CANADIAN SOCIETY OF CINEMATOGRAPHERS
$4 Februar y 2011 www.csc.ca
A Tribute to PS Production Services Founder
Doug Dales
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Arri Alexa • William F. White • Brendan Steacy csc
A publication of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers The Canadian Society of Cinematographers (CSC) was founded in 1957 by a group of Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa cameramen. Since then over 800 cinematographers and persons in associated occupations have joined the organization. The purpose of the CSC is to promote the art and craft of cinematography in Canada. And to provide tangible recognition of the common bonds that link film and video professionals, from the aspiring student and camera assistant to the news veteran and senior director of photography. We facilitate the dissemination and exchange of technical information and endeavor to advance the knowledge and status of our members within the industry. As an organization dedicated to furthering technical assistance, we maintain contact with non-partisan groups in our industry but have no political or union affiliation.
CORPORATE SPONSORS All Axis Remote Camera Systems Applied Electronics Arri Canada Ltd. Canon Canada Inc. CinequipWhite Inc. Clairmont Camera Cooke Optics Ltd. Creative Post Inc. D.J. Woods Productions Inc. Deluxe Toronto FUJIFILM Canada Inc. Image Media Farms Inc Kingsway Motion Picture Ltd. Kino Flo Kodak Canada Inc. Lee Filters Mole-Richardson Osram Sylvania Ltd./LtĂŠe PS Production Services Panasonic Canada Panavision Canada Rosco Canada Sim Video Sony of Canada Ltd. Technicolor 3D Camera Company Videoscope Ltd. William F. White International Inc. ZGC Inc. ZTV
FEATURES – VOLUME 2, NO. 9 FEBRUARY 2011
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A Tribute to PS Production Services Founder Doug Dales By Don Angus
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Brendan Steacy csc Shoots Small Town Murder Songs on Film By Tammy Stone
First Dates with the Arri Alexa By Lance Carlson
COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS 2 From the President 5 The CSC Clubhouse Moves 6 In the News 9 In Memoriam: Donald Wilder csc 21-23 CSC Members / Camera Classified 24 Productions Notes / Calendar Cover: Doug Dales. Photo courtesy of PS Production Services.
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Canadian Cinematographer February 2011 Vol. 2, No. 9 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Joan Hutton csc CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF George Willis csc, sasc EDITOR EMERITUS Donald Angus EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Susan Saranchuk admin@csc.ca EDITOR Wyndham Wise mfa editor@csc.ca ART DIRECTION Berkeley Stat House PROOFREADER Karen Longland STUDENT INTERN Savia D’cunha WEBSITE CONSULTANT Nikos Evdemon csc www.csc.ca
FROM THE PRESIDENT Joan Hutton csc
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f there was ever a reminder that we live and work in a global village, it arrived at the CSC offices in two well-traveled packing boxes. Inside were 150 copies of IMAGO’s first-ever International Directory of Cinematographers. Established in 1992 by four founding members as a European federation, IMAGO has grown into an international organization encompassing more than 40 cinematographer societies with over 3,000 cinematographers worldwide. The CSC has been a member since 2008. By the way, IMAGO – pronounced “ih-MAH-go” – is not an acronym but a Latin word meaning image. The CSC and IMAGO’s goals are very similar, essentially “to enhance the highest standards of cinematography.” While the CSC is non-political in its aspirations, IMAGO is very active in championing cinematographer authorship rights for the images they create and the betterment of working conditions for cinematographers.
ADVERTISING SALES Guido Kondruss gkondruss@rogers.com CSC OFFICE / MEMBERSHIP 131–3007 Kingston Road Toronto, Canada M1M 1P1
Of particular interest in the IMAGO directory is a global Model Contract and checklist that IMAGO, with the help of its lawyers, has developed for all cinematographers to use when negotiating projects. It’s well worth a read by all cinematographers everywhere. The Model Contract is exclusive to the IMAGO directory and is not on its website.
Tel: 416-266-0591; Fax: 416-266-3996 Email: admin@csc.ca CSC SUBSCRIPTION DEPT. PO Box 181 283 Danforth Avenue Toronto, Canada M4K 1N2 Email: editor@csc.ca Canadian Cinematographer makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information it publishes; however, it cannot be held responsible for any consequences arising from errors or omissions. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of the publisher. The opinions expressed within the magazine are those of the authors and not necessarily of the publisher. Upon publication, Canadian Cinematographer acquires Canadian Serial Rights; copyright reverts to the writer after publication. Canadian Cinematographer is printed by Winnipeg Sun Commercial Print and is published 10 times a year. One-year subscriptions are available in Canada for $40.00 for individuals and $80.00 for institutions, including HST. In U.S. rates are $45.00 and $90.00 for institutions in U.S. funds. International subscriptions are $50.00 for individuals and $100.00 for institutions. Subscribe online at www.csc.ca.
ISSN 1918-8781 Canadian Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 40013776 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to 181-283 Danforth Ave. Toronto M4K 1N2
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International Directory of Cinematographers is wider and longer than the CSC directory but just as thick. It’s designed more for the desktop or the briefcase rather than an easy slide into a coat pocket. While full members of each society are listed in IMAGO’s directory, only contact information is supplied. Unlike the CSC directory, there are no listings of specialties, equipment, credits, agents and awards, etc. However, the International Directory of Cinematographers does have a comprehensive classified section, listing service and rental houses via country under key headings such as lenses or lighting equipment. In the Internet age, the question looms: why anyone would produce a print directory anymore? The CSC did publish a 2011 directory despite much of the information being readily obtainable from our website, csc.ca. Whether the CSC continues with print directories is an issue yet to be decided. Tony Costa aip, the IMAGO directory editor, says that the myriad of internet laws and privacy issues associated with each member country made it difficult to produce even a rudimentary online directory listing cinematographers and that it was simply easier to go with print. Tony also says that an updated version of the IMAGO directory is in the works. A welcome addition to anyone’s production library, the International Directory of Cinematographers directory is available to CSC members for free. We only have a limited number to distribute, so act fast by emailing our office admin@csc.ca or phone 416-266-0591 to request a copy. All others wishing the directory will need to contact IMAGO at imago.org to buy a copy for the posh price of 49 Euros or $63 CND.
A Supernatural Transition From Film to Digital I shot the first three seasons of Supernatural with a 35mm dream package from Clairmont Camera. Then, the studio wanted to make a move into the digital world. One thing I wanted to make sure of was a seamless transition from film to digital. Supernatural was coming of age and I didn't want to change the look we set with the 35mm tools. I was looking for an evolution—not a new palette. I had set my mind on two D-21s for our A and B cameras and a Red One for Steadicam, 2nd unit and additional camera works. And what was most important to me was that Denny Clairmont and his team put their resources behind my choices through testing, setting my LUTs and establishing the work flow. On Supernatural we go to hell each week in our stories but one place I didn't want to go was production hell. You know what I'm talking about: weird things happening to your equipment, failure you don't expect, name it. But because of the nature of the preparation and the support of Clairmont Camera we never lost any production time due to the change of system, and whatever glitches we encountered were resolved in a swift fashion. It is well known to what extent the Clairmont family will go to service the camera crews, design and fabricate tools to fit particular demands but there is more. I found friendship, not the business bias type, but friendship based on complicity and dedication in research for the best . What am I talking about? Too good to be true? Maybe I found some kind of heaven on Earth and it's called Clairmont Camera‌Heaven for the DP! Serge Ladouceur CSC
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Hollywood 818-761-4440
Vancouver 604-984-4563
Toronto 416-467-1700
Albuquerque 505-227-2525
Montreal 514-525-6556
The CSC Clubhouse Moves to William F. White’s New Toronto Facility By Richard Hergel
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he first time I ever rented a camera was from William F. White (WFW), and that was back in May 1982 to shoot the Salute to Royal York Collegiate film. I also remember quite fondly my CSC camera assistants’ course in the spring of 1986 primarily held in the WFW camera department at the old Parklawn address. One day, we were lucky enough to be invited down to a live set at the old Panavision Lakeshore Studios. The film being shot was Arthur Penn’s Dead of Winter. Neil Seal gave us a great introductory tour and lessons on what life was going to be like if we were lucky enough to find work. The finely crafted wooden set interior looked exactly like a real upper-class aristocratic mansion. The vision of the Panavision camera lording over the set glistening in a spotlight’s warm 5500K glowing rays is forever burned into my brain’s memory engrams. WFW has had an illustrious and grand trip through modern day Canadian movie-making history. From its humble beginnings on Munster Avenue near Kipling Avenue and Bloor Street West as a film and theatrical electrical-and-lighting warehouse to its present day form as an in-house movie-making Mecca for almost everything. WFW’s new facility is now located at Islington Avenue and Evans Avenue, formally the Mattel Toy factory. The building is truly magnificent and gigantic. The WFW’s snowball
machine of accomplishments keeps getting bigger as it rolls up the proverbial hill of success. The CSC is extremely grateful to CEO Paul Bronfman of WFW for generously providing us a large room for our clubhouse, located off the theatre department. The new clubhouse is not only larger but also more comfortable and suitable for meetings and small gatherings. The 2011 awards submissions will be screened at the clubhouse February 14 to 18. Please note that any member of the CSC is welcome to book private daily use of the clubhouse through the CSC office. On Thursday, December 16, 2010 a welcome/holiday party was held in the theatrical department of the new building. Everyone mingled and chatted in the festively decorated theatre department situated just inside the main entrance door. Several guests toured the rest of the building during the party. Finishing touches still have to be made, but in the end it will be an excuse for a second tour. I’m personally looking forward to the completion of the covered portico at the front door that appears on the artist sketches of the new building. Staying out of the rain really does become somewhat of a priority as one attempts to gracefully travel through linear time.
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IN THE NEWS
Michael Wale csc and Glen Winter csc Nominated for Smallville
Above, Michael Wale csc and on the left, Glen Winter csc – both are nominated for a ASC Award in the television series category.
own words, the film features testimony from over 20 noted actors, directors and technicians, including Martin Scorsese, Charlton Heston and Lauren Bacall. As one of the first trainees for the new Technicolor process in 1936, Cardiff ’s career spanned eight decades. Working with directors ranging from Michael Powell to Alfred Hitchcock to John Huston, Cardiff earned a reputation as one of the finest cinematographers in international cinema.
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he American Society of Cinematographers has announced its nominees in the two television categories for the 25th Annual Outstanding Achievement Awards competition. The awards ceremony will be held on February 13 at the Hollywood & Highland Grand Ballroom in Los Angeles. The CSC will be represented this year with two nominees in the television episodic series/pilot category – Michael Wale csc for the episode “Shield” from Smallville and Glen Winter csc for “Abandoned,” again from Smallville. This is the first nomination for Wale. Winter has four previous nominations and won in 2008 for his work on the popular long-running series shot in Vancouver.
TIFF Celebrates Legendary British DOP Jack Cardiff TIFF will present the Toronto premiere of Craig McCall’s documentary Cameraman: The Life & Work of Jack Cardiff from February 13 to 21 at the Bell Lightbox. Told largely in Cardiff ’s
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An accompanying program of Cardiff-lensed films opens February 16 with Michael Powell’s Black Narcissus (1947), preceded by a special presentation by award-winning cinematographers Paul Sarossy csc, bsc (The Sweet Hereafter, Chloe) and John Bailey asc (Groundhog Day, Country Strong) who will discuss Cardiff ’s ongoing influence on their profession. Other films in the program include John Huston’s The African Queen (1951), Albert Lewin’s Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1949), Joseph Mankiewicz’s The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Michael Powell’s A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and The Red Shoes (1948). For more information, go to tiff.net/tiffbelllightbox.
Panavision Enters the 3D Arena Panavision is now in the rapidly growing 3D business. Three major U.S. features set for release in 2011 were filmed using cameras, lenses and 3D rigs provided by Panavision. These films are Todd Strauss-Schulson’s A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, shot by Michael Barrett (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Chris Gorak’s The Darkest Hour, lensed by Scott Kevan (Death Race), and Russell Mulcahy and Kimble Rendall’s Bait, shot by Ross Emery (Underworld: Rise of the Lycans). Rob Marshall’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, lensed by Dariusz Wolski asc (DOP on the first three Pirates of the
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IN THE NEWS
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Veteran Actor Fiona Reid Is to Be Honoured at the 2011 ACTRA Awards The veteran actor, best known for playing the wife of Al Waxman’s Larry King on King of Kensington, the well-loved 1970’s CBC sitcom, is to receive the 2011 Award of Excellence at ACTRA’s 9th annual awards. Besides her extensive television work, the U.K.-born Reid will be honoured for her film and stage work and for her support for Canadian actors as part of the performers union. She was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 2006. Fiona Reid with King of Kensington star Al Waxman.
Caribbean), was shot using camera and lens packages provided by Panavision, paired with rigs provided by Pace on the first unit, and Element Technica rigs for the 2nd unit in London, England. Panavision’s current inventory of 3D camera rigs includes the Quasar, Pulsar and Neutron, manufactured by Element Technica. In a year-end press release, Panavision said it is committed to providing an end-to-end 3D capture solution that will provide its customers with premier service, global support, depth of inventory and technical expertise.
Panasonic Canada Announces Its AG-AF100 Camcorder Will Begin Shipping First introduced at the National Association of Broadcasters’ show in 2010, the Panasonic AG-AF100 Camcorder is now available in Canada. It offers a best-in-class 4/3-inch sensor that delivers a shallow depth of field and a wider field of view similar to that of a 35-mm movie camera in a light, rugged and affordable camera body. Targeted at the professional video and film production communities, the AG-AF100 offers flexibility and cost advantages by using industry-standard micro 4/3-inch lenses, filters, and adapters. The full HD 1080 and 720 production camera provides superior video handling, native 1080/24p recording, variable frame rates, professional audio capabilities, and compatibility with SDHC and SDXC media. “The AG-AF100 is another example of Panasonic listening and quickly responding to the needs of the professional imaging market,“ said Terry Horbatiuk, national sales manager, professional imaging and display solutions, Panasonic Canada, in a press release emailed to Canadian Cinematographer. “The AG-AF100 is an easy-to-use, highly adaptable and most importantly, an affordable answer for professional imaging customers seeking a shallow depth of field video production camera,” he said. The AG-AF100 will be available at a suggested
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“Fiona Reid is one of Canada’s most beloved stars. We are pleased to honour Fiona in recognition of her outstanding body of work and for her long-time advocacy on behalf of performers,” said Heather Allin, president of ACTRA Toronto in a press release. The 2011 ACTRA Awards are set to take place on February 25, 2011 in Toronto.
Indie Producer Cherilyn Hawrysh to Moderate the 2011 Toronto Screenwriting Conference Cherilyn Hawrysh, a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre and producer of such documentaries as Scared Sacred (2004) and Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action (2008), will moderate the 2011 Toronto Screenwriting Conference to be held April 9 and 10 at Ryerson University. Speakers at this second annual conference already confirmed are Sheldon Bull, author of Elephant Bucks: An Insider’s Guide to Writing for TV Sitcoms, and Dora Marks, author of Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc. For updated information on this conference, go to torontoscreenwritingconference.com.
TIFF’s Top Ten for 2010 Announced at the end of last year, TIFF’s Top Ten Canadian feature film selections for 2010 are Xavier Dolan’s Heartbeats, Richard J. Lewis’s Barney’s Version (DOP Guy Dufaux csc), Denis Côté’s Curling, Deborah Chow’s The High Cost of Living, Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies, Lixin Fan’s Last Train Home, Ingrid Veninger’s MODRA, Vincenzo Natali’s Splice, Bruce McDonald’s Trigger and Catherine Martin’s Trois temps après la mort d’Anna. TIFF’s Top Ten short film selections are Greg Atkins’s Above the Knee, Vincent Biron’s Les Fleurs de l’age, Anne Marie Fleming’s I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors, Jerome Sable’s The Legend of Beaver Dam, Guy Maddin’s The Little White Cloud that Cried, Theodore Ushev’s Lipsett Diaries, Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais’s Marius Borodin, Halima Ouardiri’s Mokhtar, Tao Gu’s On the Way to the Sea and Kaveh Nabatian’s Vapor.
IN MEMORIAM
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Donald A. Wilder csc By Mike Wilder
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onald Arnold Wilder csc passed away Wednesday December 8, 2010 in the Abbotsford, B.C. Regional Hospital following a short illness. He was 84 years old. Born October 23, 1926 in New Liskeard, Ontario, Don, a truly kind, generous and Christian man, will be sorely missed by his close family, his many relatives in Ontario and countless former associates and students. As a pioneer in the Canadian motion picture industry, Don’s career as a cameraman, DOP, director and teacher was an extended series of collaborations with numerous filmmakers and storytellers from across Canada and many other parts of the world. He began working in the film business as an apprentice at the NFB in 1944. There he was the cinematographer on numerous films, including Morten Parker’s The Stratford Adventure (an Oscar nominee in 1954), Grant Munro’s One Day’s Poison (winner of TV Information at the 1959 Canadian Film Awards) and director/DOP on Nahanni (winner of best theatrical short at the 1963 Canadian Film Awards and over 20 international awards, including the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival).
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Leaving the Board to work freelance, he was a producer/director/ DOP/operator on over 500 commercials, including those for General Motors, Molson Breweries, CPR and Timex Canada. He was awarded over 40 prestigious commercial awards in Canada, New York and Hollywood. Don had DOP credits on over a dozen features, including Peter Pearson’s well-regarded Paperback Hero (for which he won a Canadian Film Award for best cinematography in 1973), Ivan Reitman’s box office hit Meatballs, Don Haldane’s Nikki, Wild Dog of the North, Energy (an early IMAX film), Geroge McCowan’s Face-Off, George Bloomfield’s Child Under a Leaf and Peter Rowe’s Lost! (also co-producer). For television, Don shot Who Will Save Our Children?, Steve Martin’s first television special and the first two seasons of the television series Katts and Dog. Don also found time to serve two terms as president of the CSC (he was a founding member). He was also a founding member of the Director’s Guild of Canada, where he served one term as vice-president. Since 1991 he had been involved in mentoring, teaching and passing on his genuine love of the cinematic craft and the joy of collaborative storytelling. He taught film lighting and camera at the Vancouver Film School and designed lighting and camera courses on Softimage and Maya software. Since 2000, Don worked on and completed a treatment for the animated feature film Greanwold, on which he anticipated serving as producer and DOP.
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Canadian Cinematographer - February 2011 •
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A Tribute to PS Production Services Founder
Doug Dales By Don Angus
T
he untimely passing of Doug Dales December 3, 2010 left a palpable tear in the fabric of the Canadian filmand-television industry. He was only 60 and still trying on new hats – like directing – when he succumbed to a rapid onset of cancer. Something of a wunderkind, Doug was 22, fresh out of college, when he founded PS Production Services Ltd., a company that grew nationally to become one of Canada’s leading professional motion picture rental operations. Educated at York University and the London Film School in England, Doug was a mover and shaker during almost four decades of business and industry leadership. Doug Barrett, president and CEO of PS, was asked by Canadian Cinematographer to sum up the personal and professional impact of Dales’s death. “To many people who worked at PS over the years, Doug Dales was a personal friend and in some cases a very close personal friend, along with being the founder and owner of the company,” Barrett said. “For those people, his passing has been a multiple loss. We keenly miss the daily interaction, encouragement, debate and insight. It’s a huge loss.” CSC president Joan Hutton csc said her connection with Dales and PS goes back to “a part-time job organizing its camera equipment when they were still on Britain Street,” in Toronto, the fledgling company’s first home. From the beginning, she said, PS has supported the Society in many ways – advertising in the magazine and directory, supporting the CSC Awards, membership open houses, camera assistant courses, lighting and equipment seminars and much more. Hutton recalled that Doug was only on occasion a suit-and-tie man. He much preferred to roll up his sleeves and get directly involved in a project, including carving a giant baron of beef at the annual PS Christmas party. Every year Doug, who loved to cook for others, would create a feast around Christmas time to which everyone was invited. Over the years, the size of the turkeys and roasts Doug prepared were so large that he rented industrial ovens, had them installed at PS and arrived at two a.m. to start cooking. It was superb each and every time and an event that was not to be missed. He literally fed crowds of friends and colleagues and he loved every minute of it.
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The CSC honoured Dales with the Bill Hilson Award for outstanding service in the development of the motion picture industry at the 2000 CSC Awards. In accepting, he said, “When I look around this room, I see at least four generations which tell the story of the Canadian film industry, from the early days of our industry, where big industrials and documentaries provided the foundation of the business, through to today, where we rightly take our position as producers of some of the finest screen entertainment in the world. I wonder if the founders of the CSC could have imagined… an industry producing billions of dollars of entertainment every year. By working together we have achieved the impossible.” Seaton McLean, then president of motion picture production at Alliance Atlantis Communications, presented the Hilson Award that night, nearly 11 years ago. McLean was an old friend from when Dales conceived and developed the Cinevillage production studio complex in Toronto in partnership with Atlantis Films. At a celebration of Doug’s life at Showline/Harbourside Studios on December 12, McLean touched on his friend’s accomplishments with dignity and humour. He noted the preponderance of red pullover sweaters worn by guests in tribute to Doug’s favourite fashion statement, and henceforth declared December 3 be known as Red Sweater Day. The 1986 construction of Cinevillage in partnership with Atlantis became the core of Toronto’s bustling and energetic Studio District on Eastern Avenue. Doug’s innovative development of new products, acquisition of complementary companies, vision for motion picture and television infrastructure development in Canada, and his love for the industry repeatedly garnered him the greatest respect for his work. Besides the CSC Bill Hilson Award, he received the Canadian Film and Television Production Association’s Jack Chisholm Award. He also served on the boards of directors of many industry organizations including the CFTPA and the Canadian Film Centre. At the time of his passing he was the board president of Reel Canada, a travelling film festival designed to bring Canadian films into Canadian classrooms.
Top left: Every year Doug, who loved to cook for others, would create a feast around Christmas time to which everyone was invited. Over the years, the size of the turkeys and roasts Doug prepared were so large that he rented industrial ovens. Above: Receiving the CSC Bill Hilson Award from Seaton McLean.
Most recently, he achieved a lifelong dream when he directed the Canadian feature film Hello October, starring Joanna Douglas (Being Erica), K.C. Collins (Lost Girl) and Colin Mochrie (Men with Brooms). The film was shot by Jason Tan csc for a 2011 release. Dales once told an interviewer he had always relied on his “strong technical base – certainly in the lighting area – since I was 13 or 14 years old. I did a lot of our (PS) camera repairs in the early days, faced with ‘it’s broken, you gotta fix it.’” On the road to PS, he produced a couple of small films and then “produced, shot and edited a hundred commercials” for Citytv when it first went on the air. “They were really cheap retail commercials; we’d shoot three of them in a day. And it was really at that same time that I started PS.” He always believed that “hard work, perseverance and especially the people at PS are “the secret of our success.” Canadian Cinematographer - February 2011 •
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Brendan Steacy csc Shoots
Small Town Murder Songs on Film
By Tammy Stone
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ometimes all it takes is a glimpse – at a scenic landscape, an ominous sky, a dimly lit room – to become flooded with the enormous weight and beauty of a particular moment in time. One of the great gifts of Ed Gass-Donnelly’s Small Town Murder Songs – which had its world premiere at TIFF 2010 and is now in general release – is precisely this ability to suggest a world of sweeping emotion and existential weight through a stunning photographic palette. It’s moment in time – the aftermath of a crime committed in a small town – is so precise and beautifully rendered that it takes the audience far beyond the confines of the film’s frame. Gass-Donnelly, who created a harrowing, visually acute world out of gritty, urban Toronto with This Beautiful City (2008), turns his authorial vision to a Mennonite community in tiny town Ontario. A girl has been found raped and killed, setting the stage for what could have easily become an evenly plotted whodunit story. But Gass-Donnelly takes a refreshing and inspiring turn – and certainly a more challenging one – by choosing to focus on the much more elusive themes of guilt, shame and redemption as they weave through the film’s tight, if not outright confined, community of characters. There’s the toughened Rita (Jill Hennessy of Crossing Jordan fame), whose violence-prone boyfriend (Stephen Eric McIntyre) found the body. She notifies the police and an investigation is launched. At its helm is Walter (Peter Stormare, whose changeable face is a director’s dream), who slowly navigates the case, which has caused conflict and anguish to flood the town. His
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All images courtesy of 3 Legged Dog Films.
Canadian Cinematographer - February 2011 •
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Small Town Murder Songs: Above, Peter Stormare. Below, Jill Hennessy. “I thought we should fight really hard to shoot it on film.” Brendan Steacy csc
earnest, religious girlfriend (the always-brilliant Martha Plimpton) walks on eggshells to please him, but Walter is clearly troubled by a lot more than just the case; as his Mennonite family enters the picture, it emerges that there is a dark and shady past that Walter has yet to reckon with in addition to his former romantic involvement with Rita. “The hero of Small Town Murder Songs,” says Gass-Donnelly, “is struggling with his own nature as a human being, and I wanted to explore that theme using the relationship between landscapes and industry as a visual metaphor. Whether it’s the giant unchanging landscape of a lake being interrupted by the insect-like hum of a motorboat that invades its space, or the sound of a distant dog bark penetrating through the window of a man’s darkened bedroom, both instances put man and nature at odds with one another.” Choosing DOP Brendan Steacy csc – who won the 2009 and 2010 CSC Music Video/Performance Cinematography Award – proved to be an easy task. The two went to university together, studying subjects other than film, but they later discovered they were working in the same industry and shot a music video together. “I really liked the script,” says Steacy, “and it had some really great visual cues written right into it. I knew it was the kind of movie I wanted to make. “Collaborating with Ed was great,” he continues. “He comes from a theatre background, and consequently has a good deal of meaningful experience with actors, but he is also really interested in visual story telling. During pre-pro, we talked through the visual language of the film, and established a few ‘rules’ about how we would cover particular kinds of action, but the language continued to evolve as we got deeper into production.” “We wanted Small Town Murder Songs to have a very natural, ‘unlit’ aesthetic and referenced the work of Roger Deakins, particularly the stark landscapes and natural beauty of No
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Country for Old Men,” says Gass-Donnelly. Indeed, the evocative, lush and lurid palette of the film both cushions and exposes the town’s inhabitants in much the same way as some of the films it proudly stands up against – There Will Be Blood (Robert Elswit DOP) and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Roger Deakins DOP) come to mind. “We wanted to embrace a more nostalgic style with fewer edits,” Gass-Donnelly adds, “allowing scenes to play out in the master shots for a much greater length of time. This forces the viewer to place more emphasis on each of the details within the frame. Thus the composition and which details we chose to include within the frame are imbued with a much greater sense of purpose and meaning.” One point of early discussion was the film’s shooting format. “The film was originally budgeted to be shot on Red,” says Steacy, “but during one of our first meetings I expressed, rather emphatically, that I thought we should fight really hard to shoot it on film. This is a story about people living in a small town where change happens very slowly. Much of the population is Mennonite. They reject modernity and live in a simple, old-fashioned way, without electricity or combustion engines. I wanted to represent that visually and a digital-capture format seemed like it would feel somehow less authentic. I specifically didn’t want it to be super crisp and grainless, so I made a push for two-perf, and despite the fact that we really couldn’t afford it, Ed helped make that happen because he was onboard with the choice esthetically.” Gass-Donnelly agreed, and the next step was to find locations that would do justice to the film’s stark, bare and lonely overtones. The film was shot largely in and around Listowel, Ontario with mostly found locations. “It all starts with specificity,” he says. “We drove two hours out of the city to find authentic locations, and in some cases authentic non-actors. Similarly, the approach to lighting has a major impact on the perceived authenticity of a film. If we had shot the film with a slick commercial gloss, then we would have been constantly reminded of the artifice that would have, in turn, diminished the perceived realism of the performances. We were limited to no camera movement, except during the poetic musical montage sequences, so we had to craft natural, yet evocative frames within which to hold authentic performances.” Steacy acknowledges that working around the absence of built sets was a challenge and “reality check,” but the natural landscapes were a gift. “There’s a lot of physical beauty in the sparseness of the farm land in Listowel, and it was frequently as simple as pointing the camera at it. Even before two-perf became a reality, we committed to shooting 2.35:1, which was really helpful. In a city it seems that all angles of your peripheral vision are equally stimulated, but to me farmland always seems to feel widescreen in real life, constantly being squashed by the sky.” Ultimately, it’s the film’s fine performances, framed as they are by foreboding and portentous religious chapters, which give the film its momentousness. “We had some really great actors to work with on this film,” says Steacy, “and it was a priority for Ed to give
“I really liked the script. It had some really great visual cues written right into it. I knew it was the kind of movie I wanted to make.” Brendan Steacy csc
them enough time and room to experiment with any given scene until everyone was happy. We literally wouldn’t shoot something until everyone felt it was working. Because I knew this was going to be the approach, I really had to give them as much room as I could, which involved keeping the set as free of gear as possible and mostly relying on longer lenses to stay out of their faces even while capturing some pretty tight close-ups. Wherever possible, I lit through windows or from above and relied heavily on practicals for any nighttime interiors.” Gass-Donnelly adds, “I’m always interested in finding compelling faces, but I think almost any face can be compelling if people are willing to allow themselves to be photographed in a natural, and sometimes less flattering, light. This was definitely the case with Jill Hennessy. Light and makeup had to collaborate to play against her beauty to find a character that would be more authentic to the world. Peter Stormare, on the other hand, has a completely transformative face. He seems to change from scene, conjuring the faces of other roles and actors. On the final day, when he shaved his moustache half off, the crew was suddenly star struck as he now finally looked like the actor that was famous for his work in films such as Fargo and Armageddon.” This permeability of Stormare’s face is a tribute to his gifts as an actor and also to the considered way his performance – along with those of his cast mates – was rendered in the film. As with the rest of Small Town Murder Songs, which lingers in the memory long after this author’s viewing, the approach to directing actors was tied to the very specific, meticulous ways the entire film was crafted. “It’s like if an entire room was blue, and then add a navy accent to a door,” says Gass-Donnelly. “The accent hardly seems blue by comparison. But if you were to splash the same colour on a white wall, it instantly pops out. We really tried to embrace a less-ismore approach to performance, cinematography and sound.” Canadian Cinematographer - February 2011 •
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First Dates with the Arri Alexa By Lance Carlson
T
he Arri Alexa is a film-style digital motion-picture camera made by Arri and first introduced in April 2010. The camera marks Arri’s first major breakthrough into digital cinematography after previous efforts such as the Arriflex D-20 and D-21. The Arri Alexa features an advanced electronic viewfinder, high dynamic range, high sensitivity, on-board recording, PL mount lenses and a 35-mm CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) sensor shooting up to 2.28K resolution in RAW mode. New features also include recording to the digital intermediate codec ProRes 4444 and ProRes 422HQ in camera, simplifying the post-production workflow. The camera is designed for use in feature films, television series and commercials, and is widely seen as Arri’s answer to the growing acceptance of the Red, along with the Sony CineAlta, Panavision Genesis and Thomson Viper FilmStream, to shoot features. The technical specs, however, are far from the whole story with Alexa. To find out more, I spoke to three cinematographers who were lucky enough to get their ‘first date’ with the Alexa and discover their impressions. Steve Danyluk csc was the DOP on Robert Lieberman’s Breakaway, the first Canadian feature shot with an Alexa (Paul Gross is the executive producer and veteran Don Carmody a co-producer); Jérôme Sabourin csc was the DOP on eight episodes of Trauma, shot in Montreal, the first Canadian television series to be shot with an Alexa (Trauma
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is produced by Radio-Canada and not to be confused with the NBC series of the same name, which was cancelled after one season); and Glen MacPherson csc, asc shot the first Alexa 3D movie, Paul W.S. Anderson’s The Three Musketeers 3D, which was produced in Germany and stars Milla Jovovich and Orlando Bloom. Their feedback was very positive, and I have summarized their reactions in the following series of first-hand accounts of working with the Arri Alexa.
Steve Danyluk csc Q: You were obviously aware that the Alexa was coming out. Were you looking forward to using it? SD: For sure. I have worked with the D-21 often and knew that the Alexa was coming out; I went to the Arri seminar in Toronto because I had a project coming up. It worked out perfectly for us because we needed vibrant colours and it was a first-time actor in the lead, so we wanted the camera to roll without interruption. The biggest thing about it was that it was an Arriflex and secondly it was 800 ASA. I had worked with the Red. As a matter of fact, I am shooting a commercial tomorrow with the Red because there are no Alexas available. We were the first feature in Canada to shoot on the Alexa. The film is Breakaway,
From the left, Jérôme Sabourin csc, Glen MacPherson csc, asc and Steve Danyluk csc. The Arri Alexa is designed for use in feature films, television series and commercials, and is widely seen as Arri’s answer to the growing acceptance of the Red.
about a young man’s struggle between his traditional Indian family expectations of him and his dreams of hockey stardom. Q: Was it a big sell to the producers? SD: It was at the beginning, mainly because they did not want to be the first ones off the block. Arri Canada and Sim Video were fully engaged once we decided that was the way we wanted to go. I went on the set of a good friend of mine, Jérôme Sabourin, who had the first Alexa in Canada. He was shooting the first series on the Alexa [Trauma], and I got to play with it and felt assured I was making the right choice. Everybody came through, and we actually used three cameras for the first few weeks of the shoot.
SD: We went to the people at Technicolor in Toronto, as I have a long history with them, and they were all over the Alexa and its simple workflow. We went through film out all the way to film print from DI. I did make-up tests going over and under as much as seven stops, as well as contrast tests. Q: So, the handling of the camera is pretty flawless? SD: They have thought of everything. The Alexa rests comfortably on your shoulder. It’s very ergonomic. It weighs about the same as the 435; very robust yet compact. The controls are all in the right place, with an Apple-like interface with only essential options – sort of a less-is-more philosophy.
Q: Can you tell me about the look of the film?
Q: Would you sum up your reaction to the Alexa.
SD: Breakaway is about hockey, but it is also a love story. We were aiming for a look sort of between Amélie and Slumdog Millionaire, so the colours were really important. We had Technicolor on board with their DP Light System from L.A. to colour correct on set. This helped us adjust the colours on lights, as we were looking to create very saturated yet soft colours. The real selling point for me was the film-curve look, the 14-stop latitude, the 800 ASA rating and its ability to hold highlights beautifully as well as shadow detail and true skin tones. I didn’t have to pre-light for weeks or hang balloons, so we saved a lot of time lighting and rigging. The camera is also very compact. We had one on a 50-foot TechnoCrane and another on a Steadicam, on a golf cart and various other kinds of skate rigs. My director [Rob Lieberman] wanted visually stunning shots of slap shots and other close-up action.
SD: Arri really got it right. I believe this camera is going to revolutionize production. I love film, but this could be the camera that nudges film a little further out of mainstream production. Both the director and I shoot commercials, and we are well aware of the newest and best gadgets out there. Having this camera, and knowing how far you can push it and make use of available light without a lot of heavy fixtures, is just fantastic. I loved the experience.
Q: Did you shoot beyond 800? SD: A few times I went to 1600 ASA. I shot it all in HD, tethered, and I shot some high speed at 50 frames. At the time the 60FPS in-camera recording function was not yet implemented. Q: What sort of tests did you do prior to the shoot?
Jérôme Sabourin csc Q: How did you become aware of the Arri Alexa? JS: I was in Germany two-and-a-half years ago and had a chance to talk to Arri about its new developments. They interviewed 10 DOPs to give them feedback about the viewfinder, and I was the only one who fought for the electronic viewfinder. I asked them if any of those DOPs were operators, and none were. I was the only one who operated, and as an operator, you want to see what you get. In the optical finder the image has to go through a beam-splitter, and the camera has to roll for you to see the image on an HD monitor. For me, that’s not a very good experience. I am used to the flicker in a film camera, but in a digital camera Canadian Cinematographer - February 2011 •
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it’s hard to get used to. Achieving proper focus, and everything else, is also more difficult. The Alexa electronic viewfinder has a one-frame delay, so it’s the same as the optical viewfinder. An interesting thing about the viewfinder is that it’s very robust. You can even carry the camera with it. Q: So you were ahead of the pack when it comes to the Alexa. JS: I like to know what’s going on and I like to shoot logarithmic. I’m not a big fan of shooting RAW. In my experience, it’s difficult to control. It’s quite expensive, and you don’t always know where it is taking you. Logarithmic gives you much more flexibility. The beauty of the Alexa is its wide range. But it’s a devil because we’re not used to shooting with a 14-stop range. One of the first problems you have when working in digital is that the image is very flat. It doesn’t have any personality. So, I’m using a simulated Fuji film stock to replace the logarithmic into a linear curve that looks like film print. The beauty of it is that you can look at it on a 24-inch monitor and see what you are going to get. Q: Do you need a high-quality HD monitor on set? JS: Yes, you need a good quality monitor on set and you need a D-LUT, 3D-Log engine that can be HD-Link Pro. Or you can use the Tcube Fig with the Cine-tal monitor, but it’s pretty heavy, or a Davio monitor. These will give you a very high-quality image Q: Tell me a little about the series you are shooting and did you have any difficulty convincing the producers to go with the Alexa? JS: The series is called Trauma and it was shot in Montreal. I didn’t really give the producers a chance to refuse the camera. You have to sell every new piece of equipment you use. You bring your own recipe and they need to trust you; after that, the images speak for themselves. With the Alexa, you have to adapt to the fact that the range is very wide, and sometimes you may think you don’t have to light the scene, but you do. With the Alexa you have a 14-stop range and you can see things that you haven’t seen before. Q: Do you need to get used to the 14-stop range or could you use only 12 stops if you wanted to?
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The Arri Alexa features an advanced electronic viewfinder, high dynamic range, high sensitivity, on-board recording, PL mount lenses and a 35-mm CMOS sensor.
JS: It’s close to HDR – high dynamic range shooting in digital photography. The engineers at Arri told me that it’s almost like taking two pictures at once – one for low light and one for the highlights. It is done in real time, frame by frame, because the CPU is so fast. The sensor is equipped with micro-lenses over the photo-sites, which pushes it to 800 ASA. They have also designed the body to tolerate a wide temperature range, high vibrations and to remain very stable. Q: What sort of tests did you do when you were preparing for the series? JS: We did failure tests and found the camera pretty rock solid. The few bugs that were there were easy to work around. We tried to corrupt the data, but it was impossible, so it seems to be bullet proof. It’s as safe as film. We recorded to HD-SR and at the same time with the AJA KiPro 4:2:2 Recorder. [AJA KiPro is a tapeless video-recording device that records high-quality Apple ProRes 422 QuickTime files onto computer-friendly storage module media.] In the post for the series we didn’t see any difference between the 4:4:4 and the KiPro recording, and that was with an 800 per cent zoom on the media. The slight difference is so small it’s not worth worrying about. You could see it on a 20-foot screen, but on a 65-inch monitor you can’t see the difference. Q: Did you have a DIT or did you do it yourself? JS: I’m against the idea of having a DIT, because DITs are stealing the jobs of 2nd ACs and for me the next generation of ACs has to be computer savvy and to be able to load the SXS cards in the Alexa and handle and manage the exposed media. I’m also against transferring on the set. We should use the digital media for the advantages it provides and let post do what they do best. It’s just one more department that increases the budget and slows things down on set. The solid-state magazines can be sent to post every day or twice a day or every week. Having enough digital magazines on set should not be a problem. Q: How did the first week of shooting with the Alexa go?
Image courtesy of Radio-Canada.
On the right, Laurence Leboeuf in Trauma, the first Canadian series to be shot with the Arri Alexa.
JS: When the producers saw the dailies, they all agreed that they were beautiful. Even the tests were pretty convincing, but they were very relieved when they saw the first dailies. Even the scenes lit by a candle at two feet – less than a half-foot candle – looked great. Q: Did you do much handheld camera work? JS: About 25 per cent was handheld and the rest was on a fluid head. The body is very light, about 18 pounds, almost like the SR3 but much lighter than the 535B. Q: So you were pleased, and the director and producer were also pleased? JS: It was a very happy experience. Everybody was more than pleased, and I am starting another series with two Alexas in a couple of weeks. The biggest problem right now is that there are not enough of them available in Canada.
Glen MacPherson csc, asc Q: Did you have much advanced notice of the Alexa’s arrival? GP: I was in Los Angeles when Arri did their big unveiling at the DGA, but I didn’t have much of a chance to play with the cameras. I had shot two 3D movies with gear from Vince Pace, and he called me and said he had ordered a bunch of Alexas [35]. He felt they were going to be a game changer and asked me to come down and look at some tests. Bob Richardson asc had shot some tests because he was shooting a Scorsese movie in 3D [The Invention of Hugo Cabret]. There were no more bodies available, but I looked at Bob’s tests, which were pretty comprehensive, as well as some of the short films that Arri had commissioned, and decided to go with it. Q: You felt it would serve you well for a 3D project? GP: With the 3D mirror rigs you loose a stop right away, so you need the extra speed. The Three Musketeers had a lot of scenes with candlelight and torches, so the speed of the Alexa was a big factor.
Q: Did you have trouble getting bodies? GM: They were a bit hard to come by, but being in Munich we were able to keep the heat on Arri and the bodies would trickle in two at a time and by the time we started we had all eight. Q: Did you use a lot of multi-camera set-ups? GM: We often had a three-camera set-up, which is six bodies and the other two were on a Steadicam rig. For the two-camera set-up, the Steadicam operator needs to be pretty strong, with lots of stamina. We did a lot of sword fighting and our operator was really good. Q: What sort of testing did you do when you had cameras on hand? GM: We did the usual exposure tests, latitude tests and LUT [look-up table] tests. On the previous film, we had customized LUTs for our dailies and we’d look at it at night on a fairly big screen. With the Alexas you can apply LUTs in the Cinetal, but working in 3D you can only use 2D LUTs, so there’s no saturation control. I found that the LogC image from the Alexa is really de-saturated and flat. I could add colour and contrast, but I couldn’t get any saturation out of it. We ended up using a post-production system called the Fugu, which a company in Hungary is developing. It’s not specifically for 3D, but it will be part of its market for 3D dailies and it has a colour-correct system. We were able to fix up the saturation and get some colour out of it. It was tricky at first doing colour tests and not having any control. We weren’t keen on sending the stuff to a lab for colour correction. Eventually Vince Pace built in-line colour correctors, which I could put in each recording tower and tweak on set. We could output LUTs and send them to the on-line operator and she could apply them to dailies. But we didn’t get that going until the last two weeks of shooting, so next time I will be an expert [chuckle]. But by then there will probably be a new camera available. Q: So for your first experience with the Alexa, it went pretty well?
Canadian Cinematographer - February 2011 •
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tests in the studio we felt we didn’t need a lot of light so we didn’t bring a lot of lights. We put up a lot of smaller fixtures on Condors to augment the flames and make them look like they were sources. On our first night exterior I was nervous as hell, because I couldn’t tell until I got the cameras up on the cranes. I was shooting at T2.8 and by eye it looked like there was nothing there, but on the monitors it was fine. Image courtesy of Alliance Films.
Q: Did you use a stereographer and a DIT?
Paul W.S. Anderson’s Three Musketeers 3D
GM: Oh yes, it went really well. It’s got so much latitude, you can see into the blacks. Besides the testing, it took some shoot days to get used to the camera. Q: Does it give you more of a sense of shooting film? GM: Not exactly. But you don’t have to worry about clipping and things like that. We had some big night exteriors, lighting with candles and torches in old castles in Bavaria, and I would look at it and say this is insane. It was a bit scary, but based on the
GM: We used two 3D video engineers because each camera system comes with a tower that has its own stereo boxes, letting them deal with two cameras at a time. I had worked on two 3D shoots previously, so I didn’t need a stereographer but I brought John Harper from Toronto to help out and he took most of the stereo control off my shoulders. Q: I gather you will use the Alexa again. GM: Yes, definitely I would happily use it again over any other camera. It has really smooth images, tons of latitude, really great sensitivity and you can kick it up to 1600 ASA, as some have been doing. I tried to keep it at 800 or in some cases 1000 and in a couple of scenes 1280 where I didn’t have much choice. The visual FX supervisor wasn’t too thrilled and it’s funny because when you see a little film grain nobody gets too upset but when they see noise they go nuts.
The Arri ALEXA is a compact, lightweight and affordable digital camera that redefines the limits of motion picture capture. With ultra-fast workflows and image quality akin to 35mm film, ALEXA suits a wide variety of applications and budgets. With its superior CMOS sensor, new Arri Imaging Technology (AIT), 800 ASA sensitivity, shooting speeds of up to 60 fps and a dynamic range of 13.5 stops—your shooting options with the ALEXA are almost endless. To manage your digital files Best Light Digital offers state-of-the-art data management carts and trucks providing on-set data management, digital dailies and LTO tape archiving capabilities.
To learn more about ALEXA visit www.psps.com
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HALIFAX
902-404-3630
Steven Tsushima Paula Tymchuk Anton van Rooyen Trevor J. Wiens Irene Sweeney Willis Ridvan Yavuz CSC LIFE MEMBERS Herbert Alpert csc, asc Robert Bocking csc Raymond A. Brounstein csc David Carr csc Marc Champion csc Christopher Chapman csc, cfe Robert C. Crone csc, cfc, dg David A. De Volpi csc Kelly Duncan csc, dgc Glen Ferrier John C. Foster csc Leonard Gilday csc John Goldi csc Kenneth W. Gregg csc John B. Griffin csc Edward Higginson csc Brian Holmes csc Brian Hosking Joan Hutton csc Douglas Kiefer csc Rudolf Kovanic csc Les Krizsan csc Naohiko Kurita csc Harry Lake csc Peter C. Luxford csc Duncan MacFarlane csc Harry Makin csc Douglas A. McKay csc Donald James McMillan csc Jim Mercer csc Roger Moride csc George Morita csc Wilhelm E. Nassau Ron Orieux csc Dean Peterson csc Roland K. Pirker Norman Quick csc Roger Racine csc Robert G. Saad csc Josef Seckeresh csc Michael S. Smith John Stoneman csc Kirk Tougas Y. Robert Tymstra Walter Wasik csc Ron Wegoda csc James A. Wright Keith Young CSC HONOURARY MEMBERS Roberta Bondar Vi Crone Graeme Ferguson Wilson Markle
indicates demo reel online, www.csc.ca
Used Leica Geo System Disto Laser Measurement Devices Attention crew technicians interested in selling used Leica Disto Laser Measurement devices for cash to upgrade to newer models. Contact: Alan J. Crimi, Panavision Canada Corp. at 416-258-7239, shipping, receiving and client services at 416-444-7000 or alan.crimi@panavision.com. www.panavision.com. SHORT-TERM ACCOMMODATION FOR RENT Visiting Vancouver for a shoot? One-bedroom condo in Kitsilano on English Bay with secure underground parking, $350 per week. Contact: Peter Benison at 604-730-0860, 416-698-4482 or peter@peterbenison.com. EQUIPMENT FOR SALE Sony DXC-D30 3 Camera Live Production Package includes three DXCD30 cameras/camera backs/ CCUs and multicore camera cables; Panasonic WJMX70 8 input switcher; full camera and switcher monitoring package and waveform/vectorscope; equipment rack for camera monitors & CCUs. Wired and operational. $19,500. Contact Ted Mitchener at ZTV Broadcast Services for complete list of equipment: 905-290-4430 or HYPERLINK “mailto:ted@ztvbroadcast. com” ted@ztvbroadcast.com. Portable Gel Bin great for studio or location use, holds 24 Rosco or Lee colour correction, diffusion, reflective, scrim, etc., rolls outer dimensions measure 17.5x24x 63 inches, not including wheels and sturdy wooden construction, painted black, bottom and back wheels, side handles hinged front & top, locks for added safety, handy reference chart, $300 obo; Darkroom Safety Lights popular Model D type, accepts 10x12 inches safelight filters (possibly included, depending which kind you’re looking for), takes 7½-, 15- or 25-watt bulb, excellent condition, $50 each. Contact: Andrew at dp@andrewwatt.com. Canon HJ11x4.7Birse HD WA lens one DOP owner, canon factory maintained, $12,000; Canon KJ16Ex7.7 HD lens, mint-used only a dozen times, one DOP owner, canon factory maintained, $5,000; Sennheiser evolution 100 wireless mic kit with wireless lav and wireless handheld mics and receiver with original packaging, mint, barely used, $700. Contact Dave: c 416.553.3356 or email “mailto:davidwoodside@rogers.com”davidwoodside@rogers.com. Briese 77 Light, full kit, including Tungsten and HMI flicker-free setup, two Eggcrates and Manfrotto Mega-Boom. Excellent condition, $ 22,000. Contact: pierredp1@gmail.com Sony Beta SP DXC-D30WSP/PVV3P, PAL, 262hours drum time, $ 2,500; Sony Beta SP DXC-D30WS/PVV3, NTSC, 251hours drum time, $2,500; Sony BetaCam SX DNW-7, NTSC, 257hours drum time, $5,000; and IKEGAMI DV-CAM HL-DV7AW, NTSC, mint condition, as new, 61hours drum time, $7,000. All cameras with porta-brace covers. All owned by me and serviced by Sony Hong Kong. Sony Beta SP/SX player/recorders, DNW-A25P X2, PAL & NTSC, 500 & 644hours drum time, $6,000; Satchler 575 HMI, open-face, mint condition with spare bulb, $2,500 & case. The lot for $20,000. Contact: François Bisson at blitzvideo@mac.com. Oxberry Computer Controlled Animation Stand. This stand is in excellent working condition. Our animation studio is closing, and we are in the process of selling our equipment. The stand is computer controlled by the famous Kuyper Control software driving stepper motors connected to different axis of the stand. Here is a list of what is driven: camera zoom in and out; table – north-south axis, east-west axis; rotation, 2 pegs (top and bottom); camera – focus, take-up drive for mag and shutter. The camera comes with interchangeable gates and can be use for16 mm, super 16 or 35 mm. This kit comes also with 400ft –16-mm mag, 400ft – 35-mm mag, 1,000ft – 35-mm mag and 400ft bi-pack mag. The sidelights are 650 watts Red Heads with polarised filters. The lights are suspended on Manfrotto Pole Cats. The table’s backlight is connected to a rheostat with a solar electric current regulator. This is a great stand for any independent filmmaker or small effect animation company. Sorry we cannot ship this item. It has to be picked up. Item is located close to Montreal. Price: $ 4,800.00. Contact: Erik at 514-637-5077 or erikgo@videotron.ca.
16 – 35 mm Film Equipment for sale: Our animation studio is closing, and we are in the process of selling our equipment, here is a short list of items we have for sale: Densitometer McBeth Td903 for calculation of film density, $300. Split reel (16 and 35 mm) various sizes, Moviola Rewinds, 35-mm film synchroniser, Scan-0-scope converter lens system, Scope lens to “squeeze” and “unsqueeze” anamorphic, $3,500. Tilt Plate for heavy cameras, $800. And more. Contact: Erik at 514-637-5077 or HYPERLINK “mailto:erikgo@videotron.ca” erikgo@ videotron.ca. Sony BVW-400a Betacam SP Camcorder camera used by professional cinematographer (one owner), never rented out. Comes complete with Fujinon A15x8BEVM-28 lens, Petroff matte box with 4x4 and 4x5.6 filter holders, remote zoom and focus control for lens, six Cadnica NP-1 batteries, Sony BC-1WD battery charger, Porta-Brace fitted cover with rain jacket (like new) and Sony factory hard shipping case and manuals. Lens and camera professionally maintained by factory technicians. Usage hours are: A – 1,918 hours; B – 1,489 hours; C – 4,286 hours, $10,000.00 obo. Contact: Craig Wrobleski csc at 403-995-4202 Aaton XTR Super 16 package including body, video relay optics, extension eyepiece, three magazines, Cooke 10.5-mm–60-mm S-16 zoom lens, Zeiss 9.5 prime lens, 4x4 matte box, 4x4 filters (85,85N6, polarizer, ND6, clear), follow focus and cases $17,500. Nikon 50–300-mm F4-5 E.D. lens with support, $1,000. Kinoptik 9–8-mm 35-mm format lens c/with sunshade. Contact: stringercam@ shaw.ca or mike@imagegearinc.com New Video Camera Rain Covers. Custom rain covers for sale. New design that fits and protects most Sony PMW EX3, Canon XHHDV, Panasonic VX200 cameras with the viewfinder extending toward the rear of the camera, $200. Noiseless rain cover for the external camera microphone, $30. Onboard Monitor rain cover, camera assistants can see the focus during the shot. No more hassles in the rain, $60. Custom Red One camera covers available upon request. Also can sew various types of heavy-duty material. Repairs and zipper replacement on equipment and ditty bags. Contact: Lori Longstaff at 416-452-9247 or llong@ rogers.com. NEW PRICE – DVW700WS Digital Betacam with viewfinder and two widescreen zoom lenses. Canon J1 5x8 B4WRS SX12 and Fujinon 5.5-47. Very low hours on new heads, $8,000 plus tax. Contact: Michael Ellis at 416-233-6378. Betacam SP Camera package including BVP550 Betacam SP camera with BVV5 recorder, complete with Fuijinon 15x8 broadcast zoom lens, “Red Eye” wideangle adapter, 6 IDX Li-Ion batteries, IDX quick charger with AC adapter, flight case, soft carry case, Sony monitor and 10 fresh Beta SP tapes ($140 value), $2,500. Contact: Christian at 416-459-4895. Fujinon XA17X7.6 BERM-M48 HD Lens in new condition, bought and mounted but never used. As new in box (camera is sold), $7,900. Panasonic Digital AV mixer WJ-MX50 (missing a few knobs from the lower right corner on the audio mixer), $400. JVC TN-9U 9-inich colour monitor, $60. Photos available for everything. Contact: johnbanovich@gmail.com or 604-726-5646. FOR SALE 28-Foot Black Camera Trailer with new brakes and tires, 20-foot awning, dark room, viewing lounge, two countertops with lots of storage space, heating and air conditioned, side windows and three access doors. Contact: jwestenbrink@rogers.com Digital audio natural sound effects library for sale, recorded in various countries. All recorded on VHS digital with analog audio search on audio channel 1 and time code on audio channel 2. Completely catalogued by time code and includes Sony PCM decoder. $3,500.00 OBO. Contact: rvbocking@rogers.com. Camera Classified is a free service provided for CSC members. For all others, there is a one-time $25 (plus GST) insertion fee. Your ad will appear here and on the CSC’s website, www.csc.ca. If you have items you would like to buy, sell or rent, please email your information to editor@csc.ca.
Canadian Cinematographer - February 2011 •
23
CAMERA CLASSIFIEDS
EQUIPMENT WANTED
PRODUCTIONS & CALENDAR
Production Notes Chaos (series); DOP Attila Szalay csc, hsc; OP Richard Wilson; B Cam OP Brian Whittred csc; to April 29, Vancouver Debra (series); DOP Peter Benison csc; OP Peter Battistone; to February 25, Mississauga, ON Fringe III (series); DOP David Moxness csc & Thomas Yatsko (alternating episodes); OP Chris Tammaro; to April 1, 2011, Vancouver Hellcats (series); DOP Stephen McNutt csc, asc; OP Kevin Hall; to March 17, 2011, Vancouver How to Be Indie II (series); DOP Yuri Yakubiw csc; OP Brain Harper; B Cam OP Russ Goozee csc; to March 22, Toronto King (series); DOP Luc Montpellier csc; OP Sean Jensen; to February 15, Toronto Nikita (series); DOP Rene Ohashi csc, asc; OP Steven Adelson; B Cam OP J.P. Locherer csc; to April 6, Toronto Really Me (series): DOP Gerald Packer csc; to March 11, Toronto Smallville X (series); DOP Glen Winter csc & Michael Wale csc (alternating episodes); OP John Davidson; to March 22, Burnaby, BC S.O.S. II (series) DOP Marc Gadoury csc; to June 23, Montreal Supernatural VI (series); DOP Serge Ladouceur csc; OP Brad Creasser; to March 31, 2011, Burnaby, BC 30 vies (télé-roman); DOP Jérôme Sabourin csc; to April 1, 2011, Montreal Warehouse 13 III (series); DOP Mike McMurray csc; to July 22, Toronto XIII (series): DOP David Greene csc; OP Colin Hoult csc; to February 20, 2011, Toronto
Calendar of Events FEBRUARY 1, CSC Annual General Meeting, Toronto, Technicolor 4–13, Victoria Film Festival, Victoria BC, victoriafilmfestival.com 4–13, CSC Camera Assistant course, Toronto, csc.ca 8, February Freeze, Toronto Pinewood Studios, Stage 9, 11 to 7pm 11–19, Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival, Vancouver, vimff.org MARCH 2–6, Kingston Canadian Film Festival, Kingston ON, kingcanfilmfest.com 25–Apr. 3, Cinéfranco, Toronto, cinefranco.com 31–Apr. 9, Images Festival of Independent Film & Video, Toronto, imagesfestival.com APRIL
Subscribe online to Canadian Cinematographer at www.csc.ca One-year subscriptions are available in Canada for $40.00 for individuals and $80.00 for institutions, including HST. In U.S. rates are $45.00 and $90.00 for institutions in U.S. funds. International subscriptions are $50.00 for individuals and $100.00 for institutions. Subscribe online to www.csc.ca.
2, CSC Awards, Westin Harbour Castle Conference Centre, Toronto, csc.ca 28– May 8, Hot Docs, Toronto, hotdocs.ca MAY 4–5, Hot Docs Forum, Toronto 14–15, CSC Lighting Workshop, Toronto, csc.ca
24 • Canadian Cinematographer - February 2011
A CLEAR PATH THROUGH POST Format
SxS cards
Direct to Edit workflow Tape-based workflow
Format
HD
Tape
Format
HD
On-board recorder
File-based workflow
On-board recorder
ARRIRAW workflow
Format
ALEXA gives you a choice of ultra fast workflows.
give you instant access to dailies and the freedom
Whichever of the ALEXA output options you go
to start an off-line edit immediately. If you choose
for, our Direct to Edit feature will speed up your
an HD workflow, the Apple ProRes codecs will
workflow. When recording uncompressed HD or
allow you to begin your on-line edit simply by
ARRIRAW, the Apple QuickTime proxy that is
removing the memory card from ALEXA and
simultaneously recorded to onboard SxS cards will
slotting it into a laptop: nothing could be easier.
More details on www.arridigital.com
© Kodak, 2011. Kodak and Vision are trademarks.
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