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LIGHT AND SHADOW
IN PERFECT HARMONY.
The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques
Features 36
54
70
82
90
Cop vs. Robber

Matthew Libatique, ASC and Spike Lee reteam on the
thriller Inside Man
Into the Virtual Woods

David Stump, ASC creates a fairytale world on
CG sets for Red Riding Hood
The Competitive Edge
54
Rodney Taylor shoots the Tour de France for the

Imax film Wired to Win
Marked Man
Peter Sova, ASC puts a clever spin on film noir for
Lucky Number Slevin
Sundance 2006: Frozen Moments

A number of films with standout cinematography
graced this years festival
Departments
On Our Cover:
A tough police
detective (Denzel
Washington) takes
on a devious bank
robber in the crime
thriller Inside Man,
shot by Matthew
Libatique, ASC.
(Photo by David
Lee, courtesy of
Universal Studios.)
Visit us online at
8
10
14
20
26
110
114
120
122
136
138
139
140
142
143
144
70
Editors Note
Presidents Desk
Global Village
DVD Playback
Production Slate
Short Takes
Post Focus
Tomorrows Technology
New Products & Services
Points East
International Marketplace
Classified Ads
Ad Index
82
In Memoriam: Leonard South, ASC
Clubhouse News
ASC Close-Up
www.theasc.com
A p r i l
2 0 0 6
V o l .
8 7 ,
N o .
The International Journal of Film & Digital Production Techniques Since 1920
Visit us online at
www.theasc.com
PUBLISHER Martha Winterhalter
EDITORIAL
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Stephen Pizzello

SENIOR EDITOR Rachael K. Bosley
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Douglas Bankston
TECHNICAL EDITOR Christopher Probst
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Stephanie Argy, Benjamin B, Robert S. Birchard, John Calhoun, Bob Davis,
Bob Fisher, Simon Gray, Hugh Hart, Jim Hemphill, David Heuring, Jay Holben,
Ron Magid, Jean Oppenheimer, John Pavlus, Chris Pizzello, David Samuelson,
Jon Silberg, Kenneth Sweeney, Patricia Thomson, David E. Williams
ART DEPARTMENT
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Marion Gore
DESIGN ASSOCIATE Erik M. Gonzalez
ADVERTISING
ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Angie Gollmann
323-936-3769 FAX 323-936-9188
e-mail: gollmann@pacbell.net
ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Michael Trerotoli
561-637-8707 FAX 561-637-8779
e-mail: trerotoli@aol.com
ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Scott Burnell
323-936-0672 FAX 323-936-9188
e-mail: sburnell@earthlink.net
CLASSIFIEDS/ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Sanja Pearce
323-908-3124 FAX 323-876-4973
e-mail: sanja@ascmag.com
CIRCULATION, BOOKS & PRODUCTS

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Saul Molina
CIRCULATION MANAGER Alex Lopez
SHIPPING MANAGER Javier Ibanez
ASC GENERAL MANAGER Brett Grauman

ASC EVENTS COORDINATOR Patricia Armacost
ASC PRESIDENTS ASSISTANT Delphine Figueras
ASC ACCOUNTING MANAGER Mila Basely
ASC STAFF ACCOUNTANT Diella Nepomuceno
American Cinematographer (ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 87th year of publication, is published
monthly in Hollywood by ASC Holding Corp., 1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028, U.S.A.,
(800) 448-0145, (323) 969-4333, Fax (323) 876-4973, direct line for subscription inquiries (323) 969-4344.
Subscriptions: U.S. $50; Canada/Mexico $70; all other foreign countries $95 a year (remit international
Money Order or other exchange payable in U.S. $). Advertising: Rate card upon request from Hollywood
office. Article Reprints: Requests for high-quality article reprints should be made to Sheridan Reprints at
(800) 394-5157 ext. 28. Copyright 2006 ASC Holding Corp. (All rights reserved.) Periodicals
postage paid at Los Angeles, CA and at additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA.
POSTMASTER:
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American Society of Cinematographers

The ASC is not a labor union or a guild, but
an educational, cultural and professional
organization. Membership is by invitation
to those who are actively engaged as
directors of photography and have
demonstrated outstanding ability. ASC
membership has become one of the highest
honors that can be bestowed upon a
professional cinematographer a mark
of prestige and excellence.
OFFICERS - 2005/2006
Richard P. Crudo
President
Owen Roizman
Vice President
Daryn Okada
Vice President
Curtis Clark
Vice President
Russ Alsobrook
Treasurer
Michael Goi
Secretary
Kees Van Oostrum

Sergeant-at-Arms
MEMBERS OF THE BOARD

Russell P. Carpenter
Curtis Clark
Richard P. Crudo
George Spiro Dibie
Richard Edlund
Francis Kenny
Isidore Mankofsky
Daryn Okada
Woody Omens
Owen Roizman
Nancy Schreiber
John Toll
Roy Wagner
Haskell Wexler
Vilmos Zsigmond
ALTERNATES
John Hora
Stephen Lighthill
Michael Goi
Kees Van Oostrum
Russ Alsobrook
6
MUSEUM CURATOR
Steve Gainer
Editors Note
ur biggest issue of the year so far is also our most
diverse. Flipping through it, youll find articles on
projects shot in a wide range of formats: standard
35mm, anamorphic 35mm, Super 35mm, 8- and 15perf 65mm, high-definition (HD) video, 24p HD and
MiniDV, among others. Its safe to say that cinematographers are taking full advantage of their
creative options.
In this era of expanding palettes, Matthew
Libatique, ASC has distinguished himself as a director of photography who is more than willing to take
risks, and the bank-heist thriller Inside Man reteamed
him with Spike Lee, a filmmaker who has always encouraged his cinematographers
to push the envelope. Spike sort of riffs with me, gives me an idea, and then I go
away and come up with a visual arc, Libatique told interviewer John Calhoun (Cop
vs. Robber, page 36). At a certain point hell look at me and say, So, what have you
got? For the duos latest joint (Lees favored term for his films), Libatique
responded with a look that artfully combines mixed color temperatures, cross
processing, bleach bypass and a digital intermediate (DI).
Not to be outdone, Peter Sova, ASC put a new spin on film-noir conventions
for Lucky Number Slevin, his latest collaboration with adventurous director Paul
McGuigan. Working on some highly stylized sets crafted by production designer
Franois Sguin, Sova crafted inventive imagery that would fully embody the pictures
clever script. Jon Silberg sat Sova under the hot lights for his grilling (Marked Man,
page 82).
Leading-edge technology was put to intriguing use on Red Riding Hood, which
surrounds its fairytale protagonist with computer-generated environments. David
Stump, ASC was enlisted by director Randal Kleiser to shoot the project, and the
cinematographer used Thomson Grass Valleys HD Viper cameras to capture highquality images that would facilitate the shows extensive digital compositing. Associate editor Douglas Bankston got the rest of the scoop in a detailed Q&A with Stump
(Into the Virtual Woods, page 54).
Fans of large-format cinematography will be thrilled by the fast-paced images
in Wired to Win, an Imax production that uses the Tour de France bicycle race to
examine how intense competition affects the human brain. Director of photography
Rodney Taylor and his crew faced an array of daunting logistical difficulties during the
shoot, and their inventive solutions make for a fascinating read. Jay Holben joined
the peloton to pursue the full story (The Competitive Edge, page 70).
This issue also includes our annual roundup of cinematography standouts
from the Sundance Film Festival. AC s reporting team senior editor Rachael
Bosley, contributing writers Pat Thomson and Jean Oppenheimer, and yours truly
scoped out some of the most visually compelling entries for your edification and
enjoyment (Sundance 2006: Frozen Moments, page 90).
Stephen Pizzello
Executive Editor
8
Photo by Douglas Kirkland.
Dale Brooks, ABC-TV / Walt Disney Co
Presidents Desk
ur responsibility is to the visual image of the film
as well as the well-being of the crew. The
continuing and expanding practice of working
extreme hours can compromise both the quality of our
work and the health and safety of others.
A simple, elegant comment from one of the most
honored and respected figures in the business. When
the late Conrad Hall, ASC made this statement in 2002,
he had just endured (survived, more likely) an arduous
but not particularly uncommon schedule on
Road to Perdition. His purpose was to incite reform of
a policy which had over time become a type of officially
sanctioned abuse. Five years earlier, assistant cameraman Brent Hershman had been killed while driving
home from a shoot in a sleep-deprived state. Countless others continue to avoid a
similar fate merely by luck. It remains a black mark on the industry that to date, no
substantive action has been taken to rein in the environment that leads to the working of excessive hours.
If youre unfamiliar with our habits, dont dare chalk this up to laziness or lack
of enthusiasm. No other occupation Im aware of puts in the kind of time we do. We
perform our work in any number of irregular, lengthy and changeable combinations, all
while being subjected to every kind of weather condition.
The medical, physical and mental effects of going too long without sleep or
having ones sleep interrupted are varied and well documented, and none of them is
good. The human body is capable of staggering endurance, but no one should have to
call on those reserves just to make a living. During Hell Week, Navy SEAL candidates routinely get fewer than four hours of sleep out of a 120-hour evolution. Most
of that time, they are freezing cold and soaking wet. Trainees have been known to
mentally collapse, to have visions, to hallucinate. This extreme regimen is part of the
toughest military training in the world. It prepares men for war.
Were not going to war, but a parallel exists in our own world. It begins with a
7 a.m. call on a Monday, and instead of finishing with an 8 p.m. wrap, it is followed by
dailies and consultation for the next day with the director and producer. Then theres
travel home or back to the hotel, and perhaps a meal. No one jumps into bed the
instant he walks through the door, so add at least another half-hour of decompression
time. Before you know it, youve been awake and at it for 18-19 hours. Then gradually
push that 8 a.m. call forward so that by Friday, this crucible begins at 5 p.m. and ends
at 7 or 8 the following morning. Working on location? Youre most likely finishing your
week on Sunday morning and preparing to return to the set on Monday at 7 a.m.
Now repeat that pattern for months on end. Its like living in a state of constant,
impenetrable jet lag. Health, relationships and quality of work suffer, and safety on set
is compromised. Can you imagine asking an insurance salesman to maintain this pace?
A grocery manager? An accountant? I promise you, the clerks who came up with this
devilish design rarely approach a productive eight hours in their warm, dry offices.
They probably dont find themselves nodding off behind the wheel on the San Diego
Freeway, either.
ASC member Haskell Wexler screened his documentary Who Needs Sleep? to
great acclaim at this years Sundance Film Festival (see page 96). The film was seven
years in the making and is extraordinarily well-researched and presented, and it verifies the conclusions Hall referred to in his seminal statement. When you strip away
the emotional attachments and artistic pretensions surrounding what we do, the
object of our passion is seen for what it really is: a job. How abusive hours became
standard procedure and why its allowed to continue are of no significance. What is
important is that this situation needs to change.
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Mexican Charmer Duck Season Earns Its Kudos
t a time when multiplexes seem

saturated with big-budget bombast,
its refreshing to see Mexico lavish
praise on the opposite sort of film: Duck
Season, a black-and-white drama
whose action occurs almost entirely
inside a small apartment. The film swept
Mexicos Ariel Awards last year, and one
of those prizes went to cinematographer
Alexis Zab.
Directed and written by Fernando
Eimbcke, Duck Season follows several
characters whose paths cross in a
Mexico City apartment one afternoon.
Flama and Moko, two cynical 14-yearolds left alone for the day, resolve to
entertain themselves with junk food and
video games; Rita, their 16-year-old
neighbor, tries unsuccessfully to bake a
cake in their oven; and Ulises, a disaffected pizza deliveryman who arrives 10
seconds past his 30-minute delivery

deadline, resorts to a sit-in strike when
the boys refuse to pay him. When a
power outage traps them all together in
the apartment, their insouciant banter
slowly evolves into a tragicomic therapy
session touching on youthful longing and
adult disappointment.
Zab, who has worked as a director of photography in Mexico for 10
years, got his start shooting commercials and music videos right out of film
school. I worked as an assistant
cameraman for four years, but I
managed to do that while still being in
school, he explains. Prior to Duck
Season, Zab teamed with Eimbcke on
many commercials and videos, as well
as several short films. Duck Season
marks the feature-film debut of both
filmmakers and most of the cast and
14 April 2006
crew as well. I think only the videoassist guy and the sound recordist had
done feature work before! says Zab.
The production had two months
to prep, and Zab says most of that time
was spent searching for the right location. The filmmakers settled on a
Mexico City housing project famous for
its Socialist-era architecture and history
of protest movements. This movie is
our attempt to tell a quotidian, everyday-life story in a place thats always
been associated with radical politics,
explains the cinematographer. But finding a suitable unit inside the building
proved even harder. Either the apartments were full or, when we found an
empty one, it was too small or had the
wrong orientation. When we finally
found the right one, we went there
every day for about a month, talking
about the shots and starting to imagine
the film sequence by sequence in that
space.
This was followed by three
weeks of rehearsals, which threw into
sharp relief two big challenges: finding
enough interesting compositions in the
cramped space, and creating a consistent black-and-white look with limited
resources. On one hand, it came very
naturally because Id done a lot of
shorts in similar situations, with natural
light and tight location work, says
Zab. But on this film the challenge
was mostly due to the duration of the
story how many angles can you find
in one living room over a whole film?
The desire to shoot black-andwhite came out of the rehearsals. We
wanted to make this film very real, but
contemporary homes are invaded by
branding and advertising, explains
Zab. How can you compose a shot in
the kitchen when the background is full
of cans and cereal boxes? That adds a
Photos courtesy of Warner Independent Pictures. Bottom photo on page 16 by Fernando Eimbcke.
by John Pavlus
A day at home
starts out well
for Moko
(Diego Catao,
left) and Flama
(Daniel
Miranda), but
their video
games are soon
interrupted by a
power outage.
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Right: The boys

find other ways
to entertain
themselves.
Below: Director
of photography
Alexis Zab
hunkers down
to find an angle
in the
apartments tiny
kitchen as his
young stars
ham it up. In the
background is
set decorator
Luisa Gualas.
lot of distraction. Black-and-white lets

you focus on composition; color
elements lose importance in favor of
lines and shapes.
Monochrome film stock is very
expensive to process in Mexico, so
much so that it proved cheaper for Zab
to shoot on two color stocks, Kodak
Vision 500T 5279 and Vision 250D 5246,
and use a digital intermediate (DI) to
take the color out. Nevertheless, Zab
and Eimbcke strove to maintain consistency throughout the shoot; they dialed
all the chroma out of their video-assist

monitors and had dailies transferred to
VHS in black-and-white. We never
saw this film in color at any point in the
process, notes Zab. Many people
argued against this, and the producer
was a little shocked. He trusted us
completely, but he was probably sleepless for about two weeks after we told
him our plan.
The cinematographer lowered
costs further by filming with an Aaton
35-III 3-perf camera, which was small

16 April 2006
enough to wedge into nooks in the

apartment. Our big luxury was a
Century Optics snorkel lens from the
Eighties, he adds. That helped us get
the camera parallel to the wall, as close
as possible, and shoot facing out from
it. This was especially necessary in the
kitchen, which was a very hard location.
It looks much bigger onscreen! He
used unfiltered Zeiss Ultra Primes ranging from 12mm to 35mm for most
setups, shooting wide open to make the
most of the locations natural light.
As the visuals began to come
together, the filmmakers, inspired by
the work of Jim Jarmusch and Yasujiro
Ozu, started to compose scenes in long
takes without close-ups or camera
movement, relying on deep-focus framing and mise en scne to set the tone.
Wed sometimes shoot an insert to
help with transitions, but after a week
and a half we quit that altogether and
just concentrated on the master shots,
recalls Zab. The editor was very
worried about not having anything to
cut, but we stuck to it, and it worked out
fine.
We also felt [this strategy] was
important because the film doesnt have
a main character, he continues. There
are four points of view, and we didnt
want to direct the viewers attention to
any one character with close-ups. We
thought it would be more interesting to
let the viewers decide for themselves.
The film does break from this
framing style in a few flashbacks to
formative moments in each characters
past. In one such sequence, Ulises
begins by telling a story about working
in an animal shelter where stray dogs
were regularly put down. The camera
slowly pushes in toward Ulises, who is
seated on the floor. (Zab executed this
shot by locking the camera down on a
simple skateboard dolly.) Then the
scene cuts to Ulises flashback, filmed
from his point of view with a handheld
Aaton A-Minima; this footage was
push-processed 2 stops for added grain.
This was looking into the characters
mind, so we wanted a very different
look with lots of texture, says Zab.
We also wanted it to have a very
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rough, handheld feeling I just moved

the camera around without really looking through the lens. Also, the [animal
shelter] location required that approach
because we didnt really have authorization to shoot there!
These flashbacks were filmed on
the last day of the shoot, and they were
a welcome treat for the crew, which had
by then spent five weeks in a tiny apartment. There were some days where
cell phones were thrown against
walls, admits Zab, and the day we
shot the exteriors was a sigh of relief for
everybody.
Unfortunately, Zabs troubles
werent over yet: the DI turned out to be
a very painful process. He explains,
We were probably only the second or
third feature thats had a DI done in
Mexico, and we had to iron out most of
the details on the fly. Most of his woes
came in his attempts to maintain a
consistent look. For example, tiny variations in the developing baths yielded
visible mismatches between reels
one would be a little greener, the next
would go toward magenta, and the next
would look cyan. The only way to
ensure quality control was to print every
reel for each copy of the film consecutively and on the same day. Of course,
that solution went by the wayside as
soon as Duck Season secured a wider
release. It was released with 40 or 50
prints in Mexico, and they would print
one day full of roll ones, and then the
next day all roll twos, and so on, says
Zab. It made sense, but it was very
hard to maintain consistency.
Despite those difficulties, Zab
says he would be happy to work with
black-and-white again. However, he
would take a different tack: I would
push for the extra money to shoot on
black-and-white stock, just to avoid all
the complications.
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DVD Playback
An Unmarried Woman (1978)
1.85:1 (16x9 Enhanced)
Digital Dolby 2.0,
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20th Century Fox Home
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He was buying a shirt in Bloomingdales and he fell in love, proclaims
newly divorced Erica Benton (Jill Clayburgh) when the topic of her former
husband, Martin (Michael Murphy),
comes up. For 16 years, the Bentons
shared a life together in their bright,
two-bedroom apartment on Manhattans Upper East Side, where they raised
a daughter, Patti. When Martin tearfully
confesses that he has fallen in love with
someone else, Ericas seemingly stable
life crashes, and she vomits on the
street near the SoHo gallery where she
works. Scared, miserable and angry,
Erica moves forward into life as a newly
single woman, determined to find
herself and raise her daughter with
some help from her divorced women
friends. After surviving several uncomfortable and unsuccessful attempts to
find male companionship, Erica eventually meets a brash, friendly painter, Saul
(Alan Bates), and decides to give him a
chance.
After making a splash at the
Cannes Film Festival, where Clayburgh
won the award for best actress, Paul
Mazurskys An Unmarried Woman, a
feminist-minded take on the life of a
single, urban female, became a critical
and commercial hit in the 1970s. To give

the film a direct, realistic visual sensibility, Mazursky chose to shoot entirely on
location in Manhattan, borrowing
several apartments, lofts, stores and
offices. He tapped cinematographer
Arthur J. Ornitz, his collaborator on Next
Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), to film
the project. Ornitz had gained a reputation for photographing New York in a
gritty, realistic way with such films as
Serpico and Death Wish. For An Unmarried Woman, the cameraman adjusted
his eye for urban crime dramas and gave
the streets of Manhattan a sunny, open
and occasionally romantic quality without ever losing a sense of the real.
An Unmarried Woman recently
made its DVD debut courtesy of 20th
Century Fox Home Entertainment, and
the film finally looks as it should on
home screens. Fans who are familiar
with the drab, anemic VHS release that
has been available for some time will
find this DVD a revelation. The picture
transfer is faithful to the look of the film;
Ornitzs careful work in brightly lit, often
cramped interiors finally shines with
sterile sophistication, while the city
exteriors have just enough visible grain
and sharpness to illuminate shadows
and detail not evident in the earlier video
version. The clean audio is presented in
both stereo and monaural tracks. (The
stereo track seems only to enhance Bill
Contis occasionally intrusive musical
score.)
The DVDs supplements comprise
the films theatrical trailer; a collection of
trailers for other Fox titles, including
Next Stop, Greenwich Village and the
Clayburgh vehicle Silver Streak; and a
feature-length commentary by Mazursky
and Clayburgh. Although the director and
actress recorded their remarks separately, their comments have been integrated well. The commentary is generally absorbing, offering reminiscences
about the making of the film and the
20 April 2006
response it received. Mazursky occasionally gets carried away but manages

to make some interesting, generous
remarks about his cast and crew. (He
notes that Ornitz had a difficult job with
the practical locations but produced
great results.)
Though Clayburgh and Mazursky
point out obvious similarities between
An Unmarried Woman and HBOs popular series Sex and the City, there is a
great deal about the film that remains
unique, interesting and poignant. A
forerunner of the many single- or
divorced- mother sitcoms that became
so popular in the late 1970s, the picture
also imparts a genuine sense of hope as
it draws to a close on the sunny streets
of an as-yet-ungentrified Greenwich
Village. Things might not turn out
perfectly, but theres a chance the main
character will be able to have lovers,
friends, a family, a career, a sense of
peace and, most importantly, choices.
Kenneth Sweeney
The Sisterhood of the

Traveling Pants (2005)
Dolby Digital 5.1
Warner Home Video, $28.95
One of the most underrated
releases of last year was The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, an adaptation of the celebrated novel that retains
the strengths of its source material
while also taking advantage of the
techniques that separate film from liter-
ature. The story of four girls (played by

Amber Tamblyn, America Ferrera, Blake
Lively and Alexis Bledel) coming of age
over the course of a summer is aimed
squarely at young audiences, but the
films elegant visual style and sophisticated modulation of tone will be appreciated by filmmakers and film students.
Sisterhood is a collaboration
between two masters of the widescreen frame, director Ken Kwapis and
cinematographer John Bailey, ASC (The
Big Chill, The Accidental Tourist,
Groundhog Day). Utilizing the anamorphic 2.40:1 frame, the filmmakers visually convey the characters friendships
with long takes and careful compositions. Early scenes keep all four girls in
the frame at the same time through
blocking and camerawork, and the
emphasis on composition over cutting
creates a spatial unity that reinforces
the intimacy between the characters. As
the story progresses, the girls part
company for various adventures, and
the four very different locales in which
they find themselves display a remarkable tonal range. Bailey has said that
place is the fifth character in the film,
and his use of the anamorphic format
and long lenses brings the backgrounds
close to the actors. The result is a series
of sharp contrasts between the four
storylines.
This excellent DVD transfer flawlessly captures the breadth of Baileys
palette. For example, a sun-drenched
soccer camp in Baja is dominated by
yellows and browns, while the Greece
sequences are characterized by blues
and whites that echo Raoul Coutards
work on Contempt (a film that served as
a model for Kwapis in its combination of
the intimate and the epic). Another European filmmaker, Michelangelo Antonioni, is recalled in the alienating environment surrounding a girl who spends
the summer working at a Wal-Martstyle superstore. With each of these
storylines, the filmmakers adopt not
only different palettes but also different
shooting styles; the Baja section
features kinetic movement and crane
work, whereas the superstore
sequences are visually sterile.
The best of the DVDs supplements is a collection of eight deleted

scenes that add to our understanding of
the issues explored in the film. Kwapis
provides an enjoyable commentary for
these scenes, which, unfortunately,
only add up to about seven minutes of
screen time. A feature-length commentary by Kwapis would have been a
welcome addition to this disc. In lieu of
that, we have the featurette Sisters,
Secrets and the Traveling Pants, which
shows Tamblyn, Ferrera and Bledel
watching scenes from the movie on
video and commenting on them. This
might be entertaining for the films
target audience, but it has little to offer
mature viewers. The same is true of
Fun on the Set, a brief and mostly
pointless making-of documentary. The
films theatrical trailer and an interview
with Ann Brashares, author of the book,
round out the extra features on the disc.
Jim Hemphill
Mysterious Skin (2005)

Digital Dolby 5.1, DTS
Tartan/TLA Releasing, $24.99
In the summer of 1981, two 8year-old boys join a baseball team in
their small Kansas town. Brian, shy and
awkward, joins to satisfy his demanding father, while Neil, precocious and
willful, joins to give his mother more
time alone with her boyfriends.
Although they are not friends, both
boys have a life-altering experience
that summer. Brian is found in his basement after a game, having awakened
from a mysterious blackout with a
nosebleed. His mother, sure he has
been injured during a game, makes him
quit the team. Neil spends much of his
free time with the teams coach (Bill
22 April 2006
Sage), who encourages the fatherless

youth to be his special friend.
Ten years later, Brian and Neil
are young men, and the events of that
summer are affecting their lives in ways
they dont fully understand. Brian (Brady
Corbet) has become convinced he was
abducted by aliens and blacked out
during their experiments; Neil (Joseph
Gordon-Levitt) has developed into a
shrewd hustler who recruits clients,
older men, at the local playground.
Eventually their separate lives intersect
and lead them to come to terms with the
unfortunate truth about the summer of
1981.
Based on the acclaimed novel by
Scott Heim, Mysterious Skin makes
several shifts between 1981 and 1991
and required a look that was both realistic and occasionally surreal. Impressed
by the work director of photography
Steve Gainer, ASC had done on Larry
Clarks Bully, Mysterious Skin director/writer Gregg Araki offered his
project to Gainer. The cinematographer
made the most of the material, creating
many instances of magic-hour lighting;
farmland tableaux; harsh, urban exteriors; and ethereal, dreamlike sequences.
The film runs the gamut visually, from
the blinding, white kitchen light of the
opening sequence to the lonely darkness that surrounds the characters in
the final scene. Through his lighting,
Gainer creates an impressive array of
shadows, illuminating the many layers
of blacks on display.
Mysterious Skin recently arrived
on DVD courtesy of Tartan/TLA Releasing, with its look well preserved. The
transfers lighting levels always seem
faithful to the film, and even the darkest
scenes feature no distortion. The transfer is remarkably sharp, with some visible grain giving attention to detail
throughout the frame. The sound is
available in Digital Dolby 5.1 and DTS
tracks, and although the latter features
slightly more bass, there is little difference between the two; both are excellent, offering well-developed surround
elements.
The DVD features a commentary
by Araki, Corbet and Gordon-Levitt, and
although the speakers offer a few

insights into the production, they eventually seem to be grasping to find
something important to say. Not all
filmmakers and actors excel at audio
commentaries, and its a shame a
straightforward interview wasnt
included instead. The disc also offers a
strange but engaging hour-long video
segment of Corbet and Gordon-Levitt
reading aloud from Heims novel on a
street in Los Angeles, as well as the
films theatrical trailer and a selection
of other TLA Releasing trailers.
Released in U.S. theaters
unrated, Mysterious Skin played to a
limited audience last year. This is
unfortunate, because a film that deals
so sensitively and effectively with the
prevalent problem of child abuse
deserves to be seen. The difficult
burden of such abuse the overwhelming sense of loneliness and
alienation that the crime can inflict on
its victim is at the heart of Mysterious Skin, giving the picture a keen
social conscience. Without judging
either of its main characters, two very
different men, the film certainly
involves us in their painful coming
of age.
Kenneth Sweeney
I
NEXT MONTHS
REVIEWS
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Cinematographer:
Adam Holender, ASC
Ryans Daughter (1970)
Cinematographer:
Freddie Young, BSC
The Unbearable Lightness
of Being (1988)
Cinematographer:
Sven Nykvist, ASC
24
Production Slate
A Teen Odyssey and an Expressionist Homage
Wild in the Streets

by Hugh Hart
Even by low-budget, guerilla-filmmaking standards, Larry Clarks Wassup
Rockers struck Steve Gainer, ASC as a
daunting challenge. The MiniDV slice-oflife feature, which opened the 2006
Slamdance Film Festival and will be
theatrically released in June, stars seven
Latino skateboarders who dress like the
punk-rock band The Ramones. One day,
they leave their south Los Angeles
neighborhood and go skating in Beverly
Hills, where they encounter suspicious
police and flirtatious girls. After a night
on the town, the exhausted teens return
home at dawn. When we went into this
thing, there was no script, these were
non-actors, and we were shooting in
south L.A., recalls Gainer. Im not
gonna lie: I did this film for Larry. When
he hired me for Bully [2001], he impacted
my career more than anyone else.

Although Gainer was well
acquainted with Clarks methods he
also shot the directors 2002 telefilm
Teenage Caveman Wassup Rockers
proved especially difficult. For one thing,
Clark was determined to shoot the entire
picture on MiniDV. That was decided
before I was brought to the table, notes
Gainer. The original concept, which is
the way Larry likes to work, was Grab a
MiniDV camera and shoot. Thats
wonderful for Grandmas birthday, but
for something thats supposed to actually have a tone, thats just not the case.
Gainer had previously used the
Panasonic AG-DVX100A for a concert
documentary about country-music singer
Kenny Chesney. When he signed on to
shoot Wassup Rockers in 2004, Gainer
researched MiniDV options on the Internet and decided to use three Canon
XL-2 cameras equipped with Canons
26 April 2006
14x Manual Zoom Lens; this package

was provided by Alan Gordon Enterprises. At the time, the XL-2 had just
come out, and it had something like
100,000 more pixels per chip than the
DVX100A, says Gainer.
He quickly realized that shooting
with available light was out of the
question if he wanted to avoid muddy
textures. I was terrified when I investigated a few things that had been shot
on MiniDV and transferred to film. The
examples I saw were grainy with soft
focus, just awful. After I recovered, I
got damned serious. I told Larry, We
really need to light this.
Out of the box, the XL-2 is
approximately one stop slower than the
DVX100A, he continues. Right away,
that ate away at Larrys concept of just
running around and shooting. There
were other issues, too; the Canon has a
switch that allows it to go -3 dB; that
Wassup Rockers photos courtesy of First Look Pictures.
Kico (Francisco
Pedrasa) takes
the plunge in a
Beverly Hills
pool in a scene
from Wassup
Rockers.
Above: Kico and

his fellow
skaters enjoy a
laugh at a
policemans
expense. Below:
Jonathan
(Jonathan
Velasquez) and
Iris (Iris Zelaya)
get close.
allows you to eliminate even more

noise and grain, but thats also 3 dB less
light. At -3 dB, the ASA of the camera
we were shooting with was somewhere around 125. So in came the
lights!
Wassup Rockers began production on the skaters home turf, with key
scenes filmed in a small house in south
L.A. The ceiling was only 8 feet off the
ground, so we essentially went through
the house and pre-rigged it as if we
were doing an episode of The Real
World, says Gainer. We hung 4-by-4
and 4-by-2 banks of Kino Flos everywhere, and we put diffusion on them so
it didnt look like fluorescent bulbs were
blasting the actors.
Gainer and Brian Sweeney operated the two main cameras, while
gaffer/cameraman Ben Gamble operated a third and shot second-unit skat-
ing footage. Shooting in cramped practical interiors was complicated by the

fact that the actors moved without
regard to conventional blocking. We
had seven or eight non-actors running
around, never hitting any marks,
recalls Gainer. They were truly incapable of doing the same thing twice, so
it was impossible to get a matching
take. This played into Larrys concept.
He adds, There were plenty of shots
that had a camera in frame, but when
you have three cameras rolling six or
eight hours of tape a day, you just keep
rolling and let the kids do their thing.
After filming in south L.A. for
several days, the filmmakers moved on
to Los Feliz for another 18 days of principal photography. The trendy neighborhood was actually standing in for
Beverly Hills; Clarks 30-page treatment
called for action to take place in and
around Beverly Hills High School, but
after reviewing Clarks script, the
production was denied permission to
film anywhere in Beverly Hills. They
were really nice to us when we scouted
Beverly Hills High, Gainer notes wryly,
but they hadnt read the script yet.
Gainer recruited videographer
Danny Minnick to film some of the
skateboard sequences. Dannys very
good, he says. Like most skateboard
videographers, he likes to use a fisheye
lens, but I didnt want that look because
Larry Clark is all about long lensing.
With a 4mm lens, you can just point it in

28 April 2006
a direction and get a shot, but with a

50mm, you actually have to frame
somebody. This project was a whole
new level of skateboarding and operating at the same time, and Danny rose to
the occasion and did a great job.
One of Gainers favorite
sequences is set at night on Vine Street.
He had to film the characters as they
skateboard four blocks downhill to
Hollywood Boulevard. The production
asked him to use a Condor to light the
scene, but Gainer argued for one BeBee
Night Light and prevailed. That was
one of the more fun nights I had on this
movie. We just aimed the BeBee light
and then shot. Theyre a little expensive
to rent but well worth it, because they
eliminate all the cabling you have to do
if you use Condors. When we turned
around to look in the opposite direction,
we simply brought the Bebee down,
backed up two blocks, stuck it back up,
and were ready to go. It was extraordinary.
During the final days of the
shoot, tension developed on set as the
non-professional stars grew increasingly rambunctious. The crew was
exhausted because the kids werent
listening to anyone, recalls Gainer.
Wed be ready to shoot and one of
them would just be gone, and by the
time the assistant director had rounded
that person up, another one was missing. Then the actors started to wrestle
with the crew unannounced, all of
them would run and jump on someone.
When you have a bunch of 15-year-olds
waiting in a trailer for two or three
hours for a lighting setup, they go
bananas.
When Gainer wasnt operating,
he was glued to a waveform vector
scope. That was the greatest ally I had
in the whole process, because it
allowed me to set levels for white and
blacks. I fought tooth and nail to keep
the waveform for the entire shoot, and
boy, am I glad I did. When youve got
three cameras pointed in three directions and seven kids, how do you find
consistency? The waveform was my
consistency. The color-correcting phase
was much more pleasant because Id
Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC

For Being Nominated By Both The
20th Annual ASC Awards And
The 78th Annual Academy Awards For
Outstanding Achievement In Cinematography
On Brokeback Mountain
HOLLYWOOD 818-761-4440
TORONTO 416-467-1700
VANCOUVER 604-984-4563
w w w. c l a i r m o n t . c o m
been able to maintain a balance.

Nevertheless, Gainer received a
shock when he saw the first output neg
at Technicolors Complete Post, now
known as Technicolor Digital Intermediates (TDI). The first pass was bad
what we saw on the CRT monitor and
what we saw projected onscreen were
two entirely different things, says the
cinematographer. ASC associate
member Dana Ross, senior vice president of feature-film relations for TDI,
stepped in to expedite the creation of a
customized lookup table, which was
configured by ASC associate member
Joshua Pines, TDIs director of imaging
and research. The difference was
miraculous, says Gainer. Suddenly,
what we saw on the CRT was exactly
what we saw on the big screen. That
was a fabulous moment.
Gainer and colorist Wayne
Hampton then spent three days grading
the picture with a da Vinci 2K Plus. We
ended up with a final product which, on
its own, looks quite nice. To understand
MiniDVs capabilities, look at the
sequence where Kico is sitting in the
bedroom with the girl from Beverly Hills.
I lit it with a [Kino Flo] Wall-o-Lite and a
1200-watt HMI Par. That was an
instance where I was able to light and
photograph the action properly, and it
looks nice.
He cites an early scene in the
film as an example of the opposite
approach: When the skaters band is
performing in a bedroom in south L.A.,
thats an example of no control, no plan
for what we were doing its Larry
Clark rawness. In this project, I tried to
bridge the gap between something
thats beautiful and something very raw
and real, which is what Larry really
loves.
Despite the productions challenges, Gainer says he would work with
Clark again in a heartbeat. Making this
movie was very difficult on all fronts,
but the result is something I think Larrys
fans will appreciate and enjoy. I now
hold the record for shooting the most
Larry Clark films, three. And Im ready
for number four.
A Modern Take on Dr.

Caligari
by Elina Shatkin
Words such as classic and
groundbreaking are often bandied
about, but few films are more deserving
of superlatives than The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari. Directed by Robert Wiene, this
seminal silent film, made in Germany in
1919, reshaped the aesthetics of the
medium and launched the serial-killer
genre. The dramatic lighting and
expressionistic sets created a world
that had never before been seen on
celluloid. Although Wiene never made
another film that equaled Caligari, the
pictures influence extended well
beyond its era and has inspired an array
of filmmakers.
Among them is writer/director
David Lee Fisher, a software developer
and visual-effects artist known for his
work in the video-game industry. The
son of a NASA engineer, Fisher became
interested in technology at an early age,
and he says it was always his ambition
to be a filmmaker. I had a lot of interest in both computers and entertainment, so it felt natural to combine the
two.
Fisher had long wanted to
revamp The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but
he wanted to approach it in a way that
was respectful to the original. I didnt
want to do a modern Hollywood
remake, I wanted to create something
along the lines of what someone would
do if he was covering a song. His idea

30 April 2006
was to use backgrounds scanned from

the original film and shoot modern-day
actors speaking new dialogue against a
greenscreen. To convey the concept to
prospective backers, he captured the
backgrounds from a DVD of Caligari and
created a brief composite of himself
walking through the town scene. Toting
the demo on his laptop, he ran into
producer Leonard McCleod at a Star
Trek convention. I showed it to him,
and about five seconds later he agreed
to do it, recalls Fisher. McCleod singlehandedly funded the projects six-figure
budget.
Fisher found a 35mm print of
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari that had
been spirited out of Europe during
World War II; the print is owned by film
restorationist David Shepard, who
supported Fishers project and allowed
his print to be transferred to DVD. The
original Caligari was filmed at approximately 18 fps, and although its aspect
ratio was close to 4x3, Fisher decided to
finish his project in 16x9.
The print was transferred in 4x3
and the new footage was shot in 4x3,
and during postproduction, the tops and
bottoms of both images were cropped
to create a 16x9 image. It helped with
matching the shots because it gave us
some leeway to move the background
plates up and down, explains Fisher.
When the film was up-converted in the
final digital intermediate (DI), the black
bars at the top and bottom were
removed and the image was enlarged
to its final 16x9 output.
Caligari photos by Len McLeod; frame grabs courtesy of Highlander Films LLC.
Dr. Caligaris
charge Cesare
(Doug Jones),
the prime
suspect in a
murder, abducts
the dead mans
fiance (Lauren
Birkall) and
flees
prosecution in
The Cabinet of
Dr. Caligari, a
remake of the
classic German
Expressionist
film.
Top right:
Cinematographer
Christopher
Duddy shot
Caligari entirely
against
greenscreen; this
material was
composited with
backgrounds
scanned from a
print of the
original film. Left
column: Final
composites of
newly shot live
action and
original
backgrounds.
After finalizing his script, Fisher

captured 720x480 JPEGs from the DVD
transfer and used them to create a shot
list. By the time he brought in visualeffects cinematographer Christopher
Duddy (The Abyss, Terminator 2,
Titanic), Fisher had already decided to
shoot with the Panasonic AG-DVX100A
in 24p mode. He had decided against
high-definition video because it
required too much processing power in
post and made the visual effects look
less believable. If we had too much
resolution, it looked liked the people
had been pasted into the back-
grounds, he notes.
The entire movie was shot in nine
days on a soundstage against greenscreen, a feat that required extensive
previsualization. Duddy and Fisher
explored complex methods for matching
the actors against the backgrounds, but
in the end they chose a fairly simple
approach. The two on-set cameras were
tethered via long FireWire cables to a
Pentium 4 3.2 GHz computer that was
connected to a 35" plasma screen. Using
the real-time sliders in Ultra Key, a lowend compositing program commonly
used for corporate videos, Fisher
replaced the greenscreen with the
captured backgrounds from Caligari.
This on-set compositing technique required Duddy to match the
camera angles by eye. Typically you
shoot a background plate and collect all
your data so that when you shoot the
foreground elements, you can match all
those perspectives, says Duddy.
Because none of that data had been
gathered from the original, I had to
mostly eyeball it.
All the backgrounds and their
corresponding scene numbers were
logged in the computer. An actor or extra
would stand on a mark while Duddy
tilted, panned, zoomed, dollied, raised or
lowered the camera until the shot was
lined up. I wasnt even looking through
the lens, he recalls. I was looking at
the composite on the monitor. I could tell
when something didnt line up, but it
32 April 2006
took a lot of finessing to get it right.

Sometimes raising the camera half an
inch would make all the difference.
The first shot took a daunting 412 hours
to set up, but by the end of production,
the filmmakers were averaging 54
setups per day.
One advantage of shooting
against greenscreen was financial. To
shoot a reverse, Duddy didnt move the
camera, he moved the actors. The
entire time, the camera probably didnt
move within 5 feet of its position, says
Fisher. Fortunately, on the original Caligari Wiene often started rolling the
camera on an empty set and then had
the actors walk in. This meant less
reconstruction was required because he
could pull frames without any actors in
them.
Fisher noticed that Wienes film
consists mostly of wide shots, but he
decided he wanted to add close-ups,
which Duddy accomplished by attaching to the Fisher dolly a Ubangi head on
which he could mount two DVX100
cameras. One thing I learned from
James Cameron is coverage, coverage,
coverage! laughs Duddy. With the
first camera, wed get the wide shot
that was in the original, and with the
second, wed play with interesting
angles.
The trickiest aspect of framing
was accurately representing the ground
plane (i.e., the floor). In post, actors
could be digitally moved left or right as
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necessary, but if the camera placement

was slightly off in a high-angle shot of
an actor moving toward camera, the
person would grow too large as he
approached and would look like he was
walking through the floor, an effect that
could not be fixed later.
Prior to the shoot, Fisher and
producer Paula Elins combed through
the movie and made a list of the necessary props. With a few exceptions, such
as a couch in an apartment and a ramp
that appears in two shots, real props
were used on the greenscreen set.
Fisher decided it would be too timeconsuming to either look for a matching
couch or digitally remove it from the
background plate, so instead, he had the
actor sit on an applebox covered in
greenscreen fabric. When the background was added later, it looked as
though the actor was sitting on the
couch in the original film.
Instead of actual sets, green tape
marks were placed on the floor to indicate the presence of walls, floors and
other objects. For the scene in which the
murderer, Cesare (Doug Jones), climbs
up a tower, the actor simply walked
along zigzag tape marks onstage. The
only sets with three walls were the
police station, the inspectors office, and
Caligaris caravan. Because the original
films police station scene was wellpopulated, shooting a real set was much
faster than digitally extracting actors
from the background plates. Basically,

those are things we werent going to
save any time doing in post, notes
Fisher. Another advantage of shooting
these scenes with real sets was that it
gave Duddy more creative options.
Without the worry of matching actors to
background plates, Duddy used a
Century Optics Pro DV .7x wide-angle
adapter to give the shots a slightly
distorted feel. Once we didnt have to
worry about matching things, we could
really be creative, says Fisher.
For Duddy, the most challenging
aspect of the project was lighting the
full-body shots, which had to be overlit
to avoid green spill. We would literally
go from a key, an edge and five lights in
the medium shot to 20 times that in the
wide shot, says the cinematographer. In

medium shots where the actors feet
were not visible, gaffer Rich Paisley laid
cardboard on the ground to decrease the
green spill.
Duddy relied on a standard, midsized tungsten package. His basic technique was to use soft key lights (tungsten lamps bounced off unbleached
muslin), very hard edge lights (for separation when the mattes were pulled in
compositing), and Source Four Lekos to
create slashes of light on the walls. In
the original movie, they actually painted
a lot of shadows onto the sets, he
notes. We took Lekos and put in different patterns to create the effect of light
coming through windows or trees.
However, he kept stylistic flourishes to a
Sitting on a
Fisher dolly,
Duddy
checks the
composite
of the most
recent take.
He shot
with two
Panasonic
AG-DVX100A
cameras
mounted on
a Ubangi to
get the most
coverage.
Below:
Rough
composites
were done
in real time
on set using
the Ultra
Key keyer
to make
sure the
live-action
perspective
matched the
background
plate.

American Cinematographer 33
Duddy (left) and director David Lee Fisher

talk expressionism.
minimum, knowing that much of the

films look would be created in post. Its
the 21st-century way of lighting, especially for something like this. You can do
quite a bit of lighting in post. Adds
visual-effects supervisor Josiah Holmes
Howison, That was one of the advantages of basically directing the movie in
post we could relight things and
create new shadows, we could put
eyelights on people.
Fisher passed each scene to
Howison as soon as he had edited it,
and he never saw the complete picture
until close to the end of the process.
Working on two Athlon 64 Dual Core XP
computers built by Fisher, Howison and
Fisher dove into the 10-month editing
and effects process. For each scene,
Howison created a rough composite in
After Effects to determine whether
actors needed to be moved. I often
found myself doing a lot of digital painting to extend the original sets or create
backgrounds for close-ups that were
never in the original, says Howison.

34
Because there was no coverage in the

original, the backgrounds for the closeups were all created from the original
master shot. I did a lot of stitching
together in Photoshop and imagining
what a reverse shot of the room they
were standing in might look like,
explains Howison, who tried to limit the
digital additions to the film. I didnt
want to create new shapes, I wanted to
mimic and blend it all so nothing looked
new and it all seemed homogeneous.
After finalizing the framing, the
team manipulated the lighting to add
shadows. There had to be a lot of light
so there wouldnt be green spill on the
actors, says Fisher. Its extremely bright
and flatly lit so as not to cause havoc in
compositing. All the noir lighting was
added in post. Aside from a few
instances where actors silhouettes hit
setpieces, all the shadows were painted
in with After Effects. Wed use the
persons image to cast the shadow, but I
did it all by hand, says Howison. In
Photoshop, he painstakingly cleaned
each frame by hand, removing scratches

and dust and darkening shots that were
overexposed.
The film reads as black-andwhite, but Howison notes that it actually
has 10-20 percent color. If you look
closely, youll notice there are a lot of
blues and cool colors in the highlights
and warmth in the shadows. The original plates were desaturated to match
the new footage, and Howison spent a
great deal of time matching the black
and white levels. The film also contains
three shots with colored objects: twice a
flower is colored lilac to convey Francis
(Judson Pearce Morgan) awakening to
the world, and in another shot, Janes
(Lauren Birkell) lips are reddened to
emphasize her sensuality. These effects
were created during the DI by colorist
Tyler Hawes, who worked in Silicon
Colors Final Touch 2K.
The movies dramatic look was
enhanced with a series of eight After
Effects plugins, which Fisher calls his
secret sauce. He wont reveal what
they are but describes them as a combination of filters designed to heavily

affect diffusion, color filtering and post
contrast by emulating real-world filters.
Each scene was composited in After
Effects as a separate project and had
30-40 layers, each with its own filters.
Each scene was then run through the
secret sauce.
The completed film was upconverted to 1080p at Hollywood DI,
where Hawes added the final touches.
Because it was black-and-white, says
Fisher, it was more of a contrast correction than a color correction. We experimented with a lot of different things and
added a grain layer and a softening
layer. The final version was output to a
high-quality, lossless HDCam SR tape,
which is how it was projected for its
premiere at Screamfest last fall. The
festival awarded The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari three Golden Skulls, for cinematography, special effects and audience choice.
I
Erratum
A caption on page 50 of
our January 2006 article about
The New World (Uncharted
Emotions) incorrectly states that
the shows boat-to-boat shots
were accomplished with a Giraffe
crane mounted on a floating platform. The crane was actually an
MC88 Crane, designed by Bob
Nettmann, mounted with the
Nettmann 5-axis stabilized head
(or Stab-C). The MC88, Stab-C and
a Technocrane 30 were used
throughout much of the filming. All
of this equipment was rented to
the production by Atlantic Cine
Equipment, and the shows Stab-C
technician was Randy Greer Jr.

35
Cop vs.Robber
Matthew Libatique, ASC creates distinct visual environments for Inside
Man, which pits a hardened cop against a resourceful bank robber.
by John Calhoun
Unit photography by David Lee
Additional photos by John Velez
he studio synopsis for Spike Lees
latest film, Inside Man, informs
us that it is the story of a tough
cop, Detective Keith Frazier
(Denzel Washington), who
matches wits with a clever bank
robber, Dalton Russell (Clive Owen),
in a tense hostage drama. Director
of photography Matthew Libatique,
ASC, confirms that this is an accurate
description of the film, which also
stars Jodie Foster as a power broker
with a hidden agenda. The cinematographer adds that he was
attracted to this test of wills between
two very strong characters, and the
depth each character held.
Libatique goes on to explain

that the motive behind the robbery is
not what it initially seems, and turns
out to involve a significant moral
issue. Inside Man is one of the few
features Lee has directed that he did
not also write, but Libatique notes
that the director certainly has a way
of a making any movie his own.
Spike is a camera-savvy, composition-savvy director, says the cinematographer, who previously
collaborated with Lee on the feature
She Hate Me (2004) and a number of
commercials. He has a distinct
working style; he likes to have the
scene play out and get all of his
36 April 2006
coverage pretty much at the same

time. Hes not a single-camera-setup
director who gets nine shots per
scene and spends all day doing it. He
prefers to get the actors blocked and
find out where he can place all the
cameras so he can get the scene and
the performance. Because of this, the
actors have to perform in every shot.
I dont think our collaboration on Inside Man would have been
nearly as successful if I hadnt shot a
feature for him before, he adds.She
Hate Me largely involved two and
three cameras, and I knew that was
going to be the formula on this film
as well.
Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures.
In fact, during several

sequences on Inside Man, many
more cameras were used. We had
some seven-camera days when we
shot the police approaching the
bank after the call comes in that its
being robbed, explains Libatique.
Spike likes to set up a grand scene
with a bunch of cameras and then go
into the chaos he treats it as live
theater. Hed use seven cameras in
one scene but then a single camera
in another. I think thats his way of
letting [the movie] breathe. For
example, in the scene when the
hostages are finally released, we
covered the action with seven
cameras, but the aftermath of that
moment, as the hostages are put on
buses, was covered mainly in a single
crane shot that moved from one
place to another, revealing things as
the shot progressed. Similarly, other
scenes were covered with a single
Steadicam shot.For those, Id create
a lighting setup that would accommodate several cameras but then use
a single camera to move from character to character and take you from
place to place within the scene.
Most intriguing for Libatique
Opposite:
Detective Keith
Frazier (Denzel
Washington)
faces off against
resourceful
bank robber
Dalton Russell
(Clive Owen)
after an
attempted heist
turns into a
hostage
situation. This
page: A
mysterious
power broker
(Jodie Foster)
has her own
agenda.
is Lees tendency to create visual

metaphors for different characters or
story points. In Inside Man, a major
goal was to create a visual distinction between Frazier and Russell.
Russell, who masterminds the heist
on the downtown Manhattan bank
and takes dozens of people hostage,
was generally photographed with a
Steadicam and a centered frame, an
approach that suggested a person in
control, says the cinematographer.
Lighting-wise, we tried to keep the
color temperature as unified as

possible in his scenes. By contrast,
Frazier, who is under investigation
and is assigned to the case only
because the regular hostage negotiator is unavailable, spends much of
the film outside the bank, in a state of
confusion about the situation at
hand. When we shot scenes with
Denzel, we used multiple handheld
cameras and our approach was more
about the cuts, says Libatique. We
also used a lot of different lighting
Cop vs. Robber
Russell and his

henchmen crack
the safe. The
films
environments
benefitted from
cinematographer
Matthew
Libatique, ASCs
use of the
widescreen
Super 35mm
format.
sources for the exteriors, including

fluorescents, tungsten, metal halides,
sodium vapors and police flashers
anything that would create a mix.
These split strategies for Inside
Man were developed during preproduction. Spike sort of riffs with me,
gives me an idea, and then I go away
and come up with a visual arc, says
Libatique. At a certain point hell

look at me and say, So, what have
you got? Thats when Ill pitch my
idea. Hell want to know how Im
going to do it whether it will be
cross processing or a disparity in
color temperatures, whether its the
use of Steadicam or use of different
lenses. He gives me a lot of freedom
38 April 2006
to come up with a language, but he

wants to know what the approach is
before he shoots anything.
The decision to film Inside
Man in Super 35mm 2.35:1 had a lot
to do with the framing strategies the
filmmakers had in mind for the two
leads. One of our earliest ideas was
to have a centered frame for Clives
character and a weighted frame for
Denzels, so I wanted to work in
2.35, says Libatique. I thought it
would create distinct negative space
for each character. With Denzels
character, framing left and framing
right with a lot of negative space
creates a sense of the chaos around
him. You get the impression hes a
man under a microscope being
watched by many. Because the filmmakers intended to finish with a
digital intermediate (DI) at EFilm in
Hollywood, choosing Super 35mm
over anamorphic was easy. The
greater flexibility in terms of lenses
and mobility led me to use spherical, says the cinematographer. I
Director Spike
Lee and his cast
and crew work
out their
blocking in the
bank interior.
didnt want to have that anamorphic

angst.
Arricam Studios and Lites
were the productions primary
cameras, and they were augmented
with Arri 435s and Arri 235s during
more frenetic action sequences.
Libatique used a range of Cooke S4
prime lenses. When you use many
cameras, especially with Spike,
youre inevitably using long lenses
because youre putting cameras in
places that have to be farther away
from the action, he explains. We
were wider with Clive because we
had the opportunity to be closer in
on a single-camera Steadicam shot.
Theres an inherent language created
by the logistics.
Multiple cameras meant
multiple operators, and there were
three on Inside Man. At the beginning of the show, I met with them to
explain the visual concept so it
would be ingrained in their minds,
says Libatique. I said, We want to
create a sense of control and largely
centered frames with Clives character, and we want to have movement
with Denzels. Having three opera-
tors on the same character, Id watch

all three. In a handheld shot, a long
lens has a little bit of movement and
a wider lens is inherently smoother. I
would actually talk to the operator
and tell him not to be so steady. It
was the first time Id worked with so
many operators where I wasnt one
myself.
A-camera/Steadicam operator
Stephen Consentino estimates that
80 percent of Inside Man was shot
either handheld or on Steadicam.
The original plan was that I was
going to be the B-camera operator
and Matty was going to operate the A
camera, says Consentino, but after
about a day and a half of shooting,

Cop vs. Robber

Top: Vari-Lite
VL1000 ERS
luminaires
rigged to pillars
inside the bank
helped the
filmmakers
achieve a variety
of lighting
effects for the
interior.
According to
gaffer John
Velez, They
have onboard
dimmers,
rotating gobos
and CYM color
mixing, so you
can make them
any color you
can think of. I
could control
them wirelessly
via my
PowerBook and
a Lanbox DMX
controller, which
allowed me to
stand in the
middle of the set
and make
adjustments.
Matty loved it.
Bottom: 4K
tungsten lighting
cubes, provided
by SourceMaker
Lighting
Balloons, were
also used to
illuminate the
bank interior.

40 April 2006
we started doing a crane shot and

Matty was really busy lighting. I said,
Do you want me to just set it up for
you and operate a rehearsal? I did
that, and he came to me at the end of
the day and said, From now on, just
do all the operating. Spike moves so
fast and wants to do a lot of coverage
with a lot of cameras, so its hard if
youre a director of photography and
also operating a camera all you
see is whats happening with your
camera. Libatique adds, Watching
everybody operating at the same
time, I was able to see how everything was working together. I felt like
I was operating all three!
Consentinos work also
helped Libatique embrace the
Steadicam for the first time. After
the shoot, Matty told me hed never
worked with an operator who
shared his framing sensibilities and
was really good at Steadicam, recalls
Consentino, who has 15 years of
experience with the device. Id
never worked with a director who
wanted to move the camera that
way, says Libatique, whose feature
credits include Requiem for a Dream
(see AC Oct. 00) and Phone Booth
(AC Nov. 02).But I thought,If Im
going to light for a multi-camera
situation, why not take advantage of
it with the Steadicam? It gave me the
opportunity to move the camera
from one place to another in an
interesting way.
Production on Inside Man got
underway in the summer of 2005
and ran for 43 days. The story covers
a 24-hour period, from the morning
of the day when the heist begins to
the morning of the next, when the
crisis is resolved. There are three
primary, adjacent settings: the exterior of the bank, where the police
and emergency forces congregate;
the lobby of the bank; and the bank
basement, where the hostages are
held. We had a bank location
downtown, right off of Wall Street,
says Libatique. It was an empty
building that had a beautiful lobby,
Cop vs. Robber

Top: One of the
productions
major exterior
lighting sources
was the LRX II.
This truck unit,
designed by
Dwight Crane of
Toronto, has a
120' arm and
robotic heads
that can
accommodate
six 12K tungsten
or HMI lamps.
Each head is
independent and
can also be
controlled
remotely, Velez
explains. I had
previously used
the LRX on The
Dukes of
Hazzard, and I
cant say enough
good things
about it. One of
its most
impressive
characteristics
is that it can
work in tungsten
mode with the
ability to dim; all
you have to do is
change the
globes to 12K
tungstens. We
would often mix
HMI and
tungsten looks.
At night we
would have the
array of fixtures
set up with Plus
Green on the
HMIs and Brass
or 12 Straw on
the tungstens.
We would mix
light all the time,
because thats
the way Matty
lights the set.
There were no
rules on color
temperature.
Right: A shot of
the bank interior
reveals the
effect of the
LRX light.
and [production designer] Wynn

Thomas turned it into a bank.
Scenes set in the bank basement
were shot at Brooklyns new Steiner
Studios. The stage was enormous,
notes Libatique. It was fantastic to
be able to work in New York in a
space that was custom-fit for film.
The color mix he devised
played most strongly on night exteriors outside the bank. With my
gaffer, John Velez, I would pick zones
for different-colored lights. Id say,
This zone is a cool environment,
this is a metal-halide environment,
this is a tungsten environment.
Then, within the blocking, I would
create a balance between two or
three colors. I always had a representation of at least two colors, something warm and something cool, or
something green and something
blue, in the same frame so the
language would stay fluid. On the
exterior, I had the benefit of the
police-car lights, a mobile command
center with tungsten lighting,
sodium-vapor streetlights, and
metal-halide construction lights that

42 April 2006
Cop vs. Robber
Above: A Color
Kinetics
ColorBlaze LED
unit was used
to create the
effect of
flashing police
lights. The rate
of flashing was
controlled with
a Lanbox DMX
WiFi system.
Right: To light
the canyons
between
New Yorks
skyscrapers,
the crew
employed an
8K SourceMaker
lighting cube
suspended over
the street.
Bottom:
Detective Bill
Mitchell
(Chiwetel
Ejiofor), Captain
Darius (Willem
Dafoe) and
Frazier spring
into action.
the police wheel out in situations like

this they flood the area with light
so they can see whats going on. For
the latter units, the production actually used 16 Arri 4K X-Lights on
towers, powered by an Arri Event
system, to give us instant on, says
Velez. Matty wanted to have a
dramatic effect when night hit the
scene. We put green glass on the XLights and blocked out any Arri
labeling so they looked like police
lights.
This look was matched on the
Steiner stage with greened-up 4K
HMI Pars aimed through the
windows of the basement set.I used
the windows as the motivating light

44 April 2006
source in the bank at night because

the power has been cut, explains
Libatique. Velez adds, We had to go
with what was on the exterior of the
bank, and luckily there were
windows [on the basement level].
They were boarded up when we first
went to the location, but we uncovered them and the art department
cleaned them.
Other major light sources
used on the exterior were predominantly employed for day sequences
and proved especially useful toward
the end of the day in the canyonsof
lower Manhattan. One was a 10'
SourceMaker 8K Cube, an HMI
lighting balloon suspended over the
street. Another was the LRX II, a
truck unit designed by Dwight
Crane of Toronto that has a 120' arm
and robotic heads that can accommodate six 12K tungsten or HMI
lamps. Both Libatique and Velez had
prior experience with the LRX,
which resembles a Musco or Bebee
but allows much more control, says
the cinematographer. Velez details,
Each head is independent and can
be controlled remotely, and one of
the most impressive characteristics is
that it can work in tungsten mode
with the ability to dim. All you have
to do is change out the globe. We
would often mix HMI and tungsten
light; at night, we would have the
system set up with Plus Green on the
HMIs, and Brass or 12 Straw on the
tungsten. Each head could take up to
four gels; you could put a diffusion
frame in there, or color. We kind of
went crazy there wasnt one
normal-colored light on set.
Most crucially, the LRX
provided the filmmakers with
precious extra minutes of daylight
when the sun began creeping behind
the high buildings. We would just
send it down the street with the
tungsten and the HMI to give us a
little warmth in our daylight when it
landed, recalls Velez.Because it was
such a powerful unit,says Libatique,
Id create hot spots with it or bang
it into the glass of a building to create

reflections on the other side of the
street. Or I would use it as a front fill.
As an example, the cinematographer
cites a scene in which Frazier is introduced to Fosters character. The sun
was going down and we were pretty
much running out of ambient light.
John suggested moving our LRX
behind the camera and focusing all
of the light very high out of frame.
All we got was the ambience from

the edges of a focused source, and
that bought us an extra 20 or 30
minutes of shooting. Sometimes its
what you plan, and sometimes its
what you think of in five minutes.
Inside the bank location,
Velezs crew, including rigging gaffer
Bill Almeida and best boy Darrin
Smith,
floated
a
tungsten
SourceMaker 4K Cube for ambient

45
Cop vs. Robber

Right: Standing
beneath a
SourceMaker
lighting cube,
Libatique takes
a meter reading
while preparing
one of Lees
favorite
techniques: a
moving dolly
shot of a
stationary
character,
which creates a
surrealistic
sense of
movement
onscreen.
Below:
Executing the
move.
light. On the lobbys pillars, they

rigged six Vari-Lite VL1000 ERS
luminaires, which Velez operated
remotely with a Lanbox DMX
controller. When we were scouting,
Matty said we should put moving
lights up there, says the gaffer. We
went to Scharff Weisberg, which is a
specialty shop for a lot of Broadway
shows. They gave us half a day and
we went through a lot of gear.
During this shopping spree, they

found a Color Kinetics LED that
they used as a police-car effect, and,
more importantly, the VL1000,
which includes CYM color mixing
and rotating gobos among its
features. Ill tell you, Ive always
been afraid of moving lights because
theyre theater lights and very
complicated to use [on film], says
Velez. On film sets, were pretty

46 April 2006
much run and gun, and we try to

keep things a little bit low-tech,
because if something breaks down it
can be a problem. But these units are
tungsten, so theyre film-friendly;
you can make them any color you
can think of, you can shape the light,
throw a little breakup in it, or
bounce them into cards and throw a
little fill. The Lanbox system gave me
the ability to have the instrument on
my laptop, so I could pan it left or
right or change the color. Whereas
film lights just do one job, and we
might modify them with gel or
diffusion, these units have a lot of
personality. Im not afraid of them
anymore. Bring em on.
Though the contrasting visual
strategies Libatique devised for the
main characters play through most
of Inside Man, at one point, Frazier
and Dalton actually come together
inside the bank. Frazier says he
wants to see the hostages to make
sure theyre alive before he gives
Dalton what hes asking for, says the
cinematographer. Dalton gives him
entrance to the bank and shows him
the hostages. We go through the
Photo: Paul Good
ROBERT BENAVIDES
Cinematographer on
music videos for T.I.,
Fabolous, Daddy Yankee
and Snoop Dogg.
Commerical credits
include: Sylvania,
Sobe "Adrenaline Rush,"
Quiznos, & McDonald's.
Currently shooting
his fourth feature film.
WHAT DOES
ROBERT BENAVIDES
SAY ABOUT
SOFTSUN?
SoftSun units offer me complete control on set. The unit starts

out with a beautiful quality of light and is easy to manipulate.
The abilty to dim a daylight source with no color temp loss is
also an incredible asset that saves time, gives me freedom and
contributes to a better looking image. When theres a SoftSun on
set I definiteley count my blessings.
ROBERT BENAVIDES, Director of Photography
Please be our guest for the complete Robert Benavides

interview at www.lightningstrikes.com YYePG Proudly Presents, Thx for Support
W i t h o ut Co lo
r
i ft
T 1 323 461 6361

F 1 323 461 3067
ing
Sh
Di m
Save the Day
6601 Santa Monica Bl.

Hollywood, CA 90038
w w w. l i g h t n i n g s t r i k e s . c o m
Agents Worldwide
Cop vs. Robber

Right: A robbery
witness (John
Speredakos)
examines a
series of mug
shots for Mitchell
and Frazier.
Below: Libatique
steps in for a
quick meter
reading as Lee
observes.
entire bank, from the upstairs on

location to a blend into the stage
basement set, with the same
Steadicam moves. We had the
worlds meet by using a fluid, steady
camera, but we incorporated the
predominant light and color that we
see in Fraziers world.
At times, Libatique provided a

more omniscient view. For one
daytime Technocrane shot, we
spend a certain amount of time on
the interior with Dalton, and then
we hit the exterior, he explains. We
start on one side of the street, see the
mobile command center and the

48 April 2006
police getting into position, show the

front of the bank, and then pan to
the other side. In the distance, we
notice Jodie Foster sitting in a diner,
and the camera goes past the police
officers and into a medium shot of
her sitting amongst the chaos. The
idea behind that shot was to show
the uniformity and control of the
[bank] interior, and then go out and
show the mixture of color temperatures and the way the light falls in
New York, how you have moments
of sunlight pouring down, reflecting
off buildings or hitting the street and
also very cold, shadowy areas. We
show characters moving in those
[varied] environments before heading into the very controlled light,
where Jodies sitting. It was nice to
construct something like that, which
worked on many levels in terms of
the overall language of the film.
Thats where I think cinematography meets the editing process; long
shots like that can reintroduce the
audience to where you are in the
story.
Cop vs. Robber
Lee and Libatique study a still photo of a setup. The

cinematographer says Lee gives me a lot of freedom to come
up with a language, but he wants to know what the approach
is before he shoots anything.
Shots like those made Inside

Man a pretty cool film from an
operators
standpoint,
says
Consentino. Working with Matty
was great because hes one of those
guys who really wants to find something interesting in every shot. For
example, when hostages are released,
and at other moments of high
tension in the film, Libatique
encouraged Consentino to use
progressively shorter shutter angles.
You normally shoot with a 180degree shutter, but we were going
down to 90, 45 and even 22.5 degrees
on the action scenes, says the operator. The technique creates this feeling of frenetic action because it
eliminates any motion blur that is
normally in the shot. It gives you a
very anxious feeling while youre
watching the movie.
Another distinctive technique
was used for a series of interrogation
scenes with hostages that appear
throughout the film. Its a flashforward, a bit of a time jump into the
interrogation, says Libatique. Most
of Inside Man was shot on Kodak
Vision2 500T 5218, with some
Vision2 Expression 500T 5229 used
inside the bank during daylight
hours to minimize the difference in
color temperature between my tungsten on the interior and the natural
daylight of the exterior. But
Libatique photographed the interrogation scenes with Kodak
Ektachrome 100D 5285 reversal
film, which was cross-processed and
put through a bleach bypass. Its a
daylight stock, so typically if you
shot it with tungsten light it would
come out extremely warm,he notes.
Using a bleach bypass neutralizes
the color temperature and creates
more contrast than simply crossprocessing. Basically, it unifies all the
color. Spike wanted a look that
would jump out and tell you youre
somewhere else. Its an extremely

volatile technique, though. When
you try to apply correction, the film
moves in very strange ways. The
cross-process as well as the bleach
bypass changes the ASA from 100 to
320.
During the DI process at
EFilm, where Libatique worked with
colorists Steve Bowen and Steve
Scott, this footage required some
special attention. It had to be
scanned with a Spirit DataCine
rather than the Northlight we used
for the rest of the film, recalls the
cinematographer. The negative was
simply too dense for the Northlight
to perform the task. Otherwise, I
was pretty much adhering to the
original concept and balancing that
footage out in a smoother way. Its
difficult to match all of your shots
meticulously when you have three
cameras and one lighting setup, so I
spent the majority of the DI just
adhering to the original vision of the

disparity in color temperature, which
I can accentuate, versus the unified
color temperature.
Libatique points out that the
ability to do a DI makes it easier for a
filmmaker like Lee to envision
creative visual approaches, and has
perhaps even helped make unconventional techniques, such as mixing
color temperatures, more practical
and acceptable. Although I still
believe 90 percent of what you have
to accomplish is in camera, the DI
gives us flexibility. Cameras can roam
free, and as cinematographers we can
embrace a less meticulous lighting
setup. If you know youre going to a
DI, and you know youre going to
shoot three cameras and do a single
Steadicam move that lasts for eight
minutes, you can create a broader
lighting scheme. We cant necessarily
beautify it in the end, but at least we
can fine-tune the language and the
precision. Because of Spikes willingness and motivation, when you look

at Inside Man you can see we created
a language through that effort. I
TECHNICAL SPECS
Super 35mm 2.35:1
Arricam ST, LT; Arri 435, 235
Cooke S4 lenses
Kodak Vision2 500T 5218,
Vision2 Expression 500T 5229,
Ektachrome 100D 5285
Cross Processing and
Bleach Bypass
by Technicolor (New York)
Digital Intermediate
Printed on Kodak Vision 2383

51
f e a t u r e s
D:
SUPERMAN RETURNS
Bryan Singer . DP: Newton Thomas Siegel, ASC
F LY B O Y S
D: Tony Bill . DP: Henry Braham, BSC
D:
D:
LA MAISON DU BONHEUR
Dany Boon . DP: Jean-Marie Dreujou, AFC
S C A RY M O V I E 4
David Zucker . DP: Thomas E. Ackerman, ASC
CLICK
D: Frank Coraci . DP: Dean Semler, ACS, ASC
D:
A P O C A LY P T O
Mel Gibson . DP: Dean Semler, ACS, ASC
d r a m a t i c
t v
N I G H T S TA L K E R
DPs: Bob Primes, ASC, Rick Maguire, Sandy Sissel, ASC
DPs:
CONVICTION
Pilot Ernie Holzman, ASC . Series John Thomas, ASC
W H AT A B O U T B R I A N ?
DP: Russ Alsobrook, ASC
c o m m e r c i a l s
DP:
DIET COKE
Jeffrey S. Cronenweth, ASC
DP:
C H E V Y I M PA L A
DP:
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
MARSHALL FIELDS
DP: Bojan Bazelli
DP:
CHEVY
John Allardice
AUDI
Curtis
Clark,
ASC
DP:
T H E
2,645
F I R S T
Y E A R
s h o o ti n g
c o u n t r i e s
co n t i n e n ts
l e a d e r
www.panavision.com
d a y s
Into
the
Virtual
Woods
Through real-time compositing live on set, director of photography
David Stump, ASC puts a virtual spin on Red Riding Hood.
Interview by Douglas Bankston
Unit photography by Brian To
hen director Randal Kleiser
paid a visit to his college
roommate, George Lucas,
on the set of Star Wars
Episode II, he watched
actors performing against bluescreen on an otherwise empty stage,
and later viewed them as composites
in a virtual, computer-generated
(CG) environment. Kleiser wondered if such a process could be
employed live on stage with realtime, on-set compositing serving as
a visual reference for the cast and
crew. He had long been developing a
musical version of Red Riding Hood,
and he decided to use it as a proof
of concept project.
Kleiser
brought
Brian
Frankish aboard to produce this
tongue-in-cheek retelling of the
classic childrens fable, which stars
Morgan Thompson as Red, Lainie
Kazan as Grandma, and Joey Fatone

as a big, bad, shape-shifting werewolf with an insatiable appetite.
TAG Entertainment financed the
picture for about $2.75 million a
very low figure for a project that
would rely on new technologies in
an unproven process.
Frankish knew exactly who
could navigate this uncharted digital
territory: David Stump, ASC.
However, this wasnt exactly an
adventure into the unknown for the
visual-effects specialist, who has
worked on such projects as Deep
Blue Sea, X-Men, Hollow Man, The
One, Flightplan and Garfield. Stump
has been building camera-equipment encoders and working with
the data they provide for two
decades. In fact, in 2001, the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences presented Stump, Bill
54 April 2006
Tondreau, Alvah Miller and Paul

Johnson with a Technical
Achievement Award for the conception, design and development of
data-capture systems that enable
superior accuracy, efficiency and
economy in the creation of composite imagery. So for Stump, the one
intangible on Red Riding Hood was
that no one had yet attempted to
drive and record virtual environments in real time for an entire feature; therefore, no such system for
doing so existed. Stump had to put
one together from scratch.
He recently sat down with AC
to detail his approach to the project,
showing sequences from a DVD to
illustrate some points.
American Cinematographer:
Tell us a bit about your experiences
with data-encoding technology.
Photos and frame grabs courtesy of TAG Entertainment, David Stump and Randal Kleiser.
Opposite: Red
Riding Hood
(Morgan
Thompson) warily
crosses a bridge
on her way to
Grandmas house.
The bridge is
real, but the
woods behind
her are computergenerated.
This page:
Cinematographer
David Stump,
ASC (background
center, wearing
red shirt) finetunes a move on
the set. In the
foreground is no
mere video
village, but rather
video nation.
David Stump, ASC: Ive been

doing this type of work for 20 years,
driving things with encoders before
CGI was ever seriously considered as
a technique for visual effects. We did
a number of things back when I was
a stage cameraman at Apogee
Productions. For example, wed do a
dolly move and drive a motorized
focus with a look-up table (LUT)
encoded from the track. Back in
those days, I did a Northern Telecom
commercial for Jim Spencer and
Boyd Shermis where we needed to
dolly in to a guy working on a telephone switcher. We dollied right into
macro focus on a circuit board that
was in the guys hand. Rather than
ask the 1st AC to try to hand-focus
that image take after take after take, I
programmed a computer so that for
any position of the dolly track,
focusing would take data from the
LUT. We could push a dolly around
by hand, and the focus always knew
where it needed to be because it
would look up where it was on the
track. It was a motion-control tech-
nique that we pioneered.

When did you start using
encoding technology in conjunction with CGI?
Stump: When I worked for
John Dykstra [ASC] on Batman
Forever, he asked me to develop a
system that would actually do some
of the same things Id been doing
at Apogee with the encoders.
Recording camera-support devices
on Batman for our CGI work was a
fairly straightforward exercise in
inventing hardware. I built a kit that
I could strap onto a Chapman or
Fisher dolly, a kit for the Titan crane
and a kit to use on fluid heads.
Nolan Murdock of Panavision built
me two prototype electronic geared
heads that had encoders built into
the primary axis drives. I was able to
take data off our camera platforms
and cranes and dollies and turn that
into meaningful 3-D data for the
CGI artists, who were able to use
that data to track matte paintings
and set extensions and track 3-D
objects into the images. Remember,
that was during the days before

tools were developed to reverseengineer camera movements.
So the way you used the technology on Red Riding Hood is actually a progression of the application?
Stump: Right. I continued to
evolve those systems, and in fact, I
later turned it into a rental tool. We
did effects like the elevator sequence
in Hollow Man and used that technology to record moves on a laptop
computer, then play them back as
motion-control moves for 12-, 14or 18-scale miniature work on the
effects stage. You could take the
same 3-D data and export it to the
CGI 3-D department. They could
use our motion data to create 3-D
objects that would fit inside the liveaction and motion-control pieces.
Once you have that data, its the
same for all the systems, so it was a
fairly simple leap to take the data
and port it out as RS422 data in real
time to a Maya or Softimage workstation, which was what Randal was

By using CG
and HD
backgrounds,
the filmmakers
were able to
place Red
Riding Hood in
exotic
environments
without
breaking their
modest budget.
unknowingly asking me to do. I

explained to him that I had experience with what he wanted to do and
had in fact already built a lot of
machinery for it.
This was a low-budget project. How did that impact your
shooting schedule?
Stump: It was an extremely
short and demanding schedule. I
think we eventually shot for 20 days.
Did the fact that you were
driving virtual sets help, or is it easier to generate sets and composite
later?
Stump: Its a lot harder to
drive virtual camera moves on set,
because you have to take all the
artists who would be doing that part
of the CGI and postproduction onto
the set and give them a place to
work, stable power, live data feeds

and video. It becomes performance
art. The number of monitors, wires,
computers and electronic devices
for Red Riding Hood was astounding. The first time you try anything,
its going to be handmade and cumbersome.
Nevertheless, in about 112
weeks I was able to assemble a team
of CGI artists who could use an
RS422 feed of the data. I brought
VizRT from Europe onboard to
translate the encoder data into virtual data. I wired encoders to everything, including an Aerocrane, a
remote head, several geared heads,
fluid heads, dollies all of our gear.
I got the Panavision geared heads
back that I had used and set those up
to work. We had two CGI artists;
56 April 2006
three guys to run the VizRT system,

which was the motion engine that
output and translated my 3-D coordinates to Maya and Softimage; and
two video-assist technicians to record
video assist and pull mattes from it in
such a way that the material from
Softimage or Maya could be the background elements behind the bluescreen foreground. We also had a digital-imaging technician to mind the
down-convert and record the HD
material the high-resolution
material for the real compositing in
post that would match the proxies we
were creating onstage. Then we also
had the traditional HD camera crew.
The night before we were supposed to start shooting, we switched
everything on for the first time and
tested it, and it worked great. From
the beginning, we were recording
meaningful 3-D data and driving
Softimage and Maya backgrounds on
set. It was really gratifying to see that
with about a two- or three-frame
down-convert delay from HD to
standard definition, we could almost
immediately synchronize the live
down-converted images to the Mayarendered images in low-resolution
composites on our stage we could
see the virtual forest moving in time
with the live-action forest in the foreground from our cameras.

Right: Stump
checks the
framing of the
big, bad
werewolf (Joey
Fatone) on the
monitor while
B-camera
operator B.
Sean Fairburn
looks over his
shoulder.
Below: Stump
(at camera) and
the crew
prepare to
shoot in the
scary woods.
Were these backgrounds created before you started production?

Stump: Yes. For the purpose
of our exercise, the CG artists developed an onionskin world for the
woods. There was a first, second,
third and fourth layer of trees, and
each layer could be taken as a sort of
band that we could spin to orient it
with respect to our live-action
world. We could then lock it in place
and watch it move in sync with liveaction images.
Which camera did you use?
Stump: I chose Thomson
Grass Valley Vipers because as far as
I could tell, they had the biggest signal I could get out of an HD camera.
Because its a 10-bit log signal, I figured it would be the best HD signal
we could use for doing post bluescreen/greenscreen composites.
I started out trying to record
in FilmStream mode, and I discovered that we were so far ahead of the
workflow curve that no real solutions existed for recording 10-bit log
material live onstage. I thought I
could find a disk solution, but at that
time devices such as the S.two
recorder hadnt been built yet. And
this was way before the HDCam
58 April 2006
SRW solution. There was one digitaldisk recorder system from Europe
called Directors Friend, but when I
contacted them, they were in the
process of going out of business
because they were so ahead of the
curve, no one understood what the
point of their machine was!
With no disk-recording solutions available, I went to Plus 8 Digital
and talked to [president] Marker
Karahadian, and the biggest recording system we could come up with for
recording the Viper at that time was
D-5 video recorders with the Viper in
10-bit HDStream mode. That was the
biggest gamut signal we could then
record. This ultimately ended up
working very, very well, but I think
doing shows like Red Riding Hood
and pushing the envelope in recording HD is part of what contributed to
the development of these new tools.
Once we started to press for recording solutions, they began showing up.
One of my axioms about filmmaking
is that its easy to spot the pioneers
theyre the ones lying face down in
the prairie with arrows in their backs.
How many cameras did you
use?
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Stump: We used two Vipers,

two D-5 decks and a mountain of
monitoring equipment.
You get a more literal representation of the image shooting in
the HDStream mode than you do in
the raw FilmStream mode, so what
kind of monitors did you use?
Stump: We got a fairly good
representation of color and contrast
on set because we were working in
10-bit HDStream. We used a variety
of Sony monitors, and for the downconverted material we had a 52"
plasma screen on which Randal
watched the actual composite. By
and large, I will look at one small
Sony CRT monitor for color, but Im
actually more interested in waveforms and vectorscopes when Im
doing HD because they really are the
most telling and informative tools
you can have on an HD set. I judge
exposures by those.
Did you do any on-set color
correction?
Stump: In this case, I thought
it best to get the quality and the
most information. My philosophy
for HD is: monitor the signal, get the
biggest signal you can afford onto
your recording medium, and worry
about finessing color correction in
post. I grabbed frames from the
material and imported them into
Adobe Photoshop. I color-corrected
frame grabs and printed reasonably
close approximations of what I

intended to do to grade the movie
later, and saved those in a notebook.
Remember, this was almost three
years ago, and the whole notion of
color-correction workflow was a
mystery. Now its a hot topic. A
number of these kinds of projects
happened subsequently, including
Sky Captain and the World of
Tomorrow [see AC Oct. 04] and Sin
City, but I dont think any of them
tried to do low-res, real-time comps
of the material on the set.
Was lens choice a factor?
Stump: I used two Canon 4.752mm HD zooms. I chose that lens
because I already had a detailed plot
of its focal length and a look-up
table for use with our VizRT reality
engine. The two zooms were closely
matched.
Is there a part of the focal
range you have to avoid for this type
of work?
Stump: I tried to stay above
6mm.
Looking at your rsum, one
might assume you served as both
director of photography and visualeffects supervisor on Red Riding
Hood, but that wasnt the case.
Stump: Because shooting this
movie involved so much new technology, I could not divide my efforts
that way. Trying to do visual-effects
supervision as well would have been
60 April 2006
too distracting. Randal made a deal

with a small CGI company in Utah,
Sandman Studios, and its people did
the supervision. I had so much
machinery to figure out and so
many problems no one had ever
encountered before, as well as lighting the stage and the actors. I dont
think I would have survived if Id
tried to do effects supervision at the
same time.
How large a soundstage did
you require?
Stump: I would have liked a
much bigger stage, but we had
budgetary constraints from the getgo. We settled on an old, converted
warehouse whose ceiling was much
too low for what we were doing.
There were steel support pillars
throughout the stage floor, so when
we built our forest, we had to strap
tree fronts strategically to the steel
pillars. It was interesting, because we
had to build the pillars into every
foreground bluescreen set we made.
We made a couple versions of the
forest; one set was the straight, tall,
redwood forest where it was easy to
hide the pillars, and the other was
the scary woods, which consisted of
bent and gnarly trees. If you look
closely, there are a number of
straight and tall redwoods dotted
among the gnarly, Z-shaped trees in
the scary forest!
As we progressed, Brian
Frankish got another job out of the
country, and D. Scott Easton moved
up to producer from production
manager. With the money we had,
Scott was very generous in getting
me the tools necessary to make this
movie. Its a kids movie, lighthearted entertainment, but it has enough
of an adult perspective that parents
can enjoy it, too.
Lets talk about some specific
scenes.
Stump: For the first few
scenes in the living room, Randal
wanted a very desaturated look
[above], as if there isnt much life in
the scene until Grandmas story
begins to unravel. Outside the windows and the door of the house is an
all-HD location environment.
Among the backgrounds we used
for the work were computer-generated images and acquired HD backgrounds.
Acquired how?
Stump: They were images we
went out and shot purposely and
scans from high-resolution stills. It
was an exercise in cut-and-paste. If
theres an HD background being
tracked outside, we would take a still
proxy and drive that in 3-D, and that
still image would follow our camera

moves.
Was everything onstage
greenscreen?
Stump: Most of the time we
used bluescreen, but in this instance
the living-room interior was decorated mostly in blue, so we used
greenscreen outside the windows
and doors.
What are the differences
between bluescreen and greenscreen in this type of work?
Stump: It depends entirely on
the foreground object, but bluescreen tends to be a bit noisier, so the
problems with eliminating noise are
worse in compositing. But either
technique can be made to work well.
How often did you have practical props, dressings and walls in
the virtual environment?
Stump: Grandmas House
was the only set where we had mostly practical items. It was 50-50 practical-virtual, but the woods set was
a plot of land that had some practical trees, dirt and shrubbery on the
ground while the rest was
bluescreen. There were
some entirely CGI environments.
The shot of Kazan kissing the lens [top left] is an
almost entirely CGI shot
we added to a practical
book. We did all of the
lithographic illustration
shots in post as photographic exercises and CGI
treatments to real images.

62 April 2006
We made the really wide-angle foreground shot with a 3.5mm Abekus

180 wide-field lens. Against a bluescreen, Lainie Kazan walked right up
and kissed the lens.
In the lighthouse shot [below
left], all Red Riding Hood had was a
piece of blue rail to put her hand on
toward the end of the shot and a
blue floor to walk on with a path for
her to follow marked with blue tape.
The lighthouse interior is mainly
CGI, and as she comes down the
stairs there are areas of practical rock
walls. Above the stairs is a CGI rock
wall tracked in to match.
So everything below, such as
tables and cabinets, is practical?
Stump: Yes. Most of the prop
material down below is practical
[below right]. Everything above the
stairs, except for the stair piece, is
CGI.
How close was the on-set
composite to the final composite?
Stump: It was much rougher.
We did all the on-set compositing
and down-conversion in standarddefinition video. It was kind of
choppy and gritty, but it was an indication of what was to come. We
actually did a pretty neat shot where
we start looking up at the lighthouse, actually inside, and then pull
down through while looking up at it
and then pull back. To see that visualized onstage was pretty interesting.
We understand that post
took two years.
Stump: Yes, strictly because of
budgetary issues. To do more than
1,000 composite shots for a movie

that had a budget of less than $3
million, time was what had to give.
It just took forever to do all those
composites.
So there were other projects
at the post house that would bump
the priority of this down?
Stump: Right. Only one company worked on this, Sandman
Studios.
Were you able to color-correct the finished shots?
Stump: Yes, but it was difficult to finesse the comps on the
money we had. Fortunately, we
were able to afford a digital-intermediate session at Technicolor,
which enabled me to do a lot of
touchup and color correction. [Vice
President of postproduction operations] Greg Ciaccio, colorist Tony
DAmore, and Mark Chiolis of
Thomson Grass Valley were
extremely helpful in getting this picture finished.
Tell us about the bridge shot.
Stump: In this shot [above]
you can see the start of the woods,
and there are several trees here and
then the rest are CGI. These backgrounds are some practical shots we
did. We added bluescreen foreground elements to stock-footage
background plates. The scene has a
CGI sky and a practical bridge piece
that we matched into an existing
bridge in the stock footage; we
replaced the middle of the bridge
with our practical bridge.
And Red Riding Hood and
her bike?
Stump: This is an all-practical

63
background. We painted apple

boxes on the blue set and she went
up and down over the painted boxes
as though she were traveling over
the rocks [top left].
What was the average setup
time for a shot?
Stump: We moved very fast. I
guess that owed partly to Randals
thought-out concept and partly to
my experience with perspective
techniques and bluescreen. By day
two or three, everyone had settled
into a routine that made the shots go
quickly. We could get the camera in
place and get the CGI world oriented and arranged and then put a
composite shot up in a rapid-fire
order.
What was the on-set keying
tool you were using?
Stump: For the CGI composites there were a number of tools. We
used Primatte Keyer and the Avid
Nitris NLE. We also used Adobe
Premiere and After Effects and
Apple Shake compositor. For a lot of
the work on set, we just used a small
Panasonic switcher.
For the shot of Joey lounging
on a tree [above], it was interesting

to see the tree constructed as CGI on
set while we were there. The artist
built it into the shot, and we put Joey
on top in real time right here,
right now on set. Randal wanted
a very cut-and-paste art direction to
this sequence.
Yes, there are parts where he
zips from place to place in a cartoon
fashion. How was that treated on
set?
Stump: We just knew that was
coming and did a representation of
it to keep our place. It was mostly an
editorial exercise. For the cartoon
effect of the large wolfs ability to
completely conceal himself behind a
skinny tree, we did a multiple-pass
swing on the boom as close as we
could. We did two passes of it and
lopped it together as a comp on the
set as a placeholder for the editors
and the post team.
The foreground trees in this
scene are practical, but the background distant trees are all CGI. All
of our forest sets employed practical
foreground trees. The trees more
than 20 feet away are all CGI.
What was your approach to
lighting this, knowing that you
would have all of these virtual backgrounds?
Stump: That was the most
difficult part for me, because when
64 April 2006
youre doing a bluescreen shoot you

have to treat the bluescreen as one
lighting environment and the foreground subject as another, completely separate environment. But I
had 1,000 square feet of space to
light. There was a U-shaped wraparound bluescreen for which I had
to light the floor, the sweep and the
screen to the ceiling at a level from
which we could pull matte keys yet
still keep a moody look all in a
stage that had a ceiling way too low
for me to exercise enough control
over the lighting. I was constantly
hanging teasers and cutting lights.
My gaffer, Michael Off, and key grip,
Paul Threlkel, struggled mightily to
isolate the two lighting scenarios
from each other. As a result, we were
mostly able to get good contrast in
the foreground while still maintaining proper bluescreen levels in the
backgrounds.
How did you maintain some
lighting expression on the subjects
faces?
Stump: That really was the
hardest part. In fact, in the Hunter
Arrives scene [top right] we tailored
individual lighting scenarios to specific background shots. Where
Hunter is backlit, he is very contrasty and low-filled while a good
bluescreen key level is maintained in
order to match the plate back-
Professional hand-held HD has arrived
More benefits in HD
The AG-HVX200 is the best hand-held high definition camcorder ever.
A breakthrough in design, the HVX200 uniquely combines multiple
high definition and standard definition formats, multiple recording
modes and frames rates, and the vast benefits of solid state
memory recording with P2.
If stunning, beautiful pictures are what counts to you and your client, you
get it with the all-new HVX200. With boundary-less opportunities, the
discussion becomes: how do I best utilize the major leap in quality
and capabilities the hand-held HVX200 delivers?
Here are some ways to take advantage of the versatility
the HVX200 affords you.
A story in your head

The HVX200 gives you more freedom to create within streamlined
and challenging budgets. If you are looking for the 24p
film-look, thats where the HVX200 excels.
The HVX200 gets you into places larger film or HD cameras
cant. For dramatic hand-held shots, the HVX200 provides
the mobility a cinematographer is looking for. The
cameras size provides efficiencies once not found
in HD productions. It is the first small HD
camera to offer DVCPRO HD, a battle-tested
recording format that is already part of
the high-end HD production workflow.
and the HVX200 in your hands.

Although the HVX200 records in 21 different modes, two are of
greatest interest to digital filmmakers: 1080p/24 and 720p/24.
The HVX200 captures in discrete progressive frames, not an
interpolation of the frames. What you see in the viewfinder is what
you get on the card. Shooting in 1080p gives you the highest
frame resolution in the HD specification
standard (1080 vertical pixels by 1920
horizontal pixels.) From the 1080p/24
timeline, you can convert your material
into any format required for U.S. or
international distribution.
Shooting in 720p gives you the filmic

quality, and the suspension of
disbelief look of film, while providing
you all the flexibility of digital
cinematography, such as instant review
and longer shooting time. Adding the visual
impact of overcrank or undercrank to create
off-speed effects is another reason to shoot in
720p.
Shooting Modes:
All the recording
1080/60i
possibilities of DVCPRO
1080/24p
HD are fully comple-
1080/30p
mented by its Leica
720/60p
Dicomar HD quality
720/24p
lens (f1.6), which will
720/30p
480/60i
The HVX200s advanced gamma modes expand

your creativity. Cine-like gamma gives your
recordings the characteristic warm tone of film.
capture the images you want. Compose your shot, focus on the
480/24p
image and use the built-in focusing aids to help you get the
480/30p
best shot. Even while recording, you can double-check focus
Frame Rates in 720p:
with no penalty, with the Focus Assist feature which zooms in
12fps
on the shot for a quick five seconds.
18fps
20fps
With the HVX200, all you need to do is concentrate on
22fps
24fps
26fps
30fps
32fps
telling your story. You can rely on the fact that the camera
is recording all of the 24 frames you are shooting utilizing
the same award-winning technology found in the full-size
VariCam HD Cinema camera.
36fps
48fps
60fps
The HVX200 can record just the native 24 frames, which

means that at the end of the day you can transfer your
footage to your NLE and simply start editing

without worrying about conversions.
Once in an application like Final Cut Pro, the
browser will let you see all your P2 clips from
a P2 Card or other P2 devices such as the P2
Store and the P2 Drive. There is no need to
spend time digitizing since the P2 card is
viewed as an external drive and all of your clips
are there. Imagine never having to wait for a
VTR to cue up in the edit suite again and
having those images ready to be edited virtually
at the same time you have recorded them.
Once in the NLE application, you are editing
high definition content in real-time and in its
native compression. This means no loss of your
original recorded quality.
For the distribution part of the process, a
producer can transfer DVCPRO HD to film
or use it as a master format for duplication,
maintaining the highest originated quality. For
those working in documentaries, you will be
able to shoot and deliver a 1080i master to the
networks. For those looking to emulate the film
look, the cine-like gamma feature aids in
attaining a wider latitude in the images, so
highlights and shadows can exist on the same
screen. In essence, the HVX200 is the ideal
digital tool for todays digital filmmakers.
Overcrank or undercrank with the HVX200 to

create amazing fast or slow motion effects.
Be first and gone
breaking news faster with P2

At a little over 5 lbs., the
seconds in DVCPRO HD) is particularly well
HVX200 is a light, yet rugged
suited to news production. This means you
camera and the perfect comple-
never miss your shot.
ment to full-size cameras used by TV

stations. Its standard definition today,
and when the high definition switch
is made, this compact camera is
ready to deliver. In addition to its
weight and handling advantages, it
offers the benefits that shooting in P2
The perfect news team the rugged P2 Store

Drive and the HVX200.
brings to news gathering, such as instant

With the ability to switch recording modes
access to material, high-speed file transfer,
from 25Mbps DVCPRO to 50Mbps
and laptop field editing. Think editing
DVCPRO50 to 100Mbps DVCPRO HD, the
immediately, no waiting to digitize.
HVX200 is ready for whatever the
The viewfinders thumbnail clip display is
especially useful for news crews. You
can see a thumbnail of the clip you
assignment calls for, whether it be local

news, news magazine production, or high
definition coverage at the Olympics.
just recorded and choose

In addition, the newly developed News
to keep it or delete it,
Gamma mode helps to preserve important
saving storage space.
image data by suppressing oversaturation
The pre-recording
in highlight areas during sudden changes
mode (7 seconds in
in contrast, which is fairly typical in
DVCPRO and 3
news acquisition.
Tough shots made easy

The new
video entrepreneur
Flexibility is key for
In DVCPRO, you can do a stringer
the entrepreneur: you
assignment for your local broadcast
need to go where
station in the morning, and then be
your clients need
on a news magazine shoot in the
you to go,
afternoon. And when the
and the
clients call for HD, the

HVX200 gives your busiHVX200 allows you
ness access to projects
that freedom. With 4:2:2 color
that you may not
space and DVCPRO50 quality,
have had before.
your green screen work will be cleaner.

The HVX200 offers production tools
When youre shooting corporate
once only available in cameras much
talking heads today and music videos
larger and more expensive. For
tomorrow, the DVCPRO50 format
instance, shooting with variable frame
gives you broadcast quality at an
rates, from 12 to 60fps. You can
even more affordable price.
achieve fast motion or slow motion
effects and increase the value to your
client of what you produce.
Other advantages include saving and
In addition to substantial camera options
storing different looks onto the camera.
for on location, the HVX200 also steps
If youre on set and you need a client to
up in the editing process. NLE leaders
approve a certain look, just toggle through
including Apple Final Cut Pro, Avids
the different looks youve created and
NewsCutter family, Media Composer
obtain immediate approval.
Adrenaline and Xpress Pro HD, and

Canopus EDIUS HD/SD/SP Broadcast
all offer P2-compatible software. The
ultra-fast P2 process is on your side,
allowing you to shorten the time frame
between capture and delivery.
The HVX200 offers numerous record modes, including one-shot record from 1 frame to 1 second (shown above); hot-swap
recording for continuous recording; loopYYePG
recording;
pre-record
record (from 2 frames to 10 minutes).
Proudly
Presents,and
Thxinterval
for Support
The little HD camera
that could
...with the agility others cant
Your schedule is grueling, the talent isnt feeling well, the
wrong colored props need to be replaced, and you need
to do a dozen set-ups today. The vast capabilities of the
HVX200 allow it to excel in the hectic pace of television
and commercial spot production. The fact that it delivers
high quality images in a compact, ultra-tough body, makes
it ideal for second camera production. So for shots where
a more discreet camera, or a closer hand-held look is
needed, the HVX200 is perfect. But it also fits in where
you need a slow motion pan on the product, and when
beautiful high definition is critical. The HVX200 is the
perfect complement to VariCam because it also offers
variable frame rates, cine-like gamma and DVCPRO HD
in an all-in-one package.
Scenes shot with the
HVX200 will intercut very
well with other scenes
captured with VariCam.
If you have more than
one HVX200 on set, its a
snap to get them to
VariCam on location
match by using the SD Memory card.

High-end productions will also benefit from its size
because it is easy to mount on a jib, crane, dolly or
any other specialized mount. In particular, underwater
housings will be lighter and smaller, allowing for
YYePG
Proudly Presents,
Thx for Support
underwater
cinematography
to
be done in new ways.
The Advantages of P2 Recording
RELIABILITY UNDER EXTREME CONDITIONS P2 cards
Panasonics P2 stands for Professional Plug-in.
are small but virtually indestructible, and are
It bridges the worlds of computer peripherals
protected by a rugged die-cast frame. Real-life
and digital cinematography. The P2 card,
shooting in extreme and adverse conditions of hot
encompassing four SD memory cards, acts as
and cold temperatures as well as shock and
the internal flash memory card, as well as an
vibration has been done, and the P2 card has
external hard drive when used with a non-linear
performed with 100% reliability. The P2 card
editor. Working with
The design of the P2 card involves

not only the use of 4 SD memory
chips, but also a printed circuit
board, computer controllers for
maximum data speed, and all
encased in a rugged enclosure.
Only the top 1% of chips
produced in the world is accepted
to be inside a P2 card, thereby
providing optimum reliability.
NLE solutions
becomes easy and
fast, as P2 is already
in the IT domain and
eliminates digitizing,
since the clips will be
seen on an external hard drive. Here are a few of
withstands shock up to 1,500 G and vibration
the main advantages of working with P2:
up to 15 G, operates in temperatures from -4 to
ON-SITE CLIP SELECTION AND MEDIA MANAGEMENT
140F (-20 to 60C), and can be stored in
The random access nature of P2 recording also
temperatures from -40 to 176F (-40 to 80C).
allows for the clips to be displayed as individual
I T READY Solid state memory is integral to com-
thumbnails, which can instantly be selected,
puter technology, be it in digital cameras, portable
played or deleted. No need to worry about cuing
drives and even display technologies such as
up to the last frame as you would on tape; no
plasmas. Using P2 means youre IT ready. Being
worries about breaks in timecode. It is all taken
in the IT world means the P2 cameras integrate
care of with P2.
with existing equipment in the IT domain. Backup
A REDUCTION IN YOUR MEDIA BUDGET Because you
and archival storage devices dont have to be
can use the P2 cards up to 100,000 times, the
designed; they already exist. They are a part of
cost of a P2 card can be amortized overtime,
every computer system in the IT world and now
saving you money. Backup the data to lower cost
theyre a part of video production too. With the
storage such as DLT, LTO or even DVD, and its
current prices of DLT storage at 25 cents a GB,
ready for the next project. And keep in mind you
you can compare $50 worth of storage in DLT for
are only saving the viable footage onto the P2
200 GB, whereas the equivalent videotape would
card. This concept alone can dramatically cut your
cost $200. Saving content to an IT device is less
media budget, since with tape, you cant save just
expensive than tape.
the good takes.
The Advantages of Variable Frame Rates
necessary storage to be taken. This frees up space
Digital cinematography has come a long way in
on the P2 card to record more.
making more visually appealing, cinema-like images.
Also, the HVX200 captures in discrete progressive
Variable frame rate shooting is a main reason why.
frames, not interpolated frames. So, when you look
Rec and
Play at
24fps
Standard recording speed for movie production (playback at same speed)
Overcranking
Rec at
48fps
Shooting at twice standard shooting speed
Play at
24fps
Provides half-speed slow-motion with standard playback
Undercranking
Rec at
12fps
Shooting at half standard shooting speed
Play at
24fps
Provides 2x quick-motion with standard playback
The HVX200 employs the same variable frame
through the viewfinder while shooting in 24p, you
recording technology as the VariCam and is the first
are watching exactly what is being recorded, in
hand-held HD camcorder to do so. The shooting
true 24p fashion.
frame rate in 720p native mode can be set for any of
The advantages of shooting in variable frame rates
11 steps (12, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 30, 32, 36, 48, 60
are only limited by your imagination. Special effects
fps) between 12fps and 60fps.
such as creating a dream-like feeling, motion blurs,
Unlike VariCam, however, the HVX200 records the
warp-speed effects, time-lapse creations, ghost
progressive frames onto the P2 cards, not to tape. It
effects, strobe effects, and much more, are all done
does not need to flag the frames for later extraction
in-camera, which yields a more organic, and realistic
in post-production. As a result, fewer frames are
feel to the effects.
captured onto the P2 card, allowing for only the
Ultra Versatility
The AG-HVX200 combines with the
Intel-A-Jib variable-length jib arm
and Varizooms VZ-MC100 remote
pan/tilt system to create spectacular
special effects.
Visit www.industryadvanced.com
P2 Cards
With P2 cards you can select recording
formats from DVCPRO HD, DVCPRO50,
DVCPRO and DV. The models are:
HD Monitoring BT-LH1700W - 17"

Widescreen BT Series Multi-Format
Color Production Monitor
AJ-P2C004HG - 4GB P2 Card

AJ-P2C008HG - 8GB P2 Card
This widescreen production quality

monitor features two auto-switching
SDI / HD-SDI inputs, waveform
monitoring, and freeze frame/split
screen functions. A desk stand
is included.
Visit www.panasonic.com/broadcast
Focus Enhancements
P2 Store AJ-PCS060G - Portable

DVCPRO HD/50/25 P2 Store Drive
The P2 Store is a rugged, portable hard
disk unit with a P2 card slot that quickly
transfers the content of P2 cards. It can
hold the contents of up to 15 4GB P2
cards. Using a USB 2.0 interface, the
contents from the P2 store can be
transferred to compatible NLE systems.
It can be used in the field for content
offload or in the studio for transfers.
Windows and Apple OS
compatible.
P2 Drive AJ-PCD10 DVCPRO

HD/50/25 P2 Drive
This is a P2 card reader with five P2
card slots that can be installed externally
or internally on Windows or Apple OS
computers. With the use of an external
AC adaptor and USB cable, it can
also be used as a stand-alone
external drive.
The FS-100 is a Direct To Edit (DTE)

HD recorder that records dropout-free
DV, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50 or DVCPRO
HD video streams via FireWire while
in the field. Connect it directly to a
Mac, notebook or desktop PC to edit
content directly from the FireStore,
thereby eliminating digitizing. The
FS-100 provides long recording times
(up to 90 minutes), removable battery
power, a compact rugged design and
Comprehensive Graphical LCD.
Visit www.FOCUSinfo.com
VariZoom
The Rock-DVX-ZFI enables single-handed, smooth
control of variable-speed zoom and precise control
of focus and iris with individual thumb dials, all
from a tripod or shoulder support handle. The
DVX-FI is an iris, focus controller that can be used
separately for an assistant focus/iris operator. It
may also be used by one operator to offer left and
right hand controls for simultaneous operations
with two hands.
Visit www.varizoom.com
Non-Linear Editing
Through strategic technology partnerships, Apple,
Avid and Canopus have announced the support of
the DVCPRO HD native file recorded onto P2 cards
by the AG-HVX200. The results are products that
offer maximum compatibility with existing software,
including IT-based system platforms, nonlinear
editors and network servers. The NLE models are:
Final Cut Pro 5.04

Visit www.apple.com
Canopus EDIUS HD/SD/SP/Broadcast, EDIUS

Avid Xpress Pro HD, Avid NewsCutter family,
NX/NXe/Professional (with Broadcast Upgrade Option)
Avid Media Composer Adrenaline HD
Visit www.canopus.com
Visit www.avid.com
AJA
Cinemek
The HD10A HDTV Analog-to-Serial

Video Converter is a miniature, highquality, 10-bit analog-to-digital
converter for HDTV. It accepts YPbPr
analog HD and outputs three duplicate
HD-SDI signals. It provides 1080p, 1080i
and 720p with internal or external sync.
Optional 12V power.
Cinemeks premiere product, the G35,

is an ingeniously versatile directors
finder that can be mounted onto
almost any camera device for 35mm
lens viewing and depth of field preview.
Gates HVX200 Professional

Underwater Housing
Reliable, durable, and dependable.
Dont Take a Chance...Take a Gates!
Visit www.GatesHousings.com
Visit www.cinemek.com
Visit www.aja.com/hd10a
Kata Bags
Available for the AG-HVX200 are:
Equinox Underwater Products
MC-61 Multi-case and EFP Bag.
Bogen Filters
Bogen offers a number of filters perfect
for use with the AG-HVX200. Two
special filters are the Clear UV HD
which is intended to be used as an
optical flat protection filter, and the
Formatt Circular Polarizer.
Designed and customized exclusively

for the HVX200, this new underwater
housing allows videographers ease of
use in virtually every critical camera
function.
Visit www.kata-bags.com
www.underwatervideohousings.com
Visit www.bogenimaging.us
Manfrotto
For-A
The MC-10AD converts component SD
and HD signals from the camera portion of camcorders and provides a
genlocked SDI or HDSDI signal so that
the camcorder can be utilized in a
system application.
Visit www.for-a.com
The 503,351MVB2K is the perfect

complement for the HVX200, featuring
a professional fluid video control and a
lightweight, two-stage aluminum tripod
with upper twin-leg design for greater
rigidity and a built-in shoulder spreader
allowing you to adjust the legs at two
different angles.
Visit www.bogenimaging.us
HD-06WA-HVX
.6X Wide Angle

Adapter HVX200
HD-FESU-HVX
Super Fisheye
Adapter HVX200
HD-75CV-HVX
.75X Wide Angle

Converter HVX200
HD-16TC-HVX
1.6X Tele-converter
HVX200
AD-8616-00
+1.6 Achromatic
Diopter 86mm
AD-8620-00
+2.0 Achromatic
Diopter 86mm
AD-8626-00
+2.6 Achromatic
Diopter 86mm
FA-8286-00
82mm to 86mm
Adapter Ring
P & S Technik
P+S Technik Mini35 Digital Image
Converter. Expand your creative
potential and use the P+S Technik
Mini35 Digital Image Converter with the
Panasonic HVX200 and 35mm film
lenses to create visual effects that were
once the exclusive realm of 35mm film.
P+S Technik Mini35 Breakout Box is
the power terminal at the center of the
Mini35 Digital Image Converter system,
providing video outputs and power
coordination via a professional battery
for long-running operation of the
camera, Mini35 and various camera
accessories, including professional
viewfinder and additional monitoring.
Visit
www.zgc.com/zgc.nsf/product/pstechnik
PortaBrace
Tiffen
Tiffen brings you filters to use in a
variety of shooting situations. Designed
primarily for professional shooters, they
produce results that are pleasing, less
harsh and less brassy.
Visit www.centuryoptics.com
Redrock
The M2 Cinema Lens Adapter
combines with the AG-HVX200 to
provide the ultimate Indie package for
cinema-style video. The Redrock M2
enables you to create truly film-style
images with the HVX200 by adapting
35mm lenses to achieve the shallow
depth of field and angle of view desired
for the cinema look.
Visit www.redrockmicro.com
Custom fit to the AG-HVX200, the RSHVX200 Mini-DV Rain Slicker is made
of durable, waterproof material to keep
out rain, wind, and dust. It incorporates
flaps, vinyl windows and zippered
openings to make operating the
camera easy and efficient.
Davis and Sanfords Pro Steady Stick

SSPR0SI2 a professional portable
camera support with a padded, swivel
belt holster, 2 belt and arm that supports
cameras up to 30 pounds and shifts
camera weight from shoulder to torso.
Steadicam Flyer The Steadicam

award-winning Flyer and F-24 Flyer
camera stabilization systems are ideal
for the HVX200. Features newly
designed vest, HD/SD monitor, tool
free adjustments and lightweight
design system sled.
Visit www.tiffen.com
Visit www.portabrace.com
Sachtler
Schneider, Century Precision Optics

continued in next column...
Sachtler System 6 SB SL MCF (system

code #0650) Professional/Broadcast
quality tripod system includes DV-6 SB
SPEEDBALANCE fluid head with 10step counterbalance, illuminated touch
bubble & 5-step fluid drag, combined
with the new double-extension, carbon
fiber Speed Lock CF 75 tripod with
patented quick-clamping system and
mid-level
spreader.
YYePG
Proudly
Presents, Thx for Support
Visit www.sachtler.com
Vocas
VOCAS Clip-on DV matte box with
internal eyebrows & accessory shoe.
VOCAS DV Wide-angle matte box on rail
system with integrated shoulder support.
Visit www.vocas.com
For more information on the HVX200,

visit www.panasonic.com/aghvx200

2006 All Rights Reserved
Vehicle to vehicle crane provided by Evin Grant at www.evingrant.com
ground that also is very contrasty.

When he gets down off his horse, its
a prettier look and he gets more
facial light. I managed to light each
and every shot to fit what we knew
the background was going be.
Doing that shot by shot must
have been difficult when you had to
move so fast.
Stump: Its why I gave up the
notion of trying to be the effects
supervisor at the same time. I
thought it would be more beneficial
to the production if I just focused on
getting good images on tape.
Did you light the actors from
the floor with small units to reduce
clutter?
Stump: Depending on the size
of the shot, I frequently would walk
in a 4-by-4 with a Nine-light and
soften it with 250, 216 or Opal in the
foreground. For very tight shots, I
would get in with a little 1K and
Tweenie softboxes. We could only
afford so much lighting, but my
gaffer was very resourceful.
That shot of Joey [top left] is a
special lighting thing I did for
Randal, with a little 1940s-style, soft,
isolated eyelight. Randal wanted a
movie look to things. This picture is
a combination of really stylized looks
and techniques from cartoons and
kids stories.
Red has very white skin compared to the others [top right]. Did
you have to take that into consideration?
Stump: Yes, it was a constant
issue, because I could darken
Morgan a little bit with makeup, but
she just didnt wear makeup well. At

the same time, Lainie is very oliveskinned. To put them in the same
picture, we had to make them up to
be closer to one another in shade
and tone, and I was constantly
monitoring the waveform/vectorscope levels to see how they
looked together. Once I had it
recorded well, I could touch it up in
post, but then again, this show suffered from the issues of budget. We
really made the best of limited
resources.
Do you think this type of

filmmaking works for smaller-budgeted films because you are able to
get so much more out of virtual
sets?
Stump: Absolutely. It has been
proven by later shows that made
plenty of money, including Sky
Captain and Sin City, which used a
simpler variant of the technique to
do very effective filmmaking.
Moreover, I think you can make a
different kind of film with this technique. Given the resources we had, I
think we pulled off something fairly

extraordinary, and I know for a fact
that the next time this is done, it will
be far more refined.
Is the lighthouse pulldown
[above] just a virtual camera move?
Stump: Yes, that was a virtual
move going to a practical camera
move. We actually laid out the first
half of the move as a CGI hookup
then played it back and told the
computer when to go to the second
half in order to join the two moves.
It was pretty interesting onstage.
OPTIMO 15-40 T2.6

At 3.9 lbs. the lightweight OPTIMO 15-40 T2.6 is what
you have come to expect from the OPTIMO family
The OPTIMO 15-40 mm features a new optical design that propels its
performance above and beyond virtually any lens. In addition, this
new design completely eliminates breathing and ramping.
At 3.9 lbs the OPTIMO is perfect for all

hand held and Steadicam applications.
66
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One of the fun things about

doing this was watching that lightbulb turn on for people. For example, when we did this long pullback
hookup shot, there were several people who understood the technique
for the first time after we did it. What
we did was point the camera at the
rafters of the stage and start to do the
pullback to learn how to join the two
moves together. When it came time
to do the two moves, I took a little
square of bluescreen, positioned it
above the camera on a couple of C-
stands, and shined a light on it so we

could pull a matte from it, and that
enabled us to have a matte area to
put the CGI background into. From
there, we pull down into our practical set. It was quick and dirty, and
there were some holes where it
joined to the bluescreen that was on
the walls of the stage, but I could see
a couple of my camera assistants
watching as this all went together,
and, like everyone on the crew, they
had their moment of Ahhh, now I
get it. That continued to happen for
different departments over the

entire course of the production. I
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The
Competitive
Edge
The Imax film Wired to Win uses the Tour de

France to examine the human brains response
to competition and physical stress.
by Jay Holben
Unit photography by JoAnna Baldwin-Mallory and Denys Clment
70 April 2006
ong considered one of the most

grueling professional sporting
events in the world, the Tour de
France bicycle race spans 20
days and covers more than
2,000 miles. This incredible trial of
physical and mental endurance was
the perfect backdrop for the new
Imax film Wired to Win, a detailed
Opposite: Bike
racers in the
Tour de France
peloton barrel
down the road
on their way to
Paris. This page,
top: In the high
Pyrenees, pilot
Fred North
closes in on a
shot not allowed
during the actual
Tour, for obvious
reasons. Bottom:
Director of
photography
Rodney Taylor
says his goal
was to take
viewers as
deep into the
race as we
could.
look at how the human brain

responds to the rigors of physical
stress and makes strategic judgments. Produced by Partners
HeathCare System, the parent
organization of Harvard-affiliated
teaching hospitals, physicians and
researchers (with the help of OrthoMcNeil Neurologics and the
National Science Foundation),
Wired to Win illustrates how a
healthy brain works, and how
cyclists in the Tour de France use the
mind to integrate a huge amount
of information to execute a plan to
beat the competition, explains neurologist Dennis J. Selkoe, M.D., one
of the projects advisers. Director of
photography Rodney Taylor, whose
credits include Alaska: Spirit of the
Wild, Ultimate X and Swimmers,
says Wired to Win turned out to be
the most challenging Imax project
Ive ever shot.
Although the film uses the
2003 Tour de France as its backdrop,
it isnt a sports movie, nor is it necessarily about the race. I liked the
idea that this was a science movie
and not a sports movie, says Taylor.
After we made Olympic Glory
[1999], it became outdated very

quickly because every [prospective
viewer] already knew what had happened in the games. I was excited
that we were going to cover the race
in such a way that it didnt matter
what the results of the race were. We
were merely using the event to tell
the story of the brain.
In early 2003, Wired to Win
director Bayley Silleck and co-writer
Daniel Ferguson asked Taylor to
shoot the film, and he quickly
accepted their offer. To prepare, they
traveled to France for the Paris-Nice

bicycle race in March 2003 in order
to get an idea of the challenges that
lay ahead. We took along Jim
Sanfilippo, our key grip, and Fred
Weigle, the productions key camera
assistant, and got as deep into the
race as we could, recalls Taylor.We
were able to get into one of the
coachs chase cars and get right into
the race, but we quickly realized we
would never get the shots we wanted to from a car you simply cant
get close enough. I wanted the kind

Right: Cyclist
Jimmy Casper
prepares to
undergo a postcrash MRI exam
during the 2003
Tour before
rejoining the
race on the
following day.
Bottom left: An
example of MRI
scanning
showing brain
activity based
upon thought
and emotional
response.
Bottom right: A
CGI depiction of
the neural
networks and
synaptic
junctions within
the human
brain. This
image was
produced by the
Brussels-based
company nWave
Digital.
of shots you see on TV every year,

close-ups of the riders as theyre racing along; theyre done from the
back of camera motorcycles for
French television. I knew I didnt
want to shoot those sequences in
35mm and blow them up to 65mm.
Even though the transfers have gotten much better in the last few years,
I didnt want to compromise on the
resolution. I also knew we couldnt
have a shaky image from the back of
a bike on a huge Imax screen no
one would be able to watch that!
The 2003 race covered just
over 2,080 miles, starting in Paris
and proceeding through Lyon,
Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and

Nantes before returning to Paris for
the finish. The course would take the
riders through six major mountain
passes, and tight groups of cyclists
would be traveling anywhere from
30 mph to 60 mph, in some cases
faster. At each stage of the race, the
officials would close the roads to all
traffic, making access through or
around the race route nearly impossible for the production team.
Planning camera coverage looked
nearly impossible.
We finally figured the only
way to cover the race and get what
we were looking for was on a motor-

72 April 2006
cycle, says Taylor. The ASO

[Amaury Sport Organization, the
body behind the Tour de France]
wouldnt allow any vehicle other
than a two-wheel motorcycle to
get anywhere near the riders. We
couldnt have a sidecar; it had to be
two wheels only. We decided the
only way to achieve what we wanted
was to put a Libra head on the back
of a motorcycle and run that along
with the racers. The problem was
how to control the Libra. On some
of the course, that wasnt too much
of a problem, because we could put
an operator in a chase car back with
the coaches and support teams and
granular
synthesis
is not
a
health
food
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Right: Casper
struggles to
survive the
tortuous climbs
in the French
Alps. Below:
One example of
the scientific
transitions used
in the film.
Moving from the
cyclists painful
experience, the
film illustrates
how the brain
reads pain in
the sensory
cortex and
reacts by
triggering
endorphins to
help the cyclist
continue in the
race.
keep line of sight to the motorcycle;

but once the tour moved into the
mountains, there was no way we
could keep up line of sight to operate the Libra. Finally, we decided the
only way to make it work was to put
an operator in a helicopter and have
him fly above the motorcycle.
It was a good solution, but it
didnt quite solve the whole problem. First the filmmakers had to
mount the Libra on the back of a
BMW motorcycle, and then they
had to find someone crazy enough
to drive it. We talked to a bunch of
drivers, and they all said we were
nuts, says Taylor. Eventually we
found this crazy Frenchman, Patrice
Diallo, who had driven a camera
bike for the race for the past 20
years. It was wonderful, because he
knew all the race officials, riders and
coaches everyone. When he saw
our rig for the first time, he said,
Youve got to be kidding! But he
gave it a shot.
The chief problem with a
gyrostabilized platform on the back
of a motorcycle is that the gyro
mechanism is constantly fighting to
balance out the cycle. As the driver

74 April 2006
moves into a curve and has to lean

the cycle into the curve, he is suddenly fighting against the gyrostabilizer, which is trying to keep the
camera upright. The driver then
needs to over-correct to keep the
bike on the road. Diallo eventually
overcame his initial trepidation and
got the hang of the driving with the
rig.
The crew was seldom able to
reload the camera because there was
only one way to physically reach
Diallo: the team in the helicopter
had to find a place ahead of the
peloton (the main group of cyclists)
where the craft could land. Diallo
would speed up, race past the racers
and meet the helicopter, and the
crew would reload the camera as the
racers passed by. Diallo would then
speed up to the peloton to resume
working. To catch up with the racers, Patrice was racing along the
mountainside at close to 100 miles
per hour with the camera rig on the
back of the bike, marvels Taylor.
He was a madman, but he was
instrumental in getting the footage
we needed.
Although reloading the camera was no small feat, a far more
troubling challenge arose during
development of a system to control
the Libra head on the back of the
BMW. The Libra is wireless, but its
good for only short-range distances,
from a few hundred feet to about a
half-mile, and we knew there was a
good chance we would often be several miles away, especially in the
mountain pass, explains Libra technician Jon Philion. In order to
cover those distances, we had to
come up with a system that was
stronger, and we also had to coordinate the radio frequencies with the
ASO and with emergency-response
crews, team communications teams,
et cetera. It was nearly impossible to
find a set of unused frequencies. In
the end, we wound up in the military range at about 900 MHz, and
we built a system that could operate
Live-action transitions into 4K CGI follow the sound wave

of a warning shout through the cyclists ear and into the
brain. There, it triggers both survival and strategic
responses that allow the rider to skirt disaster.
about 5 miles away from the actual

rig. The cycle cam actually required
six discrete frequencies that were
cleared by the French military: one
to control the Libra head, one for
video playback, one for focus control, one for aperture control, one
for camera on/off control, and one
for communication.
Taylor wanted to shoot as
much material as possible in 15-perf
65mm. We talked about using
35mm on the motorcycle, but I really didnt want to do that, he says.
We tried out an 8-perf 65mm camera, but I wasnt happy with the lens
selection. He wanted to shoot the
Libra motorcycle footage with a
40mm lens. In 65mm, the 40mm
lens is very wide, and I wanted that
feeling. I wanted to get the camera as
close to the riders as possible and
really put the audience in the race.
When we switched to the 8-perf
65mm camera, the widest I could go
was 30mm, but the 30mm in 8-perf
is longer than the 40mm in 15-perf,
and it still has that fisheye look. Even
though we could get a longer film
load in the 8-perf camera, I really
wasnt happy with what I was seeing. We tried it on the Libra for one
day but switched back the next day
because the 40mm lens in Imax was
so much better.
Taylor had four cameras at his
disposal for the first week of the
race, and three for the remainder

76 April 2006
of the shoot. His main camera,

which was under the command of
2nd-unit director/cinematographer
Larry Blanford (Minority Report,
Tears of the Sun, The Rock), alternated each day between the Libra head
on the back of the motorcycle and a
Gyron Stab-C mount in the helicopter for aerial footage. It was an
MSM 9801, a relatively new 15-perf
65mm camera that has all the functions of an Arri 435 and weighs 56
pounds, roughly half as much as the
IW5 and IW5A 15-perf 65mm
cameras. (The MSM 9801s
Steadicam configuration is an
astounding 38 pounds with lens
and 500' of film.) The cameras light
weight enables its users to utilize
some traditional 35mm camerasupport equipment that was not
previously available to Imax productions, including Steadicam,
cranes and, especially important for
Wired to Win, remote heads.
For one week of the shoot in
the mountains, Taylor had a second
MSM 9801 (operated by Steve
Ford), but budget constraints forced
the production to send it back.
Rounding out his camera package
were an Iwerks 8-perf 65mm and an
Aaton 35-III 35mm camera; the latter, operated by Philippe Ros, was
used to gather behind-the-scenes
footage and interviews.
The ground units proved to
be just as challenging to arrange as
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Above: The crew

prepares for a
shot in the Alpes
Maritimes, just
north of Nice.
Working with
the latest
in French
production
vehicles made
from a modified
Renault, the
crew was able
to capture
images that put
the audience
in the thick
of the race.
Below: Key grip
Jim Sanfilippo
monitors the
crane/Libra rig
as the crew
and riders head
back uphill for
another take.
the motorcycle rig. A mere three

months before the race, Taylor and
Silleck scouted the Tour de France
course and selected their key positions for each days stage of the race.
(The race is run in daily stages, each
between 80 and 140 miles long.)
Because sizable crowds gather to
watch the riders, the filmmakers
knew they would only get one setup
per day from each ground unit.
Silleck and Taylor selected the most
advantageous and scenic spots for
covering each stage and set their
positions via GPS coordinates.
Because we werent necessarily covering the outcome of the race, we
could focus on the locations that

were the most photogenic and
would help tell our story, instead of
worrying about which positions
would get the best coverage of the
race, notes Taylor.
However, even though the
filmmakers had marked out their
ground-camera positions and
informed race officials of those
details, there was no guarantee the
spots would be available on race day.
Its a zoo out there, says Philion,
who oversaw the Libra operation
from the helicopter every day.
There were constantly spectators
running all over the place, even in

78 April 2006
the middle of the road! Apparently,

half the sport for the riders is dodging spectators.
Anticipating big and occasionally rowdy crowds, the production sent spotters to camp out and
hold the camera positions as much
as three days in advance.Even then,
it wasnt easy to get into position,
says Taylor. We had two support
vans that traveled with the ground
unit, a grip van and a camera van.
We always made sure we had risers
with us so we could get the camera
position above the crowd. That
helped us work around the more
inebriated spectators. We had to do
whatever we could, because we only
got one shot at it per day. We had
three minutes of film, and once the
racers passed, that was it for the day.
Luckily, we never really lost a day
and got everything we needed.
Taylor filmed most of the
project on Kodak Vision 250D 5246;
he shot a few rolls of Vision2 500T
5218 as well. I really wanted to
shoot [Eastman EXR 50D] 5245 for
its color saturation, but I knew we
would be shooting in all kinds of
lighting situations, and that meant I
needed more versatility. In the end,
thanks to the bold colors of the riders uniforms, we actually got a very
saturated look after all. He rated
the 5246 slightly overexposed at
about 160 ISO.When we went into
production, [Vision2 250D] 5205
wasnt available yet, he adds.
Otherwise, I probably would have
shot that. We tested some [Vision2
500T] 5218, and although it had the
most latitude, it wasnt quite as colorful as 5246.
I also wanted to be able to
use polarizers, because we knew this
film would be shown in a lot of
dome theaters, and you have to be
very careful to control your sky
exposures when youre shooting
Imax for those venues, he continues.I use polarizers and a lot of ND
grads to bring the sky down. If
youve got a lot of bright sky in a
dome theater, the crosslight pollution becomes a problem and just

kills your contrast. Because the Imax
screen is so large, the grad line is
spread over such a large area that
you never see the line. When shooting Imax, I use an ND grad all the
time to help focus viewers eyes
down toward the main subject on
the screen. Its a lot like using limited depth of field to control the audiences attention in 35mm. In our
case, were using brightness control
to trick people to look down.
Overall, exposure was not
easy to judge, especially for
Blanford, who was operating from
the helicopter and making streetlevel exposure calls for the Libra
camera from up to 5 miles away.
Larry had a video-assist feed in the
helicopter, but the video-assist in
Imax is horrible, says Taylor. Most
of the time, he could barely make
out an image. Quite often, Patrice
would have to find our main riders,
start pacing them, put the camera in
the right position and then radio
Larry that he was pointed at the
right guys and could start shooting.
Larry did an amazing job almost
totally blind.
All of the aerial footage and
Libra-cam footage was recorded on
a portable digital-video clamshell,
and this often became the productions main dailies. There were two
non-racing days during the tour,
and Taylor traveled to Paris both
days to watch projected dailies.
Another big concern with
Imax movies is panning speeds and
strobing, notes Taylor. You have to
be very careful about how fast
something is moving through the
frame, or you might make your
audience sick with the strobing
onscreen. When youre following
cyclists at 40 miles per hour, it can
make some shots very difficult if
you use a lens thats too wide, all you
get is strobing. I found that by
focusing on the crowd on the far
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79

Taylor frames a
shot with the
MSM-9801 as
Daniel Ferrell
assists. In its
lightest
configuration,
the camera
weighs about 38
pounds and can
be used on a
Steadicam or
even handheld.
ers go by in the foreground, the riders became a speedy blur that suggested how fantastically fast they
were going.
We also did some Steadicam
work, especially in Tour City, the
camp where the riders finished up
every day. Larry McConkey came
out to do our Steadicam shots; we
did quite a few of them with the

MSM 9801, but it has a side-to-side
magazine that made it difficult for
Larry to keep the rig balanced while
the film transferred over. The Iwerks
8-65 has an inline magazine that was
easier for him to deal with, so we
used that to follow the action.
In another departure for an

80
Imax film, Taylor even worked in

some handheld photography. We
wanted to go for a kind of vrit
style, so we did a bit of handheld
with the 15-65 camera. I like the
look of handheld, but you have to be
careful. You cant walk too much or
do any quick pans. You really use it
as a quick method of reframing and
then shooting. You can take a step or
two, but much more than that
becomes too much movement for
the Imax screen. Sometimes we were
thrown into a situation with a
bunch of press photographers, and
handheld was the only way to
maneuver and get the shot.
Although most of the main
photography was completed with
the 2003 race, the production
returned to the course site the following year to shoot pickups that
helped fill out the storyline. Also,
safety concerns had kept the motorcycle and ground crews off the road
in the downhill mountain passes,

where the cyclists speed topped 60
mph, so the filmmakers re-created
key downhill moments using a
small team of professional cyclists
and some extras. We rented an
Audi station wagon, and Jim
Sanfilippo turned it into an
impromptu Shotmaker, recalls
Taylor. We could put the camera
anywhere from inches off the pavement to 8 feet in the air with the
Libra head, and we could flip down
the tailgate and shoot out the back.
During their training, professional
cyclists often ride very close to a
pace car, and because they were used
to that kind of arrangement [our
cylists] were able to ride up to within inches of the camera in the back
of the Audi while racing downhill at
50 or 60 miles per hour. We got
some amazing shots that way.
When asked whether he had
considered shooting digitally and
transferring to 65mm to ease some

of the production problems, Taylor
responds, I dont think digital
[video] is there yet for Imax. I know
James Cameron is doing digital 3-D,
but that in essence is doubling the
image to create the resolution. For
2-D shooting, Im not convinced
digital is capable of getting a real
Imax image. Also, each stage of the
Tour de France takes place between
about 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. the
worst lighting you could ask for on
a digital shoot.
The finished film mixes 1565mm, 8-65mm, 35mm and even
some video from TV coverage.
Quite often we couldnt get to the
finish line each day, or we couldnt
beat French TVs 10 camera positions with our one, so we wound up
paneling some video into the film.
Theres a shot at the end of the race
thats video, and it looks horrible on
the Imax screen you can see
every scan line. But its an extremely

dramatic and important moment
that needed to be in the film, and it
works wonderfully for the story. I
TECHNICAL SPECS
1.33:1
65mm and 35mm
Imax MSM 9801 (15-perf 65mm);
Iwerks MSM 8870 (8-perf 65mm);
Aaton 35-III
65mm: Hasselblad 30-350mm and
Pentax 800mm lenses
35mm: Zeiss 40mm and
Century Minolta 28-70mm lenses
Kodak Vision 250D 5246,
Vision2 500T 5218
Transferred to 70mm by FotoKem

81
Marked
Man
Peter Sova, ASC lends a stylized look to Lucky Number
Slevin, a gangster tale with plenty of plot twists.
by Jon Silberg
ucky Number Slevin is a

thriller/comedy hybrid whose
unexpected acts of brutality and
moments of comic relief keep
the audience guessing. The picture was shot by Peter Sova, ASC
and directed by Paul McGuigan,
who previously collaborated on
Gangster No. 1 (see AC June 02),
The Reckoning and Wicker Park.
Slevin echoes Gangster No. 1 in a
handful of ways: it concerns a
decades-long rivalry between two
gang leaders (played by Morgan

Freeman and Ben Kingsley), and its
peopled with sociopaths who think
nothing of killing each other. But
Slevin unfolds on a larger canvas
and offers a broader range of tones.
Set in present-day New York,
the film concerns a mysterious
young man, Slevin (Josh Hartnett),
who finds himself caught in the
middle of a war between the two
gangsters, The Boss (Freeman) and
Schlomo (Kingsley). The rivals live
82 April 2006
in sprawling penthouse apartments

that face each other. Other characters include Mr. Goodkat (Bruce
Willis), a hit man of questionable
loyalties, and Slevins neighbor
Lindsey (Lucy Liu), who gets caught
up in the danger. The film flashes
back to the 1970s to depict an event
that has bearing on Slevins circumstances: a gamblers devastating loss
at the racetrack.
Sova says he finds it inspiring
to work with McGuigan because the
Photos courtesy of The Weinstein Co.
Unit photography by Attila Dory
director is thoroughly involved in

designing the look of the project at
hand. Paul has tremendous knowledge about filmmaking and a terrific visual sense, says the cinematographer.He did a lot of fashion photography before he started directing,
and he has strong ideas about cameras, costumes and production
design. When we first met, we established that we had similar thoughts
about the way a camera should
move to complement a scene, and
by now we have a shorthand; each of
us knows what the other will think
of an idea.
Although the filmmakers
planned from the outset to finish
Slevin with a digital intermediate
(DI), Sova worked carefully to create
as much of the look in camera as
possible. This was partly because of
his own preference, but also because
he was concerned about how much
time the modestly budgeted production would allot for the DI suite.
His caution proved beneficial in
ways the filmmakers could not have
predicted; Sova and McGuigan were
so dissatisfied with the look of their
first DI that they moved to another
facility,
Technicolor
Digital
Intermediates (TDI) in Burbank,
and started from scratch with
just six of the 20 allotted days left to
do the work.
Slevin was shot in 3-perf
Super 35mm. Paul and I had
made our previous two movies in
Super 35, and we liked the visual
excitement and dynamic of the
widescreen frame, says Sova.Also, I
knew the DI meant we wouldnt
have to deal with an optical blowup.
The filmmakers wanted to achieve
visuals that were very rich and low
in grain, and they wanted the 1970s
sequences to have a slightly warm,
more saturated feel. To minimize
grain, Sova shot most of the picture
on two emulsions in Kodaks
Vision2 family, 200T 5217 and 500T
5218; he overexposed both by a stop.
He used two Fuji Super-F emul-
sions, 250T 8552 and 250D 8562,

for the flashbacks. I didnt want to
create the 70s look with colored filters because I knew there was a
chance some of that material might
end up somewhere else in the story
than where it was originally scripted, and I was afraid the transition
might be too much. We also worked
with the period costumes in a different way; they were more colorful
than the present-day wardrobe. We
achieved a different look, but it is
fairly subtle.
Sova also considered using

period lenses, Super Baltars, on the
productions Panaflex Millennium
and XL bodies to distinguish the
flashbacks from the contemporary
material. Baltars were used on The
Godfather, and I thought they might
help give the 70s scenes a certain
feel, but the visual differences
werent what Paul and I intended. I
thought theyd fall off a bit on the
side like other older lenses do, and
they didnt. Instead, he decided to
shoot the entire picture on Primo
Opposite: Slevin
(Josh Hartnett),
a would-be
patsy for a pair
of New York
crime lords,
proves to be
more
resourceful than
he initially
seems. Above:
The Boss
(Morgan
Freeman) gives
Slevin a
daunting
ultimatum. Left:
Peter Sova, ASC
(left) works out
a scene with
director Paul
McGuigan.

Above: Custommade 20' lighting

rigs (far left)
were used to
illuminate the
shows TransLite
backings, which
provided both
day and night
views of the New
York skyline.
Gaffer Sylvan
Bernier explains,
Each tube had
six 2K quartz
bulbs in front of
reflectors. Many
gaffers use
Skypans or other
large, strong
sources [for
TransLites], but
Ive found
smaller sources
give you better
control of the
look. Below:
Sova checks his
meter on the
shows black
set, which
served as the
apartment
occupied by Ben
Kingsleys
character,
Schlomo. The set
was built on a
soundstage in
Montreal.
lenses primes and 17.5-75mm

and 24-275mm zooms and distinguish the flashback material with
light Schneider Black Frost filtration
on the lens.
To create a good, dense negative for the DI, Sova strove to maintain a stop of T2.8 throughout the
shoot. If a shot done at T8 is cut in
with a shot done at T2.8, there will
be a big difference in contrast and
color that youll have to take time to
even out in the DI, he notes. The
Primos have the best resolution
between T2.8 and T4, so I tried to
shoot right in that range, maybe
going up to T5.6 for the exteriors.
That way, I knew if we had very little
time in the DI, we wouldnt have to
spend it making shots match

In fact, Sova was loath to leave
anything to the DI unless absolutely
necessary. If its going to take an
hour and a Condor to take the light
off the front of a building, and I
could [achieve the same thing] with
a window in a DI in five minutes, I
have to be reasonable, of course. But
when it makes more sense to do it in
the camera, thats how I want to
work.
One sequence Sova spent
quite a bit of time on in the digital
suite was the horse race, which is
shown in several flashbacks and
plays a crucial role in tying up the
disparate storylines. He and
McGuigan wanted to bathe the race

84 April 2006
action in golden tones, and although

the cinematographer considered
accomplishing that with colored
filters,we had the horses for a limited amount of time, and we had
six operators working at different
positions. I was concerned that even
if they all used colored filters, it
wouldnt be a unified image.
Furthermore, all of the cameras were
mounted with long lenses, and Sova
didnt think it appropriate to enforce
his T-stop discipline on the focus
pullers, who needed a deeper stop to
keep the horses in focus. Because of
all the factors in play, this sequence
was the kind of thing we really had
to do in the DI, he says.
Given that Sova was keen to
build color and contrast into the
negative, its no surprise he was very
meticulous about lighting. But he
acknowledges that McGuigans
method, which allows for lastminute changes in blocking if a better idea presents itself, made this particularly challenging. Paul doesnt
just go in and shoot a master and
some close-ups, says Sova. I light
for 360 degrees most of the time. I
like that Paul will take time to consider new ideas. He doesnt always
act like hes got the answer right
away, and Im like that too. Even if
the blocking has been planned out, I
want him to be able to change something without taking an hour to
change the lights. I always try to do
enough pre-rigging to make that
possible.
The two hero sets in Slevin are
the respective lairs of The Boss and
Schlomo. The Boss inhabits a lush
environment of varnished wood,
while Schlomo lives in a dark, sarcophagus-like suite of black stone.
The production built The Boss
home in a modest soundstage in
Montreal, shot all of those
sequences, and then dismantled that
set and replaced it with Schlomos
apartment set. The construction
crew had 72 hours to change the sets,
and Sovas team had 24 hours to rig
Photos on this page by Sylvan Bernier.
Marked Man
Marked Man
Above: Gun in
hand, Slevin
prepares to do
the Boss
bidding. Sova
reserved special
praise for
production
designer
Franois
Sguins highly
stylized sets.
Franois has
done a lot of
theater, and hes
fearless. He will
go all the way
with an idea.
Below: Slevin
and Mr. Goodkat
(Bruce Willis),
who bills
himself as a
world-class
assassin, leave
murder and
mayhem in their
wake.
the lighting. Knowing that each of

those 24 hours would be precious,
Sova and his gaffer, Sylvan Bernier,
tried to rig as many lights as possible
for both sets using Photometric calculators, which enabled them to
determine where the lights should
go and how much gel or diffusion
would be required to achieve the
desired look.
Sova has high praise for the
Montreal crew, especially production designer Franois Sguin.
Franois has done a lot of theater,
and hes fearless, says Sova. He will

go all the way with an idea, and he
came up with the really gutsy idea of
an all-black set [for Schlomos apartment]. Nobody builds black sets, but
he argued that the characters would
stand out against it. After some discussion, we decided to go for it. He
used a kind of faux stone that
worked very well.
For both sets, Bernier set up
rows of Super Spot Par cans to rake
down the walls and help separate the
actors. In Schlomos apartment,

86 April 2006
these lights were a slightly cool

3600K, and in The Boss home they
were just under 3000K. Sure, I
could have changed the color temperature in the DI, says Sova, I
would have been hard-pressed to
really separate the actors from the
walls. You can take hours just working on that [in a DI], and if you push
it to lighten the walls, youll get
grain. I didnt want any grain in this
film. I wanted clean, strong images.
In order to allow the actors as
much freedom as possible in the
sets, Sova used large sources from far
away so falloff would never be an
issue. An Arri 20K on a cherry-picker positioned outside the sets was
usually the main light, and then several 12Ks were positioned around
the windows. By powering up certain lights, the crew could very
quickly fine-tune the direction and
intensity of the main light.
They also bounced and diffused light from the ceiling to create
a shadowless base. Outside the windows, TransLites simulated night
and day views.We lit the TransLites
from behind with custom-made 20foot lighting rigs, says Bernier.
Each rig had six 2K quartz bulbs in
front of reflectors. Many gaffers use
Skypans or other large, strong
Marked Man
Caught up in a
case of
mistaken
identity, Slevin
finds a
sympathetic
listener in
Lindsey (Lucy
Liu), a
compulsively
curious
coroner.
sources, but Ive found smaller

sources give you better control of
the look. The problem with
TransLites is that even though people work very hard to make sure the
bright and dark areas are not too far
apart, you still have to use light to
adjust them. You want to be precise,
but you also want something powerful enough to make it feel like its 2,
3 or even 4 stops over if its supposed
to be daylight outside. These rigs
worked very well.
Sova was not familiar with the
personnel or equipment at the post
facility the production originally
chose, but nothing could have prepared him and McGuigan for what
they encountered.It was a total disaster! says McGuigan. Im savvy
about telecine, but thats a simple
process compared to a DI. Youre
never sure that what you see in the
[grading] session will be what you
finally get on film. Peter Sova does
beautiful work; he did so much to
make this look like a classical movie
very smooth, very silky. And it
came out looking like a horror
movie, incredibly grainy and contrasty. Whats worse, they tried to
blame it on Peter, the lenses, anything other than themselves. A producer often chooses a facility
because it gives him a good deal, or
because hed rather work in another
countrys currency, but that can be a
very bad idea. That facility might
not have the best [equipment], or
the personnel might be inexperienced. The first post house we used
for a DI at a really good facility, I

might have left more of the films
look to that part of the process, he
says.But this project proved to be a
good example of how the oldschool method can really pay off.
I
Sova shares a
light moment
with Liu on the
set.
TECHNICAL SPECS
Super 35mm 2.35:1
(3-perf)
made some incredible mistakes. The

images looked nothing like what we
intended.
McGuigan and Sova eventually got permission to start from
scratch at TDI in Burbank, where
theyd had a positive experience
with the DI on Wicker Park. They
scanned the negative with a 4K
Spirit, and then we did the grading

on a da Vinci, which I like. We
worked with [colorist] Trent
Johnson, who is excellent.
If Sova hadnt taken such care
with the pictures look during principal photography, Slevin might
have been a disaster. If Id known
for sure that I would get four weeks
Panaflex Millennium,
Millennium XL
Primo lenses
Kodak Vision2 200T 5217,
Vision2 500T 5218;
Fuji Super-F 250T 8552,
Super-F 250D 8562

89
Sundance 2006:
FrozenMoments
Artful images abound in Park City, Utah.
by Rachael K. Bosley, Jean Oppenheimer, Stephen Pizzello and Patricia Thomson
ur coverage of this years

Sundance Film Festival begins
with a grim fantasy about a
terrorist attack on Los
Angeles and ends with a
breezy black comedy about the
tobacco industry, proving that this
years festival slate was nothing if
not diverse. Though the exuberance
that greeted the comedy Little Miss
Sunshine (shot by Tim Suhrstedt,
ASC) gave this years festival a family-friendly vibe, there was plenty of
adult material to go around.
Perhaps inevitably, the war in Iraq
was the subject or subtext of several
projects, and one of these, the documentary Iraq in Fragments, won
three major awards: cinematography, directing and editing.
Judging
the
festivals
Dramatic Competition were cinematographer Nancy Schreiber,
ASC; actor Terrence Howard; and
directors Alan Rudolph, Miguel
Arteta and Audrey Wells. The
Documentary Competition jury
comprised film editor Joe Bini;
directors Alexander Payne, Andrew
Jarecki and Zana Briski; and producer Heather Rae.
Cinematographers
Tom
Richmond and James Longley won
their first Sundance Awards for
Excellence in Cinematography this

year, Richmond for the drama Right
at Your Door, and Longley for the
documentary Iraq in Fragments
(which he also directed and co-edited). AC covers these and other projects in the pages that follow.
Right at Your Door
Cinematographer:
Tom Richmond
Director: Chris Gorak
Some Sundance regulars
compared Right at Your Door to last
years breakout thriller Open Water,
but director of photography Tom
Richmond notes that although both
movies are low-budget thrillers by
first-time directors, and both focus
on a couple in trouble, Right at Your
Door has really got three main
characters: Brad, Lexi and the
house. He adds wryly, If there
were another co-star, it would be
plastic and tape!
Right at Your Door, for which
Richmond won the prize for
Excellence in CinematographyDrama, takes place mostly in a single practical location: a hillside
house overlooking Los Angeles.
Written and directed by Chris
Gorak, an experienced production
90 April 2006
designer (Lords of Dogtown) and art

director (Minority Report), the film
examines what might happen if Los
Angeles were hit by a series of dirty
bombs. Leaving geopolitics aside,
the story focuses on a young couples reactions to the crisis over
those 48 hours.
Lexi (Mary McCormack) has
already headed to work when her
husband, Brad (Rory Cochrane),
hears the news: multiple explosive
devices have been detonated downtown, near Century City, and at Los
Angeles International Airport.
Commuter traffic was the target.
After attempting to find his wife
and being turned back by police,
Brad stays home, glued to the radio.
He learns that the bombs were biological weapons, and citizens must
stay home, seal their houses, and
avoid contact with people who have
been contaminated by the toxic
particles. He does as told, and soon,
ash is falling on his lawn like snow.
When his panicked, coughing wife
returns, Brad follows the official
line and refuses to let her inside.
Help is on the way, he assures her
through layers of plastic. As the
story progresses and authorities
start rounding up citizens at gunpoint, Brad tapes himself into ever-
Right at Your Door photo by Jim Sheldon, courtesy of Thousand Words.
smaller portions of the house,

allowing Lexi and a neighborhood
boy refuge in other rooms. As conditions worsen, help becomes an
ambiguous, even frightening
prospect, and the couple deals with
their past and uncertain future
through a wall of plastic until the
authorities who have their own
agenda finally arrive.
Richmond (Palindromes,
Little Odessa, A Midnight Clear) was
intrigued by numerous aspects of
Right at Your Door when he first
read the script. In our society, the
home is the symbol of safety, security and family togetherness, he
notes.In this film, that idea is shattered and turned upside-down.
Richmond had a hand in choosing
the house, which had to have a view
of the Los Angeles skyline, be in a
somewhat isolated location, and
offer multiple interior views from
one end of the house to the other.
As much as possible, we tried to
shoot from one room to another,
says the cinematographer. We
wanted to keep [visually] describing the space and blocking parts of
the frame to make you feel [that the
characters] were always closed in or
closed out.
As the story progresses, the
house becomes increasingly subdivided by sheets of plastic. The film
was shot chronologically, and it
really had to be, notes Richmond.
Normally youd do that for the
actors and it was great for them
but it was our other hero, the
house, that demanded it.
With cast and crew hemmed
in by walls and plastic barriers, the
production needed a free-roaming
camera two, in fact. From the
outset, Gorak envisioned shooting
the film handheld with two cameras, for the sake of speed and the
actors. Although high-definition
(HD) video was the format on the
table when Richmond came
aboard, the tangle of cables and
monitors HD entails would have
In Right at Your
Door, a young
woman (Mary
McCormack)
who was
exposed to toxic
substances
released by a
dirty bomb
rushes home to
find that her
husband (Rory
Cochrane) wont
allow her inside.
Below: Director
of photography
Tom Richmond.
made the situation nonfunctional

by day three, he says. Furthermore,
with an 18-day schedule, no budget
for an HD engineer, and numerous
daylit shots featuring windows, he
was concerned about maintaining
visual consistency. He also was dissatisfied with the low-contrast, softedged look of the HD-to-film transfers he screened at two post facilities, EFilm and FotoKem. For all of
these reasons, the filmmakers decided to use Super 16mm instead.
That approach triggered
another commitment: a digital
intermediate (DI) to create the
high-contrast, desaturated look that
takes over after the toxic ash falls.
We wanted to make it almost
monochromatic not necessarily
realistic, but more of a subjective
experience, says Richmond. He
decided to use a single negative,
Kodak Vision2 500T 7218. I
underexposed everything a bit, so it
was rated at [ISO] 650 or 700. I
wanted the picture to deaden and
fall to black sooner; white wasnt
important, but black was.
He used two Arri 16SRs,
mounting the A camera with Zeiss
Superspeed prime lenses and the B
camera with a Canon (T2.5) 8-64
zoom. Working with two cameras,
the rule of thumb was a camera
had to be with one actor or the
other, not both. Gorak usually did

three to four takes.With every take,
we moved the camera, even if it
wasnt a perfect take, says the director. Thats how we got all that
footage. Not only were we moving
the camera, we were also potentially
changing the lens with every take.
That gave us the feeling of being
everywhere. Richmond adds, One
camera would get the perfect shot
and the other would hunt for an
interesting angle. Shots on the wide
end were made with a prime for
better resolution and a more stable
image. Richmond operated the A
camera, while Robert F. Smith,
Joseph Setele and Rob Baird took
turns manning the B camera.
Everybody knows the disadvantages of using two cameras,
notes Richmond. My work on this

movie was more about learning the
advantages and embracing them.
He saw some dividends early on.
During the intense scene when Lexi
returns home, she is at the front
door, pleading with Brad through
its window.Normally I would have
shot through the window, then shot
him, says Richmond. But we were
able to put a camera perpendicular
to Brad and get an over-the-shoulder of Lexi. We got two crazy, emotional performances in the same
shot that never could have been
achieved had they been shot separately. That was fairly early in the
shoot, and it was so gratifying it
inspired me to keep trying as hard
as I could in every situation.
Making a disaster film on a
tiny budget also meant being strategic with visual effects. Rather than
creating a single spectacular
sequence, Gorak chose to pepper
the film with brief glimpses of the
city skyline under a growing cloud
of black smoke. To create these,
visual-effects supervisor Joe Bauer
layered footage of smoke generated
by oil fires in Kuwait onto
Richmonds skyline shots.We were
pretty addicted to the idea of a
handheld movie, and it blew me
away that Joe didnt have a problem
doing a matte into a handheld shot,
says Richmond. Thats something
you couldnt do a few years ago.
The falling ash was biodegradable
paper blown into the foreground
and supplemented by matte extensions. To achieve eerily beautiful
shots of ash blowing in the wind,
Richmond rolled while the specialeffects unit was laying down the ash.
(In the same vein of efficiency,
Gorak avoided hiring a helicopter
by stealing all those shots he
asked the camera operators to shoot
the sky whenever a helicopter happened by.)
The plume of ash eventually
blocks the sunlight from Brad and
Lexis house. To lower the contrast
and achieve continuity on these
sequences, Richmond relied heavily

on the DI. His five days with
FotoKem colorist Tom Sartori
largely involved fine-tuning contrast and desaturating the image.
Even before the bombs hit, we
wanted a warm look, but not full
color, says the cinematographer.
Next we started draining out the
warmth, and then after the ash
hit, we lost the green, toning down
the deep-background foliage.
Eventually, the picture is almost
black and white. It would have been
virtually impossible to color-time
this film photochemically it had
more shots per reel than any movie
Id ever worked on. The DI allowed
us to frame-store, and we could
look at 80 pictures at once. It was a
kind of grid to grade by.
In awarding Richmond the
cinematography
prize,
the
Sundance jury noted that he had
worked wonders inside the house.
Sometimes we cinematographers
are given a great gift: shooting in
Tuscany in 17th-century palaces,
shooting the neon of Vegas, or
shooting the gritty streets of
Newark, said juror Nancy
Schreiber, ASC.And sometimes the
script dictates shooting a 90-minute
film almost all in one suburban
house. Sometimes we have to light
fear, frame panic and compose
betrayal. Tom was incredibly inventive in making this house work in an
emotionally diverse way. He did it
with precision, skill, and beauty
and on such a low budget. It was
masterful.
Patricia Thomson
Iraq in Fragments
Director/Cinematographer:
James Longley
Its been three years since the
United States invaded Iraq, and
judging from the lineup at
Sundance, thats the amount of
time it has taken to fund, shoot and
92 April 2006
finish the first wave of independent

films on the subject. This year, three
documentaries and one dramatic
feature had Iraq, Afghanistan or the
war at home as their focal point.
One of those films, Iraq in
Fragments, quickly generated festival buzz and ultimately came
away with awards for cinematography, directing and editing in
the documentary category. Thats
quite an accomplishment for
James Longley, who directed, shot,
co-edited and co-produced the
film. The 36-year-old had made
only two previous documentaries:
the Student Academy Award-winning Portrait of Boy With Dog
(1993), an anamorphic, black-andwhite short film he made while
studying at the All-Russian Institute
of Cinematography in Moscow; and
the feature-length Gaza Strip
(2001), which looks at the lives of
ordinary Palestinians in Israelioccupied Gaza.
By 2002, when Longley was
casting about for his next subject,
the drumbeat of imminent war in
Iraq had begun, and he latched onto
it. The question was, how to get
inside Iraq? He first managed to hop
on the coattails of journalists following Rep. Jim McDermott, a
Democratic congressman from
Seattle, into Baghdad. But Longleys
efforts to obtain permission to
shoot were brushed aside by indifferent Iraqi officials. When he
returned in February 2003, two
weeks before the invasion, he got no
further with permits, but by paying
small bribes to police, he was able to
capture an hour of B-roll footage on
Baghdads bustling streets. (This
material appears in the opening
shots of Iraq in Fragments.) To his
great frustration, Longley had to sit
out the war in Cairo because officials refused to renew his expired
visa. After the bombing of Baghdad,
however, re-entry was easy. There
was no government, no one to issue
visas, he says. Longley moved to
Iraq and stayed there for two years,

eventually accumulating 300 hours
of footage.
As with Gaza Strip, his intent
with Iraq in Fragments was to create
a vrit portrait of the common
people. Initially, he wanted to film
10 stories in different parts of the
country and planned to create both
a multi-part television series and a
stand-alone feature.My initial plan
was grandiose, he admits with a
laugh. He did manage to shoot six
stories and ultimately wove together
three for the final film, one each in
Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish territory.
The idea of an eventual transfer to 35mm influenced his choice
of digital-video (DV) camera.
Knowing he would work complete-
Stories set in
Kurdish, Shiite
and Sunni
regions of Iraq
are interwoven
in the
documentary
Iraq in
Fragments,
which was
directed and
shot by James
Longley (top
photo).
ly handheld, he wanted something

light at least lighter than the
Sony-DSR500 hed used on Gaza
Strip. He also wanted something
inexpensive so he could afford
backup cameras, and something
small enough to be discreet.
Additionally, he wanted to avoid
interlaced video and opt for 24-fps
progressive scan. Id blown Gaza
Strip up to 35mm, and it looks fine
for a video blowup, but you can definitely see in motion that the frame
rate doesnt quite match, he notes.
Longley settled on a
Panasonic AG-DVX100, adding a
DVX100A when the upgrade came
onto the market midway through
production. Using the 24p
Advanced Pulldown setting, he shot
in 16:9, and he opted to continue
with this format on the DVX100A
rather than switch to the new
squeeze mode on the upgraded
camera. Early on, he decided
against an anamorphic adapter
because he intended to shoot
numerous handheld close-ups.
The extra anamorphic glass on the
front of the camera would have
made that trickier, and the weight of
an anamorphic front also throws
the camera off-balance, he
explains. Rather than shoot full
frame and crop to 16:9 in post, I
felt confident enough in my fram-

94 April 2006
ing that I just went straight into letterbox and kept my original framing through to the 35mm transfer.
Ultimately, the MiniDV footage
was transferred to hi-def at Modern
Digital in Seattle, output to an
HDCam submaster, and then
recorded to 35mm at Alpha Cine
Labs in Seattle.
Well-composed, close-up
photography is a hallmark of Iraq
in Fragments, particularly in the
first chapter, which focuses on
Mohammed Haithem, an 11-yearold who works for an auto mechanic and sporadically attends school.
The camera often lingers on the
boys doe eyes as he listens to elders
talk politics or watches life on the
dusty streets. A voiceover monologue reveals his thoughts and aspirations. I didnt just want to bring
the viewers into Mohammeds
neighborhood, I wanted to put
them inside his head, says Longley.
I wanted them to see what he saw
and hear what he heard, including
the sound of his own thoughts.
To achieve an aesthetic of
intimacy, Longley favored wideangle close-ups. In order to have
that kind of human contact where
you see into peoples eyes, really get
the texture of their faces and know
what theyre thinking just by looking at them, you need to get close to
them, he says. I was mostly pretty
wide. I shy away from telephoto,
which looks a lot like surveillance.
Wide angle is the kind of close-up
I prefer. You can have the subject in
the foreground on one side of the
frame, and things are still happening in the background on the other
side of the frame. Thats just a more
interesting way of framing shots.
For rendering detail and texture, Longley found the DVX100
responded best to wide-open apertures. Sometimes he also increased
the shutter speed to help capture
detail, as in the crowd scenes and
dust storms in chapter two. I ran
the gamut from normal to 1500.
Iraq in Fragments photos courtesy of Type Cast Pictures.
Tibor Szakaly
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Sometimes I was making those
decisions because of exposure. The
more important thing was keeping
the iris wide open. I would use ND
filters to darken the scene and then
open up the iris. But if it was still too
bright, I might increase the shutter
speed in order to get the correct
exposure with the iris wide open.
Of course, equipment alone
cant achieve intimacy. It was
Longleys human relationships,
built slowly over many long months
with his subjects, that allowed him
to capture unguarded moments.
These include Mohammed in quiet
reflection, Kurdish shepherds playing in a sunflower field, and Shiite
leaders working through the logistics of regional elections. At times,
his access was truly unique, as when
he accompanies a Mehdi Army
militia on a raid in an open-air market in Najaf, where they beat suspected alcohol merchants. Longley
is right there in the jeep as they
speed away, packed between armed
militants whose faces are hidden
behind scarves. I was lucky, he
says. Friends of mine who were
doing the same kind of work were
kidnapped in exactly the same
places by exactly the same people.
Longley stayed in southern Iraq for
14 months, until the breakdown of
security became untenable, at which
point he moved north to Kurdish
territory. Sometimes your life is on
the line to get different scenes, he
says, but if youre able to pull
through and have something formally interesting that doesnt feel
like the camera operator is about to
get shot, that is something people
havent seen before, thats the look I
was going for.
His luck also held with his
cameras, which never broke down
despite terrible abuse. Summer temperatures routinely soared to 115F.
At one point, the camera got so hot
during the filming of a brick factory
that the Rycote wind cover on my
microphone caught on fire, he
recalls. Sweat was always dripping

off my forehead onto the LCD
screen. It was a nightmare. Dust
was another hazard, and Longley
had to resort to gaffer tape. The
cameras user manual tells you not
to tape up the camera it needs
the little cracks to breathe and
release heat but there was just no
way around it. To get a shot, Id be
lying on the ground in front of a
thousand people in prayer on some
big square, and it was very dusty. It
was a matter of taking gaffer tape
and closing off every opening of the
camera, then peeling back a bit
when I needed to open the cassette
door and hoping a whole pound of
dust wouldnt float into the camera
at that moment. He would let the
camera roll a few seconds to allow
Panasonics self-cleaning head to do
its job. In the end, I didnt lose any
important material to drop-out,
[and] I never had a need to service
the camera heads during the two
years of filming. I was lucky in all
respects on this film.
Patricia Thomson
Who Needs Sleep?

Cinematographer:
Haskell Wexler, ASC
Directors: Wexler and
Lisa Leeman
Featuring interviews with
those who labor behind and in
front of the camera and medical
experts who specialize in the field of
sleep, the documentary Who Needs
Sleep? targets the long work hours
that have become the norm on U.S.
productions and in other
American industries and argues
that the practice does far more
harm than good. Shot by Haskell
Wexler, ASC, who co-directed with
editor Lisa Leeman, the film is also a
tribute to Wexlers friend Conrad L.
Hall, ASC, who spoke out against
long hours shortly before his death
in 2003. (See Filmmakers Forum,
96 April 2006
AC May 03.)
Wexler began working on
Sleep seven years ago, after the accidental death of camera assistant
Brent Hershman during the filming
of Pleasantville sparked widespread
support of Brents Rule, a petition
mandating a 14-hour workday on
the set. (Hershman fell asleep at the
wheel after a 19-hour day that had
been preceded by four 15-hour
days.) Written by Pleasantville director of photography John Lindley,
ASC and his gaffer, Bruce McLeery,
Brents Rule attracted more than
10,000 signatures in less than a year
and put the problem of long hours
on the agendas of guilds throughout
the industry.
Wexler, an early adopter of
MiniDV on the 1999 documentary
Bus Riders Union, began documenting events with his Sony PD-150. I
thought this was a great story of
how a grassroots movement let
something be known, and the system responded and agreed to do
something about it, he says. I
thought I was going to make a
film about how Brents accident
brought the Hollywood community
together actors, writers, directors, producers and others. Then the
bottom fell out. As Lindley recalls
in Sleep, the petitions disappeared
into a black hole at the
International Cinematographers
Guild, IATSEs Local 600, and were
not seen again.The issue didnt just
go away, says Wexler. It died.
Over the next few years,
Wexlers project became something
else: a critique of Americas 24/7
work culture that uses the motionpicture industry as an example of a
disturbing and largely unpublicized
trend. As he notes in the film,
These are bad times for all workers,
not just film workers. But given the
glamour that attends the movie
business, the irony is acute; the
glimpse Wexler offers of Hollywood
labor practices might surprise viewers who know Tinseltown only by
Above: Haskell
Wexler, ASC
pays a visit to
Julia Roberts to
discuss the film
industrys long
working hours
in Who Needs
Sleep? Right:
Wexler takes
aim at sleep
specialist
William C.
Dement, M.D.
its glittering veneer.

Along the way, Wexler compiles grim evidence of how sleep
deprivation affects physical safety
and psychological well-being.
Statistics show theres an epidemic
of sleep deprivation in this country
thats developed incrementally over
the past 10 years, he says. One
study found that on a Saturday
morning in Los Angeles, there were
about 150 drivers on the road who
were legally drunk because of sleep
deprivation. With traffic the way it
is, youre spending a good hunk of
your life going to and from work.
And when work itself is a 15- to 20hour day, the results can be devastating. Turnaround [time off
between one days wrap and the
next days call] doesnt count the
time you spend getting home,
notes Wexler. Another colleague
who died [in an accident] while I
was making this film, [camera operator] Michael Stone, had been called
for 3 p.m., worked till 4 a.m. the
next day, and had to be back on set
that day at 10 a.m. The day he
crashed, he practically hadnt had
any sleep at all.
To me, the overall tragedy is
how many of us in our culture do
things that are unproductive, unsafe
and unhealthy, and we do it because
we say we have to, he says. Work is
not your life. Its an important part
of your life, especially if you work in
a creative field, but its not your life.
These long hours were happening long before Brents death,
but the problem accelerated when
the studios became part of multinational corporations. Budgets for all

kinds of films are worked out in
office towers in Thailand or
Switzlerand, by guys in front of
computers who are in touch with
marketing people here:This kind of
story is like movie X or Y, and if it
has this kind of actor, if we can
make it for X dollars, and if we can
release it at that time of year, well
give it a tentative go. Then the apparatus starts. Along the way, other
elements come into it, and when the
producer finally gets it hes got a jigsaw puzzle, and hes got to put those
pieces in place in a certain amount
of time in order to make the picture.
The terrible thing about it is,
theres no face on the bad guy. If you
were making a film about Enron,
youd be sure to include the guy who
ran Enron. What was in front of my
camera were decent people trying to
function in the system, doing what
they perceive to be their jobs.
Wexler notes that the problem isnt limited to studio films:
Independent pictures at some
point want to be dependent,
because in order to reach the audience they have to have a lot of
money [behind them]. One key to
avoiding long hours is having a
director who has some oats with the
big guys. Ive been terribly lucky
because Ive worked with good
98 April 2006
directors, well-organized directors

who had an element of independence that few of them have now. Ive
not personally suffered from long
hours, except on [the HBO telefilm]
61*, and [director] Billy Crystal and
I knew going in that those hours
would be long because of the complications of filming baseball. No
way would I say I was tired, even
though we were working 16- and
18-hour days.
As Sleep recounts, Hall experienced similar hours on his final
film, Road to Perdition. During the
wintertime shoot in Chicago, we
were working 14-hour, 18-hour
days, and we were going nights into
days, days into nights, recalls camera operator Scott Sakamoto.
(Darryl Zanuck, the films producer,
tells Wexler he recalls three 20-hour
days.) Upon returning to Los
Angeles, Hall drafted a statement he
intended to make public: As directors of photography, our responsibility is to the visual image of the
film as well as the well-being of our
crew. The continuing and expanding practice of working extreme
hours can compromise both the
quality of our work and the health
and safety of others. Wexler recalls,
Conrad asked Roger Deakins
[ASC, BSC] and me to take it to the
ASC board, which eventually
endorsed it, and Vilmos Zsigmond
Who Needs Sleep? frame grabs courtesy of Perigo Productions.
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[ASC] subsequently took it overseas,
where it was endorsed by cinematographer societies in many
countries. When I went abroad to
shoot some material for this film, I
was surprised to find they were all
familiar with it.
Its a loaded statement, and
one of Conrads points is something
I dont think people in the ASC think
too much about. We do think a lot
about our art and our position as
artistes, and thats very important,
but as directors of photography
were the foremen of the crew, and
that means we have to look out for
the crews welfare. A number of cinematographers are really good about
that, but some arent.
Over the course of the Sleep
shoot, Wexler conducted interviews
on a number of sets film, television and commercial and several
times he was escorted away with
varying degrees of courtesy.I always
got permission to visit, but in a
handful of instances word came
down from somewhere after I got
there, and someone would arrive to
tell me Id have to speak to someones attorney before I could interview anyone. He was nonetheless
able to interview dozens of workers,
among them cinematographers,
operators, gaffers, makeup artists,
editors, producers, directors and
actors. He used supplemental lighting only inside his car, where he used
a single light panel LED. Theyre
terrific little lights because you can
dim them without changing the
color temperature, they generate no
heat, they can run on a battery, and
theyre only 2 inches thick.
Sleep also incorporates material shot by Joan Churchill, ASC;
Kevin McKiernan; Alan Barker;
Tamara Goldsworthy; Sonia Angulo
and Rita Taggart.Id usually just call
up a friend and ask, Are you doing
something
Wednesday
or
Thursday? says Wexler. Kevin felt
my film should be more personal,
and he also gave me some advice on
structure that was very helpful.

Joan was the one who recommended [editor/co-director] Lisa
Leeman. I believe the editor of a
documentary should be credited as
co-director because they have such
a hand in shaping the movie. I was
researching a lot of things and
throwing a lot of material on Lisa.
Among the footage that
didnt make the cut was an interview Wexler conducted at the
Pentagon about the use of sleep
deprivation in basic training and
interrogations. The military has
done an awful lot of research on
sleep deprivation its the acceptable torture of choice, and its also
behind a lot of friendly-fire incidents. I had all kinds of great stuff,
but [producer] Tamara Maloney
said,Do you want to make a threehour movie that will turn off all the
Republicans? So I said, Okay.
When its my own film, I really
need another person to be strong
with me. Then I argue with them.
Sometimes I win.
Sleep closes with a salute to
the
grassroots
movement
12On/12Off, which was recently
founded by cinematographer
Roderick Stevens in an effort to
promote a 12-hour workday on
set. Wexler says if Hollywoods
labor practices change, it will be
through a grassroots movement
like Rods, or because the bottom
line is affected, or perhaps through
litigation the sleep doctors have
testified in some cases [involving
accidents caused by sleep deprivation] that have been settled quietly,
and insurance companies are starting to notice. I dont look for leadership from the union. Originally
unions were to represent workers
and get us better wages, better conditions, better hours. Now they see
their job as delivering a competent,
compliant workforce.
Rachael K. Bosley
100 April 2006
Cargo
Cinematographer:
Sean Bobbitt
Director: Clive Gordon
Dead men tell no tales,
declares the law of the high seas, and
in Cargo, the captain and crew of a
decrepit bulk freighter go to chilling
lengths to enforce this proverb. The
tense psychological thriller boasts
an unnerving ambience that makes
its damned voyage memorably
suspenseful.
The tale begins in the African
republic of Ghana, where a brash
young backpacker, Chris (Daniel
Brhl), runs into trouble after stealing a bracelet from a local merchant.
Relieved of his European passport
while scuffling with a pair of policemen, Chris takes refuge in a seedy
waterfront bar, where he meets the
burly, hard-drinking crew of the
Gull, a cargo vessel bound for
Marseilles. Seeing his chance to
elude the authorities, Chris sneaks
aboard the ship but is quickly discovered. He soon learns that the
boats brooding, inscrutable captain
(Peter Mullan) has a very low regard
for stowaways, but is strangely willing to cut Chris a break if he can coexist with the crew whose bizarre
behavior makes the HMS Bounty
look like the good ship Lollipop.
Subsequent surprises complicate
Chris attempt to survive the hostile
environment and eventually force
him to make some difficult moral
choices.
The effective menace of
Cargo can be partially attributed to
its makers documentary backgrounds and handheld approach,
which lend the action a realistic
intensity. Director Clive Gordon
honed his cinematic chops on a
number of quality docs, including
The Unforgiving and The Betrayed,
while Texas-born cinematographer
Sean Bobbitt cut his teeth as a freelance news cameraman for CBS in
London, a job that allowed him to
travel throughout Europe, Africa

and the Middle East. Bobbitt says he
then pursued documentary work
but always harbored a desire to
work on dramatic features. Its
quite difficult to make that transition, but I got very lucky, says the
47-year-old
cinematographer,
whose big break came in 1999.
[Director] Michael Winterbottom
was making a film called
Wonderland and wanted a documentary cameraman to shoot it.
That became my transitional film.
Bobbitts blend of documentary and feature experience put him
on good footing with Gordon. I
think one of the reasons Clive chose
me for the project was our common
background. I understood where he
was coming from, and we shared a
common vocabulary while talking
about the film. He also felt comfortable that I had more dramatic-feature experience, because he knew I
could bring something different to
the film than a straight-ahead documentary cameraman could.
The cinematographers previous work in Ghana gave him a
working knowledge of that country,
but he notes that the films waterfront bar was actually a set built at a
studio in Barcelona by production
designer Jordi Yrla and his crew.
The lighting was a combination of
practicals, Kino Flos, China balls
and Misers, which are 300-/500watt Arri Fresnels, he details. That
scene is the first time we see the captain, and to make him stand out I
used a 1K Pup to give him a backlight rim. Theres a candle on the
table in front of him, and to augment that we used a gagged-up
practical inside a little wire cage a
100-watt bulb on a dimmer
along with some F2 diffusion and 14
CTO on the table itself.
The pictures initial exteriors
were shot in Ghana, which Bobbitt
rates as one of the easier West
African countries to shoot in, and
one of the safest and most civilized.
Theres no real gun culture, and its

a former British colony, so English
is the major language. It also has a
small, burgeoning film industry. In
fact, Mission: Impossible III was supposed to shoot some scenes there,
but the production pulled out at
the last minute. We actually benefited from that, because a company
called Planet Films had been set up
to facilitate their needs, and they

had all of the connections necessary
to communicate with the government. Planet also helped us with
location scouting, managing and
permissions, and also with sourcing
local actors, crew and equipment.
They made our lives much easier.
Nevertheless, the filmmakers
still faced some daunting logistical

101
Left: In Cargo, a
young stowaway
(Daniel Brhl, left)
makes the
mistake of a
lifetime when he
boards a ship
helmed by a
mysterious
captain (Peter
Mullan, right).
Right: Director of
photography Sean
Bobbitt scopes out
his options in
Ghana, Africa.
issues that included securing the use

of an actual cargo ship in Barcelona.
Bobbitt observes, Shooting at sea is
always problematic, but in our case
it was made even more difficult
because the boat we found was an
abandoned Bulgarian bulk freighter.
It had been sitting untouched in
Barcelonas harbor for almost four
years, so it was in a very poor state.
Its electrical systems were dangerous, and the engines and generators
didnt work. It took a lot of effort to
make the ship seaworthy and get the
required safety clearances.
Once the production had
permission to shoot aboard this
rust-bucket, the crew gave it a major
overhaul. After determining which
cabins and corridors would be
shown onscreen, they rewired the
existing fixtures in those areas, augmenting the lighting with compact
Kino Flo units that could be easily
hidden in the cramped quarters. For
scenes of the crew eating meals
together in a small dining area,
Bobbitt employed an overhead baylight that he dubbed a Gordy box
(in honor of Gordon Willis, ASC,
who made the technique famous
with The Godfather). The bay contained 4x4 Kino Flos installed above
12 grid diffusion and had long skirts
hanging from the sides to control
spill.It was an invaluable technique
in that particular situation, where

we had the camera working effectively in 360 degrees, he says.
Bobbitt notes that from his
first reading of the script, he envisioned the film in widescreen. To
save money and also maximize
options for a digital intermediate
(DI), he shot the film in 3-perf
Super 35mm. The widescreen format helps emphasize the sense of
claustrophobia on the ship, because
you see more of the walls as you
move through the boat. It also
makes any sort of movement
through the corridors much more
dynamic.
He shot most of the movie
handheld, employing Arricam Lites
equipped with Cooke S4 lenses. I
did a fair amount of damage in
terms of bumping cameras against
the walls and knocking light fixtures
off them, but it was all good fun.
Although many scenes were shot on
the real ship, all of the scenes set in
the hold were actually done in a
warehouse outside of Barcelona. Its
physically impossible and extremely
dangerous to shoot in the hold of a
bulk freighter. Theres very limited
access and all sorts of safety issues.
So we built a set instead.
The Spanish warehouse
proved to be less than ideal for the
productions needs, however.It was

102 April 2006
very important to convey the full

scale of the hold, because we had to
create the sense that a number of
people could hide in there without
being easily found. Our set therefore
had to be nearly as high as the real
hold, which was more than 23 feet
tall. In the warehouse, that left me
just 12 feet above the set to place my
lights. I didnt have a lot of throw,
and without the throw, I needed to
use more instruments and try to
arrange them so that all of the light
would be coming from the same
angle.
To solve this problem, the
crew built a centrally positioned,
overhead scaffold that ran the length
of the set. The idea was that there
would be two settings in the hold: a
daylight setting, where cracks of light
were creeping in, and a nighttime
setting, which would consist of the
ships internal lighting, explains
Bobbitt. To create the sense of daylight and maintain the correct angle
of light without having a lot of
throw, I was hoping to have four
18Ks with special Pyrex lenses,
which would give me a very strong,
very direct light. But we could only
find two of those units in all of
Europe, so I augmented them with a
pair of Arri X-Lights.
During the DI, which was carried out at Chimney Pot in
Cargo photos by Nicols Geller, courtesy of Wildbunch.
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Stockholm, Sweden, Bobbitt worked
with colorist Mats Holmgren to
fine-tune his images, which were
shot primarily on Kodak Vision 2
500T 5218 and Vision2 200T 5217.
Ive done a lot of work with Vision2
stocks, and because I knew we were
going to do a DI I was looking for
maximum latitude, while at the
same time trying to hold the grain
down. I think 5218 is fantastic in
that regard. We shot our day exteriors on 5217, but the bulk of the film
was shot on 5218.
Bobbitts primary goal in post
was to help convey the tales increasingly sinister tone by creating a progressive and evocative color scheme.
We start off in Africa with very
warm earth tones, very saturated
colors with almost no blue at all. As
the journey progresses and Chris
emotional state begins to deteriorate, we shift into a much cooler feel
with various levels of desaturation.
By the time we reach the end, the
images are very cold and desaturated. To create that arc during principal photography, I used lots of CTO
and amber gels for the African material, and then varying degrees of
CTB as we worked toward the colder feel. We used the DI to enhance
the saturated look of the African
footage and to very carefully grade
the shift from those scenes to the
later scenes.
The DI also enabled Bobbitt
to erase all traces of a tugboat that
was used to tow the hero ship out to
sea for wide, establishing shots of
the freighter in motion. He adds,
however, that no special tricks were
used to capture a shot of Chris being
dangled precariously over the ships
hull by vengeful crewmembers. We
captured an overhead shot of that
moment by mounting the camera
on a small jib arm, and the rest of
the scene was shot handheld. Daniel
was really being held over the side by
six very large men, so I think his
look of terror is fairly genuine!
Stephen Pizzello
The World According to

Sesame Street
Cinematographers:
Nelson Hume and
Christine Burrill
Directors: Linda Goldstein
Knowlton and
Linda Hawkins Costigan
When a press and industry
screening of a documentary about
Sesame Street attracted a capacity
crowd at Sundance, it was hard to
tell which contingent was more surprised. Then again, perhaps a distributor from Australia summed it
up best: Who doesnt know Sesame
Street?
Even if youve been a Sesame
Street fan since childhood, The
World According to Sesame Street
reveals something about the beloved
childrens program you might not
know. It is broadcast in 120 countries around the world, and in
roughly 20 of those, the show is
actually a co-production between
the Sesame Workshop in New York
and a handful of artists and educators in the country at hand. The goal
is to tailor Sesames mantra of tolerance, love and respect to a given
audience in ways that are culturally
relevant as well as culturally sensi-
104 April 2006
tive, and the challenges in each market are quite different.

The World According to
Sesame Street goes behind the scenes
on three such co-productions
Bangladesh, Kosovo and South
Africa that were in different stages
of development in 2004, when production on the documentary commenced. In Bangladesh, where children often begin working as early as
age 3, a Sesame team led by Nadine
Zylstra strives to create a program
(Sisimpur) that will honor the
Bangladeshis vibrant theatrical tradition and also meet with the
The World According to Sesame Street photos by Linda Goldstein Knowlton

& Linda Hawkins Costigan, courtesy of Participant Productions.
Top: A young girl

has fun with a
Muppet on
Sisimpur, the
Bangladeshi
version of
Sesame Street.
Middle: Cocinematographer
Christine Burrill
captures an
over-theshoulder.
Bottom: Cocinematographer
Nelson Hume
finds an eager
subject.
approval of the government, which

controls the nations only television
station. In Kosovo, a Sesame team
led by Barbara Nikonorow contends
with the fallout of a very recent war
that has left Albanians and Serbs
totally segregated and deeply suspicious of each other. And in South
Africa, where one local says everyone is assumed to be HIV-positive
until you know his status, Sesame
co-producer Naila Farovky and her
collaborators on Takilani Sesame
detail the challenges of creating the
countrys first preschool HIV/AIDS
curriculum, whose centerpiece is an
HIV-positive Muppet.
Throughout the far-flung
shoot, which happened intermittently over almost two years, directors Linda Goldstein Knowlton and
Linda Hawkins Costigan worked
with one director of photography
on each coast, Nelson Hume in New
York and Christine Burrill in Los
Angeles. (Additional operators
helped out in some locations.)
Burrill was unavailable for an interview, but Hume spoke with AC by
phone about his work on the documentary.
We all grew up with Sesame
Street, and this sounded like a really
interesting project, says Hume,
whose credits include the documentaries Keeping Time and Robert
Stones Hollywood Vietnam. The
Lindas and I had a mutual friend,
producer Alicia Sams; I had worked
with Alicia, and she put the three of
us together. When I met the Lindas
on our first shoot in New York, I
could tell they would be fantastic to
work with.
I dont know that I knew
how long the project would turn out
to be, he continues. For me it was
about 112 years with lots of breaks in
between. I went to Bangladesh three
times and Kosovo twice and shot in
New York intermittently [at Sesame
headquarters]. Ive never actually
met Chris [Burrill], but I know she
went to Bangladesh at least once and

105

filmed all the material in South
Africa and El Salvador [the site of
another co-production that is
glimpsed in the film]. It was tons of
work, and it wouldve been really,
really hard for one cinematographer to do all of it.
In fact, Hume and Burrill
were assisted by additional operators in the States and overseas,
largely because some key events
could not be predicted. In
Bangladesh and Kosovo, for example, a variety of developments made
the respective co-productions fates
uncertain for a time; in Bangladesh
it was catastrophic flooding, a political assassination, and a nationwide strike, and in Kosovo it was a
fresh outbreak of violence that put
the Serbian enclave in lockdown
mode.A lot of things were happening in Bangladesh, and there was
just no way for us to be there all the
time, says Hume. The Lindas
found a great shooter there,
Mohiuddin Ahmed, and some of
his footage including shots
showing the Sisimpur set being built
is my favorite in the whole film.
He was a wonderful guy who really
understood the project and did
great work. In Kosovo we worked
with Avni Ahmetaj, who had shot a
lot for CNN and was extremely
competent. He was our fixer when I
was there, and he did some additional shooting.
Although
the
Kosovo
sequences are among the tensest in
the picture, Hume says the danger
for the production remained fairly
abstract. He recalls, We could feel
the tension in the air and it was still
fairly raw, but I was in Belfast briefly
in 1984, and that felt much more
like a city under siege the British
soldiers were running from door to
door, whereas in Kosovo they were
strolling around. Life was going on,
only with a big security hand over
everything. We did feel quite a bit of
tension in the Serbian enclave,
where theres a much bigger mili-
tary presence with security checkpoints and so on. But overall, Ive
felt more tension shooting in certain parts of New York. He adds,
The Lindas did a lot of work to
make sure we didnt travel into
[potentially risky] areas until a lot
of checking around had been
done.
Sometimes both directors
would come along on a shoot, and
sometimes Costigan would head to
one location while Knowlton went
to another. They work very well
together and independently, and
they were very much on the same
page, says Hume. Shooting docs
like this is a very intimate process
the entire crew is three or four
people. You cant help but become
immersed in the subject matter,
and that allows you to enter each
scene with an informed eye. I knew
what the Lindas were looking for in
terms of story arc and detail. He
adds that soundman Ben Posnack
was invaluable on the shoot. On
projects like this, where you dont
have access to rental houses when
gear goes down and helpful hands
are hard to come by, you need
someone like Ben. Weve worked
together for many years, and I rely
on his technical ingenuity and his
humor.
The filmmakers started the
shoot with a Sony PD-150, and a
few months into production they
bought a second camera, a Canon
XL-2. I liked the Canon more,
which worked out well because
Chris preferred the Sony, says
Hume. To make sure the Canon
footage matched up with the Sony
material, I shot 60i [interlaced] in
the 4:3 aspect ratio. I knew transferring to 35mm would help blend
our material as well.
I tried to capture the visual
signatures of the countries we covered, he continues. Bangladesh is
an explosion of colors glowing in
the hot sun, whereas Kosovo is
characterized by concrete, old
106 April 2006
snow, smoke-belching power

plants and oppressive cloud clover.
The New York material is the endless cubicle maze and Crayola colors of Sesame headquarters.
Although he was unable to participate in the color-correction and
transfer to film (carried out at
EFilm), he was pleased with what
he saw onscreen at Sundance. The
stylistic differences between Chris
material and mine were insignificant, and I was happy with the
transfer.
Hume carried a compact
Lowel lighting kit on his shoots,
and he tried to do supplemental
lighting in all interviews and office
scenes. I designed it to fit in one
Pelican case: an Omni/Tota, an
Omni Pro and a 500-watt Rifa Lite.
The Rifa is great for interviews, and
I used it whenever I could.
The filmmakers were given
free reign at Sesame Workshop,
with the proviso that they never
photograph a dead Muppet
any Muppet that wasnt on a puppeteers hand. We were adopted
into the Sesame family, and they
got used to us being around, says
Hume. A good example of what
we had to get in New York is the
scene where the Muppet maker
there is videoconferencing with the
Bangladeshis, who were [at Takilani
Sesame studio] in South Africa, and
hes showing them the Muppets
and talking about what might suit
their program. (This was a lastresort arrangement Sesame made
when the Bangladeshis were unable
to obtain visas to travel to New
York.)
Hume is especially pleased
with another Sesame Workshop
sequence, which shows the
Bangladeshi minister of women
and childrens affairs visiting the
team and finally informing them of
the governments decision regarding Sisimpur. There were a lot of
players in that scene, and we were
trying to be as discreet as possible
yet also cover the action, he says.

[Editor] Kate Amend did an
amazing job with that, and the suspense really comes through.
Rachael K. Bosley
Thank You for Smoking photos by Dale Robinette, courtesy of Fox

Searchlight Pictures.
Thank You for Smoking

Cinematographer:
James Whitaker
Director: Jason Reitman
The equal-opportunity satire
Thank You for Smoking throws
political correctness out the window. Its hero, Nick Naylor (Aaron
Eckhart), is the tobacco industrys
chief spokesman, a smooth-talking
spin doctor whose genial amorality
suffers only a momentary hiccup
when he begins to question what
kind of example he is setting for his
young son (Cameron Bright).
In a fairly unusual step for a
comedy, director Jason Reitman
and cinematographer James
Whitaker decided to shoot the picture in anamorphic 2.40:1. People
generally dont think of comedies as
being widescreen, concedes
Whitaker (Running Scared, The
Cooler). But I like the way the
backgrounds become soft and
slightly dreamy, like a Monet painting. Anamorphic gives a look to
something that is notoriously difficult to assign a look to, unlike, say, a
chiaroscuro film-noir world.
Reitman tapped Whitaker
for Thank You because he was
impressed by the cinematographers gritty, tobacco-stained imagery
in The Cooler (see AC Dec. 03). But
somewhat ironically, the palette for
Thank You is at the opposite end of
the spectrum. Although Jason and
I wanted parts of the film to have a
slightly tobacco feel, overall we
emphasized clean and bright and a
feeling of airiness to help make the
controversial subject more accessible, says Whitaker. To get that look,
he used large, soft sources whenever he could. For day interiors, he lit
through windows with a pair of

18Ks through 12'x12' or 20'x20'
frames of 14 or 12 grid cloth, flooding the room with light. For closeups in those scenes, wed bring
something inside the room, like a
4K Par through full grid placed
about 5 feet from the actor. I love
the way grid cloth wraps light
around faces.
Most of the picture was shot
on location in Los Angeles and
Washington, D.C. For the office
where Naylor works, the production found a spot on the 13th floor
of L.A. Center Studios. That
required a bit of improvising,
Whitaker recalls with a laugh. I
discovered that if I took six or eight
Kino Flo Image 80s, lined them up
against the wall on the window side
of the room, and put a 12-by frame
of 12 Frost in front of them, it created a beautiful window-light feeling.
The fixture is only 3 feet deep with
the rag in front of it, so we could
easily fit it inside the room and
keep it out of frame.
Although Whitaker loves to
use toplight, he reserved it for two
settings in Thank You: the tobacco
club where Naylor meets the industrys head honcho (Robert Duvall),
and Berts Bar, where Naylor lunch-
Above: In Thank
You for Smoking,
tobacco-industry
spokesman Nick
Naylor (Aaron
Eckhart, right)
enjoys lunch
with his fellow
Merchants of
Death (Maria
Bello and David
Koechner), who
represent the
alcohol and
firearms
industries. Left:
Director of
photography
James Whitaker.
es with his two lobbyist buddies

(played by Maria Bello and David
Koechner) from the alcohol and
firearms industries. The threesome
refers to itself as the MOD Squad
for merchants of death.
The tobacco-club sequence
was filmed at a former hotel in
Pasadena, and it commences with a
long Steadicam shot that follows
Naylor down a staircase, through
two rooms and into the main room.
Although it was filmed as one long
shot, the material was cut up in the
final edit. We thoroughly prerigged that location, says Whitaker.
My gaffer, Patrick Lennon, and key
grip, Stuart Abramson, hung several Par cans in the foyer area and

then hung 30 or 40 Babies and
Tweenies throughout the rest of the
location to create pools of light. All
units were gelled with 14 CTO, and a
bit of smoke was pumped into the
room for added atmosphere.
This warm, moody look is
repeated at Berts Bar, where the
MOD Squad eats lunch. Three or
four scenes take place there, all of
them in the same corner booth at the
back of the room. The scenes were
shot at a bar in Los Angeles. That
was probably our most challenging
location, says Whitaker. I really
wanted to pull them out of that corner booth into the center of the
room so Id have an easier time lighting! Instead, he used toplight: Gem
Balls going through a frame of either
250 or 14 grid. We boxed it in so the
light wasnt spilling everywhere and
added whatever we needed for fill.
During prep, Whitaker and
first-time director Reitman talked a
lot about Wes Andersons films.

Everything in those movies is carefully set up and kind of presented,
muses Whitaker, and we wanted [a
similarly] conservative yet stylized
look and feel. We moved the camera
only when we wanted to accentuate
a point.An example is the sequence
in which Naylor reads a damning
article that a journalist (Katie
Holmes) has written about him.
The sequence consists of four or five
vignettes: a Hollywood agent (Rob
Lowe) reading the article in a newspaper; Naylors boss reading it in his
office; members of the public reading it; and a man reading it on the
subway. Those compositions are
almost architectural in nature, says
Whitaker. When we get to the shot
of Naylor, theres a slow push in and
then wham! he slams the
paper down on the table and we go
right into his face.
Throughout the shoot,

108
Reitman and Whitaker would go

into a room, look around, and say,
This room would look great from
here. Now lets put the actors in it,
recalls the cinematographer. They
deviated from that only for scenes of
Naylor and his son. Wed go for
more traditional coverage longer
lenses, more two-shots, more overthe-shoulders, affirms Whitaker.
The goal was to emphasize them
together.
Thank You was predominantly shot with a single camera, a
Panaflex Millennium that Whitaker
operated, but occasionally a
Millennium XL (operated by Danny
Nichols and Tom Lohmann) was
added to the mix. Whitaker notes
that Lori Killam and Jim Roudebush
at Panavision Woodland Hills took
great care of me. He used Primo
primes, C-series lenses (for
Steadicam and handheld work), Eseries 135mm and 180mm lenses,
and an 11:1 (48550mm) Primo

zoom. The 40mm lens turned out to
be ideal for the look the filmmakers
wanted, so it was the workhorse lens.
1st AC Donald Burghardt did a
great job, adds Whitaker.
Day interiors and exteriors
were shot on Kodak Vision2 250D
5205, and Vision2 500T 5218 was
used for all night material and for a
few day scenes that needed the extra
speed.
Several sequences in the picture were shot on video. When
Naylor appears on two talk shows,
we used the Digi-Beta cameras that
existed in the studios where we shot,
says Whitaker. When we wanted to
show things happening from
Naylors perspective, we switched to
film. For a safety video Naylor
watches in his hotel room, Reitman
wanted a really low-quality look and
opted to use an old video camera. A
montage of Naylors trip with his son
was recorded in the MPEG mode of

a digital still camera, as though
father and son had shot it themselves.
Whitaker tested some special
lab processes during prep, including
Deluxe Laboratories propriety CCE
and ACE silver-retention processes,
but he always thought a digital intermediate (DI) would be the best way
to finish the film. The filmmakers
received approval to do a DI after
wrapping, and Whitaker subsequently graded the picture at EFilm
with colorist Natasha Leonett.
He says he is particularly
pleased with a scene depicting a U.S.
Senate hearing that was shot on a
very short schedule. We lit the
room [the Masons Lodge in
Pasadena] with two 8,000-watt
Fisher helium balloons, and we supplemented that with small, homemade box lights. We used 60-watt
household bulbs in the box lights,
which are made of metal and have

foamcore sides. You can put in whatever diffusion you want; we went
mainly with full grid. We had box
lights in two sizes, 2 by 2 feet and 4
feet by 16 inches. Theyre beautiful,
and you can mount them on C stands
or anything else.
Over the course of his chat
with AC, Whitaker repeatedly praised
Lennon, his regular gaffer for the past
five years.Pats collaboration is really
valuable to me and I trust him completely. Were just in sync on things,
which saves a lot of time. He also
cited Thank Yous production designer Steve Saklad and costume designer
Danny Glicker, with whom he was
collaborating for the first time.
There were no interdepartmental
conflicts at all, he says with a smile.
It was a thoroughly pleasant experience.
Jean Oppenheimer
I

109
Short Takes
The Refugee Experience in Hungary
Right: A
helicopter
menaces a
group of
refugees in
Before Dawn, a
short film that
earned kudos at
Sundance this
year. Below left:
A lone refugee
(Jnos Kalmr)
escapes the
roundup. Below
right: A Pegasus
crane proved
invaluable on
the shoot.
he Hungarian short film Before Dawn,

which received an honorable mention
at this years Sundance Film Festival,
takes place in what appears to be one
continuous shot that lasts for 13
minutes. In the moments just before
sunrise, a cargo truck pulls up on a country road that wends through rolling hills.
Dozens of refugees hiding in the long
grass on both sides of the road rise up
and scramble onto the truck. The truck
pulls out, but military vehicles and a helicopter appear and force the truck back to
its original spot. The refugees pour out
of the truck and are rounded up by
soldiers. At the end of the movie, after

everyone has gone away, one refugee
who has managed to evade capture
stands up and into a big close-up.
Mtys Erdly, the films director
of photography, explains that Hungary
has served as a gateway to the West
since it joined the European Union, and
because of that it has a large population
of refugees. I think this is a universal
story, he says of the film.

110 April 2006
Before Dawn director Balint

Kenyeres is a close friend of Erdlys and
a fellow graduate of the University of
Drama and Film in Budapest. The events
that take place in the movie were originally part of a feature script Kenyeres
had written, but when the director realized this single scene would make an
effective short film, he set about trying
to raise the money to make it. Hungary,
like every other European country, has a
state-funded film industry, says Erdly.
Every project shot is funded by the
state. The application process is elaborate, and Erdly estimates that 20-25
features and the same number of shorts
are funded each year. Before Dawn was
more expensive than the average
Hungarian short film it ultimately
cost the equivalent of about $50,000
and Kenyeres worked for more than a
year to get sufficient funding.
While Kenyeres was putting the
project together, Erdly was studying in
the cinematography program at the
American Film Institute. Before Dawn
was shot in July 2004, during the
summer break between Erdlys first
Frame grabs and photos courtesy of Mtys Erdly. Production photos by Rebeka Pal.
by Stephanie Argy
Director of
photography
Mtys Erdly
on location.
and second years at AFI.

Although nothing was storyboarded, Erdly and Kenyeres had long
discussions about the size of the shot at
any given moment of the camera move,
how far the camera should be from the
characters, and other visual details.
When they scouted the location, they
came up with the specific choreography.
In fact, says Erdly, they brought along a
small digital-video (DV) camera and
essentially shot the whole movie without any of the actors in place. Balint
was very specific in what he wanted,

recalls the cinematographer, and the
final product is very close to what we
discussed.
Erdly says the 60 or so extras
who played refugees really were
refugees, and the soldiers were played
by actual soldiers as well as stuntmen.
The key cast member, though, is the
man who rises up into the close-up at
the end of the movie. That face tells us
the story, says Erdly. We knew if that
character was cast well, the film would
work. Because that face was so important, Kenyeres undertook a very long
search to find the right person; he met
with actors from abroad, went to
refugee camps, visited homeless shelters, and met illegal immigrants in
Hungary. Just before the shoot was
scheduled to commence, a friend
recommended a sculptor, Jnos Kalmr,
who had never worked in film. Upon
meeting Kalmr, Kenyeres liked him so
much that he hired him on the spot,
without doing any tests.

112
A hero behind the scenes was

Erdlys focus puller, rpd Horvth.
He couldnt make any mistakes, and
we were shooting wide open, says the
cinematographer. He was in a very
scary place, but he did a really good
job.
Before Dawn was shot in Super
35mm 2.35:1 with an Arri 435 and a
Cooke S4 25mm prime. Erdly used
Kodak Vision2 500T 5218 and left it
uncorrected to give the footage a cool
tint that could be further enhanced
during post. To execute the elaborate
camera moves, Erdly used a Pegasus
crane mounted on a dolly. Its a brilliant
crane, about 33 feet long, says Erdly,
who adds that his dolly grip, Mikls
Herczeg, was fantastic. The cinematographer used only one light, a
pocket Par with a Chimera, which he
brought in for the close-up at the end.
Although the events in the film
take place in the moments just before
dawn, the movie was shot at sunset on
two successive days, but the days
started in the early morning. During the

day, Erdly and Kenyeres began by
doing rehearsals with all the vehicles
and then added the extras and lead
characters into the choreography. Erdly
explains that beginning with broad
strokes and progressing to fine details
helped preserve the actors energy. You
dont want your actors, even your extras,
to get exhausted before you start to
finesse things.
Even the helicopter that
menaces the refugees became a
performer. The pilot was brilliant, and
he had a perfect sense of the camera,
says Erdly. He adds that the pilot
rehearsed his move once and then was
told to fly low on his next pass, which
was an actual take. He flew so low he
actually moved the camera, and this
take is in the film.
Kenyeres and Erdly planned to
shoot the movie in a single shot, but
toward sunset on the first day, they realized that wouldnt work. There was a
huge crisis, remembers Erdly. Then
they found they could hide a transition

when a truck passes close to camera,
and they meticulously measured everything so the shot could be matched the
next day. We knew the height of the
lens, the speed of the truck, and how
close to the camera to move the truck.
Erdly says they were so successful at
re-creating the onscreen look and
motion that they didnt have to do much
in post to match the two shots, which
are combined with a very fast dissolve.
Principal photography was
hectic, partly because the lighting conditions were changing quickly. We lost a
stop between the first part of the take
and the last part of the take, notes the
cinematographer. You cant tell, but the
film gets darker as it goes on, and it
should really be brightening up. They
had time to do four or five takes each
day; they started with the lens at around
T4 and opened up the aperture more
with each successive take until it was
wide open.
After the shoot, the footage was
scanned at 2K resolution at Focus Fox in

Hungary, and Erdly and Kenyeres spent
a few hours doing color correction on a
da Vinci 2K. Before the shoot, they
considered two looks, one greenish and
one steel blue, and they ended up
selecting blue because they felt it better
evoked the lighting conditions that
precede sunrise. The duo spent about
two hours on a Discreet Inferno to
combine the two halves of the movie
and do final color tweaks.
By the time the graded files were
ready to be recorded to 35mm, Erdly
had returned to Los Angeles, so Kenyeres mailed him tests, which he
screened at Deluxe Laboratories. I
approved the first test prints and had to
choose between two or three slightly
different densities, says the cinematographer.
Before Dawn made its debut at
the 2005 Cannes Film Festival and has
since screened at more than 40 festivals, including Sundance.
I

113
Post Focus
The Virtual World of Mezzo

by Douglas Bankston
Perfection is difficult to achieve in
the commercial world. Brutally short
production and postproduction schedules hamper the fine-tuning of shots and
visual effects, but the visual nature of
the commercial rapid-fire imagery,
smash cuts, small-screen presentation
helps to conceal those flaws.
For the Djarum Mezzo cigarette

spots Race and Leap, Sway Studios
in Westwood, California, refused to
adhere to the good enough commercial philosophy. The effects-laden spots,
in which couples race through an idyllic
architectural setting, were treated as
big-screen, mini motion pictures; they
were shot on 35mm, scanned at 2K, and
visual-effects work was performed at
full 2K resolution. The amount of roto-

114 April 2006
scoping, tracking and compositing was

extensive because the world the actors
were running through was an entirely
computer-generated (CG), photo-realistic
environment. This is the most complex
CG spot Ive done, says visual-effects
supervisor Robert Nerderhorst. Its also
the biggest project Djarum has done, and
its first CG spot.
The agencys original storyboards
depicted a group of people running in an
all-white environment, which would have
been much simpler to realize. Director
Joseph Kosinskis take on the context
was drastically different. The goal was
to create a setting that was both stylish
and timeless, he says. Because the
agencys concept was so abstract, I
wanted the environment to feel as
authentic and tangible as possible.
Kosinski created specific look
treatments, including in-depth previsualizations using 3ds Max, to show the
agency. In our videoconference call with
the agency, recalls Nederhorst, it was
clear they were concerned about the
Photos courtesy of Sway Studios.
For two Djarum

Mezzo spots,
Sway Studios
composited live
action into an
idyllic,
computergenerated
environment.
Below: To gain
maximum detail
and latitude, the
live-action
greenscreen
portion of the
commercials
were shot on
35mm film and
scanned at 2K
resolution, with
visual effects
also finished at
2K. Depth of
field in the CG
environment
was
accomplished
with D2s Nuke
compositing
software.
process because they were new to it. Its

a good thing we did the previz as religiously as we did, because we had two
days to shoot the entire campaign. With
the motion-control rig, we knew it was
going to be a challenge, so we really had
to stick to our previz and shooting boards.
Our script supervisor, Daughn Ward, was
constantly communicating with the AD
and AC to make sure we had everything
we needed. Being in direct contact with
those people was key to our success on
set. Kosinski adds, When the agency
arrived on the day of the shoot, they said,
Its all computer generated? They
couldnt believe there was nothing on the
stage.
There was something on stage:
greenscreen, and it was on the walls, the
floor, and even the ceiling. The Sony
soundstage measured 150' long, 40' deep
and 25' high, large but not quite large
enough, which meant the greenscreen
was a bit too close to the action. The result
was a significant amount of green spill on
the actors, who were wearing white.
Values on parts of the actors when
compared to the background were often
the same, which caused headaches for
the Primatte Keyer and a keyer written by
Sways compositing supervisor, Marc
Rienzo. The whole theory behind my
keyer is to be able to pick the background
green values and then the foreground
green spill, says Rienzo. It was written
with heavy spill in mind to be intelligent, if you will, about how to separate
the foreground. Nederhorst adds, Once
we realized the keys werent going to be
perfect, we told Claudio Miranda, the
director of photography, to just make the
people look pretty and we would make the
rest work. This required a hefty amount
of tracking and roto work on the actors;
aiding this process were the one-light 2K
scans from Pacific Title, which provided
much better subject definition, particularly
in hair.
My initial idea, says Kosinski,
was to shoot this at the Getty Center, but
they dont allow commercial shoots. The
client then asked for the word Mezzo to
be embedded in the complex, so at that
point we decided to do a unique design.
The intricately designed mountaintop
Left: Director
Joseph Kosinski
and visual-effects
supervisor Robert
Nederhorst plan
the next shot. The
extensive
greenscreen
caused a
significant
amount of spill
that the lighting
package couldnt
overcome
completely. To
complicate
matters, the
actors wore
white. Below:
Kosinski checks
framing of a
motion-control
shot. Note the
greenscreen
ceiling, which
was necessary
for a shot of an
actor jumping
over the camera
while the camera
was pointed
toward the CG
sky.
complex was built by designers Kevin

Cimini and Oliver Zeller in consultation
with the director. Nederhorst says, The
idea was to do branding, but instead of
placing their logo everywhere, we integrated their gold, red and white colors
into the environment.
The distant, cloud-enshrouded
mountains were constructed using Terragen, a terrain- and environment-generating software written by U.K.-based Matt
Fairclough. High-dynamic range (HDR)
lighting also was generated in Terragen
based on HDR images Nederhorst and
Kosinski had taken in the Santa Monica
Mountains. We took the HDR lighting
samples into 3ds Max and lit it with
Chaos Groups V-Ray [so that] all we had
to do to change the lighting on the environment was essentially change out the
HDR, explains Nederhorst. Youll see
really sharp shadows that start to fall off,
just like you get in the real world.
(Actors shadows are also CGI because

of the difficulty in pulling shadow keys.)
We gave Claudio a series of
rendering tests for him to use as key, fill
and color-balance references so we
could get a good match, says the director. From these images, he was able to
reproduce the sun angle. He also used a
cool fill light, so as we shifted the color
balance around, the lighting on the
actors always blended with our environment. It ended up matching perfectly,
and Claudio deserves a tremendous
amount of credit for that.
After Kosinski edited together
low-resolution proxies of the footage in
Adobe Premiere, Nederhorsts visualeffects team went to work. Tracking was
done by hand because the encoded
Kupermotion data from the mo-co rig
used on set made the virtual camera in
the CG environment inaccurate. It
doesnt take into account the shake of
Guava Performs Massive

Feat
by Stephanie Argy
To drum up support for community-service programs, United Way
created the Lend a Hand campaign, a
series of PSAs starring players in the
National Football League (NFL). One of
the spots focuses on childrens literacy
and features Atlanta Falcons offensive
lineman Keith Brooking, as well as more
than 100,000 digitally generated children. Created by New York-based
Guava in collaboration with freelance
artist Philipp Hartmann, the effects
were done largely in Massive Software,
an application that generates 3-D
crowds in a way that is different from
most computer-animation programs.
The PSA opens with Brooking
reading Dr. Seuss Green Eggs and Ham
to a small group of children. As he holds
up the book to show them the pictures,
the view widens to reveal he is sitting in
the middle of the field at the Los Angeles Coliseum, reading to a stadium full
of kids. As Brooking takes in the magnitude of the task before him, the
voiceover announcer appeals to viewers to help by volunteering for literacy
programs through United Way.
Alex Catchpoole, Guavas visualeffects supervisor on the spot, says
everyone knew from the start that the
stadium crowd would have to be done
as an effect, but they werent quite sure
how to accomplish it. The traditional
116 April 2006
way to approach the task would have

been to shoot a number of plates,
moving extras from seat to seat to fill the
stadium in stages, and then composite
all the different views in post. The problem with that was the scale of the Coliseum, which seats as many as 100,000
spectators. We quickly realized that
unless we could have thousands of children there on the day, we would be there
for months trying to fill every seat, says
Catchpoole.
The solution turned out to be a
combination of 150 real children and
more than 100,000 digital kids created in
Massive. The children closest to the
camera were all real, and as you get
farther away the digital kids begin to
take over, intermingling with the real
kids, says Catchpoole.
After the stadium material was
shot, the Guava team began by filling up
the rows immediately in front of the
camera with footage of real children to
create what Catchpoole calls a real-kid
buffer between the viewer and the digital kids. That turned out to be a little
more complicated than we expected
because the kids fidgeted, and some
turned to the camera and waved, he
says. The artists ended up doing quite a
bit of head replacement to make the
real children look the right way.
Massives digital characters
needed something to sit on, so Hartmann
created a replica of the stadium and its
seats in Cinema 4d. We got in touch
with an architectural firm that had
Photos courtesy of Reactor Films.
the head, notes Kosinski. Frame rates for

some mo-co shots went as high as 150 fps
for slow-motion work. Some of those
were slowed down even further in post to
300 fps using the Kronos retimer plugin.
A sweeping camera move through
the CG environment that follows a runner
who hurdles a small, reflective pool of
water is actually two motion-control
moves stitched together. Explains Nederhorst, The environment was built for the
first part of the cameras move, and for the
second move, when the camera shift
happened, the actual 3-D terrain was
rotated.
Compositing was performed with
Digital Domains Nuke software. Nuke is
blindingly fast and allows for giant scripts
and thousands of operators, says Nederhorst. Using EXR files, we embedded
different channels of data RGB, alpha,
Z-depths and reflections, speculars,
normals and so on. Nuke deals with those
very elegantly. It also allowed us to build
lens-aberration tools and other custom
operators like the Rienzo Keyer pretty
easily. Nuke is designed by compositors
for compositors, and that makes it an
ideal choice in a fast-paced, high-end
environment.
Nuke also was used to adjust
depth of field in the CG environment.
About 95 percent of the time, we
matched the live-plate depth of field,
says Nederhorst. Kosinski cites a closeup of a runners foot as a good example:
Thats one we matched exactly to the
plate. Even the foot behind her is slightly
out of focus. That shot didnt work
completely until we blurred out the foreground as well.
Color correction and conforming
were completed in Assimilates Scratch,
and then the completed spots were
down-converted for the television market.
Given that the commercial lasts only 60
seconds, many of the details Nederhorst
and his visual-effects team put in each
shot might be missed by the casual
viewer, but their efforts certainly didnt go
unnoticed. The client referred to the
Mezzo campaign as the best thing weve
done, and it was the only commercial
nominated for a Visual Effects Society
VES Award for Outstanding Compositing.
worked on the Coliseum, and they sent

us a blueprint of the stadium, says
Catchpoole. Ironically, that digital model
is never rendered as a visible element.
Its kind of a ghost that the digital kids
could sit on so that when they were
combined with the live-action footage of
the stadium, their positions would
match.
The model was then handed off
to Hartmann so he could create and
animate the crowds. Hartmann notes
that whereas most animation programs
are based on key framing wherein
the artist sets certain poses for characters and the computer fills in the frames
in between Massive is based on artificial-life technology, which means that
characters are created, assigned certain
traits, and then allowed to respond to
stimuli. You have to rethink the whole
process, says Hartmann. For the first
two weeks, youre looking for the
buttons youre used to, but Massives
method is actually much easier.
The program ships with a number
of built-in characters called Ready to
Run Agents, which can be modified to
suit a given project. In this case, Hartmann started with a character called
Stadium Guy, who performs actions
common among spectators at big sporting events clapping, cheering, standing up to see whats going on, for example. Hartmann worked with two other
freelance artists, one in Israel, the other
in San Francisco; they used photos taken
of kids on the shoot day to create new
bodies that could be applied to
Massives Stadium Guy skeleton. The
whole figure was scaled down to childlike proportions, and skin color, hair and
clothing were mapped onto the figures.
We chose from different sets of variables, and Massive multiplied those so
we ultimately got thousands of variations of that one kid, says Hartmann.
The new character, dubbed
Stadium Kid, was then given some new
actions specific to the ads script, such
as straining to hear and fidgeting. By
setting variables, we could control how
active they were, how likely they were
to scratch their heads or shuffle around,
says Hartmann. During the shoot, I
Opposite: A final
image from a
United Way
Lend a Hand
spot that
combines a small
number of real
children and
hundreds of CG
ones. This page:
Elements shot on
location at the
Los Angeles
Coliseum.
thought the kids were crazy and difficult

to handle. But in the CG realm, we had
to calm down the digital kids motion so
theyd match the real kids.
Catchpoole and Hartmann found
that the amount the digital children
moved had to be scaled up or town,
depending on where a character was
sitting. There was quite a bit of direction involved, similar to extracting a
performance, says Catchpoole. He
explains that a level of movement that
worked well in the foreground would be
much too small and hard to read in the
background It looked like everyone
was asleep. He adds, But if wed had
150,000 real children on the day, the
same issue would have come up
and a lot of others would have come up
too!
Once the actions began to look
right, Hartmann started rendering out
the crowd in sections, about 7,0008,000 children at a time. Each frame
took about five minutes to render, which

wasnt too bad considering the amount
of geometry, says Hartmann. Guava
artists then composited the sections
with the original footage in Flame.
Catchpoole also did a little extra finessing in Flame. For one shot that was relatively close to the kids and looking
across the backs of their heads, the digital children werent mixing that well
with the real ones. Using stills from the
shoot, he went through the shot and did
head replacements, tracking still
images of real heads onto the backs of
the digital children. About 10 rows of
digital kids have real heads, which really
helps sell the scene, he says.
Hartmann says Massives artificial-life technology proved perfect for
the United Way spot. Its literally
dynamic, which makes it so realistic,
he says. It imitates life in a way you
dont control. You just set up an environment and let it go.
117
Sonys 4K Digital Projector

by Tricia Louvar
It was not a question of what
but when, and after eight years of testing and research, Sony has effectively
delivered on its digital-cinema promise.
Developers negotiated their own twist
with silicon and liquid-crystal microdisplays in direct competition with Texas
Instruments DLP cinema technology.
Sonys 4K digital projector, the SXRD
(Silicon X-tal Reflective Display),
expands the choices available in the
digital-cinema marketplace.
Sonys currently available
models include the SRX-R110 (10,000
ANSI lumens screening up to 40' wide)
and the SRX-R105 (5,000 ANSI lumens
screening up to 25' wide). Starting this
fall, the company will introduce a
20,000-lumens version. For now, both
SXRD models offer resolution of 4,096
horizontal pixels x 2,160 vertical pixels,
currently four times the number of
pixels in high-definition (HD) video.
Each RGB color panel in the
SXRD has 8.8 million pixels embedded
in 1.5" of silicon. It costs about $0.01
per pixel on a 4K projector, compared to
$0.04 for a 2K DLP cinema projector
(based on Sonys SRX-110 and Christies
CP2000H package price, respectively).
The SXRD pixel density is a diminutive
world only visible under a microscope,
which is surprising, considering the
entire gunmetal-gray chassis weighs
240 pounds and measures 18"H x 28"W
x 52"L. Its noise level is 65 dB, making it
equivalent to a normal conversation.
The imaging device is void of
shifting brightness or colorimetry. The
technology improvements result in
color consistency within the display
container. The significance of liquid
crystal is its super-high resolution, very
high contrast, very fast switching
speed, and 12-bit driver, says Gary
Mandle, senior product manager for
professional displays in Sony Electronics broadcast and production systems
division.
Mandle explains that the light
passing through the liquid crystal twice
is a result of reflective technology. This
improves the contrast of the cell-gap

depth, allowing for half the amount of
flare, dramatically improving the blacks.
The uniformity in the liquid crystal
increases contrast due to less flare,
which therefore increases resolution
because there is no need for spacers in
the optical area.
Part of the SXRD technology,
Mandle states, deals with the VAN
liquid crystal changing state, he continues. Its a vertically aligned neumatic
[VAN] crystal that provides a complex
vertical/horizontal rotation, offering
very high light-control properties and
very fast movement. This reflective
design lessens motion smear and
perpetuates deeper blacks. For 3-D
display, a much higher refreshing vertical scan) rate is necessary because
images are being sent to both eyes. The
projector output needs to switch at
twice the speed of a 2-D display, in
essence one 2-D display per eye. The
faster the refresh rate the better the
effect. Most systems run around 120 to
140 frames per second. With more calls
for 3-D projection coming in, Sonys
SXRD will have the capability to refresh
at 200 fps, which should yield a better
image and better 3-D realism. The
contrast ratio for the SXRD is specified
at 1,800:1, but 2,000:1 is more typical.
No matter how great the
machine is, if those in the field do not
employ the standards then digital
projection will not deliver its promise of
118 April 2006
visual supremacy to film projectors,

remarks Daryn Okada, ASC, who
worked on the DCI StEM Digital Projection Test Film and participated in the
subjective DCI compression system
evaluations. The entire system needs
to be put in place with DCI specifications in order to build long-term
success.
Controlling the projected image
so it remains repeatable and consistent
is a shared goal for DCI and Sony. As of
July 2005, the DCI version 1.0 specifications state the digital-projection
system is essential: Its job is to change
digital image data into light that
appears on the screen. For the SXRD,
a DCI-compliant projector, the throw
distance is variable, depending on
which lens is used, screen size, and so
forth, but its average range is 30' to
140'.
However, digital projection
might alter the look of the film if it isnt
used creatively. If the post process is
not accessible for cinematographers,
[digital projection] could affect the overall image in negative ways, notes
Okada. It might, for example, add
harshness to an actors face. Picture
quality on a digital projector for films
not shot in HD is the largest variable in
the industry. In terms of retaining
creative intent, the workflow from
camera negative to digital format isnt
an exact science yet.
Some SXRD adopters include
SkyScan; Full Throttle Films, Inc. (VER);

the National Geographic Society and
Silicon Graphics, Inc. Although most
theater owners are still considering the
possibilities of digital projection, Landmark Theatres jumped at the chance to
incorporate digital projectors into more
than 30 of its venues. We wanted to
roll out digital projectors that gave us
the opportunity to gain experience with
the best-of-breed projectors, says
Mark Cuban, co-owner of Landmark
Theatres. We rolled out both Sony and
Texas Instruments digital projectors,
and weve been thrilled with both.
Steven Soderberghs Bubble,
released in January, was the
first feature-length, day-and-datemodeled film projected with the SXRD.
Bubble was shot on HD, which
enabled Steven to optimize a beginning-to-end digital experience with the
look he wanted, says Cuban.
With digital cinema, the movie
will look like what the director envisioned [because it wont] have to go
through duplications and printing
processes, says John Kaloukian,
general manager for display systems at
Sony Electronics. The all-digital
production allows the director and
cinematographer the ability to produce
what they see in the camera. Audiences get a first-run show.
Some have speculated that digital cinema might reignite consumers
interest in attending big-screen films,
but Okada notes, We have to remember that movies find success with an
audience because the story affects the
audience on an emotional level, and
that cinematography is in large part
what communicates the story.
For more information, visit
www.sony.com/sxrd and www.dci
movies.com.
I
Contact us for a free San Antonio Film Guide.
Drew Mayer-Oakes
Film Marketing Manager
210.207.6730
Drew@FilmSanAntonio.com
FilmSanAntonio.com
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119
Tomorrows Technology
ASCs Technology Committee Helps Shape the Future
by Curtis Clark, ASC
inematographers have formed the
cornerstone of the filmmaking process
since its inception by persistently using
their mastery of evolving motion-picture
technologies to create expressive images,
while endeavoring to ensure that those
images are faithfully reproduced. Since its
founding in 1919, the ASC has consistently
played a leading role in influencing an
array of motion-picture technology developments film stocks, cameras, lenses,
lighting, lab processes and film projection
among them and has in many cases
contributed to the establishment of industry standards.
The ASC Technology Committee,
which had its inaugural meeting in January
2003, represents the continuation of a
well-established ASC tradition of working
diligently to ensure that motion-picture
technology developments advance the art
and craft of filmmaking. Our action agenda
over the last three years has demonstrated
our determination to thoroughly understand how new digital technologies are
radically transforming the traditional
motion-imaging process. Our objective is
to influence the development of these
technologies in ways that best serve the
creative needs of cinematographers and
their filmmaking collaborators. In this new
era of hybrid film and digital motion imaging, cinematographers must understand
how the convergence of these technologies impact the new tools they need to
master so they can better manage the
integrity of their images within the new
workflow practices.
An early challenge and major
success for our Technology Committee
was the well-known collaboration with
Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) to produce
original film material designed for testing
digital projection for digital cinema (see
Tomorrows Technology, AC Jan. 04).

Known as the StEM (Standard Evaluation
Material), the results have become the
industrys definitive film-origination reference source for evaluating digital projection and compression of digital motion
images. The remarkably positive, collaborative experience we had with DCI gave
our Technology Committee invaluable
working experience with project-driven
goals and results. The enthusiasm and
dedication from our members, associates
and invited contributors set a high standard for our future activities.
To serve the committees agenda
more efficiently, we created several
permanent subcommittees whose tasks
are to focus on defined aspects of the
workflow. These subcommittees include
camera, digital intermediate, digital
display, advanced imaging, archiving, and
workflow. The workflow subcommittee,
our newest, has become the principal
working group where the ASC has
extended its involvement with other organizations representing key positions in the
filmmaking process; these include the Art
Directors Guild, the Producers Guild of
America and the Technology Committee
of American Cinema Editors. Our Technology Committee has developed a close,
project-based working relationship with
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences Technology Council. At IBC in
2005, an important collaborative relationship between our Technology Committee
and the prestigious German Fraunhoffer
Institute for Integrated Circuits was
announced. Quoting from the press
release, the two groups have decided to
work closely together to advance and
intensify technological research in the
area of professional cinematography. The
main objective is to ensure a smooth inte-
120 April 2006
gration of new technologies in the field of

professional cinematography while identifying and protecting the needs and requirements of cinematographers . The overall
approach is to establish seamless workflow solutions from image acquisition
through postproduction to archiving.
To effectively deal with the scope of
challenges facing our Technology Committee, it was deemed imperative that we
include the best film and television industry
technology experts along with our ASC
members and ASC associate members.
This strategy has created a unique industry
forum that has generated a successful
dynamic of constructive contributions from
diverse and complimentary areas of expertise.
Our unique technology forum has
emerged at a truly critical juncture in the
evolution of imaging technologies for our
motion-picture industry. The traditional
film-based production workflow, which is
currently being rapidly transformed into a
complex, hybrid film/digital imaging chain,
will someday become predominantly digital. There is one ironic exception: film
currently appears to be the only medium to
meet long-term archival requirements.
If new and improved open-architecture workflow solutions are to be successfully deployed, they will need to be
embraced by multiple industry players
(filmmakers, studios and service providers)
in what is becoming an increasingly diverse
group of technology suppliers. The ASC,
through its Technology Committee, has
demonstrated critical leadership by establishing a forum that is bringing manufacturers and service providers to the table and
asking them to support new initiatives to
create effective, efficient open-architecture
workflow solutions. We are proving that
there is much to be gained by all from iden-
tifying common interests. A good example

of this is the ASC-CDL, a color-decision list
that enables cross-platform interchange of
primary RGB lift, gain and
gamma color-grading settings between
different color correctors. In fact, without
industry agreement on open-architecture
solutions, transition to digital is proving
more problematic and costly than necessary while running the risk of negatively
impacting filmmakers ability to efficiently
and effectively utilize its creative potential.
The Technology Committee is
currently working on several important
projects:
The ASC-CDL project is being led by
our digital-intermediate subcommittee.
Although this was initially considered by
many to be an unrealistic goal, the brilliant
work of the subcommittee has resoundingly proved the doubters wrong. The ASCCDL is well on its way to becoming
recognized as an important look-management component of an industry open-standard workflow practice. Inspired by the DI
subcommittees success with the ASCCDL, Josh Pines developed a digital
printer-light system that emulates traditional RGB film printer lights.
A Camera Assessment Series for
evaluating the engineering specifications
and image-capture performance characteristics of the latest production-ready digital
motion-picture cameras, which include the
Arri D-20, the Dalsa Origin, the Panavision
Genesis, the Sony 950 and the Thomson
Viper. Working closely with the Academy
Science and Technology Council, our
camera subcommittee and workflow
subcommittee (which includes the active
participation of the Art Directors Guild
Technology Committee, Producers Guild
representatives, and the Technology
Committee of ACE) are in the process of
planning and scheduling.
Our workflow subcommittee is
making tremendous progress in thoroughly
analyzing current hybrid film-digital imaging workflow practices while looking at
ways to optimize the workflow, with a
view to recommending open-architecture
solutions.
Our advanced imaging subcommittee is closely collaborating with the Academy Science and Technology Council to
reevaluate the accuracy of the longstanding CIE 1931 standard observer

color-matching process for identifying
colors based on an additive color mixture
of red, green and blue primaries. There
are known issues with the 1931 viewermatching functions, but we are attempting to discover how serious they may be
on a practical basis. The important twopart article The Color-Space Conundrum, which appeared in the January
and April 2005 editions of American
Cinematographer, was a project of our
Technology Committee. Written by AC
associate editor Douglas Bankston, it
does a wonderfully thorough job of
explaining color-space issues, along with
workflow practices both current and
future. (It can be accessed online at the
ASC Web site: www.theasc.com.)
The ASC Technology Committee
has also participated in joint meetings
with the Hollywood branch of the Society
of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), hosted seminars about
our work at CineGear, and made presentations to students at the American Film
Institute. We will continue to expand our
connections with other industry groups
and participate in joint meetings and
seminars.
We are also nearing first-phase
release of our digital primer, which is
intended as a guide to help filmmakers
better understand the integration of digital technology and tools in the workflow.
We plan to update this primer/guide on a
scheduled basis.
The ASC is planning a Technology
and Education Center as a key component of our new building project. This
center will further enable the committees work while providing an invaluable
educational resource for our members
and associate members, the broader
filmmaking community, technology
research, and student education. It will
incorporate a magnificent screening
room designed to be a definitive reference-viewing environment for todays
and tomorrows mission-critical image
evaluations and workflow solutions.
Although there are other forums
and organizations addressing the
complex technology changes within our
industry such as the SMPTE, the AMPAS

Science and Technology Council and ETC
(the University of Southern Californias
Entertainment Technology Center) the
ASC is unique in that it brings cinematographer end-users and their key filmmaking
collaborators together, along with technologists and key technology companies. Our
mission is to encourage a collaboration that
will better facilitate development and
refinement of urgently needed digital tools
that will best serve the requirements of
visual storytelling for filmmaking in the 21st
century.
The author is the chairman of the
ASC Technology Committee.
I
Following is a list of the chairs and cochairs of the ASC Technology Committee
and its subcommittees.
ASC TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
Curtis Clark, ASC, Chairman
Daryn Okada, ASC, Steering Chairman
Steven Poster, ASC, Vice-Chairman
Richard Edlund, ASC, Vice-Chairman
Sol Negrin, ASC, East Coast Chairman
Ellen Kuras, ASC, East Coast Vice-Chairman
ADVANCED IMAGING SYSTEMS
Gary Demos, Chairman
Phil Feiner, Vice-Chairman
CAMERA
David Stump, ASC, Chairman
Richard Edlund, ASC, Vice-Chairman
DIGITAL ARCHIVING
Grover Crisp, Chairman
Garrett Smith, Vice-Chairman
DIGITAL DISPLAY
Glenn Kennel, Chairman
Jerry Pierce, Vice-Chairman
Steven Poster, ASC, Vice-Chairman
DIGITAL INTERMEDIATE
Lou Levinson, Chairman
Joshua Pines, Vice-Chairman
METADATA
David Stump, ASC, Chairman
Greg McMurry, Vice-Chairman
STEERING
Daryn Okada, ASC, Chairman
WORKFLOW
Al Barton, Co-Chairman
Howard Lukk, Co-Chairman
Gary Morse, Co-Chairman

Flying over
New Yorks
skyline at roof
height, Robert
Goodman (left)
tests the LS
Gyro aerial
mount in a
Eurocopter
Twinstar
helicopter
piloted by Chris
Blanton. LS
Gyro creator
Arnie Itzkowitz,
seated in the
front passenger
seat, operates
the Sony SRW1 HDCam SR
recorder.
Testing Aerial Exposures LS

Gyro Aerial Mount
by Robert M. Goodman
Two years ago I tested an early
prototype of Aerial Exposures Gyro
Stabilized Platform that was poised to
alter the economics of shooting aerials.
That platform sold for less than 10
percent of the competing systems. I
recently had an opportunity to test the
newest version, the LS Gyro model,
which will be introduced at NAB this
month. This compact system is priced
under $21,000, so I was interested in
seeing what improvements its inventor,
Arnie Itzkowitz, had made based on
feedback from cinematographers.
The purpose of the aerial mount
is to eliminate the low-frequency vibrations that helicopters or planes generate
from their rotors and engines. A welldesigned aerial mount will hold the
camera steady in relation to the horizon
and relative to the aircraft.
Itzkowitz, a professional photographer and lifelong pilot, started shooting video three years ago, and that led
to the development of the Gyro Stabilized Platform. The original version

suspended the camera from a crossbar
and used gyroscopes to maintain the
camera in a level position. The footage
had a nice floating quality, though the
mount limited me to shorter focal-length
lenses than I preferred. Radical movements of the aircraft resulted in slow
pitch and yaw drift because of the
pendulum effect inherent in the mounts
design. That design also made it difficult
to set the cameras horizontal position,
and to do a smooth, controlled pan.
The new LS Gyro platform
retains the same 12"x15" footprint the
original platform had and continues to
use Kenyon Labs tungsten gyroscopes
for stabilization. Holes on the cameraplate mounting units support arm allow
KS-6, KS-8 or KS-12 gyros to be
mounted in any combination you
choose. The 24"-high upright arms on
the LS platform are shorter than the
original model because the platform has
been completely redesigned. The
camera-mounting unit is now
suspended from forks on two upright
122 April 2006
arms using aviation-quality bungee

cords that isolate the camera from lowfrequency vibrations. Underneath the
plate to which the cameras tripod plate
is attached is the mounting support for
the gyros. The gyro support arm hangs
from a ball joint, which makes it easy to
level the camera and set a tilt angle. Two
handles on the camera-mounting unit
can be used to control the tilt, pan and
cant of the camera in flight. The upright
arms are mounted on a plate that floats
on a ring of aircraft-quality ball bearings
attached to the base plate, so you can
pan the arms 360. Eye bolts at the
corners of the base plate are used to
secure the platform to the aircraft using
tie-down straps. Aerial Exposures platform is constructed of thick-gauge, aviation-quality aluminum.
The cameras tripod plate can be
screwed directly to the platforms flat
mounting plate or to the lightweight
Bogen quick-release plate and mount
supplied with the system. The platforms
flat mounting plate is 21" above the
base. If youre mounting heavier
cameras, I recommend removing the
cast-aluminum quick-release mount and
securing the camera directly to the platforms plate. The footprint when a
camera is mounted on the platform is
12"x15" and about 30" high. The LS Gyro
platform is compact enough to use in
even the smallest helicopters or any
other moving vehicles where it would be
advantageous to place a camera on a
stabilized platform.
The first time you mount a
camera on the system, the balance
might need to be adjusted using weights
to level the horizontal position of the
camera. The amount of balancing youll
need to do depends on whether the
camera is centered over its tripod plate.
The angle of tilt is set by moving the
camera forward or backward on its
tripod plate to adjust its center of gravity.
Photos on pages 122 and 123 2006 Carl Laskiewicz, Photo Facts.
New Products & Services
Goodman preps the Thomson Viper camera on

Aerial Exposures new LS Gyro aerial mount,
installed in Liberty Helicopters Eurocopter Twinstar.
Aerial Exposures packages the LS

Gyro platform in systems with two KS-12
gyros or three or four KS-8 gyros. 24-volt
power inverters, cables and a wheeled
shipping case are included, and the platform, camera-plate mounting unit and
gyros must be disassembled to fit into
the case.
A twin KS-12 LS Gyro system
($20,500) is designed to support cameras
between 15-35 pounds. The LS Gyro
platform weighs 41.5 pounds, and each
KS-12 gyro weighs 15 pounds. One 24volt power inverter is required for each
KS-12 gyro (20 pounds each). These
inverters are too large to fit into the
wheeled case. The wheeled case with
two KS-12s and the LS Gyro platform has
shipping weight of 105 pounds. The
payload weight of a twin KS-12 gyro
system with its two inverters is 112
pounds.
The four KS-8 LS Gyro system
($19,500) supports cameras between 1522 pounds. KS-8 gyros weigh 5 pounds
each and use a much smaller inverter
that fits into the wheeled shipped case.
This system with the inverter in its shipping case weighs 97 pounds. The three

123

124
KS-8 LS Gyro system ($16,500) supports

cameras under 12 pounds.
The LS Gyro platform is modular;
the size and number of gyros attached
can be changed as often as necessary.
Unlike high-end systems that typically
provide operators with remote controls
to position the camera, the LS Gyro platform is a manual system. Any camera in
the supported weight range can be used
on this platform, whereas high-end
systems typically are designed for
specific cameras. Another advantage of
the LS Gyro platform is the FAA considers it to be cargo because no tools are
required to mount it in an aircraft. Other
systems are more expensive to purchase
and rent partly because the FAA must
approve those mounts for use in every
make and model of helicopter or
airplane for which it is intended, and
then a mechanic must certify each
installation.
Liberty Helicopters in New York
provided a Eurocopter AS355F2 Twinstar
(piloted by Chris Blanton) and a Eurocopter AS350BA A-Star (piloted by Chris
Tomlin) so Carl Laskiewicz could photograph me using the mount for this article. Plus 8 Digital loaned me a Thomson
Grass Valley Viper, a Fujinon 7.8X20 HD
servo-zoom lens, a Sony SRW-1
recorder, and a Leader 5750 portable
waveform/vectorscope. I set the Viper
up for FilmStream mode with an aspect
ratio of 1.78:1 and rated the camera at
400 ASA. The dual-link HD-SDI output of
the camera was recorded on Sony BCT40SR HDCam SR at the 440SQ setting.
The Viper was mounted on a LS
Gyro platform stabilized with two KS-12
gyros. We balanced the cameras horizontal position using two 15mm rails
and a small weight. We removed the
right door of the helicopter and secured
the platform to the rear right passenger
seat after removing the seat cushions.
Ratchet tie straps were hooked to the
platforms eye bolts and to the eye bolts
in the helicopter that secure the seat
belts. I was secured with the standard
waist and shoulder belt.
We took off from Linden Airport,
flew north along the Hudson, crossed
and circled midtown and Times Square,
and then flew south down the East River

to Battery Park and the Statue of Liberty.
I tested the mounts ability to handle a
wide variety of shots and movements,
from tracking the chase helicopter to
circling buildings and tracking moving
cars across a bridge. The new design
makes tilting and panning far easier to
do than the original system did. It also
eliminates more vibration than did the
original design. There was no visible
vibration if I kept the focal length of the
lens under 145mm. Noticeable bounce
occurred when the lens was zoomed to
its maximum focal length of 156mm.
The LS Gyro platform is not capable of doing the extreme tight shots of
distant objects that are possible with
more expensive aerial mounts. However,
you can get excellent, vibration-free
footage after a bit of practice and can
obtain nearly all the other shots a director might want. The lower overall height
of the new platform also gives you
enough clearance to mount an LCD monitor on the camera using an Israeli arm.
To get good results with any
system, practice is important, but practicing with most aerial mounts is an
expensive proposition, even if you own a
helicopter. The LS Gyro platform
performs the same way in a car as it
does in the air. Consequently, you can
practice with this platform mounted in a
truck or SUV all day for far less than an
hour in the air would cost.
The most expensive LS Gyro platform system costs less than a two-week
rental for the high-end aerial systems.
Overall, this platform is less expensive to
rent and fits into smaller helicopters that
are less expensive to operate. The LS
Gyro mount is not as sophisticated as an
ultra-high-end system, but it can enable
you to shoot smooth aerial footage
safely and at a ridiculously low cost.
Now aerials are affordable for even the
smallest independent film.
For more information, contact
Aerial Exposures: (800) 786-4153,
www.aerialexposures.com.
Robert M. Goodman is the author
of the Goodmans Guide field manuals
for cinematographers and shoots film
and digital media.

125
Avid Introduces
Symphony Nitris
Avid Technology, Inc. has introduced its Symphony Nitris system, a
nonlinear SD and HD finishing system
that offers real-time editing and effects
for multi-stream 10-bit HD and SD
media. It also offers HD Total Conform
with the industry-standard Avid Media
Composer product family. Avid
Symphony Nitris brings together the
real-time performance of the Nitris
Digital Nonlinear Accelerator hardware
with the creative and corrective tools
and multi-format mastering and
versioning capabilities of Avid
Symphony software.
Professionals who live and
breathe the world of finishing for TV
programming, commercial spots, and
high-quality SD video production have
come to rely on the expansive features
and rock-solid stability of Avid
Symphony, says Dana Ruzicka, vice
president of Post Solutions for Avid.
The system has become a trusted
online workhorse, enabling editors,
producers and production managers to
offer a unique set of creative services
and build profitable businesses. With
Symphony Nitris, were catapulting this
toolset into the HD realm with the
unbeatable performance of our Nitris
hardware. Every day, thousands of
professionals sit down in front of our
Avid Xpress and Media Composer to
tackle the storytelling process. Now
they can take comfort knowing that
every nuance they create will be automatically re-created in Symphony
Nitris. Finishing artists can invest their
time where it counts most: delivering
completed projects in breathtaking
HD.
Avid Symphony Nitris offers a
user interface that will be instantly
familiar to trained Avid editors and
extends that interface across the entire
workflow of any film or video production using Avid systems. System highlights include:
HD Total Conform: Avid
Symphony Nitris system re-creates
every detail of an offline edit from other
Avid systems in full HD resolution. This

126
offline-to-finishing conform is critical to

professionals working in the most
demanding post environments and
enables content creators to complete
HD projects in less time with greater
accuracy.
Guaranteed real-time performance with Nitris hardware: Avid
Symphony Nitris delivers powerful realtime editing, effects and compositing
performance. Users can work with up to
two streams of 10-bit HD media or
eight streams of 10-bit uncompressed
SD media, each with primary and
secondary color correction, DVE, a key,
and a title all in real time.
Expansive video and audio I/O
for high-quality formats: Avid
Symphony Nitris supports digital and
analog video and audio capture, SDI
and HD-SDI digital video I/O, and eightchannel digital audio I/O at 24-bit 96
kHz. Video format support includes
DV25, DV50, MPEG IMX, Meridien JFIF
and ABVB resolutions, plus uncompressed 601 in both 8 and 10 bits. More
than 10 HD resolutions, including
720p/59.94 and 1080p/24, are
supported in 8 and 10 bits as either
uncompressed HD or Avid DNxHD files.
Avid Symphony software offers
advanced real-time primary and
secondary color correction (including
patented NaturalMatch technology),
motion tracking, image stabilization,
scratch removal, real-time 10-bit titling,
and hardware-accelerated real-time
16-bit SpectraMatte chroma keying.
After completing HD projects,
users can easily generate multiple
customized versions and deliver in
formats that include NTSC (4x3 and
16x9), PAL (4x3 and 16x9), Web, film
and DVD with point-and-click ease.
Project collaboration through the
Avid Unity MediaNetwork allows users
to take advantage of real-time, simultaneous DV, SD, and Avid DNxHD file
sharing with all other Avid nonlinearediting systems connected to Avid
Unity.
Avid Symphony Nitris, which
comprises Avid Symphony software
and Avid Nitris hardware, is qualified
for HP xw8200 workstations and is
priced at $89,995. The system is

expected to ship later this year and will
be available through Avids worldwide
reseller channel.
For more information, visit Avid
at www.avid.com.
OmniTek XR
OmniTek has unveiled the
OmniTek XR, an extreme resolution
waveform monitor and image analyzer
for postproduction. Designed specifically for colorists and postproduction
editors and digital-intermediate use
while working with high-resolution
HDTV and Dual-Link images, the XR
builds on OmniTeks previous native
Dual-Link waveform monitor, produced
in 2003.
The XR system is available in

three options, Dual-Link, Motion/
Capture, and Advanced. The Dual-Link
option enables 4:4:4 RGB/ YCbCr inputs
and 2K format images to be monitored
with the XR system in addition to providing real-time output of 4:2:2 data from
the 4:4:4 dual-link input, or the generation of 4:4:4 dual-link SDI outputs from a
4:2:2 SDI input. The Motion/Capture
option enables real-time capture, storage, and play-out of uncompressed
images and sequences in any format
supported by the system. Finally, the
Advanced option (which includes the
Motion/Capture option) provides the
time-shift event-based data recording
facility where a user-defined input error
can be configured to trigger a capture of
video data from the live input. Any of
these options can be used on their own
or in conjunction with the others.
Utilizing 256x oversampling, the
system ensures the most accurate monitoring, and new waveform generation

127
algorithms give user-adjustable, highquality, pin-sharp displays. Furthermore,

full 1024-pixel-high waveforms show
the true 10-bit resolution of input SDI
signals, and arbitrary combinations of
components may be displayed simultaneously, such as YRGB and
vectorscope, or YCbCr and Composite.
A unique region-of-interest
control enables the user to accurately
identify different areas of the source
image, and the horizontal zoom range
works from a few pixels to 1 line, 2 line,
1 field, through to full-frame displays.
The XR also features low-pass, differential and bowtie filters and can
generate pseudo-composite SD waveform displays from HD or SD sources in
real time. The fully scalable vectorscope
may also operate on the selected
region-of-interest.
Other features of the XR include
real-time histogram displays in YCbCr,
RGB, or Composite color spaces; a minipic proxy that is especially useful when
working in 24p and 2K video formats,
which are not generally supported by
video monitors; a customizable graphics
display; two SDI outputs (which, with
the Dual-Link option, may be configured
as dual- or single-link independently of
the source image format) and an analog
component video output for monitoring
purposes; continuously monitored video
status, checking for errors and changesof-state, as well as audio status monitoring; a flexible safe-title and safeaction cage overlay system, adjustable
in size, position, and aspect ratio; and
event logging and alarms.
OmniTek also supplies a range of
dedicated control surfaces such as
keypads and touch-screens for the XR
system. For more information, visit
www.omnitek.tv or call +44 (0) 118 988
6226
V1 HD Video Disk Recorders
Doremi Labs has launched two
V1 high-definition-video disk recorders,
the V1-HD and the V1-UHD, offering the
superior resolution of HD video in a
compact, stand-alone package. Both
units can record and playback HD or SD
video, compressed or uncompressed, on

128
internal removable drives.

The V1-HD features JPEG2000
video compression up to 300 Mbits/sec,
touting visually lossless recording.
This HD video compression allows for
more than 12 hours of high quality video
recording on just one removable hotswap drive.
For applications where the
image quality cannot be compromised,
the V1-UHD features uncompressed HD
video recording. (As an option, the V1UHD is available with JPEG2000
compression capability.)
Other highlights of these
recorders include independent record

and play operation; the capability to
create video clips, loops and play lists
from the front panel; smooth fast- and
slow-motion playback; a front panel
video monitoring LCD screen; frame
accurate control via RS-422 or Ethernet
using standard control protocols; file
transfer (to and from the recorder) of
video clips and still images via Ethernet;
and 2K dual-link 4:4:4 recording
24p/24psf at 10- or 12-bit.
www.doremilabs.com or call (818) 5621101.
Wafian HR-1 Recorder
Wafian has introduced the HR-1
on-set, 10-bit, Direct-to-Disk HDSDI
Recorder. Utilizing the award-winning
CineForm Digital Intermediate format,
the Wafian HR-1 records full resolution
1920x1080 and 1280x720 from the
HDSDI feed. The recorder can store up
to nine hours of 10-bit 1920x1080 24p
footage in the safety first (mirrored)
configuration, or up to 18 hours in the
extended storage (striped) configuration.
The HR-1 is controlled by the
front panel touch-screen LCD, and

recording is a simple one-button operation. Recording directly to disk, footage
can be reviewed immediately after
shooting with the speed of nonlinear
access. Afterwards, clips can be transferred to the editing station over Gigabit
Ethernet at 2-3x real time.
A particularly useful application
of the Wafian HR-1 is to record directly
from the JVC ProHD GY-HD100U
camera, which shoots 1280x720 4:2:2
frames and can stream a full 60 frames
per second down its component
outputs. While the HDV tape format to
which the camera records can only
support 30 fps 4:2:0, recording direct-todisk takes full advantage of the
cameras capabilities.
www.wafian.com, call (858) 951-0051,
or e-mail info@wafian.com.
Cinemge from Cine-tal
Cine-tal Systems has introduced
the Cinemge product family. Combining Cine-tals IDS (Intelligent Display
Server) technology and a calibrated fullresolution LCD display, Cinemge
provides quantitative video analysis,
color previsualization, video-signal quality assurance, real-time collaboration
between acquisition and postproduction, and an integrated OmniTek DualLink Waveform Monitor and
Vectorscope. Cinemge allows both
critical visual analysis and digital quantitative analysis of HD-SDI or HD-SDI
Dual-Link signals in either YCbCr or
RGB, linear or logarithmic, at 8 or 10
bits.
The Cinemge display features a
full-resolution 1920x1080 calibrated
display with superior black-level performance. A pixel-to-pixel mapping of the
input signal to the display avoiding
resizing, filtering, or other image-

129

130
degrading pixel manipulations

provides an accurate display of input
signal data. The display is calibrated to
user-defined white point, gamma and
luminance level via an automated calibration system with a full-spectrum
photometer. A full manual calibration
allows the user to set custom RGB
levels while taking measurements with
the photometer.
Full signal routing with the
Cinemge system allows the user to
route any signal source to any output or
process. The user can monitor input 1
with color processing for previsualization while sending the same signal to
output 1 without any processing. Input
signals can be routed independently to
one of two HD-SDI outputs, one Dual
Link, or the DVI output.
Cinemge also features a cage
generator (with standard and custom
cages), a head-up display (providing
real-time information on signal sources),
a split-screen function (allowing the
simultaneous display of two signal
sources), and a real-time pan and zoom
feature (for pixel level analysis and
display). Every system setting can also
be saved as a preset for quick recall.
Intelligent Display Server technology, a joint technology development
between Cine-tal and OmniTek, provides
image processing, signal routing, frame
stores, color manipulation (3-D LUTs)
and test and measurement all in a
network appliance configuration. Internal to IDS is a powerful image processor
that generates real-time data about the
HD video stream. In turn, the data is
used to generate waveforms, vector

scopes, gamut information and status of
the incoming video signal. IDS also
provides for display calibration and
profiling as well as input-signal color
grading for pre-visualization. All data
and operations can be performed over a
LAN, WAN or wireless network with any
Web-enabled device.
www.cine-tal.com. Tel (317) 576-0091
Pro Sandbags from
Microdolly Hollywood
Microdolly Hollywood, the manufacturer of the Pro Line of precision-built
ultra-light camera dollies, jibs, mounts
and remote pan/tilt heads designed for
crews that need to travel light and set up
quickly, has introduced a Pro Line of
sandbags. These double-pocket sandbags come three to a pack and can be
Inc.
filled with sand, shot, stones or even

water. The bags are made of sturdy
ballistic nylon with comfort-grip handles
and loops for hanging on light stands or
tripods. Ideal for jib counter weights, the
Pro Line sandbags can travel flat and be
filled on location.
Visit www.microdolly.com for
further information, or call (818) 8458383.
FilmLight Baselight v3
FilmLight Ltd. has unveiled the
newest version of its color-grading
system, Baselight v3. Features of v3
include stack manager, forthcoming GPU
grading, Blackboard support, software
optimizations, a new workstation platform, and the dual-core AMD Opteron

131
processor, which increases processing

speed across the whole Baselight range.
The new AMD Opteron processors, when coupled with FilmLights
unique Baselight Four and Baselight
Eight cluster architecture, also enable
clients to grade two real-time streams
of uncompressed 4K media. With v3,
the Baselight Eight system will support
up to 48TB of disk space, enabling
users to keep multiple projects online
simultaneously.
Other capabilities of Baselight v3
include: a 3-D additive and subtractive
keyer, which, based on a new algorithm,
isolates areas in different parts of the
color space and manages them within
the same matte strip; support for scratch
audio as well as field rendering and 3:2
pulldown for video grading and deliverables; a scene detector that is able to
break long-form content into separate
shots for easier shot-based grading;
support for OpenFX plug-in architecture;
stack manager, which greatly simplifies
the management of complex grade
stacks; and real-time grain reduction of
a vertical slice of a 2K image, providing
the colorist with a way to tune the grain
reduction for each part of the image in
real time.
Baselight, Baselight Four and
Baselight Eight system pricing starts
at $145,000. Baselight v3 is free
to customers under maintenance
contracts. The Baselight Blackboard
control surface is supported from v3 and
pricing starts at $48,000.
www.filmlight.ltd.uk.
132
6th International
Trade Fair for
Motion Picture Technology,
Postproduction and
Event Engineering
Munich
September 16 18, 2006
cinec 2006
www.cinec.de
Highly specialized trade fair for all film professionals
and one of the most significant fairs of the film industry:
Cameras, Camera Support & Grip, Film, Lighting,
Optics, Sound, Accessoires, Services, Publishing,
Postproduction and Digital Editing
HIGHLIGHTS
cinecAward
For outstanding innovative developments
cinecForum
Ancillary program with focus on
THE FUTURE OF CINEMATOGRAPHY
Topic 2006: Professional Digital Cinematography
cinec Award
New From Digital Vision

Digital Vision, a leading developer of advanced digital-media applications specializing in film and video solutions, unleashed an array of products
and services centered on its DVNR1000
and Nucoda DVO image-enhancement
workstations.
Prior to the release of the Nucoda
DVO (Digital Vision Optics) Station, Digital Visions image-enhancement algorithms had only been available in hardware and utilized standard video I/O
formats. The Nucoda DVO Station,
though, includes software versions of
the popular AGR4 ME grain management and electronic noise reducer and
ASC3 ME film dirt and random scratch
concealment tools, and these tools work
at any resolution from SD video to 4K
data. Furthermore, both tools utilize Digital Visions latest PHAME motion estimation algorithms, allowing colorists
and restoration artists to automatically
eliminate film dirt, random scratches,
video dropouts and electronic noise, as
well as control the look of film grain,
without generating unwanted artifacts.
The DVO Image Enhancement software
is also available as an add-on option for
users of the Nucoda Film Cutter and
Nucoda Film Master systems.
Another available upgrade for
Nucoda users is the new 8-core, 4processor workstation that provides a
10-fold increase in speed for datacentric color correction. The 8-core platform, incorporating the latest 64-bit
AMD Dual Core Opteron processors and
nVIDIA graphics processing units,
supports real-time 4K color correction,
as well as work in 2K, HD and SD resolutions. In fact, the platform supports all
standard data-centric I/O and 4:2:2 or
4:4:4 SD and HD video I/O. Additionally,
the Nucoda system allows the platform
to process files stored on a SAN, meaning that project data does not have to be
moved into a local environment.
Nucoda version 3.0 has also
become available for Film Master (Digital Visions comprehensive primary and
secondary color-grading system) and
Film Cutter (a resolution independent,
data-centric editing, conforming, effect
Organizer: ALBRECHT GmbH

Tel.: +498927294820, FAX: +498927294822, info@cinec.de

133
and previsualization system that runs on

standard PC hardware). 3.0 incorporates
key aspects of Digital Visions technology in Nucoda products, with available
support for DVO, Valhall (the control
surface designed specifically for
colorists), and comprehensive video I/O
tools for video ingest and playback. In
addition to improvements to the user
interface, 3.0 also features enhanced
editorial capability not usually found in
data and DI environments.
For operators looking to use and
upgrade their telecine for 2K workflow,
Digital Vision has announced the 2K
option for its DVNR1000 image
enhancement workstation, providing
what the company calls the fastest
motion compensated grain management and scratch concealment tools
available today. Also available thanks
to a joint effort from Cintel and Digital
Vision is the new dataMill, a calibrated
2K and 4K data transfer engine that
operates at speeds of up to 15 fps and
offers high-speed data scanning at the
touch of a button. DataMill can also be

configured to provide real-time SD or
HD 10-bit log outputs that are ideal for
high-speed DI processing.
For more information visit
www.digitalvision.se.
Geevs MR Broadcast Video
Server
Gee Broadcast Systems Ltd. is
shipping its Geevs MR family of flexible
servers for postproduction, production,
and transmission. The Geevs MR
servers tightly integrate with Lightworks Alacrity and Touch nonlinear

134
editors, providing smart metadata

exchange and other integrated features.
Designed for the broadcast industry,
Geevs acts as a platform for a variety of
software clients that fulfill specific
customer requirements. The standard
Geevs client, provided with each Geevs
MR, is able to provide control over
capture, media management, editing
and playout. These functions are all built
into a single user interface that can be
run locally on the server or remotely over
a network.
Servers in the Geevs family
include Geevs SD, Geevs MR, and Geevs
MR+. Geevs MR is a High Definition,

multi-channel ingest and playout server
designed to handle whatever content
the user can work with. Geevs MR+ can
handle all of the media formats of the
MR as well as MPEG2 encoded HD
material, in addition to supporting Iframe and IBP encoding.
Geevs servers and Lightworks
Alacrity and Touch combine to create a
fast flowing, complete video network.
Shots can be ingested from camera or
VTR and reviewed and edited on Lightworks within seconds when used within
the Sharknet editing environment.
Geevs servers further boast open
architecture designed to allow the easy
addition of new features as hardware
technology continues to evolve at its
rapid pace.
Gee Broadcast Systems Ltd., +44
(0)1256 810123, www.geevs.co.uk.
New from Pandora
Image-processing specialist
Pandora International has a range of
product innovations, including the PiXi

Revolution (a suite of products consisting
of a combination of software modules
running on ultra-fast proprietary accelerators), the PCI Express Interface (a multichannel optical transceiver card), the
Resize Engine and the DVI-D interface.
Pandoras Resize Engine allows
full resolution 2K or 4K and in the
future 8K images to be processed
and viewed in real time on an HDTV
monitor. The Resize Engine also features
high quality pan-scan and zoom controls.
The new Dual Channel DVI-D
interface allows PiXi Revolution users to
directly drive a 2K projector, enabling
images to be viewed as they would
appear in the cinema. Additionally, DVI
and HDTV outputs on the interface can
operate in different color space, both
RGB and YUV modes.
Both the Resize Engine and the
DVI-D interface work with the Kodak
Display Manager System, accurately
displaying a simulation of projected print
film as well as calibrating, characterizing
and leveraging 3-D LUT technology to

enable everyone in the postproduction
workflow to have a consistent visual
reference. The system also includes a
gamut-alert function to display colors
that are outside the display device
gamut but reproducible on film.
http://pogle.pandora-int.com.
I
To be considered for a product review
in New Products & Services, contact Associate Editor Douglas Bankston to make
arrangements at (323) 969-4333; E-mail:
doug@ascmag.com; product shipping
address: 1313 N. Vine St., Hollywood, CA
90028; postal service mailing address: 1782
N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028.
For press release submissions, please
include any images and full contact information with submission. Images may be sent as
color slides, color or black-and-white prints,
or digital files (Mac Photoshop TIFF or highquality JPEG format, 300 dpi) on CD. E-mailed
image attachments must be a minimum of
300 dpi in the aforementioned formats.
Mailed materials will not be returned without
a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
Way Cool Litepanels 1 x 1

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Points East
Shooting Lonesome Jim in Rural Indiana
by John Calhoun
relatively rural slice of central Indiana definitely rates as the filmmaking hinterlands, with the closest real
support in terms of equipment and crew
to be found in Chicago. But that doesnt
matter too much if you dont need a lot in
the way of equipment or crew. This was
true for Lonesome Jim, a $500,000
production produced by the New York
company InDigEnt, whose shoestringbudget credits include Personal Velocity.
Shot by Phil Parmet, Lonesome Jim was

a small production even by indie standards.
Directed by Steve Buscemi, Lonesome Jim was originally prepped as a
35mm feature for another company; at
the time, Buscemi was collaborating
with cinematographer Lisa Rinzler, who
had shot his directorial debut, Trees
Lounge. When the financier backed out,
InDigEnt stepped in and offered to do
the film with a considerably reduced
budget, in a considerably reduced timeframe, and provided we shot on
MiniDV, recalls Parmet. By that time,
Rinzler was expecting a baby, and
Buscemi asked Parmet, his collaborator
on Animal Factory, to take over. Lisa
and Steve had scouted locations, and
the film was cast and ready to go, says
Parmet. I had two weeks of prep, but
everything was pretty locked in.
That included the Panasonic 24p
DVX100A camera, which at the time
was state of the art among prosumer
models, and which had been used on a
number of InDigEnt projects. I had shot

136 April 2006
a feature, 13 Moons, on the Sony PD150, says Parmet, but the DVX100 was
so far superior that there was no real
question about what camera to use.
Using such a small camera made shooting in tight practical locations much
easier than it would have been otherwise. The films follows a depressed
writer (Casey Affleck) who returns to his
hometown to find his family (played by
Mary Kay Place, Seymour Cassel and
Kevin Corrigan) in even worse shape
than he is. A local nurse (Liv Tyler) helps
lighten the emotional load.
Inspired by the works of
Midwestern artists Thomas Hart Benton
and Grant Wood, and by the simple
elegance of Walker Evans stills and
John Hustons film Fat City (shot by
Conrad L. Hall, ASC), the filmmakers
proceeded with a kind of care that belied
their meager budget and 19-day shooting
schedule. We were trying to create a
sense of classical composition and
heightened dramatic feeling, says
Parmet, who is also a still photographer
of some note. But I think to a very great
Photos courtesy of IFC Films and Phil Parmet.
Right: In
Lonesome Jim,
a melancholy
writer (Casey
Affleck) returns
to his Indiana
hometown for
some solace
but doesnt find
much of it.
Below: Director
of photography
Phil Parmet.
extent, films are influenced by where

you shoot. And again, we were limited
by what we had to deal with.
The tiny crew was led by
Chicago gaffer Bill Frye, Los Angeles key
grip Vince Palomino and Los Angeles 1st
AC/B-camera operator Rory Muirhead,
but was filled out by local people and
apprentices, says Parmet, who operated the A camera. There were no
generators, so I had to choose a lighting package that could be plugged into
the walls, was small and compact, and
could be easily moved around by people
who had very little experience. We had
a lot of Kino Flos, Dedolights and
Peppers the biggest lights we had
were 1.2K HMI Pars. As for other
equipment, Vince drove out to Indiana
in his Caddy, which hed loaded up with
all this grip equipment and rolls of gel.
With his own gear and expendables we
couldnt afford, he saved the day.
MiniDVs limitations soon
became apparent. Shots like the opening image of Affleck running for a bus
were give a long-lens effect by a
Century 2X Tele-converter, because the
DVX100 comes equipped with a noninterchangeable Leitz-approved zoom
lens. In addition, says Parmet, I have
two serious complaints about the
camera: the zoom controls make it
impossible to make a smooth zoom
move, and the focus doesnt have positive stops on it. Postproduction had as
much of a homemade feel as production
did. We did the final color correction on
Final Cut Pro, using After Effects as a
Power Windows supplement, says
Parmet. That version was shown at
Sundance [in 2005], and it looked pretty
good. But Id kept the contrast down in
that color correction because I was
constantly thinking about the fact that
we were going to do a film transfer;
when the material was filmed out, it
would pick up contrast in the process.
When I did the film-out color correction
later on, I actually upped the contrast,
and when I did the [home-video] transfer, I upped the contrast even more and
crushed the blacks a bit.
The transfer to 35mm was done
at EFilm in Hollywood. MiniDV can be

pretty noisy in the shadows, and its not
terribly sharp, notes Parmet. You want
to shoot wide open because the
medium has infinite depth of field, and
you want to decrease that a little bit. As
soon as you start opening all the way
up, those lenses, which are not really
professional quality, start deteriorating,
particularly in wide angle. So we did a
little bit of digital sharpening at the filmout stage.
Although he was occasionally
dissatisfied with the DVX100A, the
cinematographer says its images have
a quality he appreciates. To me, it
doesnt look like film and it doesnt look
like video; its sort of a hybrid. Im glad it
doesnt look like film, because its not

film. It has some artifacts, but I kind of
like them; it has its own sort of charm, I
guess. The bottom line is that you can
be artistic in any medium. If you expect
it to be film, youll never be satisfied,
and the same is true if you expect it to
be top-end video. It is what it is.
I think there will always be
worthy ideas and talented filmmakers
who cant or wont fit into the commercial economic model of the day, he
concludes. Whats great is that these
cameras and other new DV tools give
those people the opportunity to find
their audiences.
I
The productions
Panasonic
DVX100A appears
dwarfed by the
rig Parmet and
his enterprising
crew devised to
film Jim and a
sociable nurse
(Liv Tyler) on the
road.

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138
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For more information please visit
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matter is limited to items and services pertaining to filmmaking
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abbreviation. Minimum amount per ad: $45
EQUIPMENT FOR SALE
EQUIPMENT FOR SALE
Mint used 16mm and 35mm cameras, lenses, accessories, support at great
prices www.gallusproductions.com or call Marcus (310) 717-4477.
The Visual Products ads you see here are just a sample of the thousands of
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139
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EQUIPMENT FOR SALE

PRO VIDEO & FILM EQUIPMENT COMPANY. USED EQUIPMENT.
(888) 869-9998.
Large Dolly and Crane Selection: Egripment, Elemack, Jibs and more.
Including remote camera cranes 25+ height with remote head. For
details call Visual Products, Inc. (440) 647-4999.
Moviecam SL camera package with 3 lightweight 400 magazines,
video assist, spare board, and much more. Call Visual Products, Inc. for
great price. (440) 647-4999.
NEED USED EQUIPMENT? PRO VIDEO & FILM EQUIPMENT
COMPANY. (888) 869-9998. www.ProVideoFilm.com.
Cooke 18-100mm T3 PL Mount fully serviced w/case $11,800.00. Call
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WORLDS SUPERMARKET OF USED MOTION PICTURE EQUIPMENT VISUAL PRODUCTS, INC. CALL (440) 647-4999.
Moviecam camera packages available in stock now. Call Visual Products, Inc. (440) 647-4999.
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8,000 USED ITEMS. PRO VIDEO & FILM EQUIPMENT COMPANY.
(888) 869-9998.
Moviecam magazines for sale. Call Visual Products Inc. (440) 647-4999.
New and Used Steadicam equipment www.whitehousesteadisales.com or call 805-498-1658.
Arriflex 35 BL1, BL2 and BL4S, and Evolution camera packages for sale.
Call Visual Products, Inc. (440) 647-4999.
300mm T2 Nikkor for sale. Contact Robert Primes, ASC, (323) 8518444, primesasc@earthlink.net .
Lighting Lighting and More Lighting HMI and Tungsten best prices
anywhere far too many to list. Call with your requirements. Visual Products, Inc. (440) 647-4999.
BUY-SELL-CONSIGN-TRADE. 40 YEARS EXPERIENCE. CALL BILL
REITER. PRO VIDEO & FILM EQUIPMENT COMPANY. (972) 8699990.
Arri 35-3 3rd generation camera for sale, with an orientable viewfinder
door, WA eyepiece, also a fixed viewfinder door with Sony B&W CCD
camera (NTSC), CEI speed base, 3x 400 magazines, 2x triple 12 volt
batteries, 3x 12 volt battery chargers, 7x various ground-glasses, 2x
power cables, Rt side handgrip, US$ 20,000 Or Best Offer. Also, a
complete set of Zeiss T2.1 PL primes, from 14mm to 135mm, some as
a set of 6 for US$ 13,900 OBO, and the rest singly varying from the
14mm at US$ 5,900 OBO to the 40mm at US$ 2,750 OBO. Also a NEW,
never been used, Nikkor 300mm T2.0 that has been converted to
neutral with a PL adapter by Century, as well as 400mm, 600mm, and
800mm Canon lenses, all converted to PL by Century. All of this equipment was my personal camera equipment and was never in rental
house use. All are in excellent condition. See my web page for the
complete listing and prices. The buyer pays shipping and insurance
FOB Los Angeles, CA.
http://www.wfb4.com/35mm_Motion_Picture_Camera_Equip_for_Sa
le.html
or e-mail me at wfb4@earthlink.net and I will send you the listing. Bill
Bennett, ASC
USED EQUIPMENT. PRO VIDEO & FILM EQUIPMENT COMPANY.
(888) 869-9998, providfilm@aol.com. www.ProVideoFilm.com.
STEADICAM used & new equipment. Arms, Vests, Sleds. Visit our
website at www.steadyrig.com to view our range of products.
Camera/Projector Manuals Hard-to-find, out-of-print www.hollywoodmanuals.com.
PRO
VIDEO
&
providfilm@aol.com.
140
FILM
EQUIPMENT
COMPANY.
Advertisers Index
Abel Cine Tech 43
AC 16a-b,
Alan Gordon Enterprises 139
Amphibico 131
Arri 68-69
ASC Press 15, 130, 143
Backstage Equipment, Inc. 127
Band Pro Film & Digital 5
Barger-Baglite 6
Bolex 143
Broadcast Video Rentals 45
Bron Kobold 18
Brooks Institute
of Photography 127
Burrell Enterprises 138
Cavision Enterprises 24
Chapman/Leonard Studio
Equipment Inc. 129
Chimera 108
Christys Editorial Supply 139
Cinebags 138
Cinec 133
Cine Gear 141
Cinekinetic 10
Cinema India 103
Cinema Vision 138
Cinematography
Electronics 105
Cinemills 132
Cine Power International 8
Clairmont Film & Digital
12-13, 29
Cooke 77, 123, 130
Coptervision 89
Dalsa 25
Denecke 139
Du-All Camera 138
Eastman Kodak C2-1, 9, C4
EFD, USA Inc. 123
Film Emporium, Inc. 138

Filmtools 105
Finnlight 139
Fletcher Chicago 88
Flying-Cam 6
Elsevier Science 124
Fuji Motion Pictures 21
Fujinon 41
Full Sail 75
Gamma & Density 112
Gillard Industries, Inc. 139
Glidecam Industries 87
Go Easy Lighting 80
Hand Held Films 138
Hybrid Cases 138
Hydroflex 128
Imagica 113
Innovision 18
International Film & TV
Workshop 105
Isaia 125
JBK Cinequipt 138
JEM Studio Lighting. Inc. 126
J.L. Fisher 61
K 5600, Inc. 57
Kenwell 4
Kino Flo 67
K-Tek 138
Laffoux Solutions, Inc. 138
Lightning Strikes 47
Lights! Action! Company 138
Lite Panels 135
Los Angeles Film School 93
MAT Spec. Remote
Camera Sys 49
Microdolly Hollywood 139
Mole-Richardson 35
Motion Picture Services 131
MP&E 138
SITUATIONS AVAILABLE
VISUAL PRODUCTS-LARGEST SELECTION OF USED MOTION

PICTURE EQUIPMENT, AATON TO ZEISS. WARRANTY ON ALL
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Wanted: Experienced motion picture camera technician. Experience with

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4998.
Nalpak 126
NBC/Universal 63
Nevada Film Commission 101
New York Cine Equipment 111
New York Film Academy 97
Osram Gmbh 27
Otto Nemenz 95
P+S Technik 23
Panasonic Broadcast INSERT
Panavision International
56-57
Panther 119
PED Denz 51
Photo-Sonics, Rental 24
Pille Filmgeraeteverleigh 138
Powermills 129
Professional Sound 128
Pro8mm 6
Sachtler 59
San Antonio Film Commission
119
Satellight X 50
Schneider Optics/Century 2
Schumacher 79
Service Vision 34
Sim Video C3
SMS Productions, Inc. 139
Sony Electronics INSERT
Spectra Film & Video 139
Stanton Video Services 132
Ste-Man, Inc. 66
Sydney Film School 125
T8 Technology Company 81
TCS, Inc. 65
Technicolor Creative Services 7
Techniquip/Sunray 11
Technocrane S.R.O. 85
The Camera House 31
Thomson Broadcast 19
Transvideo 99
Ultra Camera Mounts 138
Vancouver Film School 73
VF Gadgets, Inc. 139
Videocraft Equipment 139
Visual Products, Inc. 124
Vocas Systems 109
Welch Integrated 134
Willys Widgets 138
Zacuto Films 15
ZGC, Inc. 23, 77, 123, 130
WHERE HOLLYWOODS
PROFESSIONALS MEET.
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For more information and updates visit us at:
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November 2006
In Memoriam
Leonard South, ASC
by Robert S. Birchard
Leonard South, ASC, a
former Society president and
longtime member of the ASC
Board of Governors, died on
January 6 in Northridge, California.
Although he was a wellrespected director of photography, South was perhaps best
known for his work as an assistant cameraman and camera
operator on a long list of films
for Alfred Hitchcock, beginning
with Strangers on a Train
(1951). South worked on 14
pictures with Hitchcock, including Rear Window (1954),
Vertigo (1958) and North by
Northwest (1959). Hitch
spoiled me for other directors,
he once said. I look for part of
him in other people, and its not there.
Hitch was always trying to push the limits
on techniques and to be different.
South was born on Long Island,
New York, in 1913, and he became interested in movies and cinematography
while watching film crews work around
the Famous Players-Lasky/Paramount
studio in Astoria, Queens. He came to
Hollywood around 1933 with a goal of
landing a job in the movies, and through
a friend he managed to find work in the
camera department at Warner Bros.
South served in the U.S. Navy
during World War II, working at Fort
Roach, the Hal Roach Studio in Culver
City that was given over to the military for
the production of training films. After the
war, he returned to Warner Bros. where
he began working for Robert Burks, ASC
as an assistant cameraman. Burks
became Hitchcocks cinematographer of
choice on most of his classic thrillers in
the 1950s and 60s.
Souths devotion to Burks was

absolute. My father had opportunities
to become a director of photography
much earlier than he did, but he was
loyal to Robert Burks, says Souths son,
Leonard II. It was only after Burks death
in 1967 that South struck out on his own
as a cinematographer; his first credit
was I Sailed to Tahiti With an All Girl
Crew (1968) not exactly a classic, but
it offered him an opportunity to indulge
in his dual passions for filmmaking and
sailing.
Although his rsum as a director
of photography would come to include
such features as Hang Em High (1968, a
shared credit with Richard Kline, ASC);
Hitchcocks Family Plot (1976); and
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977),
much of Souths career as a first cameraman was spent working in television.
Dad was a man of strong opinions,
says his son. He loved sailing but
despised power boats, and he was an
142 April 2006
old-time film man who held

the prejudice against television shared by so many
feature people in those
days. But he came to like
working in TV, as long as it
was shot on film. He
absolutely hated video.
Part of the appeal of working in TV was that South
could stay close to home.
When his son showed an
interest in becoming a
cameraman, he did everything he could to discourage
the young mans interest. I
was young and newly
married, and Dad blamed the
failure of his first marriage on
his work, says Leonard II.
He advised me to pursue
a career in film editing
because I could stay in town
and get home at a reasonable hour, at least most of the time.
South was the cinematographer
on such memorable series as That Girl,
Night Gallery, The Rockford Files, The
Associates, 9 to 5, Designing Women
and Coach. He retired in 1989 at age 76.
He did a lot of three-camera shows,
says his son, and a good part of the
appeal as he got older was he could
work maybe three or four days a week
and have some time to rest up between
episodes.
South was president of the
ASC from 1989-1990. It surprised me
a little that he would become president
of the Society, because he was never
a guy who needed to be in charge,
his son says. But my dad loved
everything about the ASC. I dont think
he ever missed a meeting when he
wasnt working.
I
Clubhouse
News
on such series as The White
Shadow, China Beach and
Moonlighting, as well as
features such as Scarface
and Where the Buffalo
Roam. During that time, he
was also cutting his teeth as
a 2nd-unit director of photography.
In 1991, Palmieri shot his
first series as a cinematographer, Dark Justice. Since
then he has notched credits
on VR5, Orleans, Murder
One, Total Security, Providence, Presidio Med and ER.
He is now photographing and
occasionally directing the
Emmy-winning series Monk.
New Member
After more than 30 years in the
business, Anthony R. Palmieri, ASC
has been welcomed into the Societys
cadre of active members.
Born in the Bronx in 1953, Palmieri
went to work as a lighting technician for
the 13th Street Theatre and Peter
Runfolo when he was still a teenager. At
the age of 16, he worked on his first
feature, loading for cinematographer
Victor J. Kemper, ASC on The Magic
Garden of Stanley Sweetheart. More
work as a loader and 2nd AC followed,
returning Palmieri to Kempers camera
crew and also placing him under the tutelage of Gordon Willis, ASC on Little
Murders and The Godfather.
In 1972, Palmieri went on location
in Colorado to serve as 1st AC for Tak
Fujimoto, ASC on Badlands, and from
there he made a permanent move to Los
Angeles, where he worked as a 1st AC
for the next eight years. In 1980, he
jumped to camera operator and worked
New Associate Member

John W. Johnston, sales and
marketing manager for Kodak Entertainment Imaging-U.S. East and Mid America Region, is the Societys newest
associate member. He credits his
passion for the movies to his 32-year
career with the Kodak Motion Picture
Business Unit, which introduced him to
Hollywood and the magic of cinematography. During his tenure at Kodak, he has
held positions in sales, marketing and
management, working in Rochester,
Dallas, Atlanta, Los Angeles and New
York.
Johnstons industry affiliations
include the Association of Independent
Commercial Producers, the New York
Production Alliance, the Advertising Club
of New York and the Rochester High
Falls Film Festival.
I

143
ASC CLOSE-UP
Sol Negrin, ASC
When you were a child, which film made the strongest impression
on you?
Many films of the late 30s and 40s impressed me. Its hard to pick just one,
but some notable black-and-white pictures that come to mind are Citizen
Kane, Casablanca, The Long Voyage Home, The Picture of Dorian Gray and
The Magnificent Ambersons. The incredible look of Technicolor was
evident in Gone With the Wind, which was outstanding in a time of blackand-white.
Which cinematographers, past or present, do you most admire?
As my career was starting, I particularly admired ASC members Gregg
Toland, Harry Stradling Sr., Lee Garmes, Ernie Haller, Stanley Cortez and Hal
Rosson, and BSC members Freddie Young, Jack Cardiff, Geoffrey Unsworth
and Guy Green. Some present-day cinematographers I appreciate are [ASC
members] Allen Daviau, Haskell Wexler, John Seale, John Toll, Jack Green,
Gordon Willis, Owen Roizman and the late Connie Hall.
What sparked your interest in photography?
At first, photography was just a hobby. I was hoping to be a naval architect
but my math was not up to par, so I was advised to change my major. I
switched to the High School of Industrial Arts in New York City, which then
was the only school in the country that taught both still photography and
filmmaking. I majored in photography and eventually segued into film.
Where did you study and/or train?
During my last year of high school, I took a part-time job that later became
a full-time position with a commercial/industrial film company called
Hartley Productions. I got a ground-floor, hands-on education on everything
related to filmmaking, in 16mm and 35mm. I remained there for 112 years
and then became a freelance assistant cameraman; I worked on
commercials, documentaries, industrials and, eventually, feature films and
television.
Who were your early teachers or mentors?
I was fortunate to work with the marvelous documentary cinematographer
Peter Glushanok, and also with ASC members Torben Johnke, Joseph Brun,
Gerald Hirschfeld, Jack Priestley, Harry Stradling Sr. and Lee Garmes.
These were my mentors and teachers as I came up through the ranks, and
I learned a great deal from each of them.
What are some of your key artistic influences?
I worked with some of the top directors in the business and absorbed their
techniques, and we worked together to achieve the artistic effects they
desired. I enjoyed collaborating closely with directors to achieve a mutual
understanding about lighting and composition in order to make their films
as interesting and exciting as possible.
How did you get your first break in the business?
I was recommended by a cinematographer named Jack Etra, whom I had
assisted, to shoot a pair of television documentaries about two West
African nations emerging from colonial rule. It was an exhilarating experience, and Im very proud of those films.
What has been your most satisfying moment on a project?
On most projects, the satisfaction came from knowing I had done my very
best. While shooting the series Kojak in New York, I worked with many
different directors and often received their praise for a job well done. My
work on that show led to three of my five Emmy nominations.
Have you made any memorable blunders?

I was in London shooting some commercials, and the director wanted a
scene lit in a very low key that suited his eye. I tried to explain that the exposure would not be sufficient, but he insisted I shoot it his way. Sure enough,
the result was unacceptable, and I got the blame. The lesson? In most cases,
you should follow your instincts.
Whats the best professional advice youve ever received?
From Harry Stradling Sr.: Never be afraid to take a chance. It may be the
best thing you ever did.
What recent books, films or artworks have inspired you?
I currently teach cinematography at one of the local colleges on Long Island,
which allows me to screen many of the older pictures that inspired me. Films
like Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil and Paths of Glory remain just as significant
today, and they are excellent learning tools for aspiring filmmakers. There
are many well-photographed contemporary films, but a few that come to
mind are the Godfather trilogy, Road to Perdition, The Girl With the Pearl
Earring and A Very Long Engagement. Each projects to the viewer a definite
feel for the eras of their stories. One of my favorite inspirational artists is
Edward Hopper, whose published works illustrate many of the elements of
lighting, color and composition that influenced my work.
Do you have any favorite genres, or genres you would like to try?
Its hard to say. What I admire is when a cinematographer can replicate a
look of a certain period, as Eduardo Serra, ASC, AFC did in The Girl With the
Pearl Earring.
If you werent a cinematographer, what might you be doing instead?
I probably would have been stuck with my father as a partner in his garment
business, which I detested! My father was great, though, and he became
very proud of my success in the film business. It wasnt my son, the doctor,
it was my son, the cinematographer!
Which ASC cinematographers recommended you for membership?
Gerald Perry Finnerman and Harry Stradling Sr.
How has ASC membership impacted your life and career?
In 1943, I read my first issue of American Cinematographer, which featured
many of the fine cinematographers of the time. I knew right then that I
wanted to be an ASC member, which became one of my career goals. The
day I was accepted was one of the most memorable of my life. The camaraderie of being in the company of such talented individuals is something I
never expected, and Im honored and happy to be a part of such a distinguished society. To top it off, I am proud to note that my son, Michael Negrin,
is also a member.
I
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The Sisterhood of the

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ature. The story of four girls (played by

The best of the DVDs supplements is a collection of eight deleted

Mysterious Skin (2005)

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