JOHN MATHIESON BSC•DR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS

SOFTLY SENSUAL

Film is altogether a different tool for visual storytelling

Typically, it’s the task of the cinematographer and their director to treat sequels, prequels and origins stories to a visual change-of-gear, compared to shows that have gone successfully before. .

And, such was the challenge facing DP Suzie Lavelle ISC BSC and director Lenny Abrahamson when they decided to harness Kodak 2-perf 35mm film for BBC/Hulu’s sensual Conversations With Friends TV series, the companion to 2020’s lockdown sensation, Normal People, which they had worked on previously together. Normal People was the most streamed series of 2020 on BBC’s iPlayer, with over 60 million views over an eight-month period.

Set in Dublin, Eire, both Normal People and Conversations With Friends are based on the bestselling, coming-of-age novels by author Sally Rooney, who also helped to adapt them for the small screen, with Abrahamson directing and executive producing through Element Pictures for BBC/Hulu.

Whereas Normal People, which was shot digitally, took a tender take on the budding intimacies of a young couple against a backdrop of class and privilege, Conversations With Friends deals with the passionate and complicated entanglements between best friends, ex-lovers and a married couple. The 12 x 30-minute series follows Dublin University students Frances and Bobbi – best buddies and former paramours, who perform poetry together – and how their tight-knit dynamic is threatened by the new attachments they forge with an older married couple, journalist Melissa and actor Nick.

“Lenny and I felt it would have been wrong to make Conversations With Friends with the same look-and-feel as Normal People, and we had many conversations early-on about how we could change things up,” reveals Lavelle.

“Lenny wanted to retain the intimacy, naturalism and visual softness of the character-driven narrative in Normal People, but with this being a more mature four-hander, he was keen to shoot wider this time around, to have more depth and sense of the characters in place, to see more of Dublin, within the visual storytelling. We both also felt that a lot of digitally-originated TV and streaming shows were starting to look the same, and were wary about the camera set-up being too big and intrusive.”

As the scripts for Conversations With Friends were not available at the early stages of their discussions, Lavelle read Rooney’s book, and admits, “the more I read it, the more I felt this story must be shot on film. So we started to explore the idea of shooting on celluloid, albeit not super-glossy 35mm.”

Scouring the internet, Lavelle came across an article on Kodak’s popular Filmmaker Stories portal, about DP Jody Lee Lipes lensing HBO’s series I Know This Much Is True for director Derek Cianfrance, framing in 2:1 aspect ratio on 2-perf 35mm film, using just one film stock – KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219 – for the entire series.

“I watched that show and loved the reality and naturalism that shooting 2-perf 35mm for a 2:1 extraction using 500T brought to the storytelling,” says Lavelle. “It put the idea in our heads that it just might be possible to shoot a British TV series on film, and we felt that if Derek and Jody had that got that format through HBO, then we had a chance of getting the same approved by the BBC.”

Images: Conversations With Friends. Images courtesy of BBC/Element Pictures/Enda Bowe.

Due to the then prevalence of Covid and need for safety protocols, Lavelle shot test footage in her own home, filming family and friends at safe distances, with support from Cinelab to process the film negative and scan the results to 4K.

“Working with a small, low-impact camera package, using a lot of available light, very sympathetic to skin tones, 2-perf 35mm felt so right and effortless in terms of not feeling and noticing the camera or the light. We really felt we had found the format the show deserved and the producers agreed.”

Along with I Know This Much Is True, Lavelle also observed Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011, dir. Sean Durken, DP Jody Lee Lipes), shot on 35mm, for its filmic texture, framing of characters and blocking of group scenes, in different exterior and interiors environments, noting the quiet, measured rhythm of the cinematography.

After significant delays due to the pandemic, principal photography on Conversations With Friends got underway in March 2021, concluding in October 2021, due to numerous stop/start interruptions caused by Covid. Lavelle shot episodes 1-5, plus 11 and 12, across a total of 75 shooting days with Abrahamson, and Canadian DP Bobby Shore CSC lensed episodes 6-10 with director by Leanne Welham over the course of 50 shooting days.

Production on the series took place at Loop Studios in Belfast, where sets for Frances’ apartment and Melissa and Nick’s marital home and garden, designed by Anna Rackard, were built on the stages. Belfast exteriors stoodin as much as possible for Dublin, although the team necessarily shot at locations around Dublin for eight days, before moving to the Croatian island of Hvar to film the holiday scenes.

For the shoot, Lavelle went with Arricam LT 35mm fitted with 400ft magazines, lensing through vintage Canon K35 lenses and an Angénieux 25-250mm zoom, provided by Acorn Film & Video in Belfast.

Lavelle and Shore both operated on what was mainly a single camera production, but did incorporate the Steadicam skills of Greg McGuiness during the Irish stint of production and Charlie Cowper in Croatia, plus the focus-pulling talents of Connor Hammond, who ensured sharp images despite the lack of marks.

“Although we did some work on dolly and tracks, the majority of the camerawork was a combination of handheld and Steadicam, as we wanted to respond to the performances, which might change between takes, and to keep the image real and alive,” Lavell explains. “This approach, and the small technology footprint that comes with filming on film, also meant we could work quickly and get thorough the daily page-count and setups efficiently. Typically our Irish episodes took 12 days each, and that reduced to ten days in Croatia.

“One of the features of shooting 2-perf, especially with longer focal lengths, is that we reduced that very narrow depth-of-field that you can see in Normal People, and could stand back slightly to plant our characters, especially Frances, in the different locations around Dublin. That said, the Covid protocols were much stricter there than they were in Northern Ireland, and our 1st AD became adept at positioning plants, props and extras so we didn’t get people wearing facemasks on our Dublin exteriors.”

Lavelle reveals that she considered using different film stocks for the series, but went with Kodak 500T 5219 for the entire production. Her preferred lighting approach involved using mainly Tungsten fixtures – Dinos, halfWendy’s, 10K and 20K Molebeams, plus Mini and Maxi-brutes – which, in combination with her vintage lens choices, encouraged warmth, softness and intimacy in the imagery. The production gaffer was Simon Magee, with lighting equipment provided by PKE.

“I wanted to deliver a rich, low-contrast negative to post-production, and knew that the 500T loves colour – it’s so natural and lovely-looking on skin tones – even when you are flooding the image with illumination to keep it light and airy. I especially loved how the 500T picked-up on the golden stone, the pinky-reds of the vegetation, and blue-green of the sea, when we shot in Croatia. And it was absolutely bonkers how it held detail in massively overexposed areas of the image, such as the café scene we shot in Belfast. “I studied cinematography at the National Film & TV School in London, where we shot on film and were drilled by our tutors, especially Brian Tufano BSC, about exposure. In a world where we have become accustomed to forever checking monitors on-set, it was wonderful to see the crew not having to worry about any of that, trusting their eyes instead and knowing that on film what you see is what you get.”

We wanted to respond to the performances, and to keep the image real and alive

One of the significant achievements when shooting Normal People had been the help of intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien in supporting the actors and the crew when it came to staging scenes involving sex and nudity. And once again, O’Brien became part of the crew.

“As with any choreographed scene – such as a stunt or a dance – you need a specialist practitioner to help everybody talk about things properly and professionally, so that everyone – the actors and the crew – knows what is required and feels comfortable,” says Lavelle. “When everyone was on the same page, we filmed with a really respectful, closed set – just Lenny, me and my focus puller, the boom op and someone from costume/make-up. We had the full backing of the producers, and were not pressed on time during those scenes and let the actors take the lead, and I think that resulted in a special onscreen chemistry for those moments.”

Film processing on the Irish stint of the production was done at Cinelab, with Hungarian Film Lab supporting the Croatian-based shoot. The final grade on Conversations With Friends was completed by colourist Garry Curran at Outer Limits in Dublin, where Lavelle says the work, “didn’t involve anything radical, as we had captured the essence of the show on film in-camera, so it was more about finessing the look in general.”

Lavelle concludes, “It was a considerable challenge to live up to the success of Normal People, whilst creating

something that had its own distinctive look and style, during a schedule that was constantly blighted by the pandemic in some form or other. Film is altogether a different tool for visual storytelling. It really kept us on our toes, but helped to make things fast and efficient too. It was a joyful experience and think the result looks amazing.”

SEA CHANGE

Storywise, season three of the WWII U-boat drama, Das Boot, is typified, in it’s early episodes at least, by moral dilemmas the characters face towards armed conflict, with opposing sides of the war effort sharing somewhat rose-tinted hopes that the world will get back to normality soon. .

Cinematographically-speaking, the ten-part series will likely be remembered as an early adventure into endto-end, 8K production, post and distribution, with Sky, in partnership with Samsung, taking a sizeable leap into the UHD future.

Warfare on the oceans is as deadly as ever as

I became very comfortable shooting with the Red Monstro camera at 8K

WWII rages. Set in the spring of 1943, when U-boats are being prepared-for-use at the German naval base in Kiel, the action follows the tense struggles of a young submarine crew as they get ready to engage in the Battle Of The Atlantic, much to the apprehensions of their families and loved ones. Out at sea, on a dangerous mission to the Southern Hemisphere, they find themselves hunted by an obsessive Royal Navy Commander employing ever-more sophisticated sonar technology and depth charges in a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase.

There’s intrigue on dry land too, in neutral Lisbon, where an SS commandant discovers a lethal plot, amongst exiles, spies and criminals, to steal a fortune in plundered wartime gold. This, and his recent dark experiences on the Eastern front, leads him to question his past actions and moral path.

Collaborating with showrunner Moritz Polter, episodes 1-5 of Das Boot S3 were shot under the auspices of German cinematographer Armin Franzen and director Hans Steinbichler, with British DP David Higgs BSC supervising episodes 6-10 for director Dennis Gansel.

Produced through Bavaria Fiction, principal photography on the series took place over 104 shooting days between October 2020 and March 2021, starting at locations around Prague, and with the U-boat interiors being filmed at Barrandov Studios. Scenes involving the U-boats and naval destroyers at sea were filmed at Malta Film Studios, with nearby interior/ exterior locations doubling for Lisbon.

“Although I had not worked on the series before, I was highly-aware of the show and watched the first and second seasons before signing-up. I was amazed and excited because I thought they represented masterpieces of storytelling,” says Franzen, an alumnus of the Filmakademie Baden Württemberg and Lodz Film School, in Poland, whose credits include Gladbeck (2018), Rammstein Deutschland (2019) and How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast) (2019).

“In this third season, the storyline changed quite dramatically, as the characters on both sides question the morality and the necessity for war more than ever. Many are emotionally-wounded, longing for a world without conflict, and have the romanticised expectation that they will live and love again in the world they used to know. Of course, the audience know that war will change the world forever, and the irony of this premise really struck me.”

“Drama series do move-on and evolve visually between seasons. So I suggested to Moritz a subtle change to the look of the show – but without destroying its DNA – where we embrace the emotional intelligence of the characters and their idealised notions, read more into the faces, bringing more colour and warmth into the skin tones, and creating a more dynamic range of palettes – monochrome, saturated, colour-contrasted, cold and warm – right across the story arc to portray the romantic irony as well as the full-on horrors of war.”

Regarding the decision to shoot Das Boot S3 in 8K, after the first two had been produced in 4K, Franzen says, “I am a great believer that technology should never overrule the process of filmmaking. To be honest, at first I was praying that we would not have to shoot in 8K. With this being a period-drama, I was really concerned about the increased strength of the digital look in 8K, and how a possibly slower workflow would influence the way we would work, especially as the schedule meant we had to work fast.

“But, that said, shooting 8K gave me the chance to introduce large format photography into my original creative thinking, and to use that to design new dynamics regarding the spatial relations between the characters and their environments, such as the perception of the confines inside the submarine.”

At the time of production, Red was the only camera manufacturer offering 8K-capable cameras, and Franzen

undertook extensive tests to investigate how to mitigate the innate sharpness of the full-frame Red Monstro sensor, measuring 40.96mm x 21.60mm, with a resolution of 8192 x 4320 pixels.

“I like a certain level of grain in the image, so I conducted tests at different exposures – chiefly 1000ISO to 1600ISO – to see what might happen,” he says. “I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a grain-like texture in the image at the higher ISO, which would certainly help give a more natural and organic feeling.”

But Franzen did not stop there. He also considered many full-frame lens and filtration options to help take-off the digital edge, before settling on Zeiss Supreme Primes and Schneider-Kreuznach Radiant Soft diffusion. The camera package was provided by Vantage in Prague.

“Aesthetically, I preferred how the Supreme Primes rendered skin colour and overall colour separation, and how, in combination with the Radiant Soft filters, they delivered a soft and gentle radiance to the image, whilst maintaining contrast, as well as controlling the highlights with very little blooming effect.

“Additionally, as the Zeiss Supreme Primes are nicely consistent across the range in terms of aperture, size, weight and ergonomics, it meant that frequent lens changes, often on two-cameras, would be much quicker and easier than had we gone with vintage optics, and that was really important with regards to meeting our schedule. As it turned out, during my five episodes, over 63 shooting days, we had just a few minutes of overtime in total.”

The development of LUTs also played a small part in the recipe to mollify the 8K sensor, but there with some caveats.

“You have to be very careful with the application of LUTs,” Franzen remarks. “If you don’t test them rigorously in different lighting conditions, and iron-out any wrinkles they might bring to colour and contrast, it can lead to bullshit and there’s no way back.

“We developed a small selection of show-LUTs, but ended-up just using one that very subtly supplemented the filmic quality already being achieved though the lens, filter and exposure choices.”

Beyond the camera, on-set lighting was another area that Franzen had under his control to soften the image. Working with gaffer Martin Granilla, he deployed an array of ARRI SkyPanels, Astera Tubes, LiteGear LiteMats, plus Carpet Lights, in combination with DoPchoice and other light-shaping tools, to sculpt the illumination, and deliver images with richly-detailed blacks, subtle and dramatic contrasts on faces, plus eye-catching highlights. “Despite my initial misgivings, I became very comfortable shooting with the Red Monstro camera at 8K, and was very happy with the cinematic look,” says Franzen. During production the team monitored on-set in 2K, and had access to 4K professional displays, plus an 8K Samsung OLED TV screen, in the DIT truck, watching dailies via DaVinci Resolve, operated by DIT Jakub Hrabanek. “Regarding the level of detail that comes with 8K resolution, and how we might see every little pore in the skin, or notice issues with makeup, costume and set design, I encouraged the different heads of department to pay regular visits to Jakub and to report any issues or concerns they had. But I never heard anything back that caused them to work differently than they would normally, or any alarm bells about things

Zeiss Supreme Primes are nicely consistent across the range in terms of aperture, size, weight and ergonomics

Images: Das Boot S3 images © Jan Hromádko/ Bavaria Fiction Gmbh/Sky Deutschland GmbH

appearing ‘digital’, which gave us all a great deal of confidence.”

Editing Das Boot S3 involved lower-resolution proxy files due to of the lack of equipment ready for 8K postproduction. However, the final grade was done at 8K, conducted by colourist Ondřej Štibing at UPP in Prague, with a Dolby Atmos audio soundscape.

“I expected the DI to be a slow process, but it was pretty much like a normal grading session. I don’t know what UPP did exactly to upgrade their backroom engineering and Baselight system to make the 8K workflow work, but the experience was fabulous,” Franzen recalls.

“In the grading suite we had a professional OLED 4K HDR colour-critical reference monitor side-by-side with a Samsung 8K HDR consumer screen for comparative purposes. There were some slight differences between the images on the different displays, but these were obscure.

“Although I had my doubts about shooting 8K, I was extremely happy with the end result. It was a great experience and it’s always good to learn something new. We are still in the early days of 8K, and content offerings are very limited. But if you have ever viewed immersive cinematic 8K content, especially paired with phenomenal audio, it is quite an experience.”