American Cinematographer 2009-01

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AMC_0109_pCV1:09_05CVR.qxd 12/5/08 2:19 PM Page 1
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28 Close Focus
Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC captures a couples
downward spiral in Revolutionary Road
42 An Old Soul
Claudio Miranda exploits cutting-edge technologies on
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
58 Brothers in Arms
Eduardo Serra, ASC, AFC frames a true tale of World
War II heroism in Defiance
70 A Cut Above
Jack Green, ASC receives the Societys
Lifetime Achievement Award
Departments
Features
Vi s i t us o nl i ne a t www. t he a s c . c o m
On Our Cover: Businessman Frank Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio) finds his marriage crumbling in
Revolutionary Road, shot by Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC. (Photo by Franois Duhamel, SMPSP, courtesy
of DreamWorks LLC.)
8 Editors Note
10 Short Takes: Triangle of Need
16 Production Slate: Frost/Nixon, The Wrestler
80 Post Focus: HPA Awards, Still Me
84 New Products & Services
88 International Marketplace
89 Classified Ads
90 Ad Index
92 In Memoriam: Robert C. Jessup, ASC
94 Clubhouse News
96 ASC Close-Up: Gabriel Beristain
58
J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 9 V O L . 9 0 N O . 1
The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques
42
70
AMC_0109_p003:00 toc 12/5/08 6:03 PM Page 3
J a n u a r y 2 0 0 9 V o l . 9 0 , N o . 1
The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques Since 1920
Visit us online at
www.theasc.com

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BEST
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Harris Savides, ASC
For up-to-the-minute screening
information, to read
Dustin Lance Blacks original
screenplay, and to hear
Danny Elfmans score and
more about this extraordinary
film from director
Gus Van Sant, go to:
www.FilmInFocus.com/awards08
ARTWORK 2008 FOCUS FEATURES, LLC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
A TOTAL TRIUMPH, BRIMMING WITH
HUMOR AND HEART. IF THERES A
BETTER MOVIE AROUND THIS YEAR,
WITH MORE BRISTLING PURPOSE,
I SURE HAVENT SEEN IT. ####.
Camera genius Harris Savides, gives the film a tribal
vibrancy. Shooting on the streets Harvey walked in
San Francisco, and blending in archival footage, he
drops us into the cartwheeling culture of the 1970s with a
dizzying sense of time and place. An American classic.
Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE
A TOTAL TRIUMPH, BRIMMING WITH
HUMOR AND HEART. IF THERES A
BETTER MOVIE AROUND THIS YEAR,
WITH MORE BRISTLING PURPOSE,
I SURE HAVENT SEEN IT. ####.
Camera genius Harris Savides, gives the film a tribal
vibrancy. Shooting on the streets Harvey walked in
San Francisco, and blending in archival footage, he
drops us into the cartwheeling culture of the 1970s with a
dizzying sense of time and place. An American classic.
Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE
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D
irector Sam Mendes first explored the illusions and delu-
sions of American suburbia in American Beauty (1999),
which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture
and Achievement in Cinematography (for Conrad L. Hall,
ASC). On his latest project, Revolutionary Road, the English
filmmaker teamed with Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC to focus a
pitiless lens on the crumbling marriage of an outwardly envi-
able couple (played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet)
in suburban Connecticut in 1955.
Based on Richard Yates novel, the picture led Mendes
and Deakins to spotlight the actors performances while avoiding stylistic flourishes in
their approach to the period. I hate the idea that you have to make the photography
colorful because its the 50s, or that you have to make it gauzy and sepia because its an
earlier era Ive never seen the point of that, really, Deakins tells senior editor Rachael
K. Bosley (Close Focus, page 28). Mendes seconds the motion: I didnt want to have
any shots that said, The 1950s: werent they extraordinary! I simply wanted it to be
where these characters live. In an insightful sidebar (Furnishing a Plain Period Look,
page 36), set decorator Deborah Schutt confirms, We all wanted to make a period
movie that didnt look like one.
David Fincher and cinematographer Claudio Miranda had to convey the look
of eight different decades while turning back the clock on The Curious Case of Benjamin
Button, which stars Brad Pitt as a man who is born in 1918 and ages in reverse. While
the film offers plenty of period ambience, Miranda notes, The intention was to be as
naturalistic as possible. Our initial influence for textures and framing was [painter]
Andrew Wyeth. Of course, the filmmakers also had to come up with a way to make their
main character age and regress believably, which involved some complex technologies.
Miranda and post supervisor Peter Mavromates pull back the curtain in their comments
to contributing writer Douglas Bankston (An Old Soul, page 42).
World War II is the timeframe explored in Defiance, shot by Eduardo Serra,
ASC, AFC for director Ed Zwick. In telling a true story of Jewish resistance fighters who
take refuge in a forest, Serra rebuts the notion that exterior cinematography offers fewer
opportunities to be creative. By pushing Kodaks tungsten-balanced 5279 stock two stops
and eschewing an 85 filter, he added grain and contrast to exterior images and created
unpredictable changes in the negatives red, green and blue curves. The changes are
subtle, but theyre there, Serra explains to Paris-based correspondent Benjamin B
(Brothers in Arms, page 58). With film, its important to have the three color curves
perfectly parallel, and in this picture, they really arent.
Bold choices are often rewarding, as ASC member Jack Green quickly learned
after he gave up barbering for a life behind the camera. What the world lost in tonsorial
technique it has gained in memorable Hollywood moments. Green entered into a long
and rewarding collaboration with Clint Eastwood, beginning as a camera operator and
eventually advancing to cinematographer on a number of Eastwoods films, including
Bird, Unforgiven and The Bridges of Madison County. His record of excellence has earned
him this years ASC Lifetime Achievement Award, and Green shares some of his recol-
lections with contributing writer Jon Silberg (A Cut Above, page 70).
Stephen Pizzello
Executive Editor
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Editors Note
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I
n 2002, five years after Catherine
Sullivan transitioned from live theater
to producing and directing conceptual-
video works, she began developing her
first commission, which became Five
Economies (big hunt/little hunt). With a
larger budget than she had previously
enjoyed, she decided to expand her work
into a multi-screen project that would
replicate the experience of watching a
theater piece. To capture the complex
imagery the project required, Sullivan
turned to cinematographer Raoul
Germain, whom she had met when
Germain was gaffing an independent
feature for a mutual friend. When their
collaboration began on Five Economies,
Sullivan was a bit cryptic about the
subject matter, says Germain. Most of
the time, she would just say, These are
the images were going to shoot.
Germain was finally able to see
Five Economies from Sullivans perspec-
tive when the piece premiered at the
Hammer Museum in Los Angeles on
five 20'-tall screens. I was astounded,
he says. I got the concept and the way
it moved around you as a viewer in the
center of it all. Once I saw the fruits of
our labor, I was so excited and proud of
the work that I really wanted to keep the
relationship going.
Four collaborations later, in
August 2007, Sullivan and Germain
introduced their latest and largest
installation, Triangle of Need, at
Minneapolis Walker Art Center. Like
Five Economies, Triangle was conceived
as a multi-screen fine-art experience
involving the layering of many different
storylines and locations playing simulta-
neously on multiple projectors and tele-
vision screens. According to the artists
statement, Triangle delves into corpo-
rate corruption and the idea of conform-
ing old ideals to new ones in a modern
age.
Triangles genesis can be traced
to when Sullivan was invited to make a
piece at the Villa Vizcaya Museum and
Gardens, a 16th-century Italian-style
estate built as a winter home for Amer-
ican industrialist James Deering in
Biscayne Bay, Fla. When Sullivan first
encountered Vizcayas main house,
formal gardens, lagoon and derelict
village, she was inspired by its potential
as a location for one of the pieces.
The project comprises several
short films that form a cohesive whole.
In one room, a six-minute looped projec-
tion intercuts 16mm shots of a spinning
figure skater with blown-up Super 8mm
footage from a Quinceaera (a tradi-
tional Latino coming-of-age celebration
for young women) at Vizcaya. In an
adjoining chamber, three flat-screen
Forging Triangle of Need for Catherine Sullivan
by Iain Stasukevich
Short Takes
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.
Above:
Mistresses bid
farewell from a
barge in Triangle
of Need, an
installation
piece directed
by Catherine
Sullivan and
photographed by
Raoul Germain.
Below: One of
the installations
three rooms at
the Walker Art
Center in
Minneapolis.
10 January 2009
01_09 short takes:00 short takes 12/5/08 1:40 PM Page 10

high-definition TVs show the Chicago
portion of the work, set in a tenement
apartment inhabited by early 20th
century workers from Deerings agricul-
tural-equipment factory; these three
scenes (each running 20 minutes) were
filmed in black-and-white and focus on a
family of Gypsies, a trio of Neanderthals,
and French emperor Napoleon and his
wife, Josephine. The third and largest
room features four hi-def digital projec-
tors showing color and black-and-white
scenes shot in and around the Vizcaya
estate. In these scenes, each of which
runs about 30 minutes, the Chicago
characters appear opposite a new cast of
what the filmmakers describe as
anachronistic degenerates.
For the 16mm footage of the
figure skater, shot inside the Chicago Ice
arena, Germain used Kodak Double-X
7222 black-and-white film. He recalls
that these shots were relatively uncom-
plicated, while the Quinceaera footage
was much more involved. On a concep-
tual level, a lot of Triangles content
deals with matters of extinction, and
Sullivan felt it would be interesting to
work with an expired film stock. Via the
Internet, she discovered a subculture
dedicated to obsolete Super 8 stocks,
and she acquired several rolls of discon-
tinued Porst 40D film.
Germain was game, but he
wasnt sure what kind of image he
would get if any from a film stock
that went bad in 1982. His plan was to
overexpose and overdevelop the film by
2 stops, and he planned to do a snip test
at Film Rescue in Indian Head,
Saskatchewan. Even though it was her
idea, Sullivan went into the test less
optimistic than Germain, but her fears
were ultimately dispelled. It looked very
much like an impressionist painting,
she says. The image broke down to
these blunt formations of shapes and
lines.
When we got to the telecine [at
Color Lab in Rockville, Md.], we didnt
want to correct it at all, says Germain.
We just wanted to let it do what it was
doing. The colorists were trying to get
the best image out of it, and they were
complaining that the grain was gargan-
12 January 2009
Top to bottom: A
production still
showing
Neanderthals
cleansed by
mistresses in the
secret garden at
Floridas Villa
Vizcaya Museum
and Gardens; an
orphan passes on
in a color
segment shot at
Villa Vizcaya; a
frame grab of the
Neanderthals
arrival at Villa
Vizcaya, shot on
Kodak Double-X
7222; a frame
grab from the
Quinceaera
sequence, which
was shot with
Porst 40D
Super 8 film.
14 January 2009
tuan and the color completely shifted
from one shot to the next. The emulsion
was extremely degraded, but we ended
up getting a really beautiful texture.
(Ben Hadden, Ben Kolak and Sean Tice
provided additional Super 8 photography
for the project.)
The Chicago portion of the
work is closer to the style of Sullivan and
Germains earlier collaborations, which
often featured extensive use of the
Steadicam. When Sullivan was develop-
ing Five Economies, her goal was to
capture long, meandering takes, and the
same was true for Triangle, where the
action in the Chicago tenement moved
through hallways and followed charac-
ters in and out of apartments. For some
shots, Steadicam operator B.J. McDon-
nel had to stand stock-still for three or
four minutes before beginning a three-
minute move across a 30' span of apart-
ment while sidestepping actors in the
wings and on the ground.
Using Germains Aaton XTRprod,
a Canon 11-165mm zoom and a set of
Zeiss Super Speed primes, the filmmak-
ers planned to photograph 360 degrees
of the tenement location, meaning all
lighting had to be off the floor or dressed
as part of the set. Adding to the
complexity, Sullivan worked out precise
blocking for as many as 13 actors at a
time, and if the actors missed their
marks, they would end up in total dark-
ness.
Fortunately, the building they
were shooting in was being renovated,
leaving the crew free to knock out ceil-
ings and walls. To speed the filmmak-
ers progress from one room to the next,
gaffer Andy Cook created a wood grid
with 2-by-4s above the ceiling line and
strung cables through holes in the ceil-
ing and walls to other grids in adjacent
rooms. Germain and Cook fitted the
grids with a mix of 650-watt, 350-watt,
150-watt and 1K tungsten units on
Variac dimmers, while a 1.2K HMI was
stationed on a lift outside the second-
story window to push hard daylight
into the rooms. All lights were left clean
to produce hard shadows, and these
scenes were also shot on Double-X
7222.
As Triangles cycle concludes, the
Chicago workers, Gypsies and French
sovereigns find themselves transported
to Vizcaya, where they engage in recon-
structions of scenes from old Paths-
cope films as a tribe of Neanderthals is
forced by the villas lord to reproduce.
(Deering ordered silent-film reels from
Pathscope for screening at Vizcaya.)
Because Sullivan was working on a
commission, she and her crew had
unlimited access to the entire estate.
The villa drove a lot of the content,
she notes.
For the exteriors, Germain
planned to shoot Kodak EXR 50D 7245
with an Arri 16SR-3 and the same
lenses he used in Chicago, but he and
Sullivan hadnt accounted for Miamis
unpredictable weather. On a clear day,
the color stock provided vibrant, satu-
rated shots of the blue skies and green
gardens, but footage from hazy days
was lackluster unless it was shot in
black-and-white. (Night exteriors, lit
with 4K HMIs and 10K tungsten fixtures,
were shot on 7222.)
The main house at Vizcaya is part
of the villas museum, which made
shooting interiors problematic. An all-
seeing Steadicam was required for
more than 90 percent of the camera-
work, and everything in the house was a
valuable antique, and no one was
allowed to move or touch anything. To
make matters worse, heavy storm
grates outside every window acted as
huge scrims that just stopped down
light, says Germain. Unable to bring in
big fixtures or rig anything to the walls
or ceilings, he had to carefully strategize
his lamp placement on the floor and
shoot with a fast stock, in this case
Kodak Vision2 500T 7218. For some
scenes, I had to simply shoot wide open
[T1.3] and hope the film would saturate
enough for our needs, says the cine-
matographer. Sometimes Id bounce a
single 1.2K HMI into the ceiling for fill.
When we lost light, I had to place 2.5Ks
outside windows that were dressed
with 216 diffusion to simulate the
blowout of bright daylight.
In post, all the Super 16 footage
was mastered at 2K resolution by Nolo
Digital Film in Chicago and down-rezzed
to 1080p for digital projection. Nolo also
handled the integration of Color Labs
1080p Super 8 transfer with the 2K
footage of the figure skater for output to
16mm.
Asked what the best way is to
view the work, Sullivan pauses, then
says, A lot of it is about your judgment
as a viewer what you connect to. It
really is an experience thats ultimately
driven by your own connection to the
work. For Germain, Triangle of Need
was a dream job. It isnt often a cine-
matographer can create images simply
for the sake of creating them, without
any selling of products or movie stars.
There were no producers telling us we
needed more skin or action. Its just
pretty pictures. I
Steadicam
operator B.J.
McDonnell
maneuvers
through the
main house at
Villa Vizcaya.
FILM, VIDEO,
AND
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of student work.
CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS INCLUDE:
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16 January 2009
Historic Conversations
by Jean Oppenheimer
A full year after wrapping
Frost/Nixon, cinematographer Salvatore
Totino, ASC is still jazzed about shooting
it. His enthusiasm is palpable, even on
the phone. Do you know how much fun
that was? he exclaims after describing
a particularly tricky shot.
Adapted from Peter Morgans
stage play, Frost/Nixon recreates the
1977 television interviews that British
talk-show host David Frost (Michael
Sheen) conducted with Richard M.
Nixon (Frank Langella) three years after
Nixon resigned from the U.S. presi-
dency in the wake of the Watergate
scandal. The film also covers the lead-
up to the interviews, including the initial
contacts and the subsequent prepara-
tions made by each camp.
Frost/Nixon is Totinos fourth
collaboration with director Ron Howard,
following The Missing, Cinderella Man
(AC June 05) and The Da Vinci Code
(AC June 06). Since wrapping the
picture, the two have made a fifth
feature together, Angels and Demons,
the sequel to The Da Vinci Code. Ron is
10 years older than I am, but he has the
energy of somebody 20 years younger,
the cinematographer says with a laugh.
Keeping up with him is a challenge
unto itself.
Confronting an Ex-President and Grappling with Reality
Production Slate
F
r
o
s
t
/
N
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x
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n

p
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.
Right: British
talk-show host
David Frost
(Michael Sheen,
left) listens as
former U.S.
President
Richard M.
Nixon (Frank
Langella)
analyzes his
tenure in the
White House.
Below: Assisted
by Mark Santoni,
A-camera
operator Andrew
Rowlands, SOC
captures the
reverse angle on
Sheen as a
second camera
stands at
the ready.
Cinematographer
Salvatore Totino,
ASC often
employs two
cameras in
dialogue scenes,
noting, I
especially like
to do overs with
two cameras;
I feel you
get great
performances
out of the actors
it gives them
a live feeling,
almost as though
theyre onstage
and this is
their one
performance.
01_09 prod slate:00 production slate 12/5/08 1:22 PM Page 16

18 January 2009
Energy also describes Frost/
Nixons guiding principle, and for Totino,
that meant moving the camera, hand-
holding the camera whenever possible,
making the viewer feel hes in the room
with the actors, and rolling on the first
rehearsal and letting everything develop
from there. We didnt want a documen-
tary feel; we just wanted to make every-
thing feel a bit more visceral, a bit more
spontaneous.
By way of example, he points to
the scene in which Jack Zelnik (Oliver
Platt) and James Reston Jr. (Sam Rock-
well), two consultants hired to educate
Frost about Nixon, meet Frost for the
first time. The scene takes place in a
suite at the Plaza Hotel, a set that was
built onstage at Century Studios in
Culver City. We decided to not block the
scene, recalls Totino. I had watched
Ron rehearse the actors, and he said,
Lets just start shooting and see how
things fall in, and well build on that. A-
camera operator Andrew Rowlands,
SOC was handholding an Arricam Lite in
the room as Platt and Rockwell entered
from the hallway, followed by Totino on
another Lite. I yelled out, Im coming
through the door! Make sure you dont
see me! recounts Totino. Andrew and
I moved around the room, falling into
different shots, building the scene [as
we went along]. Somehow, we never
got in each others way. It was like
excellent couples tennis!
Totino was working with
Rowlands for the first time, and he says,
Andrew is an incredible operator. I did
Angels and Demons with him after that,
and I hope to do the rest of my films
with him! We work well together, just
instinctually.
Using two cameras is a hallmark
of Totinos style. I especially like to do
overs with two cameras; I feel you get
great performances out of the actors
that way. It gives them a live feeling,
almost as though theyre onstage and
this is their one performance. One
sequence a long, late-night phone
conversation between Nixon and Frost
was actually shot live, with Langella
on one set and Sheen on an adjoining
one. Nixon is in his San Clemente home
when, fortified with a few drinks, he
picks up the phone and calls Frost at the
hotel. Ron suggested we shoot both
ends of the conversation at the same
time, and it was a great idea, says
Totino. The sets were right next to each
other, and I put two cameras on Langella
and two on Sheen. (All four cameras
were on dollies.)
The cinematographer kept the
lighting simple. Nixon was lit by moon-
light coming through a window (5K Fres-
nels gelled with light CTB) and a small
practical (a lamp holding a 40-watt bulb
bolstered by a small Kino Flo behind it),
and Frost, sitting in his hotel suite, was
lit with practicals and a small Kino Flo.
According to Totino, the lighting
goal throughout the shoot was to make
it feel real. Because most of the film
takes place in Southern California, that
meant a lot of sunshine. Nearly all day
interiors, whether on location or
onstage, were lit through windows with
12-light Maxi-Brutes and a 20K Fresnel.
Inside, Totino occasionally added a 2K
Fresnel bouncing off bleached muslin.
When I was looking toward the
windows, that gave a little wrap around
the actors. Night interiors were lit with
practical lamps inside and a bit of moon-
light outside.
Above: Frost (far
left) sits down for
a strategy session
with his team,
which includes
(left to right)
author James
Reston Jr. (Sam
Rockwell),
producer John
Birt (Matthew
Macfadyen) and
consultant Jack
Zelnik (Oliver
Platt). Below (from
left): Santoni,
Rowlands, Totino
and 1st AC
Dominic Aluisi
at work.

The locations. The crews. The
inrastructure. The ilm-making
tradition. The tax incentives. And
opening soon, Stage 0. kelax.
NC FlLM OFFlC. 866.468.2273
Totino occasionally softened
sunny day exteriors by placing a 20'x20'
frame of Soft Frost over the actors, but
we didnt have a lot of time, and we
needed to look almost 360 degrees, so
we couldnt bring in big construction
cranes to control the sun with silks. On
this film, my work was more about find-
ing camera angles that would suit the
lighting that was there.
To the surprise of just about
everybody, the current owners of La
Casa Pacifica, Nixons Western White
House in San Clemente, agreed to let
the production shoot there. Its so
unique, particularly in the courtyard area
and the entrance, notes Howard. We
couldnt find anything that would repli-
cate it. The production spent two days
at the compound and filmed several
sequences in the exact spot where the
real events had taken place. Other prac-
tical locations included the Nixon Library
and the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Totino shot Frost/Nixon in Super
35mm. He initially tried to convince the
studio to allow him to shoot 3-perf, but
they were reluctant. They felt it wouldnt
give them any wiggle room in post. The
footage was processed normally at
Deluxe Laboratories, and the digital
intermediate was carried out at EFilm.
Doing a DI allows me to be a little
quicker on the set I dont have to
spend a half-hour flagging a little
shadow on a wall, because I know I can
fix it later. He timed the picture with
colorist Steve Bowen, a regular collabo-
rator since The Missing.
Clairmont Camera provided the
cameras and lenses, which included
Cooke S4 primes, Nikkor 200mm and
300mm lenses, an Angenieux 12:1
Optimo (24-290mm) zoom and a Cooke
(18mm-100mm) zoom. With the excep-
tion of the late-night phone call, which
was shot on 100mm and 150mm lenses,
Totino generally stayed with medium
focal lengths. The production had a 40-
day shooting schedule but managed to
finish two days early.
In one of Totinos favorite shots,
Frost arrives at the house where the
interviews will take place. The actor
was driving the car, and Totino was next
to him, handholding the camera. The
passenger door was tied open and the
camera battery was taped to the roof.
Focus puller Dominic Aluisi was in the
passenger seat behind me with a
remote follow focus, recalls the cine-
matographer. You see a jogger running
by, and I tilt down and show Frosts
hands as he starts turning the steering
wheel. I tilt up and show the reporters
on the lawn through the windshield. The
car comes to a stop, and I pan back to
Frosts face. He acknowledges his
producer, who is theoretically sitting
where I am. At that point, I lean back
and pass the camera out to Andrew,
who is waiting for us on the sidewalk.
He takes the camera, and Dominic
passes the follow focus out to another
camera assistant on the sidewalk. Frost
strides across the street. Zelnick,
Reston and John Birt (Matthew
Macfadyen), Frosts producer, come
around from the back of the car and also
cross the street. Then Nixons motor-
cade drives up.
Originally, we went into a
whole over-the-shoulder into Nixon, but
that part got cut the shot was just
too long, adds Totino. But that whole
sequence was so much fun to do.
Another of Totinos favorite shots
finds Nixon lying on a gurney as hes
rushed into a hospital. The grips built a
speed-rail rig over the gurney, and as
the EMTs push the gurney forward, the
camera, on a remote head, is looking
back toward the emergency entrance
they just used. The camera tilts down to
Nixons face. At that point, the scene
cuts to a tight shot of one of the wheels
on the gurney as it races down the hall.
To get this shot, Totino lay on a doorway
dolly and held the camera, following the
wheel until it turned the corner and
exited frame. He praises Aluisi, his long-
time focus puller, noting, I always like
to move quickly, which makes it doubly
hard on Dominic. Plus, all of our night
scenes were shot wide open at T2!
Totino says he and Howard have
developed a way of working together
that serves them well: they drive to the
set together every morning, along with
the 1st AD, and talk about the day
ahead of them. We get to the set early,
jump out of the car and get right to it,
he says. As we drive home at the end
of the day, we recap what weve done
and talk about the next day. Ron is
always really well prepared, and work-
ing with him is fantastic.
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.40:1
Super 35mm
Arricam System
Cooke, Nikkor, Angenieux lenses
Kodak Vision2 500T 5218, 100T 5212
Digital Intermediate
Nixon hangs up
on Frost after
drunk-dialing his
interrogator
before their final
interview. To
lend this
sequence a live
feel, the
filmmakers shot
Langella and
Sheen
simultaneously
on adjoining
sets.
20 January 2009

www.clairmont.com
Hollywood
818-761-4440
Vancouver
604-984-4563
Toronto
416-467-1700
Albuquerque
505-227-2525
Montreal
514-525-6556
Why do I like to get my camera
equipment from Clairmont?
Because I know and like the people who work
there, and have a long relationship with them.
They go out of their way to make sure I get
the gear I need.
Because I know the equipment will be new, well-
serviced, and backed up by a large inventory.
Because they buy the newest film and HD
equipment, and often modify it to work better than
when it comes straight from the manufacturer.
Because Clairmont has been very helpful in
educating my colleagues and me on the newest
digital equipment - demonstrating both the benefits
and limitations, and giving us an honest
assessment of what they like and don't like.
Whether a project calls for film or digital, 16 or 35
mm, high budget or low, Clairmont has always been
very supportive. And support is something we all
appreciate, whether from production, crew, or rental
house.
I would like to thank Denny and everyone at Clairmont Camera
for all the help and support theyve given me over the years.
Michael Bonvillain, ASC
AMC_0109_p021:Layout 1 12/6/08 12:07 PM Page 1
On the Ropes
by Claire Walla
Theres very little in professional
wrestling that screams realism. Partic-
ipants use fake, hyperbolic names (i.e.,
Sgt. Slaughter); dress in flashy, skin-
tight costumes; and perform an array of
choreographed moves that range from
Bodyslams to Tombstone Piledrivers.
But for Randy The Ram Robinson
(Mickey Rourke), the main character in
Darren Aronofskys The Wrestler, the
world outside the ring is painfully real.
We meet The Ram nearly two
decades after the peak of his fame. Hes
still wrestling, but his real livelihood is a
minimum-wage job at a local supermar-
ket. Hes trying to foster a connection
with a sympathetic stripper, Cassidy
(Marisa Tomei), and when his troubles
take a turn for the worse, he makes an
effort to repair his relationship with his
only child, Stephanie (Evan Rachel
Wood).
In developing a look for The
Wrestler, cinematographer Maryse
Alberti says she and Aronofsky wanted
to keep the mood of each space,
whether it was a wrestling ring or the
Acme Market where The Ram works.
Shooting Super 16mm, she avoided
filtration and relied primarily on existing
light at the locations, bolstering it when
necessary. For a scene in which The
Ram joins a number of his aging
colleagues for an autograph session at
a local VFW hall, Alberti tried to
preserve the drabness of the room by
adding only a few Mac 2000s to get
the light up to speed. She adds, For
the most part, I was not afraid to come
in and say, He looks great; I dont need
to do anything, or add just one little
bulb and say, It looks fine.
The filmmakers decision to
shoot Super 16 was influenced by the
productions modest budget, but the
graininess of the image also served to
create the semi-documentary feel
Aronofsky had in mind. The mix of docu-
mentary and feature credits on Albertis
rsum made her a perfect match for
the material, says the director. I was
excited about the prospect of working
with Maryse because she had done
features I was a big, big fan of, Happi-
ness [1998] and Velvet Goldmine [1998],
Right: Broken-
down wrestler
Randy The
Ram Robinson
(Mickey Rourke)
leans heavily on
the top rope
while trying to
recapture some
of his old magic
in the ring.
Below: The Ram
attempts a
reconciliation
with his
estranged
daughter (Evan
Rachel Wood).
T
h
e

W
r
e
s
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e
r

p
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t
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s

b
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N
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P
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e
s
.
22 January 2009
24 January 2009
and she had spent many years working
in documentaries. (Her credits in that
discipline include Enron: The Smartest
Guys in the Room and Taxi to the Dark
Side.)
He and Alberti spent about five
weeks scouting locations and planning
some shots, but roughly 40 percent of
The Wrestler was entirely unscripted.
There were many ways I could have
chosen to tell this story, but Mickey
[Rourke] is very much in the moment
hes very unpredictable between Action
and Cut, notes Aronofsky. I wanted to
create a visual language that would be
as free as possible to capture that.
The directors quest for realism
led the filmmakers to shoot The Rams
performances in the midst of real
wrestling matches, or promotions.
Alberti explains, We would go in with
Mickey in the middle of a match, shoot a
little bit, get out, and then come back in
to shoot a little bit more. They shot
sporadically because The Rams
matches were so physically demanding,
and because the time lapse allowed the
real wrestlers to get back into the ring
while the crew reloaded. The wrestlers
were thus able to rile up the crowd for
when the camera got rolling again. Its
hard to shoot in the middle of a scream-
ing crowd when you have to keep a
pace, because the people had come to
see a show, and they only had so much
patience for the film crew, recalls
Alberti. But we were on top of every-
thing, and nothing went wrong.
Aronofskys desire for an impro-
visational feel extended to the lighting
of a number of scenes. A-camera oper-
ator Peter Nolan recalls, To get a shot
of Mickey at a phone booth at night, we
literally rolled up in a couple of vans, the
prop guys pulled out the phone booth,
and Maryse lit it with two 1-by-1
Litepanels LEDs. It was a very quick
setup, but it was right for the shot
we werent skimping in any way.
Alberti often does her own oper-
ating, and when she signed onto The
Wrestler, she planned to do that, but I
very quickly realized Darren does a lot of
takes, and that physically it was going
to be too demanding I wouldnt have
had enough time to really look at the
lighting, she says. I was very lucky to
have Peter.
A longtime operator on the FX
series Rescue Me, which emphasizes
handheld camerawork, Nolan reports
that he was basically shooting with my
handheld bag of tricks to make sure I
could deliver the shot. With the help of
key grip Chris Skutch, he was able to
bring some techniques he uses on
Rescue Me to The Wrestler. For
instance, he often maneuvered around
scenes with half an apple box tethered
to his waist so that whenever he sat
down, he would always have a flat
surface on his lap where he could rest
his arms. It looks very funny on set,
obviously, but its a great technique, and
it works, says Nolan.
When youre in a very low
seated position with the camera on your
shoulder, your center of gravity is often
too high for you to stand smoothly and
travel with the actor, he continues. I
devised a system where my D-ring belt
could stick up out of my back brace,
creating a handle the dolly grip could
use to physically boom me up and
down. For quick height changes, I found
that by unlocking the medium eyepiece
on the Arri 416 so it could swivel freely,
I was able to use it as a left-hand grip
while cradling the camera with my right
Above: The Ram
is slammed into
a corner support
by a younger
rival. Below: The
filmmakers
captured most
match footage
during real
wrestling events
with paying
crowds.
AMC_0807_p015 6/29/07 11:51 AM Page 1
26 January 2009
hand; that allowed me to go from higher-
than-shoulder to almost floor height or
anywhere in between while following
the action. Every single shot in this movie
was handheld, and it was the first time
Id used the 416. I love that camera!
Albertis camera package,
supplied by Arris Camera Service Center
in New York, included Zeiss Ultra 16
prime lenses and two Angenieux Optimo
zooms, a 15-40mm Lightweight and a 28-
76mm. Inspired by the camerawork in the
Dardenne brothers LEnfant, the filmmak-
ers wanted the camera to be fixed on
Rourke most of the time, often following
him from a very close angle. We wanted
a strong sense of intimacy and intensity,
says Alberti. This created some chal-
lenges for Nolan during the wrestling
matches; he was following the action
from within the ring on a wide-angle lens
most of the movie was shot on a
12mm prime which meant he had to
be very close to the actors in order to get
good close-ups. It was very tricky, he
recalls. Even when glass and debris
were flying everywhere and the wrestlers
were throwing each other down, I had to
try to finesse the shot so I wasnt throw-
ing shadows, getting hit or allowing [the
actors] to bump into me. There was often
some kind of contact between us, but you
cant see it in the film because it
happened below the lens.
For the lighting of the wrestling
matches, Alberti relinquished much of
her control to the wrestling promoters,
who have their own set of lighting stan-
dards. Different venues do different
things, but its always a slight variation
on the same theme of having lights
directly on the four corners of the ring,
she says. Sometimes I changed the
ratio of light in each corner in order to
add a bit more contrast or a little more
definition, but I basically used what was
there.
The final match in the film, when
The Ram confronts The Ayatollah
(Ernest Miller), was a different story.
This was the only match that wasnt
filmed at an actual promotion; it was
shot at a New Jersey theater the
production rented. Production designer
Tim Grimes fully constructed the ring,
and Alberti and her crew spent three
days lighting it. She strove to maintain
the lighting configuration used at the
promotions, but because this was the
films climax, we had to add a little
more panache, she says. She achieved
this by creating a horseshoe-shaped rig
of colored lights that the wrestlers
would walk under on their way to the
ring. The Ram, who represents America
in this final match, is awash in red,
white and blue, whereas The Ayatollah
is doused in red and green.
One of the more challenging
scenes to shoot takes place in the strip
club where Cassidy works. In the scene,
the camera follows her in a long take as
she performs a striptease. None of the
crew saw the choreography until the
day of the shoot, so in a very short
amount of time, Alberti and Nolan had
to figure out how Nolan could circle
Tomei without throwing any shadows
on her body tough to do in a room full
of moving colored lights. Shes stand-
ing up, shes on a pole, shes crawling on
her belly, shes in a squatting position
and then shes standing up again,
Nolan recounts. We decided to mount
a monitor on the camera but quickly
found that as I went off-axis while view-
ing, the screen would go black. So we
mounted another on the other side,
angling one to serve from full high reach
to just below chest height, and I would
look to the other for all the lower-angle
coverage of Tomeis performance.
As for the shadows, we had a
grip flagging and then unflagging lights
as I moved around, he continues.
After 26 takes, we were eventually
able to pull it off without giving away
the fact that theres a camera following
her around.
Alberti says she is thrilled to
work in a field where stories like The
Wrestler come her way. In the last two
years, I did a film on soccer and ended
up at the World Cup, I did a film on reli-
gious leaders and met the Pope and the
Dalai Lama, I did The Wrestler and a
movie about truckers, and now Im
doing a documentary on Eliot Spitzer. I
like that film takes me in so many differ-
ent directions, because to me, these are
all interesting stories. Whatever genre
it is, I want a good script with a good
story.
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.40:1
Super 16mm
Arri 416
Zeiss and Angenieux lenses
Kodak Vision3 500T 7219,
Vision2 200T 7217
I
Erratum
In our coverage of Australia in
the November issue, we inaccurately
credited all of the photos to Douglas
Kirkland. James Fisher took some of
the shots.
Near right:
Cinematographer
Maryse Alberti.
Far right: The
Ram seeks
emotional
solace from a
stripper (Marisa
Tomei) who
has also
experienced
her share of
hard times.
AMC_1208_p071:00 asc closeup 11/5/08 2:34 PM Page 1
28 January 2009
For Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC, finding a
visual style for the domestic drama Revolutionary Road was a
matter of simplicity.
by Rachael K. Bosley
Unit photography by Franois Duhamel, SMPSP
Close
Focus
AMC_0109_p029p041:a_feature 12/5/08 1:28 PM Page 28
American Cinematographer 29
G
reat novels pose singular chal-
lenges to those who seek to
adapt them for the screen, and
some would say Richard Yates
Revolutionary Road, published
in 1961, poses more than most. Spare
and unsparing in equal measure, the
portrait of an unhappy marriage in
suburban Connecticut in 1955 is a
mainly interior drama whose charac-
ters and conflicts are rendered with
piercing clarity and little sentiment.
The novels observational stance was,
in fact, an early concern for cine-
matographer Roger Deakins, ASC,
BSC, who reunited with director
Sam Mendes to help bring the story
to the screen. When I read the book,
I was concerned the audience might
not be drawn into the characters
because theres a sort of distance
from them, says Deakins. Its an
interesting problem, really, and Sam
and I talked about it a lot.
The key, says Mendes, lay in
staying close to the main characters,
Frank and April Wheeler (Leonardo
DiCaprio and Kate Winslet), and
telling their story as simply as possi-
ble. The novel is about a marriage, a
period and a community, and I
wanted to make it primarily a story
about a marriage, says Mendes.
Referring to his previous films,
American Beauty (AC March and
June 00), Road to Perdition (AC Aug.
02) and Jarhead (AC Nov. 05), he
continues, Id directed an original
screenplay and [adaptations of] a
graphic novel and a memoir, but Id
never done a film adaptation of a
great novel, and I was wary of that.
After all, a novel can be great for the
opposite reasons a movie is great. But
I was drawn in the end to the simple
Opposite: Frank
and April
Wheeler
(Leonardo
DiCaprio and
Kate Winslet)
enjoy a rare
harmonious
moment in the
kitchen. This
page, top: The
mentally
unstable John
Givings
(Michael
Shannon,
gesturing at left)
pays a
disruptive visit
to the Wheeler
home with his
parents (Richard
Easton and
Kathy Bates).
Below: Director
Sam Mendes
(left) talks over
a scene with
Bates and
Winslet. At the
door to Mendes
left, Roger
Deakins, ASC,
BSC checks the
daylight
flooding the
room.
P
h
o
t
o
s

c
o
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Top: Arri
Compact 12Ks
bouncing off
Ultrabounce send
light through the
windows for day-
interior work at
the Wheeler
house. The rags
would also cut
the sun at the
same time,
notes gaffer Bill
OLeary. Middle:
Frank tries to
reassure his wife
in one of the
films many
kitchen scenes.
Bottom: With
bounce light
from small
instruments
inside
augmenting the
window light,
Deakins lines up
the shot.
30 January 2009
center of the story a man and a
woman in a room. I knew the heart of
the movie was going to be in the
close-ups, and Id never done a movie
in which that was the case.
In form and content,
Revolutionary Road could not be
more different from Mendes and
Deakins previous collaboration, the
Gulf War drama Jarhead, but Mendes
notes Deakins is a master at cutting
a suit according to its cloth. Just
taking his oeuvre with the Coen
brothers as an example, you cant
believe the same person lit Barton
Fink [1991] and Fargo [1996]; one is
highly stylized and the other is totally
observational, and yet theyre both
perfect. Rogers ability to morph
himself, to shape his style according
to the requirements of the script, is
extraordinary. I suppose there are
parallels amongst directors; some
have a single style and impose it on
whatever material theyre dealing
with, and others adjust their style to
the requirements of the story. Im in
the latter category, and Roger is, too.
On Revolutionary Road, the
requirements of the story, and
Mendes desire to tell it in an
unadorned style, led to a visual
approach Deakins calls very
straightforward. The cinematogra-
pher notes, Its a film about a
marriage falling apart in this suppos-
edly idyllic suburbia, and when
youve got two great actors in a story
like that, you dont want to do much
with the camera. You just want to
photograph it as best you can to let
the audience see the characters and
the performances that give you the
characters. The close focus on Frank
and April also led Mendes and
Deakins to make decisions about
shots only after the director had thor-
oughly rehearsed DiCaprio and
Winslet in the space at hand. It
wasnt like working with the Coen
brothers, who decide in advance
exactly how something will be staged
and shot, says Deakins. This wasnt
the kind of film where you were
Close Focus
Top: In the
elevator that
leads to his
office, Frank is
checked out by
a young
secretary (Zoe
Kazan). Middle:
Frank makes his
move. Bottom:
Amid an array of
800-watt HMI
Jokers bouncing
off muslin,
Mendes checks
the shot as
Kazan and
DiCaprio run
through the
scene.
going to impose anything, really, on
what the actors were going to do.
The filmmakers were united in
their desire to extend the mandate for
visual simplicity to their depiction of
the period. (See sidebar on page 36.)
One of the great dangers of period
design in movies is that for many of
us, our notion of how something
looked in the 30s or 50s is a received
notion based on what weve seen in
movies, observes Mendes. I thought
it was very important to try and
unlock some [reference] material
that wasnt other movies versions of
the 50s. Researchers for Mendes and
production designer Kristi Zea
assembled a variety of still
photographs from the era, and Zea
brought in a copy of Saul Leiters
Early Color, which proved to be a key
reference for the films overall feel.
In addition to his general
concerns about period design,
Mendes believed presenting the 50s
with any kind of flourish in
Revolutionary Road would take the
emphasis away from the heart of
the story. Theres a way of reading
the novel which is to say its actually
about the 50s, but I dont agree
entirely with that, he says. The
period obviously serves as a back-
drop, but I felt the period details
should be almost thrown in,
observed as though from a distance.
When there are big shots that show a
lot of period detail, like Frank
making his way through Grand
Central Station or through the
crowded streets of New York, I was
ruthless with them in the edit.
Theyre not lingered on or fetishized;
theyre simply our character on his
way to work. I didnt want to have
any shots that said, The 1950s:
werent they extraordinary! I simply
wanted it to be where these charac-
ters live.
That was fine with Deakins. I
hate the idea that you have to make
the photography colorful because its
the 50s, or you have to make it gauzy
and sepia because its an earlier era
32 January 2009
Ive never seen the point of that,
really, says the cinematographer,
whose recent period credits include
the current release Doubt, set in 1964,
and last years The Assassination of
Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
(AC Oct. 07). Deakins shot
Revolutionary Road clean and had
the negative (Kodak Vision2 200T
5217 and 500T 5218) processed
normally at DuArt Film and Video in
New York, a favorite lab when he is
working in the area.
Keen to create as much reality
on the screen as possible, Mendes
decided to shoot the picture on loca-
tion and, with few exceptions, in
continuity. It was good for the
movie that we committed to shoot
on location, but its a merciless deci-
sion to make on a period film, espe-
cially one set mainly in a small
suburban house, the director
acknowledges. I wanted the atmos-
phere and claustrophobia of a real
house, and I was willing, for the first
time, to occasionally sacrifice the
look of a scene for psychological
accuracy and mood. We were often
twisting ourselves into pretzels and
cramming ourselves into corners,
but I feel the reality of the situation is
there onscreen. As for shooting in
continuity, he continues, My job
was to help Leonardo and Kate
create a convincing marriage and
then, as the story progressed, watch
them gradually, bit by bit, destroy
each other. That seemed, for obvious
reasons, to be anathema to the idea
of shooting the end of the story at
the beginning.
Frank and Aprils arguments
grow more intense as the story
progresses, and Deakins notes that
shooting in continuity facilitated
a subtle evolution in the camera-
work, most of which he accom-
plished with the Power Pod remote
head/Aerocrane Jib Arm combina-
tion he has favored for several years.
Right: April
heads for an
interview in
Manhattan that
she hopes will
lead her and
Frank in a new
direction.
Below: Deakins
prepares to film
the scene with
one of his
favorite tools, a
Power Pod
remote head.
Close Focus
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Sam and I originally thought of
shooting the whole movie static to
give it the same observational feel as
the book, but once we started shoot-
ing, we agreed that felt a bit dead,
says Deakins. So [the style] starts off
static and gradually becomes more
fragmented. Films like this have their
own organic way of progressing; you
can fight it, but thats the wrong thing
to do.
We tried to stage quite a bit
in single takes, with the camera
going from one character to the
other as they moved within the
space, and I shot quite a bit with the
remote arm, he continues. By the
end of the film, when things get
really intense between April and
Frank, [the camera is] mostly hand-
held. Mendes adds, I wanted a real
rawness in Leo and Kates perfor-
mances in the last half-hour of the
movie, and when we reached that
point, I told Roger I didnt want to
make any decisions [about shots]; I
wanted it to be handheld, and I
wanted to let the actors be explosive
and unpredictable. Roger is a bril-
liant operator, and I think he was
excited by that, and thats very much
there in the film; the transition to
handheld has quite an intense
emotional impact.
Though shooting in continu-
ity had its benefits, in the Wheelers
house it was kind of a nightmare
logistically, says Deakins. Wed do a
scene in the downstairs front room,
then wed go upstairs to do a scene,
then wed come back down again for
another. If its a lovely day and [the
rest of the crew] can go outside
while youre shooting, its fine, but
when its raining and everyone has
to squeeze inside, it can be really
difficult to move around. (The
shoot, which took place in
34 January 2009
Right: April and
Frank argue over
their plans to
move to Paris.
Below: Deakins
works with
OLeary (center)
and electrician
Scott Gregoir to
fine-tune a
ringlight
comprising 60-
watt bulbs that
acted as an
overhead source
in the house.
Close Focus
During prep, Deakins
sketched plans for an
overhead source that
would stay out of frame
at Vitos, a roadside bar
where the Wheelers
and their friends go for
drinks and dancing. I
use these drawings as a
reference for my gaffer
and key [grip] to say,
This is what were
thinking, says
Deakins. We had to
shoot a lot of work at
this location in two or
three days, and this rig
allowed us to change
the feel and color of the
light quite quickly. In
the photo, April and
Shep (David Harbour)
share a dance under the
rig as the camera
circles the action.
36 January 2009
A subdued color
palette and
streamlined
design
characterize the
look of the
Wheelers home.
We ruled out
anything that hit
you over the
head with the
period, notes
set decorator
Debra Schutt.
D
esign and dcor are often among
the most-talked-about aspects of
a period film, but on
Revolutionary Road, the talents in
those departments strove to make
1955 look as plain as possible. That
was a concept [director] Sam
Mendes and [production designer]
Kristi Zea had from the beginning,
and I thought it was great, says set
decorator Debra Schutt. We all
wanted to make a period movie that
didnt look like one.
The interior of Frank and
April Wheelers home, where much
of the story takes place, was particu-
larly important and, says Schutt, the
most difficult to sort out. There
werent many details in the novel or
the screenplay about what it should
look like, she notes. We had to
really figure out who those charac-
ters were. In concert with Zea, she
determined that the Wheelers, a
young couple who had reluctantly
abandoned the city to settle in
suburbia, would maintain a home
that looked streamlined and
simple. Referencing mid-1950s style
magazines, design books, and Sears
Roebuck and Montgomery Ward
catalogs, Schutt chose furnishings
that were stylish for the time but did
not scream the 50s. We ruled out
anything with bright colors and
anything that hit you over the head
with the period. The look is really
quite plain.
Working in a real suburban
house and shooting in continuity
affected Schutts work in a number
of ways, she says. The furniture had
to keep going in and out because the
house was so small, and logistically, it
was rather a mess because it rained
quite often, so we had to find ways to
protect everything outside. But I find
it easier to work on location; its
easier to envision what a space is
going to be when I can see the actual
thing. Given that Mendes made
decisions about shots on a scene-by-
scene basis, Schutt and her team had
to be ready for anything, but she says
that is her habit, anyway. Sam would
call me a Method decorator, she says
with a laugh. You could open any
door or cabinet in the house, and it
was there. Also, we had a great prop
person, Tom Allen, and on-set
dresser, Ruth Ann DeLeon, who
made sure we were prepared no
matter what [the actors] did.
Revolutionary Road was
Schutts first collaboration with
Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC, whose
preference for using practical sources
whenever possible is well known. I
find half the job now is working with
the set decorator to get the right kind
of practicals, says the cinematogra-
pher. Schutt recalls Deakins inquired
about the light fixtures as soon as she
came aboard the show. Like every
other cinematographer in the world,
he was interested in the lampshades
and the quality of light they would
create, but he also wanted to look at
every single light fixture, and I hadnt
come across that in a cinematogra-
pher before, she says.
I could tell he considered the
practicals the most important part of
his lighting, she continues. He
spends time thinking about them,
and hes quite specific about what he
wants. For instance, for the night
scene by the side of the road, he
wanted streetlights that would give a
rectangular, tapered light, and for an
argument in the Wheelers front
room, he wanted a ceiling fixture
that would send light down and out
in a fan shape with a hard edge. (In
the end, the ceiling fixture wasnt
visible in the latter scene, so Deakins
used an 18" ring of 60-watt bulbs
surrounded by silver foil instead.)
It took me a while to figure
out that for Roger, its about the
shape of the light as much as the
quality of it, says Schutt. Its more
like architecture for him. Hes the
architect of light.
Rachael K. Bosley
Furnishing a Plain Period Look
Connecticut and New York City in
the summer of 2007, experienced a
fair share of rain.)
I didnt really feel shooting in
the house was confining in terms of
what we could do with the camera,
but it was sometimes frustrating in
terms of how I could light it, contin-
ues Deakins. Locations like that only
look good for about a half-hour or an
hour at a certain time of day on a good
day, but you cant allow for that. It
takes an enormous amount of light to
maintain a naturalistic, consistent
daytime feel inside, and the house was
backed up against a hill, so getting
light into the upper rooms and into
the kitchen around back was tricky.
To accomplish this, his electrical crew,
led by gaffer Bill OLeary, bounced
12K Arri Compact HMIs off 20'x20',
12'x20' and 12'x12' sheets of muslin or
Ultrabounce set outside the windows.
For the ground-floor scenes, we
worked off the grade, and on the
second floor, we worked off a scaf-
fold, says OLeary. The rigs danced
about a bit to accommodate the shots,
and the beauty of a single-camera
show is that this is possible; the closer
one can work to the edge of the frame,
the better.
Because every shot in the
house depended on the scene and
the blocking, pre-lighting was out of
the question. We had the house
stripped apart and rewired so we
could use the sockets in the walls,
and we also put power points in the
ceilings so we didnt have to run
cables in the room, says Deakins.
We used no big lights inside, mainly
200-watt or 400-watt Jokers. A huge
amount of the film was lit by practi-
cals in the shot. These practical table
lamps and floor lamps held standard
household bulbs ranging from 60 to
200 watts, according to OLeary. We
used no tricks or special gags it
was all standard fare but properly
applied, so it worked, notes the
Left: Frank and
Aprils first
encounter is
presented in
flashback. The
scenes soft
overhead source
was a 6'-long-by-
4'-wide oval
ringlight of 60-
watt bulbs, some
of which were
dimmed to create
a warm feel. We
teased it with
muslin to cut
spill and send
some fill back to
the center, where
the actors played
the scene, notes
OLeary. Below:
Mendes checks
an angle on a
scene depicting
one of the
couples liaisons
in Franks
apartment.
38 January 2009
gaffer. For fill, we usually bounced
Tweenies off 4-by-4 muslins, and the
lamps and bounce material were
often hung from the ceiling to leave
the floor clear for the actors and the
camera.
Deakins and OLeary used a
similar strategy at another location
that called for a consistent daylight
feel, Franks office, a large, open space
subdivided by a sea of cubicles. The
location was the fifth floor of a
municipal building in Lower
Manhattan. I initially thought we
could position cranes to send light
through the windows, but the city
refused to shut any portion of the
street below, recalls Deakins. The
sound department had to put -
inch Plexiglas on all the windows to
create a sound baffle, and we had to
add on to a scaffold that was in place
on the first floor for a construction
project. We ended up with a plat-
form outside the windows that ran
the length of the building. On the
platform, OLearys crew rigged
about a dozen 12K Arri Compacts
bounced off 12'x12' muslins to send
even daylight into the office. It was
the only way we could work, notes
Deakins. There wasnt enough
natural daylight in the morning, and
there was too much of it in the after-
noon.
A location that posed a differ-
ent sort of lighting conundrum was a
stretch of highway in Connecticut
that served as the setting for one of
the films earliest scenes, an argu-
ment between Frank and April that
starts in the car and continues on the
side of the road after Frank pulls over
and follows his wife out of the car.
The scene takes place at night and,
given that highways were not well lit
in 1955, potential sources were
limited. The most important choice
Close Focus
Right: Following
a particularly
savage
argument, Frank
pensively
awaits his
wifes return.
Below: April
retreats to the
woods behind
the house to
escape her
husband.
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was how you saw the scene, says
Deakins. I decided we could do it
with three practicals, a little tungsten
bounce off a sheet of polystyrene,
and car headlights passing by in the
background.
The three practicals were
period streetlights manufactured by
the art department that each held
four 2K 3200K bulbs (standing in
for the 8'-long fluorescent tubes that
would normally be used in the
fixtures); the lights were positioned
along a gravel turnoff that had also
been created by the art department.
In some shots, you can see about a
mile and a half down the road, and
theres no way we were going to light
that, so we just let the passing cars
headlights be the background, says
Deakins. Of course, because theyre
period cars, we had to replace the
headlights with stronger bulbs, tung-
sten Par 36s, run off batteries and
inverters. OLeary adds, We outfit-
ted about two dozen period cars
[that way]. Its probably the iffiest
situation a film electrician can get
into batteries and inverters are
notoriously unreliable but it all
worked.
The filmmakers considered
shooting the driving portion of the
scene practically, but Deakins
suggested using poor mans process
instead. What we needed to create
in the car was the feeling of Franks
headlights bouncing back from the
road onto their faces, and I knew I
could do that in a barn, says the
cinematographer. We found one
that gave us about 40 feet of space,
and we did the shot very quickly in a
couple of takes. Wed scheduled two
days for the same scene when we
planned to shoot it on the open road;
at that time of year, darkness lasts
little more than five hours. To create
the feel of headlights approaching
and taillights retreating behind the
Wheelers car, the crew put four
Tweenies (two for headlights and
two gelled red for taillights) on
dollies that were pushed back and
forth behind the car as the lights
were dimmed up and down. A little
dust was added to the rear window to
slightly blow out the lights. For the
front, says Deakins, I did exactly
what Id have done if wed shot on
the road: I put a fluorescent tube on
the [hood] and had it moved up and
down very slightly to give the light on
their faces a bit of life.
Another scene Deakins and
Mendes discussed at length ahead of
time depicts Aprils liaison with a
neighbor, Shep Campbell (David
Harbour), in a car outside Vitos Log
Cabin, a popular local bar. Deakins
recalls, We were struggling with how
to cover it. Should we do a number
of cuts looking toward the car?
Should we see it in a wide shot of the
car? Should we see the glass misting
up? When we got there, Sam started
working out the blocking with Kate
and David, and I was watching them
from the back seat of the car. There
was a slightly observational quality
about that angle, a matter-of-fact-
ness, that made the whole thing feel
really sad. I pointed it out to Sam,
and we ended up shooting the whole
thing from the back seat in one shot.
Sometimes, on the day, I find I see
something thats much simpler than
what Id imagined and, I hope,
much, much better.
The filmmakers had access to
35mm dailies throughout the shoot,
but Deakins was unable to watch
them every night he spent many
evenings digitally grading two other
pictures, Jesse James and In the Valley
of Elah, on a portable system EFilm
had set up for him nearby, in
Close Focus
40
Seated on an
ATV, Deakins
prepares to track
Winslet on her
flight into the
woods. We
used a beach
ball as a camera
support a
poor mans
Wescam, if you
like, he says.
Stamford, Conn. Doing that at
night and on weekends during the
shoot was really tiring, but it was
actually better than working at
EFilm itself because we had a dedi-
cated system to ourselves and didnt
have to wait as long as we normally
would for stuff to render! he says
with a laugh. To make his intentions
clear to Revolutionary Roads dailies
timer at DuArt, Steve Blakely,
Deakins used his Leica M8 to take
digital stills of his lighting setups
with the stand-ins in place, did a bit
of work on them in Photoshop and
then e-mailed them to Steve, he
says. Ive worked with him so many
times he didnt really need them, but
it was quite a good reference.
Deakins was able to supervise
Revolutionary Roads 4K digital
intermediate in person at EFilm, and
the facilitys remote system was
transported to New York so he and
Mendes could view the results
together. An enthusiastic proponent
of the DI, Deakins notes the process
was especially useful on this picture.
All the work in the house was a
constant chase against the light, and
the DI was the final tool I could use
to make all those shots match a bit
better and give the light an even feel.
It was about giving the film as much
reality as we could.
Marveling at Deakins ability
to elevate images without losing a
sense of the real both in the DI suite
and on the set, Mendes emphasizes
that such subtlety is just one charac-
teristic of the cinematographers
work that makes it unique. Beyond
Deakins considerable skill with the
tools of his trade lies something that
is perhaps less obvious but, says the
director, just as remarkable: selfless-
ness. Its stating the obvious to say
Roger is a great cinematographer,
but his work is never self-advertis-
ing, says Mendes. He wont ever
stand between the picture and the
audience and say, Look at the way
this is lit. Look at the way this is shot.
The effect of the movie is therefore
cumulative; you cant pull any single
shot out because it doesnt mean
anything taken out of context. Its the
whole film that is the statement. I
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TECHNICAL SPECS
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Super 35mm
Arri 535B; Arricam Lite
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Kodak Vision2
200T 5217, 500T 5218
Printed on Kodak Vision 2383
41
42 January 2009
T
he $150 million film The
Curious Case of Benjamin
Button is only Claudio
Mirandas second feature as a
director of photography, but its
director, David Fincher, had the
utmost confidence in him they
had actually been working together
for years. Miranda worked his way
up in the electrical department and
had been a gaffer on Finchers Seven,
The Game and Fight Club, and he
had also shot additional photogra-
phy on Zodiac and many of
Finchers commercials. It is a big
step, and you can almost panic your-
self about taking on such a big
movie, acknowledges Miranda.
But I had a reasonable amount of
prep to work out the logistics, and I
was surrounded by a great support
system, a talented crew who had
done huge jobs. I knew I could
count on them, whether it was one
space light or a hundred. That crew
included operator Kim Marks, gaffer
Christopher Strong, key grip
Michael Coo and 1st AC Jonas
Steadman.
Benjamin Button, which
draws its inspiration from a short
story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, begins in
New Orleans in 1918 with the birth
of the titular character, who emerges
from the womb as an infant with the
physical appearance of an elderly,
ailing man. Horrified by the sight,
Buttons father dumps the baby at a
home for senior citizens, and myste-
Cinematographer Claudio Miranda and post supervisor Peter
Mavromates crack The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which
presents a main character who ages in reverse.
by Douglas Bankston
Unit photography by Merrick Morton, SMPSP
An
Old Soul
$0&B BS S EBIHDWXUH 30 3DJH
the 10mm, 12mm and 14mm focal
lengths within the zoom range. He
turned to faster Zeiss DigiPrimes
when the situation called for extra
speed.
For monitoring on set,
Miranda had a look-up table, non-
baked, that would add a light con-
trast to the images and take away
some of the Vipers green cast on the
screen. If I had left the image flat, it
would have been hard to judge, he
says. The LUT wasnt great or per-
fect, but with it, we knew what we
could get out of the imagery.
Like all of Davids movies,
this movie features very exact fram-
ing, and camera moves go from a
definite Point A to a definite Point
B, continues Miranda. The only
riously, Buttons condition gradually
improves as he ages physically, he
ages in reverse, getting younger with
the passage of time. At the heart of
the story is a romance with a child-
hood sweetheart, Daisy, who grows
up with Button but cannot, because
of his ailment, grow old with him.
Although Benjamin Button
spans eight decades, the filmmakers
decided against using a variety of
technologies to create different peri-
od looks. The intention was to be as
naturalistic as possible, says
Miranda. Our initial influence for
textures and framing was [painter]
Andrew Wyeth. I took my still cam-
era to the locations, documented the
natural light and figured out what I
wanted to add or subtract. I didnt
want it to feel like we were beaming
in light anywhere. When you bring
in 40-footers and lights and cables,
the original [look] sometimes gets
muted.
Most of the picture was
captured with the Thomson
GrassValley Viper FilmStream,
which Fincher and Harris Savides,
ASC had used on Zodiac (AC April
07). Benjamin Button was shot in
4:4:4 FilmStream mode with the
cameras CinemaScope option,
which yields a 2.37:1 aspect ratio at
1920x1080 resolution. Mirandas
lens of choice was a 6-24mm Zeiss
DigiZoom, and he frequently used
handheld work is Tarsems, the
travel-around-the-world sequence.
The shots to which Miranda refers
were made on film by director
Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall);
when Fincher found out lead actor
Brad Pitt was touring the Far East
and Singh was in the same area, he
asked Singh to shoot footage of the
actor in exotic locations to enhance
the appearance of Button experi-
encing the world. According to
Miranda, film was chosen for those
segments because using a Viper in
those locales wasnt feasible.
Miranda also shot some
35mm on the show, using Kodak
Vision2 50D 5201 and Vision3
500T 5219 in Arri 435s to achieve
some slow-motion effects. I dont
Opposite: While
aging in reverse,
the youthful but
elderly-looking
Benjamin Button
(Brad Pitt)
admires his
improving
physique. This
page, top: Button
has a drink with
a stranger who
turns out to be
his long-lost
father. Below:
Director David
Fincher (in gray
ski cap) and
cinematographer
Claudio Miranda
(black ski cap)
crank up a
vintage Victrola
for a period
funeral scene.
P
h
o
t
o
s

c
o
u
r
t
e
s
y

o
f

P
a
r
a
m
o
u
n
t

P
i
c
t
u
r
e
s

a
n
d

W
a
r
n
e
r

B
r
o
s
.

b-benjamin button_:b_feature 12/9/08 3:18 PM Page 43
44 January 2009
AnOldSoul
know what film stock Tarsem
used, adds Miranda. He was on
his own mission.
For scenes in which Button
sails the high seas in an effort to
become worldly wise, the boat
actually never touched water it
was mounted on a motion-con-
trolled gimbal inside a Sony
Pictures soundstage. Nevertheless,
Miranda singles these sequences
out as the most challenging to
shoot. They were tricky mainly
because of all the different looks we
had to create to suggest he is travel-
ing around the world complete-
ly overcast, night, night with snow,
night with full moon, night with
fog, high noon, sunset, and sun
coming from various angles.
For a confrontation with a
German U-boat, the movements of
Buttons tugboat were programmed
into a computer, and these move-
ments would trigger certain lights.
Its motion would trigger Lightning
Strikes units and other lights that
would simulate gunfire during the
encounter, for example, says
Miranda. There were lights to sim-
ulate explosions, and though there
was no pyro, it actually looks like
there was!
Faking moonlight can be
tricky, particularly within the con-
fines of a soundstage. A lot of peo-
ple do the soft moonlight with bal-
loons, but David and I talked about
a harder moonlight, says the cine-
matographer. The hardest lamp I
could think of was a Shadowmaker,
which is basically a 7K Xenon in a
black box with no reflectors. I shot
tests with it, and David loved it. It
was a little unnerving to light a 90-
foot boat with it I was on the
brink of underexposure but it
looks pretty cool.
For sunlight, we used a cou-
ple of Arri T24s and T12s with some
color on them, he continues. The
overcast look was just space lights,
about 160 up in a grid, that were
gelled with
1
2 CTB. At one point, I
used four Dinos for a look, and I
also used a single 24K tungsten
gelled with CTB. I mixed it up.
Everything was mounted on track
overhead. We had blacks, blues and
even some whites that could be
brought around the boat.
Atmosphere is a big part of
the look during Buttons early years
in New Orleans. Though there was
electricity at the time, oil-based and
gas-based flame fixtures were still
common, creating a smoky haze
outdoors and indoors. For one strik-
ing scene, Miranda kept the atmos-
pheric haze but ditched firelight for
electricity to great effect. Button, age
7 but looking 70 and riding in a
wheelchair, ventures into a warmly
lit church revival held in a large,
Above: An
exterior view of
a revival tent
shows the
warm glow
produced by
strings of
vintage, clear
60-watt bulbs
hung from the
ceiling. Below:
Inside the tent,
a preacher
(Lance E.
Nichols)
exhorts the
frail, 7-year-old
Benjamin to
arise from his
wheelchair.
Left: Diffused
light illuminates
a close-up of
Pitt. Below:
Benjamin and
his first
paramour,
Elizabeth Abbott
(Tilda Swinton),
grow closer
during a series
of late-night
tte--ttes
over tea.
white tent. Along the ceiling were
crisscrossed strings of vintage clear
60-watt bulbs. I barely got a T1.4 or
even a T1 out of the whole tent
being lit up, recalls Miranda. We
had to crank the voltage up to 140 to
get some sort of exposure out of
them. The bulbs got very, very
warm. What makes this remarkable
is that this was actually a visual-
effects shot sitting in the wheel-
chair was an age-appropriate child
actor wearing a blue hood with
tracking marks. Pitts head would
come later. No additional movie
lights were used for the scene, but for
this and other blue-hood effects
shots, the number of Vipers was
increased from two to four; the addi-
tional two served as witness cameras
recording in the 4:2:2 HDStream
mode.
Throughout the shoot,
Miranda would light the set first,
often with only small practicals, and
then let the actors play within that
light. We had all these Andrew
Wyeth references, but when it came
time to shoot, it was more a matter
of figuring out the best way to light
the room naturally, he says. Thats
what I liked about the Viper I
could put a bulb in the shot and
actually light someone with it, and
the image wouldnt be horrible.
Miranda did provide a slight
kick for the actors on many occa-
sions. Id put a clear bulb kind of
far away so it didnt add any expo-
sure but put a little glint in the eye,
he says. But overall, he notes, we
liked toplight a lot. Sometimes I
used toplight because it looked good
on Brad, [but] sometimes sidelight
looked good on him. Sometimes it
was just a bulb or a candle we helped
out with the little-light-behind-the-
candle trick.
Part of the story takes place
during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
At that time, Daisy (Cate Blanchett)
is lying on her deathbed in a hospi-
tal. These scenes, which have a
slightly steel-blue cast, serve as a
framing device for the telling of
Buttons story. To shoot them,
Miranda switched to a quieter Sony
4:4:4 CineAlta F23 (using the same
46 January 2009
AnOldSoul
Right: Elizabeth
signals for help
while
attempting to
swim the
English
Channel.
Middle: The
crew captures a
shot in the
Paramount
water tank.
Bottom: After
being pulled
from the water,
Elizabeth
reflects upon
her failed
attempt while
speaking to a
reporter on
Calais Beach in
France.
lenses) because the filmmakers
found that the Vipers fairly loud
fans couldnt be turned off for long
takes without the camera overheat-
ing. The workflow remained
unchanged.
About half the shots in
Benjamin Button feature digital
effects. In some instances, an actors
performance in one take was isolat-
ed and merged with another actors
performance in a different take via
splitscreen. Many shots also featured
bluescreen components for future
background composites and set
extensions. What I tried to do was
light [foreground elements and
actors] with a black pulled over the
bluescreen and make sure they
looked right, says Miranda. Then,
we opened that up and lit the blue-
screen last.
The Workflow
When Fincher decided to use
the Viper again on Benjamin Button,
he and his collaborators transplant-
ed the workflow from Zodiac to
the new picture, according to
postproduction supervisor Peter
Mavromates. He notes, The main
difference was that on Zodiac, when
we ingested dailies, we had to copy
them off the hard drives and then
render our edit media, which took
hours and hours. For Benjamin
Button, S.two developed a real-time
batch-digitize process with audio to
create our edit media.
Images captured by the Viper
were recorded via dual HD-SDI
links to an S.two digital field
recorder, which holds a 400GB hard
drive known as the Digital Film
Magazine System, or D.Mag. Each
drive can hold about 30 minutes of
footage. Dailies were instantly acces-
sible. The system also allowed the
production to forego the use of
clappers, which helped keep the
shooting momentum going. The
speed at which David works is phe-
nomenally fast, says Mavromates.
Wayne Tidwell, the data-capture
engineer, entered in basic informa-
tion about the scene and the take.
When David said, Cut, the system
went back and burned in that slate
information on frames two through
six. Frame one was always a framing
chart. The system auto-increments
the take every time, so within sec-
onds, David was rolling on the next
take.
When a D.Mag became full, it
Above: A final
composite from
the film shows
Benjamin
welcoming his
young friend
Daisy (played at
age 10 by
Madisen Beaty)
aboard the
tugboat
Chelsea, where
hes found
employment as
a deck hand.
Left: Scenes of
the tugboat in
motion were
shot on a Sony
Pictures
soundstage
with a prop
ship mounted
on a motion-
controlled
gimbal. General
ambience was
provided by
overhead space
lights, but the
motion of the
boat could
trigger specific
lighting cues,
including
gunfire and
explosions.
48 January 2009
was delivered directly to what
Mavromates called the digital lab,
also known as the edit room. The
material was real-time batch-digi-
tized into the DVCPro HD codec
and into an Apple Final Cut Pro sys-
tem. That media was then backed up
at full resolution with no compres-
sion onto two LTO tapes, which
were then geographically separated.
Once the media was confirmed to be
safely in the Final Cut system and
backed up, the D.Mag was sent back
to the set. Production typically used
15-25 D.Mags, depending on how
far the set was from the digital lab. If
they were shooting on location in
another city, the D.Mag was cloned
before being sent to the digital lab.
The 35mm footage was telecined to
D-5 tape and ingested from that.
Dailies were distributed via
the Web. We had secure Web-
based dailies distribution called
Pix, says Mavromates. In Final
Cut Pro, assistants created a media
file that was uploaded to the Pix
system, and access was given to spe-
cific individuals.
Benjamin Button was edited
on Final Cut Pro and conformed on
Iridas Speedgrade. S.two wrangled
a custom piece of software, a nega-
tive pull application written by
someone in New Zealand, recalls
Mavromates. All the digital dailies
were backed up on LTO tapes it
AnOldSoul
Top: The
tugboats
commander,
Capt. Mike
(Jared Harris), is
astounded to
learn that
Benjamin has
never slept
with a woman.
Middle: The
jaunty Mike
promptly takes
Button to a
bordello, where
he shows off
his body art.
Bottom: Mortally
wounded by a
German U-boats
guns, Mike
offers his
friend some
final words
of wisdom.
was about 500 terabytes of material,
and it was not reasonable to keep all
that online.
Injecting Bradness
At first glance, Button might
appear to have little in common
with popcorn tycoon Orville
Redenbacher, but both belong to an
extremely small club of people who
have had their heads digitally
replaced. In the case of Redenbacher,
it was for a commercial Fincher and
Miranda shot two years ago more
than 10 years after Redenbacher
died. ConAgra Foods wanted to res-
urrect his image, so to speak. David
saw the ad as an opportunity to test
how one could replace the head of a
live performer on the set with some-
one elses head, says Mavromates,
who was not involved with the ad.
David likes to joke that he learned
how not to do Benjamin Button after
that commercial. The software used
worked well on short tests, but once
they did the whole commercial, it
wasnt a very accurate representation
of the original performance.
Throughout Benjamin Button,
it had to appear as though Pitt was
playing the role at every age, and, of
course, the adult actor didnt physi-
cally match the younger Buttons.
The solution was to have size-appro-
priate actors play the character on set
and then replace their heads in post
with a properly scaled Pitt head that
was entirely computer-generated.
Digital Domain created the CG
heads, working with performances
by Pitt that were shot separately.
(Digital Domains visual-effects
supervisor, Eric Barba, declined an
interview request.)
There is a well-known study
that basically boils down humans
facial expressions to 156 different
ones, and we brought Brad in and
captured him making those expres-
sions, says Mavromates. When the
Digital Domain team applied them,
however, they felt those 156 did not
cover all the emotions the film need-
AnOldSoul
Right: A giant
silk diffuses
the light for a
daytime street
scene. Below:
The crew
captures a
nighttime
walk-and-talk
between
Benjamin and
Daisy on a
cobblestone
street.
50 January 2009
AMC_ 1008_p025:00 asc closeup 8/26/08 12:00 PM Page 1
52 January 2009
ed, so we had to bring Brad back and
shoot more stills of him making very
specific facial expressions. They then
plugged those into the CG rig of his
head, which could go from expres-
sion number 99 to 123 to 72, or
whatever was required.
The CG rig was created using
a combination of methods. A life-
sized bust of Pitt was scanned in a
geodesic dome at the University of
Southern California that captures
the interplay of light on the face and
head under every lighting condition.
The actor was later brought in to
ImageMetrics to shoot his perform-
ances, which mimicked the various
actors who wore blue hoods on set.
ImageMetrics has sophisticated
software to analyze faces, notes
Mavromates. We shot Brad against
black with four cameras in a semicir-
cle in front of him. They analyzed
that and converted it into data that
could be handed to Digital Domain
and injected into the CG model. The
value of doing that was largely to
maintain audio sync. David got that
and he got Brads performance,
which he referred to as the Bradness
of a shot.
During the shooting of the
original plate, Fincher directed the
actor wearing the blue hood. Those
scenes were then edited in prepara-
tion for shooting Pitt, who could
watch that footage on a monitor as
he acted. Mavromates recalls, David
AnOldSoul
Top: Benjamin is
treated to a
private
performance by
Daisy (played as
an adult by Cate
Blanchett), who
has become a
dancer with the
Moscow Ballet.
Middle: A China
ball helps to
illuminate
Blanchett during
a rehearsal
scene. Bottom:
Benjamin visits
a hospitalized
Daisy after her
career is cut
short by a
traffic accident.
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AMC_0308_p02 3:Layout 1 1/30/08 1:41 PM Page 1
would direct Brad by referring to
the video and saying, Heres what I
need you to match, or, Heres what I
didnt get. Part of it was about
matching the dialogue, and part of it
was about David pushing the per-
formance within certain bound-
aries to where he wanted it. He
couldnt change Brads head move-
ment drastically because it was
locked into what was shot with the
other actor. Even if the actor wearing
the blue hood turned his head drasti-
cally, Brad didnt do that when we
shot him against black because what
we needed was his facial perform-
ance.
Eric and his team got to know
Brads face so well that they found he
carries his head at about a 5-degree
tilt, and when they didnt apply that
little tilt to the CG head, it felt a lot
less like Brad, he continues. They
strove to capture all the subtle details
of his demeanor. The goal was to cre-
ate a digital Brad from the neck up.
Lifeless eyes are often a prob-
lem with CG characters, and
Mavromates notes that the visual-
effects team took pains to avoid this
drawback. They learned how to
make the eyeballs moist and how to
make CG moisture accumulate on
the lower eyelids, he marvels. With
that, they suddenly looked photo-
real and not synthetic.
AnOldSoul
54 January 2009
Top: Having
finally reached
compatible
ages, Benjamin
and Daisy
consummate
their long-
simmering love.
Middle: The
lovers bask in
the afterglow of
passion. Bottom:
A shaft of light
guides the
invigorated
Benjamin
toward a
motorcycle.
Daisys head treatment was
more traditional. Over the course of
the film, she becomes an accom-
plished ballerina, and because
Blanchett is not a ballerina, her face
was tracked and composited onto a
dance doubles. For the characters
younger years, Blanchett was made to
look more youthful through digital
manipulation. For Daisys golden
years, a combination of makeup and
digital retouching was used.
Finishing Touches
Warner Bros. Motion Picture
Imaging handled Benjamin Buttons
2K digital intermediate, with colorist
and ASC associate member Jan
Yarborough manning the controls of a
FilmLight Baselight 8. Because the
Viper records a raw image that has a
bit of a green cast, what you see is not
exactly what you will get until the LUT
is applied downstream. Initially, we
kind of struggled with the LUTs to get
the look we wanted, recalls Miranda.
I took my concerns to Peter, and we
made up a new LUT that gave us a lot
more color range. It was like a whole
world had opened up.
As raw images, theyre not
showing you a colorimetry that is
conducive to having visual-effects
work or anything else done, notes
Yarborough. Therefore, we had to
apply the LUT to the files through the
Filmlight, and we also supplied all the
visual-effects vendors with that LUT.
In some cases, we made color correc-
tions specific to Davids direction,
then rendered that and gave that ren-
dered color file to the visual-effects
vendor.
After applying the LUT to the
images, the types of color corrections
applied were standard fare. Claudio
was extremely good at painting a pic-
ture with light, and he and David
worked hard on set to get the look
they wanted, says Yarborough. Quite
a number of the images I received
could almost be called pre-painted as
far as light and exposure goes.
At the time of these interviews,
55
Fincher and the post team were
focused on approvals for back-
ground-plate composites, and the fil-
mout process, which was also to be
handled by MPI, was not a concern.
Mavromates notes, These compa-
nies have done a really good job with
the DI in the last 18 months, so the
nervousness about the process has
mostly evaporated. I still worry
about it, though, because Im the one
who has to manage the cost of the
filmout, and if people dont like the
filmout, its a five-figure expense!
In post, about 80 percent of
Benjamin Button was put through
grain-reduction and sharpening
processes at Lowry Digital, whose
artists had done similar work on
Zodiac (Post Focus, AC May 01).
Even if David had shot all of
Benjamin Button on film, he would
have wanted to do the Lowry pro-
cessing because it unifies something
that is slightly distracting to him
it makes the visual palette more con-
sistent, notes Mavromates. This
movie covers eight decades and
jumps to different places on the
planet, so the goal was not to unify
everything; it was more about unify-
ing certain sections of the story.
Regardless of whether you
capture on film or a digital format,
there are variances in noise and
detail from frame to frame, says
Alan Silvers, Lowrys director of
business development. If you can
find the best detail of each frame and
average it across all the frames, then
you can bring out fine detail that
isnt apparent to you in playback. Its
remarkable how much information
is in the capture; you just have to
know how to dig it out. We manage
56
An aged Daisy
cares for
Benjamin in
his waning
days of life.
AnOldSoul
picture detail independent of grain
or noise and provide the filmmaker
with broad control over how much
grain or noise remains on the final
images.
Lowry would get a FireWire
drive from MPI that held 10-bit log
1920x1080 anamorphic DPX files
that had been color-corrected, but
not with the final grade. The first
step is to run the frames through our
noise-reduction process so they are
flicker-free, noise-free and artifact-
free, says Patrick Cooper, Lowrys
lead project director on Benjamin
Button. The next step is detail
enhancement and the noise or
grain addition. I enhance the
images and put a nice, even amount
of noise on the picture, and then the
files are loaded back onto the
FireWire drive and shipped back to
MPI. (The 2K scans of the 35mm
material went through Lowrys pro-
cessing. At press time, the Sony F23
footage and select scenes shot with
the Viper were not scheduled for
processing.)
Visual-effects plates needed a
few extra steps. The only thing dif-
ferent with the pre-composite effects
shots is that I didnt add any noise
back into the image, says Cooper.
That way, there was a sharpness tar-
get the compositors could match,
and the noise-free imagery made it
easier for them to do things like pull
mattes. Once we go the shot back
with the effects completed, wed put
an amount of noise on it equal to the
noise in the surrounding shots.
Sharpening shots of the title
character was treated more delicate-
ly. If its a close-up or a shot of
somebody with a lot of makeup, we
want to be careful about how much
we sharpen it, notes Cooper. I vary
the enhancement on a shot-by-shot
basis. Sometimes, enhancement
wasnt applied at all. Mavromates
notes, Theres a love scene with Daisy
and Benjamin when theyre in a
warmly lit bed covered by mosquito
netting, and we all agreed the look
had a beautiful softness. That softness
accented whats going on in the scene,
so we didnt want to mess with it. I
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.40:1
High-Definition Video and
35mm (3-perf and 4-perf)
Thomson GrassValley Viper;
Sony CineAlta F23;
Arri 435
Zeiss lenses
Kodak Vision2 50D 5201,
Vision3 500T 5219
57
58 January 2009
Brothers
in
Arms
Brothers
in
Arms
Defiance, shot by Eduardo Serra, ASC, AFC, tells a remarkable
true story of Jewish resistance during World War II.
by Benjamin B
Unit photography by Karen Ballard
AMC_0109_p058p069:c_feature 12/5/08 2:53 PM Page 58
six or seven cameras in seconds,
knowing exactly how each will be
used. I once told him I was amazed
by his technical capacity as a direc-
tor, and he said, Remember, before
my first film, I shot 200 hours of
television.
Defiance is the latest high-
profile project for Serra, a
Portuguese-born cinematographer
I
n February 2007, director Ed
Zwick had dinner in Paris with
two collaborators, production
designer Dan Weil and director
of photography Eduardo Serra,
ASC, AFC. Both Serra and Weil are
based in France, and both had
worked with Zwick on Blood
Diamond (2006). Weil recalls that
over dinner, he and Serra asked
Zwick about a project the director
had discussed with them, a striking
story about Jewish partisans during
World War II. Eduardo and I asked
Ed, Why dont you do it? says Weil.
Six weeks later, I received the script
for Defiance.
In an interview at his home in
Paris, Serra shares his enthusiasm
for the project, and for his dinner
mates. Working with Dan is formi-
dable, he says. We are always talk-
ing. He never imposes anything;
there is a real collaboration that I
have rarely experienced. The cine-
matographer also marvels at Zwicks
mastery of his mtier. Ed is a very
remarkable person and Ive never
seen anyone like him he can place
who is sought out by directors on
both sides of the Atlantic. He has
earned two Academy Award nomi-
nations, for The Wings of the Dove
(AC June 98) and Girl With a Pearl
Earring (AC Jan. 04), and a shelf in
his home is heavy with other
awards, including two Camerimage
Frogs.
Based on the book by
Opposite:
Brothers Tuvia
and Zus Bielski
(Daniel Craig,
top, and Liev
Schreiber) take
to the forests of
Belarus after
their families are
massacred by
Nazis in
Defiance. This
page, left: Tuvia
and his brothers
help a growing
number of Jews
escape the
Nazis. Below:
Cinematographer
Eduardo Serra,
ASC, AFC on
location in
Lithuania.
P
h
o
t
o
s

c
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e
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P
a
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a
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.
60 January 2009
Brothers in Arms
Nechama Tec, Defiance recounts the
true story of the Bielski brothers
(played by Daniel Craig, Jamie Bell
and Liev Schreiber), Jewish farmers
who lived in what is now Belarus, an
area that was invaded by the
Germans in 1941. After the Nazis
massacre their families, the brothers
hide in the nearby forest. Initially,
the Bielskis are intent on revenge
and resistance, but soon, they offer a
growing number of Jews a chance to
escape certain death by setting up a
haven for them in the forest. The
partisan group must move ever
deeper into the woods to escape
Nazi attacks. Over time, the forest
community grows into a new
Jerusalem, a vibrant village of wood
cabins. Woven into the story is the
evolution of the brothers relation-
ships, the life of the community and
a complex relationship with another
Russian partisan group. At the end
of the war, the Bielski partisan group
reportedly numbered about 1,200.
Serra notes that Zwick usually
likes to shoot widescreen, as he did
for Blood Diamond and The Last
Samurai (ACJan. 04), but the direc-
tor chose the 1.85:1 aspect ratio for
Defiance because he wanted to be
closer to the period, and because he
wanted to respect the vertical nature
of the forests in which the film takes
place. Serra shot the picture in Super
35mm, framing for a final 1.85:1
extraction in the digital intermedi-
ate. He used the Arricam Studio and
Lite, adding Arri 435s and 235s for
action scenes, and Arri Master
Primes and Angenieux Optimo
zoom lenses.
During preproduction and
production, Weil worked in close
Right: Tuvia and
his younger
brother, Asael
(Jamie Bell),
meet with
Shamon (Allan
Corduner), a
rabbi, in the
camp built by
the Jewish
resistance.
Below: Tuvias
leadership is
tested when one
of the camps
foragers tries to
take more than
his share of
supplies.
ble theyre dirty and hungry.
Having clean, made-up faces would
have been almost obscene.
The filmmakers sought to
find a look for the picture that
would convey the historical era and
the travails of the partisans.
Something I share with Ed is that
we both like to search for references,
and its a pleasure discussing the
collaboration with Serra, sharing his
preparation research and digital
sketches. After considering locations
in Hungary and Romania, Weil
found suitable locations within 15
miles of Vilnius, Lithuania. The idea,
he says, was to be as close as possi-
ble to reality, and Lithuanias forests
resemble those in neighboring
Belarus.
This penchant for realism
marked the entire filmmaking
process, and Weil recalls that his
crew imagined the partisans work-
ing as they built the forest-village set.
We tried to put ourselves in their
shoes, says the production designer.
How would you build a hut? We
did it ourselves, like Boy Scouts. He
explains that the wooden huts,
zemlyankas, were a form of lean-to
that could easily be dug in the sandy
soil of the forest.
In keeping with the realistic
approach, the filmmakers made an
unusual decision to forego makeup
for the actors. That was Eds deci-
sion, and I dont remember if we
even discussed it, says Serra. It
seemed obvious. We tried makeup
in one specific scene, but we later
took it out digitally because it was
inappropriate. There was some dirt
on the actors faces, but thats all. He
notes that although makeup serves
to diminish the differences in flesh
tones, which can be very distracting,
I think Defiance works without
makeup. The characters are in trou-
Left: Tuvia and
Zus air their
grievances
publicly. Below:
The crew
prepares to film
the brothers
fight. Serra
worked with
large silks to
shape the light
in the forest.
62 January 2009
Brothers in Arms
look with him, notes Serra. They
studied Russian films of the era and
looked at the early Sovcolor
process. They didnt have
Technicolor, but they had a version
of Agfacolor, explains the cine-
matographer. It was often blue and
pink. We discussed simulating it, but
it wasnt appropriate. Serra also
wanted to obtain a more organic
look than what could be achieved
with the DI process. Nowadays,
with the DI, its easy to give an old
look to a film. The process can be
totally controlled, but it can be a lit-
tle mechanical, and I didnt want
that. We didnt want a very perfect
modern image; we wanted some-
thing that evoked the period. On
Blood Diamond, I had tried to let
things get a little out of control, and
Defiance was an opportunity to go
further.
For exteriors, Serra decided to
use the same technique he had
adopted for one of the battle scenes
in Blood Diamond. I used Kodak
[Vision 500T] 5279, pushed it 2
stops and left out the 85 filter, he
says. With a laugh, he notes, 5279 is
a tough stock! Ten or 15 years ago,
wed use it because it was high-con-
trast and high-speed, with heavy
blacks, but whenever there was a
close-up of a woman, wed change
stocks. Pushing 2 stops is edgy, but it
becomes radical without the 85. The
image is a bit grainy, its contrasty,
and the interesting thing is that the
slope of the film is not perfect
were a little off of whats acceptable.
Almost all the exteriors in Defiance
were shot that way.
Serra notes that shooting
tungsten-balanced 5279 without an
85 filter, in addition to pushing the
stock, creates unpredictable color
changes by varying the red, green
and blue curves differently. The
changes are subtle, but theyre there.
With film, its important to have the
three color curves perfectly parallel,
and in this picture, they really arent.
So sometimes you get shadows or
After parting
ways with his
brothers, Zus
continues his
fight against
the Nazis,
taking up with
a band of
Russian
partisans.
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64 January 2009
Brothers in Arms
highlights that are a little blue or a
little pink, for example. You never
know what the result will be; it
depends on the time of day or the
sun or the shadows. You can see
something, but its not obvious
you dont say, Its pink. Its just not
the usual image. It has a texture that
isnt clean or modern.
Serra overexposed the pushed
5279 by rating it at 1,000 ASA or
lower. With a smile, he notes, Its
one thing to take the risk with color,
but one thing I dont play with is
exposure! I dont want to be on that
edge. To get a thick negative, he
usually rates the stock at least
2
3 of a
stop lower than recommended.
Most of Defiance takes place in
forests, and one of Serras chief chal-
lenges was giving these scenes visual
continuity. For daytime scenes, the
first thing I did was cut the sun
because I wanted to avoid shadows
moving every two minutes. He adds
that an incredible team of grips,
some of whom had worked on Blood
Diamond in Africa, assisted him. His
outdoor lighting was bold and simple.
We used a huge silk to kill the sun
and big silks to bounce light. At first,
his team tried cutting the sun with a
gigantic silk hung above the set, but
that proved unwieldy, as well as inef-
fectual with wider crowd scenes. Serra
then had the silks positioned vertical-
ly, acting as a curtain against the low
northern sun.
The cinematographer bounced
two or three 18K HMIs on big silks to
create diffuse light that acted as a fill.
Thats it no crosslights, no back-
lights just light to clean up. He
notes that for reasons of convenience,
Right: Tuvia
helps Lilka
(Alexa Davalos)
escape from a
ghetto. Below:
When Nazis
discover the
camp, Lilka
helps shepherd
the children to
safety.
he sometimes obtained a similar
lighting effect by punching the
HMIs through a silk. He mainly
used Alpha HMIs from 5600
Lighting because they allow the
widest spread.
Serra sometimes moved a fill
light during the shot, as in a scene
where Tuvia (Craig) hides from a
German street patrol in a dark door-
way and then emerges. The cine-
matographer asked his gaffer,
Michel Atanassian, to put a Kino Flo
into position for the darkest part of
the shot and then move it away. I
often do that have a small mov-
ing light operated by someone like
Michel, who understands very well
what were doing. Its often faster
and easier to light that way. When
Craig is deep in the doorway, Michel
is on him to get a minimum expo-
sure, and then he turns the light
away as soon as Craig comes out.
Im scared of creating a small shad-
ow, so the light is very diffused.
When it comes to light
sources, Serra has a deep commit-
ment to simplicity and naturalism.
He strongly believes that a single soft
source allows for more storytelling
to happen. The soft-spoken cine-
matographer hesitates, and then
elaborates, I dont like to use big
words, but my job is to create mean-
ing. Thats what Im there for. Its
great if the image can also be beau-
tiful, but meaning comes first. And I
dont think that you can create
meaning if the audience can see
multiple lights and shadows and all
that trickery. I believe sharp shad-
ows, spots of light or rimlights are
totally distracting because theyre
not part of our life. I dont want to
have the audience distracted by all
that. A simpler image allows more
possibility to give meaning.
This passion for a single soft
source means that Serra will never
place sources on both sides of cam-
era. For me, the other side of cam-
era is the forbidden zone. I just cant
bear what two sources do to a face.
In his search for authenticity and
simplicity, he avoids hard back-
lights, eyelights and other secondary
light sources. I dont do spots of
light, and I dont usually add other
sources maybe a bounce board,
but not a light. Or I might bring the
big silk a little closer for a close-up. I
dont want to have the woman in the
foreground who is 1 or 2 stops
brighter than the background. Every
new light fixture creates a shadow,
and every shadow can distract us.
Although he will often place
a frame, a little luminosity, near or
behind camera, he avoids brilliant
THE ART OF LIGHT
Color Correction
Diffusion
Color Effect
Tel: 818-238-1220
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Director Ed Zwick works out his camera placement.
65
66 January 2009
eyes eyelights that result in what
he jokingly calls the werewolf
effect. He has a similar aversion to
backlight halos. He notes, They
were appropriate in black-and-
white films to separate people from
the background, but nowadays, why
make everyone a saint? Musing that
a single soft source is closer to life,
he hastens to add that soft lighting
does not mean flat lighting. My
lighting is usually very soft but very
contrasty.
Serra emphasizes that in addi-
tion to contrast, the placement of
the source creates the mood of the
shot. The height of the light is
important also, but its especially the
angle that changes everything. A soft
light in front of the character doesnt
mean the same thing as a soft light
from behind. The general mood will
bring meaning. If you have a front-
light, a sidelight and a backlight,
there is no room left for meaning.
Its mostly a question of the triangle
between the lens, the light and the
eyes of the actor. A soft light behind
camera doesnt seem like much, but
move it away from the camera, and
already youve changed the mood. If
you move a 4-by frame by 2 or 3
meters, its not the same mood at all.
Thats the sort of thing Im interest-
ed in modulating. In the forest exte-
riors of Defiance, he usually placed
the big bounced source close to
camera or slightly to the side to pro-
vide a fill that brought out the
actors eyes.
For Defiances climactic day-
time battle, which took a full week to
Brothers in Arms
Right: Forced to
abandon the
camp, the
partisans
emerge from
the forest only
to stumble into
a Nazi ambush.
For the films
climactic
battle, Serra
discarded his
large silks in
favor of sunny
sidelight and
backlight.
Below: The
crew angles
in on a
German tank.
shoot, Serra discarded the giant sun-
blocking silk and opted for sunny
sidelight or backlight. Light from the
side or behind, he explains, models
and gives more depth to the action.
Otherwise, its too flat. The battle is
not like the other forest scenes, in
which we were working with the
nuances of a face. This is the epic
moment.
When shooting dusk exteri-
ors at the encampment, Serra com-
plemented onscreen campfires with
fire lighting offscreen: gas pipes
with holes for flames. Its a very
simple setup that I used a lot on The
Wings of the Dove and Map of the
Human Heart. He adds that he is
cautious with flicker machines. If
you mix them with real fire, they can
help with background areas, but I
dont use them close to camera.
Some interiors in Defiance
have a gentler quality than the forest
footage; to contrast with the gritty,
imperfect look of the exteriors, Serra
shot inside with Kodak Vision2
500T 5218 and developed it normal-
ly, yielding a smoother image with
finer grain. In one key indoor scene,
Tuvia tries to persuade the ghetto
leaders to let the Jewish community
escape with him to the forest. Serra
lit the large room entirely with four
18Ks through the heavily frosted
windows, creating a dramatic sidelit
image. He used no lights inside, only
some bounce boards. The scene was
shot with two cameras to pick up
reaction shots, but the cinematogra-
pher confesses to cheating for the
close-up of Lilka (Alexa Davalos) as
she looks intently at Tuvia, her
future lover. It could have been shot
with the second camera simultane-
ously, like we did with other charac-
ters, but I discussed it with Ed, and
we quickly decided to give her a spe-
cial treatment. So we moved her a
step ahead and slightly changed the
position of the fill light. Though the
close-up is not radically different
from the other shots, the delicate
lighting on Davalos face is softer
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67
and a little more frontal than the
lighting of the wide shot.
The forest-hut interiors were
lit through the doors and windows
for day scenes and with oil lamps
and candles supplemented by soft
sources for night scenes. Serra set
one romantic love scene awash in
golden tones motivated by an oil
lamp. You have to cheat a little. I
used the lamp, but I augmented it a
little. Otherwise, the image would
have been too extreme. I used a
Chinese lantern clothed in black to
control spill on the walls.
Night exteriors in settings
without practical lights are always a
huge challenge for cinematogra-
phers. In the city, you can take
advantage of night lighting, but in
the country, there is no good solu-
tion! Serra laughs. Wistfully noting
his admiration for the dim noctur-
nal toplight Emmanuel Lubezki,
ASC, AMC created in Children of
Men (AC Dec. 06), he adds, We
couldnt do that in a forest. Serra
used any element of the nighttime
scenes to help his lighting, be it fire-
light, car headlights or even a burn-
ing vehicle. I try to use everything
available in the scene before bring-
ing out new sources. For some
scenes, he floated three 20K helium-
balloon lights above the action, and
he recalls that the first night shoot
with the balloons started badly: It
was a stormy night, and we arrived
just in time to see two balloons fly
off into the distance! One of them
went to a nearby village, where it cut
the electricity for a few days. The
other ended up in Estonia! Once
the balloons were back on set, Serra
avoided placing them in the fore-
68
Craig reclines
in a hut under
the soft glow of
a Chinese
lantern.
Brothers in Arms
ground, preferring a toplight from
the side or back.
Defiance marks Serras third
digital intermediate, and he did the
work at EFilm with colorist Natasha
Leonnet. Ive always enjoyed tim-
ing, and the DI is a gift, he remarks.
I dont use it to try to find a look; I
use it to clean up things that would
be time-consuming to fix on the set.
For example, on some hazy nights,
light from the balloon was visible at
the top of the frame, and we cleaned
that up. Sometimes the exposure is a
bit edgy at night, and you can get
better blacks [with digital tools]. Or
sometimes we needed to match
footage shot by several cameras.
Some say the DI gives you the
option to shoot flat and create your
look in post, but I believe in doing
the opposite. How can I light if I
dont know what I want at the end?
I
TECHNICAL SPECS
Super 1.85:1
(Super 35mm for 1.85:1 extraction)
Arricam System; Arri 435, 235
Arri Master Prime and
Angenieux lenses
Kodak Vision 500T 5279,
Vision2 500T 5218
Craig, Bell and
Mark Feuerstein
receive their
marching orders
from Zwick and
Serra.
69
I
n 1982, Jack Green, ASC, this
years recipient of the Societys
Lifetime Achievement Award, did
something few aspiring cine-
matographers would ever think
of doing: he turned down an offer
from Clint Eastwood to move up
from camera operator to cine-
matographer because he felt he
needed a little more experience. I
honestly didnt feel ready, says
Green. I didnt know if Clint would
give me another shot, but I loved
being his operator, anyway; operat-
ing is a great job and doesnt have
the responsibilities of being the
director of photography. Youre part
of the creative team, but youre only
responsible for getting the shot, and
you know right away whether
youve got it you can sleep at
night! I asked Clint to let me do a lit-
tle more maturing in my mind first,
and to his credit, he did, and he
made the offer again when he decid-
ed to make Heartbreak Ridge [1986;
AC Jan. 87].
Those who have worked with
Green find him confident but unas-
suming, despite having shot some
very memorable films, including
Eastwoods Bird (1988), Unforgiven
(1992; AC June 93) and Bridges of
Madison County (AC Aug. 95).
Green doesnt think of the more
than 20 years he spent learning the
craft as an assistant and operator as
drudge work or paying his dues; he
talks about the time as an essential
part of his development, noting that
it taught him not only to light and
shoot but also to manage the cre-
ative and political challenges of
heading the camera department. He
eventually shot 14 films for
Eastwood as well as an eclectic mix
of other features, including the
blockbuster Twister (AC May 96),
Jack Green, ASC, once destined to be a barber,
advances to cinematographys pinnacle as the recipient of the
ASC Lifetime Achievement Award.
by Jon Silberg
A Cut
Above
70 January 2009
AMC_0109_p070p078:e_feature 12/5/08 3:07 PM Page 70
Green had settled into the notion
that the tools of his trade would be
clippers and scissors. Shortly after he
started working as a full-time bar-
ber, a former combat cameraman
named Joe Dieves helped change the
course of Greens life when he came
in for a trim. Dieves had set up shop
the intimate drama Girl, Interrupted
(AC March 00) and the raucous
comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin
(2005).
Cinematography was not
something Green thought about
during his childhood in Daley City,
Calif. It was understood that he
would attend barber college and
work in one of the barbershops his
father and uncle owned until it
came time for him to take over the
family business. His only connec-
tion to photography was sharing his
fathers photography hobby; as a
youth, he shot black-and-white pic-
tures with his box Brownie and
made prints in his fathers dark-
room. For my dad, the darkroom
was about the two of us doing some-
thing together, he recalls. I dont
think he knew that was how I felt,
too. I still get misty-eyed when I
smell vinegar!
His interest in photography
continued in high school, spurred
by a better camera and the schools
more sophisticated darkroom, but
in the San Francisco Bay area shoot-
ing documentaries, industrials and
educational films for local clients. It
took Green months to talk to Dieves
about camerawork, but the man was
a repeat customer, and eventually,
Green talked himself into a part-
time job as his camera assistant.
Opposite:
Director of
photography
Jack Green,
ASC. This page:
Two scenes
from Bird, which
tells the story of
jazz musician
Charlie Parker
(played by
Forest
Whitaker). If I
could be
remembered for
my work on one
film, it would be
that one, says
Green.
B
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r
d

p
h
o
t
o
s

c
o
u
r
t
e
s
y

o
f

t
h
e

A
c
a
d
e
m
y

o
f

M
o
t
i
o
n

P
i
c
t
u
r
e

A
r
t
s

&

S
c
i
e
n
c
e
s
.
Wed go out on a job, and hed
make sure I was never ignorant
about what was necessary, recalls
Green. He was a gentle teacher.
Soon, I asked my father and my
uncle if I could move to one of the
back chairs and work part-time.
They agreed. Over a few years, I
became a very part-time barber and
an almost full-time camera assis-
tant, and in 1965, I got into the
union in Northern California, and it
became a full-time job.
Green was soon assisting for a
variety of companies, including
some that specialized in aerial pho-
tography. Assisting on some heli-
copter exteriors for the film Bob &
Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) led to the
opportunity to work for John Lowry
Productions, an aerial-photography
company based in Los Angeles. The
move, says Green, was an opportu-
nity that I think filmmakers of every
kind outside Hollywood think
about. My wife and I packed up and
moved to Southern California. My
mom, dad and uncle were all very
happy I had an opportunity to do
something I loved.
The early 1970s saw Green
assisting a lot, predominantly on
aerial units, and working fulltime for
Tyler Mounts. Then, in 1972, there
were huge layoffs, he recalls. The
industry was in really bad shape, as
bad as it is now. Maybe worse. He
managed to keep busy freelancing as
an assistant, and in 1975, cinematog-
rapher and future ASC member
Michael Watkins moved him up to
operator on Roger Cormans
Fighting Mad (1976). It was a bap-
tism by fire in the craft of operating
incredibly quickly under chaotic cir-
cumstances. Cinematographer Rex
Smith then hired Green to operate
on Eastwoods The Gauntlet (1977).
Green subsequently operated on
every Eastwood film until he moved
A Cut Above
Above:
Director/actor
Clint Eastwood
and Green at
work on Pale
Rider. Below: A
scarred
prostitute (Anna
Thomson) tends
to Will Munny
(Eastwood) in
Unforgiven.
72 January 2009
P
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l
e

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r

p
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t
o

c
o
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r
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s
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o
f

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a
r
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e
r

B
r
o
s
.

U
n
f
o
r
g
i
v
e
n

p
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o
t
o

c
o
u
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s
y

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e

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c
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m
y

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t
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.
up on Heartbreak Ridge.
Green was immediately
impressed with Eastwoods attitudes
about and approach to filmmaking.
There was very little talking about
how artistic something should be;
the focus was on craft and efficiency
and always using imagery to support
the story. Eastwood hired the same
crew as often as possible so that dis-
cussions could be conducted in
shorthand. Clint could describe
eight shots in eight words, notes
Green.
It was through operating on
these films that Green learned about
lighting. He recalls cinematographer
Bruce Surtees (Pale Rider, Tightrope)
standing on a set and giving
instructions to the gaffer using his
hand as if it were a paintbrush. You
would swear there was paint coming
out of his fingers! Bruce was a light-
ing minimalist. If he walked onto a
set and saw four lights burning, hed
tell the gaffer to turn one off. I real-
ized the fewer lights you had, the
fewer complications there were. It
was fascinating to see how Bruce
expressed himself to his gaffer and
electricians. To this day, I try to
duplicate that as best I can.
Green listened to how Surtees
and Eastwood would describe light-
ing in emotional terms. In Pale
Rider, Clint was talking about the
scene where the bad guys are stand-
ing in the mayors house at a fire-
place, planning what theyre going
to do. He described them as the
devils advocates, and he wanted
them surrounded by this boiling
firelight. I learned from him and
Bruce how to think about lighting in
an emotional way.
Green also made it a point to
watch movies with real audiences as
often as possible to see how lighting
affected people. Theres a shot in
Tightrope that I did with a Steadicam
in which Clints character, the detec-
tive, is walking down a dark hallway
full of deep shadows. The killer isnt
hiding in the shadows, but the fact
that there is so much darkness in
that scene really makes the hair on
your arm stand up. I could see in the
viewers faces how riveted they
were.
When Surtees recommended
Green to shoot Heartbreak Ridge,
Green sensed it was now or never,
and he accepted the job even though
he still felt he had a lot to learn. He
credits his wife, Susan, with helping
him overcome his trepidation. She
is my best friend, and shes very
smart and wise. She knew I was just
nervous as a cat, and while I was
home, thinking about this leap I was
going to make, I heard a little thump
on the door, and there was Susan
with her arms full of art books
and there were more in the car. She
had gone out and gotten every art
book she could find at the library
and bookstore. She said, Now is the
time to put yourself through art
school! If you want to do photogra-
phy that will last in peoples minds,
youre going to have to study the
classic painters. That was as influen-
tial on any style I might have devel-
oped as anything else.
From the books, Green devel-
oped a fascination with using shad-
Above: Green
zeroes in on the
action in the
drivers seat on
the set of The
Rookie. Below:
Green at work
on Midnight in
the Garden of
Good and Evil.
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d-Jack Green, ASC:e_feature 12/9/08 3:28 PM Page 73
74 January 2009
ow to shape light. This dovetailed
nicely with Eastwoods affinity for
very black blacks and deep, dark
shadows. Bird, about jazz great
Charlie Parker, was Greens third
film as a cinematographer, and he
relished the challenge to work on
the film in part because it was a
departure from what audiences had
come to expect from Eastwood. I
knew exactly what kind of visual
style Clint wanted before we even
got together to discuss it, says the
cinematographer. I had grown up
in the Bay Area, as he had, and wed
gone to the same jazz bars. Id read
Bebop and Downbeat and knew
what jazz photographs of the period
looked like they were almost sil-
houettes with very sharp edges of
light. I knew that would be what
Clint wanted, and when he started
describing that look to me, I said,
Let me shoot a test, and well use it
as a guide to make adjustments.
So we borrowed a camera
from Panavision, and [lead actor]
Forest Whitaker, [gaffer] Tom Stern
and I went to a recording studio at
Warner Bros. and used the dark
maroon curtains they use as sound
dampener as a background, he
continues. We put Forest in front
of it with a chair and a saxophone
and gave him just a bit of an edge-
light, a tiny bounce off the saxo-
phone to give the instrument some
reflections. My gosh, it was so pret-
ty. Clint saw it and said, Thats it!
Throughout the picture, I worked
on building strong compositions
and strong lighting.
Everything in Bird was
about hard lighting against dark
objects lots of contrast, contin-
ues Green. Theres a scene where
Charlie Parker is at a desk, trying to
call his wife on the phone while hes
on heroin, and his mistress comes to
the door and stands there; its just a
very strong silhouette of her in the
A Cut Above
Right:
Photojournalist
Robert Kincaid
(Eastwood)
charms an Iowa
housewife
(Meryl Streep)
in The Bridges
of Madison
County. Below:
Eastwood and
Green talk over
a scene.
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doorway and him lit by a little lamp
on the desk. Images like that carry so
much emotion. We did a closer shot
of her and put a tiny little light on
her eyes, but Clint wanted to turn
that off and just put her in silhouette
in her close-up, and thats what
ended up in the movie. Theres not
even a hint of light in her eyes, and
its so powerful because the audience
can feel her emotion without seeing
more of her face. Thats the kind of
work I love to do. If I could be
remembered for my work on one
film, it would be Bird.
Bridges of Madison County,
which stars Eastwood as a renowned
photojournalist and Meryl Streep as
the Iowa housewife with whom he
has a passionate affair, allowed
Green to photograph another
change of pace for Eastwood: a love
story. Unlike most such stories, how-
ever, the drama was presented from
the mans point of view. For Green,
that meant avoiding the warm,
glowing beauty light that often illu-
minates the romance genre. There
is a lushness to a lot of the picture,
but really, the only scene I warmed
up in that romantic kind of way was
the one that shows the two of them
dancing in her kitchen, he notes.
Theyre under tungsten light and
the room is mostly yellow.
Eastwoods overall approach
to what is arguably his finest film,
Unforgiven, was essentially the same
as his approach to all his films, says
Green. It was shot quickly and effi-
ciently because Eastwood and the
cast and crew were all very experi-
enced and very prepared. We shot
that movie in 42 days, and we had
no long days, recalls Green. On a
A

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Above: Green
and Eastwood
on location for
A Perfect
World. Below:
In a scene
from the film,
escaped
convict Butch
Haynes (Kevin
Costner) bonds
with his young
hostage (T.J.
Lowther).
76 January 2009
Clint Eastwood movie, a long day is
nine hours.
We used very old-fashioned
Western techniques on that movie,
he continues. If you go back to
some of the John Ford Westerns, you
see some huge landscapes with small
figures in them or a small town set
against huge mountains, and we did
a lot of that. We maintained that epic
Western look all the way through but
also made a serious attempt to tell
the story like we were telling a
Western for the first time. I always
tried to strike a balance between
making it feel familiar and letting it
make its own artistic statement.
In one scene in Unforgiven,
notorious killer William Munny
(Eastwood) explains to a young, hot-
headed acolyte (Jaimz Woolvett)
that murder isnt a glamorous game.
Munny says that when you kill
someone, you dont take only that
persons life, you also lose something
of your own, says Green. When we
were shooting the scene, there was a
Chinook, a snow eater, far off in the
distance a huge change in the
weather where it can go from 25F to
75F in less than an hour. We saw it
coming a huge line of clouds as
clear as night and day and it was
coming fast. It was such a terrific
moment for the scene, so we all
moved as fast as we could to keep
that Chinook over Clints shoulder
all the way through the scene. Thats
something that couldnt happen on
most sets. Some directors would be
watching playback and making deci-
sions with a committee, and that
Chinook would have been over the
Yukon before we got the take! But
Clint could see we were marching in
a direction, and he stood in the per-
fect spot and made the speech. He
could do that because he trusted all
of us to make something like that
work.
Although movies laden with
visual effects cannot take advantage
of such natural accidents, Green
believes those types of projects offer
A Cut Above
Above: Green
(left) and
director Jan De
Bont, ASC (at
camera) on
location for
Twister. Right:
In a scene from
the film, Bill and
Jo Harding (Bill
Paxton and
Helen Hunt)
struggle to
escape the
terrifying funnel
cloud.
T
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.
M E M B E R P O R T R A I T
JOHN SIMMONS, ASC
W W W . T H E A S C . C O M
TO SUBSCRIBE BY PHONE:
Call (800) 448-0145 (U.S. only)
(323) 969-4333 or visit the ASC Web site
hile I was in college,
at Fisk University,
writer/director
Carlton Moss would come from
Hollywood and teach a film
course on a monthly basis. His
enthusiasm for the contribution of
cinematography to the storytelling
process was contagious, and the
first time I saw the flicker of the
shutter through the eyepiece, I
knew cinematography was what I
wanted to do.
Carlton gave me my first
subscription to American
Cinematographer. Through the
pages of the magazine, I got my
technical introduction to the art
and craft of cinematography. It
was an inspiration at that time,
and I still look forward to reading
it each month. AC continues to
educate me.
John Simmons, ASC
W
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$0&B BS /D\RXW 30 3DJH
great creative opportunities its
just that more of it must happen in
prep. I came onto Twister after a lot
of the preparation had been done,
but on Space Cowboys [2000], we
had binders full of information so
that the artists at Industrial Light &
Magic and I could make sure every-
thing worked together, he says. The
astronauts were going outside the
capsule day and night, so sometimes
they stepped out in sunlight, and
sometimes it was moonlight. Every
90 minutes, theyre making a circle
of the earth, so that affected the
direction and quality of the light.
For someone who likes to go with
his gut, it was a totally new way of
working, but I enjoyed the challenge.
I was determined to make it work.
Green also welcomed the
challenge of shooting Joss Whedons
Serenity (AC Oct. 05), which he
describes as a Western in space. Joss
has so many ideas, but he listens to
other people, too. We gave it a kind
of comic-book feel. Not a lot of peo-
ple saw it, but I think its a terrific
picture, and I had a great time work-
ing with Joss and making it all come
together with the visual-effects peo-
ple at ILM.
Green credits his success as a
director of photography to the time
he spent working his way up
through the camera department.
People who come out of a graduate
program and start at the top as a
director of photography can have
problems when they get to a real
movie set, he observes. It can
work, but crews dont particularly
like it because that cinematographer
might not know how to speak to a
crew, and the crew knows he or she
hasnt done any of their jobs. There
can be misunderstandings on both
sides. In this business, theres a real
advantage coming up through the
school of hard knocks. Youve been
part of a crew, so you know how the
grip or the electrician feels about
something, and you know how to
speak to them in ways that make
them feel good about the jobs
theyre doing.
Although he is tickled to be
honored with the ASC Lifetime
Achievement Award, Green empha-
sizes that he intends to keep shoot-
ing for a long time to come. Ill
retire when they pry the light meter
out of my cold, dead hands! he
laughs. I
78 January 2009
A Cut Above
Top left: A
young woman
(Winona Ryder)
struggles with
depression in
Girl, Interrupted.
Top right: Green
(center) and his
collaborators
prepare to film.
Below: Green
and director
James Mangold
on the set.
G
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HPA Honors Excellence
in Post
by Jon D. Witmer
At the third annual Hollywood
Post Alliance Awards, held in early
November in Los Angeles, ASC associ-
ate member and HPA President Leon
Silverman noted, Were here to debunk
the myth of the magic of Hollywood.
Over the next couple of hours, in front of
an audience comprising professionals
from all corners of the industry, the cere-
mony did just that.
Actor, writer and director Wil
Shriner set a comedic tone as the
evenings host, and the jovial atmos-
phere was maintained by the ceremonys
many presenters, including Joshua
Pines, an ASC associate member and
vice president of imaging research and
development at Technicolor Digital Inter-
mediates. Presenting the Engineering
Excellence awards to Quantel (for the
Pablo Stereoscopic 3-D system), Fast-
Soft (for the E Series Internet Accelera-
tor) and Panasonic (for the AVC-Intra 100
Video Codec), Pines looked at the two
teleprompters in front him and joked,
Its like a bad 3-D movie luckily, its a
fad! The joke prompted a response
from Rob Engle, Sony Pictures Image-
works digital-effects supervisor, who
accepted a Judges Award for Creativity
and Innovation in Postproduction for the
stereoscopic post pipeline developed for
Beowulf 3D. Some might call it a fad,
Engle said. I call it a revolution!
Judges Awards were also
presented to DigitalFilm Tree and
CBS/Paramount for the development
and implementation of a modern data-
centric post network and workflow, and
to LaserPacific Media Corporation for
AccurateImage, a color-calibrated end-
to-end process that delivers digital
cinema-quality dailies that look like film.
Glenn Kennel, LaserPacifics vice presi-
dent and general manager of feature
film, offered special thanks to ASC Pres-
ident Daryn Okada for serving as AIMs
very first customer and first guinea
pig.
Okada later stood at the podium
alongside Richard Crudo, ASC to present
the awards for Outstanding Color Grad-
ing. Alex Bickel of Outside Editorial won
for the Jaguar XF Hush commercial;
Joe Hathaway of LaserPacific won for
the Pushing Daisies episode The Fun in
Funerals; and ASC associate member
Steven J. Scott of EFilm won for Iron
Man. Saluting the efforts of his fellow
feature-film nominees ASC associ-
ate member Stefan Sonnenfeld
(Sweeney Todd) of Company 3 and Mike
Sowa (The Kite Runner) of LaserPacific
Scott saved his greatest thanks for
Iron Mans cinematographer, Matthew
Libatique, ASC. There could be no
better inspiration, said Scott. This is
his vision, after all, and I was happy to
be his conduit.
Other nominees for Outstanding
Color Grading were Siggy Ferstl of Riot
(ESPN: The Masters); Sowa (The
Andromeda Strain, Part 1); Sean Cole-
man of Company 3 (Travelers Insurance,
Delivery); and Sonnenfeld (Farmers
Help Point, Drowned Circus).
Outstanding Editing awards
were presented to Lee Smith, ACE (The
Dark Knight); Stuart Bass, ACE (Pushing
Daisies, Pie-Lette); and Neil Gust of
Outside Editorial (Jaguar, XF Hush).
Patrick Poulatian and Robert Sethi of
Brickyard VFX took home the Outstand-
ing Compositing in a Commercial award
for the Pontiac Shwayze spot.
Outstanding Audio Post awards
were handed out to Ben Burtt of Pixar
Animation Studios and Tom Myers,
Michael Semanick and Matthew Wood
of Skywalker Sound (Wall-E); Mace
Matiosian, Ruth Adelman, David
Vanslyke, Bill Smith, Yuri Reese and
Jivan Tahmizian of Todd-AO (CSI: Crime
Scene Investigation, Cockroaches);
and Tony Rapaccioli and Warren Hamil-
ton of Wave Recording Studios and
Tonic (Audi RS6, Gymnast).
The HPA inaugurated a new
award this year in memory of Charles S.
Swartz. The prize honors a person,
group, company or technology that has
Post Focus
H
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,

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I
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;

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a
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a
k
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r
s
.
Flanked by ASC
president Daryn
Okada (left) and
Richard Crudo,
ASC, EFilms
Steven J. Scott
poses with his
HPA Award for
Outstanding
Color Grading,
earned for
his work on
Iron Man.
80 January 2009
AMC_0109_p080p083:00 post focus 12/5/08 1:13 PM Page 80
made a significant artistic, technologi-
cal, business or educational impact on
post and was presented by screenwriter
Howard Rodman to Elizabeth Daley,
dean of the University of Southern Cali-
fornias School of Cinematic Arts.
Capping the ceremony, ASC
associate member Ron Burdett received
the Lifetime Achievement Award, which
was presented by Silverman and Fred
Rheinstein, last years recipient. In his
remarks, Burdett looked ahead to the
future of the post industry and, para-
phrasing Robert Frost, encouraged the
attendants in all their endeavors. We
have promises to keep and many miles
to go before the end of the journey, he
said.
FotoKem Transfers Still Me
by Jim Hemphill
When cinematographer Chun
Ming Huang began work on Still Me, a
20-minute character study about a
stroke victims difficult rehabilitation, he
envisioned the story on film, but the
productions limited resources dictated
that the project be shot and edited on
24p standard-definition video. After the
short attracted attention by winning
awards at three festivals, director Beth
McElhenny began to think about
submitting it for Academy Award
consideration, and the Academy
requires a 35mm print. We had no idea
the movie would get this much buzz,
and until we found out we might actu-
ally have a chance with the Academy,
we had no plans to transfer to film,
says Huang, who shot the picture at
24p with a Panasonic AG-DVX100.
Originally, we planned on going
straight to DVD, so I lit with the inten-
tion of outputting to video only.
The filmmakers took the project
to FotoKem, where Huang worked
closely with in-house producer Rico
Hernandez, who supervised the transfer
from MiniDV to a 35mm composite
print. In this case, the source material
we received was a standard-def Quick-
Time file, says John Nicolard, head of
digital production for FotoKem. We
loaded that into Final Cut Pro and
output a standard-def DigiBeta to start
the process. The DigiBeta was upcon-
verted (via a Teranex box) to HDCam-SR
tape.
During the tape-to-tape color
correction on the da Vinci 2K, Huang
was primarily concerned with preserv-
ing the look of the original footage and
prepping it for a different medium. We
didnt do anything too dramatic, he
says. After the color correction, the
filmmakers gave Hernandez all the text
that needed to be laid into the movie,
and FotoKem created HD end titles in
After Effects that were added to the
color-corrected master. An audio
master was created as a 35mm SR opti-
cal track, and everything was brought
into a DI suite to create a filmout file.
To record out to film, says Nico-
lard, we have a FotoKem-specific
linear-to-logarithmic conversion. The
conversion was done on a Quantel
Pablo, where the digital files were
prepped with a film look for 35mm
recording. We could have used this
session for further color timing, but we
avoided it because everything was
done nicely during the da Vinci session
and because the cost would have
Cinematographer Chun Ming Huang (sitting)
and director Beth McElhenny confer with
soundman Bill Soares during production of
the short film Still Me.
81
82 January 2009
rocketed up! says Huang.
The logarithmic DPX files
created in the Pablo were exported to a
server, and an Arrilaser was used to
record the file onto Kodak 2242
internegative stock. Finally, the SR opti-
cal soundtrack was married to the
35mm negative, and the final print was
made on Kodak Vision 2383. The most
expensive part of the entire process
was the filmout, notes Huang.
The cinematographer adds that
ending up on 35mm subtly changed the
image quality for both better and worse.
I had to give up some information in
the highlights and shadows, which is
unfortunate, because the image gets a
little washed-out. Using available
daylight as much as we did, some things
just had to give. On the plus side, he
was happy with the grain structure the
image gained. You cant get that nice,
true grain shooting video, and it helps a
little in softening out the edges and
getting rid of that video look. But it was
a big challenge to make sure I retained
as much of the detail as possible during
the transfer process.
Huang recommends that film-
makers shooting on MiniDV who intend
to transfer to 35mm keep a sharp eye on
the shadows and highlights. You have
to make sure you give the colorists
plenty of information to work with. Its
hard for me because my style can be
quite contrasty; I light by eye, so Ill
usually take the exposure that looks
good to me and go with it. He also
recommends shooting on 24p HD in
16x9 whenever possible because that
eliminates some stages (and expenses)
in the transfer process.
Nicolard echoes these senti-
ments, though he also advises that
independent filmmakers shouldnt get
too hung up on technology when
embarking on their projects. Anyone
whos shooting MiniDV is generally
doing it for budgetary reasons, because
if they had more money, they would
shoot HD or film. The most important
thing is just to get your project made. If
its good, people will respond to it. I
Frame grabs
from the finished
short, which
focuses on Jack
and Rosanne
(Scott Kling and
Tina Gloss) as
they struggle to
cope after Jack
suffers from a
stroke. The
footage,
captured on
MiniDV, was
transferred to
35mm film at
FotoKem.
01_09 post focus.qxd:00 post focus 12/9/08 12:19 PM Page 83
Codex Unveils
Digital Lab
Codex Digital, a specialist in
high-resolution media-recording
and workflow systems, has
extended its product family with
the Codex Lab, a digital film lab in a
box that forms the hub of fast, effi-
cient tapeless workflows. The Lab
is modular, offers enormous record-
ing capacity and provides all deliv-
erables needed for production, post
and archiving.
The Lab can ingest digital produc-
tion material from Codex recorders, tape,
telecine or other digital systems. It can be
expanded to store more than 500 hours of
digital cinema footage or 1,000 hours of
high-end broadcast material, plus audio.
When used in standard-definition applica-
tions, the Lab can hold 3,600 hours of
recordings.
All material stored in the Lab is
immediately available for on-demand daily
deliverables and reprints. When an offline
edit is complete, the Lab automatically
generates the required finishing files from
the EDL in a matter of minutes or hours. It
will also play out to multiple channels of
video (HD or SD), with automatic process-
ing of shot lists or EDLs.
The Lab converts formats ranging
from standard-def to 4K into editing files
for Avid, Apple or Adobe, or into finishing
or archive tapes or viewing files. Output
file formats include DPX, MXF, DNxHD,
QuickTime, AVI, JPEG, BMP and BWF, with
full metadata, resizing, color-space conver-
sion and LUTs for look management. Addi-
tionally, the Lab offloads HD footage up to
10 times faster than real time, with SD
over 20 times faster, and it can produce
multiple deliverables in parallel.
Codex has designed the Lab so it
can be configured and upgraded according
to the changing needs of users. It can be
ordered with one or two dual bays for
Codex Portable diskpacks and a dual bay
for Codex Recorder diskpacks. The Lab will
also hold up to four internal LTO4 tape
drives and control external LTO4 robots.
Additionally, high-speed RAID6 storage is
expandable to over 100TB in removable
blocks of 12 or 24TB.
The Lab can manage a range of
broadcast productions or digital motion
pictures; multiple productions can also be
handled on one unit. It is designed for easy
integration into the MCR of an editing or
visual-effects facility, and it can also be
directly connected on set or on location.
For more information, visit
www.codexdigital.com.
One-Touch Backup
Nexto DI now offers the Nexto ND-
2725 Video Storage, a portable battery-
powered device that backs up footage at
the touch of a single button. Compatible
with such camcorders as Sonys PMW-
EX1 and EX3 and Panasonics HVX200, the
Video Storage can connect
directly to the camcorder
via USB cable. It checks the
integrity of the footage as it
records, and it can also
detect faults and potential
future hard-drive errors. A
browse function enables
users to verify when
backup is complete, and
the ND-2725 features an
ESata interface that
increases the data-transfer speed to and
from a computer by three times compared
to a USB 2.0.
The Nexto Video Storage is avail-
able in 160GB, 250GB, 320GB and 500GB,
and it is forward-compatible up to 2TB.
Compatible with PC, Mac and Unix plat-
forms, the device can store video, photos,
data, music and games.
Available through International
Supplies, the 320 GB ND-2725 Video Stor-
age has a suggested retail price of $799. It
comes with a one-year warranty, a carry-
ing case, long and short USB cords, a USB
extension cord and an AC adapter. Auxil-
iary batteries and car chargers are also
available.
www.nextodiusa.com.
Alacrity Media
Intros Van, Ninjas
Alacrity Media has introduced its
customized Road Grader van, a mobile
implementation of the companys data-
based production and post pipeline. As a
complete digital-intermediate suite on
wheels, the Road Grader is designed to
meet the 4K camera and real-time post
needs of filmmakers using data acquisi-
tion to create their projects on location.
The key components of this new
data methodology are the Red One
camera and Assimilate Scratch, which
supports RedCode native files, enabling a
real-time Scratch/Red data workflow.
Traditional methods of creating motion
media have been undergoing
fundamental changes, with 4K
data acquisition quickly moving
into the limelight as the means to
make cost-effective, quality prod-
uct, says Blair Paulsen, founder
and owner of Alacrity Media.
While these changes are occur-
ring in large and small studios
around the globe, were taking
this new 4K data technology a
step further by going on the road
and on location to give clients immediate
feedback and results.
Key features of Road Grader
include primary color grading of 4K
footage in real time with full-quality de-
bayering at 2K or 1080p, using a proper
control surface for lift, gamma and gain; a
complete Final Cut Studio editorial
system for creating EDLs for conforming
in Scratch; an ECinema color-evaluation
monitor in a proper viewing environment
with color correction applied in real time;
an HP DreamColor monitor for viewing
images in full 10-bit space; and real time
layoff to tape via uncompressed HD-SDI
New Products & Services
84 January 2009
01_09 new prods:00 new products 12/5/08 3:11 PM Page 84
in 4:4:4 or 4:2:2 color space.
The Road Grader hits the road
supported by a team of 4K Ninjas, a co-
op team of 4K camera and DI experts.
Paulsen explains, Any of the Ninja pros
can interface with the [cinematographer],
camera team, sound mixer, playback oper-
ator, effects supervisor [and] colorist and
support on-set editorial right in the Road
Grader. We recommend an on-site
camera Ninja and a Ninja data manager
to handle the downloading, organizing
and verifying of footage.
www.alacritymedia.com or www.4knin
jas.net.
MovieCockpit Ready
for Liftoff
VideoAssisTech has unveiled the
latest product under its Cockpit banner,
MovieCockpit, a software application that
turns the users computer into an all-in-
one, resolution-independent, live produc-
tion switcher with multi-channel record
and playback capabilities.
Based on CockpitCube,
MovieCockpit is the companys first appli-
cation aimed at the consumer level. The
software finds and visually lists any avail-
able audio/video I/O device connected to
the computer, including DV cameras, DV
conversion boxes, Web cameras and
computer sound cards. Each device can
then be fully configured in terms of input,
resolution and frame rate, from standard
definition through 2K.
Users can create separate live
views for any of the inputs simply by drag-
ging and dropping a chosen device into
the work area. Each view can be sepa-
rately configured for recording codec, file
type and storage device, and each view
can be recorded independently. Addition-
ally, multiple live views can be easily
grouped together with no limit to the
number of groups to make synchro-
nized recordings.
Offering straight cuts, manual or
85
automatic wipes, and manual or auto-
matic cross-fades, MovieCockpit enables
chroma key work as well as graphics and
text overlay. Recorded clips and the sync
playlist are stored in the applications
database, which supports multiple
thumbnails, an unlimited number of user-
customizable metadata fields, and nested
sorting and text search. Users can
instantly reload recorded clips for play-
back, and clips can be output to external
monitors; output formats are completely
independent of input formats. The appli-
cation can currently play back most avail-
able video codecs.
www.moviecockpit.com.
New Studio in Long Beach
Long Beach Studios is expecting to
roll cameras during the first quarter of
2009 in its new, state-of-the-art facility.
Housing more than 1 million square feet
of production, postproduction and support
space, the studio will include 40 sound-
stages and the largest water-filming facil-
ity in California.
Long Beach is the perfect location
for a major production studio, says Jack
OHalloran, chairman of the studio.
Being close to three major airports,
major freeways and Metro Rail makes us
the most convenient production facility,
and we are thrilled to become a part of
this amazing and vital city.
www.longbeachstudiosllc.com.
S3D Studios
Sunset Gower and Sunset Bronson
Studios have teamed with Iconix Video to
open S3D Studios. With a full array of
stereo-ready rigs, Iconix cameras, and
stereo recording and playback devices,
S3Ds stages offer a turnkey solution for
shooting and testing stereoscopic
production in a controlled environment.
We are committed to providing
state-of-the-art facilities that allow for
greater ease in capturing digitally, says
Howard Stern, president of Sunset
Gower Studios. We want to make it
easier to produce stereo and enable the
creative community to work in a
controlled environment that makes
shooting easier and more dependable.
S3D stages allow us to integrate
our new generation of stereo solutions in
one easy-to-use package, adds Bruce
Long, CEO of Iconix Video. S3D Studios
will allow producers to move into stereo
with their same crews and teams. Our
goal is to support, not supplant.
S3Ds stages at Sunset Gower
and Sunset Bronson are equipped with
on-set pre-post services for stereo
dailies. Full stereo post is provided by
Stereoscope Studios in Burbank, which
also offers an S3D insert stage to facili-
tate simultaneous compositing of
effects. Additionally, the S3D stages will
utilize Iconix Videos handheld stereo
rigs, developed in association with
Doggicam Systems. Other available rig
options include tripod-mounted rigs and
Doggicams new High Def Dolly system,
which has been configured to mount
Iconixs 3-D HD system.
www.iconixvideo.com.
Gemini Creates 3-D Camera
Gemini LLC has teamed with
MSM Design Inc. to create a film-based
3-D camera system. The compact
system weighs 44 pounds in Steadicam
mode and 54 pounds when fitted with a
viewfinder and 1,000' film load.
Designed for easy setup and reloading,
the Gemini 3-D camera is compatible
with conventional 35mm remote heads,
nose mounts, dollies, cranes and Libra
heads.
The Gemini has been designed
with a digital post pipeline in mind. The
camera photographs 24mm-by-36mm
images onto two strips of 35mm film;
each frame has 8 perfs.
The film movements incorporate
86 January 2009
a vacuum back and an ultra-steady
design, and the camera also features a
180-degree mirror shutter. Internal elec-
tronics control iris, focus and conver-
gence functions, ensuring proper align-
ment of the left- and right-eye images.
Users can access the electronic inter-
face through controls on the camera
body or with a smart remote, which
offers complete feedback while the
camera is running.
Coaxial mags reduce weight and
size while enabling quick reloads. The
Gemini also boasts a unique, ultra-light-
weight clip-on mattebox that can hold
one 6" round filter and two 6.6"x6.6"
square filters. (The camera also accepts
the Arriflex MB-14 mattebox.) Lenses,
batteries and an underwater housing
round out the Geminis accessory pack-
age, and everything is available for rent
through Gemini LLC.
www.gemini3dcamera.com.
Sony Enables 3-D
Theater Projection
Sony Electronics has unveiled a
single-projector 3-D adapter designed
to work specifically with its 4K projec-
tors in movie theaters. The new adapter
uses the full height of Sonys 4K imaging
device, with the ability to display full 2K
images for the left and right eyes simul-
taneously and in parallel, from top to
bottom.
Comprised of two new lens units
models LKRL-A002 (X1.1-1.9) and
LKRL-A003 (X1.9-3.3) the 3-D
adapter consists of an optical and
mechanical assembly for each left- and
right-eye image. It is designed to meet
DCI specifications for 3-D digital projec-
tion while overcoming the bandwidth
and resolution limitations of 3-D
systems currently on the market.
Compatible with all Sony 4K
projectors now in the field, the 3-D
adapter was developed to give
exhibitors the flexibility to easily switch
between showing 4K and 3-D content.
The adapter attaches onto the projec-
tors lens mount, and it can be removed
or re-attached within minutes.
When used with Sonys inte-
grated media block (LMT-200), the SRX-
R220 4K projector is able to achieve
4:4:4 RGB signal path while avoiding the
triple-flash artifacting of other 3-D
solutions. The projector can also deliver
a 60p 3-D display that is especially
effective for stereoscopic displays of
sports or other fast-moving content.
The 3-D adapter is designed to
work with a maximum screen size of 55';
it is expected to ship in March 2009.
Sony Electronics Digital Cinema
Solutions and Services group has also
entered into separate and non-exclusive
digital-deployment agreements with
20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures
and Sony Pictures Entertainment. The
agreements will provide certain opera-
tional and financial resources to encour-
age exhibitors to implement digital
cinema systems featuring Sonys DCI-
compliant 4K SXRD projection technol-
ogy.
http://pro.sony.com. I
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88 January 2009
AMC_0109_p088p090:00 marketplace&ad index 12/5/08 2:48 PM Page 88
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AMC_0109_p088p090:00 marketplace&ad index 12/5/08 2:48 PM Page 89
Advertisers Index
AC 77, 92
Alamar Productions, Inc. 88
Alan Gordon Enterprises
88, 89
Arri 49
ASC 83
Backstage Equipment, Inc.
85
Barger-Lite 67
Burrell Enterprises 88
Camelot Broadcasting Service
87
Cavision Enterprises 27
Center for Digital Arts
at Boston University 6
Chapman University 25
Cine Gear Expo 63
Cinekinetic 4
CinemaGadgets.com 88
Cinematographer Style 93
Cinema Vision 89
Cinematography
Electronics 67
Clairmont Film & Digital 21
Cooke 6
CPT Rental Inc. 89
Deluxe 23
Eastman Kodak 13, C4
Entertainment Lighting
Services 88
Filmtools 85
Flying-Cam 6
Focus Features 5
FTC/West 89
Fuji Motion Picture 51
Glidecam Industries 17
Goldenanimations 88
Hybrid Cases 88
JEM Studio Lighting, Inc. 81
K 5600, Inc. 40
Kino Flo 57
Konrad Wolf Hochschule 67
LA Shorts Fest 69
Laffoux Solutions, Inc. 88
Lee Filters 65
Litepanels 2
MP&E Mayo Productions 89
NAB 91
New York University 15
North Carolina Film
Commission 19
Oppenheimer Camera Prod.
88
Otto Nemenz, Intl. 53
Panasonic Broadcast 33
Paramount Studios 11
Paramount Vantage 9
PED Denz 39
Pille Film Gmbh 88
Pro8mm 88
Samys DV & Edit 41
Sony C2-1
Stanton Video Services 39
Stwo 55, 85
Sundance Film Festival 79
Super16 Inc. 89
Superflycam 55
SXSW 95
Tiffen C3
VF Gadgets, Inc. 89
Videocraft Equipment Pty
88
Walter Klassen FX 56
Weinstein Company, The 7
Willys Widgets 88
www.theasc.com 55, 68,
81, 87, 90
Zacuto Films 89
ZGC, Inc. 6
90
01_09 marketplace&ad index.qxd:00 marketplace&ad index 12/9/08 3:30 PM Page 90
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R
obert C. Jessup, ASC, who lent his
talents to features, commercials,
telefilms and series over the
course of four decades, died on Aug.
14 at the age of 78.
Born on May 23, 1930, Jessup
grew up in New Jersey before moving
to Des Moines, Iowa, to attend Drake
University. In 1951, he enlisted in the
U.S. Air Force and was assigned to the
1st Combat Camera Unit as a sound
mixer. Later that year, he was assigned
to the 2nd Photo Squadron in Japan,
where he worked as a sound recordist
and a camera assistant in the Docu-
mentary Film Unit. Jessup was then
reassigned to the 1354th Video
Production Squadron, where he
worked as an audio engineer before
transitioning to television cameraman.
After an honorable discharge in
1955, Jessup worked as a cameraman
and lighting director at TV stations in
Florida and Indiana. In 1958, he settled
in Dallas, Texas, taking a job as a
camera assistant with Jamieson Film
Co. Climbing the ranks in Jamiesons
camera department, he advanced from
operator to cinematographer in 1960,
and he headed the department for
most of the next decade, notching
credits on such projects as Night Fright
(1967) and the telefilms In the Year
2889, Creature of Destruction and
Mars Needs Women (all 1967).
In 1969, Jessups work on The
Banyan Tree earned him a cinematog-
raphy award at the Atlanta Film Festi-
val, and he set out to work as a
freelancer. By the mid-1970s, he was
president of Film Production Services
Inc., a company that provided crews
and equipment to productions shoot-
ing in the Midwest and South. That
didnt slow his accomplishments
behind the camera, however; earning
first-unit credits on such features as
Sugar Hill (1974), Race With the Devil
(1975) and Drive-In (1976), he also shot
second unit for such cinematographers
as Robert Surtees, ASC (The Great
Waldo Pepper, 1975) and Ernest Laszlo,
ASC (Logans Run, 1976).
After their collaboration on
Logans Run, Laszlo recommended
Jessup for ASC membership, and
Jessup was officially made a member
on March 1, 1976. In a letter to Lester
Shorr, ASC, the Societys president at
the time, Jessup wrote, This is an
honor I do not take lightly, and I can
assure you that I will do everything in
my power to live up to the ideals, stan-
dards and goals represented by the
ASC.
Over the next two decades,
Jessup returned to his TV roots, shoot-
ing episodes of the series The Dukes of
Hazzard (1979) and Dallas (1978-79)
and a number of telefilms, including
two directed by Ron Howard, Cotton
Candy (1978) and Skyward (1980).
Other credits include the theatrical
features The Big Brawl (1980), Deadly
Blessing (1981), Silent Rage (1982) and
Porkys Revenge (1985).
Jessup is survived by two broth-
ers and one sister.
Jon D. Witmer
I
In Memoriam
Robert C. Jessup, ASC, 1930-2008
92
AMC_0109_p092p093:00 memoriam 12/6/08 10:38 AM Page 92
AMC_0109_p092p093:00 memoriam 12/9/08 3:45 PM Page 93
94 January 2009
and photographic engineering at the
Moscow State Film Institute. After grad-
uating with honors, he began notching
director-of-photography credits on
features, including the critically
acclaimed Mayakovsky Laughs (1975).
Neymans work was considered by the
state to be ideologically dangerous,
and he was forced to emigrate from the
U.S.S.R. as a political refugee.
Landing in New York City,
Neyman began his stateside career at
the bottom rung of the camera depart-
ment. He quickly climbed the ranks,
however, and began shooting documen-
taries and commercials before enjoying
his feature breakout with the cult hit
Liquid Sky (1982). Other credits include
the features D.O.A. (1988), Brittle Glory
(1997) and Civil Brand (2002), and the
telefilms Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee
Harvey Oswald (1993) and Scattered
Dreams (1993).
For more than a decade, Neyman
has applied his scientific knowledge to
help cinematographers maintain control
of their images through all stages of
production. Through his company,
Gamma & Density Co., he has devel-
oped the Thorough Control System and
the Cinematographers Color Correction
Process, or 3cP. He is also an instructor
at the American Film Institute.
Lieberman, Neyman
Join Society
The Society has welcomed Char-
lie Lieberman and Yuri Neyman as active
members.
After earning a B.A. in anthropol-
ogy from Northern Illinois University,
Charles Lieberman, ASC settled in
Chicago to pursue a career in still photog-
raphy. He landed a series of jobs in
camera shops and advertising studios
before setting out as a freelance photog-
rapher. One of his first assignments was
to photograph indigenous cultures in
small villages across 14 countries for a
series of anthropology books.
Returning to Chicago, Lieberman
displayed his work in a gallery and was
subsequently hired as a still photogra-
pher on a documentary about Olympic
athletes. This first taste of motion-picture
production prompted Lieberman to
change tacks, and he began working as a
cinematographer in documentary, indus-
trial and educational films. His first break
in features came with Henry: Portrait of a
Serial Killer (1986). He remained in
Chicago, primarily shooting commercials,
until 1989, when he relocated to Los
Angeles. Since then, he has earned cred-
its on such features as South Central
(1992) and Love is a Gun (1994) and on
such series as My So-Called Life, Party of
Five, Joan of Arcadia and Heroes.
Born in Kharkov, Ukraine, Yuri
Neyman, ASC studied cinematography
Ngai Becomes Associate
Tony Ngai, marketing manager
for Hong Kong-based Salon Films, has
joined the ASC as an associate member.
Active in Hong Kongs motion-picture
industry since 1969, he has served as
section chair of SMPTEs Hong Kong
chapter for most of the last decade, and
he is an active member of the advisory
board of Hong Kongs Institute of Voca-
tional Education. Ngais other affiliations
include the British Kinematograph Sound
and Television Society, the Digital Cinema
Society and the Chinese Society of
Motion Picture and Television Engineers.
ASC Onstage at Expos
Glen MacPherson, ASC and
Peter Anderson, ASC recently shared
their insights about 3-D cinematography
at the HD Expo in Burbank. MacPherson
sat down with director Eric Brevig and
visual-effects coordinator Eric Torres for
Myth Busting 3-D, a discussion moder-
ated by Vince Pace, founder of PaceHD.
Later that day, AC contributor Douglas
Bankston interviewed Anderson about
the cinematographers wide-ranging 3-D
credits.
ASC members also participated in
the recent DV Expo, where they
conducted a series of master classes.
George Spiro Dibie, ASC moderated
the sessions, each of which featured clips
from cinematographers work followed
by a discussion. ASC members Richard
Crudo, Allen Daviau, Michael Goi,
Richard Kline, Daniel Pearl, Robert
Primes, Owen Roizman, David Stump
and Rodney Taylor participated in the
classes.
Stump also participated in the
Full Resolution HD Workflow Work-
shop with cinematographer Joe di
Gennaro and post supervisor Peter
Mavromates; the discussion was moder-
ated by Thomson Grass Valleys Mark
Chiolis. I
Clubhouse News
01_09 clubhouse:00 clubhouse 12/5/08 1:09 PM Page 94
AMC_0109_p095:Layout 1 12/6/08 12:02 PM Page 1
96 January 2009
When you were a child, what film made the strongest impres-
sion on you?
My first pet, a tomcat, was called Lucifer, so I guess Cinderella (1950)
made a big impression on me. As for live action, I loved The Red Balloon
(1956) and, later, Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Cabaret (1972).
Which cinematographers, past or present, do you most admire?
Luis Cuadrado; Gregg Toland, ASC; Freddie Young, BSC; Chivo Lubezki,
ASC, AMC; and Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC, to mention just a few.
What sparked your interest in photography?
Politics. Although I was familiar with filmmaking through my mums
acting career, I wasnt interested in it as a child; I was more impressed
by my parents love for the stage. But when the time came to express
myself, the only satisfaction I could find was in documenting the events,
the passion and energy that came during the late 60s, which were
crucial in my life. My weapon: an Ikarex with Zeiss lenses.
Where did you train and/or study?
Centro de Capacitacin Cinematogrfica in Mexico and The National
Film and Television School in the United Kingdom.
Who were your early teachers or mentors?
For cinematography, Alexis Grivas in Mexico and Brian Probyn and Billy
Williams, BSC, in the U.K. For directing, Antxon Ezeiza in Mexico and
Karel Reisz and Sandy Mackendrick in the U.K.
What are some of your key artistic influences?
Caravaggio, Turner, Constable, Eisenstein, Visconti, Modotti, Cunning-
ham, Irving Penn, Mahler, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Whitman, Garcia
Mrquez, Plcido Domingo, and Mexico the whole country is one of
the most spectacular canvases I have ever experienced.
How did you get your first break in the business?
I interviewed for a film called Christmas Present (1985) at the newly
created Channel 4 in the U.K., and at the time, my only credits were my
film-school background and an unseen Colombian feature.
Writer/director Tony Bicat and producer Barry Hanson interviewed me,
saw my material and offered me the job no recommendations, no
contacts, no friends in the right places, no special favors. Good ol Britain
was very good to me!
What has been your most satisfying moment on a project?
During the filming of Derek Jarmans Caravaggio (1986), we were at a
cold warehouse in the Isle of Dogs, East London, and we were lit for the
painters beautiful Maria Magdalene. Tilda Swinton came in, sat down,
and assumed the position of the model in the painting. We started
rolling, and Tilda was still for an impossible time the effect was
perfect. Suddenly, she turned her head gently and said, Can I have a
cig? Derek and I cried, and costume designer Sandy Powell and camera
assistant John Mathieson (future BSC) embraced, for we were in front of
a film miracle. We had given life to a Caravaggio painting.
Have you made any memorable blunders?
In Sligo, Ireland, my gaffer and great friend Louis Conroy and I were light-
ing a gigantic set in a manor house. Our director, Christopher Morahan,
strode in in military fashion and very curtly said, We are shooting in the
other direction. You know that, dont you? I was speechless, but Lou said,
What do you expect, Chris, when you have an Irish gaffer and a Mexican
cameraman? I think Morahan laughed.
Whats the best professional advice youve ever received?
Kate Nelligan, a superb actor, once told me that if I could light women
beautifully, I would not only help many careers, but I would also definitely
help mine.
What recent books, films or artworks have inspired you?
Brian Friels plays, in particular The Faith Healer; The Shadow of the Wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafn; the exquisite literary trilogy by Jasper Fforde about
the character Thursday Next; the recent Graciela Iturbide exhibition at the
Getty Museum and Wilfredo Lam exhibition at the Museum of Latin Amer-
ican Art; Henner Hofmann ASC, AMCs passion for teaching; La Vie En
Rose (2007); Mongol (2008); and the last season of the Los Angeles Opera.
Do you have any favorite genres, or genres you would like to try?
My favorite genre is the musical. My dream is to do an epic period film
based on history or on a great novel.
If you werent a cinematographer, what might you be doing
instead?
A practitioner of alternative medicine, a hotelier, a teacher or a politician.
Which ASC cinematographers recommended you for member-
ship?
Guillermo Navarro, Steve Bernstein and Robert Stevens. My acceptance
process went really smoothly and the committee was kind, complimentary
and welcoming. It was a sharp contrast to the battle Walter Lassally, BSC
fought on my behalf 10 years earlier at the BSC.
How has ASC membership impacted your life and career?
My life and career have had many chapters. When I was invited to become
a member of the ASC, I turned the first page of a new life, my life in Amer-
ica, surely the most interesting and promising one. Here, I have started
everything again; my children, Max and Victoria, are very young, my career
is relatively new, and being an ASC member is like walking on the shoul-
ders of giants. I
ASC CLOSE-UP
Gabriel Beristain, ASC, BSC
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AMC_0109_p096:00 asc closeup 12/5/08 1:07 PM Page 96
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AkTHUk WONC, HKSC
ONFlLM
" huve wutched movies since wus 7 or 8
yeurs old. suw re-runs o Casao|anca. Conc
w|tn tnc W|nJ und C|t|zcn ranc which mude un
especiully deep impression on me. t wus lile
being in unother world. . huve colluboruted
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1he lunguuge o cinemutogruphy is the sume
everywhere. We use light lile urtists control
brushes when they ure creuting puintings.
1here ure ulwuys new things huppening thut we
cun experiment with und use in dierent wuys.
Movies ure entertuinment, but they ure ulso
how we leurn ubout other people in dierent
times und pluces uround the world."
Arthur Wong, HKSC hus eurned 0 nurrutive
lm credits in colluborution with directors
rom uround the world, including 1nc Wat|otJs.
5|||. 1nc ||oat|nq |anJscapc. 1nc McJa|||on.
|ouo|c V|s|on. L|ttav|o|ct. 5|ccp|css 1own und
the rst two instullments o Oncc Lpon a 1|nc
|n Cn|na. He hus received 20-plus uwurds und
nominutions or cinemutogruphy, und is u
ounder und honorury chuirmun o the Hong
Kong Society o Cinemutogruphers.
[All these lms were shot on Kodul motion picture lm.
|ot an cxtcnJcJ |ntctv|cw w|tn /ttnut Wonq.
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AMC_0109_pCV4:Layout 1 12/2/08 10:44 AM Page 1

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J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 9

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