ICG Magazine - June/July 2018 - The Interview Issue

ICG MAGAZINE

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STRANGER OCEAN’S ANT-MAN

THINGS 8 AND

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[contents]

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STRANGER THINGS

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THE INTERVIEWS

JUNE/JULY 2018

TIM IVES CHANNELS HIS INNER ALLEN DAVIAU FOR THE 1980’S INSPIRED SCI-FI SERIES, STRANGER THINGS

IAN S. TAKAHASHI, SOC / GUY JONES / GARY BAUM, ASC / JAY LAFAYETTE / JONATHAN FURMANSKI / VANCE BURBERRY / JOHN SIMMONS, ASC ANDREW SHULKIND / NICOLAS KARAKATSANIS / DARON FISLER / JOHN O’BRIEN / EVAN PESSES / PETER DEMING, ASC

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ANT-MAN AND THE WASP

DANTE SPINOTTI, ASC, AIC, HELPS ENVISION AN EXCITING NEW MARVEL REALM

OCEAN’S 8

EMMY-WINNING DP EIGIL BRYLD JOINS A FEMALE WOLF PACK FOR THE LATEST ENTRY IN THE OCEAN’S FRANCHISE

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DEPARTMENTS

GEAR GUIDE / 14 FIRST LOOK / 22 DEEP FOCUS / 24 EXPOSURE / 28 PRODUCTION CREDITS / 120 STOP MOTION / 132 ICG MAGAZINE

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STRANGER OCEAN’S ANT-MAN

THINGS 8 AND

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cover photo courtesy of Netflix

JUNE/JULY 2018

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Photo by Scott Alan Humbert

PRESIDENT’S

LETTER JUNE/JULY 2018 • VOL. 89 NO. 05

Steven Poster, ASC National President International Cinematographers Guild IATSE Local 600

SURFING CHAOS, PART 2 Part 1 of my conversation with Howard Lukk, Standards Director for the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), explored the historical antecedents for how the technical community has responded to disruptive technologies. In Part 2, we delve into the practical changes, and Local 600’s role in helping to safeguard the moving image through a nowfragmented digital pipeline.

Steven Poster: I recently saw a demo of a 1000-nit television [the minimum threshold for UltraHD Premium], and it hurt my eyes it was so bright; to me, that doesn’t seem practical for visual storytelling. Preserving suspension of disbelief has been my mantra since we first met, and digital technology arrived. There are parameters within the film standard of 24 frames per second – such as time between frames when there’s nothing on the screen, judder and weave, random grain – that force the brain to interpolate, which aids suspension of disbelief. Howard Lukk: Yes, and [the tool employed] should remain a creative choice by filmmakers, not a technological imperative.

Steven Poster: Years ago I talked to the Academy, Kodak, even James Cameron, about scanning the brain to see what areas [our cinematic processes] lit up. Everyone said it was a great idea, but no one wanted to pay for it! [Both laughing.] Now Dr. Corey Carbonara, professor of film and digital media at Baylor University, is working with Baylor’s Neurology department to test how different frame rates impact viewers, based on my original ideas and meetings we had with Local 600. That’s pretty exciting. Howard Lukk: I’m curious how we control the ambient environment as these new technologies enter people’s homes. Audio always leads visual because the bandwidth is much lower.

So audio receivers come with microphones and speakers to calibrate the room, and I think we need the same thing for televisions. The problem is that TV manufacturers crank up the brightness to sell displays, and that’s the wrong thing to do.

Steven Poster: They actually have a setting for it! It’s called “dealer mode.” Howard Lukk: So if we could

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have [display makers] create a “home mode” that could help adjust the display to the ambient light of the room, then the benefits of HDR, of which there are many, could be fully exploited by members of your Guild. [Local 600 Technologist] Michael Chambliss is working on figuring out how we, as an industry, can start that conversation with the consumer display makers.

Steven Poster: That’s right. And Local 600’s panel at HPA [the Hollywood Production Alliance conference this past February] included the lead technologist from Samsung, saying, “Hey, that’s a great idea!” It’s important we keep urging manufacturers to use these new metadata tools to tell smart TV’s to adjust for different viewing modes –broadcast, live, movie, sports – to preserve creative intent. Howard Lukk: There are new technologies that return control of the image to the set. For example, the demonstration I saw at HPA, using Unity, showed how gaming engines can very quickly help previsualize camera positions, lighting, framing, et cetera, on set. There are also new projection technologies and immersive microLED environments – in lieu of green screens – that can help bake-in creative intent. The flip side is computational cinematography, where a multi-camera array provides so much control – through over-sampling – that focus, lighting, and camera positioning can all be left to post. That’s a Photoshop world…

Steven Poster: Yes. And a world where the director of photography must be involved all the way through postproduction, right up until delivery and release.

Howard Lukk: I completely agree. The DP’s should be aware and learn about processes like computational cinematography, because there has to be coordination from on-set through that back end, where all of the ultimate decisions will be made.

Steven Poster: I think it’s even deeper than that. Framing and focusing the camera is an art – it’s not something that should be left to an engineer or a CGI artist…

Howard Lukk: Or a producer…[laughing] Steven Poster: Camera assistants, who have the artistic and intuitive skills to know where the focus needs to be to serve the story, must also be involved in post. We’re already seeing Guild camera operators brought into motion capture [environments] because directors and producers recognize the creative value. And we’re working to expand that awareness to include Pre-vis, too. End-to-end, technology is redefining the scope of our craft. These are our new frontiers. Howard Lukk: We need to look at the business incentive behind any new technology. 3D was the mechanism to sell digital cinema, because even if you shot on film, you needed to project digitally. Right now there’s a lot of investment in VR, but who’s making money selling VR content? Technology waves come and go, and it’s difficult to know which ones will endure. But gone are the days when a cameraperson could say: “I’ve learned my craft, so I’m good to go for the rest of my career.” You constantly have to keep educating yourself.

June/July 2018 vol. 89 no. 05

Publisher Teresa Muñoz Executive Editor David Geffner Art Director Wes Driver EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Tyler Bourdeau STAFF WRITER Pauline Rogers ACCOUNTING Glenn Berger Dominique Ibarra COPY EDITORS Peter Bonilla Maureen Kingsley CONTRIBUTORS Jackson Davis Leonardo Van Dijl Matt Dinerstein Ali Goldstein Nicola Goode Steve Holleran Matt Hurwitz Alan Markfield Kevin H. Martin Lisa Rose S.C. Stuart PUBLICATIONS & PUBLICITY COMMITTEE Henri Bollinger, Chair

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INTERNATIONAL CINEMATOGRAPHERS GUILD Local 600 IATSE NATIONAL PRESIDENT Steven Poster, ASC NATIONAL VICE-PRESIDENT Heather Norton 1ST NATIONAL VICE-PRESIDENT Paul Varrieur 2ND NATIONAL VICE-PRESIDENT John Lindley, ASC NATIONAL SECRETARY-TREASURER Eddie Avila NATIONAL ASSISTANT SECRETARY-TREASURER Douglas C. Hart NATIONAL SERGEANT-AT-ARMS Christy Fiers NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Rebecca Rhine ADVERTISING POLICY: Readers should not assume that any products or services advertised in International Cinematographers Guild Magazine are endorsed by the International Cinematographers Guild. Although the Editorial staff adheres to standard industry practices in requiring advertisers to be “truthful and forthright,” there has been no extensive screening process by either International Cinematographers Guild Magazine or the International Cinematographers Guild.

EDITORIAL POLICY: The International Cinematographers Guild neither implicitly nor explicitly endorses opinions or political statements expressed in International Cinematographers Guild Magazine. ICG Magazine considers unsolicited material via email only, provided all submissions are within current Contributor Guideline standards. All published material is subject to editing for length, style and content, with inclusion at the discretion of the Executive Editor and Art Director.

Local 600, International Cinematographers Guild, retains all ancillary and expressed rights of content and photos published in ICG Magazine and icgmagazine.com, subject to any negotiated prior arrangement. ICG Magazine regrets that it cannot publish letters to the editor.

ICG (ISSN 1527-6007) Published Monthly by The International Cinematographers Guild 7755 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood, CA, 90046, U.S.A. Periodical postage paid at Los Angeles, California.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ICG 7755 Sunset Boulevard Hollywood, California 90046 Copyright 2018, by Local 600, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States and Canada. Entered as Periodical matter, September 30, 1930, at the Post Office at Los Angeles, California, under the act of March 3, 1879.

Subscriptions: $92.00 of each International Cinematographers Guild member’s annual dues is allocated for an annual subscription to International Cinematographers Guild Magazine. Non-members may purchase an annual subscription for $48.00 (U.S.), $82.00 (Foreign and Canada) surface mail and $117.00 air mail per year. Single Copy: $4.95 The International Cinematographers Guild Magazine has been published monthly since 1929.

International Cinematographers Guild Magazine is a registered trademark.

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WIDE ANGLE

THE INTERVIEW ISSUE

T

o say there’s abounding geek love for the films and TV shows of the 1980’s may be stating the obvious. Ready Player One, which hit theaters earlier this year, is just the most recent example. But it’s a grand one, given its director, Steven Spielberg, was a prime architect of all that Goonies, E.T., Back to the Future sci-fi pop that now permeates the cultural ecosphere. Marvel’s latest epic, Avengers: Infinity War (ICG May 2018), is replete with 80’s references, thanks to the fun interplay between Guardian of the Galaxy Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and an age-appropriate Spider-Man (Tom Holland). At one point, the back and forth escalates so much that old fuddyduddy Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) is forced to scream: “That’s it! No more pop culture references!” – a threat to turn the spaceship around and head back to earth before the fun begins.

Of course, real 1980’s geek-love has its brightest beacon in Netflix’s Emmy-winning series Stranger Things, the subject of this month’s cover story (page 34). Die-hard fan Matt Hurwitz talked to cinematographers Tim Ives and Tod Campbell, series co-creators Ross and Mark Duffer, and a handful of Local 600 camera team members who had just finished ST’s second season. The result is a profile of a show not trying to imitate 1980’s filmmaking, but rather convince viewers they’re watching a 1980’s movie! Or as Ives shares about the Duffers’ main directive: “They wanted to reflect the techniques available then, to capture a film look from back in that time.”

Stranger Things achieves that goal by capturing most of the weirdness with oldfashioned in-camera effects. The debut season centers on 12-year-old Will Byers and his pals, who roll around Hawkins, Indiana, circa1983, on their E.T.-inspired BMX bikes.

These Dungeons & Dragons addicts are easy prey for otherworldly suburban adventures – quickly supplied in the opening episode when Will is abducted by a creature from a parallel dimension, who’s been created at a nearby 12

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government lab. Gaffer Daniel Murphy explains how Ives used “back light, side light – never any fill to always keep [the monster] dark.

When you create a silhouette, with low lights, backlighting the atmosphere behind him, he just moves through those shapes.”

Season 2 (set after Will has been rescued) offers VFX-inspired monsters and more complex sets (including an elaborate network of tunnels shot with a 50-foot Technocrane), but even here, Ives and company mostly stay true to the more low-fi look of 1980’s horror flicks like Poltergeist and Firestarter. Tod Campbell recounts an episode he shot for director/producer Shawn Levy from Season 1, when Will’s mom is contacted by her son via a string of Christmas lights. Rigging Gaffer Jonathan Hilton spent weeks constructing a light chain that allowed for individual lamps to be controlled (by dimmer-board Operator/ Programmer Jim Dornemann). “[Dornemann] gave the controller to [Levy], who operated [the lamps] at his monitor,” Campbell recounts. “He was acting as the voice of Will, and it gave us all chills.”

Hopefully this double-month Interview issue will provide similar feelings, as we’ve compiled a range of voices – from cinematographers who have won commercial Clio awards to Guild members like Vance Burberry, who’s spent a lifetime shooting live concerts. We talked with DP’s who specialize in comedy, video controllers (VC’s) who have mastered the delicate art of on-set color and camera refinement, and two young Local 600 members who have embraced virtual reality.

Of course the wave of popularity Stranger Things is riding is anything but virtual. One exchange from Season 1 that nicely reflects the adventure and childlike curiosity at the heart of 1980’s Spielbergian cinema from which ST takes its inspiration is when the Hawkins Police Chief (David Harbour) tells the kids that after school they should go “immediately” home.

“That means no biking around looking for your friend, no investigating, no nonsense. This isn’t some Lord of the Rings book,” he cautions.

No, dude. It’s not.

David Geffner Executive Editor Twitter: @DGeffner Email: david@icgmagazine.com

CONTRIBUTORS

Jackson Davis

(Past Present, Stop Motion)

“It’s professionally rewarding to be a small part of the pop-culture phenomenon that is Stranger Things. So many people love this show, and everyone always wants to know what the kids are really like. Amazingly, they just seem like kids – really talented, mature kids, who appear to be remarkably well adjusted considering their meteoric rise to celebrity.”

Matt Hurwitz (Past Present)

“Stranger Things, to me, is a cross between two of my favorite things on film – The X-Files and E.T. – nice and creepy and still a lot of fun, all of which is reflected in Tim Ives’s creative cinematography. It was incredible to explore the creation of this Upside Down look with him and his talented team.”

S.C. Stuart

(Thieves Like Us)

“Everyone on Ocean’s 8 was adamant this isn’t a reboot, or even a sequel, but a parallel tale that was going on all the time in another part of its cinematic universe. Eigil Bryld used the camera itself as the starting point, and the zoom lens in particular to help reveal several stories within a scene, and many layers to the central (and thrilling) heist.”

CORRECTION:

We regret the omission of the Local 600 drone crew, Mike Fortin and Mike Solomon, from our May American Ninja Warrior crew listing, page 53.

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[first look]

PARRISH LEWIS

BY PAULINE ROGERS PHOTO BY MATT DINERSTEIN

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Before Parrish Lewis (a former IT engineer) joined Local 600 in 2015 as a Chicago-based stills photographer, he had built a business shooting portraits. He describes his work on music videos for artists like R. Kelly, Kanye West, Common and Twista as extremely satisfying.

“The highlight, before the movie industry,” he shares, “was when a friend who worked for the state representative for Illinois approached me to ask if I could do family portraits,” Lewis recalls. “They would be for the representative and his family – named Obama – at their home in the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park. Afterward, my friend said, ‘Let me use your camera to snap a pic of you and Barack. He’s going to be your president soon.’ I typically don’t like to ask for photos with the people I photograph – so I was like, ‘Nah, I’m good, but thanks.’ But my friend insisted. Two days later Obama announced his candidacy for president.”

It was an interview with Spike Lee and an offer to become the unit stills photographer on Amazon Studios’ theatrical release, ChiRaq, which led to Lewis’ joining Local 600.

He says he “fell in love with the pace of the feature and television world.” And he says his background in portraiture and event photography allowed him to bring a unique style to his unit stills.

“I have natural curiosity and empathy for human interactions,” he explains. “This allows me to be a quick and deep study of movements – giving me the ability to anticipate action and emotion. I like to study and understand the script and know what’s going on around the set with the actors. I tend to sit through

rehearsals – this allows me to anticipate the shot, capture the moment to tell the story and get out of the way. While I’m part of the camera crew, I’m not the principal, so I need to quickly and quietly get the shot. You have to be a true student of set dynamics.”

Of course, it wasn’t easy to build such confidence. “Chi-Raq was my formal training,” Lewis admits. “The first few days were challenging. I got yelled at and kicked off the set, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it.

But, reading blogs and talking to others made me understand – it comes with the territory. I was able to navigate – and most importantly, I got me some cold-weather gear! Small details like that are how you can best prepare for any situation on set. ‘Gotta stay ready so you don’t have to get ready’ is a great motto.”

Today Lewis covers a great deal of the Chicago entertainment market – feature and television. Ask him what one of his proudest shots is, and he’ll immediately say working on NBC’s long-running hit, Chicago Fire.

“I suited up with the crew in fireprotection gear to get the shot,” he beams.

“It was hot and intense – but studying the action and connecting with the crew helped me capture a great image.”

Three years into Union shooting, Lewis has become known for building a rapport with the crew and, when necessary, with the actors.

“It’s always better [when the actor or actress] knows the person pointing a camera in his or her face,” he says simply. “It’s one of the biggest learning curves for all of us – the human stuff.”

JUNE/JULY JUNE/JULY2018 2018

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[deep focus]

JENNIFER

CLASEN

Photography is an art form in which a single

frame tells an entire story. In cinema, we tell stories through many visual and emotional pieces and then weave them together through editing and movement. Sometimes the stories a unit photographer tells aren’t the same as those the camera lens is telling, so you’ll often see us looking around for something different.

We look for moments - opportunities for art.

That curious search is what gives my workday an elevated energy and purpose. We navigate a lot of elements – personalities, emotions, camera, boom, focus puller, reflections, and eye lines – to find a powerful image that correctly represents the lighting and mood being created by the filmmakers on set.

It’s imperative to have conversations with

the cinematographer at the start of a project. I need to understand his/her vision, which includes what lenses they choose, any filters they plan to use, LUT’s or color stories, and why. Ideally you work as a partner and representative of the director and cinematographer, as well as of the production designer, set decorator and costume designer.

Each works tirelessly to tell a story through their art.

Transparent was groundbreaking television

because we threw away the rulebook. DP Jim Frohna shot the entire series handheld. He and series creator Jill Soloway allowed the actors to work free of marks and restrictions.

Without blocked rehearsals, you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, so it comes down to understanding the emotional journey of each character in order to know the right moments to capture. It’s about trusting your instincts.

Once you begin to do that, the next scene becomes less of a challenge and more of a set of opportunities.

For some reason, it is uncommon for a woman

to be hired on an action or superhero film. Obviously, I was excited to be selected to shoot Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Working with Kyle Jewell and his team was the most fun I’ve ever had. In fact, my first experience on a union set was on Spider-Man 3. I was the camera trainee for Bill Pope, ASC, and learned so much. Merie Wallace, SMPSP, was the unit photographer and became an incredibly influential person in my career, as well as a dear friend. I think that’s the most beautiful part of this industry, the family-like connections you make.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JENNIFER CLASEN

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© 2016 MARVEL & ABC Studios © 2017 MARVEL & ABC Studios

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[deep focus]

“I’M REMINDED THAT WE HAVE ANOTHER FUNCTION OF EQUAL IMPORTANCE – WE ARE THE VISUAL HISTORIANS OF OUR INDUSTRY. ” The belief that still photography adds an unnecessary

expense to production is grossly misinformed. In truth, the need for good imagery is more urgent than ever. The demand for still images from the set has exploded with the onslaught of social media platforms and new websites for print outlets. We’re also witnessing the heated competition between television and motion pictures, along with their publicity campaigns, which require more exclusive content.

When I walk through the halls of Panavision or of

a studio or network and see all the amazing photographs from movies and television shows of years gone by, I’m reminded that we have another function of equal importance – we are the visual historians of our industry.

Since I also teach, I constantly hunger to shoot

humanitarian photography and look for ways to find a life balance as an artist. It’s important for me to tell real people’s stories in the real world. I find that I then bring that authenticity back to the fictional world of moviemaking.

My father [renowned advertising photographer

Norm Clasen] taught me to let light and emotion lead me. That one lesson has served me well across photographic mediums, and different genres and styles of film. But, even more importantly, he taught me that powerful photography requires true presence by the photographer.

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2018 JUNE/JULY 2018

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A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES

[exposure]

WOOD PRODUCTION DESIGNER CHARLES WOOD’S PRE-FILM WORK INVOLVED CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION EFFORTS, WHICH HE BELIEVES HELPED SHAPE HIS TRANSITION INTO ART DIRECTION. THE U.K. NATIVE GOT HIS START AS AN ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR ON SAM RAIMI’S ARMY OF DARKNESS , WHICH USED AN IN-CAMERA VFX PROCESS CALLED INTROVISION – MULTIPLE FRONT PROJECTION SCREENS ALLOWED FILMMAKERS TO SEE A FINISHED COMPOSITE OF LIVE-ACTION AND PLATE PHOTOGRAPHY THROUGH THE CAMERA’S VIEWFINDER ON SET AND IN REAL TIME. WOOD SERVED AS VFX ART DIRECTOR ON THREE ADDITIONAL FEATURES THAT USED INTROVISION – UNDER SIEGE , THE FUGITIVE AND FEARLESS – BEFORE LANDING HIS FIRST MAJOR PRODUCTION-DESIGN ROLE ON MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION [DIRECTED BY JOHN R. LEONETTI, ASC]. HE SUBSEQUENTLY WORKED AS A PRODUCTION DESIGNER ON SEVERAL HIGH-PROFILE FILMS, INCLUDING THE REMAKES OF CLASSICS LIKE GET CARTER AND THE ITALIAN JOB.

BY KEVIN H. MARTIN / PHOTO BY CHUCK ZLOTNICK/MARVEL

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L TO R: DIRECTOR JOE RUSSO, DIRECTOR ANTHONY RUSSO AND PRODUCTION DESIGNER CHARLES WOOD ON SET OF AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR.

CHARLES

F O R

Y O U R

E M M Y

®

C O N S I D E R A T I O N

OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGR APHY FOR A SINGLE-CAMER A SERIE S (ONE HOUR)

BEN KUTCHINS

A STUNNER,

“

START TO FINISH.”

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[exposure]

WOOD’S VFX BACKGROUND WAS A BOOST TO FILMS LIKE THE A-TEAM AND WRATH OF THE TITANS, BUT IT’S BEEN ESSENTIAL FOR HIS ONGOING CONTRIBUTION TO THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE. BEGINNING WITH THOR: THE DARK WORLD AND CONTINUING THROUGH 2019’S AVENGERS FINALE, WOOD HAS BEEN CALLED UPON TO REALIZE VISTAS THAT LITERALLY SPAN THE COSMOS. HIS OTHER MCU FILMS INCLUDE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, DOCTOR STRANGE AND AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR [ICG MAY 2018.] WOOD WAS RECOGNIZED FOR HIS EFFORTS WITH AN EMMY NOMINATION FOR DISNEY’S GEPPETTO, AND A BAFTA NOMINATION FOR DOCTOR STRANGE. HE WON THE ART DIRECTORS GUILD AWARD FOR THE FIRST GUARDIANS FEATURE.

ICG: DID YOUR EARLY WORK WITH IN-CAMERA VISUAL EFFECTS HELP WITH THESE HUGE CANVASES MARVEL CREATES? Wood: I started in visual

effects art direction, which, while I was at Introvision, involved miniature building, [front] projection, matte paintings and all facets of the traditional effects film – combined in camera rather than in post. It was an invaluable lesson for me because as technology changes and evolves, you have to keep up to date – but having a firm grounding in the principles of art direction and visual effects design only aids that effort.

YOU WORKED AS PRODUCTION DESIGNER ON THE WORLD WAR I FILM FLYBOYS [SHOT BY GUARDIANS 2 CINEMATOGRAPHER HENRY BRAHAM], WHICH REQUIRED A LOT OF VFX WORK AS WELL AS REAL AERIAL SHOOTING. HOW HAVE THINGS EVOLVED SINCE THEN? That film still used gimbal rigs

on a soundstage, requiring us to build a bunch of period aircraft that were shot with actors against green screen. In thinking about it again, I have to say generally it is

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much the same as today, though the levels of compositing have changed and improved immensely. The pre-visualization developed during prep has evolved a lot since then as well, but we’re still using the same principles in terms of basing it on shooting a physical object and capturing as much action as possible with the camera.

HOW HAS YOUR INVOLVEMENT WITH MARVEL FILMS EVOLVED FROM THE FIRST ONE? The Dark World

provided a design landscape that offered all sorts of fantastic possibilities, which could have been intimidating, but at that studio, one feels very comfortable right from the start, so I just jumped right in.

HOW DOES THE DESIGN PROCESS WORK WHEN STARTING A MARVEL FEATURE? Traditional film design always evolves around locations and the building of sets, but for these films, you build with the foreknowledge that visual effects will extend at least some aspect of your build. The art department usually works

independently, at first, but then as the thing gathers momentum, there is much more interaction. The director offers input on the script and makes some early selects, and then I begin working in concert with the VFX supervisor, with each of us showing the other our development, so it becomes a shared design process. For instance, on Doctor Strange there was a lot of interesting stuff happening to New York. We did some early design work, but then VFX began showing us what they could do with warping buildings, which clearly helped bring the thing to life for the director. For the Guardians’ huge prison spaceship, we built only the first few floors practically, while the rest was handled through VFX set extensions.

AND IS THE DESIGN WORK NOW STRICTLY DONE DIGITALLY? I would say the majority of our

artwork is computer-based, but we do 2D paintings. Another big development has been 3D animations. But we also still do build physical white-card models of our sets.

FO R YO U R E M M Y C O N S I D E R AT I O N ®

OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE - STEVEN MEIZLER

[exposure]

as it had to convey a sense of how a young boy would imagine a spaceship as a plaything, really, with many retro elements that traced back not just to book covers, but to old NASA concepts.

WERE THERE REAL-WORLD REFERENCES? The

“ THERE’S REAL VALUE IN REMEMBERING THE NEED TO PULL BACK FROM THE EPIC SCALE AT TIMES AND LET THE ACTORS PLAY THE TRUTH OF A SCENE WITHOUT DISTRACTION.”

When the sets are extremely complicated in their dimensions, we have begun 3D printing of those models. That is a wonderful new tool to augment those three-dimensional models, which are probably the most useful items we can provide to directors because they can walk around it, pick it up and look in it – that lets them take a certain ownership of the concept.

When production has to build anything, be it a vehicle or a set, it is always beneficial to have the most information available before the funds and time must be committed to shooting it. You can do a virtual walkthrough of a computer-designed set and let [the director] put on headgear to walk through, but that isn’t always as fully embraced just yet.

TELL US ABOUT THE CREATIVE INFLUENCES AT WORK - THE HERO’S SHIP IN GUARDIANS LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF OLD SCI-FI COVER ART! The

Milano was very important to the director,

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White Desert [in Egypt] fueled our ideas for [planet] Morag. We built a couple of worlds on our back lot, using green screen for the distant background and sky. All the other environments had their own palettes, ranging from that prison ship to everything associated with the Nova Corps. The Knowhere nebulas done by VFX were very nice, and even though that came from art-department concepts, they built on the original idea in ways that remained true while bettering our work. The Orb was another design that went through many iterations in order to capture a sense of mystery and power. It’s like handcrafted jewelry, revealing more layers of detail as you study it.

ARE THERE DESIGN ASPECTS YOU TRY TO UPDATE WITH EACH FILM? Visible aspects supporting

technology in our world are often becoming increasingly minimal. The earlier Marvel projects involved physical screens and consoles, but that has given way in large part to a VFX takeover. The art department will determine what type of image is needed, be it some pixelated graphic or a screen hanging in the air. Visual displays are more three dimensional and immersive, so you can walk into them and interact – that means we need to go beyond just having an actor play against a pre-recorded scene on a monitor.

HOW MUCH DOES CONTINUITY FACTOR IN FROM FILM TO FILM? The Infinity War films involve multiple

lineages, each with its own evolution from film to film. This one shows a progression on the Guardians of the Galaxy look as well as the more earthbound versions of the MCU. You have to be very careful with your palette. The audience is used to seeing these characters in a certain kind of environment, and if you transpose them into something totally new, it runs the risk of not fitting as one would expect. It’s quite important to think things through in advance so you don’t get some jarring mix of elements on stage. We look at it design-wise, but it is good to keep in mind that editorial impacts that as well. We’re covering a lot of territory and cutting back and forth between different situations, so those locales have to be identifiable at a glance so the directors don’t have to slow things

down for viewer orientation. And given that scenes can get shuffled in editorial like a pack of cards, it falls on us to be distinct to avoid confusion. People may think everything on a fantasy film is CG, but for [Infinity War] we filled up the stages at Pinewood Atlanta with physical sets.

THE BIG BATTLE IN THE FIRST INFINITY WAR IS HANDLED AS A DAY EXTERIOR. WHAT WENT INTO THAT?

We built a flowing river in an area outside Atlanta where they raced horses that stood in for Wakanda. We grew the grass, and we built acacia trees to create an African savannah in the southwest U.S. That was very much a matter of working with the desired aesthetic and the actual location, plus a huge engineering effort for the water element. At first, we took a lot of pictures of the existing landscape. Then we manipulated those pictures, removing the pine trees and putting in mountain backgrounds and replacement skies. That way the directors could stand in the same spot and get an idea of how Africa would look in the final before we committed to anything. From there we’d build our threedimensional model, which let us see just how big the battlefield was and where the various fights could take place. The moving river was very appealing to the directors, so that became a huge undertaking for [Daniel Sudick’s] special-effects department.

IN THE INFINITY WAR TRAILER, THERE IS A SURPRISINGLY INTIMATE SCENE WITH JUST A COUPLE OF THE HEROES IN AN ORDINARY ROOM. There’s real

value in remembering the need to pull back from the epic scale at times and let the actors play the truth of a scene without distraction.

That scene with rain coming down outside the window was done with, as you said, just a couple of characters in a room. That still requires the cinematographer to deliver an appropriate backlight and for the curtains to be swaying a bit to fill out the moment. But it can also be effective in a quiet way that doesn’t demand a deployment of technological might.

I think [Marvel Studios] is very good about balancing elements, and knowing it isn’t just about creating spectacle.

PHASE THREE OF THE MCU IS CONCLUDING AFTER NEXT YEAR’S AVENGERS FINALE – HAVE YOU BEEN CONTACTED ABOUT DOING ANY WORK ON MARVEL-ORIENTED THEME PARKS OR VR ATTRACTIONS? Marvel may well be looking into those ideas, but I haven’t become involved in any of that yet. I’ve found my plate to be pretty full just with the films themselves!

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“A TRUE ORIGINAL.”

OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR A SINGLE-CAMERA SERIES (HALF HOUR)

CHRISTIAN SPRENGER

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ICG MAGAZINE IN PRINT OR ON YOUR FAVORITE DEVICE! SUBSCRIBE ONLINE AT ICGMAGAZINE.COM

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OUTSTANDING CINEMATOGRAPHY

FOR A SINGLE-CAMERA SERIES (ONE HOUR)

ADRIANO GOLDMAN, ASC, ABC

W I N N E R A S C AW A R D

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY

ADRIANO GOLDMAN

W I N N E R B A F T A AW A R D PHOTOGRAPHY & LIGHTING: FICTION

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WITH THE HIT NETFLIX SERIES STRANGER THINGS HAVING RECENTLY STREAMED I T S S E C O N D S E AS O N , SHOWRUNNERS MATT AND ROSS DUFFER HAVE SOLIDIFIED THEIR HOLD ON A NEW AND POPULAR CINEMATIC GENRE: 1980’S-INSPIRED SPIELBERGIAN SCI-FI/POP. OR AS STRANGER THINGS DP TIM IVES, WHOSE WORK ON THE PILOT FOR MR. ROBOT , AS WELL AS HBO’S GIRLS , DREW THE DUFFERS’ ATTENTION, PUTS IT: “IT WAS BROUGHT TO ME IN A PACKAGE THAT SAID, ‘A LOVE LETTER TO THE 80’S.’ BUT NOT IN A [LIP SERVICE] WAY WITH RANDOM NUANCES; THEY WANTED TO REFLECT THE TECHNIQUES AVAILABLE THEN, TO CAPTURE A FILM LOOK FROM BACK IN THAT TIME.”

THE DUFFERS AND IVES TALKED ABOUT THE SHOW’S BIGGEST INSPIRATION – Steven Spielberg, and

films like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Goonies, as well as Dean Cundey, ASC’s work on the Back to the Future films, and even James Cameron’s Terminator and Alien series. “Spielberg took ordinary suburban America and made it feel magical,” Ross Duffer observes. “And Tim is a fan of all the same stuff as us,” particularly the work of Allen Daviau, ASC. “Even before we talked, he had started re-watching a lot of the movies that we were clearly inspired by.”

Stranger Things focuses on four nerdy 12-year-old boys in 1983, obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons, one of whom, Will Byers, is taken by a mysterious inhabitant of a disturbing and parallel landscape, referred to as the Upside Down (UD), which has entered Will’s world due to a rift between the two universes. That rift was inadvertently created by a mysterious girl known only as “Eleven,” who broke out of a government lab in Hawkins, Indiana, where the show takes place, the only home she has known and where her mysterious powers were being exploited.

Eventually, Will is recovered by his mother (Winona Ryder) and the town’s police chief, Hopper (David Harbour); although, in the second season, he faces an even more terrifying and powerful force at the center of the UD, referred to as the Shadow Monster. Throughout Season 2, Will unwillingly slips back and forth between his world and the UD, while the town’s residents try to avoid the vicious fourlegged “Demodogs” – younger versions of the creature seen in Season 1 – which get around via a huge network of tunnels they have mined.

The Duffers had originally envisioned Hawkins as a seaside town, much like Amity in Spielberg’s Jaws. Working with production designer Chris Trujillo, the brothers scouted everywhere from South Carolina to the Northwest – deciding on bits and pieces of small towns in and around the Atlanta area.

“A lot has been shot in Atlanta, so we had to go a little farther out to find our true town center,” i.e., in Jackson, 40 miles southwest, Trujillo notes. Interiors are filmed on four stages at EUE Screen Gems. Additional sets – for the massive tunnels, some UD settings and Eleven’s “Void” set – were shot at a converted warehouse in nearby McDonough.

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SEASON OVER SEASON, IVES HAS ASSEMBLED A SKILLED IATSE TEAM, including A-Camera/

Steadicam Operator Bob Gorelick, SOC, who suggested Jeff Crumbley, SOC, to be B-Camera Operator; Gaffer Daniel Murphy, Season 1 Key Grip Benny Smyth (Ray Brown takes Smyth’s place for Season 2); and Dolly Grip Chris Chapman, indispensable in mastering some of Ives’ unique camera work. “The camera was always moving,” describes Season 2 A-Camera 1st AC Mary Stankiewicz. “And when you get a good dolly grip like Chappy, and an amazing operator like Bob, it’s a perfect dance.”

With the Netflix mandate for highresolution capture, Ives used the 6K RED EPIC DRAGON for Season 1, and the 8K HELIUM DRAGON the following year (shifting to the MONSTRO for Season 3).

As Ives relates: “I always think of the RED as a Kodak film stock I used to love – 5293.

It has that velvety feeling that’s right for this show.”

A variety of lenses were tested to help achieve a more diffused eighties look, with Ives opting for Leica’s Summilux C Series primes (and occasional Fujinon Alura zooms). “These Leica lenses are gorgeous,” notes Gorelick. “They have a very natural look, and their color reproduction is extremely accurate.”

Ives was afforded an on-set DIT for Season 1, but not in subsequent seasons.

So the show’s colorist, Skip Kimball, at Technicolor (now with EFILM), created a few simple LUT’s for Ives to use in camera, as well as have applied to dailies, with Kimball applying his final looks via DaVinci Resolve back in Hollywood.

The Duffers originally pitched Netflix on directing all eight episodes of Season 1. But after shooting the first two episodes (they are filmed in pair blocks), Matt Duffer notes: “It became clear we weren’t going to get upcoming scripts completed, so our Producer, Shawn Levy, flew in like Superman” to direct the following pair.

Levy needed a DP with whom to prep his episodes, so Ives suggested his Mr. Robot colleague, Tod Campbell. “Tod did such a great job on Mr. Robot, so it was pretty much a no-brainer,” Ives recalls. “He instantly became part of the Stranger Things family,” returning the following season for two more Levy-directed episodes. Matt Duffer says he and Ross enjoyed the [directing] collaboration so much [in Season 1], “we

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“IT’S PART OF THE MAGIC OF THOSE [1980’S-ERA] FILMS. THEY DIDN’T HAVE HIGH END VFX – THEY DID WHAT THEY COULD WITH A TRICK OF THE EYE.” TIM IVES

decided to free ourselves up a little more,” bringing in Andrew Stanton (Toy Story) and Rebecca Thomas, who directed Season 2’s standalone episode, where Eleven goes in search of her lost sister (shot by David Franco).

Ives says the prep process with the Duffers is almost as rewarding as shooting episodes. “Our method is to lock ourselves in a room and read the script together, and sometimes act out the parts together, to figure out the tone of each scene and talk about camera placement,” he describes.

“It gives us a very strong language on set, knowing exactly what we want to do.”

IN SEASON 1, THE MANY LOOKS OF THE UD, from

the environments to the evil creatures, were done in camera, because as Ives describes: “It’s part of the magic of those [1980’s-era] films. They didn’t have high end VFX – they did what they could with a trick of the eye.”

Although with the show’s success, Season 2 has afforded more VFX. Ross Duffer notes that when the camera moves, it is with purpose.

“Something we could see from Tim’s work on both Girls and his Mr. Robot pilot is that he makes clear choices,” Duffer shares.

“It’s not just grabbing stuff and seeing how the editors put it together.” Adds Gorelick: “It’s traditional storytelling, pre-MTV days, when the audience wasn’t bombarded with images and fast cuts.”

Season 1’s monster – dubbed the Demogorgon by the boys – was a puppeteered man-in-a-suit built by Spectral Motion. The suit included stilt legs and a puppeteered head with four toothful opening leaves, revealing actor Mark Steger’s face, covered with green dots and eventually replaced with a hungry throat by VFX supervisors Mark Kolbe (Season 1) and Paul Graff (Season 2), who also skinnied up its body. (This work was also done in some cases by the Aaron Sims Company.)

The key was not to reveal the man-inthe-suit for as long as possible.

“For terror, the brothers wanted a Jawslike approach,” Ives recounts. “The best way we thought to scare people was to not show them what you’re telling them is really scary.

So you may only see him for 12 frames.”

Adds colorist Kimball, “We wanted the audience to have to rewind to go back and see it again – ‘What did I just see?’”

And as Gaffer Murphy recounts about Season 1: “Tim would use back light, side light – never any fill to always keep

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[Demogorgon] dark. When you create a silhouette, with low lights, backlighting the atmosphere behind him, he just moves through those shapes.”

With the show’s success, Season 2’s beasts, termed Demodogs, were afforded a full VFX presentation. Graff ’s team would bring physical cutouts to the set to help guide the camera team through specific shots – such as when the dogs attack Steve ( Joe Keery) in a junkyard. For the cute “pollywog” infant version of the beast, which Stankiewicz says “looked like a piece of sushi,” smaller rubber versions were employed.

“When we originally pitched the show to Netflix,” Ross Duffer recalls, “we said we wouldn’t be going into the other dimension at all. But as the story evolved, it became necessary – so the initial approach was that of ‘the Void’ – the place where Eleven goes to connect with others’ consciousness.” And for that, the Duffers wanted a true environment – not something all CG. “We wanted it based in reality,” Ross adds.

Ives says their vision was for “a cold, lifeless environment that felt like seeing remnants of an apocalypse. Something bad had happened, and there was no joy or life.

It was a place ‘in between worlds,’ as the Duffers put it. And the simplest and fastest way, particularly when shooting Tungsten at night, was to change the color temperature.

We rated at 3200 for the real world, and then took it to 2000, which would force all the lights to a blue we liked.”

Adds Murphy: “We would just change the lighting from being a high-key light to a real soft diffused look everywhere, with a lot of book bounce-style lighting. Kept it really, really soft and without shadows.

[Skip Kimball] helped give it a more monochromatic [look, in post]. Like a steely cool, with glowing highlights.”

FOR SCENES WHERE WILL JUMPS FROM PRESENT TIME TO THE UD – on the same set – the team

would move on to another location, while interior sets and locations were “netherized” – i.e., the netherworld version of the UD

with the addition of pulsing vines and slime (Methocel) courtesy of Special Effects Lead Caius Man and his team, whom Matt Duffer says “could netherize a set in three hours.”

Man also introduced flocking/spores – by breaking open cattails – which would float into camera. “They’re like nebulous ashes,” Ives recalls, “which hung in the air well in open areas, but dropped like dead flies in the tunnel sets.” Stankiewicz also notes they tended to require a lot of attention to keep from clogging up camera fan vents. (By the second season, most of their appearance was generated by VFX.) The long Season 2 tunnel sets were mostly photographed with a 50-foot Super TechnoCrane from Pro-Cam. The Techno’s base was set at the tunnel opening, with its arm extended as needed. Crumbley says there was also a “half-tunnel” set to capture characters seen in profile, with long walks created by repositioning the camera and lighting to appear to be different sections.

Ives lit the tunnels à la 1980’s, with an unseen bright source at the far end, which Murphy supplemented by placing LED lights on the back sides of the tunnel wall’s ribs, invisible as the actors approach and the camera pulls away. Ives also had the actors hit hidden pieces of muslin or bounce cards with their flashlights as they passed.

“They’re essentially lighting themselves,” he says. For the tunnel scenes, the RED camera was mounted on a Libra remote head – though, according to Pro-Cam Libra head tech Jason Sutton, in “matrix mode” and attached using special bracketing “to the end of the crane arm, rather than having the camera underslung or above the arm.

This allowed it to get closer to the floor or the roof of the tunnel.” It also allowed the RED to function nodally, i.e., “changing the pan to a roll control to allow a third wheel, and operated by Sutton on set,” Gorelick explains. “The nodal arrangement also helps keep the camera level when the arm is extended, which would normally otherwise incline,” he adds.

The Local 600 members – Gorelick on pan/tilt, Sutton on roll, Pro-Cam’s Patrick

IN DESCRIBING THE LONG TUNNEL SETS IN SEASON 2, WHICH HAD 1980’S STYLE BRIGHT, UNSEEN SOURCES AND HIDDEN BOUNCE CARDS REFLECTING OFF THE ACTORS’ FLASHLIGHT BEAMS, GAFFER DANIEL MURPHY NOTES:

“THEY’RE ESSENTIALLY LIGHTING THEMSELVES.”

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PHOTO OF “ELEVEN” FROM SEASON 1 BY CURTIS BAKER

Barnes operating the “pickle” extending the arm, Chapman moving the arm, and Stankiewicz watching focus – also produced seamless 180-degree rolls, representing shifts to the UD. “Without this team,” says Gorelick, “these shots wouldn’t be nearly as good as they are. We’re like a band who understand each other’s nuances.”

THAT SAME TEAM ALSO WORKED ITS MAGIC ON THE VOID SET, where Eleven uses her ability learned at the Lab to connect with other people. But as Ross Duffer asks: “We’re actually [visualizing] someone’s mind. How do you do that on a limited budget?”

The answer, Duffer continues, is to use the limitations to your advantage, with a set that is simplicity itself. A pool, the size of a hockey rink with a lip a few inches high, painted black on the bottom, filled

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with a few inches of water, and surrounded on three sides by black theatrical drapes.

Actress Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven) was carefully carried out to its center, to avoid disturbing the water surface. Murphy says they lit with “a whole bunch of Spacelights overhead. And then we put a massive diffusion frame underneath it all, so it’s just super soft.” Adds Ives, “It feels directionless – like there is no light there, yet there is light.”

The Technocrane was extended across the pool, minimizing any disruption to the water surface. Kimball then removed any disruptions that remained, except at Eleven’s feet, giving the appearance of her moving through black. The Void scenes always begin with a big pullback, starting one foot from Brown’s face, as the Technocrane/ camera team smoothly retracts the arm, Stankiewicz skillfully keeping her in focus,

and the process getting a speed-up in post.

Stranger Things is also packed with exciting chases, both in the netherworld and above. Those are typically done by mounting the 50-foot Technocrane, with a Libra head, on a Taurus Tracking Vehicle from Pro-Cam. Crumbley says of the setup, “We could drive it anywhere, and shoot either arm fully retracted and extend as they go by, or vice-versa. And break the bike chases up into pieces.”

Per his inner 80’s compass, Ives would light with large Maxibrutes up on a Condor off in the distance, supplemented by a China ball hung above the boys to make their expressions visible. “We embraced big lighting there,” Matt Duffer describes. “It’s not naturalistic, but it’s the kind of lighting we grew up on.”

There are also tension-filled chases down hallways – such as when Will is

“ WITHOUT THIS TEAM,” SAYS A-CAMERA/STEADICAM OPERATOR BOB GORELICK, “THESE SHOTS WOULDN’T BE NEARLY AS GOOD AS THEY ARE. WE’RE LIKE A BAND WHO UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER’S NUANCES.” JUNE/JULY 2018

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SEASON 2, EPISODE 6 IN THE PUMPKIN PATCH ABOVE THE TUNNELS. L TO R: GAFFER DANIEL MURPHY, DP TIM IVES, WITH STAND-INS FOR JOYCE (WINONA RYDER) AND HOPPER (DAVID HARBOUR)

LOCAL 600 CREW Directors of Photography Tim Ives Tod Campbell David Franco A-Camera Operator/Steadicam Bob Gorelick, SOC A-Camera 1st AC Mary Stankiewicz A-Camera 2nd AC Angela Bremner B-Camera Operator Jeff Crumbley, SOC B-Camera 1st AC Jason Lancour B-Camera 2nd AC Nelson Moncada Utility Kevin Wilson Loader Laura Ostapiej Still Photographers Jackson Davis Tina Rowden Publicist Denise Godoy

DP TOD CAMPBELL LINES UP A FRAME FOR ONE OF HIS FOUR EPISODES DIRECTED BY PRODUCER SHAWN LEVY

trying to escape the approaching Shadow Monster, or as Bob (Sean Astin) unsuccessfully attempts to avoid a gaggle of Demodogs chasing him in the Hawkins Lab (filmed at the long-defunct and very creepy Georgia Mental Health Institute on Emory University’s Briarcliff campus).

Tod Campbell remembers that it “took a pass or two to get the machinery set for what was required.

We wanted Will running at full speed and had the 50foot Technocrane. But it wasn’t long enough or fast enough to let him run as fast as he could and emote.

And Shawn [Levy] said, ‘It’s not working.’”

Campbell turned to Ray Brown, who soon arrived with a Patriot car, which was then used for all such shots, with Campbell using a 10-mm lens, which, he says, accentuates the movement and makes the runner appear to be going even faster.

The Lab also had disturbing lighting effects. As Ives describes: “Any time evil is around, the power would definitely take a hit.”

“We would change the ballasts on the fluorescents,” Murphy notes, “to make sure they were new, so we could play with the voltage to get them to flicker.” When the power goes out in the lab, things are made even spookier with an odd orange glow from emergency lights, which Kimball would enhance in Resolve.

Lights are also used to convey those in the UD who are communicating with those still here. Rigging Gaffer Jonathan Hilton spent weeks constructing a Christmas-light chain made of CAT6 media cable to allow individual lamps to be controlled via preprogrammed sequence (enabled by dimmer board operator/programmer Jim Dornemann) to allow Will to spell out words for his mother. And when Joyce first connects with her son with a tangle of white Christmas lights, Campbell says he “gave the controller to Shawn Levy, who operated them at his monitor. He was acting as the voice of Will, and it gave us all chills.”

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G R E A T DANTE SPINOTTI, ASC, AIC, HELPS ENVISION AN EXCITING NEW MARVEL REALM FOR ANT-MAN AND THE WASP BY

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EVENTS IN THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE VARY WIDELY IN SCALE, RANGING FROM THE MACRO/GALACTIC TO THE MICRO. AND SOME OF THOSE PINT-SIZED ADVENTURES CARRY AN EPIC-SIZED EMOTIONAL WALLOP, AS EVIDENCED BY 2015’S ANT-MAN [ICG MAGAZINE JULY 2015], STARRING PAUL RUDD AS THE TITULAR CHARACTER AND DOWN-ON-HIS-LUCK ALTER-EGO SCOTT LANG. RECRUITED BY THE ORIGINAL ANT-MAN, HANK PYM [MICHAEL DOUGLAS], AND THE INVENTOR’S DAUGHTER HOPE VAN DYNE [EVANGELINE LILLY], LANG LATER MADE A “BIG” IMPACT IN CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR [ICG MAGAZINE MAY 2016]. FOR THIS NEW TEAMING OF LILLY AND RUDD’S CHARACTERS, ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, DIRECTOR PEYTON REED’S RETURNING COLLABORATORS INCLUDED A-CAMERA/STEADICAM OPERATOR PETER ROSENFELD, SOC, AND PRODUCTION DESIGNER SHEPHERD FRANKEL. NEW TO THE GAME WAS DANTE SPINOTTI, ASC, AIC (SUCCEEDING RUSSELL CARPENTER, ASC), AS DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY. FOR ANT-MAN, REED TOOK THE REINS AFTER THE SHOW WAS WELL INTO PREPRODUCTION; BUT FOR THIS NEW FEATURE, HE WAS ABLE TO INVEST MUCH MORE TIME IN DEVELOPMENT.

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PREPRODUCTION BIG SENSOR, LITTLE WORLD

“I TRY TO FORGET WHAT I DID ON PREVIOUS FILMS, SO I DON’T IMPOSE A VISION ON WHAT IS IN FRONT OF ME.” DANTE SPINOTTI

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Peyton Reed [Director]: Having more prep time helped us in all sorts of ways – storywise, characterwise and visually. We spoke about the style early on, and our takeaway was that this would be an Elmore Leonard science-fiction movie [chuckles]. There’s a crime component, plus many characters, all with their own agendas. Dante had done the Michael Mann films and L.A. Conf idential, so it felt like he knew what I was after.

Dante Spinotti [Director of Photography]: I had shot an X-Men film, plus Hercules and Narnia, so fantasy wasn’t brand-new ground. When I first met with Peyton, I mentioned the idea of referencing something directly from comic books, which I don’t usually read. In various comic [panels], there is often light coming from unknown or unexpected directions, but you don’t question the source.

That thought was more a form of semantics, and we kept it in mind, but my usual approach is one of realism. I find that film’s ability to bring emotion out in viewers often emerges from visual honesty. Nowadays, with the speed of the cameras and the ability to use practicals, you can make the light look very real, or surreal. Then there’s romantic realism, dramatic realism and hyperrealism, whereas back in the day, when lighting with 5K’s, you would always see the shadows on the back wall.

Peter Rosenfeld, SOC [A-Camera/Steadicam Operator]: Dante’s iconic images have changed the way we think about film, like when you see Russell Crowe in The Insider, but you’re sharp on the back of his head and everything else in frame goes soft. We all thought that was an amazing creative choice. Getting to work with Dante again was a real privilege.

Spinotti: I try to forget what I did on previous films, so I don’t impose a vision on what is in front of me. I don’t go in with predetermined ideas but like to draw inspiration from the expressions. In the past, we designed custom lights to work with particular faces. I did a film with a German actress and used a five-lamp unit that went through various diffusions and a crate. It wasn’t just a soft light; it also offered strong penetration that could pull out the crispness of this lady’s features. My main influence came from this incredible group of collaborators assembled by Marvel. Gaffer Rafael Sanchez, Rigging Key Grip Alan Rawlins, extraordinary Lighting Console Programmer Bryan Booth, and, of course, Peter [Rosenfeld] supplied me with all the tools and capabilities necessary to do some good work. His close connection with Peyton freed me to concentrate fully on lighting.

Reed: Scott Lang is Marvel’s Everyman, and his fate at the end of Civil War was a huge asset in developing our story. His life struggle is about balance, addressing career as well as family, which is fertile dramatic and comedic ground. Figuring out the Hope van Dyne character as the Wasp was fun because we got to develop her fighting style as a reflection of personality and as a radical contrast to what we see with Scott. We talked about telling character through movement, which ranged from actor choices to performance capture, and wirework to CG. We did a lot of storyboarding and previs that I was very involved with throughout, since those action beats still had to reflect the inherent comedy in the piece and how I wanted to capture those moments.

Spinotti: I’ve been a photographer since I was 12. I have embraced digital technology since its beginning. Going to the 65 format is a bit like going from Leica size to Rollei.

The ALEXA 65 camera creates images that I find to be very pure; the discussion of film versus digital doesn’t apply here, because the larger sensor helps you forget that the capture is digital, especially with the shallow depth-of-field. We had the usual sensor when shooting Steadicam on the ALEXA XT, and in the screening room you could see the sharpness was similar to the 65, but what was missed is the sense of three-dimensionality that the 65 grants. We shot spherical throughout, using an extraordinary set of Prime DNA lenses [in XPL mounts] from ARRI Rentals, which gave excellent assistance. I exchanged emails with Greig Fraser [ASC, ACS], who helped develop the lenses with them. [Production also carried Zeiss 40-110mm and 100-280mm zooms plus an Angénieux 45-135mm and a Hawk 150-450mm.]

Reed: The first film was 1.85, whereas this one is 2.40, so this opens up our view of San Francisco, which comes across as its own character. We spent more time on location this time, so we could see our people in the actual environment rather than having to fake it.

Shepherd Frankel [Production Designer]: There’s so much more of San Francisco’s geography and iconography being exploited this time, but we’ve also brought Marvellooking elements to the city, which made for a great juxtaposition. The script was still being developed when I came on, which made things a lot more fun, because it let me help out in finding the visual narrative we would be exploring. We took some DNA from the first film, but while that was more about covert hiding out, this one is about hiding out in the open.

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PRODUCTION NUMBER ONE WITH A “BULLITT”

Rosenfeld: This is my fifth movie with Peyton, going back fifteen years. We have great shorthand – I know how he likes to move the camera and stage the scene, plus I can anticipate his cutting pattern. This film has a lot more action scenes in the full-scale world. On the first film, when we were full-sized, camera relied heavily on Steadicam and jib-arm work. This time we went for a more considered approach – less dreamy and fluid – for the live-action, using Oculus and a [50-foot] Technocrane. Oculus’ three-axis stabilized head can be configured to provide stabilization in small narrow spaces that won’t accommodate a crane. This was driven by the story, and the aesthetic of Peyton and Dante. This is more of an action movie than a heist movie; and in a way, more of a callback to Bullitt – so we hope, anyway! [Production also employed a Talon 2-axis remote head and jib arm.]

Spinotti: I’ve shot a lot with multiple cameras on Michael Mann’s movies, which is a fantastic way to learn. In digital technology, being able to go to the tent and see how it is going to look is a major step forward, like sound was a step ahead. In all other art forms, the artist or craftsman is able to see what they do as they are doing it – this is now possible in making films, as well.

Rosenfeld: The shallow depth of field with large format was challenging. With a conventional 35mm format, shooting a 27mm lens at 2.8 or 4 will usually keep things sharp from the performer to the back wall of the set. But on the ALEXA 65, even with a wide lens you have to decide whether to keep the actor at four feet in sharp focus or the actor at five-and-a-half feet. It makes things much harder on the focus pullers. But our A-Camera 1st AC, Brad Peterman, and B-Camera 2nd AC, Haydn Pazanti, did tremendous jobs. Occasionally the structure and composition of the shots, how the actors were positioned in frame, were subject to change due to these depth-offield limitations. We would ask Peyton to change things a bit to keep two principal actors sharp throughout.

Daniele Colombera [DIT]: For live grading on set I used Technicolor DP Lights 2 systems powered by Colorfront On Set Live, [which] offers many features Dante appreciated, including capturing uncompressed stills from multiple cameras simultaneously as well as dynamic wipe options to compare shots for continuity.

Technicolor Color Science and Marvel Technology expert

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Michael Maloney was instrumental in establishing a very solid native pipeline based on Log-C wide-gamut color space. Every day I created unique CDL’s for each camera and each setup, matching color when different lenses were used. To give us a terrific color consistency even at high ND values, we used Mitomo True ND in front of the lens on a few occasions, [plus] internal ND IR full spectrums.

We rated the camera between EI 400 and 1600, exposing generously to keep the already exceptional noise level to a very low baseline. [The ARRIs recorded in Open Gate mode, the 65 scaling at 87 percent for 6.5K resolution and the SXT at 95 percent for a resolution of 3.4K.] Dante saw the Sony OLED-calibrated monitors on set matched exactly what dailies house Shed Lab applied to each scene. Data was managed through Codex Vault from set to dailies and to post, all the way through VFX. Two Codex Vault XL’s offloaded and processed ALEXA footage and populated metadata with all camera info. We shuttled 8-TB proprietary Codex sleds to the dailies lab on site.

Frankel: While Tony Stark has got all the state-of-theart stuff, Hank Pym is more about using science and engineering to create analog- and beta-versions of new tech. So we see the ingenuity of his mind expressed in the very real and visible hardware he has fashioned.

Rosenfeld: When I saw the previs for when the Wasp is evading knives being thrown, and she winds up running on the surface of the blade, that was among the scenes that got me most excited, along with when the miniaturized vehicle reenlarges and flips a [pursuing] truck, which used previs to get lenses and staging positions all worked out. For all of the VFX work, we shot plates without a performer present, along with lighting references so VFX could know all the nuances of what Dante put in on set.

Frankel: In the case of the knife fight, that was a full 360-degree set, including ceiling and floor. We didn’t build oversized props on the first film because we wanted to go the macro route. Our macro world is like an equivalent to the realms of Thor, or the backdrop to Guardians’ space travel. But for the second film, we did build a few oversized pieces – which I’m not going to reveal – and hope that by mixing techniques, the audience will be baffled and delighted by what we are throwing at them.

“WE BUILT A FEW OVERSIZED PIECES AND HOPE THAT BY MIXING TECHNIQUES, THE AUDIENCE WILL BE BAFFLED AND DELIGHTED BY WHAT WE ARE THROWING AT THEM.” PRODUCTION DESIGNER SHEPHERD FRANKEL

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P

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SMALL WONDERS

The first Ant-Man climaxed with Lang’s descent into the Quantum Realm – a subatomic domain known in the comics as the Microverse – where Pym’s wife was lost to him decades earlier. Inspired in part by the TV and feature film work of scenarist/novelist Richard Matheson, Reed relied upon computer graphics to go beyond the microphotography used in earlier miniaturization scenes. The resulting vistas, which at first glance might seem more apropos to Zardoz or 2001, ultimately served to expand the MCU into a unique dimension.

Reed: Even though we’re not up on Asgard or out in space, we did have unique visuals within the Quantum Realm. Last time out, we figured out how to make something nobody really knows about look photoreal through selective depth-of-field, which arose when we considered the actual photographic limitations of finding yourself reduced down to that microcosmic realm. We looked at electron microscope photography and gave that as reference to the vendors, so the homework was already done this time out, and we were able to build on that established look.

Spinotti: For a scene where one character rescues [another] from the Quantum Realm, I had seen some early previs, and in order to render the Quantum Realm idea, I imagined that fast clouds would be moving above their heads. I sought to create an [interactive] effect on the actors during green screen shooting. Alan Rawlins installed this huge silk above the set, where electricians moved spotlights back and forth according to a predetermined pattern. But when they return from the Quantum Realm and enter our huge quantum tunnel set, we used VER lighting panels to create interactive light without anything actually being moved around. That tunnel set had about 8000 separate dimmer lines.

Reed: I showed all of the previs and VFX design work to Paul and Evangeline to give them an idea of where we wanted to go, and then in shooting them on stage, that gets further worked out. We shot in what we

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called “the array” – where we capture their faces individually with five different cameras – so that helped ensure the CG characters didn’t become disembodied from their real-life counterparts. [VFX supervisor Stephane Ceretti oversaw the movie magic, with Ant-Man vendors Double Negative, Method Studios, Luma Pictures and Cinesite returning for this go ’round, augmented by Rodeo FX and Scanline VFX. While additional shooting was underway at press time, the film’s DI was slated to occur at Technicolor in May, with lead finishing artist Steve Scott working under producer Mike Dillon.]

Rosenfeld: I did another film with Dante, shooting in a California Redwood forest. He had finished lighting everything in this smoked environment, and was sitting on a rock as I crouched to frame through the eyepiece. He asked how it looked, and I told him “dark but beautiful.” He leaned in close, conspiratorially, and said, “Peter, these days anyone can be good. But to be great, you need to take chances, to risk.” I just loved that Dante was still filled by the fire of discovery after all these years in the business, even at 5:00 in the morning on our third week of night shoots. While technology can help you accomplish a lot, there still has to be a willingness to really go out on a limb to be genuinely innovative – and to deliver the goods.

LOCAL 600 CREW Director of Photography Dante Spinotti, ASC

2nd Unit – Atlanta

2nd Unit – San Francisco

Director of Photography Igor Meglic, ZFS

Director of Photography Igor Meglic, ZFS

A-Camera Operator Nino Pansini

A-Camera Operator Nino Pansini

A-Camera 1st AC Greg Luntzel

A-Camera 1st AC Greg Luntzel

A-Camera 2nd AC Justin Cooley

A-Camera 2nd AC Justin Cooley

B-Camera Operator Steve Koster

B-Camera Operator Steve Koster

B-Camera 1st AC Rob Sagaser

B-Camera 1st AC Rob Sagaser

B-Camera 2nd AC Matthew Jackson

B-Camera 2nd AC Matthew Jackson

C-Camera Operator Jeff Crumbley, SOC

C-Camera Operator Stephen Buckingham, SOC

C-Camera 1st AC Tommy Tieche

C-Camera 1st AC Tommy Tieche

C-Camera 2nd AC Zsolt Haraszti

C-Camera 2nd AC Theresa Wong

D-Camera Operator Stephen Buckingham, SOC

D-Camera Operator Harry Garvin

DRONE UNIT

D-Camera 1st AC Manning Tillman

D-Camera 1st AC Manning Tillman

Drone Pilot Michael Ferguson

D-Camera 2nd AC Nick Cannon

D-Camera 2nd AC Aaron Kirby

Drone DP/Operator Phil Pastuhov

E-Camera 1st AC Nino Neuboeck

E-Camera 1st AC Dennis Rogers

Drone Technician Jared Slater

E-Camera 2nd AC Victoria K. Warren

E-Camera 2nd AC Henry Nguyen

Shotover Helicopter Unit

DIT Brook Willard

DIT Brook Willard

Helicopter Pilot Kevin LaRosa II

Loader Lauren Cummings

Loader Sam Lino

Aerial DP David Nowell, ASC

Utility Josh Cleland

Utility Shannon Bringham

A-Camera Operator/Steadicam Peter Rosenfeld, SOC A-Camera 1st AC Brad Peterman A-Camera 2nd AC Trey Twitty B-Camera Operator Chris Schenck B-Camera 1st AC Haydn Pazanti B-Camera 2nd AC Thom Lairson DIT Daniele Colombera Loaders Chase Flowers Cory Pennington Still Photographer Ben Rothstein Publicist Carol McConnaughey

Aerial Camera Technician Jared Slater

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THIEVES 56

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EMMY-WINNING DP EIGIL BRYLD JOINS PACK FOR THE LATEST ENTRY IN THE

A FEMALE WOLF OCEAN’S FRANCHISE

LIKE US BY

S.C.

STUART

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PHOTOS

BY

BARRY

WETCHER

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18 MONTHS

BEFORE OCEAN’S 8 WAS SET TO OPEN, WARNER BROS. RELEASED A STILL FEATURING STARS SANDRA BULLOCK, CATE BLANCHETT, SARAH PAULSON, RIHANNA, ANNE HATHAWAY, HELENA BONHAM CARTER, MINDY KALING, AND AWKWAFINA ON A SUBWAY TRAIN, POINTEDLY IGNORING EACH OTHER – JUST LIKE REAL NEW YORKERS – AND SOCIAL MEDIA WENT WILD. AND ALTHOUGH THERE MAY BE A LOT RIDING ON OCEAN’S 8 , ITS CREATORS WON’T CALL IT A REBOOT (OR AN XX-CHROMOSOME TAKEOVER). AS BULLOCK TOLD ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, “IT’S NOT EVEN A PASSING OF THE TORCH. IT’S A PARALLEL STORY OF ANOTHER FAMILY MEMBER THAT WAS RAISED IN THE SAME FAMILY DANNY OCEAN WAS AND WHAT HAPPENS (NEXT).”

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TRUE TO FORM, OCEAN’S 8 CONTINUES TO SUBVERT THE HEIST GENRE OF THE 1960 ORIGINAL (featuring

rat-packers Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin) and the 2001 remake, Ocean’s Eleven (with modern-day rat packers George Clooney and Brad Pitt). Debbie Ocean (Bullock), sister of Danny Ocean, gets out of jail on parole, and within days she’s recruited a criminal gang to rob New York’s glamorous Met Gala. Or, more specifically, the 150-million-dollar necklace decorating the neck of the Gala’s celebrity co-chair (Hathaway).

Director Gary Ross (Hunger Games, Seabiscuit) says he watched the previous movies so that this latest incarnation would “make sense as an Oceans film but also as its own being. Fortunately [Ocean’s Eleven, 12, 13 director and Ocean’s 8 producer] Steven Soderbergh is also a good friend, and we began a long conversation that lasted throughout prep,” Ross describes. “I shared my shot lists and design, and he was incredibly encouraging that I be bold and commit to a strong cinematic point of view.

The [previous] movies had lots of ‘one-ers, which are thrilling to choreograph. Steven kept saying, ‘This is your chance to do the things you can’t do anywhere else,’ so I took that to heart.”

Emmy-winning cinematographer Eigil Bryld (House of Cards, In Bruges), who was Ross’ DP, says Soderbergh’s friendship with David Fincher (who created House of Cards) may have helped make Ross aware of his work. “I had already finished House of Cards when my agent sent me the Ocean’s 8 script,” Bryld recalls. “I was back in Denmark, so I

“STEVEN [SODERBERGH] KEPT SAYING, ‘THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO DO THE THINGS YOU CAN’T DO ANYWHERE ELSE,’ SO I TOOK THAT TO HEART.” DIRECTOR GARY ROSS

flew to the states to meet with Gary. It went well, and I signed on.”

Ross calls Bryld “unassuming and a huge talent. He lit enormous spaces with such subtlety. I learned more and more from him as the film moved forward.” The Local 600 camera team supporting Bryld included A-Camera 1st AC Craig Pressgrove; B-camera 1st AC Bradley Grant, B-Camera/ Steadicam Operator Mark Schmidt and A-Camera Operator/DP for 2nd Unit Duane “DC” Manwiller, who previously worked on Ocean’s Eleven, 12 and 13 as camera operator and Second Unit DP. Bryld says that he can’t begin to express his happiness that Manwiller was at his side.

“He’s so good,” the DP smiles. “And Craig [Pressgrove] nails it every time; we never had to do another take because of focus. Eric Boncher is always my first choice as Gaffer; we worked together on The Wizard of Lies and he’s fast, creative and great at managing his crew. All these guys really love making films, and they bring incredible passion and skill to every job.”

THE BRIEF WAS TO WORK FROM THE ORIGINAL OCEAN’S TEMPLATE, so both cast and crew

watched all the previous films in the pantheon. Manwiller says the Ocean’s 8 team tried to “emulate the same vibe from the three previous films, while also supporting Ross’ own imprint. “Gary termed the phrase ‘Oceansie,’ for shots with that original Ocean’s feeling,” Manwiller describes. “On many occasions we’d have shots that would encompass the entire set in 360-degree moves.”

Bryld confirms that he and Ross wanted “the swag, the jive-y scores, the all-out retro,” of the earlier films. “We shot on ALEXA, mostly on the Zeiss master zoom, which is a big beast but worth it,” he explains.

“Obviously I had to light a bit more, but we weren’t shooting too shallow anyway, with eight lead actors, and I didn’t want to get into a situation with Craig having to bounce the focus around or use chunky stops.”

Conventional wisdom with a large ensemble cast dictates long lenses, but Bryld says it was key to the storytelling to “get in close” and become a part of the group.

“Gary wanted to use the zoom lens to bring different layers to the heist,” the DP notes.

“It was about telling the story with the camera through long, smooth takes, but it wasn’t about making [the camera] invisible; rather, it was a part of the scene to keep the audience engaged.”

Ross says Ocean’s 8 had more stylized

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PHOTO BY DAVID LEE

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“ IT WAS ABOUT TELLING THE STORY WITH THE CAMERA THROUGH LONG, SMOOTH TAKES, BUT IT WASN’T ABOUT MAKING [THE CAMERA] INVISIBLE; RATHER, IT WAS A PART OF THE SCENE TO KEEP THE AUDIENCE ENGAGED.” DP EIGIL BRYLD

camera movement than anything he’d ever done. “The Technocrane was a key tool, and Duane [Manwiller] a kind of jazz musician on the wheels,” the director shares. “He had a wonderful dialog going with our dolly grip because it takes two to tango in that situation. I think the Techno with the Libra head became the most vital piece of equipment.”

Manwiller cites a shot of Cate Blanchett’s character Lou, as one of many that exploited the Technocrane’s attributes. “It was always this wonderful dance between A-camera dolly grip Andy Sweeny, Craig [Pressgrove] rocking out flawless focus, and Eigil’s lighting,” he states.

“This shot of Cate started on the second floor as she enters a DJ’s booth and works her way down a winding set of stairs to reveal the nightclub going off. She walks past partygoers to a bar on the first floor and on through the entire dance floor, which is filled with smoke, interactive lighting and imagery of old black and white movie clips being projected on the dance floor from an HD projector high above the set. It was total eye candy!”

But even such flamboyant moves took a back seat to Ocean’s key location – The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Founded in 1870, the museum’s collection contains

millions of global treasures spanning five thousand years; yet it’s neither designed nor equipped for moviemaking. In fact, few films have ever shot inside the Met (The Thomas Crown Affair and When Harry Met Sally being the rare exceptions).

The original plan was to build out a “Met” set onstage at Gold Coast Studios on Long Island. But then Anna Wintour, Editorial Director, Condé Nast, and Editorin-Chief of U.S. Vogue, got involved, and, as B-camera 1st AC Grant explains: “We shot a scene in [Wintour’s] office at Vogue, and the word on the set was that she made a few calls, and then we were able to shoot inside The Met itself,” he marvels.

The two weeks inside the Met came with many restrictions: shooting could only start once museum guests had left for the day and had to wrap before the doors opened the next morning. (Other limitations included a more scaled-back craft services than many were expecting as the Met handles its own catering within the venue.)

Don Holder, Lighting Designer for The Lion King and Wicked, was hired to create the look for The Met Gala, and each night the rigging crew would come in at 5 p.m. and help with gear for Holder to set the look.

As Boncher remembers: “Eigil and I would come in at 6 p.m. and create actual set lighting for the characters. The biggest challenge was to create a lighting infrastructure within the sets to support Gary’s dynamic camera moves. Many of the shots are on a crane arm or Movo Cam. Most sets were lit from a soft ambiance from above. Quasar Bulbs, Blanket Lights.

SkyPanels thru bleached muslin. When we could, we’d bring LED Hybrid China balls, SkyPanels or Blanket Lights.”

Lighting was also a challenge because of the range of skin and hair tones across the main cast. Bryld and Boncher worked closely with Make-Up Department Head Louise McCarthy, as well as with each star’s personal hair and makeup artist. “It was a dual approach,” Bryld recounts. “We wanted to be flattering to a certain degree, but it also had to be real – not too cosmetic or soft. Cate [Blanchett] and Sandy [Bullock] couldn’t be more different, aesthetically, in the twohander shots, and we wanted to play the diversity so it became a feast for the eyes.”

“You have to also give shout-outs to John Keating, head theatrical gaffer at The Met; Larry Price, rigging gaffer; and Scott

Maher, lighting programmer,” Bonchor says.

“Without their help, it would not have been possible for us to achieve what we did.”

Br yld credits Key Grip Charlie Marroquin for helping Met officials understand that “we weren’t making it up as we went along. Charlie was the one on the floor making everyone feel safe. It was a tough place in terms of planning. Gary’s ideas evolve during shooting, which can be a very rewarding process of constantly adapting and optimizing the shots and the lighting. But it also meant we couldn’t say we’ll be exactly here or there; we had to discover things and be flexible.”

BECAUSE OF ITS COLLECTION OF PRICELESS ART,

The Met had severe height restrictions, but the crew did get to employ the Technocrane, especially on the main staircase to capture the full sweep of fashionistas like Alexander Wang, Kim Kardashian West, Lauren Santo Domingo and Zac Posen entering the Egyptian Temple of Dendur. Ross and Bryld also wanted contextual inserts, so they sent the B-camera team on something of a Met tour.

“That was fascinating,” Grant recalls.

“Just a few of us, including A-operator Mark Schmidt, B-camera 2nd AC Suren Karapetyan and Dolly Grip Chris Deroche, as the Met staff provided descriptions of why certain pieces are important to the collection. The brief was to capture femalefocused pieces of artwork to use as inserts.

That’s what’s so interesting about working in the industry – you gain access to places you might never otherwise see.”

One key setup, of celebrities heading into The Met in their finery from Fifth Avenue, was actually shot in L.A. by Steadicam Operator Bela Trutz. “I was having dinner one night, just having wrapped on the latest Spider-Man,” Trutz remembers. “And Diana Alvarez, Gary’s producer, with whom I worked on Free State of Jones, called. She asked if I was available to shoot in L.A. – the great logistics of being an L.A. local – and I said yes, instantly.”

The steps outside of L.A. City Hall have a similar grandeur as the Met, although they were built slightly later, in 1926. “We tented-up the whole area,” Trutz adds.

“And sectioned it off with talk show hosts, cameras, et cetera. But the Technocrane didn’t reach to the bottom of the stairs, so I shot Steadicam all day long – up and down

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the stairs, following the different celebrities.

Funny enough, I also got paid to be on screen, as there was another guy with a camera and I was in the shot!”

While the weather for the L.A. shoot was West Coast pleasant, major snowstorms were rolling in back east. The Ocean’s shoot stretched into long days – fifteen hours with travel was typical, as were an average of five meal penalties per day – and crew members were exhausted by the trek out to the stages on Long Island. As these were just within the TMZ, most had to drive back to the city late at night and return early in the morning.

And Production did not stop for the weather, especially as it didn’t look like the storms would slow any time soon – tough choices had to be made.

According to the Guild crew, Ross had previously spoken to them about the “elephant in the room,” noting the tragic occurrence on another film he directed, Pleasantville, where 2nd AC Brent Lon Hershman, on his way home from the set at 1 a.m. after a shoot which started at 6 a.m. the previous day, had his car skid off the Century (105) Freeway, ending his life. “Production basically put the onus on us crew members,” Grant recalls, “ as they weren’t going to stop shooting. They told us: ‘Don’t come in if you don’t feel safe, or get a hotel room locally.’

But, when you’re freelance, it’s hard to make that call.”

Which is what many IATSE crew members did one night (after not making it out to the Long Island location), calling

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into the Warner Bros. safety hotline, as well as Local 600 and Local 52 business representatives. While director Ross got to the stage (in a helicopter), crew members from all the vraious crafts chose not to commute through the blizzard. An insurance day was called, but the dynamic made for some tension on the set.

“There was a lot of prep and pressure, and the stakes were very high,” Bryld confirms. “We had to do re-shoots, so there’s hidden VFX in the movie, mostly for seasonal adjustments. We were shooting in snowstorms, with wind and cold! It was also a challenge for the cast as they were dressed as if it were spring, not winter.”

And that same group of eight female leads also provided levity on the Ocean’s 8 set with the kind of banter seen on, and off, screen in the preceding films by their male counterparts. However, Bryld admits crewmembers were a bit apprehensive about Rihanna, who is more accustomed to an entourage and filling massive stadiums than on-set camaraderie between takes.

“We joked around in the beginning and wondered how to treat each [actress] individually, especially Rihanna,” Bryld reports. “But she’s fantastic to work with and had a alchemical influence on the whole team. I remember on one of the first days when she flubbed a line. Sandra burst out laughing and said, ‘So, you’re not a hundred percent perfect. That’s a relief.’”

The big question is, will audiences be equally lenient with a swerve in the thus-

far successful franchise, including those who fell for the hipster wipes, Clooney suits, and guy gang of the popular remakes? Bryld is convinced they did right by the original while delivering a sharp and sly twist on the heist formula. Would he sign up for Ocean’s 9 – and beyond?

“It would be a great idea,” he laughs.

“Let’s see whether it happens.”

LOCAL 600 CREW Directors of Photography Eigil Bryld A-Camera Operator Duane Manwiller A-Camera 1st AC Craig Pressgrove A-Camera 2nd AC Victoria K. Warren B-Camera Operator/Steadicam Mark Schmidt, SOC B-Camera 1st AC Bradley Grant B-Camera 2nd AC Suren Karapetyan DIT Bjorn Jackson Loader Holly McCarthy Still Photographer Barry Wetcher, SMPSP Publicist Julie Kuehndorf

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ISSUE IAN S. TAKAHASHI, soc GARY BAUM, asc GUY JONES JOHN SIMMONS, asc JAY LAFAYETTE JONATHAN FURMANSKI VANCE BURBERRY ANDREW SHULKIND NICOLAS KARAKATSANIS DARON FISLER JOHN O’BRIEN EVAN PESSES PETER DEMING, asc

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THROUGHOUT HIS VARIED CAREER, CINEMATOGRAPHER IAN S. TAKAHASHI, SOC, HAS MANAGED TO PUT HIMSELF IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME AND CAPITALIZE ON HIS OPPORTUNITIES. AT 19, HE INTERNED UNDER FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA, ON LOCATION IN NAPA. THEN, AFTER HEARING LEGENDARY UNDERWATER OPERATOR/DP MIKE THOMAS SPEAK, HE DECIDED TO COMBINE HIS LOVE OF THE WATER WITH CINEMATOGRAPHY, SHOOTING ANY UNDERWATER PROJECT THAT PRESENTED ITSELF. WHEN THOMAS RETIRED, TAKAHASHI MET PETE ROMANO, ASC, AND HIS CAREER TOOK OFF. TODAY HE SPENDS MOST OF HIS TIME UNDERWATER, FOR EVERYTHING FROM HIGH-END COMMERCIALS TO TV SERIES (SCANDAL AND LETHAL WEAPON), MUSIC VIDEOS (BEYONCÉ), AND FEATURES, LIKE THE RECENT GLASS FOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN. “I’M NOT AFRAID OF TAKING RISKS AND TAKING A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO COMMERCIALS,” TAKAHASHI SAYS. THAT WAS BORNE OUT BY HIS 2017 CLIO BRONZE AWARD FOR KAISER PERMANENTE’S OVERCOME.

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How did you prep for Overcome? Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry actually uses the pods you see in the commercial to mentally prepare for each game. I had been using those pods for about a month when we started prepping, so I knew how powerful it could be to silence your thoughts in that environment and experience a renewed energy. That’s what I wanted to bring to the project. For someone like Steph, there is so much being said all the time (good and bad) that he needs to block all of that out and concentrate on winning games. Simply put, we wanted him to silence the noise and focus on his goals. Jones+Tino had a fantastic visual idea with a lot of room to play, and to take what’s standard in underwater work and push it forward. We shared a lot of videos and photos to get on the same page. I loved working with this directing team.

Did working in water impact your choice of gear? Thankfully, Hydroflex’s RACMKV fits a variety of camera systems [about 11 different cameras, including Panavision’s DXL] and lenses, so we could choose the right tools for the job. My go-to is the RACMKV because of its size and shape. It is the least pushedaround by the water, and when trimmed correctly it can glide right through the water.

Plus it provides a clean picture to the surface and camera control to my AC’s.

What was the biggest challenge? That we had Steph Curry for five hours, and he’s in almost every shot – how do you shoot an

entire commercial, with three locations and underwater work, in five hours? It came down to teamwork, pre-production planning, and pre-light. Working with our directors, our producer Paul Ure, and our line producer Andrea Panda, we had to look at what was the best/fastest/most efficient way to accomplish our goals. We ended up with crews at each location, with each set pre-lit, so the company move was just a few people and cameras jumping into SUV’s and vans, not packing and moving trucks.

How did you use prep to speed up the process? We pre-lit each shot individually.

If a light needed an adjustment from one shot to the next, we brought in another unit instead. Gaffer Kiva Knight and Key Grip Nicholas “Soda Pop” Franchot had everything set so that on the day, any changes were nearly instantaneous. Camera side, we put our A-camera on a dolly inside the Hydroflex underwater housing, just so we’d shave off that time later on in the day. Normally I would strongly argue against this, but in this case, it actually made sense to do it, plus it was one locked-off shot. I also had amazing water techs in Loren Elkins and Phil Bowen.

There’s almost always a “sell” shot that everyone remembers. What was it on Overcome? I’d like to think it was the superwide shot of Steph Curry falling through the water away from his own body. We’d all seen something similar in movies and still photos, with a big backlight to create the rays

“ WE ONLY HAD STEPH CURRY FOR FIVE HOURS - SO WE ENDED UP WITH CREWS AT EACH LOCATION, WITH EACH SET PRE-LIT, SO THE COMPANY MOVE WAS JUST A FEW PEOPLE AND CAMERAS.”

shooting through the water, but we wanted to kick it up a notch. With red being so prominent in the previous scene in the pod, we wanted to keep that color near the surface and fade it back to blue/white as Steph got deeper. We took an 18K with our Scarlet gel and used that as a big top source (18K HMI), with an 800-watt Joleko right beneath it.

With the red gel sucking up so much light, it actually let the Joleko play as the main source (white), and wherever that wasn’t present, the red played through – giving the illusion that the red from the pod was still trying to fight its way down. When it became mesmerizing to watch in person, that’s when I felt like we needed to move on before we ruined it.

What makes a Clio commercial? I think they all have a unique point of view that ultimately works. There are so many ways to pitch Kaiser Permanente, and there are so many talented people out there, that it’s obviously difficult to separate your work from everyone else’s. So taking a different point of view and big risks can pay off. Winning for Cinematography/ Film Technique was a great honor.

Do you have a favorite commercial spot other than this experience with a similar type of risk/reward? I interned under John Toll, ASC, who told me to figure out how everyone else would do it, and then do it differently, otherwise, you’re everyone else!

On my first commercial as a DP, director Marc Forster wanted to really feel like we were in the water with the dolphins. So, we talked about having the camera bouncing in and out of the water with them, get it wet, get the spray and water spots, and just be in there with the dolphins, while not making it horrific for VFX. Conventional thought would have been to stay just above the water, keep the lens clean and pristine all the time.

We did shoot some images above the water, but when it called for it we really got in there.

I am very happy with what we accomplished, with six grips holding our Hydrascope in place as we went from above water to below water, adding a lot of resistance on the end of a crane arm, and keeping up with the dolphins as they jumped in and out of the water.

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BELGIUM-BORN CINEMATOGRAPHER NICOLAS KARAKATSANIS HOPPED ONTO THE COMMERCIAL BANDWAGON EARLY. WHILE IN FILM SCHOOL, A TEACHER (AND FOUNDING MEMBER OF CAVIAR PRODUCTIONS) ASKED HIM TO SHOOT A SPOT IN 35 MM, AND KARAKATSANIS BECAME A DP – OVERNIGHT. WORKING WITH HIS BROTHER, COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR DIMITRI KARAKATSANIS, THE TWO SHOT THEIR FIRST FEATURE, SMALL GODS, WHICH SCREENED AT THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL. ALTHOUGH HE IS NOW FIRMLY ENTRENCHED IN THE COMMERCIAL WORLD, KARAKATSANIS STILL DOES FEATURES. HIS RECENT I, TONYA RECEIVED AN OSCAR NOMINATION. OF TODAY’S COMMERCIAL PROJECTS, HE REFLECTS: “THEY’RE DIFFERENT THAN WHEN I BEGAN – THERE’S LESS THINKING ABOUT THE CONCEPT.” THAT NEWFOUND FREEDOM HELPED KARAKATSANIS BECOME SHORT-LISTED FOR A 2016 CLIO AWARD FOR HIS APPLE SPOT, HISTORY OF SOUND.

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What is the concept behind this spot? Apple subtly wants to tell the viewer that they can find anything and everything in music – from any source or era – on Apple. It’s showing all the emotions and social aspects that make up music. But, instead of collecting the physical item – tape, vinyl, CD – you now have the possibility of accessing an entire catalog at once – if you subscribe to Apple music, of course. [Laughs.]

It’s actually funny because I’m very much an audiophile, and I subscribe to Tidal and buy mainly vinyl. I do think it’s great that music is accessible; it’s an important passenger in everyone’s life, I would hope.

What was different about History of Sound? To tell the story of how “sound” has changed throughout different eras, we decided to mix up textures for each period. Ultimately, the whole spot was shot over six or seven days in L.A. on ALEXA, except for the opening black and white footage [Super 16mm]. They added the textures afterward. We wanted to tie the images into a recognizable world. So, director John Hillcoat mixed things up with a combination of pictures and existing iconic imagery. The pace of the commercial is so fast that it becomes more of a flickering through a Time magazine special. It was very challenging to create all these different moods. Of course, wardrobe and set design were crucial.

How did you handle the different eras? The first was shot on Super 16mm 500T Vision3. It was shot on color stock

and made black and white afterward. We shot in downtown Los Angeles, in an empty loft where we built the set. We used an ARRI 416, with ARRI Ultra16 primes. We created a big book light to give a soft “window light” look.

The rest of the spot was shot on Panavision Anamorphic Primos and cropped for 16:9. The Dance Hall–era sequence was shot with a ring light only. John wanted to give it an iPhone flashlight look, so we had a ring light over the lens. The remainder is actually iPhone lights doing the rest. It’s always cool to not need the whole lighting truck to create an interesting mood.

What was your favorite part of the spot? I was excited that music producer Flying Lotus was the “future,” and we got to work with him.

He brought his projection screens, so we just added some strobe lights and the rest was all of his impressive projections doing the work.

How have commercials changed from when you started? It used to be directors trying to achieve the best possible result with the visuals, but mainly in terms of storytelling. Nowadays,

some directors and creatives seem to be just collecting Instagram or Tumblr-type pictures and that’s what we end up filming – copies of existing pictures or ads that already are made.

It feels like these treatments are just nicely wrapped visual candy but lacking original ideas.

And, when there’s a decent story or concept, the director doesn’t know what’s the best way to create a compelling world. Directors/ creatives are often just making a collection of moving pictures. I suppose that’s fine, as long as the end result pleases the director or client.

So you prefer projects that have a strong concept? I actually prefer to create crappy images if it helps the narrative. I’m starting to hate magic-hour shots. [Laughs.] Directors often think that it will save the film if we wake up early and shoot yet another early morning cityscape or nature shot. I like to keep the visual side pretty much subdued and give the narrative more attention.

Do you have a favorite spot? I still love my work with Christopher Hewitt. He pushes me to find textures and experiment as much

as possible – so much that the commercials become more pieces of art. In being experimental, I sometimes think it might be too weird. But, seeing the edits afterward, I always have a feeling that I didn’t go far enough! In a way I’ve discovered that the more you push your image identity, the more it is clear what kind of DP you are.

Where do you think today’s technology is going? I’m a big fan of technology being used in a classic way – for the purpose of the storytelling. I think we’re lucky to be working in this day and age of filmmaking where anything is possible. I’m also very much a believer in doing as much as possible in the camera. All things digital tend to age badly. But the nice thing about shooting digital is that you have access to all these new and old lenses. You can more or less fit anything you want on digital cameras. I was recently shooting with a RED VistaVision with a 0.7 optical adapter and a set of Hasselblad still lenses. In that sense, I was shooting on a medium-format sensor – which is pretty nice!

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DEMING PETER DEMING, ASC, SAYS HE’S ALWAYS “LOOKING FOR A PROJECT THAT WILL TELL A GOOD STORY AND CHALLENGE ME CREATIVELY.” AND, INDEED, THAT’S BEEN THE MARK OF DEMING’S LONG AND STELLAR CAREER, TRAVERSING A BROAD RANGE OF GENRES AND MEDIUMS – EVERYTHING FROM CONCERT DOCUMENTARIES, LIKE DURAN DURAN: UNSTAGED, TO ZERO-BUDGET INDIE FEATURES, LIKE HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE. ALTHOUGH HE MAY BE BEST KNOWN FOR HIS COLLABORATIONS WITH VISIONARY FEATURE DIRECTORS, MOST NOTABLY DAVID LYNCH (MULHOLLAND DRIVE, TWIN PEAKS REBOOT) AND SAM RAIMI (OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL, DRAG ME TO HELL), AS WELL AS SUCH HORROR FRANCHISES AS THE SCREAM MOVIES, DEMING’S ADVERTISING WORK HAS BEEN HIGHLY LAUDED. IN 2017, HE WON A PAGE 76 BRONZE CLIO AWARD FOR THE ELABORATE PERIOD COMMERCIAL FOR PEDIGREE DOG FOOD, GENERAL HOWE’S DOG.

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“CLIENTS ARE BEGINNING TO REALIZE THAT GETTING NOTICED CAN ALSO BE ACHIEVED THROUGH INNOVATION.”

What is the Clio process like? From what I understand, agencies submit various projects in different areas – from audio to event and collaborations to public relations as well as digital/mobile and social media – and, of course, film technique, which includes cinematography. Each year Clio appoints top advertising people from around the world to serve on each jury. They are the best of the best – which ensures that they understand the ever-changing marketplace.

In cinematography, they are looking at the art, process, or job of filming motion-picture photography. The projects go through several rounds of judging to get to the final round, giving each spot a Gold, Silver, Bronze, or Shortlist nod. What’s interesting is, unlike other awards, the Clio is not limited to one “winner” per category. If the jury sees several that qualify that year, multiple winners are chosen.

What is the “story” behind General Howe’s Dog? It takes place during the Revolutionary War, when General Washington’s forces were battling General Howe and, at some point between skirmishes, General Howe’s dog wandered across enemy lines into Washington’s camp. Once the dog’s lineage was discovered, there were many suggestions as to what this canine’s fate should be. But, ultimately, Washington decided to return the dog to his British enemy, flying a truce flag and accompanied by a hand-written note from Alexander Hamilton. It’s a true story – and this letter still exists in the Library of Congress.

This wasn’t the lead spot for this job, was it? It sort of came out of the blue for me and many involved. Director Noam Murro (Biscuit Productions) was keen to tell this true story. It was actually attached to another Pedigree spot that was directed by Aaron Stoller. When that spot was awarded, a

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one-day shoot for one spot became two commercials and three days shooting – on the same budget. Everybody worked for a fraction of their rate, with very little prep.

How did you develop the look? In my discussions with Noam, we wanted it to feel like a scene from a feature film, so we went with ARRI ALEXA through Panavision. We shot in 2:35 aspect ratio with vintage Super Speed and Ultra Speed spherical lenses.

We designed the visuals with atmospherics (smoke, snow), and combined with the production and costume design, it was a very grand feeling.

How faithful did you want to be to the real event? Very faithful; we discussed the camp layout and tent colors in prep. The campfires were a huge factor in the lighting design, filling in gaps where we knew the overall lighting would not reach, not to mention they added a dynamic active warm element, versus the snow and smoke. One of the pieces that is my favorite is a shot of soldiers warming themselves over a fire on this cold snowy night. So in addition to the color contrast – warm versus cool – the atmospheric effect of embers from the fire added to the smoke and snow, which gave the shot so much visual texture.

Why do you think this caught the Clio jury’s attention? I think for the overall look and attention to detail, combined with the fact that the story is a real one with historical evidence that still exists today. Also, it’s one of those commercials where you are really not sure what the “sell” is until the very end.

It carries a positive message, and not about showcasing the product.

Do you have a favorite commercial that you have done? Probably the one for Dick’s Sporting Goods called Every Pitch directed by

Derek Cianfrance. It is a 60-second spot all done in one shot. It was designed to make you feel a part of the game of baseball. The shot begins on the batter’s box and over the course of 60 seconds covers every player and their “banter” to each other. It was achieved using a motion-control rig that only controlled the speed of the dolly and a small six-foot crane arm with a Libra head. The camera operation, focus, and zooms were all done live for each take. Filming took place over two nights when we were able to complete about 72 takes. We shot Kodak film negative, using Panavision cameras and a 24-275mm zoom.

There appear to be no rules for commercials today. They certainly run the gamut! Some get right to the point and pound you in the head to sell a product and some are much more about a mood or an emotional build. These types of commercials can be done through a narrative structure or something much more free-form, combining images and sound, and often with these types of commercials, one has to wait until the final text to even know what is trying to be sold. Obviously, those jobs offer more creativity, interpretation and are more rewarding. Clients are beginning to realize that getting noticed can also be achieved through innovation. The restraints that have been in the commercial format for so long are loosening up a great deal.

Do you think we will eventually see VR-shot commercials? VR is a fascinating format, not only for commercials but also for narrative. I think that commercials might break through first, as it’s such an immersive and intense viewing experience that getting audiences to accept a feature-length or even episodic length will take time. Also, traditional lighting is sort of out the window, it would all have to be practical in most cases. I’m very keen to try this new format.

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JONATHAN FURMANSKI SAYS THAT HAVING GROWN UP A FAN OF STANLEY KUBRICK, ORSON WELLES, AND STEVEN SPIELBERG, THE INDUSTRY WAS IN HIS SOUL, EVEN BEFORE HE GOT HIS FIRST JOB. “ONE OF THE IMPORTANT THINGS ABOUT LEARNING THE CRAFT IS THAT I LEARNED FILM STOCK FIRST,” HE RELATES. BEING MENTORED BY WILLIAM REXER WAS ALSO IMPORTANT. FURMANSKI MOVED THROUGH DOCUMENTARIES WITH REXER, AND WHEN HIS MENTOR MOVED ON TO OTHER FORMATS HE SENT HIS PROTÉGÉ THE DOCUMENTARY WORK. HE OFTEN THINKS, “HOW WOULD WILLIAM HANDLE THIS?” FURMANSKI LATER FELL INTO SINGLE-CAMERA COMEDY WORK – HIS FIRST FULL-TIME DP JOB WAS ON DELOCATED FOLLOWED BY INSIDE AMY SCHUMER, THE DETOUR, AND MORE. PAGE 80 TODAY HE’S ON A NEW SERIES CALLED SEARCH PARTY.

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“ WE CAN SHOOT IN WAYS THAT ACCOMMODATE IMPROVISATION BUT STILL HAVE A STRONG CINEMATIC LANGUAGE THAT REINFORCES THE DRAMATICS OF THE SCENE WITHOUT DIMINISHING OR OVERSHADOWING THE COMEDY. ”

Your first comedy DP assignment, Delocated, was unusual, to say the least. It was a fake reality show about a man in the witness protection program and the Russian mob trying to kill him. The comedy came from its screwball premise. ( Jon Glaser, the show’s creator and lead actor, wore a ski mask for the entire series.) My job was to film the show from the mindset of a documentarian and give Jon and the rest of the cast as much room as possible. It was extremely improvisational – no two takes were ever the same. We shot with two cameras – Panasonic HVX200’s for season one and Sony PMWEX1’s for seasons two and three. The biggest challenge was figuring out where to put the two cameras, so we could shoot any actor at any time. We used to argue (lightheartedly) about having cameras and crew in the shot.

The directors and EP’s would say, “It’s okay if the boom operator is in the frame. It’s like a documentary.” And I would say, “Yes, but as a doc DP, I work very hard to make sure that never happens!”

How did Inside Amy Schumer come about?

Amy was one of our guest stars on Delocated, and toward the end of the series, she asked me to shoot a pilot she was doing. It was a unique experience for many reasons – and creatively off the charts. We were shooting stand-up, on-the-street interviews, sit-down interviews in a bar, and five or six sketches for each episode. Stylistically we were all over the map, everything from film noir to The Knick

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to the Home Shopping Network. We started on ARRI ALEXAS using Cooke Panchro and S4 lenses, sometimes with an Angénieux 24-290 zoom. We then moved to ARRI AMIRA and Leica Summicron primes. The AMIRA is, in my opinion, the finest digital camera ever made.

What was the most outrageous segment for this show? It all culminated in the 12 Angry Men episode, which will always be a highlight of my career. Amy co-directed with Ryan McFaul, an old friend of mine from college, and we spent weeks devouring the original film. I made a thick binder of frame grabs so the crew and I could analyze the original film’s brilliant lighting (by Boris Kaufman).

Inside Amy Schumer [IAS] was a small show, and this episode was a big deal for us. We used older tungsten units to feel the sharpness and heat like we were on a soundstage in the late 1950’s. Typically, on IAS, we’d have to light a little more broadly so we could move the cameras around more quickly, but on this episode, we invested the time in lighting each shot as precisely as we could because the look and tone of the original film were so important to the experience.

Is Search Party emblematic of a sea change in TV comedy? I think the old rules of shooting comedy – “comedy plays in the wide” or “comedy lighting is bright” – don’t necessarily apply anymore. We have very funny shows, like Search Party, and others like

Atlanta and Master of None, firmly rooted in both comedy and drama with visual styles that have also evolved. We can shoot in ways that accommodate improvisation but still have a strong cinematic language that reinforces the dramatics of the scene without diminishing or overshadowing the comedy. On the last season of Search Party, we had murder, suicide, a Charles Manson play, several psychological meltdowns, and we still had John Early running down the street in his underwear with a full-body rash screaming about ice!

You’ve described comedy TV as being about the macro and micro – how so? It’s all the work and conversation in pre-production and on set. How do we want the season of the show to feel as a whole, and what are the ways we can make this scene or shot support that feeling? For example, Search Party co-creators Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers told me Season Two was all about fractured states of mind, so I collected diopters, broken glass, mirrors, and prisms to literally fracture the frame. The macro conversations are extremely helpful because as the season progresses, we have less and less time to prep, so we can have a little shorthand for what we want to achieve. Then they’ll tell me any specific ideas they have, and I can fill in the gaps, so they can focus on other aspects of the show.

How are you drawing on your documentary roots today? It’s great to have all the gear and large crews so you can pretty much do whatever you want, but it’s also fun to shoot with a small team of four or five, everything crammed into a minivan. You take the lessons and experiences of one form and apply them to the next. I remember on season two of Search Party, in the middle of a very big day with a split call, we were shooting our last scene before lunch. The sun was setting, and our window was shrinking rapidly. So, I proposed shooting the whole thing like a doc: two cameras dancing with the actors, physically moving in and out to get tighter and wider shots so we wouldn’t have to change lenses, and just letting it happen like a real moment. We did two takes before the sun set, broke on time, and got on with the rest of our day – and the doc approach worked perfectly for the scene.

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A BROOKLYN TRAIN STOP CHANGED GARY BAUM’S (ASC) LIFE. IT WAS 1971, AND SEEING ALL THE LIGHTS AND BIG PANAVISION CAMERA SHOOTING THE FRENCH CONNECTION , BAUM DECIDED HE NEEDED TO BE A PART OF THAT WORLD. SO, FIVE YEARS LATER, HE MOVED TO LOS ANGELES TO STUDY FILM AND WORK IN PANAVISION’S ELECTRONICS DEPARTMENT. WHILE ASSEMBLING BATTERIES AND CIRCUIT BOARDS, BAUM BECAME ADEPT AT BUILDING AND REPAIRING ZOOM CONTROLS AND OTHER GEAR. HE ALSO BECAME INVOLVED IN THE PANAGLIDE PROJECT. MEETING THE ASSISTANTS AND DP’S THAT CAME THROUGH PANAVISION MADE BAUM WANT TO BE A WORKING CAMERA OPERATOR. IN 1980 HE STARTED WITH LORIMAR IN THE MGM LOADING ROOM, LATER WORKING AS A 2ND AC ON OUR FAMILY HONOR FOR CHARLES CORRELL, ASC, AND DAVID NOWELL, ASC. THAT PUT HIM IN THE PIPELINE FOR SERIES LIKE MACGYVER, THE A-TEAM , AND MAGNUM P.I. A DAY-CALL TO WORK WITH TONY ASKINS, ASC, ON PERFECT STRANGERS BEGAN HIS ULTIMATE PATH TOWARD SITCOMS AND SHOWS LIKE WILL & GRACE, MIKE AND MOLLY, THE MILLERS AND HIS CURRENT SHOW, MAN WITH A PLAN, PAGE 84 ALONG WITH EARNING A PRIMETIME EMMY AND SEVEN OTHER NOMINATIONS.

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“ ONE OF THE BIG CHALLENGES OF SITCOMS IS THAT WE CAN’T LIGHT FROM THE FLOOR BECAUSE THE CAMERAS ARE ALWAYS MOVING.”

How important is it to you that you worked your way up through the ranks? As a loader, I learned the difference in emulsions, where I could feel and smell the difference between Eastman Kodak and Fuji. By meeting cinematographers, operators and assistants coming through the studio, I began to understand the different jobs. As an assistant, I learned how to get along with the cast, as pulling a measuring tape out to someone’s face can be intimidating. I also learned to compose and operate using a gear head from people like Al Bettcher [SOC], as well as respect for the other crafts. As a DP coming up through the ranks, you learn everyone else’s job, and consequently, you’re more aware of putting your team in a position to succeed.

What was Will and Grace like when you shot the original series? It was on film, which was Eastman 5294, rated at ASA 400 with Panaflex cameras and four 11-to-one Primo zooms. We had to key at approximately 25 foot-candles in order to keep a 3.2 stop, using 5K juniors for cross-back key, and augmenting with 1K Babies and 2K junior projected fills.

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What is Will and Grace like today? It’s 12 years later, and we wanted to keep the show looking similar, although we are now using Sony F55 cameras and I’m rating it as 1200 ASA. I’m using the same lenses, so it has a similar overall look, with an updated feel using a combination of incandescent and LED lights. I no longer need to carry the 5K juniors, using less intensity; I’m now keying in the 12-to-14 foot-candle range to achieve an average stop of 4. I like to keep it in that range, as the Primo zooms with slight filtration help achieve more of the original film feel.

Does it feel like sitcoms have changed a lot? [Director] James Burrows has his four cameras on dollies, and he likes to move out of the normal sitcom whenever we can. We were able to use a Steadicam on a recent episode called “A Gay Olde Christmas.”

It was a wonderfully written period piece taking place in New York City in 1911. The sets were a tenement apartment, a luxurious townhouse, and an exterior street. I was able to use a pastel palette, changing it up slightly for the various sets. Our normal filtration was modified to encourage the vintage feel. It was the most visually ambitious episode we have done on the show.

What does a cinematic look mean when we’re talking about a sitcom? We had planned to pre-shoot a rooftop helipad with an awaiting helicopter, and we had to do it live. That scene should have taken about 45 minutes to shoot, but we did it in about 15 minutes because of the audience. We had the helicopter raised; the special effects team physically lifted the helicopter up and down.

The background plates we used were shot in New York City for the green screen, and the rotor blade was added.

What was it about the Mike and Molly episode “Molly’s Birthday” that you think caught Emmy’s attention? We had two nighttime street scenes. There was snow, fire, and steam, 80 feet of dolly track, a blue screen and four cameras. Everything, including special effects, had to be planned down to each camera angle. I had to fine-tune the filtration to achieve a uniform look for the cameras, without imparting any artifacts that could contaminate the blue screen and falling show. I was able to achieve this by using slightly different grades of filtration at different focal lengths. I used ¼ Schneider

Classic Soft for the wing camera lenses, as they are usually at or above 100 millimeter; the middle cameras, which are in the 24- to 60-millimeter range, had the ½ Classic Soft.

Has Mike and Molly afforded more stretching beyond the multi-camera? For “Checkpoint Joyce,” which won an Emmy [in 2015], Joyce [Swoosie Kurtz] gets stopped at a DUI checkpoint by her son-in-law Mike [Billy Gardell] and his partner Carl [Reno Wilson]. Billy and Reno were on opposite ends of the skin-tone spectrum, so it was challenging to keep the balance through four cameras. This episode was a mixture of stage, night exterior, and visual effects – a broad spectrum of our work. In planning the episode, the discussions were more of a technical nature about what we wanted for the scene: the background and plates, et cetera. Sometimes, when you do visual effects, you get existing plates or they are custom ordered. In this instance, my crew shot our own plates and they were perfect for what we wanted to do. The biggest challenge was matching the lighting for the interior, exterior and plates. We had to take notes and still photographs so it would look seamless once it was assembled. Of course, pleasant technical surprises almost always occur. And, in this instance, it was practical lights in the exterior – the same lights that law enforcement use at checkpoints. We could use them for affect and effect, which saved time outside and added realism.

Why is lighting often a challenge on sitcoms? We can’t light from the floor because the cameras are always moving. We got an Emmy nomination a couple of years ago for The Millers’ episode “Con-Troversy.”

It was one character’s fantasy of a medieval era. In order to achieve the desired effect, we used some space lights, soft lights, and different-colored gels to create more of a dream effect, rather than shooting it as a straightforward scene in the living room.

We had a whole package of lights that included incandescent, 2K’s, 1K’s and LED’s. The biggest challenge was having the time to do it right. We added a little bit of blue to the lights, but the camera actually sees the blue layer a lot differently than the human eye. It exponentially saturates the blue. So, rather than adding more blue or subtracting it, the camera helped us by seeking its own level.

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GROWING UP IN CHICAGO DURING THE 1960S, JOHNNY SIMMONS, ASC LEARNED THAT EACH IMAGE HAD TO HAVE ITS OWN NARRATIVE. HE WORKED AS A STILL PHOTOGRAPHER FOR THE CHICAGO DEFENDER , THE OLDEST CONTINUING AFRICAN-AMERICAN NEWSPAPER IN THE COUNTRY, ESTABLISHED IN 1906. WHILE ON SCHOLARSHIP AT FISK UNIVERSITY IN NASHVILLE, TN, HE MET DIRECTOR/WRITER/ HISTORIAN CARLTON MOSS, WHO SAW IN HIS STILLS THE EYE OF A CINEMATOGRAPHER. A SCHOLARSHIP TO USC’S GRADUATE PROGRAM LATER LED TO SHOOTING MUSIC VIDEOS FOR SNOOP DOGG, EAZY-E, ICE CUBE, AND TUPAC SHAKUR, AS WELL AS TO MOVIES LIKE SELMA, LORD, SELMA AND RUBY BRIDGES . HIS FIRST FEATURE WAS FOR TIM REID, ONCE UPON A TIME…WHEN WE WERE COLORED. SIMMONS’ MOVE INTO MULTI-CAMERA SITCOM CAME WHEN CINEMATOGRAPHER BRUCE FINN INVITED HIM TO THE SET OF THE HUGHLEYS . SINCE THEN HE’S WORKED A BROAD SPECTRUM OF COMEDY SHOWS, GARNERING ONE PAGE 88 PRIME TIME EMMY AND THREE NOMINATIONS.

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“DOING AUDIENCE SHOWS IS AMAZING – THERE’S AN ENERGY THE AUDIENCE AND THE ACTORS SHARE THAT’S MAGICAL.”

What was it like to move from single to multi-camera? The Hughleys and One on One (2002) were my first times seeing a stage setup for multi-camera. I’d never seen so many lights hanging from the grid. Bruce Finn showed me some looks and explained the way things were done, and a few days later he asked me if I wanted to do his show. I had to learn a new approach to lighting – a style that fills from the front and keys from upstage with four cameras shooting from a camera aisle. The shadow side and a ratio created by a continuous bounce hanging over the camera aisle were all new. In sitcoms, it’s a delicate contrast-ratio balance because some cameras are always on the flat side and someone else is on the shadow side. That ratio has to work so you feel the contrast, but the shadow side has to be lit enough to be acceptable to the performance of all four cameras. There’s a fine line in not making things look flat.

How did you start to build your own look, as in the pilot for The Tracy Morgan Show? I want the light to go where the action takes place. Geographically, if no one ever goes to certain areas of the set, I use those areas to light for texture and style. It’s great when a set has good windows and a real light source. This gives motivation and logic to believe the light is coming from the source. In this situation, I can work more contrast in to make things feel more real. There are some very cinematic art directors who understand the importance of depth and logical light sources. Because the four cameras are shooting in a proscenium, it helps when there’s a different feeling of shadow light and depth.

Do comedy directors have different styles?

The genre is dialogue-driven, so the style comes from the material. The directors I work with on multi-camera shows vary. Some are in love with the camera and want to work closely with the cinematographer – they’re my

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favorites! Other directors see it as a formula.

No matter the genre, we cinematographers always want to push the envelope creatively within the framework and time we’re given.

There’s always room to stretch out and individualize a look.

Have you done single-camera comedy?

My one single-camera comedy show was The Jonas Brothers for Disney. It was fun because in single camera you light to tell the story – shadows, light, camera movement and composition are all incorporated to move the narrative forward in an emotional way. You also get to work more closely with the director, designing shots and choosing lenses. On multi-camera, there is an associate director who sets up the shots with the director. They work together on rehearsal days when none of the crew is there. When we show up, they’ve worked most of the shots out. I have a creative collaboration with the director and associate director on swing sets mostly because they’re special to the episode.

The action in the permanent sets is usually in the same places, so camera angles for the most part are repeated, and a formula gets established.

The Roseanne reboot had a huge audience.

What was that like? It was an honor. The first conversations were about the look from 18 years ago. We shot tests, and [post house] DigitalFilm Tree and I played with different plug-ins and after effects to try and find that quality of the old show. It wasn’t something I was excited about; the original series was shot on tape and there wasn’t much concern with matching camera or maintaining a visual consistency. One episode they gave me to study looked nothing like the one they’d given me to watch earlier. They finally settled on season five, episode five as the “look.” But we departed from that and went for a look more in tune with today. I spent a lot of time

in the color bay with the producers. Some of them were actors on the original show, so there was a strong connection, having grown up on the set.

Why do you think the Academy chose your Nickelodeon series, Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn, for an Emmy? It was an hour-long special filled with wonderful practical sets on locations and exteriors. We were able to light, move cameras and tell the story in a cinematic way, like single-camera, even though it was always four cameras shooting all sides of the action. Anytime a sitcom goes off stage it’s like moving a circus. It’s something a lot of departments aren’t accustomed to. Everything we did on stage wants to happen outside. We traveled with a large video village with lots of writers and even Switcher to do line cuts on locations. It was my third nomination and first win.

How different is it shooting a kids’ show?

It’s always about the kid time, so there’s a little more pressure because when you reach your time limit there is no negotiating – the day is over. Also you have to light in broader strokes because the actors aren’t usually as seasoned in hitting the same marks. The amount of takes they do on kid shows is like nothing you can imagine. I once did 17 takes of a boy and a dog running between two trashcans. They were doing small adjustments that nobody could really see. The scripts often include stunts and sight gags that require resets and cleanups. It’s those times that I really miss adult shows and comedy driven by dialogue. But the atmosphere on both kid shows and adult sitcoms is always supportive of all departments. Doing audience shows is amazing – there’s an energy the audience and the actors share that’s magical. It’s not like we’re saving the world – we’re just trying to create some laughs.

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Find out, where to buy or rent the lenses on www.zeiss.com/cine/supremeprime JUNE/JULY 2018

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BEING A KID OF THE MTV GENERATION, JAY LAFAYETTE WAS ENAMORED WITH TELLING VISUAL STORIES THROUGH THE PRISMS OF MUSICAL ARTISTS. HE BEGAN SHOOTING CONCERTS AS PART OF THE IN-HOUSE PRODUCTION TEAM FOR CD-ROM MUSIC MAGAZINE LAUNCH (YAHOO! MUSIC) AND OPERATING ON MULTICAMERA PROJECTS FOR MTV AND VH1. THIS LED TO THE CINEMATOGRAPHER ROLE FOR THE NICKELODEON CHILDREN’S SERIES YO GABBA GABBA , WHICH INCORPORATED HIGHLY STYLIZED MUSIC SEGMENTS WITH MANY WELL-KNOWN ARTISTS. HE CONTINUED TO HONE HIS SINGLE CAMERA CINEMATIC AESTHETIC, SHOOTING SHORT FILMS AND NETWORK PROMOS FOR VARIOUS NETWORK AND MEDIA OUTLETS. TODAY LAFAYETTE FOLLOWS A DUAL PATH BETWEEN SINGLE CAMERA NARRATIVE (LIKE SHORT FILMS FOR THE 2017 PRIMETIME EMMYS) AND MULTI-CAMERA LIVE COMEDY AND MUSIC SPECIALS FOR NETFLIX, HBO, AND COMEDY CENTRAL. IN 2014 HE WON A DAYTIME EMMY AS DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY FOR THE ABC SPECIAL – DISNEY PARKS CHRISTMAS DAY PARADE.

JAY LAFAYETTE ROCK

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Is shooting comedy concerts different from music?

There’s a rhythm to both; where you put the cameras and how you use them is similar. With either, I like to find creative ways to move the camera to support what the artist is doing on stage.

What’s a recent highlight? We shot the Steve Martin/ Martin Short tour at the Peace Center, a beautiful 3000-seat venue in Greenville, South Carolina. It is a two-man show, packed with what Steve and Marty do best – entertaining.

There are also fun reflective moments where they discuss their careers and their 30-plus year friendship. It’s coupled with musical numbers, led by Steve and supported by bluegrass band The Steep Canyon Rangers.

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What made it unique? Most comedy specials consist of a single performer on stage delivering their brand of comedy, with the rest of the visuals passively working as a backdrop that accentuates the performer’s style.

This was more like a variety show. There are set pieces and visual cues with lighting changes and video screens that work in tandem with the live music to actively support the overall experience. We had many discussions as to how to make the home viewer feel like they are at the show, with the best seat in the house.

We didn’t just want a bunch of cameras in the back of the room to “follow the ball.” The goal was to find those camera placements and focal lengths to create that intimacy, but not be a distraction or obstruction for the 3,000 paying guests.

How do you make a comedy concert cinematic? A big part involves camera placement and movement, and that starts with the scout. The team goes to whatever theater or venue was chosen (usually by the talent) to survey the surroundings. Every venue is a little different, but the challenges are the same. Where can we put cameras? Where can we light from? What infrastructure is needed to accommodate those things?

Does the venue dictate camera position? In a way, yes. What is the layout of the space? How big is the stage? Is there a steep rake in the house, and how do balconies with overhangs impede us from putting cameras or lights where we need them? Are there seats? Can we remove them or do we have to bring in a staging team to build camera platforms over those seats? The older theaters have restrictions that can inhibit us. A jib is a great tool in a theater environment when limited to a small footprint.

What else do you mean by making it cinematic? For me that involves contrast. Many shows in the late 1980s through ’90s were so bright and flat, the sets had no depth. You can still use, traditional theatre techniques like a follow spot to light a performer’s travel across a stage, but also use techniques of color contrast and shadow that will play to seven or so different camera angles. Using the latest in digital cinema technology and tried-and-true cinema lenses help as well.

Why have you begun to favor the Panasonic Varicam for your comedy shoots? It has amazing latitude, which helps in finessing images with a saturated color palette and high contrast tones – common in this type of production. It has little noise in the blacks, even when utilizing its native 5000 ISO option. When I started using digital cinema cameras in a multicamera live setting, record times were an issue. How do you roll on seven or eight cameras for over an hour straight? Especially with the Netflix mandate of native 4K and delivery. Media and codecs were not as

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robust and efficient with record times at the higher quality capture rates. We would have to stagger our cuts and reloads for each camera in the middle of a live show, hoping to not miss an important moment. As technology has become more efficient, that has gone away. With the Panasonic Varicam 35, I can easily fit over 100 minutes of 4K content onto one P2 card.

Why are live concerts such an adrenaline boost?

You’re always under the gun to set up a show and be ready to shoot it in the middle of a paid audience that is expecting an amazing, on-time experience. Due to budget and venue constraints, sometimes these shows need to be loaded in, set up, tweaked, fine-tuned, and shot in one day. When your out-of-town lighting truck is stuck in traffic and four hours late, you end up in a huge rush. Finishing the lighting as the audience is walking in the door is never a good feeling. There just isn’t any contingency time for anything to go wrong, so it’s a must to have a solid game plan in the technical sense before you even walk in the door.

How do you prepare for comics who never stick to script or blocking? In a live theater setting, the show mostly plays on a vertical plane of space contained within a proscenium of a stage, so luckily the talent is mostly bound to those parameters. Even in the case of a show-in-the-round, the audience usually creates the parameters for the blocking. Most performers have been doing their shows on the road for a year or more before you shoot their special, so their delivery might change for a specific audience, but their action and blocking stays similar from show to show. We try to catch a performance somewhere on their road tour or we send someone out with a camera to capture it.

This provides us with reference material to get a sense of every performer’s style and intricacies. Of course, there’s no substitute for a great operator and focus puller with an intuitive sense of action.

“ A BIG PART OF MAKING A COMEDY CONCERT CINEMATIC INVOLVES CAMERA PLACEMENT AND MOVEMENT, AND THAT STARTS WITH THE SCOUT.”

The Cooke Look

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For documentary style shooting, I want a look that can transport you into the realm of the surreal but still be rooted and full of depth and emotion. The S7/i lenses have a grand and immersive feel to them by virtue of the full frame format. We played around with the Cooke’s shallow DOF shooting wide open—something I would not normally do on an IMAX film—but we wanted to get a sense of its character and it’s really beautiful. In our portraits and shots on the canals you can see the texture and quality of the bokeh. The look was seductive.

We saw a really nice balance with the S7/i lenses especially shooting the canals with a lot of white marble and turquoise water. The feel of the Cooke fit my idea of Venice. The look feels vintage without being vintage; elegant and full of dimension; modern yet natural, like the eye sees as opposed to something more stylized and geometric.

With the type of filming I do for IMAX and giant screens, like my current project, Cuba, I gravitate to what my eye sees naturally—the Cooke Look.”

Peter Chang Director, Cinematographer Venice: La Serenissima and Cuba, documentaries for IMAX and giant screens

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VANCE BURBERRY WAS 15 YEARS OLD, WORKING AS AN EXTRA HAND ON A THEATRICAL PRODUCTION OF GYPSY, WHEN HE MET LEGENDARY THEATER LIGHTING DESIGNER ROGER BARRATT, WHOSE KNOWLEDGE AND TEACHING HELPED PROPEL BURBERRY TO BEGIN LIGHTING CONCERT ACTS FIVE NIGHTS PER WEEK AROUND HIS NATIVE CITY, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA. TOURING WITH THE BAND INXS BROUGHT HIM TO THE U.S., AND THE DAY BEFORE BURBERRY WAS TO FLY BACK HOME, THE TOUR MANAGER FOR THE GO-GO’S ASKED HIM TO TAKE OVER THEIR TOUR. SOON ENOUGH, HE WAS ON HIS WAY TO THE TOP OF THE ROCK-CONCERT LADDER, DESIGNING LIGHTING FOR VARIOUS SHOWS AND SERVING AS A LIGHTING TECHNICIAN FOR OTHERS. WHEN HE WORKED WITH NIGEL DICK AS CAMERA OPERATOR/GAFFER ON WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, THE PARTNERSHIP STUCK. BURBERRY HAS LIT/SHOT/DP’D EVERYONE FROM THE CULT AND ALICE COOPER TO JOHN MAYER, GUNS N’ ROSES, PEARL JAM AND TEARS FOR FEARS – INCLUDING HIS LATEST, MOBY AND TLC. HE’S COMMANDED LARGE PAGE 96 CREWS AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN AND ON THE INFIELD OF A HALFTIME SHOW AT MIAMI STADIUM.

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What was “old school” concert work like?

You mean film, of course. We could put 15 or 16 cameras anywhere we wanted, shooting either 16 or 35mm with dolly track 20 feet in front of the stage, cranes, handheld – no restrictions. Of course, the film was run between cameras and loaders by mag runners. We only had limited video assist, so the director did not see what each camera was doing. We’d be lucky if he saw the wide shot! Each operator was a craftsman – and assigned a specific job. Communication with the touring LD was fairly simple – because of my concert lighting background, we all spoke the same language. Occasionally I’d run into someone who did not want to change any aspects of the show for camera. That would be challenging, especially when they would use minimal follow spots, but I was always able to figure something out.

What was your last concert shot on film?

John Mayer, Live at the Nokia Theater in December of 2007. We had 11 ARRI 435’s and one 235. We had mag runners carrying Fuji 500 Eterna 4D film – capturing over 120,000 feet of footage. We also had a 37-foot Technocrane upstage that could reach almost all the way downstage and wrap around to capture overheads and profile shots of John.

On the downstage edge of the stage, we used a DoggiCam rail system with a remote head; the rest of the cameras were assigned various positions and specific shots. It was relatively simple from a lighting perspective because the LD was familiar with filmlighting challenges. Key light was handled with follow spots with a limited color palette, which maintained a good exposure range. In this case, we were able to run video taps from all cameras to the director, Danny Clinch, so he could give specific coverage to the camera ops. It was funny – after the concert film was released, there was a review in an HD online magazine that said how “beautiful” the HD looked! It was beautiful – because we shot on film! The project got nominated for a Long Form Live Concert Grammy award.

What was your first digital shoot?

Nickelback, directed by Nigel Dick. We shot at the Northlands Coliseum, home of the Edmonton Oilers. I’m a huge hockey fan so that was very cool. Three-quarter-inch cardboard panels covered the ice, and we had 17 cameras, Sony F1500’s plus lipstick

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cameras, and a mobile broadcast truck. It was supposed to be a simple lighting setup, arena style with a backdrop. But the lighting designer didn’t want to cooperate on any level. We had half or no front spots – and less than optimum light on everything. The Sony F1500’s did not look great, especially in the low dynamic range – but we couldn’t do anything. I remember sitting in the truck screaming at the monitors, asking the gaffer to get some light on the band. In the end, we made an okay film and I learned a lot about “the modern [i.e., digital] era.”

engineers. Of course, I know a lot of that language now, but still, there is much I leave to him. Today we’re using ARRI ALEXA cameras with 14 to 15 stops of dynamic range. These cameras are very cinematic and are the closest to that film look. It still comes up where I have to use a broadcaststyle camera, and this is where Mike helps a lot. When I get a feel for the show, we talk about lenses – I’ll say, “Give me a 35mm 24290 here,” and he’ll make it the equivalent in broadcast language. He will say, “Oh, we will use a 100-by there,” and so on.

How did you bridge that gap? I work with an incredible tech manager by the name of Michael Fellner. He went to film school, worked in the film industry – and moved into broadcast. I bring him with me on every concert multi-cam project. I can talk to him about something that is completely filmrelated and he translates it to the broadcast

Why was the 2016 Pearl Jam concert so interesting? We shot at Wrigley Field for two nights to sold-out crowds. What was extremely important to the band was for the focus to be on the performance and interaction with the audience. Initially, we were not able to place any cameras close to the front of the stage, and that was a

“ NO MATTER WHAT WE DO, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO BRING A CINEMATIC MINDSET INTO THE BROADCAST WORLD; THE TWO HAVE TO BE THOROUGHLY INTEGRATED TO GET GREAT FOOTAGE.”

problem for coverage. Pearl Jam has a great touring video crew, with two downstage dolly Sony 1500’s in the pit, and we were able to switch those cameras out for ARRI AMIRAS with 24-290 Optimo zooms, which were then operated by their team. We also incorporated some of the tour’s video cameras (Sony 1500 or 2500), cut with the ALEXAs. We were at 23.98 FPS for the show on all cameras. We had a technical challenge, as the touring IMAG video screens had to be fed 29.97 FPS. Mike brought in a box, which electronically handled the conversion.

There was a three- or four-frame delay, but it was not noticeable on the screens.

How did you expand on the limitations, camera position-wise? We buried cameras in the crowd, although not always in ideal places, but it worked out. It gave us more of an audience experience as opposed to a stylized dramatic feel you would get using cranes and Cablecams. We had one camera on a slider at downstage right, so we could get shots across the stage and at the crowd. I also had a Blackmagic Ursa Mini 4.6K capturing wide shots, which cut with the ARRI cameras perfectly – used a few of them handheld for a cross-section of shots. Kille Knobel, Pearl Jam’s longtime LD, was amazing. She lit the stadium, and we brought in a lighting shader who had a parallel lighting control console and was able to adjust light levels on the fly.

What was the additional part of this project?

We also had a documentary unit following the band during the week leading up to the concert. Ed Vedder is a huge Cubs fan, so once the Cubs went to the World Series that year, the project took on a new life. We had a documentary unit follow Ed to every game through to the Cubs winning in seven. The film was released theatrically in 2017 and got a great rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Why are halftime shows so difficult? Because you can’t pre-anything. When we shot Marc Anthony for the El Clásico exhibition soccer game in Miami, with players coming from all over the world, we couldn’t pre-light the stage, only the stadium. And there was only about a quarter of the lighting budget we needed to do it right. We had to incorporate the lighting into the stage so that we could connect power and lighting control as it was rolled out in two sections. We had to imagine what the lighting was going to be while never seeing it. We literally had one 30-minute rehearsal the night before the show. We had to program lights hung around the stadium at night to focus on the audience, and focus and program the lighting and the invisible stage, literally lighting air. We were live on air with 400 million viewers and 19 broadcast cameras.

We may have had a week to prep, but it was still a bloody miracle we pulled it off.

Where do you see concert shooting headed?

There are more and more concerts being shot than ever, and the looks are always changing.

As a cinematographer, it requires not only a strong creative perspective but also a real understanding of how to shoot live music.

It also requires camera operators who know how to shoot music. Outside of that, the cinematographer needs strong technical know-how to manage the evolving interface of cinema and broadcast. Concert work also demands a unique kind of team collaboration.

What we capture probably won’t change all that much in live music, it’s about seeing the environment and connecting the music and the artist to their audience. No matter what we do, though, the most important thing is to bring a cinematic mindset into the broadcast world; the two have to be thoroughly integrated to get great footage. Territory is irrelevant. The best film for the artist and the show is all that counts.

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JOHN O’BRIEN GOT HIS START AT A SMALL TELEVISION STATION IN MONTEREY, CA AS THE SOLE TECHNICIAN ON THE EVENING SHIFT. A ONE-MAN BAND, HE DID EVERYTHING FROM TECHNICAL DIRECTING TO RUNNING MASTER CONTROL, EVEN SWEEPING THE FLOORS. TWO MORE CITIES AND FIVE YEARS LATER, O’BRIEN GAVE HOLLYWOOD A TRY WITH A SUMMER GIG ON ABC’S LONG-RUNNING SOAP GENERAL HOSPITAL. SLOWLY HE WORKED HIS WAY THROUGH A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT TV GENRES. SOME OF HIS SCRIPTED SHOWS INCLUDE THE GOLDEN GIRLS , GROWING PAINS AND THE BIG BANG THEORY . HE HAS SEEN CAMERA TECHNOLOGY TRANSITION FROM PICKUP TUBES TO CCD IMAGERS AND MOVED SEVERAL SERIES FROM STANDARD DEFINITION TO HD. TODAY, O’BRIEN WORKS EVERYTHING – FROM LIVE EVENTS TO MULTI-CAMERA SITCOMS. A FIVE-TIME EMMY WINNER, HE’S BEEN ON THE CAMERA GUILD WESTERN REGIONAL COUNCIL FOR 23 YEARS AND SPENT NINE YEARS ON THE TELEVISION ACADEMY BOARD OF GOVERNORS. Define the video controller’s role. We set the look of a show in collaboration with the lighting designer or director of photography.

The color temperature and lighting level in the set is determined. The camera is whitebalanced with gamma selection and with a secondary color applied to create the look. That look is then applied to all the other cameras, anywhere from four to 18 or more depending on the show. As the rehearsals progress,

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exposure and color are locked in. That look is maintained throughout the shoot by switching and comparing all cameras via a calibrated reference monitor – live color correction of a sort. Careful consideration must be given to keeping the look consistent for each show or an entire series. If shooting exteriors, daylight color temperature will be variable: as lighting changes, the camera white balance will be painted accordingly.

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Once the cameras are painted and set to a known f-stop, any screens and displays used in the show can be color-balanced, and luminance levels set for accurate viewing.

What was the transition to HD like? It was rough at first. Scripted series being shot on film had to transition into digital recording, and there was a fair amount of pushback to bringing a video control person back into scripted TV, even though we knew digital cameras. There were mysteries surrounding what the VC does, so we had to get reacquainted with DP’s and crews and prove our benefits to the company.

Why was Big Brother such a challenge?

Technical Director Gene Crowe brought me into this reality show, which had been very popular in Holland, which would require the operation of complex camera systems and comprehensive training of people to capture the footage of houseguests over a three-month period. We began in 2000, with 26 cameras. Now, for season 20, we’re up to 100 cameras! Marisa Davis is our lighting designer for both inside the house and the live show soundstage. The house interior is surrounded by Kino Flo and LED lighting for general ambiance. The cameras on spider dollies travel on a rail behind darkened one-way glass, eating up over a stop of light, hence requiring a change in camera sensitivity. The robotic cameras within the house are a mix of Sony BRC-900 and Hitachi Z-50 cameras. Shooting through the windows are operator-manned Sony HSC300 cameras.

That’s a lot of cameras to balance! Well, all the cameras are meticulously set up to match each other through all situations. In the control room, the VC’s (shaders) view all the cameras on their match-monitors and multi-viewers, and through a complex router and server system put together by our systems and design engineer, David Crivelli. The shader team, led by Kelly Scofield, operates the robotics and does the color balance of all cameras, which can get extremely chaotic during competitive play. On a reality show where you cover captive houseguests on camera live, you don’t get a rehearsal. With cameras following the houseguests throughout the house, corrections to the cameras happen immediately as the cameras relocate. During outside travel, the video shaders rapidly adjust to outdoor daylight or evening balance. With no rehearsal during the competition play, all the cameras must be color-matched on the fly. It’s very challenging.

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How has E! Live From the Red Carpet changed over the years? When I first started out covering the E! shows with Stuart Wesolik, VC, in the mid-90s, the camera count was maybe five or six.

As the years have progressed, we now do the red carpet and ancillary areas with up to 25 cameras.

E! emphasizes fashion and beauty, with daylong coverage on major award shows. We strategically set up the cameras to allow for support gear reconfiguration as cameras reposition to different locations throughout the day. The cameras get a show look, but color temperature is volatile as the quality of light changes throughout the day. Lighting Director Dave Mann illuminates our talent positions and keeps a fine balance on the stages between his lighting and sunlight, sometimes on the fly. It’s a little different than the stage production, where you can count on uniform levels and lighting rehearsals.

When is a second VC required? On big live shows with many cameras or setups, they may bring on a second video controller. The V1 or Senior VC sets the look of the show, and the V2 offers a second set of eyes, additional setup support and a second set of hands-on iris and color. It also offers a rare opportunity for collaboration amongst VCs, as in most applications we work alone. On shows such as E! Live from the Red Carpet, it’s a rather involved setup, so having Stu Wesolik with me regularly offers the consistency we need to be efficient with our setup. On our Oscar and Golden Globes red-carpet shows, we even bring on a third VC. The second VC position has proven to be a great mentoring opportunity for newcomers, not only to have the extra hands, but also to give them a front-row seat in putting a show together.

Why is mentoring so important to you? I had the benefit early on in my career of having wonderful mentors, people who gave me tips and opportunities along the way. Due to cutbacks related to mergers, TV networks have slashed hiring, so young people coming into video control don’t have the luxury of a training ground. I’ve taken the opportunity to help out those individuals who were dedicated to video control by giving them an understanding of lighting and color theory and how they relate to camera setup. They also learn about the importance of waveform/vectorscope operation and monitor calibration. It helps them grasp how to train their eyes on minute color shifts and how to apply contrast based on the stage or set lighting.

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GUY JONES GOT HIT WITH THE TV BUG AT A YOUNG AGE DURING A FAMILY VISIT TO A TAPING OF THE MATCH GAME . HE PEPPERED THE CAMERA OPERATOR WITH QUESTIONS AND WAS TOLD IF HE’D “JUST SHUT UP” HE’D GET A TOUR BEHIND THE SCENES, WHICH LANDED HIM IN THE CONTROL ROOM, WHERE HE ASKED, “YOU GET PAID FOR THIS?” AFTER COLLEGE (WHERE HE STUDIED BROADCAST ENGINEERING), JONES GOT A TV INTERNSHIP AND LEARNED TO ADJUST STUDIO CAMERAS LIKE THE TK46, OR THE JVC KY2000 FIELD CAMERA. LATER ON, JONES JOINED WHAT HE CALLS THE “TRAVELING CIRCUS OF VIDEO,” MAINTAINING FLYPACK SYSTEMS FOR TOURING ROCK BANDS LIKE DAVID BOWIE, STEVIE WONDER, AND STING. HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR GETTING THE SYSTEMS UP AND RUNNING AND THEN SHADING FIVE HITACHI FP31 CAMERAS DURING THE SHOWS. AFTER TOURING FOR FIVE YEARS, JONES SETTLED IN L.A., WHERE HE’S ONE OF THE BUSIEST FREELANCE ENTERTAINMENT VARIETY VIDEO CONTROLLERS, WITH FOUR EMMY WINS AND NEARLY TWO-DOZEN DIFFERENT NOMINATIONS.

What was your first VC job like? It was where I joined the I.A. and settled into the real VC process. I had essentially the same responsibilities as the touring video companies, except now it was for broadcast TV at Starfax. We used NEC EP1 and Ikegami 79AEL cameras, which were great. However, the NEC EP1s had a great front-end chip set but not so great a system to pull the images off the chips and make video! We did very high-end shows where a large TV truck wouldn’t fit – singleand multi-camera shoots like Barbara Walters’ Specials, sit-coms, and various other variety specials. I did the last four or five Bob Hope Specials – where we took Flypack systems all over Europe and even into the middle of Desert Shield.

What makes The Jimmy Kimmel Show such an interesting challenge?

Every day can be different. We shoot live, four days a week, with Sony 2500s, and nothing is real until Jimmy hits the floor at show time.

During rehearsals, no one is in the correct wardrobe or makeup. So, for the VCs, there really is no rehearsal. What saves me is a phenomenal lighting crew, led by Christian Hubbard, and last-minute adjustments are minimal. The Kimmel production team allows me to keep myself current with the technology of the day. With UHD, HDR, 4K, and 8K on the horizon, it’s a challenge to stay in the game if you don’t take those calls when they come. I have been blessed to get those calls often.

What’s it like being lead VC on a major awards show? I’ve done The Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmy Awards, Billboard, BET and Latin Billboards. Live shows are my favorite because the margin for error is nil!

Anything can and has happened. One of the biggest challenges was on The Oscars this year. It was the first time we used Sony’s 4300 cameras, which have a CMOS sensor; the Sony P1 has a CCD sensor (used with RF Steadicams and Robos). They don’t see color the same way, especially in direct-light products such as LED wall displays, LED light instruments, and laser projectors, all of which were prominent parts of this broadcast. Terrence Ho, Keith Winikoff and I had to do some major light bending by using the camera’s Matrix and Multimatrix circuits.

Of course, [Lighting Designer] Bobby Dickinson and his team helped tremendously by providing a phenomenal overall lighting scheme that

JONES

What has been your most challenging job? The Super Bowl Halftime Show. It has more opportunities to go wrong than any other show I do. It’s eight or nine minutes of sheer terror, getting everything on the field, a 15-minute concert, and then five minutes of sheer terror getting everything off the field! The technical challenge is to integrate nine cameras that Rob Levy (V2) and I have direct control of, with up to 20 of the game cameras. The game cameras have as many as five or six guys in three or four different trucks shading them, and every year, depending on the network that airs the game, those guys are different. Because the game takes precedence, we don’t get many shots at making it look good. But the show has one of the best live-entertainment lighting teams in the business, led by Bob Barnhart. My challenge is to talk all of the game camera VC’s to my look for the halftime show, which is usually drastically different than the game look because of lighting differences. This all

happens so fast that, again, there is no margin for error. The fact that the train does not come off the tracks more often never ceases to amaze me. It’s also why I do what I do! It’s every adrenaline junkie’s dream.

What’s the most important thing an entertainment VC needs to know? I can’t stress enough the importance of the relationship between the VC and the lighting team. It is the VC’s responsibility to give the lighting director/DP an even canvas on which to paint the look and mood of the show. The only way this works is if the VC can fully grasp the concept of the LD/DP’s vision.

That happens through communication. Take The Super Bowl show. My first conversation with Bob Barnhart is to find out what color temperature he wants to use for his key light.

Next, what is the mood of the performance?

Finally, are there any special effects or gags that I can help him with as far as the camera setup goes?

Anything else? Probably the most difficult thing is to learn to analyze the scene before you make an adjustment. VC’s have to compare

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cameras and discern very subtle differences, and then determine what looks right and how to fix what looks wrong. You are constantly asking yourself, “Does flesh look right in this light? Is black, black? Is white, white?” If not, how should I approach fixing it without compromising something else? All of this in real time! If you make a hasty decision and correct something that is different because of a light flare, smoke, or angle of view, you can get yourself in trouble fast. We all use scopes and monitors, but at the end of the day, you have to trust your own eyes.

Care to clarify any misconceptions about the VC’s job? Many people may not know we are responsible for how everything in the scene looks as far as visual displays. If there is an LED display, projection element, or monitors on a set that will be captured by the camera, the eye that is matching the cameras must also match those elements, because the camera determines what those elements look like to the viewer. So that’s another collaboration that a VC has to manage. When all of these departments are working and communicating, it is truly live art.

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DARON FISLER’S FIRST CONTACT WITH THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY WAS MIXING FRONT-OF-THE-HOUSE AUDIO IN A LARGE CHURCH IN SAN DIEGO. WHEN HE WAS 18 YEARS OLD, A PLAYBACK-OPERATOR JOB OPENED UP, AND HIS CAREER IN TV BEGAN. THAT JOB EVENTUALLY MORPHED INTO HIS BECOMING A MOBILE TRUCK ENGINEER – WORKING EVERYTHING FROM TALKINGHEAD SHOWS IN THE STUDIO TO PARADES, TELETHONS, HOCKEY, AND BOXING. FISLER WORKED WITH COX COMMUNICATIONS FOR 18 YEARS BEFORE GOING FREELANCE IN BROADCAST SPORTS. “EVERY JOB IS DIFFERENT AND ALWAYS A CHALLENGE,” HE OBSERVES. “SOMETIMES IT’S SINGLEFEED GAMES, AND OTHER TIMES ITS DUAL FEED FOR DIFFERENT MARKETS. SOMETIMES HOME. SOMETIMES AWAY.” DESPITE THE FACT HIS EARS ARE OFTEN RINGING WITH WHITE NOISE FROM LONG HOURS IN A TRUCK WITH SOME TWO-DOZEN PEOPLE, HE LOVES BEING A BROADCAST SPORTS VC. What was it like working with tube cameras when you first started? ​The biggest challenge was that the cameras had to be registered (red/ blue/green) constantly. Moving the camera, or if it got a hard bump, would put it out of registration. Point the camera into the sun, and you can burn a hole in the imager. Shine it into bright light, and you get a comet tail to deal with. And there was a lot more set-up time required to make the cameras look good before the show.

Any memories from those days? I was doing a San Jose State basketball game with an old McDonald-Douglas tube camera. The camera guy built the camera above the bleachers – and forgot to lock it. The camera fell off the platform and hit the seats! The truck engineer was, should I say, a little more than mad at him.

Thank heaven no one was in the seats. The Tally light was busted – and, of course, we had to reregister the camera, but it worked fine, and we did the show. Things were built well back then.

How has the use of CCD cameras changed the game? When we got our first CCD cameras in the studio it was amazing, no more registration, no more warm-up, just turn it on and you could shoot. They did have some shortfalls – if you

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pointed the camera into a bright light, there was a vertical smear. But that’s a small price to pay for the advancement over tubes. It did take a while to get used to the image of CCD’s because everyone was used to nice, warm pictures that tubes produced. Today, the camera’s low light sensitivity is amazing. Now that we are moving into 4K UHD, HDR and even 8K, things are changing rapidly.

What does a mobile truck entail? ​A mobile television truck is basically a production facility on wheels. The truck is built in sections – Audio, Production, Tape, Video, and Engineering. The trucks nowadays are expandos, meaning that they are the normal width of a truck when traveling, but on site, they open or expand to the side to double the size of the truck for working space. So, in Audio, the A1 mixes on a console all the audio elements for the show. In Production, you have the director, producer, TD, AD, graphics operator, and, in the case of sports, a bug operator. The “bug operator” is the guy who puts the score and innings or quarters, whatever the sport is, in the show. In tape, these guys work long hours and do amazing editing in a very short time to produce all

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the teases, rollouts, replays and melts of what happened during the game.

What do you do? The Video guys take care of all the feeds that go into and out of the truck, and feeds from other trucks – scoreboard, jumbotron, cameras from the venue and others. These are all tied together into the switcher, and the TD can switch whatever the director asks for. I also color-match all the feeds and cameras, which entails selecting a matrix for the camera, the gamma curve, the ND for proper exposure, gain and detail levels.

What’s a typical day like? Our call time is usually five hours before game time, which can get really difficult if you run into problems.

We deal with a lot of fiber these days, and when it’s clean it works great, but add a little dirt and things go downhill quickly.

And there are no excuses not to get it all working by game time. When I first started, most of the trucks were single-show trucks, but in today’s world, dual-feed trucks are everywhere. These are trucks that work just like what I described but have the capability of doing two shows from one truck, so as you

can imagine, there are twice the people and twice the noise. I’ve seen more than 27 people inside a truck during an event, and even for a 53-foot truck, that’s a lot of people. There are many stand-alone trucks out there, but they are usually for the bigger events or big markets that can afford it. A new HD truck costs around $20 million to build, and rental of this kind of truck is upwards of $15,000 a day – just truck and engineer.

Is each sport that you work on different? ​It doesn’t matter what sport you are working, they all have their challenges. Indoor sports are much easier to deal with than outdoor.

If you are outdoors you have to deal with clouds, the sun, changing light levels, and paint-down from daytime to nighttime. Fastmoving clouds do not make for a fun day.

Cameramen are constantly selling shots to directors, shooting in dark crowds and bright sun. That’s the challenge of shading. Indoor sports don’t have to deal with a paint-down and such harsh light-level changes. Even with all that, there are a lot worse jobs for a lot less money, so I’m not complaining!

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EVAN PESSES STARTED HIS CAREER AS A FILM PROCESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSINMADISON’S MOTION PICTURE FILM LAB. HE LATER FOUND HIS FIRST LOVE – LIGHTING – AS A GAFFER, WORKING ON MORE THAN 40 FILMS AND 100 COMMERCIALS AND MUSIC VIDEOS. WHEN THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION HIT, PESSES LEARNED ABOUT SCOPES, COLOR SCIENCE, AND SENSOR TECHNOLOGY. TODAY HE SHOOTS CONTENT FOR FEATURES, COMMERCIALS, AND MUSIC VIDEOS, AND IS A PARTNER IN A COMPANY DEDICATED TO ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY FILMMAKING – THE ASTRONAUTS GUILD. How did you get started in VR? In 2014 my business partner, Scott Connolly, told me I had to come over because the Oculus DK2 had arrived. And by 3 a.m., I had seen everything that was available to see in VR. The content was not very good, the resolution and quality were crap, but I felt those feelings of awe and wonder I had once remembered as a kid. The creative opportunities were endless. Immediately we began to build camera rigs and test workflows.

What were your first VR projects? Extreme sports (for Kawasaki, Ducati, and Formula 3) was the obvious choice. The goal of any good virtual reality project is to immerse the audience in something they have never experienced. In the early days, the tech was low resolution and it was all about putting people into extreme situations. You would shoot something, and it didn’t quite work, so you’d watch your dailies and learn from them. Then, one week later, a new piece of gear would arrive. An old problem would be solved, and a new one would come up.

Describe the second iteration of VR filmmaking.

Brands reaching audiences through personal stories in a documentary style approach. I shot a series of commercials for Chevy where we traveled to five countries around the world to tell the stories of five people overcoming their biggest fears. We were using cameras like the Nokia Ozo, the Jaunt One, and ZCam S1. These were unibody constructions as opposed to array rigs, and the lighting was more precise. Many times, I would put lights into the shot, make sure no

“ THE GOAL OF ANY GOOD VIRTUAL REALITY PROJECT IS TO IMMERSE THE AUDIENCE IN SOMETHING THEY HAVE NEVER EXPERIENCED.”

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one crossed in front of them, and then paint [the lights] out in post. We utilized motorized dollies and drones and worked with production design to solve problems. In VR, most problems generally come from proximity issues. Extensive scouting and pre-production planning became paramount. Rather than trying to fix problems in post, we invited post into the conversation so that everyone was on the same page.

build the previs. Here we were able to not only design the set to proper scale, but also, we were able to determine all the decisions with grip, lighting, and the art departments ahead of time.

Once we had an approved previs, we exported the positional data and inputted it into the motion-control system. We were able to design the shot two weeks before we ever showed up to set. Then, on the day, we made adjustments.

What is Elton John: Farewell Yellow Brick Road? This is a VR film to announce Elton John’s final farewell tour. It is a mash-up summing up Elton’s greatest career highlights. The film played live to audiences wearing headsets in Los Angeles, London, and New York as well as streamed around the world. After the film ended, the audience in New York took off their headsets to see Elton himself play a few tunes, then, along with an interview from Anderson Cooper, announce his retirement to the world.

So in this example, using motion control was key? Definitely. It allowed Damian to freely adjust the choreography of the talent while keeping a consistent camera path. It was also invaluable for lighting. My gaffer, Dustin Penrod, was able to build custom lighting cues that were all triggered by the motion control system. As the crane arm would pass in front of the lights rigged to the grid, Dustin could dim one down and another one up so as to not project shadows from the crane on the set. We used a mixture of ARRI SkyPanels and L7 LEDs for the theatrical lighting as well as traditional tungsten units all running into a lighting board.

Lastly, due to the complexity of the VFX, we needed to have up to a single degree of accuracy of the camera movement for stitching and facial replacement, as well as allow for clean plates.

My tech team, led by Scott Connolly, developed a custom-designed, 360-degree, live-viewing pipeline in order to send 4K live-stitched feeds to an Oculus Rift, multiple monitors, iPads and wirelessly streaming to Samsung Gear headsets.

In addition to 360VRT, we did on-set stitching in MistikaVR in order to get full-resolution rough stitches for selected takes.

What was the biggest challenge? To create a photorealistic recreation of two of Elton’s iconic concerts within a dream-like CGI enhanced world – Elton’s first show in the U.S. at The Troubadour, in 1971, and his famous concert at Dodger Stadium in 1975. In order to achieve these recreations at this scale, we shot on a 360-degree green screen stage. Director Damian Fulton had a vision of the camera continuously floating through these spaces. In order to shoot Elton John 30 years younger, we shot with a body double, then did facial replacements by means of motion capture and VFX animation.

To make matters more complicated, the film was to be shot in stereo, which makes shooting in close proximity challenging.

What tools did you use? I needed a camera with a really high-quality sensor and a high bit rate for compositing, small enough to allow for close-proximity stitching, and it had to shoot stereo. I remember seeing a prototype from ZCam at NAB 2016. I tracked down Kinson Loo, the CEO of ZCam, and with his help and that of Radiant Images we got the camera. It was the only production model in existence at that time.

How did you get the seamless camera movement? Pacific Motion Control brought their Overhead Graphlite motion-control crane – operated by Paul Maples. This is an amazing tool that is rigged from a grid overhead on a massive truss system. The most important advantage of this approach is that we build a 3D model of the camera and the crane in Maya to

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“THE ELTON JOHN FILM REPRESENTS THE CULMINATION OF HOW SOPHISTICATED VR HAS BECOME IN SUCH A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME. THE PROJECT BLURS THE LINES BETWEEN REALITY AND CGI.”

Why is this project so important to the VR world? The Elton John film represents the culmination of how sophisticated VR has become in such a short period of time. The project blurs the lines between reality and CGI. It is a perfect example of how important it is for the production and post-production teams to integrate seamlessly.

What is the future of VR? It’s split into two worlds. On the one hand, we are going to see more narrative VR films, which will dive deeper into Volumetric and 6DOF. On the other hand, there will be a lot of superresolution, location-based, immersive 360 content – domes, 360 projection mapping, et cetera. A trend this year at NAB was how many camera companies are utilizing depth maps to give the filmmakers more data to shoot higher quality imagery. It’s a very interesting time for immersive content.

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ANDREW SHULKIND

ANDREW SHULKIND JOINED THE UNION IN 2000 AS A KODAK/PANAVISION PREVIEW TECHNICIAN, WORKING WITH A PROCESS MEANT TO HELP CINEMATOGRAPHERS EXPERIMENT WITH FINISHED LOOKS, NON-DESTRUCTIVELY, DURING THE PHOTOCHEMICAL PROCESS. SHULKIND AND OTHER DP’S COULD COMPARE THE NUANCE OF DIFFERENT EMULSIONS, FILTERS, AND PROCESSING TO EXPRESS THEIR CREATIVE INTENTION TO THE LAB TIMER VISUALLY. AT THE SAME TIME, HE WORKED WITH SUPERDAILIES, WHICH HAD DP’S IN THE TELECINE SESSIONS OVERSEEING OTHER DPS’ COMMERCIAL DAILIES TRANSFERS. IT WAS HERE HE BECAME PASSIONATE ABOUT PRESERVING ARTISTIC INTENT THROUGHOUT THE PIPELINE. HE MOVED UP TO CAMERA OPERATOR (ON STUDIO MOVIES LIKE TERMINATOR 3, SERENITY, AND ZATHURA) AND SHOT COMMERCIALS AND MUSIC VIDEOS ON WEEKENDS. BY 2005, HE WAS SHOOTING COMMERCIALS AND MOVIES FULL -TIME, OFTEN WORKING CLOSELY WITH EACH PROJECT’S VISUAL EFFECTS DEPARTMENT.

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How did you get interested in VR? In early 2015, we were shooting a Nike spot that needed to capture 360-degree plates, and the only existing option was a ball of GoPros. It was this weird moment where these seemingly scattered prior experiences with miniature cameras, shooting product demos, working with multiple cameras, motion control, high-speed photography, stabilization, genlocking stereo cameras, color pipelines, and relationships with equipment manufacturers presented an obvious purpose. I started researching sensors, storage devices and maker studios for fabrication.

I approached Michael Mansouri, who had not only built stuff for me in the past but also had a genius engineer with a CNC, Sinclair Fleming. Together with Codex and other partners, we designed, financed, and built a 32K 18-camera array for high-res 360-degree capture that could record 12-bit uncompressed. Though we’re on to different capture devices, that camera remains the highest resolution capture device for spherical capture ever built.

W hat have the recent advances in computational photography done for VR? Shooting spherically with an array is one of the easiest ways to shoot out of the box now. Several manufacturers (Google, Jaunt, Insta360) have cloud-based stitching algorithms that will stitch “automatically.” But these have minimum distances, and you have to be careful with risky elements crossing stitch lines that can break the illusion.

What are the challenges in immersive capture? The quality of the glass, for one. Given that every spherical array has many lenses, in an effort to stay small and affordable, the glass is not high quality, and many try to get away with fewer lenses of a wider field of view. But, of course, wide-angle glass is expensive to make. And most of these small lenses are borrowed from the security industry, where you have mass-produced sensors with a too-liberal tolerance for color and focus, much looser than our requirements for a high-quality cinema. We need better quality wide-angle glass specially built for use in highvolume arrays.

Is stabilizing the image a challenge? Yes. We’ve solved it in a variety of ways, sometimes practically – like with Cablecam (used on Step Up) or Cinemoves’ Oculus head (for BMW, Chevrolet and Verizon). We’ve used other custom gimbals and often do additional cleanup with software like Mistika.

Another challenge specific to volumetric capture, which is most of what we are doing now, is having sensors with enough latitude to record the range of capture and chipsets with a high enough sensitivity to make it possible to get the deep stop we need. [Laughs.] Every job makes me think of Gregg Toland lighting Citizen Kane.

Have the rigs changed? One of the biggest challenges used to be the diameter of the camera array (the parallax disparity between lenses at the farthest extremes), which dictates your minimum distance. It is now one of our greatest gifts in creating six-degrees-of-freedom [6DOF] experiences. In a 6DOF presentation, viewers can move minimally in six directions within a couple of feet to look around objects. The

larger parallax of the rig now enables us to give the viewer the agency to move around and interact more organically.

What one aspect is holding VR back? Right now it’s the display. This will be solved in the future, but right now we have enough trouble maintaining a consistent look from theatrical projection to backlit displays. The mobile devices that are the cornerstone of immersive display do not adhere to any kind of standard; their gammas are all over the place, so mastering is difficult. To make matters worse, head-mounted displays put these low-pixel-density displays right up to your eye with a low-cost plastic diopter that either makes everything soft or magnifies the shortcomings of the display that was never meant to be viewed at that distance. But it’s a short-term issue as displays are improving by the minute.

What’s pushing VR forward? The most groundbreaking work at the moment is volumetric projects that allow the user to move through space. The few that we’ve shot so far are still top secret and yet to be released. With the incredible advances in game-engine rendering and ability to move through a captured space, we are rewriting the rules of how audiences engage with entertainment content. I think as we move into this more interactive version of experiences, we are seeing some lag on the capture side of things. It’s so much easier and cheaper to make interactive experiences in CG, but I think it is vitally important for live action to remain the principal way that we photograph stories. We connect more subtly to real human faces and the micro expressions that communicate all of these tiny emotions.

And that is hard to pull off ? It really is. We’ve played with several of the early planar arrays for light-field capture and, while actually rendered ray tracing is amazing to watch, the capture side is some distance off because it is so process intensive. So for the moment, the most interesting new tools are from Adobe and Nvidia. These players and a few others are modeling out how to use machine learning algorithms in production – for efficiencies in scheduling, for logging, for selective focus, for image recognition, and even for depth keying (doing away with green screen). We are on the cusp of a data revolution that, with some inevitable regulation, will change what gets made, how it gets made and how much it will cost. Above all, algorithms will play a larger role in our work, and I think the most important thing to remember is our voices. Everything works best when humans have a hand in the results.

What is the essence of VR in your eyes? It’s much broader than headsets! It’s about storytelling inside of virtual environments that people can engage with interactively. These environments don’t have to live in a vacuum. I think our three- to five-year future of entertainment has storytelling approaches overlapping with sports, concerts, live streaming, and blending traditional streaming and theatrical content with frameless, immersive content and gaming. I predict that gaming and real-time rendering will see us finding efficiencies in reusing CG assets not only in movies, television and advertising but also in storydriven content that is not just for ancillary marketing but related to the core IP.

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PRODUCTION CREDITS COMPILED BY TERESA MUÑOZ – AS OF MAY 1, 2018 ICG Magazine strives to maintain an up-to-date and accurate record of all crew members for the Production Credits section.

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ABC STUDIOS “AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE” SEASON 2 Director of Photography: Andrew Rawson Operators: Rich Davis, Tim Walker, Lisa Stacilauskas Assistants: Max Neal, Robert Gilpin, Joe Torres, Elizabeth Algieri, Mark Colicci, Jaswinder Bedi Digital Loader: Leslie Puckett Digital Utility: Steve Rommevaux “CRIMINAL MINDS” SEASON 13 Director of Photography: Greg St. Johns Operators: Darcy Spires, Mike Walsh Assistants: Keith Peters, Tim Roe, Todd Durboraw, Robert Forrest Steadicam Operator: Mike Walsh Steadicam Assistant: Keith Peters Utility: Jacob Kuljis “DAREDEVIL” SEASON 3 Directors of Photography: Christopher La Vasseur, Manuel Billeter Operators: Jeff Dutemple, Nicola Benizzi Assistants: Gregory Finkel, Marc Hillygus, Emma Rees-Scanlon, Jason Rihaly Loaders: Patrick McKeown, Jye-en Jeng Still Photographers: Wally McGrady, Nicole Rivelli “GREY’S ANATOMY” SEASON 14 Director of Photography: Herb Davis Operators: Fred Iannone, Steve Ullman

Assistants: Nick McLean, Forrest Thurman, Chris Johnson, Lisa Bonaccorso “JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!” SEASON 16 Lighting Director: Christian Hibbard Operators: Greg Grouwinkel, Parker Bartlett, Garrett Hurt, Mark Gonzales Steadicam Operator: Kris Wilson Jib Operators: Marc Hunter, Randy Gomez, Jr., Nick Gomez Camera Utilities: Charles Fernandez, Scott Spiegel, Travis Wilson, David Fernandez, Adam Barker Video Controller: Guy Jones Still Photographers: Karen Neal, Michael Desmond 2ND UNIT Directors of Photography: Steve Garrett, Bernd Reinhardt “THE PUNISHER (AKA CRIME)” SEASON 2 Director of Photography: Petr Hlinomaz Operators: Dana Altomare, Todd Armitage Assistants: Robert Becchio, John Oliveri, Alisa Colley, Niknaz Tavakolian Loaders: AJ Strauman, Toni Sheppard AFN PRODUCTIONS-TELEPICTURES “THE REAL” SEASON 4 Lighting Director/Director of Photography: Earl Woody Operators: Kevin Michel, David Kanehann, Steve Russell, Bob Berkowitz Steadicam Operator: Will Demeritt Camera Utilities: James Magdalin, Henry Vereen, John Markese Jib Arm Operator: Jim Cirrito Video Controller: Jeff Messenger

“STATION 19” SEASON 1 Directors of Photography: Paul Maibaum, ASC, David Miller, ASC Operators: Steve Clancy, Heather Brown Assistants: Jon Sharpe, Kyle Sauer, Dave Egerstrom, Mike Cahoon Steadicam Operator: Steve Clancy Steadicam Assistant: Jon Sharpe Loader: Sarah Lankford Digital Loader: Jonnie Mentzer AMAZON/PICROW STREAMING INC. “TOO OLD TO DIE YOUNG” SEASON 1 Director of Photography: Darius Khondji, ASC Operators: Andy Shuttleworth, R. Michael Merriman Assistants: Faith Brewer, Wade Whitley, Gayle Hilary, Kelly Mitchell Digital Imaging Tech: Dan Skinner Loader: Jake LaGuardia Camera Utility: Ben Brady Still Photographer: Scott Garfield 2ND UNIT Director of Photography: Michael Svitak Assistants: Mark Santoni, Grace Thomas Digital Imaging Tech: Pasquale Paolo A VERY GOOD PRODUCTION, INC. & WAD PRODUCTIONS “THE ELLEN DEGENERES SHOW” SEASON 15 Lighting Director: Tom Beck Ped Operators: David Weeks, Paul Wileman, Tim O’Neill Hand Held Operator: Chip Fraser Jib Operator: David Rhea Steadicam Operator: Donovan Gilbuena Video Controller: James Moran Head Utility: Craig “Zzo” Marazzo Utilities: Arlo Gilbuena, Wally Lancaster, Diego Avalos

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A24/PLAN B ENTERTAINMENT “LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO” Director of Photography: Adam NewportBerra Operator: Boris Price Assistants: Jeph Folkins, Conrad Castor Steadicam Assistant: Shannon Bringham Digital Imaging Tech: Tim Erickson Still Photographer: David Moir

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BEACHWOOD SERVICES “DAYS OF OUR LIVES” SEASON 53 Directors of Photography: Mark Levin, Ted Polmanski Operators: John Sizemore, Mark Warshaw, Vickie Walker, Michael J. Denton, Steve Clark Utilities: Steve Bagdadi, Gary Cypher Video Controller: Alexis Dellar Hanson

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BIG BEACH TV “SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS” SEASON 1 Director of Photography: Xavier Grobet, ASC Operators: Bud Kremp, Eduardo Fierro Assistants: Dennis Seawright, Dale White, Mike Alvarez, Rich Kent Digital Imaging Tech: James Notari Loader: Dustin Keller

Digital Utility: Nico Rich Still Photographer: Beth Dubber “STRANGERS” SEASON 2 Director of Photography: Hillary Spera Operators: Sam Ellison, Yousheng Tang Assistants: Zach Rubin, Gregory Pace Digital Imaging Tech: Guillermo Tunon Still Photographer: K.C. Bailey

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BLUE CAT PRODUCTIONS, LLC “OZARK” SEASON 2 Directors of Photography: Ben Kutchins, Armando Salas Operators: Ben Semanoff, Danny Eckler Assistants: Liam Sinnott, John Hoffler, Brandon Dauzat, Mike Fisher Digital Imaging Tech: Dan Skinner Loader: Taylor Seaman Still Photographer: Jessica Miglio BRAINSTORM CONSEQUENCES, INC. “SOMEONE GREAT” Director of Photography: Autumn Eakin Operator: Korey Robinson Assistants: Ben Spaner, Chevy Anderson, Brent Weichsel, Matt Degreff Digital Imaging Tech: Malika Franklin Still Photographer: Sarah Shatz CBS “ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT” SEASON 37 Lighting Designer: Darren Langer Director of Photography: Kurt Braun Operators: Jaimie Cantrell, James B. Patrick, Allen Voss, Ed Sartori, Henry Zinman, Bob Campi, Rodney McMahon, Anthony Salerno Camera Utility: Terry Ahern Video Controllers: Mike Doyle, Peter Stendal SET LIGHTING

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“NCIS” SEASON 15 Director of Photography: William Webb, ASC

“NCIS: LOS ANGELES” SEASON 10 Director of Photography: Victor Hammer Operators: Terence Nightingall, Tim Beavers Assistants: Keith Banks, Richie Hughes, Peter Caronia, Jacqueline Nivens Steadicam Operators: Terence Nightingall, Tim Beavers Steadicam Assistants: Keith Banks, Richie Hughes Digital Imaging Tech: John Mills Digital Utility: Trevor Beeler Still Photographer: Ron Jaffe Publicist: Kathleen Tanji “NCIS: NEW ORLEANS” SEASON 5 Director of Photography: Gordon Lonsdale, ASC Operators: Jerry Jacob, Tony Politis, Vincent Bearden Assistants: Peter Roome, Brouke Franklin, Jeff Taylor, Toni Weick, Dave Edwards, Sienna Pinderhughes Steadicam Operator: Vincent Bearden Digital Loader: Christian Wells Digital Utility: Kolby Heid Still Photographer: Sam Lothridge

“SCORPION” SEASON 4 Directors of Photography: Ken Glassing, Fernando Arguelles Operators: Paul Theriault, Chris Taylor Assistants: Scott Ronnow, John Paul Rodriguez, Chris Mack, Tim Sheridan Digital Imaging Tech: Greg Gabrio Utility: Tyler Ernst Technocrane Operator: Chris Mayhugh Technocrane Tech: Colin Michael West Remote Head Tech/Operator: Jay Sheveck Still Photographer: Ron Jaffe Publicist: Kathleen Tanji “THE INSPECTORS” SEASON 3 Director of Photography: Sherri Kauk Operators: Robert Arnold, Jake Butler Assistants: Nick Gowin, Nicholas Brown, Dan Jones, Cassandra Tuten “THE TALK” SEASON 8 Lighting Director: Marisa Davis Ped Operators: Art Taylor, Mark Gonzales, Ed Staebler Hand-Held Operators: Ron Barnes, Kevin Michel, Jeff Johnson Jib Operator: Randy Gomez Head Utility: Charlie Fernandez Utilities: Mike Bushner, Doug Bain, Dean Frizzel, Bill Greiner, Jon Zuccaro Video Controller: Richard Strock Still Photographer: Ron Jaffe

“WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD” PILOT Director of Photography: Gary Baum, ASC Operators: Glenn Shimada, Travers Hill, Lance Billitzer, Eddie Fine Assistants: Adrian Licciardi, Jeff Goldenberg, Alec Elizondo, Clint Palmer, Jason Herring Utilities: Danny Lorenze, Sean Askins Digital Imaging Tech: Derek Lantz Video Controller: Stuart Wesolik CLEMENCY, LLC “CLEMENCY” Director of Photography: Eric Branco Operator: Matthew Ryan Assistants: Melisse Sporn, Julia Pasternak, Christine Oeurn, Thomas Miner Digital Imaging Tech: Peter Brunet Still Photographer: Paul Sarkis COLUMBIA “TOSH.0” SEASON 10 STAGE CREW Operator: Jason Cochard Camera Utilities: Benjamin Steeples, Kyle Kimbriel, Roger Cohen FIELD CREW Director of Photography: Andrew Huebscher Operator: Jason Cochard Assistants: Benjamin Steeples, Kyle Kimbriel, Roger Cohen, Delfina Garfias

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CONACO “CONAN” SEASON 8 Operators: Ted Ashton, Nick Kober, Kosta Krstic, James Palczewski, Bart Ping, Seth Saint Vincent Head Utility: Chris Savage Utilities: Baron Johnson, Josh Gwilt CRANETOWN MEDIA, LLC “FRIENDS FROM COLLEGE” SEASON 2 Director of Photography: John Guleserian Operators: Michael Fuchs, Caitlin Machak Assistants: Beka Venezia, Jaime Medrano, Niknaz Tavakolian Digital Imaging Tech: Matthew Selkirk Loader: Carolyn Wills Still Photographer: Barbara Nitke “YOUNGER” SEASON 5 Director of Photography: John Thomas Operators: Hollis Meminger, Scott Sans Assistants: John P. Fitzpatrick, James Daly, Tricia Mears, Emily DeBlasis Steadicam Operator: Scott Sans Digital Imaging Tech: James Strosahl Loader: Alyssa Longchamp Still Photographer: JoJo Whilden CREATIVE ALLIANCE “UNTITLED LONE SCHERFIG NEW YORK PROJECT” Operators: Gabor Kover, Afton Grant Assistants: Rory Hanrahan,

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Sean Souza, Chuck Moya, Peter Symonowicz Steadicam Operator: Afton Grant Digital Imaging Tech: Miguel Gonzalez CREED PRODUCTIONS, LLC “CREED II” Director of Photography: Kramer Morgenthau, ASC Operators: Kyle Rudolph, Mike Heathcote Assistants: Aurelia Winborn, Michael Leonard, Eve Strickman, James McCann Digital Imaging Tech: Ryan Kunkleman Loader: Sean Galczyk Still Photographer: Barry Wetcher Publicist: Jeanmarie Murphy ESTRANGE FILMS, INC. “FOLLOW BACK” Director of Photography: Alexandre Naufel Operators: Lisa Sene, Felix Giuffrida Assistants: Richelle Topping, Michael Rodriguez Torrent EYE PRODUCTIONS, INC. “$1” SEASON 1 Director of Photography: Darran Tiernan Operators: Chris Cuevas, Rich Schutte Assistants: Norris Fox, Colin Sheehy, Jonathan Clark, Jason Cianella Digital Imaging Tech: Jamie Metzger Loader: Brian Bresnehan Digital Utility: Samar Kauss Still Photographer: Patrick Harbron

“ANIMAL KINDGOM” SEASON 3 Director of Photography: Loren Yaconelli Operators: Scott Dropkin, Brooks Robinson Assistants: Ray Milazzo, Patrick Bensimmon, Blake Collins, Kirten Laube Steadicam Operator: Scott Dropkin Steadicam Assistant: Ray Milazzo Digital Imaging Tech: Jefferson Fugitt Digital Utility: Gabe Hirata Still Photographer: Eddy Chen FOR CALI PRODUCTIONS, LLC “WINE COUNTRY” Director of Photography: Tom Magill Operators: Ari Robbins, SOC, Rich Davis, Josh Harrison Assistants: Ian Barbella, Giselle Gonzalez, Adam Cowan, Dustin Fruge, Matt Guiza, Melissa Fisher Digital Imaging Tech: Raul Riveros Camera Utility: Adam Tsang Still Photographer: Colleen Hayes FREEFORM “GIRLS CODE” PILOT Director of Photography: Michelle Lawler Operators: Jeff Bollman, Abby Linne Assistants: Jacqueline Stahl, Scott Johnson, Nick Cutway, Jule Fontana, Nick Nikides, Otis Sherman Digital Imaging Tech: Peter Brunet Digital Utility: Nicola Caruso Still Photographer: Eric McCandless

HBO “CAMPING” SEASON 1 Director of Photography: Quyen Tran Operators: Craig Fikse, Michael Lockridge Assistants: Alex Cason, David Leb, Betty Chow, Vanessa Ward Steadicam Operator: Craig Fikse Loader: Jared Wilson Digital Imaging Tech: Michael Romano Still Photographer: Anne Marie Fox

MESQUITE PRODUCTIONS, INC. “ATYPICAL” SEASON 2 Director of Photography: Joe Kessler Operators: Toby Tucker, Aaron Smith, Greg Daniels Assistants: Matt Brewer, Darin Krask, Chris Mack, Tim Sheridan, Mark Sasabuchi Steadicam Operator: Aaron Smith Digital Imaging Tech: Mauricio Gutierrez Camera Utility: Ryan Simpson Still Photographer: Beth Dubber

HODGES PRODUCTIONS, INC. “MR. MERCEDES” SEASON 2 Director of Photography: Eliot Rockett Operators: Nicholas Davidoff, Robert Newcomb Assistants: Neil Chartier, Alan Aldridge, Traci Chartier, Justin Urban Loader: Nicholas Brown Still Photographer: Kent Smith

“THE TICK” SEASON 2 Director of Photography: William Rexer Operators: Jeff Muhlstock, Matthew Pebler Assistants: Michael Burke, Michael Guthrie, Stephen McBride, Rachael Doughty Loaders: Brittany Jelinski, Cory Maffucci Still Photographers: Giovanni Rufino, Myles Aronowitz

HORIZON SCRIPTED TELEVISION, INC. “LOVE IS_” SEASON 1 Director of Photography: Steven Calitri Operators: Ian Forsyth, SOC, Gregg Easterbrook Assistants: Josh Hancher, Saul McSween, Warren Brace, Kyler Dennis Steadicam Operator: Ian Forsyth, SOC Loader: Jennifer Braddock Digital Utility: Rachel Keenan

NBC “CHICAGO FIRE” SEASON 6 Director of Photography: Jayson Crothers Operators: Rob Stenger, William R. Nielsen Assistants: Melvina Rapozo, Zach Gannaway, Brian Romano, Gary Malouf Digital Loader: J’mme Love Digital Utility: Nathan D. Sullivan Still Photographer: Elizabeth Morris

KNIGHT TAKES KING PRODUCTIONS, LLC “HOUSE OF CARDS” SEASON 6 Directors of Photography: David Dunlap, Timothy Norman Operators: Gary Jay, Erin Henning Assistants: Ian Axilrod, Nicholas Hahn, Vanessa Morrison, Michael Panczenko Loader: Anna Jay Still Photographer: David Giesbrecht LATE NIGHT TV, INC. “LATE NIGHT” Director of Photography: Matthew Clark Operator: Julian Delacruz Assistants: Pedro Corcega, Adriana Brunetto-Lipman, Matthew Montalto, Maria Gonzales Loader: Jeff Makarauskas Still Photographer: Emily Aragones MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT “IRON FIST (AKA KICK)” SEASON 2 Director of Photography: Niels Alpert Operators: Jon Beattie, Frank Larson Assistants: Andrew Juhl, Christopher Wiezorek, Yale Gropman, Daniel Pfeifer Loaders: Adam DeRezendes, Andy Hensler

2ND UNIT Director of Photography: William R. Nielsen “CHICAGO PD” SEASON 5 Director of Photography: Rohn Schmidt Operators: James Zucal, Will Eichler, Seth Thomas Assistants: John Young, Don Carlson, David “YT” Wightman, Jamison Acker, Phillip Walter, Kyle Belousek Steadicam Operator: William Eichler Digital Loader: Nicholas Wilson Digital Utilities: Michael Gleeson, Marion Tucker 2ND UNIT Director of Photography: James Zucal “UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT” SEASON 4 Director of Photography: John Inwood Operators: Douglas Pellegrino, David Taicher Assistants: Douglas Foote, Cai Hall, Caroline Ibarra, Andrew Hamilton Digital Imaging Tech: J. Eric Camp Loaders: Daniel Cardenas, Stan Grunder Still Photographer: Eric Liebowitz NADIA PRODUCTIONS “RUSSIAN DOLL” SEASON 1 Director of Photography: Chris Teague Operator: Kyle Wullschleger Assistants: Rebecca Rajadnya, Timothy Trotman Digital Imaging Tech: Jaime Chapin Still Photographer: JoJo Whilden

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“THE PERFECTIONISTS” PILOT Director of Photography: Larry Reibman Operators: Matt Moriarty, Matthew Roe Assistants: Kyril Cvetkov, Jerry Turner, Mike Crockett, Patrick LaValley Digital Imaging Tech: Sean Rawls Digital Utility: Justin Hundley Still Photographer: Allyson Riggs

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PACIFIC 2/1 ENTERTAINMENT GROUP “POSE” SEASON 1 Director of Photography: Simon Dennis Operators: Mark Schmidt, Brian Jackson Assistants: Stanley Fernandez, Wesley Hodges,Christopher Eng, Corey Licameli Loader: Ronald Wrase

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Still Photographers: JoJo Whilden, Sarah Shatz, Jeffrey Neira, Elizabeth Fisher PARAMOUNT TELEVISION “SHOOTER” SEASON 3 Director of Photography: Yaron Levy

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Operators: Andy Steinman, Connor O’Brien Assistants: Bill Marti, Tim McCarthy, Haydn Pazanti, Roger Spain Loader: Joe Pacella Camera Utility: Joshua Smith Still Photographer: Lisa Rose

L to R: Terry Wolcott, Greg Dellerson (B 1st AC ), Michelle Pizanis, Lawrence (Doc) Karman, Justin Lin (Director) Steve Windon (DP), Chris Moseley (C Op/2nd Unit DP) Jerry Patton, Derek Smith (A 1st AC), David Crans. Back Row: Caleb Lucero, Chris Cavanaugh (DIT) and Billy O’Drobinak (A OP), Missing Chris Toll (C 1st AC)

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PENNY LANE PRODUCTIONS, LLC “THE DEUCE” SEASON 2 Director of Photography: Yaron Orbach Operators: Phil Martinez, Luke Owen Assistants: Waris Supanpong, Becki Heller, Randy Schwartz, Nathalie Rodriguez Loaders: Joshua Waterman, Brian Lynch Still Photographer: Paul Schiraldi PICROW STREAMING, INC. “THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL” SEASON 2 Directors of Photography: Eric Moynier, M.D. Mullen Operators: Jim McConkey, Greg Principato Assistants: Anthony Cappello, Rossana Rizzo, Kellon Innocent, Andrea Bias Digital Imaging Tech: Charlie Anderson Loader: James Dan Drummond

Digital Utility: Andres Vila Still Photographer: Laura Magruder PREACH PRODUCTIONS “GREENLEAF” SEASON 3 Director of Photography: James Chressanthis, ASC Operators: Marcis Cole, Andy Fisher Assistants: Larry Gianneschi, Steve Latham, Robert Veliky, Nick Gianneschi Steadicam Operator: Marcis Cole Steadicam Assistant: Larry Gianneschi Digital Utility: George Zelasko Loader: Kelsey Symons SHORTY II PRODUCTIONS, LLC “GET SHORTY” SEASON 2 Directors of Photography: Attila Szalay, ASC, Joe Gallagher Operators: David Frederick, SOC, Chris Tufty, SOC Assistants: Nick Shuster, Brent Egan, John Waldo, Sal Alvarez Steadicam Operator: David Frederick, SOC Steadicam Assistant: Nick Shuster Digital Imaging Tech: Paul Maletich Digital Utility: Grace Thomas Loaders: Dylan Neal, Andy Macat Still Photographer: Isabella Vosmikova Publicist: Linda Brown

PLAYTONE “GREYHOUND” Director of Photography: Shelly Johnson, ASC Operators: Don Devine, SOC, George Billinger, SOC Assistants: Michael Charbonnet, Ry Kawanaka, Taylor Fenno, Jonathan Robinson, Hai Le, Caitlin Trost Steadicam Operator: George Billinger Steadicam Assistant: Ry Kawanaka Loader: Melanie Gates Camera Utility: Eric Van der Vynckt Technocrane Tech: Joseph Rodmell, Devon Stinson Remote Head Tech/Operator: Jason Sutton Still Photographer: Niko Tavernise

SKYLINE PRODUCTIONS “ADAM SANDLER NETFLIX COMEDY SPECIAL” Director of Photography: Andrew Wehde Operators: Jonathan Beck, Matt Fleischmann, Dan Sharnoff, Jennie Jeddry, Brian Romano, Tom Lappin, Gregor Tavenner, Meg Kettel Assistants: Patrick Sokley, Yusuke Sato, Adam Miller, Graham Burt, Keith Hueffmeier, Hunter Whalen, Seth Gallagher, Eric Robinson, Toshiro Yamaguchi, Sarah May Guenther, Connie Klapper, Austin English, Vince Tuths Steadicam Operator: Bill Saxelby Steadicam Assistant: Nigel Nally Digital Imaging Tech: Anthony Hechanova Loader: Dave Gallagher

POSSIBLE PRODUCTIONS “RAY DONOVAN” SEASON 6 Directors of Photography: Robert McLachlan, ASC, David Franco Operators: Eric Schilling, Patrick Quinn Assistants: Michael Endler, Yvonne Vairma, Justin Whitacre, Martin Peterson Digital Imaging Tech: Tim Nagasawa Loaders: Kyle Gorjanc, Brian Grant Still Photographers: Jeff Neumann, Mark Schafer, Christopher Saunders

SONY “JEOPARDY!” SEASON 34 Director of Photography: Jeff Engel Operators: Diane L. Farrell, SOC, Mike Tribble, Jeff Schuster, L. David Irete Jib Arm Operator: Marc Hunter Head Utility: Tino Marquez Camera Utility: Ray Thompson Video Controller: Gary Taillon Still Photographer: Carol Kaelson

PRIMAL FILM, LLC “PRIMAL” Director of Photography: Vernon Nobles Operators: Jesse Evans, Raphy Molinary-Machado Assistants: Abner Medina, Cesar Marrero, William Montanez, Alfredo Melendez Digital Imaging Tech: Alex Ramirez

“THE GOLDBERGS” SEASON 5 Director of Photography: Jason Blount Operators: Scott Browner, Kris Denton Assistants: Tracy Davey, Nate Havens, Gary Webster, Jen Bell-Price Digital Imaging Tech: Kevin Mills Digital Utility: Dilshan Herath Still Photographers: Nicole Wilder, Adam Taylor

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“THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE” SEASON 1 Director of Photography: Michael Fimognari Operators: James Reid, Brian Osmond Assistants: Troy Wagner, Greg Williams, Griffin Maccan, Chris Morales Steadicam Operator: James Reid Digital Imaging Tech: Giovanni Carranza Loader: Ben Eades Digital Utility: Rodrigo Melgarejo

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“WHEEL OF FORTUNE” SEASON 35 Director of Photography: Jeff Engel Operators: Diane L. Farrell, SOC, Jeff Schuster, Ray Gonzales, Steve Simmons, L. David Irete, Mike Corwin Camera Utility: Ray Thompson Head Utility: Tino Marquez Video Controller: Gary Taillon Jib Arm Operator: Randy Gomez, Sr. Still Photographer: Carol Kaelson STUDIO T “ONE DAY SHE’LL DARKEN” Director of Photography: Trevor Forrest Operators: Simon Jayes, Jamie Sterba Assistants: Tommy Klines, Michael Yaeger, Eric Guerin, Jared Wilson Loader: Rio Zumwalt Still Photographer: Clay Enos TOPANGA PRODUCTIONS, INC. “CHIEFS” PILOT Director of Photography: Sidney Sidell Operators: Glenn Brown, Joseph Arena, Tom Lappin, Joe Cicio, Deke Keener Assistants: Mary Stankiewicz, Kevin Potter Eric Leftridge, Lou DeMarco, Jason Lancour, Laura Ostapiej, Nichole Castro, Kevin Wilson Steadicam Operators: Glenn Brown, Joseph Arena

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Steadicam Assistants: Mary Stankiewicz, Kevin Potter Loader: Claire Busic Digital Utility: Najee Rawlins Still Photographer: Tina Rowden “SWAT” SEASON 1 Director of Photography: Francis Kenny, ASC Operators: Tim Dolan, Brian Pitts Assistants: Ryan Parks, Logan Turner, Thane Characky, Riley Padelford, Jon Jung, Mike Fauntleroy Camera Utility: Carl Lammi Loader: Jonathan Taylor Still Photographer: Ron Jaffe 2ND UNIT Dir. of Photography: Richard Crudo, ASC TVM PRODUCTIONS, INC. “QUEEN OF THE SOUTH” SEASON 3 Director of Photography: Abe Martinez Operators: Garrett Benson, Todd Barron, Janine Sides Assistants: Kris Hardy, Brandon Margulies, Paul Armstrong, John Metcalfe, William Dicenso,Noe Medrano, Scott Reese Steadicam Operator: Garrett Benson Steadicam Assistant: Kris Hardy Loader: Matt Aines Utility: Kyle Novak

UNIVERSAL “GOOD GIRLS” SEASON 1 Directors of Photography: Jerzy Zielinski, ASC, PSC, Robert Reed Altman Operators: George Bianchini, SOC, Keith Peterman Assistants: Bret Lanius, Louis Smith, Agnes Rodriguez-Sebek, Marc Casey Steadicam Operator: George Bianchini, SOC Steadicam Assistant: Bret Lanius Digital Imaging Tech: Paul Schilens Loader: George Zelasko Digital Utility: Tyler Latham WARNER BROS. “BLINDSPOT” SEASON 3 Directors of Photography: Andrew Priestley, Jon Delgado Operators: Pyare Fortunato, Peter Ramos, John Romer Assistants: Andrew Smith, Aleksandr Allen, Liz Singer, Christian Bright, Kyle Clark, Deborah Fastuca Steadicam Operator: Pyare Fortunato Digital Imaging Techs: Chloe Walker, Jeff Cirbes Loaders: Kjerstin Rossi, Brian Grant Still Photographers: Phil Caruso, Elizabeth Fisher, Zach Dilgard, David Giesbrecht, Linda Kallerus, Eric Liebowitz, Jeff Neuman, Barbara Nitke, Christopher Saunders, Peter Zimmern

“LETHAL WEAPON” SEASON 2 Directors of Photography: David “Mox” Moxness, ASC, Andy Strahorn Operators: Victor Macias, Robert Givens Assistants: James Rydings, Kaoru “Q” Ishizuka, Troy Blischok, Kelsey Castellitto Digital Imaging Tech: Mike DeGrazzio Digital Utility: Spencer Shwetz Technocrane Operators: Colin Michael West, Chad Eshbaugh Remote Head Tech/Operator: Jay Sheveck Still Photographer: Ron Jaffe

CMS PRODUCTIONS “CDC” Director of Photography: Michael O’Leary Assistant: Aidan Gray

WOODBRIDGE PRODUCTIONS “BETTER CALL SAUL” SEASON 4 Director of Photography: Marshall Adams Operators: Paul Donachie, Matt Credle Assistants: Chris Norris, Cherilyn Barnard, Rob Salviotti, Dorian Blanco Digital Loader: Jesse Heidenfeld Digital Utility: Kyle Jacobs Still Photographer: Nicole Wilder

FULL MOON FILMS “MICHELLE LUJON GRISHAM FOR GOVERNOR-NM” Director of Photography: James Simeone Assistant: Lane Luper Loader: Luke Davis

CIRCLE “GAIN” Director of Photography: Rob Hauer “COLORGUARD” Director of Photography: Jeffrey Kim Assistants: Robert Ragozzine, Daniel Keck Digital Imaging Tech: Joe Belack Remote Head Tech: Lance Mayer

GIFTED YOUTH “LITTLE CAESARS” Director of Photography: Jeff Powers Assistants: Jared Wennberg, Em Gonzales Digital Imaging Tech: Michael Kowalczyk HUNGRY MAN “ESPN” Director of Photography: Adam Beckman Operator: Charlie Libin Assistants: Peter Morello, Rick Gioia, Jordan Levie Digital Imaging Tech: Jeff Flohr

ARTS & SCIENCES “SPOTIFY” Director of Photography: Pepe Avila del Pino Assistants: Erik Kandefer, Andrea Romansky Digital Imaging Tech: Matt Suter “T-MOBILE” Operator: Peter Gulla Assistants: Jonny Meyer, Michael Panczenko, Jason Hochrein Digital Imaging Tech: Damon Meledones BRICK AND MORTAR CO “KICK S2 PROMO” Director of Photography: Kevin Fletcher Steadicam Operator: Chris Moone Assistants: Rick Gioia, Jordan Levie Digital Imaging Tech: Tyler Isaacson BRIDGE STREET FILMS “NYU LANGONE HEALTH” Director of Photography: Jess Hall Assistants: Peter Morello, Nate McGarigal Digital Imaging Tech: Jeff Flohr “PA LOTTERY” Director of Photography: Derek McKane Assistants: Jim Mayfield, Dustin Raysik

“QUICK TRIP” Director of Photography: Richard Henkels Operator: Brett Mayfield Assistants: Chris Holloway, Nan Segler, Chase Schultz Digital Imaging Tech: Griff Thomas KIDDO FILMS “AAA” Director of Photography: Kai Saul Assistants: Nicolas Martin, Alan Certeza Digital Imaging Tech: Andrew Cordos Motion Control Operator: Paul Maples LUCKY 21 “KEY BANK” Director of Photography: Mark Thomas Assistants: Mike Garofalo, Julien Zeitouni, Patrick Bracey Digital Imaging Tech: Jessica Ta MERMAN-NY “LEAN CUISINE” Director of Photography: Kathryn Westergaard Operators: Charlee Harrison, Dan Hersey Assistants: Robert Ragozzine, Erik Kandefer, Dan Keck Digital Imaging Tech: Mariusz Cichon MJZ “MCDONALD’S” Director of Photography: Alwin Kuchler Operator: Grant Adams, SOC Assistants: Trevor Loomis, Keith Davis, Ryan Jackson

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COMMERCIALS

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STATION “PROGRESSIVE” Director of Photography: James Whitaker Operator: Josh Medak Assistants: E. Reed Koppen, Ethan McDonald, Marcus Del Negro, Hannah Levin Digital Imaging Tech: Adrian Jebef “HONDA” Director of Photography: Kris Kachikis Assistants: Richard Carlson, Mike Gratzmiller Digital Imaging Tech: Casey Sherrier Phantom Operator: Tom Heigl SUPERPRIME “O2 STARDUST” Director of Photography: Nanu Segal Assistants: Robert Ragozzine, Dan Hersey, Dan Keck Digital Imaging Tech: Bjorn Jackson TASTE IN MOTION “CARL’S JR.” Director of Photography: Thomas Schauer Assistant: Peter Morello Digital Imaging Tech: Joe Belack Phantom Tech: Ed Richardson TECHNOBABBLE PRODUCTIONS “ENEMY WITHIN BTS” Operator: Ron McCaine

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MODOP FILMS “23ANDME” Director of Photography: Eric Zimmerman Assistants: Steven Mattson, Erik Stapelfeldt, Jennifer Lai, Neal Morell Digital Imaging Tech: Calvin Reibman Still Photographer: Prashant Gupta PARK PICTURES “ASUS” Director of Photography: Eric Schmidt Assistants: Ethan McDonald, Marcus Del Negro Digital Imaging Tech: John Spellman “MAYBELLINE” Directors of Photography: Franck Tymezuk, Michael Berg Assistants: Robert Ragozzine, Al Rodgers, Dan Keck Digital Imaging Tech: George Robert Morse PARTIZAN ENTERTAINMENT “JOS. A. BANK” Director of Photography: Thomas Kloss Assistants: Patrick Kelly, Michael Rodriguez Torrent Digital Imaging Tech: Leonard Mazzone PRETTY BIRD “AMEX” Director of Photography: Salvatore Totino, ASC Assistants: Lucas Deans, Paul Metcalf,

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Seth Peschansky Digital Imaging Tech: Francesco Sauta Ronin Tech: Stephen Scherba “IGNITE” Director of Photography: Salvatore Totino, ASC Assistants: Lucas Deans, Olivia Montano Digital Imaging Tech: Francesco Sauta RADICAL MEDIA “HONDA” Director of Photography: Eric Schmidt Operators: Ian Clampett, Ross Coscia, Ivan Acero Assistants: Daniel Hanych, Josh Greer, Seth Peschansky Digital Imaging Tech: John Spellman Camera Utility: Holden Miller “HONDA” Director of Photography: Eric Schmidt Assistants: Daniel Hanych, Seth Peschansky Digital Imaging Tech: John Spellman SERIAL PICTURES “MAYBELLINE” Directors of Photography: Benoit Delhomme, Mike Berg Assistants: Peter Morello, Al Rodgers, Rick Gioia, Nate McGarigal, Kyle Repka Steadicam Operator: Chris Moone Digital Imaging Tech: Jeff Flohr Still Photographer: Linda Kallerus

“MANIFEST BTS” Operator: Robert Rudis “USH BTS” Operator: Gary Nardilla THINK TANK FILMS “RALPH LAUREN” Director of Photography: Max Goldman Assistants: Ethan McDonald, Marcus Del Negro Digital Imaging Tech: Matthew Love Oculus Head Tech: Simon Shin THE NEW MEDIA FIRM “DOUG APPLEGATE FOR CONGRESS” Director of Photography: Jim Simeone

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ROMBEAU INC. Sharon Rombeau Tel: (818) 762-6020 Fax: (818) 760-0860 Email: sharonrombeau@gmail.com

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COMPANY PAGE

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[stop motion]

JACKSON DAVIS

SHOOTING STILLS ON STRANGER THINGS CAN BE AS CHALLENGING AS IT IS REWARDING; THERE IS A TON OF STEADICAM WORK IN THE NARROW, SMOKY, DIMLY LIT CAVERNS, SO IT TAKES A LOT OF FORETHOUGHT AND A LITTLE LUCK TO GET DYNAMIC STILLS, ALL THE WHILE MAKING SURE NOT TO “MAKE THE MOVIE.” WITH ALL THE MOVING PIECES THAT COME WITH SCENE COVERAGE, I WELCOME THE TIME BETWEEN TAKES WHEN THERE’S PLENTY OF SPACE AND I’M THE ONLY CAMERA IN PLAY – AS IN THIS IMAGE OF SHOW CREATORS MATT AND ROSS DUFFER DIRECTING IN THE UPSIDE DOWN.

132 JUNE/JULY 2018

FREEDOM TO CREATE “Once you experience the flexibility and freedom the VariCam provides, it’s hard to go back. I no longer have to worry about light levels and I can quickly adapt to the changing environment or the project’s creative requirements.”

Vanja Černjul, ASC CINEMATOGRAPHER OF VARICAM-SHOT THE DEUCE, AN HB0 SERIES SHOT IN NEW YORK CITY, AND THE WARNER BROS. FEATURE FILM, CRAZY RICH ASIANS.

The VariCam lineup of professional cinema cameras is the ideal solution for cinema, television, commercial, documentary, and live event production. The lineup, which includes VariCam 35, VariCam LT, and VariCam Pure, features exceptional 4K image quality, accurate colors, 14+ stops of dynamic range, Dual Native 800/5,000 ISOs, and more.

See what Vanja has to say about the VariCam at us.panasonic.com/varicam © 2018 Panasonic Corporation of North America. All rights reserved.