Excerpt from issue 3
behind the scenes
Telling your story in the Digital Age
Shooting Deliver Us From Evil in 4K
Telling your story in the Digital Age By Glenn Gainor, President of Production, Screen Gems
As filmmakers, we like to tell stories. And I want to share a quick story about Deliver Us From Evil, a Screen Gems release. We introduce our main character, a detective played by Eric Bana, in a dark, rainy alley and follow him through the tough streets of the Bronx. The movie shows him as he uncovers the work of the demonic. The Sony F65 and F55 cameras enabled us to enter into darkness like never before.
On the set of DELIVER US FROM EVIL
Director Scott Derrickson told me, “Shooting through rain, we were not only able to pick up the Bronx city lights in the deep background (something film would never be able to do) but we were able to set a single light on a distinctively Bronx building a good 1/4 mile away to create an especially ‘Bronx-y’ master image. The Sony digital cameras allowed us to make the Bronx a character in our film with minimal lighting adjustments. On film, the look we achieved to tell the story would have been virtually impossible.”
For me, the capabilities of the F65 and F55 mark a significant threshold in the ongoing transition from the age of film to the age of digital. We all know that film is a 19th century invention. Today we are at the pinnacle of the photochemical process. This is about as far as it’s ever going to go. I certainly applaud the great legacy of film. Its natural sharpness and resolution have served filmmakers well, giving us images that have shaped our world. When I was a younger man, it was the only way to capture a theatrical motion picture.
resolution of 4K. It’s the first digital format that can capture all the information on a 35mm negative. Let me be clear. I don’t like shooting on 2K chip cameras. Compared to 2K, film retains an advantage in spatial resolution. With 4K, the film delta is now zero.
Glenn Gainor in the hills of Hollywood
As recently as a dozen movies ago, I saw HD capture as an affordable alternative to film, but never as better than film. “Film is better than digital,” is still a mantra for some. The debate can turn cerebral, with no one side winning their point because you might as well be arguing over the virtues of vinyl vs. digital audio.
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For me, the capabilities of the F65 and F55 mark a significant threshold in the ongoing transition from the age of film to the age of digital.
I myself was prejudiced toward film until there was a digital motion picture camera that could match or better the film experience. I was reluctant to shoot on anything but film until the new digital 4K cameras came out. Filmmakers and I are continually amazed by what we’ve been capturing with the newer 4K technology. Without getting too deep into the science, there are a few key benchmarks that set the newer cameras apart. The first is the great spatial On the set of ABOUT LAST NIGHT
Film also has a characteristic logarithmic curve. This not only mimics the logarithmic nature of human vision, it compacts more information into the scale. While digital is linear by nature, the latest logarithmic transforms fit all of the information in and allow us to work with it. So in the end, the film delta is zero. Film also has tremendous dynamic range. But now we’ve got digital cameras that can capture 14 stops of dynamic range. So the delta there equates to zero right now. And in the very near future,
Telling your story in the Digital Age
digital is certain to surpass even that barrier, which film never could. It’s capturing a “fat negative” and still being able to bring the detail in those highlights back. To see what 14 stops can mean, consider a scene in a living room with daylight coming through the window in the background while we’re trying to capture the actors at a table. We used to pump a whole bunch of light onto the actors so the windows wouldn’t blow out. Now we can knock the overexposed windows down in the DI and save time and money on set. Another substantial advance is RAW recording. RAW enables a true Digital Camera Negative that you can manipulate or process in post. And in the end, you can vault your Digital Camera Negative like a virtually unprocessed film neg. The RAW images remain forever untouched as a perpetual master of all the information that was originally captured on set.
And now we have cameras recording files with 16 bits of information. If we compare that to the 10bit world of the past, we now have 65,000 values per color channel rather one thousand. That means we no longer lose tonal value gradations and those subtleties we enjoyed with film. Sixteen bits of information enable us to manipulate images extensively without loss of tonal quality.
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We used to pump a whole bunch of light onto the actors so the windows wouldn’t blow out. Now we can knock the overexposed windows down in the DI and save time and money on set.
Telling your story in the Digital Age
“The Bronx” from DELIVER US FROM EVIL
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If we were to parallel it to film, the 4K/16-bit chip inside the camera is our stock, our ASA. The sensitivity of the chip, the speed, slow motion, stop frame, and so on, is part and parcel of moviemaking.
Currently, two cameras that can do 16-bit RAW are the Sony F65 and F55. And there are more coming. For the past two years, Screen Gems has produced its movies with 4K/16-bit cameras that have allowed us greater precision in color grading. They’ve given us the ability to capture naturally sharp images with a wide dynamic range of scene tones. If we were to parallel it to film, the 4K/16-bit chip inside the camera is our stock, our ASA. The sensitivity of the chip, the speed, slow motion, stop frame, and so on, is part and parcel of moviemaking. That’s why cameras are not identical. Whether meant to be or not, they are as different as the many film stocks Kodak manufactured. Location scene from THINK LIKE A MAN, TOO
It’s also undeniable that digital handles the absence of light better than film. Digital can pick up details in the darkest of dark images because its noise threshold is so much lower than film. And this may help you make story points because, yes, there is storytelling going on in the exposure. Sensitivity to light is the main game changer. It’s getting the city lights of the Bronx as never before, as we did for Deliver Us From Evil. It’s getting into a nightclub and using existing lights. It’s getting onto streets without redefining the lighting that already exists. We’ve gotten into places that were off limits to film cameras and shot with the least amount of light available, embracing low light sensitivity, rather than pouring in more light with traditional HMI’s that would require generators and cables, and so on. Think Like a Man, Too was shot on location in Las Vegas, never leaving Nevada for a frame and took advantage of existing casino properties. 4K RAW allowed our cinematographer Chris Duskin to easily manage the multitude of mixed lighting situations in Las Vegas casinos.
Telling your story in the Digital Age
About Last Night was shot on location in downtown Los Angeles. We wanted audiences to yearn for the downtown life and feel a part of it. So we used city lights to help illuminate our backgrounds, telling a romantic comedy with a realistic feel. The dynamic range of our F65 and 55s allowed for a little more time shooting outside in the evening than film could without the use of lights and still dig into the blacks for detail. I asked our DP Michael Barrett about shooting at night. He said, “I shot on the same location I did a decade ago with film. The film shoot required lighting a few blocks with multiple condors, a lot of cable and several generators. The digital shoot took about 20 minutes with no pre-lighting, no cable, and no lights. And the camera saw for miles.
We flagged two sodium vapor streetlights and rolled the cameras. The shot is so good, it’s in our trailer.” Let me share one last story. We shot a movie we’re calling The Wedding Ringer. Brad Lipson, our DP, told me, “I was challenged to keep a smaller footprint so we could gain access to a few locations that would really bring a great deal of production value to the film. One location was a condominium in downtown Los Angeles. There was an amazing skyline seen outside the large windows.” In the old days, we were forced to drop large bandits of cable out windows, down many floors, to the streets below and tie them into a gas guzzling generator for power. I don’t like doing that anymore.
On location shooting THE WEDDING RINGER
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The dynamic range of our F65 and 55s allowed for a little more time shooting outside in the evening than film could without the use of lights and still dig into the blacks for detail.
And so we’ve changed the game, shooting with lights that can be plugged in or tied into an existing home power panel. Brad said, “With only 100 amps to play with, my biggest light was a 4K ARRI M HMI. But I was more than confident that I could shoot great scenes with Kevin Hart and Josh Gad and hold the exposure of the skyline. And we still make our actors and actresses look like movie stars.” Never be afraid of new technology. One tends to stop just before a breakthrough. We owe it to our storytellers to continually improve their ability to make us laugh, cry and think. There’s no end in sight. And you know what? My guess is that a hundred years from now, they will be talking about this time in cinema and TV history as the point when it all changed. On location, shooting scene from ABOUT LAST NIGHT
Mendoza (EDGAR RAMIREZ) holds off a possessed Jimmy (CHRIS COY) with the power of the crucifix, prayer and holy water in Screen Gems' DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
Capturing evil in 4K: Cinematographer Scott Kevan interview By Jon Fauer, ASC Film and Digital Times
Mendoza (EDGAR RAMIREZ) and NYPD officer Sarchie (ERIC BANA) talk about the strange case they’re dealing with in Screen Gems' DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
JON FAUER: Let’s begin with where you learned film and how you got started.
SCOTT KEVAN: I guess it started when I was 10 and given a Nikon FG-20. After that, my interest in photography was solidified. I continued by experimenting with short video projects throughout high school, then studied film at UT in Austin and eventually focused on cinematography at AFI. All the while, working on sets and watching everything around me. And in truth, I’m still learning.
JON FAUER: Cut to the present. You just finished a film, Deliver Us From Evil, which is coming out in July. Can you tell us about the concept and your visual style?
SCOTT KEVAN: It’s a story inspired by actual accounts of an NYPD sergeant from the Bronx,
Ralph Sarchie, and his interaction with both violent street crime and some unusual experiences involving possession and the supernatural. The visual style wanted to reflect this, a combination of the reality of being a cop in NY mixed with his paranormal encounters.
JON FAUER: When did you first get involved in the production?
SCOTT KEVAN: I got involved in the spring of 2013, I’d say about 7 weeks prior to principal photography. Immediately after reading the script, I knew that I wanted to be a part of the production and then after talking to Scott Derrickson, the Director, I was even more convinced.
JON FAUER: Tell me about the visual style. SCOTT KEVAN: The visual style comes from dealing with a subject matter that plays with what we know to be real, or what we think we know to be real, and what we don’t or what we’re not sure about. We wanted to ride this fine line between what’s possible and what’s impossible. Everyone experiences things in their lives that cause them to look back and question if it really happened the way that they think it happened or they are not 100% sure. Representing that visually was one of the goals. Another visual theme was guided by the fact that our main guy, Sarchie, lives in a world of darkness — literally and emotionally. Additionally, both of these ideas work together. It’s in the darkness where one can get tricked by shadows and movements and question one’s self. Finally, we wanted the environment of the Bronx specifically to inform the compositions and be a major presence in the story as well. That’s where the actual events took place and the architecture of that area has a weight to it and a darkness even in the daylight.
JON FAUER: So was it all shot in New York?
SCOTT KEVAN: It was 95% shot in New York…the opening sequence was shot in Abu Dhabi.
JON FAUER: Abu Dhabi? Why? SCOTT KEVAN: The opening sequence takes place during the war in the Middle East. A military unit is following insurgents through the desert and into a palm grove, where they uncover a tunnel in the ground and upon exploring that, find some writing on the walls, deep, deep down under ground. Smash to black as they say and we’re in the Bronx.
JON FAUER: Where did you rent the camera equipment?
SCOTT KEVAN: Panavision New York. JON FAUER: So these were Panavized F55 cameras?
SCOTT KEVAN: Exactly. Panavized Sony F55s and we also had an F65 for some visual effects and offspeed shots. Panavision’s “cage” for these cameras is brilliant, allowing for all of the additional power needs and accessory attachments of today’s studio cameras. A baffled Sarchie (ERIC BANA) studies the bizarre words and symbols and hears strange sounds from behind the wall in Screen Gems' DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
Capturing evil in 4K
JON FAUER: Tell me about your camera and lens package. How many cameras? What lenses?
SCOTT KEVAN: We carried two F55s and one F65. Our lens package consisted of Panavision’s PVintage lenses, which were just coming on line last summer. These lenses use the glass from the older Ultra Speed Primes, but are re-packaged in more user-friendly housings. So our set included a combination of re-housed PVintage lenses and some older Ultra Primes. Additionally we carried a set of Panavision Flare Lenses in what they refer to as the medium grade, the coatings of which had been altered to offer more extreme flares, some reduced contrast and just have incredibly unique aberrations. The general philosophy was that I’d always start with one of the Flare Lenses. If things got a little over the edge, then I would pull back to the PVintage. And then maybe I would add a glass diffusion filter to get them more in line with what the Flare Lenses looked like. Additionally, we carried an 11:1 Primo that had the coating removed by Guy McVicker at Panavision Hollywood. That was a fantastic tool to have and I was very, very thankful to him for going through the trouble to do that by hand. PVintage lenses
JON FAUER: Removing the coating is an expensive, one-way ticket.
SCOTT KEVAN: It was Guy’s idea and I wasn’t going to say no. I just ran with it and was happy I did because in terms of sharpness, contrast and color, removing that coating definitely brought it in line with the prime package that we chose. The sharper that these digital cameras get, I feel like many cinematographers are looking to the glass to find that organic nature to the images that were intrinsic with film exposure, whether it’s anamorphic, older lenses or a combination of everything out there.
ERIC BANA on the set of Screen Gems' DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
Capturing evil in 4K
PVintage lenses
JON FAUER: Yes. Because basically we’re down to just 7 film stocks: Sony, Canon, ARRI, RED, Blackmagic, AJA, Phantom. Maybe a few more. Therefore, what distinguishes one cinematographer from the next in terms of “digital film stock” is the choice of lens.
SCOTT KEVAN: Digital cameras are getting sharper and sharper with higher resolutions and extended latitudes and I’d guess that’s also why there has been this trend in the market for anamorphic lenses. Take the Panavision C, E and G series… they have such specific characteristics unique to not only each set, but to each lens. You’ll get an aberration in the upper right corner here, you’ll get a variation in where focus falls off there. They have such a personality to them. I think that as digital acquisition gets sharper, we sort of lose some of the personality
the image capture used to have. Or at least that’s been my experience.
JON FAUER: I guess it’s ironic in a way that here we are using 4K+ cameras and no one ever expected these old lenses to actually hold up, but it turns out they look better on new, high resolution digital cameras than they probably ever did on film.
SCOTT KEVAN: I recently used a set of old ZEISS Super Speeds and had tremendous luck seeing flares come back that I hadn’t seen in 15 years. It was exciting to see how well these lenses looked, complete with nice bokehs. I do think that 4K acquisition is opening up a whole new door to older lenses.
Right: Director SCOTT DERRICKSON, Cinematographer SCOTT KEVAN and the crew line up a shot in the 46th Precinct set for Screen Gems' DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
JON FAUER: Lots of lens experts agree with what
SCOTT KEVAN: Panavision has a number of sets of
in some situations and in other instances, where the backlights were hard or too close to the camera lens, then I dropped back to the PVintage. The PVintage also have some very unique flares. What I really enjoyed about both sets was that I could find these happy accidents — as Conrad Hall said some years ago — some things you can’t really plan for.
Flare Lenses: in grades of light, medium and heavy. They basically removed or altered the coating on them to varying degrees. The heavy grades of Flare Lenses can completely wash out the entire image, but used with the right light sources and angles, they create very interesting effects. Like the ping off of the chrome on a car or a point of light in the background. I had luck using them with flashlights
You don’t really know what you’re going to get until you see it and you try it or something accidental happens on set and you think, “Oh wow, that’s fantastic.” Sometimes it’ll happen and you’ll go “Oh!, we can’t do that again — let’s change the lens.” But many times it turns out to be wonderful and exciting.
you’re saying. They’re discovering things that they didn’t even imagine with these old “analogdays” lenses in the 4K world. Tell me more about the Panavision Flare Lenses on the F55.
“It was a very location-based shoot in basements and places where the ceilings were less than six feet high. We found that the ergonomics of the F55 worked well in those environments and for the operators.”
Capturing evil in 4K
JON FAUER: How did the choice of these lenses affect the overall look of the show in relation to the visual style? A vintage look or a flarey look? How did you describe it when you and the Director were discussing the idea?
SCOTT KEVAN: It’s not a vintage, period or flarey look. What we were going for was a look that was both real and terrifying and I think the lens choice added to this as well as the camera’s low light capabilities. There are times where the darkness is actually accentuated by a lens flare from a flashlight. We felt that flares within darkness sometimes can feel even more threatening…we have a dark area and then if something else is flared out, you essentially have another area where you don’t know what’s behind there.
JON FAUER: And what effect do you think you had that you wouldn’t have gotten from glass filters in front of the lens?
SCOTT KEVAN: I guess I find that these beautiful distortions are more unique or unpredictable when they are produced by layers of curved glass. It’s apples and oranges and sometimes you want both, sometimes you don’t. Additionally, composition plays a role differently with lenses vs filters.
JON FAUER: But it was controllable? Could
“We felt that flares within darkness sometimes can feel even more threatening…we have a dark area and then if something else is flared out.”
you see when you were going too far with the monitors?
SCOTT KEVAN: Exactly. With the newer OLED monitors I’m able to push something to the edge where it goes too far and then pull back. We were playing with levels of darkness accentuated with flares and I wanted to discover where the edge was.
JON FAUER: Let’s talk about the camera now. How did you decide which camera to use?
SCOTT KEVAN: Basically through testing. We looked at the Alexa and the F55. We discovered that the combination of the Panavision lenses and the Sony F55 produced the look that we were
searching for. When both the Director and I walked out of the screening of the tests, there was no hesitation at all about which direction that we wanted to go. We were thrilled with the image quality and the emotional imprint that the images from the Sony cameras left on us…F55’s ability to dig into the shadows and the soft quality of the lenses. At the same time it maintained a contrast that we both liked without getting washed out on the low end. Additionally, the ergonomics of the F55 worked for what we wanted to do because we were planning a good amount of handheld
Sarchie (ERIC BANA) on the street set in Screen Gems' DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
work, a bit of Steadicam, and we were in rather tight spaces. It was a location-based shoot in basements and places where the ceilings were less than six feet high at times.
JON FAUER: Who was your operator? And
JON FAUER: What was it that you liked or didn’t like about the camera?
SCOTT KEVAN: I liked the low light capabilities and the ergonomics of the F55.
gaffer?
JON FAUER: How did you rate it? What ISO?
SCOTT KEVAN: John “Buzz” Moyer was the “A”
SCOTT KEVAN: 1250, 800, 640…depending on
Camera / Steadicam Operator. Scott Ramsey was the Gaffer.
the situation.
Capturing evil in 4K
JON FAUER: And what did you record on? Was it the R5 onboard 4K recorder?
SCOTT KEVAN: Yes. JON FAUER: Tell me a little bit about the workflow and how you dealt with that. You recorded to the R5. Did you record simultaneously to SxS cards inside it as well?
SCOTT KEVAN: Yes. And then it went to Dan Sheats, the loader / data manager, to double-check and make a backup copy, and then everything was sent to PostWorks in New York.
JON FAUER: On set, how did you determine your look and how did you save the LUTs?
SCOTT KEVAN: DI colorist Trent Johnson worked with me initially to set up the LUTs. I think he built fifteen preset LUTs. I looked at those and based on where I thought we were going to take the direction of the film, I gave notes and he altered the LUTs accordingly. After that the LUTs were preloaded into a Truelight cart that we kept on set and I was able to toggle between the different preset LUTs. We would indicate whatever LUT we were using on the slate and then when they did the dailies they would apply that same LUT. In the end, I found that I just really used one LUT for the entire film. I wanted to treat the LUTs more like film stocks. From my experience, the only way that I’m able to learn from shot to shot, scene to scene, is if there’s a consistency in the LUT. If I’m tweaking constantly then I lose my frame of reference.
JON FAUER: How would you describe this look or LUT?
Director Scott Derrickson on the 46th Precinct set in Screen Gems' DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
JON FAUER: What monitors were you viewing on set?
SCOTT KEVAN: They were 20-inch Sony OLEDs. JON FAUER: Where did you do the DI? SCOTT KEVAN: : We did that with Trent Johnson
was higher contrast, a bit desaturated and skewed toward cyan.
at Colorworks. Trent, who is an encyclopedia of knowledge about the color space of the cameras, was an asset to have during both the prep and the DI.
JON FAUER: And then on the camera itself you
JON FAUER: On the F55, how many stops of
SCOTT KEVAN: We called it a bleach bypass LUT. It
recorded in S-Log?
SCOTT KEVAN: Yes.
dynamic range do you think you were getting out of it?
SCOTT KEVAN: I’d say 14 to 15 stops of exposure latitude. One thing I liked about the F55 and F65 is how you can program one of the function buttons to give you a high range and a low range. So if you’re looking at a LUT on the monitor, you can push the high range button and it’ll bring everything down so you can see areas that were clipped in the Rec709 image, but may be perfectly fine in the RAW data. And the same on the low end. You can see if something is totally black or if there is any detail there at all. It helped me appreciate the camera’s latitude.
JON FAUER: Can you expand on the low light sensitivity of the F55? There is a scene in the opening of the film where the actors are moving through a cave with a flashlight. Can you take us through this scene and how the camera performed?
SCOTT KEVAN: This is a perfect example of the attributes of the F55 that I was most impressed with — the low light capabilities and the low profile design. The sequence you are talking about was shot on a set in Abu Dhabi consisting of a stairway tunnel maybe 3' wide and 6' high leading into an underground cave, also around 6' in height max. There were some ports built into the set for lighting and camera angles, but there was no way to hide anything on the walls or ceiling. And we also wanted the cave to feel pitch black except for the flashlights attached to the barrels of the assault rifles. The F55 allowed us to do just that. Everything in that sequence was illuminated with the flashlights or whatever the beams were bouncing off of. I had the operators wear white shirts to create some fill and I would hide unbleached muslin where I could and then there was some bounce off of the set walls. And even with those lighting conditions I ended up darkening some of the edges in the DI, because I was still seeing too much information. The low profile of the F55 was also key in capturing this sequence in high resolution. The size and weight allowed an operator to cradle the camera and walk backwards down the
stairs leading and following the military team as they explored the cave.
JON FAUER: Can you let us know how the F55 performed in the most challenging low-lighting conditions?
SCOTT KEVAN: Often in low light conditions the image sensors are pushed to their limits and noise can result. I didn’t find this to be the case with the F55. The fall off to black is incredibly gradual and at the same time there seems to be a limit where it goes to black rather than getting noisy, if that makes sense.
JON FAUER: How did you deal with focus? SCOTT KEVAN: There were a number of checks on that. The operator was able to see in the eyepiece. Julian Delacruz, the key First AC had a 17-inch monitor with cranked up sharpness to doublecheck on his side. And then I’m back at the 20-inch looking at focus as well. I am consistently impressed by how these guys that can actually pull focus off of the monitors because that was something I was always skeptical of over the years. But the guys that have mastered it are really phenomenal.
JON FAUER: What camera did you use on your previous jobs?
SCOTT KEVAN: RED Epic, One; Arri Alexa, Arricam, 535, 435, 235, BL4, 35-3, SR16; Sony F35, F3, F900; Panavision Genesis, XL, Platinum, Gold.
JON FAUER: I’ll ask you a leading question. If you wanted to soften the image, why would you shoot in 4K rather than a lower resolution?
SCOTT KEVAN: I think there are a couple of reasons. Certainly, one is archiving, in the same way that studios archived films in the past. Secondly, sometimes you want to start at a higher res because if you and then soften in the post workflow — that’s a look. However, there are always exceptions. We shot a flash-back sequence in Super 8. One idea
Capturing evil in 4K
“There’s a sequence at the Bronx Zoo where the power’s out and so that is done with Airstar lighting balloons just for a soft ambience.”
Lighting and filming the large lion habitat set at the Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay, Long Island for Screen Gem's DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
might be to shoot it 4K and then bring it down to the Super 8 look in VFX and post, but there is much more that goes into the look of Super 8 because you’re dealing with not only the grain and the resolution, but you’re dealing with the size of the gate or sensor and how that size affects focus fall off. And, also, you’re dealing with the physicality of the camera. The way you move a 3-pound Super 8 camera is very different from the way that you’re able to move a 20-pound studio camera. So sometimes shooting in a lower resolution is the best solution to creating the desired look.
JON FAUER: Was this film released in 4K? SCOTT KEVAN: Yes.
JON FAUER: Let’s talk a little bit about the lighting. A lot of it is night exterior New York. How did you handle that?
SCOTT KEVAN: It varied. There wasn’t one philosophy or one technique that we used throughout because they’re different sequences. There’s a sequence at the Bronx Zoo where the power’s out and so that is done with Airstar lighting balloons just for a soft ambience. I think “murkiness” is a better word for what I was talking about when I referred to the look as kind of washed out and under-exposed. That technique was used in the zoo sequence. The other night exteriors we probably could have used a great deal of ambient light, but
we wanted to stay away from sodium vapor. Any sodium vapor light that we encountered, we would gel down to neutral and by the time we got that neutralized, there really was nothing left. So in those sequences, more street sequences, it would vary — sometimes we used a gaggle of Source Four PARs, to create pools of streetlight. There was some backlight for the exteriors. For the interiors there were some sequences that we did entirely with a flashlight. Eric Bana would have a flashlight and then I would have a flashlight and a bounce board. Or I would put muslin around anywhere that wasn’t in the frame. Eric would work with me extremely well in helping me to add a little more light or take it away. But there are at least three sequences in the film that are entirely lit by flashlight.
JON FAUER: What gels did you use on the
Cinematographer Scott Kevan lining up a shot at the lion habitat set.
streetlights?
SCOTT KEVAN: To remove the sodium vapor, I used one and half blue plus half green. That’s why we had barely any ambient street light left.
JON FAUER: If you wanted the sort of vintage look, did you consider anamorphic at all?
SCOTT KEVAN: We did consider anamorphic. At the time, the availability of lenses made it out of the question. In the end it was a good thing because it forced us to explore spherical options.
JON FAUER: Back to the Sony F55, is there anything that you would like to see improved for their next model, for the next edition?
SCOTT KEVAN: More frame rates, although that’s already been addressed so I guess I’m good with that. I do think that operators and focus pullers might have more suggestions and ideas. In general I feel like the digital cameras are focusing more on the sensors than on the cameras themselves. I would like to see advances that are driven by what film cameras used to do — speed ramping in camera, changing shutter angle within a shot and compensating with aperture and a hand crank option.
JON FAUER: Anything else? SCOTT KEVAN: Not off the top of my head. I was thrilled with what the F55 gave us — creatively as well as in image quality — latitude and resolution.
JON FAUER: How about a 4x3 sensor to use all those anamorphic lenses that aren’t available?
SCOTT KEVAN: Definitely. It would be nice. I can’t imagine that not coming.
JON FAUER: Anything else about the cameras that you liked or didn’t like?
SCOTT KEVAN: You know, oddly enough, it sort of comes more from the broadcast background that Sony has — but I like the behind-the-lens ND filter wheel. If you need to knock something down fast, that’s a nice feature to have.
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