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wn ISSUE 2 2011
Focus on Film
1 4 6 7 8 10 11 12 13 14 17 18 20 21 22 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 33 The Twilight Saga: Breaking DawnPart 1 and Part 2 Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol Hidden Moon I Am ZoZo GANTZ Habemus Papam Pantene commercial El Gato Desaparece Ghoul Un bonheur narrive jamais seul Rest For The Wicked Counter Revolution and Takeover The Killing Strike Back2 HoldinOn (Rooney video) The Ides of March Heartland Baikonur Marie Claire Love Is In The Air Syoss/Henkel commercial Footloose Sadda Adda
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Focus on Post
34 X-Men: First Class
Q and A
36 Vincent Sweeney/ Blue Ridge
Publisher
Johanna Gravelle johanna.gravelle@kodak com
Design
Nick Vince (gvmc) nick@gvmc.co.uk
Imagecare Program
37 38 39 Asian Cup/Anand Mondhe SQ Film Laboratories Inc, Philippines ABC & Taunus Film/ Waterfront Studios Group
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Fabien Fournillon fabien.fournillon@kodak.com
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Dominique Maillet ignite strategic communications
Editor
Printers
AGF Italia info@agf-italia.it Tucker/CGX info@tuckerprinters.com.
Next Generation
40 41 42 43 Dark Desert Highway Dr Seymour Indoor David Wilson/Metronomy
Industry Update
44 45 Kodak Cinema Tools Romanias Medialab project
Kodak, Eastman, Cinesite, Eastman Double-X, Ektachrome, Imagecare, Lightning, Primetime, Premier, ScreenCheck, T-Grain, Vision, VISION2, VISION3, Wratten, the Kodak, Eastman and EXR devices and the lm numbers are trade marks. OSCAR is a trade mark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. EMMY is a trade mark of, and copyrighted by, the National Academy and American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.Imax is a registered trade mark of the Imax Corporation. The opinions expressed by individuals quoted in articles in InCamera do not necessarily represent those of Kodak Limited, Eastman Kodak Company or the editors of InCamera. Because of our constant endeavour to improve quality and design, modications may be made to products from time to time. Details of stock availability and specications given in this publication are subject to change without notice.
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Twilight
A new visual landscape for
Guillermo Navarro, ASC, knows about sequels and Oscars. He shot the rst two Hellboy movies, but more typically, he says, Ive been in the situation where I shot the rst movie and then a sequel was done after. But this is the rst time where Im actually closing the saga.
Navarro also earned an Academy Award for Best Cinematography in 2007 on Pans Labyrinth. His wide-ranging work also includes such lms as Stuart Little,The Long Kiss Goodnight, From Dusk Till Dawn and Desperado.
Navarro was director Bill Condons choice for lensing Summit Entertainments The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 and Part 2, the nal two lms in the hugely-popular Twilight series. Being approached by Bill immediately drew my interest, Navarro says. Hes a lmmaker Ive always liked. It was a very, very strong collaboration, and I enjoyed every bit of it. The two lms were cross-boarded and lmed simultaneously at locations varying from Vancouver to Louisiana to Brazil. One week, we were shooting one movie, and within the same week, a piece of the other. It was very complicated. Just as complex was the creation of the looks for Breaking Dawn. It was not simply a matter of watching the previous three lms and attempting to recreate the work of the earlier cinematographers. There is nothing which dened a single look for the three lms,
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he says. The rst movie is entirely different from the second and the third. Its a completely different aesthetic. The concept of a movie being assigned looks, Navarro says, is something I very much resent. That expression kind of implies responding to a scene and pulling out a gadget to see what existing recipe we should apply to the problem. If its dark, light it one way, or a ght, light it another way. Thats not at all how I work and come up with things. Upon reading the script, he says, It was clear that the story was sufciently different from the previous movies, and that things were extended in a way that I could approach them from a different perspective. I felt that doing a strong change in the lm language would help the story. And thats what we ended up doing. Navarro explains that he and Condon created a dramatic visual landscape for the whole movie. We created visual highs and lows, chose where those t in, and then found a very good visual narrative for certain sequences that really beneted from it. Im very happy with how it came out. The lms were shot on a challenging schedule. Navarro and Condon had to efciently map out their various aesthetics before shooting began. There was very limited time to execute and bear with all the difculties and adversities of a Prior to the wedding, Bella fantasizes about a different sort of wedding one in which the couple is seen atop a wedding cake, but the cake is actually made up of a pyramid of dead bodies. Its a very beautiful shot of them, as if they were the cake toppers with this huge collection of bloody corpses beneath them, Navarro describes. We did a shot with Kristen and Robert on top of a little platform with all of these bloodied actors lying around, which you see as the camera starts revealing whats there. So at the end, it really looks like a wedding cake, but its a nightmare wedding that shes experiencing. Its a pretty impressive shot, and one with incredibly strong imagery. Navarro recalls another shot lmed in Brazil when Bella rst
movie like this, he says. We looked at how we were going to tell the story, combining all of those elements. Taking a fresh approach meant re-creating from scratch the parallel realities of the different characters worlds. We did a lot of tests and work on how the look of those worlds was going to appear. We wanted to stay away from other things that worked for the other movies, such as Edwards (Robert Pattinson) heavy white make-up, a signature of his vampire look, in order to focus more on what was going on inside the characters. The movie is very centered in the main characters emotions, and whats really going on with them, the cinematographer explains. There are such profound changes with them in these lms, so we made sure to allow room for exploration. Most signicantly are the changes Bella (Kristen Stewart) goes through: her transformation into life as a vampire, her wedding with Edward, and the birth of their child. We took full advantage of the range of emotions she experiences during her transformation, putting as much dramatic weight as we could on the sequence, he says. For example, the wedding scene is very romantic and profound, after which things settle a bit. The camera is used subjectively; you really are there with them, enveloped in the passion.
realizes she is pregnant with Edwards child. Its probably one of the best shots in the movie, because she realizes not only that she is pregnant, but that she wants to keep the baby. We used a Steadicam to follow her, until she nds her reection in a mirror, and locked in on that sentiment. Its a shot that really takes you with her in her process. Its actually one of my favorite shots of the whole movie. The most powerful sequence, according to Navarro, is the one that fans of the lms and books have long been awaiting: the birth of Edward and Bellas baby. The birth scene is extreme and strange, he says. We pull the audience in so they really feel like part of the event.
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Contrary to how the scene is graphically described in the book, Condon and Navarro chose to shoot the sequence strictly from Bellas perspective for the movie. The camera was pretty much positioned from her point of view, with everybody interacting with the lens as the drama takes place. And then we just cut to her, taking everything in. To make the scene more eerie, Navarro also lit it in an extreme manner. Our lighting was similar to a set-up for a surgical procedure. I would go in and out, and then bounce from that out to what you could not see. There are things you dont see, but you imagine. It puts the viewer in a very strong, uncomfortable state of mind. Another favorite piece of gear was the 27-foot Scorpio Telescopic Camera Crane, which features a remote camera head. Its very versatile because you can extend and retract, and boom up and down. We cooked a lot with that. Navarro also used a smaller 12-foot Puchi crane with a similarly-operated remote head. Its more of a human scale crane, he notes. Navarro chose KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219 and VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 5207 to capture the emotions and action of both movies. Theyre terric stocks probably some of the best stocks ever made. They respond incredibly well. They really obey what youre doing and are very loyal to the choices and decisions you make. The cinematographer put the 5219 through its paces during the lming of many nighttime scenes. Nighttime scenes are very dangerous to address in terms of their scope, Navarro explains. A lot of action happens in forests, and if you have to light a forest, that brings a huge level of specialty to it. Navarro had been experimenting with day-for-night cinematography, which he successfully applied to scenes in Breaking Dawn. I do a combination of using tungsten lm, which cools down the color by denition. And then I add neutral density lters to it to keep the level stop as if it was in real darkness. To ensure consistency in the looks designed by the lmmakers during capture, Navarro essentially color timed every shot on set, accompanied by his son, Alvaro. We color corrected on set with (Adobe Photoshop) Lightroom software, and then printed pictures, which got sent to EFILM for dailies. They used the photos as a reference in order to follow the lineup of the color timing that we did. Our dailies were spectacular because the colorist wasnt guessing or trying to interpret anything on his own. When I deal with darkness and extreme situations, I need to make sure the images stay as I intended. The only way Ive found to do that is to spend some extra time, and do the color correction as we go. The on-set color timing also equated to efciencies for EFILMs DI colorist Yvan Lucas. It also kept various visual effects teams on track. Those shots are farmed out to effects houses around the world. Theyre completely disconnected from the look of the movie. So all those things help to tie in and connect all the dots. Injecting a breath of fresh air into the series could only be achieved with a strong team. I knew that could only happen with the support of a creative entity, Navarro concludes. In addition to Bill and me, we had very strong visual effects and production design support. I trusted them.
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Guillermo Navarro, ASC,(centre) and Director Bill Condon (right) on the set of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 1. (L-R) Guillermo Navarro, ASC, and Director Bill Condon on the set of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 1. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart star in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 1
Photos by: Andrew Cooper 2011 Summit Entertainment, LLC., All rights reserved.
For less intense scenes, Navarro found himself working on the other end of the scale. Its a very dialogue-heavy series. These lms come from very strong and popular books. Its a difcult thing for a book to become a good movie. It has to go through a whole transformation of its own narrative and its own language. To help keep the energy owing in the lms many dialogue scenes, Navarro made use of several of his favorite techniques. I like to move the camera a lot, so I would use a Steadicam and occasionally go handheld. Its all part of how I exercise the lm language, particularly in the dialogue scenes. His cameras of choice were a combination of Moviecams and ARRICAMS, using Optima zoom lenses and Zeiss Ultra Prime lenses.
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The Kremlin is rocked by an explosion, and the Impossible Mission Force (IMF) is supposedly to blame. Team leader Ethan Hunt and his crew turn rogue and must trot the globe to clear the IMF name in Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, the fourth installment in the M:I franchise. Tom Cruise reprises his role as Hunt with a strong supporting cast. Distributed by Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions, the lm is produced by Tom Cruise, J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk. Handling the visual aesthetics is Academy Award -winning cinematographer Robert Elswit, ASC whose credits read as a very long list of incredibly ne work
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(including the Oscar -winning There Will Be Blood; Oscar -nominated Good Night, and Good Luck; The Town; Syriana; Magnolia). Handling the directing duties is Brad Bird, whose prior, highly successful directorial efforts involved characters of the animated kind (including Oscar-winners Ratatouille and The Incredibles, and the critically-acclaimed lm The Iron Giant). Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol marks Birds composed for both IMAX and scope simultaneously. In the 8-perf and the 15-perf, there is a lot of leeway there to extract a 2.40, he says. The nice thing about the IMAX frame is that during a shot, you can actually recompose it slide it vertically up or down to get all the elements into a 2.40 frame. Elswit especially highlights one IMAX sequence in which Tom Cruises character scales the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, currently the tallest building in the world. The crew took the windows out of the 156th oor to stick the crane-mounted camera outside the building and shoot downward. Tom is actually climbing this building and youve really never been that high except in an airplane, Elswit remarks. Seeing it on an IMAX screen, I do believe youd actually experience vertigo! Elswit chose KODAK VISION3 200T Color Negative Film 5213 and VISION3 500T 5219 as his stocks of choice. We were traveling so much and it was an IMAX release, so pretty much the mandate was to shoot on lm, he says. Plus, were building on the previous movies all shot on lm. The interior portion of the Dubai daredevil sequence, before Cruise steps outside and climbs up, was shot later in the production schedule in Vancouver on stage with bluescreen wrapping around the extensive windows. I had to mix stocks for that and be very careful because as soon as we go outside, were looking at IMAX stock, the cinematographer says. The trick in cutting back and forth is to not see a huge change in grain structure. I think the different aesthetic in the interiors covered that up a little bit. Complicating matters was getting an exposure for 5213 for IMAX inside these day interior sequences while at the same time matching to the exteriors, as well as getting the quality of light for the bluescreen work to feel like indirect ambient skylight coming through very large but somewhat tinted windows. I mixed 5219 and 5213. It was the hardest technical thing I had to do on the movie, and I may have to play with it in the DI. To match, I had to go with HMIs, a wall of 6Ks on stage positioned far away from the set with one-quarter CTB to be the correct color temperature, and then had them diffused enough to feel ambient. Elswit hedged a bit for the subsequent IMAX sequence set in Dubai in a raging sandstorm, or haboob. Tests revealed that no increase in visual quality could be gained shooting 15-perf IMAX because of the degrading grainy aesthetic windblown dust had. After Elswit bookended the sequence with IMAX shots, the cinematographer had second-unit director of photography Mitchell Amundsen, who did the bulk of the haboob work, shoot 4-perf spherical Super 35 and compose for the IMAX 1.43 aspect ratio. The resulting footage was then blown up. Elswit considered this sequence the most interesting to approach after viewing some footage shot during one of the storms that had been posted on the Internet. It changes the color of the light, he remarks. It starts as a pale yellow, and as the sand gets thicker and the storm whips higher it turns to a vivid red. Then it gets darker and darker. Its extraordinary, and we wanted to re-create that.
2 Large 40- and 60-foot plastic Griffolyn sheets colored yellow, orange and red were hung in a row over the streets on location in Dubai to lter the sunlight and mimic the gradation of color seen in perspective, as if Tom Cruises character was truly traveling through a sandstorm. Amazing work by the grip crew there, Elswit says. We wanted to do as much of that look in camera because just coloring it in a DI room wouldnt be natural. Filtering the light was much more organic. It was a bigger production issue, but Im really glad we did it that way.
The 35mm footage was developed by KODAK Cinelabs in Dubai and in Mumbai, India (both KODAK IMAGECARE Program members), as well as by Barrandov Studios lm laboratory in Prague and Vancouver Laboratory, Inc. FotoKem processed all the 65mm negative, and scanned it at 11K and 8K on the labs Imagica lm scanners. The nice thing about having a negative that big is you can get away with pushing, says Elswit, which we did with the high-speed stock for a lot of the night interior and exterior work. I pushed a half stop for almost all the end sequence of the movie
live-action debut. Since Hunts team has to survive on wits and improvisation, Bird wanted a matching approach to the visuals. Elswit says, Brad wanted a more uid approach to the design of the movie. Bird built some wow moments into the lm four of them, to be exact that were shot in large-format 65mm IMAX. The inclusion of these stemmed from the success Christopher Nolan and Wally Pster, ASC had with the format on The Dark Night. They proved that you can do absolutely anything with an IMAX camera, Elswit exclaims. The IMAX material was shot with the 15-perf IMAX camera, as well as the smaller, lighter 8-perf Iwerks camera for shots involving more camera movement or Steadicam. Hasselblad lenses were used. Elswit gravitated toward wider focal lengths 40mm, 50mm, 60mm and 80mm for IMAX in order to ll the large-format frame with visual information. The rest of the lm was shot in 2.40 anamorphic with Panavision cameras and a mix of G-series (main), C-series and E-series (longer focal lengths) anamorphic lenses and Panavision zooms. Elswit
2011 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
on which I used 5219, which is just a fantastic stock. Because of how complicated this movie was with material all over the place, he continues, the production let me print almost the whole movie, which is unheard of these days, while we were in Vancouver because I was matching shots from all over. I would go to dailies in the morning and look at everything. I had a wonderful dailies timer in Ed Dobbs. He was fantastic, and it was so much fun to go there in the morning. Probably the best processing Ive ever had occurred in Vancouver on this movie. The digital intermediate is being timed by Stefan Sonnenfeld at Company 3 in Santa Monica, California, and even though Elswit has moved on to The Bourne Legacy, hes still able to supervise the DI in Company 3s New York facility remotely, with real-time video hook-ups. Its fascinating, he says. I really like that.
Wherever the production happened to be lming, Elswit utilized the regional lab for processing. Its really hard to ship lm now, he notes. I lost some lm once on a commercial it wasnt directly x-rayed itself, but it was kept someplace long enough that the x-ray machines that were working nearby fogged it. Its better to process the negative where you are, and Kodak maintains the standards.
1. Director of Photography Robert Elswit, ASC on the set of Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, from Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions. 2. Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt in a scene from the film.
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Hidden Moon is Chris Chomyns second feature with director-writerproducer Jose Pepe Bojorquez. The two previously collaborated on Sea of Dreams in 2006.
Our collaboration begins early in the project, says Chomyn. Often, I am privileged to read several early drafts of the script, and to discuss the themes and characters with Pepe as he is polishing the details. This affords me the opportunity to begin thinking in visual terms very early in the process. By the time we are ready to ofcially begin preproduction, we have established a working shorthand, and an understanding of the material as well as of the subtext.
a world in which the choices presented are difcult because the options appear to offer desirable possibilities, yet the consequences of making the wrong choice are irrevocable. Production took place over 44 days on locations in Mexico City, Guanajuato and Veracruz, Mexico, as well as in Los Angeles, California.
Hidden Moon is a romantic mystery starring Wes Bentley, Ana Serradilla, Johnathon Schaech, Osvaldo de Leon, and Linda Gray, among others.
Photographically, we wanted to create a world that was grounded in reality, but not the negative reality that is so often and so easily portrayed on screen, explains Chomyn. We sought to create a world that is beautiful, rich in texture, color and mystery
ARRICAM Lite, with some shots captured on the ARRI 435ES. We primarily used 40mm and 75mm focal lengths, says Chomyn. Our lm begins in Los Angeles, where we used the Angenieux 17-80mm as well as the 24-290mm zooms. When our story takes us to Mexico, we switched to Cooke S4 Prime lenses. The only exception to this practice was when we were
in Mexico and needed the longer length that our zoom allowed. Chomyn used a variety of Kodak lm stocks to capture the wide variety of locations. Our story is rich with emotion; it takes place in a world lled with color, contrast and texture, says Chomyn. Our characters live in a real world of expansive landscapes as well as intimate interiors. There is a big re scene as well as other more intimate scenes that feature the details visible within a candle ame. We used textured interiors with views out to the sunlit ocean. We have night exteriors at the beach under various degrees of moonlight. In each of these settings, it is vital that the audience connects with our characters. Film remains the best medium to make that connection. Chomyn shot tests of all the Kodak stocks before selecting KODAK VISION3 200T Color Negative Film 5213 for day exteriors and interiors, and KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219 for all night scenes. The Kodak color negative stocks have extraordinary exposure latitude, and reproduce an expansive color space that presents subtle color nuances like no other, notes Chomyn.
We were able to shoot under conditions of extreme contrast, featuring vibrant colors with the condence that the world we were creating would translate on screen. The Kodak stocks gave me the condence to shoot clean, without ltration to soften or degrade the image. I was able to render exactly the images I wanted. Within Hidden Moon, there is a classic black-and-white lm. The lmmakers discussed whether to shoot color stock and desaturate or shoot on black-and-white negative. We liked the contrast and grain of the EASTMAN DOUBLE-X Camera Film 5222, and felt that it would help to make our black-and-white lm look more like it was indeed a classic from the forties. Shooting on 5222 lm was the easiest and most direct solution to create the specic look and feel that we wanted. Hidden Moon was processed at Deluxe in Hollywood. The telecine was done at Burbanks Modern VideoFilm to standard denition for editing on an Avid. The locked picture negative cut list went to Modern so that the negative could be re-scanned at 2K resolution for conforming. A digital intermediate will also be done at Modern and output to 35mm negative to strike release prints.
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GANTZ, a popular manga series illustrated by Hiroya Oku, revolves around characters who, after death, somehow nd themselves directed by a mysterious black sphere (GANTZ) to complete missions against aliens. Although the series unique story dynamic seemed to defy live-action adaptation, two GANTZ movies have been made. Here, cinematographer Taro Kawazu and DI grader Seiji Saito share their thoughts on a larger-than-life live-action movie brimming with digital artistry and craftsmanship.
excellent decision.
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Although the alien ght scenes are mostly shot under low-key lighting, we gradually change the level of darkness in each of the three missions. In this respect as well, lm was a good choice for the rich gradation and expression possible. Rather than simply being lled with vague shadows, these scenes retained details that were clearly visible, and those that werent stimulate the viewers imagination. Digital compositing played a large role, under the circumstances, and were grateful for the valuable work of special effects shooting by the VFX team. In miniature shooting and other production, their work was almost a perfect match for what we had envisioned. Saito: It occurred to me that if the movie had been shot in HD, post-production would have required lots of extra care. We never could have created this mood. Im afraid to imagine what the GANTZ room would have looked like in HD. And I think the special developmentpush and pull processing to create just the right effecttruly enhances the performance in each scene.
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Habemus Papam underwent digital post-production at Cinecitta Digital where it was scanned at 6K and then recorded at 4K. The lm has been released in DCP and 35mm positive prints. It won the Golden Globe award for Best Film. Pesci won
Pesci describes the movie as complex and magnicent but its also essentially a comedy drama about a character overwhelmed by the responsibilities of his role. So how did Pesci set about achieving the right look for this movie? In pre-production, I watched a lot of European and American movies set in the Vatican, he confesses. I had the feeling that in those sumptuous and rich locations the strong rays of light could turn the images into a serious drama transforming it almost into a noir style. For me, the light of Habemus Papam had simply to show the faces and emotions of the characters; sometimes supporting their joy, sometimes accompanying a more somber mood. I tried to follow the intention that director Moretti was recreating on stage. My pictorial references included Caravaggio, Edward Hopper, Norman Rockwell and Richard Estes.
1 Director Nanni Moretti on the set of Habemus Papam 2 Actor Michel Piccoli is a reluctant Pope in Habemus Papam
the Silver Ribbon 2011 for best cinematography from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists for Habemus Papam. Pesci concluded by paying the following tribute to director and actor Moretti. He is a maestro who is attentative to each element in a lm. Just by listening carefully to him, I was able to answer any queries that arose during the making of this magnicent movie.
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Pantene campaign
Director Robbie Dinglasan was given only one day to shoot 300 women and their owing tresses outdoors in constantly changing lighting conditions for what was considered the biggest hair commercial ever done in the Philippines. The campaign marked the launch of Procter & Gambles Pantene Nature Care line of hair care products in that region.
Had I shot digital, I wouldve had a sea of black waving stuff, he says, lamenting a potential lack of highlights and detail. He knew shooting on lm was the answer, and the client and the ad agency, Mediacom/Philippines, agreed after seeing a side-by-side comparison between digital and lm. The overall consensus was that Pantene shot on lm looked glossier and higher end, Dinglasan says. The three spots for the campaign were shot in one location in the Philippines that had a number of different looks and
natural backgrounds depending on which way they were facing. However, the area was prone to intermittent fog. I never shoot hair outdoors unless my arm is tied to my back with a gun to my head, which I guess was the case, he jokes. Dinglasan and his go-to director of photography for beauty spots, Lee Meily (Amigo), chose KODAK VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 5207 and VISION3 500T 5219 for matching granularity and latitude response. The VISION3
The hardest thing with hair ads, Dinglasan adds, is to produce the right kind of highlight to make the hair look shiny. Since we didnt have time to bring in the usual hard lights to do this, only lm could capture the subtle natural highlights on the hair, which we pushed during telecine. Dinglasan had all the subjects climbing up and down stairs to get the hair to move and bounce and then quickly captured each shot. We needed to get each scene done in ve takes or less, and then move on as the sun would move, he points out. We plotted where the sun would be during each part of the day and scheduled our shot list accordingly. When the fog or cloud cover rolled in, Meily was ready with 18K, 6K and 4K HMIs positioned as backlights and gelled to simulate the sun. Kino Flo Diva-Lites were the key and hair lights at all times. Even with all the mixing and matching of lights and sunlight, no sense of articiality crept into any shots. It was for the Nature Care line, after all. The images came out consistent, and it looks natural, which was our guideline, he notes. This was aided by a few other tools, as well: an ARRI 435 Xtreme
and an ARRI 35-III with Cooke S4 prime lenses and the 24-290mm Optimo zoom lens. We love the soft, rounded and realistic images of the Cooke lenses, and the Optimo zoom amazingly matches this look, Meily explains. So these cameras and lenses plus our Kodak negs thats our beauty secret! Dinglasan, Meily and their two camera units ended up shooting 45 rolls of Kodak lm for the three spots. The footage was processed and transferred on the Spirit DataCine. At this stage, Dinglasan graded for overall colors and skin tone. Effects and cleanup were accomplished on Autodesks Smoke and Flame. Once the online edit was approved, though, the footage was put through a second pass on DaVinci Resolve to digitally grade just the hair for highlights. Final output/cleanup was done on the Inferno. Had I just shot this on HD, the colorist said I couldnt have done the double grade because the image would start to break, Dinglasan says. This second-pass, digital grade on the negative is the signature look that I use for Pantene. Film was able to bring out practically each individual head of each girl, he continues. The detail and sharpness after all that tweaking is still what amazes me. We just like Kodak. It looks better.
1 Director Robbie Dinglasan shot 300 women in one day for a Pantene campaign. 2 Cinematographer Lee Meily. (Photos courtesy of Pantene Philippines and Robbie Dinglasan)
platform captures images very well with its extensive latitude rendering soft shadows, Meily says of the stocks shadow detail. A great example is the shot where a local celebrity walks into position in front of 300 girls. We shot that at around 5:45 p.m.way after sunset! The raw stock is so good that it captured the real hair color of the girls, which ranges from light brown to black.
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Argentinean writer-director Carlos Sorins latest project, which had its international premiere at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, follows a husband and wife navigating hope and fear in their relationship. In El Gato Desaparece (The Cat Vanishes), university professor Luis is returning home after several months in a psychiatric clinic. He went crazy after convincing himself that his assistant, Pablo, was trying to steal his notes on the philosophy of history, a project they had been working on for 15 years that was to become Luis magnum opus. When he also started accusing his wife Beatriz of helping Pablo and threatened her with violence, it was clearly time for psychiatric help. Beatriz looks forward to having him back,
although she wonders if he is truly cured. When the family cat disappears the rst day of his return, a dark misgiving nestles itself in her mind, fueled by exaggerated rumors of the cats death and suspicious behavior from Luis. Sorin describes El Gato Desaparece as a suspense lm with elements of horror. He and his director of photography Julin Apezteguia felt they had a lot of visual references to appeal to, but didnt want to recreate the obviousness of the genre. Images in this type of lm are usually dark and contrasty, Sorin explains. We decided to go in the opposite way. The location, a house where 70 percent of the scenes occur, was ample and luminous. Enormous windows shed bright sunlight in
every room. It was only in the night scenes, when the situations become disturbing, we would go for the genres typical ominous look. Sorin notes that he generally works with the same crew on all of his lms. It is a small crew, and because we share a lot of experiences together, we have learned to work efciently. I also plan the mise-en-scne, already thinking about the photography, which makes things easier. The overarching classic theme made celluloid an obvious choice for the lmmakers. From the beginning we decided to shoot in Super 35mm, using (KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film) 5219, says Sorin. It was a way to take advantage of the dramatic space offered by the location. There is also a lot of action that take place in second and third shots simultaneously. We used Carl Zeiss Ultra Prime lenses and accomplished the anamorphic process in postproduction. I am also trained professionally with images from photographic lm, and it is hard for me to accept the digital image, adds Sorin.
Camera angles and composition contributed to the look of the movie. The camera was permanently mounted to a Panther crane, and even in the shots that seem still, there is an imperceptible movement towards or around the characters, Sorin describes. The image was always very composed and precise, but they were natural settings with no strange angulations. As a general rule, the camera position was always slightly lower than the characters, but the frequent use of close-ups created the need to negotiate the composition with such a panoramic screen. The movies workow included dailies with a digital transfer to editorial. A small percentage of the material was printed to 35mm, so that Apezteguia could get a clear understanding of the look they were capturing and control it throughout the shoot. The anamorphic process was carried out optically, and Sorin obtained a nal internegative. A DI was done with this internegative through Assimilates SCRATCH, and the nal product was output to 35mm prints on KODAK VISION Premier Color Print Film 2393 for theatres.
Beatriz is unsure that her husband is cured in Carlos Sorins psychological suspense film El Gato Desaparece. Guacamole Films / Patagonik Film Group
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Ghoul, based on Brian Keenes bestselling novel of the same name, is about three boys growing up in a small town in the early 1980s. Someone or something has been unearthing fresh graves in the local cemetery. The boys have to ght this unknown evil, while each struggles with his own problems at home. This is the summer theyll never forget. Ghoul is being pulled off the page and brought to life by cinematographer William M. Miller and director Gregory M. Wilson. The two rst collaborated over 20 years ago on Wilsons thesis lm for New York University. The lm was a success,
using any CGI. We had 210 pages of very detailed storyboards before production started. The storyboards helped all the departments by clearing up any questions people had about what we planned to show in the frame. I also designed overhead oor plans based on location photos for each camera set-up that corresponded to our master shot list, adds Miller. That allowed everyone to know the direction the lens was going to point, which really helped our lighting team stay ahead and prep the next area without interfering with the current shot. Chiller, an entertainment
lmmakers chose KODAK VISION2 200T Color Negative Film 5217 for daylight scenes, and KODAK 500T Color Negative Film 5230 for large night exteriors. The price for the 5230 was very attractive, but I was initially hesitant to use it because it was a new stock. However, after getting footage back, I was blown away at the latitude and tight grain, especially on the lower end. There were details in shadows that I could barely see with my own eyes which the 5230 picked up perfectly. Miller selected two Moviecams, the SL and the Compact, in an effort to save time. I had the Compact built and ready for all
our Steadicam and crane shots, and the SL was my main A camera on the dolly and sticks, explains Miller. This system allowed us to get many more shots done per day, because we were never waiting on a change-over to balance anything. For re effects and stunts, we could also use both cameras simultaneously while sharing lenses to save money. Miller knew because of the amount of nighttime work that they would need Super Speed lenses at T1.3, and went with the older style Zeiss Mk IIIs. The benets were two-fold; the production saved money, and since the Mk IIIs were utilized a lot in the 80s, they contributed to the look for this period piece. Production for Ghoul was a little over four weeks, and included a large sound stage at the Celtic Media Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, along with some pick-ups in upstate New York. The lm will premiere on the Chiller cable channel later this year.
earning a nomination for a Student Academy Award, and a steadfast lmmaking team was solidied. The best way I can describe Ghoul is as a cross between Stand By Me and Goonies, only much darker, says Miller. Greg and I knew early on that we wanted to use camera tricks and do as much as we could on set to avoid
network devoted exclusively to the horror/thriller genre, mandated that the project be shot on 35mm. Chiller wanted their big lms for this year to be on lm to make a statement about their quality and dedication, and to separate their product from some of the other channels that are shooting digitally, says Miller. I was more than happy to accommodate. The
Cinematographer William Miller on the set of Ghoul (Photo: Joshua Aaron Stringer)
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At rst glance, it seems difcult for a director of photography to capture a place on this scale. My biggest inspiration for this setting, says cinematographer Stphane Le Parc, was the work of photographer Ren Burri, including his series of pictures of the roofs in Argentina and a railway station with such beautiful shadows. This is the style of image I had imagined the day we did location spotting when the sun was shining brightly... except that today, obviously, it is raining and with my three 18 kW, it is impossible to nd this type of contrast! So Im adapting and mixing articial light on the dome with natural light from the gallery to work in some ambiance shifts. Since the pace the actors and the extras adopt in each scene is determined unbeknownst to them by the shooting pace, James Huth continuously stimulates his troops an energetic, swirling gure dressed in a gray suit in unison with the ofce decor. If I lm in a suit, he explains , it is primarily out of respect for my team. I ask so much of them that the least I can do is to be well dressed. But it is also one of the outts in which I feel most comfortable (the other is in jeans and sneakers): I have no intermediate zone.
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More seriously, talking about romantic comedy implies talking about writing. So are there any specications for portraying a great love story? The peculiarity of James Huths writing on this lm, the director of photography explains, is that he has chosen to make each shot a sequence shot covering the entire scene so that his actors can act continously. So the difculty for me was constantly juggling the contrasts created by light so as not to generate gray images,
is fundamentally natural
For this movie, shooting on lm was indispensable as its denition and ne grain works best to render skins.
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knowing that a ll light could quickly become a key light. Un bonheur narrive jamais seul is the most realistic comedy Ive worked on so far, James Huth adds. As this story gives pride of place to humanity, I need a realistic image that also conveys heat and glamour. The colors must be there and most importantly, the skins should be beautiful. Rendering skins is also one of the reasons that led us Stphane and me to choose Kodak lm. Why? Because with these stocks, the colors are present and natural: it is both the universe where I want to immerse my characters and this movies truth. Nothing like my previous lm, Brice de Nice where the character embodied by Jean Dujardin was largely already so colorful himself that going at it this way would have risked viewers feeling nauseous from the rst second. To counteract this zany universe, I needed an image that was a bit dull and at. In Hellphone and Lucky Luke it was different again: this time it was brilliance and youth. There is no ready-made lighting approach that can be applied to comedy! What you need to do rst of all, is consider the universe in which the action takes place. And probably also consider shooting on lm as an essential contribution to the image to stand out from sometimes overwhelming television writing! Anyway, I am a strong supporter of lm, James Huth continues, I havent found yet what Im looking for in digital. Today, I still feel an incredible nostalgia for the days when, on my rst short lms, I opened the cans of lm back in the lab to inhale the smell. It became my favorite smell. To me it was the smell of dreams. For Un bonheur narrive jamais seul, the director of photography adds, lm was irreplaceable as its denition and ne grain for skin rendering was something we were looking for, something that is impossible to achieve digitally. Under an intense and colorful light, it would be possible with any capture medium, but denitely not when you deliberately create layers of light on faces and work with nuances. Although we obviously cannot produce a sad and slightly hard picture when selling a comedy, I nevertheless always try, in my case, to keep areas of density and shade in the image. Even when I allow blacks in the image, I manage to keep some light in the shadows. In general, I do not push the lm, I just overexpose a half f-stop or whole f-stop so as to saturate the negative and be sure to nd everything I want in dark areas. Three lm stocks were used for shooting this romantic comedy: KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219, KODAK VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 5207, and KODAK VISION2 50D Color Negative Film 5201. These are three very forgiving lms with a huge advantage for me, continues Stphane Le Parc in that they quickly saturate the colors, which is perfect for what James Huth wants from me. I use the 5219 for everything at night, either in
studio or on location and the 5207 for all that is inside or outside during the day instead of the 5201 when Im running short of wider f-stops or when ltering with polarization, I nd myself almost at the limit. The novelty for me is that I used to shoot evenings with the 5219, including in studio while now, for the rst time Im using the Vision3 250D. For the actors to maintain a natural look, I mix a daylight HMI with tungsten hot spots where previously I would simply cool tungsten sources for this type of effect. The difference is that, visually, you do not have the same impression of natural and that on this movie, natural is fundamental.
adds, In this lm, we took inspiration from pictures and movies dating from the fties or even a little before. This is no accident we all grew up with Capras lms, with actors and actresses like Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart and with lms like The Philadelphia Story, Its a Wonderful Life and Roman Holiday. But there is also something from romantic comedies of the 60s, like Breakfast at Tiffanys, said Stphane Le Parc, an image and I return to this idea fairly soft yet colorful and cheerful. What we must not do, is confuse softness and graying. Lets say that what makes photographing comedy somewhat complicated, is that we must always remain in tune with regards to the story being told.
How do you dene a natural image? For me, the director of photography continues, it is an image where you dont feel the light: a picture that is an integral Director part of the place, looking Cinematographer exactly the way one would expect in terms of lighting Formats ambiance. In a way it is an Film stock invisible intervention. Reinforcing the collaborative nature of this project, James Huth
1 Sophie Marceau and Gad Elmaleh in a scene from Un bonheur narrive jamais seul. Photo: Christine Tamallet 2 L to R Stphane Le Parc, DP and director James Huth. Photo: James Espi.
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Set in a retirement home, New-Zealand lm Rest For The Wicked is a darkly comic detective story with a bittersweet twist. Murray Baxter is a cop going undercover. His mission is simple, to nally put away his oldest rival, a hitman called Frank whose murderous ways show no sign of letting up. Just your standard detective story right? Well no, because both men are now in their seventies and Murray is undercover in Knightsbridge Gardens a rest home where life is anything but restful. Knightsbridge Gardens is a place lled with more surprises and secrets than anyone would suspect. Sex, drugs, drink and dancing, the old folks may be in their twilight years but they are living life to the full. Using all his old skills, Murray is determined to uncover Frank, the killer on a mobility scooter, who seems to be making amends for his life of crime by bumping off bad guys.
We didnt even consider shooting digital, right from the start we planned to shoot on 16mm.
The majority of Rest For The Wicked was shot on KODAK VISION3 200T Color Negative Film 7213 including night interiors and some night exteriors while the remainder was on KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219. Principal equipment used was an ARRI SR3 with Zeiss Super Speed lenses, a 10mm Ultra Prime and a 200mm macro. The lm was completed in August and is set for both theatrical and TV distribution.
Rest For The Wicked was shot by cinematographer Jos Wheeler and directed by Simon Pattison. Jos explained that we wanted the overall look of the lm to have a natural warmth and brightness while giving certain scenes and environments a more dramatic or stylized look. Two good examples of this are a scene in Franks garage where the majority of the initial drama between Frank and Murray takes place and the 70s motel room where Jimmy Booth is shot by a young Frank.
We didnt even consider shooting digital, continued Jos. I shot Simons last project on 16mm and he really liked the look and feel we could achieve so right from the start we planned to shoot on 16mm. Although we had a relatively small budget, the support of Metro Films, Kodak and Film Lab and Images Post made it possible to shoot on lm.
1 2 3 4 Frank (Actor John Bach) waits for explosion in distance Murray (Actor Tony Barry) reflects before picking up business card and calling lawyer Esther (Actress Ilona Rodgers) at the dance Bullet making
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Counter Revolution and Takeover are the latest in a series of TV dramas that focus on fundamental political changes in modern German history. The whole series, called Vom Reich zur Republik traces the history of Germany for a century from 1848. The production company for the series is Tellux-Film GmbH based in Munich and the director of photography is Markus Fraunholz, BVK. Markus explains why Kodak lm stocks were so essential to the success of these productions.
Shooting digital wasnt really an option, he says. We are doing high-class historical movies with lots of actors (up to 160 per movie) lots of locations but only 16 shooting days for 90 minutes.
We dont just have to be fast, we have to be super-fast and I just cant imagine doing that digitally. With lm you dont need a big monitor to judge whether all the details are OK and I think lm reproduces the texture of historical costumes especially uniforms and shimmering dark velvet in an absolutely unique and wonderful way. For these two episodes I used KoDAk VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 7207 for daytime interior and exterior scenes and the new KoDAk VISION3 200T Color Negative Film 7213 for night shots. I love the way both these stocks handle highlights and mixed lighting situations and I love the rendition of colours and skin tones. In post-
production I normally do a slight color-decreasing and these stocks give me the perfect base. The look I am aiming for is best described as modern historical. I like deep blacks and natural-looking skin tones. For close-ups of women I often use a light diffusion such as Schneiders Black Classic Soft Filter. As modern TVs are more contrasty I tend to light that way as I would for cinema release. We use a lot of locations that double for historical places either because the actual locations are not accessible or no longer exist. I always struggle not to see outside windows but at the same time give the viewer the impression there is an outside. Using lm I
know exactly how to create a natural looking blown-out window. I also know that I can restore details like curtain structure in post because its all on the lm. Quite often we shoot in huge spaces, like big halls in castles, and the natural fall-off of light is recorded so smoothly on lm that I can choose exactly what to show and what not. Because of the limited time and budget, I try to light everything from outside and give the director and the actors the best possible space to move around in. Most of the time I use a single camera, an ARRIFLEX 416, but on these last two lms I also used an ARRIFLEX 435 to give the VFX department a bigger negative.
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Markus concluded by saying that this series lets viewers observe historical events in a very cinematic form so the use of lm is simply logical.
Shooting at night
This was the rst time I had ever used (KODAK VISION3) 200T Color Negative Film 7213 lm stock and also the rst time I had never used 500T at all for nights. So I was a little apprehensive as to whether I could light one stop more (compared to 500 ASA) without losing a natural looking night-look, especially for exteriors. At the beginning of the shooting, I over-lit the nights slightly. When I saw the rst rushes it was all much too bright! Towards the end of the shooting, I discovered that I had lit almost everything as if I had had VISION Color Negative Film 500T in the camera! And there was almost no visible grain! Ive never shot such beautiful nights before - I was really amazed. I surely will use it again for the next two movies.
Counter Revolution premiered (in HD-Cam SR) at the ARRI cinema in Munich earlier this year in advance of its TV showing in May on public TV station BR Alpha whilst Takeover is scheduled to be shown in November.
Right: (L to R) DP Markus Fraunholz B.V.K Producer Martin.Choroba Director Bernd Fischerauer.
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The Killing
As a boy, Peter Wunstorf, ASC made three-minute sciencection epics with his fathers 8mm camera, using multiple exposures to create titles and making exploding universes from drops of food color in pools of ink. A dozen feature lms and 11 television pilots later, Wunstorf nds himself shooting AMCs highly-acclaimed series The Killing. AMCs reputation for quality television continues to grow with The Killing. Adapted from the Danish television series Forbrydelsen, The Killing follows the murder investigation of a young girl in Seattle. Its no simple procedural, following three stories as they unfold the victims family in their grief; the police sifting through clues; and a mayoral campaign that has become embroiled in the murder. Each episode recounts the events of a single day, so at the end of the rst season viewers nd themselves just 13 days into the story. Wunstorfs television work includes the pilots for Smallville, Millennium and Dark Angel, but this is the rst time that he has ventured into series work. It becomes difcult to keep the image fresh in a series the sets are the same and the locations are locked. But watching the Danish series, it was so good. And the pilot script for The Killing was fantastic. I knew the series would be different. Its not episodic. Its more like one long movie. And Veena (Sud, the executive producer and developer of the series) had a clear sense of the visuals. It gets darker and more obscure as the series progresses, underscoring the characters secrets. Wunstrofs mind immediately went to Birth (Harris Savides, ASC) and Jennifer Eight (Conrad Hall, ASC), both of which Sud and Jenkins were referencing for The Killing!
Difcult weather
The use of lm also worked well in the difcult weather conditions, allowing production to move quickly. In the end, Wunstorf said, lm allowed us to move fast. Its harder, in my opinion to shoot digital and make it look as good as lm. Wunstorf recalls one scene in particular from the pilot. It was a car scene shot late in the day in the rain. It was gray and about to get dark. We immediately pulled the lters and pushed a stop. It was getting dark enough for Wunstorf to consider pulling the plug on the scene. It was early in the shoot and he worried how everyone would react to the resulting images. But he took the risk and shot the scene out. It turned out to be one of Suds favorite scenes. It was a risk, but thats the thing about shooting lm. You know what it can do.
Sad elegance
Wunstorf, Sud and pilot director Patty Jenkins hit it off immediately. When they initially talked about working together, they told Wunstorf they wanted the show to have a sad elegance and a terrible beauty.
The pilot was shot in Vancouver over 14 days in May. AMCs penchant for shooting lm as opposed to digital capture was the perfect choice for the somber, gray look they were seeking. Wunstorf shot the entire series on KODAK VISION2 Expression 500T Color Negative Film 5229, guaranteeing a continuity of grain structure and the simplicity needed on a tight schedule. The 5229 was the perfect palette and allowed us to work in very low light levels, using natural and supplemented natural light. The stocks dynamic range allowed us to do that and get those images on a seven-day series schedule.
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The series was lmed on location in Durban, Cape Town and Springbok, South Africa, and in Budapest, Hungary. Like the rst series, Strike Back 2 is based around a ctitious UK government facility known as Section 20 which uses intelligence gained to send Special Forces-type personnel on missions around the world. Woven around the books by ex-SAS soldier Chris Ryan, the series interweaves the dramatic politics of war with the personal demons of two very driven men. Steve Lawes says that the look of the show is intended to be a fast-paced immersive experience with a cinematic style that takes cues from major feature lms. Steve was instrumental in persuading the production companies, Left Bank Pictures for the UK and Out of Africa for South Africa, to allow him to shoot on lm rather than RED. He says, 35mm lm is still the best and most exible capture medium available today. We shoot a minimum of two cameras and quite often four are used on a regular basis. The logistics of using digital would impact greatly on our schedule.
Steve used a variety of ARRI cameras for the shoots including an ARRICAM ST, two ARRICAM LTs, a 435ES and a 235. He also used a wide array of Cooke S4 Prime lenses ranging from 14mm up to 180mm. Three Kodak lm stocks were employed; KODAK VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 5207, KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219 and KODAK VISION2 50D Color Negative Film 5201. For the scenes shot in Budapest (episodes 4-7) , the negative processing and preparation for transferring to telecine was carried out by Kodak Cinelabs Hungary (KCH), a KODAK IMAGECARE Program accredited lab. KCH had previously worked with the production company who were very pleased with their work. The production manager said, I was very happy to work with KCH again. I am always comfortable that our material is in good hands in their laboratory and that they will obtain the best results for us.
Strike Back2 airs on HBOs Cinemax channel in the US and on SKY1 in the UK.
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1960s look
Working with Marcus is a wonderful process because everything is very clear, and I am liberated to go off and try new things, says Lloyd. This video had a very particular process it needed to go through. Marcus aesthetic comes from an impossibly deep library of images. He is into the craziest stuff, and the references for every job we do together are so precise and manicured that its almost unbelievable. He is very much interested in re-creating the look and feeling of things gone by. One day its an obscure Rita Pavone video, and the next it is a Russian punk performance or an unknown 1970s B-movie. Lloyd welcomes the challenge of having to create, or re-create, these specic references from the director. Marcus is so focused on the types of images he is after, but is not necessarily overbearing technically. Its up to me and my crew to gure out how to pull off that certain look. Marcus doesnt sweat the small stuff, and he creates an environment rather than a shot. We always know what we are doing because he is so prepared. Lloyd explains that the concept for the Holdin On video was based on pre-MTV promotional lms that bands would create to promote their records. Typically these lms featured the band just hanging out
in weird scenarios and goong around, explains Lloyd. There was some live performance, but mostly just situational humor and silly camera tricks. Marcus was really interested in going after the look and feel of the 60s promotional lms. When he rst proposed the project to me he had printed almost every shot of Richard Lesters Beatles lm Help. The cinematographer says that the Help images served as a primary inspiration for Holdin On, with almost every shot in the Rooney video being a direct reference to the Beatles lm. Lloyd and Herring wanted to reconstruct not just the images, but the energy felt in the original lm. Lloyd and AC David Edsall had extensive conversations about how to approach the job. It was ultimately decided that the best thing to do was simply mimic exactly what was done in the 1960s.We came up with the idea that we should shoot the whole job in 16mm color, print everything to a positive, and then telecine off the print, explains Lloyd. I grade almost all my own work in the end, but there is a certain quality to print lm that simply cannot be duplicated in telecine. It is an analog system, things just dont work the same way in digital.
1 Robert Schwartzman (standing), Marcus Herring (kneeling with the hat on), Matthew Lloyd (operating camera), and Janice Min (2nd AC holding the slate) 2 Matthew Lloyd, CSC 3 Rooney 4 Robert Schwartzman plays guitar
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The camera package for Holdin On included an ARRI SR3 high-speed body from Panavision Hollywood mounted with Canon 10-110mm lenses. I always love shooting lm because I get to use cameras that I have employed for years, and I know exactly how to use them, notes Lloyd. So many digital systems are cumbersome with cables and accessories everywhere. Also opticalviewnders are an essential part of lmmaking. Who wants to use a camera that you cant just look through? The SR3 is such a well-built, hassle-free machine that I havent really been interested in any newer 16mm systems.
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was pull processed at one stop, and then printed to KODAK VISION print stock. From there, the print went to telecine and ended up in ProRes 4444 QuickTime. Herring edited the video himself and when it was completed, Lloyd did the nal color correction using DaVinci Resolve. Honestly, by the time the lm had gone through all the photochemical processes, there really wasnt much to be done in nal color correction. The pull-print combination really yielded the perfect look, and shooting uncorrected knocked enough color out of it that in the end I think we really did justice to the original reference material. Lloyd says both Herring and the band were pleased with the nal results. I was actually a little nervous until we got to the telecine, admits Lloyd. Shooting on lm keeps you on edge. You really have to think about the effects
Lloyd says shooting on KODAK VISION3 200T Color Negative Film 7213 was a necessity. I knew going into the video that we would print all of the footage before transferring it, so I decided to pull process the entire negative, says Lloyd. I often employ pull process on the (72)13 stock when I shoot it outside. I rate it a 100 ISO, and it has a tendency to help soften the blacks and reduce chroma saturation. The lower contrast of the 7213 pulled was essential for us. When you go to a lm print you really end up with a full-contrast image and very hard blacks. You have to be very precise with exposure and where things lay on the curve. David (Edsall) is very helpful with this because I tend to want to expose by eye, and he always keeps a close watch on where black and white are in relation to the stop on the lens. Production of the video took place in one day in a national forest in Antelope Valley, California. The location provided the lmmakers the right light and a wide variety of geography to stage many of the little vignettes. Most of the reference material was shot at either dawn or dusk, using just bounce and diffusion. The lm was developed at FotoKem in Burbank. The color negative
and how you want to achieve them. All of the most innovative and compelling looks are done on lm for the simple reason that it keeps you aware and affords you the exibility to try new things. To see Rooneys Holdin On, go to http://www.rooney-band.com/ audiovisual/videos/
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Phedon Papamichael, ASC met George Clooney on the set of Alexander Paynes The Descendants, which was set and lmed in Hawaii. Something clicked, and Clooney asked Papamichael to photograph his next lm The Ides of March. I think George has a lot of respect for Alexander as a lmmaker, and he was drawn to the working method weve developed, says Papamichael, who also shot Sideways for Payne. We dont over-complicate things and we do fewer takes, which keeps the actors fresh and the days short. Clooney had previously directed three lms: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night, and Good Luck and Leatherheads. Papamichaels recent credits include Knight and Day, W., 3:10 to Yuma and Walk the Line.
A series of tests led the lmmakers to choose the 3-perf Super 35 format and a digital intermediate at LaserPacic with colorist Dave Cole. Papamichael and Clooney compared Panavision anamorphic, Super 35 and ARRI Alexa cameras, all in widescreen 2.40:1 aspect ratio before choosing to lm the entire movie on KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219. The Panavision cameras were often outtted with Primo zooms, the 4:1 or the 11:1. The approach to lighting was simple, yet striking, often depending on large soft sources and sometimes negative ll to create contrast when the natural winter light was at and overcast. Papamichael says he used ll light as little as possible, or as much as absolutely necessary. As the story evolves, the mood becomes subtly darker and more dramatic. The nal shot is a slow push-in to an extreme close-up on Goslings character. During the push-in, Papamichael had his crew dim down the TV lighting that begins the shot and slowly remove ll. In the DI suite, Papamichael perfected the shot by asking Cole to boost the key side as the camera closed in on Goslings face. I took some dramatic license there, says the cinematographer. For me, the DI is not where I create the look. I use it to ne tune and extend what I did on the set. Papamichael says The Ides of March feels like one of those classic 1970s lms, in part because of the texture. Theres a nice amount of grain, and Im enjoying that, he says. We could have come close to re-creating that with the Alexa, but why use a piece of equipment to copy or emulate the look that happens naturally when you shoot lm?
The Ides of March is a political thriller based on a stage play by Beau Willimon. The story, set in Ohio, follows a young, idealistic staffer who learns dirty politics the hard way. The lm was shot at real locations in Ohio and Michigan during the late winter. The cast includes Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, and Ryan Gosling.
The look Papamichael devised for the lm is at times reminiscent of 1970s lms like Three Days of the Condor, The Candidate and The Godfather, Part II. The images feature subtly moody contrast, classical movement, and composition that often place a close-up of an actors face within the environment. I like playing with the wide frame and the space around the faces, feeling things in the background, says Papamichael. Its powerful when you shoot someone in close-up with the 2.40:1 frame because while you feel a lot going on right and left, it puts a lot of emphasis on a single person.
Ryan Gosling (left) with George Clooney (right, poster) stars in Columbia Pictures Ides of March.
Photo: Saeed Adyani Copyright: 2011 IDES FILM HOLDINGS, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
The Ides of March opened this years prestigious Venice International Film Festival.
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Capturing Canadas
Set against the stunning vistas of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada, CBCs Heartland is a family drama that follows sisters Amy and Lou Fleming and their grandfather, Jack Bartlett, through the highs and lows of life on a horse ranch. Its a real family show, which is rare these days, says director of photography Craig Wrobleski. Its kind of a throwback in that sense. We follow the characters day-to-day lives and relationships with the people around them. Its challenging on a ranch because they have to battle weather and handle livestock. Most of Heartland is captured on locations around the foothills of Southern Alberta. Two episodes are shot in a 15-day block, and 10-12 of those days are on the road. The natural settings, although sometimes logistically difcult, give the show a genuine authenticity. The single, biggest challenge is the weather, but therein lies an opportunity, explains Wrobleski. We shoot through four seasons because we start in May and go through November. When we start, the elds are barren. We shoot through growing season, the harvest and nally winter. So we get a chance to capture a lot of amazing images that you would never get unless you were exposed to the elements on a regular basis. The changing outdoor conditions are made easier by the Heartland crew, which is the most adaptable I have ever worked with, he says. They are ready for any eventuality, and are always prepared to jump in and do whatever is necessary to take advantage of whats afforded to us. Wrobleskis camera package includes two ARRI SR3 16mm cameras with Angenieux Optimo Zooms and Cooke S4 Prime lenses. The most obvious thing we benet from by shooting Super 16 is the expanded dynamic range that it has to offer, says Wrobleski. The weather in Alberta is extremely variable and lm really helps us out with that by allowing us to absorb some of the uctuations in the light. The more limited high-end exposure latitude on digital formats would be a limitation. We include a lot of skies in our shots, and the increased exposure latitude really helps hold full detail, so we can make the most of all those big puffy clouds and dramatic skies we get here. KODAK VISION2 50D Color Negative Film 7201 is Wrobleskis go-to stock for day exteriors. I just love the color rendition of it, and the grain structure is so tight that it really produces beautiful images. In studio, the cinematographer says he loves to use KODAK VISION3 200T Color Negative Film 7213, which he credits with transforming the look of their studio sets.
Heartland is in its fth season, and like the characters at its center, the look for the show has evolved. There is a lot of opportunity to develop the look because we are not bound by, for example, a specic hospital or police set that has to be maintained, Wrobleski observes. Were given a lot of opportunities episode to episode by virtue of the location and storylines. So we open up the toolbox a little bit. Weve been doing more handheld work, working more with different shutter angles and frame rates, and making sure we are best using the camera as a storytelling tool.
Post-production for Heartland is done at Technicolor in 38 Toronto. Wrobleski is present to work with the color timer, Jim Fleming, on the rst few episodes to establish the look and to share insight on how he approaches the photography, so it can be maintained throughout the season. Film is a great medium for Heartland because it does have a different feel, adds Wrobleski. It doesnt have the antiseptic quality that digital can have, which might work for a glossy sitcom or urban drama. For us, lm is the right t.
1. Director of Photography Craig Wrobleski 2. Behind the scenes on CBCs Heartland. Photos by Andrew Bako.
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Baikonur is the latest feature lm by multi award-winning German director Veit Helmer. Its a love story about a female space tourist who lands on the steppes of Kazakhstan after her return from orbit and a young local villager who nds her in the stranded capsule. The shooting location was the actual cosmodrome at Baikonur in Kazakhstan, the worlds rst and largest operational space launch facility.
Veit Helmer is believed to be the rst lm producer to be allowed to shoot at this original area. The cosmodrome site at Baikonur was built by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s as part of its ambitious space programme. It stretches for 90km north to south and 120km east to west. Many historic ights lifted off from this site such as Sputnik in 1957 and Yuri Gagarins ight in Luna in 1959. In the last few years, the Russian Space Agency started selling the third seat in the Soyuz rocket to space tourists for $20 million a week. Used rocket pieces drop directly onto the ground around Baikonur and are salvaged by the local population. DP I was very happy with this as it was my rst feature lm. I prefer lm for its vibrant look, the diversity of stocks available and the broad possibilities it offers in the lab and post-production. Film is a proven medium in terms of technique and aesthetics. My intention, he continued, was to contrast the two worlds of the rural Kazakh steppe and the high-tech environment of the Baikonur cosmodrome. I used a classic combination of three lm stocks, explains Nikolai. They were KODAK VISION2 50D Color Negative Film 5201 for day exteriors, KODAK VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 5207 for day interiors and KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219 for night interiors and exteriors. The 5201 gave the exteriors of the villages in the steppes and their surroundings a very natural and clear look while the 5207 gave the cosmodrome exterior a suitable high-tech feel. The 5219 for night interiors and all cosmodrome day interiors helped create the uneasy and alienated perspective the young steppe villager feels while trying to get close to his beloved French space tourist.
Hostile environment
As well as helping to differentiate the looks, Nikolai continued, lm also offered better performance in terms of contrast ratio. Films latitude in highlights and shadows helped me achieve the look I wanted. It also enabled me to cope with the challenging weather conditions. The steppe is really dusty and windy. We had rain and snow and harsh changes in temperature throughout a single shooting day. Film equipment has progressed and developed throughout its 100-year history to withstand this kind of hostile environment but I wouldnt necessarily like to put a digital movie camera into the elements we faced in Kazakhstan, he concluded.
Vibrant look
From the very beginning, says director of photography, Nikolai Kanow, it was the directors wish to shoot this movie on lm. As the
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The Suitcase
creates timeless daydream for
Marie Claire
When Marie Claire magazine approached director Greg Brunkalla to collaborate on a project, he knew immediately that he did not want to deliver a standard fashion piece. Seizing the opportunity, he created a new genre, the motion editorial movie. Heralded as the rst fashion editorial of its kind, The Suitcase fullls Brunkallas vision as a standalone short lm and Marie Claires need for dynamic content to populate their website and iPad app.
Given that a still photo spread for Marie Claire normally includes 12 different outts, Brunkalla created the story of a young womans rst trip to Manhattan. The girl, portrayed by actress/model Noot Seear, discovers a mysterious suitcase in her hotel room, and what she nds inside transports her into a magical world of daydreams and dress-up. While it is not readily apparent to the viewer, the movie is actually a shop-able lm, and anything that you see Seear wearing can be purchased through the iPad app. Brunkalla knew immediately that he wanted to shoot the project on lm, and he brought cinematographer Pete Konczal on board with that in mind. I typically gravitate towards lm, explains Brunkalla. In your practice as an artist you shoot for the stars, and for me, that means lm most of the time. These days when you shoot lm, its more special. You have a different vibe on set. The 16mm format perfectly captured the timeless look Brunkalla wanted to bring to the movie. I wanted the piece to have a very natural look, and I think lm has a little more of an organic feel. It is imperfect, in a good way. Were all used to things being crystal clear, and I think this story is very whimsical. It has a daydream feel to it that lm captures naturally. We didnt have to rely on lters or post effects to capture the look we wanted. Any shooter will tell you that theyre excited when a director says they want to shoot on lm, adds Konczal. The rst thing Greg said to me was, I want to shoot on 16mm. All these fashion lms on digital cameras look really harsh. He wanted this to have a timeless look with a classic feel, and he knew the only way wed get that is by shooting lm. Konczal chose KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 7219 and KODAK VISION2 200T Color Negative Film 7217. Ive been shooting Kodak for a while, and Ive always been a fan of those two speeds in tungsten. Even when I shoot daylight, I actually prefer to use lters to warm them. I like turning a tungsten stock into a daylight stock. I feel like it has a unique look to it, and in some ways it is more naturalistic looking. An early sequence in which the girl is tearing through The Suitcase and trying on a variety of beautiful items exemplies the feel of the piece. It was a very magical section where it really came together for both of us, notes Konczal. To get the organic feel that Greg was after, we actually decided to use older lenses. We just let everything hit the camera. There was some sun coming through the window, and we put some lights on the edge of the frame, really close to the angle the sun was at. We knew that we would get cool ares, but we also knew it would further soften the image and make it dreamier.
The Suitcase was shot on an Aaton, Even if we had wanted to, there wasnt a digital camera that could have accommodated this shoot, Konczal adds. The camera needed to be light because Greg wanted it to be very vrit and documentary. We would have struggled if we had had to go with a heavier camera.
Konczal concludes, Ive often been asked, Why does The Suitcase look and feel like that? And I say, because its lm. Its really very simple. View The Suitcase at www.brunx.com.
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Syoss commercial
American DP Joseph Yacoe has recently completed lming a commercial for a series of hair products in Prague. The commercial was for the Syoss brand produced by Henkel/ Schwarzkopf and was shot on KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219. Joseph Yacoe explains his choice of shooting medium. The brief was to give the commercial the Syoss look, bright, clean and high-fashion. Film provides better rendition of highlights and the shine in the hair is all highlights. But the look of the shine is all important. I try to achieve what we call liquidity with the shine in the hair. Its a shine that comes across as smooth and liquid. To achieve this, I need light that has the right balance between soft and hard. Im always looking for the right balance for the hair were working with. In this instance the commercial was aimed at the Asian market where peoples hair tends to be naturally thicker, darker and more shiny. Film makes it easier in that you dont have to worry so much about your highlights burning out and getting that nasty electronic look. Joseph Yacoe concluded Working with Tryan, Alexander, Gunnar and the whole Syoss team is always a great pleasure. There is a terric feeling of fun, creativity and camaraderie on the set. The crews in Prague are hard-working and talented.
1 Getting the models ready for the shoot. 2 DP Joseph Yacoe shoots while director Tryan George (in tophat) observes.
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Footloose
There is an aesthetic to the work of director Craig Brewer and cinematographer Amy Vincent, ASC. I would like to proudly say its a Brewer-Vincent Combo, the director declares. And its got nothing to do with dance.
by choreographer Jamal Sims at a rehearsal space in Atlanta, where the movie was lmed. Everybody who had something to gain from knowing the choreography prior to shooting would be at these rehearsals, even after 60-80 hour work weeks, Vincent recalls. The cinematographer recorded the rehearsal with a small ip camera, soaking it all in. I had the privilege of watching Jamal, Craig and these amazing dancers bring the choreography to life, until I got it. It was vital to get a sense of it for myself. I didnt want to be the outsider/photographer who comes in and shoots this thing that somebody else created. I wanted to be part of it. And Im a terrible dancer. Even more helpful was director Craig. He knows it, he gets it, and he knows what it means to the character. Sims was present on set, as well, helping keep the camera movement timed perfectly in step with the dancers moves. Vincent and her team shot with ARRIFLEX ST and LT cameras, with Cooke S4 prime lenses, as well as Angenieux zooms (17-80mm, 24-290mm) and Mini-zooms (15-40 and 28-76), all provided locally by Keslow Camera. Those lightweight mini-zooms are super-enabling because theyre so light, you can operate handheld or Steadicam very easily, without a lot of lens changing. As for stocks, Vincent went with KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219 for interiors, shooting 3-perf Super 35. For exteriors, Vincent chose 1 KODAK VISION3 200T Color Negative Film 5213. Im photo-chemically trained. And, for me, theres something about how the tungsten-balanced lm stocks work with 85 lters that still appeals to me, both technically and artistically. Her skill with that combination isnt lost on her director. Theres a special color temperature and grain content that Amy does, that I havent really seen much in other work, says Brewer. It just makes the subject seem like theyre part of the environment. With the lmmaking world around constantly changing, Vincent says she appreciates the presence of Kodak remaining solid in the world Known for their previous two lms together, Black Snake Moan and Hustle & Flow, a pair of indie standouts (the latter the 2005 Sundance Cinematography Award winner for Vincent), Brewer and Vincent might seem an unusual choice to create Paramounts 2011 reboot of the 1984 dance classic Footloose. But it is precisely that outsider approach that makes their version so refreshingly appealing to watch, and no less exciting. Craig and I approach everything as if its our rst time, says Vincent. We both lost our virginity to the dance movie with Footloose. She and Brewer typically approach lmmaking: using the genre to tell stories. We approached the dance numbers in the movie from an emotional and dramatic standpoint. Every scene has its dramatic and emotional context within the movie. And thats to Craig Brewers credit. From Vincents standpoint, dance sequences need to have an emotional connection to the story and characters. Every dance number in Footloose has an emotional investment. If youre watching people dancing and their movements and choices are motivated by another character or another aspect of the story, then that becomes interesting. We wanted the dance numbers to integrate seamlessly with the storylines. We were going for antichoreography. Planning for each dance sequence began at Saturday rehearsals held of cinematography. I love to shoot lm. I would shoot lm for the rest of my life, if I could. So I appreciate so much how Kodak has maintained and held a foothold in the imaging world, to make shooting lm still a viable option. All of Hollywood is still set up to shoot lm. Thats what everybody knows. And its not just set up to shoot lm; it is set up to shoot Kodak lm. FotoKem processed the lm and provided dailies, and then Vincent reteamed with the post facilitys colorist Walter Volpatto for the digital intermediate. The two also worked together on the DIs for Black Snake Moan and Hustle & Flow. For dance numbers, Vincent liked to begin with a master shot, as she says, in a proscenium theatrical manner. You need that proscenium wall to set the stage. Once we have the big wide that shows us where we are. In scenes such as the initial drive-in movie theater dance sequence that introduces the audiences to so many of the lms characters, there are several dramatic moments that needed to be acknowledged. So thats how Craig and I constructed the photography for that scene. Once the stage relationship is established with the wide proscenium shot, she adds, Then anything goes. Screen direction goes away, camera movement with dance moment it all just becomes thrilling. Thats where the Brewer-Vincent machine really ew into action creating the world of
Brewer on set, who demonstrated to the cast and crew every step of every dance sequence himself. Craig would take the entire cast and crew through every step, dancing and talking through the whole thing, Vincent says. To me, the beginning of the choreography between the camera and the dance is always
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All of Hollywood is still set up to shoot lm. ..... And its not just set up to shoot lm; it is set up to shoot Kodak lm.
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dance cinematography anew. Id nd myself saying, I have the best job in the whole world. Im shooting something Ive never shot before this is so cool, she says. A perfect example is one of Vincents favorites, seen in the nal dance sequence, where the camera follows, in tight close-up, the feet of the dancing cast as they y across the dance oor during a line dance. Having been inspired by a shot shed seen in an earlier Brewer lm, The Poor and Hungry, where the camera closely followed a hubcap as it ew through the air until a wider reveal showed the vehicle being hoisted in a junkyard, Vincent was excited to put the technique to work. I had been to the Saturday dance rehearsal, and I told my key grip, Pat OMara, We have this shot, where the guys feet all dance across the oor. They meet with the girls, we want to change direction when the girls change, and then we want to change back. We designed that shot very specically to the choreography. It was literally the fastest dolly move across the oor you could imagine, with four dolly grips at the end of the dolly track, stopping the dolly and sending it off in its other direction, three times. That shot is a great example of collaboration with the dance move inspiring the camera movement, and the reason for it and how to use it. Having come up through the ranks of music video production, Vincent was used to working multi-camera shoots, though, for Footloose, she tended to shy away from it. We shot three-camera for the nal dance number and for the drive-in theater. But for the most part, once we got past the wide shots, more than two cameras would start getting on top of the other. One of the lms most challenging sequences was the so-called Angry Dance, in which lead character Ren MacCormack (Kenny Wormald) blows off steam by dancing away his anger in an empty warehouse. The last sequence shot for the lm, the crew faced a number of challenges to get it completed. There are two parts to cinematography, Brewer says. Theres impressing people with great work, and also not letting people know there were issues. After losing their original location, the crew arrived at a large warehouse to shoot, only to be
encountered by a dark, threatening sky all day. When we selected this place, we knew we were completely daylight-dependent. It was huge; it was vast, Vincent recalls. But a thunderstorm came in, and the place got so dark, you couldnt have shot it even with the fastest lm stock in the world. So the team got creative, using an array of lighting gear, even if it meant leaving 18Ks in view. Im classically trained, so photographing movie lights in the context of a scene is not really part of my vocabulary. But my mind got opened that day, she laughs. Working with actors dancing long, intense routines means you have to be on your toes, ready to capture the best quickly. We always had the human element in photographing a dance, says Vincent. You dont have 100 takes because the cast can get tired. Jamal was always near the camera with a microphone, letting his team of dancers know when to pull out all the stops. Kenny and Julianne just danced their hearts out. Vincent worked closely with all of the leads, particularly during difcult dance sequences like this one. Kenny would look at me after a take and say, Did you get that? Her work with the young actors was not simply limited to shot design and capture. Vincent worked closely with hair department head Manny Millar and makeup
head Vivian Baker to change lead actress Julianne Houghs red carpet, Dancing with the Stars, look to a small-town girl look. I collected a bunch of stills of her from the internet, in all kinds of environments, just to see what it was about this girls face we needed to know. She also worked with the actress on set, to help her learn how to take best advantage of lighting. Its such a pleasure to work with young actors, because you can teach them about light. I was able to show Julianne the difference between holding her head one way or another, or stepping 10 degrees to the left, and how that changed the way the light worked on her. Towards the lms close, the two leads nally have a romantic moment, via a long-awaited kiss their silhouettes literally framing the setting sun into a heart shape between them. I asked Craig, Can we go completely Hallmark on this? Vincent recalls. And he said Hell yeah! Its so cheesy that its
great, she says with a smile. The DP credits a collaborative relationship with a great AD team for making sure the camera, the sun and the actors were all in the right place at the right time. We had been rained out earlier in the day, and we only had a couple of hours, Brewer recalls. Amy and I were stressing out over it. And then suddenly you see this kiss, and it almost looks like a heart between two people. And I just remember touching her, going, We just shot something thats the best thing weve ever done. Amy can get it done. Shes rm, and shes opinionated. But more than anything, I have one soldier next to me that ghts for my vision, and thats Amy.
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Cinematographer Amy Vincent, ASC on the set. Julianne Hough as Ariel in a scene from the film. (L to R) Miles Teller as Willard and Kenny Wormald as Ren.
Photos: K.C. Bailey 2011 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved
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1960s
Shot anamorphically on KODAK 35mm lm stock (KODAK VISION3 200T Color Negative Film 5313 and KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219), the feature lm has a distinctive 1960s retro look and feel to reect the era in which it is set. Cinesites visual effects supervisor, Matt Johnson, 2-D supervisor David Sewell and 3-D supervisor Anthony
-production facilities in the world. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Kodak, for X-Men: First Class, which unveils the beginning of the X-Men saga.
look
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Writer-director Vincent Sweeney recently completed production of Blue Ridge, an independent feature about J.T. and Sara, a young couple who live in a run-down mobile home park in the rural Appalachian foothills. J.T is somewhat of an oddball who earns a living working on car tires and doing maintenance on mobile homes. Sara is an innocent girl who recently lost her last family member. She falls in love with J.T. and encourages him to follow his dreams. Standing in their way is the owner (played by Sean Gullette) of the trailer park, who wants J.T. to join his bizarre hedonistic lifestyle.
Sweeney felt this rural tale of love and hate needed to be told on lm, and despite a minimal budget, was able to do so. In the following interview, Sweeney talks about making Blue Ridge, and shares his budgetary solutions for other independent lmmakers.
IC: What was the overall look you wanted to achieve for Blue Ridge? Sweeney: When writing the lm I pictured it warm, somewhat color-muted, widescreen, and subtle in its camera moves. We needed to keep bright colors and all reds out of the frame, if at all possible, and keep to earth tones; rust, wood, late summer green and so on.
Much of the lm was shot outside so we used the (KODAK VISION2 250D Color Negative Film) 7205 and some of the (KODAK VISION3 250D Color Negative Film) 7207. We would often shoot into magic hour, and sometimes switch to an interior day shot, so the 250D gave us lots of freedom with a pleasing texture. When we went inside, we stuck with the 200T most of the time.
I really wanted to feel the picture and 16mms grain can help do this.
Why was lm the right choice to tell this story? I really didnt see any digital acquisition possibilities with this story and location. The image needed a life to it, not a sterile frame. I really wanted to feel the picture and 16mms grain can help do this. We were shooting in one of the most fertile places on earth, the mountain valleys of rural Virginia. There are bugs, trees, grass, animals and colorful people on every square inch of it; how can you shoot that with some stationary sensor? You used an Aaton LTR 54 Super 16 camera, primarily with 16mm and 12mm Optar primes. What stocks did you choose? The camera had a subtle warming lter on it when outdoors, and one of the main sets was a real mobile home from the 1970s which had plenty of wonderful, old wood paneling. We marked the monitor for 2.35:1 and cropped the nal edit for that. The 16mm format with a 2.35 matte can be impressive, and is a unique choice that few exploit. Many indie lmmakers think they cant afford to shoot lm, what do you think are the most common misconceptions? I see a gap in understanding cost-effective lm post-production among the indie crowds. I often nd producers who think lm is many, many times more expensive than
it really is. I think producers and directors are afraid of what it means to deal with a lab. It really couldnt be much simpler; you send your lm to them and you get back a hard drive with ready-to-edit les in your choice of codec, with sound already synched up. You can decide to online or ofine the edit these days. The choices are endless. We online edited Blue Ridge with Final Cut Pro, so post costs were kept very low but we were still able to achieve a look that you just cant get with any other format. Also, most lmmakers dont understand that all their digital movies will likely be lost one day, and sooner than they realize. All of my original shots will be around for generations to come and for that alone it can be worth it. Are you happy with the nished result? On the nal day of color work in New York, another lms producer walked into the color grading suite I was using and said, Oh, I didnt know you shot this on 35mm! Seeing Blue Ridge projected in HD at the Cinequest Film Festival also conrmed how well the story melded with the medium.
Photo: Blue Ridge. Courtesy of Vincent Sweeney
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Truly amazed
I decided to shoot the entire project on KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 7219 lm stock, said Anand. All the football matches were played in the evening and I had to use available stadium oodlights meaning that only the ground portions were lit whilst the crowds were dimly lit. I was very nervous that the crowd shots would come out grainy but the lm stock gives noticeably less grains in shadow areas and gives amazing shadow details. I was truly amazed when I saw the processed negatives.
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imagecare
Intensity, Integrity and Intelligence help elevate SQ Film Lab to Imagecare status
Philippines-based SQ Film Laboratories, Inc. has become the newest member of the KODAK IMAGECARE Program. Kodak began this quality program for lm laboratories in 1996, and it is now active in 31 countries worldwide. SQ Laboratories, Inc. was recently accredited by the Program for Camera Negative Processing. With over 40 years of industry experience, SQ Laboratories, Inc. continues to demonstrate its commitment to lm and lm quality. The lab employs 30 full-time individuals, including a number of highly skilled technicians and artists who have many decades of expertise. The Program has developed efciencies of the laboratory staff, said Angelo Santos, Managing Director of SQ. The Programs excellent standards have built up our employees condence, morale, and the triple Is: Intensity, Integrity, and Intelligence. Simply put, the KODAK IMAGECARE Program process is a continuous progression of learning and development, he said. It is an honor for us to be included in the roster of accredited laboratories around the world. The Program is a rigorous one with many segments and standards that must be adhered to. Kodak created the Program to standardize motion picture processing acceptance is challenging and time consuming and requires a laboratory-wide commitment. Were delighted to welcome SQ Film Laboratories into the Kodak program, said Diane Carroll-Yacoby, worldwide manager of the KODAK IMAGECARE Program. Their lm processing operations are really rst-class and were proud of their accomplishments and commitment to quality. Certication in the KODAK IMAGECARE program proves that SQ complies with standards of quality even the most demanding lmmakers can rely on, said Carroll-Yacoby. Their membership signies that they deliver the best of what lm can offer, so customers can trust that when they work with SQ, they are working without compromise. For further information on SQ Laboratories Inc please visit: http:/ /sqlmlab.com.ph/ To learn more about KODAK IMAGECARE Program, please visit: www.kodak. com/go/imagecare.
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The ABC & TaunusFilm team, from left to right: Wolfgang Dombo (Lab Manager), Thomas Lang (Managing Director), Siegfried Fensch (chemist) and Dirk Emsbach (chemist).
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When director Nathan Kincaid asked cinematographer Michael Street if he would be interested in shooting the lm noir period piece, Dark Desert Highway, Street jumped at the opportunity. Nathan and I had worked together on a few previous projects, and we had a good working relationship, says Street. Dark Desert Highway sealed the bond between us. We both like to put the story rst. As the cinematographer, I try to enhance the emotion for each scene, and Nathan was open to suggestions found on set with camera movement.
and plot points. The lighting was a combination of hard and soft light. In researching the decades characteristic look, we saw that the use of hard lights and shadows was dominate. We tried to stay true to the genre, using hard light as a valuable source. Camera movement was also used as reveals or transitions for characters. Kincaid and Street decided early on that lm was the right medium for telling Glenns story. The director had even considered
shot in exterior locations to see the lms range in low-light conditions and to see the color separation in the negative. Street says the lm test made the choice clear, and they selected KODAK VISION2 Expression 500T Color Negative Film 5229. Out of all the stocks tested, I felt that the 5229 had the best color separation; you can see that especially where the range is very close together. Another appealing aspect is that this Expression stock
Dark Desert Highway takes the audience on a ride with Don Glenn, a not-so-honest salesman and womanizer. After a late night phone call from a seductive female, Don runs to a nearby after-hours speakeasy to meet this mysterious woman. Don soon discovers that hes getting much more than he bargained for, nding himself confused and in trouble on a Dark Desert Highway.
Our vision was to create a traditional lm noir look for this story, says Street. The cinematography was designed to give dark tones to the story. We were depicting the underbelly of 1940s San Francisco. Specic colors were used to enhance mood
Street used an ARRIFLEX 535 with a set of Zeiss Super Speed lenses. You always want your audience to connect with the main characters, so I typically prefer the 85mm or 50mm on close-ups, says Street. However for this lm we stayed a little wider because of the genre. In 1940s lms, you see a lot of medium shots and wide frames to show whats happening in the frame. The blocking and composition for Dark Desert Highway was designed the same way. We shot most of the lm on 18mm, 25mm and 35mm. This helped us frame three-shots and establish the background.
shooting the entire lm on blackand-white stock. Shooting 35mm was always the direction for us, says Street. I had shot some lm tests a few months prior using high-speed stocks. The tests were
is less saturated then Kodaks other 500T lm. I kept a 3:1 lighting ratio throughout the lm along with the gaffer, Inder Mann, and tried to create the contrast on the negative.
Dark Desert Highway eventually went through post-production twice. Originally, a standarddenition transfer was done to achieve the look, color and contrast the lmmakers envisioned. The lm was then edited, showcased and well received. After these initial screenings, an HD transfer was completed at FotoKem using the original transfer as a guide. Nathan took the les back into editing and created a new version which I think grasped the feeling of the script and is closer to Nathans vision.
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The lm is a comedy about a psychologist whose ofce is located on a wharf. He tries to help a patient get rid of a deep anguish caused by his insecurity, and help him to move forward with his life. A possible change in the patients life suddenly transforms a promising decision into a new problem. The production took place over two days on location on a narrow wharf. It was pretty complicated to shoot on this kind of dock, says Rosenblatt. We had to set up structures over the water to distance the action from the camera, and contend with the changing tides. Luckily we had two completely clear days to do the set-up. I had seen the wharf two days before the shoot and I knew that high tide meant trouble. The lmmakers wanted the photography to capture the tone of the story by using yellow, brown and low contrast to lend to the implausible storyline. The look we wanted for Dr. Seymour was lmic, says Rosenblatt. Skin tones are too difcult to control with a digital camera, especially when you cannot control the light. We were shooting in full sunshine with tough shadows and sunlight, and lm still achieved the desired results. We did many tests for Dr. Seymour, and I am positive lm was the best choice. The lmmakers chose KODAK VISION2 50D Color Negative Film 7201. The 50D lm has an almost imperceptible grain, it looks like 35mm, says Rosenblatt. The negative was even in density and color, and a warmer and ranged intervention on skins was done during the transfer. Rosenblatts camera package included an ARRI SR3 HS with Canon zoom 6.6-66mm. We decided to have a handheld camera that followed the actors moves, the cinematographer explains. Therefore, the camera was tied to them and not the other way around. We worked on choreography and sequences that allowed for improvising where the camera could go. Even though it was all done with a handheld camera, we were avoiding extreme movement.
We also chose to work with generous F-stops between F5.6 and F8 for a variety of reasons, he continues. We wanted the main camera to have a depth of eld in the background where the action took place. We also wanted to have good camera movement without losing focus on the characters, and saving lm stock is essential on these lower budget projects. Rosenblatt used a Chocolate +1 lter to give a sense of color implanted on the celluloid as well, which helped to guide the post-production color effect. The entire lm was captured at 25 frames per second to facilitate the post-production, and in the event of subsequent conversion to PAL.
The lmmakers are currently putting the nal touches on Dr. Seymour before sending it on the festival circuit.
1. Behind the scenes on Dr. Seymour. 2. DP Diego Rosenblatt. Photos courtesy of Diego Rosenblatt.
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Directors Si and Ad have been working together for just over a decade. They started out as designers for record label, Virgin but quickly moved into the music video arena. Signed to Academy Films, they have produced a number of commercials, music videos and short lms. Their previous short lm, Post-It Love, was aimed squarely at the commercials market but also with an eye on long-form lmmaking. It garnered lots of attention and acclaim on the festival circuit bringing them more commercials work and the opportunity to make a longer short lm. Known as Indoor, Si & Ads latest short lm is their rst lm with dialogue. The plot revolves around two kids and the start of their friendship. The boy is new in town and he befriends a girl who is conned to staying indoors (hence the title). Like their other lms, its quirky and magical, doesnt take itself too seriously but at the same time is quite touching. It was shot in Jaywick on the Essex coast which, despite being one of the most impoverished areas of the UK is, according to Ad, a beautiful place photographically, its skylines and beaches forming fabulous backdrops. We quickly made a decision, continued Si, that we needed lm to do both this project and this area justice. When we rst started out, we shot our rst videos on DV cams but as soon as we got our hands on lm, we stuck with it the whole way. In fact, we are the only directors at Academy who havent shot on a digital format yet. Digital just didnt have the range we required to handle the detail in the skies and the blacks. Danish DP, Lasse Frank used the new KODAK 500T Color Negative Film Stock 5230/7230 for the shoot.
UK-based directing duo Si and Ad are just completing their longest short lm to date. With a working title of Indoor, the lm was shot on Kodaks new high-quality, low-price lm stock
Indoor was scheduled to be completed as InCamera went to press. It will then be heavily promoted on the festival circuit and Si and Ad are hoping it will give them their entry into long-form lmmaking.
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David Wilson has recently directed a music promo for the band Metronomy. Unusually this was shot using 35mm lm rather than digital. David explains his choice of shooting medium.
For the whole of my career to date, I have used digital cameras, says David. I come from a generation of directors who shot their rst lm on the RED camera and Ive never really considered using lm before. A couple of years back I won a Sweet 16 package in the Best Budget Video category in the UK Music Video Awards but I sat on this prize considering it to be rather special and also luxuriously expensive. When the Metronomy promo for The Bay came up in May this year, I decided it was time to use the Sweet 16 package on this and I can honestly say it has taken it to the next level. The promo involved going to Torquay in the south west of the UK and making it look like a ctionally glamorous exaggeration of what was there, continued David. My main reference was Elton Johns iconic promo for Im Still Standing along with 70s fashion photography from artists such as Guy Bourdin. We worked in collaboration with the English Riviera Tourism Company who provided accommodation, food and locations for free and even contributed towards the helicopter shots. The promo was shaping up to be quite an epic so I decided to upgrade my Sweet 16 prize to 35mm. I used a combination of two stocks KODAK
VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 5207 and KODAK VISION2 50D Color Negative Film 5201. The shoot, by cinematographer Richard Stewart, wasnt straightforward; it involved lots of beauty shots with models in swimwear as well as ever-shifting light with the sun coming in and out of the clouds. This was something where the amount of exibility we had in the grade was incredible. The way lm handled the natural colours and the amount of colour information enabled us to make a shot with full cloud cover at 8pm t almost comfortably to a shot taken at midday in the beaming sunshine. I think the main charm of the promo is the natural chemical reaction thats formed the images and the natural softness where its needed. Video can often be just that bit too crisp whereas lm reads more like the eye does and your brain denitely connects with that. Sadly lm seems to be losing presence in the music promo eld, David concluded. Not so much for budgetary reasons but more because fewer and fewer new directors have had the chance to shoot on lm and understand it. From the many favourable comments Ive had about the Metronomy promo, its clear that it stands out from other digital videos and I can see that these aesthetic values may spark a renaissance in lm as directors tire of the digital look.
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News in Brief
Kodak Cinema Tools now optimized for iPad Apps also available from the Android Market
You can now experience the same great Kodak Cinema Tools apps with larger graphics and interfaces optimized for the iPad, and Android users can now also download these handy mobile applications.
Determines the running time for any length of lm in any format, or how much lm is needed for a specic duration, making complex mathematical calculations quickly and conveniently.
Lab Locator:
Find a lab or transfer house while on the go! Using your current location and selecting the service you are looking for, the new Lab Locator tool will nd a location near you and provide contact information and a map to help you get there. The tool also provides the ability to search other locations by lling out the search form.
Gives you elds for entering known data such as lm format, F-stop, focal length and subject distance and then computes the near limit, far limit, hyperfocal distance and circle of confusion. Results can be in feet or meters, and calculations can be made for any combination of remaining variables.
Whether you need a quick question answered or help with your current or future production, tap the Contact Now button, and summon a Kodak representative online. Or you can browse the Kodak directory of worldwide ofces. We are here to help you!
Denitions for hundreds of lmmaking terms. The glossary is designed to help lmmakers and their collaborators communicate clearly and accurately.
Resources:
Kodak proudly offers some of our most popular publications in mobile-friendly formats for when youre on the go. Download these apps for free from the iTunes App Store or Android Market.
News in Brief
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This December, you can read an in-depth interview with Janusz Kaminksi on the making of director Steven Spielbergs War Horse, an epic adventure set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during World War I.
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