British Cinematographer - Issue 35

Issue 35 // September 2009

BritishCinematographer Covering International Cinematography //

ON THE JOB: BEN SERESIN ON TRANSFORMERS 2 CLOSE UPS: JESS HALL BSC, SHELLEY JOHNSON ASC, BUDDY SQUIRES & KEN BURNS AND CHRISTIAN BERGER AAC SHOOTING THE FUTURE: PREVIEW OF HALL 11 AT IBC 2009 F-STOP HOLLYWOOD: SPECIAL LA FOCUS MEET THE NEW WAVE: TREVOR FORREST LETTER FROM AMERICA: NEW ASC PRESIDENT MICHAEL GOI ASC ALL TIME GREATS: DOUGLAS SLOCOMBE OBE BSC FBKS PRODUCTION NEWS: SENSOR SENSIBILITY....

ARRI’S NEW DIGITAL CAMERAS

ONCE UPON A TIME...

CAMERA CREATIVE – HOW ROBERT RICHARDSON ASC SET ABOUT SHOOTING QUENTIN TARANTINO’S INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

RRP // £6.50

Contents // Inside this issue

01 // 36

The September Issue Dear Readers We’ve been beavering away this Summer, moving things on. It will not escape the notice of our regular readers that we have made a few small changes to the design of this magazine – your magazine. I hope you like them. As with any change, we hope it reflects our confidence and abilities in bringing you the very latest cinematography news worldwide, whilst also presenting the news, views and artful work of DPs in a fresh and appealing manner. You can expect a complete update of the design for the next issue and brand new items as we continue on our journey.

You might also be interested to check out our new website at www.thecinematographer.info Another work-in-progress, the site is a complement, a companion, to the magazine, where you can find a range of archived articles from previous editions, and other items of interest to the camera crew. You can obtain details on how to subscribe there too.

Contents UK //

Whilst there’s plenty of topical interest in this edition, you can rest assured that we have plenty of editorial on our forward features list – stretching as far into the future as the list of motion pictures that have been announced.

Above all, we are wholeheartedly committed to keep bringing you the inside track on cinematographers-at-work (and at play too, sometimes) on major and minor productions destined for the large and small screens – whether they are shooting film, digital or 3D stereo.

And it’s a cast-iron guarantee that we’ll be at the forefront when it comes to covering the vital issues facing cinematographers today. Wherever you may wander, there’s no place like British Cinematographer Magazine.

British Society of Cinematographers – Board Members:

President, Sue Gibson. Immediate Past President, Gavin Finney. Vice Presidents, Joe Dunton MBE, Chris Seager, Nigel Walters. Governors, Sean Bobitt, John de Borman, John Daly, Harvey Harrison, Tony Imi, Phil Meheux, David Odd, Nic Morris, Ashley Rowe, Derek Suter, Robin Vidgeon, Haris Zambarloukos. Co-opted Associate Member Representatives, Andrei Austin, Rodrigo Gutierrez. Secretary/Treasurer, Frances Russell.

Guild of British Camera Technicians – Board Members:

03 President’s Perspective: Sue Gibson BSC 05 Production / Post & Techno News: the latest news affecting DPs 08 Who’s Shooting Who?: which cinematographers are working where 20 To Live & Let DI: discover who’s dialling-in the DI grades 14 Close-Ups: Jess Hall BSC, Shelley Johnson ASC, Buddy Squires & Ken Burns, Christian Berger AAC 24 Meet The New Wave: Trevor Forrest… a nifty little mover 34 GBCT News: the chairman’s statement, the latest new from the Guild

International //

12 Shooting The Future: a look at the widgets in Hall 11 at IBC 2009 26 F-Stop Hollywood: a look at the LA scene, and the latest techno goodies 30 IMAGO News: Nigel Walters BSC, president of IMAGO 28 Letter From America: new ASC president Michael Goi ASC urges greater communication between cinematographers worldwide

Features //

18 Camera Creative: Robert Richardson ASC on Inglourious Basterds 22 On The Job: Ben Seresin on Transformers 2 32 All Time Greats: Douglas Slocombe OBE BSC FBKS

British Cinematographer Issue 35 // Pinewood Studios Iver Heath Buckinghamshire SL0 0NH United Kingdom T: +44 (0) 1753 650101 F: +44 (0) 1753 650111 Publishers.

Alan Lowne T: +44 (0) 1753 650101 E: alanlowne@britishcinematographer.co.uk Stuart Walters T: +44 (0) 121 608 2300 E: stuartwalters@britishcinematographer.co.uk Editor.

Ron Prince E: ronny@dircon.co.uk Sales.

Alan Lowne T: +44 (0) 1753 650101 E: alanlowne@britishcinematographer.co.uk Stuart Walters T: +44 (0) 121 608 2300 E: stuartwalters@britishcinematographer.co.uk Design.

Open Box Publishing Lee Murphy T: +44 (0) 121 608 2300 E: lee.murphy@openboxpublishing.co.uk The Publication Advisory Committee comprises of Board members from the BSC and GBCT as well as the Publishers.

British Cinematographer covering International Cinematography is part of Laws Publishing Ltd, Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire SL0 0NH, UK. The publishers wish to emphasise that the opinions expressed in British Cinematographer are not representative of Laws Publishing Ltd but the responsibility of the individual contributors.

Jamie Harcourt (Chairman), Tim Potter (Vice Chairman), Caroline Sax (Vice Chairman), Lousie Ben-Nathan, Steve Brooke-Smith, Trevor Coop (Immediate Past Chairman), Sam Goldie, Jane Jackson, John Keedwell Rupert Lloyd Parry, Keith Mead, Shirley Schumacher, Mary Kyte (Honorary Treasurer).

The Editorial Team

Bob Fisher has authored 3,000 magazine articles about cinematographers and filmmakers during the past 35 plus years.

He has also moderated many panel discussions for both the American Society of Cinematographers and the International Cinematographers Guild.

Ron Prince has many years experience working in the film, TV, CGI and visual effects industries.

He is the editor of British Cinematographer magazine and runs the international marketing and communications company Prince PR (www.princepr.com).

Carolyn Giardina is a freelance journalist based in the US. She previously served as the technology reporter at Hollywood Reporter, the editor of Film & Video, and as senior editor of post-production at SHOOT. Her work has also appeared in IBC Daily News, Digital Cinema, Post and Below The Line.

Annette Zoeh is a translator and commercial correspondent who has worked for many years in the film business as a freelance journalist and photographer for national newspapers and magazines in Germany.

David A Ellis started out as a projectionist and then moved on to work for BBC Television in London as a film assistant.

He has written numerous articles about the industry including many features about cinematographers.

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Dixie Bonham is a freelance entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in both trade and international publications.

In addition to reporting on the technical side of television and film production, he creates advertising campaigns and newsletters for many production and equipment houses.

Kevin Hilton is a freelance journalist who writes about technology and personalities in film and broadcasting, and contributes film reviews and interviews to a variety of publications in the UK and abroad.

John Keedwell the GBCT News Editor, is a documentary and commercials cameraman who has worked on many productions around the world. He crosses over in both film and tape productions and has great knowledge of the new formats and their methods of production.

Cover Image: Eli Roth (Sgt Donnie Donowitz) and Brad Pitt (Ltd Aldo Raine) star in Quentin Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. Photo credit: Francois Duhamel Copyright: © 2009 Universal Studios.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Issue 35

UK // President’s Perspective

03 // 36

As most of you already know the BSC Film & Digital Evaluation 2009 has had its premiere screening, and is now on the road. This is the culmination of the best part of a year’s work on the part of the BSC Technical Committee, and many others from the membership and beyond.

The commitment shown by all those now involved in the presentation of the results is admirable, and once again I thank everybody for their help.

The first presentation at the NFT in July provoked some lively debate, not just on the day, but subsequently on CML. The roadshow in Bristol at the beginning of August continued that debate. Although we diligently strive to be unbiased in the appraisal and presentation of the results, it has sometimes proven difficult to persuade some of our audience that we have been so.

It’s not a competition about whether film is better than digital, and I think that has finally sunk in. What we are trying to do is show everybody how the various formats behaved under the conditions we imposed on the day.

The primary purpose of the whole venture was a camera evaluation rather than a post production evaluation, but the results have brought a number of issues to light in this latter area. I believe this points out that there does need to be clarity and transparency in the way all cameras are set up, plus a published route, or workflow, through post production by the manufacturers, rather than leaving it up to individuals and post

further the debate and go into much more technical detail than was possible at the initial presentation. This all depends on the response we get from everybody, so the date is yet to be decided, but it will hopefully be sometime in October.

There is also a plan afoot to produce a Blu-ray disc as the interest in our results has been enormous, and it seems this is the only acceptable way of making the material universally available. There are industry practitioners that we will never be able to make ‘live’ presentations to all over the world, and we believe it will help further the debate.

We cinematographers always need advice on technical matters, but I believe our responsibility is primarily in the art of using the camera and lighting to tell the story. The tools and methods we use to achieve this are just tools, incapable of creative thought.

Good lighting is good lighting, and poor lighting can only be minimally enhanced by manipulation with these tools.

There will be several more opportunities to see the results of the evaluation in the coming months. I urge those of you who haven’t seen them yet to attend one of the regional roadshows or international screenings that will take place.

The next roadshow will be in Glasgow on 22nd September. We are also giving a presentation at IBC 2009 in Amsterdam on 13th September, which will coincide with a presentation of the ASC’s camera assessment. It should be an interesting event as our two societies will also be coming together for a Q&A, and it will be the first time we have seen each other’s results.

All in all, this whole venture has taken more of my time than I ever anticipated.

Although it’s been rewarding I’m looking forward to being joined at subsequent presentations by those DPs who were involved on the original shoots, but who have been too busy working until now to take an active role. I know they are keen to add their comments and further fuel this great debate.

We have decided to offer the manufacturers or rental companies access to their own camera’s raw files and/or negative. They can then process the results in their own way, and publish the workflow route taken. Hopefully this will bring some much-needed clarity.

Post-it notes As the BSC forges its path through the 21st century, we lost one of the great stalwarts of the British film industry, and a great supporter of the BSC, Peter Newbrook. He was 88. Peter spent his entire life in film starting at age 14 at Warner Brothers’ Teddington Studio and worked his way up. He served with the Army Kinematograph Service during WWII and came back to operate on films such as The Bridge On The River Kwai and as second unit DP on Lawrence Of Arabia. He became a DP in his own right, and even tried his hand at producing, writing and directing. He spent the latter part of his career working in television.

He served on the Board of the BSC from 1980 to 1995 and was our president from 1984 to 1986. He will be sorely missed.

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

companies to develop their own way of dealing with the back end workflow.

It may be that there are flaws in the approach we took, but it was the simplest way we could find to ensure a level playing field. The new data recording cameras, such as the Red and SI2K, may require further investigation and explanation, and they may need handling in a different way to get the best results.

The 2009 assessment was designed to be as transparent as possible, with only primary grading, no aperture correction, noise reduction, nor secondary colour adjustments. In order for this to work, there had to be a common format, and this was deemed to be 10-bit LOG DPX files in 2K. This was the way we graded everything, and after selected takes had been chosen from our A-to-Z of formats, this was exactly what happened.

As a result of the debate and discussion that our 2009 Evaluation has caused, we have decided to make an offer to the manufacturers or rental companies to have access to their own camera’s raw files and/or negative. They can then process the results in their own way, and publish the workflow route taken. This would in no way diminish the results of our own Evaluation, but would better serve the industry to see what can be done with the material. Hopefully it will bring some muchneeded clarity into the post-production workflows taken.

Consequently, we are planning a more technical event at Pinewood, where we can show our evaluation along with the results from the manufacturers to

Sue Gibson BSC President British Society of Cinematographers

Issue 35

UK // Production News

London Eye gets a new dimension

05 // 36

BSC 2009 Summer Lunch

Vilmos Zsigmond ASC accepting the award from BSC of Best Cinematography on behalf of Roger Deakins BSC (For No Country For Old Men)

A visit to the London Eye is to take on a new dimension with the addition of a 4D movie promoting London’s most popular paid-for visitor attraction. Designed to whet the appetites of riders in a state-ofthe-art entertainment environment, the four-minute film focuses on a little girl’s day trip to London, whose view of the tourist sites is constantly obscured by people and buildings, until she is whisked away to the London Eye for a ‘bird’s eye’ view of the city.

The film was written and directed

by Julian Napier, with stereo 3D produced

by Phil Streather, CEO of 3D specialists Principal Large Format, and produced by Centre Screen Productions in association with Principal Large Format and Pablo Post. It will be screened in a purposedesigned theatre in County Hall, adjacent to the London Eye, and viewed by four million people a year.

“Knowing the exact dimensions of both the screen and the theatre before we started production meant that we could craft a film that would perfectly fit the space, and have an enormous impact on the experience,” said Streather.

The production posed a unique set of challenges, including need to produce the first 3D view of the UK capital from the air.

“Among the many firsts on this project are the amazing aerials over the London Eye and London,” said Streather. “We worked with Jeremy Braben of Helicopter Film Services to design and build the world’s first gyrostabilised 3D helicopter camera mount, and we think the results speak for themselves – just simply breathtaking.”

ARRI D21’s pointing at the London Eye.

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Wally Pfister ASC receiving his nomination certificate for Best Cinematography from Sue Gibson BSC

The annual BSC summer lunch and awards for cinematography took place at Pinewood Film Studios on 19th July.

Over 170 guests enjoyed the sunshine before lunch in Pinewood’s magnificent gardens, before proceeding to the ballroom restaurant for the lunch and awards ceremony.

Among those present were guest of honour director Jack Gold, who gave an entertaining speech including his memories of cinematographers he worked with, such as Tony Imi BSC, who gave the introduction.

Gerry Fisher BSC received the BSC lifetime achievement award which, in an emotional address, he dedicated to his wife, bringing a tear to most eyes in the room.

The best cinematography award for year 2007/2008 went to Roger Deakins BSC ASC for No Country For Old Men, which was received on his behalf by Vilmos Zsigmond ASC. One of the nominees, Wally Pfister ASC was present to receive his certificate from BSC president Sue Gibson, who conducted the whole proceedings and presented the new members of BSC with their certificates. A good lunch, good company and good conversations, were enjoyed by all. Sponsored tables included Ascent Media, ARRI, Fuji, Kodak, Technicolor and Panavision amongst others.

Fujifilm’s new negative Fujifilm Motion Picture has announced the release of ETERNA Vivid 500T, a new, high saturation, high speed, tungsten filmstock.

This new addition to Fujifilm’s wide range is a high contrast film that provides punchy, vivid colours under multiple challenging shooting conditions including night scenes.

ETERNA Vivid 500T inherits its saturated colour, sharpness and skin tone rendition qualities from the ETERNA Vivid 160T, and the new film provides a seamless match with the ETERNA Vivid 160T. “Our new colour negative film expands the parameters for shooting sharp, intense colour into the realm of night scenes,” said Jerry Deeney from Fujifilm Motion Picture.

“ETERNA Vivid 500T gives exceptional image quality even during telecine transfer for TV work or digital processing of motion picture footage. The ETERNA Vivid 500T is in addition to, and not replacing Fujifilm’s existing ETERNA 500T stock.”

Fujifilm is launching the new Vivid range to let cinematographers achieve more coloursaturated and higher-contrast look. ETERNA Vivid 500T compliments the different looks available in the company’s high-speed film range, the ETERNA 400T (low contrast), ETERNA 500T (medium contrast) and ETERNA Vivid 500T (high contrast) Among the first features to use the new ETERNA Vivid 500T are: Chatroom, director Hideo Nakata, DP Benoit Delhomme; It’s A Wonderful Afterlife, director Gurinder Chadha, DP Dick Pope BSC; and Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark director: Troy Nixey, DP Oliver Stapleton BSC.

Issue 35

UK // Production News

06 // 36

What’s shooting on Fuji?

BSC shows F&DIEs at IBC

Here’s the latest update of features and TV Dramas shooting on Fujifilm… Clash Of The Titans, DP Peter Menzies Jnr, dir Louis Leterrier; Chatroom, DP Benoit Delhomme, dir Hideo Nakata; Nanny McPhee And The Big Bang, DP Mike Eley, dir Susanna White; The Special Relationship, DP Barry Ackroyd BSC, dir Richard Loncraine; The Day Of The Flowers, DP Vernon Leyton BSC; Here, DP Lol Crawley, dir Braden King; and Blitz, DP Rob Hardy, dir Elliott Lester.

These commercials and promos are also using Fujifilm… Arctic Monkeys music promo (Quark Films) DP Danny Cohen BSC; Skint & Demoralise music promo, DP Stuart Bentley; Jamie Oliver Ident (Channel 4), DP Tom Townend; Plenty Tissues commercial (Home Corp), DP Ed Rutherford; Tesco commercial (Smuggler), DP Denis Crossan BSC; Theodora Children’s Trust commercial, DP Richard Stewart; Bacardi commercial (Rogue Films), DP Tom Townend; Nescafe commercial (Stink), DP Olivier Carou; Co-op commercial (RSA), DP John Lynch; Somerfield commercial (Tomboy Films), DP David Kerr; and BFI commercial (Knucklehead), DP Robbie Ryan BSC.

The British Society of Cinematographers will screen its 2009 Film & Digital Image Evaluations at IBC in Amsterdam, on 13th September from 9:30am in the RAI Auditorium. Speakers include the society’s president Sue Gibson BSC, vice president Joe Dunton and John Daly BSC. The evaluations undertaken by the American Society of Cinematographers will also be screened during the session, with speakers expected to be ASC president Michael Goi ASC and Curtis Clark ASC chairman of the ASC technology committee.

Camerimage goes pop This year’s Plus Camerimage Festival of Cinematograph is extending its successful Music Videos Competition for DPs introduced last year.

The aim of the competition is to recognise music video as a form of film art and a field of audiovisual innovation that is important for filmmaking. This year there will be two categories for entries, Best Cinematography in a Music Video and Best Music Video, along with music video directors, producers, musicians, music critics and other experts of the film and music industry taking part in a range of workshops, music events and concerts.

For more information, or to sumbit a project for competition, visit www.pluscamerimage.pl. Plus Camerimage take place from 28th November to 5th December, in Lodz Poland.

The new generation of ARRI digital cameras

What’s shooting on Kodak?

The following features are using Kodak film stocks… Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, dir David Yates, DP Eduardo Serra; Clash Of The Titans, dir Louis Leterrier, DP Peter Menzies; London Boulevard, dir William Monahan, DP Chris Menges BSC ASC; Untitled Robin Hood Adventure, dir Ridley Scott, DP John Mathieson BSC; Cemetery Junction, dirs Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant, DP Remi Adefarasin BSC; Oliver’s Arrow, dir Christopher Nolan, DP Wally Pfister ASC; Cosi, dir Christopher Menaul, DP Tim Palmer; Untitled Woody Allen Production, dir Woody Allen, DP Vilmos Zsigmond ASC; Your Highness, dir David Gordon Green, DP Tim Orr; St Trinians II – The Legend of Fritton’s Gold, dir Oliver Parker / Barnaby Thompson, DP David Higgs BSC; House Full, dir Sajid Khan, DP Vikas Sivaraman; Dagenham Girls, dir Nigel Cole, DP John de Borman BSC; Cherry Tree Lane, dir Paul Andrew Williams, DP Carlos Catalan; Neds, dir Peter Mullan, DP Roman Osin BSC; and Get Him To The Greek, dir Nicholas Stoller, DP Robert D Yeoman. These TV shows are also employing Kodak… Doc Martin, Buffalo Pictures, DP Simon Archer, Merlin II, Shine Ltd, DP Dale McCready, Spooks VIII, Kudos Film & TV, DP James Welland; Five Days II, BBC Drama, DP Stephan Pehrsson; and The Fattest Man In Britain, ITV Productions, DP David Odd BSC.

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

ARRI announces new digital cameras ARRI has confirmed the rumours rumbling around the industry by announcing a new range of 35mm-format digital cameras priced between €50k to €130k, which it claims will “redefine the limits of digital production for both the broadcast and feature film markets”. The initial trio of models will be available for sale within the first half of 2010, and some of the key technologies behind the new cameras will be displayed at IBC. All three of the cameras are based on an entirely new body design that is much smaller and lighter than ARRI’s current digital camera, the D-21.

“The two entry level models utilise a 16:9 sensor area and an advanced electronic viewfinder,” said Franz Kraus, ARRI Munich’s MD and head of R&D. “The electronic viewfinder makes these two cameras lighter and more affordable; the image quality and consistent colour reproduction are incredible, and the image latency minimal.”

At the top of the new range is a camera that continues the D-21 philosophy of a digital camera incorporating as many features of ARRI’s 35mm film camera systems as possible. Instead of an electronic viewfinder, it has an optical viewfinder and a rotating mirror shutter, but is more compact than the D-21.

“With a 4:3 sensor area, it suits both spherical and anamorphic productions, so will be the natural choice for feature films,” commented Kraus. “That said, all three cameras use the same image technology and they work side by side very effectively.

The optical model could be used as an A-camera and the EVF models as B and C-cameras or Steadicam cameras on the same production.” (see chart to right)

New sensor

At the heart of ARRI’s next generation of cameras is a new sensor, which will be displayed as a working proof-ofconcept camera at IBC. Like the sensor in the D-21, it is a 35mm-format CMOS device, although ARRI says it has made significant advances in image quality. The 3.5K pixel count provides the resolution and sharpness required for big-screen productions, and there are advances in sensitivity and latitude. With a base sensitivity of 800 EI equivalent, ARRI’s sensor should deal well with shadow areas

Issue 35

UK // Production News

and low light situations. Its wide dynamic range is designed to greatly reduce effort and cost on the set, as well as post.

the best possible balance to perfectly accommodate 2K DI and HD workflows from a 35mm-format single sensor. We are confident that these new models will deliver significantly better image quality than any other digital camera, even those with higher pixel counts. Uncompromised 4K resolution will, for some time to come, remain the domain of 35 mm film, as proven by the recent ASC/PGA and BSC camera evaluation tests.”

The science behind ARRI’s claimed breakthrough in the sensitivity and latitude of the sensor is dauntingly complex, but the use of large pixels and a dual gain architecture are the two main principles within the readout circuitry of the sensor. Dual gain refers to the use of two parallel signal paths, with the high gain path transporting the weak signal of low light levels and the low gain path carrying the strong signal of the highlights. Essentially this enhances low light performance and prevents the highlights from being clipped, significantly extending the dynamic range of the sensor.

On the subject of recording options, ARRI is giving little away at this stage.

“Detailed information about workflows and recording devices will be tied in with major announcements over the coming months,” said Dr. Martin Prillmann, MD responsible for sales and marketing at ARRI Munich.

“I can say that there will be a variety of

Product code name:

A-EV

A-EV Plus A-OV Plus

Availability:

2010 06

2010 09

2010 12 (1)

Sensor pixel count:

3.5K

3.5K

3.5K

Aspect ratio of sensor area used:

16:9

16:9

4:3

Base sensitivity:

800+ EI equivalent

800+ EI equivalent

800+ EI equivalent

Frame rate:

1 - 60 fps

1 - 60 fps

1 - 60 fps

Viewfinder:

Electronic

Electronic

Optical

HD on-board recording (2):

√

√

√

ARRIRAW on-board recording, uncompressed (2):

-

√

√

Integrated wireless remote control:

-

√

√

(1) Earlier for D-21 owners who are upgrading to A-OV Plus (2) By ARRI and third parties

“Measuring dynamic range is a subjective business and other manufacturers claim a wide range for their own digital cameras,” said Kraus. “At ARRI we make the measuring process as much of an exact science as we can. We have even developed our own dynamic range testing chart that we will also show at IBC. While it is difficult to compare spec sheet values, we have measured our new sensor against the best in the field, and it is significantly more sensitive and has more exposure latitude.”

One of ARRI’s messages is that there is a lot more to digital image quality than counting pixels.

“We’re not interested in getting into a K-race with other manufacturers because it’s a blinkered approach and chasing ever-higher pixel counts can actually harm overall image quality,” said Kraus. “Deciding on the pixel count is a complicated equation and involves a balance between the resolution benefits of smaller pixels and the sensitivity, latitude and low crosstalk benefits of larger pixels.

We’ve done the science and have found

options, including some unique on-board solutions that will make postproduction workflows fast, flexible and cost-effective.

The recording and workflow capabilities will be sufficiently varied to allow these cameras to be used in any location or studio situation, and for any delivery platform.”

What about the D-21?

Whilst these three new cameras are designed to be a step forward not only in image quality but also in usability, Prillmann explained that, “ARRI continues to stand firmly behind the D-21. The recent BSC and ASC evaluations showed that the D-21 is still at the forefront of high-end digital acquisition. We are continuously working on improvements, the first of which will be a significant update later this year.

“A vital element of our product roadmap is to provide customers with upgrade packages and migration pathways so that they remain at the cutting edge of digital acquisition. We undertake to protect the investment of our customers; that if they make the journey with us, they will not be left behind.”

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Issue 35

UK // Who’s Shooting Who?

08 // 36

New wave: James Friend GBCT is only 24 yet is amassing a string of DP credits

James Friend GBCT was taken on by Paul Wheeler BSC as an apprentice at 18

Who’s Shooting Who? Twenty-four year old James Friend GBCT wrote in with details of projects he has been working on. He started in lighting at 16, studying an electrical apprenticeship in London, followed by a craft extension course in cinematography at the London Film School and short courses at the NFTS. At 18, Paul Wheeler BSC took him on as an apprentice. “The knowledge I have learned over the years from Paul has been one of the most valuable assets,” said James.

In March 2009 James lensed the remake of the ‘70’s cult horror Exposé, director Martin Kemp’s feature debut starring Jane March, Anna Brecon and Colin Salmon. “It was shot almost entirely on location and on many formats. We shot all the main drama on RED with Cooke S4 primes and the favourite 15-40mm zoom. However there was one scene that sat almost alone in the film. In homage to the original, a love scene in a dream sequence, Martin wanted a very soft, sensual look, and to make the audience to feel like they were under the white sheets too. I decided the only format suitable was 35mm. We shot using Fuji’s Eterna 400 8583 at 150fps. I have shot scenes like this in the past, that are classically played in silhouette and information is lost to the shadows. However we wanted to go the other way with this one, overexposing the whole negative two stops.

Skin-tones simply look wonderful on this stock. On Exposé, I had a very strong team around me and relied on them more than usual because the schedule was so tight principle photography in less than 28 days. My gaffer Sol Saihati did a spectacular job. B-cam operator Craig

Viveiros, focus puller Job Reineke, 2nd AC Sebastian Lamb, trainee Ed Bowen, carpenter and dolly grip Charlie Wall.

Special thanks to the guys at MovieTech for supplying camera and grip equipment and also Mark Greaves at Panalux for supplying the lamps.” James since shot Just For The Record, a mockumentary starring Ric Mayall, Danny Dyer, Steven Berkoff, Victoria Silvstedt and directed by Steve Lawson, a short film Sports Day shot in 3D using RED cameras, and is currently shooting The Manor set in South East London for director Steve Lawson.

Hollywood- based Lenhoff & Lenhoff’s… Bruce Chun is prepping Unnatural History for Oscar winning DP-turned-director Mikael Salomon. It’s a Warner Horizon production. The agency has also just signed Stephen Jackson, now in prep on V for ABC/Warner Brothers, a redux of the classic 1980s miniseries about aliens landing on the planet.

Casarotto Marsh’s … Sean Bobbitt BSC has been continuing on Michael Winterbottom’s project for Revolution, Seven Days. After Meet The Parents and Meet The Fockers, next comes Little Fockers, which Remi Adefarasin BSC is prepping for director by Paul Weitz, with whom Remi collaborated on About A Boy and In Good Company. In Spain Edu Grau has started shooting Buried with director Rodrigo Cortes. It’s feature about a civilian contractor who gets kidnapped, only to awake and find that he’s buried in a coffin in the desert, with only a mobile phone, knife and candle! Matt Gray continues on Man High, directed by Colin Barr, a feature documentary about the highest

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

freefall ever. For Lionsgate and with director Elliott Lester, Rob Hardy will shoot Blitz, a feature adapted from the Ken Bruen novel of the same name. David Katznelson is in Greenland filming a documentary with director Sarah Gavron. David Luther is starting on the second series of Law And Order; the UK version of the highlysuccessful US series, that concentrates first on the police investigation and then the criminal trial. Chris Menges BSC ASC has begun prep on Ken Loach’s next feature, Route Irish, after completing shooting London Boulevard. Tim Palmer continues on the operatic Cosi, directed by Chris Menaul and will go on to shoot Vexed for Greenlit starring Toby Stephens. In Inner Mongolia, Urszula Pontikos is on Anda Union, a feature doc that follow sa musical journey, directed by Mark Tilly.

Independent’s commercials news is that… Simon Coull recently collaborated with Alex and Steffen at Rokkit on a Sprite shoot out in Taipei. Oliver Curtis BSC has been busy with Park Village working on Morrisons commercials as DP and director, and recently lit and directed a Toyota spot for Fresh Films. Ben Davis has been super busy with a variety of projects including Nike with Malcolm Venville at Independent Films, Chicco with Katie Bell at Filmmaster, Sky+ with Saul Dibb at Hom Corp, Boots No. 7 with Dawn Shadforth at RSA and Samsung in Nice with Paul Shearer of Great Guns. Jess Hall BSC has been on commercials with Phil Morrison at Epoch on Aviva, Siri Bunford at Knucklehead on Renault, a VW shoot with Frederick Bond at Sonny London and a Drug Driving campaign with Ringan Ledwidge at Rattling

Stick. Dan Landin was reunited with Walter Stern on a music promo for The Prodigy and a Shoot for KIA in the Czech Republic.

Mattias Montero has been in Lisbon with Jaron Albertin on a Nokia shoot. Mark Patten’s ads include a VW shoot with Jim Weedon, a Stella McCartney shoot with Hi Sim at RSA, Red Bull with Nick Livesey again at RSA. He also lensed a short film with director Brett Foraker, starring Simon Callow and James D’Arcy called Natural Selection. Tobia Sempi has just joined Independent’s ranks. Ben Smithard has been in Kenya with Siri Bunford of Knucklehead shooting the Serengeti Migration, a short documentary-style ad for BA. Fraser Taggart in on the second phase of a two-leg shoot for UnitAid with Mick Rudman at Therapy. Joost Van Gelder has finished a mammoth FIFA shoot with Johnny Green at Knucklehead before heading off to the US with Peter Thwaites for Cadillac. Ed Wild is half way through a fantastic project with Peter Webber for the Qatar Government through Serous Pictures. He is out on location (and incommunicado) in the Amazon shooting for a documentary that will be completed in Qatar later in the year.

The news from United Agents…

Barry Ackroyd BSC is shooting The Special Relationship, now being directed

by Richard Loncraine for HBO. Alwin Küchler BSC has just wrapped on Roger Michell’s Morning Glory in New York. Paul Sarossy BSC CSC is lighting Death Comes To Town for CBC in Canada. Eduardo Serra AFC ASC will be on Harry Potter until April 2010. Tony Slater-Ling has been busy doing second unit photography,

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Filthy: Andrew Mott filming mud men in Papua New Guinea

first for Lucasfilm’s Redtails in Prague, and more recently for Nanny Mcphee And The Big Bang. Haris Zambarloukos BSC is off to the States to prep Thor, the Marvel comic book adaptation directed

by Kenneth Branagh. Marcel Zyskind is back in Denmark having wrapped on The Killer Inside Me, Michael Winterbottom’s latest film. Alan Almond BSC continues on Survivors II until the middle of September.

Danny Cohen BSC is now grading Dominic Savage’s Dive for the BBC. Andrew Dunn BSC is shooting Greg Berlanti’s Life As We Know It with Katherine Heigl in Atlanta until mid November. Steve Lawes is in South Africa with Daniel Percival on Left Bank’s Strike Back, whilst Lukas Strebel is in Sweden filming Wallander for Aisling Walsh. Dale Maccready continues to shoot the second series of Merlin until October and David Higgs BSC is polishing off St Trinians II. Jonathan Harvey has wrapped on feature Home for Lesley Manning.

Charlotte Bruus Christensen is shooting a short film, Native Son, in Scotland for Scott Graham. Neus Olle is on a Catalonian art house film La Mosquitera in Barcelona.

Carlos Catalan has just wrapped on feature film Cherry Tree Lane for director Paul Andrew Williams. In commercials Simon Richards has been shooting with Jeff Labbe on a new Peugeot spot in Spain c/o Sonny. Haris Zambarkloukos has just finished a Sun Crystals shoot in Rio with Raymond Bark through Saville Productions, whilst Alex Barber has been shooting again with Joe Roman for Maxfactor through Knucklehead. Stephen Blackman has been shooting a new ING spot for Danny Kleinman in London. Also, the Coca Cola

‘Heist’ ad which aired during the 2008 Superbowl, directed by Psyop and shot by Stephen Blackman has been nominated for ‘Outstanding Commercial Of The Year’ at the Emmy’s. Daniel Bronks has been working with Chris Cairns at Partizan on a new Landrover ad in London. Stephen Keith-Roach is working on a new Samsung spot with Psyop at Smuggler. Benjamin Kracun is busy with commercials.

Dinedor Management’s… Steve Annis starts on his first feature film Pimp for Splendid Films, directed by Robert Cavanah and starring Danny Dyer, he also shoots music promos for Ella Chi and Wave Machines. New addition to Dinedor, Jim O’Donnell has been shooting dailies on Merlin for Shine Television. Trevor Forrest has finished Ben Miller’s directorial debut feature Huge, and has gone on to shoot commercials for Innocent Smoothies, Travel Supermarket and the London Eye and 2nd unit for a TV Licensing commercial. Steve Buckland finishes on Crash, a drama for Red Planet Pictures and shoots a pilot called White Van Man for Granada, John Daly BSC is shoots additional photography on the feature film Cosi, for Britannia Films. Peter Butler has been busy shooting dailies on Larkrise to Candleford for the BBC and Merlin for Shine Television. Tom Townend is currently shooting commercials for Actimel and Bacardi. Florian Hoffmeister has finished the BBC’s Margot Fontaine, directed

by Otto Bathurst through Mammoth Screen, and also shot a Noisettes viral for Nokia. Ian Moss has started on Lehman Brothers for the BBC, directed by Michael Samuels. Hubert Taczanowski finishes on

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Syntax Era, directed by Saul Metzstein for Darlow Smithson, Peter Field continues as 2nd unit operator on Gulliver’s Travels for Fox. Ben Filby is in South Africa on a commercial for Grolsch beer and has been shooting corporates for Royal Mail, DSD Marketing and British Mobility Training. Eric Maddison FSF has been busy shooting promos for Pixie Lott and Taio Cruz and Mclean, and a commercial for Always, Andrew Johnson continues on M.I. High, for Kudos. Martin Ahlgren shoots for Next Clothing in New York. Pete Ellmore has been shooting commercials for Aldi.

Matt Cooke has shot a viral for COI with Peter Cattaneo, and corporates for Tiger Aspect’s Secret Diary of a call girl and beauty giant Coty. Garry Turnbull is off to Canada shooting a corporate for Alcatel and Toyota.

McKinney Macartney Management’s… Ben Butler has been shooting commercials for Trevor Melvin, Ed Morris and Miranda Bowen. Denis Crossan BSC has busy shooting commercials for Vaughan Arnell, Neil Harris, Susie Roberson and Mark Denton. Shane Daly has just returned from Armenia where he has been working with The Shammasian Brothers through Coy Films. He is currently in Palma filming a commercial with Ian Eames. John de Borman BSC is getting his marching boots on for Dagenham Girls directed by Nigel Cole, bringing the events of the Dagenham Ford plant strike in 1968 where the female machinists protested all the way to Parliament for equal pay.

Gavin Finney BSC is in Budapest filming with Jon Jones as they explore more of the Discworld on Going Postal, the third

Terry Pratchett adaptation for Sky/The Mob. Graham Frake is in prep for the latest Dr. Who with Andrew Gunn directing.

Richard Greatrex BSC is shooting Moby Dick with Mike Barker. Nina Kellgren BSC has just completed filming The Omer Fast Project for Tiger Lily Films. John Lynch has been busy filming commercials for Luke Scott through RSA, Dougal Wilson through Blink and Dom & Nic through Outsider. Phil Meheux BSC is currently in LA shooting pick-ups on his latest film Edge Of Darkness for director Martin Campbell. Mark Partridge is back among the villages Oxfordshire for the return of the hit BBC series Lark Rise To Candleford.

David Tattersall BSC is minding his feet as he continues to search the land of Lilliput for director Rob Letterman. Jack Black stars as the eponymous hero of Gulliver’s Travels. Clive Tickner BSC is shooting a commercial for Marek Losey and has recently been working with Graham Rose.

Having just returned from Ireland where he shot his latest film, Belonging To Laura, with Karl Golden at the helm, Darran Tiernan is currently shooting a commercial for Sam Washington. He then travels to Beijing to shoot a Nokia commercial with director, Michael Williams.

Felix Wiedemann has been filming a corporate for Google for Director, Richard Nockles. Michael Wood has just completed filming on Rise of the Appliances - a short film for director, Rob Sprackling.

Independent’s… Ben Davis BSC has started Stephen Frears’ new feature Tamara Drewe, based on the graphic novel of the same name by the Guardian cartoonist Posy Simmonds. Benoit

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Benjamin Kracun on a shoot

Delhomme AFC has completed shooting Hideo Nakata’s psychological thriller Chatroom in London. Anthony Dod Mantle BSC DFF is to shoot Kevin MacDonald’s Roman military drama, Eagle of the Ninth, in Scotland and Budapest. Starring Jamie Bell, Mark Strong and Channing Tatum, it follows a young Roman solider as he endeavours to honour his father’s memory by finding his legion’s lost golden emblem.

Martin Kenzie is currently lighting and directing 2nd unit for Louis Leterrier on Clash of the Titans. Sam Mccurdy BSC has set about lensing Street Dance for Max Guia and Dania Pasqini, a 3D project combining street dance with ballet. Roman Osin BSC shooting Peter Mullan’s Neds in Scotland, the tale of a teenage boy, growing up in Glasgow in the ‘70s, who becomes embroiled in gang culture. Dick Pope BSC has started on Mike Leigh’s new untitled feature. Chris Ross is on E4’s new comedy series Misfits. Ben Seresin is about to start Tony Scott’s new thriller Unstoppable, in Pittsburgh and Portugal, starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine, and Oliver Stapleton BSC shooting Troy Nixey’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, in Australia.

News of Sara Putt Associates’ DPs is that… Dirk Nel is in prep on romantic comedy Swinging With The Finkels, directed by Jonathan Newman, for Kintop Prods. David Marsh is soon to commence prep on the next Lewis for ITV Granada.

Jan Jonaeus has completed Identity for ITV Granada. Mike Brewster continues on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1&2 for Warner Bros, and Nick Dance continues lighting on Skins IV in Bristol.

Oliver Cheesman is doing two projects for

BBC Scotland, Tank Commander and Rab C Nesbitt. Pete Edwards is currently doing new series Relic for CBBC, Paul Lang is on the documentary The Story of Tim Page and Sean Flynn in Cambodia, Vietnam and Australia for Wall to Wall TV on HD. Peter Greenhalgh is in South Africa preparing a documentary on Atlantis for BBC N.Ireland. Doug Hartington is currently in Hawaii, Mexico and New Orleans filming 80 Days Around The World for BBC. Will Pugh is shooting WWII docudrama The Forgotten Few for Darlow Smithson, and Steve Robson has just returned from USA after shooting Dinosaur Auction House for Animal Planet. Operators… Julian Morson is on St Trinian’s: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold for Fragile Films, Philip Sindall continues on Nanny McPhee II for Working Title. Graham Hall is on Oliver’s Arrow for Warner Brothers, Joe Russell is back in Cardiff on the new series of Dr Who, Gareth Hughes has been doing dailies on Scott Free’s Pillars of the Earth in Budapest and Jay Odedra has been in Ireland operating on the 2nd unit of Granada’s Mo Mowlem project.

Meanwhile, over at Digital Garage…

Andrew Mott has been in Papua New Guinea shooting several programmes for Transworld Sport. Chris Openshaw just returned from Rome shooting for Modern TV and has gone straight on to Coast for the BBC in Denmark. Jeremy Humphries has been shooting Secret Millionaire for RDF. Bruno Sorrentino has been filming Grace Under Fire in the Congo for BBC, Si Wagen was in Canada, USA and Indonesia shooting How Earth Made Us for BBC, and Dan Starborg is assisting on Avalon’s new comedy Mouth To Mouth.

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Prep: Bruce Chun getting ready for Unnatural History

Peter Haynes shooting 80 Days Around The World for BBC in Mongolia

Peter Haynes shooting 80 Days Around The World for BBC in Mongolia

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IBC 2009: Preview of Hall 11

The 3D market is polarising between live broadcast/performance and cinema production. ARRI Digital is focusing on the second category with a new 3D LUT feature for its ARRICUBE Creator, able to work with DI systems and video to film chains.

On the more general DI side the recently released Relativity software gives greater manipulation of image format, grain and texture for the ARRISCAN, now available in a lower cost 2k version, and ARRILASER.

The late Douglas Adams wrote that the universe is an unsettlingly big place and most people would happily move to somewhere rather smaller of their own devising, writes Kevin Hilton.

If IBC is a universe then, as far as cinematographers, camera operators and grips are concerned, Hall 11 is a much more manageable world to navigate. A few companies have chosen to be in other galaxies but spending the whole of your show-time in Hall 11 will cover most of what’s going on with camera, lens, hardware, support and control technology.

Because the real universe has three dimensions 3D will make itself felt in Hall 11, with strong influence from what is planned for elsewhere in the RAI. On Monday 14th September the regular D Cinema Day conference session is taken over by stereoscopy, with presentations chaired by UK 3D producer Phil Streather of Principal Large Format.

3D stereo

Streather says the intention of D Cinema Day is to make people aware of “the latest tools in 3D content creation and editing, how they can be used and what benefits they can bring a project”. Helping him do this are LA CGI stereographer Bernard

Mendiburu, Ken Schafer of Innoventive Software, 3ality Digital boss Steve Schklair and David Newman of CineForm.

Many of the latest tools are centred in Hall 11. Manipulation software is as critical to the process as the cameras and cmotion will demonstrate new editing programmes that give exact “precise replicated” lens control. This works with more than one lens and is able to control convergence on all current 3D mirror and side-by-side rigs.

Monitoring 3D images has often been left up to crew in the OB trucks, with camera operators just concentrating on getting the shots. New field monitors are appearing on the market and Transvideo will show its CineMonitorHD 3DView, a HD SDI unit that allows camera crew to correlate cameras and preview in anaglyph mode.

New rigs continue to appear, with Element Technica establishing a new division to produce such systems. Rigs are available in three sizes and are able to accommodate cameras ranging from the SI-2K to the F35, with the ability to convert from side-by-side to mirror. Element Technica will also be showing a new range of 15mm LW studio equipment.

P+S Technik has become the rig of choice for many European 3D producers but must have realised the growing

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competition because during the show it is showing four distinct systems, three of them getting their first ever airing at IBC. Non-3D debutants are the MINI35 compact image converters for the JVC GY-HM700 and Canon XH A1/XH G1 and a new 16Digital lens package.

Tagger is 3D display software and Killer a feature film postproduction application for correcting stereoscopic images...

Among P+S’s European rivals in the rig stakes is Binocle, which will display its three motion control systems introduced this year. The Brigger I, II and III offer support for any size of camera, with remote, real-time control of movement, optical axis gap and convergence. On the processing side Tagger is 3D display software and Killer a feature film postproduction application for correcting stereoscopic images. A live version for sport and concert shooting is in the works.

Cameras

The importance of core technology is demonstrated by ARRI showing the CMOS sensor, on which its three “next generation” 35mm digital cameras are based, in what is described as a proof-of-concept camera.

(Read more aboit it in Production News).

This gives a base sensitivity of 800+ El and at least 12 stops dynamic range. Lenses are still at the heart of ARRI’s business and new models include the Master Macro 100 and Compact Primes, which are lower cost PLmount optics for film and digital cameras.

Manufacturers have become more cautious after the Blue Sky days of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, preferring to bring only fully formed products to exhibitions. Cooke Optics is breaking that trend with the first working prototype of its Panchro lens, after the announcement of its existence at NAB earlier this year. This is a PL-mounted lens for 35mm film and digital production, with independent filmmakers, film students and documentarians in particular seen as potential users.

Abakus will introduce a new range of HD C-Mount Prime-lenses, which include such specialist models as the 4mm “archery-lens”, described as a high impact borescope, and a lens aimed at small 2/3inch single-chip HD cameras.

The WEISSCAM HS-2, showing

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Feature // Shooting the Future

on the P+S stand, is the next step for the uncompressed high-speed digital camera developed by German DoP Stefan Weiss.

This has a full format Super35 CMOS sensor with global shutter and a PL lens mount to accommodate 35mm lenses.

The camera can work at speeds of up to 1500fps in 2k, 2000fps in 1080p and 4000fps for 720p.

Wige Media will demonstrate the Cunima, a micro HD camera using CMOS chips and integrated circuits designed by the Franhofer Institute. Weighing in at just 182 grams the Cumina has automatic gain control, auto white balance and a detail filter and is aimed at 3D shooting as well as HD. Specialist cameras are now more mainstream and critical to overall production, whether for feature films or sport. Bradley Engineering is expanding its range of HD mini-remote ball cameras with the HDC 100, hailed as the smallest all-in-one high def camera on the market.

Bradley is also introducing a dual channel fibre system based on SMPTE.

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Presentations were chaired by UK 3D producer Phil Streather of Principal Large Format.

On-set hardware

There’s plenty of hardware to clamber over as well but perhaps Matthews Studio Equipment won’t let you have a go on its Round-dRound, a new doorway dolly. Matthews will also show MAXine, the newest member of its range of patented lighting stands.

On the luminaire side itself Gekko Technology will unveil the kelvin Tile, a lighting system based on LEDs. Using red, green blue, cyan, amber and white LED components in a 16x15 matrix, kelvin Tile offers consistent colour temperature.

Much more is expected in Hall 11, as well as the wider universe of IBC itself. And don’t forget to do an A-B comparison on the BSC and ASC image assessment findings.

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Issue 35

UK // Close Ups

Jess Hall BSC, Creation The debates around creationism and the theory of biological evolution are never far from a serious dinner party at the best of times. And never more so in 2009, the bicentenary of the birth of English naturalist Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, his seminal work of scientific literature considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology.

We can expect a fresh wave of discussions when Creation, the biographical drama about Darwin hits cinema screens. The £10m production plunges us into the life of the worldrenowned scientist, as he conceives the book that proves the non-existence of God, whilst also being crushed by the death of his eldest daughter. The drama is played out in the confines of a small English village, as Darwin’s passionate marriage is torn apart by the most dangerous idea in history.

Creation was directed by Jon Amiel, and stars Paul Bettany as Darwin and Jennifer Connelly as his wife, Emma. John Collee wrote the script based on Randal Keynes’ biography of Darwin titled Annie’s Box. The film was brought to visual life by cinematographer Jess Hall BSC. “I like films with big ideas behind them, and they don’t come much bigger than this,” says Hall. “For me, it’s hugely rewarding to work on something that is so culturally and historically significant. The film is not anti-religion in any simplistic way. We see Darwin struggle with faith, mortality and a revolutionary scientific idea. Ultimately it’s a celebration of all these things.”

The subject matter apart, Hall says he was drawn to the production by Collee’s unusual non-linear screenplay that mixed fragments of Darwin’s work and home life, present, past, imagination and dream. He was also keen to grab the opportunity to work with Bettany and Connelly, Amiel, and he film’s producer Jeremy Thomas.

“Jon was very keen to make a contemporary period movie,” says Hall. “He wanted the story to have immediacy, to be situated within the characters lives, rather than being a tableaux of stately, refined period images. We decided that a handheld camera would give us this intimacy, due to our ability to respond to the actors’ movements with a human hand and the feeling of ‘life’ it would give to the framing.”

Much of the film was shot handheld or using an Easy Rig. The production also made extensive use of Steadicam and dolly moves. Peter Robertson was the camera operator, of whom Hall says, “he did a fantastic job, and always had the right tools for the shot.”

Explaining the visual strategy for the production, Hall says, “We tried to move away from over-cluttered interiors that often dominate period dramas and make them feel too art directed. We went for stripped-down simplicity – simple painted rooms, and environments that would allow us to focus on the faces and emotions of our characters. We were fortunate to have two fantastic faces to explore in Paul and Jennifer.”

Apart from a brief shoot in Thailand, where London Zoo was built in Bagkok, the production shot entirely on location in the UK, with interiors shot at Pinewood. It was

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framed 2.40:1 anamorphic and captured on Kodak Vision 3 5219 500T, with some Vision 2 5205 250D, and Kodak 5201. The Millenium XL camera and Primo lenses were supplied by Panavision, with a lighting package from Panalux.

“Jon referred to the visual strategy as looking into a stained glass window of Darwins’ life. The film is composed of a series of fragments; present, past, imagination and dream. Each fragment needed have its own unique, distilled and lucid quality, like looking into individual panes of glass. Their visual quality would reflect the emotional tone of the narrative and only together would they would form an exquisite and coherent whole.”

Consequetly, Hall developed a variety of looks for the film to suit these various glimpses into to Darwin’s life. These included visually contrasting styles – such as a partial bleach bypass for scenes in Tierra Del Fuego and a highly-saturated fine grain rendition of the jungle where Jenny the orangutan is first captured.

“I used a combination of film stocks, processing, lighting, exposure and filtration to control the looks in order to achieve as much in camera as possible. All this, of course, had to be done in collaboration with the production designer Laurence Dorman and costume designer Louise Stjernsward. The DI further enhanced this process although my intention was to keep the photographic integrity of the negative and to do as little as possible. One of the main things we did in the DI, however, was to key into and further saturate Annie’s pink dress in the scenes where she ‘visits’ Charles in his imagination. This gave her a slight other worldly quality.”

Creation was one of the last projects to go through DI at Framestore, with colourist Asa Shoul (now at Technicolor).

Processing and DVD dailies were done at Deluxe, with Clive Noakes acting as Hall’s trusted timer.

“Ultimately the past was differentiated from the present through subtle desaturation and a slight milky quality in the blacks,” explains Hall. “The present remained for the most part more saturated with more contrast and richer blacks.

Each room in the Darwin’s house had a particular colour palette, which we developed in testing. These colours related to the emotional quality of the scenes that occurred in them. There was no strict adherence to a colour theory like Vittorio Storaro used to great effect in Bertollucci’s The Last Emperor. Our decisions were more based on instinctive choices.”

Creation shot from the end of September to the end of December 2008, on a timetable of 11-day fortnights, which Hall describes as intense, especially when juggling the availability of available light with the wrangling of animals and the availability of child actors.

“Ultimately the past was differentiated from the present through subtle de-saturation and a slight milky quality in the blacks,”

Experience: 3D stereo producer Phil Streather with gyrostabilised 3D aerial filming rig.

Close ups were researched and written by Bob Fisher, Annette Zoeh and Ron Prince.

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Issue 35

UK // Close Ups

Shelley Johnson ASC, The Wolf Man Director Joe Johnston stepped into the breach three weeks before The Wolf Man was scheduled to begin production after the original director left the project.

A week later, he asked Shelly Johnson ASC to fly to London. His previous collaborations with the Los Angelesbased cinematographer were Jurassic Park III in 2001 and Hidalgo in 2004.

The Wolf Man originally premiered on cinema screens in 1915. Johnson has vivid memories of seeing the 1941 version of the black-and-white film at a revival theatre. He envisioned a visual grammar while reading the script during the flight to London. The driver who met Johnson at the airport asked if he wanted to be taken to his hotel.

“There’s not a lot of time,” he replied. “You better take me to Pinewood Studios.”

The story for the latest adaptation is set in England during the 1890s. Lawrence Talbot, played by Benicio Del Toro, is estranged from his family, but comes home to help search for his missing brother.

Talbot is conflicted after he is bitten by a werewolf, yet succumbs to animal instincts during each full moon.

Anthony Hopkins is cast as Talbot’s estranged father, Sir John Talbot, and Emily Blunt portrays the missing brother’s fiancée. Settings include the family manor, a local village, a gypsy camp, a crypt and an insane asylum.

“John Higgins is an extraordinarily talented gaffer,” Johnson says. “We were making plans five minutes after I arrived at the studio.”

The cinematographer and director also hit the ground running. “We took the film apart scene by scene and went about designing a visual language that would best support the character’s emotions,” Johnson says.

Johnston and Johnson were of a single mind in deciding to produce The Wolf Man in Super 1.85:1 format coupled with digital intermediate (DI) timing. They agreed that it was the right aspect ratio for both the period and the story.

“It’s a dark movie with many night scenes with light motivated by the moon and candles,” Johnson adds. “Joe wanted a heaviness to the atmosphere, also present on daylight exteriors. He wanted the audience to see details into the darkness, and for the overall mood to carry a visual weight.”

They also agreed to depict Talbot’s conflicted feelings when there is a full moon by integrating opposing visual elements such as warm and cool light and dark black and white components sharing the same space.

While shooting makeup and hair tests, Johnson experimented with a black layer luminance technique he designed to render a pearlescent tone to the finished film. “I defocused black tones in the digital intermediate bay, which caused them to open outward over values inherent in the image that adjoined them. I then accented the highlights so that they punched through that thinned black layer,” he explains.

“It’s an impressionistic approach and an unexpected way to construct a look.”

Johnson lauds production designer Rick Heinrichs and costume designer

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Milena Canonero for the roles they played in creating a sense of time and place. “We planned the schedule, starting with many large-scale night scenes,” Johnson says.

“I made detailed lighting diagrams and specified where we would need people and equipment. For example, there were several large hills and tree-rows all around a gypsy camp where we had a complicated sequence. We hid Dinos and very large soft boxes, so we could cover that scene from anyplace in a 360-degree arc motivated by the moon and firelight.”

They shot the night exterior scenes first, because production was scheduled to begin in March when the longer nights were 14 to 15 hours.

Johnson recruited Irish A camera operator Des Whelan, who had worked with him on Durango and Hidalgo. “Des has a wonderful artistic sense and his compositions are impeccable.” The camera worked mostly from a Technocrane that was constantly moving with the aid of key grip Gary Hymns.

The Steadicam/B camera operator was Pete Cavaciuti. The camera was generally on a dolly. Johnson lauds Cavaciuti with consistently being in the right place at the right time when the Steadicam was used, providing expressive fast-moving images.

Panavision provided the camera package, including two Millennium XL bodies and a full set of Primo prime and zoom lenses. Johnson estimates that he covered scenes with two cameras around 75 percent of the time. “First AC Julian Bucknall and second AC Lewis Hume were accomplished and indispensable members of our working family.”

Johnson had two Kodak Vision3 films on his palette – 500T 5219 film for night and interior scenes, and the 200T 5217 for daylight exteriors and for most greenscreen shots, including forest night scenes.

“It’s a dark film, but we want the audience to be able to see deep into the shadows, so we used smoke on almost all interior and most exterior scenes,” he says.

“Joe stayed close to the actors and used a handheld monitor to check composition.”

Deluxe Lab did the front-end lab work, and Arion Facilities in London provided HD dailies with defocused black tones. Johnson added painterly touches to the look while timing the final cut for seamless continuity with DI colorist Jill Bogdanowicz at Technicolor in Los Angeles. The Wolf Man is scheduled for worldwide release by Universal Pictures in February 2010.

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Headshot of Shelley Johnson.

Photo by: Douglas Kirkland.

Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro in The Wolf Man. (Photo credit: Frank Connor/ Universal Pictures)

Emily Blunt in The Wolf Man with Benicio Del Toro.

(Photo credit: Frank Connor/Universal Pictures)

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UK // Close Ups

The White Ribbon (Das weiße Band), Christian Berger A passionate love of creating beautiful images, a hawk-eyed precision to capturing sophisticated, light-demanding shots, and the ability to translate them directly from the camera‘s viewfinder into the spectator`s heart characterise the work of the internationally renowned and award-winning Austrian cinematographer Christian Berger.

Berger began his film career in 1968 working for many years for Austrian broadcaster ORF. He recalls this era as a time of apprenticeship and training, having to cope with many restrictions and impromptu situations. A variety of documentaries and major feature film productions followed, among them the award-winning Raffl, Benny’s Video, Dead Man`s Memories, La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher), Caché, Disengagement and the 2009 Cannes Palme d’Or winner The White Ribbon, which releases in the UK in November.

Berger is married to FrenchSwedish actress Marika Green (Pickpocket, Hanna Monster, Darling), who works on documentaries as well as managing him. Berger owns TTV Film Productions in Austria, lectures in camera art and visualisation at the Vienna Film academy as a university professor; and is also responsble, along with Christian Bartenbach, for the design and development of the Cine Reflect Lighting System (CRLS).

The 35. Lentni Nuova Film School festival in Uherske Hradiste, Czech Republic, recently showed many of his award-winning films, and included a late-night demo of the CRLS system. This event provided the opportunity to talk with him about his film career, in particular the camera work on The White Ribbon.

The 2008 German/Austrian/French co-production, was lensed in 1:1.85 aspect ratio on 35mm colour film, with digital post production used to render the images as B&W. It was shot on location one hour`s drive outside of Berlin.

“For me, the complete film is the successful combination, with thrilling results, of two great tools, analogue film and digital post, brought together as the best of two worlds,” muses Berger.

“The whole film was shot 3-perf at 24fps using a Moviecam Compact.

Its ergonomics provide a high degree of operating freedom. Moreover, the range of Cooke S4 lenses I used guaranteed the best anti-flare, and I appreciate the look the lenses achieved. Primarily I used 32mm and 40mm focal lengths as standard lenses, sometimes 50mm and 27mm.”

As the film reflects a village story set in 1914 in B&W, Berger lit the dark scenes only with candles, petrol lamps or torches, and devised the sophisticated camera work required for those scenes. Candle-lit scenes with underexposures of 1.5 t-stops, sometimes more, demanded extraordinary skills and tools; sometimes the colour temperature was down to less than 1,800K. Although filmed in colour, The White Ribbon was lit for black and white. As Berger comments, “The latest generation of

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colour negative film is excellent quality. I used Kodak Vision3 500, 250D and 100 stocks as they offer complete colour spectra, halls of grey scale and a host of contrast possibilities, including fine-grained structures suitable for rendering B&W quality.”

Post production, at Listo Film in Vienna, involved Northlight pin-registered scans, Baselight Eight grading and an ARRILaser film-out.

“Basically, I regard the new possibilities that digital post offers as positive. DI is a great way to restore blacks and bring out the saturation whilst letting the rest of the image information survive,” he says. “It is important to know that you have these repair and finessing possibilities in post, without spoiling the cinematographer‘s personal style and handwriting. But, this does mean that the actual shooting process requires an even more precise visualisation by the cinematographer. It is important for the cinematographer to know how to apply the capabilities of DI in the most suitable way. The cooperation between a DP and the DI experts is essential. With the wrong person in the grading suite you might ruin a film completely.”

Bergers`s ambition on The White Ribbon, was to use indirect illumination to create an aesthetic beauty and atmosphere, and he used the CRLS exclusively. Scenes such as the church interior were lit with five reflectors only, positioned outside the church. Beautiful light streaming through the church windows created an amazing atmosphere.

Berger says, “My main intention with the CRLS was to design a luminaire that reduces stress and creates more freedom for the director, DP and the actors, with a spread of more than 180° that can be used for the performance. For example, in a love scene, with a forest of flags and equipment on set, and a 10K blazing, how can a sweating actor whisper the words ‘I love you’? I wanted to get rid of this forest of flags and lights that block the scene.”

The CRLS, which has been used on seven feature films already, including Ne Fais Pas Ça and Caché, offers a variety of reflector surfaces, and is well-suited to digital acquisition as it provides control of precise contrast ratios.

When asked about working with director Michael Haneke on The White Ribbon, Berger says, “Working with Michael always is a challenge, for both of us. He believes only in what he sees; though his obsessive precision always results in quality and an enrichment.”

Berger praised his first camera assistant Gerald Helf, and gaffer Kim Jerrett, who did a great job on this production.

Speaking about his lecturing work at the Vienna Film Academy, Berger says, “For me, it is important to provide essential knowledge about the meaning of light and shade, and to prevent any exaggerated hightech euphoria among my students without fundamental basic background. For that reason I conduct Lichttage Und Lichtnächte (lighting days and nights) seminars in which I take students on a short term Adriatic cruise with stopover on an island to explore natural light and darkness, and to focus on the camera art and visualisation.“ Berger is a film stalwart, and appreciates the reliability, infratsructure and archivability provided by 35mm film. He also says, “I am an opponent of technical dictatorship. The overall message is to make sure we keep the focus on the art of filmmaking that allows the DP to choose the tools that best suit their purpose.”

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Issue 35

UK // Close Ups

Buddy Squires & Ken Burns, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (or why PBS likes Super 16mm) The National Parks: America’s Best Idea premieres this September on Public Broadcasting Service television stations in the United States. The 12-hour documentary will take the audience on a six-part journey to national monuments and 57 public parks in 49 states. It artfully weaves images culled from some 400,000 feet of new Super 16 film with archival still photos and newsreels dating back to the 1920s, writes Bob Fisher The documentary was produced by Florentine Films in conjunction with WETATV, the PBS affiliate in Washington DC. It marks the 17th collaboration for director Ken Burns and cinematographer Buddy Squires since they met and organised Florentine Films while they were both students at Hampshire College during the mid-1970s.

“Dayton Duncan, one of my long-time producing partners, came to me about 10 years ago with the idea of making a documentary about the national parks,” Burns says. “I said yes in a millisecond. The grandeur of our national parks is the symbol of the promise of a democratic society, where the land belongs to everyone.”

They began shooting film in 2002.

Squires was the principal cinematographer with additional footage shot by Burns, Allen Moore and Lincoln Else. Duncan and co-producer-editor Craig Mellish scouted locations and determined where and when the cinematographers should turn their cameras on nature. Duncan guided them to locations.

They generally began hiking in time to arrive at their daily destinations 30 to 45 minutes before sunrise, and started the treks back to their camps 45 minutes after sunset. Depending on the location and season, temperatures ranged from 20 degrees below zero to 100-plus degrees

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Fahrenheit. They filmed scenes in rain, snow storms and sunshine.

A mule occasionally accompanied them, but Squires usually carried his gear in a backpack, including the “reliable” Aaton XTR camera that he has used for many years, Canon 8:64 and 11:165 zooms, a 300mm long lens, and a tripod, along with an ample supply of Kodak Vision2 100T 7212 and 500T 7218 film. Squires says that he used 7212 for daylight sequences because “there is something special” about the look of film balanced for exposure in tungsten light with a number 85 filter on the lens.

“No matter how well we prepared, there were always surprises,” he says. “It was 20 degrees below zero while we were shooting at Yellowstone (National Park). The sky was filled with white plumes of geysers of boiling water spurting out of the frozen landscape. I turned around and saw a buffalo with icicles hanging off its furry chin.

There was steam coming out of its nostrils.

I hope that shot makes the final cut.”

The exposed negative was processed at DuArt Film Laboratories, which also produced video dailies. The negative was scanned at 3K resolution with an Arriscan at Goldcrest Post in New York City, and sub-sampled down to a 2K 10-bit digital log file. The colourist was John Dowdell, who has collaborated with Burns, Duncan, Squires and the rest of the Florentine Films team since 1980 when they produced Brooklyn Bridge, the first of the company’s 22 PBS documentaries.

“We scanned The National Parks film at 3K resolution because it comes as close as possible to emulating the resolution and nuanced colours and contrast of the analogue images recorded on the film. Over-sampling eliminates aliasing.” Dowdell explains.

Burns gives a simple but eloquent answer when asked why he prefers to produce documentaries on film: “I just love the look,” he says. “It’s beautiful and it feels organic.” Squires added, “Film provided the latitude we needed to record nature at its best with true colours and details in the brightest highlights and darkest shadows.”

They also both believe that documentaries should be produced on a proven archival medium because they are the history of our times. Some master files for Florentine Films documentaries are archived at Eastman House in Rochester, New York. The other master files and all outtakes are archived by the University of North Carolina.

Flashback: In 1997, PBS engineers were concerned that the MPEG compression used during HD postproduction would create objectionable grain on images produced in Super 16mm

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film format. Dowdell was a colorist at a New York postproduction facility, which had installed the first Spirit DataCine. He scanned and converted Super 16mm film footage that Squires had shot for the Florentine Films Lewis and Clark documentary, and converted it to HD format. Burns arranged for PBS to air that demonstration at 3am. PBS alerted its national staff and people working with local affiliates. That on-air demonstration resolved the issue for PBS.

“I just love the look of film. It’s beautiful and it feels organic.”

Ken Burns, director

Filmmaker Ken Burns filming at Montana’s Glacier National Park in July 2008.

(Photo by Jason Savage)

Grand Teton National Park (photo by Craig Mellish)

Grizzly bear fishing for salmon, Brooks Falls, Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska.

(Photo by Craig Mellish)

Old Faithful erupting, Yellowstone National Park (Photo by Craig Mellish)

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Feature // Camera Creative

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Robert Richardson ASC on Inglorious Basterds: A very Nazi Business Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as “The Basterds” have one mission – to wreack havoc on the Third Reich, any way they can. And, boy, do they wreak havoc! Quentin Tarantino style. Using pulp and propaganda in equal measures writer/director Tarantino weaves together the fabric of WWII from the oppressed to the oppressor, the famous and the infamous, with that tongue-in-cheek he’s so famous for, writes Dixie Bonham.

When the production details for Inglourious Basterds were settled, the next question became would Tarantino also capture the images himself, or would he rely on a cinematographer to shoot the film?

“The project fascinated me,” says cinematographer Robert Richardson ASC, who had forged a relationship with Tarantino while shooting Kill Bill. It seemed fortuitous.

Tarantino and Richardson met at the same restaurant where they had discussed Kill Bill. Over a few drinks, a meal, and after swapping stories, they got down to business and discussed the project.

“It’s at times playful, at times brutal, at times wildly humorous,” Richardson learned.” The film weaves a series of narratives toward one outrageous and fantastic conclusion in which Quentin turns cinema into weapon – not figuratively but literally. ‘This is revenge and there is nothing sweet about it,’ was his take.”

The two then headed for the dollara-head cinema to see Navajo Joe, “Which, perhaps, gives you a small insight into Inglourious,” Richardson laughs. Obviously, the teaming was going to work again, and Richardson settled in to prepare for the Tarantino experience of shooting.

Strictly chemical

“Quentin’s intention was to do a strictly chemical film,” explains Richardson. “No digital intermediate. This approach was crucial to his perspective on the filmmaking process, little to no reliance upon new technology. Four-perf, dailies, edit on flatbed, cut negative, IP/IN, release prints.

In camera was his preference and order, from photography and processing to final print, as well as to how the various departments, whether visual effects (helmed by John Dykstra) or special effects were required to view their work.

“Even the final explosion in the theatre was to be real. No CG images at all. The various scalping or gun wounds were all to be done in camera. That’s the charm and one reason for the success of style that

Quentin employed with this film.”

As is the Robert Richardson style, he took on the natural double duty of cinematography and operating. “I have developed my eye as a cinematographer through the craft of operating,” he reasons.

“The eyepiece magnifies that which is being captured. When I am not operating, I am often anxious, uncertain, restless, sometimes irritable. When I am in the position of working with Steadicam or remote cameras, I fly with a broken wing.

Frustration becomes my constant shadow.

Eventually, I work through the issues but not without great effort. Operating allows me to enter the zone, for lack of a better word.

When the camera rolls and I am peering through the glass, I find the world around becomes silent. It’s a transcendent state.”

So, Richardson began prep, testing lenses – Panavision vs. Arriflex. He decided to go with the Panavision G, E and C anamorphics plus Primo lenses. “In short, I found the aberrations less discernible and the matching between lenses in respect to colour finer. The degree of testing was severe,” he adds. “Gregor Tavenner, my first assistant, spent substantial time balancing the sets –

“I have developed my eye as a cinematographer through the craft of operating” for exterior, for interior, distortion, etc.

“Furthermore, tests were conducted in 65mm,” Richardson explains. “The reason for 65mm was initially to provide Quentin with a strong shift in clarity/ resolution and colour for the final chapter of the film. Unfortunately, in the end, the 65mm did not prove to be the potent ally I had hoped to find.

“Times have changed dramatically.

The digital world has supplanted the chemical. Work in the chemical field is slowly eroding. The craft is being taken to the shadows of time. Not only are there few labs that understand the characteristics of 65mm, but there are but a few labs that can produce quality black and white.”

The fact saddens Richardson.

Something he could go on and on about.

Sometimes, he feels, technology is changing too rapidly and artistry is being sacrificed.

It was Tarantino’s desire to shoot what the two called “The French Section” of the movie, a film within a film, in black

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Brad Pitt (LT. Aldo Raine) and Christoph Waltz (Colonel Landa) star in Quentin Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. Photo Credit: Francois Duhamel

and white. So, Richardson set about testing various stocks. However, he came up against a wall.

“The results were mediocre, when they came back from the lab we were using in Germany,” he explains. “The reason was complicated. But, bottom line, the lab could not provide proper baths for development and printing for black and white. The results were often shallow. The blacks were vague.

The whites dirty.

“We attempted another lab in France but the results there were equally disappointing for much the same reason,” he adds. “Lab tests in California provided better results. But not enough to convince Quentin to stay film in his resolution of black and white for this chapter.

“The film within the film (final chapter) on the screen proved a far greater success.

Quentin had moved on and decided it was best for the film to be shot in colour.”

Influences

Each “chapter” had its own look. The opening, for example, was to carry a “once upon a time in the west” ambience in the style of Sergio Corbucci (Django), Castellari (Keoma, Go Kill Everybody and Come Back Alone), Petroni (Death Rides a Horse) and most widely known, Sergio Leone (The Good, The Bad and the Ugly).

“It’s a WWII film with a spaghetti western countenance,” he says. “Despite the fact that we moved from Black and White to colour in the final ‘chapter’, the intention was to reference the French New Wave, much akin to Reservoir Dogs.

Quentin wanted a more natural feel to this section. Practical locations like the café where we shot in Paris. Relaxed Rohmeresq style (A Summers Tale). Less the Godard world. Long conversations throughout the film.

“For the final chapter, Quentin would have loved to have turned the hands of the clock back, to return to the days of glorious Technicolor (Red Shoes, Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Heaven Can Wait), awash in richly saturated color. Which is the reason we began tests with 65mm.

Financially unaffordable, as well as the issue of reduction to 35mm.

“So, Quentin turned to David and Sandy Wasco, who designed the set of the theatre with the most saturated colors.”

Tarantino’s main concept for the sets was to make them as realistic as possible – in some cases, very low ceilings and few windows. “For example, the tavern, or locations that felt ‘realistic’ and not fantastic,” Richardson explains. “Maxims was another example.”

This tied Richardson’s hands when it came to trying to get the sets to be “camera-friendly.” It became a little more of a challenge to create and maintain a “look” in these sets or locations.

“Quentin, being a cameraman, knows the difficulties and had some sympathy but, in truth, his objective was to place the words on the screen with the very best of deliveries. All else falls behind this goal.

Quentin’s razor sharp dialogue requires sacrifice, and within this film, my blood has stained many a set!”

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Feature // Camera Creative

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Finishing

As far as finishing the picture, “It started at the beginning,” says Richardson. “Initially, Inglourious was slated for Cannes. This placed a great deal of pressure upon Quentin to complete both principal photography and post in an extraordinarily short period of time.

“Post with editor Sally Menke was to be about 11 weeks,” he explains.

“As a result of the short post, it became progressively apparent to producer Lawrence Bender and those who are in post that the film could not be completed in a traditional manner.

“Quentin also came to this realisation near the end of principal photography.

He shared this with me and when he did he asked that I not stop shooting the film in the manner I had – which meant that I would not shoot with the knowledge that a DI would be in the future. So, I continued in the same manner I had up to that time, protecting the image as if I could not do any post work on it.

“As a result, when it came to grade the picture with Yvan Lucas at e-Film, there was substantially less to accomplish. The image tended to be more evenly balanced then if I had chosen to wait to ‘fix’ it in the DI suite. I spent approximately 12 days at e-Film.

Most days were eight to ten hours.

Some fewer. Yvan had gone through the majority of reels prior to my arrival and balanced them to the work print.

“On that note, I should add that the

Quentin Tarantino (Director) on the set of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. Photo credit: Francois Duhamel

“The digital world has supplanted the chemical, and that craft is being taken to the shadows of time” work print was not even, as most are not, and he would find the best of that print and then ground the digital image to those images chosen. When I arrived, I went through the film with him. Quentin would then come in and we would make notes as he viewed the output. He would exit to whatever else had to be accomplished, which at that time, was a tidal wave of issues – the mix, editing, VFX, titles, etc.

We would alter the digital image as he requested. He would return, make further notes, etc…. until he was content – and we rendered the film Inglourious Basterds – Quentin Tarantino style.”

Melanie Laurent stars in Quentin Tarantino’s latest film INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS as Shosanna.

Photo Credit: Francois Duhamel

Melanie Laurent stars in Quentin Tarantino’s latest film INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS as Shosanna.

Photo Credit: Francois Duhamel

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Martin Wuttke plays Hitler in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. Photo Credit: Francois Duhamel

Issue 35

UK // Live & Let DI

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To Live & Let DI Cinematographers who enjoyed the luxury of doing DIs at London’s Framestore will be saddened by the news that the company announced plans at the end of July to cease its DI grading operations. The company’s CEO William Sargent told British Cinematographer magazine that undercutting by competitors, including Ascent and Technicolor, combined with a lack of British films requiring DI services, had forced the decision.

“It’s sad and depressing to close a department that we have built up over several years, and which we believe created the highest quality DIs in the world,” said Sargent. “In the last two years, we hung in there hoping that people appreciated, and would pay for, quality when they saw it.

“But as a private company we could not continue to do work for 50% or less, sometimes nothing, which our competitors are doing. They are determined to own the market and are driving down prices until competitors leave. Also, the six to eight jobs we did each year on British films are just not there at the moment. I expect DI prices will now go higher, and that customer service will suffer.”

“The set for the bedroom was quite clinical and less colourful than the rest of the flat, which was brightly saturated and so the grade was far colder and less exuberant than the other scenes. As the film developed, becoming warmer.”

Sargent was unsure how many of the 23 staff involved in its DI division would be released or retained, as the company was undertaking a period of consultation, but hoped that most of the staff would be found new roles within the company.

Before and After: Ninaithale Inikkum was graded by Steve Shaw of Light Illusion

All of the existing DI (Framestore favoured Baselight systems) and intrastucture equipment will remain at Framestore, but will be repurposed through the company’s commercials and VFX divisions.

Whilst the closure of the DI operation is a blow, Framestore, which employs around 600 staff, appears to be going from strength-to-strength. Its VFX division is currently working on several major Hollywood motion pictures including Avatar, Clash of the Titans, G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra, Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, Nanny McPhee & The Big Bang, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Sherlock Holmes.

DI projects completed at Framestore included, Chicken Run, Casino Royale, Cold Mountain, Last King of Scotland, The Queen, Enduring Love, Generation Kill, In Bruges, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Creation.

On the upside, cinematographers shooting digitally will be pleased to learn about the launch of MPC’s new Data Lab. The facility, based at the company’s Wardour Street premises, provides support for all data-acquisition projects, and offers assistance and production management across all stages of a digital pipeline.

The new service also offers workflow consultancy, digital dailies, rushes for Avid and FCP editors, and a full range of digital transcoding for commercials, feature films

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

and broadcast.

Data Lab builds on MPC’s experience with tapeless workflows. Feature film experience includes Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire and Guy Ritchie’s forthcoming Sherlock Holmes movie.

Managed by digital imaging producer Chris

captured from Panavision Genesis, Sony F-35 and Sony F-23 cameras on to Codex or S.Two data recorders, and tape decks.

Ascent 142 recently completed the DI The Disappearance of Alice Creed, a thriller directed by J Blakeson, starring Gemma Arterton as a rich girl who is kidnapped

Vincze, the Data Lab works closely with creative director of colour grading, JeanClement Soret. Services include support for RED, Phantom, ARRI D-21, Silicon Imaging 2K, Sony XD Cam, Panasonic P2, AVC Pro HD, digital stills cameras, plus material

by two men and becomes embroiled in a tense power play of love, sex and greed.

The film was largely set in one location, the flat in which Arterton’s character is held.

The set design was brightly-coloured and constructed to give a sense of heightened

Issue 35

UK // Live & Let DI

reality. The director wanted a bold, strong contrasting look and briefed Ascent 142 to develop this with the DI. The dramatic look was in part achieved during production with the film being shot on ARRI-D21 by DP Philipp Blaubach, although the grade was also imperative in helping with the right look, particularly with the bedroom and cellar scenes, which contrasts with the feel of the rest of the film.

Rob Pizzey, DI supervisor at Ascent 142 commented: “The set for the bedroom was quite clinical and less colourful than the rest of the flat, which was brightly saturated and so the grade was far colder and less exuberant than the other scenes. As the film developed the grade for the bedroom scenes changed again, becoming warmer to reflect some of the more intense scenes between Alice and one of the kidnappers.”

Ascent 142’s sister company Rushes

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completed 45 VFX shots for CinemaNX on Alice Creed. The work involved a combination of clean-ups, muzzle flashes and matte paintings, completed over of a period of three weeks, using Nuke and

set the film’s look with cinematographer Balasubramaniam and in conjunction with the film’s director GNR Kumaravelan.

“This was a great film to grade, with a lot of heavily creative image manipulations

“It’s sad and depressing to close a department that we have built up over several years, and which we believe created the highest quality DIs in the world” Shake for compositing.

In a continuing relationship with India, Steve Shaw, CEO of specialist UK-based digital film consultancy Light Illusion, has acted as chief colourist on the Indian feature film Ninaithale Inikkum at Gemini Film Lab in Chennai, India. Shaw

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operations are looking to gain global exposure, with a number of Indian facilities purchasing UK and US-based operations, it’s an exciting time to be providing technical and creative consultancy services to some of the major players within India.”

Technicolor UK has completed the DIs on a range of movies. These include BBC/Scott Free Production’s Churchill At War, lensed by Adam Dale; Universal/ Working Title’s Hippie Hippie Shake, shot

by Michael Seresin BSC; Terry Gilliam’s Dr.Parnassus which was lensed by Nicola Pecorini; Ealing Studios’ From Time to Time, lit by Alan Almond, plus Ealing Studio’s remake of Dorian Gray, shot by Roger Pratt; Revolution Films’ The Unloved, lit by Thomas Townsend; Optimum’s Is There Anybody There, shot by Rob Hardy, and 20th Century Fox’s stop-motion flick Fantastic Mr Fox lensed by Tristan Oliver.

When the nominations were announced for the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards, and it was revealed that Cinesite’s work on both Generation Kill (HBO) and Into The Storm (HBO) had been nominated under the category Outstanding Achievement In Special Visual Effects For A TV Special Or Miniseries. Only two productions were selected for nomination in this category and because Cinesite was involved in both, the company was guaranteed success at the awards, which take place later this year.

being required to help bring the DP and director’s views to the final image,” Shaw commented. “There were many layers of grading, including far more image manipulation than is common within the usual ‘colour correction’ requirements.”

“At a time when many Indian

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Feature // On the Job

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When we last heard of Sam Witwicky, he’d done his best to put the conflict at Mission City behind him and returned to his daily routine. Now he’s at a new school. Has a pushy roommate. An equally pushy, but more attractive, new female acquaintance, writes Dixie Bonham.

Unfortunately, distracting visions flash across his brain, interrupting his normal life.

Fearful that he is suffering from the dementia that plagued his grandfather, Sam keeps his vision a secret until he can no longer ignore the messages and symbols. Once again he finds himself at the centre of a tug-of-war between the Autobots and Decepticons, with the fate of the universe at stake.

And once again, mega director Michael Bay brings Sam’s struggle to the screen – but this time with a whole new creative team that would have no preconceptions as to the “look” of what a Transformers film should be. The idea? To ratchet up the stakes – and the action – by combining his signature high-energy camera work, with both 65mm IMAX footage as well as 35mm anamorphic cinematography, and create harder visuals with even more edge.

Something about cinematographer Ben Seresin’s commercial reel had caught Bay’s eye and he tapped the young Brit to helm the camera team. Rounding out that package were gaffers Michael Bauman and Bruce McCleery, operators Jacques Jouffret, Phil Carr-Forster, Dan Gold and Lukasz Bielan, 1st assistants John Connor and Trevor Loomis and key grip Les Tomita.ILM’s Scott Farrar ASC was in charge of the visual effects.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

Images courtesy of DreamWorks SKG/Paramount Pictures

“For a DP not to see digital or film projection on a big screen, until the grading, is insanity.”

Ben Seresin on Transformers: Revenge o British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

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Feature // On the Job

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Getting prepared

“Working with Michael isn’t always the sort of collaboration most of us are used to,” admits Seresin. “He has a very specific aesthetic, and a very efficient way of getting there. So, during our initial discussions, and in fact throughout the process, he filtered ideas very specifically to make sure they would fit with his plan.

You have to keep in your mind that often, much of the film is built from visually punchy ‘moments’ more than developed shots. He has a very keen instinct for what will work for the cut and what he won’t use.”

As Bay and Seresin entered the prep phase of this project, they knew it would be impossible to shoot the project in HD. “The need to run and gun ruled out HD,” explains Seresin. “Plus film looks better, especially when you have little time to finesse. When Michael is ready – he shoots!

“A large part of the film is shot with an Arri 235 with a 200-foot mag. Often Jacques, Phil or Lukasz would be running along a cliff edge, right next to a fireball, engulfed in a dust explosion. They would have a battery belt and the AC may or may not have managed to stay with them.

“What was also exciting is that we shot some IMAX sequences as well,” he adds. “This was an amazing format to work with. Seeing rushes projected on IMAX is a DP’s dream and really brings into perspective the current trend of seeing rushes on small TV screen, often from a DVD. I totally understand the economics of this, but for a DP not to see digital or film projection on a big screen, until the grading, is insanity.”

Prep included extensive lens tests and Seresin opted for the G-series Panavision anamorphics, principally for their low light performance. “We also used C and E series lenses, depending on the scene requirements,” he explains.

“I did extensive colour testing, especially for night exteriors,” he adds. “I preferred a dirtier look to nights for this film, and avoided blue light wherever possible.

I also needed to develop a system where we could move from wides to tights without lighting changes. This is paramount on Bay films, as is working without flags or any sort of overhead diffusion. Michael wants to be able to move the camera without restrictions of lighting equipment. It’s a good discipline to have, but sometimes the results are somewhat compromised. I found very large sources far away worked well, as a generalised approach.”

“Michael Bay sets a breakneck pace.

He also likes to shoot in sequence, allowing for scenes to evolve as they grow,” Seresin explains. “It really generates a particular momentum that then must be sustained.

And the opening battle certainly set the pace. It was particularly challenging for me, as I had to deal with the problem of shooting in every direction simultaneously, whilst trying to maintain visual integrity.

“It was shot principally with a combination of BeeBee and LRX (Singles and one truck) positioned throughout and around the set. Initially an expensive investment in equipment, but it made for very fast shooting. I used colour to help blend, where backlight would very quickly become front light, and need to be balanced accordingly.

“We averaged 60 camera set ups a night for the first three nights,” he recalls.

“In the middle of summer! There are a couple of shots in this sequence where none of us are sure who did them! They’re not bad either!”

Ram-rodding the look through all phases of production was an intense experience for cinematographer Ben Seresin. Having a strong gaffer working alongside him was a must. In fact, because of the scope of the project, Seresin actually had two high-profile gaffers often working in tandem, with Michael Bauman working by his side and Bruce McCleery either pre-lighting sets or working tandem shoots.

Seresin credits them both for creating intensely difficult set ups.

Ask him which was the most challenging for Michael Bauman, and the “Bethlehem Steel” location comes to both their minds.

“It was dressed to fill in for Shanghi,” explains Bauman. “It was our first location of the movie and quite an introduction to the size and scope of the film. I don’t think the people of Bethlehem, PA, had any idea what was coming down the pipe!

“Bethlehem Steel had been closed for at least 15 years,” Bauman explains.

“The blast furnaces and attached structures were an amazing, yet unforgiving, series of structures to light. Almost every inch of that place is painted a matte black and was

of the Fallen British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

about 2,000 feet long with the tops of the furnaces going up to 250 feet. There were a lot of nooks and crannies that required a mix of broad sources and well-placed accents along with a ton of practical work.

“A lot of the rigging was very difficult, due to the deteriorating conditions of some of the structures,” he adds. “When we scouted the location, Ben and I both really scratched our heads on how to come up with an approach which balanced the lighting requirements yet gave us the flexibility we needed for shooting. We shipped out ten 40-foot trucks of lights and cable and spent over two weeks rigging that location, followed by a four-day prelight.

“IMAX is such a powerful way of placing the audience in the movie.”

“During part of the prelight, we had a major electrical storm roll in, and the last place you want to be standing is in the middle of a massive steel structure half a mile long when lighting is coming down full force!

“In addition to our lighting package, we also brought out two 15-head BeeBee lighting trucks from California and one LRX lighting truck from Canada. Atop all of the blast furnaces, we had an LRX single, which is an automated head that was set up in 12K HMI Par mode.

“Ben had a great approach to use of colour on that set,” Bauman adds. “He talked a lot about creating a grittier look to that space through colour contrast. We started by a mix of tungsten, Metal Halide and mercury vapour practicals on the set, and then extended that to some of our large sources where we added half green to the HMI of the BeeBee trucks and LRX singles. This combo worked very well with the steel structures and really gave that set a great signature.

“That set alone would be the centrepiece of many a movie, however, it was only the first three days of shooting that week! We finished the week at the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum in Virginia. That location was also incredibly difficult, as we were lighting a museum space 1,000 feet long and 250 feet wide.

We incorporated 40 4K Pars, a dozen 18ks, a BeeBee light and LRX truck, along with several Sourcemaker Lighting Balloons and 20 Varilight VL3000 automated fixtures.

End week one!”

Just a walk in the park for a team charged with non-stop action, where often half of the “cast” wasn’t even there. Don’t even start to ask the operators about framing for robots that weren’t there, or setting up for effects that would “fall in” through Scott Farrar’s amazing efforts at ILM. That would take a book.

Ask about shooting IMAX, and Seresin will become a little more animated.

This 65mm format was used for two key action sequences; a clash between Autobots and Decepticons taking place in a forest and the final battle.

The crew’s challenges? How about a camera that weights about 100 pounds? A huge negative that consumes the viewer’s peripheral vision – meaning the camera must be moved carefully, so as not to lose the connection with the audience, but enough to keep the action moving. Not to mention capturing footage that would then be augmented with amazing 70-foot tall robots!

“Shooting IMAX was terrific,” Seresin says. “The quality of the image coming from that size negative is extraordinary. I’d love to do a whole movie in it. The IMAX market is very big and has longevity. There is a new discipline to composition and movement shooting for such an enormous screen. Your eye takes longer to move round the image, so you must be aware of this. It is such a powerful way of placing the audience in the movie. Having said that, much to the IMAX guys’ concern, the IMAX ‘rules’ went the same way that many of the others did on the film. After all it is Michael Bay behind the vision!”

Issue 35

UK // Meet the New Wave

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We’ve identified a new wave of cinematographers who… have a decent slew of films under their belts… are not upstarts, but not quite of “a certain age” either… are not yet members of the BSC… but who have the potential to become the next Haris, Ashley or Anthony.

Away from work, what are your greatest passions?

Friends, travel and the great outdoors.

Introducing Trevor Forrest Filmography (so far): Someone Else (2006), Bombil And Beatrice (2007), Tormented (2009), Una Noche (2009), Huge (2009) When did you discover you wanted to be a cinematographer?

The first time in my adult life when I was struck by cinema was watching Merchant Ivory’s A Room With A View, shot by Tony Pierce-Roberts BSC. I was 19. It took you to another world that wasn’t always pretty, but it told the story with real grit while still maintaining the beauty of the time, place and people.

Where did you train?

I went to art school in Birmingham and then to France studying painting. But when I got there things swiftly changed from photography serving paintings as reference pictures to photography being the main medium I worked with. I would create exhibitions of 20 or so images with sound to form installations. Then I worked as an assistant and photographer in the fashion industry, which lead to on working on set in many different countries as a camera assistant.

What are your favourite films?

– Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (DP Vilmos Zsigmond) – the suspension of disbelief, UFOs, nostalgia. I saw it as a child, and it still stands up today.

– Amorres Perros (DP Rodrigo Prieto) – the sheer balls of it. It made the mainstream stand up and look at World cinema in a serious way, and took the three-act story format to a different level.

– The Man Who Wasn’t There (DP Roger Deakins) – the best adaptation of Camus’ book The Outsider into another Coen Brothers gem. Wonderful to see black and white in the cinema, even though they had shoot colour because of the distributors before grading it.

– Irreversible (DP Gasper Noé, Benoit Debie) and Enter The Void (DP Benoit Debie) - Uncompromising on every level.

Totally inspiring use of technique. Gaspar Noé is on my dream list of directors to work with in the next part of my career.

What’s the best advice you were ever given?

My grandfather, Trevor Bilbey, once told me, “Fear is only about not knowing something.

So appreciate and draw on the experience of others around you to fill the gaps and you can do anything.”

Who are your DP/industry heroes?

Joe Dunton, Seamus McGarvey, John Mathieson, Anthony Dod Mantle, Rodrigo Prieto, Ellen Kuras, Alfonso Cuaron,.

Although none them can actually “fly”, they all seem to be able to see the unimaginable from time to time. Also, the level of encouragement they give others within their own crazy schedules, and their massive achievements, are nothing less than superhuman.

What’s your proudest moment?

Standing on the red carpet with my best friend Matt Neale at the premier of Tormented at the Empire Leicester Square.

It was perfect to share that with him, as we have known each other since sailing from Mauritius to Cape Town in 1995.

What’s been your best moment on set?

Standing on set 37 floors up in Centre Point, London, shooting Huge, a film I have just finished with Ben Miller, Noel Clarke, Thandie Newton and Johnny Harris. They are today’s stars it was a great honour to work with them at this exciting time of their careers. Very tough schedule, but everyone was on the same page. Magic!

Tell us your most hilarious faux pas?

Telling Jeff Thomas that he couldn’t leave his notes on top of the video monitor. I didn’t realise he was the director at that point. He still remembers, and its what chuckle about when we see each other in the street.

What one piece of kit could you not live without?

The director.

Which films are you most proud of to date?

Una Noche – its sheer logistical problems pushed us and our creativity and made the film a whole lot better, in a really kenetic and curious way. Whatever Cuba took away in logistical problems it gave back three fold in atmosphere people, architecture and life.

Someone Else – it was my first film. It won audience approval at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and then went on to 50 screens through Soda Pictures.

Tell us your hidden talent/party trick?

I can dance with the best of them. I grew up in the Bahamas where kids could dance before they could walk.

In the entire history of filmmaking, which film would you love to have shot?

The Killing Fields (DP Chris Menges), and 2001: A Space Odyssey (DP Geoffrey Unsworth) Tell us your greatest extravagance?

Collecting art and photography.

What’s the best thing about being a DP? Out of the chaos of all the elements of making a scene work (weather, lighting, timing, one actor’s performance syncing with another, day or night, and so on), you are the one who has to catch the moment when all the disparate elements come together.

If you weren’t a DP, what job would you be doing now?

Trying to figure out how to become a Magnum photographer.

Trevor Forrest (l) with his best mate Matt Neale at the premier of Tormented at the Empire Leicester Square

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Issue 35

UK // Post & Techno News

Lightpanel fixture.

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Gekko LED.

Cooke Optics’ CEO, Robert Howard, who attended the ceremony in Allerthorpe, East Yorkshire.

Litepanels wins an Emmy Litepanels Inc., manufacturer of LED (light emitting diode) television and motion picture lighting equipment, has been awarded a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, for its proprietary lighting systems.

Litepanels fixtures are used on a variety of network television productions including Desperate Housewives, Fox’s 24, and Without a Trace. The Emmy statue is the first in the Academy’s 61 year history to be awarded for television lighting technology.

Litepanels fixtures have become a staple in television production because of their versatility and characteristically soft, HD-friendly light, which can be infinitely dimmed with no noticeable shift in colour temperature. Litepanels eco-friendly lighting equipment is also attractive to production studios because it draws less than 10-percent the amount of power necessary for traditional lighting fixtures, and generates practically no heat.

Litepanels’ list of customers extends beyond television and feature production, and includes the Whitehouse and Pentagon Briefing Rooms, the International Space Station, CNN’s Election Bus, news helicopters, and numerous TV news studios and ENG crews.

Gekko donates to NFTS Gekko Technology has donation of a kisslite LED ringlite system to the UK National Film & Television School in Beaconsfield. A 5,600 K version was presented recently to NFTS Chairman Michael Kuhn by Gekko Technology

founder and MD David Amphlett.

“The National Film & Television School is one of Britain’s mostly highly regarded creative-media training centres,” said Amphlett. “Our aim is to encourage NFTS students to explore the strengths of LED technology in relation to other forms of studio and on-location lighting for film as well as HD and standard-definition television. We are sure they will be favourably impressed by the versatility and controllability of LED luminaires, not least the ability to provide close-up light without cooking the talent.”

Gekko designs and manufactures LED lighting products for the global film, television and photographic industry.

Credits include Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Death Defying Acts, Mamma Mia!, The Golden Compass and television drama such as Star Trek, Desperate Housewives, Waking the Dead and New Tricks.

The company has recently moved to new and larger premises in Kenilworth.

Panavision creates Burbank facility Panavision, renowned for the design, manufacture and rental of camera systems, plans to create a state-of-the-art facility in Burbank, California, combining its Woodland Hills and Hollywood locations into the largest camera rental facility serving the entertainment industry. The company is currently looking for property to accommodate this facility, which would house camera rental and crane rental operations, manufacturing and research and development, as well as corporate headquarters. Currently, the Woodland Hills offices inhabit 150,000 square feet and Hollywood’s facility operates in 23,000 square feet.

“The upcoming expiration of our current leases provides us with the

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

opportunity to consolidate our Los Angelesbased operations into a new facility in close proximity to many of our studio, television and commercial customers,” said Margit Elo, president, of US Operations, Panavision Inc. “This facility will be a reflection of Panavision’s reputation for excellence, innovation and quality. We expect to identify a site in 2009 and commence the relocation process.”

Large scale movies such as Pirates Of The Caribbean, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Terminator Salvation, Hannah Montana: The Movie, Batman: The Dark Knight, and the upcoming G.I. Joe have all obtained their camera packages from Panavision.

Thomas Cooke commemo -rated Thomas Cooke, the name behind Cooke Optics’ film and photographic lenses, has been honoured in his home town of Allerthorpe, East Yorkshire, with a commemorative plaque celebrating his scientific achievements.

Thomas Cooke (1807-1868) founded T. Cooke & Sons of York in 1836 and became renowned as a maker of astronomical telescopes and other optical devices, teaching himself navigation, astronomy and optics despite having just two years of formal education. In 1893 T. Cooke & Sons’ optical manager, H. Dennis Taylor, designed and patented the revolutionary triplet design. The Cooke Triplet concept was a simple and elegant solution to design issues that plagued lens designers of the era. T. Cooke & Sons did not wish to pursue the photographic lens business, and offered the manufacturing rights to Taylor, Taylor & Hobson of Leicester, optical instrument makers who had a reputation for producing quality optical products. However, the licensing

agreement stated that the lenses would be sold under the trade name ‘Cooke’ – and the name has survived throughout the company’s tumultuous history.

Sweet16 Launches Kodak, Soho Film Lab and post production facility Rushes have teamed up for a new 16mm initiative. Sweet16 is a new offering of packaged services, consisting of stock, lab processing and grading aimed at stimulating the use of 16mm film for commercials, virals and music promos.

The package is tailored two ways to suit the differing workflows for commercials and music videos. The sweet16 commercials package comes with 2000ft of stock, processing and one light SD transfers, plus three hours of telecine, whilst the sweet16 promos package has 3200ft’ of stock, processing and five hours of telecine. Both include SD or HD machine time but exclude tape stock.

Alex Panton, telecine producer at Rushes said: “We hope that this concerted effort from some of the biggest facilities in UK film will boost the hard-pressed production sector.”

Jon Gray, operations and facilities manager at Soho Film Lab, adds: “Nothing matches the exposure lattitude of the human eye, which can see details in shadows and highlights at the same time but film comes much closer to that ability than HD or data. 16mm is a reliable and much loved capture format and these two distinct and uncomplicated inclusive packages will provide our new and existing clients with an easy, realistic alternative, both financially and aesthetically.”

Available through Kodak re-sellers ARRI Media and Take 2 in conjunction with their camera equipment rental, sweet16 represents a value of £1,600. Sweet16 has recently teamed up with this year’s UK Music Video Awards to promote the initiative. More information about sweet16 can be found at: www.sweet-16mm.com.

Issue 35

International // F-stop Hollywood

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LA Focus: All the latest news, plus a look at the newest kit on offer in Hollywood.

It’s summer in Hollywood, and Tinseltown recently toasted Deluxe Entertainment Services Group, which celebrated its 90th anniversary in Southern California as it is completing the construction of the new Bud Stone Building, writes Carolyn Giardina.

A dedication and ribbon-cutting

event on Deluxe’s Hollywood lot was attended by an estimated 200 VIPs, including Roger Deakins BSC ASC, Joe Dunton BSC, Woody Omens ASC ASC, past ASC presidents Richard Crudo and Daryn Okada; as well as clients and representatives from companies including Panavision, ARRI and Kodak.

The event took place outside the new building where a red carpet greeted guests, who were treated to hors d’oeuvres and champagne.

“As Deluxe continues to expand its worldwide footprint to fulfill growing demand for both film and digital services, it is an honour to officially open our newest facility in Hollywood in Bud Stone’s name,” said Ronald O. Perelman, chairman of Deluxe.

The Bud Stone Building is dedicated in memory of Burton “Bud” Stone, the respected leader who served as president of Deluxe from 1976 until he retired in 1994.

He had a special appreciation for the role of the cinematographer, and was an honorary member of the ASC. Judy Stone, widow of Bud Stone, joined Perelman, Deluxe president/CEO Cyril Drabinsky, and Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa in the ribbon cutting.

Drabinsky announced that the services offered in the new building represents 30% more capacity in release printing. The building – bringing the campus’ lab facilities to 152,000 square feet – includes the installation of new, highercapacity processing and printing machines.

Updated equipment will allow Deluxe to reduce use of electricity by an estimated 20% and realise approximately 25% savings on water as part of the company’s

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

programmes to reduce utility and chemical usage while also reducing, reusing and recycling raw materials. The new building also includes several screening rooms, as well as administrative offices.

Engineering Emmys

The Deluxe event underscored the spirit of innovation in the production community, and to that point, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences recently announced the recipients of the 61st Primetime Emmy Engineering Awards, which were presented during an August 22nd ceremony at the Renaissance Hotel in Los Angeles.

Engineering Emmys were awarded to: Henson Digital Puppetry Studio (The Jim Henson Company); Fujinon Precision Focus Assist (Fujinon and NHK), for enabling camera operators the ability to ensure fast accurate focusing of HD images under varying conditions; Litepanels LED lighting products, for lowvoltage, low-wattage, energy efficient, LED lighting fixtures that allow for a wide range of applications of LED technology to a variety of image capture situations; and the Dolby DP600 Program Optimiser, for an audio platform that provides a file-based automated workflow for faster-than-real-time encoding, decoding, conversion, transcoding, loudness correction, audio creation, and upmixing.

An Engineering Plaque will be awarded to the Grip Trix Electric Motorized Camera Dolly, a special equipment camera dolly that is virtually silent and is adaptable to accommodate just about any moving camera shot.

Additionally, the Philo T. Farnsworth Award was presented to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), commemorating the 40th

for traditional lighting fixture.

Now, Litepanels is taking its technology to new depths. The company recently teamed with Hollywood-based underwater motion picture specialist HydroFlex to develop a family of underwater lighting fixtures, dubbed the Litepanels SeaSun Underwater housing series.

The low-power draw of LED lighting fixtures means that divers carrying the lights underwater can do so untethered from power cables to a surface craft, and can provide long shooting times from small battery packs carried with the SeaSun light fixtures. Litepanels is one of an increasing number of companies offering LED lighting systems.

“When cinematographers and gaffers told us that they needed high-output, lowpower consumption light for everything from big-budget features to those all-important short form projects, we went to work.” says Malcolm Mills, co-founder of LEDZ. The result was LEDZ Brute30. “LED technology and science is way ahead of where it was two years ago. Before LED and the Brute30, a cinematographer or gaffer would have to use 400 watt HMI lights, which are more expensive, not very energy efficient, and generate a lot of heat,” Mills said.

“The Brute30 replaces all that. With the flip of a switch, the user can get an instant light that is quickly set up and is extremely powerful – even though it can run off a 12 volt battery supply. Perfect for those short form shoots where you are in places were big lights, if they can fit in, can often over-load the power.”

The Brute30 and the entire LEDZ range are available for sales and rentals through LEDZ’s worldwide distributor Hollywood Rentals.

The production environment in Los Angeles is busy with episodic television. But the feature business is almost non existent in Hollywood at this time.” Michael Bravin, Band Pro anniversary of the technological innovations that made possible the first live broadcast from the lunar surface by the crew of Apollo 11 on July 20th, 1969.

LED Lighting

Honouree Litepanels offers fixtures that have become a staple in television production, and its eco-friendly lighting equipment is developed to draw less than 10-percent the amount of power necessary

Hollywood-based lighting company Mole Richardson, which opened in 1927, is also working on LED lighting to support green initiatives, as well as expanding its HMI offing. Mole Richardson has recently been previewing a prototype of its soon to be released 24K HMI Daylife Fresnel.

“We’ve been trying to fill up our family of HMIs to make it complete. With different wattages, that’s done,” explains the company’s Larry Mole Parker. Also

Issue 35

International // F-stop Hollywood

new in the lineup: A 575W Daylite Par and 800W daylite Par.

Camera kit

Another business that has spend more than half a century in Southern California is OConnor Engineering, a Vitec Group brand, founded in 1952. OConnor’s focus these days is its 120EXe Encoded Heavy Duty Fluid Head, designed to provide highprecision pan and tilt position information for visual effects production.

Mo-Sys provides a companion encoder box for the 120Exe, which allows high-resolution pan and tilt data of 1.8 million counts per revolution to be output from the head. Vitec’s Ali Ahmadi suggests that when the 120EXe is coupled to the Mo-Sys Motion Logger, it may be used as a camera mocap system for use in

postproduction. When used with the Mo-Sys 3D Inserter, it enables real-time previsualisation of live action and CG compositing on set.

Ahmadi is looking forward to the Fall: “Production is picking up and the

TV season is starting.”

Band Pro’s Michael Bravin added, “The production environment in Los Angeles is busy with episodic television.

The changeover to more S35 size HD

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said: “With the help of our friends at Band Pro, we’re finally making the move to high definition. When they showed us the Sony F35 camera, we knew it was time. We take pride in offering our clients only the

“The upcoming expiration of our current leases provides us with the opportunity to consolidate our Los Angeles based operations into a new facility” Margit Elo, Panavision US because of the F35 and to a lesser degree the Genesis and D21 has resulted in a very busy summer season of shooting shows for the fall. But the feature business is almost non existent in Hollywood at this time.”

Supplier Band Pro, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, recently announced that rental house Otto Nemenz International, in its 30th year, has taken delivery of 10 Sony F35 cameras.

Company president Otto Nemenz

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

best products. The F35, together with our existing cine Cooke, Angenieux, and Zeiss PL mount lenses, gives us a system we’re proud to put our name on.”

Birns & Sawyer has been selling and renting cameras and accessories in Los Angeles since 1954, but the company also made some recent changes.

“We decided to get out of the film camera rental business in July; we’re keeping some digital camera and lenses, and selling the film cameras,” said Bill Meurer, owner and cinematographer.

The company is working with Canon and its 5D MKII, a still camera with 2K video capture capabilities, and is in the process of packaging this Canon camera with the new AJA Ki Pro recorder.

Birns & Sawyer is also working closely with P2 and Red technology. “We are experimenting with new digital formats.

We don’t have enough business to justify keeping film cameras,” Meurer said. “We are serving independent filmmakers, which has been pretty busy.”

Birns & Sawyer is also committed to community education, and it hosts monthly information events. “They have been very

successful,” reported Meurer, adding that sessions have included topics such as Red workflow and lighting. “We are trying to continue to be a source for information.”

With an estimated 14 features already announced for 2010, stereoscopic production is becoming a more weighty subject, and young company Element Technica is starting to let customers know that it is working on a 3D camera rig. In fact, plans are to develop a line of 3D products.

Element Technica is meanwhile offering its new V-DOCK mounting system, and one use is with the Element Technica Red Drive Shock Mount System. It is designed, when combined with the ISOPlate shock mount, to expand the range of shooting conditions for the Red Drive by eliminating dropped frames in many situations where one would normally only use a Compact Flash card.

Panavision plans

Meanwhile, Panavision has revealed plans to build a new facility in Burbank, combining its two Southern California addresses in Woodland Hills and Hollywood. Panavision is currently looking for property to accommodate this facility, which would house camera rental and crane rental operations, manufacturing and research and development, as well as corporate headquarters.

“The upcoming expiration of our current leases provides us with the opportunity to consolidate our Los Angelesbased operations into a new facility in close proximity to many of our studio, television and commercial customers,” said Margit Elo, president, US Operations, Panavision.

“We expect to identify a site in 2009 and commence the relocation process.”

Issue 35

International // Letter from America

Michael Goi ASC, the newly-elected president of the ASC, says that greater communication is needed between cinematographers worldwide in order to preserve the integrity and importance of the DPs art.

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Though much has been said about the encroachment of other crafts into the area of cinematography, the vision and unique understanding of how light, shadow, colour, movement and composition affect the dramatic impact of a motion picture always seems to rest at the feet of the cinematographer.

As the two oldest cinematographic organisations in the world, the ASC and BSC share unique responsibilities: to preserve the heritage of incredible images that our members have brought to the world; to demonstrate by the work we do today that the inspirational power of compelling cinematography knows no bounds; and to educate and inform the next generation of image makers on the nuances of their chosen profession.

As the craft of cinematography continues to mature, we at the ASC find that the balance of our history and our future becomes more important than ever.

While many factions are easily swept up by the enticement of this or that new piece of equipment, or feel that some tried and true methods of capturing images are outdated, we continue to demonstrate the validity of choosing the right tool for the right job, that the artistry of the artist can encompass a broad palette.

The international nature of the roster of ASC members has allowed us to learn, by casual conversation, about shooting methods in different parts of the world.

Films where the cinematography makes a stunning contribution to the story, and that would otherwise not be known in the United States because of lack of domestic distribution, are regularly discussed and displayed at dinner meetings. By meeting and talking with many of these filmmakers, we find that our collective experiences as creators of the image place us within a unique family of artists, that we share many of the same struggles and have pondered many of the same problems.

At the recent CineGear Expo in Los Angeles during a joint ASC/BSC seminar, a distinguished panel from both our societies led a spirited discussion about the industry, technology, artistry and our respective organisations. During this discussion, a question was posed as to how we deal with the current “massive change� to digital technology. There is no massive change; there is simply change. The entire history of our industry and our craft is a history of change and evolution; from silent to sound movies, from black and white to colour, from square format to widescreen. This change is simply another one.

What we do as cinematographers is embrace change. We take each new technology and separate the fact from the fiction, we find out what it can and cannot do. Then we share this knowledge freely with the world. That we share this feeling of responsibility is clearly evident by the fact that both the ASC and BSC undertook to perform comprehensive tests on digital cameras at the same time. It was natural.

It is what we do. We explore the tools that enable us to do our job.

We continue to demonstrate the validity of choosing the right tool for the right job As the organisations that represent some of the best in our profession, the ASC and BSC clearly have solidarity of purpose.

BSC president Sue Gibson and I talked about this, and we vowed to broaden our lines of communication, to encourage an atmosphere of open and continuous dialogue about anything and everything we experience as cinematographers, to be friends and partners in our goal of guiding our cinematographic future, and to extend this friendship to the other cinematography societies of the world. Only with a clear understanding of how our profession impacts cinema on a worldwide basis can we hope to preserve the integrity and importance of our craft.

The massive refurbishment project on our beloved ASC Clubhouse in Hollywood is in full swing and we expect the work to be completed early next year.

Members of the BSC, and other readers of this magazine, if you find yourself on this side of the pond, consider this an open invitation to stop by, chat with our members and have a drink in the lounge. The bar is always open for friends.

Michael Goi ASC ASC president

American Society of Cinematographers Come Together British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Issue 35

International //

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Available now on a screen near you...

Check out our new website at www. thecinematographer. info A companion to the magazine, where you can find a range of archived articles from previous editions, and other items of interest to the camera crew.

And you can subscribe whilst online too..!

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Issue 35

International // Imago

The International The decision of the Latvian Government to effectively abolish the National Film Centre of Latvia has been condemned throughout Europe by many respected institutions including the European Film Agency Directors (EFAD, which also represents the British Film Council). Imago has added its regret at the plans to integrate such a vibrant and culturally independent Film Centre into the anonymity of the Latvian Ministry of Culture.

In a letter to the Minister of Culture, Ints Dalderis, Marge Liiske of the EFAD Network wrotes: “The National Film Centre of Latvia has been a valued participant and contributor to European film initiatives particularly, but not only, for the Baltic Countries. The closing of the National Film Centre would probably have a negative influence on the co-operation platform Baltic Films. The cost of independent agencies is offset by the benefits of greater transparency and accountability, a principle that features strongly in the resolution being prepared by the Council of Europe regarding effective film policy.”

The President of Lithuanian Producers Association Saulius Berzhinis in a further letter to Guntis Trekteris, addressed the imperfections inherent in the working of the Lithuanian system, the only European state, he claims, where a Ministry of Culture implements management of the film industry. Saulius Berzhinis concluded his statement by saying that, although understanding the difficult economic conditions requires hard decisions, the “liquidation of the National Film Centre would be an ill-considered step, which would have a negative influence on the entire Latvian Film industry.”

The Latvian Guild of Cinematographers has been a valued and regular participant at Imago meetings and is an active supporter of Imago and its aspirations. I invite the secretaries of all the societies of our Federation to write e-mails in support of the efforts to overturn the Latvian decision to Gints Berzins LGC at Gints@arkogints.lv for him to forward to the Minister of Culture and Chairman of the Latvian Film Council.

Opportunities

The rejection of the submission by Imago for an International Conference to be held in Copenhagen in October 2010 on a technicality was a disappointment. The substance of the submission has not been questioned, and the EU rejection came with their hope that we would resubmit our proposal for a World Conference. As your president, I have been heartened by the many messages of encouragement received personally to keep fighting to make bureaucracy work for us and for the ultimate justice of our cause. Time is running out, but there will almost certainly be another EU Proposal for Imago to present next year. With this experience behind us I am confident we will succeed for 2011. The presidents and societies of Denmark, Ukraine and Australia each have to be thanked for their assistance and encouragement in presenting the proposal.

The window which has opened comes courtesy of the Spanish AEC, which has announced a Conference On Authors Rights be held in Seville from 5th to 8th November.

Following the memorable Authors Rights

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Conference of 2005 in Huelva this Spanish initiative represents an opportunity for cinematographers to meet and evaluate the present situation of European Authors Rights issues, discuss strategy for a Camerimage debate which is being organised by the BvK in late November and, importantly for Imago, gather information to present to the EUXXL Conference in Austria next March, the results of which will be monitored by Brussels.

Manaki honours

The Manaki Festival of Macedonia, under their new Director Labina Mitevska, has decided to honour both Peter Suschitzky ASC and Billy Williams OBS BSC with Lifetime Achievement Awards for 2009.

Peter is well known for his collaboration with the Canadian director David Cronenberg, as well as being part of a family trilogy with his father Wolfgang Suschitzky BSC (Get Carter) and his son, the talented cinematographer Adam Suschitzky. Billy Williams with his Oscar for Gandhi needs no introduction anywhere there is film.

Imago is honouring the 30th Anniversary of the Manaki Film Festival, the oldest festival of cinematography in the world, by organizing a Master Class between Billy Williams OBE BSC (Ghandi, On Golden Pond, Women In Love) and Peter Suschitzky ASC (Valentino, Crash, Eastern Promises) in Bitula, Macedonia, on October 1st. The Manaki Festival was the favourite festival of the late Freddie Francis BSC. What greater accolade! An illustrated discussion between Billy, in the youth of his eighties, and Peter (they both worked with Ken Russell) should prove one of the highlights of the Festival.

The eDIT Festival begins on October 4th in Frankfurt when Imago plans to hold a board meeting to which Aleksander Shiganov, the president of the Ukrainian Society, has been invited to attend to strengthen Imago’s effective representation in Eastern Europe.

Imago has collaborated with eDIT, as it did so effectively last year by contributing events for the festival. The AFC and Imago will honour Ricardo Aronovitch AFC ADF ABC with the Imago Honour. This was awarded for the first time last year was to Guiseppe Rotunno AIC cinematographer, to Fellini, and many other great Italian Directors. The AFC will present a demonstration of “Day for Night”, and the BSC will present the findings of its Film & Digital Evaluation. Aardman animation will also be demonstrating the secrets of its magic.

Cincecitta management who have generously offered their facilities in Rome.

The Korean Society of Cinematographers has been invited to join Imago.

Nigel Walters BSC President IMAGO

Level Playing Fields The English expression “level playing field” has often been quoted in recent BSC and Image Forum discussions. The idea of fairness of opportunity is alien to most Welshmen and hillbillies, who learn at an early age that “level playing fields” no more exist in sport as they do later in life.

At the recent BSC Film & Digital Evaluation 2009 in Bristol, two case studies were presented: one by Ashley Rowe BSC to illustrate his choice of film over digital capture in the shooting of the super 16mm feature, A Bunch Of Amateurs which confirms, if nothing else, suspicions that Burt Reynolds never could act; the other case study was advertised as the decision of Nic Morris BSC and his producer to use digital cameras rather than film in the making of his repeat TV series Being Human.

The difference between the two is that the “level playing field’ in the decisionmaking for Ashley was considerably different to that facing Nic for his productions. Ashley chose to make the Royal Command Performance Feature on Super 16mm, having presented his objective and personal opinion as the cinematographer to his producer. In Nic’s

case the decision was out of his hands.

The producer revealed to the audience that the BBC had offered to reduce the cost the making of Being Human by a substantial financial subsidy which offered up to 25% more shooting time if she shot using digital cameras.

The Being Human producer told how, thanks to this BBC “slush” fund which encourages the use of digital capture by digital cameras as opposed to film, she had no choice but to dismiss the film route. So much for the “level playing field”, although she acknowledged that many BBC productions are continuing to be made on Super 16mm (she could have added the increased use of 3-perf 35mm for British TV.) Film it seems is not dead in the BBC, including 16mm. It still defeats understanding why, three years after the BBC death sentence on Super 16, producers have to be financially enticed to use HD capture as opposed to film by the offer of subsidy from their “slush” fund.

There was once a rumour that HD cameras would be cheaper than Super 16mm. If this is true, why does the BBC still find the need to subsidise its HD production? It does not make sense. In the US it would be investigated as anti-trust. This is licencepayer money being used to make sure the level playing field remains off level. At what real cost to true competition? ITV, you may like to enquire!

The news that the financial incentive for TV Productions not to use 16mm was coming to an end was interesting. Why was it ever necessary in the first place for the BBC to “bribe” its Producers to use a medium that many did not want? The Arri grain reduction system had blasted apart the BBC arguments of September 2006 to phase out 16mm film production for reasons of

Female masterclass

The World’s first all Female Master Class has been re-arranged by the Imago Master Class Committee to take place in Oslo in mid-November. This will follow the Conference on European Authors Rights in Seville, which starts on November 5th.

There each member society will be invited to bring two delegates with the internal costs in Spain being met by the AEC and the Seville Festival Authorities.

The EUXXL Festival in Austria in March 2010 will be dedicated to Cinematographers and issues, which affect their working lives. This may well prove to be the most important conference to date involving cinematographers and Imago. The recommendations are forwarded through the EU representatives who report directly back to the EU. Imago in conjunction with the AAC will be organizing a series of Master Classes for Austrian film students.

The Annual General Meeting of Imago will be scheduled for Mid-April 2010, after further discussions with

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Issue 35

International // Imago

compression restricting HD transmission. The BBC has now replaced a dogmatic approach to the future by holding a quarterly revue to embracing developments in technology.

Hopefully the reasoned arguments put forward by HBO for continuing the use their preference for Film will be examined by the BBC on a “level playing field”. Imago, the BSC and latterly the members of the Image Forum have led the fight for a restoration of this” level playing field”.

Decades ago the need for such a level playing field inspired the BBC to introduce the concept of “Producer Choice”, which was supposed to encourage the use of the best tools for each job. In reality, it was introduced to decimate the cost structure, which hitherto had governed the industry, whether in the form of craft labour or the materials as provided by the hire companies.

Freedom of choice can mean cheap labour and, with higher-end artists and BBC executives costing more each year, no prizes for guessing where cutting costs can be best achieved.

European 16mm film production can be restored to equilibrium as a result of recent technological developments and given hope by recent BBC deliberations.

The smaller European and worldwide TV companies, who depend on the BBC for research and development, will in the future be offered an impartial evaluation not one based on a short-term mentality which did not consider future technological advances.

All those interested in the future of the image ironically may thank the BBC for galvanizing Imago, BSC and suppliers to the Film Industry to create the Image Forum. The BSC has organised this second impressive Film & Digital Image evaluation exercise with a vital subsidy from Skillset (British Government). This impartial road-show will continue in various UK cities, where it will be presented by BSC president Sue Gibson and other BSC members who took part in the main shoots. It will also feature at the eDIT Festival in Frankfurt on October 5/6th.

The cinematographer seeks the best tool for the job, whether captured digitally or on film. The yardstick for the highest quality transmittable digital capture is still 35mm film. This is not disputed. The decision of HBO to use film in the future, as its preferred medium has to be respected. They are no fools and the playing field is in fact much wider than the cost of up- front raw material. They will have evaluated the true cost of post-production for HD against film capture, archival storage, and the long-term financial viability of their company. Could their decision be to do with the way film looks?

Snobbery One of the great privileges of being a cinematographer is travel. The act of getting there is often more pleasant and relaxing than being there, particularly if it is by train when the body and the mind arrive together; memories flood back of confidences shared with strangers, your new life-long friend for journeys.

Experiences so strange they are impossible to repeat to the public, such as the Amtrak captain whose tale was of the obese American lady whose excess flesh became sucked into the hydraulics when she inadvertently flushed in a seating

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position. The train had to be stopped and the train uncoupled to free her. On Around The World In 80 Days it was judged an unsuitable story for the public, but I love relating it. It disgusts, but at the same time discourages eating junk food!

On one recent journey on my old favourite carrier, the Great Western, a discarded Guardian magazine caught my attention. On the cover was an old friend, Glenn Close, who had given an interview to the excellent interviewer Decca Aitkenhead.

(The story of my relationship with Glenn and her family will have to wait for another day.)

In the article Glenn is reported as saying, “I think the days when there was this big divide between movies and television no longer exists. You know I think that view is a holdover of the snobbery that people used to feel about TV.” Glenn has an interesting viewpoint.

American television has thrown off the yoke of snobbery, and has now become a respectable vehicle for the finest craftsmen and women in all professions. It now leads the world. In the past British TV did.

Perhaps our traditional British snobbery has intervened for the worse?

At one of the BSC Film & Digital Evaluation presentations an acquaintance tackled me with the suggestion that there may be a touch of snobbery in the fact that the art of cinematography, as recognised by the BSC, does not include the skills of the commercial specialist. Dismay was expressed that such skills are not accepted as a criteria for membership of many other European Societies.

As it happens, apart from helping the odd Red Nose Day I have no interest in commercials. However my friend has a point. Where does art begin and end?

For that matter is there any less skill in lighting a horror movie or commercial than any other genre? And what about television, where in former times the British film industry was alive and well and called television?

However it may still be American snobbery, which prevents the Academy voting its Oscar to the cinematographers of the Bonds, Potters or Batmen. It cannot be the quality of the image!

That greatest of British film critics, Philip French, one of the true friends of the art of the cinematographer recently wrote about “a matter of cultural snobbery, of a continued condescension towards the cinema.” As it happens he was referring to the attitude of the theatre towards the cinema, but is his opinion also a reflection of an attitude towards television? It appears the old British disease of snobbery attacks on all fronts.

Is it not time we put aside snobbish thoughts? Success for most of us comes often by being in the right place at the right time, an accident of fate and fortune, as well as talent.

Documentaries are sadly also affected by snobbery. This genre, which gave most of our finest cinematographers an early opportunity to learn skills of such fundamental importance, is still regarded by some as a somewhat inferior medium.

Almost as if good lighting, composition and story telling through the camera is the privilege of those nominated for awards. Unfortunately, the opportunities for the young cinematographers of the future to learn the skills, which made the documentary genre such an important tool, are becoming fewer as the standards of European television production deteriorates. Clips from that great documentary Night Mail are the

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

most often repeated on British Television.

The craft of good cinematography is not restricted to feature films. An open mind to the skills demonstrated on a broader front would help eliminate the snobbery strangling our profession. The train journey is never over before the fat lady has had an opportunity to sing!

Salut mon pôte!

Between France and Gerry Fisher there has always been a great love story, and if we presented to him the award of Chevalier des Arts et Lettres it’s because unanimously our whole profession (and of course, the Minister of Culture) recognises Gerry’s important contribution to film creation in France and worldwide.

Here, he is beloved and admired by numerous actors, producers, directors, technicians for his works in France and overseas. He is the most “French” British cinematographer, he shot many feature films and a lot of commercials in the Hexagon, and for French productions abroad. Many French directors of photography, currently active, worked at least once with Gerry as assistant or operator; and recently one of my colleagues noticed that it would be easier to count those who did not.

For my part, I had the chance to work with him in all positions in the camera team, first as loader then focus puller, operator and even one day I had the honour to replace it. The first time I worked with him, I was a loader (in France we are not clapper) on Joseph Losey’s Mr Klein. Gerry confided to me his meter and filters box, and every

morning I brought it to him. To my surprise he was always only taking his viewing filters and left his spectra meter in the box.

He had two “homemade” viewing filters, one for tungsten and one for daylight and sculpted light only with these tools. I was very impressed and admiring.

Watching Gerry inside the studio working on a film by Joseph Losey (Mr Klein) and Billy Wilder (Fedora) with designer Alexandre Trauner has always been and remains my greatest and more “magic” lesson of light. I remember, once on Mr Klein, we had to shoot inside a moving train. We had to leave at 9am, but because of the delay of one important person we could not leave before noon.

Accordingly, the beginning of the sequence was shot daylight, but due to the delay it had to be completed “night for day”.

The last scene was in the narrow corridor of the train speeding through the dark countryside. I saw Gerry was in trouble and stupidly I asked him, “What can I do for you, Sir?” The answer was: “Jump!” I was discovering Gerry’s sense of humour.

Many years later, in front of a good meal, he told me he was glad that I did not jump from the train. Gerry taught me how to become a cameraman and also helped me coping with difficult times. I personally just helped him to improve his French slang in which he is an expert. I owe him a lot and I thank our friends of the BSC, Sue, Joe, Nigel and Frances for inviting me in Pinewood Studios to be near him and his wife Jean when he received the BSC Life Achievement Award in front of a large audience of British and foreign cinematographers. It was very warm, friendly and emotional, and this BSC Summer luncheon with great wines and great food was a great success. A votre santé… Richard Andry.

Issue 35

Features // All Time Greats

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On Julia with Robin Vidgeon, Chic Waterson and Fred Zinneman

Filming Blue Max with Mitchell camera.

On Lion in Winter

Douglas Sloc OBE BSC FBK Douglas Slocombe, now aged 96, stands as one of the finest cinematographers of the 20th century. He was born in London and educated in England and France.

After leaving university he followed his father George into journalism and went to work for the British United Press in Fleet Street, London. His father was a Paris correspondent and during his time wrote several books, interviewed Hitler and Mussolini and was instrumental in getting Ghandi released from jail.

In his spare time Slocombe junior would shoot stills on a Lieca and went on to be a successful photojournalist, culminating in 1939, photographing reportage of the Nazi infiltration of Danzig.

In 1940 he went to Ealing studios in West London. He was one of four lighting cameramen who were employed on a

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contract basis. He worked on several documentaries including Find, Fix And Strike. In 1944 he did his only operating job on Champagne Charlie. He said it took a while to get used to the parallax on the Mitchell camera. Later the Panavision system became his favourite.

He went on to shoot a number of Ealing comedies, including The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and Kind Hearts And Coronets (1949), which he regards as his favourite Ealing comedy. He shot Ealing’s first colour offering Saraband For Dead Lovers (1948) using the cumbersome threestrip Technicolor camera. He also shot the studio’s first colour comedy The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953).

In one sequence of Kind Hearts And Coronets Alec Guinness plays seven characters that are seen at the same time.

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Features // All Time Greats

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(Chic) Waterson, camera operator and Robin Vidgeon, focus puller. Waterson, who is sadly no longer with us, had operated on a number of Ealing films and Vidgeon first worked with Slocombe on Circus Of Horrors (1960), shot at Beaconsfield.

In 1962 Slocombe shot the black and white feature Freud. Director John Huston asked for four different styles of black and white photography to distinguish the different aspects of the subject. Slocombe said: “I was able to experiment on Freud and got very strong lighting effects. I also experimented on two other black and white films, The Servant and The L Shaped Room. In both of those I was able to get a very powerful effect with contrast.”

On Julia

In my day everything on the screen was in the control of the cinematographer

With John Huston on Freud

With Joe Losey on The Servant

combe KS Interview and article by David A Ellis

Slocombe wished to use only one negative.

It took two days to shoot, masking off the characters and rewinding, during which time he slept in the studio in case for some reason the camera was moved. He said it was a very nervous time. The House of Lords sequence was shot at Pinewood.

This was because the stages at Ealing were being used for something else. By then Rank had a stake in the studio.

When the little studio on Ealing Green closed and became part of the BBC in 1956, film production continued at MGM Elstree for a further two years. In that time Slocombe shot several films including The Man In The Sky, which inspired him to take flying lessons and go on to get his pilot’s licence.

After Ealing’s demise Slocombe went freelance, working on a great number of films. For many years his team were Bernard

The team were working on The Blue Max (1966) when a sequence they were on went badly wrong. A plane they were filming came in too close, the wheels hitting Slocombe’s back, putting him hospital for ten days. Slocombe describes the incident: “The plane came swooping in towards us, missing us by millimetres. I remember turning round to Johnny Guillermin and saying that was terrific, it more than fills the screen. I was surprised to hear him say to the pilot, ‘that was much too high, you have to come in lower’. The plane came swooping down again and I could see that in no way was this plane going to clear us completely.

“At the last minute I threw myself flat on my tummy and the next thing I knew there was a great crash as the motor and magazine were torn off the Mitchell. Chic Waterson, the operator got a bang on the head with part of the camera. I felt a terrible blow in the middle of my back as the plane literally landed on my back. My body rolled about twenty feet and I lay in a pool of blood. It had torn a whole strip of skin off my back and had missed my spinal column by millimetres. Filming was coming to a close and cinematographer Ted Moore took over.”

Films favoured by Slocombe after leaving Ealing include The Servant (1963), The L Shaped Room (1962), The Lion In Winter (1968) and The Great Gatsby (1974).

He worked with Steven Spielberg on Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981). This was the first of three Indiana Jones films he shot.

Before shooting commenced he damaged his left eye when travelling in a jeep in Tunisia looking for locations. Slocombe explained what happened: “We were on a recce in Tunisia. Steven asked me if I’d like to sit in the front. I said no, I’ll hop in the back. There was a colossal jolt. Part of the road had been washed away by a flash flood. Some of the road had sunk and the jeep crashed down the lower level. I remember bouncing up and hitting the steel roof.”

He regards Spielberg as one of the finest directors and said “Steven was a delight to work with. He plans everything to the last detail, is a great director, enormously imaginative, tremendously competent and very fast. I admired his fresh approach to everything – he seemed to know automatically what to do. All those films involved very large complicated sets, which were a challenge.”

Asked about a rumour that he didn’t use a light meter on one of the Indiana films he said: “In my early days I did, but didn’t use one for the last twenty or thirty films. As

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

With Steven Spielberg

With Jack Hawkins (Man in the Sky)

the schedules got tighter and tighter I didn’t seem to have the time to use a meter. I found that I could automatically give the set the right amount of light.”

Slocombe has worked with some of the best directors in the business, including Norman Jewison, George Cukor and Fred Zinnemann, who directed Julia (1977) He won a BAFTA for Julia and was nominated for an Oscar. He said: “Julia was a very intriguing film. The interiors were shot in Paris, where we spent a month. Zinnemann was a great director and very demanding, but one had an exciting story to work with.”

I didn’t use a light meter for the last twenty or thirty films, I didn’t seem to have the time Slocombe was nominated for three Oscars. In 2002 he received the ASC International Achievement Award. He was one of the founders of the BSC and was given a Lifetime Achievement Award from them, and after several ‘Best’ picture awards.

Asked what advice he would give to up and coming cinematographers he replied: “What worked for me was being observant. Everyday I walked on to the film set with a completely open mind, treating

every story in its own right. I always worked from scratch and I never got bored, no matter how many times I had to reproduce the same set. I approached it as though I’d not done it before.” In 2008 he received the OBE for services to the film industry. Prince Charles gave it to him and said he was delighted to be giving him the award and had seen a great number of his films.

Slocombe who is nearly blind misses very much not being able to see what is being done in the business today. He said: “Unfortunately I can’t see much. I know they do a lot of things digitally. If I were working today I would miss very much not having complete control. The great thing in my day was that everything on the screen was in the control of the cinematographer.

Every single dot that went on the screen, lit or unlit was the cameraman’s choice.

Sometimes they would create special effects in the camera, now they are done digitally. I think I would resent that things would be taken out of my hands, or at least miss it not being part of my own handy work. But on the other hand every generation and every new invention brings its own challenges and its own advantages.

“Because I can’t see very much I gave up voting for the Oscars and BAFTAs a long time ago. I am now completely out of touch.

I am sure there must be some marvellous things going on but I just don’t know.”

Slocombe lives in West London with his wife Muriel.

Issue 35

UK // GBCT

THE CHAIRMAN SPEAKS.

Bank of Mum & Dad As I mentioned in the last issue, the Guild has now selected its trainees for the newly re-structured scheme; they have all been keenly assessed to be the best of the many young candidates that applied. Having read recently in The Guardian that even MPs and certain sections of industry are abusing the fact that there is currently a glut of intelligent graduates looking for employment and engaging them to work as unpaid interns or work experience placements, it seriously concerns me that our trainees are not dragged into this situation as well.

It is not acceptable that the Bank of Mum & Dad (and Lord knows, I know a bit about that), subsidises the industry by financially enabling their offsprings’ early steps into work. Also, it is grossly unfair that those young people without the prospect of financial assistance from mum and dad should be denied an opportunity to get on the treadmill because they are unable to support themselves. They most likely already have a student loan that will burden them financially for an unacceptably long time anyway, yet these guys may well be the best candidates for the job in hand. It is a situation we should all bear in mind when we ask a production to engage a trainee.

There will always be an element of learning from your mistakes, but there’s no substitute for proper training and supervision. So please take care on busy days that your crew are not ‘stepping up’ a grade before they are competent to do so and thus very possibly deny the work to experienced crews who rely on dailies to keep them ticking over between longer projects.

Early recognition of busy days in the schedule is very important so that extra crew can be booked in good time. I know this is obvious stuff for the more experienced crews, but as a much younger breed establish themselves in the business, serious care should be taken with proper crewing levels and procedures. “Turnover” and Good Luck.

Jamie Harcourt GBCT Chairman

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In these current days of some uncertainty and trepidation within the film business, there seem to be mixed messages for the expansion of work possibilities in the future. Pinewood Studios has recently reported an intention to expand the current studios into the surrounding areas and make it one of the largest studios complexes in Europe. Project Pinewood will consist of a purpose-built living and working community for film, television and the creative industries.

This is to be located next to Pinewood Studios, and it intended to be a hub for creative excellence.

Key aspects of the current proposal are: • Job creation – delivery of approximately 630, rising to 960 new jobs by 2022 • Production cost savings – significant reduction in the cost of location filming with the creation of living streetscapes including Venice, Amsterdam, Prague and New York • Training – creation of a new Pinewood Screen Crafts Academy providing specialist training for the creative industries • Housing – up to 1,400 homes within the streetscapes of which 420 will be affordable housing • Carbon savings – at least a 45% reduction in carbon emissions for both residents of Project Pinewood and film and television productions.

It would seem that the future for Pinewood Studios is on the ascent, with a huge project investing into the future. On the other hand the responses from a recent poll of camera technicians working was somewhat depressing, with some talented and experienced freelance camera technicians not working as much as they would truly like.

So what is the definitive answer regarding the TRUE nature of the current British film business? It is true to say that the film business is inextricably closely linked to many factors outside of the actual art of film making, with exchange rates, financial issues abroad, and even extreme weather all potentially having a catastrophic effect on the quantity of films being made in the UK. It is a particularly unusual set of circumstances to have hit the whole globe’s economies recently however, and nobody really knows how long it will last or even if the situation will actually get any worse.

There is a form of sanctuary from this madness, however, and there are organisations that can help in times of struggle. The major player in the film and TV business is the GBCT, and I will now take a look at what membership can bring. Before that a short history.

The GBCT (originally named the Society of British Camera Technicians) was originated by four camera technicians in November 1977: John Deaton (1stAC); Geoff Glover (Camera Operator); Terry Cole (1stAC) and Mike Fox (Camera Operator).

The primary aim was to form a non-political camera guild that essentially protected the interests and aspirations of a growing freelance workforce. The Society was to be an organization that maintained and increased the best and highest standards for reputable British technicians as well as concerned itself with developing talent for the future success of the film and television industry. Shortly after this, the BSC (British Society of Cinematographers) requested that the new organisation change its title as

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

the two names were very similar.

And so the Guild of British Camera Technicians was born. Samuelson Film Services generously provided office space at their Cricklewood HQ with various technicians and administrative staff undertaking a number of different projects that included writing and editing first the Guild Newsletter and then Eyepiece, starting the Guild Answering Service and running a number of different member events – from golfing days to go-karting to meetings at the pub.

The GBCT is a non-political organisation that strives to be an authoritative presence in the industry, and has always strived to have a Constitution that is both relevant and fair. The Company has been fortunate to have the same 3 eminent Trustees since its inception: Lord Attenborough, Richard Lester and Sir Sydney Samuelson. Since those early days, the GBCT has grown to have a membership of over 500 top class film and television technicians who are renowned throughout the world for their knowledge, talent and ability.

The Management Board

The GBCT Management Board consists of working technicians who are all experienced and reputable Guild members and the Guild has a plan that will secure the Guild’s future success. This plan is currently being implemented and involves: 1. The enhancement of the GBCT’s reputation and standing in the industry by increasing and widening its business opportunities 2. Providing its Membership with more cost effective benefits which represents additional value-for-money for their annual subscriptions All this will provide a financially stable and secure structure for the Guild to move forward successfully.

GBCT Patrons

Over the years close links have been formed with major organisations within the industry and we have several Patrons that support us. With an ever changing industry, our aim is to keep our members informed and up to date technically, aesthetically and practically. To this end, the GBCT are very proud to be supported by an impressive list of Patrons: ARRI GB. 01895 457000 www.arri.com On Sight/Axis films.

01932 5892244 www.axisfilms.co.uk Chapman Leonard.

01923 265953 www.chapmanleonard.com Film Workshops International.

0151 708 0250 www.thefilmworkshops.com Panavision UK 020 8839 7333 www.panavision.co.uk ProVision 0113 222 8222 www.provisionequipment.tv Take 2 Film Services 020 8992 2224 www.take2films.co.uk Technicolor 01753 658700 www.technicolor.com Tiffen Europe 01869 343835 www.tiffen-europe.com www.tiffen.com If you are now interested in being a Patron of the GBCT, please contact the Guild office on 020 8813 1999 or email: admin@gbct.org

of the primary aims is to care for its existing membership by providing information and regular training updates. As part of that plan the GBCT runs professional training courses for its members and non-members The GBCT Trainee Scheme consists of training for camera technicians and Script Supervisors directly, and Grips via new entrant training organizations. These schemes run at key stages throughout the year to provide productions with trainees in their different roles as and when required.

The GBCT is extremely proactive and continually analyses industry developments so that all its training remains highly relevant and current. Because of the considerable experience of developing and running a variety of different training courses, the GBCT is able to design a jigsaw of courses for different levels of knowledge - not just in cinematography but across a host of different specialist areas.

In addition, the GBCT is the largest organization within the Cine Guilds of Great Britain. * The Cine Guilds of Great Britain: BSC – British Society of Cinematographers GBCT – Guild of British Camera Technicians GLM – Guild of Location Managers GBFTE – Guild of British Film and Television Editors BFDG – British Film Designers Guild AMPS – Association of Motion Picture Sound GSAC – Guild of Stunt and Action Co-ordinators (Associate Membership: PGGB – Production Guild of Great Britain)

Training Courses for Industry Professionals

The GBCT also provide the Membership with very specific courses for small groups on subjects that are currently relevant. Most recently the GBCT have run courses or events based on the ‘Red Camera’, ‘HD Grading’, ‘Working on the Arri D20’, ‘Viper and Genesis Specifics’ and ‘The Work of the Laboratory (1) – From Rushes Received to Chaptered DVDs’.

In addition, for members and nonmembers we provide incomparable, highly relevant and cost effective short training courses both in the UK as well as overseas.

With our own experienced GBCT members providing tuition and guidance, we guarantee that each participant will obtain a wealth of information and new skills.

Further details of all our short courses are available at the Guild office. In the meantime, here is a sample of some of the courses the GBCT currently offer: Steadicam -Aimed at existing camera operators and focus pullers.

Steadicam Assistants -For loaders and focus pullers who are being asked to assist Steadicam Operators 35mm Camera Workshop - For those

Training & education

The GBCT provides an all-encompassing approach to training and education that has many goals to achieve, however one

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UK // GBCT

with no knowledge of working on 35mm, this course takes you through the entire process from loading to lighting 16mm and HD Camera Familiarisation-Aimed at those wanting to become film and HD clapper loaders or those who have worked solely on video and need to increase their skills .

The Basics of Camera Operation.For those who want to learn more about the craft and aesthetic skills required to become a camera operator.

Effective Focus Pulling Techniques-.

Aimed at clapper loaders who are on the verge of moving up.

Shooting In-Camera Effects (models & miniatures-Who would like to learn about the skills involved in shooting in-camera effects - part one.

Grading the Film - Learn more about grading your film - whether shot on 16mm, 35mm or HD. The DI Process- Digital Intermediate what, why and how?

Please refer to the GBCT website www.gbct.org for a sample of what is currently available.

The GBCT Trainee Scheme – Camera crew and Script Supervisors

The new GBCT Camera Trainee Scheme launched in 2009. This consists of a contact list of GBCT Trainees living all over the country, and this is available in the Guild Office for crew and productions that need trainee support. In brief, the GBCT plan on running each trainee scheme for 18 months. In that time, the aim is to get trainees paid work on 1 feature film (35mm or HD), 1 television series (on 16mm or HD), at least 1 documentary, 1 commercial.

12 people will be selected to attend a 6-day training course. Everyone will be expected to pay for this training course (estimated cost £660). Those selected will constantly be monitored throughout the training course and assessed on its completion. Six people will be selected from the training course as GBCT trainees.

After this, each trainee will be assigned a mentor - someone they can call for advice and guidance on a regular basis.

Reports will be kept on each trainee and the work placements they get. Trainees are also expected to find their own work. The GBCT office should be kept informed along the way so that they can get reports.Trainees will be informed of all Guild events and all are entitled to attend. There will also be regular information updates and seminars to keep people up to speed technically. Once their time as trainees has ended, at an exit meeting, trainees will receive guidance on their proposed careers and may be invited to become new GBCT members once can provide evidence that they have been working in their chosen grade.

Answering service

The GBCT takes the stress out of finding high skilled and experienced crew. This service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for productions that need camera crews. Exceptional technicians can be instantly pencilled or booked for key dates by calling 020 8813 1999.

Whether you are calling us for ‘a Grip now’, ‘an Operator for Monday’, ‘a Clapper Loader for a two week night shoot ’ or ‘I need a 1st AC for a commercial in London’; we’ll quickly get you experienced and professional personnel.

For further details call 020 8813 1999 or drop an email admin@gbct.org we look

forward to speaking to you.

GBCT members have an excellent reputation in the Film and Television Industry. Members’ work is recognised and valued worldwide. In order to continue our high quality standards of membership, all applications to join the Guild are rigorously scrutinised and strictly controlled.

The main benefits of being a GBCT member

There are numerous benefits to membership, and the list below is only a few of the main reasons to apply to join The GBCT represent Members’ interests via continual liaison with the following bodies: • The British Society of Cinematographers (BSC) • The Cine Guilds of Great Britain (CGGB) • The Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union (BECTU) There is now regular communication to keep GBCT members informed of the latest Industry News and Events: • SMS Text Message Service (available on request) • Regular emails • The GBCT website • Quarterly Newsletters by email or print There is a highly competitive Sickness and Accident Insurance Training and Education; • Guild Approved Short Training Courses • Equipment/Camera Demonstration Days The Guild of British Camera Technicians Crew Directory; • This Crew Directory is an essential reference for Line Producers, Production Managers and Co-ordinators and Production companies in the UK, USA, Canada and Europe. It’s considered by many who use it as “...a little gem...” because it is packed with all sorts of valuable information. As a Member of the GBCT, you are eligible for a complimentary listing in this annual.

The Monday Film: • There is free admission to screenings of new films, held on alternative Mondays in Pinewood studios Theatre 7 Kelly Calculators: • A special rate is available to GBCT members on this invaluable and unique tool There are various preferential membership discounts that have been negotiated, including Panavision Panastore, Greenford, Cotswold Clothing, Peglers To be considered for Membership please go to the website www.gbct.org and download the form. Alternatively you can contact the GBCT on 020 8813 1999 and request an Application pack. To receive a pack through the post, please write to the GBCT. An applicant must be proposed by four current members of the GBCT who know the applicant’s work, and applications are rigorously scrutinised and checked by the GBCT Board before any membership is granted.

How to contact the Guild of British Camera Technicians: GBCT c/o Panavision Metropolitan Centre Bristol Road, Greenford Middlesex UB6 8GD United Kingdom Telephone: 020 8813 1999 Facsimile: 020 8813 2111 Website: www.gbct.org The GBCT section is edited by John Keedwell GBCT

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Next Issue.

Coming to a coffee table near you very soon, the all new, totally re-designed next issue of British Cinematographer...

– SPECIAL

PREVIEW: Camerimage, including Dante Spinotti tribute – Camera Creative: Javier Aguirresarobe on The Road – On The Job: Roger Pratt BSC on Dorian Gray – Close Ups: Stephen Poster ASC on The Box – Shooting The Future: IBC 2009 Review Also available online at www.thecinematographer.info

The completely re-designed Issue 36 of British Cinematographer coming soon...

Issue 35

UK // GBCT

Who’s On This Crew?!

36 // 36

Grey Wolf Shot on the Sony F900R A Drama doc about the Nazis who fled to South America post World War 2 Shot on the Sony F900R with Pro35 adapter and Zeiss SuperSpeed primes A co-operative co-production – British & Argentinian cast and crew A month spent in the foothills of the Andes, then shooting in Buenos Aires and vicinity.

Life Goes On Shot on the Red One

Producer: Gerrard Williams Director: Co-directed by PAUL ROBINSON, GBCT, Matt Green and Gerrard Williams Director of Photography: PAUL ROBINSON, GBCT Camera Operators: Matt Green, Paul Robinson

A contemporary British Asian family drama that centres around the conflict between a father and his three daughters as they come to terms with the death of the wife/mother and attending her funeral. Left to Right: Dave Wright; Greg Murray; Director of Photography ROBERT SHACKLADY, GBCT; Matt Hickin; Bernie Rostoki, Alex FR. Seated: 1AC MATT J. SMITH, GBCT; Spark & GBCT Camera Trainee DAVID PALMIERI

The Kevin Bishop Show Series 2 Shot on the Sony HDW 750

Meant To Be A feature film shot in Puerto Rico The Crew was a mixture of Americans, Canadians, Puerto Ricans and Brits Prod/Dir PAUL BREULS; Vfx ALAN CHURCH; Script Supervisor CHERYL LEIGH, GBCT Cheryl sent this to the office in February. The intention was to include it in the next newsletter, but the weather was so bad here and she looked so happy and healthy..!

Left to Right: Ally Upcraft; Ian Pearce; Dan Prescios; Dan West; Ben Glickman; Martin Taylor.

Seated, front of shot: Director of Photography PETER ROWE, GBCT

The Queen Shot on HD at Stourhead House.

A dramatized documentary for Channel 4 produced by Blast Films and shot on HD at Stourhead House in Wiltshire (standing in for Buckingham Palace).

Centre of frame is Director of Photography NICK DANCE, GBCT flanked by Rob MacGregor and Matt Budd.

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

Issue 35

Classified // Listings

37 // 36

Don’t Forget

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British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

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Issue 35