drama Havana
probably couldn’t explain today. In movement. He knows what lenses zooming in every shot and up in (1990).
A Place in the Sun, I remember the do and whether a particular shot helicopters and I was wheeling peo-
shots of the boats in the distance can or can’t be made. It’s a rare ple around on furniture dollies, and
and Montgomery Clift’s face when pleasure to work with someone who I had to do that myself because my
Elizabeth Taylor comes to see him in really understands these things, operator weighed about 240
jail at the end, those gigantic close- especially on a difficult assignment pounds and nobody else could
ups. But I suppose I really became like this.” Hearing this praise today, budge him. When I watched the fin-
more consciously aware of cine- Pollack offers, “I was so anxious to ished film, I thought it was a mess
matography by studying [ASC mem- prove I could fill the big screen that visually. I was trying too hard, but I
ber] Boris Kaufman’s work in Elia I made everybody seasick with The learned from it.
Kazan’s movies.”
Given Pollack’s own reputation
as an “actor’s director,” this should
come as no surprise, as the exemplary
collaboration between Kazan and
Kaufman produced a trio of powerful
films: On the Waterfront, Baby Doll
and Splendor in the Grass. “I was real-
ly into Kazan at the time,” recalls
Pollack. “There always seemed to be
enormous tension in Kaufman’s
work, in the framing and lighting. It
created the perfect mood for the
drama.”
While filming They Shoot
Horses in 1969, Lathrop told American
Cinematographer, “[Pollack] is proba-
bly the most knowledgeable director

A Style of Subtlety
Pollack and “I don’t feel I’ve ever been with trays in the bathtub, and I was show, so you had to work fast. I did
cinematographer ‘prepared,’ but I have felt the pres- always playing around with compo- 15 or 17 episodes a year for almost
Phil Lathrop,
ASC largely shot sure to prepare,” he continues. sitions. I had no idea I was going to five years, and that was my film
They Shoot “Truth be told, I don’t know if I real- end up directing films, but I paid a school. I learned editing, lenses, how
Horses, Don’t ly know what to do. I don’t think I’ve lot of attention to [composition]. So to shoot action, how to create ten-
They? (1969) on
Stage 4 at ever held anybody up on a set while I was tremendously interested in the sion, and I did it in an environment
Warner Bros., trying to figure out what the next camera when I started directing, and where the stakes weren’t that high.
where the shot is, but I often get the shots while I then learned most of what I came On Ben Casey, if I made a mistake on
film’s central
marathon dance I’m there, after the actors’ rehearsal. to know while working in televi- an episode, we were on to the next
competition was Of course, if we’re doing something sion.” one before that had even aired.”
imaginatively really complex, like the bus explo- This training ground consist- Coming of age as a director in
covered with all
manner of sion in The Interpreter [see AC May ed largely of a two-year stint on the the 1960s, Pollack was part of
moving cameras ’05], then I’ll prepare. medical drama Ben Casey, during American film’s transition to a more
— from “It was on my third film, The which Pollack worked with camera- naturalistic approach. “The last film
towering cranes
to skateboard Scalphunters [shot by Duke man Ted Voigtländer, ASC and I did in the classic Hollywood style
dollies — to Callaghan and Richard Moore, “directed pretty much every other was The Way We Were, which was
bring the ASC], that I first used widescreen, episode,” as well as segments of The also a period Hollywood film about
audience into
the action. and I found there was a different Alfred Hitchcock Hour and The Hollywood. Every shot almost looks
kind of preparation that had to go Fugitive. “In those days, TV produc- like a studio gallery still that you’d
into filling the screen. It was such a tion wasn’t set up so you could see a see in the hallways at MGM, and that
big frame. My experience in still set before you shot it,” he recalls. was what we were going for. I always
photography really helped in that “You might see it the night before. try to use a visual style that best suits
regard; I had a bathroom darkroom And it was rare to have more than the story but doesn’t draw too much
in my little New York apartment five days to shoot an hour-long attention to itself. In my later films,
68 March 2006

the stories we were telling wouldn’t
have been served by the ‘Hollywood’
style. For me, stories and acting dic-
tate the look of a film. I didn’t start
as an art director, editor or cine-
matographer; I came at filmmaking
from a completely different point of
view.”
Asked how his perspectives
on acting for the camera may have
been influenced by his experiences
performing in such films as Tootsie,
Husbands and Wives and Eyes Wide
Shut, Pollack says, “Stanley
[Kubrick] was a great photographer.
He had a cinematographer on the
picture [Larry Smith], of course, but
Stanley chose the lights and the
lenses and was a stickler on compo-
sitions. I don’t go that far at all. As a
director, my goal is always to be very
prepared but leave room for the cre-
ative contributions from both the
cinematographer and the actors.
That’s a question of balance.
“The movies I’ve directed
have been so character-driven that I
Workshops & Master Classes

have always had to draw a line at a
point where I didn’t want the cine-
matography to draw too much
attention to itself. I never wanted to
or Cinema
matogra
r phers
r
make a film about the cinematogra-
phy. But I have been so lucky in
working with cinematographers
who figure out how to shoot the
picture in a way that supports the
work of the actors while still making
a visual statement. In a way, that
brings out the emotion of the pic-
ture.”
The 1990 thriller Havana, For 33 years, this international center has been educating and training the world’s cinematographers,
which stars Robert Redford as a Directors of Photography, dramatic and documentary filmmakers, and digital video artists.
shady American in steamy, pre- Choose from hundreds of one-week workshops and master classes:
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tesy of longtime collaborator 12-Week Summer Residency in Cinematography • 4-Week Summer Film School
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Roizman. “That look was driven by Low Residency MFA Degree Program
what Havana was like in 1959,” says Next Workshop: 2-Week Digital Video Documentary in Oaxaca, Mexico, February 26 to March 8, 2006
Pollack.“It was this phantasmagoria
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69

A Style of Subtlety
and I was very comfortable working visual stylist. visual style was organic thematically
with Owen — I always was — and “Owen was also the first cam- because of what the film was about,”
that allowed both of us to be more eraman I worked with who was my says Pollack. “I was trying to tell a
expressive. We started using [Tiffen] contemporary,” he continues. “He’s story about possession, and I wanted
Pro-Mist filters that added a visual about my age, we had similar expe- the background and foreground to
buzz to everything, and it was fun. riences and influences, and we rhyme with each other. The story is
That look was right for that picture. became very close friends. about a woman [played by Meryl
“One of the reasons I loved Creatively, that relationship was fan- Streep] who wants to possess an
working with Owen was that he was tastic. Owen knew what to trust me unpossessable man [played by
able to make the film look more with and what not to trust me with. Redford] and possess and change a
beautiful than reality, but not so We grew together both craft-wise country. The colonials came to that
much so that you were just gasping and in our standing in the business. part of the world and tried to turn
at picturesque shots and beautiful I came off some successful pictures indigenous Africans into little
lighting. His work always stayed before we met on Three Days of the Englishmen, in the process destroy-
within the context of the drama and Condor, and together we did a string ing something unique. So the identi-
supported it. That’s creative of extremely successful films.” ty of the African people and land
restraint. All the cinematographers Location became a central was an important character in the
I’ve worked with have had that, but character in Pollack’s romantic epic picture. World War I is also in the
they also knew when to push into Out of Africa (1985), which was background. All those themes began
more extreme concepts. Owen cer- photographed on location in Kenya to echo each other and led me to
tainly could. Look at Darius by David Watkin, BSC. The film find a style of shooting that would
[Khondji]’s work in Evita — it’s earned both men Academy Awards, reflect that.
very visually expressive, but [direc- among many other honors. “There were also technical
tor] Alan Parker is very much a “Building the landscapes into the issues we had to take into account.
70

We were on the equator — the ugli- Pollack and
cinematographer
est light in the world was coming John Seale, ASC,
straight down on us at an elevation ACS check a
of 5,500 feet. It’s the only place in composition
while filming the
the world where I’ve had an honest thriller The Firm
exposure reading of f/32; even in (1993).
snow, you’d get less! So we did a
weird thing by using the fastest film
available at the time [Agfa 320],
even though we had all that light,
because the thicker emulsions of the
faster film softened the look. We also
tried to shoot all the key scenes in
the early morning or afternoon
because the light was so ugly during
the rest of the day.”
As a director, the creative liai- many actors believe they need to trying to give so much. Harrison
son between cast and camera, what add something more to make that Ford knows that. Robert Redford
wisdom does Pollack impart to his visible — a habit that comes from knows it better than anybody. Tom
actors? “The main thing I empha- stage work — but the best film Cruise learned it. The camera is a lie
size is that the camera is a micro- actors know how much work the detector.” I
scope. It absolutely cannot be lied camera is doing for them and let it
to, so if you are relaxed and think a do what it can. They make the cam-
thought, the camera will see it. Too era come inside to them rather than
71

Short Takes
A Gynecological First
by John Pavlus
could hope. Sigel recalls, “George

looked at it and said, ‘I don’t quite know
what this is about, but sure.’”
So what is the film about? “It
seems pretty straightforward, but at
first I had trouble describing it without
giving away the whole story,” says
Sigel. “Now I find that describing the
opening is a good way to get people off
on the right foot.” The camera starts
inside a vagina, as a speculum parts it
to reveal an obstetrician’s eye peering
in. The camera then rises up through the
body as the doctor raises his head from
between the parted legs and addresses
the camera: “I’ve never seen anything
like this!”
“That lets you know right away
from what point of view we’re going to
be telling this story, and that there’s
something a bit unusual about this
lady,” says Sigel, who photographed
The Big Empty and co-directed it with
his wife, J. Lisa Chang. The main char-
acter, Alice (Selma Blair), does have
quite a problem: she’s literally empty
inside. Her birth canal leads not to a
womb, but to an arctic wasteland.
Adapted from Alison Smith’s short story
“The Specialist,” the film follows Alice
as she travels from doctor to doctor
hoping to find an explanation — and a
cure — for her inner void.
Sigel says he and Chang “pulled
on every favor we were ever owed from
every job we’d ever done in our entire
lives” to stretch their $50,000 budget
for the project. They were putting all
E
arly in preproduction on his award- collaborator George Clooney, who part- their savings into this labor of love and
winning short film The Big Empty, ners with Steven Soderbergh in the had to make every penny count. Procur-
Newton Thomas Sigel, ASC faced a production company Section Eight. ing Panavision equipment and Kodak
dilemma familiar to indie filmmakers Hoping to give his project some credibil- film stock wasn’t difficult for the
everywhere: how to favorably describe ity, Sigel gave the script to Clooney and veteran cinematographer, but Sigel
his film to “the suits.” Luckily for Sigel, asked to use Section Eight’s name. The admits that attracting actors to the
the suit in question was friend and script review went about as well as one offbeat project might have been difficult
72 March 2006

Opposite: In The
Big Empty, an
obstetrician
peers into a
woman’s birth
canal and
discovers
something quite
unexpected. The
short film, shot
by Newton
Thomas Sigel,
ASC, was a labor
of love co-
directed by Sigel
and his wife, J.
Lisa Chang. This
page, left: The
woman, Alice
(Selma Blair),
awaits
inspection in a
medical theater.
Below: A
specialist (Elias
Koteas) prepares
to take a peek.
without the Section Eight imprimatur. “I background. We used some internal Millennium equipped with Primo lenses
was worried that we needed some kind organs as the ‘wipe’ between the two — and shot in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio.
of legitimate company to approach shots.” “As much as I love 2.35, it seemed 1.85
some of the actors we wanted,” he The filmmakers storyboarded the was the best of both worlds,” he notes.
says. “Having that name gave us a bit of entire film and prepped for two weeks “We could compose in a way that
added credibility.” (In addition to Blair, before embarking on one week of princi- would work both for the film’s television
the cast includes Elias Koteas, Richard pal photography. Sigel operated himself life and its festival life.” He says he had
Kind, Hugh Laurie, and, as an extra, — his main camera was a Panaflex no trouble calling upon friends and
Haskell Wexler, ASC.)
To create the singular opening
shot, Sigel approached Andrew
Clement of Creative Creature Engineer-
ing, who is known for his impeccable
work creating animatronic infants. “I
asked him, ‘How are you with a
vagina?’” Sigel deadpans. “And he said,
‘So far, no complaints.’” Clement built a
tube out of silicone that was large
enough to accommodate a lens and
small enough to reasonably match the
size of the speculum, and he coated the
inside with Fairy dishsoap “to give it a
more organic feel,” says Sigel. To light
this unique interior, Sigel placed two
hard sources as three-quarter backlight
to rake along the inner walls of the pros-
thetic as the doctor peers inside. “Then,
as the lens rises up through the body,
there’s a dissolve to the B side of the
shot, which was done on a set with the
camera between Selma’s legs in the
foreground and the doctor framed in the

colleagues for production help, but
“because those people are really good,
they’re always working. Finding crew
who had that many days in a row free
was pretty near impossible.”
Sigel and Chang decided their
story called for a visual tone that was
somewhat grounded in reality, albeit
one “that never existed, or only exists in
the imagination,” according to Sigel. He
lit the interiors in an organic, source-
motivated style, yet suffused them with
an ethereal softness by using light
Tiffen Soft/FX diffusion filters on the
lens to create an “allegorical, fairytale
quality.” An exception to this approach
was the office of the specialist (Koteas),
whose eccentric understanding of
Alice’s condition demanded a moodier
style.
Sigel shot The Big Empty on test
rolls of Kodak Vision2 500T 5218 and
Vision2 100T 5212. Matching the
donated stock wasn’t a concern, but
rationing it often was. He recalls, “We
were always juggling how much to
shoot when so that we wouldn’t run
out. We also had almost no 1,000-foot
loads, so mag changes were frequent.”
With their compressed shooting
schedule and tight budget, the filmmak-
ers were compelled to choose locations
based on their proximity to each other
as well as their suitability. The Section
Eight connection proved useful in that
regard, allowing Sigel to use sets from
the television series ER for the doctors’
offices and Alice’s apartment. But the
scheduling consideration proved espe-
cially challenging when scouting for the
lecture hall in which The Specialist
presents Alice and his diagnosis of her
condition to his colleagues. The sched-
ule allotted just one day to shoot that
scene and two others, one in a book-
store and one in a sports bar. “We
wanted something like one of those
old-time medical theaters where they
used to dissect cadavers,” says Sigel.
“We did find stuff like that, but never
close enough to the bookstore to make
it work for our schedule. Because of
that, and because The Specialist is
giving a slide presentation in a dark-
ened room, we decided to suggest the
74

its DI suite, so we actually became one Festival, and the Athens International
of the guinea pigs to get them up and Film and Video Festival. Of his maiden
running.” The DI greatly enhanced voyage in the tumultuous realm of “free-
production values by letting Sigel bie filmmaking,” Sigel couldn’t be
“create a certain softness and fairytale prouder. “It was a nonstop process of
quality that we didn’t have the resources pulling rabbits out of hats, but it was all
to do completely in camera. Ultimately, very seamless. Lisa and I were so in sync
Sparkle was able to correct most of my about everything that we only had one
disasters!” disagreement: when to break for lunch.”
The Big Empty has won awards I
at the USA Film Festival, the Malibu Film
Sigel seeks out an interesting angle with

his Aaton.
setting more abstractly.”

The production rented an empty
warehouse and built risers to seat a row
of doctors and scientists. “We put
Selma in the gynecological chair, which
was gently spinning around on a
turntable, and filled the frame with a
row of white coats,” says Sigel. He
framed Koteas at a podium in front of a
large screen, upon which is projected
footage taken from an “expedition” to
Alice’s icy interior. (In reality, these were
clips from a documentary about the
Arctic.) “I like that scene because it gets
across what the specialist is about and
sets the tone by using impressionistic
touches instead of a big wide shot with
lots of detail,” says Sigel.
Sigel finished The Big Empty
with a digital intermediate (DI), and
although the process might seem like a
luxury for a short film, “so is doing
prints,” he says. “Until you have no
money, you don’t realize how expensive
every little thing is.” Once again, he was
able to leverage professional connec-
tions, this time from Technicolor Digital
Intermediates, where he grades much
of his commercial work with colorist
Steve “Sparkle” Arkle. “I went to Tech-
nicolor and said, ‘I’ve been really loyal to
you guys, and now you’re gonna pay for
that!’” he jokes. “Of course, I was
always doing my work at 11 p.m., or
whatever bizarre hour Sparkle wasn’t
working on other projects. Technicolor
Creative Services was just then building
75

Post Focus as a storyboard and comic-book artist,
and he asked Fong to shoot KatieBird.
Impressed by what Anthony Dod
Mantle, DFF, BSC had accomplished
with DV on 28 Days Later (see AC July
’03), Ritter and Fong started out thinking
that at worst, they could make
KatieBird using Fong’s own Canon XL1.
But they investigated other options and
were eventually able to obtain a Sony
HDW-F900 HD camera; the body came
from Jeff Blauvelt of HD Cinema and
the accessories were provided by
Panavision’s New Filmmaker Program.
Ritter began to envision a way of
telling his story in a series of multi-
image frames, which would not only
KatieBird The Fractured World of feature by December 12, 2003, because enable him to show footage from vari-
*Certifiable
Crazy Person
KatieBird if I didn’t make it by then, I’d be out of ous cameras onscreen at the same
was shot by by Stephanie Argy money.” time, but also make it possible for him
Joshua Fong Years earlier, while working at to fit many more shots into the movie.
using four
digital-video
In the horror film KatieBird Roger Corman’s Concorde Pictures, The three other cameras Fong eventu-
cameras and *Certifiable Crazy Person, a woman Ritter had talked his way into rewriting ally used on the picture were his Canon
then presented (played by Helene Udy) recounts her screenplays for the company, but he XL1, a Panasonic AG-DVX100, and the
in a multi-
paneled format
journey from innocent girl to serial killer soon found himself so burned out on first incarnation of JVC’s HDV camera.
to convey the for her psychiatrist, who is also her lover cop-by-day/stripper-by-night movies KatieBird was shot in Palmdale
fractured mental and next victim. In the process, the that he could no longer face the page. and El Segundo, California, over 10 days
state of its main
character
movie flashes back to KatieBird’s “When you put all your creative energy in December 2003. Ritter spent the
(Helene Udy). younger years, when her father (Lee into something you really don’t like, it following year doing postproduction,
Perkins) raised her to live the only life he, eats you alive, and you don’t have any working with Fong and producer Matt
his father and grandfather had all energy to do anything for yourself,” he Quan. (Quan did all the sound editing
known: that of a murderer. says. On his fourth rewrite, he stared at and mixing and also marketed the
The subject matter is intense, and his computer screen for two weeks, and movie.)
director Justin Paul Ritter chose a style then, in desperation, discarded the The key element of the project’s
that was equally challenging: 90 percent studio’s original idea and spent two days post phase was Ritter’s development of
of the movie comprises multi-paneled writing whatever came into his mind. the multi-paneled narrative style. He cut
frames that present each scene from “This insanely angry abomination of a the movie straight through from begin-
several perspectives simultaneously. screenplay poured out of me, and it was ning to end, and for about the first half,
Because KatieBird was shot with four KatieBird. I was hoping they would be as he used the simple matte tools built into
different digital-video (DV) cameras, it offended by my material as I was by Final Cut Pro. However, he found those
offered the filmmakers an unusual theirs, and I succeeded. There was a line too limited for the kind of cropping and
chance to compare footage from those of people waiting to fire me.” moving he wanted to do. Searching the
cameras side by side. Ritter tore up the studio’s check Internet, he found a $10 filter called
Before making KatieBird, Ritter and held on to the rights to his script, DH_Box (from Digital Heaven), which
had worked on other filmmakers’ and he felt it was natural to return to allowed him to quickly reposition, resize
projects, mainly doing visual effects. But that script for his first feature. During his and crop an image. Because he could
by the end of 2002, he decided to make years in production, Ritter had crossed work so much faster with DH_Box, he
a movie of his own. “I told myself no paths several times with Joshua Fong, a was able to experiment more, and he
matter what, I was going to shoot a cinematographer who has also worked feels the multi-paneling becomes
76 March 2006

increasingly effective as the movie goes footage would match up perfectly. In it’s the only way to learn.” Above: During a
on. “In the end, the $10 filter became fact, when he did the online he found After the edit and online were psychiatry
session,
our most valuable storytelling tool,” he that every edit was off by one to three finished, Fong and Ritter carried out the KatieBird
remarks. frames. Because KatieBird has about color correction. “Josh was there recounts the
One challenge was trying to 5,000 edits, the online process, which around the clock,” says Ritter. They impact her
murdering father
devise fresh multi-panels as the movie should have taken a few days, ended up began by using the three-way color- (Lee Perkins) had
progressed. “It became a real brain taking 10 weeks. corrector filter in Final Cut Pro. Fong on her childhood,
teaser to try not to repeat myself,” says Also, Final Cut Pro does all of its went through a scene, made the differ- which led her to
follow in her
Ritter. He also learned to apply the tech- cropping based on percentages of the ent footage match and established the father’s footsteps
nique to underscore the emotion of size of the image, so when Ritter went overall look, and then Ritter took the (below). Editing
scenes and enhance their dramatic from the 4x3 DVCam image he’d been corrected footage and applied a color in Final Cut Pro,
Ritter used a $10
effect. “When you get to scenes where working with to the 16x9 images of the shift to the entire scene. Scenes depict- plugin to quickly
the really aggressive, violent actions are masters, he found that none of the crop- ing teenaged KatieBird were tinted reposition, resize
happening, there are more abrupt cuts, ping translated over correctly. He had to green, scenes with adult KatieBird were and crop an
image.
and there’s also more black space redo the multi-paneling for the entire blue, and scenes featuring KatieBird’s
onscreen,” he explains. “Also, having an movie. father were a muted gold. But Fong and
image separate down the middle during Ritter did the online himself, Ritter quickly found that applying the
a dialogue scene really helped us create upgrading his video card to a Blackmagic color tint affected the original color
drama.” DeckLink HD card. “It’s a phenomenal correction, and shots no longer
Fong says watching the multi- card,” he says, adding that if he had the matched. After several weeks of
paneling develop reminded him how chance to do post again, he would battling the problem, Ritter tried using
flexible cinema can be as a storytelling capture the HD footage using Photo blend modes rather than traditional
medium. He points out that when he JPEG proxies, which are the same reso- color-correction filters for the second
does comic-book illustration, he works lution as HD footage. “We never would part of the process. He explains, “Let’s
with six or seven images on a page. have had to go through all those addi- say I needed to drop down highlights.
“That’s basically what we had with the tional post steps.” However, he’s a little Instead of trying to pull down the
multi-paneling,” he says. “Digital tools glad he did. “I thought I was pretty good whites, I would make a white panel,
enable cinema to become more of a at Final Cut Pro, but now I feel so layer it on top of the image, and use a
graphic-design and layout medium.” comfortable with the machine. I hope blend mode like Darken or Multiply.” He
When Ritter began post on never to face those problems again, but could also create the tints by using a
KatieBird frame grabs courtesy of Justin Paul Ritter.
KatieBird, he discovered there wasn’t a

lot of information about how to edit an
HD project, particularly one with such a
tiny budget. He subsequently tried
several approaches that he warns other
filmmakers against. For example, on the
advice of someone who presented
himself as an HD expert, Ritter decided
to downconvert his master tapes and
edit on DVCam, which he captured into
Final Cut Pro using an Aurora Igniter
card. He had shot at 23.98 fps, but he
captured at 29.97 because he’d been
assured that when he did his online, the

semi-opaque color panel for the top
layer. The new technique meant entire
sequences could be tinted at once, and
the overall color shifts wouldn’t destroy
Fong’s original color correction. Equally
important was the fact that working this
way introduced no additional grain or
degradation to the images.
Ritter says people are so
stunned when they learn how low
KatieBird ’s budget was that he has
stopped sharing the information. In one
instance, he says, a distributor backed
out of an agreement to handle the
movie because he claimed that if Block-
buster found out he was offering them
such an inexpensive movie, it would be
harder to negotiate with the outlet in
the future. “The most frustrating thing is Distribution Options for $80 to $90 each,” says Carlo Scandi-
that when people find out what it cost, Blossom for Indies uzzi, an independent filmmaker and co-
they want to take advantage,” says by Stephanie Argy founder of online DVD vendor IndieFlix.
Ritter. “But if we’d paid for everything, it “The number of units sold hasn’t changed
would have cost maybe half a million For most independent filmmak- very much, but the same unit in DVD is
dollars. Everybody on the show was a ers, getting traditional theatrical distrib- only about $9. You’re generating a frac-
volunteer. The hard-cash cost was low, ution has always been difficult, but new tion of the money that you used to gener-
but I gave up years of my life, and other technologies are providing new and ate 10 years ago, so the economics are no
people gave us so much help because varied ways for them to connect to longer there for the old paradigm.”
they believed in what we were doing.” potential audiences. “We have to Although the old models of film
Ritter has submitted KatieBird to unlearn a lot of things that have been distribution may be breaking down, new
Open House photo courtesy of BugEater Films. The Strand photos courtesy of Gearhead Pictures.
several film festivals, and a screening at drilled into our heads,” says Daniel ones have come along that make it easier
(Yet) Another Hole in the Head in San Myrick, co-director of The Blair Witch for many more filmmakers to get their
Francisco in June 2005 was particularly Project and creator of the Web serial work seen. These include the Internet,
successful, garnering coverage in The Strand. “It used to be you’d make a cellular phones with video capability, and
Fangoria and interest from distributors. movie and hope you’d get into festivals, Apple’s video iPod. “Theatrical distribu-
Ritter ultimately decided to go with a and festivals, of course, were about tion is no longer the holy grail,” says
small company, Heretic Films, which getting picked up by distributors. But all Justin Bergeron, co-founder and CEO of
released KatieBird on DVD in late that has changed. As an emerging film- HD Pictures & Post.
February. There are also plans for maker, you almost have to throw out the Slamdance co-founder Dan
limited theatrical releases in New York rulebook.” Mirvish says he advises filmmakers to
and San Francisco. The facts regarding traditional ask themselves what they want to get out
Ritter says he made KatieBird distribution are daunting. As production of their projects: “Do you need to make
partly because he wanted to empower and postproduction tools have become money to pay back your investors? Do you
young artists who are always looking more accessible, the market has been need the perfectly justifiable ego boost of
for excuses not to finish, or even start, flooded with movies. This year, the showing a film in front of an audience?
their projects. “How many times do you Sundance Film Festival alone received Do you want to enhance your career? Do
meet someone with a screenplay who 3,148 feature submissions and 4,327 you want to build a good press kit? Focus-
says they can’t let anyone see it until it’s short-form submissions. Because many ing on what you want forces you to make
perfect? I decided to push forward with- companies that used to acquire movies decisions.”
out ever looking back. I wanted to at festivals have gone into production Many independent filmmakers
remove any room for excuses. Making a themselves, they now use festivals to still begin by screening their movies at
movie like this is a really scary venture, publicize their own products rather than festivals and seeking some sort of theatri-
but if KatieBird can be in Fangoria and seeking others. cal exhibition. “Most of the money comes
American Cinematographer, almost The advent of DVDs has also from television [rights] and DVD, but most
anything can happen.” changed the economics of distribution. of the prestige comes from a theatrical
“About 10 years ago, VHS copies sold release,” says Margot Gerber, who co-
78 March 2006

Opposite: To
founded the Alternative Screen Indepen- publicize his
dent Film Showcase at the American musical film
Cinematheque. To generate some of that Open House,
director Dan
prestige, some filmmakers who haven’t Mirvish
found theatrical distribution work with launched a
bookers who help place their films in campaign to
reactivate the
theaters on the indie circuit. However, Academy
once the costs of prints, shipping and Awards’
advertising are tallied, this can be an dormant Original
Musical
expensive proposition. category. This
But even in the theatrical realm, page, top and
the paradigm is changing. “One of the bottom: Daniel
Myrick went so
more exciting developments in theatrical far as to make
is digital projection,” says Myrick. “Once his California-
theaters convert, they will open them- set serial The
Strand
selves up to a whole range of content. filmmakers who want to self-distribute it is, there’s a niche, and you’ve got to find specifically for
There will be no more middleman and no their DVDs. Web sites such as it. If it’s a film about the elderly, get the the Web.
more prints or deliverables hassles, indieflix.com, filmbaby.com, microcin- word out to people who work in gerontol-
which can be enormously expensive.” He ema.com and even amazon.com all sell ogy.”
adds that when The Blair Witch Project DVDs by independent filmmakers, and Film-festival consultant Thomas
was screened at Sundance, the festival both greencine.com and netflix.com rent Ethan Harris says that kind of niche
projected only film, and the 35mm print them. “Netflix is very open to buying marketing is one of the reasons gay films
the filmmakers had to strike cost five smaller films,” says Gerber. Noting that are so successful. “If you make a love
times more than the entire production. the company has started to produce its story with two white lovers, where do you
Theatrical-delivery options are own movies (such as Comedians of advertise that feature? There aren’t
also evolving. National CineMedia, an in- Comedy), she adds, “They’re very inter- ‘white lover’ magazines. But there are gay
theater advertising company owned by ested in promoting their little stable of TV networks and free gay publications
Cinemark USA, AMC Theatres and Regal indie films.” distributed on the street. Gay viewers can
Entertainment Group, has built a digital- IndieFlix founders Scandiuzzi and find out directly about projects that would
distribution network called DHN, which Scilla Andreen estimate every indepen- interest them.”
delivers advertising and pre-recorded dent movie has a core fan base of 200- Scandiuzzi and Andreen hope
events to theaters via satellite. Now the 300 people — typically cast, crew, and IndieFlix will provide another way to
company is beginning to use the same friends and relatives. Although that isn’t connect filmmakers with their audiences.
system for independent films. According a lot of people, an online library of 1,000 “Often we see filmgoers talking to film-
to Tom Galley, chief operations and tech- films that each attract that many view- goers and filmmakers talking to filmmak-
nology officer, independent filmmakers ers means hundreds of thousands of ers,” says Scandiuzzi. “But we would like
provide a master, generally on D5, which people, many of whom would never filmmakers and filmgoers to have a
is then digitized, encrypted and sent to otherwise seek out indie films, are dialogue. Filmmakers can get a pulse on
the theaters authorized to receive the connecting to the community as a what the audience thinks, good or bad.
movie. According to Galley, the current whole. Andreen and Scandiuzzi are And they will have a built-in audience for
system is not digital cinema because the trying to create a Web site that invites
theaters are using lower-cost LCD projec- those people to explore further and
tors, but it does offer independent film- learn about other films in the collection.
makers a cost-effective way to get their The key to making the idea work, they
movies out to a relatively wide audience. say, is for filmmakers to be active about
“So far, we’ve done it on up to 250 promoting their movies. “There’s a
screens,” says Galley. “It puts them in a certain amount of education we need to
business that otherwise would be do with filmmakers,” says Scandiuzzi.
prohibitive.” “We need to make them understand
For most filmmakers, though, that they have a lot more clout than they
theatrical exhibition is most valuable as a think they have.”
means to generate buzz that will help Shultz agrees that grassroots
DVD sales. And although there are efforts are the most effective way to
distributors who handle DVD releases, publicize a movie. “Find a core audience
there are also many options available for that’s interested in your film. Whatever

the next movie and can start talking the stuff. Guys like Brightcove allow
about it before they even start shooting.” guys like me to focus on the creative.”
Publicity of all sorts is also impor- BitPass founder Kurt Huang notes that
tant. Harris says that for a DVD release, companies like his also help filmmakers
quotable critics become essential, which build a relationship with their fans.
is why it’s worthwhile for a movie to play “Building a brand is currently an impor-
at important festivals. But filmmakers tant direction for a lot of filmmakers,” he
are also getting much more entrepre- says. “It’s almost like a music label, but
neurial, promoting their movies on without the Draconian contractual rela-
MySpace, creating podcasts, and even, tionships.” Huang believes a Web serial
in the case of Mirvish’s Open House, like The Strand is probably the best fit for
launching a quixotic but well-publicized the Internet at the moment. “You can
campaign to reactivate the dormant give away the first episode and get
Academy Award category for Original people hooked.”
Musical. “If the goal is to get attention The biggest recent development
for your film and build a fan base for an in distribution may be the release of
eventual DVD release, there’s more than Apple’s video iPod, which Mirvish
one way to skin a cat,” says Mirvish. predicts will revitalize the market for
“You need something to boost your short films, at least for a little while. “In
profile, and what it is isn’t necessarily the dot-com boom of the late ’90s, all the
the most obvious thing.” attention and distribution were with the
One of the best-known movies shorts,” he recalls. “After the dot-com
promoted with guerrilla tactics was The crash, shorts once again became
Blair Witch Project, which created an second-class citizens. My guess is there
online mystique that has become will be a return to the frenzy, because
legendary among indie filmmakers. now everyone wants short things to put
Myrick has taken his use of the Internet on cell phones and iPods. There will be a
to an even higher level with his current window of about a year or two when it’s
project, The Strand. He got the idea for hot to make shorts.”
the show, an ongoing series set in Although the prospect of sorting
Venice, California, two years ago. He through new distribution possibilities
took it around to the television networks, may seem overwhelming, David Levy,
but at that time executives had trouble president of production at HD Pictures &
grasping the idea of a reality/fiction Post, notes that even the studios must
hybrid. Myrick decided to shoot the first contend with it. “I promise you, at Sony
few episodes on his own to demonstrate and Paramount and Warner Bros. they’re
the concept, and as he started to saying, ‘How are we going to get our
promote them on the Web, he realized heads and arms wrapped around all this
the Internet had become a legitimate new stuff? How can we succeed where
avenue of distribution for such a project the recording industry has failed in terms
— as well as a better way to maintain of being cutting edge and not being left
control of it. “The idea of going back to in the dust?’ The independent filmmaker,
the networks with a pitch didn’t appeal even the guerrilla filmmaker, is just as
so much anymore,” he recalls. “We hope far along in figuring this stuff out as the
this will be a kind of launch pad for other big guys on the backlot. If you’re
shows.” comfortable working at a modest
Myrick has partnered with budget, you can be confident that there
several technology companies, including will be a way to get your work out
Brightcove and BitPass, which handle there.” Myrick adds, “I love the fact that
the technical and financial end of the things are changing at such a fundamen-
online distribution. “The technology is tal level. In my opinion, there’s never
literally changing month to month,” he been a better time to be an independent
says. “The real hurdle is that filmmakers filmmaker.” I
want to keep our heads in what we think
we’re good at: going out and shooting
80

New Products & Services
Assessing Panasonic’s
AG-DVX100B
by Jay Holben
Panasonic recently released the

AG-DVX100B, a revision of the
DVX100A, with 22 updates and changes
both major and minor.
The camera’s onscreen menu
system has been given a slight overhaul,
and I didn’t notice the differences until I
looked at the DVX100A and 100B side
by side. The 100B has a new, smaller
font that makes the overall menu layout
per “screen” cleaner and easier to read. the camera has been reinforced. because it has much more room tone,
The new camera also boasts a new Although I had no quarrel with the previ- hiss and high end, there is a consider-
paint job with a suave name: Black ous mount, if a user adds matteboxes, a able quality difference between it and
Sapphire. Amazingly, the new color follow focus and other accessories, the the “tape” setting. So what is the
scheme improves the readability of beefier mount should be welcome. recording really going to sound like?
buttons and labels inside the flip-out The manufacturing process for Thorough testing prior to recording is
viewing screen, even in relatively low- the 100B has been altered so that the required.
light conditions. This is a nice improve- camera is now RoHS (Restrictions One of the next features is the
ment over the 100A. on Hazardous Substances)-compliant, ability to connect two DVX100s
The standard camera package ensuring it is environmentally safe. together to transfer Scene file settings
now comes with a larger, longer-lasting (Primarily, this means the new manufac- or time-code information from one
CGR-D54 5400mA battery that extends turing process eliminates lead.) Also, camera to the other. At first, the idea of
the 45-minute capacity of the previous the End Search function has been modi- syncing two cameras was very exciting.
CGR-D16 1600mA battery to more than fied to work in Camera mode so the user I didn’t have two 100Bs, so I hooked a
five hours. Panasonic has also adjusted doesn’t have to switch to VCR mode to 100B to a 100A and followed the rather
the zoom speed at the “medium” setting find the end of the previously recorded convoluted steps outlined in the manual
to fall more naturally in line between material. to transfer the time code from the B
slow and fast. With the 100B, Panasonic has (master) to the A (slave). I accomplished
The improvement in the Elec- found a way to eliminate the sound that, and the time codes matched, but
tronic View Finder’s (EVF) resolution is echo everyone encounters when record- that was it. Although the cameras were
impressive, even though it has only ing in 24p mode with the DVX100 and still connected, hitting Record on the
grown from 180,000 dots to 230,000 100A. When shooting in 24p and moni- master didn’t start the slave. In the end,
dots. The physical screen size — .44" toring the sound from the headphone the transfer was no different than
— hasn’t changed, but detail is easier jack, a user will experience a two-frame merely presetting the time code manu-
to see. Unfortunately, that doesn’t delay that created an echo effect on the ally on the slave camera to match the
improve the ability to judge critical natural location sound. This slight prob- master camera. Additionally, transfer-
focus. (Panasonic offers an enhanced lem makes audio monitoring from the ring the time code from one camera to
detail feature for both the EVF and flip- camera nearly impossible in 24p mode. the other was more difficult than manu-
out viewfinder, which makes critical The 100B has a menu feature, identified ally adjusting the presets.
focus much easier to attain). An inter- as “HP” (for Head Phones), that enables The 100B’s tape-drive mecha-
esting addition to the EVF is the ability users to switch from “live” (which moni- nism has been upgraded to be more
to switch between black-and-white and tors audio straight from the mike) to rugged. Although this is nice change, it
color for contrast viewing. “tape” (which monitors from the record also creates an annoyance: when you
The tripod mount on the base of head). “Live” eliminates the echo, but load the tape and close the drive, you

have to wait for the drive to lower and
the heads to engage before you can
shut the outer door. When you’re
running and gunning, waiting for the
drive to drop before you can close the
outer door is bothersome. Also, this
update apparently has eliminated the
“interval rec” feature that the 100 and
100A had. It’s still possible to do one-
frame recording, but there is no longer a
built-in intervalometer for time-lapse
photography.
A slight breakaway has been
added to the flip-out LCD screen that
allows it to bend out 30° further than
the previous 90° point. This allows more
flexibility to operate from the flip-out
screen and also reduces the risk of
breaking the LCD off in the event it gets
bumped. The screen has received a
slight increase in resolution — from
200,000 pixels to 210,000 — but that
pales in comparison to two other
changes. First, it is now possible to view
“squeezed” material in letterbox format.
When shooting in 16x9 digital anamor-
phic mode with the 100A, you viewed a
squeezed image on the LCD and in the
EVF. In the 100B’s “squeeze” mode, you
view a letterboxed image. There is also
a mode that allows you to manually
control the aspect ratio; when using an
optical anamorphic adapter, you can
manually dial in the proper image to see
an unsqueezed picture. Additionally,
Panasonic has increased the viewing
area to the full recorded frame, not just
the “overscan” area.
Finally, and probably most signif-
icantly, Panasonic claims the 100B’s LCD
screen is a matter of “what you see is
what you get.” Being well acquainted
with the limitations of LCD technology, I
was keen to test this claim. The first
problem is that, as with nearly all LCD
screens, the angle at which you view
the screen considerably alters the repro-
duction of the image. By experimenting
a bit, I found a position that seemed to
represent the best contrast on the LCD
monitor, with the richest blacks. This
position seemed to be about 20° tilted
away from perpendicular to my vision.
Any variance greater than 5° in any
direction seemed to degrade the quality
82

of the blacks and contrast. Right away,
this puts a kink in the “what you see is
what you get” theory, as you are only
getting what you see as long as you’re
seeing it from the precise position.
I hooked the 100B via an S-video
cable to a JCV TM-H1750CGU high-
resolution 17" NTSC monitor. Using the
SMPTE bars generated from the DVX, I
balanced the monitor’s color, brightness
and contrast. Then I turned to the LCD.
Of course, the DVX doesn’t have a blue-
gun-only feature to calibrate the color,
so I turned to the custom blue filter
provided in Joe Kane’s excellent DVD
Video Essentials: Optimizing Your
Audio/Video System, and balanced the
color looking through that filter at the
LCD. Surprisingly, it fell in line pretty
nicely, better than most old NTSC moni-
tors I’ve had to balance in the field. I
also placed the 100A next to the 100B
and set it accordingly. The 100A’s LCD
screen clearly exhibited much weaker
blacks, and the color didn’t quite fall in
as well.
Then I put up my Gamma &
Density Gamma 2U color chart, lit it and
framed it up with both DVXs. The JVC
monitor was positioned right in my line
of sight so that I could stand at the 100B
with the LCD at the optimum position
and also see the NTSC monitor. I was
FrameForge 3DStudio2 ®
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FrameForge 3D Studio 2 takes the guesswork out of directing. You’ll save time and
seeing on the monitor. The 100A’s LCD
money with its optically correct storyboards that not only include the shot as seen through
was nowhere near the quality and accu-
the camera, but also the overhead set layout with camera setups and all relevant camera
racy I was seeing with the 100B. The information.
latter was not perfect, but it was quite
“I would no more start shooting my
close. Overall, the NTSC monitor had a
next film without using FrameForge
little more color saturation (especially than I would start filming without
comparing SMPTE bars), particularly in a script.” —Johannes Roberts, Gatlin Films
the blue and green, but hue and contrast
representation seemed dead on. The • Solve Problems Before You Shoot
LCD was nowhere near as sharp as the • Communicate More Effectively
NTSC monitor, however, so fine lines in With Your Crew
the chart weren’t as clear on the camera
• Enhance Your Creative Process
as they were on the monitor, especially
around the red portions of the chart, • Get the Performances Your
where the color seemed to bleed ever Project Deserves
so slightly on the LCD. • Promote and Sell Your Vision
I concentrated on the two areas
For a complete list of features and to upgrade to
of the Gamma 2U chart designated to Version 2 go to www.FrameForge3D.com
represent video 100IRE and 90IRE. or your preferred Reseller
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83

hard to distinguish their different bright- Magic Bullet Editors v2.0
ness values on an NTSC monitor when by Jay Holben
exposing for 18 percent gray to 55 IRE.
Starting with the chart slightly overex- Designed for integration into
posed, I began stopping down the iris nonlinear-editing programs, Magic
on the camera until I visually could Bullet Editors version 2.0 features Magic
distinguish a difference between the Bullet’s Look Suite with a few extra
100 IRE and 90 IRE areas on the LCD tools, but without the well-known 24p
monitor. I then did the same thing while conversion capability. Look Suite is a
watching the NTSC monitor and discov- custom color-correction and filter set
ered that I could discern a difference that allows the user to create a variety
between the two areas on the NTSC of interesting looks, including bleach
monitor about 2 ⁄3 of a stop earlier than I bypass, color grads, and cross process-
could while looking at the LCD screen ing.
— not a significant difference. In Magic Bullet Editors v2.0, the
I brought in a strand of Christmas Look Suite includes adjustments to pre-
lights to see how well the camera filtration gamma, contrast and satura-
represented high contrast. Putting the tion. You can add “camera filters” such
lights on the black back of my color as white diffusion, black diffusion and ence was the render times. For Magic
chart and zooming in on a single bulb, I color gradients, and you can simulate a Bullet to apply the default Bleach
exposed the image on the LCD monitor three-strip Technicolor look. Finally, Look Bypass preset look on one minute of DV
to taste and then began comparing that Suite adds post-filtration applications of footage, rendering took 31 minutes 13
image to the NTSC monitor. The LCD overall warm/cool color tone and post- seconds. The default 55MM Bleach-
screen reproduced the plume from the filtration gamma, contrast and satura- Bypass filter on the same footage took 7
filament of the bulb just slightly larger tion. It is just a bit more than the color minutes 20 seconds, significantly less.
than the NTSC monitor did — 5 to 10 correction and filters that come with With a bit of tweaking on both filters, I
percent at most. Looking at the LCD on Apple’s Final Cut Pro. was able to quickly achieve nearly iden-
the 100A, the plume from the filament Magic Bullet boasts DeepColor tical results in appearance and rendered
completely filled the bulb; there were technology, a proprietary rendering algo- each out. I then compared them side by
no discernible details in the bulb at all. rithm that processes pixels at four times side, enlarged to 400 percent, to see
On the 100B, there were definitely the precision of similar applications and what happened to the picture. Looking
details that were almost exactly what I applies floating-point imaging process- just at the eyeball of the subject in the
was seeing on the NTSC monitor. ing to ensure the highest possible output DV footage, I examined both images an
I was extremely impressed that quality. I tested this against one of my Apple 23" Cinema Display screen and
the LCD monitor performed as well as it favorite filter sets, Digital Film Tree’s on a JVC TM-H1750 high-resolution
did. Of course, the moment I introduced 55MM v5.0. Both were applied in Final NTSC monitor. The two effects weren’t
any ambient flare on the LCD or moved Cut Pro 5.0 on the same 24p-originated identical, but they were very close. The
it out of the prime position, the “what footage from a Canon XL2 on a dual 55MM retained more detail in the iris of
you see is what you get” effect was 2GHz PowerMac G5 with 1.5GB RAM. the eye, but Magic Bullet seemed to
obliterated. When operating the camera With the 55MM suite, I had much more have a slightly less blockier contrast
on a daytime exterior, you won’t see precise control over the built-in matting with slightly more details in the fold of
what you’re getting unless you shield power and more than twice as many the subject’s eye. The blacks on the
the LCD from all ambient light. But if preset filters than with Magic Bullet. For Magic Bullet were somewhat stronger
you’re shooting onstage and can posi- some odd reason, the preset Magic than the 55MM filter. Aside from that,
tion the LCD just right, you’ll be amazed Bullet looks for Final Cut Pro aren’t avail- there were no differences in terms of
by the image’s accuracy. In the real able from the pulldown effects menu; resolution or artifacting resulting from
world, however, you would do well to instead, they are enclosed on the soft- rendering.
have a reference NTSC monitor that has ware disc as a project file from which Aside from color-correction filtra-
been properly set and shaded. you have to open and then copy the tion, Magic Bullet Editors offers the
The upgrades to the 100B clearly filters. This seems like a tedious step. MisFire suite of filters to emulate vari-
show that Panasonic is listening and Working with one minute of ous kinds of damage associated with
responding to its user base. For more footage, I took the Bleach-Bypass filter film-originated material. This set of
information, visit http://panasonic.com/ from 55MM and Magic Bullet and filters is valuable to the common user,
business/provideo/cat_camcorders.asp applied each to the same footage (see although it would most likely be applied
or call (800) 222-0741. images above). The first major differ- with a very light touch. You can create
84 March 2006

film-like scratches, flicker, gate weave,
blotches, dust, grain and more. Again,
render times are a little high; one
minute of DV footage took 16 minutes
43 seconds to render for the default
settings on the Gate Weave filter.
Editor Eric Tozzi has become a
big fan of the Magic Bullet Editors tool.
While cutting the documentary
Armand, about the painter Armand
Merizon, Tozzi worked with a large
amount of material that had been shot
by members of the painter’s family.
“Most of what they had shot was
natural-light, run-and-gun footage,”
recalls Tozzi. “Magic Bullet was a life-
saver, because I could quickly run
through a number of different looks to
see which would work for a given
sequence and really sweeten up the
footage. I like the flexibility Magic
Bullet gives you; with open presets, you
have the ability to tweak almost infi-
nitely. It isn’t just ‘one template fits
all.’” Tozzi is currently cutting the TV
series Travel the Road, whose post
team is using the full version of Magic
Bullet to set the final look of the show.
Magic Bullet Editors is available
from Red Giant Software for $395 and
works with Final Cut Pro, Avid Xpress
Pro, Motion, Sony Vegas and Adobe
Premiere Pro.
For more information, visit
www.redgiantsoftware.com or call
(260) 625-5343. I
To be considered for a product review in

New Products & Services, contact Associate
Editor Douglas Bankston to make arrangements
at (323) 860-6672; E-mail: doug@ascmag.com;
product shipping address: 1313 N. Vine St., Holly-
wood, CA 90028; postal service mailing address:
1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028.
For press release submissions, please
include any images and full contact information
with submission. Images may be sent as color
slides, color or black-and-white prints, or digital
files (Mac Photoshop TIFF or high-quality JPEG
format, 300 dpi) on CD. E-mailed image attach-
ments must be a minimum of 300 dpi in the afore-
mentioned formats. Mailed materials will not be
returned without a self-addressed, stamped
envelope.
85

Points East
Students at Boston University Create Roller Palace
by Patricia Thomson
writing students, so he devised a TV-
writing competition. BU alumnus Ted
Harbert, CEO of E! Networks, organized a
panel of professional judges in Los Ange-
les and a $2,500 prize. “One day I casu-
ally suggested to our department chair,
Charles Merzbacher, that it would be
great to actually produce the [winning]
script,” says Schneider. “Everybody
thought it was a great idea. The only
problem was coming up with the
money.”
In 2004, Schneider found a willing
broadcaster in mtvU, which in turn
helped locate funding through MSN, one
of its advertisers. “In return,” says
Schneider, “we had to integrate their
video-conferencing technology into our
F
Above: Doug orget the ivory tower. “Baptism by veteran film and television director/ script. As it turns out, we came up with a
(Dann Maurno) fire” is how Boston University’s Paul producer whose credits include JAG, clever way of doing it that makes the
has a video chat
with his Schneider describes the New Televi- L.A. Law and Beverly Hills 90210. “They script even funnier.” The 2005 winner,
daughter from sion Workshop, his eight-credit class did an actual production from start to written by Liz Coopersmith, “is about a
his cell that will culminate this month with the finish with all the difficulties of being on pampered, wealthy woman in her early
as fellow con
Suaze (Franco broadcast of a TV pilot written, produced location, shooting in winter, and with the 20s living in Manhattan,” he explains.
Trambino) lurks and crewed by BU students. The half- proper prep, budgeting and scheduling. “Her father has recently been incarcer-
Photos by John Messinger. Frame grab and photos courtesy of Rohan Chitrakar.
in the hour comedy, Roller Palace, will debut In hindsight, I think we could have made ated for insider trading. As the pilot
background.
Below: March 20 on mtvU, a channel owned by it 12 credits because it was a huge opens, she discovers her mother is
Cinematographer MTV that reaches more than 725 amount of work.” divorced and is marrying her high-school
Rohan Chitrakar colleges and universities. “Most of the When Schneider arrived at BU’s sweetheart, who owns a hot-dog empo-
(foreground)
makes final students had never encountered Film & Television Department in 2002, rium on the Jersey Shore. This spoiled
lighting anything of this scale,” says Schneider, a he noticed a paucity of outlets for TV- girl suddenly has to relocate to the
adjustments in Jersey Shore, and her life is turned
the cell with
the help of a upside-down. It’s a fish-out-of-water
hi-def monitor. story.” As for incorporating MSN
Messenger, he says, “We posit that the
father is such a con man that he’s
obtained a video link in jail so his daugh-
ter can talk to him via her laptop
computer.”
Coopersmith’s script came out of
Schneider’s spring 2005 Advanced Writ-
ing for Television class. By fall, 14
production students had been selected
for the New Television Workshop, where
they would become the crew. Among
them, the frontrunner for director of
86 March 2006

photography was Rohan Chitrakar, a try this format,” says Schneider. De tomed to 7 a.m. calls, meeting a daily
second-year master’s student who had a Besche adds, “It was totally the right schedule, and contending with the
background in still photography and choice. The students could work it easily hazards of location shoots in wintry
some documentary experience. “Rohan into their particular editing system. It’s Massachusetts. One day, 50-mph winds
is a very talented young man,” says professional-level both in terms of the threatened to bowl over their HMIs;
Schneider. “When I asked around the picture it takes and in terms of the another day, the temperature was so
department about who might be quali- handling. It’s got all the controls they cold the Pro 35 adapter froze. All the
fied, the consensus was that he was the will have to think about in a professional while, students were executing chal-
person.” situation.” (The HD package was lenging camera moves, often using a
The camera department included supplied by Boston Camera, while grip Steadicam or Fisher dollies, equipment
three others, Josh Carroll (camera oper- and electric gear came from High lacking in their regular classes.
ator), Shannon Mita (1st AC) and Sam Output.) “[Schneider] did not back off and give
Rosenthal (2nd AC). Corinne Pickett was De Besche created hands-on nothing but easy camera setups,” de
the gaffer and Blake Smith was the key exercises almost immediately. “I would Besche attests. “There were definitely
grip. Meanwhile, students from BU’s say, ‘Okay, let’s set up a shot. What are complex moves going on quite often,
School of Theatre did production design, you going to do first? Go ahead and try and everybody responded pretty darn
and acting majors supplemented the that.’ Then, ‘Maybe the reason you well.”
professional cast. shouldn’t do it that way is this, [and] if Carroll says his trickiest shot
No one in Schneider’s class had you go about it this other way, it’ll be was a handheld close-up of two women
ever worked with a crew of that size — more efficient. And while you’re doing wrestling on the ground. “I had to get on
student films typically involve no more that, your assistant should be working my knees and pull focus at the same
than four students. “In the past, I’ve on this.’ It was making a list of tasks and time,” he recalls. “It was really difficult
done almost everything with the lighting helping them get those done in the right because the camera didn’t have
and the camera,” says Chitrakar. “On order.” Working with Chitrakar, de handles.” For Chitrakar, a big challenge
this project, we had huge crew respon- Besche steered him towards finding a was motivating camera moves. “I grad-
sibilities and so many different depart- personal style, doing tests to show the ually realized when they would be
ments. It was mind-boggling for me to director, and giving instructions clearly. appropriate,” he says. “By the end, I
realize I didn’t have to do everything, and “I’d explain how not to jump away from was able to discuss this with Paul, and
that my responsibility as director of the supervisory work to plug in an exten- it ended up being a pretty good
photography was to be more of a leader, sion cord,” says de Besche. “It’s impor- dialogue.”
to delegate tasks. It was really hard in tant to keep that hierarchy in place so De Besche notes that real equip-
the beginning because I’m a very hands- the boss is always looking at the big ment, real shooting schedules and real
on person, and it was very hard to picture. It’s easy for helpful people to challenges made this a different experi-
communicate exactly what I was think- say, ‘Gee, we need an extension cord! ence from many cinematography
ing to Josh or the gaffer during the first I’ll go get it.’ But it’s really inefficient. classes, including his own. “This was,
few practices. Slowly I realized how That took some convincing.” ‘Bang! Here’s the real world. You gotta
important it was to express the visual Students had to become accus- make it work.’ And they did.” I
ideas I had.”
Instrumental in this learning
process was another BU instructor,
Austin de Besche, a Boston-based cine-
matographer (Return of the Secaucus 7,
Lianna) and director. He was one of
several professionals recruited to act as
mentors and provide technical training.
De Besche gave students a crash course
on Panasonic’s high-definition AJ- Chitrakar
HDC27F VariCam, as well as the Zeiss inspects the
35mm prime lenses and P&S Technik Pro frozen Pro 35
lens adapter
35 adapter system chosen for the single- as bitter
camera shoot. “Because we do a fair temperatures
amount of 16mm, and because hi-def bring the
production to
video may be where we’re going in the an unexpected
future, we felt it would be interesting to halt.

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www.hollywoodmanuals.com. product endorsements. www.stormchaser.com
300mm T2 Nikkor for sale. Contact Robert Primes, ASC, (323)
Moviecam magazines for sale. Call Visual Products Inc. (440) 851-8444, primesasc@earthlink.net . 91
647-4999.

Advertiser’s Index
AC 16a-b, 17 Film Emporium, Inc. 90 Panther 41
Alan Gordon Enterprises 91 Filmtools 74 PED Denz 4
Arri 12-13 Fletcher Chicago 40 Pille Filmgeraeteverleigh 90
ASC Press 70, 82 Flying-Cam 39 Professional Sound 95
Frame Forge 83 Pro8mm 91
Backstage Equipment, Inc. 69
Fuji Motion Pictures 15
Band Pro Film & Digital 5 Schneider Optics/Century 2
Full Sail 7
Barger-Baglite 6 Sharpshooter 10
Boston Camera 6 Gillard Industries, Inc. 91 SMS Productions, Inc. 91
Brooks Institute Glidecam Industries 19 Sony Electronics INSERT
of Photography 64 Go Easy Lighting 56 Stanton Video Services 74
Burrell Enterprises 90 Ste-Man, Inc. 48
Hand Held Films 90
Sunpredictor 18
Cavision Enterprises 55 Highway 350 Corp. 91
Sydney Film School 74
Chapman/Leonard Studio Hybrid Cases 90
Equipment Inc. 39 Hydroflex 95 T8 Technology Company 65
Chesapeake Camera 6 Technocrane S.R.O. 47
Innoventive Software 83
Cinebags 90 Tiffen 21
International Film & TV
Cinekinetic 8
Workshop 69 Ultra Camera Mounts 90
Cinema Vision 90
Cinematography JBK Cinequipt 90 Vancouver Film School 27
Electronics 69 Visual Products, Inc. 85
K 5600, Inc. 28
Cine Power International 80
Kino Flo 49 www.theasc.com 92
Cinequipt 83
K-Tek 90 Welch Integrated 71
Cineworks 29
Willy’s Widgets 90
Clairmont Film & Digital 11 Laffoux Solutions, Inc. 90
Cooke 25, 85 Lights! Action! Company 90 Zacuto Films 90
Coptervision 57 London Film School 82 ZGC, Inc. 25, 85
Los Angeles Film School 23
Dalsa C3
MP&E 90
Eastman Kodak C2-1, C4
EFD, USA Inc. 55 NAB 88-89
Nevada Film Commission 75
New York Film Academy 9
92

Clubhouse News
convinced Corman to sign one of his only wee’s Big Adventure, The Gambler and
union contracts). He has also The Eyes of Laura Mars.
photographed more than 450 commer-
cials and public-service spots. Associate Member
Over the years, Dexter has devel- Hetos Dies
oped numerous products for the film Philip Hetos, the first color
industry, many of which prefigured timer to receive onscreen credit (for
advances made by other companies, and 1983’s Scarface), died on January 8 at
he has never hesitated to retool gear to the age of 73.
better suit his needs. His contributions Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylva-
include DXTR tube track with skate- nia, Hetos first found work in the film
board-wheel dollies, the “Pitching Lens” business with a job at Paramount
system (made in collaboration with
Continental Camera), and the “Shaki-
Cam” (which later became the Body
New Member Mount and Pogo Cam).
Long known as a mentor to both Dexter and his wife, Jill, have
aspiring and established filmmakers, operated their own production company
Ron Dexter, ASC has been welcomed for 22 years, and he has taught at UCLA,
into the Society’s ranks. University of California-Santa Barbara
Dexter’s interested in film can be and Santa Barbara Community College.
traced to his years in the U.S. Navy,
when he first took up still photography. Kemper Receives Lifetime
After leaving the service, he attended Achievement Award
the University of California-Berkeley, Victor J. Kemper, ASC was Studios in 1949. The following years
where he continued shooting, develop- recently honored with the Lifetime saw him try his hand at various jobs in
ing and printing stills and discovered the Achievement Award at the Fourth the industry, and he eventually became a
films of Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Annual Pune International Film Festival color timer, a position he enjoyed at
Antonioni, Jean Renoir and David Lean. in Pune, India. The award, which cele- Pathé Lab, Movie Lab, Technicolor,
Upon graduating with a degree in brated Kemper’s contributions to advanc- Deluxe Laboratories and CFI. His credits
psychology, Dexter decided motion ing the global art of filmmaking, marked include Young Guns, Sneakers, Jerry
pictures were a “higher form” of photog- the first time the festival presented a Maguire, Magnolia and Road to Perdi-
raphy, and he audited production courses tribute to a cinematographer. tion. In addition to being an associate
at the University of California-Los Ange- Kemper’s credits include The member of the ASC, Hetos was a long-
les (UCLA) while working in the school’s Candidate, Dog Day Afternoon, The Last time member of Film Technicians Local
film department. His first break came on Tycoon, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Pee- 683.
the Disney wildlife film Sam Connors He is survived by his wife, Judy
and the Wahoo Bobcat, for which he Taylor; sons Philip (Mike) Hetos and
built sets and worked on the camera Doug Taylor; daughters Rhonda
crew. Vanderver and Cindy Lainez; a sister,
Dexter’s career has since encom- Dorothy Palis; a brother, David Hetos;
passed special effects (he worked with and 11 grandchildren. I
Linwood Dunn, ASC and Cecil Love on
It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World), the
Academy Award-nominated documen-
tary Harvest (which he shot for Carroll
Ballard), Star Trek (for which he made
Left: Kodak’s Rajesh Jiandani,
star background plates), and the Roger Victor Kemper, ASC and ASC associate
Corman film Gasss (on which Dexter member Milt Shefter.

American Society of Cinematographers Roster
OFFICERS – 2005-’06 ACTIVE MEMBERS Victor Duncan Fred J. Koenekamp Kenneth D. Peach Jr.
Richard Crudo, Thomas Ackerman Bert Dunk Lajos Koltai Daniel Pearl
President Lance Acord John Dykstra Laszlo Kovacs Edward J. Pei
Lloyd Ahern II Richard Edlund Neil Krepela James Pergola
Owen Roizman, Herbert Alpert Frederick Elmes Willy Kurant Don Peterman
Vice President Russ Alsobrook Robert Elswit Ellen M. Kuras Lowell Peterson
Daryn Okada, Howard A. Anderson III Geoffrey Erb George La Fountaine Wally Pfister
Vice President Howard A. Anderson Jr. Jon Fauer Edward Lachman Alex Phillips
James Anderson Don E. FauntLeRoy Ken Lamkin Clifford Poland
Curtis Clark, Peter Anderson Gerald Feil Jacek Laskus Gene Polito
Vice President Tony Askins Steven Fierberg Andrew Laszlo Bill Pope
Russ Alsobrook, Charles Austin Gerald Perry Finnerman Denis Lenoir Steven Poster
Treasurer James Bagdonas Mauro Fiore John R. Leonetti Tom Priestley Jr.
King Baggot John C. Flinn III Matthew Leonetti Rodrigo Prieto
Michael Goi, John Bailey Ron Fortunato Andrew Lesnie Robert Primes
Secretary Michael Ballhaus William A. Fraker Peter Levy Frank Prinzi
Kees Van Oostrum, Andrzej Bartkowiak Tak Fujimoto Matthew Libatique Richard Quinlan
Sergeant-at-Arms John Bartley Alex Funke Stephen Lighthill Declan Quinn
Frank Beascoechea Steve Gainer Karl Walter Lindenlaub Earl Rath
MEMBERS Affonso Beato Ron Garcia John Lindley Richard Rawlings Jr.
OF THE BOARD Mat Beck James M. Glennon Robert F. Liu Frank Raymond
Dion Beebe Michael Goi Walt Lloyd Tami Reiker
Russell P. Carpenter Bill Bennett Stephen Goldblatt Bruce Logan Gayne Rescher
Curtis Clark Andres Berenguer Paul Goldsmith Emmanuel Lubezki Marc Reshovsky
Richard Crudo Carl Berger Victor Goss Julio G. Macat Robert Richardson
George Spiro Dibie Gabriel Beristain Jack Green Glen MacPherson Anthony B. Richmond
Richard Edlund Steven Bernstein Adam Greenberg Constantine Makris Bill Roe
Francis Kenny Ross Berryman Robbie Greenberg Karl Malkames Owen Roizman
Michael Bonvillain Alexander Gruszynski Isidore Mankofsky Charles Rosher Jr.
Isidore Mankofsky
Richard Bowen Changwei Gu Michael D. Margulies Giuseppe Rotunno
Daryn Okada Russell Boyd Rick Gunter Barry Markowitz Philippe Rousselot
Woody Omens Don Burgess Rob Hahn Vincent Martinelli Juan Ruiz-Anchia
Owen Roizman Stephen H. Burum Gerald Hirschfeld Steve Mason Marvin Rush
Nancy Schreiber Wilmer C. Butler Henner Hofmann Don McAlpine Paul Ryan
John Toll Taylor Byars Adam Holender Don McCuaig Eric Saarinen
Roy Wagner Frank B. Byers Ernie Holzman Robert McLachlan Alik Sakharov
Bobby Byrne John C. Hora John McPherson Mikael Salomon
Haskell Wexler
Russell P. Carpenter Gil Hubbs Terry K. Meade Harris Savides
Vilmos Zsigmond Michel Hugo Chris Menges Aaron Schneider
James L. Carter
ALTERNATES Alan Caso Judy Irola Rexford Metz Nancy Schreiber
Michael Chapman Mark Irwin Anastas Michos Fred Schuler
John Hora
Rodney Charters Levie Isaacks Douglas Milsome John Schwartzman
Stephen Lighthill James A. Chressanthis Andrew Jackson Charles Minsky John Seale
Michael Goi Joan Churchill Peter James Richard Moore Dean Semler
Kees Van Oostrum Curtis Clark Johnny E. Jensen Donald A. Morgan Eduardo Serra
Peter L. Collister Robert C. Jessup Donald M. Morgan Steven Shaw
Russ Alsobrook
Jack Cooperman Torben Johnke M. David Mullen Richard Shore
Jack Couffer Frank Johnson Dennis Muren Newton Thomas Sigel
Vincent G. Cox Shelly Johnson Fred Murphy John Simmons
Jeff Cronenweth Jeffrey Jur Hiro Narita Sandi Sissel
Richard Crudo William K. Jurgensen Guillermo Navarro Bradley B. Six
Dean R. Cundey Janusz Kaminski Michael B. Negrin Dennis L. Smith
Stefan Czapsky Stephen M. Katz Sol Negrin Roland “Ozzie” Smith
Allen Daviau Ken Kelsch Bill Neil Reed Smoot
Roger Deakins Victor J. Kemper Alex Nepomniaschy Bing Sokolsky
Jan DeBont Wayne Kennan John Newby Peter Sova
Thomas Del Ruth Francis Kenny David B. Nowell William Spencer
Peter Deming Glenn Kershaw Sven Nykvist Dante Spinotti
Caleb Deschanel Darius Khondji Rene Ohashi Robert Steadman
Ron Dexter Gary Kibbe Daryn Okada Ueli Steiger
George Spiro Dibie Jan Keisser Woody Omens Peter Stein
Craig Di Bona Jeffrey L. Kimball Miroslav Ondricek Robert M. Stevens
Ernest Dickerson Alar Kivilo Michael D. O’Shea Vittorio Storaro
Billy Dickson Richard Kline Anthony Palmieri Harry Stradling Jr.
Bill Dill George Koblasa Phedon Papamichael David Stump
94 March 2006

M A R C H 2 0 0 6
Tim Suhrstedt Don Donigi Michael Parker

Peter Suschitzky Cyril Drabinsky Warren Parker
Alfred Taylor Jesse Dylan Doug Pentek
William Taylor Raymond Emeritz Ed Phillips
Don Thorin Jonathan Erland Nick Phillips
John Toll John Farrand Jerry Pierce
Mario Tosi Ray Feeney Joshua Pines
Luciano Tovoli Phil Feiner Carl Porcello
Jost Vacano Jimmy Fisher Howard Preston
Theo Van de Sande Scott Fleischer David Pringle
Eric Van Haren Noman Steve Garfinkel Phil Radin
Kees Van Oostrum Salvatore Giarratano Christopher Reyna
Ron Vargas Richard B. Glickman Frank J. Ricotta Sr.
Mark Vargo John A. Gresch Eric G. Rodli
Amelia Vincent Jim Hannafin Don Rogers
William Wages William Hansard Andy Romanoff
Roy H. Wagner Bill Hansard, Jr. Daniel Rosen
Ric Waite Richard Hart Dana Ross
Michael Watkins Roman I. Harte Bill Russell
Jonathan West Robert Harvey Kish Sadhvani
Haskell Wexler Don Henderson David Samuelson
Jack Whitman Charles Herzfeld Peter K. Schnitzler
Gordon Willis Larry Hezzelwood Walter Schonfeld
Dariusz Wolski Frieder Hochheim Juergen Schwinzer
Ralph Woolsey Robert C. Hummel Ronald Scott
Peter Wunstorf Roy Isaia Steven Scott
Robert Yeoman George Joblove Don Shapiro
Richard Yuricich John Johnston Milton R. Shefter
Jerzy Zielinski Curtis Jones Leon Silverman
Vilmos Zsigmond Frank Kay Garrett Smith
Kenneth Zunder Milton Keslow D. Brian Spruill
Robert Keslow John L. Sprung
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS Larry Kingen Joseph N. Tawil
Don Adams Douglas Kirkland Ira Tiffen
Joerg Agin Timothy J. Knapp Nat Tiffen
Alan Albert Ron Koch Arthur Tostado
Richard Aschman Karl Kresser Ann Turner
Volker Bahnemann Lou Levinson Mark Van Horne
Joseph J. Ball Suzanne Lezotte Richard Vetter
Carly M. Barber Grant Loucks Joe Violante
Craig Barron Andy Maltz Franz Weiser
Thomas M. Barron Steven E. Manios Evans Wetmore
Larry Barton Joe Matza Beverly Wood
John Bickford Albert L. Mayer, Sr. Jan Yarbrough
Steven A. Blakely Albert Mayer, Jr. Hoyt Yeatman
Mitchell Bogdanowicz Andy McIntyre Irwin M. Young
Jack Bonura Greg McMurry Bob Zahn
William Brodersen Stan Miller Nazir Zaidi
Garrett Brown Walter H. Mills Michael Zakula
Ronald D. Burdett George Milton Les Zellan
Reid Burns Mike Mimaki
Vincent Carabello Rami Mina HONORARY MEMBERS
Leonard Chapman Tak Miyagishima Col. Edwin E. Aldrin Jr.
Denny Clairmont Michael Morelli Neil A. Armstrong
Emory M. Cohen Dash Morrison Col. Michael Collins
Sean Coughlin Nolan Murdock Bob Fisher
Robert B. Creamer Mark W. Murphy Cpt. Bruce McCandless II
Grover Crisp Dan Muscarella David MacDonald
Daniel Curry F. Jack Napor Barbara Prevedel
Carlos D. DeMattos Iain A. Neil Dr. Roderick T. Ryan
Gary Demos Otto Nemenz Bud Stone
Richard DiBona Ernst Nettmann Richard F. Walsh
Kevin Dillon Mickel Niehenke
David Dodson Marty Oppenheimer
Judith Doherty Larry Parker
95

ASC CLOSE-UP
M. David Mullen, ASC
When you were a child, what film made the strongest impression on
you?
The first Godzilla was a childhood favorite when it played on TV; it actually has
a fairly atmospheric black-and-white look. I also loved the early Disney
animated features. By high school, I was a big fan of the original Star Trek
series. But the biggest impact came from seeing Close Encounters of the Third
Kind in a movie theater when I was 15. It was the ultimate cinematic experi-
ence of my youth. I’m still in awe of that movie.
climbed over time. The first movie anyone noticed was Twin Falls Idaho, and then
Which cinematographers, past or present, do you most admire? Northfork. Both were directed by Michael Polish, and both netted me Indepen-
Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC; Gordon Willis, ASC; Conrad Hall, ASC; Geoffrey dent Spirit Award nominations.
Unsworth, BSC; Jack Cardiff, BSC; Gregg Toland, ASC; David Watkin, BSC;
Gabriel Figueroa, AMC; Néstor Almendros, ASC; Robert Richardson, ASC; What has been your most satisfying moment on a project?
Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC; Allen Daviau, ASC; Freddie Young, BSC; Vilmos Zsig- Doing a crane shot in 35mm anamorphic on the vast plains of Montana in the
mond, ASC; George Barnes, ASC; and Jordan Cronenweth, ASC — to name a winter for Northfork. It was the closest I’ve felt to doing work in the spirit of John
few. Ford and David Lean, despite the tiny budget.
What sparked your interest in photography? Have you made any memorable blunders?
My father always has been an avid photographer, so it was part of my child- Early on, I moved a 5K that I probably shouldn’t have touched and unknowingly
hood. In high school, I remember first learning about cinematographers when I placed it under a fire sprinkler, which went off in this very expensive mansion. I
noticed that Superman: The Movie was dedicated to the late Geoffrey expected the owner to throw a fit when she saw her drowned master bedroom,
Unsworth. I loved his pastel, fog-filtered work on that movie and managed to but it turned out she had been hoping something would go wrong. Apparently
find the American Cinematographer article that his operator, Peter MacDonald, she had a habit of renting out her mansion to productions whenever she wanted
wrote about working with him. What deeply impressed me was the admiration to get some remodeling done, figuring that they would damage something and
that directors and crews who had worked with Unsworth expressed for him as she’d get money from the insurance claim.
a human being and an artist.
What’s the best professional advice you’ve ever received?
Where did you train and/or study? I was nervous about shooting my first feature, and luckily, I ran into Allen Daviau,
I started making Super 8 movies when I was in high school and didn’t attend ASC, who advised me to know my first week of production, what I needed to do,
film school until I was 27, so a decade of self-learning passed before I got any backwards and forwards. I discovered that being hyper-prepared like that not
formal training [at CalArts]. I arrived at film school more or less proficient with only boosted my confidence but also set the right tone for the production. The
the basics of camera and lighting, and I was asked to shoot dozens of gradu- crew quickly realizes that you know what you want and are aware of how long
ate-thesis projects for other students. So what I learned in film school was less things should take.
about technical matters and more about working with directors and crews.
What recent books, films or artworks have inspired you?
Who were your early teachers or mentors? I find some of the locations where I have worked to be very inspiring. Most
I relied heavily on back issues of American Cinematographer as my private film recently it was the Santa Fe region of New Mexico. In the past few years, Robert
school; I read every issue going back to the late 1920s and re-read the 1970s Richardson’s cinematography for Snow Falling on Cedars has probably impressed
issues (a great period for the magazine and for movies) numerous times. At me the most, as well as Conrad Hall’s work in Road to Perdition.
CalArts, my graduate-thesis adviser and mentor was Kris Malkiewicz, author of
the textbook Cinematography, which I had actually memorized a decade before Do you have any favorite genres, or genres that you would like to try?
meeting him. I recently got to collaborate with Kris on a new edition of that Shooting a science-fiction movie set on a spaceship would satisfy a childhood
book, a great honor. dream, especially if it were a Star Trek movie. Like many cinematographers, I’d
love to shoot a Western, a black-and-white film noir, and a period epic in 65mm
What are some of your key artistic influences? — not necessarily in that order.
My mother is Japanese, and living in a house with Japanese art on the walls
certainly influenced my early aesthetic development — as did, perhaps, the If you weren’t a cinematographer, what might you be doing instead?
many Japanese monster movies on TV. Growing up in the California desert had I’d probably be teaching filmmaking. If not, I might be trying to make a living as
some impact on my sense of space and light. I love the paintings of Hopper, a writer.
Caravaggio, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Sargent, da Vinci and Van Gogh. I’m also a
big fan of American landscape paintings, particularly by the Hudson River Which ASC cinematographers recommended you for membership?
School. The work and ideas of Vittorio Storaro have always been a major inspi- Robert Primes, Roy Wagner and Denis Lenoir.
ration. My favorite directors are Kurosawa, Kubrick, Lean, Ford, Welles and
Hitchcock — the usual suspects! How has ASC membership impacted your life and career?
For one thing, I got to cross “get into the ASC” off my list of lifelong career goals!
How did you get your first break in the business? It has been a tremendous honor and a great pleasure to meet and socialize with
I started shooting features right after film school, mainly micro-budget projects my heroes, some of whom were responsible for the greatest moments in cinema
that I got through connections made in school. The budgets have slowly history. It’s a wonderful organization of true artists. I
96 March 2006


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