ISSUE

2022
OCT
VOL. 14
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE NO. 5
canadian society of cinematographers

with Douglas Koch csc

STAR TREK DRIFTING SNOW

with Glen Keenan csc and Philip Lanyon csc with Tess Girard

1.85:1 24fps iso400-1280 172.8° Athens, Greece 37° 59' 1.7160'' N 23° 43' 39.1404'' E
02 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | SEPTEMBER 2022
 table of contents
ISSUE
2022
OCT
VOL. 14
NO. 5
P6 P16
IN FIGURES IN A
CONVERSATION: LANDSCAPE
STAR TREK

With
Tess Girard
(associate member)
With
with Glen Keenan csc By
and Philip Lanyon csc Fanen Chiahemen

P22
LIGHTING THE
NEW FLESH

With
Douglas Koch csc

By
Roman Sokal, Special to
Canadian
Cinematographer

P32 P38
ECLIPSING EAST MEETS
PERSONAS WEST

With
Gregory Middleton

Cover: Still from Crimes of the Future

csc, asc With
Jeff Wheaton
(associate member)
By
Trevor Hogg, Special By
to Canadian John Lyden
Cinematographer (associate member)

P45 CSC MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: Norm Li csc

P48 ON SET GALLERY

P50 THE CSC WORKSHOPS RETURN

01
 Fostering cinematography in Canada
since 1957. The Canadian Society of
Cinematographers was founded by a
group of Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa
cinematographers. Since then over
800 cinematographers and people in
associated occupations have joined
the organization.
The CSC provides tangible recognition
of the common bonds that link film
and digital professionals, from the
aspiring student and camera assistant
to the news veteran and senior director
of photography. We facilitate the
dissemination and exchange of technical
information and endeavor to advance the
knowledge and status of our members
within the industry. As an organization
dedicated to furthering technical
assistance, we maintain contact with
nonpartisan groups in our industry but
have no political or union affiliation.
The CSC is a not-for-profit organization
run by volunteer board members of the
society. Thank you to our sponsors for
their continued support.

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CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER CSC EXECUTIVE ONLINE CONTENT CHAIRS

OCTOBER 2022 VOL. 14, NO. 5 PRESIDENT Jeremy Benning csc
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03
 THE NEW
PROVES “STELLAR”
ON DAY 1000
Photographer: Juan Lasso
Actress: Katrin Kohut

In May, ARRI celebrated the next chapter in the

ALEXA story. Events were held in Toronto, Vancouver,
and Montréal to introduce the new ALEXA 35, and
to show appreciation to the countless Canadian
cinematographers, colourists, directors, and camera
crews who trusted ARRI since the celluloid days,
and who were present 12 years ago when the ALEXA
classic changed the world. ARRI is thankful for their
continuous and invaluable feedback, which provides
the foundation of the new ALEXA 35 design.

Since the new ALEXA offers enhanced dynamic range

and sensitivity, new colour science, more efficient
workflow, and improved ergonomics and control
features, ARRI asked filmmakers around the globe to
put the camera through its paces by creating short
films that would test the ALEXA 35 in real-world
creative situations. The title of this series of short
films is Encounters.

One such filmmaker who jumped at the opportunity is

David Dvir, owner and head of operations at 2D House, “The new Super 35 sensor is something
a Toronto-based studio and rental house. Dvir got the
green light on the project on a Thursday, began honing
we’ve been waiting for a long time, and
the concept immediately, and accomplished the shoot it’s everything I was hoping it would be.”
in the subsequent weekend.

3.4 O G 2 x a n a m o r p h i c 6 : 5 a s p e c t ARRIRAW 24 f p s ISO 800 180°shutter Cooke SF anamorphic

04 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | SEPTEMBER 2022

“The concept was to create something that required as many different
lighting scenarios as possible ,” says Dvir. “The idea of a trailer seemed fun and
appropriate since it wouldn’t necessarily need to make perfect narrative sense,
and would give us the chance to use the camera in a wide variety of situations.”
The result is Day 1000, a 3-minute visual collage showing a woman waking up
day after day in the same chair, in a series of inexplicable situations that she
doesn’t quite understand. Scenarios range from dark void interiors to super-
saturated, high contrast exteriors, with most scenes shot in 2D House’s LED
volume. The actor’s skin tones progress from pearlescent and clean to dirty
and scarred as the story unfolds. A couple of quick visual effects shots were
also included to replicate long-format narrative.
“The camera is fantastic,” says Dvir. “The new Super 35 sensor is something
we’ve been waiting a long time, and it’s everything I was hoping it would be.
The dynamic range and color are tremendous. It’s difficult to make the camera
fail even when you’re trying. It’s perfectly sized, only a little bigger than the
Mini. There was no learning curve – we were able to pick it up and go right
away, and we could expect the same features and tools. ARRI has really nailed
it.
The lenses were Cooke anamorphics, used in combination with the camera’s
4.6K resolution. “That means we are getting a high quality deliverable, but
the higer pixel density is not so overboard that it would cause moiré or other
artifacts on the volume. At 4.6K, you have a little breathing room to reframe or
add stability and still deliver 4K, which is an important advantage.”
“In the final edit, we saw how far the image can be pushed and brought back,”
says Dvir. “I would love to say that we shot everything perfectly, but as in
real life, we made some mistakes on the day, especially in light of the time
pressure. But you can’t see that at all because the files are so robust. There’s
so much depth and range. We never saw the files degrade at any point, even
in one very dark scene where we could barely see. The only light came from a
few tiny 3-volt energy-saving indicators on the back of the volume, and yet at
6400 ISO, the camera is sensitive enough to make an interesting image. We
weren’t expecting that shot to make it to the final cut, but it turned out so well
that it’s in there.”
Dvir is looking forward to using the camera on a more extensive project.
“I would have loved to have had more time,” he says. “But that’s true on every
project, right? The bottom line is that the camera was stellar – rock solid, very
impressive, with no hiccups. In fact, the camera was the element that we had
to concern ourselves with the least. It was a fun project, and I’m grateful to
ARRI for the opportunity.”

Vancouver Launch Event Toronto Launch Event Montréal Launch Event

The Launch Events

Day 1000 could not be completed in time to be shown at the launch event; it is being released in July, in parallel with the first customer deliveries.

While everyone at ARRI is extremely proud of the new ALEXA35, we are first and foremost thankful to all the CSC members and their peers who are using ARRI
products day in and day out, and to those who could join us at the launch events to celebrate.

Thanks also to The Canadian Society of Cinematographers, 2D House, MELS Studios and Postproduction, Grande Camera, William F. White, SIM, and Cineplex for
supporting us in the launch.

Sincere appreciation from our entire team, represented at these events by Francois Gauthier, Alan Lennox, Mike Dobson, Dave McDonald, Aurette Torres and
Robert Breitenstein. We cherish our friendships with the members of the CSC, and with all the members of our filmmaking communities. And we can’t wait to
see what amazing things you’ll do with the tools we’ve created.
05
 Star Trek
TO THE FUTURE

[Glen Keenan csc: Strange New Worlds] ARRI ALEXA LF - Mini LF 4.5k 2.39 :1 23.976fps iso800-400 180°-90°-45°-270°
 star trek
In Conv ersat ion:
with Glen Keenan csc and Philip Lanyon csc

T
he world of Star Trek has been brought to life on the small screen over the years by many
capable cinematographers, including Glen Keenan csc and Philip Lanyon csc who between
them have had a hand in the franchise’s three most recent streaming series – Discovery,
Picard and Strange New Worlds. Keenan began lensing Discovery from its first season, and when
the show lost a DP and needed a replacement, he proposed Lanyon (they had both worked on
the series Frontier). Lanyon’s success on Discovery landed him a DP role on Picard (June 2020
issue). When Keenan left Discovery to go and shoot its spinoff, Strange New Worlds, Lanyon was a
natural fit to take his place because “we have similar tastes, similar personalities and a production

Cooke Special Flare Full Frame anamorphic primes Mississauga, Ontario 43° 35' 43.1160'' N 79° 38' 26.0844'' W 07
savvy that fits this type of big TV,” according to Keenan. Taking the beloved
series to new heights has involved adopting some of the most cutting-edge
tools from LED-volume in-camera visual effects to anamorphic full frame
lensing. The two DPs recently got together to discuss adapting to the ever-
advancing technologies on sci-fi series, beginning with how they handled
working in Pixomondo’s Toronto-based 70’x30’ virtual volume, which was
introduced on Season Four of Discovery and employed from Season One of
Strange New Worlds (May 2021 issue).

Philip Lanyon csc: The producers got kind of a two for one out of it. They
built one virtual stage that both shows could share. We were kind of sharing
schedules. It was a learning curve for everybody, and I think the perceived
challenges were greater than the actual challenges in that none of us really
knew what we were doing, so there’s a certain amount of apprehension and
fear about it. But once everything gets into place and starts rolling, you
realize, oh, I have a little more control than I usually have, and I have a little
more time to prep the sets, and we have a little more time to discuss the
sets. So it’s actually been for me quite a wonderful experience.

Glen Keenan csc: I’d spent years researching with Pixomondo and other
companies how to get LED screens out of our windows so we could just
do starscapes and warps and things like that, that were becoming endless
discussions about how many times you can see a window during a scene.
So we were prepping Strange New Worlds, and Mandalorian lands and it
was like, oh my God, I didn’t think of this one. (Disney’s The Mandalorian
was shot in a virtual volume co-developed by Industrial Light & Magic and
Epic Games; see February 2020). You could do a whole volume and motion
track and have your effects, and it was like a light bulb went off. And we
all wanted the challenge. We knew it was coming. There’s no way that this
wasn’t going to be a thing, especially for sci-fi shows. It was something
that was going to come, and we would have to deal with it sooner or later,
so let’s deal with it sooner. And I was terrified of it. There was a sense of
what if we blow it and it looks terrible? As the cinematographers, we would
show up with our cameras, and we would have to shoot what was being
delivered by a visual effects company, in this case Pixomondo. So if their
asset wasn’t good that would be a problem because you can’t make it good
just with your camera. Whatever’s on that wall you have to photograph.
We learned a lot in the first season. We had a lot of meetings with a lot
of people. And the asset build was a three-month process. So when you
built this asset you were assuming the script was going to work because
we didn’t have scripts, we had locations, so we were basically building a
location and saying, okay, we know we’re going to be on a Vulcan planet
and it’s going to be a restaurant. We don’t know what’s going to happen in
the scene, but let’s build the environment. And thankfully our writers would
write to what the environment was. So you are deciding what you want this
thing to look like three months out, and then you have to live with it when
it shows up. There are so many more meetings with the virtual world. You
have an extra six, seven hours a week of meetings.

Lanyon: To add to the challenge, we made it a goal for everything to work

in camera, on the VP stage; we didn’t want to spend all this money just to
have to replace it in visual effects. With the exception of set extensions and
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Velo Beta set.
VFX on the practical set, almost all of what you see on screen is in camera. Micheal Gibson

[Philip Lanyon csc: Discovery] ARRI ALEXA Mini LF 3.2K - Sony VENICE 6k 2.39:1 23.98 fps iso800-1600 180°- 90°
Cook anamorphic Special Flare S35 and Full Frame - Panavision anamorphic G, E ,Ts - VA Toronto 43°38'55.04" N -79°20'33.39" W
 Keenan: I wanted to challenge myself to light primarily with the wall. So I
use the wall as a light source. I didn’t give myself any sort of backup. We
forced everybody to learn how to use it. So we created simple things at the
beginning. And by the time we got to Season Two, we now have incredible
tools that are custom built, coded and built for us by our DMX programmers
and the Pixomondo guys. So in Season One, I could put a card up and dim
it and it would change colours, now I can pick colour temperatures, I can
move that card during the shots, there are all sorts of things that we’re able
to do, animation of lights, put actual video into the light source, pick a video
source that was on the wall and put it into my light source. All very exciting,
10 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022
fun things. This is a tool that we’re all still learning. What terrified me the
most was not being able to suspend disbelief in the audience. And I think
as the technology goes farther forward, it’s going to get better in terms of
its believability.
Lanyon: We took kind of a different approach, and I think that came more
from the way we shoot Discovery. We’ll do a lot of wider masters then come
into a close-up and then move around from there. So our approach right
in the beginning was to add a lot more film lighting in there. And we had
developed these kind of soft boxes that we could accordion into the space,
and they were quite quick to deploy and change so we could do turnarounds
fast. They had their advantages; they soften things up a little bit. Since then,
we’ve dialled that back and I think we learned a lot through sharing the wall
with the other show. Now I think our show understands a little more that you
need to put more practical lighting in there and a little less film lighting so
that the characters are interacting with their environment more.
LEDs and Lenses
Keenan: Star Trek was the first heavy board op LED studio show that I’ve
done and there’s a learning curve with that. In Strange New Worlds we have
over 3 million LEDs, and we have control over every single one of them. So
it’s a lot to wrap your head around, and every time I bring a DP in they get
a little bit overwhelmed, like, oh my God, there’s so much stuff. How do you
even talk? What’s the language you use? You have to build your language,
know your dimmer personnel and have good technical people with you. But
lighting with LEDs and having the ship be a character is a different way of
lighting. When it’s in a bad mood, it has a certain look, when it’s in a good
mood, it has a certain look. If it’s broken, it has a certain look. I always tried
to lean into that to give the show some variety, and the LEDs allow you to do
that. When we built Strange New Worlds, I told the team I need five, maybe
six, looks out of this one set, so we need to have a variety of lights. And
we might not need them all, but when I need that one light it’s there, and it
becomes part of the storytelling.
Lanyon: Season One on any sci-fi show I think is just a big surprise to
everybody just how much needs to go into these sets. There’s a lot that
needs to be developed over time and crews need to be trained and everybody
needs to be rowing the boat in the same direction, and that takes some
time. With the LED technology, every year you get a few more tools that do
what you expect them to do. In the past years, you got told the LEDs are
going to do this and they’re going to be wonderful, and then you get them on
set and they’re hard to use and they don’t connect to the board. Now they’re
starting to get to a point where they’re very useful, they’re battery-powered,
they’re easily brought in and fast so that’s been great.
11
 Keenan: And then there’s the anamorphic lensing, large format, and
basically having everything on a head. The reason is really from Discovery,
because we would spin the camera so much. We needed that third axis
available. So we had a lot of Technocrane work. And then we would take
the head we had on the Technocrane and put it on a dolly and run with that,
and then we would take that head and put it on what we call a rickshaw.
And I think it lends itself to the look of both shows. I think those three
storytelling techniques work really well – the robotic heads, the Steadicam
and the handheld. And I don’t know if that’s different than other shows, but
we have the resources to carry those tools.
12 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022
Lanyon: This year, we went to Panavision expanded G Series – which take
a lot of inspiration from the older C series – just to introduce even more
character, and I think it’s a testament to how Alex [Kurtzman] and Tunde
[Osunsanmi], our producers and leaders, understand that you’re not trying
to strive for technical perfection, you’re trying to sway the emotions of an
audience. And so these bigger decisions, shooting on the AR wall, putting
us into worlds and sets that you would never build or never find on location,
they do push hard for these things, and they give us a lot of freedom to use
the tools and give us the tools to do interesting and big things.
 Behind the scenes photos Micheal Gibson and Philip Lanyon csc

Top: Luke Pamplin, crane op, lines up a shot on the Technocrane. DP Philip Lanyon csc and rigging grip Dan Carriero discuss lighting heights at the Whites/
Pixomondo virtual production stage.
Middle: Looking into “Books” ship. The “brain bar” control centre for the virtual production stage.
Bottom: A frame grab from and on shooting Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Creating the world of the species “10C” in the Season 4 finale of Discovery.

13
 Future Generations

Keenan: I think the biggest thing coming and the thing that I’m most looking
forward to and wish I had this year is Unreal [Engine] 5. The game engine
has made a gigantic leap in terms of the way it logically does its lighting.
Unreal 4 was old-school – here’s a light, here’s a reaction to it. Now they
have some very heavy-duty computations going on where they can scatter
light and it bounces, and one light can do a ton of things. So when Unreal 5
lands, it’s a massive upgrade in terms of what lighting capabilities we can
do. I think the way that its logic is now for its lighting will be much more
cinematic or filmic. They’ve incorporated a lot more of what we do into their
logic systems, and it makes the system more resource friendly. We can
do more interactive lighting with fewer resources being taken away so the
wall will run better, and we can have more interaction with it. I’m looking
forward to that. That to me is going to be an exciting step. That’s probably
something to put into your toolbox. Learn the fundamentals of Unreal so
when you’re talking to the artists, you’re getting what you need from them.
As a new DP, play with that, play some video games, just drive around in a
video game and see, if I look that way, does it work? You need to really be
aware of the 360 world of lighting as you do on location.

Lanyon: I feel like we’re in version 2.0. Mandalorian was 1.0. We’re 2.0; we’re
starting to get into 3.0. I think the time we’ll need to build sets is going to
shrink. It’s not going to be three months, it’ll be a month and a half, and
then it’ll be a month. And everybody’s starting to learn. There are crews
being trained all over the world. There are languages being developed, there
are textbooks being developed, the panels are getting better. Before they
were just RGB. Now there’s RGBW so your colour accuracy is going to be
much more refined. We’re learning how to build the studio itself in the right
way where you can get more physical lighting in fast, so I really see this
becoming a major part of medium-to-large-scale television and movies in
the next five years. I think it’s going to keep growing.

Keenan: Without a doubt. It’s not going anywhere; it will only get bigger.
Me and Phil were the first people in Canada to do it. And Franco Tata, one
of our colleagues. We leaned on each other a lot. We talked a lot, we had
numerous Zoom calls together, we theorized. Because we didn’t have a
practical way to test anything. We had a little setup at Whites [William F.
White] where we tested some lenses and concepts. For a young DP to get
on a show with a VR wall, it’s a lot to learn right at the beginning, especially
if the people running the wall are new as well.

Lanyon: I think there’s a lot of new information coming online, a lot of

resources. I read Facebook threads of people kind of developing their
own systems. So I think there’s enough out there you can start to track
and follow how it’s going, and when and if you get a show, I’d like to think
we’re at a point now where you should be able to walk on a set and be kind
of ready to have a look around as if it was a real set. It might take your
whole production time to get there. But you want to get to the point where
you’re shooting it like a location with a bunch more control. And I think in
the coming years that will happen. But to a young DP, as long as you’re
following what’s happening in this world and understand the core concepts,
you can get there.

14 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022

15
Sony PXW-FS7 Mk1 Cine EI - S-Log3 4096 x 2160 1.85:1 23.98fps iso2000 180° Illumina Mk II
 g
Fi res
drifting snow
u
In a Landscape
By Fanen Chiah emen

I
n Ryan Noth’s feature directorial debut Drifting Snow,
a car accident one winter night leads two strangers –
Joanne (Sonja Smits) and Chris (Jonas Bonnetta) – to
embark on a road trip together. Joanne is grieving her
husband John (Colin Mochrie), while Chris, having recently
lost his mother, is dealing with the prospect of his failing
eyesight derailing his budding career as a filmmaker.

The independent film captures the beauty and harshness of

Ontario’s Prince Edward County where the story is set, and
where both Noth and his DP, associate member Tess Girard,
have based their production company for the past five
years. Girard’s cinematography on Drifting Snow caught
the attention of critics during the film’s festival circuit and
garnered Girard a Canadian Screen Award nomination this
year for Best Cinematography in a Feature Film.

Prince Edward County, Ontario 44°00'0.43" N -77°14'58.06" W Wakefield, Québec 45° 37' 53.5512'' N 75° 55' 26.3568'' W 17
Making a Prince Edward County-based film set in the winter was a long-
held desire, according to Girard. “We always wanted to make a project that
showcased the landscape here. Because so often you see it as a place of
tourism in the summer, with all the beaches and wineries, but you never
see its stunning, cold winter beauty. There’s much about the way Ryan and
I approach films that are about looking at things that we normally look at
one way in a completely different light and perspective. Some of that is just
“
I don’t strictly follow the characters
seasonal, or the way you frame a shot, or the things that you look at that themselves. I try to focus on how
are just offside of what the main attraction is: seeing the beauty between
what we normally pay attention to.”
they interact with every element that
surrounds them because that informs
Girard describes her typical projects as “more pensive, visual documenta-
ries,” so shooting Drifting Snow, her first narrative feature, “was a big learn-
your characters and story as well. I’m
ing curve,” she says. “And to be honoured in all these articles and the CSA interested in not just where they are,
nomination on my first feature narrative is just really incredible. But per-
haps it comes from my perspective. I’m a director-cinematographer and I
but what they’re looking at and how
gravitate to documentaries that have the visual at the forefront and really they interact with the elements they
embrace a character and story within their visual setting. And so that was
something that we used even in the writing and the creation of this film
are immersed within.
and how we explored it. The landscape was always meant to act as its own
element within the story. Sometimes I would even go off on my own and get
- Tess Girard
landscape shots that had something to do with the characters’ experienc-
es. So for example, when Joanne is skiing, something happens while she’s
skiing, and she looks out to the landscape and has a revelatory moment
with these beautiful, billowing tornadoes of snow that were shot at a later
time when I just went out on my own and responded to the landscape.”

Incorporating characters into their environments is an artistic habit of

Girard’s. “I don’t strictly follow the characters themselves. I try to focus
on how they interact with every element that surrounds them because that
informs your characters and story as well,” she explains. “I’m interested
in not just where they are, but what they’re looking at and how they
interact with the elements they are immersed within. What kind of dialogue
is happening outside of words and action with light, shadow, wind, or
metaphor? Because really, at the end of the day, we are in a conversation
with our surroundings, and we are figures in a landscape. If we can take
that into account in the way that we frame our images, then you’re telling
more of a story that’s not just about the characters but instead a greater
idea about the world in which we live.”
As Joanne and Chris drive along the highways, Prince Edward County
becomes less of a backdrop and more of a third character. “You really have
to think of your surroundings as a character, and how does that character
come to life? And then it’s not just about your set design, it’s not just about
your writing, it’s not just about your actor’s performance. It’s how they all
amalgamate together,” Girard explains. “If you can look at that within a new
frame and try and piece these things together, it becomes a whole feast of
a meal as opposed to the individual ingredients.”
With temperatures always well below freezing during the winter 2018
shoot, the weather became yet another character in the film. “In this case,
we had a very moody character, sometimes unrelentless,” Girard recalls
with humour. “At times, it was minus 27C not including the wind chill, and
we were on such a tight budget that we couldn’t necessarily postpone our
shoot, so we just had to keep going. There are some shots where you can
probably even see how physically painful it is for the crew, like where the
character Chris is pushing a car out of a ditch, and there’s snow whipping
by the camera. I also love it, though. I love physically demanding projects.
There’s something about giving yourself over to a project that really makes
you feel alive and a part of it. It was definitely challenging even in a physical
context of trying to pull my own focus when the lens is frozen, or trying to
simply take my hand off the lens and my hand is stuck to it. You’re working
against nature, but nature is also working against technology and you’re
constantly fighting these elements. But you can really see it in the images,
and it was worth it.”
Drifting Snow was shot on a Sony FS7 owned by Girard and Noth. “We had
$75,000 and we were working with ACTRA actors. You can imagine how
much of that trickled down to the camera department,” Girard says. “We
really were just scrambling but in a good way so that we had to embrace
the limitations and did what we could with it. And that’s the spirit of
documentary that we wanted to incorporate into indie filmmaking.”
Although Grandé Camera provided a lens package and some accessories,
Noth and Girard provided their own lights, with a few donated from Dedo
Lights in Kingston. “It was mostly a lot of doc gear that was dressed up to
create more texture and life than a regular run-and-gun doc and achieve a
more painterly look within the scene,” Girard notes, adding that she’s a fan
of shooting with natural light. “I would place scenes wherever I knew the
light was going to hit, and then augment the lighting from there.” For the car
accident scene, “we actually just had to use the headlights because we had
a very limited time for that, and the weather was changing quickly so I used
the car headlights, but there were also pixel tubes strategically placed in
certain areas. Parts of the owl scene had some faked moonlight using the
pixel tubes, and because it’s a small crew I just had to use whatever I could
pull out and put up pretty quickly. Everything had to be battery powered
because we were in the middle of nowhere. When I’m filming, I try and look
at it from a storytelling perspective,” she explains. “What are the themes?
What are the different elements? What are the concepts that are going to
be required beyond just the image and the actions of the characters? And
how will that be used in the edit? I end up collecting these ideas that are
given to me and using them as a framework and antenna for when I go into
a scene and look at it; it becomes the filter through which I see everything.
So, say I’m told of the idea of memory, if somebody says something
about remembering then I will chase after that actor or subject as they’re
talking about it or find different themes within the character’s action to
reflect the ideas that were told to me. I think it’s important to involve your
cinematographer in those concepts, so that they can be looking for them
through the viewfinder.”
 “
I love physically
demanding
projects. There’s
something about
giving yourself over
to a project that
really makes you
feel alive and a
part of it.
- Tess Girard
Adding dynamism to the many car scenes in the film was a matter of were there while shooting. For example, there might be areally interesting
“balance and planning, but also trying to make it documentary-oriented,” gradation in the sky when you shoot a scene, but sometimes when you
Girard states. “For the car driving scenes there was a lot of improvisation, get into colour and it’s, like, “Oh, my God!” A whole world appears in the
so I set them up so that we could just let the actors riff and then interweave incredible detail and life in the image that wasn’t necessarily apparent while
other scenes through it. They’re quick little beats that lead into memories we were shooting it.”
and flashbacks and flash forwards, and they became the interweaving
thread of the film. Then once the actors got through their lines, Ryan Girard, who shuttles between residences in Toronto and Prince Edward
would let them improvise in between takes. For example, in the scene with County, says the natural world often influences her approach on projects.
Chris and his girlfriend, there was so much
improvisation there, so I set up the scene as
if it was a nicely shot documentary and lit it
for flexibility and then went from there. A car
is such a fixed, restricted location, but that is
sometimes a good thing, to be able to break
those restrictions and find creative means
within them.”

Due to the production’s low budget, there

was no dedicated production designer or art
department, but Girard collaborated closely
with Trysha Bakker who handled wardrobe for
the film. “I presented her a colour palette of
whites, blues, turquoises and yellow ochre.
You can see all of those in the patina of the
landscape where, for example, the ground is
covered in snow and then a rich yolk colour
along the horizon of the sun with the dark
skies above and all the ochre grasses peeking
through. I really studied the landscape and
presented that colour palette to Trysha,”
Girard recalls. “And she picked wardrobe
based on that. Sonja’s scarf matches the
grasses, and Jonas’ jacket is a similar colour
as well. They are both dressed in muted
yellow and blue tones that for me are the
signature of winter, especially winter in Prince
Edward County. The colours complemented
the landscape at the same time as fitting in.
We even wanted [Sonja’s] ski jacket to pop out
of the landscape but not be so glaring that
it was of another world, and Trysha found
this perfectly coloured ski jacket that was
both bold but part of the colour palette at the
same time.”

Girard says colour grading is her favourite part of the process and she was
happy to work with AJ McLaughlin at Redlab in post. “For me, it’s the point
where you get to bring the images to life but also see the potential that
you’ve forgotten about for sometimes years while the film is in post. You get
to see the vision in a way that you couldn’t have imagined because at that
point you’re seeing it edited together in a new context,” Girard states. “There
are often elements that I didn’t realize could be brought out in an image
and a certain magic happens. Dramatic skies, for example, details in snow,
gradients within the trees. There are a lot of depths that you didn’t know
“The natural world is absolutely my biggest influence. It is my framework
for how I see the world and approach my work,” she muses. “When I sit and
have a cup of coffee, I don’t just have a cup of coffee. I sit in my backyard
and I watch the light through the leaves and the different birds, the sounds
everything emanates, and how they all interact with each other. I ask myself
what the clouds are doing and how they will affect the weather of the day.
I fold my thoughts into these images, and it informs my daily experience, I
need to be stimulated both personally and in my work by all the different
elements that are in this world and how they affect us.”

21
ARRI ALEXA Mini ARRI Raw 1.85:1 24fps iso400-1280 172.8°
 crimes of the future
LIGHTING
THE
NEW
FLESH By Roman Sokal
Special to canadian cinematographer

F
ilmed in Athens, Greece, director David Cronenberg’s Crimes of
The Future is an existential, cerebral film about the human body
evolving to the point where new organs are grown. The two lead
characters (played by Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux) conduct
surgery in public as performance art, while many consume microplastics.
Government authorities keep a close eye on this evolutionary event,
wishing to control it. Transmogrification of the body, a common
mysterious theme in Cronenbergian classics such as eXistenZ, The Fly,
Crash and Videodrome, is also a through-line in the film.

ARRI Zeiss Master Primes Athens, Greece 37° 59' 1.7160'' N 23° 43' 39.1404'' E 23
24 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022
Cronenberg’s usual DP, Peter Suschitzky asc, was unavailable to lens the
picture, so through mutual director friends, Toronto’s Doug Koch csc was
hired to be the film’s proverbial watchful eye via camera. “David’s way of
working was very interesting,” Koch says about the director’s style. “I don’t
think he came into a scene having any preconceived idea of how it would
be shot. He wanted to see what the actors would do. Then he would guide
their movements a bit sometimes and we would then discuss coverage
from there. It’s tougher on the art department of course, as we could end
up seeing every possible part of any set or location; they had to be prepared
for anything. We sometimes had to be ready with lights in areas that we
ultimately didn’t end up seeing.

“David would not hang out on the set after blocking; he would be nearby,
always able to watch the camera’s output on a big monitor,” Koch
continues. “He could see the set dressing and lighting proceeding and was
never surprised when he would come back to set to begin rehearsing and
shooting.”

The look of the digitally shot feature is clinically sharp like medical
photography yet gracefully soft at the same time. An ARRI Alexa Mini was
chosen with ARRI/Zeiss Master Prime lenses. “It’s always spherical,” Koch
notes of Cronenberg films. “I discovered quickly that he definitely has
dislikes. You probably wouldn’t find a handheld shot in any of his movies,
even in terms of POVs. The more we talked, I said to him, ‘Let’s start
really simple.’”

The ALEXA is one of Koch’s go-to cameras and the lens choice was perfect
for the moody dark atmosphere, which has a few exterior shots but mostly
takes place indoors where the ultimate control of light was taken advantage
of. “That’s sort of my favourite camera, and [Cronenberg] liked it,” Koch
says. “Then lens-wise, the Master Primes are sharp, even wide-open at
T1.3. I know there’s going to be places I’m going to run into this thing with
night exteriors. I knew there were going to be really dark things that were
big and un-lightable or difficult. I can just tell he’s not into unusual vintage
optics, anamorphics, stuff like that. A funny thing that came up in relation to
that is I asked him about atmosphere, haze and smoke, things like that. He
thought about it for half a second and said, ‘No. I don’t want you to use
any anywhere. Even though it’ll be dark a lot of the time, there’s a certain
clarity to this that I want.’” The usual ND filters were used, but to tone down
the sharpness, Koch used Hollywood Black Magic diffusion filters, similar
to Pro-Mist. “But never more than a half, maybe a one a couple of times.
But usually no more than a half. Lots of times a quarter or an eighth. Very
light,” Koch says.

Fortunately, Koch had a well-skilled lighting crew on the film. “The gaffer
I’ve worked with many times in Toronto,” he says. “His name is ‘Fast
Eddy’ Mikolic. We have a shorthand; we go way back. His best boy was
a fellow named Yiannis Maragoudakis. He’s a gaffer in his own right in
the community. That was really instrumental. Everything is lit, a lot of
interior. The important thing is the Greek use the European/British system
– all the lighting and control like flagging, diffusion, bounces and all that,
is all done by the lighting department. The grips are more about cranes,
dollies, tripods, camera support. If the going gets tough, like you have to
rig a light into some weird thing, or anytime there’s serious rigging and

25
 safety issues, then the grips are involved. The key grip was a really great
guy named Vakis Grillis. I actually brought a camera operator with me,
Andreas Evdemon. He and I had done a feature together before that and
other stuff. He does Steadicam as well, which is handy. Our focus puller,
Léonidas Arvanitis, a local, works all over Europe.”
26 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022
The dramatic theatrical lighting approach of the surgery performance
scenes also spills into other scenes within the film. Says Koch: “When I
first read the script, I had a lot of questions for David. Things like, ‘These
performance things, do you see this as kind of spot lit?’ He said ‘No, not
really. I know you’ll do stuff lighting-wise for contrast and whatever, but

“
You don’t want anything that
looks like the world is functioning
normally and prosperous. They
wouldn’t be in spotlights and things
like that, but Cronenberg did want
it to be atmospheric.
- Douglas Koch csc
Prosthetics crew prepares Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) for a surgical
examination scene.
Douglas Koch csc
it shouldn’t seem too together and organized.’ This became an important
theme for everybody throughout [production]. He wanted the place to
look dysfunctional. Nothing should seem like it’s really kind of functional.
You don’t want anything that looks like the world is functioning normally
and prosperous. They wouldn’t be in spotlights and things like that, but
Cronenberg did want it to be atmospheric.”
Koch also got to work closely with long-time Cronenberg production
designer Carol Spier to light her avant-garde work on the flesh organs and
set textures. “There are two levels of it,” Koch says about their relationship.
“There was the production design in terms of general things like [locations].
There were things like what kind of lamps and stuff would be hanging in
27
this place or that place? That becomes a big point of collaboration between
us, the practical lamps and things like that. With things like prosthetics and
the skin stuff, we had some people come from Toronto. That was Alexandra
Anger and Monica Pavez. They did amazing work. They were responsible
for all the scars and cuts and body things and organs. We did a little bit
of testing and prep of skin tone reproduction, but [they] really knew what
they were doing. A very modern thing that’s really interesting is that now,
even just in colour grading, sometimes it has to reach into the effects. But
it’s actually become much simpler now. It seems to be able to really merge
artificial skin and real skin and match it in a way that would have been very
difficult before. I think it’s really reflected in the end product. Therefore you
can make things very seamless.”
Koch reveals that not much manipulation took place in colour grading.
“What we did was as we were shooting for the dailies, the DIT was done by
the lovely Petros Tsampakouris,” Koch says. “He would show me stuff and
I’d show it to David. The look was very simple; it was not extreme. I’ve sort
of done more extreme and weird things on a few other films. This was more
about the lighting and exercise in composition. More of the look came from
the contrast and lighting. Then Bill Ferwerda at Company 3 did the final
colour grade with David and I for the finished film.”
A couple of key scenes involving secret night exterior meetings required
shooting by a large, beached decaying boat. “They presented an unusual
challenge in that most of the best angles were looking out at the dark sea at
night, and there’s nothing really across there,” Koch says. “There’s a distant
shore, but it’s empty. There are very few lights in the distance even. So it’s
just the ships; if you don’t do anything, the ships are black on black. I want
to avoid the most obvious kind of cross lighting them with hard light, which
is normally what most of the time you’d have to do. During prep, we were
constantly working on this idea of getting a light or two on a barge out in
the water that would be out behind some of those ships. That way what we
could light up an air glow behind them so that the ships would appear as
hulking silhouettes, which we could then just kind of locally light up in little
bits and pieces, bits of detail. It was a bit of a to-do, but everybody came
through.”
Another scene that stands out for Koch is a pivotal autopsy scene. “That
was a really neat-looking space,” he recalls. “Interestingly, they show films
in there normally. The proscenium at the far end actually normally has a big
movie screen up, and there’s all these cinema seats bolted into the floor
area. That one was neat. We built a soft box that was 12x24 feet and put
Orion LED fixtures in it to make a deep soft ambience that could be controlled
29
 “
I don’t think he came into a scene having any preconceived
idea of how it would be shot. He wanted to see what the
actors would do. Then he would guide their movements a bit
sometimes and we would then discuss coverage from there.
- Douglas Koch csc

remotely from the ground, and we could control their colour. It was skirted,
and that formed this toppy sort of deep, ambient soft light everywhere. Then
I used ETC Source 4 ellipsoidals, taken up higher on the decks to shoot
down with just broken up warm light to illuminate the audience in sort of
just little pools, broken little pieces of light. That was supposed to kind of
be evocative of the warm practicals that were broken down into the sconces
that are there. The ones that were in there were kind of ‘eh’ so Carol Spier
and her [team] went and changed them. We used that as a kind of tungsten
reference, and then we went with a sort of cyan dark aqua glow in behind
them, and those were from practicals hanging from the ceiling. Those were
just little fixed bulbs that we put in that can be easily controlled.”
At the very end of the film, we see a close-up of Saul Tenser (Mortensen)
from partner Caprice’s ring camera. “It was extracted from the frontal
master shot, blown up considerably and converted to monochrome,” Koch
reveals. “It almost seemed to evoke Falconetti in Carl Dreyer’s Passion of
Joan of Arc film. We laughed after as Viggo had a COVID mask on earlier
on the shoot with that famous image of Joan of Arc from that film! In
colour grade I had colourist Bill Ferwerda put an orthochromatic look on
the B&W.” The expression of Saul in the shot is foreboding, timeless, and
perhaps cathartic. “Surgery is the new sex,” Kristen Stewart’s character
quips. Visually, one can sum up the film’s look as lush yet clinical and
exotic indeed.

30 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022

Eclipsing
Personas
E
ntering into the realm of Egyptian gods, dissociative identity
disorder, and the supernatural battle between good and evil,
is the sixth Marvel Studios television incarnation Moon Knight
created by Jeremy Slater and starring Oscar Isaac, Ethan Hawke,
May Calamawy, F. Murray Abraham, and Karim El Hakim. The action-
adventure miniseries streaming on Disney+ features Isaac as Marc
Spector who is contending with his distinct alter egos Steven Grant
and Jake Lockley as he attempts to figure out if he is imagining or
actually the human avatar for the Heliopolis deity of the moon and
vengeance known as Khonshu.

Moon Knight was shot during the height of the pandemic in Budapest
when there was a police lockdown, so movements were quite
restrictive. Episodes 101, 103, 105 and 106 were handled by director
Mohamed Diab and DP Gregory Middleton csc, asc, (American Woman,
Watchmen), while Episodes 102 and 104 were the responsibility of
directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, with DP Andrew Droz
Palermo (The Green Knight, A Ghost Story). Principal photography lasted
118 days with the schedule dictated by locations and sets rather than
episodically. “There were a lot of script changes during prep, which
made the show better but can be challenging,” Middleton notes. “The
three months of prep in the beginning were mostly about Episodes 101
and 102, and it got more hectic towards the end. There was one main
unit crew and a second unit that did most of the fighting work with the
stunt doubles, which had another cinematographer, Darin Moran [The
Falcon and the Winter Soldier], and director Paul Jennings. Some of my
prep was coordinating with Darin and Paul as they had to shoot some
of the action before I got to the set or location.”

B y T r e vo r H o gg,
Special to canadian cinematographer

ARRI ALEXA Mini LF ARRI Raw UHD 2.35 : 1 24fps iso800 - 640 to 1280 178°
 moon knight

ARRI Signature Primes Budapest, Hungary 47° 29' 52.4868'' N 19° 2' 24.8496'' E 33
 Figuring out what is and isn’t real is an overriding theme. “Mohamed Diab
had a great expression in prep, ‘It should always be a question,’” Middleton
recalls. “We think that dreams come out of complete ether, but often the
imagery comes from things that we recently experienced that day. If you
look at the fish tank in Steven’s apartment where Gus lives, the base is
sand and there is a recreation of the Duat, the Egyptian underworld that we
see in Episode 105. You have Tawerets Barge and Gates of Osiris. This was
taken to the biggest extreme with the transition to the asylum in Episode
104 when he wakes up to find all of the characters that he has met through
the show are patients hanging out playing bingo.”
To achieve the subjective perspective, the camera was handheld close to
Isaac with a wide lens. “Another technique was to do a lot of continuous
takes so you would follow and reveal things throughout the scene as he
would [experience them],” Middleton states. “The character separations are
mostly about Oscar’s incredible performance. Steven would shuffle while
Marc had a much more purposeful walk. In that context we tried to make
sure to be either close up to see his face transition between characters or
wide enough to see the change in physicality.”
There were two camera crews and a third ARRI Alexa Mini LF rigged for
34 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022
cranes, Steadicam or whatever the next setup would be. “We had two sets of
ARRI Signature Primes and a couple of Fujinon zooms,” Middleton remarks.
“When the camera was close to the actors, we spent a lot of time on the 29
mm because it felt wide but not too distorted.” Custom rigging was needed
to go along with the DJI Ronin-2, Steadicam and telescoping cranes, he
adds. “We were going to be in situations where the camera needed to be
poked into places or be at a hip height looking up at somebody. Chris
Summers, my first assistant camera, built a couple of very small rigs that
would have a top or side handle or low focus, and then we would have a
backpack with the battery; that allowed camera operator Robin Smith to
hold the camera with two hands without any support.”
LED lights such as ARRI SkyPanels S60 and S360 were favoured because of
programmability. “Tungsten light still has the nicest look but because of the
nature of our sets we needed to be able to change the colour temperature
and have some flexibility for brightness or high speed,” Middleton states.
“We utilized some balloons too as HMIs for night exteriors as a moon
source.” A major lighting challenge was a sequence nicknamed “The Million
Night Sky,” according to Middleton. “Khonshu creates the illusion of the sky
going backwards and everyone else in Cairo can see that,” the DP recalls.
“You see the Milky Way rolling around and the moon is shifting its orbit.

After looking at the beginnings of the animation of that, I had to create that
lighting effect. The light has to travel from horizon to horizon or at least
enough of it to create a sense of moving shadows. You couldn’t physically
move a light that quickly, so we created a large and programmable arc of
LED lights.”
Mirror reflections allow Marc and Steven to visually communicate with each
other as well as a twinning effect that has both personalities physically
interacting in the same frame. “You want to keep the camera techniques
the same as the rest of the scene, otherwise, it looks like a visual effects
shot,” Middleton notes. “The other thing is you want to make the process as
easy and seamless for the performance as possible.” The most complicated
mirror reflection occurs in the bathroom scene at the end of Episode 101.
“Mohammed decided to do it as one shot, which meant working out the
blocking for what lines Marc will say in which mirror and at some point,
Marc will walk towards the back door. That creates the dynamic of him
walking away from the other reflections of himself. We put the mirrors up in
a mock set with the same dimensions and did a test shoot [not rehearsal]
with a stand-in to see if we could get all of the elements without resorting
to any repetitive camera moves. Oscar acted both parts, and his brother
[journalist] Mike [Hernandez] played the audio version of Marc through an
“
Any close-ups that
didn’t involve seeing
a body double we
would do that shot
first. If we had a
shot with both of
them clearly visible,
it would be either a
lock-off or nodal pan
or Technodolly or
motion control.
- Gregory Middleton
csc, asc
earpiece. Once they started to know the scene, then Oscar could act at the
pace he wanted, and Robin Smith would follow him with the Steadicam.”
The same principles were applied for the psychiatric ward scenes where
Oscar plays the roles of Marc and Steven in the same shot. “We would block
the scene with Oscar and figure out which character was driving the pace
of the scene and that would be the one we would start with,” Middleton
explains. “Any close-ups that didn’t involve seeing a body double we would
do that shot first. If we had a shot with both of them clearly visible, it would
be either a lock-off or nodal pan or Technodolly or motion control. We would
do that as the middle part of our shoot with two or three cameras. Oscar
would go change into Steven and then we would come back and do the other
half of our twinning shots. Then we would do any close-ups of Steven.”
Taweret’s boat, which has Marc and Steven as passengers as it heads for
the Gates of Osiris, was partially built. “The moment when the boat is tilting,
that is all actor action and us with the camera going, ‘Lean to the right!’ I
had to come up with a lighting colour scheme that would echo the purple
netherworld that was in other parts of the MCU but general enough that
Oscar could fight alongside himself against zombies and be repeatable for
the second unit.”
35

Marc and Steven encounter the Egyptian god of fertility, which takes the
shape of a giant female hippo and escorts them from the asylum into the
Duat. “I have done a couple of CG characters before in other projects and
the general approach has two important parts,” Middleton notes. “You want
to have someone there to play the part for the actors to be able to block
scenes and get the timing right. We had Antonia Salib play Taweret and she
wore a representative costume made by Meghan Kasperlik that was scaled
down to a human size; that provided amazing reference for visual effects
for the colours, shine and lighting. She also wore a harness with a stick
at the back to give us an actual eyeline, which is eight and a half feet. We
would shoot one pass with her. The second thing is we had a maquette of
the head of Taweret, which I could light and shoot as a reference for visual
effects because the spillover lighting that the actors walk through has to be
the same for the CG character to integrate seamlessly.”
One LUT was created and tweaked depending on the shot. “The first step for
me in doing a digital show as opposed to film is to develop a viewing LUT,
which is something that would convert the flat-looking ARRIRAW file into
something on the monitor, which is close to what I want the final colour of
the show to be,” Middleton reveals. “It gives you the gamma curve, contrast
and any sort of colour bias or film look. I got to work with Marvel Studios’
colour science team and colourist Travis Flynn to build that. My goal with
this project in particular was to have more contrast, colour and a deeper
black in the image. I’m happy with what we got which allowed me to light
more precisely and make adjustments on set.”
Isaac and Hawke brought a great acting dynamic to Moon Knight as
adversaries, Middleton observes. “Both Oscar and Mohammad fought to
36 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022
“
We think that
dreams come
out of complete
ether, but often
the imagery
comes from things
that we recently
experienced
that day.
- Gregory
Middleton csc, asc
keep the date scene because it gave Steven the goal of wanting to have
a normal life and he couldn’t. That made him somebody you wanted to
follow,” the DP says. “Marc is cursed and living a bit of a zombie life
because of Khonshu. It made for a great counterpoint between Steven and
Marc. Ethan Hawke does a beautiful subtle performance of Arthur Harrow
who is helping and trapping Marc and Steven at the same time. Ethan
was instrumental with Mohamed in having the character be the former
avatar of Khonshu, which made him be a cautionary tale for Marc and
Steven.” In addition to Summers, key crew members were camera operator
Robin Smith, DIT Dániel Farkas, gaffer Balázs Vákár, and key grip Dávid
Kecskeméti. “There were so many amazing artists who I worked with on
this project,” Middleton notes.
Episode 105 was submitted for Primetime Emmy Award consideration
and this past July Middleton received a nomination in the Outstanding
Cinematography for A Limited or Anthology Series or Movie category. “I
wanted to highlight how we used the camera to help keep things seamless
between the twinning and storytelling,” Middleton says. “I submitted the
scene when Steven comes out of the bedroom realizing that he is the second
personality. Marc pulls him out and they end up in hospital hallway arguing
with each other and we’re burying edits in the camera pans. It feels natural
and has a mind-bending transition. Episode 105 is the most emotional and
moving episode.”
The biggest challenge for Moon Knight was the mind-bending nature of
story like the mirror scene in Episode 101, and the twinning and journey in
Episode 105. “All of those challenges were the most exciting to work out as
well as daunting,” Middleton says.
37
 East MEETS
By John Lyd en
West
A
ssociate member Jeff Wheaton has developed a ritual of delineating
in written form each key character’s traits, motivation and existence
within the broader context for every new film production, as well
as elucidating what the arc and thematic structure of the story represent
to him and his director. When Wheaton pondered the multi-dimensional
story, themes and cinematic potential of director Adam Perry’s film, A
Small Fortune, he became increasingly inclined to add his unique signature
as a visual artist and storyteller to an unprecedented production in Prince
Edward Island.

The crew would be based in rural PEI, an area in which the invaluable
resources that film crews are accustomed to having are strikingly sparse.
An intrepid crew’s grit and determination take on new significance in the
spine-chilling mist and cruel, steady gaze of the North Atlantic, juxtaposed
against the rugged and sparsely trodden terrain.

A Small Fortune takes place in a modest PEI fishing village and tells the
story of what befalls an Irish moss farmer named Kevin when a bag of
money washes ashore in the seaweed. In Wheaton’s words, Kevin is a
working-class hero, a hardworking and resilient man who endeavours to
eke out a living collecting seaweed at the tail end of a dying industry. Upon
finding the bag of cash in an increasingly resourceless land of isolation
and ambiguity, Kevin elects to keep the money to build a better life for
himself. As he settles into his new material opportunity and strives to
conceal his wealth, the money’s owners come looking for their rightful
possession, and the plot thickens. Soon enough, the fishing village turns
into a growing crime scene, and the walls begin to close in on Kevin. As
Wheaton has noted in his film diary, “A Small Fortune is the death of the
masculine ideal of the hero in the era of late capitalism.”

ARRI ALEXA Mini - Classic ProRes 4444 3.2K 2:35:1 23.98fps iso800 180°
 a small fortune

Zeiss Super Speed French River, Prince Edward Island 46°30'53.41"N 63°31'1.6"W 39
 Wheaton met Perry at the Atlantic Film Festival in Nova Scotia several years
ago, and the two quickly developed a friendship. They soon recognized
the rich nature of their creative exchanges and similar artistic insights,
prompting them to consider a film collaboration. Fortunately, Perry
was incubating an idea for a PEI-based feature that would lend itself to
Wheaton’s style and sensibilities as a DP.
Producing A Small Fortune was no easy feat, largely due to the logistical
considerations and limited crew they would have in rural Atlantic Canada.
Perry and his team were able to secure funding through the The Harold
Greenberg Fund - Shorts-to-Features Program, marking the beginning of
a long and arduous iterative process through which Perry’s vision would
painstakingly be constructed by a team composed of many novices. For
Perry, choosing Wheaton as his DP was an intuitive decision, namely in light
of their strong relationship and similar propensities and thematic leanings
as artists.
Through the Greenberg fund, the team produced a proof-of-concept
film titled A Blessing from the Sea. This project lay the groundwork for
their feature production, a means of ironing out the kinks, establishing
parameters in a challenging environment, and provided the producers the
confidence they needed to begin their feature production.
A Small Fortune is a classical northern noir thriller, an intriguing fusion
of western characteristics and style with modern accents. The harsh
environment in which the story plays out provides natural yet striking
tonality and colours that underscore and build upon the rising tension as
the narrative arc ascends, with the red mud, jagged, dark cliffs, and hazy,
40 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022
muted ocean blue. The visuals are predominantly handheld, adding a
palpable sense of suspense and intimacy, both of which make for a novel,
modern western.
Wheaton was keen on capturing the energy of the actors as they moved
through their environment, and thus desired to meld his handheld propensity
with Perry’s visual sensibilities. The result is a lively and fluid portrait of
Kevin’s gradual loss of control, and the various personalities that begin
to re-shape his outlook. Whenever handheld camera operation was not
an option, the crew put their camera on a Ronin. Just one scene was shot
on sticks and dolly, an incongruent paradigm from that of the traditional
western.
Perry and Wheaton recruited a diverse group of people from local theatre
productions, cinema enthusiasts, and some more experienced contractors
to join their crew, and Wheaton could see the innate talent of the crew and
their creative, unconventional methods of solving problems and adapting to
markedly fluid parameters.
“Our core group was out of PEI, but we needed key people from other
provinces. The film was co-produced with Newfoundland, and thus, gave us
access to some of the tools and talent that province and Atlantic Canada as
a whole has to offer,” Wheaton says. A Small Fortune is only one of a handful
of feature length films to be produced in PEI.
Both Nova Scotia and Newfoundland were in the midst of a very busy
production year, so finding talent for key positions was a formidable task.
Due to the relative novelty of film production in these areas, neither province
 “
has had sufficient resources to accommodate numerous feature
productions concurrently. The search for a focus puller was not fruitful
until Wheaton and Perry turned to Facebook, and one of their grips was
a carpenter by trade but made himself available for their production. The film was co-produced
Wheaton and Perry’s guiding principle in hiring crew was enthusiasm
with Newfoundland, and
over experience.
thus, gave us access to
“Building a team around who is experienced, their skill sets, and
some of the tools and
seeing how much more we can build up throughout the production
is important,” Wheaton says. Of course, Perry and Wheaton also talent that province and
recognized that pushing the team to grow individually and collectively
Atlantic Canada as a
would not only serve them in good stead on future productions in their
respective communities but would also establish a meaningful and whole has to offer.
sustainable framework and network of technicians and artists for a
future autonomous film industry in Atlantic Canada. With the scarcity of - Jeff Wheaton
production resources and distribution channels in this region, the crew’s
accomplishments became a bellwether for the viability and expansion of
film production and talent throughout Nova Scotia and Newfoundland,
and the economic and cultural transformation it could bring about.

The crew was right on the cusp of hurricane season when they began
their production in the fall of 2019, “right before the ocean becomes
cruel,” Wheaton notes. William F. White assisted with supplying the
team with lighting kits, and Jason Kennedy, a contact of Wheaton’s
from Ontario, provided the team with a couple of camera packages
and a backup body. The backup camera was of paramount importance
after Wheaton’s misfortune while producing the short film, during which
saltwater got into his RED Epic and shut the camera down. Leaving no
stone unturned, Kennedy provided the team with a robust trio of imaging
tools that could withstand the elements and rigours of the fast-paced
production.

Wheaton’s camera packages consisted of two Alexa Minis and an Alexa

Classic, for he knew the dynamic range of the ARRI sensor would do
justice to the raw beauty of rural PEI and enable him to build upon his
colour palette. Alas, part way through the production on two occasions,
both Alexa Minis shut down on the crew. Ironically, the aged Alexa
Classic became the workhorse that got the team through their long, dark
days in which neither nature nor technology would cooperate.

Perry and Wheaton took their time to craft a classical western look
within a 2:35:1 format, opting for spherical lensing with Zeiss Super
Speeds. Although Perry wanted to lens the film anamorphically, it proved
to be too exorbitant an expense for a small team with limited funding
and a need for expeditious shooting within the confines of a hectic 15-
day schedule for production. Wheaton utilized a warm quarter glimmer
glass filter during the day to accentuate the landscape’s warmth, and a
straight quarter glimmer glass at night to add a subtle layer of haze and
build upon a classical western aesthetic.

Lighting the film, even his interiors, was pleasurable for Wheaton, as the
natural light was beautifully diffused by virtue of vapour barriers around
From left to right: Director Adam
windows for interior scenes. The team reserved the use of large fixtures Perry, continuity Kelly Li and focus
puller Jacqueline De Bacco.
primarily for augmentation purposes, striving to achieve naturalistic Kelly Caseley

41
 illumination whenever it was feasible. Wheaton relied on bounce, negative,
and diffusion to shape the light that nature provided, and adapted as
necessary.
Narratively and schedule-wise, the production neared its climax when
a pivotal fight scene went awry. One of the Alexa Minis died during this
critical moment between Kevin, a police officer, and another key character,
and invaluable footage was lost. Wheaton visibly shudders upon recalling
the realization that he would have to tell Perry they were in trouble and
would have to consider deviating from their original plan. Joel Hynes, one
of the key players in the scene, had to depart for Los Angeles and could not
come back to PEI. All was seemingly lost as the daylight faded. But Hynes
rose to the occasion.
The actor insightfully and expeditiously guided the crew through the
contours of his side of the scene to ensure every vital angle was captured
as darkness overtook the landscape, leaving plenty of breadcrumbs behind
for the other actors who would complete their side of the scene days later.
42 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022
Remarkably, the climactic fight scene came together seamlessly in post,
thanks to the foresight and consideration of Hynes.
“There were a lot of challenges, Hynes saving us in that latter crisis,”
Wheaton reflects. “Also, after the mass shooting in Nova Scotia, we were
informed we had to remove the RCMP patch from every frame in which
the police officer is present, making the postproduction period markedly
challenging,” When the finish line was in sight and the team commenced
the grade, COVID hit Canada hard, prompting Perry, Wheaton and their
producers to participate in the grade virtually. “It was different, for sure, but
we adapted and made the best of it,” Wheaton says.
A Small Fortune has been a success in the festival circuit and received
critical acclaim, internationally, winning Best Screenplay at the 2022
Manchester Film Festival, and Best Cinematography at the 2022 Sunscreen
Film Festival. Distribution has been secured, and the team is proud to
release their cherished film from a special place in rural Atlantic Canada,
known by too few, for the world to see.
STOP CHASING THE SUN.
START CREATING IT.

VIRTUAL PRODUCTION
EDWARD HANRAHAN | ehanrahan@whites.com
Director, Virtual Production © 2022 Pixomondo LLC © 2022 William F. White International Inc.

43
 The
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44 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | SEPTEMBER 2022


NORM LI
What films or other works of art have made the biggest impression
on you?
Goodbye, Dragon Inn by Tsai Ming-Liang; La Ciénaga by Lucretia Martel;
Leviathan by Andrei Zvygintsev; Ratcatcher by Lynne Ramsey; The Turin
Horse by Béla Tarr; Water Lilies by Céline Sciamma; Uncle Boonmee Who
Can Recall His Past Lives by Apitchatpong Weerasethakul; Cold War by
Pawel Pawlikowski; Beanpole by Kantemir Balagov; The Tribe by Myroslav
Slaboshpytskyi; Horse Money by Pedro Costa; Caché by Michael Haneke,
to name a few.
How did you get started in the business?
Basically, I got started in the film industry by just DP’ing small music
videos and short films and working my way up from there. I eventually
volunteered to shoot a proof of concept, which ended up getting financing,
which led to my first feature Altitude, directed by Kaare Andrews. From
there, I shot Beyond the Black Rainbow, directed by Panos Cosmatos, and
I’ve been fortunate enough to keep working since then.
csc member spotlight
csc
Who have been your mentors or teachers?
I wish I could say I had a mentor or teacher but unfortunately, I never had
any. I guess you could say cinema and life experiences was my mentor.
What cinematographers inspire you?
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom; Ping Bin Lee; Christopher Doyle hksc; Robbie
Ryan bsc, isc; Darius Khondji asc, afc; Christian Berger; Benoît Debie;
Harris Savides asc; Chayse Irvin csc, asc. Alexis Zabé, amc, asc; Jody
Lee Lipes, asc; and Hélène Louvart afc.
illustration by Jo Enaje
Name some of your professional highlights.
Some of my professional highlights are when I was able to work with my
fiancée, Meredith Hama-Brown, on her beautiful debut feature Seagrass
this past summer, the moment I found out that I was accepted as a full
member into the CSC, achieving a 90-minute single take on 16 mm for
The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open, and having a number
45
C A N A D I A N C I N E M ATO G R A P H E R | J U LY 2022
This page clockwise from top left:
Loscil, “Sol”
Never Steady, Never Still
The Weeknd, “Sacrifice”
Same Old
Trashtalk, “Something Wicked”
Same Old

Opposite page clockwise from top left:

Beyond the Black Rainbow
Lila Drew, “2023”
Alaskan Tapes, “And, We Disappear”
Beyond the Black Rainbow
Alaskan Tapes, “Maybe”
Never Steady, Never Still

of films that I DP’ed being accepted into festivals like Cannes, Sundance, problems and solutions for each project. I really appreciate how every
Berlinale and TIFF. experience along the way can enrich and influence our life but what’s
also very gratifying is when you find out you happened to do the same
What is one of your most memorable moments on set? for others.

There are so many, but I think one of the most memorable moments for me What do you like least about what you do?
was at lunch on a small film I shot in Texas. There were quite a number of
elderly people sitting around the table, and they asked one another what Sometimes we experience toxic personalities on set and that can be really
they were thankful for. When it came to me, for some reason I just choked up hard to deal with.
and started crying. I think it was because I was so moved by what everyone
was saying but also thankful for these special moments I am lucky enough What do you think has been the greatest invention (related to your craft)?
to experience.
Celluloid film!
What do you like best about what you do?
How can others follow your work?
I love meeting directors and collaborating to express their stories
in a personal way. I also love how there’s always new places, people, norm-li.com and on Instagram: @norm_li.

47
on set gallery

DP Katerina Zoumboulakis (affiliate

member) on set of the short film
Estranged.
Courtesy of Katerina Zoumboulakis

Quan Luong (affiliate

member) and B cam Markus
Henkel on the set of a
commercial for OFF! in
Manitoba.
Ryan Offenloch
(affiliate member)

Key grip Jonathan Sellam and Philippe

Lavalette csc on the set of the feature
film Tropicana.
Courtesy of Philippe Lavalette csc

Associate member Zoe Davidson on

DP Emad Mohammadi (student member) on the the set of the film Things At Rest,
set of the short film The Lady In Red. shot in Washington, D.C.
Courtesy of Emad Mohammadi Manuel Pedraza
48 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | SEPTEMBER 2022

Associate member Daniel Green on a recent shoot
in the Yukon dual operating with Zachary Moxley
in Tombstone National Park.
Jonathan Pouliot
Mark Foerster csc and sound recordist Micheal
Kennedy in the fjords of Norway shooting for
The Mightiest (Discovery Channel Canada).
Mark Stevenson
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49
 canadian society of cinematographers
t r a d u c t i o n / t r a n s l at i o n b y n i c o l e t t e f e l i x
bilingual article english and french

CSC
Workshops
Return
EN

FR
csc youtube channel

After an almost two-year hiatus, 2022 saw the return of in-person

CSC Workshops. The CSC is proud to present highlights from this
year’s workshops held in Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg.

50 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | SEPTEMBER 2022

CSC Virtual Production Masterclass
Classe de maître sur la production virtuelle de la CSC
O L
n February 11, the CSC – in collaboration with ARRI
– held a virtual production masterclass at MELS in
Montreal to explore the pros and cons of this new
technique and expose the pipeline of production. Among the
topics covered were driving scenes, plate shooting, lighting,
lenses, depth of field, filtration, camera speed and shaking.
Eric Cayla csc, who led the masterclass with assistance
from MELS technical director Nicolas Fournier, shares some
insights.
How do you see virtual production changing the industry?
We are just at the beginning of this new technology. I hate to
say this, but I do think that a lot of the newborn kids becoming
filmmakers will tell their stories using this new technology.
Unreal Engine and virtual production is evolving rapidly, for
now I see it as another tool giving options for different looks
and new creative ideas. Even though for us cinematographers
being on location with a full crew is the real thing, the cost
efficiency of shooting scenes with a realistic look in a studio
using Unreal Engine without having to bring a full crew and
company out on remote locations will be a game changer
for certain productions. Also, building huge sets, especially
period pieces, it will be cost saving and for us much more
user-friendly than having to guess the end results with green
or blue screens. All we need are the foreground elements and
march live with the background Unreal Engine visuals. It does
take some planning, and a director would have to get used to
the new space for blocking and shot listing.
For dialogue scenes in moving cars, it is 100 per cent efficient.
Much faster than to shoot on a process trailer on location,
and much better than green/blue screen. You get interactive
lighting on all the surfaces, the moveable screens off camera
produces most of the lighting, which makes for fast setups
with multiple cameras if needed, creates a very realistic
controllable atmosphere, and you can change locations and
time of day very quickly, just make sure you have good plates!
Furthermore, for action-packed car chase scenes it is much
safer for the actors.
CSC Virtual Production Masterclass at MELS in Montreal
e 11 février, la CSC, en collaboration avec ARRI, a donné
un cours de maître sur la production virtuelle chez MELS à
Montréal qui explorait les avantages et les inconvénients
de cette nouvelle technique et expliquait le déroulement de la
production. On a entre autres traité des scènes en voiture, de
la photographie des fonds, de l’éclairage, des objectifs, de la
profondeur de champ, des filtres, de la vitesse de la caméra et
du tremblement. Eric Cayla csc, qui a donné le cours de maître
avec l’aide du directeur technique de MELS, Nicolas Fournier,
nous fait part de ses réflexions.
Comment la production virtuelle va-t-elle changer l’industrie,
selon vous?
Cette nouvelle technologie en est encore à ses débuts. Je
regrette de le dire, mais je pense que bien des jeunes qui
deviendront cinéastes raconteront leur histoire en utilisant
cette technologie-là.
Unreal Engine et la production virtuelle évoluent rapidement,
et pour l’instant, je les considère comme d’autres outils qui
donnent des options pour produire des looks différents et de
nouvelles idées créatives. Même si pour nous, les directeurs
de la photographie, un tournage en extérieur avec une
équipe complète, c’est l’expérience véritable, la rentabilité du
tournage de scènes à l’apparence réaliste dans un studio en
utilisant Unreal Engine, sans avoir à faire venir une équipe
et une distribution complètes dans des endroits éloignés,
va tout changer pour certaines productions. Également, ça
va permettre d’économiser sur la construction de plateaux
énormes, surtout pour les films d’époque, et c’est plus
convivial pour nous que d’avoir à deviner le résultat d’une prise
de vue avec un écran vert ou bleu. Tout ce qu’il faut, ce sont
les éléments de l’avant-plan et on peut faire des prises de vue
directes grâce aux images de fond de Unreal Engine. Il faut
une certaine planification, et un réalisateur devrait s’habituer
au nouvel espace pour la mise-en-scène et le découpage
technique.
Pour les scènes de dialogue dans des voitures en marche,
c’est totalement efficace. C’est beaucoup plus rapide que
de filmer sur une remorque en extérieur, et beaucoup mieux
que l’écran vert ou bleu. On obtient un éclairage interactif sur
toutes les surfaces, les écrans mobiles hors champ produisent
la majorité de l’éclairage, ce qui permet une mise en place
51

What sort of challenges do you see virtual production presenting for
cinematographers and other crew members?
For cinematographers, the use of virtual images on set means we have to
work in close collaboration with the background visual creators. Whether it’s
plates to be shot or Unreal Engine images being created in the computer, we
cinematographers and production designers need to be involved to oversee
the look. We can’t just come on set and react to whatever background is
presented to us. It’s like shooting on location, we have scouts to determine
the time of day, angles to shoot a scene, the camera moves and tools we
will use. For interior scenes we talk to sets about practicals for lighting,
window treatment, density of paint, height of ceilings, etc.
Technically, virtual production has its challenges – matching density and
contrast of the screens to the foreground; the moiré effect you get from the
screen if you are too sharp, depending on depth of field, camera distance
to screen, size of sensor. Lighting, if you need to create a strong sunlight
coming low in the shot in the background, the screen will not project
enough direct sunlight on the actor or objects in the foreground. You’ll need
to cheat that effect.
What further aspects of virtual production do you think might need to be
explored in a future class?
I would explore the potentials of elaborate camera moves and speed. How
far we can go to sharpen the background, and if we can transition from
green/blue screen to live on a same shot. I would also try to shoot at 48 fps
with a green or blue screen at an interval of 24fps, which you could use in
post to modify background if you need. I don’t know if it would work well,
but I would love to try. One thing for sure it is magical for the directors,
cinematographers and actors to be able to play live with the backgrounds
as opposed to green or blue screens.
On May 4, 2022 another master class was led by Éric Cayla csc for the ARRQ
(Association of Directors of Quebec) whose aim is to make understand the
techniques of filming in virtual sets. About fifty participants attended and
members of the Government of Quebec were also present.
The CSC would like to extend special thanks to the MELS team (virtual crew,
grips and electrics).
52 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022
rapide avec plusieurs caméras au besoin, crée une ambiance très réaliste
et contrôlable, et on peut changer d’endroit et de moment de la journée très
rapidement. Il suffit de s’assurer d’avoir de bons fonds! Également, pour
les scènes de poursuite en voiture pleines d’action, c’est beaucoup plus
sécuritaire pour les acteurs.
À votre avis, quels défis la production virtuelle présente-t-elle pour les
directeurs de la photographie et les autres membres de l’équipe?
Pour les directeurs de la photographie, l’utilisation d’images virtuelles
sur le plateau signifie qu’il faut travailler en étroite collaboration avec les
créateurs des fonds virtuels. Qu’il s’agisse de fonds à filmer ou d’images à
créer sur ordinateur avec Unreal Engine, les directeurs de la photographie
et les directeurs artistiques doivent participer pour superviser le look. On
ne peut pas tout simplement arriver sur le plateau et réagir au fond qu’on
nous présente. C’est comme pour un tournage en extérieur : des visites
de locations déterminent le moment de la journée, les angles de prise de
vue pour une scène, les déplacements de la caméra et les outils que nous
allons utiliser. Pour les scènes d’intérieur, nous parlons avec le département
artistique pour des praticables pour l’éclairage, l’habillage des fenêtres, la
densité de la peinture, la hauteur des plafonds, et ainsi de suite.
Du point de vue technique, la production virtuelle a ses défis : la
correspondance de la densité et des contrastes entre les écrans et l’avant-
plan; l’effet moiré qui se produit sur l’écran si la mise au point est trop
précise, selon la profondeur de champ, la distance entre la caméra et
l’écran, la taille du capteur. En ce qui concerne l’éclairage, s’il faut créer
une forte lumière du soleil au bas de la prise de vue à l’arrière-plan, l’écran
n’émet pas suffisamment de lumière directe du soleil sur l’acteur ou les
objets à l’avant-plan. Il faut un peu tricher pour cet effet-là.
Quels autres aspects de la production virtuelle faudrait-il explorer dans un
futur cours, selon vous?
Je me pencherais sur les possibilités de faire des déplacements de caméra
élaborés et rapides. À quel point on peut pousser la précision de l’arrière-
plan, si on peut passer d’un écran vert ou bleu à une image réelle dans la
même prise de vue. J’aimerais également essayer de filmer à 48 images/
secondes avec un écran vert ou bleu avec un intervalle de 24 images/
secondes, qu’on pourrait utiliser en postproduction pour modifier l’arrière-
plan au besoin. Je ne sais pas si ça fonctionnerait, mais j’aimerais l’essayer.
Mais il ne fait aucun doute que c’est magique pour les réalisateurs, les
directeurs de la photographie et les acteurs de pouvoir tourner en direct
avec des arrière-plans au lieu d’écrans verts ou bleus.
Le 4 mai 2022 une autre classe de maître a été conduite par Éric Cayla
csc pour l'ARRQ (Association des Réalisateurs et Réalisatrices du Québec)
ayant pour but de faire comprendre les techniques de tournage en décors
virtuels. Une cinquantaine de participants.es y ont assisté et des membres
du gouvernement du Québec y sont aussi venus.
La CSC remercie sincèrement l’équipe de MELS (équipe virtuelle, machinistes
et électriciens).
53
 Principles of Cinematography and Visual Storytelling, May 14-15
TORONTO METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

T
aught by Christina Ienna (associate member and CSC board
member) and Richard Grunberg (associate member, media
production/associate professor, TMU), the Principles of
Cinematography and Visual Storytelling workshop provided an overview
on the foundations of cinematography. Participants learned about the
fundamentals of prepping, lighting, camera movement, transitions,
colour, and how to best collaborate with different departments.

The weekend also offered participants a chance to visit a pop-up tech

show that ran simultaneously to the workshop. The mini tradeshow
featured the latest production gear and technology and an opportunity to
network with industry friends, vendors and partners. Thank you to ARRI,
ROSCO, IATSE 667, HD SOURCE and MOSS LED for your support!
Clockwise from top left:
Lexi Crowe (actor), Stefan Kuchar (gaffer), Jeff Hicks (1st AC), and companion
member Asmaa Er-Rouhi (key grip).
Associate member Richard Grunberg (TMU Professor), associate member Christina
Ienna (instructor, DP), Stefan Kuchar (gaffer) and Jeff Hicks (1st AC).
Stefan Kuchar (gaffer), associate member Christina Ienna (instructor, DP),
Aiden Carter (2nd AC) and companion member Asmaa Er-Rouhi (key grip).
Affiliate member Andrew Richardson (DIT) and student member Susan Liu (2nd AC).
Associate member Christina Ienna (instructor, DP) with associate member Richard
Grunberg (TMU Professor).
Hei Wai Lui and Karensa McCarthy

54 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022

Cinematography Peer Review
WINNIPEG
O
n June 19, Guy Godfree csc organized and ran a pilot session
for a new screening idea for the CSC at the Winnipeg Film Group
Cinematheque. The three-hour screening session took place
for members to screen their work and have a positive discussion, ask
questions, and learn from each other. Attendance was kept to a maximum
of 15 people, and everyone was encouraged to bring a short form piece of
their own work for screening and discussion. There was a great turn out
and an air of excitement as associate and full members got the chance to
learn from each other through discussing different work. The CSC looks
forward to expanding the Cinematography Peer Review to other cities in
the future. A huge thanks goes to affiliate member Quan Luong for helping
to organize the event.

Top: (Left to right) Patryk Szmidt, D.

Gregor Hagey csc, Guy Godfree csc, Quan
Luong (affiliate member), Guillaume
Cottin (affiliate member) and Laina Brown
(associate member). Bottom: (Left to
right) Gabriel Levesque, Rohit Srinath
(student member) and Andrew Forbes
(associate member).

55
 UNVEILING THE CSC WESTERN
T
he Canadian Society of Cinematographers announced in June that a
deal has been reached with Sim to provide a home for CSC offices
on the third floor of Sim Vancouver headquarters at 3645 Grandview
Highway.
The new Vancouver office represents the CSC’s dedication to help grow
the already amazing western Canada filmmaking community and connect
our talented cinematographers with each other, the rest of the country and
the world. With Sim’s help – and the generous donations of its respected
industry partners – our capacity to produce seminars, hands-on education
activities, online content, and workshops increases one hundred-fold.
Along with the dedicated office space, the CSC will have access to Sim’s in-
house 1600-square-foot studio test space. CSC-Sim Education and Gathering
Space also includes room for receptions and educational space for workshop
The CSC is committed to providing professional development in the form of workshops for its members, organizing learning opportunities at various levels
from novice to masters. More information about CSC workshops is available on the CSC website.
56 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022
HUB
Steve Demeter
activities, use of a board room, and capacity to build a small training studio.
The space at Sim Grandview will allow CSC members to collaborate with
other cinematographers and technicians to develop and test creative
concepts and share their ideas,” says Sim Vice President Ken Anderson. “As
the CSC continues to develop a new vision and strategy with a focus on
education and diversity to attract top creative and technical talent across
the country, Sim is proud to provide a space for members to gather and
continue working towards an exciting future.”
When we publicly launched The Future is Calling Campaign in November to
increase our national outreach, provide learning and gathering environments
for current and emerging cinematographers and improve access to the camera
arts for marginalized communities, we never dreamed of the strength of
support from our industry champions. We are humbled, honoured and thrilled.
 grand opening
Cinelease toronto

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57
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