CANADIAN SOCIETY OF CINEMATOGRAPHERS
$4 March 2017 www.csc.ca
Pierre Gill csc
From Shut Eye to Blade Runner Samy Inayeh csc: Dirk Gently
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A publication of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers Celebrating 60 years of excellence
FEATURES – VOLUME 8, NO. 10 MARCH 2017
Fostering cinematography in Canada since 1957. The Canadian Society of Cinematographers was founded by a group of Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa cameramen. Since then over 800 cinematographers and persons in associated occupations have joined the organization. The CSC provides 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. 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.
AC Lighting Inc. All Axis Remote Camera Systems Applied Electronics Limited Arri Canada Ltd. Canon Canada Inc. Clairmont Camera Codes Pro Media Cooke Optics Dazmo Camera Deluxe Toronto FUJIFILM, North America Corporation FUJIFILM, Optical Devices Division Fusion Cine Henry’s Camera HD Source Inspired Image Picture Company Kino Flo Lee Filters Miller Camera Support Equipment Mole-Richardson MOSS LED Inc. Nikon Canada Inc. PS Production Services Panasonic Canada Panavision Canada REDLABdigital RED Digital Cinema Rosco Canada S1 Studios Toronto SIM Group Sony of Canada Ltd. Technically Yours Inc. Technicolor The Source Shop Vistek Camera Ltd. Walter Klassen FX William F. White International Inc. ZGC Inc. ZTV
From Shut Eye to Blade Runner 2049: A Magical Year for Pierre Gill By Fanen Chiahemen
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csc
Credit: Bettina Strauss/BBCA
CORPORATE SPONSORS
Dirk Gently: For Samy Inayeh By Fanen Chiahemen
csc
Everything is Connected
COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS 2 4 8 16 18 26 28 30 32
From the Editor-In-Chief In the News Spotlight: Carlos Esteves csc CSC at Canon's launch of the C700 Vivid: Canon C700 CSC at the 12th Annual SIM Tech Showcase The Masters Tech Column Production Notes/Calendar
Cover Pierre Gill csc films Shut Eye
Credit: Adam Van Steinburg
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Canadian Cinematographer March 2017 Vol. 8, No. 10 EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Joan Hutton csc 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 EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER Bruce Marshall, brucemarshall@sympatico.ca CSC BOARD OF DIRECTORS Carlos Esteves csc Joan Hutton csc Alwyn Kumst csc Antonin Lhotsky csc Bruno Philip csc Joseph Sunday PhD George Willis csc, sasc CSC EXECUTIVE PRESIDENT George Willis csc, sasc, gawillis@sympatico.ca PAST PRESIDENT, ADVISOR Joan Hutton csc, joanhuttondesign@gmail.com VICE PRESIDENTS Carlos Esteves csc, Toronto, carlos@imagesound.ca Alwyn Kumst csc, Vancouver, alwynkumst@gmail.com Bruno Philip csc, Montreal, bphilipcsc@gmail.com TREASURER Joseph Sunday PhD JSunday1@CreativeAffinities.com SECRETARY Antonin Lhotsky csc, alhotsky@gmail.com MEMBERSHIP CHAIRS Arthur Cooper csc, artfilm@sympatico.ca Phil Earnshaw csc, philyn@sympatico.ca EDUCATION CHAIRS Carlos Esteves csc, carlos@imagesound.ca George Willis csc, sasc, gawillis@sympatico.ca AWARDS CHAIR Alwyn Kumst csc, alwynkumst@gmail.com PUBLIC RELATIONS CHAIR Bruce Marshall, brucemarshall@sympatico.ca 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.
ISSN 1918-8781 Canadian Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 40013776 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses 131–3007 Kingston Road Toronto M1M 1P1
2 • Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017
FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Joan Hutton csc
W
ith the 60th CSC Annual Awards Gala just around the corner in April, it’s time to dust off those party shoes hibernating in the back of the closet for the top social event on the CSC calendar. However, during the CSC’s early years the awards were not so “gala,” in fact they were downright folksy. The word, which has been circulating since my involvement with the CSC over 30 years ago, is that the very first CSC awards, in 1957, was a backyard BBQ. This conjures all sorts of cinemagraphic images, especially of shorts, burgs and beer – very Canadian at the least – and I would’ve loved to have been a fly buzzing around that gathering. Sadly, there is little accounting of this event in the CSC archives and all the principal founders have passed away, so we may never know the details. In the ensuing years, the awards were informal dinners at restaurants that rotated yearly between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. One of those early dinners was attended by 32 people, consisting of cameramen and their spouses, which represented 80 per cent of the CSC membership at the time. It was in 1961 when the awards were formally institutionalized, meaning it cost money to attend. It was held at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, and tickets were $6. Of course, today’s CSC Awards Galas cost substantially more to attend and are much bigger affairs loaded with production values. The attendance has also increased tenfold since those early days to more than 300 people. Factoring in the number people who now stream our Awards show, the audience is even larger, with another 1,000 people watching the Gala online. The audience streaming the 60th CSC Annual Awards Gala in April is expected to reach even higher levels. This year’s Awards Gala has another unique aspect to it that goes beyond being a CSC milestone. The winners in the feature, TV drama and documentary categories will be entered into the first IMAGO Awards this November in Helsinki, Finland. This is a closed competition open only to IMAGO member societies of which the CSC is one. I’ve attended over 30 of the society’s Awards Galas, and as much as their purpose is the same – to celebrate the art of cinematography – each was different and surprising in its own distinctive way. I’m looking forward to what the 60th has in store.
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CSC congratulates the members whose projects have been nominated for Canadian Screen Awards: Best Cinematography in a Feature-Length Documentary: Derek Rogers csc (The Skyjacker’s Tale); Van Royko csc (KONĒLINE: our land beautiful) Best Short Documentary: Iris Ng (This River) Best Live Action Short Drama: Evan Prosofsky (A Funeral for Lighting) Best Photography in a Comedy Program or Series: Gerald Packer csc (Schitt’s Creek); Douglas Koch csc (Sensitive Skin) Best Photography in a Dramatic Program or Series: Brendan Uegama csc (The Romeo Section); Michael Storey csc (Reign) Best Photography in a Variety Program or Series: D. Gregor Hagey csc (Sunnyside and HumanTown) Best Photography in a Documentary Program or Factual Series: Mark Caswell (Real Vikings: Age of Invasion) Best Photography in a Lifestyle or Reality / Competition Program or Series: Brian Stewart (Masters of Flip: Color Code) Best Photography in a News or Information Program, Series or Segment: John Badcock csc (the fifth estate: Why Didn’t We Know?) Best Sports Opening/Tease: Devon Burns (Toronto Argonauts Season Opener) Best Sports Program or Series: Michael Grippo csc (Against All Odds: The RCAF Flyers) Best News or Information Segment: Jonathan Castell (CBC News: The National – “Captured in Carnage”)
Brendan Uegama csc
D. Gregor Hagey csc
Douglas Koch csc
Courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada 2012, Michael Gibson
Credit: Steve Wilkie
Credit: Sophie Giraud
Credit: Patrice Lapointe
Winners will be announced at a gala on March 12.
Credit: Cate Cameron
IN THE NEWS
CSC Members among Canadian Screen Award Nominees
Gerald Packer csc
Iris Ng
THE CSC WELCOMES RED DIGITAL CINEMA AS NEW SPONSOR
When the 4K RED ONE digital cinema camera was introduced to the world in 2006, it sparked a revolution in motion picture image capturing. Through its technological creativity, RED Digital Cinema continues to produce cutting edge products as a leading global manufacturer of professional digital cameras and accessories. www.red.com 4 • Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017
WHITES, CAMERA, A CTION! AC
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Kodak Brings Back a Classic with EKTACHROME Film Eastman Kodak Company in January announced plans to bring back one of its most iconic film stocks. Over the course of this year, Kodak will be working to reformulate and manu-
facture KODAK EKTACHROME Film for both motion picture and still photography applications. Initial availability is expected in the fourth quarter of 2017. KODAK EKTA CHROME Film has a distinctive look that was the choice for generations of cinematographers before it was dis-
continued in 2012. The film is known for its extremely fine grain, clean colours, tones and contrasts. Kodak will produce EKTACHROME at its film factory in Rochester, N.Y., and will market and distribute the Super 8 motion picture film version of EKTACHROME Film directly.
Rob McLachlan csc,asc in Spain for an upcoming HBO show with his U.K. grip looking for a shot while waiting for the sun to rise.
Van Royko csc shooting KONĒLINE: our land beautiful.
The CSC Awards Gala
Brad Rushing csc and Christine Adams, camera operator on the set of Investigation Discovery’s People Magazine Investigates.
will be held at the Arcadian Court in Toronto on April 1, 2017. 6 • Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017
Credit: Pedro Lazaga Busto
ON SET
ACCEPTANCES / AWARDS / NOMINATIONS / Paul Mitchnick csc (DP) This Is Your Death (feature), premiere at South by Southwest Festival, March 10, Austin
CSC MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Carlos Esteves csc
Credit: Lauren Ashmore
You Focus On The Shot
We’ll Focus On The Rest
What films or other works of art have made the biggest impression on you?
Painting, architecture and photography are some of my emotional influences. Recently I viewed van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhône as well as Monet’s Water Lilies at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Mystical Landscapes. This exhibit reaffirms the power of art in uniting all. What cinematographers inspire you?
Pierre Gill csc (Borgias, Casanova); Rene Ohashi csc, asc (The Arrow, The Crossing); Roger Deakins asc, bsc (The Shawshank Redemption, No Country for Old Men); Vilmos Zsigmond asc, hsc (The Deer Hunter, Close Encounters of the Third Kind); Janusz Kamiński (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Saving Private Ryan). How did you get started in the business?
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8 • Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017
I grew up in the family photo studio, starting in the dark room processing cut film and photographing my first wedding at 16 years of age. My first experience with motion images was with my dad’s Canon Super 8 mm camera. During high school, I volunteered as a studio cameraperson for the local cable operator Maclean-Hunter Cable. I studied film at York University, and in 1978 I walked into City TV headquarters at 99 Queen Street East looking for a job, but none were available. I asked if I could hang out and did a self-internship for a few months. Later, I was hired part time as a news cameraman for City Pulse News. Who have been your mentors or teachers?
One of my first and most influential mentors was Yoram Pirotsky. Yoram hired me as a full-time cameraperson working for City Pulse News in the fall of 1978. Of the handful of mentors during the early years, Yoram was the most crucial. He was a lovely man and an extremely talented
cinematographer. He was a focused professional who forced the best out of you. Over time he taught me the power of light and shadow. To this day, I’m grateful for his dedication and friendship and, like him, I always try to mentor others, giving back in the same way he did for me. Name some of your professional highlights.
I’ve experienced many things over the last 38 years; a few come to mind: achieving full CSC membership; lighting Sophia Loren and not screwing up; learning from Milton Berle what a “Garbo” filter was; travelling with Pierre Elliot Trudeau during his last election; spending weeks filming in Vatican City and meeting Pope John Paul II; keeping my fingers from freezing at 40 below filming the Northern Lights; witnessing how film breaks easily at 40 below; learning early in my career the correct aperture for shooting film during news scrums; riding on a overnight bus from Calgary to Vancouver on September 11, 2001; DPing the first song contest show way before American Idol – Pop Stars. What do you like best about what you do?
The most enjoyable moment of my career is the visionary process of creating images from the printed and/or spoken words.
What do you like least about what you do?
The unexplained, ever-increasing length of our working day. What do you think has been the greatest invention (related to your craft)?
There have been many crucial innovations that have brought our industry to where it is today – sound, colour, sensitive ISOs, Steadicam, gimbals, green/blue screen, smaller portable cameras, CGI, single 35 mm digital sensor, miniaturization. However, in the last 12 years on the camera side, there has been a revolution that has shaken the industry like never before. The RED camera and the Canon DSLR (5D series cameras) led and accelerated this revolution. How can others follow your work?
After almost 40 years in the industry, I have retired from fulltime cinematography work. I keep busy volunteering for the CSC (executive board and educational workshops), and at this time I’m shooting a short film called Devotion, which is still in production. Everything does come full circle, and lately I have gone back to still photography where it all started. For those interested, they can follow me on Instagram @Dimag.
IN MEMORIAM Kelly Duncan csc
K
elly James Duncan csc died peacefully in North Vancouver on December 19, 2016. Born in Christchurch, New Zealand, on May 25, 1932, Kelly arrived in Vancouver in 1955 and was a pioneer in the film and video industry. Duncan’s great love was photography, and his talent and ability in this field easily led into directing, editing and producing. An award-winning storyteller on film, Duncan created hundreds of productions for international clients, often travelling worldwide, and was also a member of the Directors Guild of Canada. He was steadfastly supported by his talented and dedicated wife Meredith. A memorial mass was held in West Vancouver on January 5. Excerpt from the homily read at Duncan’s funeral by Father Larry Lynn csc: “I didn’t know Kelly, but as a fellow cinematographer, I have a sense of his spirit, his sense of commitment to getting it right, to getting the shot, to telling the story that without him would not be told. A cinematographer will go anywhere to bring home the images. Life for a cinematographer is a series of adventures. A cinematographer is all about the light, and light is a mystery. Now Kelly is off on his greatest adventure. He has gone into the mystery. He has gone to the light.”
Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017 •
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From Shut Eye to Blade Runner 2049
A Magical Year for
Pierre Gill csc
B
y the end of 2016, Pierre Gill csc was taking some much-needed time off after spending nine months working on shoots that took him from Vancouver – for the Hulu series Shut Eye – to Budapest, where he had the honour of doing second unit cinematography for Roger Deakins asc, bsc on Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Blade Runner 2049, scheduled to be released later this year. Gill started out his busy year shooting all 10 episodes of Shut Eye, a modern-day, Los Angeles-set drama, which was something of a departure for the DP whose recent television projects have mostly consisted of period pieces (Casanova, Copper, The Borgias). Shut Eye, which was released all at once on Hulu late last year, takes a comedic look at the world of storefront psychics and the organized crime syndicates that run them. Its protagonist, Charlie Haverford ( Jeffrey Donovan of Fargo and Burn Notice), is a fraudster operating a chain of fortune-telling storefronts. After suffering a blow to the head, Haverford, who is used to getting what he wants in life by deceiving people, begins to experience visions that finally allow him to see some fundamental truths. Despite Hulu’s plans to release all 10 episodes at once, Shut Eye was shot like a regular series, episode by episode, with no block shooting, and each episode was shot by a different director, with Gill as the sole DP, a position he says is always “very tricky.” He explains, “I always ask producers, if it’s 12 episodes, to get a maximum of four directors so they can do three each. They can get to know the sets, the actors, everything, but it doesn’t always work like this unfortunately. “So I’m part of the team at the beginning that agrees with the producers and director in charge of the pilot and the showrunner how we will create a style that has to stay constant,” he continues. “So each director comes in, and of course everybody’s different, but you have to do a show that is not different. So my job is to try to keep them in the style and the type
10 • Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017
By Fanen Chiahemen of lighting I’m doing.” Finding prep time with each new director who came in was a challenge, Gill says, “Because I was the only DP, which means I’m on set every day all the time, so when a new director came in, they could not do much prep with me; we would just do few meetings at lunch or after work sometimes.” Having shot series with multiple directors before, Gill has found that on such projects his role is usually also slightly expanded. “It’s a lot of management. You have to be creative as a DP, but then you have to be a good therapist because you have a big crew and a lot of departments. So you have to be very generous when [the directors] arrive on set; I always had to be happy and very positive. These are all things that a young DP should know,” he says, laughing. Gill streamlined the process of bringing each director on board by employing a look book that included some visual references, mostly from the 2015 Terrence Malick experimental film Knight of Cups. “I hadn’t seen the movie, but I came across the trailer and thought ‘This is exactly the type of approach I would like to have,’ and then I realized it was Emmanuel Lubezki [ASC, AMC] who shot it, so I was like, ‘Obviously, this is a reference I like,’” he says. “It was really natural, trying to embrace the digital camera and use the way digital camera works in natural light.” Gill opted for the Panasonic VariCam as his main camera, which was a new tool for him but which he found “great,” he says. “It’s a very beautiful, sharp camera but with a nice quality to it. You can even shoot at 5000 ISO, which is quite spectacular, so I could work with lots of natural light or single sources.” Gill sought to soften the sharpness of the 4K image created by the digital camera, and after doing some tests, decided that he wanted to shoot with the Panavision legacy series of lenses that were introduced in the 1980s. “They’re older, so they’re softer, and because they’re softer, digital can handle them because digital is so sharp,” he says. “If I were doing
Credit: Adam Van Steinburg
Pierre Gill csc with the Panasonic VariCam on the set of Shut Eye.
Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017 •
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Isabella Rossellini as Rita.
a very modern cop series and wanted it to be edgy, I might use primes that are sharper, but for what I was doing, it’s just about characters, so it’s about the faces, so you find lenses that are good for faces.” Locating the older lenses was no easy task, Gill confides, and Jeff Flowers of Panavision Vancouver was instrumental to the process. “He got maybe 75 lenses from everywhere,” Gill says. “They had some in Toronto, in LA, New York and Mexico, and they were all mismatched. Not one of them is the same, not one of them has the same colour. I had five 25 mm lenses, four 40 mm ones. I had some awkward numbers
“If I were doing a very modern cop series and wanted it to be edgy, I might use primes that are sharper, but for what I was doing, it’s just about characters, so it’s about the faces, so you find lenses that are good for faces,” Gill says of his decision to shoot with the Panavision legacy series of lenses from the '80s. 12 • Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017
– 29 mm or 28 mm. So it was a really weird mix of lenses.” Most of his prep time, therefore, involved extensive testing to create a lens kit, which he says was “really fun and a really interesting aspect of shooting Shut Eye. “The modern lenses, they match perfectly – the blue will be the same, the pink will be the same. But the lenses that I used are all completely different, so it’s very messy. I did some tests, and I went one by one and built a normal kit, and I found a nice balance to create an image that was a bit softer and closer to the human eye,” he says. “Again, for me, it’s always the same thing. It’s not about me saying, ‘Oh, I want to be different.’ I just read a project and then the first thing I approach is the lens. Is it going to be anamorphic, Master Primes, Ultra Primes, Vantage from Germany? So it’s always very important and it was very fun. I was able to find my tool to work with.” While hypnotism and magic tricks are recurring themes in Shut Eye, when it came to the look of the show, Gill, along with pilot director John Renck, decided on a look that was “really real and really raw because you don’t want the show to look like a magic show,” he says. Gill also did not visually differentiate the psychic world and the crime syndicate world comprised in the show. “I didn’t want the magic world to be magic, so basically it’s one world, and whenever the main character has visions, it’s played with in lens flares, soft focus, handheld camera movement, drift-
ing shots, and then there were a few CGI visual effects mo- “So for example, if I have an actress on the screen – and all actors have different skin tones – and the actress is too pink, ments,” he explains. Because he had to spend as much time as possible on set I can right away control her face by putting a bit more green, and with the directors, he had to rely on his key crew to and then she looks better on screen, it’s done.” scout locations and send him photos. “My key gaffer Scott This method of colour timing gives him the advantage of Clark, and key grips Jon Jovellanos and Vince Phillips were being able to show directors and producers on set shots that real troupers by going to the scout for me and informing me are almost identical to the final images, he says. “What it of potential problems. I also know by the pictures if a loca- does is that everybody goes, ‘This is really great,’ and then tion is going to be trouble or not so that’s the only way. If they don’t talk about it anymore and I can make my day. And it’s a location that I know will be difficult, then I have to go and look at the physical space,” he says. Shut Eye is very much a Los Angeles story, and making Vancouver look like LA, was “very, very difficult because it rains too much in Vancouver, and in LA it’s always sunny, so we had to cheat a lot,” Gill says. “For example, if we were going into a small house, I would use a big light that would be directional and very hard so it looked like the sun, to make a brighter image in the highlights. And then when we had to shoot outside, I would just pray to have some sun,” he jokes. “But I would also have big 40-by-40 rain covers outside, and you can put them on a lift, David Zayas as Eduardo Bernal. then you light.” The only true studio set the crew shot in was the main character’s house, which initially was problematic because it was built too big, and Gill struggled to make the light look natural. “They had to rebuild it eventually and cut it down to a smaller set, and then I lit everything from outside and from the windows,” he says. “I told them to put low ceilings, so there was no way to light from the ceiling naturally. Because when you go to a location and you start putting up a grid on a ceiling it looks like a studio. I used a lot of tungsten lights to create sunlight, and a lot of natural fixtures, and I used the camera at In Shut Eye, organized crime syndicates are the underbelly of neighbourhood psychics. 5000 ISO a few times. You can shoot in darker conditions.” As has been his process for years, Gill used LiveGrade on set to perform colour timing, adjusting the colours and contrast in the shots, which he would save to his iPad. “Since I’ve been working on digital, I love the control,” Gill says of his process. “Because on film, I was the magician of the box. Now the box is open and everybody sees the image. So I found that instead of doing something on set that looks good and then having someone take control of your dailies and changing it, which happens to a lot of DPs, I go further so I control the look. Shut Eye explores the world of psychic storefronts in Los Angeles. Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017 •
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KaDee Strickland and Emmanuelle Chriqui.
I know all my shots are good and I can go home and not think about it and have a glass of wine. I try to have a life. “Then after a few months when post is ready, I go into post and it’s exactly where I left it. So I have complete control. Everybody loves the way it looks on set and they love the dailies, so they don’t want to change it. They let me have control; it’s awesome. And I encourage every director of photography to do this,” he continues. “Because I was at the ASC [in 2015], and a DP who works with HBO said, ‘They changed all my dailies.’ And I’m like, ‘What? You’re an ASC, and HBO is changing your dailies? Wow.’ It doesn’t make sense. I told him about the way I work, and I share this with many DPs.” When it came to shooting second unit for Villeneuve’s Blade Runner sequel – a project so heavily guarded that by press time no photos or set details were allowed to be released or discussed – Gill was more than happy to be the one taking lessons from Deakins, widely considered one of the modern masters of cinematography. Although Gill himself has some high-profile credits under his belt, including being second unit director on JeanPierre Jeunet’s 2013 film The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet, “Roger Deakins is Roger Deakins,” he says. “He’s well known; he’s very talented and respected. I was very privileged and so
“On film, I was the magician of the box. Now the box is open and everybody sees the image. So instead of doing something on set that looks good and then having someone take control of your dailies and changing it, I go further so I control the look.” 14 • Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017
happy and overwhelmed. It was great to work with Deakins because I wanted to see how he works and what I could learn from him.” But it was also daunting. As a second unit DP, Gill explains, your number one task is to match the first unit DP’s photography. “So my first stress was, ‘Will I be able to light like Roger Deakins? He’s a real master and I have to match this.’ “So I have to figure out what he’s doing so that I can achieve it. I have to understand his mind,” Gill continues. “And I don’t have time with him, and he doesn’t have time for me. It’s not like I can go, ‘Hey, Roger, how are you today? What are you doing?’ He’s busy; he doesn’t want to talk, and when I go on set it’s really to ask him something so specific that he’s the only one who can answer me. So my job was also to protect him, to try to do the shot that he would do so that when you see the movie nobody knows that it’s not him, but also to protect him from people asking him questions.” What Gill learned was that the 13-time Oscar-nominated Deakins is not afraid to take risks. “And he did take risks on Blade Runner,” Gill notes. “Sometimes I was like, ‘Wow, this scene is so expansive today and it’s a big scene, and you’re lighting with that and that?’ He’s very bold and courageous. He would use a very little light for something very, very big. It’s not common. There are many different ways to light, of course, but to use so many nimble lights for a big setup was quite impressive.” The Blade Runner shoot also gave Gill the opportunity to play with tools he doesn’t normally get to use, such as a fourpoint cable cam, as well as some “very sophisticated underwater equipment and waterproof equipment,” he says. “It was a very good experience. I also got to shoot with Ryan Gosling and Jared Leto and I had a Scotch with Harrison Ford, so it was really fun. What’s also great is that every head of department I was working with, from production design to visual effects to stunts, all their backgrounds were things like Avatar, Fast & Furious, Titanic, Star Wars, so I worked with the top people, which was absolutely fantastic.”
JEREMY BENNING csc
JOANNE ROURKE
Cinematographer
Colourist
SyFy’s ambitious space-centric drama, “The Expanse,” features a dark, sometimes harsh aesthetic that DP Jeremy Benning csc achieved partially through coloured ambient LED lighting on set with enhancements made in post by Deluxe Toronto Colourist Joanne Rourke. Benning shared, “Joanne took initial looks from our LiveGrade settings and balanced them against intercutting scenes, a benefit of working with an excellent colourist like Joanne, who uses the context of an overall timeline and edits to interpret looks I’ve set for each scene on set.” “Jeremy had a clear vision from the start, which was important as the show is VFX heavy,” explained Rourke. “My job was to maintain the breathtaking visuals by matching scenes shot to shot to help make it flow, integrate the VFX and add nuance to make sure the mood was appropriate for each scene.“ Posted at Deluxe Toronto’s new state-of-the-art King Street West studio, Benning and Rourke included showrunner Naren Shankar and writers Ty Franck and Mark Fergus in review sessions remotely via Streambox. “It gave us the confidence that we are all seeing the same thing and able to judge minute tweaks collectively,” said Benning. Added Rourke, “Everyone was on the same page and invested in the look.” Benning and Rourke continued their collaboration on the second season of “The Expanse,” which premiered on SyFy on February 1, 2017.
bydeluxetoronto.com Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017 •
23
CSC at Canon’s Launch of the C700 January 12, Toronto
Carlo Beltrano
Brent Ramsey - Canon USA
Larry Thorpe - Canon USA
Photos: Rob Roy
Left: Sheldon Bowering
Larry Thorpe and Brent Ramsey
16 • Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017
Below: Product Strategist Rob Roy at the podium.
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Vivid By Jeremy Benning csc
W
hen Rob Roy, Canon Canada’s product strategist, approached me in November asking if I’d be interested in shooting some tests for their new C700 for the January launch event, we decided to make more of a creative short rather than test footage, something where we could use the camera in a real production/storytelling setting. So my partner Francis Luta and I began discussing ideas. We worked out a creative that would tell a story with a mood, as well as put the camera through its paces. We chose locations with windows and strong contrast and some exteriors to showcase HDR. We also wanted to create something that had a message, and Francis wanted to use the issue of mental health as the theme for Vivid which he wrote, directed and edited. The idea was that when someone is spiralling into mental illness, sometimes it takes someone else to reach out to them to get them the help they need before tragedy strikes. Francis and I wanted to make something that would show the camera in a darker, edgier world. We shot a sequence at 2000 ISO and also really played with silhouetted scenes to challenge the sensor. I approached Michael Darby, senior remote head/aerial technician at
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Credit: Rob Dutchin
Canon C700
Shreya Patel as Viv with Dactylcam Pro cable cam and Shotover G1 head in the foreground.
William F. White, as I knew he had just brought in a new cable cam system (the Dactylcam Pro with Shotover G1 head) and he was eager to get it onto a set to perform. We also had a couple of ideas to use the Technodolly, which Michael is a pro with. We wanted to design a shot which could show the camera’s take on a day and night exterior in the same move, taking advantage of the repeatable aspect of the Technodolly. He and WFW were kind enough to donate all the support gear we needed for the shoot. We were able to get the Lever building (the old soap factory) on Don Roadway as our main industrial location, and Bistro 28 as the cafe. The cable cam system at the Lever factory allowed us to quickly set up and achieve sweeping wide shots with fast moves, both inside and out. It was really impressive. Since the camera could shoot anamorphic as well, we designed the story to use the look and aspect ratio of anamorphic to represent the state of mind of our hero, and spherical lenses for her “normal” world. We used Vantage VLite anamorphic and Cooke S5s. We did a final grade at REDLAB on their big projection screen with colourist Walt Biljan, both in 4K SDR and HDR. Having spent several hours with Walt grading both versions in DaVinci Resolve, and working from the ProRes
HQ 4K (4096x2160 YCC422 10bit – Canon Log 2 – which captures the camera’s 15-stop range) files we shot (this is the camera’s maximum internal capture quality) I was really impressed with its range – the sensor gracefully captured hot windows without losing detail and dipped all the way down into deep shadows very well. Walt and I windowed and tracked areas of our hero’s face when she was in silhouette, and we were able to pull up shadows without discernible noise. I tried all the grading techniques I have come to expect from other leading cinema cameras like RED and ALEXA, and to me the C700 was holding its own. We rated everything at 800 ISO, except for one interior night shot at 2000 ISO, which had some gentle grain in it, but very filmic and I would say very useable. In the HDR grade, we were able to take the look to an even greater extreme with making the windows and city lights even hotter, again with no noise or clipping. I really love working in HDR. What I like about the C700’s sensor overall is that it gives us another capture option which handles skin tones beautifully; and another visual flavour in a package that is built for the demands of dramatic cinema and TV production. For more information please visit: canon.ca/C700
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www.rosco.com/silk Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017 •
19
®
DirkGently
For
Samy Inayeh csc
T
he BBC America series Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (available outside the United States on Netflix) is named for its jolly but eccentric leather-jacketed English hero, who, as the title implies, is a detective of a different order. Gently (Samuel Barnett) doesn’t scrutinize physical evidence; instead he analyzes coincidences and happenstance, contemplates the “fundamental interconnectedness of all things” and “follows fate around.” The dark comedy, shot in Vancouver, kicks off with Gently enlisting a reluctant assistant and sidekick in a down-on-his-luck bellhop named Todd (Elijah Wood) to help solve a bizarre crime. They spend the remainder of the season encountering ever more bizarre but seemingly connected events, populated by wild and sometimes dangerous characters – among them a woman with a nerve disease that causes hallucinations, a pair of mysterious black ops, a marauding gang of vampires and an invincible assassin – as they come closer to solving the central mystery. The series, which is set in the present time and reality, is adapted from the novels of the same name by Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams, rebooted by creator, co-writer and executive producer Max Landis (American Ultra, Victor Frankenstein) into a colourful, high-energy, high-concept show. Samy Inayeh csc, who shared DP duties on the series, talks about bringing Landis’ vision to life.
EverythingisConnected By Fanen Chiahemen
20 • Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017
Credit: Bettina Strauss/BBCA
Elijah Wood as Todd Brotzman, and Samuel Barnett who plays detective Dirk Gently.
Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017 •
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Credit: Bettina Strauss/BBCA
CC: So how did you approach the visuals? What kind of look did they want?
Jade Eshete as Farah Black.
Canadian Cinematographer: What were your initial thoughts when you first read the scripts and what intrigued you about the show? Samy Inayeh csc: I think what’s interesting and different about this show is it’s really a number of different things at the same time. It’s a story about a detective who is using the will of the universe to help him uncover great and seemingly absurd mysteries. It’s a relationship drama about friendship and family; it’s a coming-of-age story for both of the main characters. It’s got elements of sci-fi and time travel, growth and dealing with trauma. It somehow manages to navigate tying all of these wonderful things together into something that does make sense and does make you feel an appreciation for a world that is interconnected in many ways. So when I had a very long interview with the pilot director, the showrunner and the creator, Max Landis, and when they asked me about my visual approach and vision of the show, I talked about how it was more than just a zany detective story. It was also a story about people learning to open themselves up to the wonderment of the universe so they can grow and become the people that they were ultimately destined to be, which I felt was the heart of what the story was about. And I think that’s one of the things that really connected with them. I tend to approach material story first, visuals second.
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SI: I alternated the series, so there was a talented DP from England, John Pardue, who started the show and shot the first two episodes, and then I did Episodes 3 and 4 and the final two. One of the things that they really liked about both of our work is we both had done a lot of work with a certain level of naturalism to it. I think what they were interested in seeing was something that, as crazy and strange and tangential as the show is, they wanted it to always be somewhat grounded in a naturalistic sense in terms of the overall style. There was even some talk about it having almost a British social reality drama feel to it. I’ve watched a lot of British TV and certainly John Pardue had shot a lot of those British dramas himself. And some of the work that I’ve done, that has been more spare, independent dramatic work, using less lighting and a more naturalistic style overall, was something they liked as a starting point to ground the show in reality. I think that was really important for them. So it starts in a world very much like the world we live in and then as things get a bit more bizarre and chaotic as the series moves forward, you’ve already bought into the idea that this is happening in the real world. And I think that makes the show more effective. It helps the believability factor that this could actually be happening. CC: How did being an alternating DP affect the way you prepped and worked each episode? SI: We’d have about two weeks to prep while the other main unit was shooting and it worked out really well. The show is very ambitious in its nature. We were always moving locations and we had a lot of big set pieces, stunt sequences and action sequences, and one DP doing all of that would have been incredibly gruelling and inefficient. For myself, never having been in an alternating DP situation before, I thought, “I could probably shoot the show on my own.” Now looking back, I would not have been so bold and cocky because it would have been gruelling, and I don’t think it would have been the show that it was. It was constantly scouting, constantly prepping, constantly solving problems and figuring out solutions and lots of meetings and visual effects meetings. Also we spent a lot of time doing second unit work and additional photography work for the previous blocks because the blocks were so ambitious that there was always work left over. So I found that half my time in prep was spent shooting additional scenes, shooting rewrites, all that kind of stuff. So between me and John, whether we were shooting or we were prepping, it didn’t really feel like it was much of a difference because you were just as busy in that prep period as you were in the shooting period at times.
CC: When you’re shooting like that, how do you maintain consistency in the look?
Credit: Bettina Strauss/BBCA
SI: That was one of the nice things. Because John led the show, they brought me in a bit early for a week of prep while he was prepping his first two episodes, and so we spent a lot of time talking and going through a lot of references together of images and lighting we both liked, and I think we found for the most part our tastes were very similar. It was a pretty great collaboration. He was very giving of his opinion and also very open to my ideas, which I was worried about because you’re always wondering if the person you’re going to be working with is just going to be in their own bubble and kind of just ask you to follow what they’re doing. He wasn’t interested in that at all. He was very interested in the collaboration. And that was actually a lot of fun because when you’re a DP it can be kind of isolating; you’re just going from job to job and being asked to figure out how to light, and I was in a situation where you’ve got two DPs standing next to each other and you’re exchanging ideas. So this pleasant collaboration that is normally just reserved between a DP and their gaffer was between two DPs, and it was a really rewarding experience. CC: How did you achieve a naturalistic look?
CC: Can you talk about your camera and lens package? SI: We shot on an ALEXA with Primo Prime lenses and had a very extensive and healthy kit from Panavision, who gave us really good support during the busy period – we were always adding third cameras, fourth cameras, splinter units, second
Hannah Marks, who plays Todd's sister Amanda.
Credit: Bettina Strauss/BBCA
SI: For starters, we ended up doing a lot of stage work because we had a number of sets that we revisited a lot. One of them was Todd’s apartment, which was a one-bedroom apartment set. It was built on a stage in Burnaby, and when I shoot on a set like that I try to avoid using the overhead grid as much as possible and light as much as I can as if I were shooting on location, which is creating an ambient light from the natural daylight you have on a location, using the windows as the main source of light in the day scenes, and then in the night scenes using practical lamps as a main source of light. I also started using a lot of LiteGear’s LiteRibbon and LiteMats They’re very lightweight, very malleable, manpower-friendly LEDs and are very fast tools to work with for creating a naturalistic look. They also don’t take a lot of time to set up, and for me part of the joy of using technology is being able to get rid of the machine and the artifice that kind of gets in the way of moving the camera and letting the actor improvise or be spontaneous in the blocking, and letting the directors create a scene without being too time-consuming to change course.
Barnett, Wood and Bentley the Corgi, a mysterious element of the show.
units, and a lot of times at the very last minute. I ended up using the Primos a lot and stayed away from the zooms as much as I could. I think I only used zooms five or six times. I think a lot of times producers want to encourage you to use zooms to get through days and heavy dialogue sequences really quickly, but we had a great camera crew and we could make those changes really quickly, and I tend to work really closely with the directors in prep in terms of knowing what the shots are going to be, how we’re going to cover a scene, where the cameras are going to go and what kind of lenses we’re going to be using. So I always have a plan and I always do everything I can Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017 •
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PRESENTS
THE 60 CSC AWARDS GALA th
with host
Patrick McKenna
S AT U R DAY APRIL 1, 2017 Arcadian Court 401 Bay Street, 8th Floor Toronto • Ontario • Canada Parking at City Hall
Tickets csc.ca/cscawards
to stay off the zooms unless I’m using the lens to actually zoom or I need a really long focal length. It was a bit harder on the camera crew, but after seeing the episodes, I think it was worth it. CC: Can you expand on your theory regarding using zooms versus primes? SI: In a lot of TV, the zoom lens gets used for speed so it can change the framing on someone and go from a medium shot to a close-up, and oftentimes people tend to fall into that because it’s easier and faster, but I always think using zooms changes the dynamic of the show and it ends up making the photography almost anonymous, and you end up recording the dialogue rather than filming the dialogue and creating shots that move the story forward. It tends to just take character out of the show or film, and what you get is a less interesting scene and, for the most part, a less interesting show, or a scene that has a bit more of a generic quality. It’s much more interesting to take the time and bring the camera closer to the actor. Like anything, it’s a choice, but if you use prime lenses you’re forced to think about the lens that you want to use to get that insert shot. If you just use a zoom, by the nature of working that way, it takes the character out of the coverage and out of the shot. So it’s a discipline that I just carry with me. If you watch a lot of HBO shows where people say, “Oh, my God, it looks so cinematic,” a lot of the times it’s because they put the energy into lighting them well. But also it’s because of the way shots are composed and the lenses that they used. Because they’re steering away from what used to be more of a traditional TV trope in getting your days and trying to bring something a bit more cinematic to the small screen. CC: Being a detective story revolving around solving mysteries, there are obviously a lot of night scenes. What was your general approach to those?
CC: The costumes are a big feature on the show and are even a point of discussion among fans online. Did that impact your work much in terms of how they affected the show’s colour palette? SI: It absolutely did. There were extensive tests done, and one of the issues was the colour of Dirk’s jackets, which change over the course of the shoot. In terms of how they fit into the photography, costumes were always a point of discussion, and one of the things that just ended up happening was we couldn’t always be afraid of certain things clashing because that was part of the look. You had an emerald blue sports car and a yellow jacket and these naturalistic tones, and some of the characters, like Gordon Rimmer, the mean villain, spend most of the time wearing very drab beige colours. So we tried to create a cohesive colour scheme in terms of the visual look, but we weren’t afraid to let certain colours pop into our frames once in a while and clash with everything else. It was something that you just had to embrace. And Antoinette Messam, who was the wardrobe designer and who’s a brilliant, wonderful woman, did an amazing job, and to be honest I think it really works and really jives. This show is just such a nice departure from a lot of the darker stuff on TV that doesn’t have a lot of payoff. It has dark elements too, but it’s so much fun and so creative, it’s kind of a delight and a bit of a mindbender.
O MOSS
SI: If there’s a lot of existing light around, I try to stay away from backlight as much as I can. I’ve fallen out of favour with backlight; it just seems to be an easy crutch for lighting night exteriors. Of course it’s often necessary, so it doesn’t mean I didn’t use it. I did use backlight quite a bit in terms of night exteriors, but in urban environments I found that when I could get away with it, I would try to create a very soft, big ambient source whether that was a big helium balloon from far away or a big, soft bounce from far away, and then just augmenting with smaller lights on the ground just to create depth and separation in the frame. In a lot of cases, in urban environments I found I wasn’t putting up any lights, I was just using LEDs and spending most of the time just getting rid of nasty shadows from streetlights. And really just trying to use the latitude of the ALEXA camera to hold those bright street lights and see deeply into the shadows. Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017 •
25
CSC at the 12th Annual SIM Technology Showcase January 19, Toronto
Gayle Ye, Kyle Brunet and Rany Ly
Michael Grippo csc and Carlo Beltrano
David Makin, Alan Lennox, Brian Gedge
Bruce Marshall
Steve Hancock, Wendy Moss, David Rumley and Gail Carr
Kristi Ainscough, Lem Ristsoo and Ben Gervais
Michael Jari Davidson and Lori Longstaff
Monica Guddat and Gayle Ye
Michael Grippo csc, Carlos Esteves csc and Kerry Gordon
Peter Sweeney, George Willis csc, sasc and Yen Peng and Grace Reeves of HD Source Jim Teevan
26 • Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017
Susan Saranchuk and Brendan Steacy csc
Bruce Marshall
Bruce Marshall
Joan Hutton csc, Steven Tsushima and Tanya Lee
Photos by Carolyn Wong except where noted
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The Masters
“In recognition of those who have made an outstanding contribution to the art of cinematography.”
2017 is not only the CSC’s 60th anniversary, it also marks 30 years of recognizing extraordinary excellence through the CSC’s Masters Award. This special honour is conferred upon cinematographers who have transcended from just practicing their craft into leaders of their craft by influencing the cinematic art form through their exceptional creativity, technical skills and ingenuity. Originally called the Kodak New Century Award, it was renamed the Masters Award in 2014 to reflect industry changes brought about by the digital age. In celebration of the CSC’s 60th anniversary, Canadian Cinematographer is presenting a 10-part series on the exceptional cinematographers who have received the Masters Award. This is part three. By Guido Kondruss
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George Morita csc 1993
G
eorge Morita csc was born in 1937 to Japanese parents who ran a poultry farm near Chemainus, British Columbia. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan, the Morita family was uprooted and sent to an internment camp in the B.C. interior for the duration of the Second World War. With the arrival of peace, Morita’s parents were given the choice of repatriation to Japan or passage to eastern Canada. Moving to Japan was inconceivable for the family, since Morita’s father had been living in Canada for the past 40 years and all the children were born in Canada. Toronto became their new home. At age 13, Morita’s journey into film began when he bought a $3 Kodak Baby Brownie camera. Right from Morita’s first roll of film, he began experimenting, shooting double exposures to capture a friend boxing with himself. After graduating from the art program at Central Technical School, Morita landed a job as an ad agency artist. However, when an opening beckoned at a production company, Morita jumped at the chance to become part of Toronto’s nascent film industry. He was a gofer, animator, focus puller and eventually a camera assistant, working on commercials, documentaries and features. By 1965, Morita had transitioned to a cinematographer and began making waves in the commercials world. He became known for his simplified but highly effective lighting style, using a key light and a negative bounce technique. Morita was also considered a technical wizard, who could bring to life the most improbably shot or complicated concept. Besides being a topflight DP, Morita also turned his talents to directing. He was one of the founders of the legendary Partners Film company and later a co-owner of Avion Films. During his 45-year career, Morita shot and directed nearly 3,000 commercial spots, collecting a treasure trove of awards that include Clios, Bessies, U.S. TV and radio awards and a bronze Lion from Cannes. Morita is retired and lives with his wife in Campbellville, Ontario.
Roger Moride csc 1994
Laszlo George csc, hsc 1995
oger Moride csc was born in 1923 near the town of Quimper in the Brittany region of France. As a young boy, Moride learned basic English from the British tourists who flocked to Brittany each year. It was a skill that would loom large in his later life. As a young adult in Paris, Moride wasn’t sure about his future path, but at the urging of a friend, he applied and was admitted in 1943 to the École Technique de Photographie et Cinématographie. After graduating, it was clear to Moride that cinematography was calling, and he spent two more years learning his craft at the Hautes Études Cinématographiques. Moride entered the French film industry as a camera assistant, working on several features including Jacques Tati’s classic comedy Jour de fête. By the early 1950s, Moride was a cinematographer shooting documentaries in Europe and Brazil when he was offered a job by the National Film Board of Canada. They were looking for a cinematographer who could speak French and English. Moride arrived in Montreal in 1954 for a two-year stay, but he met a Canadian woman. They married, and Canada became Moride’s permanent home. The NFB offered Moride a staff position and more documentaries, but he had different ideas. Moride wanted to pursue other film formats to indulge his passion for lighting in both English and Quebec cinema. Moride was soon in demand for his technical and artistic abilities. With his classical lighting style, Moride could sculpt a shot to perfection. He also had an intuitive eye for framing, much in the same way great painters had an instinct for composition. Through his masterful use of graduated filters, Moride could subtly add highlights to the visual look of a film or completely change its atmosphere. During his career as a top Canadian cinematographer, Moride shot dozens of features, television series, documentaries and more than 120 commercials. Moride is retired and lives in Montreal.
lthough born in Budapest in 1931, Laszlo George csc, hsc was raised by his grandparents in the village of Bozsok near the Hungarian-Austria border. It was also a village with no electricity. For the early part of his life, Laszlo was surrounded by candles and lanterns for illumination, and it was the dancing flames casting unpredictable shadows that sparked his lifelong fascination with light. Laszlo’s interest in film and cinematography was piqued in high school when he became class projectionist, captivated by the images cast on the screen from 16 mm Russian movies. His growing love for film led Laszlo to enroll in the renowned Budapest Academy of Film and Dramatic Arts. At the Academy, Laszlo studied all the aspects of filmmaking, as well as art history courses. He was particularly drawn to Renaissance painters, especially Caravaggio with his use of shadowing from a single light source. As a cinematographer, Laszlo adapted and modified this technique into his own unique style. After graduation, Laszlo managed to make one short film before Russian tanks rolled into Budapest, quelling the Hungarian uprising of 1956. Like many other Hungarians, Laszlo fled to the West, eventually making his way to Toronto. Within a month of his arrival, Laszlo was shooting news film and later, commercials, one of which garnered him a Clio Award for his cinematography. Laszlo was part of the cinematography team that shot the 1967 groundbreaking film A Place to Stand, which won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short. While Laszlo shot numerous features, TV series, and ventured into IMAX cinematography, it was with television movies that he hit his stride, as the DP on more than 100 productions. During his career, Laszlo received numerous honours for his outstanding cinematography, including two CSC Awards and a Canadian Film Association Award. Laszlo is semi-retired and lives with his wife in Lions Bay, British Columbia.
R
A
Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017 •
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TECH COLUMN
LEDs Kicking Up Their Game
"Everyone loves them. The feature guys, even the fashion guys." Designed by cinematographer David Amphlett, the two products also work together in synchronization. The 210 was conceived as a soft light fixture, putting out balanced daylight and tungsten, and the 110 shares many components so the outputs match up effortlessly. The larger 210 LED pumps out 2400 Lux at 1M, with a colour temperature range of 2800K to 6500K. The 110 also outputs up to 2400 Lux at 1M in a soft light with the TLCI, CRI (colour rendering index), and R9 ratings as the Silk 210 along with
30 • Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017
that 2800K to 6500K colour temperature range. The unit is available with egg crate louvers and barn doors. The attraction to LEDs is they draw less power than MH lighting, which in turn, of course, means less heat. Then there’s their ease of installation. LEDs are lightweight and can be quickly mounted without the need for special support by a one- or twoperson crew, which is a plus for setups in public spaces like bars or offices. Megaffin is hoping to have the 110 and 210 available for rental at William F. White where there’s a growing selection of LEDs for every need. WFW is also well aware of the LED trend and spent a few months last year installing LED replacements into their stock of standard T12 fixtures, says National Director, Technical Support & Development Mike Harwood. “We’ve set them up with DMX controls so you can put them out on a canoe in the lake and control them from the shore if that’s what you want,” Harwood says. “They’re incredibly bright and controllable. The fixtures are fitted with SourceMaker tubes and rewired with the appropriate connectors.” The big advantage is that the fixtures are not only familiar to the gaffers and lighting directors, but they’re also compatible with WFW's stock of stands and mounts. Michael MacMurchy of S1 Group’s rentals says the new Sufa Bullet and Kinoflo LEDs are also getting a lot of attention from customers. “The Sufa only draws 7 amps, so you can get one, or even two, on a basic household circuit,” he notes. “You don’t need a generator truck; there’s no tail, but the output is the sheer equivalent of a 4K HMI Arri M40. You save so much in rental, time and personnel.” He also says the housing is weather protected (IP66) so it can be left outside without a cover, used in snow or other weather conditions. “You can hoist it up and power through a window from the outside to light the interior,” he says.
“Everyone loves them. The feature guys, even the fashion guys.” Manufacturers Cinemills say the fixture, weighing 73 pounds, is one of the most powerful LED fixtures on the market and boasts a lifespan of 50,000 hours (at 77F), which they say adds up to $130,000 in savings over HMI globe replacements. The low power requirements and lighter weight also makes them a go-to for remote location setups where power is an issue and budgets don’t allow for generator trucks. MacMurchy also notes there’s a snap on the tungsten filter system to shift to 3200 from the standard 5600K, and Sufa has its own proprietary wireless dimming controller. The Sufa is flicker-free up to 3,000 fps, should a DP ever want to go there. S1 is also renting Kino Flo LEDs which he says are “bringing LEDs to the masses.” The units are in the gaffer-familiar form factor with four bulb banks and barn door louvers in an LED softlight format. “Originally they had a magenta-green shift, but then they added a firmware update making them fully RGB functional,” he says. “Not all these 20s and 30s are RGB functional. They’re close to the Skypanel; not quite, but more affordable. The ballast is removable and quite small and interchangeable so you can place it on the floor. It doesn’t have to be on the fixture. They’re also wireless DMX compatible.” Ian Harvey is a Toronto-based journalist who writes for a variety of publications and covers the technology sector. He welcomes feedback and eagerly solicits ideas at ian@pitbullmedia.ca.
The Rosco Silk 110
Courtesy of Rosco
I
t wasn’t that long ago the industry shrugged at LED lighting: cute, but nowhere near ready for a close-up. And while no one is abandoning metal halide lighting, LED lights have forced their way into a growing niche. “There’s still some resistance,” says Steve Megaffin, account representative at Rosco, the venerable company founded in 1910. “But a lot of the newer DPs and others in the industry like them and they don’t have any biases. There are some of the more veteran types who like to work with specific equipment because they know it and they’ve always worked that way. But it is changing.” Driving that change across the board are the manufacturers who are rolling out more powerful, more flexible and more innovative LED lighting fixtures to meet more and more challenges. The Rosco Silk 210 LED softlight debuted last year, and this year they’ve added the Silk 110 as a stablemate.
CLASSIFIEDS EQUIPMENT WANTED 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. EQUIPMENT FOR SALE SHIPPING CASES. Two available, each about 27" wide x 18" deep x 22" tall. Each designed to contain and transport safely one desktop computer system, with areas for processing unit, monitor, keyboard, cables. Robust construction by www.EngineeredCase. com. Possible suitable for DIT use. Very negotiable, open to non-equipment barter. Contact JSunday1@CreativeAffinities.com Pictures available. SERVICES DRONEBOY - We provide safe, reliable and spectacular drone-based aerial cinematography throughout Canada. We have Transport Canada SFOCs in place for all regions, and a large fleet of set-ready drones, and experienced crews for all your camera flying needs. We are flying everything from the new Sony A7S2 to Red Dragon and the new Arri Mini. www.DroneBoy.com | 1-866-783-7871 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 and accessories. Canon Broadcast lenses, and boasts an onstaff 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 costeffectively 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, ON March 2017 – Our New Sprinter versatile mobile unit is ready for hire! Call us and we will drive it out to you for a look inside. Features 3 cameras line cut and record with connected with fiber for long distance cable runs. NEW SINGLE CAMERA SHOOT PACKAGE Sony PXWFS7, Zeiss Compact Prime lenses, and all the Grip Gear. Doorway Dolly and Camera Slider. need post production? We have AVID, Adobe Premiere and the best 5.1 sound mix in the area. Closed Captioning. Descriptive Video too. www.hillvideo.com Rob Hill – 905.335.1146 Cell 905.875.5272
Move up to Movi Pro The Mo-VI Pro is designed from the ground up to handle larger and longer payloads. Its lightweight ring – which also serves as a stand – makes handling at any level a breeze. New batteries and power management systems, integrated and remote MIMIC controllers are just a few of the many technical innovations. Innovations that make the Movi Pro the world’s most versatile, adaptable high performance camera
CAMERA CLASSIFIED IS A FREE SERVICE PROVIDED FOR CSC MEMBERS.
movement system. Come see for yourself at Vistek.
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. The Visual Technology People
31
| MISSISSAUGA | OTTAWA TORONTO Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017 • CALGARY | EDMONTON
VISTEK.CA
PRODUCTION NOTES
ARROW V (series)
DP Gordon Verheul csc (odd)
to April 19
Vancouver
CHRISTMAS INHERITANCE (TV movie)
DP Peter Benison csc Camera Operator Andreas Evdemon
to April 7
North Bay
B Camera Operator Rod Crombie CONDOR (series)
DP Steve Cosens csc
to August 15
Toronto
DESIGNATED SURVIVOR (series)
DP Michael Story csc (alternating DP) B Camera
to April 28
Toronto
1st Assistant Jim Chirayouth Saysana DISTRICT 31 (series)
DP Marc Gadoury csc
to March 17
Montreal
FARGO III (series)
DP Craig Wrobleski csc
to May 2
Calgary
THE FLASH III (series)
DP C. Kim Miles csc (odd)
to April 22
Vancouver
GIRLFRIEND’S GUIDE TO DIVORCE
DP Laszlo George csc, hsc
to March 23
Vancouver
GREEN HARVEST (series)
DP Colin Hoult csc (alternating episodes)
to September 8
Toronto
KILLJOYS III (series)
DP Bruce G. Worrall csc
to May 12
Toronto
LETTERKENNY III (series)
DP Jim Westenbrink csc 1st Assistant Tony Lippa
to March 16
Garson
MECH-X4 aka MTX (series)
DP Neil Cervin csc
to March 16
Aldegrove
MEDITATION PARK (feature)
DP Peter Wunstorf asc Digital Imaging Tech Christopher Oben
to March 23
Vancouver
MENENDEZ (MOW)
DP Paul Mitchnick csc
to March 23
Vancouver
ONCE UPON A TIME VI (series)
DP Tony Mirza
to March 31
Burnaby
POTOMAC (series)
B Camera Operator Alfonso Maiorana
PRIVATE EYES II (series)
DP Christopher Ball csc & Pierre Jodoin csc (alternating episodes)
(series)
Montreal to May 19
Scarborough
DP Vincent de Paula Camera Operator Greg Fox
to March 24
Saanichton
DP David Herrington csc & Mike McMurray csc (alternating episodes)
to May 16
Mississauga
1st Assistant Pierre Branconnier B Camera Operator Brad Hruboska REBOOT: THE GUARDIAN CODE (series) SHADOWHUNTERS II (series)
Data Management Technician Marc Forand SOMEWHERE BETWEEN (series)
DP Michael Wale csc
to June 15
North Vancouver
STRAIN IV (series)
DP Alwyn Kumst csc (alternating episodes)
to April 11
Toronto
to April 26
Burnaby
B Camera Operator J.P. Locherer csc SUPERNATURAL XII (series)
Co-Producer & DP Serge Ladouceur csc; Camera Operator Brad Creasser
TOM CLANCY’S JACK RYAN (series)
B Camera Operator Alfonso Maiorana
VAN HELSING II (series)
DP Brendan Uegama csc Camera Operator Steve Danyluk
to June 16
Vancouver
WYNONNA EARP II (series)
DP Gerald Packer csc
to April 13
Calgary
ZOO III (series)
DP François Dagenais csc
to June 16
North Vancouver
Montreal
CALENDAR OF EVENTS MARCH 1-12, Canadian Screen Awards, Toronto, academy.ca/Canadian-screenawards 2-5, Kingston Canadian Film Festival, Kingston, ON, kingcanfilmfest.com 23- April 2, International Film Festival on Art, Montreal, artfifa.com
Write to Us
www.csc.ca Connect online with the CSC
APRIL 1, CSC Awards, Arcadian Court, Toronto, csc.ca April 27-May 7, Hot Docs, Toronto, hotdocs.ca
Follow us on Instagram to see featured full members' work @canadiancinematographer
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.
32 • Canadian Cinematographer - March 2017
@csc_CDN
Remote control the sky. New SkyPanel Remote Inspired by the requests of users, the SkyPanel Remote adds new flexibility and ease-of-use for the popular SkyPanel line of LED soft lights. This handheld remote connects to any SkyPanel via a USB cable and allows for full remote control of the fixture when it is high up on a light stand or in a position where the on-board control panel is difficult to access.
Explore the new SkyPanel: www.arri.com/skypanel
SOFT LIGHTING | REDEFINED
Mic support attachment improvements LCD VF hood and support rod
4K/UHD/HD resolutions with longer record times with the new 256GB XQD card
New electronic Variable ND system
BT-2020 colour space support
New (with kit) 18-100mm Power Zoo Parfocul E-mount lens
10 assignable buttons New easy eject XQD card slots for more efficient card swapping
New more robust lens locking mechanism Improved adjustable grip arm
Cinesational Sony’s new FS7II is creating quite a stir with cinematographers, for all the right reasons. Thanks to its many ergonomic and operational improvements, the 4K Super35mm FS7II is simpler and easier to operate. In addition, the new FS7II’s impressive list of technical innovations is, for many, all the incentive they need to move up from the original FS7 to the new Mark II. All told, Sony’s new kid on the scene is quickly becoming the go-to camera for demanding filmmakers. Check it out for yourself at Vistek.
COMMERCIAL PRO VIDEO DEPARTMENT Direct: 416-644-8010 • Fax: 416-644-8031 • Toll-Free Direct: 1-866-661-5257 • CommercialVideo@vistek.ca
PHOTO | VIDEO | DIGITAL | SALES | RENTALS | SERVICE
The Visual Technology People
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