Canadian Cinematographer October 2022 Issue by The CSC

cinematographersofsocietycanadian STAR TREK with Glen Keenan csc and Philip Lanyon csc DRIFTING SNOW with Tess Girard 1.85:1 24fps iso400-1280 172.8° Athens, Greece 37° 59' 1.7160'' N 23° 43' 39.1404'' E 14VOL. 5NO. OCT 2022 ISSUE CRIMES OF THE FUTURE with Douglas Koch csc

CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | SEPTEMBER 202202

14VOL. 5NO. OCT 2022 ISSUE table of contents CONVERSATION:P6IN STAR TREK FIGURES IN LANDSCAPEA PERSONASECLIPSING EAST MEETSWEST P16 P32 P38 With Tess Girard (associate member)By Fanen Chiahemen With with Glen Keenan csc and Philip Lanyon csc With Gregory Middletoncsc,ascBy Trevor Hogg, Special to CinematographerCanadian With Jeff Wheaton (associate (associateJohnmember)ByLydenmember) CSC MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: Norm Li csc ON SET GALLERYP48P45 FuturetheofCrimesfromStillCover:THE CSC WORKSHOPS RETURNP50 LIGHTING THE NEW FLESH With Douglas Koch cscBy Roman Sokal, Special to CinematographerCanadian P22 01

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CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | SEPTEMBER 202204

Since the new ALEXA offers enhanced dynamic range and sensitivity, new colour science, more efficient workflow, and improved ergonomics and control features, ARRI asked filmmakers around the globe to put the camera through its paces by creating short films that would test the ALEXA 35 in real-world creative situations. The title of this series of short films is Encounters.

In May, ARRI celebrated the next chapter in the ALEXA story. Events were held in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montréal to introduce the new ALEXA 35, and to show appreciation to the countless Canadian cinematographers, colourists, directors, and camera crews who trusted ARRI since the celluloid days, and who were present 12 years ago when the ALEXA classic changed the world. ARRI is thankful for their continuous and invaluable feedback, which provides the foundation of the new ALEXA 35 design.

THE NEW

Photographer: Juan Lasso Actress: Katrin Kohut

One such filmmaker who jumped at the opportunity is David Dvir, owner and head of operations at 2D House, a Toronto-based studio and rental house. Dvir got the green light on the project on a Thursday, began honing the concept immediately, and accomplished the shoot in the subsequent weekend. new Super 35 sensor is something we’ve been waiting for a long time, and it’s everything I was hoping it would be.”

While everyone at ARRI is extremely proud of the new ALEXA35, we are first and foremost thankful to all the CSC members and their peers who are using ARRI products day in and day out, and to those who could join us at the launch events to celebrate.

Montréal Launch Event

The result is Day 1000, a 3-minute visual collage showing a woman waking up day after day in the same chair, in a series of inexplicable situations that she doesn’t quite understand. Scenarios range from dark void interiors to supersaturated, high contrast exteriors, with most scenes shot in 2D House’s LED volume. The actor’s skin tones progress from pearlescent and clean to dirty and scarred as the story unfolds. A couple of quick visual effects shots were also included to replicate long-format narrative.

“The camera is fantastic,” says Dvir. “The new Super 35 sensor is something we’ve been waiting a long time, and it’s everything I was hoping it would be. The dynamic range and color are tremendous. It’s difficult to make the camera fail even when you’re trying. It’s perfectly sized, only a little bigger than the Mini. There was no learning curve – we were able to pick it up and go right away, and we could expect the same features and tools. ARRI has really nailed

Vancouver Launch Event

the higer pixel density is not so overboard that it would cause moiré or other artifacts on the volume. At 4.6K, you have a little breathing room to reframe or add stability and still deliver 4K, which is an important advantage.”

The Launch Events

“In the final edit, we saw how far the image can be pushed and brought back,” says Dvir. “I would love to say that we shot everything perfectly, but as in real life, we made some mistakes on the day, especially in light of the time pressure. But you can’t see that at all because the files are so robust. There’s so much depth and range. We never saw the files degrade at any point, even in one very dark scene where we could barely see. The only light came from a few tiny 3-volt energy-saving indicators on the back of the volume, and yet at 6400 ISO, the camera is sensitive enough to make an interesting image. We weren’t expecting that shot to make it to the final cut, but it turned out so well that it’s in there.”

“The concept was to create something that required as many different lighting scenarios as possible ,” says Dvir. “The idea of a trailer seemed fun and appropriate since it wouldn’t necessarily need to make perfect narrative sense, and would give us the chance to use the camera in a wide variety of situations.”

Toronto Launch Event

Sincere appreciation from our entire team, represented at these events by Francois Gauthier, Alan Lennox, Mike Dobson, Dave McDonald, Aurette Torres and Robert Breitenstein. We cherish our friendships with the members of the CSC, and with all the members of our filmmaking communities. And we can’t wait to see what amazing things you’ll do with the tools we’ve created.

Dvir is looking forward to using the camera on a more extensive project. “I would have loved to have had more time,” he says. “But that’s true on every project, right? The bottom line is that the camera was stellar – rock solid, very impressive, with no hiccups. In fact, the camera was the element that we had to concern ourselves with the least. It was a fun project, and I’m grateful to ARRI for the opportunity.”

Day 1000 could not be completed in time to be shown at the launch event; it is being released in July, in parallel with the first customer deliveries.

Theit.

lenses were Cooke anamorphics, used in combination with the camera’s 4.6K resolution. “That means we are getting a high quality deliverable, but

Thanks also to The Canadian Society of Cinematographers, 2D House, MELS Studios and Postproduction, Grande Camera, William F. White, SIM, and Cineplex for supporting us in the launch.

TO THE FUTURE Star Trek [Glen Keenan csc: Strange New Worlds] ARRI ALEXA LF - Mini LF 4.5k 2.39 :1 23.976fps iso800-400 180°-90°-45°-270°

Cooke Special Flare Full Frame anamorphic primes Mississauga, Ontario 43° 35' 43.1160'' N 79° 38' 26.0844'' W

star trek 07

with Glen Keenan csc and Philip Lanyon csc

In Conversation:

he world of Star Trek has been brought to life on the small screen over the years by many capable cinematographers, including Glen Keenan csc and Philip Lanyon csc who between them have had a hand in the franchise’s three most recent streaming series – Discovery , Picard and Strange New Worlds . Keenan began lensing Discovery from its first season, and when the show lost a DP and needed a replacement, he proposed Lanyon (they had both worked on the series Frontier ). Lanyon’s success on Discovery landed him a DP role on Picard (June 2020 issue). When Keenan left Discovery to go and shoot its spinoff, Strange New Worlds , Lanyon was a natural fit to take his place because “we have similar tastes, similar personalities and a production

Micheal

savvy that fits this type of big TV,” according to Keenan. Taking the beloved series to new heights has involved adopting some of the most cutting-edge tools from LED-volume in-camera visual effects to anamorphic full frame lensing. The two DPs recently got together to discuss adapting to the everadvancing technologies on sci-fi series, beginning with how they handled working in Pixomondo’s Toronto-based 70’x30’ virtual volume, which was introduced on Season Four of Discovery and employed from Season One of Strange New Worlds (May 2021 issue).

Philip Lanyon csc : The producers got kind of a two for one out of it. They built one virtual stage that both shows could share. We were kind of sharing schedules. It was a learning curve for everybody, and I think the perceived challenges were greater than the actual challenges in that none of us really knew what we were doing, so there’s a certain amount of apprehension and fear about it. But once everything gets into place and starts rolling, you realize, oh, I have a little more control than I usually have, and I have a little more time to prep the sets, and we have a little more time to discuss the sets. So it’s actually been for me quite a wonderful experience.

Glen Keenan csc : I’d spent years researching with Pixomondo and other companies how to get LED screens out of our windows so we could just do starscapes and warps and things like that, that were becoming endless discussions about how many times you can see a window during a scene. So we were prepping Strange New Worlds, and Mandalorian lands and it was like, oh my God, I didn’t think of this one. (Disney’s The Mandalorian was shot in a virtual volume co-developed by Industrial Light & Magic and Epic Games; see February 2020). You could do a whole volume and motion track and have your effects, and it was like a light bulb went off. And we all wanted the challenge. We knew it was coming. There’s no way that this wasn’t going to be a thing, especially for sci-fi shows. It was something that was going to come, and we would have to deal with it sooner or later, so let’s deal with it sooner. And I was terrified of it. There was a sense of what if we blow it and it looks terrible? As the cinematographers, we would show up with our cameras, and we would have to shoot what was being delivered by a visual effects company, in this case Pixomondo. So if their asset wasn’t good that would be a problem because you can’t make it good just with your camera. Whatever’s on that wall you have to photograph. We learned a lot in the first season. We had a lot of meetings with a lot of people. And the asset build was a three-month process. So when you built this asset you were assuming the script was going to work because we didn’t have scripts, we had locations, so we were basically building a location and saying, okay, we know we’re going to be on a Vulcan planet and it’s going to be a restaurant. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the scene, but let’s build the environment. And thankfully our writers would write to what the environment was. So you are deciding what you want this thing to look like three months out, and then you have to live with it when it shows up. There are so many more meetings with the virtual world. You have an extra six, seven hours a week of meetings.

Lanyon : To add to the challenge, we made it a goal for everything to work in camera, on the VP stage; we didn’t want to spend all this money just to have to replace it in visual effects. With the exception of set extensions and VFX on the practical set, almost all of what you see on screen is in camera. Trek: Strange New Velo Beta set. Gibson

[Philip Lanyon csc: Discovery] ARRI ALEXA Mini LF 3.2K - Sony VENICE 6k 2.39:1 23.98 fps iso800-1600 180°- 90° Star

Worlds

Cook anamorphic Special Flare S35 and Full Frame - Panavision anamorphic G, E ,Ts - VA Toronto 43°38'55.04" N -79°20'33.39" W

CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 202210

Keenan : I wanted to challenge myself to light primarily with the wall. So I use the wall as a light source. I didn’t give myself any sort of backup. We forced everybody to learn how to use it. So we created simple things at the beginning. And by the time we got to Season Two, we now have incredible tools that are custom built, coded and built for us by our DMX programmers and the Pixomondo guys. So in Season One, I could put a card up and dim it and it would change colours, now I can pick colour temperatures, I can move that card during the shots, there are all sorts of things that we’re able to do, animation of lights, put actual video into the light source, pick a video source that was on the wall and put it into my light source. All very exciting,

fun things. This is a tool that we’re all still learning. What terrified me the most was not being able to suspend disbelief in the audience. And I think as the technology goes farther forward, it’s going to get better in terms of its believability.

Lanyon : We took kind of a different approach, and I think that came more from the way we shoot Discovery . We’ll do a lot of wider masters then come into a close-up and then move around from there. So our approach right in the beginning was to add a lot more film lighting in there. And we had developed these kind of soft boxes that we could accordion into the space,

11 and they were quite quick to deploy and change so we could do turnarounds fast. They had their advantages; they soften things up a little bit. Since then, we’ve dialled that back and I think we learned a lot through sharing the wall with the other show. Now I think our show understands a little more that you need to put more practical lighting in there and a little less film lighting so that the characters are interacting with their environment more.

LEDs and Lenses

Keenan : Star Trek was the first heavy board op LED studio show that I’ve done and there’s a learning curve with that. In Strange New Worlds we have over 3 million LEDs, and we have control over every single one of them. So it’s a lot to wrap your head around, and every time I bring a DP in they get a little bit overwhelmed, like, oh my God, there’s so much stuff. How do you even talk? What’s the language you use? You have to build your language, know your dimmer personnel and have good technical people with you. But lighting with LEDs and having the ship be a character is a different way of lighting. When it’s in a bad mood, it has a certain look, when it’s in a good

mood, it has a certain look. If it’s broken, it has a certain look. I always tried to lean into that to give the show some variety, and the LEDs allow you to do that. When we built Strange New Worlds, I told the team I need five, maybe six, looks out of this one set, so we need to have a variety of lights. And we might not need them all, but when I need that one light it’s there, and it becomes part of the storytelling.

Lanyon : Season One on any sci-fi show I think is just a big surprise to everybody just how much needs to go into these sets. There’s a lot that needs to be developed over time and crews need to be trained and everybody needs to be rowing the boat in the same direction, and that takes some time. With the LED technology, every year you get a few more tools that do what you expect them to do. In the past years, you got told the LEDs are going to do this and they’re going to be wonderful, and then you get them on set and they’re hard to use and they don’t connect to the board. Now they’re starting to get to a point where they’re very useful, they’re battery-powered, they’re easily brought in and fast so that’s been great.

Keenan : And then there’s the anamorphic lensing, large format, and basically having everything on a head. The reason is really from Discovery , because we would spin the camera so much. We needed that third axis available. So we had a lot of Technocrane work. And then we would take the head we had on the Technocrane and put it on a dolly and run with that, and then we would take that head and put it on what we call a rickshaw. And I think it lends itself to the look of both shows. I think those three storytelling techniques work really well – the robotic heads, the Steadicam and the handheld. And I don’t know if that’s different than other shows, but we have the resources to carry those tools.

Lanyon : This year, we went to Panavision expanded G Series – which take a lot of inspiration from the older C series – just to introduce even more character, and I think it’s a testament to how Alex [Kurtzman] and Tunde [Osunsanmi], our producers and leaders, understand that you’re not trying to strive for technical perfection, you’re trying to sway the emotions of an audience. And so these bigger decisions, shooting on the AR wall, putting us into worlds and sets that you would never build or never find on location, they do push hard for these things, and they give us a lot of freedom to use the tools and give us the tools to do interesting and big things.

CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 202212

Top: Luke Pamplin, crane op, lines up a shot on the Technocrane. DP Philip Lanyon csc and rigging grip Dan Carriero discuss lighting heights at the Whites/ Pixomondo virtual production stage.

Bottom: A frame grab from and on shooting Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Creating the world of the species “10C” in the Season 4 finale of Discovery.

Middle: Looking into “Books” ship. The “brain bar” control centre for the virtual production stage.

cscLanyonPhilipandGibsonMichealphotosscenestheBehind

Lanyon : I think there’s a lot of new information coming online, a lot of resources. I read Facebook threads of people kind of developing their own systems. So I think there’s enough out there you can start to track and follow how it’s going, and when and if you get a show, I’d like to think we’re at a point now where you should be able to walk on a set and be kind of ready to have a look around as if it was a real set. It might take your whole production time to get there. But you want to get to the point where you’re shooting it like a location with a bunch more control. And I think in the coming years that will happen. But to a young DP, as long as you’re following what’s happening in this world and understand the core concepts, you can get there.

Lanyon : I feel like we’re in version 2.0. Mandalorian was 1.0. We’re 2.0; we’re starting to get into 3.0. I think the time we’ll need to build sets is going to shrink. It’s not going to be three months, it’ll be a month and a half, and then it’ll be a month. And everybody’s starting to learn. There are crews being trained all over the world. There are languages being developed, there are textbooks being developed, the panels are getting better. Before they were just RGB. Now there’s RGBW so your colour accuracy is going to be much more refined. We’re learning how to build the studio itself in the right way where you can get more physical lighting in fast, so I really see this becoming a major part of medium-to-large-scale television and movies in the next five years. I think it’s going to keep growing.

: I think the biggest thing coming and the thing that I’m most looking forward to and wish I had this year is Unreal [Engine] 5. The game engine has made a gigantic leap in terms of the way it logically does its lighting. Unreal 4 was old-school – here’s a light, here’s a reaction to it. Now they have some very heavy-duty computations going on where they can scatter light and it bounces, and one light can do a ton of things. So when Unreal 5 lands, it’s a massive upgrade in terms of what lighting capabilities we can do. I think the way that its logic is now for its lighting will be much more cinematic or filmic. They’ve incorporated a lot more of what we do into their logic systems, and it makes the system more resource friendly. We can do more interactive lighting with fewer resources being taken away so the wall will run better, and we can have more interaction with it. I’m looking forward to that. That to me is going to be an exciting step. That’s probably something to put into your toolbox. Learn the fundamentals of Unreal so when you’re talking to the artists, you’re getting what you need from them. As a new DP, play with that, play some video games, just drive around in a video game and see, if I look that way, does it work? You need to really be aware of the 360 world of lighting as you do on location.

Future KeenanGenerations

CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 202214

Keenan : Without a doubt. It’s not going anywhere; it will only get bigger. Me and Phil were the first people in Canada to do it. And Franco Tata, one of our colleagues. We leaned on each other a lot. We talked a lot, we had numerous Zoom calls together, we theorized. Because we didn’t have a practical way to test anything. We had a little setup at Whites [William F. White] where we tested some lenses and concepts. For a young DP to get on a show with a VR wall, it’s a lot to learn right at the beginning, especially if the people running the wall are new as well.

Sony PXW-FS7 Mk1 Cine EI - S-Log3 4096 x 2160 1.85:1 23.98fps iso2000 180° Illumina Mk II

drifting snow 17Prince Edward County, Ontario 44°00'0.43" N -77°14'58.06" W Wakefield, Québec 45° 37' 53.5512'' N 75° 55' 26.3568'' W

b y f anen c hiahemen Figures In a Landscape

n Ryan Noth’s feature directorial debut Drifting Snow , a car accident one winter night leads two strangers –Joanne (Sonja Smits) and Chris (Jonas Bonnetta) – to embark on a road trip together. Joanne is grieving her husband John (Colin Mochrie), while Chris, having recently lost his mother, is dealing with the prospect of his failing eyesight derailing his budding career as a filmmaker.

The independent film captures the beauty and harshness of Ontario’s Prince Edward County where the story is set, and where both Noth and his DP, associate member Tess Girard, have based their production company for the past five years. Girard’s cinematography on Drifting Snow caught the attention of critics during the film’s festival circuit and garnered Girard a Canadian Screen Award nomination this year for Best Cinematography in a Feature Film.

“

Incorporating characters into their environments is an artistic habit of Girard’s. “I don’t strictly follow the characters themselves. I try to focus on how they interact with every element that surrounds them because that informs your characters and story as well,” she explains. “I’m interested in not just where they are, but what they’re looking at and how they

I don’t strictly follow the characters themselves. I try to focus on how they interact with every element that surrounds them because that informs your characters and story as well. I’m interested in not just where they are, but what they’re looking at and how they interact with the elements they are immersed within.

Girard describes her typical projects as “more pensive, visual documenta ries,” so shooting Drifting Snow, her first narrative feature, “was a big learn ing curve,” she says. “And to be honoured in all these articles and the CSA nomination on my first feature narrative is just really incredible. But per haps it comes from my perspective. I’m a director-cinematographer and I gravitate to documentaries that have the visual at the forefront and really embrace a character and story within their visual setting. And so that was something that we used even in the writing and the creation of this film and how we explored it. The landscape was always meant to act as its own element within the story. Sometimes I would even go off on my own and get landscape shots that had something to do with the characters’ experienc es. So for example, when Joanne is skiing, something happens while she’s skiing, and she looks out to the landscape and has a revelatory moment with these beautiful, billowing tornadoes of snow that were shot at a later time when I just went out on my own and responded to the landscape.”

Making a Prince Edward County-based film set in the winter was a longheld desire, according to Girard. “We always wanted to make a project that showcased the landscape here. Because so often you see it as a place of tourism in the summer, with all the beaches and wineries, but you never see its stunning, cold winter beauty. There’s much about the way Ryan and I approach films that are about looking at things that we normally look at one way in a completely different light and perspective. Some of that is just seasonal, or the way you frame a shot, or the things that you look at that are just offside of what the main attraction is: seeing the beauty between what we normally pay attention to.”

- Tess Girard

As Joanne and Chris drive along the highways, Prince Edward County becomes less of a backdrop and more of a third character. “You really have to think of your surroundings as a character, and how does that character come to life? And then it’s not just about your set design, it’s not just about your writing, it’s not just about your actor’s performance. It’s how they all amalgamate together,” Girard explains. “If you can look at that within a new frame and try and piece these things together, it becomes a whole feast of a meal as opposed to the individual ingredients.”

Drifting Snow was shot on a Sony FS7 owned by Girard and Noth. “We had $75,000 and we were working with ACTRA actors. You can imagine how much of that trickled down to the camera department,” Girard says. “We really were just scrambling but in a good way so that we had to embrace the limitations and did what we could with it. And that’s the spirit of documentary that we wanted to incorporate into indie filmmaking.”

With temperatures always well below freezing during the winter 2018 shoot, the weather became yet another character in the film. “In this case, we had a very moody character, sometimes unrelentless,” Girard recalls with humour. “At times, it was minus 27C not including the wind chill, and we were on such a tight budget that we couldn’t necessarily postpone our shoot, so we just had to keep going. There are some shots where you can probably even see how physically painful it is for the crew, like where the character Chris is pushing a car out of a ditch, and there’s snow whipping by the camera. I also love it, though. I love physically demanding projects. There’s something about giving yourself over to a project that really makes you feel alive and a part of it. It was definitely challenging even in a physical context of trying to pull my own focus when the lens is frozen, or trying to simply take my hand off the lens and my hand is stuck to it. You’re working against nature, but nature is also working against technology and you’re constantly fighting these elements. But you can really see it in the images, and it was worth it.”

Although Grandé Camera provided a lens package and some accessories, Noth and Girard provided their own lights, with a few donated from Dedo Lights in Kingston. “It was mostly a lot of doc gear that was dressed up to create more texture and life than a regular run-and-gun doc and achieve a more painterly look within the scene,” Girard notes, adding that she’s a fan of shooting with natural light. “I would place scenes wherever I knew the light was going to hit, and then augment the lighting from there.” For the car accident scene, “we actually just had to use the headlights because we had a very limited time for that, and the weather was changing quickly so I used the car headlights, but there were also pixel tubes strategically placed in certain areas. Parts of the owl scene had some faked moonlight using the pixel tubes, and because it’s a small crew I just had to use whatever I could pull out and put up pretty quickly. Everything had to be battery powered because we were in the middle of nowhere. When I’m filming, I try and look at it from a storytelling perspective,” she explains. “What are the themes? What are the different elements? What are the concepts that are going to be required beyond just the image and the actions of the characters? And how will that be used in the edit? I end up collecting these ideas that are given to me and using them as a framework and antenna for when I go into a scene and look at it; it becomes the filter through which I see everything. So, say I’m told of the idea of memory, if somebody says something about remembering then I will chase after that actor or subject as they’re talking about it or find different themes within the character’s action to reflect the ideas that were told to me. I think it’s important to involve your cinematographer in those concepts, so that they can be looking for them through the viewfinder.”

interact with the elements they are immersed within. What kind of dialogue is happening outside of words and action with light, shadow, wind, or metaphor? Because really, at the end of the day, we are in a conversation with our surroundings, and we are figures in a landscape. If we can take that into account in the way that we frame our images, then you’re telling more of a story that’s not just about the characters but instead a greater idea about the world in which we live.”

I love givingsomethingprojects.demandingphysicallyThere’saboutyourselfovertoaprojectthatreallymakesyoufeelaliveandapartofit. - Tess Girard “

Adding dynamism to the many car scenes in the film was a matter of “balance and planning, but also trying to make it documentary-oriented,” Girard states. “For the car driving scenes there was a lot of improvisation, so I set them up so that we could just let the actors riff and then interweave other scenes through it. They’re quick little beats that lead into memories and flashbacks and flash forwards, and they became the interweaving thread of the film. Then once the actors got through their lines, Ryan would let them improvise in between takes. For example, in the scene with Chris and his girlfriend, there was so much improvisation there, so I set up the scene as if it was a nicely shot documentary and lit it for flexibility and then went from there. A car is such a fixed, restricted location, but that is sometimes a good thing, to be able to break those restrictions and find creative means within them.”

Due to the production’s low budget, there was no dedicated production designer or art department, but Girard collaborated closely with Trysha Bakker who handled wardrobe for the film. “I presented her a colour palette of whites, blues, turquoises and yellow ochre. You can see all of those in the patina of the landscape where, for example, the ground is covered in snow and then a rich yolk colour along the horizon of the sun with the dark skies above and all the ochre grasses peeking through. I really studied the landscape and presented that colour palette to Trysha,” Girard recalls. “And she picked wardrobe based on that. Sonja’s scarf matches the grasses, and Jonas’ jacket is a similar colour as well. They are both dressed in muted yellow and blue tones that for me are the signature of winter, especially winter in Prince Edward County. The colours complemented the landscape at the same time as fitting in. We even wanted [Sonja’s] ski jacket to pop out of the landscape but not be so glaring that it was of another world, and Trysha found this perfectly coloured ski jacket that was both bold but part of the colour palette at the same Girardtime.”says

were there while shooting. For example, there might be areally interesting gradation in the sky when you shoot a scene, but sometimes when you get into colour and it’s, like, “Oh, my God!” A whole world appears in the incredible detail and life in the image that wasn’t necessarily apparent while we were shooting it.”

colour grading is her favourite part of the process and she was happy to work with AJ McLaughlin at Redlab in post. “For me, it’s the point where you get to bring the images to life but also see the potential that you’ve forgotten about for sometimes years while the film is in post. You get to see the vision in a way that you couldn’t have imagined because at that point you’re seeing it edited together in a new context,” Girard states. “There are often elements that I didn’t realize could be brought out in an image and a certain magic happens. Dramatic skies, for example, details in snow, gradients within the trees. There are a lot of depths that you didn’t know

Girard, who shuttles between residences in Toronto and Prince Edward County, says the natural world often influences her approach on projects.

“The natural world is absolutely my biggest influence. It is my framework for how I see the world and approach my work,” she muses. “When I sit and have a cup of coffee, I don’t just have a cup of coffee. I sit in my backyard and I watch the light through the leaves and the different birds, the sounds everything emanates, and how they all interact with each other. I ask myself what the clouds are doing and how they will affect the weather of the day. I fold my thoughts into these images, and it informs my daily experience, I need to be stimulated both personally and in my work by all the different elements that are in this world and how they affect us.”

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ilmed in Athens, Greece, director David Cronenberg’s Crimes of The Future is an existential, cerebral film about the human body evolving to the point where new organs are grown. The two lead characters (played by Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux) conduct surgery in public as performance art, while many consume microplastics. Government authorities keep a close eye on this evolutionary event, wishing to control it. Transmogrification of the body, a common mysterious theme in Cronenbergian classics such as eXistenZ , The Fly , Crash and Videodrome , is also a through-line in the film.

crimes of the future 23ARRI Zeiss Master Primes Athens, Greece 37° 59' 1.7160'' N 23° 43' 39.1404'' E b y r oman s okal s pecial to canadian cinematographe r LIGHTING THE NEW FLESH

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of the digitally shot feature is clinically sharp like medical photography yet gracefully soft at the same time. An ARRI Alexa Mini was chosen with ARRI/Zeiss Master Prime lenses. “It’s always spherical,” Koch notes of Cronenberg films. “I discovered quickly that he definitely has dislikes. You probably wouldn’t find a handheld shot in any of his movies, even in terms of POVs. The more we talked, I said to him, ‘Let’s start really simple.’”

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Cronenberg’s usual DP, Peter Suschitzky asc , was unavailable to lens the picture, so through mutual director friends, Toronto’s Doug Koch csc was hired to be the film’s proverbial watchful eye via camera. “David’s way of working was very interesting,” Koch says about the director’s style. “I don’t think he came into a scene having any preconceived idea of how it would be shot. He wanted to see what the actors would do. Then he would guide their movements a bit sometimes and we would then discuss coverage from there. It’s tougher on the art department of course, as we could end up seeing every possible part of any set or location; they had to be prepared for anything. We sometimes had to be ready with lights in areas that we ultimately didn’t end up seeing.

The ALEXA is one of Koch’s go-to cameras and the lens choice was perfect for the moody dark atmosphere, which has a few exterior shots but mostly takes place indoors where the ultimate control of light was taken advantage of. “That’s sort of my favourite camera, and [Cronenberg] liked it,” Koch says. “Then lens-wise, the Master Primes are sharp, even wide-open at T1.3. I know there’s going to be places I’m going to run into this thing with night exteriors. I knew there were going to be really dark things that were big and un-lightable or difficult. I can just tell he’s not into unusual vintage optics, anamorphics, stuff like that. A funny thing that came up in relation to that is I asked him about atmosphere, haze and smoke, things like that. He thought about it for half a second and said, ‘No. I don’t want you to use any anywhere. Even though it’ll be dark a lot of the time, there’s a certain clarity to this that I want.’” The usual ND filters were used, but to tone down the sharpness, Koch used Hollywood Black Magic diffusion filters, similar to Pro-Mist. “But never more than a half, maybe a one a couple of times. But usually no more than a half. Lots of times a quarter or an eighth. Very light,” Koch says.

“David would not hang out on the set after blocking; he would be nearby, always able to watch the camera’s output on a big monitor,” Koch continues. “He could see the set dressing and lighting proceeding and was never surprised when he would come back to set to begin rehearsing and

Fortunately, Koch had a well-skilled lighting crew on the film. “The gaffer I’ve worked with many times in Toronto,” he says. “His name is ‘Fast Eddy’ Mikolic. We have a shorthand; we go way back. His best boy was a fellow named Yiannis Maragoudakis. He’s a gaffer in his own right in the community. That was really instrumental. Everything is lit, a lot of interior. The important thing is the Greek use the European/British system – all the lighting and control like flagging, diffusion, bounces and all that, is all done by the lighting department. The grips are more about cranes, dollies, tripods, camera support. If the going gets tough, like you have to rig a light into some weird thing, or anytime there’s serious rigging and

The dramatic theatrical lighting approach of the surgery performance scenes also spills into other scenes within the film. Says Koch: “When I first read the script, I had a lot of questions for David. Things like, ‘These performance things, do you see this as kind of spot lit?’ He said ‘No, not really. I know you’ll do stuff lighting-wise for contrast and whatever, but

safety issues, then the grips are involved. The key grip was a really great guy named Vakis Grillis. I actually brought a camera operator with me, Andreas Evdemon. He and I had done a feature together before that and other stuff. He does Steadicam as well, which is handy. Our focus puller, Léonidas Arvanitis, a local, works all over Europe.”

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27 it shouldn’t seem too together and organized.’ This became an important theme for everybody throughout [production]. He wanted the place to look dysfunctional. Nothing should seem like it’s really kind of functional. You don’t want anything that looks like the world is functioning normally and prosperous. They wouldn’t be in spotlights and things like that, but Cronenberg did want it to be atmospheric.”

- Douglas Koch csc “

Koch also got to work closely with long-time Cronenberg production designer Carol Spier to light her avant-garde work on the flesh organs and set textures. “There are two levels of it,” Koch says about their relationship. “There was the production design in terms of general things like [locations]. There were things like what kind of lamps and stuff would be hanging in

You don’t want anything that looks like the world is functioning normally and prosperous. They wouldn’t be in spotlights and things like that, but Cronenberg did want it to be atmospheric.

Prosthetics crew prepares Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) for a surgical examination scene. Douglas Koch csc

this place or that place? That becomes a big point of collaboration between us, the practical lamps and things like that. With things like prosthetics and the skin stuff, we had some people come from Toronto. That was Alexandra Anger and Monica Pavez. They did amazing work. They were responsible for all the scars and cuts and body things and organs. We did a little bit of testing and prep of skin tone reproduction, but [they] really knew what they were doing. A very modern thing that’s really interesting is that now, even just in colour grading, sometimes it has to reach into the effects. But it’s actually become much simpler now. It seems to be able to really merge artificial skin and real skin and match it in a way that would have been very difficult before. I think it’s really reflected in the end product. Therefore you can make things very seamless.”

Koch reveals that not much manipulation took place in colour grading. “What we did was as we were shooting for the dailies, the DIT was done by the lovely Petros Tsampakouris,” Koch says. “He would show me stuff and I’d show it to David. The look was very simple; it was not extreme. I’ve sort of done more extreme and weird things on a few other films. This was more about the lighting and exercise in composition. More of the look came from the contrast and lighting. Then Bill Ferwerda at Company 3 did the final colour grade with David and I for the finished film.”

A couple of key scenes involving secret night exterior meetings required shooting by a large, beached decaying boat. “They presented an unusual challenge in that most of the best angles were looking out at the dark sea at night, and there’s nothing really across there,” Koch says. “There’s a distant shore, but it’s empty. There are very few lights in the distance even. So it’s just the ships; if you don’t do anything, the ships are black on black. I want to avoid the most obvious kind of cross lighting them with hard light, which is normally what most of the time you’d have to do. During prep, we were constantly working on this idea of getting a light or two on a barge out in the water that would be out behind some of those ships. That way what we could light up an air glow behind them so that the ships would appear as hulking silhouettes, which we could then just kind of locally light up in little bits and pieces, bits of detail. It was a bit of a to-do, but everybody came Anotherthrough.”scene that stands out for Koch is a pivotal autopsy scene. “That was a really neat-looking space,” he recalls. “Interestingly, they show films in there normally. The proscenium at the far end actually normally has a big movie screen up, and there’s all these cinema seats bolted into the floor area. That one was neat. We built a soft box that was 12x24 feet and put Orion LED fixtures in it to make a deep soft ambience that could be controlled

30 CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022

I used ETC Source 4 ellipsoidals, taken up higher on the decks to shoot down with just broken up warm light to illuminate the audience in sort of just little pools, broken little pieces of light. That was supposed to kind of be evocative of the warm practicals that were broken down into the sconces that are there. The ones that were in there were kind of ‘eh’ so Carol Spier and her [team] went and changed them. We used that as a kind of tungsten reference, and then we went with a sort of cyan dark aqua glow in behind them, and those were from practicals hanging from the ceiling. Those were just little fixed bulbs that we put in that can be easily controlled.”

At the very end of the film, we see a close-up of Saul Tenser (Mortensen) from partner Caprice’s ring camera. “It was extracted from the frontal master shot, blown up considerably and converted to monochrome,” Koch reveals. “It almost seemed to evoke Falconetti in Carl Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc film. We laughed after as Viggo had a COVID mask on earlier on the shoot with that famous image of Joan of Arc from that film! In colour grade I had colourist Bill Ferwerda put an orthochromatic look on the B&W.” The expression of Saul in the shot is foreboding, timeless, and perhaps cathartic. “Surgery is the new sex,” Kristen Stewart’s character quips. Visually, one can sum up the film’s look as lush yet clinical and exotic indeed.

remotely from the ground, and we could control their colour. It was skirted, and that formed this toppy sort of deep, ambient soft light everywhere. Then

I don’t think he came into a scene having any preconceived idea of how it would be shot. He wanted to see what the actors would do. Then he would guide their movements a bit sometimes and we would then discuss coverage from there.

- Douglas Koch csc “

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Personas Eclipsing

Moon Knight was shot during the height of the pandemic in Budapest when there was a police lockdown, so movements were quite restrictive. Episodes 101, 103, 105 and 106 were handled by director Mohamed Diab and DP Gregory Middleton csc, asc , ( American Woman, Watchmen ), while Episodes 102 and 104 were the responsibility of directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, with DP Andrew Droz Palermo ( The Green Knight , A Ghost Story ). Principal photography lasted 118 days with the schedule dictated by locations and sets rather than episodically. “ There were a lot of script changes during prep, which made the show better but can be challenging,” Middleton notes. “ The three months of prep in the beginning were mostly about Episodes 101 and 102, and it got more hectic towards the end. There was one main unit crew and a second unit that did most of the fighting work with the stunt doubles, which had another cinematographer, Darin Moran [ The Falcon and the Winter Soldier ], and director Paul Jennings. Some of my prep was coordinating with Darin and Paul as they had to shoot some of the action before I got to the set or location.”

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ntering into the realm of Egyptian gods, dissociative identity disorder, and the supernatural battle between good and evil, is the sixth Marvel Studios television incarnation Moon Knight created by Jeremy Slater and starring Oscar Isaac, Ethan Hawke, May Calamawy, F. Murray Abraham, and Karim El Hakim. The actionadventure miniseries streaming on Disney+ features Isaac as Marc Spector who is contending with his distinct alter egos Steven Grant and Jake Lockley as he attempts to figure out if he is imagining or actually the human avatar for the Heliopolis deity of the moon and vengeance known as Khonshu.

moon knight 33ARRI Signature Primes Budapest, Hungary 47° 29' 52.4868'' N 19° 2' 24.8496'' E

“ You see the Milky Way rolling around and the moon is shifting its orbit.

“

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LED lights such as ARRI SkyPanels S60 and S360 were favoured because of programmability. “ Tungsten light still has the nicest look but because of the nature of our sets we needed to be able to change the colour temperature and have some flexibility for brightness or high speed,” Middleton states.

We utilized some balloons too as HMIs for night exteriors as a moon source.” A major lighting challenge was a sequence nicknamed “The Million Night Sky,” according to Middleton. “ Khonshu creates the illusion of the sky going backwards and everyone else in Cairo can see that,” the DP recalls.

When the camera was close to the actors, we spent a lot of time on the 29 mm because it felt wide but not too distorted.” Custom rigging was needed to go along with the DJI Ronin-2, Steadicam and telescoping cranes, he adds. “We were going to be in situations where the camera needed to be poked into places or be at a hip height looking up at somebody. Chris Summers, my first assistant camera, built a couple of very small rigs that would have a top or side handle or low focus, and then we would have a backpack with the battery; that allowed camera operator Robin Smith to hold the camera with two hands without any support.”

To achieve the subjective perspective, the camera was handheld close to Isaac with a wide lens. “ Another technique was to do a lot of continuous takes so you would follow and reveal things throughout the scene as he would [experience them],” Middleton states. “ The character separations are mostly about Oscar ’ s incredible performance. Steven would shuffle while Marc had a much more purposeful walk. In that context we tried to make sure to be either close up to see his face transition between characters or wide enough to see the change in physicality.”

cranes, Steadicam or whatever the next setup would be. “ We had two sets of ARRI Signature Primes and a couple of Fujinon zooms,” Middleton remarks. “

Figuring out what is and isn’t real is an overriding theme. “ Mohamed Diab had a great expression in prep, ‘ It should always be a question,’” Middleton recalls. “ We think that dreams come out of complete ether, but often the imagery comes from things that we recently experienced that day. If you look at the fish tank in Steven ’ s apartment where Gus lives, the base is sand and there is a recreation of the Duat, the Egyptian underworld that we see in Episode 105. You have Tawerets Barge and Gates of Osiris. This was taken to the biggest extreme with the transition to the asylum in Episode 104 when he wakes up to find all of the characters that he has met through the show are patients hanging out playing bingo.”

There were two camera crews and a third ARRI Alexa Mini LF rigged for

Taweret ’ s boat, which has Marc and Steven as passengers as it heads for the Gates of Osiris, was partially built. “ The moment when the boat is tilting, that is all actor action and us with the camera going, ‘ Lean to the right!’ I had to come up with a lighting colour scheme that would echo the purple netherworld that was in other parts of the MCU but general enough that Oscar could fight alongside himself against zombies and be repeatable for the second unit.”

earpiece. Once they started to know the scene, then Oscar could act at the pace he wanted, and Robin Smith would follow him with the Steadicam.”

The same principles were applied for the psychiatric ward scenes where Oscar plays the roles of Marc and Steven in the same shot. “ We would block the scene with Oscar and figure out which character was driving the pace of the scene and that would be the one we would start with,” Middleton explains. “ Any close-ups that didn’t involve seeing a body double we would do that shot first. If we had a shot with both of them clearly visible, it would be either a lock-off or nodal pan or Technodolly or motion control. We would do that as the middle part of our shoot with two or three cameras. Oscar would go change into Steven and then we would come back and do the other half of our twinning shots. Then we would do any close-ups of Steven.”

- Gregory Middleton csc , asc “

After looking at the beginnings of the animation of that, I had to create that lighting effect. The light has to travel from horizon to horizon or at least enough of it to create a sense of moving shadows. You couldn ’ t physically move a light that quickly, so we created a large and programmable arc of LED Mirrorlights.”reflections

allow Marc and Steven to visually communicate with each other as well as a twinning effect that has both personalities physically interacting in the same frame. “ You want to keep the camera techniques the same as the rest of the scene, otherwise, it looks like a visual effects shot,” Middleton notes. “ The other thing is you want to make the process as easy and seamless for the performance as possible.” The most complicated mirror reflection occurs in the bathroom scene at the end of Episode 101. “Mohammed decided to do it as one shot, which meant working out the blocking for what lines Marc will say in which mirror and at some point, Marc will walk towards the back door. That creates the dynamic of him walking away from the other reflections of himself. We put the mirrors up in a mock set with the same dimensions and did a test shoot [not rehearsal] with a stand-in to see if we could get all of the elements without resorting to any repetitive camera moves. Oscar acted both parts, and his brother [journalist] Mike [Hernandez] played the audio version of Marc through an

Any close-ups that didn’t involve seeing a body double we would do that shot first. If we had a shot with both of them clearly visible, it would be either a lock-off or nodal pan or Technodolly or motion control.

One LUT was created and tweaked depending on the shot. “ The first step for me in doing a digital show as opposed to film is to develop a viewing LUT, which is something that would convert the flat-looking ARRIRAW file into something on the monitor, which is close to what I want the final colour of the show to be,” Middleton reveals. “ It gives you the gamma curve, contrast and any sort of colour bias or film look. I got to work with Marvel Studios’ colour science team and colourist Travis Flynn to build that. My goal with this project in particular was to have more contrast, colour and a deeper black in the image. I ’ m happy with what we got which allowed me to light more precisely and make adjustments on set.”

We think that dreams come out of complete ether, but often the imagery comes from things that we experiencedrecentlythatday.

Marc and Steven encounter the Egyptian god of fertility, which takes the shape of a giant female hippo and escorts them from the asylum into the Duat. “ I have done a couple of CG characters before in other projects and the general approach has two important parts,” Middleton notes. “ You want to have someone there to play the part for the actors to be able to block scenes and get the timing right. We had Antonia Salib play Taweret and she wore a representative costume made by Meghan Kasperlik that was scaled down to a human size; that provided amazing reference for visual effects for the colours, shine and lighting. She also wore a harness with a stick at the back to give us an actual eyeline, which is eight and a half feet. We would shoot one pass with her. The second thing is we had a maquette of the head of Taweret, which I could light and shoot as a reference for visual effects because the spillover lighting that the actors walk through has to be the same for the CG character to integrate seamlessly.”

The biggest challenge for Moon Knight was the mind-bending nature of story like the mirror scene in Episode 101, and the twinning and journey in Episode 105. “ All of those challenges were the most exciting to work out as well as daunting,” Middleton says.

Isaac and Hawke brought a great acting dynamic to Moon Knight as adversaries, Middleton observes. “Both Oscar and Mohammad fought to

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Episode 105 was submitted for Primetime Emmy Award consideration and this past July Middleton received a nomination in the Outstanding Cinematography for A Limited or Anthology Series or Movie category. “ I wanted to highlight how we used the camera to help keep things seamless between the twinning and storytelling,” Middleton says. “ I submitted the scene when Steven comes out of the bedroom realizing that he is the second personality. Marc pulls him out and they end up in hospital hallway arguing with each other and we ’ re burying edits in the camera pans. It feels natural and has a mind-bending transition. Episode 105 is the most emotional and moving episode.”

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keep the date scene because it gave Steven the goal of wanting to have a normal life and he couldn’t. That made him somebody you wanted to follow,” the DP says. “Marc is cursed and living a bit of a zombie life because of Khonshu. It made for a great counterpoint between Steven and Marc. Ethan Hawke does a beautiful subtle performance of Arthur Harrow who is helping and trapping Marc and Steven at the same time. Ethan was instrumental with Mohamed in having the character be the former avatar of Khonshu, which made him be a cautionary tale for Marc and Steven.” In addition to Summers, key crew members were camera operator Robin Smith, DIT Dániel Farkas, gaffer Balázs Vákár, and key grip Dávid Kecskeméti. “ There were so many amazing artists who I worked with on this project,” Middleton notes.

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ssociate member Jeff Wheaton has developed a ritual of delineating in written form each key character’s traits, motivation and existence within the broader context for every new film production, as well as elucidating what the arc and thematic structure of the story represent to him and his director. When Wheaton pondered the multi-dimensional story, themes and cinematic potential of director Adam Perry’s film, A Small Fortune , he became increasingly inclined to add his unique signature as a visual artist and storyteller to an unprecedented production in Prince Edward Island.

A Small Fortune takes place in a modest PEI fishing village and tells the story of what befalls an Irish moss farmer named Kevin when a bag of money washes ashore in the seaweed. In Wheaton’s words, Kevin is a working-class hero, a hardworking and resilient man who endeavours to eke out a living collecting seaweed at the tail end of a dying industry. Upon finding the bag of cash in an increasingly resourceless land of isolation and ambiguity, Kevin elects to keep the money to build a better life for himself. As he settles into his new material opportunity and strives to conceal his wealth, the money’s owners come looking for their rightful possession, and the plot thickens. Soon enough, the fishing village turns into a growing crime scene, and the walls begin to close in on Kevin. As Wheaton has noted in his film diary, “ A Small Fortune is the death of the masculine ideal of the hero in the era of late capitalism.”

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The crew would be based in rural PEI, an area in which the invaluable resources that film crews are accustomed to having are strikingly sparse. An intrepid crew’s grit and determination take on new significance in the spine-chilling mist and cruel, steady gaze of the North Atlantic, juxtaposed against the rugged and sparsely trodden terrain.

East WestMEETS

a small fortune 39Zeiss Super Speed French River, Prince Edward Island 46°30'53.41"N 63°31'1.6"W

on capturing the energy of the actors as they moved through their environment, and thus desired to meld his handheld propensity with Perry’s visual sensibilities. The result is a lively and fluid portrait of Kevin’s gradual loss of control, and the various personalities that begin to re-shape his outlook. Whenever handheld camera operation was not

muted ocean blue. The visuals are predominantly handheld, adding a palpable sense of suspense and intimacy, both of which make for a novel, modern Wheatonwestern.waskeen

Wheaton recruited a diverse group of people from local theatre productions, cinema enthusiasts, and some more experienced contractors to join their crew, and Wheaton could see the innate talent of the crew and their creative, unconventional methods of solving problems and adapting to markedly fluid parameters.

“Our core group was out of PEI, but we needed key people from other provinces. The film was co-produced with Newfoundland, and thus, gave us access to some of the tools and talent that province and Atlantic Canada as a whole has to offer,” Wheaton says. A Small Fortune is only one of a handful of feature length films to be produced in PEI.

Wheaton met Perry at the Atlantic Film Festival in Nova Scotia several years ago, and the two quickly developed a friendship. They soon recognized the rich nature of their creative exchanges and similar artistic insights, prompting them to consider a film collaboration. Fortunately, Perry was incubating an idea for a PEI-based feature that would lend itself to Wheaton’s style and sensibilities as a DP.

Producing A Small Fortune was no easy feat, largely due to the logistical considerations and limited crew they would have in rural Atlantic Canada.

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Perry and his team were able to secure funding through the The Harold Greenberg Fund - Shorts-to-Features Program, marking the beginning of a long and arduous iterative process through which Perry’s vision would painstakingly be constructed by a team composed of many novices. For Perry, choosing Wheaton as his DP was an intuitive decision, namely in light of their strong relationship and similar propensities and thematic leanings as Throughartists.the

an option, the crew put their camera on a Ronin. Just one scene was shot on sticks and dolly, an incongruent paradigm from that of the traditional

A Small Fortune is a classical northern noir thriller, an intriguing fusion of western characteristics and style with modern accents. The harsh environment in which the story plays out provides natural yet striking tonality and colours that underscore and build upon the rising tension as the narrative arc ascends, with the red mud, jagged, dark cliffs, and hazy,

Both Nova Scotia and Newfoundland were in the midst of a very busy production year, so finding talent for key positions was a formidable task. Due to the relative novelty of film production in these areas, neither province

Perrywestern.and

Greenberg fund, the team produced a proof-of-concept film titled A Blessing from the Sea. This project lay the groundwork for their feature production, a means of ironing out the kinks, establishing parameters in a challenging environment, and provided the producers the confidence they needed to begin their feature production.

Lighting the film, even his interiors, was pleasurable for Wheaton, as the natural light was beautifully diffused by virtue of vapour barriers around windows for interior scenes. The team reserved the use of large fixtures primarily for augmentation purposes, striving to achieve naturalistic

The crew was right on the cusp of hurricane season when they began their production in the fall of 2019, “right before the ocean becomes cruel,” Wheaton notes. William F. White assisted with supplying the team with lighting kits, and Jason Kennedy, a contact of Wheaton’s from Ontario, provided the team with a couple of camera packages and a backup body. The backup camera was of paramount importance after Wheaton’s misfortune while producing the short film, during which saltwater got into his RED Epic and shut the camera down. Leaving no stone unturned, Kennedy provided the team with a robust trio of imaging tools that could withstand the elements and rigours of the fast-paced

Wheaton’sproduction.camera

- Jeff Wheaton

Perry and Wheaton took their time to craft a classical western look within a 2:35:1 format, opting for spherical lensing with Zeiss Super Speeds. Although Perry wanted to lens the film anamorphically, it proved to be too exorbitant an expense for a small team with limited funding and a need for expeditious shooting within the confines of a hectic 15day schedule for production. Wheaton utilized a warm quarter glimmer glass filter during the day to accentuate the landscape’s warmth, and a straight quarter glimmer glass at night to add a subtle layer of haze and build upon a classical western aesthetic.

has had sufficient resources to accommodate numerous feature productions concurrently. The search for a focus puller was not fruitful until Wheaton and Perry turned to Facebook, and one of their grips was a carpenter by trade but made himself available for their production. Wheaton and Perry’s guiding principle in hiring crew was enthusiasm over “Buildingexperience.ateam

around who is experienced, their skill sets, and seeing how much more we can build up throughout the production is important,” Wheaton says. Of course, Perry and Wheaton also recognized that pushing the team to grow individually and collectively would not only serve them in good stead on future productions in their respective communities but would also establish a meaningful and sustainable framework and network of technicians and artists for a future autonomous film industry in Atlantic Canada. With the scarcity of production resources and distribution channels in this region, the crew’s accomplishments became a bellwether for the viability and expansion of film production and talent throughout Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and the economic and cultural transformation it could bring about.

The film was co-produced with Newfoundland, and thus, gave us access to some of the tools and talent that province and Atlantic Canada as a whole has to offer.

“

From left to right: Director Adam Perry, continuity Kelly Li and focus puller Jacqueline De Bacco. Kelly Caseley

packages consisted of two Alexa Minis and an Alexa Classic, for he knew the dynamic range of the ARRI sensor would do justice to the raw beauty of rural PEI and enable him to build upon his colour palette. Alas, part way through the production on two occasions, both Alexa Minis shut down on the crew. Ironically, the aged Alexa Classic became the workhorse that got the team through their long, dark days in which neither nature nor technology would cooperate.

A Small Fortune has been a success in the festival circuit and received critical acclaim, internationally, winning Best Screenplay at the 2022 Manchester Film Festival, and Best Cinematography at the 2022 Sunscreen Film Festival. Distribution has been secured, and the team is proud to release their cherished film from a special place in rural Atlantic Canada, known by too few, for the world to see.

CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 202242

illumination whenever it was feasible. Wheaton relied on bounce, negative, and diffusion to shape the light that nature provided, and adapted as

“There were a lot of challenges, Hynes saving us in that latter crisis,” Wheaton reflects. “Also, after the mass shooting in Nova Scotia, we were informed we had to remove the RCMP patch from every frame in which the police officer is present, making the postproduction period markedly challenging,” When the finish line was in sight and the team commenced the grade, COVID hit Canada hard, prompting Perry, Wheaton and their producers to participate in the grade virtually. “It was different, for sure, but we adapted and made the best of it,” Wheaton says.

The actor insightfully and expeditiously guided the crew through the contours of his side of the scene to ensure every vital angle was captured as darkness overtook the landscape, leaving plenty of breadcrumbs behind for the other actors who would complete their side of the scene days later.

Narrativelynecessary. and schedule-wise, the production neared its climax when a pivotal fight scene went awry. One of the Alexa Minis died during this critical moment between Kevin, a police officer, and another key character, and invaluable footage was lost. Wheaton visibly shudders upon recalling the realization that he would have to tell Perry they were in trouble and would have to consider deviating from their original plan. Joel Hynes, one of the key players in the scene, had to depart for Los Angeles and could not come back to PEI. All was seemingly lost as the daylight faded. But Hynes rose to the occasion.

Remarkably, the climactic fight scene came together seamlessly in post, thanks to the foresight and consideration of Hynes.

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CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | SEPTEMBER 202244

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Scan me

Goodbye, Dragon Inn by Tsai Ming-Liang; La Ciénaga by Lucretia Martel; Leviathan by Andrei Zvygintsev; Ratcatcher by Lynne Ramsey; The Turin Horse by Béla Tarr; Water Lilies by Céline Sciamma; Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives by Apitchatpong Weerasethakul; Cold War by Pawel Pawlikowski; Beanpole by Kantemir Balagov; The Tribe by Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi; Horse Money by Pedro Costa; Caché by Michael Haneke, to name a few.

Sayombhu Mukdeeprom; Ping Bin Lee; Christopher Doyle hksc ; Robbie Ryan bsc, isc ; Darius Khondji asc, afc; Christian Berger; Benoît Debie; Harris Savides asc ; Chayse Irvin csc, asc . Alexis Zabé, amc, asc ; Jody Lee Lipes, asc ; and Hélène Louvart afc

Some of my professional highlights are when I was able to work with my fiancée, Meredith Hama-Brown, on her beautiful debut feature Seagrass this past summer, the moment I found out that I was accepted as a full member into the CSC, achieving a 90-minute single take on 16 mm for The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open , and having a number

NORM LI csc

Who have been your mentors or teachers?

csc member spotlight

How did you get started in the business?

Basically, I got started in the film industry by just DP’ing small music videos and short films and working my way up from there. I eventually volunteered to shoot a proof of concept, which ended up getting financing, which led to my first feature Altitude , directed by Kaare Andrews From there, I shot Beyond the Black Rainbow, directed by Panos Cosmatos, and I’ve been fortunate enough to keep working since then.

EnajeJobyillustration

Name some of your professional highlights.

What films or other works of art have made the biggest impression on you?

I wish I could say I had a mentor or teacher but unfortunately, I never had any. I guess you could say cinema and life experiences was my mentor. What cinematographers inspire you?

This page clockwise from top left: Loscil, “Sol” Never Steady, Never Still The Weeknd, “Sacrifice” Same Trashtalk,Old “Something Wicked” Same OppositeOld page clockwise from top left: Beyond the Black Rainbow Lila Drew, “2023” Alaskan Tapes, “And, We Disappear” Beyond the Black Rainbow Alaskan Tapes, “Maybe” Never Steady, Never Still

What do you think has been the greatest invention (related to your craft)?

Celluloid film!

problems and solutions for each project. I really appreciate how every experience along the way can enrich and influence our life but what’s also very gratifying is when you find out you happened to do the same for others.

Sometimes we experience toxic personalities on set and that can be really hard to deal with.

What is one of your most memorable moments on set?

What do you like best about what you do?

There are so many, but I think one of the most memorable moments for me was at lunch on a small film I shot in Texas. There were quite a number of elderly people sitting around the table, and they asked one another what they were thankful for. When it came to me, for some reason I just choked up and started crying. I think it was because I was so moved by what everyone was saying but also thankful for these special moments I am lucky enough to experience.

I love meeting directors and collaborating to express their stories in a personal way. I also love how there’s always new places, people,

What do you like least about what you do?

of films that I DP’ed being accepted into festivals like Cannes, Sundance, Berlinale and TIFF.

How can others follow your work?

norm-li.com and on Instagram: @norm_li

Quan Luong (affiliate member) and B cam Markus Henkel on the set of a commercial for OFF! in (affiliateManitoba.RyanOffenlochmember)

Key grip Jonathan Sellam and Philippe Lavalette csc on the set of the feature filmCourtesyTropicana.ofPhilippe Lavalette csc

DP Emad Mohammadi (student member) on the set of the short film The Lady In Red Courtesy of Emad Mohammadi

Associate member Zoe Davidson on the set of the film Things At Rest, shot in Washington, D.C. Manuel Pedraza

on set gallery

DP Katerina Zoumboulakis (affiliate member) on set of the short film EstrangedCourtesy of Katerina Zoumboulakis

Associate member Daniel Green on a recent shoot in the Yukon dual operating with Zachary Moxley in Tombstone National Park. Jonathan Pouliot

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Mark Foerster csc and sound recordist Micheal Kennedy in the fjords of Norway shooting for The Mightiest (Discovery Channel Canada). Mark Stevenson

Nanlux is a premium brand of high-output LED lighting designed for the rigours of daily on-set use, including the Evoke 1200: a rugged IP54rated 1.2KW LED spotlight that delivers powerful output comparable to a 1.8KW PAR or 2.5KW HMI Fresnel – fully dimmable and icker-free, even at super high frame rates.

CSC Return canadian society of cinematographers csc youtube channel bilingual article english and french traduction / translation by nicolette felix ENFR

After an almost two-year hiatus, 2022 saw the return of in-person CSC Workshops. The CSC is proud to present highlights from this year’s workshops held in Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg.

Workshops

How do you see virtual production changing the industry?

Unreal Engine and virtual production is evolving rapidly, for now I see it as another tool giving options for different looks and new creative ideas. Even though for us cinematographers being on location with a full crew is the real thing, the cost efficiency of shooting scenes with a realistic look in a studio using Unreal Engine without having to bring a full crew and company out on remote locations will be a game changer for certain productions. Also, building huge sets, especially period pieces, it will be cost saving and for us much more user-friendly than having to guess the end results with green or blue screens. All we need are the foreground elements and march live with the background Unreal Engine visuals. It does take some planning, and a director would have to get used to the new space for blocking and shot listing.

Unrealtechnologie-là.Engineetlaproduction

Comment la production virtuelle va-t-elle changer l’industrie, selon vous?

CSC Virtual Production Masterclass

e 11 février, la CSC, en collaboration avec ARRI, a donné un cours de maître sur la production virtuelle chez MELS à Montréal qui explorait les avantages et les inconvénients de cette nouvelle technique et expliquait le déroulement de la production. On a entre autres traité des scènes en voiture, de la photographie des fonds, de l’éclairage, des objectifs, de la profondeur de champ, des filtres, de la vitesse de la caméra et du tremblement. Eric Cayla csc, qui a donné le cours de maître avec l’aide du directeur technique de MELS, Nicolas Fournier, nous fait part de ses réflexions.

n February 11, the CSC – in collaboration with ARRI – held a virtual production masterclass at MELS in Montreal to explore the pros and cons of this new technique and expose the pipeline of production. Among the topics covered were driving scenes, plate shooting, lighting, lenses, depth of field, filtration, camera speed and shaking. Eric Cayla csc , who led the masterclass with assistance from MELS technical director Nicolas Fournier, shares some insights.

virtuelle évoluent rapidement, et pour l’instant, je les considère comme d’autres outils qui donnent des options pour produire des looks différents et de nouvelles idées créatives. Même si pour nous, les directeurs de la photographie, un tournage en extérieur avec une équipe complète, c’est l’expérience véritable, la rentabilité du tournage de scènes à l’apparence réaliste dans un studio en utilisant Unreal Engine, sans avoir à faire venir une équipe et une distribution complètes dans des endroits éloignés, va tout changer pour certaines productions. Également, ça va permettre d’économiser sur la construction de plateaux énormes, surtout pour les films d’époque, et c’est plus convivial pour nous que d’avoir à deviner le résultat d’une prise de vue avec un écran vert ou bleu. Tout ce qu’il faut, ce sont les éléments de l’avant-plan et on peut faire des prises de vue directes grâce aux images de fond de Unreal Engine. Il faut une certaine planification, et un réalisateur devrait s’habituer au nouvel espace pour la mise-en-scène et le découpage Pourtechnique.lesscènes de dialogue dans des voitures en marche, c’est totalement efficace. C’est beaucoup plus rapide que de filmer sur une remorque en extérieur, et beaucoup mieux que l’écran vert ou bleu. On obtient un éclairage interactif sur toutes les surfaces, les écrans mobiles hors champ produisent la majorité de l’éclairage, ce qui permet une mise en place

Classe de maître sur la production virtuelle de la CSC

For dialogue scenes in moving cars, it is 100 per cent efficient. Much faster than to shoot on a process trailer on location, and much better than green/blue screen. You get interactive lighting on all the surfaces, the moveable screens off camera produces most of the lighting, which makes for fast setups with multiple cameras if needed, creates a very realistic controllable atmosphere, and you can change locations and time of day very quickly, just make sure you have good plates! Furthermore, for action-packed car chase scenes it is much safer for the actors.

CSC Virtual Production Masterclass at MELS in Montreal 51

We are just at the beginning of this new technology. I hate to say this, but I do think that a lot of the newborn kids becoming filmmakers will tell their stories using this new technology.

Cette nouvelle technologie en est encore à ses débuts. Je regrette de le dire, mais je pense que bien des jeunes qui deviendront cinéastes raconteront leur histoire en utilisant cette

rapide avec plusieurs caméras au besoin, crée une ambiance très réaliste et contrôlable, et on peut changer d’endroit et de moment de la journée très rapidement. Il suffit de s’assurer d’avoir de bons fonds! Également, pour les scènes de poursuite en voiture pleines d’action, c’est beaucoup plus sécuritaire pour les acteurs.

Du point de vue technique, la production virtuelle a ses défis : la correspondance de la densité et des contrastes entre les écrans et l’avantplan; l’effet moiré qui se produit sur l’écran si la mise au point est trop précise, selon la profondeur de champ, la distance entre la caméra et l’écran, la taille du capteur. En ce qui concerne l’éclairage, s’il faut créer une forte lumière du soleil au bas de la prise de vue à l’arrière-plan, l’écran n’émet pas suffisamment de lumière directe du soleil sur l’acteur ou les objets à l’avant-plan. Il faut un peu tricher pour cet effet-là.

Quels autres aspects de la production virtuelle faudrait-il explorer dans un futur cours, selon vous?

Je me pencherais sur les possibilités de faire des déplacements de caméra élaborés et rapides. À quel point on peut pousser la précision de l’arrièreplan, si on peut passer d’un écran vert ou bleu à une image réelle dans la même prise de vue. J’aimerais également essayer de filmer à 48 images/ secondes avec un écran vert ou bleu avec un intervalle de 24 images/ secondes, qu’on pourrait utiliser en postproduction pour modifier l’arrièreplan au besoin. Je ne sais pas si ça fonctionnerait, mais j’aimerais l’essayer. Mais il ne fait aucun doute que c’est magique pour les réalisateurs, les directeurs de la photographie et les acteurs de pouvoir tourner en direct avec des arrière-plans au lieu d’écrans verts ou bleus.

What sort of challenges do you see virtual production presenting for cinematographers and other crew members?

What further aspects of virtual production do you think might need to be explored in a future class?

I would explore the potentials of elaborate camera moves and speed. How far we can go to sharpen the background, and if we can transition from green/blue screen to live on a same shot. I would also try to shoot at 48 fps with a green or blue screen at an interval of 24fps, which you could use in post to modify background if you need. I don’t know if it would work well, but I would love to try. One thing for sure it is magical for the directors, cinematographers and actors to be able to play live with the backgrounds as opposed to green or blue screens.

CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 2022

Technically, virtual production has its challenges – matching density and contrast of the screens to the foreground; the moiré effect you get from the screen if you are too sharp, depending on depth of field, camera distance to screen, size of sensor. Lighting, if you need to create a strong sunlight coming low in the shot in the background, the screen will not project enough direct sunlight on the actor or objects in the foreground. You’ll need to cheat that effect.

Pour les directeurs de la photographie, l’utilisation d’images virtuelles sur le plateau signifie qu’il faut travailler en étroite collaboration avec les créateurs des fonds virtuels. Qu’il s’agisse de fonds à filmer ou d’images à créer sur ordinateur avec Unreal Engine, les directeurs de la photographie et les directeurs artistiques doivent participer pour superviser le look. On ne peut pas tout simplement arriver sur le plateau et réagir au fond qu’on nous présente. C’est comme pour un tournage en extérieur : des visites de locations déterminent le moment de la journée, les angles de prise de vue pour une scène, les déplacements de la caméra et les outils que nous allons utiliser. Pour les scènes d’intérieur, nous parlons avec le département artistique pour des praticables pour l’éclairage, l’habillage des fenêtres, la densité de la peinture, la hauteur des plafonds, et ainsi de suite.

On May 4, 2022 another master class was led by Éric Cayla csc for the ARRQ (Association of Directors of Quebec) whose aim is to make understand the techniques of filming in virtual sets. About fifty participants attended and members of the Government of Quebec were also present.

The CSC would like to extend special thanks to the MELS team (virtual crew, grips and electrics).

Le 4 mai 2022 une autre classe de maître a été conduite par Éric Cayla csc pour l'ARRQ (Association des Réalisateurs et Réalisatrices du Québec) ayant pour but de faire comprendre les techniques de tournage en décors virtuels. Une cinquantaine de participants.es y ont assisté et des membres du gouvernement du Québec y sont aussi venus.

For cinematographers, the use of virtual images on set means we have to work in close collaboration with the background visual creators. Whether it’s plates to be shot or Unreal Engine images being created in the computer, we cinematographers and production designers need to be involved to oversee the look. We can’t just come on set and react to whatever background is presented to us. It’s like shooting on location, we have scouts to determine the time of day, angles to shoot a scene, the camera moves and tools we will use. For interior scenes we talk to sets about practicals for lighting, window treatment, density of paint, height of ceilings, etc.

La CSC remercie sincèrement l’équipe de MELS (équipe virtuelle, machinistes et électriciens).

À votre avis, quels défis la production virtuelle présente-t-elle pour les directeurs de la photographie et les autres membres de l’équipe?

CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 202254

Associate

Principles of Cinematography and Visual Storytelling, May 14-15

Clockwise from top left: Lexi Crowe (actor), Stefan Kuchar (gaffer), Jeff Hicks (1st AC), and companion member Asmaa Er-Rouhi (key grip). Associate member Richard Grunberg (TMU Professor), associate member Christina Ienna (instructor, DP), Stefan Kuchar (gaffer) and Jeff Hicks (1st AC). Stefan Kuchar (gaffer), associate member Christina Ienna (instructor, DP), Aiden Carter (2nd AC) and companion member Asmaa Er-Rouhi (key grip). member Andrew Richardson (DIT) and student member Susan Liu (2nd AC). member Christina Ienna (instructor, DP) with associate member Richard Grunberg (TMU Professor). Wai Lui and Karensa McCarthy

TORONTO METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

aught by Christina Ienna (associate member and CSC board member) and Richard Grunberg (associate member, media production/associate professor, TMU), the Principles of Cinematography and Visual Storytelling workshop provided an overview on the foundations of cinematography. Participants learned about the fundamentals of prepping, lighting, camera movement, transitions, colour, and how to best collaborate with different departments.

The weekend also offered participants a chance to visit a pop-up tech show that ran simultaneously to the workshop. The mini tradeshow featured the latest production gear and technology and an opportunity to network with industry friends, vendors and partners. Thank you to ARRI, ROSCO, IATSE 667, HD SOURCE and MOSS LED for your support!

Affiliate

Hei

Top: (Left to right) Patryk Szmidt, D. Gregor Hagey csc, Guy Godfree csc, Quan Luong (affiliate member), Guillaume Cottin (affiliate member) and Laina Brown (associate member). Bottom: (Left to right) Gabriel Levesque, Rohit Srinath (student member) and Andrew Forbes (associate member).

Cinematography Peer Review WINNIPEG

n June 19, Guy Godfree csc organized and ran a pilot session for a new screening idea for the CSC at the Winnipeg Film Group Cinematheque. The three-hour screening session took place for members to screen their work and have a positive discussion, ask questions, and learn from each other. Attendance was kept to a maximum of 15 people, and everyone was encouraged to bring a short form piece of their own work for screening and discussion. There was a great turn out and an air of excitement as associate and full members got the chance to learn from each other through discussing different work. The CSC looks forward to expanding the Cinematography Peer Review to other cities in the future. A huge thanks goes to affiliate member Quan Luong for helping to organize the event.

Vancouver office represents the CSC’s dedication to help grow the already amazing western Canada filmmaking community and connect our talented cinematographers with each other, the rest of the country and the world. With Sim’s help – and the generous donations of its respected industry partners – our capacity to produce seminars, hands-on education activities, online content, and workshops increases one hundred-fold.

The CSC is committed to providing professional development in the form of workshops for its members, organizing learning opportunities at various levels from novice to masters. More information about CSC workshops is available on the CSC website .

he Canadian Society of Cinematographers announced in June that a deal has been reached with Sim to provide a home for CSC offices on the third floor of Sim Vancouver headquarters at 3645 Grandview

activities, use of a board room, and capacity to build a small training studio.

The space at Sim Grandview will allow CSC members to collaborate with other cinematographers and technicians to develop and test creative concepts and share their ideas,” says Sim Vice President Ken Anderson. “As the CSC continues to develop a new vision and strategy with a focus on education and diversity to attract top creative and technical talent across the country, Sim is proud to provide a space for members to gather and continue working towards an exciting future.”

UNVEILING THE CSC WESTERN HUB

When we publicly launched The Future is Calling Campaign in November to increase our national outreach, provide learning and gathering environments for current and emerging cinematographers and improve access to the camera arts for marginalized communities, we never dreamed of the strength of support from our industry champions. We are humbled, honoured and thrilled.

Steve Demeter

Along with the dedicated office space, the CSC will have access to Sim’s inhouse 1600-square-foot studio test space. CSC-Sim Education and Gathering Space also includes room for receptions and educational space for workshop

CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER | OCTOBER 202256

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