British Cinematographer - Issue 37 by Open Box Media & Communications

January 2010

RRP £6.50

British 037 Cinematographer Covering International Cinematography

C A P T I V A T I N G CAMERA CREATIVE – EDUARD GRAU ON THE EXQUISITE IMAGES HE CREATED FOR A SINGLE MAN O N

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British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

www.thecinematographer.info

Intro

British Cinematographer Issue 37 British Cinematographer Covering International Cinematography 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/ alafilmuk@aol.com –– 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/ alafilmuk@aol.com –– Stuart Walters t/ +44 (0) 121 608 2300 e/ stuartwalters@britishcinematographer.co.uk Design. Open Box –– Lee Murphy Design Studio Manager t/ +44 (0) 121 608 2300 e/ lee.murphy@openboxpublishing.co.uk Comittee Membership. The Publication Advisory Committee comprises of Board members from the BSC and GBCT as well as the Publishers. Ownership. British Cinematographer covering International Cinematography is part of Laws Publishing Ltd, Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire SL0 0NH United Kingdom. Legal. 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.

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Editorial Team

Carry On...

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).

Dear Readers There’s a perfect line-of-sight from my TV aerial to the Glastonbury transmitter, which means we enjoy very good-quality images on the box, and the joys of Freeview. Despite the demise of my Sony Trinitron, the flatscreen Panasonic which has replaced it gives a decent-enough rendition of feature films, and these flooded the drawing room Tsunami-like this Yuletide. A lot of great films were broadcast over Christmas and New Year, and I personally had a lot of fun playing ‘Spot The British Cinematographer’. Amongst my own favourites, also gleefully devoured by my children, were… Peter Biziou’s artful work on The Truman Show, Douglas Slocombe’s classic manoeuvres on The Italian Job, Oswald Morris’s Oscar-nominated magic on Oliver!, and Jack Hildyard’s Oscar-winning triumph on The Bridge On The River Kwai. But along with the spellbinding visuals, two other things made me unutterably happy. I don’t mean my sherry trifle, nor Barry Norman’s pickled onions (although both are rather good), but Toyota and the legendary Christmas edition of Radio Times. Why Toyota? Well, during its sponsored break bumpers (those quick stings just before and just after the advert breaks) the words “Best Cinematography” appeared every so often, above a moodily-lit Yaris of course. It’s a nice touch, as it subtley drip-feeds the notion and the importance of the art of cinematography into the nation’s consciousness. Hip! As for the Radio Times… it singled out two British cinematographers for special mention. Of The Innocents, the RT said, “Never has horror looked so beautiful, with Freddie Francis reinforcing the eerie atmosphere with his unforgettable photography.” Hip! And of Pride And Prejudice Andrew Collins observed, “This is intelligent filmmaking. He (Joe Wright)… casts the English countryside as a character. As well as the usual parade of National Trust properties, we get swathes of forestry and farmland exquisitely photographed by Roman Osin…” Hurrah! At almost opposite ends of the filmic spectrum and of different generations, Freddie and Roman’s work, along with Peter, Jack, Duggie and Ossie’s, tell you a lot about the sheer depth of talent and ongoing brilliance of British cinematographers. Anyway, to paraphrase… please can we have some more? Actually, I am sure the world wants more.

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. 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. 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.

Contents BC37 05

President’s Perspective. Sue Gibson BSC.

Production / Post & Techno News. The latest news for DPs.

Who’s Shooting Who? Which cinematographers are working where.

To Live & Let DI. International grading news.

Close-Ups. Nic Morris BSC, John Leonetti ASC and Florian Hoffmeister.

On The Job. Vilmos Zsigmond ASC on You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger.

Camera Creative. Eduard Grau on A Single Man.

Meet The New Wave. Alessandra Scherillo... bakes a mean cake!

Letter From America. Steven Poster ASC.

F-Stop Hollywood. Awards season is approaching fast .

IMAGO News. Nigel Walters BSC, president of IMAGO.

Special Feature. Plus Camerimage 2009 Diary.

GBCT News. the chairman’s statement, the latest new from the Guild.

Shooting The Future. DP Mark Patten on the power of the Canon 7D.

Ron Prince Editor British Cinematographer

Cover Image: Eduard Grau takes a reading on the set of A Single Man, which he lensed for Tom Ford. Coming to a cinema near you soon.

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British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

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President’s Perspective

New Year’s Resolutions The time of year for celebration will have just passed by the time you read this, but the BSC will celebrate its 60th Anniversary for a few months more yet. Having been formed in September 1949 we have until September 2010 to reach the end of our 60th year so it’s quite likely many of our events will be dedicated to our members’ achievements in the New Year. Since I last wrote to you the Society and its members have been very busy promoting their work, both past and present. As usual there was a very good turn out at Plus Camerimage in Poland. With so much to see and do it was impossible to fit everything in. Several of our members were sitting on the juries, namely Phil Méheux on the main jury, Michael Seresin and Oliver Stapleton on the student jury, and Tony Pierce Roberts on the Polish jury. I know from my experience last year they really did put some hours in watching the nominees’ films, and am sure they found the seats just as comfortable as I did last year. As we all know there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and they certainly did spend their week working very hard. There were also films of our members, although not in competition, which were very well-received, John de Borman’s An Education, being one I managed to see. I also went along to Oliver Stapleton’s Masterclass where he entertained and enlightened a huge audience in the art of lighting car interiors in the studio, and his philosophy behind it. There must have been over 400 people there, mainly students, which prompted me to consider what their chances of achieving their ambition to become a cinematographer might be in this very competitive world? I know I keep going on about it, but how on earth are we going to find work for them all? Even with the proliferation of viral commercials, music videos, not to mention TV channels, it’s hard to imagine how the business can accommodate them all. I’m sure they all want to be top-notch feature film directors of photography too, which is no bad thing, and I admire them for their fortitude in following their dreams. Let’s hope the producers and directors of their generation can provide enough work for them all. The BSC gave a presentation at Camerimage of the Film & Digital Image Evaluations, and I also managed to fit in a quick trip to Bulgaria with it just before Camerimage, such is the popularity of our work. The presentation in both countries was very well received and at Camerimage we had a packed house of 225 in the 216-seater theatre. The Blu-ray disc is about to go on sale as the commentary and packaging is now complete. We have had

Sue having fun at the British Society of Cinematographers’ annual Operators’ Night.

so many enquiries to give presentations around the world in cities such as Moscow, Paris, and L.A., and it may be the Blu-ray is the perfect way to allow this to happen. The reason behind making the Evaluation is now common knowledge to all, so I won’t go on about it anymore. However, I have just read a newspaper

05 // 40 rate of 16 megabits per second. However they have lowered the bitrate by almost 40% in the effort to squeeze more channels on to the limited bandwidth that will be available in the New Year on Freeview. Jeff Allen at Panavision also sent the following in response to the article. “The issue of lowering the bit-rate was highlighted by OFCOM in one of their early reports on HD bandwidth, where they assumed Moore’s Law would provide increased quality at lower bit-rates to squeeze more channels in as had been the case with MPEG2 and were behind pushing the broadcasters to get this efficiency. The big difference however is the apparent improved sharpness of LCD/LED/Plasma over older tube Tvs, and the increase in screen size where it is easier for the public to see variations in broadcast quality.” We all know that assumption is never a good thing in our industry, and when that thought comes from the top, i.e. OFCOM, then it seems we all have to pay the price, both producer and audience alike. Jeff also goes on to highlight another problem associated with the change to digital and that is: “The problem of lip-sync errors since the digital changeover, so whilst the consumers have rightly become more critical, the TV set manufacturers and the broadcasters have become more lax, as this is very much a money-driven decision.” As always, we are trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot, but it seems the pint pot is getting smaller too. Having just had the privilege of entertaining, and being entertained by John Landis at Operator’s Night I asked him if he would shoot digitally, to which he replied, he didn’t think that DPs knew how to get the best out of it yet. Maybe he hasn’t seen a digital movie that he likes the look of yet. On the subject of Operator’s Night, the change of venue to Pinewood was a rip-roaring success, and we were treated to the premiere of the BSC’s 60th Anniversary trailer to start the evening off. Compiled by Phil Méheux, it showcased 100 films of BSC members with great style and panache and was very well received. Although we couldn’t squeeze as many people into Pinewood as we had at Elstree, it really was a great atmosphere under the glittering chandeliers, and though I missed those who hadn’t been able to get tickets (please forgive us) it really was packed. We honoured Paul Collard with the ARRI John Alcott Award, who has done so much for the Society and cinematographers in general over the years, and Kommer Kleijn who received the Bert Easey Technical

I asked John Landis if he would shoot digitally, to which he replied, he didn’t think that DPs knew how to get the best out of it yet. article that highlights another associated topic concerning the BBC and picture quality on its HD channel. Despite our protestations on how to achieve the highest quality pictures for HD having little impact on the BBC, it seems that the audiences have now started complaining in their hundreds that the quality of the picture on the HD channel is no better than on standard definition, See the Daily Mail from Friday December 11th. I précis below. The BBC replaced their encoders last August after testing new ones which could produce pictures of the same or even better quality than the old encoders did at the bit-

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Sue at the lectern.

Award for his work on creating a new standard of 60fps for digital projection. A lot of people put a lot of effort into making this year’s Operator’s Night special, and I thank all the Events Committee very much, as this was the last one that I shall preside over. Despite the fact we are supposed to be in recession, we raised a massive £2,360 with the raffle and have sent £1,000 to Great Ormond Street hospital and £1,360 to the Cinema Technicians Benevolent Fund. Thank you one and all. We can all look forward to a great New Year and a great new decade of 21st Century. I hope it brings dividends for us all as we celebrate 60 years of cinematographic achievement and artistry. Sue Gibson BSC President British Society of Cinematographers

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.

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British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

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Production, Post & Techno News

Menges to receive ASC achievement award Chris Menges BSC ASC will receive the 2010 American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) International Achievement Award. The tribute is presented annually to a cinematographer who has made significant and enduring contributions to the international art of filmmaking. The presentation will be made on February 27, 2010. Menges earned Oscars for The Killing Fields and The Mission and other nominations for Michael Collins and The Reader. His credits include also Black Beauty, Walter And June, The Boxer, Dirty Pretty Things, The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada, Notes On A Scandal, The Yellow Handkerchief, and Stop-Loss. “Chris Menges has dedicated his career to helping to create films that tell the important stories of our times,” said ASC president Michael Goi ASC. “He has a unique talent for creating compelling images that pull audiences into those stories.” Menges joins an all-star cast of former BSC recipients, including Freddie Young BSC, Jack Cardiff BSC, Freddie Francis BSC, Oswald Morris BSC, Billy Williams BSC, Douglas Slocombe BSC, Gilbert Taylor BSC and Walter Lassally BSC. Menges earned his first narrative film credit for Kes in 1969 when he was 28 years old. It was the first of his 12 collaborations with director Ken Loach. He subsequently shot a series of independent films with modest budgets. Menges broadened the scope of his experience in 1979 when he spent several months as the second unit cinematographer on Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. “Working on that classic film with (cinematographer) Peter Suschitzky and (director) Irvin Kershner was an important milestone for me,” Menges says. Menges burst onto the global scene in 1985 when he earned an Oscar for The Killing Fields. It was his first collaboration with director Roland Joffe, and took the audience behind the scenes during a violent civil war in Cambodia during the 1970s. There was an encore performance in 1987, when Menges earned an Oscar for The Mission, also directed by Joffe. There were subsequent nominations in 1997 for Michael Collins and for The Reader in 2009. Menges recently shot London Boulevard and Ken Loach’s Route Irish, both slated for release in 2010. Barry Ackroyd BSC is amongst the finalists in the feature film category of the 24th annual ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards for his work on The Hurt Locker.

BAFTA Tribute to Douglas Slocombe OBE Douglas Slocombe OBE BSC, aged 95, one of international cinema’s most prolific and accomplished cinematographers was the subject of a special BAFTA tribute on December 9th, 2009, sponsored by Panavision.

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With credits including The Lavender Hill Mob, Kind HeartsAnd Coronets, The Young Ones, The Italian Job, Nijinsky and the first Indiana Jones trilogy with Steven Spielberg in the 80s, “Duggie” as he is affectionately known, was described as one of the true geniuses of the medium and an artist whose development tells the story of post-war cinema. The tributes paid to him included Steven Spielberg, Walter Murch, Vanessa Redgrave, Harrison Ford, Glenda Jackson, James Fox, Michael Deeley, Sir Tim Rice, Norman Jewison and Googie Withers amongst many others. The loyalty he inspired in his crew was movingly told by Robin Vidgeon BSC who, together with the late operator Chic Waterston, worked together as his team for 25 years. For a more in-depth look at the life and times of the legendary Duggie, read Edition 35 of British Cinematographer Magazine.

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Award: Chris Menges will collect the ASC’s prestigious international achievement award Chris (r) pictured with director Stephen Daldry on the set of The Reader.

Fujinon Lenses Capture 3D Action On Avatar Fujinon lenses were used during the production of the ground-breaking 3D feature Avatar. The lenses chosen by the film’s writer, director and producer James Cameron and DP Vince Pace, co-inventor of the Fusion 3D camera system, included the Fujinon HA16x6.3BE (6.3-101mm) and a special design HA5x7B-W50 (7-35mm) model specially developed the production. “The road to success in 3D is paved as a team effort,” Pace said. “Working with James Cameron, the goal for the Fusion camera system was significant. Early on in the development phase, Fujinon stepped up with their sales staff, engineering resources, and factory support to design lens suitable for our exacting standards in 3D. That relationship has developed over the last ten years and the results are on the screen with the release of Avatar. All of the cameras were paired with Fujinon lenses and the results were incredible.” Sony HDC-F950 cameras were used primarily during the Avatar shoot, and Sony HDC-1500 cameras were used for some scenes when it became available. All the Sony cameras were paired with Fujinon lenses.

Tribute: Duggie, an all time great, at his BAFTA tribute, sitting next to Robin Vidgeon BSC. Photo courtesy of BAFTA/ Ed Miller. Fusion: Vince Pace used Fujinon lenses on Avatar

ARRI’s new sensor captures masterpieces The sensor demonstrator of ARRI’s nextgeneration digital camera system has had its first professional outing, capturing sequences of Habemus Papam, the latest documentary feature from Argentineanborn director, cinematographer and writer Ciro Cappellari. With a base sensitivity of 800 ASA and wide latitude, the ALEV III 35-format CMOS sensor has been developed for three new digital cinematography cameras that ARRI will release successively this year and next. “We needed representative shots of Rome, as our film explores the influence of the Vatican on the city,” said Cappellari. “For

Latitude: sensitivity was the key for first use ARRI’s new sensor

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Production, Post & Techno News these shots we wanted a very high picture quality and a dramatic look, so we were filming at dawn and also at dusk. Shots of the sun coming through clouds onto St. Peter’s Basilica with at least ten stops of latitude were no problem for the ARRI camera. I had the feeling that I was working with a 35mm negative when I saw the pictures.” The sensor’s sensitivity and image quality proved useful for interiors of the Sistine Chapel, where the production was forbidden from using any lights. “We were filming the architecture and the frescos,” Cappellari said. “The light in the chapel was exactly the same as when those frescos were painted: a very low light that comes from windows at the top. It was beautiful to be able to film in that same light with the 800 ASA ARRI camera.”

BSC Operator’s Night 2009 In its 60th anniversary year, the British Society of Cinematographers’ annual Operators’ Night took place in the ballroom at Pinewood Film & TV Studios on Friday 11th December. The evening was attended by 180 of the “great and good” from the British and international filmmaking communities, and many people said It felt like Operators’ Night had “come home” after several years at Elstree Studios. Director John Landis was the guest of honour and gave a highly entertaining speech. The BSC awards were as follows: The ARRI John Allcott Award, presented by ARRI MD Renos Louka, went to Paul Collard (Ascent Media), a great supporter of the BSC who helped the BSC technical committee produce the 2009 Film & Digital Image Evaluations. The BSC Bert Easey Technical Award, presented by Nigel Walters BSC, president of IMAGO, together with John Landis, went to Kommer Kleijn SBC, for his achievement in implementing the 60 frame rate proposal, as an addition to the international standard for digital projection. Raffle prizes were donated courtesy of ARRI GB, Chapman Leonard, Fuji, Kodak, Panalux, Peter Macdonald and Madelyn Most. The gathering seemed to enjoy the night tremendously. But should a new name be found in the future for an at which no operator’s award is presented? The toast to the operators was given by Robin Vidgeon BSC and the response was from Andre Austin GBCT on behalf of the operators. A highlight of the evening was the screening of Phil Méheux BSC’s promotional film in celebration of the society’s 60th anniversary, featuring clips from some of the great motion pictures shot by BSC members, which made an emotional impact, left many with goosebumbs and the Brits feeling proud to be British.

Fujifilm & ilab launch 16mm package Fujifilm Motion Picture and Soho-based rushes specialist laboratory ilab have announced a 16mm film and processing package for features, TV dramas, shorts

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music promos, artist and student films. As part of the Complete 16 package, the cost for a 16mm x 400ft roll is £125 (exc VAT), with a 16mm x 100ft roll £50 (exc VAT). The deal includes 16mm Fujifilm Motion Picture film stock, 16mm negative developing, ultra-sonic clean and prep for TK, a best-light Spirit transfer to any SD format and DVD viewing copies with sync sound and ALE file.

Sue Gibson (BSC President), Paul Collard in centre (Ascent Media ), receiving the ARRI award from Renos Louka (ARRI MD)

Colorfront team wins Academy Award The team responsible for the development of Autodesk’s Lustre system, which enables real-time digital manipulation of motion picture imagery during the DI process for motion pictures, is to be honoured with a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Software developers Mark Jaszberenyi, Tamas Perlaki and Gyula Priskin, who are based at post-production facility Colorfront in Budapest, will receive the scientific and engineering award at a special ceremony on February 20 in Los Angeles. The team pioneered the first DI grading system as used on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, before going on to develop Lustre which has been used on a long list of features including Apocalypto and The da Vinci Code. Jaszberenyi, together with his brother Aron, opened DI facility Colorfront in 2007.

Arion enhances digital workflow

Kommer Kleijn SBC receives his award from Nigel Walters BSC (IMAGO President) and Joe Dunton BSC

Billy Williams BSC, John Maitheson BSC and director John Landis admire the BSC cinematography award.

Sub-marine: watertight enclosure for Red cameras from OceanEye Titanium: new lightweight Mystery primes from Band Pro

Deluxe London has enhanced the digital workflow and increased capacity of its Arion Communications unit, with the addition of a Spirit 4k telecine suite to complement its existing Spirit and Shadow HD suites. The new facilities incorporate DFT’s Bones data workflow system, designed to manage the entire production process from ingest to the creation of a colour-graded dailies master, rapid picture and sound synching and an integrated colour-correction toolset. All HD suites are now connected to a data room from which encoded dailies and DVD files can be transmitted to clients via Arion’s new Storage Area Network, delivered via Sohonet.

ELP returns to Elstree Studios Film, TV and event rental company Elstree Light & Power has moved back to Elstree Studios. The company, which has undertaken major rigging projects for feature films such as Dark Knight, Nine and Inception, has also lit, powered and rigged TV shows including Gladiators, The Proms, Strictly Come Dancing, Question Time and

Flying: Eclipse helicopter camera mount system as used on Clash Of The Titans

That’s the Spirit: the new 4K telecine suite at Arion

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Production, Post & Techno News major Royal and State occasions. ELP’s new base at Elstree Studios will be a showroom, sales office and also offer Elstree Studios an onsite stock of lighting rigging and power equipment, complementing the growing production village which now includes special effects companies such as Lifecast (Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan, Rambo), sound post and editing with Second Sense (Later with Jools Holland, Electric Proms), Roger Patel’s recently opened foley suite (Doc Martin), scenery and staging company Media Powerhouse, Sapex and super HD and 3D camera facilities from Rogue Element (Murderland, Devils Playground). Feature films based at Elstree Studios include Kings Speech, Devils Playground and Harry Brown starring Sir Michael Caine. Elstree is also housing the final series of Celebrity Big Brother. “ELP is an important ingredient in the Elstree Studios offering to clients” commented Roger Morris, Managing Director of Elstree Studios. “It means the Studios can almost offer a one stop shop for technical facilities and stages”.

What’s shooting on Kodak? Motion pictures employing Kodak stocks include… Harry Potter VII, DP Eduardo Serra, dir David Yates; Brighton Rock, DP John Mathieson BSC, dir Rowan Joffe; and The Guard, DP Larry Smith BSC, dir John Michael Mcdonagh. Television shows opting for Kodak include… BBC’s New Tricks, DP Sean Van Hales. Down in South Africa Lost Boys 3: The Thirst, DP Stefano Morcaldo, dir Dario Piana, is also on Special K.

What’s shooting on Fuji? Features and TV dramas opting for Fuji stocks include… Hereafter, DP Tom Stern ASC AFC, dir Clint Eastwood; Eagle of the Ninth, DP Anthony Dod Mantle DFF BSC, dir Kevin MacDonald; The King’s Speech, DP Danny Cohen BSC, dir Tom Hooper; The First Grader, DP Rob Hardy, dir Justin Chadwick; Tamara Drewe, DP Ben Davis BSC, dir Stephen Frears;

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Untitled 09, DP Dick Pope BSC, dir Mike Leigh; Murder On The Orient Express, DP Alan Almond BSC, dir Philip Martin; Oranges & Sunshine, DP Denson Baker, dir Jim Loach; Hold Me Tight, DP David Katznelson, dir Kaspar Munk; The Royle Family Christmas Special 2009, DP Jeremy Hiles, dir Caroline Aherne; Commercials ands music video lensed on to Fuji include… American Express commercial (Serious Pictures) DP Clive Tickner; Corrine Bailey Rae promo (Factory Films) DP Robbie Ryan BSC; Canon Cameras c ommercial (Independent) DP Tom Townend; Weightwatchers commercial (Blink) DP Denzil Armour-Brown; Chris Moyles commercial (Between The Eyes) DP Steve Annis; Jersey Boys music romo, DP Roger Eaton; Rox promo (Between The Eyes), DP Stuart Bentley; Spotters advert (The Gate Films), DP Ed Wild.

Pictorvision captures exciting Footage for Titans Pilot Fred North recently completed his second project for director Louis Leterrier, and his first with Pictorvision’s new state-of-the-art Eclipse helicopter camera mount system. “I did Leterrier’s last movie with a different system,” said North. “It didn’t have a perfect horizon level and could not look straight down. For Clash Of The Titans, Louis and cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr. wanted to have a different system with perfect horizon level at all times to fly at a speed approaching 135mph through steep canyons in Tenerife, and be able to look straight down. I suggested the Eclipse and they confirmed it.” A week before shooting, Leterrier requested that North and aerial cinematographer Hans Bjerno capture a series of rather “long line” shots in Wales. Pictorvision’s Tom Hallman, his technical team, and freelance technician Peter Graf rose to the challenge. “Long line shots are dangerous and only a handful of pilots are qualified to do them,” said Hallman. “To give Fred and Hans what they needed to allow them to fly up to 70 knots through a narrow crevasse into a slate mine, while hanging the system from a 50ft cable and keeping the camera stable, was no small matter. Peter worked with our

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09 // 40 technicians to design the long line anti-torque kit and then built a custom tail rudder on set.” At the core of the Eclipse is the patented XR Motion Management technology, enabling the advanced steering, stability and pointing capabilities. The Eclipse does not topple, provides an absolute level horizon and also features faster start-ups and resets. “Tom Hallman and the Pictorvision team gave me an incredible amount of technical support,” said North. “The Eclipse gave me the ability to capture much more compelling footage than ever before with shots no other aerial rig can do, whether we’re shooting with the ARRI 435 as on Clash, or a Sony F35/F23, Genesis or Red One with lenses as big as the Panavision 11:1.”

Red underwater housing OceanEye-Sweden has developed an underwater housing for the Red 4K camera. The new OceanEye 4K comes in two versions – aluminium and PVC version, with a 7-inch dome and controls for on/ off and start/stop of the camera, plus focus and iris. It also features Red´s 5-inch monitor, mounted at a 45-degree angle at the back off the housing. The OceanEye 4K accepts Zeiss PL mounted lenses as well as Nikon and Canon still lenses.

Pace HD buys Quantel and Codex for Yogi Bear Stereo3D production and post production company, Pace HD, has purchased a Quantel Sid Stereo3D workstation, and Codex Digital recording systems for Warner Brothers movie Yogi Bear. Quantel has also announced support for SI2K workflow, and the RED Rocket accelerator board.

Band Pro’s new 4K “Mystery Prime” Band Pro Film and Digital has introduced a new brand of high-performance PL mount prime lenses, designed to deliver true optical performance for 4K imaging. The new T1.4 lenses, codenamed “Mystery Primes” and available exclusively worldwide from Band Pro, will eventually total 15 different focal lengths, ranging from 12mm to 150mm. The mount and lens barrel are manufactured using lightweight high strength titanium materials. A typical Mystery Prime weighs 3lbs (1.4kg). The first 25 sets of lenses will be delivered to Otto Nemenz International.

Shortlist for £10k cinematography New 3cP Software award Helps Canon DSLR Image & Movie Makers! DP’s Ole Bratt Birkeland, Urszula Pontikos and Sadik Ahmed have been shortlisted for the Arts Foundation Fellowship 2010, worth £10,000 to the winning applicant. The three cinematographers were among those nominated by established and practising artists and other professionals working within the art form. Cinematography is just one of five art forms the Arts Foundation is awarding this year, along with jewellery design, graphic novels, puppetry and textile art. The winners will be announced on 20th January.

Gamma & Density has announced a new version of its 3cP (Cinematographer’s Data Management and Color Correction Program) software for the Canon 5D MkII and 7D DSLR cameras. The new 3cP/ST offers tools for data management, colour correction and previewing, dailies and final footage generation, as well as metadata support for post-production.

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Who’s Shooting Who?

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Liquids: Robbie Ryan BSC with gaffer John Colley, and with a new shampoo especially for DPs (below)

Arresting images: DP John Pardue on a Bryan Buckley shoot.

Mckinney Macartney Management’s… Stuart Biddlecome is filming 2nd unit on Jonathan English’s latest film Iron Clad. Having just completed filming On The Tracks for director, Ed Talvern, Balazs Bolygo is now filming a short film, Alice, for Ruby Films. Mick Coulter BSC has been shooting commercials for Gerard de Thame, and Denis Crossan has been busy shooting commercials for Mark Denton, Neil Harris and Sandra Goldbacher. Shane Daly has lensed a commercial with Sean de Sparengo through Coy, and has also been working with Jim Hayton and Andy Hutch. Gavin Finney BSC has been shooting commercials for Simon Delaney and John O’Driscoll. Graham Frake is about to start prep on Freaky Farleys for Foundation TV/RDF Media for Nickelodeon. Richard Greatrex BSC is in Halifax shooting Moby Dick with Mike Barker. John Lynch was recently in Argentina shooting a commercial for Adam Hashemi through Blink, and has been working with Dom & Nic through Outsider and Siri Bunford for More 4. Phil Méheux BSC is now in New York to film The Smurfs for Raja Gosnell. John Pardue was in Qatar where he shot two short films for Peter Webber through Serious Pictures. Mark Partridge is back among the villages Oxfordshire for the return of the hit BBC series Lark Rise To Candleford. Chris Seager BSC is filming Five Daughters in Bristol for Phillippa Lowthorpe for the BBC, about the Ipswich prostiture murders. Katie Swain has been busy filming commercials for Guy Paterson, Ed Salkeld, Jon Harvey, Matt Carter, Paul Evans and Toby Tobias. David Tattersall BSC is in New Orleans filming The Hungry Rabbit Jumps for

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Come to bed eyes: DP John Perez on the set of the Maxwell’s Bad Habits video

Guiding light: Simon Archer BSC and crew setting up a shot for Ashes To As

Roger Donaldson. Clive Tickner BSC has been busy working on commercials, most recently with Vaughan Arnell through Serious Pictures. Darran Tiernan has returned for shooting a commercial in New Zealand with Andy Margetson. He has also been filming with Russell England and Hugh O’Conor, and was last seen in Ireland filming a Vodafone commercial for Johnny Maginn. Fabian Wagner recently shot 2nd camera on AWOL for Mark Munden through Kindle Entertainment. He is now filming a BBC 3 pilot Pulse for James Hawes through World Productions. Michael Wood has been filming commercials for John York, Ross Neil, Elliott Naftalin and Martin Delemere.

in Beirut. Pete Ellmore shot commercials for Debenhams, Aldi and Pataks. Between prepping for Joe Cornish’s directorial debut feature Attack The Block, Tom Townend has shot ads for Sainsbury’s and the COI. Ben Filby ads include for Truephone and corporates for DSD Marketing. In Switzerland and the UAE Matt Cooke has been busy with docs for CNN and corporates for The First Group. Garry Turnbull has been of service to The Edge Picture Company’s and their T Mobile corporate campaign. Dion M Casey operated his steadicam for Jamie Thraves’s Corine Bailey Rae promo at Factory, while Steve Annis lit a Hadouken music promo for Daveyinc.

Dinedor Management’s… Eric Maddison FSF has wrapped on Dark Days for Sam Raimi’s Dark Horse Entertainment, shot in Vancouver, and Peter Field operated on Fox’s Knight And Day in southern Spain as John Daly BSC begins prepping Kafka’s Metamorphosis for Attractive Features. Mike Fox BSC has been shooting Paul Merton’s BBC documentary about the early days of European cinema, Lost Silents. As Steve Buckland and Peter Butler leapfrog each other on blocks of The Bill for Talkback Thames, Peter Thornton has been hammering the M4 to shoot additional photography for Doctor Who at BBC Wales, and Andrew Johnson has completed the grading on Kudos Film & Television’s MI High. Ian Moss has signed up to shoot all seven of this year’s Coming Up season for Touchpaper. Martin Ahlgren has lensed a commercial for The Dubai Shopping Festival with the Talkies

Over at Independent… John Ignatius just completed shooting the second series of Ladies of Letters for ITV. Kieran McGuigan is shooting Nick Hamm’s I was Bono’s Doppleganger in Belfast. John Mathieson BSC is shooting John Landis’s Burke And Hare, starring Simon Pegg and David Tennant. David Odd BSC is in pre-production on the second series of Whitechapel. Henry Braham BSC has just got back from South Africa where he shot 2 commercials back to back for Paul Weiland. Oliver Curtis BSC - Has just completed a Charity shoot with Saul Dibb for the British Heart Foundation. Ben Davis BSC has just finished grading Matthew Vaughn’s KickAss and is keeping busy until Christmas on various commercials. Benoit Delhomme AFC has been working on the DI for Hideo Nakata’s Chatroom, due for release next year and recently been shooting in Barcelona with Gorgeous’ Tom Carty on a

Cuervo Tequila ad and a Heineken shoot in Berlin with American director David Shane of MJZ. Jess Hall BSC has hardly been at home of late having shot a Weetabix ad with Ringan Ledwidge at Rattling Stick, COI ad with NEO at Stink and a SunChips ad in NZ with Gorgeous’ Vince Squibb before heading to LA to complete grading on his recent film “The Baster”. Dan Landin has been keeping busy in commercials with regular directors Chris Palmer, John Dolan, Brett Foraker and WIZ. Sam Mccurdy BSC just finished work on Rupert Goold’s Macbeth and is about to start on his next project, Lee Tamahori’s The Devil’s Double. Shooting in Malta, it is based on the real story of the man who was forced to become the double of Saddam Hussein’s sadistic son. Before he disappears he will be reunited with Acaemy’s Chris Weisz on a Sugababes promo. Mattias Montero is currently in South Africa where’s he’s been reunited with Luke Scott on 2 jobs back to back - Toyota and Phillips. Mark Patten recently returned from an epic trip shooting for Unicef with Brett Foraker and before that he shot one of the Ten Minute Tales for Sky, again with Brett. Dick Pope BSC is working on the DI for Mike Leigh’s new feature, due for release next year. George Richmond has started work on Dana Lustig’s next feature The Veil of Maya, which shoots in London early next year. Chris Ross’s latest feature Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll has just premiered and is due for release in January. He is currently shooting various celebs with Pulse Films for MySpace viral. Ben Seresin just wrapped on Tony Scott’s new thriller Unstoppable, starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. Joost Van Gelder recently

18/01/2010 09:27

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

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Who’s Shooting Who?

Issue 037

11 // 40

Eye eye: DP Roger Bonnici framing a shot with director Indra Bhose in Bangladesh

oot.

You’ve been framed: DP Ekkehart Pollack shooting a Netflix commercial in Prague.

Peeping Tom: Tomas Tomasson on set of the Icelandic

ot for Ashes To Ashes

finished a phenomenal shoot for Carlsberg with Knucklehead director Johnny Green out in Hungary. And Ed Wild has been hyperactive onpromos and commercials and has finally finished grading the Amazon project that he shot with director Peter Webber. The news from United Agents is that… Barry Ackroyd BSC is busy on commercials, as are Brendan Galvin and Alwin Kuchler BSC, whose work includes an epic Barclaycard campaign in New York City with Nicolai Fuglsig at MJZ. Simon Richards shot second unit on Mike Barker’s Moby Dick in Malta. Eduardo Serra AFC ASC continues on Harry Potter and Tony Slater-Ling lit an episode of Dr Who in Croatia, directed by Jonny Campbell. Haris Zambarloukos BSC is shooting Kenneth Branagh’s Thor in LA. Marcel Zyskind will grade Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me when he finishes his Danish film Skyskraber. Alan Almond BSC is on Philip Martin’s Poirot: Murder On The Orient Express. Danny Cohen BSC is in the middle of shooting Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech. Steve Lawes has begun prep in Cardiff on Hartswood Films’ new series Sherlock. Lukas Strebel has wrapped on James Kent’s Anne Lister in Yorkshire. David Higgs BSC is in Israel prepping Peter Kosminsky’s Homeland, whilst John Conroy has begun prep on feature Parked in Ireland. Charlotte Bruus Christensen lit a Cinema Extreme short, Chalk Candy, for director Martina Amati and producer Rebekah Gilbertsen in Wales. Neus Olle is in Barcelona shooting a feature and attached to The Mapmaker, an MJZ/ Sarah Radclyffe short to be directed by

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Hello sunshine: Nigel Kinnings in Syria shooting in the

feature Johannes

Downtown: Mark Warmington in a market in Hong Kong

ruins of Palmyra

Stephen Johnson in January. Carlos Catalan has just wrapped on a short in London and now disappears off to India to shoot a doc feature. He is also confirmed to shoot a comedy feature in Spain in May 2010. Zac Nicholson is doing camera operating and Betacam for Danny Cohen on Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech in London. And on the commercials front, Tim Maurice-Jones lit a Dove commercial in Rio with Michael Gracey C/O Partizan. Tat Radcliffe lensed an ING commercial with Giuseppe Capotondi in Buenos Aires C/O Mercurio Films and will soon be shooting another Vodafone commercial with Giuseppe in Rome. Alex Barber framed a Ford commercial with Noah Harris in London for Blink. Simon Chaudoir shot a L’Oreal commercial in the Caribbean with Jake Nava at Cherry Films and is shooting a Seat commercial with Alex Turvey in London for Superfad Productions. Stephen Keith-Roach lit a Halifax commercial in London with Ulf Johansson and is on a Mini commercial with Ulf C/O Smith & Jones. Daniel Bronks shot the Olympus campaign featuring Kevin Spacey with Duncan Jones for RSA. Philipp Blaubach has filmed two commercials with Patrik Bergh – one for Thompsons shot in London and, more recently, a commercial for Weightwatchers that was shot in Buenos Aires C/O Partizan.

for ITV. Mike Brewster continues on Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Parts 1 & 2. Pete Edwards has been in Buenos Aires shooting an ACDC concert. It was a multi-camera shoot directed by David Mallet for Serpent Films. Operators… Vince McGahon is back from Spain after shooting on Michael Radford’s latest film La Mula. Gareth Hughes has been on Larkrise To Candleford for BBC

Town with directors Olivier Venturini, Christian Lyngbye and Eric Will on three big beauty campaigns. Olivier Cariou, Ben Moulden, Ray Coates, Jo Willems SBC and Jallo Faber FSF have all been shooting commercials. The agency is now representing DP John Perez, who has recently been working with the directors Emil Nava, Fatima, Pedro Romhanyi and Hype Williams. Tomas Tomasson shot the Icelandic movie Johannes, the most successful Icelandic movie in 2009.

Carlin Crew’s DPs… Dave Marsh is starting on Handle With Prayer a new comedy drama directed by Peter Cattaneo for Big Talk Productions. Will Pugh is currently shooting in the USA for Zig Zag Productions. Peter Greenhalgh is starting on a new Miss Marple mystery

Sara Putt Associates’… Pete Hayns is in deepest Australia shooting the latest David Attenborough project First Animals for Atlantic Productions. Nigel Kinnings has been in Syria shooting an adventure travelogue for Globetrekkers. Chris Openshaw is in the US shooting What Makes A Genius a Horizon programme for BBC, and Mark Warmington has been in Hong Kong shooting for Sunset and Vine then went straight on to Malaysia on a project for Red Handed TV. My Management’s… Robbie Ryan BSC is currently filming Jeremy Brock’s film Slave directed by Gabriel Range. Ekkehart Pollack shot aNetflix commercial in Prague. His latest film Gamer starring Gerard Butler, directed by Neveldine and Brian Taylor is due for DVD release in the UK on 18th January. Simon Archer BSC has lensed the BBCs Ashes To Ashes directed by Jamie Payne, whilst Roger Bonnici has been on the BBC production Bishaash shooting in Bangladesh. Richard Stewart who won Fujifilm Shorts Best Cinematography 2009 for Leaving is currently making a film for Surfers Against Sewage. Nicolaj Bruel has been shooting down in Cape

Last but by no means least, Casarotto Marsh’s… Remi Adefarasin BSC is coming towards the end of shooting Little Fockers with director Paul Weitz. Over in Belfast, Sean Bobbitt BSC has just finished shooting Game Of Thrones for HBO. Natasha Braier has been on commercials front and shot BBC Local Radio’s ‘Love Where You Live’ idents for Red Bee Julian Court is on new BBC Detective project Luther, and Matt Gray has just finished Lennon Naked for the BBC. Rob Hardy has wrapped on Justin Chadwick’s latest feature The First Grader with Origin Pictures in Kenya, and David Katznelson is in Greenland to do further shooting for a documentary project directed by Sarah Gavron. For Kudos, David Luther continues on Law And Order. Florian Hoffmeister just joined the agency and has just lit a short film with director Tony Grisoni called The Pizza Miracle. You can read about his work on The Prisoner in this edition. Chris Menges BSC ASC has wrapped Ken Loach’s Route Irish, will start grading London Boulevard shortly. Tim Palmer has just completed grading on Vexed for Greenlit.

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Live & Let DI

Issue 037

12 // 40

Park Road Post: completed intensive DIs on alien thriller District 9 and Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones

To Live & Let DI There’s an international flavour to this edition’s DI focus. Travelling downunder… Park Road Post, based in Wellington, New Zealand, completed the DIs for sci-fi thriller District 9, and crime fantasy The Lovely Bones. Both shows were graded by Dave Hollingsworth, head of DI, using a combination of Quantel Pablo Neo (2K/4K) with GenePool, plus the company’s own RED, HD and SR workflows and colour management loops. District 9, was directed by Neil Blomkamp, produced by Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, with Trent Opaloch the DP.

The director’s vision, of a fictional world where aliens have become refugees in South Africa, was of found footage and reality-based images. The majority of District 9 was shot on the RED One camera, with footage of security and crash cameras acquired from other HD sources. The DI team devised techniques for distressing the pristine footage and VFX plates, so that an analogue ‘VHS’ look-and-feel could be imparted to these shots. Extensive pre-grade compositing of many layers (for live security camera

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and news overlays) was required in the online conform as well as by the in-house VFX department. Park Road initially developed this pipeline based on its experiences on films Crossing The Line and Knowing, and the same pipeline was used for RED material on the Peter Jackson-directed The Lovely Bones. Lensed by DP Andrew Lesnie, it marks Jackson’s return to territory made popular in his 1994 feature Heavenly Creatures. Achieving the right look for a period piece (the film is set in the 1970s) required not only great production design, but painstaking attention to detail when it came to grading. Intercutting that period look, shot on 35mm, with extraordinary digitally acquired ‘in-between’ footage occupied by the lead character Susie Salmon, required the company’s full experience of colour management and image formats management. The 2.35:1 film-outs for both films were done via ArriLaser, with Park Road mastering the DCP and HD deliverables. Over in Germany, DI manufacturer Digital Vision broke new ground by announcing that its stereoscopic toolset is being used to grade the UK’s first 3D film StreetDance, lensed by Sam McCurdy BSC. German post-production facility, Post Republic is now grading the full-length feature using Film Master 2009. Set in London and featuring some of Britain’s top dance talent, and starring Charlotte Rampling, the film is the story of a street dance crew who, in a bid to win the UK street dance championships, are forced to team up with a group of classical dancers. Shot in 3D, rigs were

supplied by LA-based 3D specialist, Paradise FX, which has also supplied rigs for major features such as The Hole 3D and My Bloody Valentine. Post Republic’s grading suite includes RealD projection and silver screen display technology, which applies a polarising filter system in front of the projector lens and passive polarising glasses for left eye/right eye separation. The RealD cinema system is currently the most widely deployed 3D projection system in the world. Michael Reuter, Post Republic’s MD said, “We upgraded our Film Master specifically for this project and decided to technically replicate the RealD cinema experience. Our graders wear polarized glasses throughout the session watching the grade on the silver screen and finally

master onto a stereoscopic DCP.” Also in Germany, Cine PostProduction, which has facilities in Munich, Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne, has been churning out the DIs on a range of films including Women Without Men, lensed by DP Shirin Neshat for director Martin Gschlacht, and Waltz With Bashir, directed by Ari Folman It has also worked on the forthcoming The Last Station, adapted from the best-selling novel by Jay Parini, written and directed by Michael Hoffman. It’s the story of the last days of the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, and stars Christopher Plummer, Dame Helen Mirren, James McAvoy and Paul Giamatti. The film was shot entirely at locations in eastern Germany that look like Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. DP Sebastian Edschmid brought the life and times of Tolstoy to life using Super 35mm, 3-perf film, refining the look in a 2K DI using Cine PostProduction Berlin’s Lustre grading system Colourist Sandor Nagy was involved in the project from early on and contributed in finding the right look, Crucial to the project was

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Live & Let DI the close link established between Edschmid and the post production team, which resulted in fast responses to questions that came up during principal shooting and in post production. The company was also responsible for the final deliverables – film prints, DCP and HD masters. The Last Station releases in the UK in February. Also getting a full DI was the feature Nanga Parbat, from director and DP Joseph Vilsmaier, about the tragic expedition of brothers Reinhold and Günther Messner. Special lighting conditions at the filming locations, and the combination of film and digital materials (Super 35mm, 65mm, additional1080p50 shots, plus original slides from Reinhold Messner) made for a complex grade performed by Manni Geigl. Cine PostProduction is currently grading Jane’s Journey, directed by Lorenz Knauer with DP Richard Ladkani, a docu-feature about leading primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall. It offers spectacular footage of her encounters with wild and domestic animals as well as with humans, from Hollywood celebrities like George Clooney and Brad Pitt to traumatised children in African refugee camps. Meanwhile, in LA… Sony Pictures Entertainment held a gala party to celebrate the opening of Colorworks, a new digital intermediate (DI) facility boasting real-time 4K grading and an end-to-end 4K pipeline, located on Stage 6 at its Culver City lot. The facility formerly housed the Technicolor DI facility, which has since moved to Hollywood. To handle the huge amount of data required for real-time 4K, Sony has developed a digital production and distribution infrastructure called the Digital Backbone. Also connected to the Digital Backbone is VFX facility Sony Imageworks. The

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13 // 40 facility features FilmLight gear, including: three Baselight EIGHT systems for the 4K grading theatre (which are also designed for 3D stereoscopic feature film work); two Baselight FOURs for use in suites designed primarily for television projects and two Baselight Assists, for pre-grading and other preparatory work. The systems are linked via FilmLight’s high-speed cloud network and Sony’s proprietary network. Each Baselight EIGHT is equipped with 96TB of storage. Each 4K grading suite is outfitted with a Sony 4K projector and a Kinoton film projector. Sony Pictures worked with IBM among other vendors, for a total of what he says will ultimately be 5 PetaBytes of storage. (One PB equals 1,000 TeraBytes, or 1,000,000 GigaBytes). Also featured in the facility, is a variety of scanning and recording equipment, including the Digital Film Technology Scanity and ARRI recorders. Autodesk Smoke, MTI Control Dailies and The Pixel Farm’s PF Clean are installed too. West Coast facility Modern VideoFilm completed of all the finishing work for James Cameron’s 3D stereo feature Avatar. Every frame of the film, as well as all the trailers and promotions, passed through Modern’s pipeline, which includes three Quantel Pablo Stereo3D systems. The work completed on Pablo included conforming and 3D checking, adjustment and quality control. The Pablos also handled all the 3D stereo English subtitling required for the Na’vi language used by some characters in the film. Five Day Shelter, an independent Irish production, decided to take advantage of the lower rates offered by performing the DI, VFX and lab processing and printing work in India, via Light Illusion. Steve Shaw performed the grade using the DI systems at Gemini Lab, Chennai, with

Cine Postproduction: colourist Sandor Nagy was heavily involved in helping with the look on Leo Tolstoy bio-pic The Last Station

Liam O’Neill, the producer, and Frank Reid, the editor spending two weeks in Chennai to supervise the DI, VFX and film printing work. The sound design

and mixing was also done there, with the project’s Irish sound designer, Alex Leonard, joining the rest of the Irish DI team in Chennai for two weeks.

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Close Ups

14 // 40

Being Human Nic Morris BSC

Being Human. So good they’ve made two series. So good they hired the same DP, Nic Morris BSC, twice. And the Americans love it so much they are going to shoot a US version. The British-produced supernatural TV drama-comedy series, written by Toby Whithouse, stars actors Lenora Crichlow, Russell Tovey and Aidan Turner as three ‘twenty-something’ outsiders sharing a house in Bristol, trying to live a normal social life, despite being a ghost, werewolf and vampire. The original 6 x 1-hour series, produced by RDF subsidiary Touchpaper TV and executive produced by Rob Pursey, had an initial run on digital channel BBC Three. It was so successful that the show got a second window on BBC One. The second series of 8 x 1-hour episodes hits TV screens in the UK in January, and US cable channel Syfy has handed out a 13-episode order for an American version to RDF Media USA. Morris, who lives in Dorset, says he first became aware of the production whilst shooting a commercial in Bristol. “I had been wondering for a while what productions were being shot locally in the West of England, and started making enquires about high-quality dramas.” His name was passed on to the series producer Mathew Bouch, the two met, and a script for the first series rapidly came Morris’ way.

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“I was immediately grabbed by the writing and the original premise of the show,” he says. “The early scripts were polished and complete, and I could see a great challenge in bringing the visuals for this comedy-tragedy to life.” In terms of visual references, Morris says that he and Bouch knew what they didn’t want. “We didn’t want a Gothic

look, and Matt liked the idea of not being rough and ready, nor down and dirty, and certainly not overly handheld. We agreed that the show should have a polished look in terms of lighting, shot construction and elegant operating.” To help with this quest, Morris selected a core crew who also lived locally to Bristol, but who also had significant feature film and television production experience. “There’s a surprising richness of talent of people who work mainly in London, but who live in the West and Southwest of England,” he says. Chief amongst these was operator Roger Pearce, who like Morris, worked on both series. Pearce’s long credit list includes Casino Royale, Entrapment, The Mask of Zorro, as well as Firelight, a Buena Vista production which he worked on with Morris. Gaffer for the first series was Brian Beaumont (Hunger, Sense And Sensibility). Lydia Hall (Larkrise To Candleford, Mistresses) loaded on both series, and Ian Jewels (The Sarah Jane Adventures) gaffered series two. Morris asked Mari Yamamura, an established West Country focus puller, who he met on a lighting short course he ran at the National Film and Television School, to focus the second series. Initial discussions amongst the producers considered Digi-Beta as the production format, but Morris advised that HD would be a better format as it would future-proof the show and optimise international sales. After investigating the many available HD options, Morris selected a Sony 900R, as it provided convenient size and weight, plus on-board HDCam recording – both enabling fast working. The series was predominantly shot with prime lenses to deliver shallow depth-of-field, akin to 35mm film. Another critical aspect was that, as a mature technology, the 900R provided an established workflow into post-production. Most of the production was shot 4:2:2, apart from blue and green screen VFX

shots, which were captured at 4:4:4 on a SR deck. Morris says he set up the camera to maximise quality in post, avoiding crushing the blacks, leaving the camera open and knowing he could then push the look later in the DI grade. The camera and lens package, made up of 3.9, 5, 7, 10, 14, 20, 28, 40, 70 and 400mm primes, and was hired from Panavision in London, with lights provided by Panalux in Bristol. On the second series, Morris also used his own Canon 5D MkII, often fitted with a Lens Baby swing and shift lens, for the werewolf POV shots. “It’s a wonderful and deliciously crappy lens that is sharp enough

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Issue 037

Close Ups

in the middle, but with suitably rough edges, and very effective for the werewolf shots. The beauty of the 5D’s sensor is that it is twice the size of a 35mm film frame, not that far off 65mm, and you can get highquality, 16:9 HD images, but with a very shallow depth-of-field.” Morris was also instrumental in the application of non-destructive LUTs, used in combination with Speedgrade On-Set software. The grade was applied to the rushes using a Davio, and a Cinetal monitor was used to see the results on set. “This allowed us to set the camera up to optimise the grade, apply looks on-set, and not worry about what the rushes looked like

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in their raw state. It’s good for people to live with the look you create on-set, and to have this replicated in the DVD dailies. If people spend time with flat images in native form, they can get used to that look, and it can be difficult changing to the dramatic look you originally intended during the grade.” Being Human was shot on locations in and around Bristol centre and the city’s suburbs. The team worked 11-day fortnights on series two, and kept pretty much bang on schedule during the 17week shoot. At the time of this interview, Morris had relocated to Cardiff to supervise the DI done by Jon Everett, who has graded both series on Baselight. “I really enjoy grading, it’s a fun part of the job and it’s great to work with a skilled colourist like Jon,” he says. “One of the advantages of having designed and applied LUTs on set, is that much the basic work on the look has already been done, so we can spend time doing more sophisticated grading which exploits the potential of the Baselight HD.” Speaking about the learning curve facing cinematographers in the present day, Morris comments, “Having been involved with the BSC’s Film and Digital Image Evaluations, the key thing for cinematographers is to thoroughly investigate the right system for the job. You’re not necessarily going to use the same equipment on other productions, each job has its own dynamics. Along with the choice of equipment, you also have to get the correct balance between the budget, schedule and post-production workflow to make it all work. It’s easy to get over ambitious, and create exquisite pictures, only to discover you don’t have the time nor the money in post to make it work.” Directors on Being Human directors were Colin Teague, Kenny Glenaan and Charles Martin.

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Close Ups

16 // 40

Florian Hoffmeister, The Prisoner Remaking a classic television show is a tricky business. The expectation from fans of the original is immense, and those working on the production have to divorce themselves from what went before to come up with something fresh. The new version of The Prisoner is a prime example but director of photography Florian Hoffmeister had no such baggage because he had not seen the 1960’s series until this year. “I’m sure it was on in Germany but it’s not such a formative part of my life or an iconic cultural phenomenon as it is for many British people,” he says. But watching only two episodes gave Hoffmeister the sense that it was a revolutionary piece of television. Audiences at the time struggled to cope with the highly stylised visuals and oblique stories concerning freedom, individuality, control and identity. The new Prisoner is described as a continuation, not a remake, so while American actor Jim Caviezel’s character is designated Number Six, he is not necessarily an update of the figure played by Patrick McGoogan, who co-created the concept. Another difference is that the administrator of the mysterious Village where Six is taken is played by a single actor, Ian McKellen, rather than changing the character regularly, as was done before. Hoffmeister was drawn to the production by writer Bill Gallagher’s scripts, which he felt posed questions about the human condition. This is a running theme for the 39-year old cinematographer, who was born in Brunswick, central Germany and began his career during the late 1990s working on art house films and television drama. His first UK production was Antonia Bird’s Hamburg Cell in 2004, followed by Cracker, Five Days and House Of Saddam. The Prisoner, Hoffmeister feels, is an example of this style of television because it is driven by the dialogue and the performances as much as the style and look. “My two favourite lines are Ian McKellen saying ‘Last night I dreamt clarity’, which describes this entire concept of dream/ reality. The other is the one from which I took the most inspiration for the lighting: ‘See how the light makes it all glow’.” The main location for the first Prisoner was Portmeirion, the private village in north Wales noted for its brightly coloured, Italianate buildings designed by Clough Williams-Ellis. Interiors were photographed on stages at MGM Studios in Borehamwood. All episodes were shot on film by director of photography Brendan J Stafford BSC. The 2010 reading of the story needed an equally strange and unfamiliar setting, which was found in Swakopmund, a coastal resort in Namibia that dates back to German colonial days. It has buildings as incongruous as those in Portmeirion; A-frame houses and art deco edifices in yellow and white. Interiors and exterior pickup shots were filmed in Cape Town. Shooting was also on to film, in this

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case 35mm Fuji stock. “I think film was the absolute right choice,” says Hoffmeister. “To me it would have been insane to go into the middle of the Namibian desert with anything else other than a beautiful film negative to capture all that amazing richness.” This gave the opportunity to capture the natural light unique to the place but there was almost too much of it. And the quirk of a humid wind blowing through Swakopmund brought mist on some days. To deal with this Hoffmeister worked most of the time with bouncing light and tricks he had picked up from House Of Saddam, which was shot in Tunisia. “Through that experience I tend to use a lot of in-camera filtration,” he explains. “If you’re in the desert at 12pm there’s almost no contrast because the bounce from the ground is so strong. By applying in camera filtration I could create mid-tones and push them lower or give the image a coloured tint to have more 3D-colour space.” Two Panavision cameras with Primo lenses were used on each scene, with Hoffmeister operating A-camera and regular collaborator Craig Feather on B. Hoffmeister is a fan of handheld camera work but sees it as a “slightly overused tool”, especially in television. There was no plan in pre-production to use the technique on The Prisoner, but as the shoot began it was introduced to “add the sensation of liveliness to the abstract, period-style setup”. Much of the look of the show comes from a combination of handheld cameras, long lens work and wide-angle crane shots. The original Prisoner has several candidates for the title of “iconic moment”. Hoffmeister has no doubt that such a sequence comes towards the end of the new series, when Number Two confronts an ailing Six in the Darkest Room. Designer Michael Pickwoad created a set in the style of German expressionism, which Hoffmeister lit using Source Four theatre lights to produce a very hard beam and a harsh HMI source above the glass interrogation table. He and the director, Nick Hurran, also updated a scene from the original series and took it to nightmarish extremes. “My idea was that this is the 21st century so this disco lighting guy from Cape Town who had never been on a film set before came in and created these big round shapes using moving lights,” Hoffmeister explains. “To take it further I used the Lens Baby plastic tilt and shift lens for digital still photography and chased Jim Caviezel around this room with a handheld camera. Doing that created all these distortions and I thought ‘’Wow!’ Jim is an actor who does things with such devotion and he raced through that room as if the Devil were chasing him - but it was me with a plastic lens!” After six months in Africa Hoffmeister felt he should take life a little easier and so worked on commercials and Margot for BBC4. But at the end of last year he was back in an unusual location, shooting at mudflats near Whitstable in Kent for the

short film The Pizza Miracle. Written and directed by Tony Grisoni, screenwriter of the Red Riding Trilogy, this was being photographed by Hoffmeister in a neorealistic style on black and white 35mm film. With that in the works and The Prisoner set to attract attention, Florian Hoffmeister will carry on making an impact this year. To paraphrase the catchphrase of the inhabitants of The Village, we’ll be seeing him.

Images of The Prisoner courtesy of Keith Bernstein/ITV.

18/01/2010 09:27

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

www.thecinematographer.info

Close Ups

17 // 40

John Leonetti ASC, Piranha 3D There is nothing subtle about the main title of Piranha 3D. It tells the audience that it’s a scary and outrageous movie they will experience in three-dimensional format. Contemporary 3D stereo movies are generally being produced with two digital cameras on a rig today, but Alex Aja (director) and DP John Leonetti, ASC chose to produce Piranha 3D with one film camera in 35mm Anamorphic format for aesthetic and practical reasons. The relatively low-budget feature was produced by The Weinstein Company. It was Leonetti’s first co-venture with Aja and producer/writer Greg Levasseur. Initially, they thought there wasn’t going to be an option for shooting 3D in Anamorphic format, but a new process was introduced for converting film produced with a single camera to 3D digital format. After shooting a test, they decided to follow the one camera Anamorphic route. Leonetti explains, “This relatively new process takes the negative produced with a single camera and duplicates a second eye off-set at a proper interocular distance. Manual and software rotoscoping techniques are used to cut out as many of the different layers in the Z-axis as desired. The convergence of these two images has the same effect as shooting with a two camera digital rig with all of the advantages of shooting on film with one camera.” Piranha 3D was produced at Lake Havasu, Arizona, predominantly at practical locations, during daylight hours in the midst of summer. “We quickly came to the realisation that the logistics of shooting in the heat of summer would have required unacceptable compromises if we had two digital cameras on a 3D rig,” Leonetti says. “We anticipated temperatures as high as 110 degrees. That could have been a problem for electronic cameras. A 3D rig would have also limited our manoeuverability.” Leonetti also emphasises that the exterior locations at Lake Havasu called for the scope of a wide screen 2.4:1 aspect ratio and the broad latitude that film offers. Most of the story unfolds on, under and around a lake surrounded by picturesque, razorback mountains. In the opening scene, a character played by Richard Dreyfuss is fishing and singing a song. He hooks a fish, which rocks the boat and sends a bottle of beer over the side. A camera follows it to the bottom of the lake. A tremor causes a fissure to open at the bottom of the lake, and water pours into the opening in the Earth. That causes both the surface of the lake and boat to swirl. The man stands up and tries to maintain his balance, but he is thrown off the boat. After a quick dissolve, the camera tracks over the now calm lake. A hand pops up out of the lake with the flesh eaten away. The tremor has freed man-eating

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density and contrast, which will be adjusted for a much lower screen brightness and to compensate for wearing glasses. Piranha 3-D is slated for release in April, 2010 in both 3D and traditional 2D formats. Postscript: “The industry is evolving in ways that I embrace, but I get concerned when technology is promoted as a way to only save money,” Leonetti concludes. “We have to remember that filmmaking is an art form as well as a business, and never compromise our ability to tell compelling stories. When my father was a very young man some 70 years ago, he worked on the electrical crew for The Wizard of Oz. About 15 years later, he worked on Singing in the Rain. With all of the new technology, has anyone made better or more successful films than The Wizard of Oz or Singing in the Rain?”

Close-ups were researched and written by Ron Prince, Kevin Hilton and Bon Fisher

piranha from underground. It becomes a battle for survival for the people of nearby town. Elizabeth Shue plays the town sheriff whose children are stuck on a boat that has run aground on a rock in a shallow part of the lake. “It’s a multi-dimensional story with fantastic characters,” Leonetti says. “There are times when the 3D images are in your face and other times when it’s more subtle.” Kodak Vision 3 5207 (250D) film was introduced while the project was in preproduction. The timing was perfect, because there is only one night scene. “It’s an extremely fine-grained film that holds subtle details in highlights and shadows,” Leonetti observes. “The 250 speed exposure index gave us the latitude we needed to use a polarising filter on the lens. That helped us to render vivid and rich colors, and it also dealt with reflections on the surface of the water.” The Panavision camera package included two Panaflex bodies, a range of C and E prime lenses, and Angenieux 50:500 and Primo 40:80 mm zooms. “I was generally shooting at stop T-11 or 16, so we were getting real depth-offield, the way we see the world with our eyes,” Leonetti says. The A camera was often on a barge with a long telescoping arm and a Libra head that could be submerged up to one and a half feet into the water. The B camera was on a barge with a 21-foot long arm on a Libra head. “Pete Zuccarini, a talented cinematographer, did the underwater cinematography in Super 35 format,” Leonetti says. “We agreed that underwater filming required different optics that would give us more depth of field.” Zuccarini used ARRI 435 and ARRI III cameras with Cooke S4 prime lenses. “We shot a lot of film in available light,” Leonetti says. “I don’t think you can do better than the big light in the sky, assuming that you can schedule to be at the right place at the right time. I used bounce light to create fill when it was needed. “The one thing you can’t control is nature. We had more cloudy days than there was at Lake Havasu in July during the previous 38 years. That made sunlight unpredictable at best, but we managed to stay on a very demanding schedule.” The one night scene was recorded on Kodak Vision 3 5219 (500T) stock. Technicolor processed the negative and scanned the film at 4K resolution. The digital files were down-rezzed to 2K. The DI is scheduled to be done at Technicolor, in Montreal, Canada in late February. The first step will be a traditional, two dimensional DI. Leonetti explains that those images will be the left eye of the 3-D presentation. A 3D DI will follow using the colour correction data from the 2D DI to make corrections for

18/01/2010 09:27

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

www.thecinematographer.info

On the Job

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18 // 40

Masters of film at work Vilmos Zsigmond on Woody Allen’s You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger The title says it all. You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, the latest Woody Allen movie, is about men and women who desperately want romance in their lives, writes Bob Fisher. One couple is getting a divorce after more than 25 years of marriage. The wife is fraught with anxiety, because she doesn’t how to handle being on her own. A friend sends her to a fortune teller, who tells the woman she is going to meet the love of her life. Another character is a struggling novelist who has only written one successful book. He meets a woman from India who plans to marry her fiancée. She falls in love with the troubled writer and calls her wedding off. Vilmos Zsigmond ASC says those verbal snapshots are just a few of the parallel stories weaved into the fabric of his third collaboration with Allen. Their other coventures were the television movie Melinda And Melinda and Cassandra’s Dream. You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger was produced in London last July. The ensemble cast features Anthony Hopkins,

Vilmos Zigmond ASC: photo by Douglas Kirkland / courtesy of Kodak

Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Naomi Watts, Gemma Jones and Freida Pinto. Zsigmond also describes Lucy Punch as a “very funny actress,” who adds a dimension of humour to the story. It’s a reasonable assumption that those high-profile actors welcomed an opportunity to work on a film written and directed by Allen with Zsigmond behind the lens. Allen has won three Oscars and earned 18 other nominations, along with ten BAFTA awards and 11 other nominations. Zsigmond has won an Oscar and earned three other nominations, along with a BAFTA award and

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five other nominations. “Woody is a terrific writer,” Zsigmond observes. “He must have written and directed at least 25 films about relationships between men and women, and they all are different and interesting. He never repeats himself, and he brings out the best in everyone. I felt like we were filming real people in real life situations.”

Background

Zsigmond brought an extraordinary range of personal and professional experience to the project. He was born and raised in Szeged, Hungary during the Nazi occupation followed by a repressive communist regime. His father was a professional soccer player who ended up coaching a team in Morocco. His mother ran a local bar. When he was 17 years old, he spent three months in bed nursing a kidney infection. An uncle gave him a book of black and white still photographs taken by Eugene Dulovits. Zsigmond subsequently bought a camera and began taking pictures. “A gypsy fortune teller told me I was destined to sail on a ship across a great ocean to a big city, where I would become an important artist,” Zsigmond recalls. Fortune tellers were taken seriously in Szeged, but her prediction was inconceivable to Zsigmond. He was put to work in a rope factory, where he organiaed a photography club and taught other workers how to take pictures. That led to an opportunity for him to study cinematography at the national film school in Budapest. In October, 1956, the Russian army brutally supressed an uprising against the communist regime. Zsigmond and fellow student Laszlo Kovacs ASC documented fighting on the streets. They carried the film out of the country and migrated to the United States as political refugees in February 1957. Zsigmond called himself Willy, and supported himself working at jobs, shooting ultra-low budget films with titles like The Nasty Rabbit, Rat Fink and Futz, until he broke into the mainstream with McCabe and Mrs. Miller in 1971. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger is set in contemporary times at practical locations in London, ranging from private homes to exteriors with familiar landmarks. “Woody never shoots on a stage if he can help it,” Zsigmond says. “He described his visions for locations in the script. His

Josh Brolin and Naomi Watts rehearse a scene for “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” as the rest of the cast and crew prepares to shoot.

notes said things like this scene could be in a park, and that one should be by a river. He was very particular, because he had certain things in his mind. We scouted many locations. Each one had to be perfect. If he didn’t find what he wanted, the location manager (Michael Harm) took us to another one. Woody wanted London to be like a character in the story.”

darker interior scenes. He rendered daylight scenes onto 250D Kodak Vision 3 5207 film. There were no storyboards. Allen and Zsigmond discussed how to cover scenes, during rehearsals. They had to be flexible, because it wasn’t practical to rig heavier lights in some homes where upper, middle and lower class people lived. “Biggles knew all the main locations when we spoke about how we were going to light them,” Zsigmond says. “He is very conscientious. His lighting was impeccable.” Zsigmond estimates that they shot 98% of the film with a single camera that was generally on a Steadicam tracking with the actors. He compares Allen’s approach to covering scenes to a choreographer planning a ballet. Allen kept the camera moving for up to three minutes while they covered scenes in one shot. One location was an apartment with

Biggles knew all the main locations when we spoke about how we were going to light them. His lighting was impeccable. An up-front decision was made to produce You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger in 35mm format composed in 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Zsigmond kept characters within a 16:9 frame anticipating that future audiences will see the film at home on HD screens.

Crewing up

He consulted with Roger Deakins BSC ASC, Dion Beebe ASC and other cinematographers who have worked on films in England before assembling his crew. Zsigmond also asked the production company to recommend crews. Then, he checked with cinematographers they had worked with and asked for recommendations. Steadicam/ camera operator Peter Cavaciuti, focus puller John Jordan, second assistant Sacha Jones, gaffer John “Biggles” Higgins and grip Kevin Fraser were on his crew. His Panavision camera package included Millennium XL and Platinum Panaflex bodies and 17:75 and 24:275 mm Primo zoom lenses, an Angenieux 15:40 mm zoom lens, a Panavision Lightweight 27:68 mm zoom lens, and 14.5, 17.5, 21, 27, 40, 65 and 100 mm Primo prime lenses. After shooting a preproduction test, Zsigmond decided to keep it simple by limiting his palette to 500T Kodak Vision 3 5219 colour negative film for night and

Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC on the set of Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.” (Photo by Keith Hamshere)

18/01/2010 09:27

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

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On the Job

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19 // 40 where there was some brief dialogue with another character. The camera followed the character as he walked back down the hallway into a bedroom. He sat down and looked through a window. The shot concluded with images seen through another window of a girl playing a guitar in a building about 100ft away. “Woody was usually next to the camera,” Zsigmond says. “He occasionally looked at composition on a monitor, but never played back scenes in a video village. We trusted Peter who is a terrific operator, and Biggles’ lighting always looked natural. Even if Woody liked the first take, there was usually another one just to be sure.”

Painterly images

prepares to shoot. (Photo by Keith Hamshere)

two bedrooms, a bathroom, living room and kitchen connected by a long hallway. Zsigmond described a Steadicam shot that followed a character walking through the front door, down a hallway, into and out of the kitchen, and into the living room,

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Zsigmond had digital stills taken documenting different set ups. He timed them at night, using his personal computer and Photoshop, and e-mailed images to dailies timer Russell Coppleman at Deluxe laboratory, in London. Zsigmond and Coppleman also had regular conversations. Dailies were telecined and transferred to HD format at Arion Facilities. “I could judge focus and composition and trusted Russell Coppelman to tell me if the colours and contrast didn’t look right,” Zsigmond says. They had an ambitious production schedule, but Zsigmond and Allen took the time needed to create painterly images that visually punctuate the drama. “Woody wanted everything in the warm zone with golden sepia tones,” Zsigmond says. “On the first day of production, we shot a big party scene with about 30 people inside and outside a house. We waited for cloud cover which never came.” They reshot the interiors on an overcast day. On the last day of production, they

Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC on the set of Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.” (Photo by Keith Hamshere)

shot a scene with a man and woman walking out of a house down a gravel path towards a park. The crew coated the gravel with dirt to muffle the sounds of footsteps. Zsigmond said goodbye to the cast and crew at a wrap party that night. “When we watched dailies the next morning, we could hear the characters walking on gravel,” Zsigmond says. “Woody said, ‘I’m sorry. We have to reshoot this scene tomorrow.’ I redesigned the shot that night to avoid the gravel path. There was bright sunlight when we reshot the scene. Woody had us wait a couple of hours for cloud cover that created the right aura for the mood we wanted.” Mark Wright edited the negative at Rightway Film Services, and Zsigmond put final touches on the look while timing the final cut with Clive Noakes at Deluxe

Woody was usually next to the camera. He occasionally looked at composition on a monitor, but never played back scenes in a video village.

18/01/2010 09:27

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

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Camera Creative

20 // 40

An American Beauty

The exquisite work of Eduard Grau on Tom Ford’s A Single Man

A Single Man is a revelation in a number of ways. It’s the directorial and writing debut from Tom Ford, the leading fashion designer who is best known for his luxury clothing, accessories, fragrances and cosmetics. Actor Colin Firth, who often plays the flummoxed leading man, reveals an incredible new dimension to his thespian talent. And the Spanish cinematographer, Eduard Grau, was just 27 when he lit the film. The fact that it might just scoop a pantryful of awards in the coming season is another pleasant surprise. Set in Los Angeles in 1962, A Single Man is the tragi-comic story of George Falconer, a British college professor (Firth) who is struggling to find meaning in his life after the death of his long-time partner, Jim (Matthew Goode). Based on the acclaimed 1964 Christopher Isherwood novel of the same name, it follows the introspective and suicidal George through a single day, where a series of encounters ultimately lead him to decide if there is a meaning to life after Jim. George is consoled by his closest friend, Charley (Julianne Moore), a 48-year-old beauty, and finds himself stalked by one of his students, Kenny (Nicholas Hoult). The circa $6m film, premiered last September at the Venice Film Festival, where it garnered a 10-minute standing ovation, the best actor prize for Firth (now the subject of major Golden Globe and Oscar buzz), and lavish praise for the director. “Tom Ford gets it spectacularly right,” wrote Screen International. “An impressive helming debut,” offered Variety, and, poignantly for the cinematographer Grau, from the Times Online: “A thing of heart-stopping beauty....”

It could be you

The story of Grau’s engagement on A Single Man is the stuff of dreams. Whilst standing in a queue at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2007 for a midnight screening, he found himself chatting to an independent American producer, Chiemi Karasawa and exchanged contact details. When he visited New York, a year and half later, Grau met up for a coffee with her, showed his reel, and ten days later received a call from producer Robert Salerno in Los Angeles enquiring about his availability for Tom Ford’s first picture. “I read and then re-read the script on the flight over to meet Tom,” he says. “It was amazing. I loved it and was sure I wanted to shoot it. When I met Tom he told me he had seen lots of reels, but mine stood out because it had a European, very personal style that he wanted in his film. We got on really well and, after two hours of meeting, he offered me to do his film, my first in the US. You think these things never happen, but it happened to me.” Grau, a Catalonian, spends his time between Barcelona, New York and London, shooting commercials, music videos and any other kind of projects, as far as he finds something interesting on them, although he admits to being more focussed on features in the last two years. As a student he attended ESCAC, the Barcelona Film

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School, specialsing in cinematography, but also trying his hand at directing as well as producing. But it was at the National Film & Television School in Beaconsfield where he decided to focus only on cinematography. A Single Man is his third feature, after completing Honor De Cavalleria directed by Albert Serra, and Lindy Heymann´s Kicks. Just recently he finished Buried, directed by Rodrigo Cortés.

At film school I found I was best at creating pictures, moving images that could say something using the light and the camera “I love cinema in all of its many different aspects,” he says. “At film school I found I was an average director, but discovered I was best at creating pictures, moving images that could say something using the light and the camera. I think I am good at helping other people to be good. I also realised the DP is one of the ones who has more fun on set – both creatively and with the crew.”

Creating the look

Working closely with the director on establishing the look for A Single Man, Grau began by eyeing Life Magazine covers from the 1960s, examining the textures, colours, grain and overall design of the images. He also investigated the photography of famous American photographer Robert Richardson, noted for bringing a street aesthetic and visceral nature into fashion photography, whose influence is evident in major fashion publications to this day. For other steers on textures and tones, and to witness how the camera and lighting let the story unfold, Grau and Ford also looked at features including American Beauty (DP Conrad Hall), Juno (DP Eric Steelberg), The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (DP Janusz Kaminski), The Graduate (DP Robert Surtees) and Chinatown (DP John A. Alonzo). “Tom had a clear idea about what he wanted in terms of colours and shapes,” says Grau. “So we started from there and built up other things – like the style, the textures and how the camera would tell the story in an interesting way. “Tom also wanted lots of close-ups, not just of faces, but extremely tight shots of eyes, really red lips, as well as mirrors and reflections. We liked the idea of the images exploring this guy who is looking into himself and then out at the world, trying to discover what he wants both within and without. What a mirror reflects is not what it is, but how you see it.” Overall, Grau describes the look of A Single Man as a sharp, modern image, but reminiscent of the past. Accordingly, he selected Kodak 5279 500 ASA, one of the older Vision filmstocks that has now been discontinued. “I think we were one of

the last productions to shoot on this stock in the US. We fell in love with its colour, texture and grain,” he enthuses. The camera package, including Panavision XL Milleniums, was hired from Panavision Hollywood. Grau framed A Single Man in 2.35:1, using aspherical primo lenses, but also packing a PMZ Zoom to use as a more versatile tool. “Tom and I both knew from day one that 2.35:1 framing would suit the script. I like the way shapes organise themselves in the frame in this format. Along with 4:3, to me it’s the most beautiful aspect ratio to work with. I don’t really like middle ground such as 16:9.” The production shot at practical locations built in the 1960s around the greater LA conurbation, including Pasadena, Burbank and Santa Monica, over a surprisingly tight 23-day schedule. “One of the things that that got me the job was the TV work I have shot in the UK, (Coming Up and Kiss Of Death) where it’s all about shooting to schedule,” he says. “All the films I have shot so far have been done in less than 23 days. It’s difficult for everyone on a short production – time goes by quickly, and you need to make decisions fast. We would have liked more time, but it was what it was.”

Working with the crew

Of course, being just 27 and in charge of the cinematography with major stars and veteran crew, might have proven daunting to some, but Grau appears to have taken taken it in his stride, “I was surrounded by older and more experienced people. And yes, I got some looks and a few comments, especially during the first days. But I didn’t hide behind anything, and was always myself. I may not be the most experienced cinematographer, but I know what I like and what I want. So I concentrated on my job, and after a few days they were comfortable, and felt I had the skills to be there,” he says. Grau admits that he didn’t know any

It’s all about people, whether they are actors or the crew, trusting each other and making it work of his crew prior to the shoot, “but really enjoyed working with new people, such as Jim Plannette, my amazing gaffer. He has major films like E.T., Braveheart, Legends Of The Fall, Magnolia, Oceans Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen, and The Road to his credit. When I met him I realised we were made for each other – the young kid and the seasoned veteran both, sharing a similar approach to filmmaking.” As for working with Tom Ford, he says, “As one of the top fashion designers in the world, Tom is a very particular guy in the sense is that he is a genius like very few are. It was a joy and an inspiration to work

with someone who is so creative, sharp and imaginative. It made my job easier, as he thinks about images and puts beauty in front of the camera. He would tell us the basics of what he wanted, like the positions of the actors, and we would take it on from there.” Speaking about the lighting strategy on the film, Grau says, “Tom, Jim and myself all like the same kind of lighting and knew the approach – lots of contrast and plenty of softlights to see the eyes, faces and expressions, to create intimacy. We didn’t have a lot of time, but we did have a clear concept. So we would talk about it and Jim and I made it happen. We used a lot of directional softlight, sometimes bounce, often through diffusion, and at specific moments we used hard light. Things kept changing as per the needs of the scene or the space. It was all about creating the right mood.” An example is a scene with when George visits Charley for an intimate supper. Grau discovered the walls and ceiling of the location to be almost entirely white, which can cause problems for lighting, yet with Plannette’s help created a scene with bounced light that is bright but soft, suffused with a passionate orange hue. The lighting placement was made all the more difficult as the handheld camera revolves around the dancing couple. To help solve the problem, whilst keeping the creative brief in mind, the scene was carefully choreographed and Grau fitted the camera with a 32mm lens, which took the camera within touching distance of the actors as required.

Moving the camera

The camera is intentionally often static in A Single Man, a concerted effort being made to only introduce camera movement in tune with the dynamics and rhythm of the story. As an example, at the beginning of the film when George takes his morning coffee, the camera tracks around the empty house, before pulling back from his midshot to a wide view of the house “The way the camera moves through this scene was designed to evoke George’s feelings of loss, emptiness and solitude,” he says. Of course, there were some happy accidents during the production. The film has a number of flashbacks, one of which is a B&W scene (shot in colour and desaturated in post) of George and Jim, filmed at Vazquezs Rocks (the same location that was also used for a Star Trek scene). It was the first day of the shoot, and the sun played to Grau’s advantage, not only allowing him to use just natural light, but to create in-camera silhouettes of one face whilst illuminating the other in the same frame. “I was lucky, the sun was in exactly the right place, and it played my role.” In response to a question about what he learnt shooting A Single Man, Grau says, “I could probably write a book about that. Most importantly, I learnt how to approach shooting in the US, with a big crew and to choose talented people around you to bring their skills. It’s all about people, whether they are actors or the crew, trusting each other and making it work. It has also re-emphasised the importance of the director and the script. It’s made me realise that reading scripts and working closely with a director is maybe the most important part of my job.” A Single Man is due for release in February in the UK. But if you can’t wait until then to see Grau’s cinematographic work, Buried, the story of a US contractor working in Iraq who wakes to find he is buried alive inside a coffin, will premiere at the Sundance Festival at the end of January.

18/01/2010 09:27

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

www.thecinematographer.info

Camera Creative

Issue 037

21 // 40

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18/01/2010 09:28

British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

www.thecinematographer.info

Meet the New Wave We’ve identified a new wave of cinematographers who... have a decent slew of productions 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 Alwin, David, Ernest or Chris.

Alessandra Scherillo

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22 // 40 set? Best – while shooting with Al Pacino, him saying “Shoot, baby, shoot!” Just great. Worst – being stuck in the middle of the Ethiopian savannah, part of a crew of four, with a sound recordist gravely ill, waiting in vain for a plane to pick us up. Unknown to us the plane had crashed just hours before, killing the first American diplomat to visit this Marxist country and creating an international incident. We had to wait a long time! Away from work, what are your greatest passions? My husband. What one piece of kit could you not live without? My beloved grey scale, which has been with me since film school. Which production are you most proud of to date? A 35-day job I did for Lotus in Malaysia, Dubai and Vietnam. Just wonderful, and full of toys to play with – like planes, trains and automobiles. What’s weirdest place you’ve ever shot in? From a plane in Vietnam with four secret service military personnel all literally looking over our shoulders. What’s the hardest shot/thing you’ve had to light/frame? The entire Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) at night. The director wanted a 190-degree shot, all in one take. We had to get approval from Air Traffic Control because we had so many powerful lights. Tell us your hidden talent/party trick? I make great cakes. In the entire history of filmmaking, which film would you love to have shot?

The Battle Of Algiers. It’s a seminal work. What’s your greatest extravagance? Good tailoring. What’s the best thing about being a DP? To be able to light. What’s the worst thing about being a DP? Not having the freedom to light. What three adjectives best describe you and your approach to cinematography? Humour, fun and good manners. If you weren’t a DP, what job would you be doing now? Absolutely no idea. What are your aspirations for the future? More of the same please.

Scherillo: says the best thing about being a DP is being able to light

Filmography (so far): After ten years in commercials working on campaigns for Stella Artois, Samsung, Nintendo, Nike, Guinness, Campari and Porsche (to mention just a few), Alessandra is prepping her first film, an adaptation of a Chekov novel to be shot in Beijing. When did you discover you wanted to be a cinematographer? One of my tutors at college, where I was on a postgraduate film course thinking about becoming an editor, loved my stills and encouraged me to take it further. He was a wonderful teacher and an inspiration. I was also lucky enough to win a bursary. Where did you train? The old fashion way, working up through the grades: runner, loader, focus puller, operator, and then I went to the National Film & Television School to put the whole thing together. The best way in my opinion is from the bottom of the ladder up. What are you favourite films? The Leopard (DP Guiseppi Rotunno, dir Luchino Visconti) – the way the oppressive heat and dust is represented in that film with the use of light, and better, the almost absence of it, is just spectacular. 8 1/2 (DP Gianni Di Venanzo, dir Federico Fellini) – I was only twelve when I saw this and I knew, even then, that was an important piece of work. The energy from it was incredible. A Matter Of Life And Death (DP Jack Cardiff BSC, dirs Powell and Pressburger) – I discovered Powell and Pressburger during my postgraduate film course and wondered why I never seen anything by them before. The use of colour is just wonderful, and the choreography of the shots is revolutionary especially for the time. The Passenger (DP Luciano Tovoli, dir Michelagelo Antonioni) – mesmerising almost hypnotic in its stillness at times, and one of Jack Nicholson’s best performances. Battle Of Algiers (DP Marcello Gatti, dir Gillo Pontecorvo) – Antonioni’s scriptwriter and life long collaborator, Pontecorvo, made only one film as a director, but what a complete, poignant and delicate masterpiece that one film was. What’s the best advice you were ever given? “Always give at least two reason why you want to do something, or need to do something, never be dogmatic. It is

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your job to be clear!” from director/DP John Burrows, one of my mentors and now great friend. Who are your DP/industry heroes? Jack Cardiff BSC – his work with Powell and Pressburger stands out even now. Pietr Sobocinski – unfortunately we lost him too early, but the style he brought to the Three Colours trilogy was so new, fresh and a great introduction to the aesthetics of an eastern European visual mind. Dante Spinotti’s lighting in L.A. Confidential – I have never seen such work, elegant and not shouty. His light felt like silk. What’s the worst knock-back/rejection you ever had? At the very beginning of my career, when one still needed a union ticket to work, I was asked to load on a Monty Python film. Unfortunately, the ticket didn’t arrive until three weeks after the beginning of principal photography, so I had to turn the job down. I was devastated. What have been your best and worst moments on

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Letter from America

It’s a kind of magic Steven Poster ASC says that whatever the buzzwords or trends ahead, cinematographers will still be amaze and astound audiences with a sleight-of-hand few others can match. Ask a pessimist about the future of cinematography and the response is likely to be that film is dead and all we’re left with are lousy HD cameras. Ask an optimist about the future of our craft and he or she will say that film gets better all the time and so does digital capture. Query a technologist with that same question and the answer will be: what is the event horizon you are describing? That last response is the most relevant to us cinematographers because it asks: what does the future - three years, five years, even ten years out - look like right now? Ascribing to Clarke’s third law (as quoted), as I do, we know the pendulum always swings between technology and art; and right now we’re in an extreme swing toward technology. But as soon as everyone figures out those burning questions about what file format, what chip, what media, the pendulum will drift back toward the art of cinematic storytelling. The industry’s first major technological breakthrough – sound – ironically placed new limitations on the camera. Years later the advent of NTSC video stifled imagemakers because of its inherent limits on resolution. And in the last 15 years, we’ve broken free of those binds with the impressive advances in digital technology. Through it all, more than a century of technological change, the finest quality images ever seen are still being made with 65mm celluloid! Go figure. So, yes, the world is changing, but I doubt the next five years will bring any more eye-popping breakthroughs. Rather it will provide steady and incremental improvements in the basic technological concepts already here: for example, file-based production and larger chips and sensors for digital capture. I’m a firm

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“We need to be engaged on an almost daily basis to stay on top of our game: to be the best technologists, artists and workers that we can be” believer that cheap cameras do not yield quality images, and yet many of us will find a way to make great stories with even the most inexpensive new gear on the market. At the high end of the food chain, post and delivery technologies will shrink content formation and delivery to unprecedentedly short windows. It’s possible that within the next five years we’ll see 100% digital delivery for product released in the United States, both in the theatre and our homes. And, of course, 3D cinema will have an even greater impact in that landscape. Have you heard that latest of buzzwords, “cloud computing”? Soon, consumers may be licensing or purchasing content across all digital platforms and devices; The Walt Disney Company’s Keychest technology and Sony Entertainment’s DECE (Digital Entertainment Content Eco-system) are but two examples. And these agile and powerful computers “in the sky”, will only improve in the next five years, making filebased desktop production infinitely more accessible. But with the distribution side of such content creation up in the air (no pun

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23 // 40 intended), how will independent filmmakers (here comes another trendy buzzword) “monetize” the work they so elegantly produce on their Macs or PCs? Make no mistake: there will be speed bumps. Cloud computing demands an entirely new infrastructure, given the large amount of data now required to digitally distribute a movie. Not to mention the security concerns associated with the worldwide scourge that is image piracy, in a word, theft (which will continue to threaten all of our jobs unless we, as an industry, can beat back such illegal practices, at home and around the world.) On a more hopeful note, cloud computing may well become the future shop floor for filmmakers, allowing collaboration unimagined in past work scenarios. Five years from now, when technologically driven buzzwords like workflow, monetize, and cloud computing have been replaced with something else, indistinguishable from magic, we cinematographers will still be conjuring, amazing, and astounding our audiences with a sleight of hand few others can match. Now let’s look at the past sixty years and this glorious history of the BSC. To all of my colleagues in this august organization I wish you the heartiest of anniversary congratulations. If we look at the event horizon of what’s in the future for the BSC, the ASC, the International Cinematographers Guild and the other professional and fraternal organizations in our trade, I envision exciting possibilities. Technology developments over the last twenty years allow us to communicate on a real-time basis, and interact on all of the issues we face across the globe. I can say from experience that no matter where we are, all cinematographers speak the same language. Just look at the ongoing success that is the Camerimage Festival in Poland.

“The pendulum always swings between technology and art… but it will drift back toward the art of cinematic storytelling” Or the fantastic cooperation and interaction seen everyday on the Cinematographers Mailing List. Yes, we need to be engaged on an almost daily basis to stay on top of our game: to be the best technologists, artists and workers that we can be, and further our art no matter what comes our way. But mark my words: in the year 2070, when the British Society of Cinematographers will be celebrating its 120th anniversary, your members will still be making magic. Steven Poster ASC National President International Cinematographers Guild IATSE Local 600

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of The Future, 1961

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F-Stop Hollywood

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Awards season appraoches At press time, three of the awards seasons’ most anticipated films had yet to be released – Rob Marshall’s Nine, Clint Eastwood’s Invictus and James Cameron’s 3D Avatar, writes our girl in L.A., Carolyn Giardina. But early buzz seems to indicate that all three will figure prominently in this year’s races – meanwhile the excitement surrounding the release of Avatar reached dizzying heights. With 10 best picture nominations at stake this year, there is plenty of anticipation surrounding the category. As December starts, some of the films viewed as likely candidates for some of the 10 slots include Up In The Air, The Hurt Locker and Precious, based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. Jason Reitman’s Up In The Air starring George Clooney got a lift at press time, having been named Best Picture by both the National Board of Review and the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association. The Spirit Awards for independent films also announced its best feature nominees. They are: (500) Days of Summer, Amreeka, Precious, Sin Nombre and The Last Station. Last year, the Best Picture category faced some scrutiny when Chris Nolan’s acclaimed The Dark Knight and Pixar’s animated masterpiece Wall-E were left off the list. With 10 slots, many will be watching to see if Pixar’s animated Up, or audience favourites such as Star Trek or District 9, will make the cut. To date, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast remains the only animated feature to earn a best picture nomination. Many of the critics’ honours and awards show nominations had not been announced at press time, including those that recognise cinematography.

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John C. Flinn, III, ASC will receive the Career Achievement in Television Award. The cinematographer earned Emmy nominations for Magnum P.I. (1988), Jake And The Fatman (1989, 1990), The Operation (1990), Babylon 5 (1995, 1996) and Hunter: Back In Force (2003). He was also nominated for three ASC Awards for Jake And The Fatman, and earned the honour for a 1993 episode. Flinn’s additional credits include Hill Street Blues, Gilmore Girls, and currently Saving Grace.

New DI house

Winner: ASC president Michael Goi (l) and past president Daryn Okada (r) present the HPA colour grading award to EFilm’s Steve Scott (c)

technology and digital cinematography have pushed colour grading to a new level of brilliance.” HPA presented its lifetime achievement award to Paul Haggar, who retired from Paramount Pictures in 2005. He headed theatrical postproduction at the studios from the ‘70s, and had been part of the Paramount family for over 54 years. The HPA’s Charles S. Swartz Award for Outstanding Contribution to Post Production was bestowed on four-time Oscar-winning sound editor Ben Burtt, who career has included directing, producing, sound design, sound editing, editing, voicing, and voice design. He has created globally and instantly recognised sounds

the international art of filmmaking. Former recipients from the BSC have included Freddie Young BSC, Jack Cardiff BSC, Freddie Francis BSC, Oswald Morris BSC, Billy Williams BSC, Douglas Slocombe BSC, Gilbert Taylor BSC and Walter Lassally BSC. Also at this year’s ASC Awards, Caleb Deschanel ASC will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. Deschanel earned Oscar nominations for The Right Stuff, The Natural, Fly Away Home, The Patriot and The Passion Of The Christ. His body of work includes The Black Stallion, Being There and The Spiderwick Chronicles. Deschanel has also earned credits as a director of features and TV programmes. “I have learned that the magic happens when a cinematographer develops and executes a visual style that complement s the director’s vision for the story,” Deschanel said. “I am learning every time I shoot a frame of film. When I’m not learning, I will know it’s time to quit. I didn’t get involved in filmmaking just as entertainment. Movies can inspire us to be better human beings.”

Sony Pictures Entertainment recently hosted a cocktail party to launch Colorworks, its new DI facility on the studio lot. The 14,000 square foot operation, housed in the studio’s Stage 6, offers real-time, 4K processing and nearly 3.5 petabytes of computer storage. A 3D ready suite includes a Filmlight Baselight (used throughout the facility), RealD system and Sony 4K projector. The Colorwork’s file-based workflow is also the heart of the studio’s development of a digital production and distribution infrastructure dubbed the Digital Backbone. The team includes colourists John Persichetti, Steve Bowen and Trent Johnson. Initial projects completed at the facility include the studio’s Michael Jackson’s This Is It, Zombieland and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs in 3D. On the 3D front, the industry was readying itself for the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7-10 in Las Vegas. 3D for the home was a big story at the show, with major consumer electronics makers showing 3D-ready TVs, 3D Blu-Ray players and 3D-ready game consoles. Home entertainment is, of course, a significant part of a studio’s revenues on a feature, and so many people reason that these developments could help the studios to amortise the additional production costs involved in 3D, insuring more 3D production and a new revenue opportunity.

The magic happens when a cinematographer develops and executes a visual style that complement s the director’s vision for the story

HPA Awards

Hollywood’s creative community came together on November 12 for the Hollywood Post Alliance’s fourth annual HPA Awards. There, EFilm’s Steve Scott and his work on Julie And Julia, lensed by Stephen Goldblatt BSC ASC, was honoured for outstanding colour grading in a feature that used a DI process. On stage, Scott saluated Goldblatt for his outstanding work. ASC president Michael Goi and past president Daryn Okada presented the awards for colour grading. Introducing the pair, HPA president Leon Silverman said: “Ninety years ago, a small group of cinematographers joined forces and became the American Society of Cinematographers. This elite organisation of talented professionals has been responsible for helping develop new technology for filmmaking over the years, and is a wellrespected establishment in the industry.” He introduced the ASC’s 90th anniversary showreel and said: “The Hollywood Post Alliance congratulates the ASC and all of its members.” In announcing the award recipients, Okada said: “Recent advancements in

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like the light sabre in Star Wars, and characters like Wall-E and R2-D2. His most recent sound design was for JJ Abram’s hit Star Trek. Abrams was on hand to present the HPA Award to Burtt. HPA presented Engineering Excellence Awards to DVS, for its Clipster finishing system; S.two, for its OB-1 uncompressed digital recorder; and Signiant, for its Content Distribution Management (CDM) software.

ASC Awards

Kicking off its own annual competition, the ASC announced its honorary recipients for the 24th Annual ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards, which returns to the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza on February 27. The big international news is that Chris Menges BSC, ASC will receive the 2010 ASC International Achievement Award. Menges has earned Oscars for The Killing Fields and The Mission and additional nominations for Michael Collins and most recently The Reader. (See our news pages for more details). The award is presented annually to a cinematographer who has made significant and enduring contributions to

The Right Suff: Caleb Deschanel ASC will receive the ASC’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Photo by Douglas Kirkland.

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F-Stop Hollywood

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Recent advancements in technology and digital cinematography have pushed colour grading to a new level of brilliance

Dunno: Can the all-singing, all-dancing, all-star cast of Rob Marshall’s Nine deliver the silverware? Photos by David James. © The Weinstein Co, 2009.

Contender: Jason Reitman’s Up In The Air, starring George Clooney and Anna Kendrick, might grab a suitcase full of awards this year. Photo by Dale Robinette Copyright© 2009 DW Studios L.L.C and Cold Spring Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

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IMAGO

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An optimistic outlook Imago enters 2010 with optimism having seen progress in all of its activities. Authors Rights will dominate much of our energy in the coming months. The groundwork was prepared at the Seville Conference last November, followed by the Camerimage launch of our strategy to achieve authorship rights for all DPs in the EU. Imago is as only as effective as the support given be its member societies. 2009 saw many examples of energetic support of the principles on which Imago was established 17 years ago. The aim to improve standards of cinematography has been furthered by events in Oslo, Romania, Germany, Spain, UK, Macedonia and Poland. The European Digital Cinema Conference, and the first all-female masterclass in November, were organised superbly by the Norwegian Society. To the indefatigable Paul Rene Roestad FNF and his members we owe our sincere gratitude. It was a pleasure to assist the Romanian Society (RSC) with its first masterclass in Bucharest. The AFC supported this enterprise by sending Jean-Louis Viallard from Paris to advise the enthusiastic young Romanian cinematographers. Lessons were learnt by all. Harmony in relationships between societies was reestablished in February when the BVK took its rightful place amongst our European family of nations at the IAGA. The Bradford Conference was generously hosted by the BSC and judged a great success. Once more the Australian president, Ron Johanson ACS, travelled the furthest to represent our affiliates. The Bradford Conference proved popular and the city later became the first “UNESCO City of Film”. However, the increasing cost of staging the IAGA is a concern. The economic argument of making savings by holding a “two centre” venue (perhaps alternating between Poland and Spain) will be debated in Rome in March. The appointment of a new female festival director in Macedonia, Labina Mitevska, resulted in a positive focus for the 30th anniversary celebrations as the Manaki Brothers Festival returned to its hometown of Bitula. Imago presented a special tribute to commemorate its services to cinematographers. Imago also held a well-attended masterclass between Billy Williams OBE BSC and Peter Suzchitsky ASC. In 2010 Imago has been requested to hold a masterclass for young Balkan cinematographers and studio cameramen on a set which will also be used to inform the public of Bitula about the secrets of filmmaking. The second year of Imago’s collaboration with the eDIT Festival in Frankfurt was also a success. The main cinematographic contributions were provided by the AFC, which selected Ricardo Aronovich AFC ADF ABC as the recipient of its tribute (given to Giuseppe Rotunno AIC ASC in 2008). The eDIT Festival promotes awareness the role of the cinematographer to the wider public, and in 2010 the BVK has been invited by Imago to contribute to this event. Imago’s first attempt to take advantage of financial aid from the EU by hosting a World Conference of Cinematographers

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The Sun Also Rises: Dusk outside the Grand Theatre, Lodz

was unsuccessful due to incorrectly filled papers, for which I accept responsibility. The submission, under the Media Mundi call for proposals, did provide a valuable lesson which I am confident will result in future success. Representatives of the societies of Denmark, Ukraine and Australia are to be thanked for completing the many confusing forms. An opportunity to resubmit the proposal will hopefully occur later in 2010. Imago is indebted to Sophie Jacobs of Interel for her assistance in preparing the submission. The EU Presidency has fallen to Spain until next Summer. The AEC plans to take advantage by promoting strongly the cause of authors’ rights. The Seville Conference was convened by the AEC following its earlier parliamentary success in securing legislation under Spanish law for the cinematographer for tax purposes to be regarded as the co-author of his work. Every small step forward is progress. At Camerimage, represented by its legal advisor, Dr Cristina Busch, Imago launched a new package of initiatives to achieve authors’ rights for all EU cinematographers. To achieve this, the co-operation of all our societies such as Russia, Japan and Australia will be invaluable. In her address Cristina warned that progress in harmonising through the EU would take time. Legal proceedings such as are taking place in Germany and Italy bring swifter results but require considerable financing. Imago has identified many important differences within Europe, which make harmonisation necessary including: the lack of a common legal definition of what constitutes a cinematographic work; the variety of regulations regarding the transfer

of exploitative rights to the producer and the various interpretations of what is meant by “moral rights”. A path to progress has to be found through a combination of legal research, an improved framework for transferring knowledge between Imago’s associated societies, legal action not only against authors rights infringements, but also to enforce affiliations in collecting rights societies. There also needs to be a constant focus on activities with the WIPO, UNESCO and the EU. Credibility and professionalism must be championed. A simplified version of the Imago Model Contract needs to be drawn up creating a new International Model Contract. Seminars need to be developed to provide concrete advice. Imago should encourage its societies to work more closely with unions and umbrella organisations, such as Euro Mei, special interest groups, private and public foundations for funding, as well as other creative groups in filmmaking, such as directors and craft associations. These and many other issues need discussion at a world conference. The Hungarian HSC announced in December 2009 its proposal to hold such for cinematographers this year. Imago will do everything possible to assist preparations. A report on the Imago Proposal launched at Camerimage will be available on the IMAGO.ORG web site soon. Our worldwide survey has produced some interesting results which will be taken to the important EUXXL Conference in Vienna in May. The forum director, Mercedes Echerer, proposed a schedule for this event, organised in co-operation with the Austrian Society (AAC).

May 4th – day of arrival in Vienna and meeting with the AAC May 5th – discussions regarding harmonisation of EU agreements, plus a masterclass for young Austrian Cinematographers, jointly organised by the AAC and Imago. (The BVK will be invited to assist by providing volunteer sinematographers if necessary). May 6th – discussion on co-authors rights in the digital age, and examination of the social position of cinematographers and filmmakers. Day 2 of masterclasses – Arrival of representatives of European Producers Associations (Fera etc), and get-together. May 7th – assembly of all representatives present of European Associations. Working on EUXXL Resolution with arrival of EU Politicians. May 8th – departure to Krems for talks involving representatives of Imago (3), Employers organisations and MEPs. Imago must take full advantage of the opportunities available in Austria. May 4th seems way off, but time passes quickly. The sooner we concentrate on the issues, the stronger will be our presentation to the EU representatives. I wish you all a busy 2010. Imago suffers if you are all too busy but better that than too many without creative work. I thank all our board members for their unfailing support throughout 2009: General Secretary, Louis-Phillipe Capelle SBC, Ivan Tonev BAC, Paul-Rene Roestad FSF and

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IMAGO Robert Alazraki AFC. The help of Tony Costa AIP and the web-master Nuno Guerra in Lisbon have been invaluable. Imago is indebted to its sponsors for their support and encouragement. We welcome our New Sponsors for 2009. Your sponsorship will be used wisely. As our website continues to prosper so will grow the appreciation of your support by the thousands of cinematographers who regularly use IMAGO.ORG.

Courage…

Courage in the vulnerable world of the selfemployed film worker is not just confined to the giants who have stood up in the past for justice, whether in the form of promoting authors’ rights for cinematographers or improving working conditions for their crews. The Jost Vocanos, Conrad Halls and Vittorio Storaros of this world have stature and reputation to protect them when they assert their rights and speak against abuses they see around them. As we enter 2010, film academies are still flooding the market with enthusiastic young people who are rich pickings for exploitation as cheap labour. It is refreshing to learn of the courage of a young British girl who took an expenses-only position on a film in the art department and later successfully took the company to court when it reneged on the deal. With the help of BECTU, not only did she recover her expenses, but the important ruling that workers cannot be denied their statutory rights to payment even where they respond to advertisements offering work on an expenses-only basis. The tribunal ruled that workers engaged on such a basis are entitled to payment at least in line with the national minimum wage; in addition to the holiday they accrue. The young lady had the strength of the Union and the representation of

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27 // 40 Martin Spence from BECTU, behind her. Unfortunately it has not helped her career. Nicola Vetta has left the film industry saying, “working for free is becoming accepted as a necessary investment to securing a paid job. I hope that publicising this case will help to reverse that trend.” Unscrupulous companies unfortunately do exist and the lesson to be learnt to enable all workers to combat exploitation comes from how the BvK of Germany has established a system of guaranteed anonymity. The German system was formed by a cooperation by the BvK and the other craft associations such as costume and design (the BVK already represents most camera grades). The German equivalent of the British Cine Guilds, Der FilmschaffendenVerbande set up a telephone help-line to receive calls made by individuals who believe they are being unfairly treated under their terms of contract during a production. No caller is asked whether they are members of any specific guild, society or union in order to receive a hearing. However three phone calls from separate individuals on any location are required before action in the form of written communication is sent to the offending company. The system works well and eliminates the threat to the weakest individual employed on a production to be victimised. The company involved knows that three individuals have made complaints and as no names are mentioned anonymity protects those who are least able to protect themselves. The onus of responsibility returns to the employer.

Camerimage 2009

In future days, when Image Evaluation tests are a distant memory and Authors Rights prevail everywhere and Working Conditions are based on the Danish

Get Low: The opening ceremony of Plus Camerimage 2009, with actor Bill Murray (l)

system, the one asset future generations of cinematographers will treasure will be the books produced by Camerimage. The bumper crop of literature from 2009 includes magnificent albums on Dante Spinotti, Volker Schlondorff and Andrezj Wadja. We owe those responsible our gratitude. The star of this Camerimage was first to welcome everyone at the opening ceremony and last to say goodbye at the closing gala. The masterly comic timing of the president of Lodz, Jerzy Kropiwnicki. was a treat. As long as Jerzy remains president the future of Camerimage is secure. He loves the experience and, like the best Polish vodka, his performances mature. Bill Murray had no chance although he did try hard in the VIP lounge, without early success, to order a quick drink when it was all over and he had realised he had met his match. Camerimage has become a holiday with old friends one meets but once a year. Don McAlpine ACS ASC escapes annually from his ranch in Australia. This year all was going well until he reached Heathrow and whilst in transit at the British Airways Executive Lounge his laptop was stolen. A brave face was needed and Don is the man to provide one. Some “faces” materialise in elevators at the Centrum Hotel like ghosts. Oliver Stapleton is one such “face” with which I look forward to having a decent conversation some day. Dante is another with whom I have exchanged pleasantries. His film Public Enemies was in competition. It would be rude to repeat the thought that it would have looked better on film. No funny haircuts in sight this year, but David Lynch must have been somewhere! Due to the absence of punters the arrival of my new best frien Vittorio Storaro AIC ASC in the VIP lounge passed without incident, although I was warmly greeted as he remembered me from lunch we spent together a month before. He introduced me to Carlos Saura. His introduction to their film I Don Giovanni was amazingly even shorter, as it did not occur, much to Vittorio’s chagrin. Also missed this year was the much-loved figure of Billy Williams OBE BSC who was on duty kneeling in front of the Queen of England. At the Kodak dinner I opportuned to talk to Giora Bejach about his work recreating the “impossible” by showing life from within a tank on his extraordinary film, Lebanon. A charming man he later passed on to the Israeli society my invitation to join Imago. They have replied positively. Without question his was the outstanding cinematography of Camerimage although I secretly had hopes for Tuomo Hutri, former

president of the Finnish FSC for his work with the Red camera on Letters to Father Jacob, which he shot in 15 days, and to the Japanese cinematographer Takeshi Hamada for his sympathetic and beautiful work on Departures. Imago also extended an invitation to the Iranian Society through its cinematographer Hossein Jafarian whose reply even the interpreter could not believe when asked how many days he had taken to shoot his excellent film About Elly. The answer was eighty days! Opportunities galore for young cinematographers in Iran! Last year the roar which greeted Anthony Dod Mantle at the ending of Slumdog Millionaire would have taken the roof off. This year the longest applause of appreciation by far went to Japan’s Takeshi Hamada for Departures, not a dry eye in the house. The most vociferous fan club was that of Edward Grau for Tom Ford’s A Single Man and any other mention of Edward Grau. The jury took no notice of either of them. Camerimage is the most extraordinary festival in the World. There is nothing like its magic. Long may St Nicholas stroll his merry way along Piotrkowska. Long may Camerimage prosper and continue to serve cinematographers everywhere. Thank you Marek, Kazik Marek Kamil, Agnieszka and your staff. Nigel Walters BSC President IMAGO

Ho Ho Ho: even Santa loves the art of cinematography

IMAGO is working for cinematographers everywhere. Make sure you keep visiting www.imago.org

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Camerimage

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Cameraimage Diary 2009 High roller: Deluxe’s Oliver Ronicle can’t go anywhere without the world’s best magazine about cinematography.

Wednesday, December 2nd Tuesday, December 1st

Master at work: Dante Spinotti in full flow during his workshop at The Opus

Monday, November 30th

Mild in Poland. Share a taxi from the airport along the freshly tarmac’d road to Lodz with Sue Gibson BSC and Bill Lovell head of digital cameras at ARRI Media. During the two-hour journey, a wide range of subjects get discussed like the surprising rise of the Canon 7D and 5D DSLRs, and the fact that, yet again, there are no British student films in competition this year. Sue says 100 Blu-rays of the BSC Film & Digital Evaluations have been requested so far. Bill confirms that ARRI is on schedule to ship Alexa EV, ship the first of its new cameras by June 2010, with the EV+ coming in September and the OV in 2011. Lodz centre looks really good. Christmas lights, pavements and trams lines repaired. There’s a new open space in front of the Grand Theatre sporting a fountain. Judit Romwalter from Sparks in Hungary, Vilmos Zsigmond ASC and Hugh Whittaker of Panavison give is a warm hello as we check-in at Old Smokey (aka The Centrum). Ask for a room on the 12th floor, in the faint hope that smoke from the late-night revellers won’t rise that far. Nice room, with an eco-friendly credit card entry and lighting system. Meet Karolina our guide, and get her started on arranging DP interviews. Hit Orpheuz for lamb stew, which appears on the plate as a bedraggled scrag-end surrounded by pallid dollops of vegetables, but surprisingly tasty nonetheless. Then it’s off to find Eduard Grau, the young Spanish cinematographer, whose film A Single Man is screening tonight in competition. Edu is tall, and on edge, and bursts into tears as he thanks friends and family from the stage before the screening. The film, which has a cracking script, turns out to be a real piece of art, as well as thoroughly entertaining. It’s all the more surprising as Colin Firth reminds us that can actually act. Bed beckons. Boom, boom, boom, goes the disco 12 floors below until the late hours of the early morning.

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Rabbits. Ernie. Pinch, punch first of the month. It’s frosty back home, mild here. Room not smokey at all this morning. Porridge, followed by Polish sausage and scrambled eggs, provides a solid platform for day ahead. Lodz looks reassuringly grim and inspirational as we taxi along pot-holed roads, that might never get a tarmac makeover, to the Opus for Dante Spinotti’s workshop, sponsored by Panavision. No wonder David Lynch shot Inland Empire in this town. The café at the Opus is crammed to overflowing with students and professionals as Dante, cigar in hand, hustles the camera and crew from shot to shot on a short film he’s making during the festival. Just an F23 and natural light today, and lots of camera POV monitors for the throng to huddle around. In the course of an hour he gets through half a dozen set-ups, and you learn a lot from this master about establishing shots, close-ups, framing, crossing the line, directing the actors and the crew, and getting shots that will chop together nicely in the edit. Back at the Grand Theatre for a spot of lunch, where Bill Lovell has just hooked up a D21 for a live Polish TV broadcast. The afternoon in the Opus Studio is a Panavision Masterclass with Vilmos Zsigmond ASC, who’s looking enigmatic in a dark grey/green fitted jacket and an Army-style peaked cap. We learn about how he risked the studio’s ire, and his own career, when he opted to flash the negative on McCabe And Mrs Miller to create a look no-one had seen before; about the special dye-transfer process and day-for-night techniques he employed on Deliverance; about the band of brothers – himself, Laszlo Kovacs, Conrad Hall and Haskell Wexler – who tried crazy things and made landmark movies; about how he was almost fired from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, but went on to win an Oscar for his work; about his love of Anamorphic and DI. Golddust. The evening screening is An Education, shot by John De Borman BSC. Another cracking film, based on another cracking script, and the audience loves it. Later at the press conference John talks about using old Cooke S4s with higher contrast to achieve the period look on the £4m production, as well as the importance of his collaboration with production designer Andrew McAlpine. Why is it that every dog you see late at night in Lodz is wearing a muzzle? A quick hello to Tony Pierce-Roberts BSC and Oliver Stapleton BSC in the buzzing lobby. Sleep.

Porridge. Toast. Eggs. Sausage. Herbata. At breakfast Joe and Lester Dunton pass round an original volume of The Theory of Stereoscopic Transmission and Its Application to the Motion Picture, written by Raymond and Nigel Spottiswoode, published in 1953 by the University of California Press. Today’s cost, $540. Some of the mathematical equations are mind-bending, but Joe says that whilst the equipment has changed, the theory of proper stereo, as laid down well over 50 years ago, remains the same. Lester shows us some of the interesting kit he saw at InterBEE in Japan on his laptop, including a new file-based Canon camera (essentially a 5D sensor, but in an A1-type body) that might throw a challenge RED’s way. It’s weird to also see a snap of a Canon 7D with a huge lens, mounted on a chunky broadcast pedestal, being used to shoot a TV programme. Times are a changin’. Shoot interviews in the VIP room of the Grand Theatre with Dean Cundey ASC and Phil Méheux BSC, with my mate Ed wielding a Canon 5D. Phil shows us a promo he’s made for the BSC’s 60th anniversary. It opens with images of Oscars and BAFTAs to a soundtrack of Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra. After a cascade of some of cinema’s greatest images created by BSC members, you’re left five minutes later with goosebumps, a lump in the throat, and proud to be British. Over at the Polonia Cinema, the presentation of the BSC F&DIEs is jammed to the rafters. Late sit-down lunch with Fujifilm Motion Picture which is launching ‘Complete 16’, a 16mm film and processing package, with Soho’s iLab, which itself is on the verge of a buyout by Reliance. Deluxe’s Oliver Ronicle’s has hired a segway, which gives a feeling of motion-sickness when ridden. Whoops, something got lost in translation with Karolina, as we learn that we’ve kept Vilmos waiting for an hour to do an interview. Rapidly rearrange for the morning. Get an interview with Dante. Rutger Hauer has tuned up in the VIP area, impeccably dressed and very friendly. He’s here to meet students of the Lodz Film School, talk about his own school, the Rutger Hauer Film Factory and emphasise the role of digital techniques and broadband internet, that he considers the future of filmmaking. Architect Frank Gehry unveils his vision for a new centre that it is hoped will house this festival in the future. Later it’s the awesome Panavision party, with wall-to-wall cinematographers, and a couple of clever British lads calling themselves Chamical Wedding who make iPhone apps for DPs.

Thursday, December 3rd

Blimey, where’s Vilmos? If he thinks we’re late again!? We eventually track him down, and get a great interview. Over in the VIP lounge we focus on interviews with Bruno Delbonnel, Edu Grau, Slawomir Idziak, Don Burgess and Jerzy Zielinski. This sort of thing doesn’t happen every day, and it’s intense. The Chemical Wedding boys come in to discuss their iPhone apps – Helios a global sun position calcuator, and Artemis, a director’s digital viewfinder. Then a spot of stand bashing at the Grand Theatre. Amongst the exhibitors are K5600, Panasonic, Sony, Sachtler, ARRI with its new sensor demonstration, Vantage, Panavision and JL Fisher. Camelot, CineMotion and Cine Postproduction have teamed up to exhibit a 3D stereo camera-to-post workflow, with a P&S mirror rig on show. Blimey, there’s an incongruous sight, a diddy 7D secured on a sturdy motion picture camera tripod. UK lighting manufacturer PhotonBeard has a range of Tungsten and fluorescents on a stand it’s sharing with British VFX Bluescreen Solutions, which makes green and blue colour-matched nylon fabrics, Lycra and water based paints. They even do body suits. Rogue Element is demoing its F35 workflow, and sharing a stand with LCA which has three new products on show – the Big Softie 24-inch ring light, an 1.8m reflector from Briese Lighting that sports a 4kw HMI lamp, and a 4x4ft LED frame from Lite Panels. Nick Shapley says he’s planning a DP visit to Briese’s factory in Hamburg in early February. Geoff Chapelle is mooching around with a new 50mm Cooke lens in his bag. We hear that some thieving devil has half-inched the BSC Blue-Ray F&DIE 2009 from the stand. In the afternoon Kodak’s presentation reminds cinematographers, if they needed any reminding, that film is still a wonderful medium for making immortal images. Over at the Opus, Oliver Stapleton BSC’s lighting workshop, sponsored by ARRI, turns out to be a four-hour marathon, enjoyed by an audience of over 400, during which he imparts some cheats about creating believable in-car sequences, without the expense of location work, CGI, greenscreens or even back projection, creating the illusion of motion and depth through the subtle manipulation of light. Tired as newts, we take a revelatory trip to Manufactura, where one of the of the biggest textile factories of 19th century Europe has been transformed into an astonishing shopping, entertainment arts and cultural centre. Take sustenance in the impressive Andels Hotel, where Rutger is getting a slap-up dinner from the Festival organisers.

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Camerimage

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CAMERIMAGE 2009 WINNERS Golden Frog: Lebanon, DP Giora Bejach Silver Frog: The Dark House, DP Krzysztof Ptak Bronze Frog: Reverse, DP Marcin Koszalka POLISH FILMS COMPETITION Plus Camerimage Statuette for the Best Film: Snow White Russian Red, DP Marian Prokop, dir. Xawery Zulawski STUDENT ETUDES COMPETITION Laszlo Kovacs Student Award Golden Tadpole: Dirty Words, DP Weronika Bilska Silver Tadpole: Through Glass, DP Jakub Czerwinski Bronze Tadpole: Sunstroke, DP Maly Róbert

Gongs: the Golden Frog as awarded to Dante Spinotti this year

Vision: a keen student checks out Frank Gehry’s model for the new festival centre in the heart of Lodz.

PANAVISION AWARD United We Stand, DP Arsen Sarkisiants Special Mention: Miss Mushroom, DP Pawel Tarasiewicz AWARD OF ASSOCIATION OF POLISH FILMMAKERS Dirty Words, DP Weronika Bilska FEATURE DOCUMENTARY FILMS COMPETITION Grand Prix of Feature Documentary Films Competition - Golden Frog: Unmistaken Child, DP Yaron Orbach Discovery Networks Central Europe Award: The Two Horses of Genghis Khan, DP Martijn van Broekhuizen Special Mention: Blind Loves, DP Juraj Chlpík

The 2009 Plus Camerimage Festival of Cinematography, as experienced by Ron Prince.

Friday, December 4th

Taxi call for 7am. But the driver turns up an hour late. We meet Sir Alan Parker and Michael Seresin BSC at the airport and enjoy a few jokes. It’s been another memorable trip. Interesting to see so many DPs getting hands-on, down and dirty with the kids.

SHORT DOCUMENTARY FILMS COMPETITION Special Mention: Nyarma, DP Alexandr Filippov Grand Prix of Short Documentary Films Competition - Golden Frog: Salt, DP Murray Fredericks Discovery Networks Central Europe Award: Poste Restante, DP Jacek Petrycki MUSIC VIDEOS COMPETITION Best Video: The Hickey Underworld “Blonde Fire” DP, Nicolas Karakatsanis Director, Joe Vanhoutteghem

Hometown: cinematographer Jerzy Zielinski was back in Lodz for the festival and is teaching at

BEST MUSIC VIDEO CINEMATOGRAPHY Depeche Mode “Wrong” DP, Shawn Kim Director, Patrick Daughters

the film school. Photos by Ed Thomas.

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British Cinematographer // Covering International Cinematography

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GBCT

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Coming soon... The future for British studios? A few years ago when I was a keen, reasonably young and enthusiastic Focus Puller (I’m being kind to myself, it was actually more than 10 years ago), I remember getting back onto the dolly at Leavesden Studios, having just run my tape measure out to Ewan McGregor. We were shooting another scene on George Lucas’ multi-million pound prequel to the mega-successful Star Wars franchise and we were doing this in a vast building of the ex-Rolls Royce aero engine factory just north of Watford. As we all sat there ready for another shot, I noticed a bucket to the left of Obi-Wan Kenobi (a few feet out of shot). I worked out it wasn’t another piece of Tatooine dressing, but something to catch the torrent of water that was falling from the leaking ‘studio’ roof. I looked at the bucket and thought to myself that something should be done about it. I also started to think about where we were working and why as the whole production was housed in a series of massive steel sheds, without any real facilities and certainly no heating or sound proofing. This was not so much a film studio but more of an aircraft hanger. It wasn’t even as if the size of the set demanded such a huge space, as any one of the bigger sound stages at Pinewood or Shepperton could have easily accommodated it. But as we weren’t in a purpose-built studio, I know you will be delighted to hear that the Leavesden maintenance staff took note of the severity of the leak and a few days later when it started to pour with rain, and well before the set was flooded, the bucket was replaced – with a much bigger one. I was reminded again of those buckets through a recent article in Variety magazine. In a special section of this most venerable of movie and entertainment weeklies, there was a feature about what was happening in Europe and beyond. It was called The Global Shooting Guide. Within the part headed United Kingdom, there was a short paragraph containing a list of feature films currently in production in England (rather worryingly the paragraph headed Serbia was the same size). The article went on to report that whilst Pinewood and Shepperton were ‘the leading studios’, the top facility ‘award’ went to … Longcross Studios! I read it again to make sure I wasn’t reading a sponsored ‘ad style’ feature. I wasn’t and just to clarify the title, it is Longcross Studios - better known to most people as Qinetic, the ex-government tank factory in Chertsey. Before I go any further I don’t want to create the wrong impression; I’m not condemning enterprise and I fully appreciate that in these cashstrapped times lots of people are out to make the most money from the least outlay. However, who would describe a rather ‘interesting’ collection of decaying buildings

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The future’s bright, but it looks like it’s green and not orange in this case. Photograph by Steven Hall.

as a ‘top facility’? The simple answer could be the journalist who wrote the piece – in other words someone who doesn’t have to work in it. I rather suspect that the people who would vote for it as a top facility are Accountants and Producers who see it as that for one reason only – cost. After reading the piece, I wondered what the owners of the ‘real’ UK studios would make of this innocent little article and also wondered how the rapid rise in popularity

2009 aren’t available yet, it remains to be seen if all the activity I witnessed over the summer actually means they’re making money. I showed him the article in Variety and then asked what impact the new breed of ‘top facilities’ were having on the future of the more established Film Studios in the UK. He started by saying that the established studios were ‘very aware’ of the competition from other facilities, but during a short period (by that I think he

I wondered what the owners of the ‘real’ UK studios would make of this innocent little article and also wondered how the rapid rise in popularity of these cut price so-called studios and facilities was beginning to affect them. of these cut price so-called studios and facilities was beginning to affect them. Even if my own observations are all I have to go on, Pinewood Studios has had a pretty good year. When I was shooting there in the summer, all the stages were busy and there was a real buzz about the place. However, on the blustery winter afternoon that I went to meet Andrew Smith - Group Director Corporate Affairs - the studio was pretty quiet. Given that the full Pinewood Shepperton Group figures for

meant when it was busy), there simply wasn’t enough space to accommodate everyone in one studio. I went on to ask him if the established studios simply couldn’t compete with the cut-price deals being offered elsewhere and that given the choice, wouldn’t Producers opt for the cheaper alternative? “We will never turn anyone away from shooting at any of the studios within the Pinewood Shepperton Group and we are more than happy to react competitively

to whatever figures Producers have been quoted elsewhere. Pinewood Studios has been here for 75 years, both as a fully serviced, fully staffed film studio and in more recent times as a ‘four wall’ facility. The studio has a comprehensive collection of purpose built sound stages for hire and Pinewood has continued to invest in the function and improvement of these facilities. Our constant investment is a physical statement that we are in the business of film production for the long term”. Full details of Project Pinewood can be found on Pinewood Studios website Credit photograph Courtesy of the Pinewood Shepperton Group Just occasionally, despite its vast size, Pinewood’s 007 stage (the biggest purpose built non-sound stage in the UK) just isn’t big enough to shoot on and productions have to look at shooting interiors elsewhere. Fortunately, producers have used the abundant supply of massive abandoned buildings and ex-military sites around the country instead of going abroad. For example, Cardington in Bedfordshire has two of the biggest open-space buildings in the country - its old R101 airship hangers (so big that the OO7 stage would easily fit into either one of them – twice). These have been used for ‘outsize’ sets many times and so popular is their use as a ‘studio’ plans have been made to adapt the whole site into a fully serviced studio facility

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GBCT and media park. However, the plans are now on hold and they remain empty shells for hire. I recently found out that one of the ‘sheds’ is now for sale along with 170 acres of land. This whole issue of expansion in the current economic climate is illustrated by the Pinewood Shepperton group’s very well publicized plans to develop its own existing site (and a large chunk of the surrounding South Bucks countryside) into a much bigger, more commercially orientated facility. These ambitious plans are also on hold with the refusal of planning permission being given as the official reason. However, could it be that given the current economic climate and the growing trend for Producers to explore the cheaper alternative facilities is a more realistic reason? I asked Nick Smith, Commercial Director at Pinewood Studios, what next for ‘Project Pinewood’? “Project Pinewood’ was always going to be refused planning permission simply because the development site is on Green Belt land. There are other expansion plans within the existing studio site, but to expand to the level that ‘Project Pinewood requires would mean breaking out of the current land locked position that the studio site finds itself in today”. So, what sort of advantages can a Producer expect to get by shooting and basing a production at somewhere like the new Longcross Studios, as opposed to one of the more established purpose built studios? Is it simply cost? One of the first advantages that I discovered about Longcross Studios is that it is very easy to get to by public transport. It’s made easier by the simple fact that it’s got its own main line railway station. Pinewood might have a purpose built underwater stage, but it doesn’t have its own station, or a full-size closed road network, or for that matter its own nine-hole golf course. The site at Longcross is huge, with some 350 acres of buildings, woodland and hard standing. In its heyday, Qinetic - as it was lknown when the MOD owned it -was the workplace for well over a thousand people. The main ‘studio’ site is located on the north side of the M3 motorway and is made up of a variety of enormous warehouses. None of the buildings could be described as sound stages but bearing in mind their prime use in a former life was to test and repair armoured vehicles and tanks, all the buildings are on a huge industrial scale. I would imagine that when Longcross was as a military facility, everything was neatly presented with even the door handles being regularly polished. Sadly that’s not the case now, but the general post-apocalyptic look is pretty cinematic in itself. So what are the plans for the site? Are there the same dreams and ideas that there were for Leavesden ten years ago, or will it just function as it is without any future investment, as a cut price, no thrills facility? I asked Bob Terry, Studio Manager Longcross Studios, for an insight into the future for Longcross as a film studio. “The future plans for Longcross Studios are to continue to grow as we have done over the past three years. 2009 has been a very good year for us and we hope to attract more major feature films and more TV Drama Productions next year.” The future’s bright, but it looks like it’s green and not orange in this case

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32 // 40 Credit photograph by Steven Hall I went on to ask him about the huge hoarding just outside the main gate, which hints to future development of a very different kind. He said: “The owners of Longcross Studios are a British based joint venture property group, but for the foreseeable future any plans to develop the site are on hold” Given that one of the names that appears on the hoarding is that of a major residential house builder, the conversion of industrial buildings into sound stages could possibly be a useful diversification during the current recession. There is a line between what constitutes an industrial site

Design – a totally convincing, battle scared Saigon, created from an old gas works in East London. To try and recreate something of that scale on the back lot at Pinewood or the skid pan at Longcross – even if they were big enough, simply wouldn’t make economic or for that matter creative sense. However, that size of production doesn’t come along every day, or even every year for that matter. In the smaller scale world of studio based TV productions, it’s all about cash. The decline of the British Manufacturing industry has been a real boost for numerous cash-strapped cop shows and TV Dramas. I for one have spent many weeks in all manner of grizzly,

We will never turn anyone away from shooting at any of the studios within the Pinewood Shepperton Group and we are more than happy to react competitively to whatever figures Producers have been quoted elsewhere. used as a location, with one that is used as a studio. It would be easy to confuse the justified use of an abandoned industrial site - especially when the site is both visually and practically perfect, with simply using a site because it is cheap. Over the years we have seen some very good examples of where Producers have cleverly used Britain’s abandoned Industrial Heritage to their advantage, regardless of the size of the budget. For example, the use of Becton Gas Works as the main setting for Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Full Metal Jacket’, was simply a brilliant example of Production

ex factories instead of being in a nice warm well serviced and purpose built studio. It’s easy to see the economic and creative gain when the script demands scenes that are set in an ex-car parts factory, but difficult to justify using the same industrial building when a set is built within it - unless of course those justifications are simply based on cost. So how can a fully serviced studio compete with an industrial landlord - often the state or the MOD, who is keen to let out vast areas of industrial wasteland and buildings for a fraction of its leasehold or development value? Nick Smith of

Pinewood Studios again: “We’re always going to have one huge advantage over the new bare bones facilities and that is that the facilities at the purpose built studios are completely ready to go. Health and Safety is now a major factor in film and television production and to provide our clients with state of the art, fully functional, fully practical film stages that are in tip-top order and comply with all HSE regulations, requires constant investment. We firmly believe that Producers are willing to support our investment and this is evident by the numbers who come back to us time and time again”. I did wonder how long it would be before the Health and Safety thing came up and if you judge a book simply by its cover, then the Titanic certainly looks like a far safer way to cross the Atlantic than a rowing boat - if you catch my drift. I asked Martin Spence of BECTU if there were any Health and Safety concerns with the new ‘bare bones’ facilities: “BECTU are keen to protect both the future and working conditions of all workers, both staff and freelance, who currently work at the established studios in the UK. BECTU are concerned that in the quest to provide Producers and Production Companies with cheaper, more cost effective studio facilities, health and safety issues are not overlooked or ignored by the newer, less established studios”. There is no doubt that Film Production in the UK is really suffering from the effects of the recession. Combine the recession with the other factors that have made shooting in the UK unattractive - the recent gain in the strength of the pound against the dollar for example and it’s

Producers & Production Companies get a lot of gate for their money at Pinewood Studios. Photograph by Steven Hall.

Guild of British Camera Technicians –––– Board Members:

Jamie Harcourt (Chairman), Tim Potter (Vice Chairman), Lousie Ben-Nathan, Steve Brooke-Smith, Trevor Coop (Immediate Past Chairman), Sarah Hayward, John Keedwell, Rupert Lloyd Parry, Keith Mead, Darren Miller, Shirley Schumacher, David Worley, Mary Kyte (Honorary Treasurer).

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As a place to make films, Ealing has it all. Great facilities, an unbeatable location, the best transport links of any studio in the UK, local cafes bars, restaurants and shops that give the place a Soho atmosphere and a name that is recognised around the world as being synonymous with great movie making. inevitable that studio based film production is currently not as healthy as it needs to be. At the end of the day, the established studios need to look very closely at how they can compete with the new, cut price facilities in these increasingly cost driven times. It is possible that given the economic climate and in the not too distant future, productions will be even more like travelling circus’s and will set up studios and production bases in any one of the increasing number of industrial parks, hospitals and factories that are currently lying empty. If this trend were to continue, it would surely put the commercial viability of running somewhere like Pinewood or Shepperton, seriously in doubt. For an ‘official’ view of the future for British Studios – established or otherwise, I got in touch with the UK Film Council’s British Film Commissioner, Colin Brown. Whilst he didn’t make any specific comments on the role or growth of the popularity of the new cut price facilities, he hinted in an e-mail that the choice of which studio a Producer should use, was all to do with cost: ”Juggling a number of complex factors in making location decisions is all part of the job for producers. The UK production sector has been proactive in creating its own ‘USP’ through continuous investment with the net result that the UK can offer world-class production facilities and services, giving our industry a creative and competitive edge and the best opportunities to make globally successful films. At the same time, the economic downturn has clearly had an impact on production financing; this has had a knock-on effect on all aspects of production, and finding solutions is part of the producer’s task.” If, or more hopefully when, you next find yourself in the canteen at Pinewood Studios, have a look at the large black and white picture of Norman Wisdom that was taken some fifty years ago. I looked at it recently and after about ten minutes or so I realised that the view I could see out of the window, was exactly the same as the view in the picture – minus the lorry being cleaned by the hapless Norman Wisdom and of course dear old Norman himself. I suppose I’ve put on my ‘rose tinted specs’ for these last few lines, but thinking about that image, depicting as it does a moment from the golden days of British Studio film production, it occurred to me that whilst it might be cheaper to shoot a film at an abandoned factory, one of things you won’t get in the end credits is the motion picture heritage and history connected with place names like Pinewood, Shepperton, Elstree or Ealing.

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The publisher asked Ealing & Elstree studios for their views on the subject, this is what they had to say.

Ealing

Gary Stone, Studio Manager at the resurgent Ealing Studios is an evangelist for the future of what is the oldest purposebuilt film studio in the world. “As a place to make films, Ealing has it all. Great facilities, an unbeatable location, the best transport links of any studio in the UK, local cafes bars, restaurants and shops that give the place a Soho atmosphere and a name that is recognised around the world as being synonymous with great movie making. Combined with the Ealing’s values of friendship and service, it’s why people like Woody Allen come back to us year after year. “Ealing has five stages, with extensive support facilities and offices. The site has undergone extensive redevelopment over the last seven years, and there is a lot more to come. As well as new stage, facilities and office spaces in the pipe, Ealing has world class data facilities which we are continuing to develop

THE CHAIRMAN SPEAKS.

Elstree

“Elstree is reinventing itself as the home of the British film industry supporting British industry film makers and linking up with the London Film School to train the next generation of film makers and cinematographers. Elstree has been the home recently to a number of successful British films including Harry Brown, Kick Ass, Reuniting the Rubins and most recently Devils Playground and The Kings Speech. Elstree is also endeavouring to become the leading British Studio for electronic film production and ultimately 3D.”

Elstree is reinventing itself as the home of the British film industry supporting British industry film makers and linking up with the London Film School to train the next generation of film makers and cinematographers. “Unique of all Britain’s studios, Ealing is a prolific film maker in its own right, including the hugely successful St Trinians franchise, and coming up in 2010, as well as the further adventures of the girls of St Trinians, John Landis will be helming Burke & Hare. “When you put it all together, the last two years have been the most successful in our long history, and the future is looking just as bright. As one satisfied producer put it, ‘Gary, Ealing is the biggest little studio in Britain.’”

Another Year, Another Struggle So by the time you read this, it will be another year, and what will it bring? Last year was a disaster for many people as the credit crunch took its toll and the number of productions seemed to evaporate leaving a talented pool of technicians twiddling their thumbs – and struggling to pay the mortgage. And so we look forward to a better year and the chance to play catch-up and further the cause! (At the Guild) there will be more training courses, a new website, an official qualification for First and Second AC’s and a concerted effort to promote the camera operator as an essential member of the camera department. I will be stepping down as Chairman at the AGM so that a new person can take up the reins to canter through the next couple of years. Let’s hope and pray in the meantime that things get a lot busier for our wonderful, frustrating industry. As ever, good luck. Jamie Harcourt GBCT Chairman

Article by Steven Hall, GBCT

Full details of Project Pinewood can be found on Pinewood Studios website. Photograph Courtesy of the Pinewood Shepperton Group.

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Shooting the Future

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Game-changing technology DP Mark Patten writes about the power of the Canon 7D.

Lump: it may look incongruous, but the new HDSLRs are being used for all types of productions

UNICEF: images shot using the new Canon 7D by DP Mark Patten

DP: cinematographer Mark Patten

Frame / Sensor sizes of varying formats.

Over the past five of six years the emergence of High-Definition cinema has catapulted an array of different formats on to the cinematographer. For many, the challenge was to try to recreate the ‘35mm filmic’ look. This in itself was testing, as decades of technical advancement in film negative, equipment hardware and the arrival of the DI process in post had taken film to a level where the look is deemed unsurpassable. As the new HD formats vied for position it seemed that every 6 months a new platform would be presented to the Cinematographer with new techniques developed to get ever closer to a 35mm substitute. Initially depth of field was a major issue as the ‘sensor’ the data was captured on was tiny. (See FIG.1) Arri’s D20, Panavision’s Genesis and Sony’s F35 all occupied the top end of the market, making inroads into this new medium when a brash, new, heavily marketed upstart was thrust into the arena. RED seemed everywhere. As with the other key players, 35mm lenses were deployed to help the visual aesthetic get ever closer to film, and with its fiscal advantages over film the RED camera quickly became popular. Even with a complex post workflow to extract the RED RAW code and TK graders bemoaning its failings, it seemed like it was destined to take over the

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HD market and replace the other tape and drive formats. Suddenly the choice of which format to shoot on was being eroded. Enter HDSLR, a convergence format born out of the mix of stills and HD technology. Canon released the 5D MKII 9 months ago - the first widely available DSLR camera to build in a full HD movie mode aimed at the ‘Prosumer’ market – albeit recording only at 30fps, which limited those working in PAL format (25fps). Suddenly a watershed moment had arrived. Canon engineers had attained the ‘Holy Grail’ of capturing motion onto the largest chip on the market and achieving a look that benefited from using 35mm lenses. The result is an incredibly streamlined digital package that can finally come close to the technical benefits of 35mm. This by no means is a replacement for film, and this article does not intend to sideline the analogue format in any way. However this represents game changing technology whereby we now have a camera format that is not only visually enticing to cinematographers but also one that is incredibly affordable and accessible to meet the budgets and needs of the new media outlets, independent low budget productions, documentary filmmakers and music videos that have all become so financially squeezed in recent years. Already there are even features in

production, shooting on HDSLR as more and more people recognise the potential of this new technology. The announcement of the Canon 7D – which utilised a smaller cropped sensor and includes the ability to shoot at 25/50FPS at Full HD resolution – is the latest advancement in the HDSLR market and the camera that I have used now on numerous projects. Arguments still abound re sensor noise, when projected at full HD in TK; noise on the 7D is minimal even at ISO_800. Until Canon release a firmware upgrade to allow the 5D to shoot 25/50FPS the 7D certainly is becoming the PAL workhorse. Technically the codec produced by these cameras is the highly compressed H264 apple codec. However the results that I seem to be having once integrated into the correct workflow are very positive. Somehow the gamma curve implemented in the camera has TK operators excited, to the point that the HDSLR look certainly is raising some heads. This convergence in technologies has opened a completely new way of thinking about how projects can be implemented as well as conceived. The whole etiquette in approach can be rethought. In using it I can see that these smaller units could be incredibly effective on a drama, allowing multi camera shooting at a cost effective level whilst

capturing the action in an immensely efficient and new visual method. Having just completed a three-week global project for UNICEF, these units combined with a full set of stills primes allowed my team to capture footage that may not have been possible with conventional equipment. Because the subjects believed they were ‘stills’ cameras our access to remote locations as well embedding ouselves within the communities allowed us to capture stand alone moments. The efficiency of the system is truly liberating, the ability to use both original stills lenses combined with Cine lenses lets the cinematographer explore once again the visual medium that we have been trained in. Story telling is not in any way compromised due to the technology, and is in my opinion readily enhanced. It seems that as we are all being pushed to become more economically viable, this platform does not impose the constraints that a large production may impose; in fact the opposite is achieved allowing the user to once again explore stories through a very exciting and personal medium. Below are some grabs from the UNICEF project, with technical details: Mark Patten is a London based DP, represented by Independent TG.

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