CANADIAN SOCIETY OF CINEMATOGRAPHERS
$4 October 2015 www.csc.ca
Hyena Road
KARIM HUSSAIN csc
Layton Burton: Basic Human Needs Othello Ubalde: The Interior
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.
FEATURES – VOLUME 7, NO. 5 OCTOBER 2015
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.
Credit: Christos Kalohoridis
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 digital professionals, from the aspiring student and camera assistant to the news veteran and senior director of photography.
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Hyena Road: Karim Hussain csc Lenses Paul Gross’ Second War Epic By Fanen Chiahemen
CORPORATE SPONSORS AC Lighting Inc. All Axis Remote Camera Systems Arri Canada Ltd. Canon Canada Inc. Clairmont Camera Codes Pro Media Dazmo Camera Deluxe Toronto FUJIFILM North America Corporation FUJIFILM, Optical Devices Division Fusion Cine HangLoose Media HD Source Inspired Image Picture Company Kino Flo Kodak Canada Inc. Lee Filters Miller Camera Support Equipment Mole-Richardson Nikon Canada Inc. PS Production Services Panasonic Canada Panavision Canada REDLABdigital Rosco Canada S1 Studios Toronto SIM Digital Sony of Canada Ltd. Technicolor The Source Shop Vistek Camera Ltd. Whites Digital Sales & Service William F. White International Inc. ZGC Inc. ZTV
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Basic Human Needs: Layton Burton Responds to the Call Following Film Tax Credit Cut By Fanen Chiahemen
Othello Ubalde Goes Into The Interior By Charlotte Empey, Special to Canadian Cinematographer
COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS 2 4 5 6 20 26 27 28
From the President In the News CSC at TIFF Deluxe’s New Building Tech Column CSC Member Spotlight - Nicolas Bolduc csc Classifieds Productions Notes / Calendar
Cover: The cast and crew shoot a scene from Hyena Road in Jordan. Credit: Christos Kalohoridis
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Canadian Cinematographer October 2015 Vol. 7, No. 5 CSC BOARD MEMBERS PRESIDENT George Willis csc, sasc, gawillis@sympatico.ca PAST PRESIDENT, ADVISOR Joan Hutton csc, joanhuttondesign@gmail.com VICE PRESIDENTS Ron Stannett csc, ronstannett@sympatico.ca Carlos Esteves csc, carlos@imagesound.ca TREASURER
FROM THE PRESIDENT George A. Willis csc, sasc
Joseph Sunday phd JSunday1@CreativeAffinities.com SECRETARY Antonin Lhotsky csc, alhotsky@gmail.com MEMBERSHIP CHAIR Phil Earnshaw csc, philyn@sympatico.ca EDUCATION CO-CHAIRS D. Gregor Hagey csc, gregor@dghagey.com Dylan Macleod csc, dmacleod@sympatico.ca PUBLIC RELATIONS CHAIR Bruce Marshall, brucemarshall@sympatico.ca DIRECTORS EX-OFFICIO Jeremy Benning csc, jbenning@me.com Bruno Philip csc, bphilipcsc@gmail.com Brendan Steacy csc, brendansteacy@gmail.com Carolyn Wong, CarolynWong50@gmail.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF George Willis csc, sasc EDITOR EMERITUS Donald Angus EXECUTIVE OFFICER Susan Saranchuk, admin@csc.ca EDITOR Fanen Chiahemen, editor@csc.ca COPY EDITOR Karen Longland ART DIRECTION Berkeley Stat House WEBSITE www.csc.ca ADVERTISING SALES Guido Kondruss, gkondruss@rogers.com
OFFICE / MEMBERSHIP / SUBSCRIPTIONS 131–3007 Kingston Road Toronto, Canada M1M 1P1 Tel: 416-266-0591; Fax: 416-266-3996 Email: admin@csc.ca, subscription@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.
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2 • Canadian Cinematographer - October 2015
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recent posting on the CSC Facebook page caught my eye. It dealt with the “new thinking,” an expectation that many DPs supply their own personal camera equipment without charging for it. To me, this is a very contentious issue. Personally, I find this presumptuous and decidedly unprofessional. Here’s why. Apart from the obvious reason of remuneration, this request for a DP to provide camera equipment is playing on the sentiments of the individual, who is usually interested in building their reel. Most of us have been in this kind of position, where potential work has been dangled over our heads and we find ourselves in a compromising situation of whether to accept what might be a great creative opportunity. However, the situation in today’s market is vastly different than what is now commonly referred to as “old school.” Back then, we too did more than our fair share of favours and freebies. So what really is the difference between then and now? For one thing, back in the day, very few DPs could afford their own professional camera equipment, and as a result, it was our talent and expertise that were in demand. From my various observations and discussions, that sadly is not the case today. Here’s a case in point. Recently I was speaking with a young editor and aspiring DP. He had been asked to help out on various shoots and to supply camera equipment. I find this two-pronged request exploitative. First he has to work for nothing, and then he has to provide the camera equipment, also for nothing. I know this first hand because he has, on occasions, asked to borrow some of my equipment. While I am quite prepared to help him out for his projects or those of a charitable nature, I find it disconcerting that I am subsidizing a company, a producer or a director who is readily willing to take advantage of not only an individual but also of me. I explained to my friend that there is something very important to learn from an experience such as this and that lesson has one word: value. As individuals, we all have value that requires a payment of kind. I’m not talking in a monetary sense, but there is a price attached to value, and it’s called respect. It’s respect for the general process, respect for an individual’s time, respect for a person’s interest, commitment and expertise, and above all, respect for one’s self. There seems to be a trend today in asking more about the camera equipment that one can bring to the shoot, rather than inviting the DP to be a part of the project because of their abilities. I believe that this is largely due to the fact that equipment has become more affordable to everyone. So see President page 28
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SIM Group Ceases Operations in Halifax
Rotolight and Sekonic Collaborate To Break Ground on LED Colour Accuracy Rotolight and Sekonic Corporation recently announced the development of a new advanced on-camera LED system called NEO. Rotolight was able to develop the advanced formulation using the new SEKONIC C-700 SpectroMaster in their phosphor chemistry design process. The C-700 measures, analyzes and reports the true colour temperature and specular characteristics of a given light source including LED, HMI, tungsten, florescent, electronic flash and natural light spectrums. The new system delivers colour rendering results (AccuColour™ LED lighting technology) in the Rotolight ANOVA and the latest NEO LED luminaires.
4 • Canadian Cinematographer - October 2015
SIM Group in late August announced the closure of its Halifax office in the wake of Nova Scotia’s recently altered tax incentive program. In a statement, President and CEO Rob Sim said that in recent years, the company has seen “a decline in local production activity, and the most recent cut of the tax incentive rebates was another blow to our industry,” which has led to “an exodus of companies and individuals.” The company opened its PS Production Services office in 1995 and later added a SIM Digital satellite office in 2005. Sim said the company will continue to support its Nova Scotia customers through its Toronto office.
name, focal length, aspect ratio, and any notes added by the user, which can be saved to a folder or the device’s library. A “Map it” button allows photos to be plotted on a map identifying the exact location where they were taken. Additionally, by clicking the “P” button, users can find contact information for the closest Panavision office anywhere in the world.
American Society of Cinematographers Re-elects Officers The Board of Governors of the American Society of Cinematographers reelected its slate of officers for another term. Continuing to serve in their roles will be Richard Crudo asc, csc as president; Owen Roizman, Kees Van Oostrum and Lowell Peterson as vice presidents; Matthew Leonetti as treasurer; Fred Goodich as secretary; and Isidore Mankofsky as sergeant-atarms. Crudo will serve his sixth term as president. In addition to the last two years, he fulfilled the role from 2003 through 2006.
Panavision Unveils New Version of Panascout App Panavision released a new version of its popular PANASCOUT application, the first application to allow capturing and sharing of images encoded with the crucial metadata needed on location scouts. PANASCOUT is available for free on all mobile devices running iOS, Android and Windows platforms. The new version includes a wide range of intuitive functions and a redesigned user interface. PANASCOUT now offers video capture in PANAFRAME, a framing overlay that displays a choice of aspect ratios from true widescreen 2.40 (anamorphic), to 1.85 (Super 3 5mm), 1.78 (16:9 HD), and 1.33 (4:3), and custom. Metadata automatically incorporates date/time, file
Credit: Douglas Kirkland
IN THE NEWS
Open House Announcement ZTV/HD Source
ASC President Richard Crudo asc, csc
CSC at
2015
CSC congratulates the following members whose films screened at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival GALA PRESENTATIONS Yves Bélanger csc, Demolition (dir. Jean-Marc Vallée) Karim Hussain csc, Beeba Boys (dir. Deepa Mehta) Karim Hussain csc, Hyena Road (dir. Paul Gross) Rene Ohashi csc, asc, Forsaken (dir. Jon Cassar)
(dir. Ryan J. Noth)
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS Yves Bélanger csc, Brooklyn (dir. John Crowley) Steve Cosens csc, Born to Be Blue
Guy Godfree csc, Boxing (dir. Grayson Moore, Aidan Shipley)
D. Gregor Hagey csc, Portal to Hell
(dir. Robert Budreau)
(dir. Vivieno Caldinelli)
Serge Desrosiers csc, Ville-Marie (Guy Édoin) Daniel Grant csc, Into the Forest
Douglas Koch csc, It’s Not You (dir. Don McKellar) Ian Macmillan, Benjamin (Sherren Lee) Cabot McNenly, O Negative (dir. Steven McCarthy) Bobby Shore csc, Boy (dir. Connor Jessup) Brendan Steacy csc, Never Happened
(dir. Patricia Rozema)
André Pienaar csc, Len and Company (dir. Tim Godsall)
CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA Ronald Plante csc, The Kind Words (dir. Shemi Zarhin) Ronald Plante csc, My Internship in Canada (dir. Philippe Falardeau)
PLATFORM Jonathon Cliff csc & Ian Kerr csc, Hurt (dir. Alan Zweig)
Write to Us
www.csc.ca Connect online with the CSC CORRECTION
(dir. Mark Slutsky)
TIFF DOCS Nicholas de Pencier csc, Al Purdy Was Here (dir. Brian D. Johnson)
DISCOVERY Maya Bankovic, The Rainbow Kid (dir. Kire Paputts) James Klopko, Sleeping Giant (dir. Andrew Cividino) Adam Marsden csc, River (dir. Jamie M. Dagg) Bobby Shore csc, Closet Monster (dir. Stephen Dunn) MIDNIGHT MADNESS Dean Cundey csc, asc, The Girl in the Photographs (dir. Nick Simon)
SHORT CUTS Maya Bankovic, World Famous Gopher Hole Museum (dir. Chelsea McMullan, Douglas Nayler) Kris Belchevski csc, Dredger (dir. Phillip Barker) Stephen Chung, Beyond the Horizon,
VANGUARD Thomas Billingsley, No Men Beyond This Point (dir. Mark Sawers)
Norayr Kasper csc, Hellions (dir. Bruce McDonald) WAVELENGTH Bobby Shore csc, Invention (dir. Mark Lewis) CINEMATHEQUE Herbert Alpert csc, asc, The Mask (Eyes of Hell) (dir. Julian Roffman)
OTHER CREDITS J.P. Locherer csc, 2nd Unit DP, Forsaken Cem Ozkilicci, colourist, The Wave, Special Presentations, (dir. Roar Uthaug) Canadian Cinematographer welcomes feedback, comments and questions about the magazine and its contents. Please send your letters to editor@csc.ca. Letters may be edited for clarity and space.
@csc_CDN
In the article “Steve ‘Z’ Makes a Big Move,” published in the September 2015 issue, Canadian Cinematographer stated that Precision Camera was acquired by ZTV. This is incorrect and Canadian Cinematographer regrets the error.
Canadian Cinematographer - October 2015 •
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Keeping Pace with Deluxe Toronto
By GUIDO KONDRUSS
Audio Digital Recording Theatre
Nick Iannelli/VP Operations/ Deluxe Toronto
I
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Project Management
everywhere with breathtaking views of Toronto’s cityscape for creative inspiration. Iannelli says they’ve come to call it “the democracy of light. “Post facilities are traditionally very dark, closed-off spaces,” Iannelli continues. “We’ve built a facility to let in as much light as possible and to connect and see beyond your immediate surroundings. But, hey, you need darkness? We can create that too by just rolling down the blinds. People very much like the choice.” It’s a low-tech perk in a facility that’s brimming with high tech innovation. A very robust and powerful Data Centre has provided Deluxe the key to being an industry leader by offering clients 4K RAW workflow as one of the options in its postproduction editing operation. Their suites can literally handle any resolution from SD to 4K in both 2D and 3D and beyond to 6K IMAX. There are also live-link capabilities between various Deluxe facilities around the world. For instance, a client shooting in Toronto who needs to do colour correction on another film located at Deluxe Los Angeles can
Photos courtesy of Deluxe
t’s been a year since Deluxe Toronto opened its new post facility, and it’s still producing a sense of shock and awe for anyone touring it for the first time. Deluxe has taken over the top three floors of an eight-storey glass and concrete office tower at the edge of Toronto’s trendy Liberty Village and turned it into a technical marvel with a humanist touch. Knowing that they could always build a state-of-the-art post house, Deluxe Toronto wanted something more that would enhance their working lives and be inviting to anyone who walked through their doors. So they went to their employees for direction. After countless meetings and surveys that tackled the technical, logistical and aesthetics, it all seemed to boil down to one question: what would make life richer for you and the client at Deluxe Toronto? “Everyone contributed their ideas,” Nick Iannelli, senior vice president of postproduction and ad services at Deluxe Toronto, says. “From those ideas we created an 80-page manual describing everything and anything, such as risers in the mix theatre to describing the feel of the environment we wanted to create. We gave that to our architects and said, ‘This is our plan!’” It’s a plan that has worked very well for the new Deluxe facility, which seems to be lauded equally by both employees and clients. One of the most striking features of the complex is the light pouring in through the windows that seem to be
Canadian Cinematographer - October 2015 •
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be fully interactive with their L.A. colourist through a link-up with a digital intermediate room or a colour correction suite at Toronto Deluxe. To further enhance their postproduction capabilities, Toronto Deluxe has added a visual FX department as a part of their service. Iannelli says that versatility is the name of the game in modern television and film making. “We don’t try to pigeonhole our clients into working the way we want to work or do what we want to do,” Iannelli says. “We listen to them and come up with solutions that best support their show. Everyone is different, with different demands. One is 4K, one is HD, one’s got ACES, another doesn’t. One’s heavy with visual effects, while another isn’t. Nowadays, a one-size-fits-all approach to postproduction doesn’t work. It’s about customizing solutions that work best for clients.” The technical feature at Deluxe Toronto that arouses the most amazement is its Mix 1. The top of the building was literally torn off and 190 tonnes of concrete and steel were carted away. The ceiling pushed up 34 feet to create a space big enough to simulate a movie theatre to allow accurate and creative sound mixes for feature films. The result is Canada’s largest film mixing stage that can do 5.1, 7.1 or 9.1 with Dolby Atmos and IMAX. It’s tied into a DI theatre that boasts a 4K Barco Post Production Mastering projector. Iannelli says that Mix 1 is captivating. “You walk in while they’re mixing a movie, and all of a sudden you’re sitting down listening and watching. Before
you know it, you’re sucked in,” Iannelli says. “You’re not going anywhere anymore because all else is forgotten in this incredible environment. It’s totally absorbing.” Beyond postproduction, Deluxe Toronto has three other divisions under its wing. Media Services that deals with the storage, management and delivery of content. Then there is a full-service advertising group and a section that deals with content protection. From watermarking DVDs and Blu-rays to dealing with Internet piracy, content protection is the sole domain of Deluxe Toronto that’s not offered at any other Deluxe facility in the world. For more on Deluxe Toronto and its services, please visit their website: bydeluxetoronto.com
Mix 1 – Canada’s largest film mixing stage
Duplication and Distribution
Multi-Format Routing & Conversion
8 • Canadian Cinematographer - October 2015
Editing /colour correction suite
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Credit: Christos Kalohoridis
he drama Hyena Road, actor/ director Paul Gross’ latest feature, examines modern warfare through the prism of Canadian troops in Afghanistan helping to construct a major highway in an effort to increase safe transport across the country. In the film, which had its world premiere at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, the lives of three men in three very different roles intersect amid ongoing conflict. Gross wrote, directed and stars in the film, as he did in his last war drama Passchendaele, but Hyena Road takes a significantly different tonal and visual approach, according to director of photography Karim Hussain csc. One of the first Canadian films to employ the ALEXA AMIRA, Hyena Road, was shot in two contrasting environments – Jordan and Canadian Forces Base Shilo in Manitoba. Hussain takes Canadian Cinematographer behind the scenes of Hyena Road.
DP Karim Hussain csc
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KARIM HUSSAIN csc
Lenses Paul Gross’ Second War Epic Canadian Cinematographer: What was the stylistic approach to this film, especially in contrast to Passchendaele? Karim Hussain csc: Hyena Road is set in Afghanistan around 2008 and Paul wanted to bring a slightly rawer edge to it. So it’s a completely different kind of feeling in that the majority of the movie is shot handheld and with a very freeform camera. It’s a much different picture from the classic romanticism that Passchendaele has. Prior to shooting, Paul had gone to Afghanistan with two cinematographers, Johnny Askwith and Dale Hildebrand, and they shot a whole bunch of documentary footage, and based on that footage, Paul then formulated a screenplay for Hyena Road and structured a fiction film around that footage. It was sort of like putting together a strange jigsaw puzzle where we were wrapping some fictional footage around pre-existing stuff that was there. They didn’t even know when they shot it that this footage would be used for anything. It was mostly just research footage. CC: How was the documentary footage incorporated into the film? KH: It started off with Paul showing me the footage, and then we got Arvinder Grewal, our production designer, involved and it was a really close collaboration between the three of us to figure out what to integrate in terms of stylistic concepts to match this footage and make it grow and build upon it. It was a really difficult movie to finance; there were lots of starts and stops for a good three years, so we were able to sit down with Paul and shot list the entire movie a couple of years prior to shooting the fiction. We very meticulously went through the mise-en-scène concepts knowing that we would have this documentary footage to cut around – what makes sense, how would the camera technique help tell the drama within the screenplay as opposed to just being some stylistic ruse. It was important to us that the visual content reflect the actual content of the movie and not just be a bunch of pretty pictures. The idea was to basically bring a kind of Vietnam War aesthetic to an Afghan war movie and to bring back the guerrilla, you-are-there intensity you would see in a documentary like Hearts and Minds or something of that ilk. CC: What cameras were used primarily on this film?
By FANEN CHIAHEMEN
KH: The documentary footage was shot on various camera formats, basically on early RED ONE cameras. And Paul shot some stuff on EX3s and some stuff on a GoPro 1. And they were using softer lenses because that’s what was available. Then when approaching the movie, I didn’t want to shoot the picture on the RED because I knew half of the movie would be shot in Shilo, Manitoba, on a military base, and half would be shot in a desert outside of Aqaba, Jordan, so the cameras would have to be very robust and be able to handle these kinds of conditions. We were lucky ARRI had just come out with the AMIRA when the movie was finally ready to go into production, and this ended up being one of first Canadian movies to completely use the AMIRAs as principal cameras. That camera is stunning; it’s amazing and has the latitude, flexibility and durability not only to handle tough conditions but also the latitude to shoot in this very free manner where the actors wouldn’t necessarily be perfectly hitting their marks or be in the perfect light. The AMIRA is a better camera for handheld. It is much better balanced; the viewfinder is way better than the ALEXA viewfinder. But there are a few things you have to take into consideration as well. When you have a short zoom attached to the AMIRA, you have hot-swap batteries on the back so you don’t lose power, and all the accessories, the Preston remote focus, all of those things, it ends up being very heavy and cumbersome, almost as much as the ALEXA, but it’s a much more modern camera and it has much better processing internally. CC: How did that impact the handheld shooting? KH: The handheld was greatly facilitated by the fact that we used the Easyrig. You can pretty much run all day that way. It was not for the faint of heart; the crew had to be really tough. But the intensity and remoteness of those locations adds an incredible amount of truth to the movie. We had sequences, like one towards the end of the picture, where we would start on one end of the field in the middle of this desert and end up on the other end, and we would shoot the sequences in long, long takes, and we had squibs going off everywhere, gunfire everywhere, no exact pre-set plan, other than the actors will go from point A to point B, so it ended up being almost like being plunged in the middle of a real war zone. And I was one of the operators, with Johnny Askwith and Dale Hildebrand, who shot the original documentary footage. We also had a Canadian Cinematographer - October 2015 •
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to a belt that would move 360 degrees around a performer so the person can walk or run while the camera is seeing 360 degrees around them. The rig was great, and because we had to put a lighter-weight camera on there, we used a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera for it. Also, although most of it was done handheld, there were some scenes done on a dolly and we used a lot of zooms. CC: What was your lens package? KH: The Fujinon 19-90 mm was our main one. We also used, for some wider lens sequences, the Fujinon 14-35 mm Cabrio sometimes putting a doubler on, sometimes not. And we had an Angénieux Optimo 28-340 mm for our longer lens work, again sometimes using doublers, but always using a heavy amount of Tiffen Digital Diffusion Filters. I think DDFX 2 was our main diffusion on there to match with the softness of the lenses that they used in the documentary footage, and it ended up cutting really rather well.
Credit: Ken Woroner
CC: How did you approach the lighting in Jordan?
DP Karim Hussain csc goes to great heights to get a shot.
Canon C500, which intercuts really well with the AMIRA and we could go into smaller areas and capture those angles where with a more cumbersome rig it would be more difficult to do. And also we used one very unusual camera rig that was built specifically for the movie. It was sort of inspired by a camera rig done in a 1983 Austrian movie called Angst. The basic concept of it is a body camera on an actor but attached
KH: The crew in Jordan had their way of working which was not necessarily similar to the rush and hurriedness we were used to. I realized very quickly that any time a light had to go up it could take a really long time. So I ended up having to rely more and more on natural light. Also, I realized that because of the power distribution there, certain lights did not always have the same output. So again, we adapted by being more reliant on the natural elements, like the sun position and things like that instead of trying to put movie lights on cranes. And thankfully we had enough good luck with the weather. But lighting in the desert was a very difficult thing to do. We had to calculate very meticulously and precisely where the sun would be and at what hour. We adapted very
Working on Hyena Road led Hussain not only to Jordan and Manitoba but also to his next project – which also had a world premiere at the 40th Toronto International Film Festival – director Deepa Mehta’s gangster-themed feature film Beeba Boys.
If Looks Could Kill “Paul is a friend of Deepa Mehta and her producer husband David Hamilton, so based on the extensive prep work I did with him, he recommended me for Beeba Boys,” Hussain says. Gross performs in the stylish drama which features Randeep Hooda as Jeet Johar, an obedient Sikh who commands a ruthless Punjabi gang with ambitions of taking over the
Vancouver drug and arms scene. There is an element of reality in the storytelling. “As for Bindy Johal, the movie isn’t based on anyone specifically and is quite stylish in its own right. It takes many creative decisions that are inspired by real events but not really reflective of their true details,” Hussain says. “Something I always do with my direc-
12 • Canadian Cinematographer - October 2015
By Trevor Hogg Special to Canadian Cinematographer tors, once we discuss the basic ideas of the visual approach to a picture, is to sit down with them and look at multiple clips from movies,” the DP explains. “Not to try and copy them at all, but more to set up a mutual language of what we like or don’t like for the picture.” Storyboards and previs do not determine the camera positions. “Deepa is a director who likes
quickly to that and made all our days even when a rain storm in the mountains showed up. There wasn’t one day when we were behind. I do have to give both crews much credit for being able to get that accomplished. We did more movie lighting at night, but calculated the set-up times to make it work. CC: How did the gear handle the desert elements?
CC: What were some of the other characteristics of shooting in Jordan? KH: We quickly realized that if we set up a video village in the more traditional way, it would be extremely difficult. So even though the Canadian portion of the movie was shot in a more traditional way with a video village and two or three monitors going at the same time, the Jordanian part was almost a more old-school style of filmmaking where the director was always near the camera but didn’t always have his eye on it. It’s a very robust, physical style of filmmaking that isn’t for the faint of heart. Paul just basically had a wireless handheld monitor, and he would look at every take in playback to make sure that we had the shots. But every culture is different and you have to adapt to it. You’re not going to impose your culture onto another culture. And if you try, you’re making a
the action and geography to be dictated by the actor’s movements so you could be looking anywhere on a set at any time.” Extensive cast rehearsals were held before commencing principal photography which took place throughout Ontario and Vancouver. “We felt that since these characters are constantly in movement as they are trying to infiltrate another culture through crime, while maintaining and remaining proud of their traditional voices and colours, the Steadicam and an almost operatic, swaying approach to the mise-en-scène would be appropriate. We were lucky enough to have as our Steadicam/A operator [Toronto-based associate CSC] Yoann Malnati, who is a young and strong
Credit: Ken Woroner
KH: The elements were definitely a challenge. One of the massive challenges was trying to keep the sand out of the cameras, and we were shooting in very rough locations. The AMIRA handled the elements in the desert extremely well. They do have closed electronics, so even though there are fans on either side, the dust never really got into the electronics and caused havoc. We had the usual desert problems like the occasional piece of sand in a lens but nothing major. It was more trying to fit those challenging extreme days into short sunlight hours.
Hyena Road focuses on Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
huge mistake. Anytime you go into another country to shoot, you have to respect that country and respect what they’re doing and their customs. I’m sure the Jordanian crew because of this cultural difference were also occasionally very frustrated with us. It’s a two-way street anytime you go to a different country. CC: Can you talk about the location in Manitoba? KH: It was a military base that had a forward operating base on it for training troops that have to go into Afghanistan or other Middle Eastern countries with similar forward
operator from France, but also a passionate cinephile which is something sorely missing from many people working in movies. “We used an ARRI ALEXA XR, shooting between 2K Pro Res or Arri Raw, depending on the scene, shooting spherically and framing for 2:39,” Hussain reveals. “We used Cooke S4 Primes, an Angénieux 28-340 zoom and a Fujinon 19-90 zoom.” A deeper depth-of-field was utilized to expose how the big-screen characters are integrated into their surroundings. “The cameras and lenses came from SIM Digital, lighting and grip from PS Production Services. For lighting, LED lights were extensively used, including AAdynTech’s high-output Punch Lite and Jab Lite. They’re a bit green, so
you definitely have to gel them with minusgreen. We extensively used CELEB 200s for the close-ups, usually with double grid cloth directly on the unit for space reasons and Arri’s M series of HMIs for kicks through windows. We also used 18K Silver Bullets and Arri T12s plus Par Cans kicking off trees for the night exteriors. We chose to light most of the urban night exteriors with a white light look instead of sodium or mercury vapour to not cancel out the colours in the costumes, though for the climax we went more blue and cyan to match the practicals on location. “We mostly stuck to the ALEXA, recording internally to the XR drives, though in certain scenes a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema
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Credit: Christos Kalohoridis
KH: It was definitely a challenge to make it feel hot and warm, but contrary to the constraints I had in Jordan, I was able to have a lift with 18Ks that I could use to cheat the direction of sun. And we were lucky that even though it might have technically felt cold, the sun was rather good, and with our digital imaging technician Ryan McGregor, we were able to do a lookup table that matched as closely as possible to the Jordanian footage on set. Jim Fleming, our DI colourist did a fantastic job in the final grade at Technicolor Toronto, working on the contrast and the colour temperatures to be able to match it. So it was a lot of overexposing of the images and knocking them down and pushing the contrast to blow off the highlights a little bit in Manitoba to give that hot feeling. And because I had the luxury of being able to use HMIs outside as well, we were able to cheat it up a little bit. And the decision was to blow out the skies in both countries so you’d always have a blown-out, high-contrast sky and we could go with a warmer look for both countries so the audience feels like they’re in the same world. CC: Other than HMIs, what other lights were you using in Manitoba?
operating bases. We had the total cooperation of the Canadian army, and they were amazing to us; I mean, they gave us such help, and there’s so much production value to the movie because it’s basically their story. Arvinder, our production designer, really built an amazing forward operating base in the exteriors so that certain soldiers who were there couldn’t believe it. They were really impressed by it. CC: The scenes you were shooting in Manitoba were still supposed to be taking place at a military base in Afghanistan. How did you match it with the Jordanian footage?
Camera was used as a crash cam, much like you would use an Eyemo in the film days,” remarks Hussain who modified the lighting style to accommodate the radical colour palette of blues, oranges, reds and pinks, which are associated with Sikh religion. “Because the camera movement, costumes and design were so operatic and grandiose, the lighting had to be more naturalistic to keep this visual onslaught grounded in reality. Also, since the camera movement in nearly every scene was so elaborate, multiple floor units were not possible, so the style of the lighting dictated itself by those shots. The biggest challenge was to avoid camera shadows and reflections with the camera flying around everywhere as it was.
KH: It was a pretty HMI-heavy package, a lot of 200s and 400s. I love the Celeb lights. We also shot with LED Pars made by this company called AAdynTech that PS Production Services, who were serving the picture, had gotten. You just plug them into the wall and they have at least the power of a 1.2 HMI if not more. So that was an incredible tool that we used. It’s called a Punch light. Also, we used light Panels and brick lights. We were also using quite a few of the ARRI M series of HMIs, M40s and M18s, which are absolutely stunning lights that really helped us out. The M18s are 1.8K but their light levels almost reach that of a 4K HMI Fresnel, so they were a lifesaver in certain situations.
“Probably the biggest challenge was having such a fluid approach to the filming, where Deepa would get inspired on the spot or the night before a scene would happen, change some elements and then we would adapt to it,” Hussain notes. “But I don’t consider that a real challenge. I consider that fun. I like for things to be alive and for the material to react to what the movie wants to be.” A last-minute shift in locations resulted in some dramatic visuals. “We were supposed to shoot some sequences on the Vancouver SkyTrain, but Deepa decided she wanted to film them in the Vancouver Aquarium with beluga whales in the background. It ended up being
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some of the coolest imagery in the movie, way more interesting than a banal train,” Hussain recalls. Gangster movies are nothing new with The Godfather (1972) and Goodfellas (1990) considered amongst the best of the cinematic genre; however, Hussain believes that Mehta has crafted something unique. “What will separate Beeba Boys is the Sikh culture and the radical style Deepa chose,” he says. “It’s different from all her other films, but is still very much a Deepa Mehta movie; she’s an artist that had the guts to really switch things up instead of repeating herself, which is really admirable for someone of her stature and background.”
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Basic Human Needs Layton Burton Responds to the Call Following Film Tax Credit Cut
I
By FANEN CHIAHEMEN
Credit: Cindee Klaudeman
n 2012, the Saskatchewan government eliminated the province’s film tax credit – a program that had been the main vehicle for boosting film production volume in the province exponentially since the late 1990s, helped generate tens of millions of dollars in economic activity annually, and facilitated the production of globally recognized films and television shows, from the indigenous to the international. The cut essentially killed off a vibrant industry, but the government said the move was necessary to balance the province’s budget without raising taxes. When the Saskatchewan Film Employment Tax Credit was eliminated, the effect on the industry was instantaneous and dramatic, with many in the industry leaving the province within months (Editor’s note: see “An Industry in Crisis,” Canadian Cinematographer, February 2013). “I think once the tax credit was killed we were all in shock,” Layton Burton, an associate CSC and 30-year veteran of the Saskatchewan film industry, says. “We hadn’t been told about any plans to scrap the credit, and I think, generally, when governments are getting ready to eliminate something – a department or whatever – in a provincial budget, they let people know, ‘Okay, you guys need to slim down or find a new way.’ And we weren’t given that opportunity; we were just cut. We were there one day gone the next.” According to Burton, after about a year of shock and anger over losing their livelihoods, veteran filmmakers like himself who remained in the province had to figure out what they
Layton Burton (left) helps prep a scene.
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were going to do about it, and they came to an almost unanimous decision – if they were going to stay in the province, they would commit themselves to imparting their knowledge to younger filmmakers, ensuring that the next generation is instilled with the skills to maintain high standards of film production in the province. “We’re lucky enough to have a university here with a well-respected film program, and they reached out to us and we responded in kind,” Burton says. For example, he and his colleagues – like camera operator Todd Irving– still give workshops at the University of Regina. “We have a really nice working relationship with the students there. Whenever there is something happening in the province film-wise, whether it’s commercials or documentaries, we always try to get students involved to give them an idea of what film can be,” he says. Occasionally, veterans like Burton also contribute by working on projects by that new generation of Saskatchewan filmmakers, as Burton did when he was approached by University of Regina graduate Matt Yim to shoot his first feature. Burton says he was immediately attracted to Yim’s script for Basic Human Needs, a personal story with a distinctly local flavour. It focuses on two recent university graduates, Miles and Audrey (played by Yim and Laura Abramsen), who, despite being smart and very much in love, shift aimlessly between their work and friends in Regina, while making vague plans to move cross-country to a larger city with more prospects. They are forced to grow up quickly, though, when the events of one life-changing week yank them out of their inertia. “It was probably the nicest, most earnest script I’d ever read, and I could tell right away there was something so genuine about the characters and the treatment of the characters and the way Matt Yim had written them.” Yim says he was influenced by the films of François Truffaut and Yasujirō Ozu, in particular the Ozu comedy Good Morning, films that “were less plot-driven and were about the relationships between people.” With 24 days and a $10,000 budget, Burton and the crew set out to help achieve Yim’s vision of an image that was naturalistic and warm, that would “make anyone watching it feel like they were watching someone in their family, someone they were close to,” Burton says. “It was important to try not to make the film in any way, shape or form feel cold or hard – that these were two people who were in love and at a crossroads and having to make life-
altering decisions and determined to make them together. Matt wanted the tone of the film to carry that.” The production secured a RED ONE MX package from Saskatoon-based DP and associate CSC George Hupka, who provided his equipment “in the spirit of trying to make a film in Saskatchewan right now,” Burton says. “There seemed to be a lot of people with materials and with the time, who were willing to put those tangible and intangible things out for people to use and not necessarily get anything back in a monetary sense.” The flexibility of the RED camera was suitable for a film of this size because Burton could craft the look Yim wanted, shooting at 800 ASA, without the need for much light, and the camera would give him “enough play in colour timing and grading” that he could apply the look afterwards if he exposed properly on the day, he says. Although the production was given a small rental credit at William F. White, getting access to the gear proved problematic in the vacuum left by the death of the film tax credit. “The Whites outlet we had in Regina had left town because there was no work, so we needed to find a way to access lights from Whites without incurring transportation costs,” Burton explains. While they got a good deal on lighting rentals from William F. White in Winnipeg, shipping the lights to Regina would have eaten into the production’s budget. “That was yet another hurdle for us to get ourselves over,” Burton says. “What ended up happening is Matt and [co-producer] Allan Roeher took Allen’s father’s skidoo trailer, drove to Winnipeg, picked up the lights and drove back the same day, because there was no money to feed themselves or stay overnight. That just illustrates the commitment these guys had to making this film and making it in Saskatchewan.” In every location – carefully selected over two weeks in pre-production – Burton and his team used existing practicals with some sort of cinema light added from their small package, consisting of some 2’ Kino Flos, four 1.2 HMIs, as well as two kits of ARRI tungsten Fresnels. “I’m a big fan of mixing light because I think it’s quite natural,” the cinematographer says. For example, in one of the scenes observing Miles’ intimate moments in his bedroom with his girlfriend, although the table lamp beside the bed was playing as a fixture, Burton would supplement it with something soft and bounced and with a mixed colour in background, such as a three-quarter backlight or a sidelight. In one scene, Miles, a budding reporter, is transcribing an interview, and while the actor’s computer screen is lighting the action, Burton used a mini Kino Flo – provided by a crewmember who was a lamp operator for a television show in Alberta – as added illumination. Burton notes that he would often rely on the crew’s personal gear during the Basic Human Needs shoot in order to stay within the bud-
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Canadian Cinematographer - October 2015 •
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get. “I would look around between the crew and cast and say, ‘What do you have at home? Do you own any fixtures?’ Because a lot of people that worked on the film as technicians are filmmakers in their own right, and filmmakers tend to buy little things here and there, and without that kind of cooperation we couldn’t have made the film,” he says. One of the most daunting scenes for Burton to light was a scene in which the couple attend Audrey’s sister’s high school graduation dance, shot in a ballroom at Regina’s DoubleTree Hotel. “We had to take every light out of the truck we had,” Burton recalls. “We had hired a real DJ, and he came with some of his own lights. We shot his first scene, and then he had to go because he had a regular day job, so I asked if I was careful could I keep his effects lights. And so every time you see a camera change or a background change, myself and my crew were moving those effects lights and the cinema lights, scene to scene. So the day started at 7 a.m. and wrapped
Lead actors Laura Abramsen and Matthew Yim prepare to
Credit: Cindee Klaudeman
shoot a scene.
around midnight. It was a daunting experience because we didn’t have the resources on set to keep people motivated to work. And we didn’t have the resources to leapfrog from one setup to next, and we only had so much time.” Daytime exteriors were less complicated, with the main challenge being trying to soften harsh sunlight when possible. For walk-and-talk scenes, Burton would have three crew members walking with a 6x6 Butterfly next to the actors to shield them, especially the very fair skinned lead actress. “I was always very conscious of trying to keep the hot sun off her skin, so it was literally a group of people, an entourage, following the lead actress around with a 6x6 silk to keep her almost translucent skin out of the hot sun,” he says. Fortunately, the city of Regina was “very accommodating to film crews,” Burton says. “We had wonderful cooperation from the city administration, and we had a wonderful
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relationship with the city police, who would send a cruiser to where we were to make sure we weren’t hassled, because we were shooting around bars and restaurants, and also to keep us safe. This is why I love working and shooting in Saskatchewan, because it’s still a big deal to make a movie here whether it’s for $10,000 or $10 million.” That enthusiasm could be evidenced in the unique approach to dailies on the Basic Human Needs shoot, Burton says. Roeher was stationed in an equipment trailer with crewmembers handing him chips throughout the day and he would download the footage into his iMac so the crew could watch dailies at the end of the day. Where most productions would normally send footage off to a post house and get dailies the next morning, “we just had poor Allen standing in the trailer for 12 hours a day just downloading footage, marking scenes, day in and day out,” Burton says. He notes that on days off Roeher would “send me proxies of each scene that I could go through and make sure that I was getting the right tone with Matt. We didn’t have money or wherewithal for a DIT, so I would shoot in RAW and he would have to look in the LUT we’d created, but that LUT didn’t always match what he had in his mind’s eye. So he had to have some leaps of faith for myself and my focus puller Todd Irving.” Meanwhile, postproduction was donated by Regina-based Java Post Production. “Their main colourist, Jack Tunnicliffe, made sure he made time for us and that he was getting the look we wanted. I was really happy with Java Post and the commitment they made to the film. I think it hearkens back to the whole spirit of Saskatchewan,” Burton says. “When we were busy, Java Post were busy, and they just want to be busy again, so they’re always looking to make sure they give back and end up educating people coming up in the industry.” As for Saskatchewan’s screen industry, Burton says it’s “staring to come around now but almost at a snail’s pace.” He adds, “We have a provincial election coming up in 2016, so I guess some of us are waiting for that other shoe to drop – are they going to make a concerted effort if they’re elected again to bring us back, or are they giving us a line until they’re elected again and then turn their backs on us once again? We don’t know. It’s kind of a question mark for us all right now. It’s not working the way it is now. We know that, they know that, and I think there is an effort by some in government to try to bring us back and get us back to work, but it’s a long and painful process.” For now Burton and his colleagues are committed to giving back through their engagement with up-and-coming filmmakers, even those who are planning to leave the province. (In an interview for this article, Yim himself said he was preparing to relocate to Toronto within the month). “Even if they don’t stay in Saskatchewan, we really want these young filmmakers to have a sense of how to make films and take that with them wherever they go,” Burton says.
Canadian Cinematographer - October 2015 •
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Credit: Alex Mead
TECH COLUMN
C
“
inema,” famed filmmaker JeanLuc Godard is credited with opining, “is the most beautiful fraud in the world.”
3D PRINTING Makes the Unreal Real A “gold-plated” version of the James Bond’s classic 1964 Aston Martin DB5 prop made from 18 3DP parts sold at Christie’s.
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Indeed, cinematography sometimes seems to be about making the unreal seem real and the real seem unreal, blurring the lines between truth and deception in telling a story. Lighting, lenses and framing dance with scripts, actors, movement and vision but let us not forget the other elements in the scene, the costumes and the locations. Of course, these days everything done in the flesh can be done artificially. Mechanical sharks, CGI-created terminators and green screens have all made the impossible possible, the unreal real. Toronto has a proud legacy of digital
effects, stretching back to Alias Research in 1983, which later became Alias Wavefront before being merged into Autodesk in 2006. Maya, its 3D modelling software, was state of the art when it launched in 1998, winning an Oscar for scientific and technological achievement in 2003. The digital art behind the art of cinematography continues to evolve: 3D printing, also called additive manufacturing, is now another option for producers and cinematographers alike. The former like it because they can reduce production costs in some cases, and the latter are thrilled because real props and real costumes allow greater latitude in the moment rather than having to be locked into what was decided months ago on a storyboard and fed into a computer. Traditionally, models would be made by hand and then go through iterations before final approval for filming. That’s expensive. With large objects it is even more expensive. 3DP objects, be they props, costumes or parts of a set, can be created in miniature, tweaked and then approved for large-scale production.
recovered. As he tells it, his collaborator had an epiphany around 3D during the prep work. “We had the bell out of the seawater and we had it for five hours to scan, and we were working with Lions Gate, which was making a documentary of the recovery,” he said. “We didn’t want to say we were making a 3D model. It was so much more. We saw it as a portrait. We used photogrammetry, which maps the surface in 3D, and then photographed it at 15 frames a second. The software then assembled the data to make the objects. As my partner Ed Burtynsky pointed out, this is really photography 3.0. If film and chemical was 1.0 and digital was 2.0. This is the next form.” As he notes, 3DP has gained traction because it’s a perfect convergence of materials, technology and software. Whereas Maya, the state of the art 3D software in 1998, required massive processing power at the time and huge storage, today, power and memory are cheap, and basic 3D design software comes free. Metals can be sintered with lasers, objects can be extracted from liquid pools, plastics, gypsum, even chocolate can be 3D printed. The unreal has become reality.
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Ian Harvey is a Toronto-based journalist who writes for a variety of publications and covers the technology sector. He welco mes feedback and eagerly solicits ideas at ian@pitbullmedia.ca
Credit: Courtesy of Rapid Prototyping
They’re also uncannily real. When James Bond’s classic 1964 Aston Martin DB5 was blown up and simultaneously shot to pieces at the end of Skyfall, more than a few of us gearheads winced and many cried out in pain. Later, to our collective relief, we discovered the prop was one of three 1:36 scale models made from 18 3DP parts. Good job, too, since one of the 1,021 real DB5s made between 1963 and 1965 are worth a lot more; the original Goldfinger DB5 is worth US$2.6 million. Incidentally, a “gold-plated” version recently sold for US$99,041 at a Christie’s auction house as a charity fundraiser. Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man 2 and 3, even Zero Dark Thirty, in which the night vision goggles were actually 3DP models, and The Hobbit are among the big titles with 3DP credits. On a more theoretical and creative level, as David Didur, design director and co-founder at Think2thing, a Toronto-based 3D modeling studio, notes, there are some really creative advantages to having real objects in hand to shoot. “I was listening to Jason Lopes of Legacy Effects who worked on Iron Man and he talked about the tyranny of CGI; how it has to all be planned out,” said Didur, who was involved earlier this year in scanning and creating a 3D sculpture of the bell from the Franklin expedition’s Erebus that was recently
Miniature human face models made through 3D printing.
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Othello Ubalde Goes Into The Interior By CHARLOTTE EMPEY, SPECIAL TO
CANADIAN CINEMATOGRAPHER
J
ames is tired of his life – his dead-end job in Toronto, his no-account boss, his go-nowhere girlfriend. A confrontation with the boss and a distressing medical diagnosis leads to a decision to leave The Big Smoke and find some peace. He flees to the remote British Columbia interior, ostensibly running from his life, but in reality, running from himself. Once in the woods, he discovers that he is not alone. Someone is following him. And he begins his slide down the rabbit hole. The Interior, director Trevor Juras’ first feature-length film, is the story of one man’s descent into madness. Shot in Toronto and in the beautiful, otherworldly forest of Salt
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Spring Island off the coast of British Columbia, the film starts out as a dark comedy and slowly morphs into a psychological thriller. James’ breakdown drives the narrative, and his unravelling is spookily captured by the film’s look and feel. “Trevor was clear about what he wanted,” director of photography Othello Ubalde explains. “And that was to invite the audience into James’ reality, to experience his unravelling through lighting and composition.” Exploring James in the first act, Ubalde was charged with shooting from the audience’s point of view, to create a level of intimacy between the audience and the actor. “I shot primarily
handheld medium to medium-wide,” Ubalde says, “to create the sense that the viewer was in the room watching James begin to fall apart. I used dynamic handheld shots when the actors moved. Where possible, we shot long takes to engage the audience in the tension James was feeling in that particular moment. I used mostly a 35 mm or 50 mm to create the scene from the perspective of the human eye. I shot with a RED cam for a clean digital look. The colour leans closer to the warmer side, which underscored the dark comedy tone. And I used a Schneider Xenon FF-Prime lens – it offers less contrast – which captured the dark comedy vibe Trevor was after. “I used natural light wherever possible to support the voyeuristic feel. If I had to use additional lighting such as the Hexolux D7 or the Fenix flashlight, I wanted the outcome to feel as if there is no lighting at all. “From a compositional standpoint, we were well aware of what was in the frame. We were after certain textures that would help set the mood. For example, dense fog in the back-
ground when James was wandering through the woods.” Films conventionally use dialogue and action to explore the characters and move the plot forward. Once James arrives in the woods, The Interior becomes a one-man play – the narrative depends on the audience getting inside James’ head and eavesdropping on his internal conversation. “We tried to achieve a real-life feel and only augment the lighting where it was critical for effect,” Ubalde says. “The goal was to suspend the viewers’ belief, to fully engage them in the story. And that meant it needed to look real, not manufactured or manipulated.” The film’s first act is essentially a dark comedy that takes a tonal turn, and the aesthetic had to follow suit, moving from softer, less contrast to colder, higher contrast. “I needed portable, lightweight support gear I could break down easily,” Ubalde explains. “And with no electricity or a generator for the night scenes, I needed a light fixture and high-output flashlight.”
Director Trevor Juras wanted to show how vast the forest is to underscore James’ isolation.
Canadian Cinematographer - October 2015 •
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The solution: a Hexolux D7 Fresnel LED light that could run off a V-Mount battery, Fenix flashlight (they throw a 700-meter beam) and a Panasonic GH4. “This camera was perfect for what I needed,” says Ubalde. “It’s lightweight and compact, easy to transport, has excellent battery life, is very robust and is weather sealed. And most importantly, it has excellent dynamic range, which captured high-contrast images very well.” The camera’s only shortcoming: out of the box, the GH4 low-light settings were not good enough for the quality images Ubalde wanted. “I discovered a Panasonic GH4 how-to video on Vimeo, used this to tweak the settings, and did tons of testing in pre-pro,” Ubalde says. “It was great.” For camera stabilization, Ubalde used the DJI Ronin 3-Axis Brushless Gimbal for the long tracking shots through the forest. For the handheld rig, he used one made from Redrock Micro. As James’ paranoia grows, the tension mounts. When James scrambles out of his tent to see who is stalking him, Ubalde started with a medium shot inside the tent, then moved outside for an over-the-shoulder, then moved to a wide shot. “The scene was intended to create suspense without payoff,” Ubalde says. “So I wanted to film in one long take. We could have had cuts, but we wanted to keep the tension high. I stripped the handheld rig down to two handles and no shoulder pad, which allowed me to start shooting inside the tent, move quickly to an over-the-shoulder shot and then move to a wide as James left the tent and walked into the woods, the camera following the movement of James’ flashlight’s centre beam.” Juras wanted to show how vast the forest is to underscore
James’ isolation – internally and in reality. In a number of scenes the forest becomes the co-star, so Ubalde often shot in a poetic manner, treating the ‘set’ as if it were a character. “In the scene where James walks through the forest, I used a wide-angle lens on the Ronin gimbal for a stable shot and a Tokina lens – it has a short hyper-focal distance – to keep James in focus as he walks. We waited for the right weather conditions to shoot this scene; we wanted dense fog to add texture. It was difficult to track James while maintaining the framing continuity. I counted the paces and made mental notes of potential obstacles. For example, if the ground was uneven at pace seven, I knew I needed to step a little higher.” Recognizing the film starts as dark comedy and becomes a psychological thriller, Juras included a scene where James breaks into a cabin, takes a shower, and then writes a thank you note to the cabin owners while he enjoys a glass of wine. “This scene had comedic overtones, so lighting was much less dramatic,” Ubalde says. “The kitchen had big windows and a skylight so lots of natural light filled the room. This scene was also a nod to Werner Herzog, and one of his courses Trevor attended, where Werner suggested that every filmmaker should learn the art of lock picking.” (roguefilmschool.com) Camera movement was motivated by each scene’s action – a locked-off shot to provide the audience’s point-of-view; a handheld shot to give the scene more energy and make the action feel more frantic. “There’s a dream sequence where James is being chased through the forest,” Ubalde says. “Trevor wanted a more stylized shot to show James’ building fear as he runs. I placed a Hexolux D7 camera on the left and shot using a handheld rig to make it feel as if you’re right there with him, experiencing the tension. I shot at 96 frames per second and slowed it down to 24 frames per second in postproduction to build suspense.
What I Learned from the
CSC Lighting Workshop
I
had the privilege of taking the CSC Professional Lighting Workshop with Carlos Esteves csc in April 2014. One of the first things he said to us when opening the course was, “Develop your vision.” I think about that often while working on projects. I suppose I thought that he would get straight into the nitty-gritty of cameras and lighting etc, but he first made sure to spend time stressing the importance of having a vision or an idea of how you could make your mark as a unique individual in the cinematography profession. When discussing upcoming projects with people that are considering using my services, they like
to ask questions like, “What’s your style?” I don’t have, nor do I believe in having a specific style, because I believe it’s my responsibility as a cinematographer to be versatile enough to help my client achieve their vision. I certainly have sensibilities and preferences (naturalistic lighting, motivated camera movement etc), but on production day I take pride in being flexible. I believe that cinematography is intended to serve the director’s vision. At the end of 2014 and into 2015, I had the pleasure of working with director Trevor Juras on his feature length film called The Interior. The film recently premiered at the Fantasia
24 • Canadian Cinematographer - October 2015
by Othello Ubalde, associate csc
International Film Festival in Montreal, and it was just announced that it will be screening at the Saskatoon Fantastic Film Fest in October, and hopefully some more festivals by the end of the year. Working on The Interior was an opportunity for me to apply my knowledge and understanding gained from the lighting workshop as well as other experiences I’ve had. What made this a challenging shoot was that most of the film takes place in the forested area of Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. The first challenge was that I was unable to view the locations ahead of time. We arrived from Toronto the day before we started shooting.
“I lit only one side of his face and let the other side fall into complete darkness. I used a couple of Fenix flashlights, handheld from behind, giving James some edge light to pull him out of the dark background and make him the focus of the shot.” Light was integral to capturing James’ break with reality, and when you’re committed to shooting with natural light (and a limited budget) you don’t have the luxury of do-overs. “Trevor wanted a scene that showed how thin James’ soul had become,” Ubalde explains. “I waited till dusk. There was just enough light to read James’ face. He tilts down his head, his face goes into darkness, and you feel the black chasm of his loneliness.” Ubalde created poetic images to illustrate the juxtaposition of the forest’s beauty and James’ fractured state of mind, and this is, perhaps, most evident in the film’s closing sequence.
Ice water. Lush vegetation. Perfectly vertical trees. – metaphorical prison bars “We shot mid-afternoon,” Ubalde explains, “primarily with a 35 mm lens with an Induro Hi-Hat tripod. Most of the shots were framed as a medium shot. You could see some details around the subject. The final shot was a wide shot of the trees to give you the sense that you have been overcome and trapped by nature much like James was inside his own mind.” Shooting The Interior was a collaborative effort, Ubalde says. And that’s why he loves working with Trevor Juras. “My job is to bring the marriage of technical expertise and creative vision to the project – Trevor respects that – and the experience of working as a team to realize the film was really fabulous.”
UBALDE’S… GH4 SETTINGS
ICONS
Cive V Contrast -5 Sharpness -5 Noise reduction -5 Saturation -5 Hue -2 Highlight +2 Shadow -1 I.Dynamix: LOW I.Resolution: OFF Master Pedestal Level +10 Luminance 0-255
ALEX WEBB Because he shoots in layers SAUL LEITER For his painterly approach ROGER DEAKINS asc, bsc For his naturalistic lighting and motivated camera movement
Keep ISO under 1600
do is develop your vision.”
MENTOR
Credit: Steve Hayes
CARLOS ESTEVES csc “The most important thing to
Director of photography Othello Ubalde
Trevor and I would scout the locations the day before we shot, so every day was a brand new logistical challenge. Shooting in a forest requires giving up control of the elements. We were forced to adapt to the conditions, which were ever changing. Stylistically, we wanted to give The Interior a realistic feel. In order to do so, the lighting needed to appear as natural as possible so as to suspend the viewer’s disbelief. My saving grace in these situations, and a little trick that I picked up at the lighting workshop, was my Sun Seeker app, which gives me a 3-D view of the path of the sun at any given hour of the day. I have
multiple examples of when this really helped us decide when to shoot. One example is when we picked a location where we wanted to shoot a scene that called for dramatic shadows. Sun Seeker told me where and when the sun would start to drop behind the tree line, so we could perfectly time the filming of this scene. It ended up looking perfect. Pre-production is one of the critical elements in my approach to filmmaking. I believe that doing your due diligence and putting in the necessary time upfront frees your mind to be more creative and quick thinking on production day. Consistent with the teachings in
the advanced lighting workshop, I’m a stickler for being intimately familiar with my equipment. There is nothing worse than being out there and having to worry about your lack of familiarity with gear that you might need to use that day. It’s unprofessional. Being confident and well prepared during a shoot has allowed me that extra brain space necessary to think on my feet, make creative decisions and deal with unpredictable situations as they arise. Filming can be, and is with me, a very intuitive process, and I like to be uber-prepared from a technical standpoint because you’ll never know when that creative moment will happen.
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Credit: Caitlin Cronenberg
CSC MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Nicolas Bolduc csc What films or other works of art have made the biggest impression on you? As a child in the ‘70s, I got my hands on books, and my first encounter with the world of storytelling was with Tintin and Astérix, the Belgian graphic novels. The ninth art is still an inspiration for me today and I still love to study its visuals for editing and composition. How did you get started in the business? When I was about to finish the film program at Concordia University, I met three guys at school with whom I opened a small production company. We knew that there was no other way to get a job we wanted unless we created it. We essentially worked for three months straight during the summer, producing, directing and shooting music videos. In the fall, we became so broke that we closed the company and parted with $4,000 each in debt. But we had a hell of a nice demo to show around in the industry. I then started to direct and shoot commercials, and my first feature as a DP came my way when I was 26. Who have been your mentors or teachers? There was a cinematography class at Concordia, and the teacher was an old cinematographer called Georges Dufaux who had shot tons of documentaries at the NFB and many features. This was his first gig as a teacher and he couldn’t talk about cinematography for the life of him, so people just left the class, but three of us remained. It became a very intimate class and that’s when Georges decided to show us rather than tell us about the art of making pictures. We tested stocks and cameras and tried lighting setups. He lent me his director’s viewfinder and would come to my student film sets and discreetly propose ideas for me to work with. On a student film I was shooting, I vividly remember when he climbed on an apple box and rigged some lights on the ceiling with the student gaffer to make time. That old man was the most striking inspiration for me because it is his artistry that taught me about camera and lighting. Georges taught me that I can talk about it all I want, but in the end, it’s on a set that things happen. His passion was tremendously contagious and I learned to use my instincts rather than follow a recipe. I owe him much. What cinematographers inspire you? I mostly like the older generation who made films I grew up on, that I still study today – Storaro, Willis, Savides, Deakins, Toll – they always made (or still make) films that matter, that remain encrypted in the cinematic universe. I respect them for their work but also for their choices as artists. They know that getting along with a director and making a good film rather than a film to show off is the key. I also love Bobbitt, Prieto, Libatique, Lubezki, Khondji and Mantle because they dare to try new things and put themselves in danger. The
26 • Canadian Cinematographer - October 2015
truth is I hate the bland-uncinematic-digital-beige cinematography that some cinematographers do today. Name some of your professional highlights. I have to mention that winning at Camerimage with War Witch was not just a surprise but also an irreversible career driver. The films I did in those years have all been memorable to me because I’ve been working with crazy inspiring people that drive my own passion for film. Of course there’s also Enemy because working with Denis Villeneuve again after Next Floor made me more confident about my approach with the kind of films I really want to make – they are actually the ones I love to watch. What is one of your most memorable moments on set? Twenty years ago, as a student, I visited a friend working on an American film shooting in Montreal. Between two takes, I sat quietly amongst the equipment, keeping to myself until I crossed Bruce Willis’s eye-line during his acting. On cut, I quickly sneaked off the set hearing Willis fume about how distracted he got during the take and now everything was shit because some kid was in his damn eye-line. What do you like best about what you do? Travelling the world and visiting so many places that are hidden to the common traveler. Also, meeting so many inspiring and talented people in a single year to me is mindboggling. What do you like least about what you do? I hate justifying to a stubborn producer or a production manager how the hell my job is important and why I need to use some particular gear that the film needs. Those never-ending, redundant, souk-like negotiations make me crazy. What do you think has been the greatest invention (related to your craft)? I’m fascinated by the formats we use in cinema. I think that since the anamorphic format appeared, there’s nothing to measure against it; it’s in a category on its own and it seems that it can never be challenged. Cinema has an obsessive love affair with the anamorphic format, as I do. How can others follow your work? nicolasbolduc.com and imdb.com/name/nm0092839
Edmonton Film Cooperative wants your unused Arri 35 mm camera. Do you have film cameras languishing on a shelf? Give it a new life, give it to a film coop and we will give you a healthy tax credit. Have a 35BL, a 235, a 435 gathering dust because everyone is Red cam nuts? Have other great camera accessories? Let us know, let’s make a deal. Contact Andy @rentals@fava.ca and work a great deal. 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 604-229-0861, 604-229-0861 or peter@peterbenison.com. EQUIPMENT FOR SALE FOR SALE : Preston FI+Z (RF) remote follow focus package. Includes: MDR1, 2X DM1 motors(Jerry Hill style), Microforce zoom control, Iris controller, hand unit, speed booster (12v-24v)+ fast charger. Panavison, RED, Arri power cables/run cables. + brackets/ various lens gears/marking discs. ASKING $9,000 for more info and a detailed spec list please contact: Greg Biskup (647) 405-8644, greg@ biskupcine.com Cooke Speed Panchro 18mm 1.7/T2. “C” Mount, Nice condition. From United Kingdom #572079, asking $1,800.00 Barry Casson csc Office: 250-721-2113 bcasson@speakfilm.com Canon Wide angle Lens J11A X 4.5 B4 IRSD and Canon Servo Zoom Control ZSD-300 Value 27 000$ Asking only 3 000$ Elmo Suv-Cam SD ELSC5C and accessories New Value 1 200$ Asking only 100$, Anton Bauer UltraLight & Ul Soft Box Asking only 150$, Frezzi HMI Sun Gun & Frezzi Soft Box Value 1 700$ Asking only 400$, Porta Brace Rain Slicker for Pro Camcorder RS-55 like New Asking only 150$, Script Boy Wireless T.C. System needs minor repair Asking only 100$, Shure Mixer FP33 & Porta Brace audio mixer case Asking only 450$, Sony Monitor SD PVM-14N1U new Asking only 50$, 2 Camera Canon Dig Rebel 10Mp XTi, Sigma 70-300 F4-5.6 Super C-AF, 4 Canon Batteries and accessories Asking only 550$, Porta Brace monitor Case for Panasonic BT-LH910 like new Asking only 100$ andrepaul@me.com or call 514 831-8347 Panasonic AJ-HDX900P 290 drum hours, $7500.00 Canon KJ16ex7.7B IRSE lens, $5000.00 CanonJ11ex4.5B4 WRSD lens, $4500.00 Call Ian 416-725-5349 or idscott@rogers.com Asahi Pentax spotmeter(just serviced) 425.00 Minolta Colormeter III F 750.00 Spectra Professional IV 250.00 Spectra Professional IV A 300.00 Minolta SpotmeterF(need repair) 100.00 Bernard Couture: p.bc@sympatico.ca; 514-486-2749 Professional U/W housing from renowned world leader Amphibico.2006 Sony HVR-A1U camera with 0.7x wide adapter and all accesories.
2006 AmphibicoEVO-Pro housing with .55x wide conversion and flat port. Rare model built in small quantity. Most camera functions accessible.About 60-70 dives. Complete overhaul and pressure tested by factory in 2010. 3.5’’ LCD Monitor, rebuilt in 2010. 2 compact Discovery 10W HID lamps by Amphibico with batteries and chargers. Spare o-ring for all. Soft and hard carry cases. All in good condition. E-mail or call for photos and more information. 514-941-2555, daniel@dvdp.ca Transvideo Titan HD Transmitter and Re¬ceiver kits. $3000ea. 2 for $5500. Similar in style and operation to the Boxx Meridian. 1- Angenieux 25-250 T3.9 Arri PL mount, std film gears on focus, zoom, and iris (32 pitch-mod 0.8), lens support and collar, shipping case included $2900 1Tamron 300mm F2.8 Arri bayonet mount with PL adapter, std film gear on focus (32 pitch-mod 0.8), 42mm filters: clear, 2 x 85, shipping case included $900 Contact: stephen.reizes@gmail.com Panasonic 3D Professional Full HD Video Camera (AG-3DA1) The AG-3DA1 is the world’s first professional, fullyintegrated Full HD 3D camcorder that records to SD card media. The AG-3DA1 will democratize 3D production by giving professional videographers a more affordable, flexible, reliable and easier-to-use tool for capturing immersive content as well as providing a training tool for educators. At less than 6.6 pounds, the AG-3DA1 is equipped with dual lenses and two full 1920 x 1080 2.07 megapixel 3-MOS imagers to record 1080/60i, 50i, 30p, 25p and 24p (native) and 720/60p and 50p in AVCHD. Camera is very new. Includes Kata Carrying case, 4 batteries. Asking price: $17,500 (includes tax). Will ship out of province. To view photos/questions email frank@tgtvinc.com or call 416-916-9010. Proline 17 inch Teleprompter Included is both PC AND Mac versions for our industry leading Flip-Q teleprompter software. Flip-Q automatically “Flips” the secondary output on your laptop so both the operator and talent will see perfect reading left-right text. The ProLine 17 standard LCD panels are the lightest weight, lowest profile designs in their class. In addition, they offer both VGA and composite video inputs adaptable with any computer output or application. They also offer flexible power options including 100-240V AC or external 12v DC input. Price includes Tripod attachments and Pelican carrying case. Complete tool-less set-up. Asking Price: $2,000 (includes tax) To view photos/questions email frank@tgtvinc.com or call 416-916-9010. Sony PMW-F3 with S-log firmware. Low hours, Excellent condition. Kaiser top handle, 32GB high rate card. $3500.00. Gemini 4:4:4 Solid State recorder now PRORes capable, with eSata and Thunderbolt readers, lots of accessories, case, 512GB and 3x 256GB solid state drives/ cards. Excellent condition. $3000.00 IBE-Optics HDx35 PL to B4 adapter comes with power cable and soft case. Used on F3 and Alexa for superb results. $3000.00. Willing to sell everything as a complete package for $8500.00 Available for everything. Contact John Banovich 604-726-5646 or JohnBanovich@gmail.com
Nikkor AF-S VR 500mm F 4 IS ED Lens. Super rare and very hard to find!!! Serial # 204153 Perfect condition. Not a scratch on it!!! Only one year old. Included Hard Shell Case, Lens Hood, Lens Strap, Case strap. Come with Manfrotto Carbon Fiber tripod, Jobu head and Jobu Mounting Bracket. Asking price $9000.00 gandalf-merlyn@shaw.ca, 604.566.2235 (Residence), 604.889.9515 (Mobile) Panasonic BT-S950P 16:9 / 4:3 SD Field Monitor for Sale (Excellent Condition) - $100.Portabrace included Please contact Christian at (416) 459-4895 or email cbielz@gmail.com SERVICES 20% Off to all CSC members! Looking for a Green Screen Studio? Greensuite209 is owned and operated by a CSC member, and is now offering 20% off our regular studio and equipment rental rates for all CSC members! We are a 1750 sq. ft. green screen studio in South Etobicoke just south of William F Whites. We have a 11’ X 29’ X 14’ Digicomp sloping green screen. Check us out online at www.gs209.com and contact us for any further information! email: Booking@ GS209.com. HD Source is well-known and respected for their excellent SERVICE department and truly skilled technicians. As an Authorized Sony Service Depot, HD Source professionally maintains, repairs, and performs crucial upgrades to a wide range of equipment, including HD and 4K. HD Source also proudly services Canon Cinema EOS products and Canon Broadcast lenses, and boasts an on-staff Canon-trained and experienced Lens Technician. HD Source understands how important each piece of equipment is, and will get it operating and back to you as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible. Call Alnoor at 905-890-6905, email him at alnoor. remtulla@hdsource.ca, or drop by HD Source anytime at 1670 Enterprise Rd. (Dixie & 401). HILL’S VIDEO PRODUCTIONS – BURLINGTON Looking for a unique shooting control room? Rent our 32 ft. 1981 Bus complete with control room and audio. HDSDI fiber boxes for long runs. Great for keeping warm on those multi camera shoots. www.hillsvideo.com Rob Hill – 905.335.1146 Do you travel between Toronto and Hamilton for production every day? Need a place to: screen dailies, host your production office that’s close to both? Hill’s Production Services www.hillsvideo.com. We are a full Service Production Company with cameras and edit bays for making EPKs. Some grip gear, if you find yourself in the field, short of one or two items. Hill’s also has office space and a mobile screening room. Located just off the QEW in Burlington.Check us out 905-335-1146 Ask for Rob Hill.
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 - October 2015 •
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CLASSIFIEDS
EQUIPMENT WANTED
PRODUCTION NOTES
12 MONKEYS II (series); DP David Greene csc; Boris Mojsovski csc; to December 20, Toronto ARROW IV (series); DP Gordon Verheul csc; to April 27, 2016 Vancouver BEAUTY AND THE BEAST IV (series); DP Bruce Chun csc; DP David Makin csc; B Camera Operator Peter Battistone; to November 17, Toronto DC’S LEGENDS OF TOMORROW (series); DP David Geddes csc, asc; to April 1, 2016, Burnaby FLASH, THE II (series); DP Kim C. Miles csc; to April 15, Vancouver FROM HERE TO INFIRMITY (feature); DP Pierre Gill csc; to November 2, Toronto THE GOOD WITCH II (series); DP John Berrie csc; B Camera Operator Paula Tymchuk; to January 28, 2016, Toronto HEARTLAND IX (series); csc DP Craig Wrobleski csc; B Camera Operator Jarrett Craig; to December 14, Calgary HELL ON WHEELS V (series); Thomas Burstyn csc, frsa, nzcs; to October 15, Calgary IZOMBIE II (series); DP Michael Wale csc; Operator/Steadicam Greg Fox; to December 18, North Vancouver LOOKINGLASS AKA FRANKENSTEIN (series); B Camera Operator Ian Seabrook csc; to January 25, 2016, Burnaby LEGENDS OF TOMORROW (series); DP David Geddes csc, asc; to April 6, 2016, Burnaby LUCIFER (series); DP Ryan McMaster csc & Glen Keenan csc; to November 27, Burnaby MAN SEEKING WOMAN (series); DP Samy Inayeh csc; B Camera Operator Yoann Malnati; to November 13, Toronto MAUDIE (feature); DP Guy Godfree csc; to October 30; St. John’s MEAN DREAMS (feature); DP Steve Cosens csc; to October 30; Sault Ste. Marie MILTON SECRET (feature); Ray Dumas csc; to October 20, Toronto MINORITY REPORT (series); DP David Moxness csc, asc; to December 18, North Vancouver MURDOCH MYSTERIES IX (series); DP James E. Jeffrey csc; DP Yuri Yakubiw csc; Camera Operator Brian Gedge; 1st Assistant Kevin Michael Leblanc; to December 8, Toronto THE NEXT STEP IV (series); DP Kim Derko csc; Brad Hroboska; to December 8, Toronto QUANTICO (series); 2nd Unit DP Robert Mattigetz csc; to December 15, Montreal REIGN III (series); DP Michael Storey csc; B Camera/Steadicam Andris Matiss; to February 19, 2016, Toronto THE ROMEO SECTION (series); DP Brendan Uegama csc; to October 14, Vancouver SAVING HOPE IV (series); DP David Perrault csc; to December 9, Mississauga SHADOWHUNTERS (series); Eric Cayla csc; to October 9, Mississauga SHOOT THE MESSENGER (series); DP Arthur Cooper csc; Camera Operator Keith Murphy; B Camera 1st Assistant Marcel Janisse; to November 25, Mississauga THE STANLEY DYNAMIC II (series); DP Matt Phillips csc; to April 8, 2016, Toronto SUITS V (series); Camera Operator/Steadicam Michael Soos; B Camera Operator Peter Sweeney; to November 18, Toronto SUPERNATURAL XI (series); DP Serge Ladouceur csc; Camera Operator Brad Creasser; to April 20, 2016, Burnaby TERRIFIC TRUCKS (series); DP Ben Lichty; to October 1, Toronto THIS LIFE (series); DP François Dagenais csc; to October 10, Montreal UNTITLED DHX PROJECT (AKA FAIRYLAND) (series); DP Gerald Packer csc; to December 11, Toronto THE WONDERFUL WAYNEYS (series); DP Russ Goozee csc; Camera Operator J.P. Locherer csc; B Camera Operator Russ Goozee csc; to November 15, Toronto YAMASAKA VII (series); DP Daniel Vincelette csc; to December 11, Montreal
CALENDAR OF EVENTS OCTOBER 1-10, Edmonton International Film Festival, edmontonfilmfest.com 15, CSC Lens Testing Module, Toronto, csc.ca 17-18, CSC Camera Assistant Workshop, Toronto, csc.ca
President from page 2 here lies the dilemma – the misguided expectation that every DP has gear and should be willing to offer it up for free. My advice to my friend was to respect the process and above all to respect himself. If financial remuneration was not possible, then the next best thing should be to negotiate
28 • Canadian Cinematographer - October 2015
NOVEMBER 7, CSC Advanced Post Workflow Workshop, Toronto, csc.ca 28, Camera Module (Sony F55 & 5) for ACs, Toronto, csc.ca 29, Camera Module (Sony F55 & 5) for DPs, Toronto, csc.ca
with the other party for some equitable arrangement. As an example, this might come in the form of an image-capturing device, such as a hard drive, that would be given to the DP at the completion of production. And always insist on a screen credit. Without at least this type of basic negotiation, one is nothing short of a commodity, and with that there is no value or respect.
SOFT LIGHTING | REDEFINED The new ARRI SkyPanel line of LED soft lights is launching with the S60 and the smaller S30, in both fully tuneable and remote phosphor versions. Featuring versatile user controls and rugged build quality, SkyPanel delivers exceptional light output with a soft, uniform beam field and high color rendering.
www.arri.com/skypanel
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