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The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques

Features 32
44
54
66

Bourne Again
Oliver Wood keeps the adrenaline flowing in
The Bourne Ultimatum

Cultural Immersion
Teodoro Maniaci treks to India to shoot the indie
Outsourced

Baroque Visions
44

Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC pays homage to

an artistic icon in Caravaggio

Once Upon a Time in Bucharest

Christopher Probst details his award-winning work
on the Muse video Knights of Cydonia

Departments
On Our Cover:
International superspy
Jason Bourne
(Matt Damon) chases an
assassin in The Bourne
Ultimatum, shot by
Oliver Wood. (Photo by
Jasin Boland, courtesy of
Universal Pictures.)

Visit us online at

8
10
14
20
72
78
86
90
102
104
105
106
108
110
112

Editors Note
Global Village
DVD Playback
Production Slate
Short Takes
Post Focus
Filmmakers Forum
New Products & Services
Points East
International Marketplace
Classified Ads
Ad Index
ASC Membership Roster
Clubhouse News
Wrap Shot

www.theasc.com

54

66

S e p t e m b e r

2 0 0 7

V o l .

8 8 ,

N o .

The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques Since 1920

Visit us online at

www.theasc.com

PUBLISHER Martha Winterhalter

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Call us or visit our web site to see our specialty
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EDITORIAL
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Stephen Pizzello
SENIOR EDITOR Rachael K. Bosley
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Douglas Bankston
TECHNICAL EDITOR Christopher Probst
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Benjamin B, Robert S. Birchard, John Calhoun, Bob Davis, Bob Fisher, Simon Gray,
Jim Hemphill, David Heuring, Jay Holben, Noah Kadner, Ron Magid, Jean Oppenheimer,
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CIRCULATION, BOOKS & PRODUCTS

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American Cinematographer (ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 88th 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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POSTMASTER: Send address change to American Cinematographer, P.O. Box 2230, Hollywood, CA 90078.

Congratulations Clairmont Camera

ON YOUR NEW SONY F23
CINEALTA CAMERAS

Until the F23 came along, cameras in the 2/3 chip world were
designed much like ENG cameras. The Sony F23 is designed like a film camera.
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American Society of Cinematographers

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

OFFICERS - 2007/2008
Daryn Okada
President

Michael Goi
Vice President

Richard Crudo
Vice President

Owen Roizman
Vice President

Victor J. Kemper
Treasurer

Michael Negrin
Secretary

John Hora
Sergeant-at-Arms

MEMBERS OF THE BOARD

Richard Crudo
Caleb Deschanel
George Spiro Dibie
Richard Edlund
William A. Fraker
Michael Goi
John Hora
Victor J. Kemper
Francis Kenny
Isidore Mankofsky
Robert Primes
Owen Roizman
Dante Spinotti
Kees Van Oostrum
Haskell Wexler

ALTERNATES
James Chressanthis
Stephen Lighthill
Matthew Leonetti
Russ Alsobrook
Sol Negrin
MUSEUM CURATOR
6

Steve Gainer

FILM, VIDEO,
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Success in filmmaking is as much about teamwork as it is about creativity. The Filmmaking Program at NYUs
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CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS INCLUDE:
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New York University is an afrmative action/equal opportunity institution. 2007 New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies

Dale Brooks, ABC-TV / Walt Disney Co

Editors Note
ames Bond is newly resurgent after last years worldwide
hit Casino Royale, but Jason Bourne strikes back with
The Bourne Ultimatum, a non-stop thrill ride that ups the
ante in the international superspies box-office showdown.
Cinematographer Oliver Wood, who has shot all three
Bourne films, notes that he and director Paul Greengrass
sought to maintain the series tradition of unscripted, spontaneous camerawork, capturing the action in an almost
documentary style that would give Greengrass and the
editors endless options in the cutting room. The productions
global reach scenes were shot in the U.S., England,
Germany, France, Morocco and Latvia required Wood to
coordinate closely with his second-unit collaborators, chiefly
director/stunt coordinator Dan Bradley and cinematographers Mark Moriarty and Igor
Meglic. He also gave considerable creative freedom to his A- and B-camera operators,
Klemens Becker and Florian Emmerich, who often found themselves capturing handheld
images on the fly. As Wood notes in his interview with Jon Silberg (Bourne Again, page
32), this strategy creates the illusion that the filmmakers were lucky the cameras
happened to be rolling at the right moment.
Although the independent film Outsourced didnt visit as many countries as
Bourne and co., cinematographer Teodoro Maniaci found that India provided plenty of visual
stimulation. To prepare for the challenge of shooting a low-budget feature in a foreign land,
Maniaci spent several weeks traveling from one end of India to the other. I wanted to get
a sense of the countrys rhythms and logic, he tells AC senior editor Rachael K. Bosley
(Cultural Immersion, page 44). India really is its own universe. Its a beehive, a whirling
maelstrom of activity. Its all experiences all at once all the time. By the time production
came around I was able to stay incredibly calm in the midst of huge crises; all the intricacies and sound and fury of production seemed mellow in comparison to what Id been
through on my travels!
An international flavor also permeates Caravaggio, shot by master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC. Slated for broadcast on Italian television and future theatrical release, the production was mounted by entities in Italy, France, Spain and Germany,
with scenes shot in Rome, Naples, Sicily, Malta and at Belgrade Studios in Serbia. In a
wide-ranging interview with fellow Italian Giose Gallotti (Baroque Visions, page 54),
Storaro says he leaped at the chance to trace the life of a monumental artist who had significantly influenced his own work: I knew it would be an opportunity to study in depth the
trajectory and work of this visionary protagonist of figurative art. Moreover, it would allow
me to explore further the mystery of light and shadow, a theme that has always been at the
center of my cinematographic journey.
Cinematographer and longtime AC technical editor Christopher Probst indulged
in more whimsical forms of homage while shooting the music video Knights of Cydonia
for the rock band Muse. Describing the song as a cross between Ennio Morricones
Spaghetti Western scores and Queens Bohemian Rhapsody, Probst notes that the
offbeat music stumped many music-video directors but proved a font of inspiration for
director Joseph Kahn, who submitted a treatment that featured Barbarella-style warrior
women, robots, unicorns, holograms, motorcycles, and a mysterious hero who appears in
the guises of a rogue cowboy and masked avenger. After assimilating this crazy quilt of
influences on location in Romania, Probst was rewarded with the Music Video Production
Associations Best Cinematography Award. With abundant familial pride, we asked Chris
to pen his own account of the unique shoot (Once Upon a Time in Bucharest, page 66).

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Stephen Pizzello
Executive Editor

Photo by Douglas Kirkland.

Global Village
The CSC Celebrates 50 Years

The late Fritz

Spiess, CSC, one
of the Societys
founders, is
shown on top of
a camera car
circa 1957.
Spiess
specialized in
commercial
cinematography,
and the CSC
Award for that
medium is
named for him.

eorge Morita, CSC was a 20-year-old

camera assistant when the Canadian
Society of Cinematographers was
founded in September 1957. He
attended the meeting where the
contentious bylaws that gave the CSC its
structure were approved; in fact, he was
the recording secretary, having been
conscripted by the director of photography for whom he worked.
Morita, now 70 and mostly
retired from a career as one of Canadas
top commercials cinematographers,
recalls that some of the CSCs founders
felt strongly that the new society
should be more elitist, that perhaps it
should be reserved for full directors of
photography. He adds with a laugh, As
the debate went on, I realized I was

10 September 2007

recording events that might lead to my

demise as a member! I thought I might
have to leave the room and record the
minutes from the hallway. As it turned
out, the cameramen decided to include
operators and assistants in associate
and (later) affiliate categories of
membership. That policy, says Morita, is
carried on to this day.
Inclusion has worked well for the
CSC. Beyond the principle of democracy
lies unvarnished reality: of the 34 charter
members, who hailed from Toronto,
Ottawa and Montreal, only 13 were
directors of photography who were
immediately granted the CSC credential.
This year, as the organization celebrates
its 50th anniversary, membership across
Canada has risen to nearly 500, more

than 300 of whom are associates or

affiliates.
Morita picked up his credential in
the late 1960s, and his son, Rhett, is
also a full member. Everything the CSC
stands for is well worth supporting, he
says. Prior to the CSC, cameramen
were distant. There wasnt a sense of
camaraderie, a sense of being part of a
group. The CSC has fostered that and
provided a venue for cinematographers
to gather and discuss similar problems
and share information.
CSC President Joan Hutton
echoes the sentiment. The Society is
the one binding element among cinematographers in Canada, she says. It
brings camerapeople together. Whenever you have a problem, you can
always find someone who will give you
advice or answer a question, and when
youre first coming up, thats fantastic.
[Assistants, operators and cinematographers] can meet as equals and chat
about what theyve worked on, what
theyre doing and how theyre doing it.
She credits Barry Stone, CSC,
now based in Northern California, for
putting it best: The CSC is always there
to answer your questions, feed you new
information and pat you on the back
from time to time. Stone was referring
to the Societys regular meetings, workshops, seminars and symposia, its
magazine, and the CSC Awards.
A golden anniversary is a milestone to be proud of, but Hutton notes
that the focus of the celebration is as
much about preparing for tomorrow as it
is about celebrating yesterday. Fifty
years [is] an achievement that gives
us a good reason to anticipate the future
while respecting the past, she said at
the CSC Awards gala in March.
Hutton has been the CSC presi-

Photos courtesy of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers.

by Don Angus

Because the F350 has time lapse, slow shutter and over and undercranking, I got more
creative options and my client got higher production value for the budget, Humeau says.

With XDCAM HD, we shot a big show on a tight budget.

Thierry Humeau, director of photography and president of Tlcam Films recently
used his PDW-F350 XDCAM HD camcorders to create Bombs, Bullets & Fraud, a
documentary on the US Postal Service Inspectors for Smithsonian Networks, a
new HD TV channel from Smithsonian Institution and Showtime Networks.
They needed a big movie that had to meet their high standards of quality on a
fairly tight budget, Humeau says.Some scenes we shot movie-style with a big crew,
dollies and jibs. Some are ENG-style, following cops at night. Some are highly
produced interviews. In every instance, the XDCAM HD camcorder came through.
The shows producer, Tim Baney of Baney Media is also a fan. He says, The camcorder is very producer-friendly. You can
instantly play back a scene on the LCD monitor and say okay, good, lets move on to the next take. Its a huge time saver
and safety net that gave me confidence, knowing we got it in the can.
And the Smithsonian Networks reaction? They love it, says Baney.In fact, theyre already talking to us about another film.
To see a trailer of Bombs, Bullets & Fraud and find out how to receive up to $500 back on the purchase of an XDCAM HD
camcorder, visit sony.com/xdcam.

2007 Sony Electronics Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Features and specifications are subject
to change without notice. Sony and XDCAM are trademarks of Sony. Smithsonian Networks is a joint venture of Smithsonian Institution and Showtime Networks.

The late
Reginald
Morris (left), a
charter member
of the CSC,
collaborates
with director
John Huston
during the
making of
Phobia (1980), a
thriller shot
mainly in
Toronto.

dent for 15 years. During her tenure, the

organization has strengthened its status
as a respected and influential association of professionals, and it has stayed
true to its original objective: To
promote and foster the art of cinematography in Canada. The Societys
founders were trying to make cinematography a profession rather than
just a job, and I think they did very well,
says Hutton, the first of five women to
be made a full CSC member.
The CSC was conceived in the
lobby of a film studio, a former movie
theater, in east-end Toronto. The studio
was common ground for several
cameramen who came to believe in the
need for an organization dedicated to
their special craft. When their paths
crossed in that old theater lobby, they
exchanged ideas and sharpened their
focus on the future. It was the mid1950s. Theatrical features were scarce,
and Canadian television was just starting to generate a commercials industry
and some homegrown dramas. Film
cameramen had few places to sell their
skills.
There was the National Film
Board, turning out world-class documentaries; there were newsreel companies, which were quickly becoming
obsolescent; TV news and sports; TV
commercials; and a couple of out-of12 September 2007

studio series. Just as plans for the CSC

were taking shape, the first major
dramatic TV series produced on film in
Canada aired on both the French and
English networks of the Canadian
Broadcasting Corp. The show was
Radisson. Then there was Cannonball, a
weekly half-hour Canada/U.S. production that was shot in Ontario and ran for
39 episodes in 1958-59. Most CBC
dramas and series were shot live in
studio.
The idea for the CSC originated
with Herbert Alpert, ASC, CSC, who
came to Toronto from New York in 1955.
Alpert, now in his 90s, says it was
mostly out of pride that he felt the
need to establish a group similar to the
American Society of Cinematographers,
despite the small size of the film
community in Canada. Britain had the
BSC; the Americans, of course, were the
prime movers in that area with the ASC;
and I think Italy was beginning to talk
about having something similar, says
Alpert. I thought it was time, in spite of
the fact there were only about a dozen
cameramen I knew, that we too should
have some standards and a fraternal
association.
Fifty years later, the Canadian
film and television industry is a vastly
different landscape. Montreal, Toronto
and Vancouver are major production

centers, and there is smaller but important activity elsewhere, such as Halifax,
Winnipeg, Regina and Calgary. Most of
the production is generated by TV
programming both indigenous and
foreign (mainly American). Theatrical
features are predominantly U.S.
service productions, while the
national cry continues for a legitimate
Canadian film industry to produce
English-language movies that people
want to see. Quebec films are much
more successful at home and in Francophone countries, and many, like
Denys Arcands The Barbarian Invasions
(shot by Guy Dufaux, CSC), cross the
language divide to screen successfully
in the rest of Canada. Homegrown
English-language features receive about
1-2 percent of screen time nationally.
The Canadian industry has been
on an economic roller-coaster ride since
the September 2001 terrorist attacks,
the SARS virus scare in Toronto, labor
unrest, and, most recently, a soaring
Canadian dollar. Nevertheless, the physical and human resources of the Canadian film infrastructure continue to be
attractive.
Canadian cinematographers
such as Glen Winter, CSC and David
Moxness, CSC, who shoot the U.S.
series Smallville in British Columbia (see
AC March 07), are recognized as world
class. They, and many others, have also
been winners at the CSC Awards, where
the 1957 spirit of inclusion is most
evident. There are 12 competitive categories, including Spot News, News
Essay, Student, Performance, Documentary, Docudrama, TV Series, TV Drama,
Dramatic Short, Commercial, Music
Video and Theatrical Feature.
All of these categories make for
a long evening, but no aspect of cinematography is excluded, says Hutton.
Today, she says, the CSC is more relevant than ever before. I think were just
getting into our stride now.
Don Angus was the editor of the
CSC News from 1994-2007.
I

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DVD Playback
The Third Man (1949)
Special Edition
1.33:1 (Full Frame)
Dolby Digital Monaural
The Criterion Collection,
$39.95
Devastated from the fallout of
World War II, the crumbling city of
Vienna is the destination for American
pulp novelist Holly Martins (Joseph
Cotten). Its 1949, and Martins is seeking
his friend, Harry Lime (Orson Welles),
who has promised him work. When he
arrives at Limes home, he discovers that
his friend recently died in an accident.
Upset and confused, Martins heads to
the funeral, where he meets several of
Limes acquaintances, including the
mysterious Anna (Alida Valli). As Martins
begins asking questions about Limes
accident, he learns more than he
expected, particularly from pushy military police officer Calloway (Trevor
Howard), who suspected Lime of terrible
crimes. While Martins pursues Anna,
Calloway pursues Martins, searching for
a possible link to Limes criminal activities. The more people Martins speaks to,
the more deceit he uncovers, and the
strangest mystery of all is the identity of
the third man who was reportedly at
the scene when Lime died; two other
witnesses are known, but no one can
identify the third.
In 1948, British producer Alexander Korda commissioned renowned
writer Graham Greene to write a treatment dealing with post-war intrigue.
14 September 2007

Greene chose war-torn Vienna as the

backdrop for his story, which eventually
became The Third Man. Korda partnered
with producer David O. Selznick on the
project, and they offered it to British
director Carol Reed. Determined to give
the picture a unique style and sensibility,
Reed tapped cinematographer Robert
Krasker (Brief Encounter, El Cid ), with
whom he had collaborated on Odd Man
Out. Krasker, who won an Academy
Award for his striking, richly detailed
black-and-white photography on The
Third Man, later credited Reed with
suggesting the many canted camera
angles that give the film a quality Krasker
described as lewd. The filmmakers
efforts to give The Third Man a unique
visual texture included having three
separate camera units shoot almost 24
hours a day for several weeks on location
in Vienna. Krasker carried out the intense
night shooting and carefully supervised
the day unit and sewer unit headed by
cinematographers John Wilcox and
Stanley Pavey, respectively.
The Criterion Collection released
an excellent DVD of The Third Man in
1999, and the company recently reissued
the title as a two-disc special edition that
includes a slew of new supplements and
a new transfer of the feature. Compared
to the 1999 pressing, the new release
has a slight edge, with better depth of
field and a more broadly visible gray
scale. The most notable difference
between the picture transfers is that
Criterion has decided to window box
the 1.33:1 image on this new pressing.
This process, which presents a slight
black box around the image, allows for
maximum, uniform picture information
on all four sides; some of this information
is occasionally lost on home screens,
particularly standard 4x3 TV sets.
The monaural audio on this new
DVD is slightly better, offering clearer
tonality. With this DVD, as with the 1999

edition, Criterion has chosen to present

the original British version of the film,
which is 11 minutes longer than
Selznicks 93-minute cut; the latter paints
Martins in a more serious light.
This packages supplements are
generous but occasionally redundant.
They include most of the extras featured
on the 1999 release: an introduction by
filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich; Greenes
abridged original treatment (read by
Richard Clarke); radio-play features;
Cottons voice-over from the U.S. version;
stills; a press book; the U.S. trailer; an
updated presentation of the films history
from writer Charles Drazin; vintage newsreel footage of the sewers of Vienna; and
a newsreel glimpse of Anton Karas, the
zither player who performed the films
legendary score.
The new supplements start with
two audio commentaries, one a detailed
analysis by film scholar Dana Polan, the
other a lively but only marginally interesting appreciation by filmmakers Steven
Soderbergh and Tony Gilroy. Also new are
a solid 30-minute Austrian documentary,
Who Was The Third Man?; an excellent hour-long BBC Omnibus profile of
Greene; printed essays by Drazin, Luc
Sante and Philip Kerr; a glimpse of some
of the scenes untranslated dialogue; and
Frederick Bakers 90-minute documentary
Shadowing The Third Man. Bakers
piece is filled with brief interviews with
cast and crewmembers, including
Krasker, but it seems unnecessarily
padded to feature length by far too many
long clips from the film.
This DVD update of The Third
Man highlights the lasting importance of
the film, which has long been considered
one of Englands most accomplished
pictures. This edition is ideal for longstanding fans and will certainly welcome
new viewers to the sinister, romantic
beauty of post-war Vienna, a city pictured
from the heights of its gilded Riesenrad (a

famous Ferris wheel) to the depths of its

labyrinthine sewer system.
Kenneth Sweeney

Straight Time (1978)

1.85:1 (16x9 Enhanced)
Dolby Digital Monaural
Warner Home Video, $19.95
Throughout its history, Hollywood has had a lot to answer for when
it comes to romanticizing criminals, but
the accusation could never be leveled at
the uncompromising, considerably
underrated gem Straight Time. Featuring
Dustin Hoffman in a possibly career-best
performance as Max Dembo, a jittery
Los Angeles ex-con attempting to go
straight, the film never once strikes a
false note in its depiction of the sporadically exciting but ultimately desperate
and sad life of an average criminal.
Straight Time is resolutely a film of the
provocative 1970s era, in that it explores
the full spectrum of Dembos criminal
psychology the greed and stupidity
that doom him, as well as the professionalism and exhilaration of a perfect
score while refusing to make easy
moral judgments.
At the start of the film, Dembo is
released from prison and makes a
sincere attempt to re-enter law-abiding
society. But the crushing boredom of a
minimum-wage job, combined with
humiliating visits from a repugnant
parole officer (M. Emmet Walsh), soon
lures Dembo back to his old ways. When
a jewelry-store heist with a loyal partner
(Harry Dean Stanton) goes horribly awry,
Dembo goes on the run, but the resignation on his face seems to augur that a
return to prison is all but inevitable.
Indeed, the films fatalistic last line and
concluding frames imply that institutional men like Dembo are born rather
than made.
16

Hoffman initially intended to direct

and star in Straight Time, which is based
on Eddie Bunkers memoir No Beast So
Fierce. But the actor soon found the
combined demands overwhelming and
turned over the directing reins to Ulu Grosbard, whose emphasis on low-key realism
made him a perfect foil for Hoffmans
intense performance. Primarily a theater
director, Grosbard favored letting many
scenes play out in wide shots with few
edits, a strategy that highlights both the
bracing spontaneity of the performances
and the tension of the narrative.
In a commentary on this DVD,
Grosbard notes that his visual approach
was aided immeasurably by cinematographer Owen Roizman, ASC, who innately
had a great sense of what is real and
what isnt. The filmmakers were determined to present the gritty underbelly of
Los Angeles disheveled Burbank backyards and dilapidated downtown rooming
houses and Roizmans naturalistic
style, honed on raw classics such as The
French Connection and The Taking of
Pelham One Two Three, was perfectly
suited to the task. Its a relief to see that
Warner Bros. has treated Straight Time
with the respect it deserves; this transfer
features superb clarity, nicely saturated
colors and minimal age artifacts.
Grosbard and Hoffman are both
featured on the commentary, though it
quickly becomes clear that they did not
record it together, and that they dont even
seem to be watching the film as they
make their comments. Commentaries like
this gemerally lack good, specific observations, but Grosbard and Hoffman are
expansive talkers, and this supplement is
well worth the viewers time. Hoffman
describes how he did extensive research
with Bunker to try to understand the dark
mindset of a character like Dembo; in one
instance, the ex-con told Hoffman that
even as the actor was talking to him,
Bunker was thinking about what he could
steal from him, how he could kill him, and
how he could get away with it. Ever the
Method actor, Hoffman began practicing
this behavioral exercise on everyone he
met.
In addition to the films original
theatrical trailer, the DVD offers an inter-

#3TYLE?!3#?!$?2PDF
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esting period documentary on the

making of the film, Straight Time: He
Wrote It for Criminals, which looks at
Bunkers life, his writing, and his role in
assisting the filmmakers. There is great
footage of Bunker and convicted bank
robber John Carlen instructing Hoffman
on how to be convincing during the films
centerpiece bank-robbery scene. (They
must have given good advice, as the
actors accidentally tripped the banks
actual alarm and would have had a
considerable lead on the cops if theyd
fled the scene. One of the arriving cops
tells Hoffman, If youd picked a bank
closer to the freeway, you could have
been in San Diego by now.)
Bunker is a fascinating fellow,
but features like this sometimes run the
risk of glorifying a man who committed
some fairly reprehensible acts. Fortunately, ex-Los Angeles cop and crimefiction writer Joseph Wambaugh is on
hand to offer some perspective.
Responding to Bunkers belief that lawabiding squares dont face the moral
choices of a man inside prison,
Wambaugh notes, Hell, Eddie Bunker
has never lived as a square in his entire
life, and he doesnt know that square
people have moral choices to make each
and every day. Its awful tough for a guy
to raise six kids and come home dogtired and be morally responsible in ways
that are beyond the ken of an institutional man.
Chris Pizzello

Prince of the City (1981)

Special Edition
1.85:1 (16x9 Enhanced)
Dolby Digital Monaural
Warner Home Video, $19.98
When director Sidney Lumet
chose Andrzej Bartkowiak, ASC to shoot
his law-and-order epic Prince of the City,
18 September 2007

the young cinematographer had big

shoes to fill: Lumet had by then collaborated with ASC members Boris Kaufman, Owen Roizman and Victor J.
Kemper, among others. Bartkowiak justified Lumets faith, however, with visually
meticulous work, and the duo went on
to collaborate on several more dramas
about politics and the criminal-justice
system, including The Verdict, Q&A and
Daniel.
Based on a true story, Prince of
the City follows Daniel Ciello (Treat
Williams), a morally compromised
narcotics detective who decides to
cooperate with an investigation into
police corruption by wearing wiretaps
and naming names. He finds that it is
impossible for him or his beloved partners to remain untouched by the scandal; Ciellos life is endangered because
of the problems he causes the New York
mob, and his own indiscretions and
those of his friends threaten to send
them all to jail.
Lumet and co-screenwriter Jay
Presson Allen chart the complex moral
terrain with clarity and depth. Ciello and
the supporting characters are all realistic, contradictory characters; people in
the film with noble intentions often do
horrible things; and gangsters and
junkies are presented with sympathy
and understanding. The large ensemble
cast is further defined by a vivid, realistic context, thanks to precise details that
make the milieu of crime and punishment come to life.
One thing that keeps Prince of
the City compelling for almost three
hours is its ability to consistently
surprise us. Things and people are never
as they seem, and Lumet and
Bartkowiak emphasize this idea by using
short or long lenses that subtly alter
perspective. (Lumet claims they avoided
midrange focal lengths altogether.)
Bartkowiak also steadily increases characters isolation via lighting: at the
beginning of the film the backgrounds
are brightly lit and the compositions
favor the characters surroundings, but
by the end of the movie Ciello and his
associates are seen in darker, more
tightly framed shots that convey every

punishing betrayal. Even in scenes

where Ciello doesnt yet know hes in
trouble, Bartkowiak hints at the real
meaning of his actions by imprisoning
him with shadows. The decision to shoot
most of the exteriors at angles that eliminate the sky adds to the sense of
oppression as Ciello makes one tortuous
ethical choice after another.
This gritty tale has suffered in
previous video incarnations, but Warner
Home Videos new anamorphic transfer
is solid and preserves the nuances of
Bartkowiaks work. The monaural soundtrack is relatively dynamic in spite of the
lack of surround effects; evocative sound
effects occasionally reinforce the brutal
societal machine that traps and manipulates the films characters.
The 167-minute feature is spread
out over two discs, and disc two also
features the half-hour supplement
Prince of the City: The Real Story. This
documentary includes interviews with
Lumet and actors Williams and Bob
Balaban, among others, and provides a
concise but enlightening overview of the
production. The only other supplement is
the films theatrical trailer.
Jim Hemphill
I

NEXT MONTHS REVIEWS

Ace in the Hole (1951)
Cinematographer:
Charles B. Lang Jr., ASC

To Catch A Thief (1955)

Cinematographer:
Robert Burks, ASC

Rio Bravo (1959)

Cinematographer:
Russell Harlan, ASC

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Production Slate

Institutionalized
killer Michael
Myers (Tyler
Mane) terrorizes
the small town
of Haddonfield
while tracking
down his little
sister in
Halloween, a
re-imagining of
John Carpenters
1978 classic by
director Rob
Zombie and
cinematographer
Phil Parmet.

Michael Myers Returns

by Jon D. Witmer
It is the first day of spring, and
director Rob Zombie stands in the snow
outside a Los Angeles-area hospital. The
snow has been provided by the art
department on Zombies latest film, a
re-imagining of John Carpenters
horror classic Halloween. Stepping
away from the bustle on set, director of
photography Phil Parmet, who first
teamed with Zombie for The Devils
Rejects (2005), sheds some light on
Zombies role in the Halloween franchise: I think its been a challenge to
make this film new, not just a remake
to make something that has artistic
integrity but is still an homage to the
original.
Zombie reveals that his own
taste in horror favors Universals classic
monster movies of the 1930s. My refer-

20 September 2007

ence point for this Halloween was really

Frankenstein, he says. Thats what
horror movies used to be: the misunderstood monster. Accordingly, Zombies
Halloween focuses considerable attention on killer Michael Myers, depicting
his childhood (when he is played by
Daeg Faerch) as a period that clearly
sows the seeds for his murderous
tendencies. As in the original
Halloween, we also see the adult Myers
(Tyler Mane) escape from a mental institution and return home to terrorize
Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor Compton),
Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) and
Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif).
During their initial meetings
about the project, Zombie and Parmet
focused on evolving the techniques
theyd used on The Devils Rejects to fit
Halloweens themes. They decided to
stick with a gritty multi-camera shooting
style and naturalistic lighting, but they

traded the Super 16mm of Rejects for 3perf Super 35mm. Additionally,
Halloween was shot entirely on location
and features very little CGI. The
impulse on Halloween, as on Devils
Rejects, was to shoot a film that had the
feel and texture of documentary photography, says Parmet.
Achieving the grittiness Zombie
sought with 35mm proved a bit of a
challenge. I shot a lot of tests overexposing and underexposing, with and
without bleach bypass, and we took
those to [colorist] Lou Levinson at Post
Logic, says the cinematographer. The
first few tries were not to Robs liking;
he felt 35mm just looked too polished.
He wanted the picture to have a
stripped-down, raw elegance, a look
that was hard-edged and realistic.
Finally, with the start of production just
days away, Parmet showed Zombie the
final test. Lou and I had added grain to
make it look like an older emulsion, and
we had also crushed the blacks, upped
the general contrast, pulled out the
greens and desaturated the image overall, says Parmet. I let out a long sigh
of relief when Rob smiled and said we
had finally nailed it!
To fine-tune the look they had in
mind, the crew (and many of the cast)
first tackled the tongue-in-cheek Werewolf Women of the SS trailer that was
featured as part of Grindhouse. It was
a good chance to work out the kinks,
says Parmet. We used the same lab
and the same camera package, and we
shot it the weekend before we started
shooting Halloween. It was basically a
shakedown cruise for the crew.
Parmets
crew
included
Orange and Black camera operators
David Daniel and B.J. McDonnell (who
also operated the Steadicam) and 1st
ACs Jay Levy and James Sprattley.

Halloween photos by Marsha LaMarca, courtesy of MGM/Dimension Films.

Murder and Mayhem

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Left: A young
Michael (Daeg
Faerch) starts
killing early.
Right: Parmet (in
hat) watches over
a two-camera
take of Michael
on Halloween
night.

22 September 2007

(Levy had to leave to the production

early because of a prior commitment
and was replaced by Bob Brown.) Along
with Daniel, McDonnell and Sprattley,
Parmets key grip, Vince Palomino, also
returned from The Devils Rejects.
New to the crew was gaffer
Curtiss Bradford. I hired Curtiss
because Id seen his work and knew he
could handle big lights, says Parmet.
In my experience of doing independent
movies all these years, nobody has the
money to light up whole streets, so I
thought Id better get someone with a
few tricks up his sleeve. As it turned
out, we had more night exteriors on this
movie than Ive shot in my entire career
as a cinematographer!
The productions first night exterior was on a Pasadena street where
Bradford and Parmet initially planned to
use large backlight sources, including
two Dinos and a Condor equipped with
Maxi-Brutes. However, the practicalities of the location quickly forced the
filmmakers to improvise. The streets
there looked beautiful during the day,
but when you try to get a big backlight

in there at night, it just doesnt break

through the canopy of trees, explains
Bradford. By the time we got to our
second night exterior, we had a game
plan: we rigged Source Four ParNels
and Pars in the trees on dimmers to give
the feel of streetlights on the sidewalk
and on the street and the leaves, even
though there arent any streetlights in
the shot. Then we used our big lights to
illuminate the background. On the
Maxi-Brutes and Dinos, he worked with
checkerboard dichroic and tungsten
Pars, which basically come out 14
blue, he says. That way, we didnt
have to run a 14-blue frame in the
Condors. As it was, we were putting
the Condors right at the maximum
weight with the guy [inside].
Pasadena, particularly the house
that provided the exterior and some
interiors of the Myers house, proved
challenging for the grip department as
well. Palomino recalls, I was running
two crews all the time. The second
crew, 10 or 15 guys, would come in at 7
a.m. and tent the entire house in four
hours so we could shoot our night interiors. Then wed stagger guys during
lunch so that by the time we got back,
theyd have ripped the entire structure
down and we could start shooting night
exteriors. The next morning wed start

all over again. For interiors, we used a

lot of practicals and brought in whatever
we could through the windows. Wed
start with one setup that would pretty
much stay the same for the rest of the
scene; wed change a few things every
once in awhile.
To illustrate the point, Palomino
and Bradford lead the way inside the
hospital, allowing the art department to
clear the snow as the crew sets up for a
corridor scene lit primarily with overhead fluorescents. Referring to the
Optima 32 tubes that are replacing the
hospitals fixtures, Bradford notes,
Their output is really more like 3000K.
The ballast isnt quite as good as Kinos.
Lighting for two cameras is
always very challenging, he continues.
You just have to be ready to run in with
a little fill for the eyes. For that we used
small Litepanels LEDs or an LED Koloris
Kit from Kino Flo. Phil loves these LEDs.
We can rig them on a car with an
inverter and not have to bat an eye, and
because they use so little power weve
been able to have our inverter in the
trunk with one battery.
To expedite the tight 38-day
shooting schedule, production granted
Parmet a full-time rigging crew, which
was led by rigging gaffer Aaron Schulte,
a regular of Bradfords electric depart-

Above: Michael
is committed to a
mental institution
at the age of 10
under the care of
Dr. Loomis
(Malcolm
McDowell,
center) with grim
results. Below:
After years of
study, Loomis
comes to believe
Michael is the
embodiment of
pure evil.

24 September 2007

ment. Parmet notes, Ive never had this

experience before: when I walk onto a
set, everything we discussed on the
scout is done, and its always exactly
the way I talked about it!
Just as the grip and electric
departments had their share of challenges, so too did the camera department. Wed basically go with a freeflowing, organic rhythm, says Sprattley. Rob tells his actors what he wants
to happen, and then he lets the operators find their shots. Sometimes we go
in there with no rehearsals and no
marks and just start shooting. Parmet

praises Levy and Sprattleys contributions to the film: Both of them told me
it was possibly the hardest show theyve
ever done, and they have some amazing
rsums. Their work was really terrific.
Provided by Otto Nemenz in
Hollywood, Parmets camera package
comprised two Arricam Lites (with a
third brought out for some night-exterior
work), a full set of Cooke S4 primes, and
long and short Angenieux zooms. For
filtration, he used Tiffen Black Pro-Mists,
but never more than 12. Usually Id
combine them with [Tiffen] Soft/FX on
extreme close-ups. Also, I shot mainly

with NDs to control the depth of field,

and I didnt use any 85s.
When filming outdoors during
the day, Parmet maintained a T5.6 stop,
and he shot at a T2.5 for night exteriors
and dark interiors. He used two Fuji
Eterna stocks, 500T 8573 and 250T
8553. I underexposed by a stop, but
[8573] is really amazing it picks up
the grain a little bit, but you can easily
rate it at [ISO] 1,000.
Technicolor processed the
productions footage and Post Logic
generated high-definition video dailies
and carried out the digital intermediate
(DI). For the dailies, Parmet refined the
system he used on Devils Rejects,
shooting stills on set with his Nikon
D80, tweaking those shots in Photoshop, and sending off his corrected files
for the dailies colorist to use as a guide.
This time, though, a few additional
pieces of hardware and software
helped streamline the process. The
dailies timer and I each had the exact
same Apple Cinema Display monitor,
and our workflow was based on keeping those monitors calibrated to BT
709-5, the standard for HDTV color
space, says the cinematographer. An
off-the-shelf hardware and software
package called Spyder 2 was used to
maintain the correct calibration. A
company called MeSoft transferred the
footage to a proprietary hard-disk
system so we could watch the dailies
on set, says Parmet. I was able to go
to the camera truck and see the HD
dailies on the same Cinema Display Id
used for my original Photoshop corrections.
When the time came to do the
DI, Parmet had started working on
another feature and was unable to
participate. However, I gave a copy of
my digital still files to Lou Levinson, and
after working with Rob on several
projects, I know hes an artist in the true
sense of the word. People tend to think
of him as a rocknroller and musician,
but he is an accomplished graphic artist
and designer as well, and the choices
he makes are informed by that background.

A Blue-Collar Bond
by Jean Oppenheimer
Its an image straight out of John
Woos Hard Boiled, only this time its
Clive Owen cradling a newborn infant in
one arm and a shotgun in the other.
Sprinting across rooftops, rappelling
down stairwells, dodging all obstacles,
he fends off a seemingly endless supply
of bad guys who have one thing on their
collective mind: getting their hands on
that baby.
When we first spoke, [director]
Michael [Davis] told me he wanted to
make a fast-paced action film with a
contemporary tone and a blue-collar
James Bond hero, recalls director of
photography Peter Pau, HKSC, whose
credits include The Promise (see AC
June 06); Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon (AC Jan. 01); The Bride With
White Hair, and The Killer. Davis readily

26 September 2007

admits that he envisaged Shoot Em Up

as an American John Woo picture.
Citing Hard Boiled as his specific inspiration, he adds, I needed Peter to steer
me in that sort of Hong Kong action-film
direction.
That direction ended up
encompassing 11 action setpieces, all of
them elaborate. Given the tight budget
and 55-day shooting schedule (plus 20
days of second-unit work), Pau wanted
to pre-light as much as possible. Davis, a
former storyboard artist, boarded every
shot and even animated a couple of the
action sequences. He turned this material over to Pau four weeks into their 10week prep, which gave rigging gaffer
Stephen Spurrell enough time to prelight the majority of the interiors (built
inside an abandoned factory) and sets.
Shoot Em Up was shot in Super
35mm, and the lighting design was
premised on the notion that two

cameras would be used on almost every

scene. Pau favored big sources for night
exteriors mostly Dinos with mediumspot lights and Kino Flos for interiors
and stage work. My gaffer, Chris
Howard, always gives me dimmer-board
control over his remote so that I can
access individual bulbs almost immediately. Its really handy and speedy
between setups that way.
Shoot Em Up was shot entirely in
Toronto, and the locations were all
within a 5-mile radius. During prep, Pau,
Davis and production designer Gary
Frutkoff worked out the color palette
scene by scene. I wanted to avoid blue
moonlight for the urban look, recounts
Pau, who corresponded with AC via email from China, where he was shooting
another picture. Instead, we wanted a
sodium-vapor feeling for night exteriors,
and a dirty green/yellow look for interiors. Pretty much everything happens at
night, and the sodium-vapor lights
became our main source. To obtain a
cold green look, I didnt use an 85 filter
on day scenes. In fact, with the exception
of NDs, I didnt use any filters on the
lens. I mixed different color temperatures
on the set in order to support the dirty
look we wanted.
Red is used sparingly but to great
effect throughout the film. The first occasion is a skirmish on the roof of the abandoned factory that Smith (Owens character) calls home. Enormous neon letters
spell out the name of the factory and
even play a role in the ensuing gun
battle. All of the scenes in the whorehouse, where a love interest played by
Monica Bellucci lives, are bathed in red.
Smith is on the run almost from
the moment the film opens. To make the
action sequences work, Michael needed
a lot of cuts, observes Pau. [I designed
shots of] lengthy and continuous motion
that could be cut into several separate
elements.
To create a sense of urgency, the
main cameras, an Arricam Studio and
Arricam Lite, were handheld 80 percent
of the time. Michael wanted to give the
film an unsteady look, but not make the
audience dizzy, quips Pau. Occasionally
three cameras were pressed into service.

Shoot Em Up photos by James Dittiger, courtesy of New Line Cinema.

Right: Smith
(Clive Owen)
fires at an
enemy from a
fast-moving
conveyor belt
in a scene from
the actionpacked Shoot
Em Up. Below:
A standoff
between Smith
and the
villainous Mr.
Hertz (Paul
Giamatti).

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Cinematographer
Peter Pau, HKSC
finalizes his
frame on location
in Toronto.

Lead villain Mr. Hertz (Paul

Giamatti) faces off with Smith more
than once, and each encounter ends in a
standoff. They first confront one another
in a warehouse. Michael wanted to
have a 360-degree rotation of wide and
close-up shots of the two men holding

guns on each other, says Pau.

Steadicam operator Keith Murphy did
some great shots [circling] the two
actors. It was a tough lighting situation.
Its nighttime, and the only light source I
created was a sodium-vapor street lamp
outside the building. I hung 128 Par

lamps on an industrial crane that was

tall enough to send the light through the
warehouses high windows, giving me a
T4.5 reading at 400 ASA, which is how
I always rate [Kodak Vision2 500T] 5218
when I have a distance of at least 200
feet. (He also used Vision2 100T 5212
on the show.)
A skydiving sequence in which
Smith parachutes out of a plane proved
tricky, because although it was all shot
on a greenscreen stage, Pau knew that
any movement that looked fake would
destroy the illusion. I used a 50-foot
Technocrane to accommodate most of
the flying shots and lit the area to be as
bright as possible [with space lights] to
give us maximum T-stops for a daylight
feel. I was able to shoot between a T8
and T11. The camera was mounted on a
StepZ Head that helped stabilize it
when doing fast moves.
Pau always tried to place the
camera where I thought the viewer
would like to be sitting or standing to
watch the action. In one long sequence

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28

150mm
M.O.D. 3'6''
T2

180mm
M.O.D. 4'3''
T2

that shows the bad guys pursuing Smith

through his building, the camera
assumes the gunmens POV as they
chase him. Bullets are flying everywhere, missing Smith but blowing up
objects around him. Smith leaps over
and slides under tables, grabbing guns
from hiding places and firing back at the
men. At one point he jumps onto a fastmoving conveyor belt, and eventually he
runs to the buildings center stairwell,
grabs a rope hanging over the railing,
and rappels down four flights, exchanging gunfire with the villains all the way
down. The sequence is a good example
of Davis plan, which was to shoot few
masters. We were just shooting
pieces, says the director. It was more
about the editorial choreography than
fight choreography. You see Clive in the
warehouse, he jumps on the conveyor
belt, he grabs the gun, he hangs upside
down to shoot the guy behind him all
pieces.
Panavision Toronto provided the
camera gear. In addition to the Arricams

(used with Wireless Remote Systems),

the package included a set of Zeiss
Ultra Primes, an Angenieux Optimo 24290mm zoom, and a Cooke 18-100mm
zoom.
The negative was processed at
Deluxe Toronto, and a digital intermediate (DI) was carried out at FotoKem,
where Pau worked with Walter
Volpatto, whom he declares an excellent colorist. The cinematographer
adds, When we started shooting a DI
wasnt locked, but I prefer doing all the
color control during shooting, anyway. I
like to process the negative normally
no pulling, no pushing.
Pau praises his crew, noting that
they had to be exceptionally fast and
very accurate, artistically and technically, on this film. I was lucky to have
Chris Howard working with me for the
third time; hes always on top of everything. He, best boy Michael L. Hall and
Stephen Spurrell meticulously followed
my lighting design to rig all interiors and
stages, which really helped make our

days go smoothly and quickly.

He also cites the stellar work
done by operators Keith Murphy and
Michael Hall, and my two wonderful
camera assistants, Ciaran Copelin and
John Harper. 2nd-unit director of
photography Dave Herrington seamlessly matched all my lighting and
worked on a one-week reshoot when I
wasnt available. My key grip, Michael
OConner, and his best boy, Jason Le
Noury, had to get accustomed to my
English style of separating the camera
grip and lighting grip into their own
groups.
Pau acknowledges that he likes
to work fast. Working with a baby can
put a crimp in even the most meticulously planned schedule, however.
Smith carries the infant pretty much
throughout the film an animatronic
baby was used during the action
sequences and the baby had to be
not only well behaved but also awake.
The key, says Pau, was waiting
patiently.
I

29

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
In an industry increasingly driven by change, Clairmont Camera
endeavors to stay at the cutting edge of technology and provide
customers with a complete range of state-of-the-art equipment.
DP Michael Trim and DIT Ethan Phillips share some of their
recent experiences with digital packages from Clairmont Camera.
On the Showtime TV series Weeds, Trim and Phillips are starting
their second season using Clairmont-modified Sony F-900 cameras.
They also used a Clairmont Arri D-20 package for a recent pilot.
Trim: This is our second year using
Clairmonts F-900s on Weeds and they
are truly dependable workhorses. I
cant say enough about them. One of
the problem areas of the original F900
was with the viewfinder, but Clairmont
has addressed that issue with their
modified units. And the way that
Clairmont has re-engineered the lens
mount using a special hardened mount
has eliminated the need to continually
back-focus when you change lenses a

time-consuming necessity with the

non-Clairmont standard F900. There
are a number of other key improvements
that Clairmont has made to the camera
that make it a pleasure to work with.
Phillips: What I appreciate the most
about Clairmont Camera is that you can
go there and sit down with someone
like Mike Condon, explain what youre
trying to accomplish, and hell come up
with a fiber-optics and HD base station
package thats ideal for the shoot. The

high level of expertise that Clairmonts

staff has demonstrated over the years
gives me complete confidence.
Trim: Their technical support is
awesome. Denny Clairmont, Alan Albert
and Bill Sturke are always there for us
if we have any problems, and truthfully
I cant think of one problem that weve
had. They seem to be totally on top of
the digital world, and everybody has an
answer to your questions. The shift from
film to digital has not been the smoothest
transition for many of us, but Clairmont
makes it easy with all of their help.
Phillips: Its been my experience that
Clairmont always has the equipment
we need readily available, its in top
notch condition, and prepping goes
smoothly.
Trim: The Evertz fiber optic gear is a
great asset. You can be sure that the
fiber optics back saves a considerable
amount of time on the set compared to
dealing with conventional BNC cabling.
With the fiber optic cabling were able to
keep Ethans engineering station in one
central location, which is convenient
and it also saves time. I love the lenses
Clairmont offers with the F900; the
E-series Fujinon zooms and the digi
primes. Theyre easy to work with and
deliver excellent results.

Director of Photography Michael Trim is now in his second

season with the hit show Weeds, using Clairmont-modified
Sony F900 cameras. He has also worked with the Arri D-20, and
shares his observations on the equipment and Clairmont Camera

Trim: The Arri D-20 is a great camera.

We used it on a pilot called Business
Class and the director, Adam Bernstein,
and I both loved it. In this pilot it was
important for Adam to have a narrow
depth of field to isolate the characters.
We accomplished this with ease. Adam
said hed use it over a film camera at his
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thanks to the D-20s 35mm chip, it was
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reflex mode.
Phillips: The depth of the images with
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striped suit. You could make out every
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Versatile DIT Ethan Phillips is also on his second season with Weeds, and has
likewise done projects with various digital packages from Clairmont Camera
Trim: The D-20 feels very much like
the Arriflex 435, and essentially gives
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Its definitely a major factor in being
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Bourne

Again
Cinematographer Oliver Wood
circles the globe for
The Bourne Ultimatum, the third
installment of the action franchise.
by Jon Silberg
Unit photography by
Jasin Boland, David Lee and Abbot Genser

32 September 2007

ased on a character created by

Robert Ludlum, the Bourne
trilogy The Bourne Identity,
The Bourne Supremacy and
The Bourne Ultimatum
focuses on a somewhat more cerebral
agent than those found in most
action movies, one who is always
several steps ahead of those pursuing
him. All three pictures were shot by
Oliver Wood, who notes that the
franchise has an unscripted, spontaneous quality, like we were lucky the
cameras happened to be rolling at the
right moment. That applies not only
to the cinematography, but also to
the acting and the way the scenes are
blocked.

Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Opposite:
Searching for
clues to his past,
amnesiac agent
Jason Bourne
(Matt Damon)
makes a stop in
Paris in The
Bourne
Ultimatum. This
page, top: An
assassin (Edgar
Ramirez) takes
aim in Waterloo
Station. Below:
On location in
Morocco,
director of
photography
Oliver Wood
(right) confers
with C-camera
operator Mostafa
Badreddine as
focus puller
Zakaria
Badredine
stands by.

This was especially true on the

recently released Bourne Ultimatum,
which reunited Wood with Bourne
Supremacy director Paul Greengrass.
Filmed on location around the world
and featuring elaborate chases and
other set pieces, the project
commenced shooting last winter
with a script that was still being
hammered out and an early August
release date looming on the horizon.
The way you make movies today is
so fast, says Wood. An all-digital
post compresses time. Everyone
knows you can change things right
up till the last moment. That can
make it hard for a cinematographer
to build in a look, but on this film
that was okay. The style of these
movies is a little offbeat, anyway.
In Bourne Ultimatum, amnesiac CIA agent Jason Bourne (Matt
Damon) continues his quest to
discover his identity and remember
details from his past. This time the
search takes him to Moscow, Paris,
Madrid, London, Tangier and New
York, and his efforts are hampered by
the fact that he is wanted by lawenforcement agents around the

world, and by a group of deep-cover

CIA agents supervised by Noah
Vosen (David Strathairn).
Greengrass preference for
imagery that has a spontaneous feel
gave Wood some leeway, in the sense
that a fluorescent interior could go a
little green, a composition didnt have
to be perfect, and focus could be a bit
off for part of a shot, and it would all
work within the overall visual style.
Paul trusts his designers and
cameramen, says Wood. Hes more
interested in what the actors are
doing and the story of the scene than

the camera angles. Wood and his

crew captured the action in an almost
documentary
fashion,
giving
Greengrass and the editors plenty of
coverage options in the cutting room.
The cinematographer emphasizes that it requires an extremely
skilled camera crew to create the illusion that something just happened,
and he credits his operators and assistants for their talent and professionalism. I worked with a mostly English
and American crew on Bourne
Ultimatum, and they were very
attuned to the situation theyd

American Cinematographer 33

Bourne Again
Right: Bourne
finally meets
CIA supervisor
Pam Landy
(Joan Allen),
who initially
suspected him
of sabotaging
one of her
operations.
Below: The
agent discovers
his own file.

done a movie before, if you know

what I mean. We were also lucky to
have very good people on our second
unit, especially [director/stunt coordinator] Dan Bradley and [cinematographers] Mark Moriarty and
Igor Meglic, and we kept close
contact with them.
The position of the director of
photography nowadays is more that
of an organizer and administrator,
he continues. Im brought into
discussions very early on, and I go on
prep whenever possible. But during
shooting I might have to leave the set
to prepare other stages, and I need to
know I can rely on excellent Acamera operators who can run the
camera department while Im gone.
On Bourne Ultimatum, as on Bourne
Supremacy, Woods right-hand men
were A-camera operator Klemens
Becker and B-camera operator
Florian Emmerich.
With Greengrass, the action is
always covered with two or more
cameras,
usually
handheld.
Sometimes wed have a second
camera, or a third and fourth, on a
34 September 2007

dolly with a 12:1 zoom, but wed set it

up to have that kind of loose feeling,
says Wood. Working handheld is
physically very demanding work.
Being on a dolly or crane is a lot easier
than picking up the camera and
running around, zooming. Klemens
and Florian are great. I would have
been burned out in a few days trying
to do what they did! The cinematographer pulled focus early in his career
and expresses a particular appreciation of that job, especially on films as
kinetic as this one. Pulling focus can
be the most nightmarish position on
the set. There are so many sleepless
nights. Very few people know how
hard it is to be a focus puller.
On most shows everything
has to be sharp, but Paul and Oliver
gave everybody freedom, says Acamera 1st AC Birgit Bebe Dierken,
who also worked with Greengrass on
United 93 (shot by Barry Ackroyd,
BSC; see AC June 06). At first its
hard to let things go out of focus, but
after a couple of weeks you get used
to it and realize it gives you creative
input. Suddenly youre throwing into

focus what you think is important,

following your own instincts and
those of the operator; if I felt a hand
in the foreground should be more
dominant, Id focus on that. Oliver is
very supportive, and he has so much
enthusiasm for the job that its contagious. It makes everyone more
excited and willing to experiment.
The productions camera
package was supplied by Arri Media
in London. The main cameras
Arricam Lites and Arri 235s were
focused remotely with Arris LCS-3
wireless remote-focus system.
Operators could control the zooms
while shooting handheld, and the
focus pullers would use their monitors and judgment to control focus.
The picture was shot in Super 35mm
full frame, without hard mattes. I
like to have everything on the negative, says Wood. I reframe things in
the digital intermediate [DI] quite
often.
The production carried Cooke
S4 primes lenses and an Arri LWZ
15.5-45mm zoom, but the crew
mostly used lightweight zooms that
I had specially made from two Nikon
digital still-photography lenses, a 2870mm and an 80-200mm, says

Wood. Arri in Munich converted

them to lightweight cinema-style
zooms, and they work quite well. The
Nikon glass is brilliant. Dierken
notes, We called them the Oliver
Lenses, and they helped the operators
shoot everything handheld with the
documentary approach Oliver and
Paul wanted. Unlike other zooms,
which are either too heavy or too
slow, these zooms opened up to T2.8
and were quite light. Arri made the
housings in six weeks, and the lenses
turned out to be very sharp and the
contrast was quite good. [Stillphotography] lenses turn the opposite of the way cine-style lenses do,
which could have been unpleasant if
wed used a normal follow focus, but
with the LCS-3 we were able to just
reverse the gears. The lenses worked
so well that we ended up shooting 70
percent of the movie with them, and
now Arri is making more!
Wood shot Bourne Ultimatum
on two Kodak Vision2 emulsions,
250D 5205 and 500T 5218. I used to
rate Kodaks 500-speed stocks at [EI]
320 or 400, he says, but with the
Vision2 stocks I dont need to get
quite such a thick negative to get the
same result, so I actually rated them
Above:
Steadicam/
B-camera
operator Florian
Emmerich and a
sound man stay
in step with
Damon.
Left:
Bourne heads
into the London
Underground in
pursuit of an
agent who tried
to kill him.

American Cinematographer 35

Bourne Again
In Morocco,
Bourne races to
prevent the
assassination of
an agent who
has helped him
against orders.
Much of the
chase was
captured by
2nd-unit
director of
photography
Mark Moriarty
and his crew.

at what was written on the can.

One of the major set pieces in
the film concerns a chase over
rooftops and through a series of
apartment buildings in Tangier,
Morocco, overlooking the large
marketplace called the Medina.
Moriarty, the 2nd-unit cinematographer in England and Morocco,
explains, Bourne is following two
people from afar, so we were on the
rooftops about 70 feet up. The
special-effects department posi-

36 September 2007

tioned a massive cable rig for the

camera that spanned six buildings; it
was held up on one end by a crane
and on the other by the roof of a
building. Dan Bradley likes to do
setups many different ways and run
at least three cameras for every take,
so we got a great deal of coverage.
Moriarty notes that such work
in a place like Morocco can present
problems he wouldnt expect to
encounter in some other countries.
We wanted to get a Chapman

To work out a
lighting plan for
an action
sequence filmed
in Berlin
(standing in for
Moscow),
German gaffer
Ronnie Schwarz
used Google
Earth to
communicate
with Wood, who
was filming in
London at the
time.

Lenny 2 crane on the roof for some

shots, and we all agreed we could do
it, but then all of a sudden someone
got cold feet. The crane weighs a lot,
and you cant just check the building
specs in Morocco like you can in
Britain or America. The buildings are
at least 100 years old, and they dont
have all that information.
The house-to-house chase also
has Bourne jump from a rooftop into
a window 12' below. He smashes
through wooden shutters into a
kitchen, and the chase continues
through the apartment. This, too,
was covered numerous ways, and
Moriarty was particularly pleased
with the subjective angle captured by
Damons stunt double, who really
made the jump with an Arri 235
strapped to his body. I dont know
how its going to be cut together, but
that shot really gives you the reality of

someone taking that leap, he says.

For the action inside the building, Moriarty had to make the best of
certain limitations. We couldnt
bring in big units you cant even
get cars near that area, he says. The
largest lights we could use were 4Ks.
Since all the buildings are in close
proximity, we could put some of
these units in windows of other
buildings and make it look like the
kind of direct, intense sunlight they
have there. It was restrictive, but it
worked well. Inside the apartment,
the crew built a rig into the ceiling
(upside-down track, essentially) that
could guide an operator following an
actor from room to room, around
corners, into another room and
across to the next building.
One of the shots Moriarty is
most pleased with made use of a very
low-tech rig. When Bourne runs

across a roof and into a doorway

leading to a walkway to the roof of
the next building, it was important to
be able to let Damon run at full speed
with a camera staying ahead of him.
Obviously, you cant have an operator running backwards as fast as a
man running forward, says
Moriarty. There was really no room
for tracks in the doorway, plus you
wouldve seen them in the shot. So
instead, we rigged a two-wheel
upright trolley, modified it with scaffolding poles and strapped an operator into it; we had three grips pulling
it backward while Matt was running
forward for about 50 meters. Im
quite proud of that shot and hope its
in the film. Sometimes the simplest
rigs work the best.
Gaffer John Biggles Higgins
recalls that things got a little heated
during the Morocco shoot. There
American Cinematographer 37

Bourne Again
Right: On
location in New
York, the crew
prepares to film
the aftermath of
one of Bournes
narrow
escapes.
Below: After
driving off the
roof of the Port
Authority,
Bourne heads
out on foot.

are good lighting people in Morocco

who are very efficient, friendly and
extremely helpful, but we were
shooting during Ramadan, which
wasnt the best time to be in the area.
During Ramadan Muslims dont eat
or drink during sunlight hours, and
smokers arent supposed to smoke,
either. Some fights broke out in the
crowds around us when it was 3 in
the afternoon and people hadnt had
a drink of water since 5 in the morning. There was no threat to the crew,

38 September 2007

but we kept police with us when we

worked.
Of course, any country offers
its own challenges to a production
intent on shooting big action
sequences in crowded locations.
Higgins cites a scene set in Londons
Waterloo Station, where Bourne has
arranged to meet a reporter who
might have valuable information.
Their meeting is cut short when a
mob of agents swarms the pair.
Waterloo is one of the busiest

stations in England, maybe all of

Europe, says Higgins. So many
people pass through there each day
that we just couldnt have any cables
running through. Wood adds, We
could only shoot between 10 a.m.
and 4 p.m., and it was midwinter, so
the sun was down by 3:30. At first I
thought we could float lots of lighting
balloons, but they forbade me to do
it. So a few weeks before we were
scheduled to shoot there, I went in at
4 p.m. and took some stills and light
readings, and I discovered that even
when the sun was down, the [practicals] in the station gave me a T2.8,
and I knew we could work with that
if we had to. This was mainly
achieved by adding small bulbs to the
stations existing lights. Everything
had to be run on batteries, so all I had
were two Image 80 Kino Flo packs on
shopping carts and two smaller
HMIs with Chimeras. I used those
four lights to pick up various things
in the shot. Sometimes I didnt use
them at all, and sometimes Id string
all four of them behind the camera
just to provide a little ambience.
Sometimes Wood found

himself shooting in one country

while one of the gaffers was prepping
a location in another. He was in
London while German gaffer Ronnie
Schwarz was preparing a large space
in Berlin (standing in for Moscow)
for the opening scene of the movie.
Its a huge scene, says Wood. It
picks up where Bourne Supremacy
left off, with Bourne wounded in
Moscow, looking for a drugstore, and
getting into an altercation with the
police. We made snow and lit enormous areas of Berlin; people from
other productions were calling up
asking when wed be finished,
because we had every 18K in
Germany! We also had HMIs, MaxiBrutes and Dinos. I like to mix cold
and warm color temperatures and
often gel lights to make them blend
with sodium or mercury-vapor
streetlights.
Schwarz suggested to Wood
that they use Google Earth to work
out their lighting plan for the
sequence. We could both sit at our
computers and zoom in to satellite
pictures of the streets and discuss

exactly where we could put lights,

says Wood. Id say, See where that
red car is parked? Put a Condor two
meters up from that. And Ronny
would say, We cant get a permit that
close to the other street, but we can
do it three meters the other way. We

could zoom in on areas and see every

alley and every building in perfect
detail.
Higgins was the gaffer on
most of the stage work, which was
filmed at Pinewood and Shepperton
studios, and he used the Light by

Stunt driver
Kevin Scott at
the wheel of the
Go-Mobile, a
rig that 2nd-unit
director/stunt
coordinator Dan
Bradley and New
York 2nd-unit
cinematographer
Igor Meglic used
in three
configurations to
capture exciting
shots for a car
chase staged in
the streets of
New York.

American Cinematographer 39

Bourne Again
Right: A
Technocrane
helps capture
the action in a
parking garage.
Below: The GoMobiles pod is
used on the
remote drive
vehicle so a
stunt driver can
control the car
while an actor
appears to be
driving it.

Numbers system to control all the

instruments on set. We had all the
lights on dimmers, and with Light by
Numbers we could go from day to
night onstage in less than five
minutes, he says. You can control
everything with a PDA. Its a fantastic
tool. Wood notes that he has
encountered resistance to Light by
Numbers from some gaffers in the
U.K. and the U.S., and he thinks this
is unfortunate. I would love to bring
Light by Numbers to the States, but
some people in the business are reactionary and old-fashioned, he says.
In some ways the film industry is
like a dinosaur way behind other
industries in terms of technology.
Light by Numbers was effective for all the stage work, he contin-

40 September 2007

ues, particularly for the office, where

the rogue agents led by Strathairn are
headquartered. Full of desks,
computers and people, portions of
the space were surrounded by a
TransLite of the Manhattan skyline.
Depending on the time of day, the set
was lit with rigs above, units outside
and practicals inside. With Light by
Numbers, we could control all those
lights from one spot, says Higgins.
If Oliver wanted a little more light
through one of the windows or a
little less from a desk lamp, he could
have it almost instantly.
Bourne Ultimatum climaxes
with an elaborate car chase in the
streets of New York, and many shots
in this sequence were captured using
a Go-Mobile, a picture-vehicle rig

that was used on Bourne Supremacy,

Dukes of Hazzard (see AC Web exclusive, Oct. 05: www.theasc.com/magazine/oct05.htm) and other features.
The Go-Mobile is an ingenious thing,
and we used it in three configurations,
says Meglic, who shot the second-unit
work in New York. For some shots we
used the pod from the Go-Mobile on
the RDV [remote drive vehicle], which
diverts the basic car controls from the
drivers seat to the top of the vehicle,
where the stunt driver sits. For other
shots we attached the picture car to the
Go-Mobile structure, and in the third
configuration the front part of the car
was removed, including the windshield, and the cameras got close to
Matt in different positions shooting
through the steering wheel, for exam-

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Bourne Again

Bradley (right)
prepares some
second-unit
work with his
crew.

42

ple. We didnt drive it faster than 50

mph because it was the streets of
New York, but its got a 500-horsepower engine and can go faster. With
it we could position a Technocrane
that could get any kind of angle on
Matt driving and go out toward
another car in the chase. It enabled us
to get a near-miss with another car
coming just a couple of inches from
the camera.
Meglic used Arri 235s and

435s for most of his work, occasionally supplementing them with

Eyemos. We would slightly undercrank to about 22 fps any slower
would have been obvious, he says.
But the Go-Mobile really helps
make the audience feel like theyre
right there. The objective was to
make it look like we were catching
the action by mistake, and thats
actually really hard to do. Youve got
to have the camera in the right position at the right time yet make it look
like you werent expecting anything
to happen!
Deluxe Laboratories in
London processed most of the
productions footage, and although
hi-def dailies were generated, Wood
seldom viewed them. When I watch
dailies, I start to correct things that
dont need to be corrected, he says.
In my younger days, Id see dailies
and lose my nerve and think, Thats
too dark, and then when I saw the

print Id kick myself for going

brighter. I was lighting out of fear, and
the only way to avoid that is by going
with your gut feelings. He did study
negative reports to ensure the lenses
were working fine and to check up on
focus, and he also had Deluxe put his
negative up on an analyzer to generate a set of timing lights. Ill usually
watch dailies at the start just to see
how the skin tones look, but once I
know how an actors face works, I
dont want to see dailies again for the
rest of the shoot.
The cinematographer says he
enjoys the new freedom created by
the digital-intermediate (DI) process.
I hated the old lab days. When I
came into the business in the early
70s, I wanted to shoot video because
of the control you have with it in post.
I was banging the video drum, but it
wasnt good enough. I still think film
is the best recording medium, and
with a DI I can pull out more infor-

mation and better information than I

could with any of the digital formats
Ive tested. But I shoot film differently
than I used to. I dont use filters at all.
The less glass you can put in front of
the lens, the better, and I can do that
kind of image correction in the DI.
He also makes a lot of lighting
adjustments in post. Theres a scene
in this movie where Matt is sitting in
an interrogation room with his head
down, and you cant see his eyes, he
says. When we shot it, I tried to put an
eyelight in, but I hated the way it made
him look lit. So I took it away, and in
the DI we drew two windows around
his eyes and created an eyelight. It
worked very effectively and looked far
less artificial than the real eyelight did.
On Bourne Ultimatum, there
were
occasionally
frustrating
moments in the DI because a lot of
that work had to be done before material from reshoots and visual-effects
houses became available. Working

with colorist Stephen Nakamura at

Technicolor Digital Intermediates in
Burbank, Wood had to contend with
the fact that every other scene had a
big black card that said, Missing. So
much of timing a movie is about
blending. Ive shot sequences that
were done half in a blizzard and half
in full sunshine, and then Id work
with the timer to make it look consistent. Thats what timing is about. So
when youre missing a lot of shots,
youre limited in how much you can
accomplish. Nakamura adds, If
there are a lot of shots missing we
cant finalize a scene. Effects artists
sometimes think their shots can just
be cut in, but they still need to be
color-corrected. Its not enough for
the shots to look good by themselves;
the contrast and color have to work in
the context of the surrounding shots.
Having said that, Nakamura
adds, Ive used fewer windows and
less video color correction for this

film than for any movie Ive graded in

the past three years. Its the look of the
franchise if theres a flare or if
something is a little soft, thats okay.
I think that in the end, as long
as its cool the audience will go for it,
says Wood.
I

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Nikon, Cooke and Arri lenses
Kodak Vision2
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Printed on Kodak Vision 2383

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*)*$+--$/)((
@6<9=0:0656<9.,(9

43

Cultural

Immersion
An American
navigates a steep
learning curve in
India in Outsourced,
shot by Teodoro
Maniaci.
by Rachael K. Bosley
Unit photography by
Ayesha Broacha and John Jeffcoat
44 September 2007

irected and co-written by John

Jeffcoat, the independent film
Outsourced
follows
an
American worker who is sent
to India to train the staff that is
taking over his companys customerservice call center, an operation he
formerly managed. Reluctant to
make the trip, Todd (Josh
Hamilton) feels worse when he
arrives and stumbles into Indias
chaotic crush of people, vehicles,
animals and alien customs; but over
the ensuing weeks, as he spends time
with his staff and hosts, he comes to
appreciate the countrys complexi-

ties and develops a new perspective

on his own situation.
Except for a few days of principal photography in Seattle,
Outsourced was shot in and around
Mumbai with a predominantly
Indian crew. One of the Americans
by Jeffcoats side was New York
director of photography Teodoro
Maniaci, whose credits include the
features Clean, Shaven and The
Business of Strangers and the documentary Shaolin Ulysses: Kungfu
Monks in America. Teo came very
highly recommended, and when
[producer] Tom Gorai first told me

Photos courtesy of Shadowcatcher Entertainment.

about him he mentioned Clean,

Shaven, which had really stuck with
me for awhile after I saw it, says
Jeffcoat, who is based in Seattle. It
was exciting to know hed done
something that left an impression
on me, and in looking at his other
films I was impressed at how well he
adapted his style to very different
projects, like Tao of Steve and Claire
Dolan. But as important as the quality of his work was, we were also
looking for someone with the right
personality who would be able to
function in some difficult situations
in a very different culture. When I
first spoke to Teo on the phone, the
rapport was pretty instant.
Maniaci, whose parents emigrated from Sicily to the States in
1955, has long cultivated an interest
in other cultures, a curiosity that led
him to shoot projects in Senegal,
Japan and China. However, he had
never been to India, so prior to the
Outsourced shoot he spent almost
three weeks traveling from one end
of India to the other on his own on a
very low budget. I wanted to get a
sense of the countrys rhythms and
logic, he says. India really is its own
universe. Its a beehive, a whirling
maelstrom of activity. Its all experiences all at once all the time. By the
time production came around I was
able to stay incredibly calm in the
midst of huge crises; all the intricacies and sound and fury of production seemed mellow in comparison
to what Id been through on my
travels!
Jeffcoat had familiarized himself with India by directing and
shooting a documentary about its
film industry; that project,
Bollywood & Me, is still in progress.
Youre always angling for a way to
make your first film, and I think getting funding for Bollywood & Me
was my way of scouting out the
potential of shooting a feature
there, he says. India seemed like a
really good place to do an indie
because of the lower costs, and the

research I did for my documentary

definitely helped inform the ideas
for Outsourced.
Maniaci notes that production dollars did stretch further in
India than they would have elsewhere We were able to pull off
some very big locations, like
Mumbais Victoria Station and
Chattrapathi Shivaji International
Airport, and we were also able to
afford an excellent local crew but
he emphasizes that Gorai and executive producer David Skinner were
instrumental in making it all work.
David and Tom were dream producers, says Maniaci. Theyre
smart, supportive and creative, and
their chief concern was putting the

money where it was most important, where it would do the film the
most good. Tom, who was with us
the whole time, was really great at
solving problems, and the shoot was
fraught with complexity.
He cites the producers decision to take him, Jeffcoat, and line
producer Gwen Bialic to Mumbai
for a week of pre-prep as one that
benefited the team considerably.
About a month before the official
prep, we went over and spent a week
sizing up all the parameters, he says.
They were able to do a preliminary
location scout and liaise with a local
production company, Highlight
Films, that assisted them in a number of ways. Highlight is essentially

Opposite: Todd
(Josh Hamilton)
goes for a swim
after being
ambushed on
Holi, Indias
festival of colors.
This page, above:
Cinematographer
Teodoro Maniaci
(riding the crane)
and his crew
prep the shot.
Below: At Film
City, Maniaci (at
camera) preps
another crane
shot with (from
left) 1st AC Amy
Silverman, best
boy grip Bhurji
and camera
assistant Tanaji
S. Kshirsagar.

American Cinematographer 45

Cultural Immersion

Todd and his

Indian
counterpart,
Puro (Asif
Basra), try
somewhat
unsuccessfully
to take cover
during Holi, a
time when
balloons, squirt
guns and other
means are used
to douse
everyone with
colored powder.
At right is the
storyboard
Maniaci and
director John
Jeffcoat
worked out for
the sequence.

46 September 2007

a high-end commercial-production
company, and using them as a conduit we hooked up with great lighting and grip teams, says Maniaci.
My gaffer, Kamlesh Sadrani, and
key grip, Ninad Nayampally [of Zoo
Grips], were incredibly talented and
hard-working. Theyre accustomed
to European-style gaffer/grip designations; the gaffer does all the lighting and cutting of light, and the grip
is essentially a camera grip.
Ninad spoke very good
English, and although Kamlesh
spoke little English, he and I were
still able to communicate well and
do great work together, he continues. Ive found with gaffers that
once youve worked together a few
days, you start to automatically
understand each other and it
becomes a wordless environment
very quickly. The crew worked hard
and fast and with enthusiasm, and
they consistently went beyond what
we asked of them. Maniaci did his
own operating and took just one
crewmember from the States, 1st
AC Amy Silverman.
Highlight Films also led the
production to Kodaks lab in
Mumbai, a boutique operation that
had just opened its doors, says
Maniaci. I had a lot of trepidation
about finding a lab because most of
the ones we looked at were shockingly large factories with strange
ideas about cleanliness in terms of

MATT DAMON
IS JASON BOURNE

REMEMBER EVERYTHING
FORGIVE NOTHING

Camera equipment & technical support provided by the ARRI Rental Group.
Filmed on location in

Berlin

| London

| Madrid

| New York

| Paris

| Tangier

Cultural Immersion

Top left: Todds

room was a
fourth-floor
location in
Mumbai that
offered a great
view of a
natural pool but
was otherwise
less than
picturesque.
Top right:
Production
designer Fali
Unwallas
transformation
of the space.
Below: Outside
the windows,
the lighting
team prepares
to send some
manmade
daylight into
the room.

handling negative. But the Kodak lab

was immaculate, and their work was
very detailed. At that point they were
really just doing commercials, so
they were set up to handle only
about 5,000 feet of film a day, and
occasionally wed overwhelm them
and theyd fall behind. But their
quality control was excellent.
When it came time to secure a
camera package, Maniaci discovered
that most of the gear in India is tailored to anamorphic shows with
non-sync sound. He very quickly
found out why: Theres so much
noise in India they have to dub all
their movies after the fact. During
the shoot, we had to cancel numerous locations because wed arrive to
find it was next to a super-highway
construction site or a temple with
banging gongs. I have to give a lot of
credit to our sound recorder, Judy

48 September 2007

Karp, because this was the most

insane production to record audio
for. Although Jeffcoat was initially
keen on a widescreen format,
Maniaci and the producers convinced him to go with 1.85:1.
When you think about Indian
films its hard not to think of
widescreen, says the director, but
we had a lot of night material, which
would have made anamorphic
tricky, and it was difficult to find two
solid cameras that were set up for
Super 35mm we had to have two
because we couldnt afford to lose
any days.
The production eventually
obtained two Arri 535Bs and a set of
Cooke S4 prime lenses. When you
rent a camera in India it comes with
three attendants who maintain it
kind of like a first, a second and a
loader and if anything happens

to that camera those three gentlemen are out of a job, so the cameras
are kept in great condition, says
Maniaci. I was more concerned
about lenses because the quality of
the anamorphic lenses Id looked at
seemed kind of shoddy. But we got a
new set of S4s, and the Arri rep in
Mumbai put us in touch with a lens
technician in Hyderabad who had
trained in Germany, and he gave the
lenses a spa treatment. We ran tests
and everything looked good.
While shooting tests, Maniaci
discovered another effect of Indias
non-sync-sound
filmmaking:
Indian crews make a lot of their
own small lights, and because they
dont use sync sound they build fans
into the instruments to keep them
cool. I kept hearing this buzzing and
whirring during our tests and realized none of those lights would be

useful to us. He adds that larger

instruments, such as 18Ks, were the
same ones found in other film
industries. Overall we used a lot of
Indian equipment, though, because
they tend to build their own gear
because its so cheap, he says. Youll
see something that looks an awful
lot like a Matthews C-stand, for
example, but its locally made.
The filmmakers built a few
sets on two stages at Film City, but
they found that quiet wasnt a given
at the studio, either. Film City is
about the size of Central Park, and
on a typical day there are loads of
films shooting there, says Maniaci.
One night we had some quiet
scenes to shoot at the call center,
which we built as a freestanding
structure, and someone was shooting a horror movie about an acre
away. Every so often wed hear these
blood-curdling screams and see
smoke from their smoke machines
drifting into our set. On top of that,
Film City is on the outskirts of a
jungle, and studio guards occasionally light sticks of dynamite to repel
leopards that come too close for
comfort. There are lots of signs
around the lot warning you not to
stray off the path because of the
leopard problem, says Jeffcoat.
Guards patrol the perimeter constantly, and when you hear a loud
explosion you know theyve spotted
one.
One set built at Film City was
the ground floor of the house where
Todd stays, which opens out to a
backyard garden. Auntie-jis house
was a major production issue
because it had to be a sort of refuge
for Todd, a tranquil place, says
Jeffcoat. During prep wed see photos of a location that looked suitable
and then spend three hours in traffic
to get there, only to find there was a
major bus stop outside and it was
the loudest place imaginable. Our
production designer, Fali Unwalla,
suggested building the living room
at the edge of a soundstage and
49

Cultural Immersion

Above: The
crew prepares
to film Basra
and Hamilton
trapped in a
traffic jam.
When shooting
a driving scene
on the streets
of Mumbai
proved
impossible,
Jeffcoat
rewrote the
scene to take
place during a
traffic jam, and
the crew
quickly created
a city-street
faade at
Mukesh Mills.
This was our
only twocamera day,
notes Jeffcoat.
Right: Maniaci
(far left,
wearing
sunglasses)
and his crew
prepare to film
at a temple
housing a Shiva
Lingam.

having it open up to the outside, and

that worked well.
Scenes set in Todds room on
the second floor, however, were shot
on location in a building that offered
a great view of a large pool fed by a
natural spring. The view from the
window was amazing, but man,
nothing else about that room was,
recalls Jeffcoat with a laugh. That
was one of Falis more impressive
design jobs! Maniaci adds, That
was the top floor in a four-story
building, and because there are no
Condors or lifts in India the crew
had to build scaffolding that high to
get light into the room. It was quite
complicated to move all that scaffolding when we had to get it out of

50 September 2007

shots, but manpower in India is

never an issue. In fact, Ive never
worked with such a large crew; labor
is so inexpensive all the departments
are huge. Crowds would gather
while we were working on location,
and often I couldnt tell whether
someone was a bystander or a
crewmember!
In a scene that suggests Todds
acclimation to India, he steps into
the natural pool fully clothed and
takes a short swim. Maniaci recalls,
We did that all in one shot: he walks
down to the water, we crane over
him and tilt down on him, and then,
as he goes under, the camera goes
down to water level. Then he surfaces into a close-up and turns and

swims away. It was a bit awkward to

operate because there are no remote
heads in India, so it was all done
with me riding a [Giraffe] crane,
and it meant turning 180 degrees to
get the camera to look straight
down.
One of the sets built outside
Film City was erected fairly spontaneously at Mukesh Mills, an abandoned industrial complex, after
production decided it would be
impossible to film a driving scene
on the streets of Mumbai. In the
scene, Puro (Asif Basra), the callcenter manager, picks Todd up from
the airport and drives him to
Gharipuri, chatting all the way.
Gwen [Bialic] was pleading with

me to minimize driving scenes

because the traffic in Mumbai is a
nightmare, and its almost impossible to find a stretch of road that isnt
full of giant potholes, says Jeffcoat.
Plus, its a long dialogue scene, and
we knew crowd control would be
difficult on location. Production
assured me they could build a
believable street faade on the lot if
we could film it as a stationary
scene, so I rewrote the scene to have
them get stuck in a traffic jam
caused by a herd of water buffalo
something that actually happens
there and Tom organized getting
the animals.
I fought to keep one driving
scene, when Todd and Asha [a callcenter employee played by Ayesha
Dharker] take a taxi out of town,
and we set aside one day to film all
those shots, he continues. Wed
found a long stretch of decent road
near a border checkpoint and
obtained the necessary permits, but
after we got one shot off the police
showed up and stalled us, then finally shut us down. To this day I have
no idea why. In the States, once you
get your permit youre okay to
shoot, but in India its not so clearcut. Something called Bakshish, a little extra tip, figures into their permitting process, and maybe we
missed someone somewhere along
the line. So we lost a day there.
Although the shoot was not
without other surprises, Jeffcoat and
Maniaci consistently benefited from
the four weeks of prep theyd had in
India, work that included storyboarding the first half of the shoot.
Im a freak about taking tons of
location stills, and sometimes Ill
even do 360-degree shots and stitch
them together, says Jeffcoat. When
we sat down to storyboard, Id shuffle through iPhoto, Teo would draw,
and wed piece together how the
scene should go. This work proved
especially valuable when something fell apart, like if we lost a location at the last minute, or if the nec51

Cultural Immersion

Jeffcoat
(standing),
Maniaci and
Silverman line
up a shot of
Hamilton.

essary props didnt materialize,

says Maniaci. Because wed done
all that prep, we understood what
we wanted to get out of those
scenes, and John could quickly
rewrite and adapt the scene to the

explains, We wanted to send Todd

and Asha on the road and develop
their romance, and originally we
had them going to the erotic temples
at Khajuraho [in northern India],
but when we sat down to do the
budget we realized we couldnt
afford to go there. Then we thought
of using an existing temple set, but
the ones we saw were a lot less
detailed and ornate than the real
thing, and they didnt have the erotic element we wanted. We scouted
the island of Elephanta, where there
are Shiva Lingams and other statues
in a great cave on top of a mountain.
The historical society gave us permission to film there, and I rewrote
the scene to happen in the cave, but
when we went on a second recce to
determine angles and figure out
lighting, Teo was almost arrested for
putting his mini-tripod on the
ground. Thats when we discovered
we wouldnt be allowed to put sticks

new circumstances.
An example of this is a scene
shared by Todd and Asha in a small
temple housing a Shiva Lingam, a
sexually charged symbol of the universes invisible energy. Jeffcoat

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down, and wed have to shoot the

whole scene handheld. Then the historical society realized the scale of
what we wanted to do and pulled
the plug.
Teo and I remembered passing a nice-looking temple in town
that had a big Shiva Lingam, and we
checked it out and realized it would
work well, so I rewrote the scene
again. But when we returned for the
tech scout, men were dismantling
the temple, and I lost it I figured
it was a Bollywood movie set and
wed been fooled into thinking it was
the real thing. You just never know
what youre looking at in India! But
we found out it was real, and it was
just being refurbished by the historical society. They told us the work
would be finished by the time we
needed to shoot there, but I sent
people there every day to check on
the progress and make sure. When
the time came, it was ready.

That scene is a perfect

example of how disasters that befell
us would lead to better solutions,
says Maniaci. Kali, the goddess of
destruction, is a figure that sort of
haunts Todd throughout the film,
and she destroys things so that new,
more positive things can come forward. The shoot mirrored that idea;
some of our huge plans had to be
scrapped at the last minute, but our
mantra became, Actually, its better.
Even though these surprises
created stress, they would always
resolve in a good way, continues
Maniaci. On some shoots theres a
synchronicity between the world
around you and the project at hand,
whereas on others the world and
the project seem out of sync, like
theyre fighting each other. On
Outsourced, the universe of India
offered up things that worked well
for the film.
After premiering at the 2006

Toronto Film Festival, Outsourced

went on to win audience awards for
best film at this years Indian Film
Festival of Los Angeles and Seattle
International Film Festival. It was
also named Best of the Fest at the
2007 Palm Springs International
Film Festival. The picture will be
released in U.S. theaters on Sept. 28.
I

TECHNICAL SPECS
1.85:1
35mm
Arri 535B
Cooke S4 lenses
Kodak Vision2
50D 5201, 250D 5205, 500T 5218
Printed on Kodak Vision 2383

53

Baroque

Visions

Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC, discusses

his approach to Caravaggio, which traces
the life of the revolutionary artist.
Interview by Giose Gallotti
Unit photography by
Piero Marsili
54 September 2007

n international co-production involving entities in Italy,

France, Spain and Germany,
the new film Caravaggio,
directed by Angelo Longoni
and shot by Vittorio Storaro, ASC,
AIC, explores the life of the 17thcentury painter (played by Alessio
Boni). The picture screened in the
United States for the first time at
Lincoln Centers Open Roads: New

Photos and frame grabs courtesy of Radiotelevisione Italiana.

Italian Cinema Showcase in June,

and Storaro is scheduled to screen
and discuss it in New York again on
Sept. 24, this time at Columbia
University, in conjunction with the
New York Film Festival.
A 200-minute cut of
Caravaggio will be broadcast on
Italian television this fall, and a 130minute theatrical cut will be
released in the near future.
American Cinematographer:
What inspired you to sign on to
this project?
Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC: I
would have accepted this project
even if it had been simple graffiti on
a wall, a drawing in sand, or an
engraving on stone. My spirit is that
of an eternal student; Im always
looking for new opportunities to
broaden areas of knowledge, philosophy and the arts. Our immense
potential is linked to the possibility
of opening new doors when new
projects are embraced. When
Caravaggio was offered to me by the
producer, Ida Di Benedetto, I knew
it would be an opportunity to study
in depth the trajectory and work of
this visionary protagonist of figurative art. Moreover, it would allow
me to explore further the mystery of
light and shadow, a theme that has
always been at the center of my cinematographic journey. Caravaggios
shadow is the visualization of where
the unresolved states of mind dwell
a condition innate in the human
unconscious. I wanted to use a style
of writing with light that would
make the bodies emerge from the
darkness to make conscious
what had for some time resided in
the unconscious.
You have spoken about
Caravaggio and Vermeer as two
fundamental poles for your own
creativity. How much did
Caravaggios work stimulate your
own artistic journey?
Storaro: Caravaggio and
Vermeer confirmed for me the need
to creatively search for answers to

Opposite: Italian
painter
Michelangelo
Merisi da
Caravaggio
(Alessio Boni)
has a tormented
moment. This
page, left: The
painter at work
on Burial of St.
Lucy. Below:
Preparing to film
the paintings
models in the
studio.

my own questions about life. A few

months ago, I finished copying my
film Tis Pity Shes a Whore [1971]
to a master video. The essential
division between shadow and light
was already inherent in that film, as
well as in another film I made during the same period, Giordano
Bruno. At that time, I had only just
set out on my journey as a cinematographer, and I wasnt aware of
the profound symbolic and conceptual meaning of light, shadow and
color, but I possessed a purely technical preparation from my studies
in cinema and photography. It was
then that I visited the Church of
San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome,

where I made a discovery that

changed my whole way of life and
my approach to images. Through
my analysis of a few paintings, I discovered how much the use of light
and shadow directed, concealed,
or filtered on a subject could
underline and emphasize a concept
written in words.
What happened that day at
San Luigi dei Francesi?
Storaro: While I was walking
around inside the church, I discovered the Contarelli Chapel, decorated with extraordinary paintings by
an artist whose name I didnt know
at the time. One in particular took
my breath away: The Calling of St.

American Cinematographer 55

Baroque Visions
Right:
Cinematographer
Vittorio Storaro,
ASC, AIC
conducts a
seminar on
Caravaggio s use
of light and
shadow with The
Calling of St.
Matthew behind
him as an
example. Below:
Judith Beheading
Holofernes, which
Storaro believes
marked a turning
point in
Caravaggios
creative journey,
was the first in a
series of
paintings he made
depicting
decapitation. I
imagine he began
to paint the scene
in the natural light
of day, as he
usually did, but
then realized the
light was not right
for the emotion he
wanted to
convey, says
Storaro. I
imagine he then
closed the
window and lit an
oil lamp, using
artificial light for
the first time.

56 September 2007

Matthew, which I later learned was

a work by Caravaggio. The thing
that struck me was the extraordinary vision of something that I was
actually putting in scenes back
then: a clean separation between
light and shadow. I was so bowled
over by that painting I felt immediately impelled to try to understand
and deepen the relationship
between these two elements. I had
to take my studies to a level that
enabled me to grasp the intrinsic
significance of that representation.
It was necessary in order to succeed
in expressing the most profound
meaning of what I was doing on the
set, depicting conflicts and har-

monies with light and shadow.

What impact did that
moment have on your subsequent
work?
Storaro: The Calling confirmed
for me something Id read in William
Faulkners Absalom, Absalom! The
protagonist says: Do you mark
how the wisteria, sun-impacted on
this wall here, distills and penetrates
this room as though (light-unimpeded) by secret and attritive progress
from mote to mote of obscuritys
myriad components? This phrase
showed Faulkner was able to
describe on a literary plane the ray of
light that Caravaggio represented
pictorially. Without having read that

phrase, without having looked at

that painting, I would not have been
able to make The Conformist or
Apocalypse Now. How could I have
described Col. Kurtz, who becomes
the denunciation of how civilization
hides within itself the appropriation
of other cultures through oppression and violence? It was fitting to
represent him not merely as a
human being, but as a transcendent
symbol denouncing horror and violence.
Whereas Vermeer used suffused, wintry, Nordic light to show
the way people lived through a unity
of light and shadow, Caravaggio
went precisely in the other direction
with his sharp light. He expresses a
radical division between our unconscious morality, represented by
shadow, and the part of life we live
searching for ourselves, expressed
through light a split between the
matter from which we are formed
and the divine for which we yearn.
For me, Caravaggios ray of light
visualized the relationship between
the human and the divine. His
genius caused an earthquake in the
figurative arts, and they have never
been the same.
Caravaggio was ahead of his
time, an artist who consciously
decided to break with the
Mannerist style of painting of that
era. How did you represent this
revolution in the film?
Storaro: By seeking to learn
why he took a particular artistic
path, and to deepen my understanding of how he lived. Every work of
art is linked to a precise moment of
the artists life and therefore has a
specific significance with regard to
the artists trajectory. Creative steps
forward and concrete steps in their
own lives are never unrelated. I am
not an art critic or painting expert,
but my own analysis led me to a personal interpretation of how
Caravaggio came to accomplish his
works through a need to discover
and understand the meaning of his

own life.
One should never forget
Caravaggio grew up in a small village near Milan, in a well-to-do family. When he was 6, he suffered the
traumatic loss of two significant
men in his life: his father and his
grandfather. When he was 12, his
mother sent him to Milan, against
his will, to learn painting in the
workshop of a Mannerist artist,
Simone Peterzano. This was a terrible wrench, a premature severing of
the umbilical cord that had a considerable impact on him. In those days,
the teacher and students lived
promiscuously, and I maintain that
Caravaggio might have been subjected to sexual abuse and violence
as an adolescent. Then he lost his
mother when he was 18. This was a
radical and violent transition from
boyhood to adulthood that led him
to decide to devote himself entirely
to figurative art. He went to Rome
and initially lived a life of privation;
it seems he lived for a time outside
the city walls in a Roman tomb on
the Via Appia Antica. I see the tomb
as a place that symbolizes the
unborn, as well as the premonition
of dying young, a vision that haunted Caravaggio throughout his life.
The walls of Rome signified a
new period of life for him. When he
finally crossed [the border they represented], he began working as an
apprentice in the studios of various
artists, chiefly Cavalier DArpino,
who did not allow Caravaggio to
express himself as he wished. During
this time he realized he was not
inspired by ornamental objects, and
he began to use real people as models, but in an untraditional manner.
To make his paintings, he always
studied his subjects reflected in a
mirror.
Why did he paint with the
help of a mirror?
Storaro: The eye sees the reality that is in front of it and relays that
to our minds. It expresses life and
not art, which needs a delimited

space to give expression to composition. The figures in a painting,

photograph or film are positioned
in a space that defines the composition. The same goes for the
viewfinder on a camera. Caravaggio
used a mirror to find the right composition in terms of volume and
light. In many of his paintings we
see figures arranged inversely to
how they would appear in reality. In
his first paintings he used a suffused
Nordic light, that of the Lombardy
region that he knew best. The light
almost always comes from the left;
the left is the symbol of the female,
[and] reflection the symbol of the
unconscious. His paintings never
show a direct gaze, but there is a
reflected composition, linked perhaps to a female vision and an
undeniable maternal need.
Caravaggio was discovered by
Cardinal Del Monte, who became a
new father figure to him. The cardinal brought him to his residence at
Palazzo Madama and became his
patron. However, Caravaggios personal well-being was increasingly
reflected as the opposite in his
painting. His subjects are always
surrounded by a dark background;
indeed, the external setting is of no
importance whatsoever with regard
to the figures portrayed. As he
developed as an artist, he attributed
less and less importance to the
background, narrowing the light
around his subjects.

Giordano Bruno was burned

at the stake in that period, and
Caravaggio witnessed his execution,
as well as the decapitation of
Beatrice Cenci. From then on he
painted the rite of decapitation
many times, sometimes depicting
himself as the victim [David and
Goliath] or the executioner. The first
painting he executed after those
tragic experiences was Judith
Beheading Holofernes. I imagine he
began to paint the scene in the natural light of day, as he usually did,
but then realized the light was not
right for the emotion he wanted to
convey. I imagine that he then
closed the window and lit an oil
lamp, using artificial light for the
first time.
To what do you attribute this
change in his approach?
Storaro: Caravaggio was a
great filmmaker before there was
film. He conceptualized the subject
and the composition, chose the figures, designed the costumes and
sets, and illuminated them like a
master cinematographer, and like
the filmmakers who came centuries
later he eventually moved from natural light to artificial light.
Beginning with Judith Beheading
Holofernes, his subjects were almost
always illuminated by a lantern. In
fact, we see the full cycle in
Caravaggios painting: first he used
natural light as reflected in a mirror
that framed his subjects; then he

The Decapitation
of St. John the
Baptist, the only
painting signed by
the artist, is
widely considered
to be his
masterpiece.
Caravaggio was
a great filmmaker
before there was
film, says
Storaro. He
conceptualized
the subject and
the composition,
chose the figures,
designed the
costumes and
sets, and
illuminated them
like a master
cinematographer.

American Cinematographer 57

Baroque Visions
Top: Caravaggio
and Lena (Sarah
Felberbaum), his
lover and model
for Madonna
and Child With
St. Anne, the
work in
progress behind
her. Bottom:
Lena and a child
pose for the
artist.

gradually focused the light on his

subjects, making the background
ever darker; and finally he passed
from natural to artificial light. He
found his greatest creative expression in his first official commission
from the Catholic Church, The
Calling of St. Matthew and The
Martyrdom of St. Matthew for the
Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei
Francesi.
Caravaggio was also continually torn between the diabolical
and the saintly, a duality synthesized in the struggle between light
and shadow in his paintings. How
did you suggest this dichotomy in
58 September 2007

the film?
Storaro: I adopted a philosophy of light that closely followed the
course of his creativity and life. If we
analyze the paintings in the
Contarelli Chapel, we see he visualized The Calling through the natural light of day and depicted The
Martyrdom with artificial light at
night. Through light, he succeeded
in transmitting the sense of the
saints passage from life to death.
The astounding effect of The
Calling on the viewer stems from
Caravaggios brilliant intuition of
depicting a ray of light, symbolizing
the divine, coming for the first time

from the right, like a ray of light at

sunset. It is not a source of light that
illuminates the subjects, but a pure,
transcendental entity that slices
through the darkness like a scalpel.
At the top of the painting is a window that doesnt emit light, but
establishes a balance in the horizontal composition of the work. I photographed the painting, loaded the
images into my computer, and used
Photoshop to remove the ray of
light, and thats when I discovered
that the painting was perfectly lit
without that beam of light.
How did you create that ray
of light and suggest Caravaggios
moment of discovery?
Storaro: I was able to duplicate that beam of light with a
Concorde light containing 24 Par-64
globes. We controlled it from our
dimmer board, which allowed us to
simultaneously follow the rising
sun and the emotion of the actor
playing Caravaggio. We imagined
Caravaggio lying in his studio one
morning, sick and tired, and being
awakened by a ray of light entering
through a small window and cutting
across the foreground of the painting, superimposing itself on it. This
gives him the idea for completing

No

Sh

ipp

ing

Visit us @ IBC 2008

Booth 7.400

Baroque Visions

The crew
prepares to film
a scene in
which natural
daylight mingles
with firelight in
the kitchen.

60 September 2007

this extraordinary work. This was

the revelation for portraying The
Calling, the choice between the
human and the divine.
In the symbolism of light,
which I have studied through the
years, the rays at sunset represent
the death of the father. I do not
know whether Caravaggio wanted
to direct a thought or a prayer to his
father, or if it was inspired by the
death of his father, but The Calling
is the only painting in which he
depicts a ray of sun coming from
the right, and therefore at sunset.
For his next painting, Madonna and
Child With St. Anne, he once again
needed to symbolize the divine, and
he decided to make a hole in the
roof of the garret where he lived to
have a genuine beam of sunlight. In
this case, however, the sun is almost
at its zenith, and the beam does not
fully illuminate the Madonna figure, who appears in front of it.
What other types of lighting
instruments did you use on the
show?
Storaro: The lights I use on
location and in the studio were
designed for me by my former
gaffer, Filippo Cafolla, and built by
the company Iride. These multi-fixture units comprise frames containing anywhere from one to 16 Par-64
globes in different configurations. I

also use Jumbos, larger units that

are similar to aircraft landing lights
and contain eight or 16 globes; or
the Concordes, which contain
seven, 16, 24 or 31 globes. Ive been
using these types of lights since
1982.
In my first conversations with
the director, Angelo Longoni, he
suggested that all of our lighting
should be similar to the way light is
presented in Caravaggios paintings.
After thinking about that, I suggested we light most scenes with
Caravaggio to look natural, using
sunlight or period sources like candles or firelight, and then, for scenes
depicting how Caravaggio saw
things, we would use soft light or
artificial lantern light to make it
look and feel a bit different. We
show the audience what he sees
when he closes a window to make
the studio dark, fixes the lantern in
relation to his model, and positions
the mirror from his point of view as
he prepares to paint.
How did you try to approximate Caravaggios mindset?
Storaro: I tried to put myself
in his head and figure out how his
artistry developed. Once he turned
to artificial light, he was no longer
locked into the journey of the sun,
and that freed him to write with
light. It looks like he painted The

Calling in daylight and The

Martyrdom at night on two separate
square canvases. I believe the idea
was that when he put them together,
he would have the story of the journey from day to night in the life and
death of a human being.
A sense of death certainly
pervades his late work.
Storaro: The most serious
event in his life took place in Rome,
when he dirtied his hands with the
murder of Ranuccio Tommassoni
during a knife fight. With a death
sentence hanging over him, he left
Rome under the protection of the
Colonna family and went to Naples,
then to Malta, where he was made a
knight, thanks to the pope. From the
time of his flight, he lived with a
sense of imminent death. The only
painting he created from memory is
Magdalene in Ecstasy, and when he
made it he had in mind Lena, the
woman he left in Rome when he
fled. Magdalene has an obvious
belly, as if she is pregnant. When he
was asked about having children,
Caravaggio always said, I dont want
to bring orphans into the world. He
knew his life would be brief. Perhaps
this painting expresses his longing
for fatherhood.
Resurrection of Lazarus, painted in Messina, represents another
fundamental passage in his life. I
believe he identified with Lazarus
and felt within himself the possibility of rebirth, of a return to Rome
and the possibility of finding Lena.
Lazarus is illuminated by a ray of
sunlight, this time from the left, a
sunrise. If we analyze the sequence
of the paintings weve discussed,
Caravaggios journey appears to be a
backward one: it starts with sunset,
then the sun is at its zenith, and then
it ends with dawn. In psychological
terms, it seems almost as if
Caravaggio moved from a relationship with his father to one with his
mother and then to his own birth. I
have always thought that creativity is
therapy, and with Resurrection of

Baroque Visions

Storaro and an
actor look on as
the crew preps
a crane shot.

62 September 2007

Lazarus I believe Caravaggio symbolically completed his creative

journey.
Where did you shoot
Caravaggio?
Storaro: First we went to
Sicily, where Caravaggio lived and
worked. We filmed scenes at exterior and interior locations, including
a beautiful castle that looks the
same as it did 400 years ago. There
we shot scenes re-creating parts of
his life in Naples and on the island
of Malta. We were in Sicily and
other parts of southern Italy for two
weeks. We also shot in Rome for
two weeks at locations that included
an ancient church; the castle where
Caravaggio witnessed the execution
of Beatrice Cenci; and a beautiful,
old building where we re-created
the interiors of Cardinal Del
Montes palace. After that we spent
six weeks on the backlot at Belgrade
Studios [in Serbia], where we recreated the center of Rome.
[Production designer] Giantito
Burchiellaro and I spent two weeks
going through the film scene by
scene, discussing the needs of every
department, and the director was
with us, making notes. We had to
meet a second time after changes in
the script created the need for dif-

ferent settings.
How did your use of the
Univisium 2:1 format affect your
approach to the show, and how did
it affect the postproduction?
Storaro: I have photographed
all of my films in Univisium since
Tango [1998], and I have also transferred any anamorphic film Ive ever
done, including Apocalypse Now,
Tucker and The Last Emperor, into
2:1 video masters. I have loved that
[frame] since I first saw Leonardo
da Vincis The Last Supper, and I
composed all of those anamorphic
films in 2:1 using a special ground
glass.
For Caravaggio, Technovision
Rome supplied us with two Arri
535B cameras modified by Arri in
Munich for the 2:1 Univisium
aspect ratio. That was important
because there are plans to release
both television and cinema versions
of the film. Audiences should experience films the way filmmakers
intended them to be seen, whether
theyre watching a cinema screen or
a TV. With Univisium, the composition is exactly the same in the TV
and cinema versions. We used two
cameras because we only had 12
weeks to cover a long and complicated script; one camera was usually

on a close-up, while the other covered the entire scene. Because

Univisium is a 3-perf format, we
could shoot for 25 percent longer
without stopping to reload. It also
reduced the cost of film and lab
work by 25 percent.
Technicolor Rome processed
the negative, and we saw film dailies
in Italy and digital dailies on a 50inch plasma screen in Belgrade. I
spent several weeks at Technicolor
supervising the answer print with
color timer Antonio Salvatori and
the transfer to HD video master with
colorist Nazzareno Neri. We did the
answer print at 3-perf and printed
the interpositive and master separations at 3-perf, then went to 4-perf
for the internegative, maintaining
the 2:1 aspect ratio within the frame.
The release prints are standard
anamorphic prints that can be
screened around the world.
Did you use Technicolors
ENR process?
Storaro: Yes. The combination of ENR and printing on
[Kodak] Vision Premier gives the
blacks a special kind of sheen that is
important in Caravaggios paintings.
We also use rich black backgrounds
in scenes where we reveal the darkness in his soul.
How did you simulate the
light from the era in which
Caravaggio lived and worked?
Storaro: In 1600, there was
natural sunlight and moonlight, and
artificial sources such as torches and
candles. We gave a lot of thought to
the angles and colors of light, and
whether a scene was happening in a
place that was lit by one or 300 candles. I have been using a theatrical
dimmer board since One From the
Heart [1982]; it allows me to control
lighting from a single place while
were shooting. We designed lighting
during rehearsals, and while we were
shooting we used the board to control transitions from day to night
and color changes. I used chromatic
nuances ranging from red to orange

Baroque Visions
Storaro and
director Angelo
Longoni confer
in front of
some of the
cinematographers
favorite lighting
instruments.

to yellow to represent the sun, and

one color only for the moon: white.
In analyzing Caravaggios paintings,
I noticed he never used the color
blue. He opted for black, red,
orange, yellow, and, in a few paintings, green, but he stopped there. So
I saw to it that there was no blue in
our film. Evenings are depicted with
neutral or pale lights.

64

Did you work with your regular crew on this project?

Storaro: My crew included
key grip Mauro Diamanti, gaffer
Stefano Marino, lightboard operator Daniele Cafolla, A-camera operator
Roberto
Gentili,
Bcamera/Steadicam operator Marco
Martelli, video operator Vincenzo
Vedovato, A-camera assistants

Stefano Lombardo [1st] and

Simone DArcangelo [2nd], and Bcamera assistants Alessandro
Chiodo [1st] and Bennet
Pimpinella [2nd]. I learned very
early that every movie requires a
total commitment from everyone,
but Caravaggio was something special; it was essential for me to relate
closely with my crew because I was
asking more of them than normal. I
was completely dedicated to this
project from the moment I woke up
each morning until the moment I
went to sleep, and even in my
dreams.
Many TV producers today
are deciding not to conform the
negative to the final edit, but we
understand you did your final
telecine from the original negative
on Caravaggio.
Storaro: I have to thank [producer] Ida Di Benedetto, who was
supportive of the requests the direc-

because the cost of editing the negative is minimal. I think the decisions
we made on Caravaggio demonstrate that you can produce a worthwhile project that can be released
internationally and stand the test of
time. I

TECHNICAL SPECS
tor and I made, particularly that
one.
Something
extremely
disturbing is happening with films
created for TV in Italy today: many
producers are not cutting the
negative and storing it as a legacy.
After a time, video masters are irredeemably compromised because
they do not have the capacity to preserve images for a long time.
Furthermore, you in essence lose
the darkest and brightest details on
the negative when it is transferred to

video during the telecine process.

Its important to conform the negative to the video edit to preserve the
asset for the future.
I will never agree to create a
film for TV where it is not possible
to do the final telecine from the
original negative, as we did for
Caravaggio. HDTV is on our
doorstep, and when it arrives many
producers are going to discover
their archives have a very limited or
absolutely no future. Its absurd,

2.40:1
(Matted to 2:1)
Univisium 3-perf 35mm
Arri 535B
Cooke S4 lenses
Kodak Vision2 50D 5201,
200T 5217,
250D 5205, 500T 5218
ENR Process by Technicolor
Printed on
Kodak Vision Premier 2393

The
cinematographer
(foreground) sets
the frame as
producer Ida Di
Benedetto (left)
and Longoni chat
in the
background.

OnceUponaTime
in

Bucharest

Director of
photography
Christopher Probst
details his awardwinning work on
the stylish music
video for Muses
Knights of
Cydonia.
by Christopher Probst
Unit photography by
Richard Weager
66 September 2007

very so often, a project comes

along that you just cant pass
up, and when I read the concept
for Muses Knights of
Cydonia music video, I knew it
was one I had to shoot. Clocking in
at more than six minutes, the song is
definitely a departure from mainstream radio fare. A cross between
Ennio Morricones Spaghetti
Western scores and Queens
Bohemian Rhapsody, the track
stumped many music-video directors. Muse is known for their
unconventional approach to both
music and videos, so director Joseph
Kahn submitted a treatment for
Knights of Cydonia that featured
Barbarella-style warrior women,
robots, unicorns, holograms,
motorcycles, and a mysterious hero

who appears in the guises of a rogue

cowboy and masked avenger. The
band loved it, but they feared it
would cost a million dollars to
make.
The solution was the fortuitous discovery of a Western town
backlot that had been recently
erected in Bucharest, Romania,
where we could use set pieces left
over from the feature Cold
Mountain (see AC Jan. 04). The
Knights of Cydonia video was
produced by Richard Weager of HSI
London, and he and Kahn were able
to take me and Dan Ming, my 1st
AC/2nd-unit cinematographer, to
Romania to execute the project on a
relatively shoestring budget.
Kahns treatment was rife
with visual references to Spaghetti

logical mud-volcano formation a

few hours south of Bucharest that
provided a few hundred yards of
cracked clay and mud an ideal
desert location. The local crews were
experienced not only because of the
influx of U.S. features shooting
there to save a buck or two, but also
because of Romanias lucrative
commercials market. However, the
production imported an excellent
English gaffer, Mark Taylor, and
production designer, Morgan
Kennedy.
Our 212-day schedule began
with a half-day load-in and skeleton-crew shoot, which we used to
get a running start on our extensive
ambitions. This half-days work
comprised the videos opening
montage/dressing sequence inside
the heros log cabin. With our hard

three-point lighting philosophy

firmly in hand, we established a
game plan: we would use large HMI
units blasting unsoftened light at the
characters for exteriors, and more
old-school key/fill/kicker lighting
for interiors. The cabin set had two
small, boarded-up windows that
provided source-lighting motivation, and we placed a 6K HMI outside each, sending shafts of slightly
cooler daylight through the smoked
interior. Inside, several 2K and 5K
tungsten Fresnels were used to create warm, hard sidelight on the set,
where Russell Bain, the actor portraying our nameless hero, performed some corny kung-fu-style
moves for the opening-credit montage.
On the first day of the main
shoot, the company moved to the

Photos and frame grabs courtesy of HSI London.

Westerns; cheesy, metaphysical

kung-fu flicks of the 1970s; and scifi influences like Buck Rogers, Planet
of the Apes and Star Wars. In short,
the video is basically a trailer for the
kind of schlocky Seventies lowbudget movie ostensibly shot in a
Soviet-bloc country and funded by
shady, arms-dealing producers with
misguided ambitions to be movie
moguls. When Joseph and I began
discussing how the visual design
could support that idea, I was quick
to pull out my DVD of Once Upon a
Time in the West, mindful of its bold,
widescreen compositions and hard,
three-point lighting style. Kahn
emphatically agreed, and that film
became the launching point for our
look.
Once in Romania, we scouted
our backlot, as well as an odd geo-

Director Joseph
Kahns treatment
for Muses
Knights of
Cydonia video
called for
Barbarella-style
warrior women,
a Spaghetti
Western look
and feel, and
references to
classic kung fu
and sci-fi films
of the 1970s.
Below: The
production
prepares to film
in the Western
town backlot
constructed
outside
Bucharest,
Romania, using
set pieces
originally built
for Cold
Mountain.

American Cinematographer 67

Once Upon a Time in Bucharest

A unicorn and a mysterious hero

also figure into the story. Below:
Setting up the unicorn shot in a
desert-like stretch of terrain a few
hours south of Bucharest.

desert location to shoot sequences

in which the hero having been
captured, stockaded and humiliated
is thrown out to die. Though
graphic and alien-looking, the location was a fairly small geological
anomaly amid the verdant
Romanian mountains, so we chose
angles that would allow us to keep
any greenery out of frame. However,
because of the sites remote location
and the productions tight purse
strings, only putt-putt generators
could be used; this limited us to
HMI units that were 4K or smaller.
We scheduled carefully to utilize
natural sunlight, modifying it as
necessary. This approach proved
more than adequate for the blazinghot desert effect we needed when
the hero, thirsty and hallucinating,

68 September 2007

first encounters our Barbarella-style

heroine.
The second full shoot day
comprised all the remaining
sequences to be shot on the studio
backlot. Our approach to these exterior daylight scenes was pretty uniform; most of the time, a scene was
staged with the sun as a top/backlight and 18K HMIs aimed at the
action as 34 hard frontlight. Hot
edgelights were created with HMI
Pars or via shiny boards redirecting
the sunlight.
The interior sequences
entailed a typical saloon scene
including the mandatory bar fight
and a more intimate scene
between our hero and his love interest. Having learned my craft in an
era of ultra-fast lenses and highly
sensitive/broad-ranged film stocks, I
tend to prefer the more naturalistic
feel of large, soft sources and wrapping bounced light, so shining raw
units on actors faces was a bit of a
departure. Doing something intentionally ugly is always a bit terrifying for cinematographers; I always
feel I need to create the most flattering lighting and show just how slick
I can be!
However, as I was lighting the
love scene in a loft in one of the
cabin interiors, it occurred to me
that perhaps Ive been too harsh on

the old-school approach. The bedroom loft set had overhead wood
rafters where I could rig several 1K
and 2K Fresnels to provide the
scenes illumination. This dovetailed
neatly with our three-point studio
lighting strategy, and I was amused
to find myself applying the idea with
gusto: if a 1K was aimed at the duo
as a key light and any resultant shadow on their faces was too dark, I simply aimed another 1K at them from
another angle to create fill. This was
a totally foreign approach to lighting
for me, and I wondered if I had gone
crazy. But after all the keying, filling
and edgelighting was done, the result
looked quite beautiful.
Hewing to the eclectic aesthetic established in Josephs treatment,
the saloon interior location was
dressed as a bizarre hodgepodge of
seemingly conflicting genres. The
bar scenes feature neon signage, an
electronic jukebox that projects
holograms of the band, and a hurlyburly clientele. The sequence begins
with the nameless hero entering
through swinging doors and stepping into a tight close-up. This first
shot was planned to include the
waning throes of daylight and had to
be shot before dark. Adding some
toplight-bounced HMIs to raise the
ambience of the room, we aimed a
half-corrected 5K at a 34 angle for

The band appears as a holographic image in a

saloon and as a hallucination in the desert.
Middle: Cinematographer Christopher Probst
(center, with back to camera) oversees the
lighting of the love scene. Bottom: Filming the
hero in the desert.

the heros end-position close-up and

then flagged it off to create a dramatic slash of light across his eyes,
evoking a more classical hard-lighting feel.
From there, night quickly fell,
and the rest of the sequence was shot
night for day. We continued to apply
a toplight bounce provided by two
4'x8' sheets of beadboard armed
over the center of the set from a second-floor catwalk. Additional 2Ks
were aimed from above to create
pools of light for the bar and clusters
of tables, and we also placed several
of these units in corners to provide
backlight when necessary. The holograms of the band were added in
post from bluescreen performances
captured in London after the
Romania shoot.
The long shoot day finished
with a large night exterior scene
showing our hero unearthing a
robot and discovering what hes
been after: the futuristic technology
of the compact disc! (Remember, the
video is supposed to have been shot
in the late Seventies/early Eighties.)
Although we see the entire town lit
up at night, Joseph decided not to
shoot a wide master. Instead, we see
the whole set in tighter shots that,
because of the staging of the action,
pan the expanse of the town. For
these night shots, the production

obtained a Condor that looked like

it should have been sent to a scrapyard 40 years ago. Still, it was enough
to provide a high, half-corrected
18K HMI backlight to enhance the
glows we placed in windows with 1K
and 2K open-face Pars, and the firelight glows on buildings that we
created with hidden 12'x12' and
8'x8' bounces and 10Ks on dimmers. To finish off the background
lighting, we had about 60 extras
holding torches. The foreground
action was lit with low 4'x8' bounces
and 2Ks warmed with various
strengths of orange, red and yellow
gels and controlled with Magic
Gadgets flicker boxes.
American Cinematographer 69

Once Upon a Time in Bucharest

The video
includes a
forcedperspective
Planet of the
Apes reference
that Probst
achieved with a
$5 souvenir from
Hollywood
Boulevard and a
14mm lens
stopped down to
a T22. The heros
discovery of a
compact disc
marks a change
in his fortunes.

70

Throughout the shoot,

Joseph and I decided to adopt the
shooting style of 1970s action and
low-budget cinema, so we made
ample use of zoom lenses and snapzooms in shot. We had two Super
35mm Arri 435ES cameras running
full-time, and a full set of Zeiss
Ultra Prime lenses to go with our
two Angenieux zooms, a 25250mm T3.5 HR and a 17-102mm
T2.9

Although Kodaks Vision

200T 5274 stock has been discontinued in the States, I was able to obtain
some to use as our main emulsion;
for night scenes, I employed Vision2
500T 5218. To help cheese up our
images, we shot everything with star
filters on the lens. Even if we didnt
have a highlight in shot that would
bling the star, the filters served as a
mild contrast reducer and softening
element.

A final significant contribution to the look of the project was

our decision to have low-con prints
struck from all of our camera negatives for the telecine transfer. Joseph
and I had previously used low-con
prints for a Jamiroquai video, and
we both liked the quality of the
creamed-out highlights. This technique was perfectly suited to the
faded, bleached-out look we sought
for the Muse clip. This idea was fur-

ther enhanced by input from

Company 3 colorist Dave Hussey,
who proceeded to step on the
whites in the transfer and apply liberal amounts of magenta to the
blacks, suggesting the look of an old
print that was beginning to fade and
shift to magenta.
The icing on the cake was
added in the online process, when
Joseph and effects artist David
Lebensfeld of Ingenuity Engine
added some scratches, dirt, misregistered perfs and bad film splices.
These effects were used sparingly

and spread throughout the video to

keep them from being too obvious.
For a cinema junkie like me,
Knights of Cydonia was a sheer
joy to create. Joseph and I have
worked together since 1995, and
our history together serves to
increase our body of references
from job to job. That, in turn,
excites us to push each new project
further. Collaborating with a
visually adept director is every
cinematographers dream, and
Joseph constantly demands the best
from me.

Christopher Probst won the

Music Video Production Associations
Best Cinematography Award for his
work on this project.
I

TECHNICAL SPECS
2.40:1
Super 35mm
Arri 435ES
Zeiss and Angenieux lenses
Kodak
Vision 200T 5274,
Vision2 500T 5218

71

Short Takes
Wilsons Celebrity Portraits on Voom HD Networks
by Elina Shatkin

ridging the gap between traditional

portraiture and digital media, Robert
Wilsons Voom Portraits comprises
36 high-definition (HD) video portraits of
actors, athletes, monarchs and artists
that are designed to play out on 65" or
103" Panasonic plasma screens. In a
gallery setting, the portraits screen on
loops that last from 30 seconds to 30
minutes. Because the loops are imperceptible, the portraits look remarkably
like still images until the viewer notices
a glimmer of movement.
Wilson, a renowned theater
director and multimedia artist, was
approached in 2004 by Ali Hosseini, an
executive producer at Voom HD
Networks (owned by Cablevision
Systems subsidiary Rainbow Media). A
fan of Wilsons work for two decades,
Hosseini wanted to develop a project
that would showcase HD in all its
million-pixel glory. I was excited about
the possibility of working with Robert,

72 September 2007

says Hosseini. Hes a visual innovator

whos well known for his use of lighting
and color in a wide variety of media. I
knew hed come up with something
unique that would push the limits of
what HD can do.
Wilson and Hosseini considered
several options a vast projected
backdrop for a Bach opera was nixed as
too esoteric until they hit on the idea
of video portraits. I have been interested in video as a medium for a long
time, says Wilson, who created video
portraits of French filmmaker Patrice
Chereau and Sony executive Akito
Morita in the 1980s. But the video technology available [in the 1980s] limited
what I could do with lighting and setting
up the image. It was only when Noah
Khoshbin, who has worked with me for
years, showed me what can be done in
HD that I decided to create a larger group
of works in this medium.
Although many of the works refer

to iconic paintings and images, the

connections between the photos themselves are purely formal. Because each
portrait is relatively short, Wilson could
conceive and realize dozens of scenarios, from nearly monochrome black-andwhite portraits to some with shockingly
vivid pop colors. The relationship
between the subject and the imagery is
different from portrait to portrait, he
says. They are inspired by the subject
and my reactions to and associations
with them. All the portraits can stand for
themselves.
Wilson says he often has one or
more specific images in mind when he
conceives a portrait. The portrait of
Mikhail Baryshnikov as a wounded St.
Sebastian was inspired by the Andrea
Mantegna painting, and the portrait of
Robert Downey Jr. lying on an operating
table with his muscles and sinews
exposed was inspired by Rembrandts
The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes

Photos courtesy of Voom HD Networks.

Actor Peter
Stormare posed
for one of
Robert Wilsons
more disturbing
hi-def video
portaits, which
were recently
exhibited at
galleries in Los
Angeles and
New York.

Right: Actress
Winona Ryder
was featured in
a 25'-long
portrait. Below:
Isabella
Rossellini in an
Alice in
Wonderland
reference.

Tulp, which Wilson has always liked

for its subtle light. I almost always have
an idea in my head. I then ask my assistant or other people I know for images,
or sometimes for suggestions of who
would make good subjects. Once I have
a concept, I sketch it out in pencil on
paper, almost like a storyboard.

74 September 2007

The Voom Portraits, which are a

work in progress, were begun at the
Watermill Center, a laboratory for the
arts and humanities founded by Wilson
in 1992 on Long Island. Since 2004,
Wilson has overseen shoots in Paris,
New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles for the project. Producing a video
portrait is really like a small film shoot,
with a crew of more than 20 people in a
studio, says Wilson. We normally
need about half a day to shoot the raw
footage and much longer in post to turn
it into a portrait.
Using his drawings, Wilson
turned to German lighting designer Urs
Schnebaum to help him realize his
vision. There is nothing general about
working with Bob, says Schnebaum.
For most portraits, I had drawings hed
made with specific notes on lighting.
We had discussions on set, where I
could propose ideas or possibilities for
how to light these portraits. For some
we determined the lighting on the
spot.
All of the portraits were shot on
Vooms in-house Sony HDW-F900
CineAlta camera using Canon wideangle HD Cine lenses, an HJ
11x4.7BKLLSC or an HJ 8x 5.5BKLLSC.
A Miranda MDC-900 converter
attached to the camera allowed the
team to downconvert the 1920x1080i
footage to standard definition and
record it to a laptop, so that small,

highly compressed files were available

for viewing. The images were shot at
16x9 for horizontal display and 9x16 for
vertical display.
In addition to a Sony BVM 24"
CRT monitor on set, the crew had an
Apple Cinema Display on which to view
the captured footage. The images were
processed on an Apple laptop equipped
with an HD-SDI-to-DVI box from Blackmagic Design. A digital-imaging technician was on hand and often used a
Leader LV5700A Multi SDI Monitor as
an additional tool to adjust the gamma,
black level and detail. This workflow
allowed our DIT to use the Apple
display as a tool for evaluating the
images, explains Al Irizarry, director of
production services at 11 Penn TV, a
division of Rainbow Media. This gave
him two sources to simulate what the
image would look like in its final form.
The Apple display also allowed us to
turn the monitor sideways to simulate
what vertical portraits would look like.
The general format established
for the video portraits was that they
would be displayed on 65" screens, the
largest HD plasma screens commercially available at the time. But some
portraits, such as the series of nine
black-and-white portraits of actress
Salma Hayek dressed as a Mexican
silent-movie diva, were shown on 42"
screens. That was so they could be
displayed close to one another and

underline the connections between the

individual screens, says Wilson. As
technology advances, I hope to be able
to use larger formats. I have experimented with a 103-inch screen that
brings out another dimension in the
works. The portrait hes referring to is a
stunning 25'-long image of actress
Winona Ryder wearing a headdress of
flowers and standing behind a large
earthen mound against a background of
royal blue.
Another portrait, in the 65" size,
shows Princess Caroline of Monaco in a
pose that reveals only her hands
clasped behind her back and her
eyelashes as she blinks. I had several
images in mind when I came up with the
concept for that, says Wilson. One
was John Singer Sargents famous
Portrait of Madame X, his striking
portrait of a socialite in very reduced
tones. In my mind, this merged with the
famous scene from Hitchcocks Rear
Window in which Grace Kelly tries to
give James Stewart a vital clue by
pointing to [Thorwalds wifes] wedding
ring on her finger. And, of course, the
portrait is made more poignant by the
fact that I show Princess Caroline in her
mothers role.
The lighting equipment varied
from portrait to portrait. The Hayek
portraits were lit with an old 2K Conelight with no gel It took a long time
to get it in the right position, says
Schnebaum and a 2K Junior as
backlight. The Princess Caroline
sequence required a dozen lighting cues
that were recorded on a lighting board.
Seven Source Four Lekos gelled with
Lee 174 were used as keylights, one 2K
Junior provided a back- and sidelight,
and some tungsten cyclights dressed
with a variety of blue gels added highlights to the back wall.
An image of Sumo wrestler
Byamba Ulambayar doing splits against
a hot pink background was lit from the
front with two 2K Juniors gelled with
Lee 763 and 206 and attached to
dimmers. These were augmented by a
sidelight, a 5K Conelight gelled with Lee
206, and a backlight of four Source
Fours softened with frosted and purple
76

Artist Robert Wilson (left) poses with Greg

Moyer, general manager of Voom HD
Networks.

gels and targeted at the curtain behind

Ulambayar.
Wilsons
portraits
were
presented in Los Angeles and New York
galleries throughout last winter and
spring, and many will be broadcast on
Vooms various channels as interstitials.
Greg Moyer, general manager of Voom
HD Networks, explains, The portraits
are art, not commissioned work
intended for advertising purposes. We
dont have our plans completely gelled,
but we will air a making-of documentary, and well present the portraits as
interstitials or as short programming.
Youll most likely see several portraits
referenced in a single spot.
I

Right: Kevin
Bacon stars in
the revenge
tale Death
Sentence (shot
by John R.
Leonetti, ASC),
the first film to
go through
FotoKems
upgraded
digitalintermediate
pipeline. The
addition of
Quantels
Genetic
Engineering
shared-storage
architecture
trimmed the DI
time by a third,
notes colorist
Walter Volpatto
(below).

Genetic Engineering
at FotoKem
by Jon D. Witmer
Its a dark story mostly based on
revenge, muses FotoKem colorist
Walter Volpatto, referring to the film
Death Sentence, the first project to go
through FotoKems recently upgraded
digital-intermediate (DI) pipeline. Fortunately, FotoKems integration of Quantels Genetic Engineering shared-storage
architecture presents a much brighter
vista.
FotoKem has provided DI services
for almost five years, and during that
time it has used the traditional SANbased system. As Quantel Strategic

78 September 2007

Marketing Manager Mark Horton notes,

the SAN left plenty of room for improvement: The SAN shared architecture had
some fundamental flaws. It couldnt play
back 4K, it couldnt reliably play back 2K
once it was more than half full, and it had
lots of problems with metadata
handling.
Perhaps the Achilles heel of
the SAN architecture is sharing media
across multiple workstations, a process
that requires time-consuming copying of
files that in turn clog disk space. According to Bill Schultz, senior vice president
and general manager of FotoKems Digital Film Services, within the SAN-based
workflow we had to export from one
machine to the SAN so we could then
import [the media] into another machine.
We spoke to Quantel on numerous occasions about the difficulty of this.
Naturally, FotoKem was not alone
in desiring a better system, and, fueled
by similar feedback from other post facilities, Quantel dedicated a team to
circumventing the limitations of the SAN
architecture. Around the end of 2006, the
company emerged with Genetic Engineering. They came up with their own
idea of what a shared storage architecture should be, and it solved all the problems but was also a completely different

approach, says Schultz. It takes a little

while to get your head around exactly
what theyve done. Its a better way of
utilizing technology that was already
available. Most of the product is software; the hardware is essentially the
same as what we had before. We just
added a little bit more disk, and then we
connected it in a different way.
(Loaded-up Quantel storage wont have
playback issues because of Quantels
patented intellectual property relating to
the management of fragmentation and
scatter.)
Central to Genetic Engineerings
design is its easy interoperability with
third-party products. It rather helpfully
confuses some of our friendly competitors, says Horton. There isnt any
development you need to do for it
theres no API [application programming
interface] and no licensing so basically its plug-and-play for third-party
vendors. For example, using MTI Films
Correct Digital Restoration System
(DRS) previously required a workstation
and storage outside of the Quantel.
Genetic Engineering allows the MTI
Correct system to dust-bust images
directly on the Quantel storage pool
with no need to copy or export.
To accomplish this feat, Quantel
has introduced the Sam data server,
which Horton describes as the way of
hooking everyone in together. Sams got
a very unusual trick in that it doesnt
behave like its a Quantel device. Essentially, it fools a third party into thinking
its working with its own local 10-GigE
network-attached storage.
Within the Genetic Engineering
architecture, media is stored in what is
called the GenePool, which Sam links to
all of the in-house, non-Quantel workstations. (Quantel workstations have
their own additional direct connections
that dont require Sam.) Rounding out
the new workflow is the Max assist
station, which frees the creative suites

Death Sentence photo by James Bridges, courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox. Volpatto photo courtesy of FotoKem.

Post Focus

80 September 2007

versions have which new assets that

you have to merge back together.
Volpatto explains the process
that was worked out on Death
Sentence: We broke down reels and
scenes so as I was color-correcting one
scene, someone else could do editing or
effects in another scene without us
stepping on each other. As soon as
something was ready for me [on another
IQ], I could grab it in a couple of seconds
and color-correct it.
By Volpattos estimation, the new
workflow has trimmed the time needed
for a DI by about one-third. Death
Sentence was the second movie I
graded with [cinematographer] John
Leonetti [ASC], and he certainly felt we
were working a lot faster. On the previous film, Dead Silence, we had to intercut the edit session with the color
session, and that really slowed us
down. The new system has also
enabled FotoKem to take on more
projects, he adds. In the past two
months weve done four features and
several trailers, and before [Genetic
Engineering] we probably would have
needed four or five months to do that
much.
Our GenePool now has 48
terabytes, concludes Volpatto. Im
currently working with only 1 percent of
the space free, and the machine is flawless. There is no other SAN that can do
that.
For more information, call
FotoKem at (818) 846-3101 or visit
www.fotokem.com. To learn more about
Quantel, visit www.quantel.com.

Saving Sound Tracks

by Robert S. Birchard
Cinematographers are understandably interested in image permanence and motion-picture restoration,
but ever since Al Jolson uttered the
words You aint heard nothin yet! in
The Jazz Singer 80 years ago, it has
been a fact of movie life that sound
goes hand in hand with picture. It is
equally true that if a talkie lacks its
sound track, theres a fair chance the
image will be left to rot as well.
Although the artist may rebel at the
notion, from a commercial perspective
whats the point of spending money to
preserve the image if the dialogue,
music and effects can no longer be
heard?
In many ways, sound elements
are even more fragile than picture
elements. For most of the last 50 years,
movie sound was mixed and mastered
on acetate-based, oxide-coated
magnetic film stock, which is subject to
the same sorts of degradation that can
occur with acetate-based images: it can
shrink, warp and become brittle. The
adhesives that hold the magnetic coating can dry out, and the rust that
carries the precious sound modulations
can flake off and clog delicate sound
heads, making it difficult to create a
new sound transfer.
Vinegar Syndrome is the
laymans term for a complex chemical
reaction that occurs in acetate-based
film stocks and causes them to decompose, says Thom Piper, manager of

Photo courtesy of Chace Audio.

Right:
Motion-picture
soundtracks on
magnetic film
stock are not
immune to the
effects of decay
and vinegar
syndrome. Here,
the stock has
become brittle.

by tackling such tasks as conforms, quality control and playout.

Quantel offers Genetic Engineering in HD and DI versions; the latter,
employed by FotoKem, features 2K and
4K capabilities. Other key tools in
FotoKems DI workflow include an
Arriscan film scanner and Correct DRS.
David McClure, product manager at MTI
Film recounts, Quantel approached us
in December 2006 to let us know what
they were working on and that FotoKem
was beta-testing it. We gave Quantel
the license of Correct and walked them
through the basics of the program. Once
they had verified in their own lab that
they were on the right track, I worked
directly with [Quantel R&D Manager]
Simon Rogers in FotoKems production
environment to work out the last kinks
and get them rolling.
FotoKem was still working with
Quantel as Death Sentence was coming
in, according to Schultz. The clients
were aware we were going to try something new, and Quantel had come up
with a fail-safe plan wherein we could
back out at any time with only a few lost
hours if things didnt work out, he says.
As Simon and the R&D team were
walking out, the clients were coming in,
and fortunately, it all just worked.
Volpatto adds, Quantel worked very
hard to give us no [interruption] at all,
and I was amazed at how well it has
worked since day one.
With Genetic Engineering in
place, FotoKem can scan footage at 4K
on the Arriscan directly into the
GenePool through Sam, which in turn
makes all of the media immediately
accessible to the various workstations.
Once Death Sentence was scanned, the
post work was done at 2K, and everyone
working on the project was able to share
their work by updating the media as it
appeared in the GenePool. Schultz is
quick to note that this sharing process
can get users into trouble if a division of
labor is not maintained. Any time you
share what youve been working on, its
almost like an instant archive is created,
and there are new problems that arise in
terms of managing what youve got,
where youve worked, and which new

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preservation and senior optical recordist

at Chace Audio in Burbank. As acetate
film breaks down, it releases water and
acetic acid, which causes the vinegar
smell. This decomposition affects both
picture and magnetic sound acetatebased films, but not equally the
catalyzing effect of the iron oxide in the
magnetic coating of sound film can
intensify the problem significantly. A
1,000-foot reel of 35mm acetate film
can generate over a quart of vinegar,
and sound elements from as recently as
30 years ago are generating gallons of
the stuff. As magnetic film decomposes,
the plasticizers appear on the magnetic
surface as a thick, white powder. During
a transfer, this powder builds up on the
sound head, causing loss of contact and
dull, muffled transfers.
When a film comes into Chace
for sound preservation and restoration,
he continues, its logged into our vault
and tracking system and then sent to our
film-preparation department, where it is
cleaned and repaired if necessary. We
have proprietary procedures that can
get rid of mold and water damage,
reduce vinegar syndrome, and solve
other problems. Film preparation is
really the key to starting the preservation and restoration process. In extreme
cases, with a track that exhibits strong
indications of vinegar syndrome, once
the film has been cleaned, repaired and
exposed to air theres only a short
window of time in which to make a
transfer. Decomposition takes place
over time, but once it reaches a tipping
point the process can accelerate significantly. Once the film has been cleaned,
well immediately have a copy made
and bag the original to limit its exposure
to the air.
Sound elements are also subject
to the effects of mold and mildew,
which can also make them unplayable.
As part of the preparation for vinegary
and moldy prints, Chace has developed
a magic box they call the Stinkerator. Michele Winn, manager of Chaces
film-preparation department, explains,
The Stinkerator cabinet uses negative
ions and UV-light technology to inhibit
and neutralize the growth of mold and
82 September 2007

mildew. It also safely reduces the vinegar smell from elements prior to
handling. Inhaling the vinegar fumes
may have negative health consequences for the technicians handling the
film, and we need to neutralize the
acetic-acid smell as much as possible so
they can safely do their work. Other
safety precautions include air filtration
and purification, eye goggles and
breathing equipment. We also use our
Multi-function Magnetic Film Cleaning
Machine, which automates several
processes needed to prepare magneticsound film for transfer. The unit can
remove excessive dust and plasticizer in
one pass, replacing what might otherwise take 40 hours of hand-cleaning.
But what to do if a soundtrack is
essentially beyond recovery?
Chace Audio was recently
contracted by 20th Century Fox to
restore the sound for The Diary of Anne
Frank (1959), which won William C.
Mellor, ASC an Oscar for black-andwhite cinematography and notched an
Oscar nomination for composer Alfred
Newman. The 35mm four-track stereo
magnetic sound master had sections
with advanced stages of vinegar
syndrome, says Piper, and the problem was so severe that in some areas
the magnetic oxide was separating from
the acetate base. Even the small
amount of friction created by running
this over a magnetic sound head caused
an unsatisfactory chatter or screeching quality.
The track elements were effectively unusable, and there was a very
real prospect that the soundtrack would
only survive in monaural sound rather
than the stereo format originally heard
in theaters by road-show audiences. But
Piper has developed a proprietary lubricant for use on deteriorated soundtracks
that Chace Audio has dubbed ThomSlick in his honor. It took me about a
year, on and off, to come up with the
formula, says Piper, who declines to be
specific about ingredients but says they
contain no carcinogens. Others have
used WD-40 to lubricate mag film, but
weve found petroleum-based products
rapidly accelerated the decomposition

of the film. What we came up with

doesnt do that; it works as a lubricant,
we didnt get any buildup on the sound
heads, and it didnt affect the highfrequency response of the recordings. It
doesnt work for everything, but for mag
films that are decomposing and generating a lot of head buildup, it works great.
ThomSlick is sort of like The
Blob: it doesnt like being contained, but
once its on the film it stays there, he
continues. The longer it stays on the
film the better the film starts to look,
because it causes the film to relax so it
lies flat and runs more smoothly.
With a laugh, he adds, When I
first came up with the formula, I spilled
some on the rubber floor mats in my
truck, and when I got in the truck, I literally slid out as soon as my feet hit the
stuff! I had to throw the mats out, but
the stuff works wonders on deteriorating
acetate film.
The application of ThomSlick
revitalized Anne Franks aging stereo
masters and allowed them to be transferred without screech or chatter,
preserving the audio in the configuration
the filmmakers intended.
Chace Audio, (818) 842-8346,
www.chace.com.
MTI Control Dailies
by Iain Stasukevich
MTI Films Control Dailies is an
all-digital solution designed to make the
dailies process more reliable, efficient
and responsive to the variety of deliverables customers request. Created by
Larry Chernoff, the companys CEO, and
Kevin Manbeck, the companys CTO,
Control Dailies doesnt attempt to reinvent the dailies wheel so much as
improve on a tried-and-true design.
The telecine process typically
works in a linear fashion: the film comes
in from the lab and is hung on the
telecine machine, and the color is set by
the telecine colorist or supervisor. The
picture is synced to the sound elements,
slated, matted and burned with timecode and keycode information before
being laid off to a high-definition master
or standard-def tapes. Most of the time,

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Control Dailies
can produce
digital dailies
in a variety of
formats.

the colorist handles all of the busy work

of entering metadata and syncing
sound, in addition to the coloring.
Control Dailies adds computer
workstations and a dedicated storagearea network (SAN) to the pipeline,
taking the linear workflow and stacking the mechanical elements of data
entry, syncing, slating, burning and
layoff, thus allowing them to be
performed simultaneously with the
coloring. An assistant technician

handles the logistical heavy lifting from

his or her station, importing and preparing sound for picture sync and then
logging scene, take, and additional shot
information as metadata, freeing the
colorist to concentrate on grading. The
software on the colorists station drives
the telecine process while the picture is
colored and ingested to the SAN. With
Control Dailies, the two stations are
completely autonomous, yet the colorist
and the assistant are able to work in

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tandem from the same data on the SAN.

Film dailies are ingested in one
of two ways, Select Takes or Full Reel.
With film transferred in the Select Takes
mode, audio and picture are automatically synchronized by Control Dailies
based on sync points logged in the database by the assistant and colorist. In Full
Reel mode, Control Dailies provides a
one-click editorial tool to sync audio and
picture.
The Full Reel option was recently
added to facilitate the post workflow on
Rush Hour 3 at Company 3. To save
money and time, many productions will
transfer only the circle takes, that is,
the takes that are going to be used in
editorial. Control Dailies was originally
designed to support this method of
telecine, but on Rush Hour 3 every take
from every camera roll needed to be
ingested.
Company 3 colorist Stefan
Sonnenfeld does double-duty as the
dailies supervisor and colorist on almost
every feature he works on. This was

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shot by James Muro and directed by
Brett Ratner. Postproduction on the film
began in late 2006, but before the first
camera roll came through the door,
Sonnenfeld was working closely with
Chernoff and MTI to meet the demands
of what would become a rigorous
dailies schedule (The cinematographer
received dailies on HDCam, the director
on DVD.). Because of nature of the
work that we do challenging projects
with demanding directors and unique
workflows we tend to have very
specific needs, explains Sonnenfeld,
who is also Company 3s managing
director. Directors like Brett Ratner and
Michael Bay want every single shot on
tape so they can cut everything and see
everything. Its very rare for people I
work with to just do circle takes.
Moving several thousand feet of
film for a single show on a daily basis
has become standard procedure for
Sonnenfeld, who often has as many as
four features on his plate. In addition to

features, theres a constant rotation of

high-profile commercials and music
videos moving through Company 3s
eight telecine bays. Working with
Control Dailies is a win-win situation
creatively and from a business perspective, says Sonnenfeld. The real beauty
of [Control Dailies] is that as a colorist,
Im able to concentrate on the creative
aspect of the job the coloring
then get it laid off and out of the room.
Once the picture has been
ingested and the sound synced, the
Control Dailies assistant station handles
the dailies deliverables with three asynchronous video outputs, one hi-def
signal and two standard-def signals.
Mattes, slates and window burns are
generated by the machine that creates
the layoffs, eliminating the need for
additional equipment. Because the
signals originate from a digital source
and are routed by three separate devicecontrol cards, each can be started and
stopped independently of the other.
Digital deliverables are handled by

Convey, a separate but integrated sisterapplication to Control Dailies that can

encode sound and picture elements in
almost any digital format to a hard or
soft destination.
All-digital workflows are possible as well. Control Dailies can slave a
third-party color corrector (such as
Pandora or Autodesk Lustre) to downcovert 2K scans to HD and SD color
space, and is able to control VTRs for
direct HD-to-network capture. Currently,
MTI is in talks with Dalsa, Codex, S.two
and Panavision to develop devicecontrol and metadata compatibility for
the next generation of high-end digital
cameras and field recorders.
In addition to Company 3, MTI
Film has strategic alliances and integration certifications for the Control Dailies
system with companies such as Encore
Hollywood, FotoKem, Avid, DVS,
DataDirect Networks and Quantel.
For more information, visit
www.mtifilm.com.
I

85

Filmmakers Forum
Shooting in The Land of a Thousand Kasbahs
Soldiers land in
a village and
scope out the
area in a scene
from The
Objective, an
independent
film set in
Afghanistan that
was shot in
Morocco.

hen I was first approached about

shooting the supernatural war film
The Objective, producer Jeremy
Wall warned me that there would probably be no other women in the cast or
crew of the production, which would be
shot in some of the most remote locations in the Moroccan desert. When he
went on to pitch the project as Apocalypse Now meets 2001: A Space
Odyssey, I was intrigued. When he
added that we had an 28-day shooting
schedule in more than 30 different locations, and that all of my crew would be
locally hired, I trembled. But I cast all
reservations aside, and The Objective
proved to be one of the most challenging and rewarding collaborations I have
experienced to date.
Written and directed by Daniel
Myrick (co-director of The Blair Witch
Project), The Objective tells the story of
CIA operative Ben Kitch (played by
Jonas Ball), who arrives in Afghanistan
on a classified mission four months
prior to the 2001 invasion. Kitch enlists
six Special Forces soldiers to accompany him into the mountains of
Afghanistan, where they soon

86 September 2007

encounter an enemy they are illequipped to combat.

The meetings Dan and I had
during preproduction were instrumental
in establishing the framework for our
film. We drew inspiration from the
photographs of James Nachtwey,
YouTube war footage, and photos of
Afghanistan and Iraq from the VII Photo
and Magnum databases. The shot list
we devised during this time served as a
thematic foundation we returned to
frequently during production.
The camera style and production
design were key in portraying the physical and psychological journey into the
unknown. When the film begins, camera
movement is fluid, with the camera
primarily on sticks, Steadicam or dolly.
As the soldiers venture into the desert, a
handheld style predominates and is
intercut with what Dan and I termed our
Desert POV. The Desert POV represents the mysterious element that the
soldiers search for and later try to
escape; we achieved it with very wide,
carefully composed dolly shots. As the
story unfolds, the soldiers increasing
despair is depicted via coverage on long

lenses, which also evoked the sense of

being observed.
The use of color also was essential in illustrating this journey. In the
beginning, the color palette is saturated.
Light sources here are electricity-driven,
and our color scheme is drawn from
both the production design and the
available light sources. As the film
progresses, the palette becomes less
saturated and serves as another
metaphor for the soldiers state of mind.
Although production initially
suggested shooting on high-definition
video, we decided that film, with its
superior latitude and reliability, was the
best option, given that wed be shooting
in the desert in extreme and unpredictable weather conditions. We shot
Kodak Vision2 500T 7218 for night exteriors and Vision2 50D 7201 for day exteriors and day-for-night work. Because
extensive special effects would be
used, production decided to finish the
film with a digital intermediate.
Two months prior to production,
Dan, Jeremy, production designer Frank
Bollinger and I headed to Morocco to
scout locations. This stage of our
process was very instructive because
Morocco has such a rich filmmaking
history. Every driver, waiter or storekeeper has an anecdote ready regarding
Lawrence of Arabia, Kundun, Hidalgo,
Gladiator or Ishtar. (Yes, even that last
film remains a fond memory to many in
Morocco!) Production support and
equipment is on par with what you
might find in Los Angeles. During the
scout, we also got our first glimpse of
the hospitable spirit of the Moroccans.
In the middle of the desert, as we visited
villages that are only now receiving
electricity for the first time, people ranging from village elders to small children
would always invite us into their homes

Photos by Francis Dreis and Jeremy Wall.

by Stephanie Martin

Above: In a
helicopter,
director Daniel
Myrick (left) and
cinematographer
Stephanie Martin
discuss shots
while the
lighting is set up.
Below: Martin
(right) and 1st AC
Lilia Sellami film
the soldiers
preparing to
depart the
village. Jonas
Ball is at left,
with back to
camera; Zinoune
Chems Eddine is
getting into the
vehicle; and Matt
Anderson is
standing in the
truck bed.

88 September 2007

for a cup of tea.

With the exception of the opening and closing scenes, The Objective
was shot south of the High Atlas Mountains, in what is known as the land of
a thousand Kasbahs near the city of
Ouarzazate. There we filmed in ancient
Moroccan villages, an abandoned
French magnesium mine, vast red-rock
canyons, dry desert valleys, and lush
green oases, among other places. At
one time wed considered shooting this
film in California, but in the end we all
agreed that it could only have been
made in Moroccos exceptional locations.
As cinematographers, we bring
our knowledge and skill to a set, but the
eventual outcome of our work is due in
great part to our crews. Although I had
previously used local crews in foreign
countries, most recently in Mumbai,

India, I was nevertheless a little nervous

about hiring my entire crew locally. The
Objective was one of my first opportunities to put my foreign-language skills
to use as a cinematographer; I come
from Argentina and grew up speaking
Spanish, English, Portuguese and
French. On this shoot French proved to
be key, although English, Arabic, Italian,
German, Portuguese and Spanish were
all spoken on set as well. Often we
communicated in five different
languages at once, yet we somehow
managed to understand one another!
With the help of Moroccan
producer Karim Debbagh and various
contacts from the Cinematographers
Mailing List, I was able to assemble a
first-rate crew. My camera, grip and
electric departments were exceptional.
I found an ally, collaborator and friend in
1st AC Lilia Sellami, and nothing was
impossible for key grip Rachid Mssiaidi
and gaffer Marco de Fillipis. Whether
we wanted our large Jumbo lights on
scaffolding at the deaths edge of a
mountain, or our dolly in the most
remote of cliff tops, Rachids reply to our
hesitant questions was always, Pas de
probleme, Stephanie! (No problem!)
We were very fortunate to have 1st AD
Ahmed Hatimi at the helm of our
production; he brought with him years
of experience and his most kind and
capable crew. His understanding of
cinematography was instrumental in

making each day run like clockwork.

The crews efficiency was vital in
getting us through a string of obstacles.
Camera batteries caught on fire, picture
cars broke down, we were once rained
out by a torrential rainstorm, we had to
shoot through a sandstorm on our last
day, we never saw dailies because the
film was held up in customs, and six
cans of film were fogged. Producer
Andrea Balen still marvels that we had
one of the lowest L and D (loss and
damage) figures shes ever seen. That
speaks to the professionalism of our
crew.
Since my return to the States,
many have asked about my experience
as a woman cinematographer on a
largely male set in a Muslim country. I
can happily attest that I never felt that I
was being treated differently because
of my gender. My crew was very capable and respectful. Various crewmembers told me I was the first woman to
shoot a feature in Morocco. I dont know
if thats true, but it was satisfying to
hear that they were happy to see a
woman behind the camera. As it turned
out, I did have some female companions
on set: I was one of nine women in a 95person crew, and three of the others
were, Im happy to say, in my camera
department.
For me, the process is just as
important as the product. My two
months in Morocco allowed me to experience the country, capture the nuances
of life there and form strong bonds that
might last a lifetime. How many professions give you the opportunity to live in
other countries and work closely with
individuals from such diverse backgrounds? Many people just move on
when the job is done, but I think it is
important to cherish these experiences.
It has been one month since my return
to Los Angeles, and I speak to my new
Moroccan friends on a weekly basis. I
look forward to returning, and to many
more shoots like this one. As they say in
Morocco, A la prochaine, Inshaalla
Till next time, God willing.
I

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New Products & Services

Ugrips camerasupport system

can be configured
in a multitude of
ways for a variety
of cameras.

U-Configure Ugrip
by Iain Stasukevich
The Danish company Ugrip
presented its self-titled flagship product
at the 2007 National Association of
Broadcasters show, touting it as a
unique and indispensable camerasupport system developed by photographers, for photographers, to make handheld shooting more flexible, stable and
comfortable.
Ugrip R&D Manager Lars Malm-

90 September 2007

borg sought to create a product that

would incorporate all video and motionpicture elements into one unit and
ended up developing a support system
that has at its core a modular, customizable design. In its most primitive form,
the Ugrip is a baseplate, one or two
arms, and one or two handgrips. Even
with this basic setup, multiple configurations are possible, allowing the operator a number of shooting options.
Assembly and reconfiguration of
the Ugrip is simple thanks to the exclusive use of a 4mm hex bolt for every joint
and fastener except one: the baseplate,
which can accept either a 14" or a 34"
screw, requires a wide flathead. Faster
than you can say Pictures up! the
ergonomic, foam-padded handgrips can
be flipped upside down, shortened,
extended and rotated in any position.
The Ugrips flexibility means its compatible with a range of cameras, from
consumer-level camcorders like the
Sony PC350 to prosumer cameras like
the Panasonic HVX200, all the way up to
the Arri 435. (A list of compatible
cameras is available at the Ugrip Web
site.)
Conversely, the hex-bolt method
of customization also lends a certain
amount of unreliability to the Ugrip
when dealing with heavier loads. In the
field, a JVC GY-HD100 weighs about 20
pounds when equipped with a mattebox, rod support, follow focus, V-mount
battery and Firestore drive. After about
an hour of running around, the grips and
the arms began to loosen on their own,
even after a strong tightening with the
hex wrench.
For practical purposes, the Ugrip
might work much better with smaller
prosumer cameras than larger cameras.
In all of the Ugrips assembly documentation, an HVX200 is shown, and cinematographer Marcel Zyskinds endorsement refers to his experience using the
Ugrip in conjunction with the Panasonic

DVX100. (However, he made use of a

similar setup with the Arri 235 while
shooting A Mighty Heart.)
Concerning the Ugrips compatibility with larger cameras (i.e., 16mm,
35mm and hi-def video), despite the
systems inherent flexibility, the grip
arms short reach could make for a
slightly constricting experience, depending on the distance of the cameras baseplate mount from the shoulder rest. The
only way to be sure of this is to field-test
the Ugrip before making it part of your
camera kit.
There are three price-point levels:
Koral, Pearl and Diamond; the latter is
the most complex and expensive (list
price: $1,837). But at any level, you really
get what you pay for: the Ugrip is rugged
and elegantly conceived. Advanced
packages include stackable slots for a
Firestore drive or video and audio transmitters, a heavy-duty clamp for onboard
lighting and mounting the Ugrip from the
top of the camera, and a zoom mount for
Bebobs custom Ugrip zoom controller.
For more information, visit
www.ugrip.dk.
A&I Photographic Offering
Motion-Picture Stock
for Stills
by Iain Stasukevich
For more than 20 years, RGB
Color Labs in Hollywood was the place
student and professional cinematographers went to when they wanted to
develop still photos shot with motionpicture film. But RGB went out of business in 2005, leaving Los Angeles-area
directors of photography no other local
options to do still-camera emulsion testing. (Taking wedges down to the local
one-hour is out of the question.)
Cinema stocks use a process
called ECN-2 to develop the negative,
while the more common C-41 process is
used for most still photography. The big

ONE-YEAR FILMMAKING PROGRAM

16mm Digital 35mm HD

difference between the two processes is

found in ECN-2s use of a Rem-Jet
carbon backing an opaque layer just
below the negative base that prevents
light from reflecting off the base and
back through the emulsion to create an
undesirable halo effect. The backing is
removed in an alkaline bath during development. Attempting to cross-process
either stock in the others chemicals
might ruin both the developer and the
film, so this practice is generally avoided
unless done in a private darkroom.
At the behest of American Film
Institute instructor Charlie Rose and
Mole-Richardson owner Larry Parker,
Baret Lepedian of A&I Photographic in
Hollywood has stepped forward with a
new service that develops these shorter
lengths of motion-picture negative for
still cameras. Now A&I provides both
Fuji and Kodak 35mm stocks in 36-exposure rolls at $3 and $6, respectively.
Heres how it works: Once the
customer exposes the film and returns it
to A&I, all the film for that week is edited
into one large reel according to type. This
means there can be no pushing or pulling
or any other special process. Processing
is handled by Deluxe for $15, and
includes the negative and a positive print
either mounted or in strips. For an additional fee, A&I will print the film to paper
or scan to a digital source. The whole
process takes about a week, although
Lepedian says he anticipates a faster

92 September 2007

turnaround once the popularity of the

service starts to grow.
Keith Gilbey, A&Is lab technician
at Deluxe, cautions potential customers
to be mindful of sprocket damage
caused by older still cameras in the
interest of machine safety, Deluxe will
not process damaged film and
advises them to return their film to the
lab as soon as its been exposed. The
image will deteriorate if it sits around,
he says.
The film stocks offered by A&I
include Fujis Eterna 160T, 250T, 400T,
250D, F-64D, and Reala 500D. Available
Kodak stocks are Vision2 5201, 5205,
5217, 5212, 25218 and Expression 5229.
Mail-order services are available for
out-of-state customers.
For more information, visit
www.aandi.com.
Motorig
Move n Shoot, a manufacturer
of camera-rig systems, has introduced
the Motorig, a motion-controlled rig that
is mounted to the undercarriage of the
picture car. It is compatible with the
Mini Scorpio two-axis head (which is
also recordable and repeatable) and Arri
235 and 435 camera combinations.
(Other combinations are possible.) The
maximum rig length is 5 meters (16.4')
and a maximum speed of 80 kph (about
50 mph) is possible. Pan capability of the
rig left and right is 220 in five seconds.

Tilt up and down 0-90 is accomplished

in four seconds. (Specs are dependent
on driving technique, road surface,
acceleration and deceleration.)
Setup time after one prep day is
1.5-2.5 hours, while allowing 15-45
minutes of program time per shot,
depending on the complexity of the
move and familiarity with the rig.
Motorig is not frame-accurate per se,
however, frame positions and vector
data are memorized for each repetition
and are usable for editing. Future plans
include data exchange with 3-D
programs for pre-configured camera
movements.
Motorig movements are as such:
move to start, midpoints and end points,
and all are saved as data. Up to four
separate rig movement sequences can
be saved. The Motorig also can run
while memorizing camera head movements with joystick or wheels. Up to
five separate camera head movement
sequences can be saved.
Motorig initiates the synchronized start of rig arm and camera head
via a start button within the picture car,
a wireless button outside the car, or a
wireless beam trip for precise car positioning.
For booking information, call
(310) 283-3378. For technical information, call (213) 992-1702 or visit
www.move-n-shoot.com.

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Telescoping Jib
Employed on the 2007 Academy
and Grammy awards shows, the TechnoJib telescopic jib is a breakthrough in the
world of remote camera jibs. Prior to the
development of the Techno-Jib, camera
jibs could only be built to fixed lengths,
thus limiting their use to certain shots.
The Techno-Jib instantly extends or
retracts to obtain the best shot possible.
For the first time, a single operator can
control all aspects of camera movement,
including telescoping the jib arm in and
out. When fully retracted, it can easily be
moved from set to set.
There are two models of the
Techno-Jib, T15 and T24.
The T15 is ideal for use on multicamera shows such as sitcoms, where
space is limited. Maximum height of the
T15 is 18'. Maximum reach is 15' with a
minimum of 6.5'. Telescopic travel is 9' at
a speed of 5' per second. Total telescoped
length is 20.5' and 10.9' when retracted.
Maximum nose load is 70 pounds.
The T24 can provide that extra
reach for shots that previously only a telescoping crane could achieve. Maximum
height of the T24 is 25.5'. Maximum
reach is 24' with a minimum of 9'. Telescopic travel is 15' at a speed of 5' per
second. Total telescoped length is 31' and
15.5' when retracted. Maximum nose
load is 45 pounds.
For more information, call
(818) 917-5677 or visit www.telescop
icjib.com.

94 September 2007

March of Time
Collection Available
Thought Equity Motion, a
supplier of online motion-content
licensing and management services,
and HBO recently announced the
online availability of the March of
Time collection, an exclusive library of
historic film footage from the famous
newsreel and TV documentary series.
Comprising nearly 70 million
feet of film, the March of Time newsreels were shown to millions across
the world prior to theatrical releases.
The collection covers significant
events in world history from 19131967.
This launch also expands
Thought Equity Motions existing relationship with HBO Archives to provide
film and documentary producers,
agencies, educational institutions and
production companies with real-time
access to relevant footage from the
March of Time newsreel service.
With an average per-episode
production cost of $750,000 in todays
dollars, the March of Time was one of
the largest and most comprehensive
news productions of its time, states
Kevin Schaff, founder and CEO of
Thought Equity Motion. By restoring
and digitally mastering the collection,
we are ensuring this historic content
is available to storytellers in the most
pristine format for all time.
The March of Time collection is
available for online purchase and

download and can be delivered in a

variety of formats, including film,
video and HD.
For more information, visit
www.thoughtequity.com/MOT.

Cahiers du cinma Online

The venerable French film journal Cahiers du cinma now has an
English alter ego on the Web: e-Cahiers
du cinma. Publishing in English is, of
course, a way to reach a large number
of readers, but Cahiers hopes it also will
be a way of making a different voice
heard in the world a way of proposing a fresh, rigorous and contemporary
approach to the cinema and its place in
present-day culture.
The new e-zine features a search
engine, interactive fields with links,
video integrated into the pages, direct
page access, intuitive page flipping, and
much more.
For more information, visit
www.e-cahiersducinema.com.
Panasonic AG-HPX500
Panasonic has introduced the
AG-HPX500 shoulder-mount P2 highdefinition (HD) camcorder. With a
suggested list price of $14,000, the
HPX500 features 23" progressive
imagers, a tapeless IT workflow, interchangeable lens, variable frame rates,
and extended recording capability.
Based on solid-state P2 technology, the
AG-HPX500 is backed by a five-year
extended warranty program.

develop package finance license acquire distribute

October 31-November 7 Santa Monica, California www.americanfilmmarket.com
2007 Independent Film & Television Alliance

Equipped with many of the popular features of the successful AG-HVX200

handheld P2 HD camcorder, the HPX500
delivers full, production-quality recording,
with three 23" CCDs, DVCPro HD 4:2:2
image quality, independent frame encoding, and four independent audio channels. The HPX500s progressive CCDs
deliver high resolution and sensitivity,
excellent low-light performance and a
wide dynamic range. The multi-format
camera can record in 32 high-definition
and standard-definition formats, including 1080i and 720p in full bandwidth
DVCPro HD. The HPX500 employs 14-bit
A/D conversion, and its digital signal
processor (DSP) employs 19-bit internal
processing to deliver HD and SD images.
It also offers 50/60Hz selectability for
international use and a power consumption of only 22 watts.
The full-size AG-HPX500 is a
highly-affordable, full production-quality
HD camcorder that includes high-end
features that video professionals could
only find previously in more expensive
cameras, said Robert Harris, vice president of marketing for Panasonic Broadcast. The HPX500 offers fast and incredibly flexible file-based, IT workflow with
the ultra-reliable performance of solidstate recording. Were so confident in the
cameras performance that were offering
it with a free 5-year extended warranty
program.
The HPX500 has a variable-framerate function that allows professionals to
undercrank and overcrank the camera to
create fast- or slow-motion effects. For
720p recordings, users can set frame
rates at 24p, 30p or 25p in any of 11 steps

between 12 fps and 60 fps (or 50 fps).

And with the cameras advanced
1080/480 24pA mode, users have the
option of using 2:3:3:2 pulldown, which
allows most nonlinear editing systems
to extract 24 frames on ingest.
With Panasonics current delivery
of its 16GB P2 card, the HPX500 delivers
extended recording time without hotswapping cards. With four of these P2
cards installed, the camcorder can
record up to 160 minutes at native
720/24pN in DVCPro HD, 128 minutes at
720p/30pN in DVCPro HD, 128 minutes
in DVCPro 50 and 256 minutes in
DVCPro, so recording capacity is now
equal to and often longer than tapebased and disc-based media. The
HPX500 provides users with the advantages of P2 HDs IT workflow, including
instant recording, thumbnail clip views
and a host of recording modes, without
the need for ingest.
The 8.2-pound camcorder is
equipped with eight gamma modes to
address a wide range of shooting situations, including cine-like gamma to
create film-like recordings. Key interfaces include IEEE 1394, USB 2.0, HDSDI, analog component and four audio
XLR inputs. Its four 48-kHz/16-bit digital
audio channels are independently
controllable. The camera also features
an SD memory card slot for saving or
loading scene files and user settings and
a variety of shooting assist functions
and presets. The HPX500 features an
automatic Chromatic Aberration
Compensation (CAC) function that
allows the camera to automatically optimize its performance with new CAC
lenses.
For more information, visit
www.panasonic.com/broadcast.

Getting the perfect shot is

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Cine 30 HD and its new
sideload mechanism are the
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Codex Portable Digital

Recorder
Codex Digital, a specialist in
high-resolution-media
recording
systems, is launching a new portable
field recorder. No larger than a toaster,
the Codex Portables cutting-edge
design is packed with features and
advanced technology, creating new
opportunities for single- and multi97

camera production. The Codex Portable

can work with virtually every digital
camera from high-definition to 4K.
The new system has been
designed to meet industry demand for a
compact and rugged field recorder. It
complements the original Codex HD, 2K,
4K media recorder/server. Using visually
lossless compression, the Codex
Portable brings cinema-quality disk
recording to every production where
uncompressed recording is not an
absolute demand, but total portability is.
Constructed from carbon fiber
and featuring rubber-sealed connections,
the Codex Portable is tough, weatherresistant and weighs only 9 pounds (4
kg). It is powered from standard camera
batteries and can be carried on an operators shoulder or back, or secured on
camera equipment such as dollies and
cranes. A large record button and illuminated status ring mean the Codex
Portable is always ready-to-go, and nearsilent operation lets it get right into the
action.
Taking its key features from its
larger sibling, the Codex Portable adds
immediate full-frame playback and
review of footage on a daylight-readable
touchscreen. Also unique is its secure
wireless system, which enables instant
shot monitoring or remote control of the
system from any networked computer or
PDA. The Codex Portable also features a
special Mutter Track microphone
input, which allows the user to add
comments during a take for shot-logging
and notes.
The Codex Portable packs all the
benefits of the Codex tapeless workflow
98

into a remarkably small package. Topline features include two dual-link HD

4:4:4 inputs, Infiniband and Ethernet
data-connections, 10Gbps optical I/O,
time code and control ports, eight channels of audio, HD and SD monitoring of
all formats up to 4K, and MP4 wireless
video output.
The Codex Portable is the first
portable disk recorder to handle all
formats up to 4K at cinema quality, and
the first to handle both video and datamode cameras. Flexible I/O configurations enable it to record from virtually
every digital camera available today
including all HD cameras in video mode,
plus data mode from cameras such as
the Arri D-20 and Dalsa Origin. It can
also record Red Digital Cinemas Red
One camera in 4K data mode.
Recording is made to hot-swappable, shock-mounted RAID disk packs
that can hold up to three hours of
continuous recording at the systems
highest quality. The compression
method used is JPEG 2000, a waveletbased industry standard, which is visually indistinguishable from the original
and comparable to the highest-quality
mode of HDCam SR tape.
The Codex Portable can record
from two 4:4:4 cameras simultaneously
either independently for A and B
cameras or locked together for 3-D
stereoscopic acquisition. It can also
record from four 4:2:2 cameras simultaneously, allowing complete synchronization of multiple recorders. With this
feature, six synchronized Codex Portables can act as a 24-track video, 48track audio-recorder, enough to record
an entire concert or sports event.
The Codex Portable provides
multiple standard file formats for the
seamless transfer of shots to all post
workflows. After recording, the disk
packs can be plugged directly into the
matching Codex Transfer Station. This
copies them (much faster than real
time), backs them up and then delivers
the material, plus the associated metadata, across local or worldwide
networks.
In conjunction with the Transfer
Station, the Codex Portable can deliver
99

shots in all industry-standard formats,

including DPX, BMP, BWAV, QuickTime,
AVI and MXF files. It can even provide
native-mode files that editing systems
can use with no importing at all. The
result is a clean, fast system in which the
production moves seamlessly between
shooting and post, on set or off.
We have developed the new
portable with a no-holds-barred
approach, says Paul Bamborough, a cofounder of Codex Digital. There are huge
advantages in shooting direct to disk, and
we are making those available to all
productions who want the highest quality
and also need complete portability.
Codex Digital, in Los Angeles,
(310) 449-8600, in London, +44 (0)20
7292 6918, E-mail: info@codex
digital.com, Web site: www.codexdigi
tal.com.

David Ward/WRITER/DIRECTOR
Sleepless in Seattle, The Sting

John Badham/DIRECTOR
Saturday Night Fever, WarGames
Dezso Magyar/ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
No Secrets, Summer

MA IN FILM STUDIES
MFA IN FILM AND TELEVISION PRODUCING
MFA IN SCREENWRITING
MFA IN PRODUCTION DESIGN
MFA IN FILM PRODUCTION: Cinematography Directing Editing Sound Design
MBA/MFA IN FILM AND TELEVISION PRODUCING

Film has the power to make us laugh or cry, to challenge

dearly held beliefs or to put forth new concepts. If you
dream of telling your story, expressing your passions or
bringing life to your ideas through film, the Graduate
Conservatory of Motion Pictures at Chapman University has
the highly accomplished faculty mentors, intensely hands-on
curriculum and resources to help you reach your goals.

Alexandra Rose/PRODUCER
Norma Rae, Frankie and Johnny

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White Men Cant Jump,
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Dancing in September, The Five Heartbeats

100

FTV.CHAPMAN.EDU ROBERT BASSETT, DEAN

Chapman University is accredited by and is a member of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

Cooke/i Datalink
Cooke Optics Ltd. has introduced
the Cooke/i Datalink, which records
camera data for use in post. It enables
effects- and digital-intermediate artists
to create more accurate, better-looking
visual effects and saves significant time
in the post process.
The Cooke/i Datalink is a small
box that mounts easily to any camera and
records the focus, zoom and iris settings
of each take from Cookes S4/i lenses or
any i-enabled lens, all synced to time
code. The data is recorded on a Secure
Digital (SD) card, storing settings as
metadata to pass along to post teams.
The workflow has been developed in
conjunction with U.K.-based company
The Pixel Farm, whose tracking software,
PFTrack 4.0, fully supports the /i Datalink
technology. When used in conjunction
with PFTrack, artists are able to sync the
lens data to the 3-D camera data and
therefore produce with greater speed a
3-D model that is more accurate.
Cinematographer Devon Dickson
has been working with Cooke and The
Pixel Farm to test the use of the
/i Datalink and PFTrack software as an
end-to-end workflow. He recently shot a
test project using an Arri 435 with a
Cooke S4/i 15-40mm T2.0 CXX zoom
lens, capturing lens data with the

/i Datalink. Automatically recording

vital information
such as focal length
can alleviate hours
of time-consuming
guesswork when it
comes to combining 2-D and 3-D
images in post, he
says. Its important
not to underestimate the impact such a
collaboration has on the production
process as a whole. This is a huge step in
bringing production and post together.
Cooke Optics Chairman Les Zellan
notes, The biggest benefit this system
delivers is time. It takes a process that
required manual recording on set and
guesswork in post and compresses it in
both areas, shaving time from the schedule. The fact that it also delivers more
realistic-looking results makes it a positive advancement on the creative side as
well.
The Cooke/i Datalink is available

from Cooke Optics and authorized dealers worldwide for $6,500. For details,
visit www.cookeoptics.com.
PFTrack 4.0 software is available
from The Pixel Farm. For more information, visit www.thepixelfarm.co.uk.
Nice Set of Wheels
Arri has improved handling and
mobility of its Series D Lighting Kits by
providing wheels as an option on the
compact cases. Previously, wheels were
only attached to heavy-duty cases, but
now even the smallest Series D kit has
been made more portable. Rugged
nylon inline skate wheels withstand the
abuse of production demands, while
molded protection bumpers and the
reinforced wheelbase provide durability.
Series D Softbank Kits are designed for
use with modern digital-video cameras.
The total wattage has been reduced for
these more light-sensitive cameras with
no loss of control or light quality.
For more information, visit
www.arri.com.

CineBags CB-22 HD
Backpack LT
CineBags has introduced the CB22 HD Backpack LT to accommodate new
medium-sized DV cameras such as the
Panasonic HVX200 and DVX100 and the
Sony HVR-Z1U, as well as a laptop
computer.
Customizable inner compartments provide safe gear storage and
external storage pouches keep the most
important items within easy reach.
Features include: padded, customizable
interior compartment; laptop compartment; see-through compartments; large,
padded shoulder harness; waterproof
material; large, zipped opening for easy
access; internal organizer pockets; tripod
strap; and exterior bottle holder. Retail
price is $199.
CineBags, (818) 662-0605,
www.cinebags.com.
I

101

Points East
Little Rock Central, 50 Years After Desegregation
Fifty years after
the integration
of Little Rock
Central High, the
school remains
segregated.
Angelica (right)
is one of the
few AfricanAmerican
students in the
schools
renowned
advancedplacement track
profiled in Brent
and Craig
Renauds
documentary
Little Rock
Central: 50
Years Later.

n September 1957, Central High

School in downtown Little Rock,
Arkansas, became a focal point in the
turbulent desegregation movement. Gov.
Orval Faubus defied a federal court order
to integrate the all-white school and sent
members of the National Guard, under
the pretense of student protection, to
prevent African-American teenagers
from stepping onto campus. A national
standoff ensued, and it ended on Sept.
25, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower had soldiers from the 101st
Airborne escort nine African-American
students, known as the Little Rock Nine,
to class. In Little Rock Central: 50 Years
Later, documentary filmmakers Brent
and Craig Renaud take a critical look at
how far race relations have progressed
at Central since then.
Stripped to its essence, filmmaking is but a man (or woman) with a
camera trained on a subject. The Renaud
brothers adhere to this simple point-andshoot methodology, unobtrusively
capturing the scenes realism no
staged shots and no pre-lit sitdowns.
We know our films arent always going

102 September 2007

to have beautiful cinematography, says

Brent. We flow with whatever the environment presents. The cinma vrit
label often is misapplied in the film
industry, but on the Renauds the tag
sticks, reinforcing the notion that
content is king.
The content in the brothers documentaries has garnered them critical
praise. Based in New York, they were
mentored by Emmy-winning filmmaker
Jon Alpert (Baghdad ER, Lock-Up: The
Prisoners of Rikers Island, American
Undercover series) before striking out on
their own in 2001 on The Season, an
ESPN series documenting college-football rivalries. They then spent 18 months
trailing two drug-addicted couples on
the streets of New York City to show the
lengths someone will go to fuel a crack
habit. Airing on HBO in 2005, Dope Sick
Love was nominated for an Emmy and
has since been adopted by social workers and rehabilitation centers as an
educational tool.
Off to War, a 10-part series that
aired in 2005 on Discovery Times (it also
aired on the Discover Channel as a one-

hour documentary), followed a unit of the

Arkansas National Guard throughout its
entire deployment in Iraq, as well as the
families they left behind. Off to War won
the International Documentary Association award for Best Series and the Overseas Press Club Carl Spielvogel Award
for International Reporting. (Ted Koppel,
Brian Ross and Lou Dobbs are some of
the previous winners of the latter.) The
brothers were also nominated for best
documentary direction by the Directors
Guild of America. Last year the Renauds
followed a few war veterans during their
campaigns for national office in Taking
the Hill.
With the 50th anniversary of the
Central High crisis approaching, filmmakers and production companies were
beating down the schools front door, but
the Renauds had the inside track: they
grew up in Arkansas, and Craig was a
Central graduate. Craig had also known
the schools principal, Nancy Rousseau,
for many years. The brothers were soon
granted exclusive, complete access to
the school for an entire year.
We always wanted to do something about Central its such a fascinating school, Craig says. I think it was
important for the school to have someone that knows its history as well as the
present-day situation [make the film].
Fifteen years have passed since I was in
school there, so we had to be cautious
about walking in and assuming to know
what it was like. Things change. It was
good to be an insider in terms of trust and
access, but we also had to take a step
back to try to be as objective as we
could.
Central High has the distinction of
being the only U.S. high school that is
also a National Historic Site, complete
with a visitors center and full-time park
ranger, who happens to be the daughter

Photos courtesy of Brent and Craig Renaud.

by Douglas Bankston

of Minnie Jean Brown, one of the Little

Rock Nine. The documentary opens with
Minnie Jean surveying the campus and
struggling to find the words to describe
the lack of progress in eliminating the
racial divide. The idea was to have
Central and the 50th anniversary as the
anchor, notes Brent, but it turned into a
film about the community dealing with
issues of race and the discussion the
school has spurred.
Central really functions as two
schools in one. On one hand, the schools
advanced-placement (AP) track makes it
one of the top 20 high schools in the
nation in 2006, according to Newsweek.
On the other, the regular and remedial
tracks mark it as a poor performer. And a
distinct racial segregation separates the
two. Suburban white kids from affluent
families drive to their AP classes and see
the school as an opportunity to experience
diversity. African-American students are
bused in from the surrounding neighborhood, one where the predominant
window treatment is the boarded-up look.
Most of the time, when the AfricanAmerican kids get to high school they are
already so far behind that they cant
compete at the AP level, says Brent.
Thats the frustration the principal deals
with every day.
Little Rock Central is the first
project the Renauds have shot in highdefinition (HD) video, a choice made to
facilitate an HD delivery to HBO. The duo
used Sonys HVR-Z1U with a Sennheiser
ME66 microphone onboard. Subjects
were miked individually with Lectrosonics
wireless mikes.
High-school kids are so used to
these handheld camcorders that it really
helps [establish] an intimate feel with the
subjects, Craig points out. Brent adds,
Its about being so close youre almost
seeing things from the subjects point of
view. We try to disappear, to make it seem
as though [the viewer] is the character and
experiences things from that point of
view; we want to remove as many barriers
as possible. There is no crew. We do all of
our own shooting and sound, and rarely
will we ask questions just something
simple like Where are we going? to spur
them to start talking. Whats essential is

Brent Renaud
(pictured at left)
and Craig Renaud
(pictured below)
use an
unobtrusive,
stripped-down
approach to
filmmaking.

the wireless mike, because it allows the

camera to drift to see the surroundings
while they continue to talk.
The Renauds avoid the usual
filmmaking accoutrements, such as
tripods and lighting instruments. Introducing those changes the environment,
Craig says. You can tell in these classes
that theyre forgetting about our presence. Adds Brent, Weve spent a lot of
time becoming as good as we can under
these types of circumstances without
trying to manipulate the environment.
Every take about 200 hundred
hours total was digitized in standard
definition for the offline, cut together
using Avid Xpress Pro on laptops. After
being pieced together like a puzzle, the
final cut was onlined in HD. We dont
add any voice-over in editing, and you
wont hear music in the body of the
show, Brent says. We dont want to
use music to elicit a desired response or
an emotion from the viewer; we would
rather let the characters and the story do
that organically. It pushes us never to get
complacent or take shortcuts.
In telling the story without those
aids, the Renauds make effective use of
scene juxtaposition. For example, sitting

in her expansive house by her children,

who attend Centrals AP courses, a white
mother talks up the benefits of attending
the school for its diversity and academic
reputation, and of actively participating
in her childrens education. The film then
cuts to her at a PTA meeting in which the
lone African-American mother sits
isolated. This demonstrates the core of
the communitys problem: people are
either out of touch or avoiding the topic
of race altogether, or some combination
thereof.
Another sequence shows one of
the few African-American students who
attend AP classes. Though she struggles
with the coursework, she realizes that
track will yield the best opportunity to go
to college, but every day she goes home
to a house with no heat and no running
water.
The documentary closes with
Minnie Jean Brown standing before a
class, again at a loss for words about
what she is seeing: white students
seated on the left, AfricanAmerican
students on the right progress, but not
quite.
Little Rock Central will air on HBO
on Sept. 25.
I

American Cinematographer 103

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106

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Fuji Motion Picture 9
Full Sail 63
Glidecam Industries 73
High Def Expo, Inc. 107
Highway 350 Corp. 105
Hybrid Cases 104
Hydroflex 4
Iconix Video 21
Imagica 59
International Academy
of Design 49
JEM Studio Lighting Inc. 4
J.L. Fisher, Inc. 25
K 5600, Inc. 15
Kino Flo 65
Laffoux Solutions, Inc. 104
Lights! Action! Company
104
Lite Panels 2
Los Angeles Film School 13
Los Angeles Shorts Fest 101
MAT Film + TV Camera
Tech 87
Matthews Studio Equipment
104
Microdolly Hollywood 104
MP&E Mayo Productions
105
Movie Tech 49
New York Film Academy 91
New York Protech 93
New York University 7

Oppenheimer Camera Prod.

105
Otto Nemenz 83
P+S Technic 109, 111
Panasonic 27
Panther 81
PED Denz 71, 105
Pille Film Gmbh 104
Piumaworld SRL 70
Pro8mm 104
Professional Sound Serv. 76
Samys DV & Edit 52
Schultz Camera Support 6
Service Vision 85
Sim Video 79
Sony Electronics 11, 19
Spectra Film & Video 105
Stanton Video Services 98
Super16 Inc. 104
Sydney Film School 6
T8 Technology 29
Tiffen 89
Transvideo International 84
VF Gadgets, Inc. 105
Videoassistech SNC 104
Videocraft Equipment Pty
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Sachtler 97
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American Society of Cinematographers Roster

OFFICERS 2007-08
Daryn Okada,
President
Michael Goi,
Vice President
Richard Crudo,
Vice President
Owen Roizman,
Vice President
Victor J. Kemper,
Treasurer
Michael Negrin,
Secretary
John Hora,
Sergeant-at-Arms
MEMBERS
OF THE BOARD
Richard Crudo
Caleb Deschanel
George Spiro Dibie
Richard Edlund
William A. Fraker
Michael Goi
John Hora
Victor J. Kemper
Francis Kenny
Isidore Mankofsky
Robert Primes
Owen Roizman
Dante Spinotti
Kees Van Oostrum
Haskell Wexler
ALTERNATES
James Chressanthis
Stephen Lighthill
Matthew Leonetti
Russ Alsobrook
Sol Negrin

108 September 2007

ACTIVE MEMBERS
Thomas Ackerman
Lance Acord
Lloyd Ahern II
Herbert Alpert
Russ Alsobrook
Howard A. Anderson III
Howard A. Anderson Jr.
James Anderson
Peter Anderson
Tony Askins
Charles Austin
Christopher Baffa
James Bagdonas
King Baggot
John Bailey
Michael Ballhaus
Andrzej Bartkowiak
John Bartley
Frank Beascoechea
Affonso Beato
Mat Beck
Dion Beebe
Bill Bennett
Andres Berenguer
Carl Berger
Gabriel Beristain
Steven Bernstein
Ross Berryman
Michael Bonvillain
Richard Bowen
David Boyd
Russell Boyd
Don Burgess
Stephen H. Burum
Bill Butler
Frank B. Byers
Bobby Byrne
Paul Cameron
Russell P. Carpenter
James L. Carter
Alan Caso
Michael Chapman
Rodney Charters
James A. Chressanthis
Joan Churchill
Curtis Clark
Peter L. Collister
Jack Cooperman
Jack Couffer
Vincent G. Cox
Jeff Cronenweth
Richard Crudo
Dean R. Cundey
Stefan Czapsky
Allen Daviau
Roger Deakins
Jan DeBont
Thomas Del Ruth
Peter Deming
Caleb Deschanel
Ron Dexter
George Spiro Dibie
Craig Di Bona
Ernest Dickerson
Billy Dickson
Bill Dill

Victor Duncan
Bert Dunk
John Dykstra
Richard Edlund
Frederick Elmes
Robert Elswit
Geoffrey Erb
Jon Fauer
Don E. FauntLeRoy
Gerald Feil
Steven Fierberg
Gerald Perry Finnerman
Mauro Fiore
John C. Flinn III
Ron Fortunato
William A. Fraker
Tak Fujimoto
Alex Funke
Steve Gainer
Ron Garcia
Dejan Georgevich
Michael Goi
Stephen Goldblatt
Paul Goldsmith
Frederic Goodich
Victor Goss
Jack Green
Adam Greenberg
Robbie Greenberg
Alexander Gruszynski
Changwei Gu
Rick Gunter
Rob Hahn
Gerald Hirschfeld
Henner Hofmann
Adam Holender
Ernie Holzman
John C. Hora
Gil Hubbs
Shane Hurlbut
Michel Hugo
Judy Irola
Mark Irwin
Levie Isaacks
Andrew Jackson
Peter James
Johnny E. Jensen
Robert C. Jessup
Torben Johnke
Frank Johnson
Shelly Johnson
Jeffrey Jur
William K. Jurgensen
Stephen M. Katz
Ken Kelsch
Victor J. Kemper
Wayne Kennan
Francis Kenny
Glenn Kershaw
Darius Khondji
Gary Kibbe
Jan Keisser
Jeffrey L. Kimball
Alar Kivilo
Richard Kline
George Koblasa
Fred J. Koenekamp

Lajos Koltai
Pete Kozachik
Neil Krepela
Willy Kurant
Ellen M. Kuras
George La Fountaine
Edward Lachman
Ken Lamkin
Jacek Laskus
Andrew Laszlo
Denis Lenoir
John R. Leonetti
Matthew Leonetti
Andrew Lesnie
Peter Levy
Matthew Libatique
Stephen Lighthill
Karl Walter Lindenlaub
John Lindley
Robert F. Liu
Walt Lloyd
Bruce Logan
Emmanuel Lubezki
Julio G. Macat
Glen MacPherson
Constantine Makris
Karl Malkames
Isidore Mankofsky
Michael D. Margulies
Barry Markowitz
Vincent Martinelli
Steve Mason
Clark Mathis
Don McAlpine
Don McCuaig
Robert McLachlan
Greg McMurry
John McPherson
Terry K. Meade
Chris Menges
Rexford Metz
Anastas Michos
Douglas Milsome
Charles Minsky
Richard Moore
Donald A. Morgan
Donald M. Morgan
M. David Mullen
Dennis Muren
Fred Murphy
Hiro Narita
Guillermo Navarro
Michael B. Negrin
Sol Negrin
Bill Neil
Alex Nepomniaschy
John Newby
David B. Nowell
Rene Ohashi
Daryn Okada
Thomas Olgeirsson
Woody Omens
Miroslav Ondricek
Michael D. OShea
Anthony Palmieri
Phedon Papamichael
Daniel Pearl

Edward J. Pei
James Pergola
Don Peterman
Lowell Peterson
Wally Pfister
Clifford Poland
Gene Polito
Bill Pope
Steven Poster
Tom Priestley Jr.
Rodrigo Prieto
Robert Primes
Frank Prinzi
Richard Quinlan
Declan Quinn
Earl Rath
Richard Rawlings Jr.
Frank Raymond
Tami Reiker
Gayne Rescher
Marc Reshovsky
Robert Richardson
Anthony B. Richmond
Bill Roe
Owen Roizman
Pete Romano
Charles Rosher Jr.
Giuseppe Rotunno
Philippe Rousselot
Juan Ruiz-Anchia
Marvin Rush
Paul Ryan
Eric Saarinen
Alik Sakharov
Mikael Salomon
Harris Savides
Roberto Schaefer
Aaron Schneider
Nancy Schreiber
Fred Schuler
John Schwartzman
John Seale
Christian Sebaldt
Dean Semler
Eduardo Serra
Steven Shaw
Richard Shore
Newton Thomas Sigel
John Simmons
Sandi Sissel
Bradley B. Six
Dennis L. Smith
Roland Ozzie Smith
Reed Smoot
Bing Sokolsky
Peter Sova
Dante Spinotti
Robert Steadman
Ueli Steiger
Peter Stein
Robert M. Stevens
Vittorio Storaro
Harry Stradling Jr.
David Stump
Tim Suhrstedt
Peter Suschitzky
Alfred Taylor

S E P T E M B E R
Jonathan Taylor
William Taylor
Don Thorin
John Toll
Mario Tosi
Salvatore Totino
Luciano Tovoli
Jost Vacano
Theo Van de Sande
Eric Van Haren Noman
Kees Van Oostrum
Ron Vargas
Mark Vargo
Amelia Vincent
William Wages
Roy H. Wagner
Ric Waite
Michael Watkins
Jonathan West
Haskell Wexler
Jack Whitman
Gordon Willis
Dariusz Wolski
Ralph Woolsey
Peter Wunstorf
Robert Yeoman
Richard Yuricich
Jerzy Zielinski
Vilmos Zsigmond
Kenneth Zunder
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Alan Albert
Richard Aschman
Volker Bahnemann
Joseph J. Ball
Carly M. Barber
Craig Barron
Thomas M. Barron
Larry Barton
Bob Beitcher
Bruce Berke
John Bickford
Steven A. Blakely
Mitchell Bogdanowicz
Jack Bonura
William Brodersen
Garrett Brown
Ronald D. Burdett
Reid Burns
Vincent Carabello
Jim Carter
Leonard Chapman
Denny Clairmont
Cary Clayton
Emory M. Cohen
Sean Coughlin
Robert B. Creamer
Grover Crisp
Daniel Curry
Carlos D. DeMattos
Gary Demos
Richard DiBona
Kevin Dillon
David Dodson
Judith Doherty

2 0 0 7

Don Donigi
Cyril Drabinsky
Jesse Dylan
Raymond Emeritz
Jonathan Erland
John Farrand
Ray Feeney
Phil Feiner
Jimmy Fisher
Scott Fleischer
Steve Garfinkel
Salvatore Giarratano
Richard B. Glickman
John A. Gresch
Jim Hannafin
William Hansard
Bill Hansard, Jr.
Richard Hart
Roman I. Harte
Robert Harvey
Don Henderson
Charles Herzfeld
Larry Hezzelwood
Vinny Hogan
Bob Hoffman
Frieder Hochheim
Robert C. Hummel
Roy Isaia
George Joblove
Joel Johnson
John Johnston
Curtis Jones
Frank Kay
Debbie Kennard
Milton Keslow
Robert Keslow
Larry Kingen
Douglas Kirkland
Timothy J. Knapp
Ron Koch
Karl Kresser
Lou Levinson
Suzanne Lezotte
Grant Loucks
Andy Maltz
Steven E. Manios
Robert Mastronardi
Joe Matza
Albert L. Mayer, Sr.
Albert Mayer, Jr.
Andy McIntyre
Stan Miller
Walter H. Mills
George Milton
Mike Mimaki
Rami Mina
Tak Miyagishima
Michael Morelli
Dash Morrison
Nolan Murdock
Mark W. Murphy
Dan Muscarella
F. Jack Napor
Iain A. Neil
Otto Nemenz
Ernst Nettmann

Mickel Niehenke
Marty Oppenheimer
Larry Parker
Michael Parker
Warren Parker
Doug Pentek
Ed Phillips
Nick Phillips
Jerry Pierce
Joshua Pines
Carl Porcello
Howard Preston
David Pringle
Phil Radin
Christopher Reyna
Frank J. Ricotta Sr.
Colin Ritchie
Eric G. Rodli
Andy Romanoff
Daniel Rosen
Dana Ross
Bill Russell
Kish Sadhvani
David Samuelson
Peter K. Schnitzler
Walter Schonfeld
Juergen Schwinzer
Ronald Scott
Steven Scott
Don Shapiro
Milton R. Shefter
Leon Silverman
Garrett Smith
John L. Sprung
Joseph N. Tawil
Ira Tiffen
Arthur Tostado
Ann Turner
Stephan Ukas-Bradley
Mark Van Horne
Richard Vetter
Joe Violante
Dedo Weigert
Franz Weiser
Evans Wetmore
Beverly Wood
Jan Yarbrough
Hoyt Yeatman
Irwin M. Young
Bob Zahn
Nazir Zaidi
Michael Zakula
Les Zellan
HONORARY MEMBERS
Col. Edwin E. Aldrin Jr.
Neil A. Armstrong
Col. Michael Collins
Bob Fisher
Cpt. Bruce McCandless II
David MacDonald
Dr. Roderick T. Ryan
Bud Stone
Richard F. Walsh
109

Clubhouse News
Fun on the Fairway
In June, ASC members, associate
members and guests descended upon Brookside Golf Course in Pasadena for the 24th
Annual ASC Golf Classic. A wrap party was
held at the Clubhouse, where the skilled
(and/or lucky) winners picked up their prizes.
The winners were: ASC members

Low Gross (76) Don Burgess, Low Net

(70) Bill Roe, 2nd Low Net (71) Aaron
Schneider, 3rd Low Net (71) Michael
Watkins; associate members Low
Gross (78) David Dodson, Low Net (68)
Tim Knapp, 2nd Low Net (71) Brian
Spruill, 3rd Low Net (72) Mark
Murphy; Ladies Low Gross (83)

Sandy Jones, Low Net (74) Margit Elo,

2nd Low Net (76) Rosey Guthrie, 3rd Low
Net (77) Kathy Anderson; and Guests
Low Gross (68) Robert Presley, Low Net
(69) Ha Maynard, 2nd Low Net (70) Darrel
Dyer, 3rd Low Net (70) Tom Thompson.
I

1
3

5
1. Sandy Jones; 2. Larry Michalski; Matt Leonetti, ASC; Rich
Ianniciello; 3. Woody Omens, ASC; Al Mayer, Sr.; 4. Aaron
Schneider, ASC; 5. Bill Roe, ASC (center) and buddies;
6. Howard Anderson Jr. ASC; Kathy Anderson; Howard
Anderson III, ASC; Bradley Six, ASC.

110 September 2007

7
8

10

12
7. Erik Saarinen, ASC; 8. Don Burgess, ASC;
9. Frank Johnson, ASC; 10. Howard
Anderson, III ASC; 11. Brian Spruill;
12. Burgess claims his prize.

11

Tony Soprano
(James
Gandolfini)
prepares to
enjoy the onion
rings at Holstens
with his wife,
Carmela (Edie
Falco), and son,
A.J. (Robert Iler),
during the
surprising final
scene of The
Sopranos.
Below: During
production of the
final episode,
director of
photography Alik
Sakharov, ASC
(left) eyeballs a
setup while
writer/director
David Chase
uses a
viewfinder to
check the
framing.

fter 6 seasons and 86 episodes, The Sopranos went out

with a bang. Or did it?
The last episode of the acclaimed HBO drama aired on
June 10, but the resulting controversy may live forever. In the
now-famous final scene, depressive mob boss Tony Soprano
arrives at Holstens, a New Jersey ice-cream parlor, to meet his
family for a casual dinner. Waiting alone in a central booth, he
flips through the songs in a jukebox, selecting Journeys 1981
power ballad Dont Stop Believin. (What better choice for a
softhearted Mafia don with a sentimental streak?) Soon
enough, hes joined by his wife, Carmela, and son, A.J. As Tony
orders a plate of onion rings for the table, daughter Meadow
struggles to parallel-park her car outside. Meanwhile, a potential hit on Tony is signaled by cutaways to ominous patrons: a
suspicious-looking man wearing a Members Only jacket (a
member of the mob?); a taciturn trucker sporting a USA
cap; a pair of lingering African-American youths. After glancing
at Tony, the man in the jacket strolls to the restroom, recalling
an operatic murder scene in The Godfather. Meadow finally
rushes through the eaterys entry, causing the bell above the
door to jingle. Tony glances up, but as the unbearable tension

112 September 2007

peaks with Journey singer Steve Perry crooning the lyric

Dont stop the screen cuts to black.
Millions of viewers reacted with shock. Some thought
their cable service had failed at the worst possible moment;
others shouted at their TV screens, outraged that the shows
creator, David Chase, had left them in limbo. After the broadcast, countless Web sites were flooded with posts by
obsessed viewers intent on solving the mysteries of the cryptic scene. Did the black screen mean that Tony had been shot?
Would life for the Soprano clan simply go on and on and on
and on, as Perry implied in his song? Or did the metaphysical
ending mean the audience itself had been whacked?
Chase wasnt telling. In his lone post-finale interview,
with Alan Sepinwall of the New Jersey Star-Ledger, Chase
said he had no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there.
Nine days later, however, I interviewed Alik Sakharov,
ASC, the shows longtime director of photography, who proved
more forthcoming. When I suggested that the ending called to
mind the ambiguous climax of 2001: A Space Odyssey,
Sakharov clapped his hands with glee. We talked about 2001
quite a bit, he said. You do certain things in the hopes that
people will realize why youre doing them.
The cinematographer noted that Chase was particularly
intrigued by the surreal final scenes of 2001, in which astronaut David Bowman sees an older version of himself eating a
meal in a strange room with 18th-century dcor. This moment
is echoed in The Sopranos by a curious edit that appears to
show Tony observing himself in the booth. If Chase intended to
blow viewers minds, he certainly paid homage to the right
movie.
Sakharov went on to confirm that the suspicious people
in Holstens were intended to resemble past characters who
had crossed Tonys path, thus encouraging viewers to retrace
all of the elements of the show. He also offered his own opinion that the black screen did in fact signal Tonys fate: To me,
[it means] this person will die, whether he dies in the next
second or [in] six months. He added, Its not about whether
hes dead or hes alive, really. Its not even important. Whats
important is the [thought] process. You know, [its] like you have
very, very fine caviar: you eat it, and then you let it sit on the
palate of your mouth, and then you begin to enjoy the aftertaste.
The rest of Sakharovs comments about The Sopranos
can be heard in a podcast posted on the ASCs Web site:
www.theasc.com.
Stephen Pizzello
I

Photos by Will Hart and Craig Blankenhorn, courtesy of HBO.

WRAP SHOT

Set the tone.

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notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document. 2007 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.

ONFILM
U TA B R I E S E W I TZ

I have always been inspired and fascinated by

images. My parents instilled in me an early
appreciation for the arts by turning most of
our familys European vacations into cultural
eldtrips. I have fond memories of sitting
in wheat fields with my father, sketching
and painting landscapes. This taught me to
watch the light and how it changed during
the day as well as how to compose an image.
After finishing school I started working as
an intern for a television production company.
One day they put a camera on my shoulder,
threw me in a helicopter, and had me cover
a car race. After that, I was a shooter. One
of the things I love about my profession is that
it puts me in environments and situations
that I would never experience in the real
world. It is inspiring to do new things and
push myself to find the right images. I like
to challenge myself. A true moment of
happiness for me is looking through the lens
and seeing everything come together.
Uta Briesewitz was born and raised in a small
industrial town in Germany. She studied at the
Berlin Film Academy and the American Film
Institute. Her credits include the independent
features Next Stop Wonderland, Seven and
a Match, Session 9, XX/XY and The TV Set,
the television movies and pilots Homeless to
Harvard, Life Support and John From Cincinnati,
the miniseries Thief, the pilot and rst two and
a half seasons of The Wire, and the upcoming
feature Walk Hard.
For an extended interview with Uta Briesewitz
visit www.kodak.com/go/onlm.
To order Kodak motion picture lm,
call (800) 621 - lm.
www.kodak.com/go/motion
Eastman Kodak Company, 2007.
Photography: 2007 Douglas Kirkland