VisionARRI Magazine Issue 5

10/07 ISSUE 5

VisionARRI

The Biannual International Magazine from the ARRI RENTAL & POST PRODUCTION ENTERPRISES

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM DoP Oliver Wood discusses his experiences shooting the third Bourne instalment

PERFORMANCE WITH POWER Introducing the ARRI/Zeiss Master Zoom 16.5 – 110.

A high performance T2.6 lens that maintains outstanding optical image quality, covering the entire ANSI Super 35 frame throughout the zoom range.

Tin Man The ARRIFLEX D-20 returns to Oz for TV miniseries

This powerful zoom produces a high-contrast, high-resolution image which is comparable to that of a prime lens, while displaying virtually no breathing or ramping. Its unique optical design reduces spherical aberration and keeps the image geometry free of distortions - so straight lines stay straight, even up close.

The Kite Runner Interview with DoP Roberto Schaefer ASC

Behind the Scenes of the Mazda2 Spot

Now you can choose from more ARRI/Zeiss lenses than ever before. The Master Zoom further expands the ARRI/Zeiss lens family, providing you with a robust, comprehensive choice of matched lenses of the highest optical and mechanical quality.

ARRI Film & TV Commercial create dynamic advertisement for the Mazda2

ARRI/Zeiss Master Zoom 16.5 - 110mm ARRI/Zeiss Master Primes - 14 lenses ranging from 14mm to 150mm

Eastern Promises

ARRI/Zeiss Lightweight Zoom 15.5 - 45mm

London sets the scene for David Cronenberg’s Russian mafia movie

ARRI/Zeiss Ultra Primes - 16 lenses ranging from 8mm to 180mm ARRI/Zeiss Master Diopters - 3 diopters (0.5, 1 & 2)

Available worldwide from

Mongol The challenge of bringing the story of Genghis Khan to the big screen

Your creative possibilities are endless. arri.com

ARRI SERVICES GROUP NETWORK ARRI SUBSIDIARIES AUSTRALIA ARRI Australia, Sydney Cameras, Digital Christian Hilgart, Stefan Sedlmeier T +61 2 9855 4300 chilgart@arri.com.au ssedlmeier@arri.com.au AUSTRIA ARRI Rental Vienna Cameras, Digital Gerhard Giesser T +43 664 120 7257 rental@arri.at CZECH REPUBLIC ARRI Rental Prague Cameras, Digital, Lighting, Grip Robert Keil T +42 025 101 3575 rkeil@arri.de GERMANY ARRI Rental Berlin Cameras, Digital, Lighting, Grip Ute Baron Christoph Hoffsten T +49 30 346 800 0 ubaron@arri.de choffsten@arri.de ARRI Rental Cologne Cameras, Digital Stefan Martini T +49 221 170 6724 smartini@arri.de ARRI Rental Munich Cameras, Digital, Lighting, Grip Thomas Loher T +49 89 3809 1440 tloher@arri.de ARRI Film & TV Services, Munich Film Lab, Digital Intermediate Visual Effects, Sound, Studio, Cinema International Sales Angela Reedwisch T +49 89 3809 1574 areedwisch@arri.de National Sales Walter Brus T +49 89 3809 1772 wbrus@arri.de ARRI Schwarzfilm Berlin GmbH Film Lab, Digital Intermediate Thomas Mulack T +49 30 408 17 8534 T +49 30 408 17 850 thomas@schwarzfilm.de Schwarz Film GmbH Ludwigsburg Film Lab, Digital Intermediate Christine Wagner, Philipp Tschäppät T +49 7141 125 590 christine@schwarzfilm.de philipp@schwarzfilm.ch

VISIONARRI

4 THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM

DoP Oliver Wood describes his hand-held approach to the camerawork on the latest Bourne film

ARRI PARTNERS & ASSOCIATES LUXEMBOURG ARRI Rental Luxembourg Cameras, Digital Steffen Ditter T +352 2670 1270 sditter@arri.de SWITZERLAND Schwarz Film AG, Ostermundigen, Zürich Film Lab, Digital Intermediate Philipp Tschäppät T +41 31 938 11 50 philipp@schwarzfilm.ch UNITED KINGDOM ARRI Lighting Rental, London Lighting Tommy Moran T +44 1895 457 200 tmoran@arrirental.com ARRI Focus, London Short term lighting hire for commercials & promos Martin Maund, George Martin T +44 1895 810 000 martin@arrifocus.com george@arrifocus.com ARRI Media, London Cameras, Digital, Grip Philip Cooper T +44 1895 457 100 pcooper@arrimedia.com ARRI Crew, London Diary Service Kate Collier T +44 1895 457 180 arricrew@arrimedia.com USA ARRI CSC, New York Cameras, Digital, Lighting, Grip Simon Broad, Hardwrick Johnson T +1 212 757 0906 sbroad@arricsc.com hjohnson@arricsc.com ARRI CSC, Florida Cameras, Digital, Lighting, Grip Ed Stamm T +1 954 322 4545 estamm@arricsc.com

AUSTRALIA Cameraquip, Melbourne, Brisbane Cameras Malcolm Richards T +61 3 9699 3922 T +61 7 3844 9577 rentals@cameraquip.com.au BULGARIA Boyana Film Studios, Sofia Cameras, Lighting, Grip Lazar Lazarov T +359 2958 2713 director@boyanafilm.bg CYPRUS Seahorse Films, Nicosia, Paphos Cameras, Digital, Lighting, Grip, Studio Andros Achilleos T +357 9967 5013 andros@seahorsefilms.com FRANCE Bogard, Paris Cameras, Digital, Grip Didier Bogard, Alain Gauthier T +33 1 49 33 16 35 didier@bogard.fr alain.gauthier@bogard.fr GERMANY Maddel’s Cameras GmbH, Hamburg Cameras, Grip Matthias Neumann T +49 40 66 86 390 info@maddels.com HUNGARY VisionTeam, Budapest Cameras, Lighting, Grip Gabor Rajna T +36 1 433 3911 info@visionteam.hu ICELAND Pegasus Pictures, Reykjavik Cameras, Lighting, Grip Snorri Thorisson T +354 414 2000 snorri@pegasus.is

IRELAND Illumination Dynamics, LA The Production Depot, Lighting, Grip Co Wicklow Carly Barber, Maria Carpenter Cameras, Lighting, Grip T +1 818 686 6400 John Leahy, Dave Leahy carly@illuminationdynamics.com T +353 1 276 4840 maria@illuminationdynamics.com john@production-depot.com dave@production-depot.com Illumination Dynamics, North Carolina, JAPAN Lighting, Grip NAC Image Technology Inc. Jeff Pentek Tokyo T +1 704 679 9400 Cameras, Digital jeff@illuminationdynamics.com Tomofumi Masuda Hiromi Shindome T +81 3 5211 7960 masuda@camnac.co.jp

NEW ZEALAND Camera Tech, Wellington Cameras Peter Fleming T +64 4562 8814 cameratech@xtra.co.nz ROMANIA Panalight Studio, Bucharest Cameras, Lighting, Grip Diana Apostol T +40 727 358 304 office@panalight.ro RUSSIA ACT Film Facilities Agency, St. Petersburg Cameras, Lighting, Grip Sergei Astakhov T +7 812 710 2080 act@actfilm.ru SCANDINAVIA BLIXT Camera Rental, Denmark, Norway & Sweden Cameras, Digital Björn Blixt T +45 70 20 59 50 blixt@blixt.dk SOUTH AFRICA Media Film Service, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Namibia Cameras, Digital, Lighting, Grip, Studio Jannie Van Wyk T +27 21 511 3300 jannie@mediafilmservice.com SPAIN Camara Rental Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga Cameras, Grip Andres Berenguer, Alvaro Berenguer, Sylvia Jacuinde T +34 91 651 3399 andres@camararental.com alvaro@camararental.com sylvia@camararental.com info@camararental.com

8 A VIRTUAL SPOT FOR REAL ASSETS

ARRI Film & TV Commercial animate 3D spot for investment bank

10 THE KITE RUNNER

Irving Correa T +1 818 761 4440 irvingc@clairmont.com

DoP Roberto Schaefer ASC discusses his latest collaboration with Director Marc Forster

12 LONDON’S UNDERWORLD

Director Wayne Wang talks about his latest feature film

33 A SYMPHONY OF SOLOISTS

34 THE STORY OF A YOUNG KILLER

DoP Rob Hardy reflects on using the ARRIFLEX 416 and Master Primes for feature Boy A

Co-Producer Tracey Seaward, DoP Peter Suschitzky BSC and Gaffer John Colley talk about creating David Cronenberg’s Russian mafia movie Eastern Promises

16 BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE MAZDA2 SPOT ARRI Film & TV Commercial generate powerful advert for car manufacturer Mazda

22 RETURN TO OZ

Fantasy world captured by the ARRIFLEX D-20 for TV miniseries Tin Man

24 ARRIFLEX D-20 BRINGS IDEAS TO REALITY An update on recent ARRIFLEX D-20 projects

38 MONGOL

Director Sergei Bodrov recreates the story of Genghis Khan

42 COPACABANA

Television drama combines traditional film techniques with digital technology at ARRI Film & TV

44 SEVEN DAYS SUNDAY

Up and coming director supported by ARRI Film & TV and ARRI Rental

25 SHADOWS

46 SIDE EFFECT

28 EAST OF EVERYTHING

48 THE POWER TO DREAM, THE VISION

Director Milcho Manchevski and DoP Fabio Cianchetti post feature Shadows at ARRI Film & TV

ARRI Lighting Rental and ARRI Media help budding filmmakers shoot short film

TO INNOVATE

ARRI Australia supply television drama

ARRI celebrates 90 years of product innovation

52 25 YEARS OF ARRI FILM & TV

Managing Director Franz Kraus reflects on 25 years of postproduction at ARRI

CONTENTS

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55 STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGY AT ARRI SCHWARZFILM BERLIN GMBH ARRI SchwarzFilm Berlin upgrades facilities

56 MOMENTS IN TIME

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the hand-held affair with the ARRIFLEX 35

59 PANALIGHT

The ARRI Rental Group’s Romanian rental partner

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Fletcher Chicago, Chicago ARRIFLEX D-20 Representative Stan Glapa T +1 312 932 2700 stan@fletch.com

GOOD PRAYERS

The ARRIFLEX D-20 shoots 150 musicians for Sony commercial

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES Filmquip Media, Dubai Cameras, Lighting, Grip Anthony Smythe, Hugo Lang T +971 4 347 4909 ant@filmquipmedia.com hugo@filmquipmedia.com USA & CANADA Clairmont Camera Hollywood, LA, Toronto, Vancouver ARRIFLEX D-20 Representative

30 A THOUSAND YEARS OF

VisionARRI would like to thank the following contributors; Susanne Bieger, Clemens Danzer, Mark Hope-Jones, Ingo Klingspon, Tracy Mair, Heike Maleschka, Dylan Michael, Tommy Moran, Sinead Moran, Andrea Oki, Judith Petty, Bastian Prützmann, Angela Reedwisch, Andrea Rosenwirth, Stefan Sedlmeier, Marc Shipman-Mueller, Iain Struthers, Michelle Smith, Andy Subratie, Ricore Text, An Tran, Sabine Welte

60 NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD 63 DID YOU KNOW? 63 TAKE 10 64 PRODUCT UPDATE 68 PRODUCTION UPDATE

VISIONARRI

The Bourne Ultimatum was shot on Kodak Vision2 250D (5205) and 500T (5218) with ARRICAM Lite and ARRIFLEX 235 cameras, Cooke S4 primes and Nikon mini-zooms.

Camera equipment was supplied by ARRI Media in London, ARRI Rental in Munich and ARRI CSC in New York, all working together to provide the international service available from the ARRI Rental Group.

VisionARRI: Director Paul Greengrass was with you again on this third film; was it easy to slip back into the working relationship?

Yes, we just went back into the same mode right away. It was very much an extension of what we’d done before; we had worked out a style on The Bourne Supremacy which was very successful and I just kind of updated it with different equipment. We had quite a big prep and the assistants made up these cameras to be able to work handheld; very lightweight and very fast.

Oliver Wood:

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM

DoP Oliver Wood discusses frenetic camerawork, international locations and lighting by satellite.

The third instalment of a hugely successful film franchise based on novels by Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Ultimatum sees Matt Damon return as amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne. Robbed of his identity and pursued across the globe, Bourne must turn the tables on the government agency that trained him but now wants him dead in order to avenge his murdered girlfriend and uncover the truth about his past. The second Bourne film directed by Paul Greengrass and the third photographed by Oliver Wood, Ultimatum has thrilled audiences worldwide since its August release and very quickly exceeded the international box office returns of both preceding films.

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Paul’s style was to be completely loose and spontaneous, all the way down the line, from the script onwards. He got that from United 93, when he had complete control of the script and it became a daily thing that he wrote it himself with the actors. It wasn’t just the camerawork, it was the way he worked with the actors and everything – that’s where he wants to go; he wants to make it all like that.

The editors would often come back with reshoot lists of what they were missing, but I had dailies DVDs so if we needed to go back to a scene, I could watch the DVD and see what we did that day. Also the sets were done with [specialist lighting company] Light by Numbers, so we had computer records we could punch in and everything would come up the same as before.

VA: You chose ARRICAM Lite and ARRIFLEX 235 cameras. What made them right for the job and how did you use them to achieve what Paul envisioned?

They were the most reliable cameras I could find. Size of course was a top priority – size and weight, and then ergonomics. We stripped every bit of weight off the kits we could and anything we could add that was lightweight rather than heavy, we did.

OW:

5

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM

VISIONARRI

STEADICAM OPERATOR Florian Emmerich keeps pace with Matt Damon PAUL GREENGRASS directs Matt Damon

DOP OLIVER WOOD (right) supervises the ‘C’ camera crew

The ARRICAM Lites were used pretty much whenever there was sync dialogue and we had to have a silent camera. In certain cases, where there was some dialogue but the camera had to be very mobile, then we went to the 235 – in exterior situations where you couldn’t hear it so much. And then we made it even lighter if we had to put it in a running shot or on a Pogo-Cam. The 235 functioned as the smallest possible camera; it basically went down to the tiniest, lightest, handheld configuration we could get.

There were always at least two cameras, but there was no rule about how they were allocated. The ‘B’ camera was usually an ARRICAM Lite but was sometimes a 235 if it was on a Steadicam and we had to run with it. The ‘A’ camera could be either a Lite or a 235. I would have liked to carry two 235s actually. It was used for exteriors, for all chase sequences – of which there were many – like in Waterloo station, in Morocco and anywhere the sound could be worked out. The sound man was very forgiving with it.

VA: You had Cooke S4 primes and some specially made Nikon zooms. How did you put them to use?

The mini-zooms were the result of collaboration between me and ARRI Media. I said I wanted to have two lightweight zooms and the suggestion came up that we fish around for stills zooms. We found these two Nikon digital zooms, a 28-76mm and a 70-200mm; ARRI thought they could adapt them and they did it. The Nikons became the basic lenses for the whole show; they were used all the time because the constant priority was for lightweight, ergonomic kit. The other question was speed; I needed a lens that went to T2.8, because that’s where I needed to work.

OW:

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I’ve always been very fond of Cooke lenses; I just like the look.

We used the 150mm Cooke quite a bit on the Steadicam, but we were mostly on the zooms.

Shooting fast action scenes with hand-held cameras and wide lens apertures must have been challenging for your crews.

VA:

I was very kind to the focus pullers, I said “if you make mistakes, don’t get bent out of shape, just carry on, it’s fine.

If it buzzes it’s all part of the look – zooming in and missing, zooming in and not being sharp so quickly pulling the focus – make that part of the camerawork.” Saying that made them much more confident and in camerawork confidence is everything.

OW:

We had extremely good operators, some of the best in the world. I went in there and almost told them to forget everything they’d been taught and start again, but because they were such good operators it came naturally to them. They loved letting go of all the restrictions of having to be smooth and in focus all the time and executing perfect zooms. It was a fertile area for them to work in and they loved it.

The way we kitted out these cameras was another treat for them; no expense was spared. The producers were great about getting everything I needed; I had a kind of open door in that area.

Photos by: Jasin Boland © 2007 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved

“THE 235 FUNCTIONED AS THE SMALLEST POSSIBLE CAMERA; IT BASICALLY WENT DOWN TO THE TINIEST, LIGHTEST, HAND-HELD CONFIGURATION WE COULD GET.”

cables and extra bits and pieces that were put together at ARRI Media. Some had been custom made, so basically those two suitcases went with us around the world. In New York for instance I took the two cases from ARRI Media and the Nikon lenses that were made and then we rented the basic camera package from ARRI CSC in New York.

Each time we had new assistants I had to instruct them in how it all went together. Basically in Europe and England we had the same crew. In Germany we had a new crew, although I took the ‘A’ and ‘B’ camera focus pullers and operators, and everyone else in Berlin had done Supremacy with me so they were pretty much up to speed. Then when we got to New York it was a whole different ball game, but they were brilliant too; they came up with their own rigs and were very creative. All the different crews contributed; it was an organic process.

The camera crew list is about four pages long, and then on top of that there was a second unit. There were three cameras on the second unit; they had to put their own packages together, based on ours. When we scouted it, this was all planned out – we decided what was going to be first unit, what was going to be second unit – but once we were shooting there was no way I could be there; they were completely autonomous.

You were also shooting all over the world.

Did that present any particular difficulties?

In Berlin you had to light a large area of the city for the film’s opening sequence. How did you go about planning that?

Yeah it was challenging. First of all, the package we had was highly specialised; we had two suitcases that formed a “gizmo” package as we called it, which was all the little

That was an enormous lighting set-up. I flew in for a weekend with my German Gaffer Ronnie Schwarz, who

VA:

OW:

VA:

OW:

actually lit the second movie, so he was very aware of what I needed. We scouted the two basic locations; one was a drugstore and other was the station, but they were huge. They were supposed to be in Moscow; that’s the reason we chose East Berlin, because the communist architecture is very similar to Moscow. Then I went back to London to start shooting again at seven o’clock on the Monday morning. Ronnie put his plans down on a Google Earth document, so we got on the phone and sat with computers, bringing up Google Earth documents with little flags all over them. It was an absolutely brilliant tool; I could see his plans as he made them and suggest changes right there over the phone.

The film has gone through a DI. What is your approach and attitude to this process?

VA:

I consider the DI a lighting tool. I’ve completely stopped using filters or any kind of unusual lab processes. I process everything absolutely normally and never filter anything; I do any kind of grad or image work in the DI. The only exception really was a streaking out-of-phase shutter effect in some flashbacks. Half of that was done digitally, but it worked a lot better in camera.

The biggest achievement of the DI was taking this huge wealth of material that was shot all over the world by a million different people, putting it together and making it look like the same movie. I Mark Hope-Jones

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VISIONARRI

A Virtual Spot for Real Assets ARRI Film & TV Commercial pulls out all the stops for Investment Bank Cortal Consors Amid the numerous TV spots promoting financial products and services on German television there is one that stands out: an avant-garde, 3D animated commercial for investment bank Cortal Consors, the onlineaffiliate of BNP Paribas. This successful collaboration between Cortal Consors, advertising agency Serviceplan and ARRI Commercial has proved it possible to create visually impressive television spots for a financial institution.

“In the financial sector the products themselves are very interchangeable and therefore it is extremely important to establish the product by giving it a distinct and trendy visual style,” says Daniela Bardini, Creative Director of Munich-based agency Serviceplan Zweite. “It is vital that the spot stands out and grabs people’s attention, leaving an indelible impression on their minds.”

The most recent 17-second TV commercial promotes 10 successful mutual funds, which Cortal Consors offer at an attractive price with the slogan: “The best mutual funds at the best prices.” Previous spots have extended different offers but all have one thing in common: they are all virtual commercials and were created entirely on 3D computers at ARRI. The first step was to find a solid, visual icon to represent the mutual fund, which is an essentially abstract product, to star in the TV spot as the story’s hero. From discussions emerged the idea of developing an award statuette character, along the lines of an Oscar, for the world of banking commercials. The task of developing this character was put in the capable hands of ARRI’s Head of 3D Animation, Christian Deister, and Character Animator Vladan Subotic. From a selection of scribbles and illustrations the production team chose a statuette that resembles a young, dynamic manager. The character was rendered entirely in 3D and plated in virtual chrome, ready for its starring role.

“Initially we did not have an agreed-upon storyboard,” remembers Christian Deister. “Together with the client and the agency, we worked as a team to create the story; everyone contributed ideas.”

Head of ARRI Commercial Philipp Bartel adds: “It’s very motivating when the client grants the postproduction house and the agency so much creative freedom. Often they went with our ideas and allowed us to implement them single-handedly.”

While still in the fine-tuning stages of characterdevelopment, the 3D team created an animatic for previsualisation of the spot. Christian Deister explains: “I thought it would be best to approach this commercial as if it were a conventional live-action film.” Using a dummy, various camera movements were tested in an attempt to discover the best methods of filming the statuette. “Playing the appropriate music in the background, we wanted to create a powerful plot to give the statues an epic quality in this short 17-second spot,” he continues.

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WIDE SHOT final render

CLOSE-UP final render

After initial pre-rendering, the test footage was edited to music on an Avid and so within just a few days the client was able to approve the spot as a “living-and-breathing” storyboard. “Pre-rendering is a fast process,” says Philipp Bartel, “but it provides everything that is needed to properly adjust the camera in the edit. Subsequently, in the final rendering, only those frames which became part of the animatic after the picture had been locked have to be rendered. That saves time and money.” The final steps toward completing the spot involved giving the various elements a sophisticated look, matching the colour grading to that of Cortal Consors’ corporate identity, and fine-tuning the camera movements and edits before completing the final compositing.

Frames from various out-takes of this production were used for the print and online campaigns in order to give the entire media campaign a consistent look.

Budget Director Clemens Dreyer concludes: “Our Cortal Consors spot is now being emulated by other banks, which to me means that, together with ARRI, we did a great job.” I Ingo Klingspon

Client: Cortal Consors S.A. Director of Marketing: Brand Manager:

Kai Wulff Konelija Klisanic

Agency: Serviceplan Zweite Werbeagentur GmbH Management: Joachim Schöpfer Budget Director: Clemens Dreyer Creative Director: Daniela Bardini ARRI Film & TV Commercial: Head of Commercial: Philipp Bartel Producer: Phil Decker Head of 3D: Christian Deister Character Animators: Vladan Subotic, Gregoire Barfety Flame Artist: Rico Reitz Colour Grading: Janna Sälzer

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Photos by: Phil Bray

An interview with DoP Roberto Schaefer ASC

The Kite Runner

VISIONARRI

DIRECTOR MARC FORSTER instructs the child actors DIRECTOR MARC FORSTER

DOP ROBERTO SCHAEFER ASC (left) and ‘A’

Camera/Steadicam Operator Jim McConkey (right)

VA: Why did you shoot on 3 perforation/2.35:1 and how did that work for you?

We chose to shoot 3 perforation to save money on stock and lab costs to put into the post needs for the DI and grading work. When we abandoned anamorphic, 3 perforation seemed only natural. The lighter weight, smaller and less cases, and faster lenses definitely made that the right decision looking back on it.

RS:

Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel, The Kite Runner, was first published in 2003 and has since sold more than seven million copies worldwide. Set against the political events of Afghanistan, the story is about the doomed friendship of two childhood friends; Amir, the son of a powerful Kabul businessman, and Hassan, the son of the faithful family servant.

The boys are inseparable until one fateful day when Amir is determined to win a local kite-flying tournament to secure his father’s approval. On the afternoon of the contest Amir finds Hassan being brutally attacked by a local thug. He does nothing to help, shattering their relationship. Shortly after, Amir and his father leave Afghanistan, fleeing the Russian invasion to begin a new life in America. But Amir can’t forget what happened to Hassan and after 20 years of living in the US, returns to a perilous Afghanistan under the Taliban’s iron-fisted rule to face the secrets that still haunt him and to set things right.

Shot by Director Marc Forster and DoP Roberto Schaefer ASC for DreamWorks Pictures, The Kite Runner is the duo’s seventh collaboration. Their partnership has spanned more than a decade, producing films such as the award winning Monster’s Ball and Finding Neverland, and has recently seen them embark on their eighth project together, the latest instalment of the James Bond franchise.

Authenticity was a hugely important factor of the production. Due to the obvious dangers of the conditions in Afghanistan the production team sought alternative locations for filming, finally settling on China which was considered to be the best fit in terms of appearance. Much of the film’s dialogue is in Dari, the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan, and most of the actors involved, including the child actors, were native speakers.

The film was shot in 3 perforation with an ARRICAM Lite, ARRICAM Studio and ARRIFLEX 235 provided by ARRI Australia.

VisionARRI spoke to Roberto Schaefer about his approach to the project and his experiences shooting in China.

VisionARRI: Can you tell us briefly what the movie is about?

The Kite Runner is based on the best-selling novel of the same name. It is a story about friendship, betrayal, loss and redemption set against the events occurring in Afghanistan between 1977 and 2001.

Roberto Schaefer:

Which look was intended for the film and why?

VA:

The story is intended to be seen as an epic in the tradition of Sergio Leone and David Lean. The part of the film set in Afghanistan in the seventies has a rich RS:

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and warm feeling, like the friendship of the two boys. The parts set in the US and Afghanistan in 2001 are cooler and less saturated as the life is drawn out of the characters and they face harsher realities.

but the Xinjiang province in far western China had all of the right ingredients.

VA: What was the reason for shooting this film in China?

What was your impression of China as a shooting location, and was it difficult working there with an International team from Asia, Australia and China?

RS: We shot principally in China due to the look of the landscapes and local architecture, which closely resembles that of Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan.

It would have been too dangerous to try and shoot there. Other places that were considered were Turkey and Morocco,

China provided us with magnificent locations that were truly on the epic scale we wanted to portray. It was difficult for many reasons, extreme weather being just one of them. We had to bring in everything from Beijing or beyond. There is no film community in

VA:

RS:

Kashgar where we were based, even less in Tashkurgan. There were many challenges for a largely western crew that was mixed with many Chinese and local Uygur help. Most of the department heads, and a good deal of the key crew members, came from the US, Australia and the UK. We had to have many levels of translators, from English to Chinese, Uygur, Farsi, Pashtun and Urdu, and all the permutations within.

What were the main challenges facing the production?

VA:

The main challenges in filming were the logistics of shooting in a place that was an eight hour plane ride or eight day drive from the nearest center of production supplies. On top of that we had a very hot summer and fall, and a bitter cold winter. Film had to be shipped back to Beijing for developing and then either printed there and shipped back, or sent to L.A. for telecine dailies and shipped back. That process took from four days at best, to three weeks, depending upon our location.

RS:

VA: Were you satisfied with the ARRI equipment, especially on rough locations such as the Chinese mountains?

Yes, it all held up magnificently, as I had expected. We did bring a camera technician from the US with us, who ended up repairing everything from hair dryers to sewing machines and

RS:

Technocrane circuits. With the camera gear, he mostly just cleaned everything each night and made sure that it was all in perfect condition everyday.

What aspect influenced your decision to take the camera and lens set-up you used?

VA:

RS: I initially wanted to shoot anamorphic. I went to Germany and spent several days testing and evaluating Hawk lenses. But when I got to Kashgar and Tashkurgan and the road between the two, I realized that too many of our interiors were tiny with few windows, the exteriors were exposed to harsh elements like dust storms and extreme temperatures. I felt that it would be more than we could handle to shoot entirely in scope. I then wanted to shoot all of my big exteriors on anamorphics and the interiors and dark night exteriors with spherical lenses since we were definitely doing the DI [Digital Intermediate] right from the start. Unfortunately, due to budgetary restrictions and the schedule, I couldn’t afford to carry full sets of both types of lenses, as well as 3 perforation and 4-perforation camera bodies for the entire shoot. So we decided to use 3 perforation to save some money for the DI when it was decided to go spherical.

That was when I tried the Master Prime lenses and fell in love with them. I used the T1.3 –2 range often and found them to be really quite amazing.

VA: You were one of the first DoPs to try our new ARRI/Zeiss Lightweight Zoom, the LWZ-1 15.5-45mm. What was that experience like?

We used the new lightweight zoom a lot. It held up beautifully to the Master Primes in quality of image. We also used it on our viewfinder as a variable prime for setting up shots, and it practically lived on the Steadicam. It also matched well with the longer Angenieux Optimo zooms.

RS:

VA: How are the Master Primes compared to the Optimo Zooms?

The Master Primes were a perfect match to the longer Angenieux Optimo zooms.

RS:

VA: Did you consider shooting this movie on HD or did you think that 35mm was the only way to go?

Originally I toyed with the idea of looking into shooting in HD. I thought about the ARRIFLEX D-20, Viper or Genesis. What worried me was how the equipment would hold up to the conditions, the distance we were from any service, and storage of data and transferring that back to the editor in L.A. I recently shot a pilot on HD and was extremely happy that I had decided to do The Kite Runner on 35mm. I

RS:

www.kiterunnermovie.com Clemens Danzer / Andrea Rosenwirth

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LONDON’S UNDERWORLD

VISIONARRI

Peter Suschitzky BSC films the dark side of London for Eastern Promises

The latest film from legendary Canadian Director David Cronenberg is a violent tale of the Russian mafia in London, touching on the global sex trade that exists in today’s society.

Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) works for one London’s most feared organized crime families. His path crosses with Anna (Naomi Watts), a midwife at a London hospital where a 14-year-old Russian girl has recently died during childbirth. In a bid to uncover the teenager’s identity and find a home for the baby, Anna looks for clues in the dead girl’s diary, but she unwittingly holds damaging information that could lead to the unraveling of the family’s criminal network. Nikolai must make sure this doesn’t happen. Several lives hang in the balance as a chain of murder, deceit, and retribution reverberates through the darkest corners of London.

The script for Eastern Promises was originally developed at the BBC but was picked up by Focus Features, a division of Universal Pictures, who sent it to Cronenberg to direct and Paul Webster to produce. “We were so pleased when David was appointed,” recollects Co-producer Tracey Seaward. “He’s a masterful director and was always in total control of the shoot. David creates an almost instinctive relationship with each and every department.”

The film is Cronenberg’s first to be shot entirely outside of Canada. Although he brought most of his heads of department with him, a strong UK crew was assembled to work with them. Seaward was involved in planning how the production would best organize filming at locations around London, as well as 3 Mills Studios: “About half of the location shooting took place at night,” she says, “which was quite complicated due to the fact that many of the sites were in residential areas and therefore we had to respect the local residents.”

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The dark, rain-slicked streets of London were photographed by Peter Suschitzky BSC, with an ARRICAM Studio, ARRICAM Lite and Master Prime lenses supplied by ARRI Media, and lighting equipment supplied by ARRI Lighting Rental.

Eastern Promises marks Suschitzky’s eighth film with director Cronenberg.

Their collaboration began in 1988 with Dead Ringers, when a strong rapport was established from day one. “I think we immediately knew that we were right for each other, I never had any doubts anyway,” states Suschitzky. “Things worked very quickly between us and we were soon able to work with very little verbal communication. On our very first day of shooting I knew that this was going to be the most important working relationship of my life. And so it turned out to be.” Both have a very intuitive way of working and don’t set out with the idea of a ‘look’. “To tell the simple truth, we no longer talk about style,” he continues.

“Things just happen naturally, growing, I hope, from within the material of the film and the narrative. We both work very instinctively. We never talk about making a film look this way or that way.”

For Eastern Promises, Cronenberg’s requirements were simple: “The early indications that David gave me were that he was looking for a rainy London, a grey London,” says the cinematographer.

“Naturally we had to shoot with the weather that we had, but we were able to afford to wet down streets and produce rain when there wasn’t any. The only thing I did was to hold the idea in my head that he wanted it to look grey. I don’t believe that you can put style on like an item of clothing - it has to flow from

inside the film, from inside your soul if you like. Everything has to work together; the costumes, the sets, the choice of colour of the costumes and sets, the camera work, and the direction of course.

It all has to go together.

“I have more or less the same approach when considering any film. I read the script, I look at the locations, sets or concepts of sets, the costumes and casting that are possible choices for the film, and of course I speak with David approximately about what we are going to do. He is somebody who does a lot of thinking about what he is going to do with the subject, but he also leaves a lot open to inspiration on the day, inspiration that comes from seeing the actors rehearse and from the set or location.

He doesn’t storyboard anything. So we rehearse and then we discuss where we are going to put the camera for the scene and I spend whatever time I need, within the constraints of the production schedule, preparing, but I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do until I start doing it.”

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LONDON’S UNDERWORLD

VISIONARRI

Photos by: Peter Mountain © 2007 Focus Features. All Rights Reserved.

John Colley, Suschitzky’s Gaffer on Eastern Promises, recalls: “There were two sets in particular where we had to allow for the possibility of a 360-degree camera angle. The first was the bathhouse and the second was the restaurant. In order to be able to look in all directions Peter and I decided that a combination of Image 80s in the grid, feeding back to a dimmer desk, was a much better alternative than any other space light or hard light scenario. With over 50, we had total control of the contrast throughout the sets. We were able to control backgrounds and set levels without affecting the colour

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Another set-up that Colley recollects was a car scene that was shot without rear screen projection or bluescreen. “Both David and Peter wanted a traveling car scene to look as realistic as possible,” he says. “Initially, there were a few late nights in the studio, but the decision was made that the real world was the best way to provide the actors with an opportunity to deliver their dialogue. The location department worked overtime to provide us with a suitable backdrop and flexible working conditions. We must have looked like a space ship traveling down Upper Street on a low loader. There were about 15 or so small ARRI lamps, from 650W to 2kW, with various colours to match the surroundings of the streets. I sat next to Peter at the camera with a dimming desk on my lap while he called out where the lights should play.”

Shooting at night around London had its advantages for Colley.

“It’s the best time to go to work,” he claims. “You’ve got total control of lighting and contrast ratios. We used a combination of Wendy lights with an underslung ARRI T24 or T12 to focus on specific areas, which worked very well for us.” Some nights proved to be pretty hectic from a logistical point of view: “On more than a few occasions there were six or seven cherry pickers and Genie booms, as well as four or five generators.

Credit to Rigging Gaffer Vince Madden and Best Boy Andy Cole for keeping things running smoothly.”

Having worked with ARRI Lighting Rental on many films in the past, Colley was confident in their level of service: “I knew they would be able to deliver the service and equipment needed in order to meet the demands of the schedule,” he affirms. “By working closely with Sinead Moran we were able to maintain a balance between budget and schedule.” Seaward also has a long standing association with both ARRI Lighting Rental and ARRI Media. “I have a close and trusting relationship with both companies, they always provide great technical support and service. It’s important to know that someone is always there at the end of the phone to help you 24 hours a day.”

All involved agree that working on the film was a truly rewarding experience. “I’m really proud to have worked on Eastern Promises,” reflects Seaward. “It was a calm environment, we were always on schedule, the crew were fantastic and there was a great camaraderie with the cast – so much so that one day Viggo Mortensen decided it might be a good idea to become my assistant, the next thing we knew he was handing out cakes to all the cast and crew!”

Colley adds: “I was thrilled to have the opportunity to work with David and Peter. Occasionally I had to pinch myself that I was actually on set with them. It made all those heavy lamps and dirty cables in the pouring rain worthwhile. They had such a great understanding with each other and their energy was tempered and directed. Once we had captured the scene, we moved on. The crew and cast involved on this film all worked so well together.”

DIRECTOR DAVID CRONENBERG

A notable scene in the film is a dramatic fight-to-the-death between two knifewielding assassins and the nude Nikolai in an old London bathhouse. Filmed on a set due to concerns about the difficulty of working in a confined location, it took many months of planning, weeks of rehearsals and three days to shoot. This particular scene had to be approached in a far less controlled manner than any other in the film because of its intense action. “I had to allow for the camera to be able to move around freely,” explains Suschitzky. “David felt that he wanted to have considerable freedom and little delay between shots so I had to light that scene so that it was filmable with very small adjustments in any direction, whereas with other scenes I was able to light in a more controlled manner.”

temperature. For the restaurant alone there were over 100 practical channels, which initially may have seemed like over kill but the time we saved when it came to shooting and keeping a rhythm made it all worth the expense and effort.”

Photo courtesy John Colley

However, Suschitzky did make a stylistic decision about his choice of lenses, choosing the Master Primes. “On all the films that I have worked on with David I’ve opted for Primo lenses. I decided, without any intervention from David at all, to change everything on this one.

I tested all sorts of lenses and I chose the Master Primes. They looked very sharp, I felt that they had slightly less depth of field than some other lenses and I thought that they would give the story the right sort of feel.” Generally, a very small number of lenses have been used on their films together. Suschitzky remembers that A History of Violence was shot almost entirely on just a 27mm. “For Eastern Promises we shot mostly on a 27mm and 25mm, but we would occasionally use a 21mm or 35mm.”

AT THE CAMERA DoP Peter Suschitzky BSC, to the left 1st AD Walter Gasparovic

“I am proud of the whole film, because it’s a good one, through and through, with everything working together; writing, acting, direction and visuals. All are seamlessly interlaced - I hope that my work is integrated well into the whole and feels organic,” concludes Suschitzky.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Production Manager Lisa Parker, who sadly passed away several months after completing the project. Tracey Seaward worked with Lisa Parker for many years and pays tribute to a close colleague and friend: “Lisa was an extraordinary and unique person; she had an amazing passion and energy and was devoted to her job.

She was well thought of by those who had worked with her over the last 15 years. I truly believe the industry suffered a tremendous loss, and as a colleague and friend she will be irreplaceable.” I Michelle Smith

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Behind the Scenes of the Mazda2 Spot ARRI Film & TV Commercial and Hager Moss Film produce powerful TV advertisement.

Television spots for major car manufacturers are among the most demanding of commercial productions and usually command budgets that run to six figures. Few of these extravagant commercials are made in Germany, so Munich-based production company Hager Moss was especially pleased when it was commissioned to create television spots for the Mazda2 campaign. Hager Moss in turn brought ARRI Film & TV Commercial on board and the result was an impressive television commercial that proves Germany to be capable of taking on productions of any scale.

An advertising campaign focusing on the ‘sportiness’ of the product leaves no doubt about its target market. The Mazda2, which is the most recent and most compact model in the Mazda fleet, is aimed at young drivers looking to buy their first car. In order to best appeal to this demographic, the manufacturer and their advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson, agreed to steer clear of familiar campaign concepts. The approach had already been established with a print campaign featuring a surreal collage of images juxtaposing naked bodies in sporty poses and cold blue tones with a metallic-green Mazda2.

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BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE MAZDA2 SPOT

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“WE SHOT A LOT OF FOOTAGE AND VERY LITTLE WAS BUILT AFTERWARDS IN 3D, BUT DESPITE ALL THAT, EACH FRAME IS A COMPOSITE AND THEREFORE A STAND-ALONE WORK CREATED AT ARRI DURING POSTPRODUCTION.”

DoP Rolf Kesterman found the solution to this problem at the Roman Coppola Studio in Los Angeles, where he came across the Photobubble, an inflatable device made of lightweight, synthetic material that provides a reflection-free, bubble-shaped space and a 360-degree area of view. The manufacturer of the Photobubble was able to provide a custom-made, walk-in “soft box” with white walls, which delivered the perfect chroma key for postproduction. Only the floor of the studio had to be painted white.

“WE NEEDED A HIGH FRAME RATE OF 100FPS, SOMETIMES EVEN 250FPS, IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE THE INTENDED IMAGE QUALITY IN POSTPRODUCTION.” A similarly avant-garde concept was developed for the television spot, in which a young Mazda2 driver plays cat-and-mouse with five acrobatic, female dancers in an abstract, virtual space. The principal objective of the production was to visualize and communicate the key messages: agility, sportiness and lightness. It was immediately clear that the project would require a good deal of postproduction work. Hager Moss chose to count on the specialists at ARRI Film & TV Commercial to help meet this challenge, having collaborated successfully with them in the past.

Initially, the main task was to come up with a convincing design for the virtual space in which the commercial is set.

Certain similarities to the print campaign 18

were purposefully evoked, but the spot also needed to stand alone as an original and independent piece. ARRI Art Director and Flame/Inferno-Artist Rico Reitz worked with Director Paula Walker to define a binding framework for the style. This then allowed specific arrangements for the shoot and the subsequent postproduction to be made.

Reitz believes that meticulous planning during preproduction and the close monitoring of standards during filming are the key to a smooth workflow between production and postproduction.

“The greater the demands on postproduction, the more involved we get in the production itself,” he says.

“We feel responsible for our work, which includes keying, spatial design,

compositing, visual effects, as well as the blending of the real and virtual elements into a convincing final image.”

Implementing the concept for the spot involved filming the Mazda2 and the dancers in an entirely white space, since white had been chosen as the key background for postproduction. “Initially we wanted to build a concave space [65 feet deep and 32 feet high] to shoot in,” recalls Hager Moss Producer Jürgen Kraus. “But the problem with a concave space is that you don’t have a ceiling, which restricts the camera movement and limits the use of wide-angle lenses.

At some point all the camera can capture is the studio and the lighting rigs.”

“We were among the first European productions to use this device,” says Jürgen Kraus. “The Photobubble was ideal for creating the sort of world we had intended for this spot. It provided excellent working conditions for the Director and the DoP, allowing them to shoot at any focal length and move the camera without any restrictions. In addition, we had the advantage that our lighting conditions didn’t change.

As a matter of fact, we lit the space once and then nothing had to be changed for the rest of the shoot, which saved a lot of time.”

The only remaining problem was in pinpointing the precise spatial coordinates which would later be needed during 3D tracking at ARRI. The Photobubble did not provide any information about spatial relationships between individual elements because it was completely white inside. “We couldn’t simply place tracking markers

on the Photobubble itself,” explains 3D Artist Christian Deister. “That wasn’t a precise enough solution because the Photobubble constantly moves, although only slightly, due to changing air pressure. Instead we had tall poles made, which we could use as yardsticks after painting black measurement markings on them. We distributed these poles throughout the Photobubble and measured the distances between them.

This allowed us to exactly recreate the size of the space and the camera movements during 3D tracking.”

Filming took place in June 2007 at the Barrandov film studios in Prague, with the support of the Czech film production company Etic. Though the stage was large enough to house the 164-foot Photobubble, it transpired that the Photobubble itself was too small for the stunt driver to gain sufficient speed for the choreographed skid scenes. An access driveway therefore had to be constructed that ran from outside the soundstage into the Photobubble.

The spot was filmed on 35mm with an ARRIFLEX 435. “We needed a high frame rate of 100fps, sometimes even 250fps, in order to achieve the intended image quality in postproduction,” explains Jürgen Kraus. “25fps wouldn’t have been enough during keying of crucial scenes because of motion blur.”

During the four days of production 12 to 15 set-ups were shot daily, all of which required elements to be added in post:

“There isn’t a single shot in this spot that was created entirely in-camera,” explains the producer. “We shot a lot of footage and very little was built afterwards in 3D, but despite all that, each frame is a composite and therefore a stand-alone work created at ARRI during postproduction.”

The creative teams at Hager Moss and at ARRI knew that on this type of project, with an extensive postproduction component, the approval process can be very difficult. Jürgen Kraus explains: “The client and agency representatives sit in front of a monitor during the shoot and can watch a green car drive across a ramp or girls fly through the Photobubble suspended from wires. They can’t see a background and they can’t see a story unfold. All they see is a white floor that gets increasingly dirty, which could leave many wondering: how will this ever end up looking good?

But we were very lucky, because in this case the client and their agency trusted our judgement and were able to envisage our suggestions.”

During the course of production, exposed negative was processed and scanned at a film laboratory in Prague and then sent to ARRI Munich. Within 10 days a 60-second spot as well as two 30-second, five 20-second and five 10-second spots were offlined. Once the picture was locked, the actual postproduction at ARRI started and took six weeks to complete.

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BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE MAZDA2 SPOT

Later on the 60-second spot, consisting of 67 takes, was scanned again in order to get even better colour resolution and to create clean masks. This time the scanning was completed in two steps on the Spirit. The spot was scanned in HD with a 10-bit data depth in order to avoid problems with the masks and the steadiness of the images. At this stage selected takes went to Manuel Voss for keying and rotoscoping in order to avoid compromising the agreed-upon timeline.

Rico Reitz explains: “To key 130 individual takes, shot with a moving camera, was a challenge that kept 10 people busy for 12 days. And that was a rather fast turn around.”

While the raw material was delivered from Prague to Munich, the 3D team was working on two tasks. One was to evaluate the tracking information from the camera and the other was to geometrically reduce the complex 3D construction data of the Mazda2 that the manufacturer had provided. This resulted in the creation of a virtual car, which behaved exactly like the real car in the film images. “We began by establishing the camera positions for the locked camera shots, making sure that everything was correct in terms of perspective and depth of field,” explains Christian Deister. “Then we matched the real car with the computer-generated 3D model. This allowed us to generate and render the 3D shadows and 3D reflections that were needed for the composite.”

The 3D team was also responsible for the look of the floor. The problem was that the floor in the Photobubble was dull in the first place and ended up getting quite dirty during the shoot. This led to 20

“TO KEY 130 INDIVIDUAL TAKES, SHOT WITH A MOVING CAMERA, WAS A CHALLENGE THAT KEPT 10 PEOPLE BUSY FOR 12 DAYS. AND THAT WAS A RATHER FAST TURN AROUND.” the idea of replacing it with a computergenerated virtual and reflective floor.

Unfortunately there were no reflections of the real car on the floor and creating them in compositing proved too difficult, because of the many different camera angles. Instead, the reflection of the 3D model was used and takes of the real car projected onto its 3D counterpart.

Together they were reflected onto a virtual surface in photorealistic quality using XSI Softimage.

The soft light in the Photobubble resulted in a pleasing soft contrast, but in two or three shots it made the car’s finish appear somewhat flat. The 3D team was able to address this issue on Flame and create a glossier look. The 3D model of the car was given a shiny texture and then placed, as a layer, over the real car.

“The 3D options on Flame are limited, but when it comes to gloss and finish effects the tool is perfect,” says Rico Reitz.

The spatial design was also completed on Flame, with abstract photographic textures digitally placed on the

VISIONARRI

Photobubble to create the surrounding environment, a space consisting of dynamic, blue structures for the composite with masks from the actual film. This was followed by fine-tuning of the lighting set-up, animation of the background with vibrant lighting effects and matching of the computer-generated and the real, filmed elements.

Certain physical improvements were made to the dancers, who represented figures from Nordic myths. Masks were placed on their pupils to create a rather impressive effect, while a number of beauty enhancements were made by retouching the dancers’ eyes, mouths, lips and teeth to meet the client’s wishes.

This was followed by tape-to-tape colour grading, to give the entire spot a consistent look.

The spot aired in the UK immediately after the official launch of the Mazda2 at the IAA in Frankfurt and went on to air across the rest of Europe in October. The board of directors at Mazda Motors Europe was very pleased with the final result. Everyone at Hager Moss and ARRI Commercial were proud to have completed a demanding and expensive, yet very enjoyable production. “The Mazda2 spot is different. Most car commercials look very much the same, but the Mazda2 spot looks more like a music video than a television commercial,” says ARRI Head of Commercial Postproduction Philipp Bartel.

All in all, it took only three months to complete the project, starting with the request for an initial calculation and ending with delivery of the 60-second spot. Hager Moss Producer Jürgen Kraus believes there are several reasons why

THE PHOTOBUBBLE interior and studio floor were keyed from white to create an abstract space

this complex production went so smoothly. One was the close physical proximity of the film production company and the postproduction house. Another was the trust that had been established between Hager Moss and ARRI Film & TV Commercial on previous productions.

“On a project that requires such complex and extensive postproduction work, I want a partner that makes me feel I am

the customer,” he says. “These projects necessitate intensive support and close collaboration at all logistical stages as well as confidence in the partner’s overall abilities. In my experience, ARRI has completed all tasks brilliantly.”

Project: Mazda2 “Competition“ Client: Mazda Motor Europe Agency: J. Walter Thompson GmbH & Co. KG Düsseldorf Head of TV JWT: Marie-Louise Seidl Creative Director JWT: Eddy Greenwood Art Director JWT: Igor Karpalov Production: Hager Moss Commercial

Executive Producer: Eric Moss Producer: Jürgen Kraus Postproduction Supervisor: Nilou Tabriz Director: Paula Walker DoP: Rolf Kestermann Editor: Markus Goller ARRI Head of Commercial: Philipp Bartel

Philipp Bartel knows all too well that his team is the pillar of this success: “We have an exceptional crew at ARRI

Commercial. Together with the team at punchin.pictures, they have a wealth of complementary qualifications, which they employ freely and generously in the service of our clients. If there are ever any problems, the team sorts them out and generates a positive outcome. This makes for a creative and productive environment.” I Ingo Klingspon

Art Director: Rico Reitz Telecine: Stefan Anderman Flame Artists: Rico Reitz Michel Tischner Stefan Tischner Rotoscoping: Manuel Voss & Team 3D Artists: Christian Deister Adam Dukes

Jawed Naser Chris Weingart

Gregoire Barfety Lutz Pelike

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Return to Oz ARRIFLEX D-20 on Tin Man

To create the fantastical world of Tin Man, an upcoming three-part, six-hour miniseries for the US SCI FI Channel, Director Nick Willing and Cinematographer Thomas Burstyn chose the ARRIFLEX D-20 to capture a whimsical world that reimagines Frank Baum’s classic The Wizard of Oz. The production stars Richard Dreyfuss as a wizard named Mystic Man, Zooey Deschanel as DG (the granddaughter of the original Dorothy) and Alan Cumming as Glitch, a man missing half his brain. Although Burstyn is very familiar with working in high definition video, this was his first foray shooting with the D-20. The DoP ran tests to learn the advantages and limitations of shooting with the film-style HD camera. “My most important test was to take the camera out into the darkest forest location we’d be working in on a gloomy day in the rain and see how the darkness worked in a situation that I couldn’t light or control. We shot wide open and lit a face very subtly with one bulb of a Kino Flo wrapped in diffusion and let the forest fall where it may.

Initially I was concerned about the camera’s low ISO rating, but it has a lot more latitude in the shadows than a film emulsion does so that assuaged a lot of that worry of mine. Moreover, we were very pleased with the look. Great saturation, incredible accutance and resolution.”

During testing the camera crew also familiarized themselves with the menu settings the camera has to offer. “We ran through all the settings on the camera, shot tests with every possible variation, and settled on the one we thought was best and that was Log F. It was the slowest setting but it gave the least amount of noise and the greatest amount of latitude. It seemed to be the most ‘film-like’ setting and the one that allowed the most flexibility in postproduction. We decided that although the camera requires a lot of lighting, the final result is quite fantastic. Lee Wilson of Anthem Visual Effects, leader of our visual effects team loved the camera. I think the look is closer to 35mm than any other camera can give. It was a worthwhile tradeoff. But while the camera output has some of the feel of 35mm, it also deviates from the modern grainy vogue of 35mm: because the image is so sharp, it feels like an old-fashioned fine grain film, maybe like Kodachrome but with better colour rendition, and long latitude range.”

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An example of some edgy imagery can be seen in shots from DG’s perspective, sometimes shot with Willing’s antique Eyemo and ARRIFLEX 35 IIC cameras or even with primitive, yet effective accessories repurposed for the D-20.

“Nick wanted the film to be a psychoanalysis of our heroine DG. He wanted a story within a story, so we devised strange POVs that were altered in camera. Nick has a lot of wavy glass taken from old buildings, pieces of chandelier and pendants from his precious collection that he loved to handhold and wiggle in front of the lens.

A lot of those dreams, memories and subconscious feelings were interpreted through that glassware.”

The production shot for 60 days in British Columbia, Canada with three D-20 cameras provided by Clairmont Camera’s Vancouver office. The camera package included a set of standard speed Zeiss Primes, a few Super Speeds and three zooms of wide, medium and long lengths. Since the single,

VISIONARRI

Photo courtesy James Dittiger/SCI FI Channel

Burstyn interpreted the visuals to serve the story through a combination of traditional filmmaking techniques and more stylized looks. He notes, “My biggest tool around the camera was colour. We used a lot of colour, but not all at the same time. A character or a location would have a single or double colour assignation, something Nick, Production Designer Michael Joy and I worked out during prep. I would describe Tin Man as oldfashioned filmmaking with a twist. Think Orson Wells and Gregg Toland ASC. We had a lot of very classic coverage and we wanted to seduce the audience into thinking all is well, everything is normal and then we’d throw in some jarring imagery or cross the axis to throw everybody off track. There’s a lot of clever cutting in there. The Wicked Witch is transforming the world into a dark, lifeless place. The darkness is spreading from her evil factory. Around her factory and around her army there’s darkness, and it’s full of shadows and a very nasty kind of greenish daylight. Now, wherever DG goes, there’s a fairy tale, golden, beautiful light around her. In the world where DG comes from, it’s a normal, ‘American, apple pie’ light. All that said, there’s an effort to keep these colours subtle and the look sincere, as real as you can expect things to be in the Land of Oz. It was a bit of a visual tightrope we had to walk, not wanting anything to become cartoon-like, but staying well away from the mundane.”

ON LOCATION Director Nick Willng (right), Cinematographer Thomas Burstyn (left)

6 Megapixel CMOS sensor at the heart of the D-20 has the same size as a Super 35mm film aperture the D-20 uses the same lenses as 35mm film cameras.

Says Burstyn, whose credits include Marco Polo, the pilot of “The 4400”, City of Industry and The Boys and Girl from County Clare, “The great thing about the D-20 and its 35mm perspective is that you have full use of the palette of lenses. This was one of the reasons why Nick wanted the D-20, to be able to be selective with his depth of focus. We did a lot of long lens stuff, a lot of very standard lens (35, 50, 85mm) kind of coverage and lots of big, wide-angle shots swooping into close-ups. There’s a lot of out-of-focus foreground. We took full advantage of that 35mm depth of field that the D-20 camera provides.”

Unlike the original adaptation, the miniseries is not a musical. “Our film is more of a road trip,” explains Burstyn.

“The main characters are always moving, hiding and making their way towards the goal. A lot of the story is interpreted through the action or through the many wonderful flashbacks.” To cover all of these characters on their journey, the filmmakers incorporated frequent camera moves. “We took a lot from The Magnificent Ambersons and Citizen Kane. The camera flows through those big sets and arrives into a close-up or two-shot. The camera always moves so there’s a lot of crane and dolly work, a lot of hand-held. We used a lot of off-angles. Camera Operator Trig Singer and Dolly Grip Glen Forerider did amazing jobs, their choreography was magnificent to observe. Jim Van Dyke did one day of Steadicam for a scene of the characters running through a maze.”

In a scene where DG is threatened by an angry mob, the production used in-camera and visual effects to bring a dead tree to fruitful life. “Nobody has any way of protecting DG, and the Tin Man, the Lion and Glitch turn to her to do something. She doesn’t know quite what to do and without realizing it, her magic power transforms the tree they’ve been standing beneath. As it begins to blossom, the camera rises into its branches and the light changes from a somber gloom into a golden glow. As the camera continues to rise, we fade up lights behind moving golden gels and the light seems to grow brighter as we do a subtle stop-pull. We arrive at the top of the tree already in full bloom from the art department’s bit of set dressing.

Visual effects were later put in to make flowers bloom on camera. It was a carefully orchestrated effort that was in concert with the art department, lighting and visual effects.”

For Burstyn, the opportunity to translate the story to screen was a creative challenge partnered with the benefits of shooting on the ARRIFLEX D-20. “It’s a beautiful camera. In this age of instant gratification, cameras that surprise you with all the wonderful things that they can do, this camera requires a lot of skill and a confident hand but it was a great thrill and a privilege to use,” he says. I Tin Man airs in December on the SCI FI Channel in the USA. An Tran

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VISIONARRI

Milcho Manchevski’s

ARRIFLEX D-20

Shadows

Brings Ideas to Reality

A growing number of filmmakers have entrusted their visions to the ARRIFLEX D-20 film-style digital camera in all areas of motion picture and television drama production. Over the last year, the camera’s versatility has been tested on feature films, TV drama series, commercials, music videos, second unit and effects shots.

For Afrika, Mon Amour, German DoP Frank Küpper was confident the ARRIFLEX D-20 was the right tool for this historic three-episode television period drama shot in Kenya, Germany, Austria and the UK. With many CGI effects and a tough postproduction schedule, shooting digital was the logical choice.

“For a production with so many VFX shots, shooting digital has lots of advantages. No grain, instant availability of the full resolution images and the 35mm look all play a vital role here,” he explained. “It was obvious that shooting HD with a camera that uses a Super 35mm [sized] sensor would give the best results and speed up the workflow.”

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Another production shot in Canada was Tin Man, a three-part miniseries directed

by Nick Willing for the US SCI FI Channel (DoP Thomas Burstyn).

VisionARRI: What’s the film Shadows about?

Feature films to have shot with the D-20 include The Bank Job (Director Roger Donaldson, DoP Mick Coulter BSC), RocknRolla (Director Guy Ritchie, DoP David Higgs), Prisoners of the Sun (Director Roger Christian, DoP Ed Wild) and Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (Director Gareth Carrivick, DoP John Pardue).

ARRI continues to gather invaluable feedback and respond to requests from users in order to further improve the ARRIFLEX D-20 to meet the needs and desires of cinematographers. The development of a new software package has recently increased the sensitivity of the camera to provide a wider range of settings for use in lower light situations; the D-20 can now be set to the approximate equivalent of 500 ISO (ASA), or even higher for certain applications. While a new Sony Fibre Interface SFI-1 facilitates high-speed shooting at up to 60fps. The unit mounts directly on the camera and is connected by a single fibre cable to a fibreequipped Sony SRW-1 HDCAM SR recorder. Bill Lovell, Head of the Digital Department at ARRI Media, comments: “The D-20 has always been capable of operating at 60 frames per second, but recorders have not been able to do the same. The Sony Fibre Interface configuration provides the solution, allowing high-speed shooting, in-camera speed ramps recorded directly on the SRW-1 and a cable length of up to 500m.” I

Milcho Manchevski: It is about a young doctor in Macedonia who has personal problems and dies unexpectedly. He is a bit like Lady Macbeth’s son; he’s that type of character. I would describe the premise of the film as: sometimes the dead are more powerful than the living.

Is the film set in the world of the living or the dead?

VA:

The film is mostly about the living, about the journey the protagonist has to go on in order to recognize that life offers many possibilities.

MM:

Your film is an international co-production. How did that come about?

VA:

Our film is a German, Macedonian, Italian, Spanish and Bulgarian co-production. When you are making a film in Europe, it is almost always a co-production. There are two reasons why: first of all, it allows you to draw from a larger pool of talented people when you are putting together your team. Secondly, it helps get your film MM:

financed, especially if the film comes from a small and poor country. As a matter of fact, all the films I’ve made have been European co-productions involving three to five countries.

Fabio Cianchetti, you also came to the project as a result of this co-production arrangement, is that right?

VA:

Fabio Cianchetti: That’s correct. I am part of the Italian package, so to speak.

I believe it was the Producer Amedeo Pagani who introduced me to Milcho Manchevski; he watched several of my previous films and after an initial meeting we both had a good feeling and so went to work.

SILENT WITNESS

The D-20 was also used between November 2006 and April 2007 to shoot the eleventh series of the BBC drama Silent Witness, which consists of ten one-hour episodes. DoP Kevin Rowley and Producer George Ormond felt that the use of the D-20 helped to bring an even higher quality look to this popular crime series about a trio of forensic pathologists. “We felt it would give the show a very distinctive look – glossy, classy and expensive looking, with movie ambitions. It was the depth of field that made the difference for us,” commented Ormond. The twelfth series of Silent Witness is now underway and is again being shot with the ARRIFLEX D-20.

At ARRI in Munich, VisionARRI spoke with Director Milcho Manchevski and DoP Fabio Cianchetti about their latest feature Shadows, an international co-production filmed in Macedonia last year. Together they recalled their experiences making the film.

Shooting recently concluded in Canada on The Andromeda Strain, directed by Mikael Salomon (DoP Jon Joffin) who last year directed The Company for Scott Free Productions with D-20 cameras; a highly prestigious US miniseries about the CIA (DoP Ben Nott ACS).

© Jan Thijs

The first major project to use the D-20 was Hogfather, an adaptation of the novel by Terry Pratchett for UK television.

Directed by Vadim Jean, with cinematography by Gavin Finney BSC, the drama aired on Sky HD over Christmas 2006 in two feature-length parts. The producers were so pleased with how the production turned out that they shot with the D-20 for a second time this summer, teaming with Finney again on their next Pratchett adaptation, The Colour of Magic.

THE COMPANY HOGFATHER

25

VISIONARRI

SHADOWS

EDITING a car crash sequence

IN DISCUSSION DoP Fabio Cianchetti, DI Colourist Rainer Schmidt and Director Milcho Manchevski (left to right)

“THE DI GRANTS YOU MUCH GREATER FREEDOM AND SIMPLIFIES THE PRODUCTION. NOT ALL PROBLEMS HAVE TO GET SOLVED ON SET. THERE ARE PROBLEMS THAT CAN’T BE SOLVED ON SET, NOT EVEN WITH ALL THE TIME AND MONEY IN THE WORLD.” VA:

Which camera did you use?

FC: We used the ARRIFLEX 535 and a Steadicam. We also used Cooke lenses.

VA:

What was it like working together?

hadn’t shot the film last summer, I think we would never have shot it.

Milcho is an excellent director who knows what he wants. We shared the same vision for what we wanted to see on the screen. We agreed on the light, as well as the mood the film intended to communicate. He prefers the American way of working, whereas I like to experiment, but we soon found a common denominator. And in the end we both got what we wanted.

VA:

FC:

One of your co-producers is Blue Eyes Fiction, a new German production company. How did that relationship come about?

VA:

At the beginning we had contacts with various companies. When we got to the crucial point, where decisions needed to be made, Blue Eyes quickly decided to come on board. We had very little time because we wanted to shoot the film as soon as possible and having them on board allowed us to pull the trigger. If we

MM:

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Was it the German producers who suggested ARRI for the film’s postproduction?

Yes, and I am very happy we decided to go with ARRI. Working with ARRI was the best part of this entire process, starting at the preparation stage and all through production and postproduction. To me, what was most impressive was the competence of the ARRI staff. Our project was in good hands and it was a real comfort, especially after all the problems we had encountered at the outset. We felt very safe here. We were able to solve some of the problems that we were previously unable to resolve. ARRI was the icing on the cake on this project; they saved us!

MM:

What problems had you encountered prior to working with ARRI?

VA:

We experienced all kinds of problems. One was the fact that some of the visual effects made in Bulgaria did not turn out the way we had intended.

We had done the work there because of the complicated co-production contract.

At ARRI we were able to fix the visual effects; we worked on some of the problematic set-ups and now they work.

The shoot was very difficult and complicated as well, and some of our shots did not turn out the way we had hoped. Things like that always happen, but I had never been to a place where these problems were tackled with so much competence and enthusiasm. The people I worked with at ARRI, especially the DI Colourist Rainer Schmidt of ARRI Film & TV, were so wholeheartedly committed. At ARRI people are not just professionals, they are committed professionals. To me, that is the only way to work. If you look at this as just another job that needs to get done, then it is so much harder to make it to the finish line.

MM:

Was this the first time you had finished a film using the DI process?

VA:

Yes. Before, we had just used the traditional lab process.

MM:

time and I was very nervous about that.

But in the end we finished everything in less time then we had planned on. The most important aspect was that the biggest bulk of the work had already been completed when we arrived here.

We only had to fine-tune and make some creative decisions, which were then executed promptly.

Would you want go through a DI again?

For me it was the first feature film entirely finished in a DI, though I did have some experience of it from commercials and from collaborations with Bernardo Bertolucci. The DI opened up an array of new possibilities. Rainer [Schmidt] was very important; he showed us the right way and I am very happy to have crossed paths with him. We got along splendidly and shared the same thoughts on many issues. He was at my side when things got a bit tricky and that was very reassuring.

VA:

You had only a week to do the colour correction. Was that all you thought you needed or were you afraid this wasn’t going to be enough time?

VA: You had very little time to finish the film, since you wanted to present it at the Toronto International Film Festival.

FC:

VA:

I was very much surprised how fast everything got done. At the beginning I thought that we hadn’t scheduled enough MM:

Absolutely. The DI grants you much greater freedom and simplifies the production. Not all problems have to get solved on set. There are problems that can’t be solved on set, not even with all the time and money in the world.

What I enjoyed most was the possibility to shape the emotional as well as the narrative focus during postproduction.

That is unique.

MM:

That’s true. We got into the Special Presentation section and really had to get our act together and work hard.

Again ARRI surprised us; everything was

MM:

finished when they said it was going to be finished, which wasn’t always the case on this production.

Could you see yourself shooting a film in Germany?

VA:

Sure, very much so. I would need some time to really understand the nuances, but I do believe that people are the same everywhere. I’ve shot a lot in Macedonia, France, England and Japan and I don’t think I would have problems shooting in Germany. There are many things I like about this country, for example the way work gets done here.

In my experience, working with German companies has always been very straightforward, honest and transparent.

I like that; it is a rare thing to find. This was also the case at ARRI. Now, it is very difficult for me to imagine working anywhere but at ARRI.

MM:

I would very much like to work in Germany again, but there are so many good DoPs in Germany that it is hard to find work here. Maybe it would be possible on another international co-production. I

FC:

Heike Maleschka / Ricore Text

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EAST OF EVERYTHING

VISIONARRI

ARRI Australia on location with Cinematographer Brendan Lavelle East of Everything is a six by one-hour television drama series, shot on location in the beautiful sub-tropical region of Byron Bay in New South Wales for Australia’s national broadcaster ABC Television.

Created by highly-regarded writers Deb Cox and Roger Monk, who both live near Byron Bay, East of Everything is the story of a restless travel writer who is called to his dying mother’s bedside in a ramshackle resort on the eastern most point of Australia. While there, he is beset by local difficulties and painful reminders of his past, but comes to realise that this derelict town, which became his parents’ ‘paradise lost’, may hold the key to his own salvation.

East of Everything features a stellar cast of Australian actors such as Richard Roxburgh, Tom Long, Gia Carides and Susie Porter. Produced by Fiona Eagger, whose previous television credits include The Society Murders and CrashBurn, the show was directed by Stuart McDonald and Matthew Saville. Director of Photography Brendan Lavelle, ACS had already established a working relationship with both directors on the hugely successful TV series The Secret Life of Us. Though digital video formats are becoming increasingly common on television drama productions in Australia, the team chose to shoot the series on Super 16mm film, mainly due to the isolated filming location and its distance from major centres capable of providing technical support.

“Film equipment is proven to be robust and extremely portable,” says Lavelle. “It is well suited to the tight production requirements of a location shoot, within the inevitable tight deadlines. In addition, using film gave us flexibility in capturing the wide range of textures and contrasts at the various locations. The different landscapes were treated as other ‘characters’ in the story and we photographed them at all times of day and night to capture their many moods. Because of the short winter daylight hours during the shooting period, the film’s exposure latitude also gave more chances to preserve those moods at either end of the day.”

Lavelle opted for Kodak Vision2 film stocks, making use of 250D (7205), 200T (7217) and 500T (7218).

The production package was provided by ARRI Australia and consisted of two ARRIFLEX 16SR 3 cameras equipped with Canon zoom lenses of 11.5-139mm and 7-63mm, plus a set of Zeiss prime lenses ranging from 9.5mm to 50mm and a Canon Century 300mm telephoto lens with doubler.

The telephoto lens was mostly used to cover surfing action at the mythical ‘Broken Head Bay’, where the series is set, as well as shots of the occasional migrating whale. Two sets of Schultz tripod legs with O’Connor and Sachtler 150mm fluid heads completed the package.

“ARRI Australia representatives Christian Hilgart and Geraldine Quinn visited the location during preproduction to ensure we had a package that suited our needs,” continues Lavelle. “For a short period we also had the chance to use the new ARRILEX 416 camera and put it through its paces.

“The production was keen to have the cost and time-saving benefits of 800ft film magazines, which are not typically seen on ARRI cameras in Australia, but the team arranged to have these imported for us from ARRI Germany and they were used to great effect. In fact, it was the first time these magazines had been used on a local production in Australia and they were of great benefit, with increased running time and greatly reduced wastage. In spite of the extra weight, they were also successfully used for hand-held shooting on many occasions, mounted on an Easyrig camera support and equipped with zoom lens, matte box and follow focus.

“The shoot was completed successfully and on time, with no losses due to equipment or weather,” concludes Lavelle. “All involved feel that we have made a television series to be proud of and which does justice to the beautiful region of Byron Bay.” I Tracy Mair

DIRECTOR OF EPISODES 4, 5, & 6, Matthew Saville, looking through the camera with DoP Brendan Lavelle; Cast and crew at Main Beach, Byron Bay; Susie Porter as Eve Pritchard; Director of the first 3 episodes, Stuart McDonald; The crew on location at Broken Head; The art department team work on the construction of the main set, the Far Out East resort; DoP Brendan Lavelle (from top left)

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VISIONARRI

A THOUSAND YEARS OF GOOD PRAYERS

“I NO LONGER STRIVE TO CONTROL AND PERFECT EVERYTHING. INSTEAD I’VE LEARNED TO USE WHAT IS REALLY IN FRONT OF ME AND MAKE IT SERVE MY ULTIMATE GOAL FOR THE FILM.”

An Interview with Director Wayne Wang

people and the culture of the Chinese in America. And, I always try to make films about what I know best.

VA: You overcome the gap between Asian and western culture so easily. What is your secret?

© 2007 Good Prayers, LLC Philipp Koller, Photographer

WW: There is no secret. There is only the on-going process of accepting the conflict and using the best of both cultures.

VA: How did the fact that you live in America affect your point of view on China?

It gives me a more objective view of China, I think. It makes me appreciate what’s unique and positive about China and yet see the problems more clearly in the same way. I’m dealing with being both American and Chinese.

WW:

VA: After 17 movies, what has changed for you personally in filmmaking?

I learned that being truthful to the characters in the film is the key to everything. And to find the conflict in what the characters want gives me the tension that I need to build each scene.

WW:

DIRECTOR WAYNE WANG YILAN (FAYE YU) and her father Mr. Shi (Henry O) at Yilan’s apartment

Wayne Wang’s latest film, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, based on a short story by award-winning author Yiyun Li, marks the director’s departure from mainstream Hollywood movies and a return to his roots in independent film.

A low-budget, character-driven piece, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers is set in the Chinese American community, a world in which Wang is very much at home. He himself is a Hong Kong native who immigrated to the United States and later studied film at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland.

The film tells the story of Mr. Shi (Henry O), an elderly Chinese gentleman who comes to the U.S. to look after his recently divorced daughter Yilan (Faye Yu), though their worlds quickly collide.

30

Mr. Shi is concerned with the loss of traditional Chinese values while his daughter, an independent woman consumed with work and her affair with a married Russian man, feels her father is encroaching upon her life. It is the unexpected friendship with an Iranian woman (Vida Ghahremani) of his own age and a trip across the U.S. that eventually helps Mr. Shi to reconcile with his estranged daughter.

Wayne Wang’s earlier films include A Man, a Woman, and a Killer, Chan Is Missing, Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart and Slam Dance. His Hollywood breakthrough came with The Joy Luck Club in 1993, which he followed with films such as Smoke, Blue in the Face and Maid in Manhattan. His most recent

film A Thousand Years of Good Prayers premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007, in conjunction with companion piece The Princess of Nebraska, also based on a short story

by Yiyun Li. Less than a month later A Thousand Years of Good Prayers was awarded the Golden Shell for Best Film at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

VisionARRI: Mr Wang, with your work you seem to be a master of bringing Chinese themes to a western audience.

Wayne Wang: I don’t think of myself as a master. I feel that because I am Chinese and have been living in America for the last 30 years I know the community, the

Has your style of directing changed?

VA:

WW: It has changed a lot. I no longer strive to control and perfect everything.

Instead I’ve learned to use what is really in front of me and make it serve my ultimate goal for the film.

Or has your cultural approach to China changed?

VA:

It has become a fusion of some kind. Some people in China recently said that I’m not Chinese. I’m proud of that; I’m more than simply a Chinese, I’m a Chinese-American and a citizen of the world – a truly contemporary, global person with a unique fusion culture.

WW:

You are very experienced now; what is different in your recent work compared to your early films?

VA:

Every film is still very different.

I don’t see them as routine; I try to do different things. Big Hollywood films... small personal films... but I keep it fresh so that I learn something new every time.

WW:

VA: What was most important for you in your new movie A Thousand Years of Good Prayers?

That there are many things which determine how your relationship to different people work, but ultimately there is something called destiny or fate which you can affect to a certain degree in how you are, how you relate to people and what you do every day – not only in this lifetime but perhaps in other ones too.

WW:

VA: What did you experience during this production? What did you like or dislike? What was fun and what was difficult?

I enjoyed the freedom I had on every aspect of the production and because of this, I was able to work very instinctively. I worked very closely with my cinematographer, Patrick Lindenmaier and we both enjoyed trying to find the truth in every moment of each scene.

Everything was fun and difficult at the same time. There are always contradictions in anything we do.

WW:

Concerning your crew: do you prefer working in big teams or in small teams?

VA:

I really like working in a small close-knit team – the smaller the better.

WW:

VA: How do you choose your crew for each production? I noticed that you work a lot with different people, not with the same editors or DoPs each time.

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A THOUSAND YEARS OF GOOD PRAYERS

VISIONARRI

© 2007 Good Prayers, LLC Philipp Koller, Photographer

A Symphony of Soloists The ARRIFLEX D-20 captures performances from 150 separate musicians for Sony’s latest WALKMAN commercial.

WW: I have worked with some people on several films; my editor has been with me for four or five films. We have very similar tastes and have worked out a shorthand way of working together. I have worked with some DoPs on several films – Amir Mokri is one of them. I do want to work with people on a more regular basis but it’s very difficult finding the right person. I enjoyed my relationship with Patrick Lindenmaier, we worked together several times, colour correcting during the transfer from digital to film and I now appreciate working with him as a DoP. VA: During your filmmaking career, from 1975 up until now, there has been a transition from analogue to digital. What do you think about the developments?

It has not always been easy. In the beginning I was very suspicious of every aspect of it; Patrick helped me through some of that. The technology has really changed in the last three or four years and now I believe that the future will be digital.

WW:

Do you shoot on film or digital? When and how do you decide which format to use?

VA:

I think I will use digital more now.

I like the freedom I get from the cameras that are getting so good and I also like the fact that it can look so organic in the end on film. In the future I believe that film will be phased out when theatres convert to digital projections.

WW:

lenses from Fujinon. The camera was one of the first models of this new type.

It had the serial number 17! We used the so-called CineGamma to avoid getting excessively stark images in high-contrast situations.

Is there a technical aspect that was very important in this movie?

VA:

WW: It was very important for the film to look natural and not “digital.”

Did you have to make compromises during the shoot for technical reasons?

VA:

We had to wait often for the sun or the light to be appropriate before we could shoot.

WW:

VA: For A Thousand Years of Good Prayers you chose to work with Swiss postproduction companies.

How was this experience, in particular your collaboration with Schwarz Film and Patrick Lindenmaier?

I have worked with Patrick before at Andromeda Film and Schwarz Film.

I really like their creative capabilities combined with their expert technical experience. I have had very good experiences with them each time.

WW:

How is the technical equipment and working method compared to the US or China?

VA:

What equipment did you use for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers?

The technical and working method at Andromeda Film and Schwarz Film is more precise. And I particularly value their creative contributions besides their technical ones. This is the key difference compared with China or the US.

We shot on an HDW 900R HDCAM and used zoom and fixed focus

Which digital workflow did you utilise for your film?

VA:

WW:

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WW:

VA:

The film was shot on HD 24fps progressive. The offline was completed in HD as well. Working on Avid’s, Adrenalin made it possible to create subtitles and do a preliminary colour correction during the initial visualization.

The online edit and the colour correction were later completed – uncompressed – at Andromeda Film. Afterwards we rendered the film in 2K files at Schwarz Film.

WW:

Were you conscious of significant cultural differences throughout this workflow?

and Director Nick Gordon (left to right)

VA:

No, as I have mentioned before, I’m very western and global in my thinking. The only difference may be the extreme care of details and precision which I appreciate a lot!

WW:

Is it inspiring to work in Europe for you or is it a burden to travel so far for postproduction?

VA:

I love travelling to Europe and I love Switzerland. I want to work there more – maybe even shoot a film there.

WW:

After so many years in America, could you consider returning to China to make a film?

VA:

Maybe. I scouted China many times when I made The Joy Luck Club and ended up shooting there for exteriors only because it is very difficult to work there. They have the latest technology and the skills, but they don’t have the care, the organization or the mental precision to do a really great job.

WW:

VA: Apart from commercial aspects, which of your movies are you most proud of having made?

WW:

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.

Andrea Oki

THE MUSICIANS form a spiral; each play a single note in turn DIRECTOR NICK GORDON LINING UP A SHOT: DoP Antonio Paladino, 1st AC Alex Reid

I

Once a centre-point of Victorian London’s social scene, the 2000-capacity theatre within Alexandra Palace, unseen by the public for more than 65 years, is a crumbling vestige of its past. Scheduled for restoration, the theatre is in such a magnificent state of disrepair that it resembles an elaborately designed set, which is the very reason it has been selected as the location for a new commercial advertising Sony’s next generation of WALKMAN digital media players.

Standing amid the faded grandeur, DoP Antonio Paladino explains the concept of the shoot: “We have 150 musicians and our assignment is to film every one of them playing one single note. They’re all individual musicians and were playing together for the first time on our first shooting day; it wasn’t at all clear whether or not they’d actually be able to play this piece of music but they’ve pulled it off really well.”

Produced by production house Academy for advertising agency Fallon, the commercial was slated as an HD shoot at an early stage due to uncertainty about how much material would have to be shot in order to get adequate coverage. Paladino opted to shoot with Cooke S4 lenses on two ARRIFLEX D-20s, having used the film-style digital camera for the first time only weeks before, on another commercial.

Equipment was supplied by ARRI Media in London.

Despite its dilapidation, the theatre is a listed and therefore protected building, so the crew were unable to hang a lighting grid from the ceiling, nor even put a single nail in a wall. “We’re using helium balloons,” says Paladino. “8kW tungsten tubes - three for the main hall and one for the stage; they’re on strings so we can move them around and angle them. The practical bulbs that are strung around the hall were already there. We

didn’t want it to look over-lit; it’s a moody location, so we wanted the lighting to have a moody look. I didn’t want the faces or the sheet music to be too bright.”

HD Technician and AC Gavin MacArthur was given the responsibility of overseeing the camera signals from the Director’s monitors, as well as remotely controlling aperture settings, which were generally T2.8 and one-half or wider. “We calibrated the monitors to all match during our test day at ARRI Media,” he says. “We also have Astro monitors set up here so I can keep an eye on waveform displays no matter how the cameras are configured.”

Postproduction of the commercial is taking place at The Moving Picture Company (MPC), with a tight turnaround of just seven weeks. “Unfortunately I can’t be there for the grade,” says Paladino. “But I don’t think much will change with what we’ve shot.

The location is stunning and the costumes are so colourful, everything already looks amazing. All the monitors were calibrated so what we see is really what we’re getting. It’s such a great advantage of shooting on HD – I can just look at a monitor under a dark cloth and see exactly what I’m getting; it’s a very satisfying process.” I Mark Hope-Jones

33

VISIONARRI

The Story of a Young Killer Based on Jonathan Trigell’s novel of the same name, Boy A follows the story of Jack, a child murderer released back into society as an adult. As the 24-year-old attempts to start again in a world outside of confinement and rid himself of his former life, the story moves between the present and past, taking the viewer on a journey to discover who Jack really is. The question at the core of the film is; can Jack really escape the past and start again – and is it right that he should?

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35

THE STORY OF A YOUNG KILLER

DIRECTOR JOHN CROWLEY

VISIONARRI

“I WAS INTERESTED IN CREATING A HAZY SOFT FLARE AND FOUND THAT BY USING A ONEEIGHTH BLACK PRO-MIST OR ONE-QUARTER CLASSIC SOFT FILTER, COMBINED WITH A DEGREE OF CAMERA FLARE, I WAS ABLE TO ACHIEVE THE SUBTLE LOOK I WANTED.” he didn’t want. Consequently, I was able to formulate a ‘visual plan’ without any restrictions.

The only film we really talked about was Alan Clarke’s Elephant, a 1980s BBC production that has rarely been seen.

There was a cold observing quality to it that seemed appropriate. It is an incredibly uncompromising film, a true work of art. We took the idea and ran with it. I made sure that my Steadicam Operator, Roger Tooley, had seen the film as it is a Steadicam operators dream.

Originally produced by Cuba Pictures for Channel 4, the worldwide rights for Boy A were recently snapped up by The Weinstein Company following a successful screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. Directed by John Crowley and photographed by Rob Hardy, the production was shot with two ARRIFLEX 416 cameras and Master Prime lenses. Camera equipment was supplied by ARRI Media and lighting equipment by ARRI Lighting Rental from their Manchester branches.

Director of Photography Rob Hardy discusses how he tackled this controversial and thought-provoking subject – his subtle approach, camerawork and favourite scenes.

VisionARRI: The production has been shot in Super 16 using ARRIFLEX 416 cameras. How was this decision made?

I fell out of love with 16mm some time ago. We had a passionate affair but it fizzled out, mainly due to familiarity and partly because there was nothing new, it just wasn’t going anywhere for me. I preferred 35mm and dare I say it, HD started to show its face in an impressive way. But all that changed when I saw the 416. It was love at first sight. I am not a camera geek, and not particularly technical, but I

Rob Hardy:

36

instinctively knew that this was a good thing. The 416 stood out, a 16mm camera with 35mm capabilities. The look through is crystal clear and I could use 35mm lenses without getting neck ache.

When I met with John Crowley and Lynn Horsford [Producer] the first thing they told me was that we were to shoot on film, not HD. We wanted a film look and feel, but the budget couldn’t stretch to 35. The 416 was the perfect choice.

Also, I knew there would be a certain degree of hand-held work involved; again, this was 416 territory.

What visual approach did you decide on with John Crowley for the story? Did Crowley give you any visual references or were you influenced by anyone or anything?

VA:

Meeting John Crowley was an inspirational time for me. He trusted me implicitly, which is rare for a new collaboration such as this. I felt I was able to stamp a personal visual style onto the film without it being inappropriate or egotistical. We talked in depth about the story, about that main character’s trajectory and how this could be achieved through the cinematography.

John was open to anything, which is not to say he didn’t have a clear idea about what he wanted; rather, he knew what

RH:

I would like to say that I studied paintings or other cinematographers’ work but I didn’t, my main influence comes from music. Rhythm, timing and melody are how I see images. I prefer to keep my mind free from the clutter of other peoples’ way of seeing, which is probably why I have no pictures on my walls at home.

Can you describe the style of camerawork?

VA:

One thing that John and I agreed on at a very early stage was our dislike for ‘Brit Grit’. Hand-held work seems such an obvious route to ‘spray on’ emotion.

That isn’t to say we didn’t use a handheld camera, we did, there is something about operating a hand-held camera that gets you close to the emotion of a character, it becomes very immediate.

However, I wanted everything we did to be subtle, layered, considered. We thought very hard about how to approach a scene before we dived in. I wanted to create an elegant feel overall, and that meant combining hand-held with Steadicam, as well as formal static wide shots and slow creeping tracking shots. I think in the end these things combined very well. It is easy to be flashy, it is a lot harder to be restrained and subtle, but I think we achieved it.

RH:

You chose to use Master Prime lenses on Boy A, what is it you like about them? Were there particular focal lengths that were used more than others?

What can I say about these beautiful things without gushing embarrassingly.

Probably a focus puller’s worst nightmare, but enter stage right the very talented Mr. Ritchie Donnelly; my focus puller on Boy A. He appeared suitably unfazed by the challenges that these beasts unleashed upon us during production. I chose them because initially they seemed very similar to Primos. The focal lengths make more sense to me than those of the Cookes or the Ultra Primes and of course the speed was a big part of the decision process.

I shot most of the film wide open at T1.3, partly for creative reasons and partly because I was using very slow daylight stocks on low lit interiors. My refusal to use hard highlights and my liking for under-lit soft sources made it particularly hard for Ritchie. I tended to use the mid range in the set; the 21, 40 and 65mm were particular favourites of mine. I was interested in creating a hazy soft flare and found that by using a oneeighth Black Pro-Mist or one-quarter Classic Soft filter, combined with a degree of camera flare, I was able to achieve the subtle look I wanted. It added another layer to an image that was sometimes too crisp. I’m completely sold on these lenses.

RH:

VA: The story moves between the present and past, looking at the attempts of the main character (Jack) to readjust to a world outside of prison and at what happened to him as a youngster.

Did you decide to represent the present and past differently visually?

John and I deliberately set out to keep that transition as seamless as

RH:

possible. Jack’s character is continually tormented by his past but it remains intrinsically part of his every being and as he discovers, almost impossible to separate. To have a different visual style for past and present would have been the obvious thing to do. Audiences are smarter than that. I wanted both past and present to look the same. The audience should feel what Jack is feeling in order to understand the complexities of the character. So I photographed them in exactly the same way, as if the story itself were linear.

Are there any shots that come to mind that were particularly difficult, or a particular shot that you are most proud of? Can you describe how they were achieved?

VA:

There are a couple of shots in the film, which demonstrate our methods in subtlety and in taking a different approach. In the story Jack saves a little girl from a car crash, an act of redemption perhaps, and whilst working at a warehouse he is called onto the floor because “somebody wants to see you”.

Jack is understandably afraid. We follow him through a tunnel of blue pallets on Steadicam until we enter the open space of the warehouse floor where five people are waiting for him, one of them being a photographer who wants to take his picture for the local newspaper. Jack hesitates. At this point we were supposed to cut and then drop into singles and two shots as the scene plays out, but I suggested we continue the shot for the duration of the scene. So the camera follows him and begins to circle the five people as the scene plays out. It was all about looks and words said by the actors that enforced Jack’s paranoia. Roger RH:

[Steadicam Operator] circled them twice until the scene ended. The result was amazing. What we got was the energy of the scene without any breaks in it, enabling the actors to play it out for real, thus enhancing the drama. It was a long shot and took 16 or so takes to achieve but it worked beautifully. The thing that pleases me most about it is that you are not aware of the camera, you are only aware of the story that is unfolding between the characters.

The second shot is during a scene between Jack as a boy and his friend Philip, whom he commits the heinous crime with. Philip is telling Jack how his older brother has raped him. It is Philip’s only open display of genuine emotion, and a poignant moment. I wanted to reflect visually how Philip’s character could feel so small and vulnerable. One would assume that we would start wide and go in to a close-up to capture the emotion of the child. I decided to do the opposite. I suggested to John that we move away from the kids as Philip’s story progresses to deeper and darker levels. We constructed what I call an ‘invisible’ crane shot. It started as a low wide shot and slowly, very slowly, moved to an overhead and then just simply kept going up and up into the heavens. It ended as Philip ended his story. Once again, because the subject matter is so engaging I didn’t want the audience to be camera aware, the shot progresses so slowly that we hardly notice the movement until all of a sudden you realise that you are way up in the sky looking down upon these two vulnerable children.

Having said all of that, I think my favourite shot in the film is a simple mid shot of the character Zeb, the son of Jack’s caseworker Terry, sitting in Terry’s kitchen conversing with his dad for the first time in a long while. It’s a great scene. I cannot explain why, but this shot to me is the closest I have ever come to fulfilling my vision. Everything about it, to me, is aesthetically perfect. To anyone else, it may seem unremarkable.

Rob Hardy and John Crowley are currently in preproduction on their second project together, Is There Anybody There? I

VA:

Michelle Smith DOP ROB HARDY at the camera on location

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Mongol The Early Years of Genghis Khan

The Mongolian ruler Genghis Khan remains one of the most legendary and controversial figures of world history. In the early 13th century he laid the foundation for one of the world’s largest empires by uniting the feuding tribes of Central Asia. In recognition of this achievement, Mongols continue to worship him as the father of the Mongol Nation. Others, however, remember him as the ruthless, warmongering conqueror who annexed China, Persia and Russia, and even had ambitions in Europe. The new film Mongol tells a lesser known side of the story – that of a little boy named Temüjin, who endured tremendous hardship before becoming the first ruler of the Mongol Empire, later to be known as Genghis Khan.

Director Sergei Bodrov Sr. (Prisoner of the Caucasus, Bears Kiss) felt a strong connection to this tale of a young man fighting to fulfil his destiny: “Mongol was a very personal film for me,” he says.

“I very much related to Temüjin’s plight.

Many historical accounts describe Genghis Khan as a monster and mass murderer; but I wanted to show a different man, a man I admire because he overcame the most dire and hopeless circumstances to become the leader of a nation and the ruler of an empire. Let’s not forget, the Mongol Empire was a highly organized and efficient empire with an early form of an administration.

That’s why, to this day, Genghis Khan is much more to the Mongols than the founder of Mongolia. They still worship him like a God.” Bringing this incredible story to the big screen was a challenge, even for a filmmaker as experienced and recognized as Bodrov. The international co-production, involving Russia, Germany and Kazakhstan was shot in China and Kazakhstan with camera equipment supplied by ARRI Rental, Munich. Behind the camera were two DoPs: Rogier Stoffers (Character, Quills) and Sergey Trofimov (The Peshawar Waltz, Day Watch), who shot the mass battle scenes.

Communication and logistics were of vital importance in making this method of working a success.

The majority of the film was shot in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region in Northern China that borders Mongolia and is actually home to more Mongols than Mongolia itself. “It was a complex decision to shoot there,” recalls Bodrov.

“A lot of it had to do with budgetary considerations, but first and foremost it was important to me to shoot at the original locations in Inner Mongolia, 38

the cradle of the Mongolian culture and the heart of the old Mongolian empire.

Also, we had heard a lot of good things about filming in this area, in terms of the availability of personnel.”

“WE HAD TO CLEAN THE EQUIPMENT CONSTANTLY. BUT THE ARRI EQUIPMENT PERFORMED EXCEPTIONALLY WELL, EVEN UNDER THESE EXTREME CONDITIONS.” The production had to hire two people for each position, one Russian and one Chinese; additionally they had crew members from Germany, Japan, Ukraine and Mongolia. Consequently, there was need for a team of about 30 translators and on occasion the melting pot of cultural mentalities did lead to some friction. “We had to pay our dues,” continues Bodrov. “But the fantastic locations and our extremely professional crew helped us make an exceptional film with breathtaking images at a reasonable price.” With a smirk on his face, he adds: “We are more or less experts now on filming in China and could teach expensive seminars.”

Of course the shoot wasn’t just taxing on the crew. On location in these remote areas of Inner Mongolia the ARRICAMs, ARRIFLEX 435 and 235 cameras were subjected to exceptionally harsh conditions. “We had to deal with extreme temperatures and with a lot of sand and dust,” says DoP Sergey Trofimov. “We had to clean the equipment constantly. But the ARRI equipment performed exceptionally well, even under these extreme conditions. I believe these cameras speak for themselves.”

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MONGOL

VISIONARRI

Filming of the third battle

“I HAVE ALWAYS WORKED WITH ARRI EQUIPMENT AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A MISTAKE TO USE ANYTHING ELSE.” Sergei Bodrov was also aware that reliability was an absolute priority for the camera kit. “I have always worked with ARRI equipment and it would have been a mistake to use anything else,” he says.

“Especially in our high-risk business, it is extremely important to rely on partners who are 100% trustworthy. ARRI was definitely the right choice for such a logistically challenging shoot. We were filming in the most remote locations and the equipment had quite a journey to get

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there. Everything was flown to Beijing, where the shipment had to pass customs; then, after an additional 4-hour flight to a small provincial airport, the equipment had to go on a 12-hour car ride before reaching our location in Inner Mongolia.

A lot can happen on such a long journey.

At one point, half of the cases arrived wet; we had to dry and test everything, but it all worked perfectly.”

Another challenge was finding a way to view dailies. The exposed film had to be

taken to a laboratory in Hamburg and the processed footage sent back to China. “Obviously it was an issue that we couldn’t view what we had shot,” says Trofimov. “The first dailies made it back to China three weeks into the shoot.

The second set got there two weeks before we wrapped. It was very risky.

The suspense was great, but when the dailies finally arrived, we didn’t have the time to properly check them; we just did a rush screening.”

The look of the film was determined by the fact that it interweaves two emotionally contrasting storylines, but also by the key role played by the landscape. Sergey Trofimov explains how they decided on a visual approach: “We just went ahead and storyboarded

everything, at least the part that I shot.

That’s when we realized that several compositions didn’t fit into the story and we had to make some adjustments. The main story is quite simple; it is the story of a young man, a story about his life, his friends and his enemies. The images were therefore kept rather simple in terms of composition. But then there is also the B-story, the romance. We decided to use Cooke lenses, which are a little softer than the Ultra Primes and therefore more appropriate for the love story. The battle scenes were another issue altogether.

We shot them mostly hand-held, but the rest of the film was made rather conventionally, using a lot of dolly and static shots. We wanted to show the beautiful landscape and not distract from it with attention-grabbing camera work.”

During postproduction, the main tasks were to blend the various storylines which were shot at multiple locations and to create a homogenous and consistent look. Trofimov himself supervised the colour grading process of the entire film.

A rough cut of Rogier Stoffers’ footage had been colour graded already but the fine-tuning was Trofimov’s responsibility.

“Rogier Stoffers footage wasn’t shot differently,” he explains, “it was just a different part of the story. Working this way allowed me to analyze the role each part was to play in the film ahead of time; then I went ahead and figured out how to proceed. On one hand the landscapes, such as the steppe and the mountains, had to play an important part. On the other hand we were dealing with various intense and different

emotional states. This required very sophisticated colour grading because it was important to find a balance between continuity and differentiation. I hope we found the right way.

In every regard – creatively, technically, politically and personally – this was a valuable experience,” concludes Trofimov. “And I believe that the end result will meet all expectations.”

Mongol received its world premier at Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007 and its European premier at Cinema Rome Film Festival in October 2007. I Bastian Prützmann / Andrea Rosenwirth

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VISIONARRI

XAVER SCHWARZENBERGER on camera

Copacabana The postproduction experts at ARRI in Munich have supported many prestigious national and international film and television projects, guiding them through the various stages of production. For Xaver Schwarzenberger’s most recent television drama Copacabana, their expertise was put to use combining traditional film techniques with digital technology.

A native of Vienna, Xaver Schwarzenberger is among the most versatile and sought-after filmmakers in the German-speaking world. His large body of work as a DoP includes many of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s films, such as Berlin Alexanderplatz, Lola, Lili Marleen, Querelle and Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss, as well as the box-office hits Schtonk! and the Otto films. In recent years he has worked increasingly in television, on productions including Andreas Hofer – Die Freiheit des Adlers, Eine Liebe in Afrika, Annas Heimkehr and Margarete Steiff. Though he started out as a DoP, Schwarzenberger now works exclusively in the dual role of director/DoP. To him, cinematography and directing are inextricably linked; he considers his work behind the camera to be but one aspect of his responsibilities as a director.

In the 1990s Schwarzenberger began his collaboration with the editor Helga Borsche, who won the Bundesfilmpreis in 1984 for her work on Ediths Tagebuch and has over several decades cut film and television productions for notable directors such as Hans W. Geißendörfer and Mika Kaurismäki.

Having worked together many times, Schwarzenberger and Borsche have developed a distinctive approach, preferring to assemble the final version of their films in the traditional way, on an analogue cutting bench. The director/DoP finds this process to be much more creative than working on an AVID, even though the software tools would make it easier and faster to experiment with different approaches. He and Borsche insist that the actual physical handling of the negative and the amount of additional effort required when working on the analogue cutting bench – laying in the film, rewinding and fast-forwarding – means greater thought and discipline has to be given to defining one’s goals. This, so they argue, results in the high concentration levels they deem necessary considering their great sense of responsibility for the material. This way of working, however, most certainly benefits from the fact that Schwarzenberger already has a general editing concept in mind when he begins shooting.

While Copacabana was, like Schwarzenberger’s other films, shot on 35mm and edited on an analogue editing bench, it was the first of his productions to be digitally finished in HD resolution. Produced in 2006 for German-language TV stations MDR and ORF, it aired in the fall of 2007. The story centres on

a family coming together to celebrate a couple’s 35th wedding anniversary. During the festivities many unresolved issues and well-kept secrets from the past surface, forcing the family to pull together in order to overcome these problems. The stellar cast includes Bruno Ganz, Nicole Heesters, Christiane Paul and Friedrich von Thun.

Schwarzenberger and Borsche’s traditional working methods meant that finishing Copacabana in HD required a flexible workflow that could accommodate traditional practices – such as cutting dailies on 35mm – while also taking advantage of newer digital systems. This, of course, affected the picture as well as the sound editing, but in the end an HD master was generated from the edited 35mm negative. The television audience, however, will not yet be able to enjoy the wonderful HD quality, because the film will initially be down-converted and aired in an SD (Standard Definition) version. But with more and more high-resolution television sets finding their way into the homes of viewers, nothing stands in the way of HD Copacabana reruns in the future. I Ingo Klingspon

EDITOR HELGA BORSCHE at the cutting desk

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VISIONARRI

SEVEN DAYS SUNDAY The challenge of combining HD and Super 35mm in the DI Process.

THE LEADING ACTORS Ludwig Trepte and Martin Kiefer

Niels Laupert’s feature film Seven Days Sunday premiered on June 23, 2007 at the 25th Munich Film Festival, where Laupert, an HFF film school graduate, received the first annual Mentor Award. The film, which tells the true story of two juvenile murderers, was produced by fellow HFF graduates Thomas Bartl and Alex Dierbach. Another HFF student, Anne Bürger, assisted DoP Christoph Dammast for the second half of the shoot.

Writer/Director Niels Laupert based the film, which is his first feature, on an idea he got in 2000 after reading an article in one of Germany’s leading newspapers, Süddeutsche Zeitung: “The article talked about two 16-year-old Polish boys who, on a Sunday in January 1996, made a bet to kill a man the very same day,” he recalls. “Later that night, they attempted to carry out their bet, but the first man they came across survived their attack. They went on, having learned from the first incident, to attack a second man and this time succeeded in killing him. The two adolescents were tried as adults and sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment.

“The article shocked me,” Laupert continues. “But at the same time I couldn’t stop thinking about this incident. How could it have happened? Why did all natural inhibitions fail? I knew from the outset that I didn’t want to make an intellectual film about the issues raised by this tragedy. First and foremost I wanted to tell a story, utilizing all the available creative and technological possibilities. It was important to me to include the environment and surroundings of the protagonists and therefore we didn’t want to limit the story by cutting together a series of close-ups. That’s why Super 35mm was our first choice and why we decided to go with the 2.35:1 format.”

The entire postproduction for the film was completed at ARRI Film & TV Services in Munich, where Alex Klippe was responsible for the DI workflow. Super 35mm footage was scanned on an ARRISCAN in 2K and combined with digitized HD footage in the online edit. The challenge during postproduction was to integrate the HD footage with the 35mm.

This was necessary because in several scenes the documentary footage had to blend seamlessly into the fictional material: “I decided not to attempt to distinguish the two types of footage in order to avoid taking the viewer out of the story,” says Laupert.

“I didn’t want to create a sort of docu-fiction format.”

Experienced DI Colourist Manfred Turek was in charge of the digital colour grading. The primary colour grade was completed in a Lustre Suite and the final grade, involving several shapes and masks, was subsequently completed in the Lustre Master Suite, after a large-screen 2K digital projection.

A further difficulty during the digital colour correction was caused by the fact that part of the shoot had taken place during winter and another part during spring, and some scenes required shots from both parts. This had been a challenge for makeup and continuity during filming and later, during postproduction, for Turek, who had to match the various lighting conditions.

“In the last few weeks before the premiere we worked in all areas of postproduction at the same time,” recalls Laupert.

“We took advantage of the fact that we could complete the entire finish and mix in one physical location. It was a very demanding time: we had to match the various materials, such as 35mm and HD, complete the VFX work and finish retouching, all at the same time. Simultaneously we had to complete the sound editing and the sound mix. ARRI supported us during this difficult time with their know-how and their passion.”

CHECKING A SHOT: Director Niels Laupert, DoP Christop Dammast, Theresa Luther, Gaffer Oliver Menebröcker, 1st AC Korkut Akir (left to right) 1ST AC KORKUT AKIR

The film was initially conceived as a 30-minute graduation project for the HFF in Munich and had received funding from the FFF-Bayern to the tune of 50,000 Euros. “But the longer I worked on the story,” continues the director, “the more I came to realize that I couldn’t possibly tell it in 30 minutes.”

Additional funding was therefore raised, from public as well as private sources, to transform the short into a feature. After Angela Reedwisch at ARRI Munich, a staunch proponent of the controversial project, committed her support, several other companies followed her lead. “Even though this was just a small film by an unknown director, we received the full attention and support of the ARRI team,” concludes Laupert.

“I really appreciated their professionalism and enjoyed the friendly environment. I am very happy to have completed my film at ARRI.” I Sabine Welte

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SUPER 35MM FOOTAGE WAS SCANNED ON AN ARRISCAN IN 2K AND COMBINED WITH DIGITIZED HD FOOTAGE IN THE ONLINE EDIT. THE CHALLENGE DURING POSTPRODUCTION WAS TO INTEGRATE THE HD FOOTAGE WITH THE 35MM.

Filming was split into two stages and centred around a high-rise apartment complex in a neighbourhood of Leipzig called Grünau, which looked very similar to the real crime scene in Poland. “The filming of the first stage commenced in January of 2005,” says Laupert. “ARRI Rental in Munich provided the ARRIFLEX 535 and Zeiss Ultra Prime lenses for the shoot, while lighting and stage equipment came from ARRI Rental in Berlin. We shot on Fuji 250D and 500T film stocks. The second part of the filming started in May 2006 and for that we used an ARRICAM LITE. Additional footage, documentary footage and taped interviews with the convicts needed to be shot as well. It took several attempts to establish contacts in Poland; we had to make numerous requests before the convicted felons agreed to be interviewed and the Polish authorities granted us filming permits.”

Interviews with the culprits, who were sent to different prisons, were conducted in October 2005 and October 2006. “For practical and budgetary reasons we shot the Polish part of the production on a Sony HDCam,” says Laupert. “We weren’t sure how the two convicted criminals, who at that point had already served 10 years of their sentence, would react to us being there. I didn’t want to interrupt the concentration of an interview by changing reels. Plus the Polish authorities had stipulated that the crew entering the prison could consist of no more than 4 people.”

DIRECTOR NIELS LAUPERT and team on set

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VISIONARRI

Though they had originally talked about shooting on a Sony PD-150 to keep costs down, when ARRI Media offered its help to the tune of a camera package, Nelson pushed for HD. The film was shot on a Sony HDW-750 with a film-style Canon zoom and down-converted to DigiBeta. “It was quite a compact kit,” says Nelson, “because the schedule was pretty tight and we wanted to travel light.”

For some shots of the principal character, a skittish, twitchy drug dealer, Nelson suggested the use of higher shutter speeds, a technique lifted from his background in film. “It helped contrast that character with the young kid who’s more slow and dopey,” he explains. “The dealer is almost frenzied in a way, so the idea was to make him look almost staccato in his movements and accentuate his nervous energy.” When it came to a scene in which the dealer takes heroin, Nelson experimented with hand-held dioptres and shift-and-tilt lenses, creating unusual focus effects in camera to reflect the character’s state of mind.

With a tight schedule and budget, the small crew carefully planned when to shoot each scene in order to minimise equipment requirements. “It was guerrilla filmmaking really,” says Nelson. “Getting the best you can as quick as you can.

Some things we spent more time on than others, like the lighting for the end scene in the lounge, which was difficult because Mark wanted a really wide, high master shot, which of course revealed all the positions where I wanted to put lights. Balancing that with all the other shots when we went in closer was a challenge. It’s just the restrictions of working on location rather than a sound stage – trying to fit yourself into someone’s living room. We had some good people who offered up their houses for an evening and were even gracious when we told them to be quiet in their own home.”

Side Effect

ARRI Media and ARRI Lighting Rental support budding filmmakers from within their own ranks.

Set amidst the sordid underworld of drugs in London, Side Effect is a ten-minute short film written and directed

by Mark Fortune. Entirely self-financed, the low-budget project was sponsored by ARRI Lighting Rental, where Fortune trained as a Lighting Technician, and ARRI Media, where cinematographer Stephen J. Nelson works as Camera Technician Trainer.

“I suppose the initial impetus to make it came from Steve,” says Fortune. “We bumped into each other and got talking. He knew I’d made a film a few years ago and suggested I make another, explaining that with all the new media packages like Final Cut Pro and also the new generation of cameras, you can affordably achieve quite a high level of autonomy.”

Having been convinced that the advance of prosumer technologies could maximise directorial control even with a minimal budget, Fortune revived Side Effect, a script he had already tried to film once before. “Steve and I talked about the visual approach,” he says. “I like for things to be natural; for any light that is used to have a reason for being there. I went to drama college myself so am very keen to serve the actors. One of the high points of Side Effect is the acting; Nick Tennant as the lead gives a superb performance and the whole cast are very strong. I like to let the camera roll, though I’m not a big fan of improvisation, so prefer the actors to find the freshness within a structure.”

WRITER AND DIRECTOR, MARK FORTUNE (top)

DOP STEPHEN J. NELSON (middle)

DIRECTOR AND DOP discussing a shot (bottom)

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Nelson’s lighting kit, provided by ARRI Lighting Rental, included Dados, an ARRILUX 400, 1.2K HMIs, a 2.5K ARRISUN and Chimera soft boxes; for outdoor scenes he used poly boards to flag and bounce the available light. Fortune was able to discuss lighting solutions with Nelson on a technical level, drawing on the training that got him started in the industry.

“I did a four year apprenticeship at ARRI Lighting Rental,” says Fortune. “I did my City and Guilds Electrics Parts One and Two, and got my HGV license – it was a full apprenticeship.

If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be making films again now.

They gave me an opportunity to get into the industry on a professional level; I’ll always be grateful to them for giving me that start.

“Once we’d wrapped I did the offline on an Apple G4 at home,” continues Fortune, “and then it went to Steve who did some grading on his system. All the postproduction was done on our own Apple Macs.”

The film had its first public screening at the Final Cut competition in Brighton and has since been featured at the Bacup Film Festival, Lancashire and the Sefton Short Film Festival, and will go on to be entered in about 60-80 festivals around the world. I Mark Hope-Jones

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VISIONARRI

ROBERT RICHTER on camera with Karl Dittmann shooting The Train Robbers (1920)

ROBERT RICHTER and AUGUST ARNOLD (1918)

The Power to Dream, the Vision to Innovate 90 YEARS OF ARRI The story of ARRI began in 1917, when school friends August Arnold and Robert Richter formed a small company in Munich as an outlet for their passion for all things technical and enthusiasm for the emerging discipline of motion picture engineering. Having successfully assembled their first film printing machine from sprockets and old parts sourced from a flea market, it did not take the pair long to generate some capital through the sale of several more printers.

They also immersed themselves in film production with the help of cameraman friend Martin Kopp, catering for the post-war boom in demand for westerns with features such as Texas Fred’s Honeymoon and Deadly Cowboys.

With the money they made from the printers and their prolific filmmaking, Arnold and Richter began investing in new camera and lighting technologies. In 1924 they commenced production of the first mirror facet reflectors with electric bulbs and also designed a mobile generator to power them. That same year they developed ARRI’s first camera, the KINARRI 35, which was rented to other cameramen when they weren’t shooting, thus sowing the seeds for the worldwide rental group that exists today.

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A landmark year came in 1937 with the design and development of the reflex mirror shutter camera, the ARRIFLEX 35.

This design, incorporating a reflex viewfinder that allowed precise composition and critical focusing, placed the company at the very forefront of motion picture engineering worldwide.

Its position was fortified in 1938 by the introduction of the first ARRI Fresnel lampheads, which would remain standard lighting units for decades to come. The ARRIFLEX 35 was produced and utilised throughout the Second World War, though bombing raids on Munich necessitated temporary relocation of the company, and in 1946 its follow-up, the ARRIFLEX 35II, went into production.

As film industries across the world picked up again after the devastation of the war, filmmakers immediately realised how important and revolutionary a tool this camera was. In 1947 it was used for the first time in Hollywood by Delmer Daves for the Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall movie Dark Passage, which opened with an extraordinary 30-minute POV (point of view) sequence, made possible by the camera’s precision

framing and extreme portability. The following year legendary documentarian Robert J. Flaherty used ARRIFLEX 35IIs for Louisiana Story, which put the camera through its paces in the unforgiving terrain of the Louisiana bayous. Flaherty was so impressed by the immediacy and accuracy of the reflex viewfinder that he often operated a camera himself.

On the other side of the world Indian Director Satyajit Ray used an ARRIFLEX 35II to film Pather Panchali, the first part of his lauded Apu Trilogy, between 1952 and 1955. Ray was a complete novice, as were his collaborators, but the simplicity and portability of their camera kit permitted versatile location filming with a minimum of crew throughout the protracted low-budget shoot. Mitra developed a system of bounce lighting whereby lamps were aimed at cheap white sheets angled at the performers in order to create a soft, natural light. By this method, which would go on to be utilised by cinematographers worldwide, Mitra could simulate daylight with extraordinary ease and effectiveness.

The resulting black and white

cinematography was stunning and played a big part in the success of the film.

The 1950s also brought the dawn of the age of television and the sheer volume of professional image acquisition increased exponentially. The cost benefits of 16mm film made the format appealing to news gatherers and sports broadcasters, so in 1952 ARRI introduced the first professional 16mm camera incorporating a reflex viewfinder, the ARRIFLEX 16ST. This model became perhaps the most ubiquitous 16mm camera ever produced and aside from its applications in television, provided an introduction to shooting on film for many aspiring young directors. Martin Scorsese used one to shoot his short films and Robert Rodriguez launched his career in 1992 with El Mariachi, a $7,000 feature shot entirely on an ARRIFLEX 16ST. The early 1960s saw a spate of updates to the design of the ARRIFLEX 35mm reflex camera. These refinements resulted in a range of models offering variable shutter, high speed filming, a bayonet mount and with the ARRFILEX 35IIC in 1964, a much-improved viewing system.

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THE POWER TO DREAM, THE VISION TO INNOVATE

VISIONARRI

The Departed (2006). In 2003 came the ARRIFLEX 235, a compact 35mm MOS camera that was used to great effect in The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), as well as the ARRIFLEX D-20, a film-style digital camera that represents the next stage in the company’s, as well as the industry’s history. Most recently, the release and extraordinary success of the ARRIFLEX 416 16mm camera in 2006 has proved that traditional markets remain buoyant and that the wealth of formats now available has simply widened the range of tools available to the modern cinematographer.

That same year, Director Richard Lester made use of ARRIFLEX IIB cameras for A Hard Day’s Night, his mad-cap mock-documentary that follows the Beatles as they prepare for a television appearance. The lightweight cameras allowed Cinematographer Gilbert Taylor BSC to keep up with John, Paul, George and Ringo as they dashed from screaming fans, while the reflex viewfinder permitted hand-held zoom and telephoto shots. The sheer freedom and energy of this filming style resulted in ground-breaking images and the film is credited with inventing a plethora of music video techniques.

In the mid 1960s ARRI brought out the ARRFILEX 35IICT/B, which was fitted with a two perforation movement, due to the growing popularity at that time of Techniscope. This widescreen process had been developed by Technicolor Italia and combined a two perforation pull-down with a 2.35:1 gate, resulting in two images being exposed on top of each other within the four perforation Academy area. Sergio Leone was one director who took advantage of this costsaving system, putting it to use for his low-budget western A Fistful of Dollars in 1964. After the massive success of this film, Leone again used Techniscope ARRIFLEX cameras for the sequels For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), as well as the seminal Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

1972 saw ARRI introduce the first ever self-blimped 35mm camera, the ARRIFLEX 35BL. Weighing a fraction of a blimped camera, the compact 35BL could be used hand-held and made mobile, sync-sound 35mm filming a reality. The first film to capitalise on its possibilities was Across 110th Street, which was shot that same year on location in Harlem, New York. Soon the 35BL was a firm favourite of cinematographers and was used on a vast number of films over the next few decades. Haskell Wexler ASC used one for his Oscar-winning work on Bound for Glory (1976), while Vittorio Storaro shot with 35BLs for all three films that won him the Best Cinematography Academy Award: Apocalypse Now (1979), Reds (1981) and The Last Emperor (1987).

Stanley Kubrick, a lifelong camera enthusiast with an extraordinary 50 50

DOP JOST VACANO in the submarine set on Das Boot with a purpose built gyro-rig and prototype IIIC. First Assistant Peter Maiwald holds the remote focus unit (1981) GRAHAM HILL films a training lap with an ARRIFLEX 16ST mounted on the car (1952) ARRI DEVELOPED its largest lamphead so far, the ARRI GIGANT 20kW (1952)

knowledge of motion picture technology, used ARRIFLEX cameras on every film he possibly could after discovering the ARRIFLEX 35IIA while directing and photographing his second feature Killer’s Kiss in 1955. He shot A Clockwork Orange on his own ARRIFLEX 35IICs in 1971 and bought 35BLs when they were released, using them for Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980) and Full Metal Jacket (1987). For his final film Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Kubrick shot with an ARRIFLEX 535B, having made use of the developing ARRI product line for almost half a century.

In 1981 ARRI unveiled the final incarnation of the 35mm body design that began life in 1937. The ARRIFLEX 35IIIC was developed at the request of German Cinematographer Jost Vacano BVK,ASC who had been hired to shoot Wolfgang Peterson’s World War II U-boat drama Das Boot. The IIIC featured a single lens mount and a pivoting viewfinder that allowed Vacano to capture running low-angle shots within the cramped submarine interior.

In 1982 the subsidiary ARRI Video, now known as ARRI Film & TV was set up and made a name for itself in postproduction for commercials, dramas, domestic and international feature films.

Today it offers a complete postproduction workflow, providing everything from lab services to state-of-the-art image and audio post services.

The 35BL’s replacement came in 1990 with the release of the ARRIFLEX 535, a silent studio camera boasting a wealth of electronic functions. Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus ASC made use of the camera’s ability to perform exposurecompensated speed ramps on Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula in 1992.

Janusz Kaminski ASC chose the 535 for Spielberg’s visually stunning Schindler’s List while Vittorio Storaro combined the 535 with an ARRIFLEX 765, the 65mm camera released in 1989, on Bertolucci’s Little Buddha (1992).

The 1990s brought a number of other important developments, most notably the ARRIFLEX SR 3 16mm camera in 1992, which quickly made its mark on the television drama industry, and the versatile ARRIFLEX 435 in 1994, which became a staple on promo and feature sets. ARRI moved in a new direction in 1998 with the launch of the ARRILASER, which was complemented by the ARRISCAN in 2004, placing ARRI at the head of the field in the rapidly expanding world of DI transfers and opening up new possibilities for postproduction workflows.

The turn of the twenty-first century has seen ARRI step up the pace further still, on its release of cutting edge products.

The innovative ARRICAM Studio and ARRICAM Lite cameras debuted in 2000 and have since been used on many major features including Chicago (2002), King Kong (2005) and

In order to use cameras, filmmakers have always needed light for exposure and over the last ninety years the ARRI brand has become well known for its robust, well made lighting products. Since developing the first mirror facet reflector in 1924, to the ARRI GIGANT in 1952, the ARRISONNE 2000W in 1972 and the ARRI Studio range in 1988, ARRI has strived to produce the lighting equipment to meet the varied demands of the technicians who apply the technology. The newest and brightest fixture, the ARRIMAX 18/12, launched in 2005 has taken lighting to new levels using a unique concept for beam control, eliminating the need for spread lenses. The ARRIMAX’s work can be seen on Indiana Jones 4, Batman: The Dark Knight and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.

In the very beginning innovation, reliability and durability were Arnold and Richter’s business principles and that same mind-set remains today.

In order to best serve creative professionals ARRI has always adapted to the latest trends and has developed the appropriate technology accordingly.

In a rapidly evolving industry ARRI not only provides state-of-the-art technology, but equally as important, worldwide service and technical support.

Despite the awards and accolades in recognition of technical achievements, ARRI believes that it is all about empowering creative professionals to realize their imagination and vision.

That philosophy still stands today and will continue for the next ninety years and beyond. I Mark Hope-Jones

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VISIONARRI

25 Years of ARRI Film & TV In November 1982 ARRI gained a new subsidiary with the creation of ARRI Video GmbH, the postproduction department of the ARRI Group, which now operates under the name of ARRI Film & TV Services GmbH. Managing Director Franz Kraus recalls the company's first steps, its development and prospects.

VisionARRI: In 1982 the partners of ARRI Cinetechnik, Robert Arnold and Dr Walter Stahl, decided to start up a new ARRI Cinetechnik affiliate. The new entity was first called ARRI Video and later ARRI TV. Today it is known as ARRI Film & TV. Why did they decide to enter the video sector?

Back then ARRI Cinetechnik consisted of camera and lighting rental departments, a film laboratory and a sound department providing postproduction-related services. When the 1” format was introduced, the timing just seemed right for an expansion into the video sector, especially since it had always been the intention of the partners to develop additional ARRI products for the newly founded postproduction division.

Franz Kraus:

VA: When did you join ARRI and what was your background?

FK: After working as a research associate and project supervisor at the Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin for ten years, I joined the one-year-old ARRI affiliate ARRI Video GmbH as a technical director in November 1983. Soon the company was renamed ARRI TV Production Services GmbH. Rolf Müller was the general manager at that time. In 1986/1987 he was succeeded by two general managers: Roman Kuhn, who was responsible for the creative side of the business and Josef Brauner, who was responsible for business affairs. In 1987 I was promoted to become the third general manager, responsible for all technology-related matters. Later, when Josef Brauner left the company and Roman Kuhn went on to start his own production company, I remained as the sole general manager. In June of 2001, I was appointed to the board of directors of ARRI AG. I am responsible for research & development as well as the service arm of the ARRI Group.

The goal was to make the company the market leader in terms of technology and quality. Even back then, we had been forerunners in the German

FK:

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1984

FRANZ KRAUS, General Manager ARRI Film & TV

1985

1988

1993

We have been very successful in the past with our studio facilities. We had guests such as the bands Queen and Die Ärzte. Numerous times the Bambi awards, one of Germany’s leading film and television award shows, has been broadcast directly from our studio here in Munich. In addition, a great number of very successful game shows such as Ruck-Zuck, Herz ist Trumpf, Die Bullyparade and Hopp oder Top have been recorded at the ARRI Studios. Initially we recorded on 1”C, later on Betacam SP and finally on Digital Betacam. Another popular live broadcast from the ARRI Studios was the show Bitte melde Dich. A highlight of our studio days was the show Wahre Wunder, which was hosted by Sabrina Fox and Christopher Lee, and later Dietmar Schönherr. In October of 1999 we had the honour of welcoming Bill Gates and Edmund Stoiber, who were guests on Sabine Christiansen’s talk show. That day remains one of the most talked-about days in ARRI history because Bill Gates got stuck in our glass elevator and had to wait there to be rescued. Luckily help came quickly. Today, the studio no longer plays a prominent role in our day-to-day business. The smaller studio was recently turned into a state-of-the-art sound mixing stage called Stage I. The larger studio is now rented out exclusively to the ZDF television network for the taping of their highly successful political comedy show Neues aus der Anstalt.

In the past we have co-produced a number of projects, including Edgar Reitz’s series Heimat and the 1988 feature film Burning Secret, with Klaus Maria Brandauer and Faye Dunaway. Today all of our co-productions are handled by our affiliate B.A. Productions.

VA: Did the new video venture face a lot of competition back then?

The benchmark for us as a young company was London. In those early days we focused on commercial production, studio rental and postproduction; our competitors were companies such as Molinare, VTR and Rushes in London. There was local competition here in Munich as well; TV-One (Mark Mender) had a great reputation when it came to 3D animation and the AV-Hartwig Company had made a name for themselves in the realm of telecine for commercials, with the help of their star colour grader Bertl Grabmayr (whom we subsequently brought over to ARRI TV). Bavaria’s telecine division was mostly focusing on feature film production and wasn’t a real competitor, but the Gürtler Company was, when it came to video transfers. Much later, Germany’s Neuer Markt brought some new competitors such as Das Werk.

FK:

The company credo has, and will always be, to remain one step ahead of the competition. I distinctly recall the heated debate surrounding the tape formats Digital Betacam and D1. Initially I was pretty much the only person proclaiming Betacam as the superior format in terms of user-friendliness, but that soon changed and everyone stopped working on the expensive, yet vulnerable and much less flexible D1 format.

POSTPRODUCTION with GVG 300-Mixer, 1986

HOMO FABER: Sam Shepard stars in Volker Schlöndorff’s acclaimed film

VA: What were the objectives and goals of the newly-created video endeavour?

video industry. ARRI TV was the first company on the continent with a Quantel Paintbox FGS 4000 from Bosch, a Quantel Harry and a Kodak Cineon System. In the beginning we were mostly active in the areas of studio rental, film scanning, video postproduction for commercials, and transfers.

But because we were always willing to tackle extraordinary challenges we were able to attract people with extraordinary abilities and ambitions – people like Roman Kuhn, with his creative and innovative ideas in the area of design and effects work, and Andreas Kern, who, long before the advent of Flame, worked with engineers at LENZ to develop incredible software for stabilizing image frames, which was later used at ARRI TV. Also Peter Doyle, whose work in high-resolution image manipulation contributed greatly to the inception of ARRI Digital Film in 1994, and let’s not forget Dr. Johannes Steurer, who was initially the head of Digital Film and later became the project manager responsible for the development of the ARRILASER.

ARRI FILM & TV have completed the postproduction of many successful national and international feature films

BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Faßbinder’s tremendous work was digitally restored in 2006 ROSSINI: At the helm was Helmut Dietl. ARRI was in charge of the entire postproduction (picture and sound)

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25 YEARS OF ARRI FILM & TV

1995

1993

VA: What was the corporate structure of ARRI Video and later of ARRI TV? FK: In actuality, it was a give-and-take arrangement and only a few rather superficial hierarchies existed. As a matter of fact, no-one worked a 40-hour week and no-one worked solely to earn money. Everyone really loved their jobs here at ARRI and to this day I consider that to be the secret of our success. Sure, a lot has changed since the inception of the company, but still today the people who work here love their jobs.

The film laboratory had been around for many years before ARRI TV was founded and had been part of ARRI Cinetechnik. Why did it later become a part of ARRI TV? VA:

FK: Cinetechnik was never the appropriate home for the sound department and the film laboratory. Both divisions had, and have, a very different clientele compared to Cinetechnik, so in 1992 it was decided to integrate the sound department at book value into ARRI TV. To this day, the sound department remains an integral part of the company. In 2002 the film laboratory was also amalgamated into ARRI TV, after which the new entity was named ARRI Film & TV. We always intended to combine digital and analogue technologies. The ARRISCAN and ARRILASER were to become integral parts of the film laboratory.

In addition, this was a fantastic opportunity to continue the training of our competent film laboratory staff. They were already very familiar with the analogue technologies and were eager to learn more about the new digital technologies.

Have the clients changed over the years?

And which areas have been the main focus – commercial, TV or feature films?

VA:

Like I said, initially the main business of ARRI TV came from the commercial sector, while the film laboratory and sound department tended to work on feature films. These days, however, the majority of our clients are feature film productions, followed by television and then commercial productions.

FK:

How has the affiliate changed over the last 25 years, in terms of personnel and technology?

VA:

FOCUS: Since 1995, ARRI has regularly been entrusted with the postproduction of the Hager Moss produced spot EXPO 2000: Elaborate postproduction for Producer/Director Josef Kluger’s film for the German Pavilion

ZDF MONDAY CINEMA: Has been an eye catcher for many years

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1997

1997

2001

2003

2006

FK: ARRI Video started 25 years ago as a small company with only a handful of employees. Some of them, such as Günther Bornkessel, Oswald Schacht and Erich Harant, are still with the company. Today, ARRI Film & TV has 200 employees. The film laboratory and the sound department have been integrated.

We have recruited colour graders from the film laboratory and trained them in new digital technologies, so they are now competent analogue as well as digital colour graders. We have integrated these new digital technologies with traditional film laboratory processes. In addition, building the new sound studio in 2002 has been a milestone for us. Also, with the introduction of the ARRISCAN, we have successfully taken the step from HD postproduction of feature films to high-resolution file-based 2K/4K postproduction and are today the market leader in Germany when it comes to Digital Intermediate/Grading.

In retrospect, are you content with the results of the last 25 years and where will the journey lead to over the coming years?

VA:

To be content only means to be complacent; we still have a lot to accomplish in the future. We want to position ourselves

FK:

2007

better for the years to come and have already begun this process by acquiring Schwarz Film AG in Switzerland.

As a result we now have additional film laboratories and postproduction facilities in Berlin and Bern, as well as smaller facilities in Zurich and Ludwigsburg. This has been a major step towards becoming even more flexible when it comes to servicing productions. This will also be an opportunity to reach past the borders of Germany and attract additional international productions.

The tasks for the future will include quickly and entirely switching the TV and commercial divisions to HD and replacing the photochemical film laboratory with a creatively and technologically superior digital high-resolution postproduction process (DI). Also, in the future, the delivery format for TV will be HD and for feature films, 4K. An additional challenge will be to further interface the rental and the postproduction services to accommodate the increasing number of digitally-shot productions, which will also be finished digitally. The shift to digital production will pose new challenges that the service providers have to meet.

We want to be prepared for this change. I

STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGY AT ARRI SCHWARZFILM BERLIN GMBH In late 2006, ARRI Film & TV Services acquired Schwarz Film Berlin Postproduction GmbH. The new entity, now called ARRI Schwarzfilm Berlin GmbH, greatly benefits from the vast experience and extensive know-how of its general managers, Philipp Tschäppät and Josef Reidinger, and has proved a tremendous success.

Now boasting one of the largest grading cinemas in Europe, ARRI Schwarzfilm Berlin has successfully completed its transition from a film laboratory focused predominantly on television productions to a full-service postproduction house equipped with the latest technology.

ARRI’s leading position in the world of

SCHWARZFILM film and television postproduction, with regards to film processing and the Digital Intermediate process, has been invaluable during the reorganisation of the company.

In Germany, both national and international high-end films are for the most part shot in Berlin and its surrounding areas. ARRI Schwarzfilm Berlin can now offer optimal conditions for the completion of these highly ambitious projects, not only because of its convenient location but also because of its expanded service portfolio and considerably enlarged facilities. The highly qualified workforce is well-versed in analogue as well as digital postproduction and works with state-ofthe-art technology to provide an allencompassing support structure. I 55

VISIONARRI

SIDE BY SIDE, an ARRIFLEX and Mitchell being used on set simultaneously

MOMENTS IN TIME

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.

The ARRI 35 Camera Affair

Of the many espionage shows to hit television screens during the 1960s, few are as well remembered and highly regarded as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. At the height of the Cold War the world of the secret agent captured the public imagination and none characterized the genre more famously than Ian Fleming’s dashing James Bond. Cinema screens became inundated by the fictional exploits of secret agents and television Producer Norman Felton was keen to seize the moment. In 1962, just prior to the release of the Bond film Dr No, he drew inspiration from Ian Fleming’s travelogue book Thrilling Cities to create the character of a sophisticated crime fighter whose assignments would take him all over the globe. At a lunch meeting in New York Felton presented his concept to Fleming, who suggested a name for the protagonist: Napoleon Solo.

Though he would subsequently collaborate with Felton on developing the character, Fleming’s involvement was curtailed after a threat of legal action from producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, who felt his connection to the Solo project might prove detrimental to the success of their Bond films. Thereafter Felton’s collaborator on the development of what would become The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was Sam Rolfe, best known for co-creating and producing the classic western series Have Gun Will Travel.

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Under Rolfe’s guidance the show moved away from Felton and Fleming’s original vision of Solo as a lone, globe-trotting crime fighter. Instead Solo would work for an international organization known as U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement), which would combat the minions of the nefarious T.H.R.U.S.H. crime syndicate around the world. Interestingly the series would feature no overt mention of the cold war or communism; indeed Solo’s sidekick, Illya Kuryakin, would be Russian – a controversial idea only a year on from the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After considering several actors including Robert Culp and Harry Guardino, Robert Vaughn, the star of Felton’s series The Lieutenant, was cast as the suave Napoleon Solo. Vaughn was an acclaimed stage actor whose performance alongside Paul Newman in The Young Philadelphians had earned him an Academy Award nomination and led to a role in The Magnificent Seven.

Illya Kuryakin would be played by Scottish actor David McCallum, whose popularity with female fans soon assured him a co-starring role. In direct reference to another of Felton’s early influences, Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, Leo G. Carroll was cast as Alexander Waverly, head of U.N.C.L.E. Felton recruited another veteran of The Lieutenant to serve as DoP, Fred Koenekamp ASC, who recalls: “Norman

asked if I would come over and do the show and of course I was delighted because I’d only been a Director of Photography for a year at that time. I was very excited about it.” Koenekamp sought out the highly respected Camera Operator Til Gabbani: “I contacted him as I wanted somebody that could do hand-held work, particularly because on an action-type show like that you can use it as a second camera. Til could handhold an ARRIFLEX just beautifully.”

Gabbani had been instrumental in bringing the immense versatility and financial benefits of the lightweight ARRI 35 to the attention of Hollywood studios.

After purchasing one whilst working on location in Munich, he presented the head of 20th Century Fox with a series of tests which left no doubt that the image quality of the ARRI was no different to that of the Mitchell they were using.

Given that the studio was spending some sixteen thousand dollars an hour shooting the feature Adventures in Paradise and that the ARRI could save an hour a day, they were duly convinced and bought the camera. David McCallum later recalled: “The crew was like family and the big daddy was Fred Koenekamp. Also Til Gabbani, with his cigar in his mouth and his camera strapped to his hand with a band. Til used to teach me how to work one; I did a hand-held shot one day and dropped the camera down before I clicked it off. He gave me such a row; he said ‘when they look at the dailies, they

TOGETHER ON SET DoP Fred Koenekamp ASC and Operator Til Gabbani (left to right)

shouldn’t know if the shot has been done on a crane, on a dolly, or hand-held.’

Til could even walk with the hand-held camera rock-steady.”

Use of the ARRI 35 became an intrinsic element of the action-packed show, allowing the crew to swiftly achieve exciting, kinetic shots: “We particularly used it whenever we had any kind of a fight scene because you could get in there and move around with it, and not worry about a dolly and all the special equipment,” says Koenekamp, who still remembers the grueling schedule: “From the very beginning they had a producer at MGM studios who said to me ‘now it’s up to you to make sure this is done on schedule’ and that was a big challenge, because in those days we shot an hourlong show in six days and had as many as 20 to 30 sets per episode.”

The principal camera was a Mitchell BNC which, thanks to the MGM machine shop, was fitted with the same mount as the ARRI, meaning lenses were interchangeable. “We had a reputation on the MGM lot for the way we were shooting the show,” says Koenekamp, “particularly for the use of the hand-held camera. It got to a point where we were using two cameras most of the time, which was kind of unheard of in those days, especially on a tight-budget show.

But with Til using the hand-held ARRI and another operator on the Mitchell, we were getting two shots for one.”

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MOMENTS IN TIME

VISIONARRI

Panalight ARRI Rental Partner in Romania The owners of Panalight Italy had considered setting up a rental facility in Romania ever since supplying equipment for Cold Mountain, which shot there in 2003. Since that time, the country has become increasingly popular with international filmmakers, prompting Panalight to build contacts with local technicians and pave the way for the opening of a new outlet.

The mobility of the ARRI also allowed the crew to avoid costly process shots for driving sequences, as Koenekamp recalls: “They were still using process photography to get shots in the car and things like that, which is slow and expensive. Til and I got together one day and we were chit-chatting about the hand-held camera when he said maybe we could figure out a way to be on the car and shoot it live. One of the first things we did – I can remember the shot – was Til and I lying on a piece of foam rubber on the hood of a convertible car; we put the rubber on there so we wouldn’t slide off. I had a hand-held light which ran off a battery in the trunk of the car and Til had the ARRI. Instead of process photography we were out running around the streets shooting for real. Of course as the show went on the grips did a wonderful job of making better mounts, so that we could mount the camera on the hood and not have somebody lying on the car. It was a giant step forward and we went on for the next four years doing all our work live like that.”

Koenekamp also arrived at a novel solution to ease the pressure during autumn when the number of hours available for shooting exteriors became 58

limited. Though few had ever experimented with the technique before, he would shoot later into the evening and get the lab to force process the negative.

Doing so allowed him not only to lengthen the shooting day, but also to use fewer lights. The slightly increased development costs were more than offset by electricity savings alone: “We gained a full stop on the lens,” he explains, “and that meant you were cutting your light down in half, so it worked out very well.”

Fortunately, given the hectic pace of production, traveling to locations was largely unnecessary, due to the resources at the studio. “In those days MGM probably had the greatest facilities in Hollywood,” enthuses Koenekamp.

“Besides the main lot they had two backlots: on Lot 3 there was a jungle, a western street, a train station and a small lake. Then on Lot 2 there was a New York street, a French street and a mansion with a swimming pool that you could use. Over the years I’ve actually had people ask me ‘where did you shoot so-and-so, what city did you have to go to?’ And I say we didn’t go anyplace, it was all shot right there on the backlots.”

By the close of the first season U.N.C.L.E. had become a worldwide

craze and its renewal was assured.

With an increased budget for the second season, the producers elected to start shooting in colour. “It was a wonderful transition,” says Koenekamp. “I can remember Norman Felton coming down to the set and saying ‘well I’ve got good news for you: we’re not only getting picked up for next season, but we’re going on in colour.’ I was just thrilled, because I badly wanted to shoot colour.”

A total of 105 episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. were shot over four seasons between 1964 and 1967. Fred Koenekamp, who received two Emmy Award nominations for his work on the show, remained until midway through the final season, when MGM offered him the opportunity to shoot an Elvis Presley feature. He was replaced for the last few episodes by Ray Flin and Robert Hauser. Til Gabbani stayed on until the end, becoming so expert with the ARRI 35 that he took to training other operators in how best to use it. Without the tireless efforts of the crew and the ingenuity of those who photographed U.N.C.L.E., such an ambitious show would have been logistically impossible.

That it remains popular to this day is a testament to the quality of their work. I

A PRESENTATION of the Technocrane

THE ‘POOR MAN’S PROCESS’, Koenekamp and his operator would lie on the hood of a car with a hand-held ARRIFLEX, using just a piece of foam rubber to keep them from sliding off

From left to right: Diana Apostol General Manager Ana Maria Nagy Rental Manager Oana Gheorghe Assistant General Manager Ion Ticu (Nini) Generator Operator Dumitru Marian (Gabi) Light & Grip Technician Oana Apostol IT Technician Andrei Zikeli Camera Technician

December 2005 brought the first official opening and by February 2006 Panalight Romania was fully up and running. Diana Apostol, General Manager, explains: “From the beginning the company’s inventory was comprehensive enough to supply both movies and commercials with cameras, lenses, accessories, lights, grips and generators, as well as any consumables that technicians may need during productions.”

Clearly indicating their confidence in the Romanian operation, Panalight Italy has invested around one million Euros in creating a new building in Bucharest that is scheduled for completion by the end of 2007. This purpose-built facility will both house the company and provide a meeting place where DoPs, technicians and other production team members can interact. The state-of-the-art building will also contain all the technical resources and space necessary for top-level productions.

Another important selling point of the fledgling Panalight Romania, in terms of raising interest from production companies, is the fact that it houses a Technocrane 30. The versatile crane arrived at the company in June 2006 as a result of collaboration with Orion Telescopic.

Substantial investments have additionally been made in the equipment and tools that technicians will use to test and maintain the company’s inventory. These are of the highest precision possible, allowing rigorous evaluation of every component of a shooting kit, including electronic lens testing, all of which are necessary to ensure a properly serviced and fully functional rental fleet.

After its first year of trading, Panalight Romania’s dedicated and enthusiastic team of technicians and administrators has already elevated the company to a strong position. The various markets that it set its sights on have been very effectively targeted and Panalight is now among the most successful independent rental houses in the country. The team is determined to consolidate this position over the coming year and strengthen the company’s market share still further.

A crucial step toward developing a truly regional base in Bucharest, capable of servicing productions both in Romania and abroad, was the partnership formed in June 2007 between Panalight and ARRI Rental Germany. A promising relationship had developed throughout 2006 and this agreement has officially sealed the partnership. The first production to benefit from the collaboration was Adam Resurrected, a European project that was shot in Bucharest this year with lights and grip equipment supplied by Panalight, and cameras supplied by ARRI Rental.

With the combined resources of the Panalight network and those made available by the partnership with ARRI, Panalight Romania is now in a position to supply and support productions with whatever equipment they may need, whether it be a 16mm, 35mm, digital or high speed shoot. The company is committed to maintaining an inventory of the latest motion picture technologies and is providing development opportunities for technicians through collaborations with local film schools. I

Dylan Michael

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VISIONARRI

News from around the world All in One ARRI Australia provides seven different professional services from one facility to a supply area populated by fewer than 30 million people, but who are spread over literally an entire continent and beyond. Based in Sydney, the company represents ARRI throughout the whole of Australia, as well as New Zealand.

General Manager Stefan Sedlmeier, who comes from a background of supplying film scanning technology, sees his task as maintaining a powerful and far-reaching facility with a small but multi-skilled team of employees. Crucially, the company is able to support the digital intermediate products it sells with top-level servicing back-up, coordinated by Tom Altenried, who was formerly DIS Service Manager at ARRI Munich.

One of the first ARRIMAX 18K lamps to be sold anywhere in the world went to Australia in 2006. Lighting Sales Manager Richard Curtis spent years working as a gaffer in Australia and has a wealth of knowledge not only about the different lighting units available but also how they can be used on set.

(from front clockwise) Stefan Sedlmeier, General Manager; Geraldine Quinn, Client Relationship Manager; Rey Adia, Senior Service Engineer; Richard Curtis, Sales Manager Lighting; Allyn Laing, Preparation Technician; Aaron George, Camera Floor Manager; Tom Altenried, Service Engineer Digital Intermediate Systems; Seamus Maher, Accountant; Rich Lock, Client Contact; Jasmine Lord, AFTRS Intern; Christian Hilgart, Rental Manager

A total of 10 employees and one trainee make up ARRI Australia’s full-time staff, with different departments working together to pool knowledge and maximise flexibility. The service department, which supports the in-house rental fleet and services customers’ equipment, is made up of three technicians. Camera Floor Manager Aaron George is highly experienced in the camera rental business, Rey Adia has serviced lighting and camera kit in countries all over the world, while Allyn Laing brings his film school education and experiences as a cinematographer to bear for the benefit of clients.

AROUND 8,000 visitors attended SMPTE 2007 in Sydney

GENERAL MANAGER STEFAN SEDLMEIER, demonstrates the ARRIFLEX 435 Xtreme at ARRI Australia’s booth

In Australia, the vast distances between populated areas mean high transport costs and shooting locations that are often many miles from any form of infrastructure; dispatch and logistics are therefore complex and vital tasks for the rental office.

Client Contact Rich Lock utilises his project management background to combine such tasks with supporting clients through shoots and running the office, while also putting his degree in marketing to use by designing marketing communications strategies.

ARRI AUSTRALIA’S facility at Macquarie Park, Sydney

Geraldine Quinn joined the ARRI Australia team at the beginning of 2007. She has experience as a production manager and knows both the industry and her client base very well. As Client Relationship Manager she develops and maintains contacts not only in production but also with production service providers who might be of benefit to international features shooting in Australia.

Christian Hilgart, who set up ARRI Rental Cologne in 2000, brings a comprehensive knowledge of motion picture technology to his role as Rental Manager. Accountant Seamus Maher efficiently manages the control of the different departments and facilitates ARRI Australia’s responsibilities as a company in its own right rather than just an agency with his knowledge of Australian and New Zealand government regulations.

In order to best service productions that base themselves in other key centres of the customer area such as Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, Wellington and Auckland, ARRI Australia has established a network of rental partners and so can offer local support to its clients, wherever they decide to shoot.

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NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

News from around the world BLIXT Extends Reach of ARRI’s Rental Partner Network In March 2007 BLIXT Camera Rental in Copenhagen became the ARRI Rental Partner for Scandinavia. With a total population of 19 million, Scandinavia produces 85 feature films a year, which, per capita, makes it one of the most productive filmmaking regions in the world.

BLIXT was founded in 1995 by swedish DoP Björn Blixt, starting out with only two Super 16 cameras and a few accessories. Over the years it has grown substantially and is now one of the largest camera rental companies in that part of the world, servicing feature films, commercials and promos in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and beyond.

The company’s inventory has expanded to include state-of-the-art cameras such as the ARRICAM Lite and Studio, ARRIFLEX 535B, 435 Xtreme, 235, 416 and SR 3 Advanced, accompanied by Master Prime, Ultra Prime, Cooke S4 and Angenieux Optimo lenses.

Like the two preceding films in the Dollars Trilogy, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was shot using Techniscope, a 2 perforation widescreen format that offered a cheaper alternative to the considerable cost of anamorphic production of the time.

Some actors spoke in English during filming while the rest spoke in their native language, mostly Italian and Spanish, which was later dubbed into English.

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Iain Struthers First Assistant Camera

Easy Rider 1969

Iain is currently getting wet on Gurinder Chadha’s latest feature film Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging with DoP Dick Pope BSC. Based on the teenage novel by Louise Rennison. Angus is a cat by the way.

Some of the weird lighting effects in the LSD scene supposedly came about after a can of film was accidentally opened before it was developed.

His other most recent credits include Wild Child with DoP Chris Seager BSC, with DoP Gavin Finney BSC, and before that with Alan Stewart Second Unit DoP on Inkheart Fred Claus and The Golden Age.

1 Shot at various locations in the UK, the films most impressive set was an abandoned 1930s gasworks in Beckton. Scheduled for demolition, British Gas allowed the site to be transformed into the bombed-out city of Hue. Charges were laid by a demolition team and then one Sunday British Gas executives brought their families down to see the place blown up. The ruins were then dressed to complete the effect, including palm trees brought in from Spain and one hundred thousand plastic tropical plants from Hong Kong.

The Lord of the Rings 2001

In the summer of 2000, A Song For Martin, directed by two-time Golden Palm winner Bille August and shot by Swedish DoP Jörgen Persson, became the first Scandinavian movie filmed in 3 perforation Super 35. BLIXT provided the 535B camera. Since this film, the 3 perforation process, with its reduced stock and development costs, has become the format of choice for commercials and feature films made in the region.

This shift has been made possible by the influx of technologically advanced postproduction equipment such as the ARRISCANNER and ARRILASER, facilitating a wealth of new digital intermediate workflows.

More than 1800 Hobbit feet were produced. Each pair would take over an hour to apply and could only be used once as there was no way of removing the feet at the end of the day without damaging them. They were all shredded after use in order to prevent a black market in stolen Hobbit feet.

It is common practice to have two units shooting at any one time, but during filming of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy there were occasions when there were up to nine units operating at any given time. This meant there would often be between three to five hours of dailies to review.

Flags of Our Fathers 2006

CEO BJÖRN BLIXT

RENTAL TECHNICIAN Reza Farsangi, Booking Manager Martin Samsoe and Chief Technician Dan Friis (left to right)

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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 1966

Take

Full Metal Jacket 1987

One of the more unusual services that BLIXT provides to clientele is their library, which has a selection of more than two hundred books on camera techniques, lighting techniques, gripping, directing, storyboarding and many more topics. Titles range from Vittorio Storaro´s highly artistic three-volume Writing with Light, to small books on tricks of the trade. BLIXT also subscribe to Scandinavian, as well as international, film magazines and hold every issue of American Cinematographer from the last 25 years. Customers find great joy in browsing through the company’s wide selection of film literature for inspiration or to find answers to technical questions.

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Did you Know

CHIEF TECHNICIAN Dan Friis checking an ARRIFLEX 235

The Battle of Iwo Jima was recreated on location in Iceland, which has black sand beaches identical to those found on the volcanic island of Iwo Jima. The fierce combat scenes were captured with ARRIFLEX 235s, chosen to allow the crew to get in close with the actors during the action to create a documentary-like feel. All the cameras had to be encased in HydroFlex bags during filming due to the large amount of explosions which caused the black sand to fly everywhere.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

What film first inspired you to work in this industry?

Pete and the Dragon, is an early film memory.I remember queing up for ages, usually with an older sister on a Saturday afternoon waiting to get into see films at a local Odeon.

What’s your cure for the “morning after the wrap party” feeling?

Being left alone, this could take some time. Or not going.

Name three things that make you smile?

Ava Lee Struthers – my daughter.

Getting home.

Nice Food.

What was the first car you ever owned?

Ford Escort 1.3L. Bright Orange. £500. One lady owner.

What’s the one thing you can’t live without?

Food.

If your life was a film, what would it be and why?

I’m not quite sure… but what a strange film that would be! I hope it would be full of wonderful emotions.

What’s your most embarrassing moment?

It could develop into becoming this, when it’s been printed!

Who inspires you?

To do anything – my dearest and nearest.

Name three people (living or dead) you’d most like to dine with?

My Partner.

The Person who photographed the Fake First Man on the Moon picture’s.

Don McCullen.

10 What was the last film you saw?

The Goonies.

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VISIONARRI

PRODUCT

UPDATE

ARRICAM Lite Gains Speed

ARRI Extends Range of Camera Crew Accessories ARRI’s increasingly popular range of fabric accessories for camera crew, first introduced in November 2006, has recently been extended to include 16 bespoke bags and pouches. The design process involved contributions from camera technicians to ensure that the accessories specifically cater to their practical and technical requirements. The range includes a unit bag, loaders pouch, filter pouches and various other accessory pouches, all of which are highly water resistant, uniformly hard-wearing and offer a quality equivalent to that of leading manufacturers at highly competitive prices. The ARRI branded bags and pouches, many of which affix to a purpose-designed utility belt, are now available worldwide through the ARRI global network.

Following requests from cinematographers for the ARRICAM Lite to run faster, the motor, movement and magazine have been analyzed closely. By optimizing all the operational parameters, and after months of rigorous testing, it has been possible to increase the maximum forward speed to 48fps.

All ARRICAM Lite cameras available through the ARRI Rental Group have been upgraded and now come with the 48fps speed increase.

ARRICAM Lite Facts - Small & lightweight Super 35 sync sound camera - Easy to operate ergonomic design user-friendly controls - Brilliant viewfinder - High quality video assist - Camera speed: 1-48fps - Electronic shutter: 0-180° - 4, 3 or 2 perforation movement - Modular concept four viewfinders two 100% video-only tops two video assist units four magazine types - Extensive range of accessories wired & wireless remote control of camera & lens external synchronization ramping (speed, depth of field, timing shift) - Built-in Lens Data System

Lightweight Matte Box LMB-15 The ARRI LMB-15 is the newest addition to the ARRI clip-on matte box line, superseding the LMB-5. Designed around the horizontal use of standard 4” x 5.65” filters the LMB-15 also comes with a new clamping back, allowing use of the clamp-on adapter rings from the MB-20 system. This clamping back is also compatible with the LMB-5.

ARRIFLEX D-20 Gains Sensitivity and High-Speed Interface Higher Sensitivity Settings

Lightweight Matte Box LMB-15 Facts - Compatibility with LMB-5 filter trays, adapter backs and light shields - Extended coverage for wide-angle film and digital lenses - Removable sunshade - Switchable filter guide sets for both 2-stage and 3-stage operation - Light shields can be attached both above and below for additional flare protection

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A new software package has increased the sensitivity of the ARRIFLEX D-20 to provide a wider range of settings for use in lower light situations. It is now possible to set the camera to the approximate equivalent of 500 ISO (ASA), or even higher for certain applications.

Sony Fibre Interface SFI-1 Facilitates High-Speed Shooting The Sony Fibre Interface SFI-1 mounts directly on the camera and is connected by a single fibre cable, available in lengths up to 500m, to a fibre-equipped Sony SRW-1 HDCAM SR recorder. This configuration allows high-speed shooting at up to 60fps, including in-camera speed ramps when used in conjunction with an ARRI Remote Control Unit RCU-1.

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ARRI CSC

PRODUCTION UPDATE

Title

ARRI RENTAL Title

Production Company

Director

DoP

Anonyma

Constantin Film Produktion

Max Färberböck

Benedict Neuenfels

Body of Lies

Warner Bros. Pictures

Ridley Scott

Captain Abu Raed Der Baader Meinhof Komplex Die wilden Kerle 5 - Der Schattensucher Hexe Lilli

Gigapix Studios Constantin Film Produktion

Armin Matalqa Uli Edel

SamFilm

Joachim Masannek

blue eyes Fiction / Trixter

Stefan Ruzowitzky

Inhabited Island

Art Pictures & Non-Stop Productions

Fedor Bondarchuk

Mord mit Aussicht Rubicon

Pro GmbH United Artists / Sony

Arne Feldhusen Bryan Singer

Speed Racer

Warner Bros. Pictures

Andy Wachowski Larry Wachowski Andrew Adamson

The Chronicles of Narnia: Walden Media Prince Caspian The International Babelsberg / Sony-Columbia Tom Tykwer

Equipment

ARRICAM Studio & Lite, ARRIFLEX 435, 235, 15-40mm, 17-80mm & 24-290mm Angenieux Optimo, 3 perforation, Lighting, Grip Alexander Witt ARRICAM Studio & Lite, ARRIFLEX 435, 235, Ultra Primes, 15-40mm, 17-80mm & 24-290mm Angenieux Optimo Reinhart Peschke ARRIFLEX D-20 Rainer Klausmann ARRICAM Studio & Lite, Ultra Primes, 3 perforation, Lighting, Grip Benjamin Dernbecher ARRICAM Studio & Lite, ARRIFLEX 435, 24-290mm Angenieux Optimo, 3 perforation Peter von Haller ARRICAM Studio & Lite, ARRIFLEX 235, Ultra Primes,17-80mm & 24-290mm Angenieux Optimo, 3 perforation, Lighting, Grip Maxim Osadchiy ARRICAM Studio & Lite, ARRIFLEX 435, 235, Ultra Primes, 15-40mm, 17-80mm & 24-290mm Angenieux Optimo Johannes Imdahl ARRIFLEX 16SR 3, Lighting, Grip Newton Thomas Sigel ARRICAM Studio & Lite, ARRIFLEX 435, 235, Cooke S4,17-80mm & 24-290mm Angenieux Optimo, Grip David Tattersall Lighting, Grip Karl Walter Lindenlaub ARRICAM Studio & Lite, ARRIFLEX 435, 235, Master Primes, Master Zoom, Lighting, Grip Frank Griebe ARRICAM Studio & Lite, ARRIFLEX 435, 235, 765, Master Primes, Master Zoom, 15-40 & 24-290mm Angenieux Optimo, LWZ-1 15,5-45mm, 3 perforation, Lighting, Grip

ARRI AUSTRALIA Title

Production Company

Director

DoP

Equipment

McLeod’s Daughters - Series 8 East of Everything - Series 1 Virgin Blue The Pacific

Millennium Television

Various

Twenty Twenty Pty

Stuart MacDonald Matthew Saville Hamish Rothwell Tim Van Patten Carl Franklin Lee Rogers Simon Bookallil Nicholas Reynolds Scott Pickett Matt Murphy Hamish Rothwell Alex Holmes

John Stokes, Kim Batterham Brendan Lavelle

3 x ARRIFLEX SR 3, Zeiss Highspeed Lenses, Zeiss Zooms 2 x ARRIFLEX SR 3, Zeiss Highspeed Lenses, Canon Zooms ARRIFLEX 435, LDS Ultra Primes 2 x ARRIFLEX 235, 3 x ARRICAM Lite, LDS Ultra Primes, Optimo Set SR 3, 416, Zeiss Highspeed Lenses ARRIFLEX 416, Zeiss Highspeed Lenses ARRIFLEX 416, Zeiss Highspeed Lenses ARRICAM Studio, Cooke S4’s ARRIFLEX 235, ARRICAM Studio, Anamorphic ARRICAM Studio, Anamorphic ARRIFLEX 416, SR 3, Zeiss Highspeed Lenses, Canon Zoom, Angenieux

Westfield Visa BoPo Hutchinson 3 Shot Open Landcruiser Foxtel The Ball

Good Oil Films First Division Pty Brilliant Films Brilliant Films Plaza Films AFTRS Good Oil Films Good Oil Films Panckhurst Productions

Jac Fitzgerald Remi Adefarasin Tristan Milani Tristan Milani Tristan Milani Greg de Marigny Nigel Bluck Jac Fitzgerald Geoffrey Simpson

ARRI LIGHTING RENTAL Title

Production Company

Director

DoP

Gaffer

The Young Victoria Young Victoria Productions The Duchess The Duchess Movie RocknRolla Toff Guy (RNR) Films Untitled 06 Untitled 06

Jean Marc Vallee Saul Dibb Guy Ritchie Mike Leigh

Hagen Bogdanski Gyula Pados David Higgs Dick Pope BSC

Jimmy Wilson Ian Franklin John Colley Vince Madden Dan Fontaine John Walker Matthew Moffatt

Primeval 2

Impossible Pictures The Mob Film Company

Adam Suchitzky Graham Frake Chris Hartley Gavin Finny BSC

Stewart King

The Colour of Magic Ashes To Ashes

Jamie Paine Andrew Gunn Nick Murphy Vadim Jean

Ashes

Johnny Campbell Billie Eltringham

Dan Fontaine, John Walker

Mike Parsons, Andy Bell

Echo Beach

Echo Beach (Echo Beach)

Tom Gates

Toby Flesher

Moving Wallpaper MI High Miss Austen Regrets Holby Blue 2

Moving Wallpaper (MW)

Jennifer Perrott Beryl Richards Andrew Gillman

Julian Court Nick Laws Simon Archer John Daly BSC Ian Leggitt

Jo Allen

MI High (MI High) BBC

Simon Hook Jeremy Lovering

Stephan Pehrsson David Katznelson

Haydn Boniface Otto Stenov

Carolina Schmidtholstein Gavin Ogden Wayne Mansell

Red Planet (Holby)

Ian Leggitt

Jo Allen

The Fixer

Fixer

Sarah O’Gorman Toby Haynes Alrick Riley John Strickland Diarmuid Lawrence

Vojek Sheper

Mark Clayton

Kevin Rowley

Micky Brown

Silent Witness XII BBC

Terry Hunt

Rigging Gaffer Best Boy

Steve Cortie

Mark Funnell Andy Cole Andy Bell Kevin Fitzpatrick Steve Anthony Terry Robb

Carolina Schmidtholstein Benny Harper John Attwood/ Dave Owen

Published by the ARRI Rental Group Marketing Department. 3 Highbridge, Oxford Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 1LX United Kingdom The opinions expressed by individuals quoted in articles in VisionARRI do not necessarily represent those of the ARRI Rental Group or the Editors. Due to our constant endeavour to improve quality and design, modifications may be made to products from time to time. Details of availability and specifications given in this publication are subject to change without notice.

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Production Company DoP

A Date With Murder Mineral Point Prods.

Mark Melville Are You Smarter Mark Burnett Productions Various Than a Fifth Grader?

Burn After Reading Gramecy Prods. LLC Emmanuel Lubezki

ASC

Gaffer

Equipment

Serviced by

Oscar Dominguez

2 x ARRIFLEX D-20 Automated Lighting

ARRI CSC FL Illumination Dynamics

2 x ARRICAM Lite Lighting & Grip 3 x ARRIFLEX 416 Lighting 2 x ARRIFLEX 416 ARRICAM Studio & Lite Lighting & Grip Lighting ARRICAM Studio & Lite Lighting & Grip ARRICAM Studio & Lite 2 x ARRIFLEX D-20

ARRI CSC NY

Bill O’Leary

Canterbury’s Law Kid Nation New Amsterdam Righteous Kill

Topanga Prods.

Mountain Air Films New Amsterdam Prods.

Righteous Prods. LLC

Tom Houghton Daryl Studebaker Michael Slovis Denis Lenoir ASC

She Lived Six Wives of Henry Laffey The Sophomore Welcome to Academia What Happens In Vegas

Huntington Prep LLC Six Wives LLC

Sharone Meir Nancy Schreiber ASC

Iggy Scarpitti

Sophomore Dist. LLC Pelican State Prods.

M. David Mullen David Dunlap

ASC

Kevin Janicelli

20th Century Fox

Matthew Leonetti

ASC

Andrew Day

Oscar Dominguez Elan Yaari

ARRICAM Studio & Lite Lighting & Grip

ARRI CSC NY Illumination Dynamics ARRI CSC NY ARRI CSC NY Illumination Dynamics ARRI CSC NY ARRI CSC NY ARRI CSC NY ARRI CSC NY

ARRI FILM & TV - POST PRODUCTION SERVICES - FEATURES Title

Production Company

Director

DoP

Services

Anonyma Clara Der Baader Meinhof Komplex Alle Anderen Die Frauen des Anarchisten Die Welle Die wilden Kerle 5 – Der Schattensucher Effi Briest Feuerherz Freche Mädchen Hexe Lilli John Rabe Palermo Shooting Rubicon The International The Reader

Constantin Film Produktion Integral Film Constantin Film Produktion Komplizen Film P’ARTISAN Filmproduktion Rat Pack Filmproduktion SamFilm

Max Färberböck Helma Sanders-Brahms Uli Edel Maren Ade Marie Noëlle, Peter Sehr Dennis Gansel Joachim Masannek

Benedict Neuenfels Jürgen Jürges Rainer Klausmann Bernhard Keller Jean Francois Robin Torsten Breuer Benjamin Dernbecher

Lab, DI, TV-Mastering Lab, Sound, TV-Mastering Lab, DI, VFX, TV-Mastering Lab, TV-Mastering Lab, DI, Sound, TV-Mastering Lab, DI, VFX, Sound, TV-Mastering Lab, DI, Sound, TV-Mastering

Constantin Film Produktion TV60Film collina filmproduktion blue eyes Fiction / Trixter Hofmann & Voges Wenders Images Babelsberg / United Artists Babelsberg / Sony-Columbia Babelsberg / The Weinstein Company

Hermine Huntgeburth Luigi Falorni Ute Wieland Stefan Ruzowitzky Florian Gallenberger Wim Wenders Bryan Singer Tom Tykwer Stephen Daldry

Martin Langer Judith Kaufmann Peter Przybylski Peter von Haller Jürgen Jürges Franz Lustig Newton Thomas Sigel Frank Griebe Roger Deakins

Lab, DI, Sound, TV-Mastering Lab, DI, Sound, TV-Mastering Lab, DI, VFX, Sound, TV-Mastering Lab, DI, Sound, TV-Mastering Lab, DI, Sound, TV-Mastering Lab, TV-Mastering Lab Lab, DI, TV-Mastering Lab

ARRI FILM & TV - POST PRODUCTION SERVICES - COMMERCIALS Client

Title

Production Company

Agency

Director

DoP

Cortal Consors Stier Mazda Motors Europe Mazda2 Competition

Hager Moss Commercial

Serviceplan Zweite WA JWT Düsseldorf

Paula Walker

Rolf Kestermann

McDonald´s

Hager Moss Commercial

Heye & Partner

Martin Haerlin

Sven Lützenkirchen

Hager Moss Commercial

Heye & Partner

Martin Haerlin

Sven Lützenkirchen

PLAYMOBIL Williams Wagner Pizza Ferrero ING DiBa Caotina

Brand 2007 Unterhaltung mit Heidi Brand 2007 Mundvoll, Pommes, Freundinnen, Langeweile, Münze Herbst 2007 Formula 1 Branding Durchreiche Kinder Markenfilm Lippenbekenntnis

WIN WIN Calgonit Zweifel Chips Saturn Müller Milch

winwin.de Tab-Regen Cractiv LED Berlin Verkostung

McDonald´s

e+p commercial R.TV Film & Fernsehen Laszlo Kadar Helliventures GAP Rapid Eye Movement e+p commercial GAP Made in Munich

Heye & Partner HP Albrecht Wüschner Rower Baier Advico Young & Rubicam Zürich Basis Media GmbH Euro RSCG Advico Young & Rubicam redblue Marketing Springer & Jacoby

ARRI MEDIA

Reiner Holzemer Peter Aichholzer Tobias Heppermann Thomas Stokowski Laszlo Kadar Laszlo Kadar Joachim Hellinger Ivo Mostertman

Dieter Deventer Jean Paul Seresin

Lili Clemens Gerhard Hirsch Nic & Sune

Gerhard Hirsch Richard Mott

Plot: Vivian Naefe - Food: David Wynn-Jones

Plot: Michael Hornung - Food: David Wynn-Jones

Title

Production Company

Director

DoP

Equipment

The Young Victoria Baggy Trousers Silent Witness XII ART In Las Vegas Eden Nutcracker RocknRolla Telstar The Colour of Magic Wild Child

Young Victoria Prods Bwark Productions BBC Television ART In LV Samson Films HCC Media Toff Guy Films Aspiration Films The Mob Film Company Lacrosse Films

Jean Marc Vallee

Hagen Bogdanski Rob Kitzmann Kevin Rowley Mark Wolf Owen McPolin Mike Southon BSC David Higgs Peter Wignall Gavin Finney BSC Chris Seager BSC

ARRICAM Studio & Lite Sony 750P HD & Zooms ARRIFLEX D-20 & Zeiss Primes ARRIFLEX D-20 & Ultra Primes ARRICAM Lite, ARRIFLEX 535 ARRICAM Lite, ARRIFLEX 235, 435, 416 ARRIFLEX D-20, Ultras & Master Primes ARRICAM Lite & Cooke S4 Primes ARRIFLEX D-20 & Cooke S4 Primes ARRICAM Studio & Lite, ARRIFLEX 235

Various Mary McGuckian Declan Rechs Andrei Konchalovsky Guy Ritchie Nick Moran Vadim Jean Nick Moore

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