Cinematography World Issue 012

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SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

It’s always at this time of year that we get excited about Camerimage and the personalities who attend the annual homage to all-things-cinematographic from far-and-wide. Hat’s off to the organisers on the occasion of their 30th edition, bringing filmmakers together for another congregational treat.

Whilst the community of cinematographers is global, friendships, connections and degrees of separation, actually make it very small - the veritable global village. And at this time of year, it is with more than a tinge of sadness that, when we ought to be celebrating carefree, we need to spare a moment to remember those whose careers have been cut short, and especially those whose lives were lost in pursuit of the jobs they loved.

In honour of them and the talents they were so much admired for, we dedicate this edition to Mark Milsome and Halyna Hutchins, their loved ones, families and friends, and to everyone else affected by the injury or loss of a person to whom they are connected. They are always on our mind, as are you.

Wherever you are, please stay safe, and keep an eye out for well-being and safety. We depend on one another. All the best.

EDITORIAL TEAM

Ron Prince has over three decades of experience in the film, TV, CGI and VFX industries, and has written about cinematography for 20 years. In 2014, he won the ARRI John Alcott Award from the BSC. He also runs the international content marketing and PR communications company Prince PR..

Darek Kuźma is a film and TV journalist, translator/interpreter, and a regular collaborator/programmer of the EnergaCamerimage Film Festival. He is an ardent cinephile who has a lifelong romance with the visual language of cinema.

David Wood is a freelance journalist covering film/TV technology and production He was a former technology editor at Televisual, and is a regular contributor to Worldscreen, TVB Europe and Broadcast.

Kirsty Hazlewood has over two decades of editorial experience in print/ online publications, and is a regular contributor to folk/roots music website Spiral Earth.

Michael Goldman is an LA-based award-winning, journalist/author, specialising in the art, technology and people involved in filmmaking and cinematography. His is a long-time contributor to American Cinematographer and CineMontage.

Natasha Block Hicks is an artist/designer/maker, who spent a decade as a freelance film and TV camera assistant, and indulges her love for cinema and cinematography through research and writing.

Cover Image: Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths courtesy of Netflix. ©

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Ron Prince Editor in Chief

Life is not just something we live, life is something that teaches us.

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PEARL IN THE SHELL

We are organising the International Film Festival EnergaCAMERIMAGE for the 30th time. Our festival has grown to become the largest and most prestigious event dedicated to the art of cinematography in the world. Thousands of filmmakers, art school students, film equipment and technology producers, journalists, and film lovers come to us every year, attracted to the unique idea and atmosphere it provides. At EnergaCAMERIMAGE, the participants can converse about moving pictures without commercial pressure, without ideological or political tensions, which seem to be quite rare in today’s world.

In 1993 when I worked on the very first edition of Camerimage, I truly believed that cinema artists could save a person, an individual whose importance was increasingly diminishing in a degenerating civilisation. Today, I feel that this belief is even more essential. Cinema has degenerated, and film festivals have become a field of ideological struggle. We seem to forget that film is a form of art, a creation rather than a recording, a means of spiritual communication rather than journalistic photography, a natural stimulant for dormant beauty and sensitivity, or a soothing balm for shattered nerves. Too often, though, it is a depressant, releases negative energy, and favours propaganda over dialogue and kindness.

The origins of the festival date back to the time when communism collapsed in Poland. The universal enthusiasm at that time was like a drug. We were so eager to make up for lost time. Unfortunately, the joy of freedom quickly turned into the madness of arbitrariness. Rejecting everything, we lost ground and reached absurdities.

As an art historian, I felt that film was closer to the people than all other arts. Under communism, we were isolated from Western art. I was a lecturer at university. There was no possibility of going abroad and to earn decent money. I organised the first exhibition of European art of the 1980s in 1991. With private funds from the first sponsorship, I managed to bring to Toruń the collections of Professor Ludwig from Cologne and Achen, from the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Museum of Art in Vienna, works by independent artists from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Russia and Poland.

Then, the renowned German filmmaker, Volker Schlöndorff, came to visit Toruń. I realised that

I could do something more. I came up with the idea of a festival where cinematographers, usually underestimated in the film world, would not only be noticed, but would also have plenty of opportunities to talk to each other and exchange ideas.

Toruń supported the creation of the European Film Center (EFC) Camerimage. The first cinema in Poland that meets the screening requirements in all internationally-recognised standards will be created here, in Toruń, where the Camerimage idea was born.

We are happy and proud to play our part in this. We will be able to carry out a programme of film, exhibition, educational and artistic projects related to visual arts, science and entertainment here 365 days a year.

I am extremely concerned about the war in Ukraine, inflation and the Covid pandemic. However, I believe that we will find help worldwide to restore the balance and eliminate evil from our lives and work.

Directors Krzysztof Kieślowski and David Lynch supported me in that idea. Cinematographers such as Sven Nykvist and Vittorio Storaro also came, as well as Conrad Hall, Vilmos Zsigmond, László Kovács, Haskel Wexler. Not long after, I had the support of Andrzej Zulawski, John Schlesinger, Peter Weir, Roland Joffé, Alan Parker, Jeremy Irons, Sophie Marceau, Charlize Theron, Keanu Reeves, Quentin Tarantino, Danny de Vito and Richard Gere, and thousands of cinematographers have attended the festival between then and now. All of our guests come out of respect for the work and achievements of cinematographers.

From 1993 to this day the festival continues to grow. During the communist era and, unfortunately, during 30 years of freedom, no dedicated festival and film centre was established In Poland. Finally, in 2019, the Polish Government and the City of

I want to invite you all to the 30th anniversary edition of the festival in Toruń on November 1219. You will not only have the chance to watch great films, get to know the latest film technologies, attend workshops and seminars with outstanding filmmakers from around the world and masters of cinema, but you will also be able to talk about what kind of place ECF Camerimage should become for artists and audiences, people like you.

Join the conversation. Come to Toruń, the new promised land of European cinema.

Marek Żydowicz Founder & Festival Director

Come to Toruń, the new promised land of European cinema

Mari Yamamura

Chad Orororo

Akhilesh Patel

Carmen Poulton

Riaz

Kahn

MARK MILSOME FOUNDATION CALLS FOR CULTURAL CHANGE IN FILM AND TV INDUSTRY

DEDOLIGHT’S 3-PART LIGHTSTREAM FAMILY

Dedolight

has announced the three-part, Lightstream family of scaleable products for working with reflected light. The reflectors are available in five sizes, with five surfaces that have different reflective characters, with motorised options also available.

All of the reflectors are activated with efficiency by the company’s parallel beamoptical systems, from 1200 Watt parabolic, with a vast range of focussing lights, all the way down to 8 Watt.

Dedolight parallel beam intensifiers are used to increase light output by focussing the light into a reflector, Users can simply attach the parallel beam intensifier to a focussing Dedolight and increase the light output by more than 500%.

The company has now announced the complete system for Dedolight Lightstream as a three-part family. The Dedolight Lightstream for drama shows, provides the illusion of infinity lighting, even in

confined spaces. Dedolight Lightstream Lite is an eight reflector kit, which can be activated by a single light, from 150W down to a 40W bicolor LED, meaning that complete sets, including background, can be lit. The Dedolight Lightstream Table Top offers endless creative options, including 15 different reflectors, two small 8W Ledzilla lights, enhanced by the Parallel Beam Intensifiers.

BFI LAUNCHES 10-YEAR VISION FOR UK SCREEN CULTURE AND INDUSTRY

BFIchair Tim Richards and chief executive Ben Roberts have published Screen Culture 2033, the BFI’s new 10-year strategy signalling a fresh approach to benefitting the public and industry through to its landmark centenary in 2033.

This new vision sets out how the UK’s lead organisation for film and the moving image will transform access to its unique and valuable collections, cultural and education programmes, and use policy and research work, alongside a new BFI National Lottery Strategy and Funding Plan to build a diverse and accessible screen culture that benefits all of society and contributes to a prosperous UK economy.

SCREENSKILLS TRAINEE FINDER WEBINAR

Trainee Finder is ScreenSkills’ industryrespected entry-level programme, which places trainees with less than a year’s industry experience on paid placements with films and children’s and high-end TV (HETV) series.

Screenskills has created an hour-long webinar featuring information on how Trainee Finder supports trainees and what makes a great candidate. Trainee Finder is for candidates with some, but not more than a year’s experience in the industry

The webinar features film trainee finder lead Celia Small, HETV trainee finder outreach manager Joanna Booth, as well as trainees themselves – a mix of former and current trainees from a range of departments – who share their first-hand experience of Trainee Finder and offer advice for people who want to apply as well as hints and tips for anyone just starting out. The webinar is available on the Screenskills website.

Working in unison with Screen Culture 2033, the new BFI National Lottery Strategy 2023-2033 will guide how it will invest approximately £45 million a year of National Lottery ‘good cause’ funding over the first three years of the 10-year strategy period.

At the heart of Screen Culture 2033 and the BFI National Lottery Strategy are three core principles which both guide the BFI’s own activities and cut across every area to be supported by National Lottery funding. These are: equity, diversity and inclusion, so everyone can develop a meaningful relationship with screen culture, regardless of their background or circumstances; UK-wide, so that everyone across the four nations of the UK should be able to experience and create the widest range of moving image storytelling; and environmental sustainability, from reducing the BFI’s own carbon emissions to supporting wider industry efforts to get to net zero.

As the fifth anniversary of the tragic on-set death of respected British cameraman Mark Milsome approaches, Samantha Wainstein, chair of MMF, the charitable foundation set up in his name, has called for long overdue cultural change to protect crews working in the British film and television industry. The Foundation is asking for the industry establishment, including BECTU, PACT, PGGB, and all industry guilds, to unite to create lasting change. Since its inception, MMF has had continual dialogue with crews. In 2020, it commissioned a detailed survey to gauge opinion on their working conditions and then created a Health & Safety Passport course in 2021. Whilst individual crew members have responded positively to the course, as far as the established industry goes, nothing has changed. MMF will launch Black T-Week on 18th November, when film and television crews across the UK will honour their late colleague by wearing T-shirts exclusively designed by celebrated French cinematographer Benoît Delhomme AFC ASC. Delhomme and Milsome worked together on The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas and The Theory Of Everything, and the DP has lent his passion and talent to this MMF initiative, creating a design with the simple yet powerful words, “Because Mark” and “Inspire Change”.

PINEWOOD STUDIOS CELEBRATES

YEARS SINCE DR NO & OPENS THE SEAN CONNERY STAGE

JamesBond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli attended a private event at Pinewood Studios to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Dr No and the official opening of The Sean Connery Stage.

Sir Sean’s granddaughter, Saskia Connery, opened the stage on behalf of the Connery family, and previous cast and crew from a number of 007 films joined the celebrations.

The Aston Martin DB5 and Rolls Royce Phantom III as seen in Goldfinger were on-display inside the 18,000sq/ft stage. The Rolls Royce was the actual car as seen on-screen, whilst the Aston Martin is a replica of the model that featured gadgets including an ejector seat in the film.

The Sean Connery Stage stands close to the entrance to the studios, with a new entrance

feature, and is located on the corner of Goldfinger Avenue, named after the famous scene in the film where James Bond (Sean Connery) activates the ejector seat in the Aston Martin DB5.

Dr No, the first official James Bond film, was shot at Pinewood Studios with Sean Connery in the lead role and opened in cinemas across the globe on 5 October 1962.

ARRI HONOURED WITH ENGINEERING EMMY

At the 74th Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards ceremony ARRI was honoured with the Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award. With this prestigious accolade, the Television Academy recognises the company for its more than a century of designing and manufacturing camera and lighting systems as well as its development of systemic technological solutions and service networks for a worldwide complex of film, broadcast, and media industries.

WARNER BROS. DE LANE LEA MOVES TO NEW FACILITY IN SOHO

This year’s Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award winner was decided by a jury from the Television Academy consisting of television engineers.

The Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award already marks the fifth separate occasion that the Television Academy has recognised ARRI. Most recently, ARRI was presented with an Engineering Emmy for its SkyPanel family of LED softlights in 2021 and for the ARRI Alexa camera system in 2017.

Warner

Bros. De Lane Lea (WBDLL) has announced it will be moving from its current home on Dean Street to Ilona Rose House, Soho Estates, a new development on Greek Street. Located over three floors of the building, the post production house will be home to the UK’s largest mixing stage.

The 32,000sq/ft premises benefit from being purpose-built, enabling the design to be planned from the outset, providing clients with a seamless experience.

Kim Waugh, EVP worldwide of post production creative services, said,”This new home for our team of multi-award-winning talents will bring another level of service to the post production world in London. The size and quality of the stages are exceptional, and I’m delighted we are remaining within the heart of Soho’s vibrant and creative community.”

Some of the highlights include the UK’s largest mixing stage, featuring 4K DCI laser projection with Dolby Atmos and IMAX monitoring, a suite of 45 networked and acoustically-treated cutting rooms with programmable lighting systems, three further mixing stages and two large DCI grading theatres including 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos monitoring.

URSA

Blackmagic

Digital Film in Extreme Resolution

URSA

Record

Cinematic 12K Super 35 Sensor

The

Fast and Flexible Post Production

ROSCO PROMOTES RAMOS TO SALES DIRECTOR

As sales director for EMEA, Steve will lead the Rosco sales activities for the region in the company’s live entertainment and film, television & broadcast markets.

Steve Ramos joined Rosco in 2005 as its UK sales representative. Since then, his roles and responsibilities have expanded steadily, including positions in the company’s marketing department and its Rosco Architectural division.

“Steve’s commitment to Rosco and our customers is second to none,” said Cristian Arroyo, Rosco vice president of global film, television, and broadcast market. “His leadership has not only taken Rosco to record revenue figures in EMEA, but he was especially effective as we navigated the uncharted waters of the pandemic. Steve’s vast experience, his long- lasting relationships with our EMEA customers, and his deep knowledge of Rosco products will enable him to set our sales strategies – not just for an encouraging present, but for a very bright future as well.”

NEW IMPROVED FLOW FOR EURO CINE EXPO 2023

Heldonce again on the Motorworld complex, Euro Cine

benefit from a new and improved layout, designed to complement and enhance the flow and event experience for exhibitors and attendees.

The new event footprint aims to improve the connectivity of the halls & spaces and promote a natural and convenient flow for visitors and exhibitors, whilst increasing capacity and functionality.

Among the many developments being made, Euro Cine Expo 2023 will be focusing on the visitor experience improving the registration zone and adding special feature areas. The 2023 event will incorporate a dedicated “Virtual Production Zone”, as well as a “Skills Zone” where the next generation will be able to benefit from the guidance available from

HUGH WHITTAKER NEW VP OF SET LIGHTING & RIGGING AT WBSL

Hugh Whittaker has been appointed VP of set lighting and rigging at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden (WBSL). He will provide leadership and direction for day-to-day operations, whilst also maintaining WBSL’s awardwinning standards.

Whittaker joins WBSL from Panavision, where he spent over 30 years as a director of the UK and EMEA teams. Throughout his career, he has received awards from the British Society Of Cinematographers, the Guild Of British Camera Technicians, and the Production Guild

MATTHEWS ANNOUNCES C-STAND SHOULDER KITBAGS

Of Great Britain. Emily Stillman, senior vice president, Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden commented, “Our amazing set lighting and rigging team are a vital part of the operations here at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, going above-and-beyond to provide productions with everything they could need. We’re so excited to have Hugh join us, his wealth of experience in the industry will help take this service to a new level and help support the production journey.”

Matthews,

known for its go-everywhere C-stands and other grip gear, now has a more efficient way to transport them to a set or location. The C-Stand Shoulder kitbag takes the awkwardness out of carrying up to two fixed or turtle-based C-stands, in either 20” or 40” sizes.

The C-Stand shoulder kitbag features a triangular design packed with ample ABS honeycomb and high-density, closed-cell EVA foam padding, for protection against bumps and jolts. Its rugged black, water-resistant ballistic nylon and polyester exterior unzips butterfly-style, to reveal a generous inner compartment in highvisibility Matthew’s signature red lining. Within it, padded dividers separate stands, whilst convenient

hook n’ loop fabric straps prevent shifting of the contents.

For easy access, the Kitbag offers dualdirectional easy-glide zippers. Additionally, quick catch magnetic grip handles, and a padded shoulder strap ease set-up and tear down.

With internal dimensions of 57” x 20.5” x 4” shoulder kitbags fit virtually every Matthews C-stand including both sliding and spring-loaded fixed-based versions as well as Turtle-base varieties. The C-Stand shoulder kitbag is available through Matthews dealers worldwide.

industry professionals from around the world and will include information on universities and apprenticeships.

By maximising Motorworld’s indoor and outdoor spaces, Euro Cine Expo 2023 will

continue in its vision to deliver a festival style environment with on-site restaurants, food trucks, and areas to socialise where everyone can gather and network.

NANLUX INTRODUCES EVOKE

COLOUR LED SPOTLIGHT

Nanlux

has announced the release of Evoke 1200B, in its next evolution in bi-colour LED fixtures.

Incorporating a product philosophy refined over the past 30 years, the Evoke 1200B is a new tool for cinematographers and gaffers in film & TV production, and the company hopes it will

prove a game-changer in bringing a “beyondanticipation user experience” for large film crews who demand subtle, yet precise lighting.

The Evoke 1200B offers high-quality light in the same category by adapting 2×1200W Bicolor LED chips in dot matrix format. It features high light efficiency with a luminance level of

5600K up to 61,030lux@3m (with reflector RFNLM-26), comparable to that of a 1.8kW PAR or 2.5kW HMI Fresnel.

Developed with professionals in mind who care about colour quality in filming, Evoke 1200B features colour rendering capability highlighted by CRI, TLCI and TM-30 scores.

COOKE OPTICS INVESTS IN FACILITIES AND STAFF FOR GLOBAL GROWTH

Cooke

Optics has announced its major investment in two facilities and several new staff appointments to support its on-going global growth.

Crest Rise, a 600sq/m production facility, located near to its existing factory in Leicester,

UK, was specifically-commissioned to facilitate a fast introduction of the new S8/i FF T1.4 range, with the aim of achieving annual outputs significantly in excess of any previous Cooke product range.

Cooke is also opening a new Creative Centre

located at Chaowai Soho, in the Chaoyang district of Beijing, headed by technical sales manager, Anson Gil Mercado. It incorporates an in-house studio where customers can test a wide variety of Cooke lenses, as well as meeting rooms and a lounge area for events.

Daniela Kesselem has joined Cooke in the new role of chief product officer. Her extensive experience includes roles as director of product management at Leitz and Schneider Optics.

Peter Dorai joins Cooke as director of sales for India, Africa and the Middle East, whilst Carey Duffy moves to the new role of director of product experiences, after over six years as director of sales for Europe. Jaimie Cluer has joined the sales team in the role of European account manager, and Chris D’Anna joins in the new role of technical sales representative in Cooke’s new Burbank, LA, office.

THE POWER OF RED

“To me RED is much more than just a camera; it’s about the relationships. The support of Jim, Jarred and the RED team over the last fifteen years has meant so much to me. Not just as a cinematographer, but as a person.”

Steven Meizler Director of Photography

YOU’VE BEEN FRAMED

Our regular round up of who is shooting what and where

RA-AGENCY:

Cinematographer Sally Low worked as 2nd unit DP and B-camera on the teen drama How To Date Billy Walsh, alongside main unit DP Hamish

SCREEN TALENT:

George Burt recently shot the movie Joe Baby, starring Harvey Keitel, Ron Perlman, Dichen Lachman and Willa Fritz. Yiannis Manolopoulos has wrapped on Fracture, part of a horror anthology for Hulu, with director Jon K. Jones.

LOOP TALENT:

Loop Talent welcomes DP Lorenzo Levrini, whose

credits include the feature Amanda, which premiered at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals. Lorenzo has been praised for his “stylish” cinematography — isolating shots and bold alternating colour palettes

Images: (top) Rachel Clark down a Cornish tin mine on Knockers; (1st column) Sally Low at the camera; Ashlea Downes shooting Steadicam; (2nd column) George Burt on Joe Baby; Yiannis Manolopoulos on Fracture with dir. Jon K Jones (l) & loader Nelisa Alcalde (r), photo by Alex Jeynes; Lorenzo Levrini shooting the short film Ian After Beer; (3rd column) Martyna Knitter BTS on an upcoming BBC series, photo by Jack Heels; and Bertrand Rocourt on a YSL ad, photo by 2nd AC Rosannah Kleimann.

— “that capture the zeitgeist of cultural irreverence and the underlying thrum of anxiety particular to Gen Z!” Martyna Knitter is shooting a BBC TV Drama. Matt North has graded World Productions’ The Diplomat Ali Asad is shooting a feature and his recent project, Marriage, for the BBC was released to acclaim. Emma Dalesman is shooting the feature

The Buckingham Murders, directed by Hansal Mehta. Olly Wiggins worked on the latest series of the Emily Atack Show Jon Muschamp has been shooting with Ian Robertson.

Tania Freimuth is prepping a feature shooting in Dublin. Aman K Sahota shot for director Emily Freida Sharp. Tom Watts is working on film and music promo projects. Rik Burnell has recently wrapped on a Film4 short. Matt Gillan has been working with Sony on various music promos. Alistair Little, Tom Turley, Nicholas Bennett, Chris O’Driscoll, Paul MacKay, Kyle Macfadzean and Bertrand Rocourt have been working on commercials. Steadicam operators, Grant Sandy-

Phillips & Michael Vega have joined the Loop Talent Diary Service. Grant is currently working as B-camera/Steadicam operator on Midtown, Michael is working on commercial projects. Laura Seears worked on a Prince›s Trust spot for Somesuch. Michael Eshun-Mensah is operating on ads after working on Black Ops as B-camera/ Steadicam James Anderson ACO is still on The F**k It Bucket as A-camera/Steadicam Jack Smith operated B-camera and drone on USA weather channel series Uncharted Adventures Gary Kent has been shooting spots. Sebastien Joly ACO lensing spots in Morocco with Loop Talent DP Nicholas Bennett

WORLDWIDE PRODUCTION AGENCY: Anna Patarakina FSF has graded The Tutor

Doyne-Ditmas, releasing 2023. Camera/Steadicam operator Ashlea Downes’ main project this year has been B-camera on Bridgerton S3 Block 1 with DP Alicia Robbins, plus Block 3.

with director Alice Troughton, produced by Bleecker Street. Stephen Murphy ISC BSC continues principal photography on Mr. & Mrs. Smith for Amazon with director Amy Seimetz in Italy, and has graded BBC’s Blue Lights Mattias Nyberg BSC wrapped on the four-part series Six Four with director Ben A. Williams for House Productions/ITV, and followed that up with prep on Sexy Beast for Paramount+, shooting in Spain and the UK. Baz Irvine ISC BSC has wrapped principal photography on Invasion for Apple TV+ with director Brad Anderson in South Africa. Ed Moore BSC continues shooting on Hijack for Apple TV+ with director Jim Field Smith. Tony Slater Ling BSC has done the DI on Disney+’s The Full Monty Ruairi O’Brien ISC BSC lit pick-ups on The Power for Amazon in Vancouver. Arthur Mulhern is lighting on Netflix’s Sex Education S4 in Wales. Catherine Lutes CSC has begun principal photography on Netflix’s Red Book Adam Barnett is prepping on Champion for BBC, shooting in Kingston, Jamaica. Jaime Ackroyd is prepping on the feature film Lollipop, with director Daisy-May Hudson. Tibor Dingelstad NSC is getting ready to shoot The Doll Factory for Paramount+. Xavier Dolleans AFC continues prep on Mrs. Davis for Peacock in Spain. Catherine Derry continues principal photography on The Great S3 for Starz. Nathalie Pitters is working on Dreaming Whilst Black for BBC with A24. Richard Donnelly has wrapped on Sanctuary for AMC in Dublin. Joel Devlin continues on Project IV for Netflix/Moonage Pictures with director Marco Kreuzpaintner. Paul Morris also continues principal photography Project IV for Netflix/Moonage Pictures with director Haolu Wang. Vanessa Whyte continues Ted Lasso S3 for AppleTV+. Andy Hollis is lighting Entitled with director Tim Kirkby for Showtime/C4. Kanamé Onoyama continues on Top Boy with director William Stefan Smith for Netflix. Kolja Brandt is in Beirut for Showtime with director Greg Barker. Carl Burke worked in Portugal and Manchester with director Giorgio Bruni and Irresistible

INDEPENDENT TALENT GROUP:

Studios for Rexona’s latest campaign, and lit spots for Fiture with Untold Studios and director Glenn Kitson in Sofia, plus Shell with Unit 9 director Samuel Bennetss. Joel Honeywell lensed a new Wizkid promo with Child and MrMr Films, and shot with Jordan Hall and My Accomplice for Jupiler beer in Brussels. Matthew Emvin Taylor shot a spot for Imperial Leather with Minds Eye director Sye Allen. Thomas Hole wrapped a spot for Therabody with Sugar Free TV, and then went to shoot with directing duo Meeks & Frost and Untold Studios for both Spotify Radar and Ciroc Stefan Yap shot in Sofia and Bulgaria with director Femi Ladi and Somesuch for an Intel spot, followed by a Haig Club ad with Elliot Simpson and Park Village. Beatriz Sastre shot David Guetta’s latest promo in Ibiza with Swords & Eagles and KC Locke.

Ole Birkeland is prepping Good Grief with Dan Levy. Chas Bain has graded A Town Called Malice, directed by Jamie Donoghue. Darran Bragg has wrapped on block 3 of The F*ck It Bucket with director Dionne Edwards. Bjorn Bratberg is in Scotland shooting blocks 1&2 of Annika S2, starring Nicola Walker. Jordan Buck shot with directors Keane Pearce Shaw at Riff Raff, Will Smith at Famili, and Anne Hollowday at 1stAveMachine. Miguel Carmenes has been shooting promo’s for KSI and Chivas, plus the shorts Broke with William Miller, and Wuss with Nadine Wilson. Chris Clarke shot with Tom Noakes at Prettybird for Amazon, Game with Joe Giacomet, and JP Morgan with Adam Wells. Oliver Curtis BSC has wrapped on Debutante, directed by Susannah White. Ben Davis BSC is shooting Wicked Little Letters with director Thea Sharrock Anthony Dod Mantle DFF BSC ASC is lighting The Penguin And The Fisherman in Patagonia. Arni Filippusson is prepping for Boat Story, directed by Jack and Harry Williams. Cinders Forshaw BSC is shooting Champion, directed by Christina EbohonGreen. Kit Fraser is shooting Kaos with Georgi Banks-Davies Sam Goldie just wrapped comedy drama, Sisters, with director Declan Lowney. Stuart Howell is on A Small Light with Susanna Fogel Rick Joaquim has been busy shooting promos including Eyelar with Carly Cussen, Bullet For My Valentine with Harry Lindley and spots for Lexus and The National Trust. Suzie Lavelle ISC BSC has wrapped on The End We Start From with Mahalia Belo. John Mathieson BSC is prepping on God’s Spy, which will shoot in Belgium & Ireland, and is the true story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who went from being a pacifist preacher to an assassin of Hitler. Seamus McGarvey BSC ASC is prepping Joe Wright’s Mussolini series. Bani Mendy has completed on Galwad. Andreas Neo has graded Motive, a BFI feature directed by Anu Menon. Mark Patten BSC has started preparations on Andor S2 with Janez Metz. Stephan Pehrsson BSC is with regular collaborator Farren Blackburn shooting The Winter King Tat Radcliffe shot with Merman’s Vaughan Arnell, Friend’s Ric Cantor and Prettybird’s Robert Wilkinson. James Rhodes has graded his last feature, Femme, a development of the award-winning short of the same name, directed by Ng Choon Ping and Sam Freeman. Chris Ross BSC was on The Great Escaper Ashley Rowe BSC is shooting Crime S2 with Anthony Neilson. George Richmond BSC has wrapped on Pain Hustlers with

This page: (top l-r) James Anderson on-set of Netflix’s The F**k It Bucket; Andy Hollis on Entitled; Thomas Hole on-set for Ciroc; Kolja Brandt on Beirut; and Stephen Murphy on Blue Lights; (below) Joel Honeywell on a Juplier Beer ad; and Paul Morris on Project IV.

Opposite: (top clockwise) Ed Rutherford and The Long Shadow crew; Andrew Commis ACS on Blueback; Charlie Herranz in Slovenia; Nikita Khatsarevich at the camera; and Ben Wheeler on an airstrip in Bucharest on Spy Master.

David Yates. Alan Stewart BSC has concluded Our Man From Jersey with Julian Farino. Carl Sundberg is prepping Halo 2 David Ungaro AFC is shooting Mr Spade with Scott Frank. Mark Waters is shooting Mystery At Sea with Gordon Anderson. Maja Zamojda BSC is shooting block 1 of My Lady Jane, based on a book by Brodi Ashton, Gemma Burgess, Cynthia Hand and Jodi Meadows.

UNITED ARTISTS:

Remi Adefarasin BSC is prepping the feature film Locked In for Gaumont/Netflix with director Nour Wazzi. Søren Bay DFF is shooting Three Little Birds with director Yero Timi-Biu for Tiger Aspect. John Lee BSC is shooting the overseas section of World On Fire S2 for Mammoth Screen/BBC One. Mark Nutkins is shooting The F**k It Bucket with director Laura Steinel for Left Bank Pictures. Donna Wade shot an episode of ITV’s Vera S12 with director Paul Gay. Philippe Kress DFF is filming The Turkish Detective with director Lynsey Miller for Miramax/Paramount+. Danny Cohen BSC is lighting Slow Horses S3 for Apple TV. Damian Paul Daniel is working on a feature-doc with Stefan Stuckert. Martin Fuhrer BSC is focusing on short form. David Higgs BSC has completed on Anand Tucker’s feature The Critic Matt Lewis is grading Philip Barantini’s Accused Kieran McGuigan BSC is meeting for projects. Laurie Rose BSC is prepping The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power S2. Bet Rourich AEC in prep on a project shooting later this year. John Sorapure is getting ready for The Wasp, a feature directed by Guillem Morales. Simon Tindall has graded Lawrence Gough’s episodes of The Gold. Ollie Downey BSC has concluded on Sister Pictures’ The Power and joined the final block of One Day, directed by Lewis Arnold. Laurens De Geyter SBC is shooting Archie, directed by Paul Andrew Williams Sam Heasman is working on Supacell for Netflix. David Rom has wrapped on Ted Lasso S3. Simon Stolland is working on short form Si Bell BSC is lighting Woman In The Wall for Showtime/BBC with director Harry Wootliff. Sam Chiplin is reading, meeting and shooting commercials. Charlotte Bruus Christensen DFF ASC, Anton Mertens SBC, Milos Moore and Anna Valdez Hanks are also reading and meeting. James Friend BSC ASC is one of two DPs on Star Wars franchise Paradox for Lucasfilm. Neus Ollé AEC BSC is shooting commercials David Raedeker BSC is lighting Sally El Hosaini’s feature Unicorns Niels Reedtz Johansen is in the Dominican Republic shooting Something In The Water for director Hayley Easton Street. Kate Reid BSC is shooting Invitation To A Bonfire Ed Rutherford BSC has wrapped on director Lewis Arnold’s The Long Shadow for ITV. Juan Sarmiento G. is lighting Madame Luna for director Daniel Espinosa in Sweden. Ben Wheeler is prepping with director Paul Whittington on Two Tone for Kudos/BBC. Barry Ackroyd BSC has wrapped on The Old

Guard 2 in Rome for director Victoria Mahoney Alex Barber shot a Boots Xmas spot with directors Si & Ad at Academy films and a Tesco TVC with director Frederik Bond for MJZ. Laurent Bares has wrapped on TV series The Challenge for director Jim Loach. Alfie Biddle is shooting TV series Loss & Return for director Andrew Cumming. Philipp Blaubach filmed in Manchester with director David Kerr on a spot for Hungry Man. Simon Chaudoir worked with director David Kerr on a Lidl Christmas job for Hungry Man. Sara Deane is shooting the feature 5lbs Of Pressure in Manchester and Liverpool for director Phil Allocco. Nick Gillespie has wrapped on TV series Loss & Return for director Jennie Darnell in Glasgow. Florian Hoffmeister

Lyon at Outsider. Simon Richards filmed a Marks & Spencer spot with Gus Filgate through Bite. Joost Van Gelder was in Bulgaria with director Henry Hobson on a Playstation commercial for MJZ. Daniel Vilar is shooting Dune 2 in Budapest as 2nd unit DP.

BSC is shooting Night Country in Iceland for director Issa López. Stephen Keith-Roach lit a Sainsbury’s ad with Tim Godsall for Anonymous and a Marks & Spencer TVC with Dom & Nic via Outsider. Tim Maurice-Jones BSC was in Rome on a Sky ad with Traktor for Stink. Diana Olifirova is shooting on Bridgerton S3. Jake Polonsky BSC was in Qatar for a Qatar Tourism job with director Scott

SARA PUTT ASSOCIATES: Emily Almond Barr is prepping the new series of Cobra for New Pictures. Jan Jonaeus is shooting Challenge for Apple+/STV. David Mackie is working with director Chris Foggin on the film Walk Out To Winter for Vertigo Films/Sky. George Amos is 2nd Unit DP on Warrior S3 in South Africa. Andrei Austin is working on a block of The Witcher for Netflix. Andrew Bainbridge continues as A-camera/Steadicam on One Day, the adaptation of the novel by David Nicholls. Jon Beacham operated on reshoots for A Town Called Malice. Danny Bishop is prepping on The Acolyte as A-camera/Steadicam operator. Ed Clark was in Jamaica working in Black Cake James Frater is in Prague working on Ballerina, a female-led spin-off from the John Wick movies. Ilana Garrard is working on Red Book anthology Joan Is Awful Zoe GoodwinStuart shot on The Burning Girls, before joining the Acolyte team as B-camera. James Leigh is on The Lazarus Project S2. Chris Maxwell wrapped on World On Fire S2 in Belfast and now shooting Crime S2 for Buccaneer with DP David Liddell. Tanya Marar has been working dailies on New Pictures’ The Blue Will Lyte continues on Project IV for Moonage Pictures/Netflix. Vince McGahon is A-camera/ Steadicam on the new series of Slow Horses Julian Morson has recently started on Wicked Little Letters, starring Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley. Al Rae did dailies on the new series of You Aga Szeliga was in Italy working on the Ferrari project. Tom Walden continues on Disney’s The Ballad Of Renegade Nell. Rick Woollard operated AR for Dog Eat Dog (Aston Martin), North One & CG Production, and Steadicam in Paris for Louis Vuitton.

ECHO ARTISTS:

Stuart Bentley BSC has completed grading on block 1 of The Gold with director Aneil Karia.

Nicolas Canniccioni is lighting the feature How To Have Sex, directed by Molly ManningWalker. Nadim Carlsen DFF is shooting the feature Kayak with director Isabella Eklöf. Andrew Commis ACS is lensing two episodes of Halo S2 for Paramount+, directed by Craig Zisk. Ruben Woodin Dechamps is shooting the documentary Underland, directed by Robert Petit. David Gallego ADFC is lensing Rungano Nyoni’s Chililo (On Becoming A Guinea Fowl) for BBC Film/Element Pictures. Lachlan Milne ASC ACS NZCS recently shot Apple TV+ series Lady In The Lake, directed by Alma Har’el. Korsshan Schlauer is prepping his episodes of BBC series Grime Kids. Bartosz Swiniarski shot the feature Object Permanence with director Filip Jan Rymsza. Niels Thastum DFF is shooting Jonas Alexander Arnby’s latest series

Veronica.

Wiedemann

Darcia

This page: (top l-r)vCarlos Veron; Chris Dodds (l) & Jonny Iseli 1st AC (r) with cast and crew of Seasalter Road; Deon van Zyl in Qatar; Jon Chema; Roger Bonici on Sleeping Lions; (clockwise) Todd Martin; Todd Banhazl on Winning Time; Max Witting on a Belvoir shoot; Jallo Faber at Venice Beach on a Dennis Hopper documentary; and Daisy Zhou.

Opposite: (top clockwise) Alejandro Martinez; Natasha Duursma; Olan Collardy; Tasha Back; and Arseni Khachaturan.

Wiedemann

all

MY MANAGEMENT:

The agency welcomes Nikita Khatsarevich to its roster, who has moved to London and has been shooting with Wes Walker for Google. Adric Watson was in India filming with director Jess Kohl for WhatsApp, Slovenia for C&A with director Ozzie Pullin, and lit Dell and NHS spots director Molly Burdett. Allison Anderson shot with Saman Kesh on a Zoom Project in Vancouver, Amazon Music in Las Vegas and a John Deere TVC in Kansas with Spart & Riot director Cinzia Pedrizzetti. Arnaud Carney lensed a fashion shoot in Paris with Hugo Lopez. Carlos Veron shot music videos with directors Benny Boom, James Larese and Hannah Lux Davis. Chris Dodds continued his M&S run with director Zac Harney at Just So, and lensed the short Seasalter Road with director Will Kenning. Craig Dean Devine wrapped on Paramount + School Spirits with director Max Winkler and is in prep on the feature Layla with director Amrou Al-Kadhi. Daisy Zhou has been directing and DP’ing on Victoria’s Secrets Macy’s Campaign in Berlin.

Darran Tiernan ISC wrapped on HBO’s Perry Mason S2 and lensed an episode of HBO’s Winning Time with Todd Banhazl. David Lanzenberg has wrapped with director Tate Taylor on Mrs American Pie, starring Laura Dern & Kristen Wiig. Deon van Zyl lensed on Everlast with director Tom Cockram and a BMW campaign I Dubai, Doha and Al Ula with director William Armstrong for Boomtown Productions. Dominic Bartels lensed on Lumiene for Spring Studios with director Mattias Pettersen. Ekkehart Pollack shot Richard Tea with Family Film director Ali Bach, Skoda with Tantrum directors Samuel & Gunnar in Slovenia and Mercedes with director Ole at Sehsucht. Filip Marek shot with director Daniel Lundh on H&M and Fanta, and Skoda with director James F. Coton. Ian Forbes lensed the short film Talking Heads for the directing duo Dom and Dario, and worked on the 2nd unit on Fifteen Love Issac Bauman is shooting on Loki S2 with directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. Jallo Faber

FSF FNF has graded the feature Troll with director Roar Uthaug, and lensed on a Visa TVC with Caviar director Keith Scholfield. Jo Willems ASC SBC is shooting with Francis Lawrence on The Hunger Games - The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes Jon Chema lit for South West Airlines with director Emily Elizabeth Thomas, Peloton with David Schafei, and a Chris Brown ft Wizkid music video for London Alley directors Child and GM with Missing Pieces. Lee Thomas has been shooting the documentary London Bridge with Raw director Fred Scott, and a music video for Louis Tomlinson in Iceland with director Ed Cooke. Max Witting filmed with Wild

Kentucky with Nadine Croker on their second feature together called Desperation Road Todd Banhazl is lensing on Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty S2. Todd Martin lensing a Tov Lo music video in Tallin with Iconoclast director Anna Himma and a Nike as in South Korea with BWGTBLD director Jess Kohl. Tómas Tómasson IKS has been

Island Films on numerous productions including George Home and Netflix. Minka Farthing-Kohl has wrapped on the last episode Netflix’s You S4 in London with director Harry Jierjian. Nicolaj Bruel DFF was in Santiago shooting WhatsApp with Furlined director Paco Cruz, and in Budapest for Magnum with director Martin Werner. Paul O’Callaghan shot a Sky feature-doc with director Gareth Johnson at Raw TV, and lensed an Amazon spot with director Teddy Powell. Pete Konczal ASC shot an episode of Servant for Apple TV in Philadelphia with director Nimrod Antal. Petra Korner AAC has graded His Dark Materials, and started ITV mini-series Platform 7 in Leeds with director Sarah Walker. Pieter Vermeer has wrapped on the feature Muzzle with director John Stalberg Jr. Ravenna Tran has wrapped on the feature The Isle Tide Hotel with writer/director Harry Chadwick. Robbie Ryan BSC ISC lensed on Zella and Sophie Ellis Bextor music videos with director Sophie Muller at Pretty Bird, and is now in New Orleans prepping with director Yorgos Lanthimos. Shaka Agina worked with director Damola Oladapo on a short, and shot a Mychelle music video with Great Coat director Thea Gajic. Sophie Gohr DFF is shooting Danish thriller Englemageren with directors Esben Tønnesen and Julie Ølgaard through Hithero Productions & SF Studios. Stuart Dryburgh ASC has wrapped on Amazon Prime TV series Fallout with director Jonathan Nolan. Sveta Aparina lensed an Ottobock spot with director Alejandra Ruiz Zorrilla, she shot with director Tatiana Mutchnik for Ukrainian Voices with Studio Zentral. Sy Turnbull is shooting in

filming an Icelandic documentary shooting in Iceland and Edinburgh.

INTRINSIC:

In features, Dave Miller has finished on T.I.M., and Gareth Munden continues on the Italian extravaganza, The Opera. Malcolm McLean has been operating and 2nd unit on Tin Soldiers. Michal Sobocinski continues in Paris on the Christian Dior bio-pic The New Look for Apple TV. David Liddell continues on Crime S2. James Mather ISC has been lighting Kin 2 in Dublin. Rasmus Arrildt DFF finished Sommerdahl Murders in Denmark and crossed the Baltic to shoot a gig in Sweden Tom Hines finished Galwad in Wales, then shot on Call The Midwife and Waterloo Road Nic Lawson continues on Outlander. Bebe Dierken finished lighting Call The Midwife, and then moved to Liverpool to shoot Sexy Beast with Simon Hawken FNF doing 2nd unit. Andrew Johnson shot more on Casualty then started That Winning Feeling for Sky Kids. Stephen Brand has been operating on Frankenstein Legacy Jorge Luengas AEC operated at Longcross on Everyone’s Enemy Gabi Norland has been operating on The Great and The Ballad of

Renegade Nell Lynda Hall shot on the documentaries The Other Mendelssohn and Adoption Martin Roach, Dave Miller and Lynda Hall have all been busy with commercials, trailers, idents and corporate films.

WIZZO & CO:

Congratulations to Carmen Pellon Brussosa who was nominated as Best New Director of Photography at the Shark Awards 2022. Tim Sidell BSC has wrapped Chemistry Of Death for Paramount+. Nick Dance BSC has graded his episodes of Dr Who alongside director Tom Kingsley. Susanne Salavati is shooting The Lazarus Project S2, directed by Carl Tibbetts. Steven Ferguson has wrapped Fifteen Love, directed by Eva Riley. Arran Green continues to shoot Count Abdullah alongside director Asim Abbasi. Fede Alfonzo is shooting an embargoed feature in Ireland. Patrick Meller has grades I Hate Suzie Too Charlie Goodger continues to shoot the feature-doc Madu Ryan Kernaghan has graded The Hunt For Raoul Moat Ben Magahy is prepping an embargoed drama/comedy for Sky with director George Belfield. Christophe Nuyens SBC is shooting an embargoed drama. Nicola Daley ACS is prepping the final episodes of Halo Aaron Reid continues to shoot Supacell. Oli Russell continues shooting The Ballad of Renegade Nell alongside director MJ Delaney. Gary Shaw is shooting The Burning Girls alongside director Kieron Hawkes. Congratulations to Darius Shu whose short, Queer Parivaar, and short doc, Peach Paradise, were nominated for the Iris Prize – Best British Film. Murren Tullett is shooting the feature & Mrs, directed by Daniel Reisinger. Sverre Sordal FNF is prepping an embargoed feature. Seppe Van Grieken SBC has wrapped an embargoed Netflix drama, directed by Tom Shankland. Jan Richter-Friis DFF continues on Fear The Walking Dead in the US. Matthias Pilz has wrapped on the feature Excursion, directed by Una Gunjak. Dymtro Nedria is prepping For Your Eyes Only in India, with director Sumit Purohit. Molly Manning Walker is shooting a feature in Greece. Luke Bryant has wrapped and will soon grade his

episodes of The Full Monty. Congratulations to Chas Appeti whose work on Amazon Original Jungle is now streaming worldwide. Hamish Anderson shot with Mary Sue Masson, Will Bex shot with Scott Lyon and Joe Douglas with Joseph Mann. Franklin Dow shot with Sophie Muller, Theo Garland with Fatal Farm and Henry Gill with Sau Ali. Adam Gillham lit for Misha Manson Smith, Peter James for Johnny & Will and Karl Oskarsson IKS for Sara Mirandi. Antonio Paladino filmed with Niko Karo, and David Procter BSC shot once more with Darius Marder.

LUX ARTISTS:

Ari Wegner ACS has wrapped on Road with director Ethan Coen. Kasper Tuxen DFF lit a Penny spot, directed by Seb Edwards. Rob Hardy BSC ASC is shooting The Book Of Clarence with director Jeymes Samuel. Darius Khondji AFC ASC continues to shoot Bong Joon Ho’s new feature. Diego Garcia shot an EE spot directed by Daniel Wolfe. Benjamin Kracun BSC has wrapped Coralie Fargaet’s new film The Substance Jessica Lee Gagne continues shooting on Apple TV+’s Severance S2 with director Ben Stiller. Rasmus Videbaek is prepping The Crown S6 with director Erik Richter Strand. Pat Aldinger is shooting the feature Bang Bang, directed by Vincent Grashaw, starring Tim Blake Nelson. Jonathan Ricquebourg AFC has wrapped on Salem, directed by Jean-Bernard Marlin. Ben Fordesman filmed a Meta ad directed by Sam Brown. Krzysztof Trojnar has wrapped Richard Gadd’s series Baby Reindeer, directed by Weronika Tofilska. Jarin Blaschke is prepping Nosferatu directed by Robert Eggers. Daniel Landin lit an NDA TVC directed by Steve Rogers. Michael McDonough BSC ASC has wrapped the Apple TV series The Last Thing He Told Me and is now prepping for The Decameron with director Michael Uppendahl. Arnau Valls Colomer AEC shot a Leroy Merlin TVC directed by Walfa. Matyas Erdely HSC continues on The Iron Claw with director Sean Durkin. Justin Brown lit an NDA Christmas ad directed by Tom Hooper. Henry Braham BSC has completed Road House with director Doug Liman. Shawn Peters framed an NDA TVC directed by Bradford Young ASC. Jakob Ihre, FSF is prepping Untitled Project with director Johan Renck. Eigil Bryld continues to shoot No Hard Feelings with director Gene Stupinsky. Tom Townend shot a Jaguar spot directed by Jonas Lindstroem and a Guinness ad directed by Jaron Albertin. Piers McGrail ISC lensed On Record for Netflix with Nash Edgerton. James Laxton ASC continues to film the new Lion King movie with director Barry Jenkins. Benjamin Loeb is prepping Dream Scenario with director Kristoffer Borgli. Rina Yang BSC shot an Armani as directed by Jonas Lindstroem. Leo Hinstin AFC is shooting Wake Up with directors Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell and François Simard. Bobby Shore is in prep for Lifted with director Liza Mandelup. Justin Brown filmed an NDA commercial directed by Mike Mills. Arnaud Potier AFC is lensing

The Smack with director David M. Rosenthal. Steve Annis shot an NDA commercial directed by Juan Cabral. Julien Poupard AFC is working on an Unnamed Feature with director Ladj Ly.

CASAROTTO RAMSAY & ASSOCIATES:

Eben Bolter BSC has been having fun with Marvel doing some additional shooting on Invasion series with director Ali Selim. Julian Court BSC worked on The Diplomat Ed Hubert shot a Sky Mobile Social campaign in Rome. Ebba Hult shot at the London Marathon, an Alexander McQueen fashion show, and lit a short in Snowdonia. Frank Lamm is shooting Electric Eye, with director Oliver Hirschbiegel. Hélène Louvart AFC is shooting Maria Alche’s Paun in Buenos Aires. Kate McCullough ISC lit a Tesco’s ad in Ireland. Zac Nicholson BSC has wrapped on The Ninth Train, with

WHO, WHAT, WHEN

director James Hawes. David Pimm has wrapped on Fifteen-Love with director Toby MacDonald, with whom he worked on Ragdoll Aaron Rogers has been shooting ads. Annika Summerson BSC lit spots for Reed and Energizer. Gerry Vasbenter is shooting Hajjan, with director AB Shawky.

BERLIN ASSOCIATES: Edward Ames is shooting Waterloo Road for Wall To Wall/BBC. Al Beech lensed a block of Silent Witness S26. Sarah Bartles Smith has wrapped on Gangsta Granny Strikes Again for King Bert Productions, with Dan Zeff directing. Andy Clark shot a block of Call The Midwife S12 before starting on The Love Rat for Clapperboard Studios in Cypress with Katherin Churcher directing. Nick Cox Shot a block on Casualty with director Paul Riordan. Len Gowing is shooting Inside No. 9 for the BBC. Alvaro Gutierrez has finishe One Day for Drama Republic. Annemarie Lean-Vercoe shot Launderette with Rise Films before going onto block 2 of The Chelsea Detective S2. Nick Martin shot the opening block of Dinner With The Parents for Big Talk Productions. Trevelyan Oliver is shooting the Motherland Christmas Special Tom Pridham shot A League Of Their Own: Road Trip for CPL Productions and is now on The Secret in Malta for Gaumont, directed by Adrian McDowall. James Swift shot block 2 of Cobra S3 for New Pictures. Matt Wicks is on block 3 of Debutantes for The Forge Entertainment, with director Charlotte Regan. Phil Wood has wrapped on The Bay S4 with director Sebastian Godwin.

MCKINNEY MACARTNEY MANAGEMENT:

Ben Butler is operating on Road House in the Dominican Republic with Doug Limon directing Stuart Biddlecombe continues on Black Cake for Hulu in Wales and Jamaica, with director Andrew Dosunmu. Mick Coulter BSC and Alessandra Scherillo have been shooting commercials Sergio Delgado is shooting on The Great S3 for Hulu in London. Michael Filocamo is filming Screw S2 with director Tom Vaughan Gavin Finney BSC is shooting My Lady Jane in London. Jean Philippe Gossart AFC is prepping for Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power S2 for Amazon Steve Lawes recently wrapped Beacon 23 for AMC in Toronto Dale Elena McCready NZCS BSC recently finished shooting The Burning Girls for Paramount+ Sam McCurdy BSC and Chris Seager BSC are filming several episodes in the Godzilla vs Kong spin-off series Hourglass for Apple TV+. Andy McDonnell continues on Sex Education S4 for Netflix with director Dominic Le Clerc. John Pardue BSC is shooting Afghan Dream in Morocco and Hungary Robin Whenary recently shot Champion for BBC1 in Birmingham and Jamaica.

PRINCESTONE:

DP Diego Rodriguez has been filming Poised, a featurelength documentary about Steven France, ex-MMA champion, directed by Toby Robson and produced by Two Yanks and a Brit UK. Of the agency’s camera/Steadicam operators… Junior Agyeman ACO is shooting in Birmingham on the Netflix series Champions, with director John Ogunmuyiwa and DPs Christopher Sabogal and Robin Whenary. Simon Baker ACO

is filming on The Crown S6, with directors Christian Schwochow, Alex Gabassi and Stephen Daldry and DP’s Adriano Goldman ABC BSC ASC and Sophia Olsson for Left Bank Pictures/Netflix in Majorca, Barcelona, Paris, England and Scotland. Michael Carstensen ACO has been filming for DP Scott Winig on The Witcher – ‘Everyone’s Enemy’, and on Marvel Studio’s mini-series Secret Invasion reshoots with director Ali Selim and DP Eben Bolter BSC. Thomas English GBCT has been filming dailies on Strangers, a horror film from Blueprint Pictures, directed by Andrew Haigh, starring Jamie Bell and Claire Foy, lit by DP Jamie Ramsey. Rob Hart is filming on The Burning Girls TV series, directed by Charles Martin for Buccaneer Media and Paramount+. Tony Jackson ACO shot on the Insert Unit of Street Dogs with DP James Friend BSC ASC and director Jamie Payne. Tony Kay shot on Netflix’s Red Book series, and filmed in IMAX for a Swedish House Mafia concert at London’s 02 Arena with director/DP Jason Ellis ACO, using ARRI Trinity, Sony Venice2 and an Angenieux 22-60mm zoom. James Layton ACO is on Promised Land for Revolution Films with director Michael Winterbottom. Dan Nightingale ACO is framing on Sexy Beast for Paramount+, with director Michael Caleo and DP Bebe Dierken BVK. Peter Robertson Associate BSC ACO operated on M, a Mussolini biopic, at Cinecitta Studios in Rome with

director Joe Wright and DP Seamus McGarvey BSC ASC. Joe Russell ACO is on Pilgrim S2 in at Pinewood with DP Christophe Nuyens. Fabrizio Sciarra SOC Associate BSC GBCT ACO did Steadicam dailies on Apple TV+ drama series Debutante in Scotland, with director Susanna White and DP Laura Bellingham, and the worked on the main unit on Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible VII with director Chris McQuarrie and DP Frasier Taggart. Peter Wignall ACO operated with the VFX unit on Ridley Scott’s Napoleon for Apple TV+, starring Joaquin Phoenix, shot by Dariusz Wolski ASC.

VISION ARTISTS:

Jonas Mortensen has wrapped on the Skybacked, queer coming-of-age feature Bonus Track, directed by Julia Jackman. Dan Atherton has graded the TV series Great Expectations, directed by Brady Hood and starring Olivia Colman, for Disney/ FX. Nick Morris has done the DI on Netflix’s The F**k It Bucket for Left Bank, directed by Alyssa McClelland, which follows a young woman’s struggles with eating disorders in high school. The Jessica Bishopp directed short documentary Skyward, shot by Anna MacDonald and which aims to raise awareness about conservation and climate change, was at this year’s BFI London Film Festival and has been selected at Camerimage in Poland. Kia Fern Little has been shooting The Long F Off, an instalment of C4’s anthology series On The Edge, directed by James Doherty, and is also working on an NDA Apple TV music documentary on a high-profile British star. Jack Wilkinson has been shooting an NDA Disney + series in the Middle East. Ryan Eddleston is working on Alice Lowe’s new feature Timestalker, featuring an all-star cast, produced by Western Edge Pictures/BFI. Will Hanke has been shooting Harmony, a on-hour musical special starring Jamie Demetriou, directed by Andrew Gaynord for BBC/Netflix.

Images: (top down) Dale Elena McCready BSC NZCS on The Burning Girls; Junior Agyeman on-set of Champions; and Tony Kay shooting at a Swedish House Mafia gig using a Trinity rig.

THE LOVELY TRIANGLE

For a child growing-up in the eighties, the Christmas holidays held more than just the promise of Santa and stockings. It was also when the annual round of ‘family favourite’ films would come on TV. For Daniel Bishop ACO Associate BSC SOC, joining us from the offices of One Stop Films – the kit rental company he runs ‘on the side’ with DP Jonathan Iles – that meant only one thing.

“I was obsessed with Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981, dir. Steven Spielberg, DP Douglas Slocombe OBE BSC ASC),” relates Bishop enthusiastically, “I remember the excitement of waiting to watch it.”

Bishop credits that film as the origin of his journey into filmmaking, an ambition which was galvanised when he studied the films of Stanley Kubrick as an 18-year-old.

“It sounds a bit clichéd to say that you love Kubrick,” Bishop admits, “but studying one-point perspective and having an understanding of how Kubrick approached his films really made me want to be a cameraman.”

Bishop’s early career was busy, travelling the world on Jack Osbourne: Adrenaline Junkie (20052007), undertaking an apprenticeship with operator Joe McNally learning Jimmy Jib and Steadicam, and filling any free time with non-paying shorts. He counts himself very fortunate to have attended a Steadicam training workshop in 2004 with Garrett Brown and Larry McConkey SOC.

“There are things they taught me that I think about when I’m working, even now,” he says.

In 2008, tired of globetrotting and being absent from home, Bishop turned his attention to drama. His first movie operating A-camera was Reuniting The Rubins (2010, DP Miles Cook).

“Leading up to that job I was spending every moment studying a book Spielberg wrote about

By Natasha Block Hicks

shooting drama, to try and get my head around things like the 180° rule, eyelines, et cetera,” recalls Bishop.

Around this time Bishop met British DP James Friend BSC ASC, also cutting his teeth on movies, and the pair worked together on a clutch of lowbudget features such as Dead Cert (2010) and Papadopoulos & Sons (2012).

“I’m very efficient with time as a product of working on those jobs,” divulges Bishop, “sometimes they were shot in four weeks. And I really learned from my mistakes.”

From there on Bishop had a rule-of-thumb that each job he took should be a step-up, career-wise.

envelope” as he says.

“I was starting to have real input with the director and the DP in that lovely triangle,” he comments, “and I devised some beautiful Steadicam shots that I uses on my showreel.”

In 2016 Bishop took an “out-of-the-blue” call from Suzie Lavelle ISC BSC inviting him to BAFTA to interview for a mystery job. Director Douglas Mackinnon, Lavelle and producer Sue Vertue were awaiting him in the meeting room.

“My mouth was so dry,” remembers Bishop, “even before I knew it was on the TV series Sherlock – The Abominable Bride (2016).”

Interviews were being conducted with camera operators specifically to find someone who would have a good connection with Benedict Cumberbatch, starring as Sherlock Homes, for the only feature-length Christmas special that was to be set in Victorian England. That someone was Bishop.

“Benedict is very professional and, from the moment he arrives on-set, he wants to be the best he can possibly be,” reveals Bishop. “Sherlock definitely felt like a benchmark for my operating; I had never worked with an actor so closely before.”

The production often utilised wide lenses, a matter of feet from the cast.

Parting ways with Friend, Bishop took B-camera/ Steadicam on The Sweeney (2012, dir. Nick Love, DP Simon Dennis BSC), his first film that achieved cinema release.

“Nick was intimidating but he really pushed me,” Bishop recalls, “there were some long Steadicam one-takers on that project.”

The experience paved the way for a stint on Ripper Street (2013, dir. Kieron Hawkes, DP Simon Dennis BSC) where Bishop could further “push the

“It was very intense but a great experience,” remarks Bishop. “Benedict recognises the relationship between the actor and the camera operator, and he’s really respectful. He always knew what lens I was on and what that meant in terms of size on him and would often look at me to see if I was happy with a take. If I wasn’t, he would insist on another one.”

The time had come to work with Friend once again, and the two teamed up on Glasgow-based thriller Rillington Place (2016, dir. Craig Viveiros).

“It was the first job where I started to think about

Studying how Kubrick approached his films made me want to be a cameraman

precision framing,” relates Bishop. “I’d ask myself what my frame was, why was it important, what was in the back of frame and why certain details were there. James got the BAFTA for his project, so the hard work paid-off.”

Bishop’s next three operating jobs alongside Friend were as part of a trio with director Edward Berger: the Showtime drama series Patrick Melrose (2018) and Your Honor (2020-2021), and the Netflix feature film All Quiet on the Western Front/ Im Westen Nichts Neues (2022), which was filmed entirely in the Czech Republic.

“Ed really pushed me to think beyond what I thought I knew,” recalls Bishop of his work on Patrick Melrose, his second project with Cumberbatch. “He likes stories with strong central characters and uses lots of centre framing. There are so many scenes in Patrick Melrose that I wouldn’t have conventionally framed in the way we did, with high head room for instance, but we had a plan and a formula, which created a unique style that I’m very proud of.”

Friend was keen to bring Bishop on to Your Honor, despite it being filmed in New Orleans. Before shooting commenced, Bishop, Berger and Friend spent two weeks surgically analysing the shot list, scene-by-scene, often working late into the night.

“It was exhausting,” remembers Bishop, “but when we started turning-over, we knew exactly what we were doing.”

Bishop found the photographer Gregory Crewdson in his mind when composing some of the frames.

“I love those kind of influences,” he says enthusiastically. “There’s one particular shot that we did of the crash scene. It’s a beautiful high static of the intersection with the car and smoke. It

could be a Crewdson photograph.”

Bishop was subsequently recognised with the 2021 BSC Operator’s Award for his operating on Your Honor S1:E1

“It’s humbling to have my name included alongside some of those other names on the award, people I really admire,” says Bishop, “but I don’t think of that award as being just mine, it came from a partnership.

“I can’t imagine never being behind the camera,” Bishop confides, “having conversations with the actors, working out the framing, problem solving… And the really nice thing about the operators in the UK is that they are so lovely and friendly.”

throughout Europe. Coming out of isolation with his wife and children, Bishop then didn’t see them for five months during the shoot.

“It was incredibly lonely,” admits Bishop, “but what it meant was I put my heart and soul into the job.”

On arrival in Prague, he was handed with a comprehensive ‘bible’ of shots and storyboards, which, thanks to the first lockdown, Berger and Friend had had plenty of time to prepare.

“I’ve never been so prepped for a job before,” says Bishop, “I was thinking like a chess player, two or three days ahead.”

Nonetheless, a packed shooting schedule, freezing temperatures, thick mud, explosions, stunts and long resets tested Bishop’s mettle.

“I operated on three takes of that shot from inside the tent,” relates Bishop, “and the last two takes were usable. Ed came over and I literally burst into tears in his arms on the battlefield.”

In a stark juxtaposition, Bishop’s next role, the long-awaited Todd Field movie Tá r (2022, DP Florian Hoffmeister BSC), required him largely to “create beautiful static frames.”

“That’s another thing I love about operating,” he elaborates, “how different each job can be.”

Alone with the wheels in a tent on All Quiet On The Western Front, steeling himself for a very complicated stunt scene that required an hour’s reset each take, Bishop texted Peter Robertson ACO SOC Associate BSC, the serving president of the ACO.

“I had this overwhelming pressure,” admits Bishop, “I asked Peter if he ever felt like that. He sent me a really reassuring message back saying he always feels like that.”

All Quiet On The Western Front was shot whilst lockdowns were still recurring sporadically

As the festive season of 2022 begins to roll around, Bishop is looking forward to sharing his his excitement for old family favourites with the next generation.

“I have this deep-rooted affection for Raiders Of The Lost Ark that’s never waived,” he admits. With any luck, time can be found in his busy schedule to enjoy it once again this coming Christmas, in the company of his son… Indy.

Opposite: (top) Danny (l) working on Patrick Melrose, with director Edward Berger (middle), DP James Friend BSC ASC (below) and actor Benedict Cumberbatch. This page: working on Jack Osbourne: Adrenaline Junkie; pictured with Jack Osbourne in New Zealand; Danny on his first operating job in Slovenia; and as a veteran on All Quiet On The Western Front. Centre image: shooting Timothy Spall on Reuniting The Rubins.

I can’t imagine never being behind the camera

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MOVIE MAGIC

By Ron Prince

Whether this film represents Deakins’ best work is hard, impossible actually, to say, with him being the visual author of an almighty canon of breath-taking cinematographic work down the decades. But it surely must rank towards the very top of the list, and is yet another exquisite example of a maestro at the height of their visual storytelling powers.

Set in an English seaside town in the early 1980s, when racist nationalism gripped the country at the dawn of Margaret Thatcher’s era as Prime Minister, the film is a powerful and poignant story about human connection and the magic of cinema.

Hilary (Olivia Coleman), a withdrawn singleton and the duty manager at The Empire, an art-deco movie palace on the Margate seafront, is dedicated to her job of selling tickets, serving sweets and cleaning the auditorium.

However, a toxic relationship with her libidinous, married boss, Mr Ellis (Colin Firth), leads her to slide towards depression, until a new employee arrives in the shape of Stephen (Michael Ward), a young black man who radiates kindness, and aspires to be an architect.

Hilary forms an instant and uplifting connection with Stephen, and although their relationship blossoms into a full-blown, but furtive, romance, past sadnesses in Hilary’s life bubble to the surface and she loses grip on her mental well-being. When Norman (Toby Jones), The Empire’s amiable projectionist, declares, “Nothing happens without the light”, and laces-up a print of Being There (1979, dir. Hal Ashby, DP Caleb Deschanel ASC), starring Peter Sellers, Hilary receives a powerful message about healing herself.

“When Sam sent this script, James, my wife, and I were expecting something totally different,” says Deakins, who previously collaborated with Mendes on Jarhead (2005), Revolutionary Road (2008), 007 Skyfall (2012) and 1917 (2019) – the latter of which won Deakins his second Best Cinematography Oscar following his first win for Blade Runner 2049 (2017, dir. Denis Villeneuve). James Deakins, is credited as associate producer on Empire Of Light, which saw her oversee the efficient running of the production-to-post workflow, daily communication between the camera, lighting and grip teams, and forward-planning of the shooting schedule.

that came to town one weekend.

“Also, I shot documentaries for many years during the early part of my career. The last two I worked on, with my friend Jon Sanders, were both about mental health and schizophrenia, where we followed patients through their treatment at a major hospital in southwest London. I very much related to that element of the story, and all-in-all Empire Of Light was something that seemed very connected to different parts of my life.”

Deakins says no particular film references came into the thinking about the overall look of the film, although the colour stills work of Belgian photographer Harry Gruyaert proved a useful talking point when it came to considering the warmth of colour in the cinema lobby and the views on the promenade outside.

“I read Empire Of Light, much like I’d read a novel, but, as always, I didn’t really think about the cinematography at all during that early stage. It was more about how I related to the story,” says Sir Roger. “It was interesting because I grew-up around the seaside town of Torquay, in Devon and, although that was in the 1960s, there were cinemas, nightclubs, bikers and fights. I remember getting roughed-up by some sailors

Filming began on 7th February 2022 in Margate, on the Isle of Thanet, Kent, before wrapping some 58 shooting days later on May 27th. Falling under the auspices of production designee Mark Tildesley, the exisiting Dreamland Cinema, on the town’s seafront, became the exterior for The Empire, with great care taken to remove large Dreamland signs and replace them with Empire neon signage and lighting appropriate to the period. The Empire’s lobby was constructed as a separate set on an empty lot overlooking the seafront a few yards along from from the main Deamland building. A local bingo hall was stripped and dressed to recreate the main cinema screen inside The Empire, whilst the dilapidated ballroom, which features in the film, was a separate exisiting location, specially-dressed to give a hint of past glories. More modern artficats, such as streetlights and some buildings, had to be removed later in post production.

The production also travelled to Camber Sands, a broad stretch of beach on the south coast of East Sussex, where one

Somereviewers have declared that EmpireOfLight is director

Sam Mendes’ best film to date, with its tender look at love, life and mental health, not to mention the joy of cinema-going, all delivered with considerable sensitivity and on-screen panache by cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins CBE BSC ASC.

Panalux showed us every single type of LED light they have in-stock

of the movie’s most heart-rending scenes between Hilary and Stephen was shot.

“We wanted a beautiful sunny day for that sequence, and we got one,” Deakins recalls. “But it was incredibly windy and enormously cold. So it wasn’t the ideal weather. We also needed a completely clear beach, which meant the location managers having to keep local dog walkers away. But when we came to shoot, the way the wind blew the seagrass on the dunes, and with the wide stretch of sea in the background, it looked good on-camera, and it turned out all-right.”

Deakins went with the same camera and lens combination that he had utilised on 1917, namely the ARRI LF Mini and Signature Primes, supplied by ARRI Rental in London.

As he explains, “Sam was very happy with the imagequality of the Mini LF and Signature Primes on 1917, which we had tested extensively for that film. Also, as with 1917, we needed a small camera package that we could use in different situations – not just physically-tight locations, but also in conjunction with equipment, like the ARRI Maxima QL stabilised camera gimbal, for moves where we wanted to follow characters around the town or inside the cinema.

“I like the clarity of the Signature Primes, and don’t consider them too sharp a combination with the Alexa Mini LF. If I want to soften the image, I do it by lighting or exposure on-set. I have never liked to use filtration, and don’t recall having used a diffusion filter for many, many years.”

As for the deployment of LUTs, Deakins confides, “I used the same LUT that I have been using since I started shooting digitally, the one I originally developed at EFILM for In Time (2011, dir. Andrew Nichol). I have adjusted and adapted it for films such as Skyfall, Prisoners (2013, dir. Denis Villeneuve), and 1917, but I really don’t like manipulating the image too much incamera, and I didn’t manipulate my LUT at all for Empire

Of Light. Also, I don’t change LUTs from scene-to-scene, or location-to-location. I just use one.”

Deakins operated the camera during production and says he enjoyed working with an enthusiastic crew. Pulling-focus as his 1st AC was Andy Harris, with whom Deakins has worked regularly since shooting Fargo (1996, dirs. Joel & Ethan Coen). Gary Hymns was key grip, and the DIT was Mustafa Tyebkhan.

Deakins says he did not do any image-correction or colour timing on-set, other than perhaps adjusting the contrast. However, collaborating with his wife, James, notes were sent to James Slattery at Company 3, who worked on the film as both dailies and finishing colourist.

“Having the same person doing the dailies and the final grade is a great way to work, because when you get to the final DI there’s already a familiarity with the content, and no need to explain your intentions again,” he says.

Empire Of Light saw Deakins work once more with gaffer John Higgins, known affectionately to many as ‘Biggles’. The pair have known one another since working together on 1984 (1984, dir. Michael Radford), more lately on 1917. The lighting package for Empire Of Light was supplied by Panalux.

“James and I visited Panalux with Biggles during prep, and they were kind-enough to show us every single type of LED light they have in-stock,” says Deakins. “We lit virtually everything on the film with LEDs. We used a lot of Gemini LED Panels, which I thought were pretty good. However, the lights I liked best, but had not come across before, were the Fiilex Q5 Color 175W LEDs Fresnels, which deliver really nice RGBW flood and spot light output. They are the first LEDs I’ve seen that are equivalent to a traditional Tungsten Mole Fresnel.

“They are completely adjustable in terms of intensity and colour density, and really versatile in that we could take-off the lens and use them with a soft-box arrangement on the front. We used them for most of the floor lighting. I also use some old-school 2K Blondes, as

I really like them for night exterior work, in combination with Panalux Sonaras to light up the backgrounds.

“One of the trickiest things to light on the film was the cinema lobby, which was a set-build with big glass doors looking out to sea. I had to balance the LED illumination on the interiors with that coming though the windows, as the light would fluctuate quite dramatically on overcast and sunny days. We were able to legislate for that on most occasions, but there was a bit of work to do later in the DI to bring down the exterior and to make sure we got some detail in the promenade and the ocean.”

Deakins concludes that, “You’re always pleased when you get to the end of the schedule and are sort of happy with what you’ve managed to achieve for the time, money and resources you had. 1917 was difficult, and filming Empire Of Light was also difficult in its own way, but I’m very pleased with the result.”

For those who have not tuned-in yet, Roger and James Deakins have created a wonderful online resource for filmmakers, especially cinematographers, in the form of the Team Deakins podcast series, featuring over 180 entertaining and informative interviews with leading DPs, gaffers, producers and set designers, with many more to come. They are well-worth a listen, just as Empire Of Light is well-worth the watch.

Images: Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2022 20th Century Studios All Rights Reserved. BTS photo by Parisa Taghizadeh. TIFF premier photo © Todd Williamson/January Images.

Empire Of Light was something that seemed very connected to different parts of my life

THE BLACK STUFF

By Ron Prince

Whenever you get one of Martin’s scripts, it’s like opening an early Christmas present – it’s always a great read,” recalls British DP Ben Davis BSC upon receiving The Banshees Of Inisherin from director Martin McDonagh, for whom the cinematographer had previously shot SevenPsychopaths (2012) and ThreeBillboardsOutsideEbbing,Missouri (2017).

“Amongst the comedy, much of it pitch-black, surrounding the conflict between the main characters, I was actually surprised at how devastatingly sad this story was and thought it worked well as a tragedy, a parable about the stubbornness of men and their inability to communicate with one another, much to their own detriment.”

Examining existential themes of loneliness, anger and mental health, the film is set on a small, remote island, off the western coast of Ireland during the Irish Civil War (1922-23). As shells and bullets explode on the mainland, Pádraic (Colin Farrell) is devastated when his buddy Colm (Brendan Gleeson) announces an abrupt end to their lifelong friendship, preferring to play the fiddle and ruminate on Mozart alone in his bohemian home, than going to the pub for a convivial pints or two of stout together.

With help from his sister Siobhán (Kerry Condon), and Dominic (Barry Keoghan) a troubled young islander, Pádraic sets out to repair their damaged relationship. However, Colm’s resolve to part ways only strengthens, and he declares that if Pádraic won’t leave him in peace, he will take a pair of garden shears and snip off his own fingers, one-by-one.

Production on the film was originally scheduled for 2020, but due to the spread of the Covid pandemic in Eire, filming was postponed for a year. Principal photography got underway in August 2021, on the remote islands of Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay, and Achill, which lies off County Mayo, before wrapping two months later in October.

“It’s incredible there, and I was definitely seduced by the natural beauty of the coast and the seascapes,” says Davis. “During the initial scouts to find our locations back in 2020 we – Martin, myself, our production designer, Mark Tildesley, and Peter Kohn, our first assistant director – were quarantined for ten days together in a house on the Galway Coast.

“This gave us the opportunity to watch a lot of movies that we thought were relevant – like Night Of The Hunter (1955, dir. Charles Laughton, DP Stanley

“We also went through the script in minute detail, looking at Martin’s storyboards scene-by-scene, beat-by-beat, of how we wanted to shoot the story. It became apparent that there would be a lot of looking through doorways and windows, and shots of people stepping over thresholds, coming-in and going-out of the three main settings, Pádraic and Colm’s houses and the local pub. And it became abundantly clear that the usual approach of shooting location exteriors, followed by studio builds, was simply not going to work on a practical level.

“All of our favourite locations were on the windward, Atlantic-facing side of the islands, but there were not many buildings there for obvious reasons. So we made the decision early-on to construct interior/ exterior sets at our principal locations – Pádraic’s house and the pub were full builds, Colm’s was a conversion of a derelict dwelling built in the 1970s.

“Obviously, building those sets on the coast came with a certain amount of risk and difficulty because they are so exposed to ferocious elements. But we were lucky when we shot as it turned out to be a glorious summer, although there were a few occasions when the wind blew so hard we couldn’t open the doors on the trucks.”

Due chiefly to the restricted confines of the interior sets, Davis went with ARRI Alexa Mini LF cameras. He selected Signature Prime lenses for their optical precision on landscapes, as well as their ability to handle hard backlight on exterior shots, and yield warm, smooth skin tones, especially more gently-lit interiors. The camera package was supplied from ARRI Rental in London, under the supervision of Simon Surtees.

“A lot of the film was going to be played in closer shots with several different characters, and I really

wanted to give Martin the dynamic ability to cut from the contours of a landscape to the contours of a face. Shallow depth-of-field with rapid fall-off would have felt far too contrived, so we shot the close-ups, often with lots of negative fill and a deeper stop, around T5.6, to bring a three-dimensionality to faces, and the Signature Primes delivered that very well, especially on Colm, where the key was to convey his air of melancholy.

“When we shot, I wanted the image to have a cinematic texture and subtle halation to soften some of the harder edges, but digital grain and other image manipulation effects never really look convincing to me. So, I gained the agreement of Martin and our producers to support the addition of real film grain to the overall image.”

Accordingly, down the line during post production at Goldcrest Post Production, this was achieved by employing the technique of shooting the selected takes to celluloid and then scanning the film negative into the digital realm ready for the final DI grade.

“I went with a fine-grained film negative, because I didn’t want the effect to become too overpowering, but did want the analogue softening it brings to the digital image, and I really liked the result.”

Along with admitting to falling in love with the remote locations, Davis says the logistics of working there made his experience an enjoyable challenge.

“The only way of getting equipment on to the islands was via small roll-on/roll-off ferries, so there was no way we could have brought large trucks stuffed full of kit, big cranes for big camera moves, cherry-pickers for the lights, not even regular generators. Many of the roads and tracks at our locations were surrounded by stone walls, so things were tight and restricted equipment-wise. We used a DJI Ronin to shoot a lot of the walk-and-talk sequences, or had the camera on the dolly and tracks with a small telescopic arm. It felt like I was revisiting my filmmaking roots and having to making the best of limited resources.”

The shoot was a two-camera affair in the main,

Cotrez ASC), The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (dir. Andrew Dominik, DP Sir Roger Deakins CBE BSC ASC), plus some classic John Ford Westerns too, as there’s an element of gunslinging to Pádraic and Colm’s various stand-offs.

with Des Whelan ACO on A-camera and DJI Ronin, assisted by Tim Morris on focus, and Davis himself framing on B-camera supported by 1st AC Louise MacEllin. Davis also packed his own Blackmagic URSA 12K Pro camera, which he took on frequent trips into the wilds out of his own curious fascination most days, and some of that footage made it to the final cut. The key grip was Keith Smith.

Anthony Bagley worked as the DIT, although Davis resisted the temptation to do much by the way of on-set grading, preferring to review balanced and QC’d dailies done by Darren Rae from Cinelab, who worked in a makeshift suite near-set. The dailies were then delivered to the editorial team, before the selected takes found their way to Davis’s regular colourist Adam Glasman at Goldcrest Post.

A further key player on the crew was gaffer, Onkar Narang, who, for want of a proper lighting desk, proved expert in rigging-up the limited selection of lighting instruments to individual dimmers – including

directional incandescents to emulate fire and candlelight on interiors, and ARRI HMI’s firing-in shafts of light from outside. As there were no cherry pickers or genie booms to help lift lights upwards to illuminate the larger nighttime scenes, Narang also oversaw the construction of suitable scaffold towers, making sure things were kept safe in the frequently gusty conditions.

“When you are on a tiny island, out in the elements for long periods of time, you really want to spend your time with people you really like, because otherwise you’re probably going to want to kill them,” Davis remarks. “Onkar is the most charming and lovely person you could ever wish to meet, with one of the best cando attitudes you could ever come across, and he was perfect for this job.”

The pub proved one of the most challenging sets to light, as Davis explains. “We decided early-on that the interior would have a black ceiling and dark green walls, as that gave us the chance to separate the characters, especially the faces, from the background.

But we had to work out how to deliver enough light to achieve the T5.6 aperture I wanted.

“So we supplemented the obvious hanging practicals and firelight to create pockets of light, using Dedolight 300s screwed to the ceiling beams, and various small LEDs hidden in cervices and behind furniture. For some scenes, where there were multiple characters, we might have had 20 or 30 different fixtures dotted around the place.”

Despite the shoot proving to be a physicallydemanding effort, Davis reports that he enjoyed working in a tight knit group with McDonagh, the cast and crew in such an enchanting location.

“There’s something really special about existing on an island surrounded by the ocean, where every day is beautiful in its own way. It was one of the best productions I have ever worked on, I think it’s got a whole wealth of resonances that will make people think.”

Images: © Searchlight Pictures. BTS photos courtesy of Ben Davis BSC.

I was seduced by the natural beauty of the coast and the seascapes

I wanted to give Martin the ability to cut from the contours of a landscape to the contours of a face

KABOOM!

By Darek Kuźma

All Quiet On The Western Front immerses us in the hopelessness and the horror of the war right from its opening sequence. We see a nameless German lad die on a battlefield, amidst countless fellow soldiers, only to watch the process of recollecting and mending his uniform to give it to another wide-eyed boy destined to be cannon fodder. Then, we follow the new one’s harrowing experiences in and out of trenches while politicians and generals prepare to sign the Armistice. Yes, watching this film hurts, but if you can stomach it, it will change the way you see things.

Friend met Berger years ago on Patrick Melrose, a TV series that brought him Camerimage Festival recognition, and professional kinship that led to another series, Your Honour, before they cam together once more for All Quiet On The Western Front

“I’d always wanted to make a war film and, having read the novel, I knew it wouldn’t get better than this. But it was difficult to get it off the ground,” Friend reminisces. “We were one of the first of the bigger movies in Europe to come together after the initial Covid shellshock, and this was quite an ambitious one. Taking the amount of actors and extras into account, the producers did an amazing job.”

Friend says he felt particular responsibility for adapting this story into a film. “The task was pretty daunting, as it’s the closest thing to the true story. I mean, this happened to so many people. We felt real weight to all of our decisions. In prep, we watched a lot of war films, but decided not to look at the 1930 American classic. We reference it in one scene, but we wanted to do the film on our terms, shoot it in an enhanced naturalistic style, even if it would be extremely upsetting. We stayed true to the colours of the uniforms, the weapons, the mud. It’s very bleak.”

One of the films they referenced was Sam Mendes’s 1917. “I’m a huge fan of Roger Deakins, and because Ed and I like discovering the space with the actors, 1917 seemed a natural fit. What Roger achieved, with his camera and his grip teams, such as the stuff they did with the Stabileye gimbal, was

amazing. We were flabbergasted at how you could move a camera over that range in such a seamless way. It was a valuable lesson as we needed equallycomplex shots, and we were lucky to have the same technician, Peter Whitcombe, who worked on 1917, doing the Stabileye for us.”

He admits shooting World War I trench warfare was the most gruelling task of his career.

“There’s a big set piece in the middle of the movie where the Germans invade the French trench, and then the French take it back whilst the Germans are retreating. We shot it in ten days, which wasn’t a lot considering all of the special effects, tanks, extras, choreography and light/weather implications. This was really a single unit show, but we had two units running, and had to manage both running backwards and forwards.”

Friend recalls shooting was also tough on emotional level.

“These were the toughest conditions I’ve ever worked in. Even to walk across the battlefield for a toilet break we had to rip through mud in extreme cold. And when we needed to run with the camera gear during takes, it got to a point where it was almost unmanageable. I would find myself standing amongst dead bodies, extras in full make-up, blood and guts everywhere. You are mildly desensitized when you are shooting, but doing a movie like this, you can’t escape soaking-up some of that in, and it did take its toll emotionally.”

The idea behind the enhanced naturalism and historical accuracy was to immerse the audience in the protagonist’s evolving perspective, starting as a naïve patriot who fakes his father’s signature to enlist, through to a shell-shocked soldier who had witnessed far too much horror.

“Our characters perish one-by-one, just like that,” says Friend. “I called my father one night to tell him how tough it was. He reminded me that my great-grandfather fought in the trenches for real in the Battle of the Somme. And it suddenly put everything into perspective, though I’ll never forget what we had to go through on that set.”

To depict the protagonists’ excruciating journey, Friend resolved to use four different cameras and various lenses. “I’m

Director Edward Berger’s German film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s seminal 1928 anti-war novel saw James Friend BSC ASC in the thick of the bloodshed and the trauma of World War I trench warfare.

in love with large format cameras, and I convinced the producers to pick ARRI Alexa 65 as our principal camera. I wasn’t interested in pointing it at a battlefield, but to use it to depict the experience what it was like in the confines of a trench, or the back of a truck, or in a supply train, the camaraderie.”

Yet it was not the best option for complex shots with anything heavily action-oriented. “The logistics and grip requirements of moving a camera at speed through the trenches or No Man’s Land made us pick the Alexa Mini LF. Also, we had only 400 extras and we’d be struggling with the Alexa 65’s field-of-view to make the battlefield shots look populated, even with loads of fog. We shot the sort of quieter scenes on the Alexa 65, and the Alexa Mini LF footage blended seamlessly with that. When I was watching it in the DI, I couldn’t actually tell which was which.”

explosions on my personal RED camera, and all-in-all, those different formats and cameras gave us the look we wanted.”

Friend also says film he used, “a mishmash of different types of glass. We shot most of the film using ARRI DNAs and Tribe 7 Blackwings T-Tuned series. However, you can get into trouble when you point them at a bright window in a high-contrast environment.

“As our location was starting to get hot and bright, I needed glass that was more stable. Also, I wanted a particular look on the more optimistic moments at the very beginning, when we see young men enlist was done, I also went with the ARRI Prime 65s, which are less contrasty and have lovely halation in the highlights.”

All Quiet On The Western Front saw Friend really embraced LED lighting technology. “We used a lot of ARRI SkyPanels S60s and S360s, and had them in 12x12 frames just outside the edge of the picture. When you’re doing vast exteriors, you need something with a bit of punch. We also brought in the biggest construction crane in Europe, and suspended a huge softbox, containing dozens of SkyPanels, over the middle of the battlefield to fill in the area”

lighting tools at an acceptable distance,” Friend recalls. “Its vastness proved a logistical problem, but together with the production designer we built three roads with a thin layer of soft mud on top to so we could be reasonably mobile. You don’t see them on-screen but they’re there, and they saved our lives more times than I could count.”

The logistics of the battlefield shoots still proved a sudoku-like exercise. “In the prologue, we started with a single grip going through the trench with the Stabileye, before hooking the camera on to a 50-foot Technocrane, and then unhooking it so we could run with the character outside of the trench. We shot it during a three-hour window in the morning because later we’d have the sunlight coming straight down the lens. On other occasions we had tracking vehicles going-up and down the roads with the Stabileye.”

For night exteriors Friend changed to Sony Venice and shot at 2,500 ISO.

“There was no artistic philosophy behind it, this choice. I have learned to follow my gut instinct and sometimes it’s hard to articulate,” he remarks. “I wanted to work in low-light conditions, but didn’t want have the gunfire and special effects look too punchy. Thus the Venice, which is always reliable in such conditions.

“I shot the VFX work and a lot of the plates of the

Principal photography took place during 50+ shooting days between March and May 2021 in the Czech Republic, though there were some early shoot in January and February to use the available snow. Some sequences, however, were recreated on stages at Barrandov Studios in Prague – such as the signing of the Armistice in a railway carriage set, which was shot against an LED wall – but it was predominantly a location shoot.

In Milovice, a twenty minute drive from Prague, they found a perfect location for the battlefield.

“It was an old Soviet airfield with an enormous runway, which was naturally flat and enabled us to park our whole unit with the construction crane and

The final DI grade was done at UPP Prague. “I like simplicity and had the idea of enhanced naturalism on my mind, but we pushed it a bit too far initially, and I didnlt feel it was looking good. Fortunately, there was a break in the process lasting several months, and when we returned, we peeled things and the look became much more attuned to the original sensibilities we were after. Sometimes you can over-engineer things, I guess.”

Even so, Friend is very proud of how the film looks. “It was a challenge and a nerve-wrecking experience, but we managed to pull it off, bit-by-bit, shot-by-shot, scene-by-scene.”

All Quiet On The Western Front is an impressive achievement of how impassioned filmmaking can not only recreate the past traumas, but also force us to embrace the lessons learned by those who died over a hundred years ago. Friend returns to Camerimage with the film in the coveted Main Competition, and it is possible he will not leave empty-handed.

Images: (opposite below) director Edward Berger and DP James Friend BSC ASC. Unit stills by Reiner Bajo. All images © 2021 Netflix, Inc.

MOOR STORIES

By Natasha Block Hicks

Brontë’s first and only novel, Wuthering Heights, initially published in 1847 under her pen name of Ellis Bell, has been adapted for the screen over thirty times, but the author and poet’s own life story is somewhat mysterious, largely documented posthumously through the sanitising filter of her older sister Charlotte’s pen.

Cinematographer Nanu Segal BSC joined us to talk about how she teamed-up with writer-director Frances O’Connor, an experienced actress stepping behind the lens for the first time, to imagine life into the gaps in Emily Brontë’s story.

“The theme of Emily (2022) is about a young woman finding her identity as an artist and learning to how to express it,” explains Segal. “It’s a very beautiful process to work with a director who has also written the script, there’s a suppleness to it. Both Frances and I are avid film fans, and discussing films was a great way to connect and find common ground.

“We talked a lot about Biutiful (2010, dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu, DP Rodrigo Prieto ASC AMC) and A Prophet/Un Prophète (2009, dir. Jacques Audiard, DP Stéphane Fontaine AFC), which might not seem like first-reach references for a period film. But the mood and textures of those films, the way they were lit, and the immediacy of the filmmaking, have an inherent beauty that we wanted to bring into Emily.”

Some of the visual inspiration for the film sprang from the script itself.

“The Yorkshire Moors are absolutely incredible,” marvels Segal. “We visited the house where Emily Brontë grew up, the Parsonage in Haworth (now

the Brontë Parsonage Museum). We got to sit in the same place that she lived and absorb the landscape. It was transformative.”

Filming in the same environment that inspired an untamed literary work such as Wuthering Heights was nonetheless challenging. The equipment chosen for Emily needed to be compact and purposeful, and the whole film unit maneuverable-enough to contend with the blustery moorland terrain and narrow single track leading to the principal location. Day-to-day logistics threatened to cut into shooting time.

“It was totally worth it,” justifies Segal, “as Frances had found an amazing house for Emily Brontë and her family to live in.”

Rapidly shifting atmospheric systems, powerful enough to smooth the rocks and stunt the trees, which are synonymous with the Yorkshire Moors, can act as both a cinematographer’s muse and repeated vexation.

“The weather adds so much to the overall texture of the film,” says Segal, “so we did really embrace that. But it was a challenge to remain flexible and adaptable to an everchanging environment.”

The choice of equipment was very much informed by the promise of pictorial richness and the challenge in capturing it.

“Both Frances and I wanted to create a visual

language that was unapologetically cinematic,” Segal continues, “and for us that meant using Anamorphic lenses. We wanted to find a vintage set for the softness and the inherent aberrations you get with older glass.”

The lenses needed to fulfil two parameters: they needed to be small and lightweight, since a large proportion of the film was to be shot handheld, and they needed to resist the tendency for Anamorphic flare.

“We were going to have lots of point sources in frame from candles, oil lamps and firelight,” explains Segal. “I didn’t want to have Anamorphic flares going through the actors’ faces, distracting from the performances, or creating visuallycluttered compositions.”

After extensive camera testing, the team settled on Hawk C-series Anamorphic Primes, teamed with a Sony Venice camera set to capture in 4:3 4K X-OCN ST, in Rialto Mode, supplied by Provision Leeds.

“I’d used both of those pieces of equipment on other projects,” relates Segal, “but the combination was unique to this film. It was an instinctive choice to use the Sony Venice. I felt the colour rendition would suit Emily’s world. We shot the whole film at 2500 ISO because that sensitivity setting brings some

Emily

texture to the image, which felt right. ”

The wish to favour handheld camerawork came early-on from O’Connor.

“It really made sense,” agrees Segal. “We wanted the camera to live and breathe with the actors, to be engaged, rather than detached and observing the story at a distance. Although we didn’t shoot Emily like a documentary, we took inspiration from that artform, shooting the narrative with a character-motivated feel to the operating. When you operate handheld, you can really fine tune to the nuances of the actors’ movements.”

Segal was keen to maximise natural and source lighting for Emily

“I wanted the lighting to feel as real and motivated as possible,” she explains. “I wasn’t ever afraid to use available light, although in-practice that often needed to be supplemented for light levels and continuity.”

Gaffer Gary Davies came to the production with his own inventory of Aladdin LED lights, so these were the natural choice for any augmentation of the available light, along-side larger units such as 18Ks and ARRI Sky Panel S360s.

“For the night work, I wanted it all to feel like it was motivated by candlelight,” says Segal, “we had a lot of candles in the frame and we featured period-appropriate oil lamps as well.”

To boost light levels while keeping the subtle fluctuation and tone given by candlelight, Segal and Davies created a dedicated rig where several candles could be mounted in front of a reflective surface, which would be positioned just out of shot.

“We called it the ‘bird cage’,” Segal remembers, “it was essentially a film lamp powered by candles.”

There are two scenes that came together particularly successfully in Segal’s view.

“The first one is the ‘mask scene’,” she details. “This was a scene that we spent a lot of time discussing and planning in prep. We really protected a part of the very tight schedule in order to have the time to shoot it in the way that Frances had envisaged it. When it was finished, I found it really exciting to watch the combination of the lighting, production design and SFX elements together with the soundscape and amazing performances.”

The other scene that came together particularly

well in Segal’s view was the love scene.

“By contrast, that scene was quick and straightforward to shoot,” says Segal, “but I love the intimacy and tone of it. It’s a really tender, beautiful moment of two people coming together.

“It felt like Frances and I really connected creatively,” Segal says of the project. “Her ideas would expand my own and inspire me every day on set. It was a very enriching collaboration.”

Emily Brontë died in 1848 of tuberculosis at the age of 30, her health likely compromised by poor sanitation and the harsh local climate. Her premature departure, only one year after Wuthering Heights was published, leaves a tantalising question over what might have been, had she had access to better healthcare and been free of the institutional binds that forced her and her sisters to first seek publication of their accomplished works under male pseudonyms.

Nearly 175 years later, we are closer to castingoff the last of the fetters that have previously prevented equal representation in the arts. Emily, in both the film itself and its subject, is a timely homage to female creative expression.

Images: courtesy of Warner Bros. BTS photos © Michael Wharley.

We wanted to create a visual language that was unapologetically cinematic

JUSTICE IS SERVED

By Ron Prince

Historywas not made by guys like me,” says Julio César Strassera, as he and his brave but makeshift legal team face the seeminglyimpossible task of holding a set of military leaders to account for terrible atrocities.

Based on real events, Amazon Studios’ gripping courtroom drama, Argentina 1985, follows the 1985 ‘Trial Of The Juntas’, which prosecuted the ringleaders of Argentina’s last civil-military dictatorship (1976–1983). It centres on the monumental work of the determined group of lawyers, led by prosecutors Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo, often working under death-threats, against those responsible for the brutal dictatorship and their practice of ‘disappearing’ – which included the kidnap, torture, rape and killing of citizens, including women and children.

Produced and directed by Santiago Mitre, from a script by Mitre and Mariano Llinás, the film stars Ricardo Darín as Strassera, with Peter Lanzani as Ocampo. Argentina 1985 premiered in-competition at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, and was selected as the Argentinian entry for Best International Feature at the 2023 Academy Awards, plus Best Ibero-American Film at next year’s Goya Awards. It also earned acclaim for its evocative, artfully-filmed, satirical edge and swells of heartbreaking emotion.

The film was shot by Argentinian cinematographer Javier Juliá ADF, and marks his third production as Mitre’s visual collaborator, following La Cordillera (The Summit) (2017) and Petite Fleur (15 Ways To Kill Your Neighbour) (2022). Juliá’s credits also include El Último Elvis (The Ultimate Elvis) (2012, dir. Armando Bo) and Relatos Salvajes (Wild Tales) (2014, dir. Damián Szifron), both of which earned him prestigious Best Cinematography Awards from the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Of Argentina.

“The Trial Of The Juntas was a huge and historic moment for our country,” remarks Juliá. “Looking back over the last century, between 1930 and 1983, we lived under several military dictatorships, and thanks to the outcome of this landmark trial we have enjoyed a long period of democracy now, almost 40 years.

“It was an heroic achievement by Strassera and his team, and it was the first time the leaders of the military dictatorship were tried in civil courts for the crimes they committed.

“However, it is a piece of history that has not been properly recognised, and many people in present-day Argentina are unaware of what happened back then. So I was excited to get involved in it with Santiago, but was in no doubt that it came with a great responsibility.”

The on-set of Covid lockdown meant the production was delayed, which gave Juliá and Mitre additional time to develop the project. This included the chance to watch many hours of archived testimonies, recorded during the trials themselves.

“Those were very painful and extremely emotional to watch, but they provoked ideas about how we wanted to make this film,” Juliá reveals. “We wanted to stay away from an aesthetic that looked old, or nostalgic, and to tell a story that could be happening now. Our approach was to try to make a film that looked and felt more contemporary.

“Also, during our courtroom re-enactments, I did not want to try to mimic the actual footage from the trails. Most of that had been shot from behind the witnesses, just the backs of their heads from a distance on long lenses, to ensure their protection. We wanted the exact opposite. We wanted an immersive experience, close to the witnesses, to show faces and to make the audience feel they were there bearing witness too.

“Normally, I like to depict the context of a character and the background with wider lenses and a nice a depth-of-field. But, for this project, we were drawn towards the idea of shooting large format and to capturing the courtroom scenes using much shallower depth-of-field, shooting wide open on slightly longer

“Shooting 3:2 is a little different in the way you need to compose the frame, compared to the main production formats. So it’s kind of modern and different, and it played to our sense of not being nostalgic that some other aspect ratios can suggest and imply.”

Creative references included: Janusz Kaminski’s seamless use of real footage in such gripping thrillers as Munich (2005), and evocative framing and lighting in Bridge Of Spies (2015); Gordon Willis ASC’s narrative use in All the President Men (1976); plus Mihai Mălaimare Jr’s close-up work, using 65mm film, for the psychological drama, The Master (2012).

Julia and Mitre also considered the work of legendary Japanese photographer, Masahide Tomikoshi, who photographed every World Cup between 1974 and 2010, and whose colourful images of the 1978 event in Argentina, around Buenos Aires, proved particularly interesting. The more recent work of Argentinean photographer Maxi Magnano, known for mesmerising and timeless photos of urban landscapes and everyday interior settings, was a touchpoint too.

After much testing and deliberation, Juliá went with the ARRI Alexa LF and Signature Prime lenses for the courtroom sequences, rating the camera at normal ISO and shooting the close-ups wide-open, with classic and restrained camera movement, typically on dolly tracks and crane.

The rest of the live action, outside of the courtroom, was also captured on the Alexa LF, but harnessed vintage Canon FD glass at between T4 and T5.6, with the camera rated at 1280 and 1600ISO to encourage a modicum of digital texture. Movement was frequently handheld to mirror the energy amongst the legal team or the tension in the Strassera household.

lenses, in order that we could look deep into the eyes and the emotions of the witnesses, without any other interference or distraction between them and the lens.

“Also, I wanted to create a contrast between the trail and what happens outside the courtroom, by using wider lenses and bringing a certain texture and rawness to the images in those other scenes.

“So we decided to embrace new camera and lens technologies to tell the story, and let the wardrobe and set design do the time-travelling, led by production designer Mica Saiegh and costume designer Monica Toschi. And, we wanted colour, nothing monochromatic or sepiatoned, just lots of colour.”

Juliá adds that, to keep the visual storytelling focussed on the characters, he and Mitre opted against shooting in widescreen or Anamorphic formats, nor did they want to frame 1.85:1 or 16:9 either. They opted instead to shoot in 3:2 aspect ratio, which has roots in 35mm film and photography.

The main camera package was supplied by Alfavision in Buenos Aires, with the Canon FD lenses rented through Ópticas HC. In the final movie, flashes of what appear to be archival footage from the trial, were shot using a vintage Sony DXC-M3A Saticon ENG tube camera from the 1980s (also supplied by Ópticas HC), and that footage was cleverly spliced into the storytelling during the edit, for an even more immersive effect.

Juliá operated during most of the production, assisted by 1st AC Martin Dotta on focus. A second camera was introduced for scenes involving multiple characters in the courtroom and the lawyers offices, and that B-camera and second unit photography was conducted by Manuel Rebella, supported by Mariano Juri and Alejo Giles on focus.

During test and prep, Juliá worked with DI colourist Luisa Cavanagh, to develop two LUTs – one for the courtroom interiors, the other for everything else – that would help the colourful rendering of the set and wardrobe design. During production, the DP worked closely with DIT Martin Bendersky to make sure the dailies at the different locations were balancing together, and this

aided a smooth and efficient final grade by Cavanagh.

Production took place over ten weeks, between June and September 2021, at locations around Buenos Aires, including the same courtroom, the Sala De Audiencias, where the original trials took place. Strassera’s apartment and offices were setbuilds. Juliá reveals that local support for the production was such that, for night exteriors scenes around the city, it was no problem to have mercury vapour and modern LED street-lighting replaced with sodium vapour illumination.

“The courtroom remains almost exactly the way it 40 years ago,” Juliá remarks. “The people who work there were really behind the film, and they helped us a lot.

“However, it was very difficult space to light as it is a protected building. I have to thank my gaffer, Jaime Muschietti, Pablo Lopez from FXSM, and key grip Sergio Olmos, in devising a lighting set-up, both overhead and on the floor, that would give me the right quality of softlight light, and would allow for 360-degrees freedom-of-movement, all without damaging the building itself.

“The top light was perhaps the most difficult aspect of this, as Skypanels would have been too heavy. So the team built an arc out of trussing between the galleries, from which we could suspend a large softbox for overall illumination, plus other, smaller softboxes above where the judges and lawyers were sitting.

“When we filmed the close-ups on the witnesses, I lit them more softly from above with a Hudson Spider. All of the lights, including those on the floor and practicals, were connected to a dimmer board, so we could easily control the lighting as we went along.”

Juliá concludes, “Making this film was a really emotional experience, as it is such an important part of our national history. At a time when people and politics are becoming polarised, I am hopeful that it is a story which younger generations will discover and feel very proud that, as a society, we could restore justice and democracy against the odds.”

Images: courtesy of Amazon Studios. BTS phots by Javier Juliá ADF.

I was excited to get involved, but was in no doubt that it came with great responsibility

WHEN DARKNESS FALLS

By Darek Kuźma

Nadim

Carlsen DFF made Ali Abbasi’s retelling of a terrifying 2000-2001 killing spree in Iran into a gritty, stomach-churning experience that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Women are strangled, their bodies dumped in the outskirts of the holy Iranian city of Mashhad, yet because they were sex workers the public is divided into those abhorred by the savage murders and those blatantly approving the so-called ‘Spider Killer’s’ street-cleansing. Holy Spider is a fictional version of what happened, envisioned and shot with a visual bravado and harsh social commentary. Thus we join the events when a female investigative journalist arrives to Mashhad only to observe her toilsome investigation being hindered by the police and Iran’s patriarchal society. The film also tracks the killer’s actions and follows the case through to its nailbiting and bitter conclusion.

It goes without saying that the events surrounding the faith-driven spree are one of the most shameful moments in the country’s modern history. Which is why Holy Spider was a laborious project that took the Danish-Iranian filmmaker years to make.

“Ali was going back and forth to Mashhad and extensively exploring it,” recalls Carlsen who met Abbasi at film school and shot his previous feature films, including the body-horror satire Border (2018). “I was with the project from its inception, and was taken aback by the brutality of the killings as well as the society’s reaction, but I couldn’t have been more fascinated by Ali’s idea of making a dark, sombre crime thriller with noir elements.”

Abbasi’s obsession with realism became a crucial factor in prepping the film. “Being an Iranian himself, he was all about authenticity, giving the audience a sense of time and place, of people and their attitudes, to

emphasise the script’s harsh indictment of societal norms that led to the killings,” explains Carlsen.

“We were doubtful that we would ever get to shoot in Mashhad, but I had never been to Iran and I wanted to see and feel the city. We scouted there and I took photos of its streets, colours, texture and architecture. That proved invaluable when we were forced to change the entire concept and recreate the realistic feeling elsewhere.”

As Holy Spider was to depict the killer’s modus operandi in grim detail and invite the viewers to explore Mashhad’s nocturnal reality of ostracised women desperately trying to make a living, Abbasi was not given permission to shoot in Iran.

“It was a disappointment. Ali was willing to compromise a lot, to shoot with a smaller crew and cameras, but it just didn’t happen. We went to Turkey and Jordan, then chose Turkey as it was less expensive and we found perfect locations to stand-in for Iran,” Carlsen notes. “We had everything in place but then… we were denied permission to shoot.”

They had to prep again, this time in Jordan, mainly in the capital city of Amman. After additional months and losing their main actress, they finally shot Holy Spider over 30 days during April and May 2021.

“It was tough, but we stuck to our initial approach: realism, grittiness, darkness. We couldn’t do camera tests in Jordan, so we tested various set-ups, formats and lenses in Berlin, although we weren’t sure how much of the exteriors we could show. We liked the specific combination of ARRI Alexa Mini LF and Signature Primes, and we were particularly attracted to the fact that the large format sensor allowed us to shoot with wide-angled lenses without getting the lens distortion that you would normally get with S35mm sensor.”

It turned out that the pair could shoot more freely than

anticipated, but the camera and lens combo proved ideal.

“The lenses performed really well, even wide open. I could shoot 1/3 T-stop at night-time and still get this modern, crisp look that we were after. The majority of the film was handheld, and the Mini LF’s size and powerful sensor enabled me to be mobile and shoot 1600ISO without worrying about the noise,” says Carlsen. “Because the streets were extremely bumpy, for some motorbike shots we used a Blackmagic Pocket camera mounted on the vehicle to get a more visceral, physical feel.”

The shocking mundanity of the Spider Killer’s methods – he picks up isolated sex workers on his motorbike, drives them to his home and strangles then with double-knotted headscarves – is intensified by the grisly darkness of the streets.

“The city was an additional character, dangerous, unpredictable, yet sort of sexy. We never chose pitchblack locations and enhanced them all in one way or another with realistic light sources, so that the danger was palpable and slightly enticing at the same time. I also had a LUT that showed everything on the monitor one stop darker to know how much further we could go without losing the details and shadows.”

When darkness falls, Mashhad turns into a neonhued beast of a city feeding on nocturnal sins. “It was very important to distinguish in every possible way between Mashhad at day, this innocent-looking city of whitewashed buildings, bleached-out yellows, clinically bland institutions, and Mashhad at night, a city reflecting the killer’s state of mind. Ali called it semi-seriously the ‘Islamic Las Vegas’, but the comparison was on-point. It has a main street, full of colours, cars, human noise, like the Strip, but if you turn into one of its numerous smaller, dark alleys, it gets spooky and gritty.”

This, and staying true to the time period of early

This is a human story… with real monsters in it

2000s, informed the way Carlsen lit Holy Spider in close collaboration with his gaffer, Martin Lerche.

“In day scenes it was mostly about bouncing the daylight around or adding fluorescent tubes in office and institutional settings,” Carlsen explains. “We also added incandescent light bulbs to practicals and always tried to gel street lights so that they looked more like sodium lights. As a cinematographer, you have this instinct to make the places you shoot more cinematic, have the background darker than the skin tones, put attractive light on the actors’ faces. But here we didn’t do too much of that, it would be dishonest and not realistic. The offices have white walls, flat lighting, they don’t look particularly exciting which is in contrast to the night-time layer in the film.”

“For night exteriors we tried to match the street lights with ARRI Sky Panels or used a lot of coloured lights to get specific hues, like this deep green, or ‘Persian green’ as we called it, that Iran is full of. Deep greens, reds, cyans, strong saturated colours that make the exterior scenes realistic, dangerous and, well, alluring.”

For night interiors he used a mix of practical lights and LED sources. “Mostly ARRI Sky Panels and LiteGear LiteMats because you can squeeze them in anywhere. We also did some bulb replacements and had them remote-controlled to adjust and control the light quality and intensity.”

“We improvised a lot with the actors, even during the

strangling scenes that were done on long, uninterrupted takes for the sake of immersion in the killer’s world and enhancing the sense of realism. We didn’t want to break up the rhythm of the shoot with various set-ups, so I lit for entire scenes. It might not have been 360-degrees, but it was pretty close.

“The idea was to shape the images while shooting and only do a bit of visual enhancement and VFX in post. Such as the scene when the killer goes to pray to the holy shrine of Imam Reza, which we shot entirely on bluescreen with some complex set-decorated elements designed by our amazing production designer Lina Nordqvist. But this was the only exception to the film’s realism.”

The DI process was conducted in Babelsberg at Rotor Film with colourist Petra Lisson.

“We wanted Holy Spider to be a film of various contrasts and didn’t feel the need to force any particular style on it,” says Carlsen. “We’d rather mix-and-match styles to specific scenes.”

They dubbed it ‘Persian noir’ and shaped their ideas through dozens of visual references. “We were sort of inspired, even emboldened, by the South Korean psychological thriller Burning (2018, dir. Lee ChangDong, DP Hong Kyung-Pyo). It creates its visual identity through clever mixing of different elements. There was also Son Of Saul (2015, dir. László Nemes, DP Mátyás Erdély HSC), for the way it isolates the main character in a frame

and lets everything and everyone else play out-of-focus, making the experience more intense.”

Carlsen recalls referencing French photographer and film director Antoine d’Agata for his use of strong, almost sickening colours.

“He does these painterly photos of drug addicts, prostitutes, marginalised people, often naked. He’s a bit like photographic Francis Bacon. We also looked at pencil-drawn portraits of a certain Iranian artist who mixes sharp, modern feel with something sinister, and many more.”

One additional visual reference worth mentioning is 2003’s Maziar Bahari’s documentary And Along Came A Spider that details the Spider Killer’s spree. “Some of the scenes in Holy Spider, including the ending shot on a DV cam, were very much inspired by the documentary.”

“I’m very proud of Holy Spider. We couldn’t shoot it in Iran, but I believe we’ve succeeded in recreating the look and feel of the turn-of-the-century Mashhad. This is not a documentary, but we tried to keep it authentic. This is a human story, after all, even though there are real monsters in it,” Carlsen concludes.

Quite the perfect recap of an intense film that is going to leave some viewers emotionally-scarred in a way only cinema can.

Images: Courtesy of Profile Pictures and One Two Films

WHOLLY GUACAMOLE

By Ron Prince

It’s

a fact-of-life that tiny questions, such as ‘Who am I?’, can become our biggest, soulsearching pre-occupations.

Exploration of this existential puzzle is at the beating heart of acclaimed director Alejandro Iñárritu’s self-confessed, “almighty guacamole” of a movie, Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths. Its immersive, surreal swirl of intimate contemplation combined with epic facts and fables from Mexican history, was lensed with considerable brio by French-Iranian cinematographer Darius Khondji AFC ASC, whose formidable list of credits include Se7ven (1995), Evita (1996), My Blueberry Nights (2007), The Lost City Of Z (2016), Okja (2017) and Uncut Gems (2019).

“I met Alejandro many years ago, when we were both much younger, when he came to see Sean Penn on the set of The Interpreter (2005), a movie I was shooting for Sydney Pollack,” Khondji reminisces. “Alejandro came over to say hello to me, and although we had the briefest of conversations, I remember being left with a very nice feeling about him. We didn’t meet again until 15 years later, when our mutual friend, Alfonso Cuarón, asked me to give Alejandro a call about Bardo

“I was very busy between movies at the time, but, of course, I called Alejandro to find out what he wanted. We started a really interesting conversation about life and the journey of the main character in film, and found there was a real

connection, a genuine clarity of understanding, between us. We continued that during several other conversations, which was a pleasant surprise to both of us, as I had not actually received the script.”

When the script eventually arrived, in December 2020, Khondji says it was “magnificent and multi-layered. I don’t always become so sensitive about the screenplays I read, but I was really touched by this one. There was simply no way I could not do this film with Alejandro, and by the beginning of January 2021 I found myself on a plane heading off to lockdown Mexico. It is very interesting to go to a city that you don’t know with a foreign eye.”

Images: courtesy and © Netflix. BTS photos by SeoJu Park.

Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths follows the intimate and moving journey of Silverio, a renowned Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker living in Los Angeles, who, after being named the recipient of a prestigious international award, is compelled to return to his native country, unaware that this simple trip will push him to an existential limit.

Uncertain memories and long-held fears pierce into the present, filling Silverio’s everyday life with a sense of bewilderment and wonder. Expressing emotion and laughter, Silverio grapples with universal yet intimate questions about identity, success, migration, mortality, the history of Mexico and the deep familial bonds he shares with his wife

and were also inspired by classic films from directors such as Roy Anderson, Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini and Jean-Luc Godard.

“After much discussion, we decided to shoot Bardo in large format, and thought about capturing on 65mm film for its immersive qualities,” says Khondji. “But in view of the ways Alejandro wanted to move the camera in long and complicated takes, those cameras would have been too heavy and cumbersome. I had previous experience with the Alexa 65, which is a much smaller package, and really love the way it depicts the presence of the actors against a landscape, how they can be larger-than-life, especially in widescreen.

“As for the lenses, it was Alejandro who brought me into the world of wide angle lenses, that he had used so effectively on Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) and The Revenant (2015) (both DP’d by Emmanuel Lubezki AMC ASC). I love wide angle lenses, but I would never have thought about shooting some of the close-ups, landscapes and long-take sequences that he had in mind with a 17mm, 21mm or a 24mm.

“I love mixing Panavision lenses with ARRI cameras. We had a set of Panavision Spheros custom-made for the Alexa 65 sensor, and ordered two of each, just in case of any accidents or issues.

the film to feel like this with the camera.”

He singles out the sprawling sequence where Silverio films migrants in the desert, shot using the Trinity rig, as a particularly strong achievement. “When we were in the desert with the migrants, we really were with them, with their souls, behind them, in front of them, seeing them in the distance –always in movement seeing them almost as if they are ghosts in a perishing life.”

Another one of Bardo’s most spectacular sequences is set during a crowded celebration party for Silverio at the renowned California Dancing Club in Mexico City. Preparation for that sequence required particularly close collaboration between Khondji, A-camera operator Ari Robins, focus puller David Seekins and grips Richie Guinness and Joe Belschner.

and children. Indeed, what it really means to be human in these peculiar, modern-day times.

Bardo had its world premiere at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, and will be released in cinemas later this year ahead of its launch on Netflix, which financed the film. Amongst many plaudits, the freeflowing nature of Khondji’s immersive, wide-angled cinematography, often with long, dream-like ‘oners’, have highlighted Bardo as one of the most thoughtprovoking and visually-impressive films in 2022.

Principal photography on the film began on March 3, 2021, at multiple locations around Mexico, the historic centre of Mexico City, and sets at Etudios Churubus, one of the oldest and largest movie studios in the country, before wrapping some 110 shooting days later in mid-September.

The surrealist paintings of De Chirico, Delvaux and Magritte informed the images in the film, as well as what Khondji describes as “the colour and feeling in the air” from the stills work of photographer Vivian Maier. Iñárritu and Khondji

“I am not a fan of shooting in 3D stereo, but I do like the feeling of 3D. I’m not especially interested in the high definition of the camera either. But, the way those lenses could wrap around a face, almost from ear-to-ear, on a close-up, gave a real sensation of depth and dimension to the image. Then, when you move and drift the camera along with the character, it creates a feeling that you are in a slightly surreal dream.”

To give the images cinematic sweep, Khondji deployed the camera on the dolly, Technocrane, traditional Steadicam and the ARRI-manufactured Trinity stabilised camera arm.

“We wanted the camera to be perpetually moving, as life itself is a perpetual movement,” Khondji explains. “Every second you pass, asking and answering a question, is a moment of your life that will never come back again. And we wanted

“That scene was, for sure, the biggest challenge,” remembers Khondji. “The location had been closed for many months due to the Covid pandemic and, as a result, the ceilings were falling down. The construction team had to shore-up the roofs, and then carry out a structural review in order to be able to put all of the people in the scene.

“It was a week’s worth of work to transform it, and to make it ours understanding what the colours of the space were, the elements we needed in terms of lighting, and how we would choreograph the camera.

“Also, the that scene is one of the most intense musical experiences in the film. Alejandro had this idea to introduce a famous acapella voice, David Bowie, with his iconic song ‘Let’s Dance’, to give an amazing sound experience too, so that all-of-a-sudden you travel inside Silverio’s head as everything goes crazy.

“We rehearsed and rehearsed that scene, with the camera crew dancing their way through the crowds – over ramps and up and down as small lift – and it worked so beautifully.”

During test and prep, Khondji brought together the talents of DIT/on-set colourist Gabriel Kolodny, and DI grader Damien Van Der Cruyssen at Harbor, to develop a small number of day exterior/interior and night-time LUTs. These were designed to imbue the images with enhanced saturation, slightly reduced contrast, and smokey blacks for detail in shadows and shade. During production he also used subtle smoke filtration on the camera, to encourage a certain soft patina on the image.

“I appreciate that some cinematographers do not like grading on-set, but for me it’s an essential part of delivering the images as I intend them to post production,” Khondji declares. “When I shoot photochemically I cannot stand having badly-graded dailies, and the same applies in digital. I always like to have a really good timer doing the dailies.

“Gabriel had a digital lab near-set and I spent time with him every day, so that when the images arrived with Damian or the final DI, they were already graded to a certain extent the way I wanted them. Of course, when we came to do the final DI, we pushed and pulled things around, but that initial grading is so important.”

Khondji’s gaffer on Bardo was Thorsten Kosselek, assisted by dimmer board operator, Lukas Hippe.

“You always need a great gaffer, and with the preponderance of LED lighting instruments these days, your gaffer needs to be accompanied by a great desk operator to do the programming. Thorsten and Lukas are two very impressive young lighting artists, in what is

becoming one of the most important roles on-set now.

“In the California Dancing Club, for example, we wanted the lighting to move and change with the passage of time and motion of the action. We installed thousands and thousands of lights in different areas of the venue to create pools of light, all linked back to GrandMA control console, where Lukas did the light mixing. The way he changed and adjusted the lighting in tandem with the action was very impressive.

“A more subtle example is the kitchen scene at breakfast, between Silverio and his son Lorenzo. It starts as very sunny day morning, but as they converse, the wind begins to blow, the light shifts and little, and the room gets colder and darker, before thunder and lightning come.”

Watching the cinematography on Bardo unfold on the big screen, you get the distinct impression that Khondji really enjoyed working on this film.

“Yes, it was amazing, the most pleasurable shoot I’ve ever experienced with a truly inspiring director. It will be hard to have another one in my life like that,” he remarks. “Alejandro is like a composer and

a conductor at the same time. He wants everyone around him to understand the music, to feel the music, to create a very strong connection. When you watch him, you realise that every single layer of the movie is controlled by Alejandro, and that’s what makes it a great operatic work.”

FINAL DI GRADE AT HARBOR

Colourist Damien Van Der Cruyssen said: “Working on the final colour for Bardo was an incredible creative experience, thanks to both Darius and Alejandro’s dedication to the process, and their desire to surpass what had already been accomplished on-set in-camera and near-set with colourist Gabriel Kolodny.

During the final DI, one of our main creative ideas centred on allowing the grade to breathe to complement the movement of the light, animated by the emotions of the scene. In many instances, light moves while the grade shifts to follow the unfolding of a scene. Meanwhile, the film had to maintain a subliminal and natural quality.

Accomplishing that balance through the grade, staying as filmic yet natural as possible, avoiding any over-thetop heaviness, while also keeping the visuals as stunning as possible, was our biggest challenge.

For the sequence shots, the complexity required rethinking how to approach the grade to realise the filmmakers’ vision, and I couldn’t have done it without the outstanding help and support from our Harbor team.

Image: (below centre) writer/ director Alejandro Iñárritu (r) and DP Darius Khondji AFC ASC (l). Photo by Antonio Turok/ Netflix © 2022/Limbo Films

It was the most pleasurable shoot I’ve ever experienced

The echoes of past experiences still resonate

RAT CATCHER

Ilovebeing a cinematographer. This is not to say my feelings haven’t evolved over the years.

The initial rush of being on a soundstage has tempered somewhat, at least to the point where I no longer jump up and kick my heels as I pass through the studio gate. But lately, I notice that those boyish high spirits have been replaced by something more significant. Like a reverse shift from digital to film, coolness and superficiality have been supplanted by a perspective of warmth and profundity, rooted as they are in the relationships that develop between myself and the individuals I work with.

A fascinating benefit of that is meeting all sorts of personalities, hearing their stories – and who hasn’t heard a million of them? I was lucky to have entered the industry at a time when it was rife with all sorts of colourful characters, infinitely more so than today. Much older than me and highly-experienced, I learned a great deal from them and was endlessly amused by their rakish behaviour, which, by the way, never hurt the expert performance of their job. I regret not recording some of their oral histories, but at least I have my memories. Knowing that they never would’ve survived in today’s corporatised, litigious environment, it’s hard to imagine such charming riff-raff ever existed.

Unit photographer, Josh Weiner, is perhaps the one I remember most fondly.

I was deeply saddened when he passed away in 2005 at the age of 86. I hadn’t seen him for some time at that point, but during my years as an assistant cameraman, I was fortunate to have worked alongside him on many occasions. He carried a heavy resumé: The Exorcist, Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now and Sophie’s Choice, among many others. When he was at the top of his game, he was the first call in New York, often before the cinematographer was hired. And, according to the old union contract, he was there for every day of every shoot.

To say Josh was unique is an all-time understatement. He was a hard case. He was also the toughest shop steward anyone ever saw (witness his service record as part of a US Marine machine gun company in the Pacific during WW II). But as I knew him, he was always honest, fair and dedicated to his work.

He was also funny as hell, to me at least, probably because of our common outlook and a shared interest in some areas outside the business. I could easily relate examples of his legend – shooting deer with a high-powered rifle from his living room couch in rural Connecticut would be a tame one – but there’s a specific incident that stands out. Don’t think I’m crazy for recounting it.

In the fall of 1984, I was day-playing on Sir Richard Attenborough’s, A Chorus Line, which was being photographed by Ronnie Taylor BSC. Early during our occupation of the Brooks Atkinson Theater in Manhattan, the camera department had claimed the downstairs lobby, quaintly dubbing our staging area as The Louma Lounge. The Atkinson had seen better days. The lumpy gray shadows that occasionally darted along the baseboards taught us to never reach into a dark spot without first taking a good look.

disgust to disbelief. Some of us laughed long and hard. With his native cool, Josh retrieved his bludgeon and once again blew everyone’s mind. He speared the dead rodent with the blade, then – like a responsible citizen – disposed of it in the proper receptacle. The set department had that garbage pail dry-cleaned before burning it at the end of the day.

Six hours later, the incident seemed to have been forgotten as lunchtime rolled around. Down in the Louma Lounge, Josh was enjoying his home-made sandwich. Finishing-up with a Red Delicious apple, he skinned it and cored it with – you guessed it – the very same folding knife he used to skewer the rat earlier that day. Whether or not he had sterilised it in the interim I cannot say. But I can still see him offering a juicy wedge on the stainless-steel tip, asking “Anybody want a piece?” The room cleared out in an instant.

I relate this tale only because no one raised an eyebrow about it at the time, let alone considered a lawsuit for emotional trauma. It was just another day on a job filled with many such outlandish incidents. And, though it illustrates how radically attitudes have changed, is it really for the better?

These outrageous people I was so often surrounded by laughed more, enjoyed themselves more and lived at a higher vibration than most anyone I’ve met since. If the younger people of today had been exposed to them, the world would be an appreciably different place. Much less tense, to say the least.

One morning, Josh showed up early, coffee and the daily papers in hand. Hellos all around as he settled into an overstuffed armchair. But soon, something caught his attention. I knew trouble was brewing when I saw him unfolding a huge pocket knife. Next thing, it was hurtling across the room. Josh was no circus performer; the pointy end missed its mark. But the impact of the blunt side was more than enough to send what looked like the granddaddy of every New York City super-rat to the big nest in the sky. Reactions from the other crew members ranged from

Now, as I encounter new crew members, the echoes of those past experiences still resonate. I was lucky to have gotten to know Josh. Wherever he may be, I hope he’s doing fine and wish him – all of his kind, in fact – the very best.

Richard Crudo ASC is a cinematographer/director with over 40 years of experience in feature films and episodic television. He is also a six-term Past President of the ASC and a Past Cinematographers Branch Governor of AMPAS.

I was lucky to have entered the industry when it was rife with all sorts of colourful characters

Josh Weiner on-set of TheFlamingoKid 1983.

Photo by Richard Crudo ASC

TIME TO CELEBRATE

By the EnergaCAMERIMAGE Team, with additional reporting by Ron Prince

Oh, what an anniversary!

The International Film Festival EnergaCAMERIMAGE, held between 12-19 November in Toruń, Poland, is celebrating 30 years of promoting the art of cinematography and pushing the envelope of how a festival can support brilliant film professionals – mainly cinematographers, but also production designers, editors, documentary filmmakers, avant-garde auteurs and creators of music video magic – who otherwise pretty much stay out of the limelight.

Yes, a celebration of 30 years of communitycreating endeavours that will lure masters of cinematography from right around the world, to meet their colleagues and talk with a myriad of students attending the festival to get inspired and absorb the love of filmmaking. 30 years of screenings, discussions, exhibitions, parties and the overall spirit of networking that makes everyone appreciate what Marek Żydowicz, Kazik Suwała and, in the words of the great David Lynch, “The Camerimage Gang” are doing.

This year’s guest list includes: Stephen H. Burum, Sam Mendes, Ulrike Ottinger, Alex Gibney, Hype Williams, Vance Burberry, Sarah Greenwood, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Jean-Marie Dreujou, Jean Rabasse, Mandy Walker, Claudio Miranda, Walter Murch, Ed Lachman, Ben Davis, Roberto Schaefer, Erik Messerschmidt, Charlotte Bruus Christensen, Luc Montpelier, Stephen Lighthill, Ian Murray, Bill Mechanic, Nigel Dick, Katie Spencer, Oliver Stapleton, Rodrigo Garcia, Ben Smithard, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Jan Roelfs, Daniel Pearl, Michael Hoffman, Markus Forderer, Florian Hoffmeister, Fredrik Wenzel, Colin Tilley, Michael Neubauer, Lol Crawley, Piotr Niemyjski, Peter Zeitlinger, Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, Larkin Seiple, Baran Bo Odar… and many, many more.

Who will win the Golden Frog? Films in the Main Competition…

All Quiet On The Western Front - dir. Edward Berger, DP James Friend BSC ASC

Angel In The Wall, The - dir. Lorenzo Bianchini, DP Peter Zeitlinger

Bardo, False Chronicles Of A Handful Of Truths - dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, DP Darius Khondji AFC ASC

Blonde - dir. Andrew Dominik, DP Chayse Irvin CSC ASC

Elvis - dir. Baz Luhrmann, DP Mandy Walker ACS ASC

Empire Of Light - dir. Sam Mendes, DP Sir Roger Deakins CBE BSC ASC

Living - dir. Oliver Hermanus, DP Jamie D. Ramsay

Tár - dir. Todd Field, DP Florian Hoffmeister BSC

Top Gun: Maverick - dir. Joseph Kosinski, DP Claudio Miranda ASC

The Perfect Number - dir. Krzysztof Zanussi, DP Piotr Niemyjski PSC JSC

War Sailor - dir. Gunnar Vikene, Sturla Brandth Grøvlen

White Noise - dir. Noah Baumbach, Lol Crawley BSC

Lifetime Achievement Award for Stephen H. Burum ASC

Stephen Henry

Burum ASC is one of the foremost American cinematographers, who worked during the 1980s on a number of visually-impressive films that shaped the cinematic tendencies of the decade. A regular collaborator of Brian De Palma during the last quarter of the 20 th century, Burum lensed several unforgettable features that are still widelyrecognised the world over.

Burum’s first career steps date to the early 1960s and the UCLA School Of Theatre, Film & Television in Los Angeles, where he was guided by some of the most prominent film-industry professionals, including cinematographer Charles G. Clarke ASC, and one of the very first female directors in the history of cinema, Dorothy Arzner. A committed and hardworking student, Burum photographed about 50 student films, shot mainly in B&W. During this period, he also became a teaching assistant for Charles Clarke and Stanley Kramer’s classes.

Burum’s first professional experience of working behind the camera came in 1964 on the wildlife television series, The NBC Wonderful World Of Color, produced for Disney Studios. After he was drafted in 1965, Burum shot training films for the US Army Pictorial Centre in New York. Following his two-year military service, he returned to California. Due to initial difficulties in joining the union, he worked on commercials and TV programmes, plus low-budget and independent film productions. These included Scream Bloody Murder directed by Marc B. Ray, and the popular TV series, Little House On The Prairie, for which he shot countless

Tár

The Perfect Number

Bardo, False Chronicle

Handful Of Truths

MagiCam inserts. His creative potential was recognised when he shared a technical craft Emmy Award for VFX on the popular PBS science TV programme, Cosmos (1980).

In 1976, Burum worked as the second unit cameraman/director on the set of his first feature, Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, whom he befriended at UCLA, and then on the second unit of The Black Stallion, directed by his other UCLA colleague, Carroll Ballard. Even though he began his career as a DP in 1964, Burum’s formal feature debut as a fully-fledged cinematographer dates to 1982 when he worked on The Escape Artist, a story of a boy exploring the magician’s world, directed by Caleb Deschanel ASC.

Burum’s career began to flourish in the early 1980s with the fascinating war drama Uncommon Valor (dir. Ted Kotcheff), St. Elmo’s Fire (dir. Joel Schumacher), the bittersweet story of a group of friends entering adulthood, and the fast-paced crime thriller 8 Million Ways To Die (dir. Hal Ashby). At this point, Burum also met Danny De Vito for whom he shot the grotesque black comedy The War Of The Roses (1989), and the critically-acclaimed biopic Hoffa (1992), for which he received an Academy Award a nomination for Best Cinematography.

Above all, however, Burum is most famous for his collaboration with director Brian De Palma, with whom he made a total of eight films exploring a variety of genres. They included Body Double (1984), The Untouchables (1987), Casualties Of War (1989), Raising Cain (1992), Carlito’s Way (1993), Mission: Impossible (1996), Snake Eyes (1998) and Mission To Mars (2000). Working alongside De Palma shaped Burum’s visual style and transformed him into an experienced and mature cinematographer, sensitive to the aspects of visualising a story and fulfilling a director’s expectations. Towards the end of his professional career, that spanned almost 40 years, Burum returned to his roots, conducting special classes as part of The Kodak Cinematographer-In-

Residence programme at his alma mater, the UCLA Film School, during 2006-2007, which proved very popular amongst younger generations of cinematographers.

Burum’s achievements led to ASC Award nominations for The Untouchables (1988) and The War Of The Roses (1990), and the prestigious ASC Award for Cinematography with Hoffa (1993), which also brought him the Oscar nomination. He was granted a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 by the ASC.

Sam Mendes to receive Special Krzysztof Kieslowski Award for Director

There have been many brilliant film directors in the history of cinema, yet only six of them were able to spark such tumult and admiration with their feature debuts that they were presented with Academy Awards – Delbert Mann for Marty (1955), Jerome Robbins for West Side Story (1961, co-directed with Robert Wise), Robert Redford for Ordinary People (1980), James L. Brooks for Terms Of Endearment (1983), Kevin Costner for Dances With Wolves (1990), and Sam Mendes for American Beauty (1999).

This was just the beginning for Mendes, a distinguished theatre director who started gathering critical-acclaim and winning awards in 1989 when he was presented with the Critics Circle Award for Best Newcomer for his adaptation of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. Since his impressive Oscar achievement he went on to become one of the greatest and most versatile filmmakers of any generation. Mendes’s most recent film, Empire Of Light, his beautiful love letter to the ephemeral magic of cinema, shot by Sir Roger Deakins CBE BSC ASC will be the opening, incompetition film at this year’s festival.

Mendes’ Road To Perdition, the Great Depression-era crime drama, fused the tropes of gangster movies with a story of family on the verge of collapse. Both American Beauty and Road To Perdition were recognised with Academy Awards for the mesmerising and oft-copied images of

cinematographer Conrad L. Hall ASC. The director’s subsequent Jarhead was an eloquently staged war movie done as a semi-absurdist satire about the futility of wars, shot by Deakins who became one of Mendes’ greatest collaborators for years to come.

Mendes’s next films, Revolutionary Road (shot by Deakins) and Away We Go (shot by Ellen Kuras ASC), formed a sort of a diptych about different ways couples could achieve true happiness, or destroy each other, surprised Mendes’s fans and proved the director’s experience in crafting stories about the dark and bright sides of the human condition. Yet even more surprising was his decision to take the reins of a Bond movie. With Skyfall, Mendes revitalised the 007 canon and the film became one of the most appreciated, and most successful, entries in the ever-evolving franchise.

When Mendes helmed 007 Spectre (shot by Hoyte Van Hoytema NSC FSF ASC), he again created a daring reinterpretation of what a Bond film could become in the hands of a visionary artist. Case in point, the brilliant prologue during the ‘Day Of The Dead’ celebrations that left many critics and viewers speechless.

With 1917, a strikingly poignant war film as well as a technical marvel shot by Deakins (recognised with an Academy Award), Mendes did it with a ferociousness that proved he is a truly one-of-a-kind director. Empire Of Light is not the beginning of a new chapter, but rather a satisfying continuation of the stories Mendes has crafted through previous decades. A powerful and poignant story about human connection and the magic of cinema, set in England in the 1980s, it will bring audiences many moments of cinematic joy.

TopGun:Maverick

Sarah Greenwood with Special Award for Production Designer

If you love cinema, it is entirely possible that among your favourite films there is at least one that Sarah Greenwood worked on as a production designer. From reimagining the late 18th century England in Joe Wright’s Pride And Prejudice to reinventing the late 19th century London with Guy Ritchie and his Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows, and from recreating Great Britain’s struggles during the Second World War in Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour to representing one of the most beloved Disney’s animation of all time in live-action feature adaptation in Bill Condon’s Beauty And The Beast, Greenwood has always used her instincts, skills and immense imagination to wow the audiences throughout the world.

She was nominated for an Academy Award six times, for Pride And Prejudice, Sherlock Holmes, Beauty And The Beast and Darkest Hour, as well as Joe Wright’s Atonement and Anna Karenina Greenwood collaborated with Wright on most of his feature films, including The Soloist, Hanna and last year’s Cyrano, yet her most trusted collaborator is set decorator Katie Spencer, who will also be in Toruń. They have been working since 1998’s The Governess (dir. Sandra Goldbacher) and share Oscar nominations as well as other industry distinctions. They recently worked on Greta Gerwig’s Barbie that will hit the screens next year.

Alex Gibney gets the Award for Outstanding Achievements in Documentary Filmmaking Camerimage has tirelessly promoted and celebrated the art of contemporary documentary filmmaking, putting emphasis on the myriad of creative ways the non-fiction medium can evoke emotions and increase awareness with their vivid imagery and compelling storytelling. Alex Gibney is an exceptional artist whose gripping and deeply insightful documentaries, with a signature cinematic style, have made him a real force to be reckoned with, “the most important documentarian of our time” according to Esquire Magazine.

When he was a teenager, Gibney, the son of a famed journalist, started going to places he should not have gone, and talking to people he should not have talked to, which resulted in his lifelong romance with the opportunities and threats of documentary filmmaking. He started his prolific career in the 1980s, honed his cinematic style during the 1990s, and then, in the 2000s, started to capture international attention with a series of mind-boggling and eye-opening films. Among them: Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room, exposing the greed and corruption of one of the most influential US corporations; the Oscarwinning Taxi To The Dark Side, a harrowing tale of inhumane practices during the early years of the war in Afghanistan; and Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God providing a trulyhorrifying account of the decades of sexual abuse and paedophilia in the Catholic Church.

Gibney’s Gonzo: The Life And Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson put focus on a unique journalist

and his disputed methods, while We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks, skilfully portrayed the dedication of those behind the most notorious organisations of our times, whose mission is leaking classified documents to give the power back to the ordinary people.

Although Gibney is mainly recognised for his rigorously-researched investigative work revealing corruption, greed and moral debauchery inside the many layers of corporations and institutions, he is also extremely skilled in finding flawed humanity in cultural myths and legends. As in Steve Jobs: The Man In The Machine, Sinatra: All Or Nothing At All, or The Armstrong Lie about the notorious roadracing cyclist Lance Armstrong.

Vance Burberry to receive Camerimage Award for Achievements in the Field of Music Videos

Renowned Australian cinematographer, Vance Burberry, has a very long list of credits including such renowned performers as: Guns N’ Roses, Alice Cooper, Cher, Celine Dion, Pearl Jam, Avril Lavigne, Nickelback, Linkin Park, Backstreet Boys, Enrique Iglesias, Britney Spears, Ozzy Osbourne, The Weeknd, Santana & Wyclef Jean, R.E.M, among many others.

Burberry grew up in Sydney, where his passion for light began while working as a stagehand at a theatre company. He marvelled at the way light could transform the stage into a magical world that would allow the audience to immerse in the story being told. He soon began working in the lighting department, learning the craft of theatre lighting design. He read and re-read the bible of theatre

White Noise

Notre-Dame

Fire

Blonde

lighting, Stage Lighting Design by Richard Pilbrow, which changed his world.

To make a living, which was hard in theatre at that time, he started lighting for local rock bands, eventually lighting concert tours for major Australian artists including Cold Chisel and INXS. He landed work on film sets, where he discovered a whole new world of light and quickly moved up to the gaffer position in the music video world. At the time, heavy metal bands wanted big concert lighting, and this soon propelled him to the position of DP, allowing him to design and create the lighting on-set for rockers like Guns N’ Roses, Tesla, Extreme, Alice Cooper and many more.

For Burberry, cinematography is not just a craft but a spiritual journey too. In his words, “For me to tell a story visually requires an emotional connection, I listen to my heart. The light must serve the story, regardless of whether it’s a commercial or feature film or music video. The imagery must connect the audience emotionally to the story being told. I love challenges of all aspects of what I do and cannot imagine doing anything else.”

Ulrike Ottinger with the Award for Avant-garde Achievements in Film

The festival will honour visual arts pioneer Ulrike Ottinger with its Avant-Garde Achievements In Film Award. Ottinger is known for work that challenges audiences’ notions of visual arts, and has stayed active for five decades across film, photography, theatre, opera and exhibition.

Ottinger made her film debut in 1973 with Laocoön & Sons, in which she laid out her aesthetic outlook. In her next movie, Madame X: An Absolute Ruler (1977), she challenged masculine tropes – gaining international success and helping to underpin the formation of the feminist movement. Joan Of Arc Of Mongolia (1989) was an emancipatory story of female identity, whilst anthropological themes dominated many of Ottinger’s documentary films, particularly the ones focused on Asia such as Taiga (1992), an eight-hour epic on the life of nomads living in that country.

Hype Williams with the Award for Achievements in the Field of Music Videos for Director

The work of work multi-award-winning, avant-garde visual artist and filmmaker, Hype Williams, has ignited the imagination of people on all continents. Among countless artists and bands he has worked with are The Notorious B.I.G., 2Pac, Missy Elliott, Mary J. Blige, Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, Beyoncé, DMX, Pharrell Williams and Jennifer Lopez. In addition to creating iconic and cutting-edge music videos, he has also been responsible for many still photography and advertising campaigns in the fashion world.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

Painting Tumult 1979-1988. Mülheimer Freiheit Exhibition

This year, the exhibition Painting Tumult 19791988. Mülheimer Freiheit has a chance to become the most significant artistic event at the Centre Of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Toruń. Accompanying the festival, this exhibition will be the first in Poland to present works by German neoexpressionists who were active in Cologne during the first half of the 1980s. More than 200 largeformat paintings by the group will be on display. The exhibition – curated by festival boss Marek Żydowicz – will be open until mid-April 2023.

HFF Munich Film Review

This year’s programme will feature productions by graduates of the prestigious University Of Television & Film Munich, which has provided education for up-and-coming directors, screenwriters, producers and cinematographers, for over 50 years. Among the filmmakers to pass through HFF Munich have been Wim Wenders, Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck and Roland Emmerich. The film review will include a seminar on the art of cinematography with Peter Zeitlinger – an associate of Werner Herzog and Ulrich Seidl – the DP on such films as Bad Lieutenant, Encounters At The Edge Of The World and Rescue Dawn.

Walter Murch Presents: The Golden Ratio In Cinematic Framing

Across a century of cinema, and spanning all cinematic cultures, there seems to have been a tendency, when composing close-ups and medium close-ups, to place the eyes of actors along the “Golden Ratio” of the vertical dimension in the frame. Walter Murch, laureate of the Camerimage Golden Frog in 2015, will explore this startling hypothesis with clips from 25 films, as well as interviews on this topic with Vittorio Storaro AIC ASC, John Seale ACS ASC and Caleb Deschanel ASC — all previous Golden Frog winners.

Murch will also attempt to arrive at conclusions as to why this might be the case, with an exploration of the architecture of the human face, in the spatial relations between the hairline, eyes, nostrils, lips, and chin. He will conclude by suggesting reasons for those times when cinematographers choose not to conform to this intuitive aesthetic, by examining the films of Pawel Pawlikowski and his cinematographer Łukasz Żal PSC, also a Golden Frog winner.

Making of Notre-Dame On Fire

Notre-Dame On Fire is a riveting, heartbreaking film relating the devastating fire of April 2019. Several cathedrals were chosen for this reconstruction of the event at Notre-Dame, while many scenes involving fire were filmed in studios with stages specially-constructed for the movie. Filming in the heart of the fire was very difficult, requiring specialist equipment. Colour grading required special care to integrate the archives inserted in the film. Jean-Jacques Annaud (director), Jean Rabasse (production designer) and JeanMarie Dreujou (cinematographer) will explain how this movie was designed and shot.

Zeiss Seminar: Framing Triangle Of Sadness, with DP Fredrik Wenzel FSF

Fredrik Wenzel FSF was the cinematographer on Ruben Östlund’s three latest films, Force Majeure (Cannes Jury Prize 2014), The Square (Palme d’Or 2017), and Triangle Of Sadness, which won the second Palme d’Or for its director this year. Having switched to a large format camera and Zeiss Supreme Primes for the film, Wenzel will detail the process of framing this satire in collaboration with Östlund, including a new perspective on focal lengths.

War Sailor

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Meeting With Bill Mechanic - Developing Scripts, The Changing Faces Of Finance, Distribution… And More!

Renowned producer, Bill Mechanic, will discuss his experience of working in Hollywood for over 20 years. Through his company, Pandemonium Films, respected industry veteran produced the Oscar-winning Hacksaw Ridge, BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated Coraline, and Dark Water He also produced the multi-Emmy nominated 82nd Academy Awards.

Mechanic served twice as a governor for the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and has been on the board of counsellors for the USC School Of Cinematic Arts for 20 years. As chairman/CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment for seven years, he oversaw worldwide feature film production and created Fox Searchlight, Fox Animation, and Fox 2000. Under his reign, Fox won Best Picture for Titanic and Braveheart and garnered 42 Academy Award nominations, as well as creating the X-Men and Ice Age franchises.

Maryna Shaleva Seminar No Margin For Mistakes

Maryna Shaleva is a director with over 15 years of experience in senior positions in the largest television and media companies in Ukraine. She is widely-known and respected for her amazingly diverse work on top-rated projects, reaching over 29m viewers a year. At the seminar, she will share her experience and tell you how to control 30 or more cameras at a event live event, how to make important decisions in a matter of seconds, and talk about lighting solutions and camera plans for large TV shows, stadiums and city squares.

How the science of vision affects the art of cinematography - A Canon Seminar with Ian Murray

In order to truly understand cinematography, commercials DP Ian Murray went back to the greatest lens ever designed – the human eye. His research opened-up a universe of questions about how we create, perceive and interpret images. He realised that, as technology constantly evolves our ability to create imagery, it has never been more important to understand our own visual programming.

HBO Camera Assessment Test Screening, plus Q&A

The world premiere of the HBO Camera Assessment Series 2023, will be followed by a candid discussion and Q&A with Stephen Beres, SVP, production operations, and Suny Behar, director/cinematographer, who will discuss this latest instalment and what the future of imaging technologies may bring.

Filmlight Colour Awards & Seminar

FilmLight is once again hosting the 2022 Colour Awards. Acclaimed cinematographers, directors and colourists have come together to independently review the best colour grades across five categories – commercials, music videos, theatrical features, TV series/episodic, and a new “Spotlight” category for unsung talents.

Cinematographers at War by Kinoko Film Festival

After a Russian invasion of Ukraine, film professionals were forced to find suitable new roles for themselves, doing volunteer work, transforming restaurants to volunteer hubs cooking free food for those in need, and taking part in evacuations from front-line towns and villages. Some joined the Ukrainian defence forces, but everybody was also documenting the reality of war. This panel discussion will bring together Ukrainian cinematographers who will share their work experience after February 24th 2022.

BVK Seminar: Who supports the DP in the Camera Department?

The Recruitment & Training Challenge

There is network of filmschools worldwide offering courses in cinematography. Every year, hundreds of young and well-trained cinematographers enter the industry. There is an enormous amount of production worldwide and the need for 1st and 2nd ACs, DITs and colourists is growing. However, recruiting in assistant professions is problematic as there are few formalised training courses, little protection by a professional job description, nor agencies or professional supervision.

Where will the new generation for the assistant functions come from? What skills are requiredand where can they be learned? An international

exchange of experiences on this topic will provide information on the situation in different countries, and offer suggestions for improving the difficult situation of young people in the assisting professions.

Angenieux: Optimo Prime & IOP Workshop

This creative workshop will be animated by DPs talking about the Full Frame Optimo Prime series by Angénieux and its Integrated Optical Palette (IOP). The workshop will help you understand different artistic possibilities given by the palette, and offer the chance to hear from DPs who used it and participate to tests of the Optimo Prime lenses and IOP elements on-camera. The new Optimo Ultra Compact zoom lens will also be presented on a Steadicam.

AFI Conservatory Cinematography Programme by Stephen Lighthill ASC

Stephen Lighthill ASC, current president of the ASC, and head of the American Film Institute Conservatory Cinematography programme, welcomes you to a discussion of the AFI Conservatory approach to filmmaking education with an emphasis on cinematography. He will be joined by recent AFI alumni at this reception and conversation.

ACS Seminar: A Wider Lens On Australian Camera Workforce Development & Diversity

Check out this world first, nationwide report which gives broad-reaching insights into the Australian film industry through the lens of the camera department workforce, which mirrors conditions many cinematography workers experience in other markets around the globe.

Research led by Dr Amanda Coles at Deakin University reveals camera professionals face shocking and systemic inequality, discrimination, bullying and harassment, and a lack of diversity, all with serious negative mental health consequences.

Come and hear ACS National President Erika Addis ACS and report authors, including Dr Coles, as report the findings and the all-important recommended next steps in this report.

Plus events, seminars, workshops and panels by ARRI, Astera, Rosco, Sony and others!

All Quiet On the Western Front

At the time of writing, confirmed exhibitors at this year’s festival included Anton Bauer; Aputure; ARRI; Astera; Atlas Lens Co; Canon; Cinetica; Codex+Pix; Cooke Optics; Creamsource; Dedo Weigert Film; DoPchoice; Filmotechnic; Freelensing Cine; Fujifilm/Fujinon; Irix Lens; K5600 Lighting; LG; Leitz; Litepanels; Moonlighting Industries; Nanlux; OConnor; Qinematiq; Quasar Science; Sony; Sumolight; TRP Worldwide; Vantage Film (Hawk); Xeen; and Zeiss.

Aputure: Experience some of the latest advancements when it comes to LED lighting for high-end filmmaking. Get a hands-on experience with Aputure’s latest fixtures, like their flagship LS 1200d Pro and Nova P600c models, the MT Pro, Aputure’s first tube light, and the upcoming MC Pro. To celebrate Camerimage’s 30th birthday, the Aputure team might even bring something extra with them!

ARRI: booth highlights include the Alexa 35 and Alexa Mini LF cameras, ARRI Signature Prime and Zoom lenses, the Trinity 2, along with the Orbiter and its brandnew Projection

Optics, Fresnel lens and Docking Ring. ARRI Rental will showcase its in-house lens development programme plus Alexa Monochrome cameras, and visitors can learn more about ARRI’s Certified Pre-Owned Programme. ARRI is hosting three educational seminars focussing on topics ranging from new Alexa 35 camera workflows to Virtual Reality productions. The ARRI Academy Masterclass returns, and ARRI’s Big Screen Event offers a deep dive into ARRI Signature lenses.

Cooke Optics: they missed the deadline, but say that will send over the text and an image, so please leave this space for that. they missed the deadline, but say that will send over the text and an image, so please leave this space for that. they missed the deadline, but say that will send over the text and an image, so please leave this space for that. they missed the deadline, but say that will send over the text and an image, so please leave this space for that. they missed the deadline, but say that will send over the text and an image, so please leave this space for this.

Creamsource: Designed to bring consistency and cohesiveness to a historically disordered aspect of lighting, Creamsource’s LNX rigging system simplifies rigging and cabling with a series of purpose-built clamps and pins for the hugely-popular Vortex lighting series and enables rigging crews to quickly

assemble uniform/aligned arrays of Vortex fixtures with minimal gap between units with. Multiple latches and auto-locking features ensure the safety of anyone under the rig at all times. Designed to withstand heavy use, relocation, high levels of vibration and wind loading, the system complements the Vortex series fixtures, which are known for durability and flexibility.

Dedo Weigert:

Only Dedo Weigert offers the complete scaleable range for working with reflected light. The company is showing the complete system for Dedolight Lightstream, now a three-part family. The Dedolight Lightstream for drama shows, provides the illusion of infinity lighting, even in confined spaces. Dedolight Lightstream Lite is an eight reflector kit which can be activated by a single light, from 150W down to a 40W bicolor LED, meaning that complete sets, including background, can be lit. The Dedolight Lightstream Table Top offers endless creative options, including 15 different reflectors, two small 8W Ledzilla lights, enhanced by the Parallel Beam Intensifiers.

De Sisti

Lighting: Paying attention to the environment, the company has fitted all of its lighting products with highefficiency, solid state sources. The range includes: LED Fresnel & Softlight with a patented system that guarantees exact optical features and control (Tungsten, Daylight, variable CCT or VW+Colours); LED Asymmetrical Cyclorama Lights with variable CCT or VW+Colours; LED Space Light offering variable CCT with +/- green adjustment; LED Lighting Boxes with VW + Colours. Developed in collaboration with Vittorio and Francesca Storaro, the large format Muses Of Light fixtures, with variable CCT, offer exceptional output performance and quality, and they look super-stylish too!

DoPchoice: Check out a wide array of products for shaping and controlling light. New Fat-Rabbit, 8-ft Double-Hex and 6’5’ Snapbags and matching Snapgrids add creative lighting control to large and multiple fixture arrays for ARRI Skypanel 360, Triple/Double DMG/Rosco MAXI Mix, Prolight XL Panels, 4X Litepanels Gemini 2x1, amongst many others. The rugged Fat-Rabbit offers configurations to mate fixture combos, creating soft, flattering lighting and accepts new lights via mounting adapters. New 8-ft Double-Hex, Snapbag offers easy set-up, compact form, a highly-reflective interior, removable Magic Cloth diffuser, and carry bag. For Prolights’ Ecl Panel TWCXL, Fat Rabbit supports the 6’ x 5’ Snapbag. Two new 40-degree Snapgrids easily attach to the 8’ or 6’x5’ Snapbags.

Fujifilm/ Fujinon: The company is showing its range of premium lenses and mirrorless digital cameras. Pride of place on the stand are the signature Premista series, with their impressive optical performance to allow you to express your creativity without compromise when using a large format sensor. Also on display will be the Cabrio lenses and their detachable digital servo grips.

Make sure to get your hands-on the GFX100S, which has 102 million pixels, and the latest, fifth Generation X Series cameras – the X-H2S with its open gate 6.2K shooting and ultra-low rolling shutter, and the 8K-capable X-H2. Both will be displayed with the MKX cine lenses to reveal how Fujifilm offers a complete solution of camera and lens.

Leitz: Lens-maker Ernst Leitz Wetzlar offers attendees the chance to play with its latest Leitz Cine Lenses. The new Leitz Hugo series share optical design with Leica’s iconic M photography lenses. Their compact, production-ready mechanics make a unique addition to the Leitz family of fullframe lenses. Also on display and starting to deliver, the Leitz Elsie primes combine gentle field curvature and fall-off with modern cine lens design. They will find a home on a large variety of productions due to their very mutable character. Test them alongside the Leitz Zooms for an excellent match.

Rosco: Rosco is holding two seminars during Camerimage this year. The Language Of Color In Lighting, moderated by Nils De Montgrand, explores names, numbers, coordinates and the future of coloured light. Planning The Virtual Production Set will investigate the changing landscape for the camera and art departments.

Sony: Sony is hosting three seminars. The Emotional Flight Path will see top filmmakers discussing how to grip viewers’ emotions. SceneSetting For Intimacy, a discussion from a female perspective, will explore intimate environments in film with an all-female panel. Using Sony X-OCN Workflow To Streamline Post-

Production will discuss the technicalities of how to use X-OCN. Sony will also highlight its popular Cinema Line and CineAlta cameras. Alongside the new FX30 and the Venice Extension System 2 will be the FR7, the world’s first PTZ camera with lens inter-changeability and remote shooting functionality.

Sumolight: This year the company is showing its multiaward winning, most versatile and powerful light yet – the ground-breaking SumoMax, as well as the entirely new concept in professional lighting, the SumoLaser, a one-of-a-kind LED laser with a 2.6° beam angle and an output of 150,000 lux at 100m, plus the SumoSky, a portable and quickly expandable display and lighting system,

ideal for smart VFX integration and mixed reality studio environments. Sumolight will also host a daily happy hour on its booth with a glass of Crémant and hors d’oeuvres.

Vantage Film: Vantage Film is a developer/ manufacturer of film lenses and a sought-after fullservice provider of camera kit and filmmaking technology, supporting productions worldwide from an extensive pool of rental equipment. The Hawk lenses produced by company are considered leading-edge and enable filmmakers to translate their artistic visions into compelling visual statements. Since Peter Martin and Wolfgang Baumler founded Vantage Film in 1993, the company has aspired to set standards of excellence and unleash the creative power of its customers. Watch out for the brand-new Hawk MHX Hybrid Anamorphic lens series. Prototypes of

these optics have already been used on a recent feature, and this year’s festival will mark the official premiere of this lens series.

Zeiss: Get handson the company’s portfolio of high-end cinematography lenses, including the new Supreme Prime 15mm. CinCraft Mapper will also be available for on-site demonstrations, showing how distortion and shading data for VFX workflows can be obtained at the click of a button. Attendees will also have an opportunity to join the Zeiss seminar with cinematographer Fredrik Wenzel FSF entitled, “Framing Triangle Of Sadness” – it’s definitely not one to miss!

Elvis

Bardo, False Chronicle Of A Handful Of Truths

THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE VIRTUAL

By Darek Kuźma

Lawrence Sher ASC took-up the challenge of making Black Adam, the origin story of DCEU’s heroic villain, as visually-distinctive as the crowded superhero genre would allow in Jaume Collet-Serra’s blockbuster extravaganza.

Though he has flirted with larger-than-life characters before – most notably in Michael Dougherty’s Godzilla: King Of The Monsters (2019) and Todd Phillips’s Joker (2019) (for which he was Academy Award nominated and a Camerimage Golden Frog winner) – shooting Black Adam was an entirely different beast for Sher.

“I’m not a huge superhero genre fan, but there’s a certain challenge and complexity to the way these movies are constructed,” he admits. “It’s fascinating. So, I wanted to jump into a vast comic book universe and try my hand at figuring-out the way I’d make a movie under those circumstances.”

Black Adam is a morally-conflicted supervillain from the ancient city of Kahndaq, whose deity-like powers bring chaos to the DC Extended Universe’s modern world, when he is accidentally freed from

a 5,000-year imprisonment. A former slave who changed his stars but lost everything that was ever dear to him, Black Adam bows to no-one and wreaks havoc even when superhero members of the Justice Society Of America intervene. Yet there is enough humanity left within him that maybe – just maybe – he could be reasoned-with and fight

shoots and really wanted to do another project for him. He’s laser-focused, thinks outside the box, and values visual storytelling. What more can you want for a superhero film?”

He got involved quite early and experienced the project’s evolution. “We started just before the pandemic. We were about to do a fair amount of Black Adam on a volume, to shoot action sequences in a novel way and make Kahndaq’s design shine on-screen.”

along with the good guys.

As interesting as the world-building was, Sher wanted to get on-board to work with director Jaume Collet-Serra. “I’d done extensive Jungle Cruise re-

Unfortunately, the virus made the producers re-think the idea. “So we spent the first weeks of prep on Oculus headsets, scouting the virtual environment, figuring-out how to make sets that were constructed purely in VR real for the audience. We were actually one day away from shooting a big MoCap sequence with cranes and then everything shut down. Working from our homes, we pre-vized and pre-lit the film, which made me better understand the various challenges we were facing, but with time the project’s production model turned into a more traditional one.”

The entirety of Black Adam was shot from April to August 2021 at Trilith Studios in Atlanta. Kahndaq’s busy marketplace set filled the biggest stage, whilst a massive exterior of intersecting city streets was built on the studio’s gigantic backlot and extended with greenscreens.

“Even having experienced Godzilla, also shot mostly in a full 360-degree greenscreen environment, it was hard to wrap my head around it. I understand why Denis Villeneuve or Chris Nolan seek to work in real spaces as much as possible. It gives you a basis for more emotional filmmaking,” says the DP.

For all that epic scope and VFX-heavy mayhem, Black Adam is about emotions. Especially when you realise that the eponymous character’s lightning-bolt

I wanted to jump into a vast comic book universe and try my hand at it

fury stems from a parental loss and his worthiest foe turns out to be a brave boy not afraid to see the good in him.

The backstory is layered, too, as Kahndaq’s citizens revolt against neo-colonial rule of white mercenaries who use their land to extract a precious metal. Those oppressed see Black Adam as a saviour, the rest of the world perceives him as a villain. Who is right and who is wrong?

Sher initially wanted to shoot spherically on ARRI Alexa 65 but changed his mind. “I like ARRI 65’s spherical look, but I decided to shoot this one Anamorphic. The main reason was that during tests in the volume I discovered – as Greig Fraser had expressed to me as well – that Anamorphic helps to blend the LED to the foregrounds a bit more successfully,” he says.

“Jaume favoured Panavision C and E-series

Anamorphics on the Jungle Cruise re-shoots, but I went searching for available full-frame Anamorphic solutions. And then I was introduced to P+S Technik’s TechnoVision 1.5X lenses.”

“After the test I realised I didn’t need the Alexa 65 and changed to Alexa Mini LF with regular LF sensors, and the TechnoVision lenses were perfect. They have a lot of personality and are similar to C and E-series in their imperfection.

Images: courtesy and copyright of Warner Bros. Pictures

The flares are deliberate, there’s a lot of fall-off and a bit of distortion. Exactly what we needed to bring some life and unpredictability to a superhero origin story. They’re also quite fast, like T2.2, and relatively not-heavy, so I knew I could go handheld. And the guys at P+S Technik delivered them with closer focus to suit Jaume’s needs.”

Sher chose the 40mm, 50mm and 75mm lengths to be their hero lenses. “I shot most of the movie on those three primes, but we also had cool zooms too, 35-70mm and 70-200mm.”

Even though Black Adam takes the audience on a thrilling ride across many diverse locations, most of the film takes place at Kahndaq, hence the huge sets built in Atlanta

and a whole lot of lighting equipment to make it beautiful in its grittiness.

“It’s a sort of Middle Eastern city with thousands years of history,” Sher explains. “We shot 90% of the film with one unit, two or three cameras running all the time, so it was all about replicating daylight indoors in a way you feel the heat of the sun and the vibrancy of the real shadows and light, as well as making exteriors real and believable.”

Thus, Black Adam was lit exclusively with LEDs and bigger HMIs. “We had hundreds of sources, but the ones we used the most were ARRI SkyPanels S360s, HMI kit, LED Ribbons and Creamsource Vortex units,” Sher remembers.

P+S Technik’s TechnoVision 1.5X Anamorphic lenses have a lot of personality

“Vortexes are these spicy, bright lights with real energy to them. They proved a counterpoint to soft and ubiquitous SkyPanels and also became our go-to solution for all action scenes shot with a Bolt high-speed camera system at up to 1,000fps. We tested all sources, and the Vortexes were the only units that did not flicker at 1,000fps. They gave us a lot of flexibility.”

Sher reminisces that for shooting at higher frame rates they needed units that could dim without colour changing and go to a 100% when needed.

“We just ganged the Vortexes together to mimic the sun or the hard backlights when we had no time for sun. They were often complimented with HMIs for their firepower, and we would put them through big diffusion rags to create softer sidelight with harder edges to replicate different daylight. I need to understand the time of day of every scene, and it helps me and my team to make the decision where light needs to be and at what angle.”

They emphasised high-tech props and armours with LED Ribbons and used big LRX-controlled HMI units and Condors outside.

“We were often working in big exterior spaces with numerous steps and obstacles, or had to move from ground level to a close-up of a character 12-feet in the air, so dollies or Steadicam wouldn’t work. So, we shot most of Black Adam on two cranes with remote Matrix heads. They have this kind of handheld mode, where you can actually put the controls on your shoulders and you can get crane shots that feel like handheld. Amazing stuff.”

Flexibility was not something Sher and colourist Jill Bogdanowicz at Company 3 were granted during the DI.

“The biggest challenge in a movie like this is melding all the VFX, as opposed to doing a film in which everything is 100% real and you only then need to clean it up in the DI. That’s why it was pushed from July to October, as there was no way

to finish the visual effects on time. We were getting new shots in all the way up until an hour before we had to finish the DI. But I’m proud of the result, I hope you can’t see that it’s shot in a full 360-degree greenscreen environment.”

Whilst Sher is a cinematographer who values working with real surroundings, Black Adam created a new appetite for comic book extravaganza.

“There’s still a lot to do, a lot to learn. And, because cinematographers are more and more often involved in pre-lighting during pre-viz, and many big movies consider shooting on a volume, I think this is a brave new world, and something that I’d like to explore further. I hope to go back on another a cool and demanding production like this in the near future.”

In

The Perfect Number, from acclaimed writer-director Krzysztof Zanussi, DP Piotr Niemyjski PSC JSC faced the challenge of how to make intellectual conversations and existential observations visually stimulating. The film follows David (Jan Marczewski), a young mathematician who has sacrificed his life to researching prime numbers and who begins to re-evaluate his priorities when he meets Joachim (Andrzej Seweryn), a distant and professionally-successful relative. How to express life’s fundamental inconsequentiality in the grand scheme of things in cinematic terms? How to use light, colour, framing, camera movement and other visual tools to convey the characters’ debates about change, aging and evanescence via meaningful images? How to make often abstract dialogues and monologues about the essence of worldly prosperity, and the importance of loving and being loved, relatable to strangers sitting in dark cinema halls? These are

some of the logistical and visual conundrums Niemyjski faced when he prepped the latest feature from the unashamedly intellectual filmmaker Zanussi.

“Collaboration with Mr. Zanussi is one of the most important partnerships of my entire career. If he works on a new film, I’m on board without reading the script, just like most of the crew,” claims Niemyjski who previously shot Zanussi’s Foreign Body (2014) and Eter (2018). “But because he likes long takes and his films are extremely dialogue-driven efforts, where each word has its place and significance, I always feel a rush of panic during prep. Finding the valid visual language, the right rhythm to compliment the words with images, is most challenging.”

The Perfect Number is about a clash of two worldviews. Joachim is an elderly Polish-Jewish sybarite who spent his life being a brilliant businessman and accumulating wealth. When he nearly dies in a bomb attack in Jerusalem, he begins to question his old belief system. Joachim’s belated realisation that any person

could not be complete without others at their side makes him contact his only living relative, David, a young and successful mathematician who has pushed back everything and everyone to focus on numbers and equations. Being a purist scientist, David despises chaos and tries to calculate everything in his life, until he also goes through a near-death experience.

The story is related in three modes: Joachim and David’s conversations in various settings; their philosophical monologues that seem to occur beyond time and space; as well as visualisations of anecdotes and parables they use to support their theories. Niemyjski approached each mode with a different mindset.

“Mr. Zanussi wants his films to provide a certain kind of experience, not to be confused with the fast-andfurious way some films are produced nowadays,” says Niemyjski. “Our aim was to make the audience feel included in the arguments of the protagonists, immersed in their dilemmas, and to reflect on the questions they ask themselves.”

DO THE MATH

By Darek Kuźma

During Joachim and David’s meetings, the camera moves or floats around them, framing them from different angles and with new dynamics for each conversation.

“These were mostly long takes shot in real time, creating a sense of participation. The characters discuss complex concepts, but because there are no disruptive cuts, it’s easier to follow their words through long takes,” explains Niemyjski. “I’ve never been a fan Steadicams or Ronins, as they can’t provide me with the degree of control over image that a dolly does. So we used dollies a lot, especially as we wanted to make mathematics part of the film’s visual language, both in terms of framing and camera movement.”

The conversations were shot using ARRI Alexa LF equipped with an Angénieux 24-290mm Optimo Zoom.

“It wasn’t a small camera set-up, yet shooting with a zoom made the complicated dolly work, multiple film planes and different types of movement within the frame, more manageable,” Niemyjski says. “The only thing that sort of went against the way we shot was that using a spherical lens forced us to crop the sensor and lose some of its resolution to shoot in widescreen format. There aren’t many professional lenses that cover the entire Alexa LF sensor and we just didn’t have access to any.”

The second mode – characters monologues about their lives and choices – harnessed Alexa LF, but with different lenses.

“We decided on Signature Primes to cover the whole sensor and use shallow depth-of-field to the fullest. Joachim and David unburden themselves before our eyes but we aren’t sure whether we observe physical human beings or manifestations of their inner struggles,” the cinematographer explanis. “In the script they’re talking about infinity, but how to depict infinity? My initial idea was to shoot B&W in a square format to explicitly isolate these scenes, but I guess it would have been a little too radical.”

For the third mode – handheld visualisations of

crucial points in the monologues, which include a poignant anecdote about a revengeful World War II postman – Niemyjski shot with an ARRI SR3 Super16mm camera and Angénieux 28-76mm and 45-120mm zooms, and on Kodak Vision3 5219 500T celluloid film.

“We pushed the 500T two stops over its normal sensitivity to make these fragments as distinguishable as possible from the digital images,” Niemyjski reveals. “In this project, I didn’t want to depict scenes from the 1940s or 1980s on digital, as it would ruin the immersion. We also tested Super 8mm and the results were impressive, but the technology proved too archaic and unstable to accept the risk of using it on the set.”

at WFDiF (Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych), the Documentary & Feature Film Studios in Warsaw.”

As precision was of utmost importance for the conversational parts, and they were shooting long takes, each shot required a lot of consideration.

“Most directors do dozens of camera set-ups to find the rhythm in the editing suite. We also had to adhere to the script’s rhythm, to find the timing, the right combination of camera moves and pauses, to tap into what was already there,” reminisces Niemyjski. “We scouted and tested as much as we could beforehand, but nothing can replace rehearsals with actors on the day. Every shot took us several hours to prep and we did multiple takes to find the right balance, but even if we managed only two shots per day, it was worth it.”

Because of all this, Niemyjski opted for 360-degree lighting.

The Perfect Number was shot for 28 days in September/October 2021, mostly in the Polish city of Płock, with some parts done in Warsaw.

“I went to Jerusalem with my assistant for a few days, but mainly to shoot footage that would lend weight to the story,” Niemyjski says. “This was a modestly-budgeted indie film, and we couldn’t afford doing it in Israel. The bomb attack in the film may seem like it was shot there, but in reality it was filmed in Szembeka Square in Warsaw as it had sandstone that was close in colour and texture to Jerusalem architecture. We then enhanced it during the grade, done with colourist Ewa Chudzik

“Time mattered, but as we worked with meticulously designed long takes we didn’t need to match wide shots, medium shots, close-ups, etc. For nights I primarily used 12kw Dino Lights as they cover a lot of space and give beautiful light that you can shape. We also had a solid HMI package, 6K to 18K, and a range of remotecontrolled Astera Titan Tubes that proved wonderful in small interiors. For day shots, it was mainly HMIs, and a range of Par 64s for scenes where we had to direct diffused light at specific objects or actors’ faces. Nothing special, but enough for what we needed.”

The cinematographer rarely uses filters and gels in his work, trying to be creative with bringing shape and texture through light or colour, but this time he had to change his ways.

“Mr. Zanussi wanted to darken the skies to make them slightly surreal and more cinematic,” Niemyjski says. “After some careful deliberation, we decided to make candle-smoked optical coatings and attach them to our lenses. I have to admit, I wasn’t sold on the idea of such home-made filters, but the results were super cool and

Every shot took several hours to prep, but even if we managed only two shots per day, it was worth it

we used them repeatedly in various forms for most of the shoot. We also applied grease to the edges of the ones that were to diffuse the light for specific shots.”

Niemyjski acknowledges that colour was even more important than light.

“As the characters fight over whether there’s life after death, we had to find a clear visual representation for their struggles. Mr. Zanussi wanted to use black in different intensities, but I convinced him to choose purple, the colour that was for centuries associated with

emperors, elegance and evanescence. It was partly because it was the most difficult pigment to obtain. Basing the entire lighting scheme on purple as well as supplementary browns, orange or brassy hues in various shades and halftones, gave the film a noble and divine feeling that perfectly resonated with what the characters are talking about and reflecting upon.”

Though both Joachim and David alter their perception of what life, love and mortality are all about, the viewers will not find any plain answers in Krzysztof

Zanussi’s new film. It is entirely possible that they may leave the screening none the wiser. But by infusing The Perfect Number with such a range of suggestive, yet subtly introduced visual stimuli, across a string of elegantly cinematic discussions about fate vs. chaos, or God vs. mathematics, plus grainy and highly-symbolic recreations of some kind of historic past, Niemyjski made sure that the script’s intellectual value was not lost in translation.

Our aim was to make the audience feel included in the arguments of the protagonists, immersed in their dilemmas

ON THE RUN

By Michael Goldman

Director Matthew Gentile relied on an old chum, cinematographer Kalilah Robinson, to lens his first feature, a true story about a charming criminal on-the-run.

As if it wasn’t cool-enough successfully making his first full-length feature film, complete with limited theatrical and full VOD release, director Matthew Gentile says making it with his longtime American Film Institute (AFI) classmate and best friend, cinematographer Kalilah Robinson, “was really a dream come true. And even better, it’s the exact film that Kalilah and I wanted to make all along, nothing changed or altered. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Not long ago, Robinson and Gentile were classmates in the AFI graduate programme. During that period, Gentile’s short thesis film, Frontman (2016), won him a special juried College Emmy Award for Best Directing. Shortly thereafter, he teamed with Robinson to direct her student thesis film, Lawman, and that project played at over 100 festivals and won her the ViZio + Dolby Vision Cinematography Award at the AFI Fest in 2017.

Throughout the years. Gentile never forgot his long-percolating idea to make a full-length feature based on the nefarious adventures of conman/ murderer Jason Derek Brown, who eventually rose to the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted list. And it wasn’t long before Robinson jumped on the idea, as well. The duo vowed to make the film together, and that dream came true in the form of Gentile’s debut feature, American Murderer, starring Tom Pelphrey as Brown and Ryan Phillippe as the FBI agent on his tail.

“I always knew Kalilah would be the cinematographer of this project – fate and my will would have it no other way,” Gentile recalls. “The origin of the movie was the creation of a proof-ofconcept short of the same name, that I wrote on-spec. Kalilah read every draft, as did my editors Matt Allen and Chris Young, who also went to AFI with us.”

The filmmakers joke that they relied on “a scrappy attitude” to steer the project through various challenges, including the Covid-19 pandemic’s arrival just as they were finally heading into production. Indeed, Gentile’s feature script languished for a while until his team produced the 2019 short film, basically depicting one key scene – an FBI SWAT team’s attempt to capture Brown.

Approximately three years went by as they made the short film in 2017, used it to secure financing and distribution from production companies Traveling Picture Show and GiGi Films, developed the fulllength version, pushed through the pandemic, and finally started shooting the feature in the winter of 2020 in and around Salt Lake City, Utah.

“But that time really paid-off,” Robinson recalls. “We got to spend an awful lot of time doing visual storyboards and shot-listing for various drafts of the story. We explored different ideas and debated how best to tell the story of Jason Derek Brown and the people whose lives he impacted. We were shooting at the height of the pandemic and could not bring a crew we were familiar with, but fortunately, we had lots of support from some brilliant Utah filmmakers. It was an anxiety-producing time to be making such an ambitious film.”

She elaborates that their prep time was especially important for mastering one of the unheralded challenges of filmmaking – schedule planning for the shoot. At the end of the day, the movie was shot over the course of 22 days of principal photography at 27 different locations in Utah.

“One of the really fantastic aspects of being so well-prepared was that we were able to do breakdowns of what we thought we would need for each scene well in advance of even having a budget

or locations,” Robinson explains. “So, we calculated that the bigger sequences, like the SWAT scene and the murder scene, were going to take additional time. There might be fewer shots on the list, but we had to figure out what hours of the day we would need to accomplish them. We figured-out an ideal wish list from the standpoint of days that we did not quite get, but we also worked out the bare minimum of days we could pull it off in, and we got very close to that.

“The great thing about having shot-listed everything, having storyboarded it, of having done animatics for the big sequences, was that we were prepared to say, OK, we might not get a full day to do the murder sequence, or a half-day to do the SWAT invasion, but we knew exactly what we needed to get editorially for those scenes. That allowed us to sacrifice what was unnecessary or superfluous and figure-out what we could accomplish in a limited amount of time.

“The other thing was that we developed a plan that accounted for the fact that we could not afford to do a two-camera shoot for the whole film, but where we could have two cameras on particular days. We were able to specifically identify which days we would definitely need two cameras, and so, we worked with the producers to plan when we could get a second camera and a second operator in so that we could achieve bigger days in less time on those occasions.”

Robinson shot American Murderer using ARRI Amira with a 4K premium license (the same camera system she used on the short version). And she relied primarily on Zeiss Standard Speed MkI lenses with

filmmakers. Without them, we would not have made our deadlines.”

For principal photography, Robinson explains that the length of time the production had to prepare also meant, among other things, that filmmakers could strategically develop their approach to shooting, lighting, camera movement and style.

“We talked a lot about the fact that the main character was obviously a real man,” she says. “But he disappeared. What we have left of him in actuality are photographs left with family members and friends, surveillance footage and other real-world video and physical evidence. But we know less about his motivations since he was never caught.

“So, what we realised was that there are different versions of Jason Derek Brown that exist in the minds of people he influenced or affected. So, that is one thing we wanted to explore – do we have any real idea who this guy is?

“Because of that question, we used different visual approaches, not all of which are totally dissimilar from each other, but dissimilar enough. This led us, especially in scenes where we see Jason by himself, to a noirish element. There is much more contrast in those sequences. There is a certain darkness about him –we know his actions but not his motivations, where his head is at. So, in that sense, we sort of disjoint the visuals to portray a conman who, like any good conman, plays different parts for different people.

“An additional thing that was interesting to us was to allow our lead actor, Tom Pelphrey, the flexibility to move as he felt was right for the character. That obviously necessitated a camera that would be able to track and follow him. There was this sense of, hey, this guy is really dynamic and he has such great physicality, so we need to be fluid in moving with him.

“Therefore, there are scenes where we decided to go handheld with a wider lens that was physically closer to him, so that we could allow him the ability to move around the space as he felt necessary. How we moved the camera depended on whether the character was at the height of his power, where the camera is sort of a steadily moving dolly shot or Steadicam; or whether he is in more of a frantic, frenetic moment, where the camera is more animated, often handheld.”

In terms of lighting, Robinson says she and gaffer Ben Josephsen mostly followed this same philosophy.

focal lengths ranging from 14mm to 135mm. The short film was shot using Fujinon Cabrio 19-90mm Zoom lenses.

“On the feature, we primarily used a single camera, and I served as both DP and operator,” she elaborates. “However, we did have that handful of two-camera days during principal photography, some of which consisted of Steadicam work done by a brilliant operator, Charles Unice, on A-camera, and a longtime collaborator and friend, Stas Bondarenko, on B-camera; and a couple of additional two-camera days without the Steadicam for which I operated A-camera and Stas operated B-camera.”

The production also took advantage of Constellation web dailies platform, provided by Daren Smith, CEO of a Salt Lake City-based company RadarDIT. The digital intermediate process was handled by Light Iron, LA, with colourist Katie Jordan. Gentile adds that a handful of VFX shots were created for the film by VFX supervisor Arthur Mesa. He got help from Sasha Korellis and Catherine Tate of the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, who arranged for student artists to help create and cleanup certain shots. That was a fortuitous option that Gentile recommends as “a great resource for young

“We intentionally added some filtration to almost all the scenes between the lead character and his neighbour with whom he enters into a romantic relationship in order to make things feel softer, warmer, nicer, and more romantic,” she says. “On the other hand, when we shot Ryan Phillippe as the FBI agent, the one character who is very aware of the realities of who this guy really is, we intentionally made the light softer and bluer, like it was more of an overcast day, rather than the warm and directional light in other scenes. We wanted to make the visuals seem cooler, bleaker when dealing with Ryan’s character, because he was aware of what was really going on.

Now that the American Murderer has come to fruition, Gentile and Robinson agree that, as young filmmakers, the biggest thing they learned from the project was, as Gentile puts it, “to be prepared, but also leave room to be flexible, and know your story inside and out.”

And, as Robinson adds, “be willing to embrace the collaborative process and the need to communicate. In low-budget filmmaking, you constantly have to problem-solve to figure-out how to do ambitious things without the resources or time you would normally want.”

Our aim was to make the audience feel included in the arguments of the protagonists, immersed in their dilemmas

In low-budget filmmaking, you constantly have to problem-solve to figure-out how to do ambitious things

MOUTH-WATERING

By Ron Prince

Set in 1980’s America, the film follows Maren, a young woman from the margins of society, who exhibits unstoppable urges to feed on human flesh. When her father abandons her after a grisly episode at a friend’s house, she boards a Greyhound bus and heads cross-country in search of her long-lost mother.

En route Maren learns from a creepy loner that she is an “eater”, with a carnivorous predisposition that will only exacerbate with age, and that she will soon learn to spot other eaters by smell.

Indeed, Maren encounters Lee, a slender, handsome drifter, and fellow eater, and the pair embark on a macabre, 3,000-mile odyssey through the back roads of America. Love blossoms amongst the carnage, but despite their best efforts to make a life together, all paths lead back to their terrifying pasts and a final stand that determines whether love can survive.

Bones And All premiered at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival, where it earned a long standing-ovation, a Silver Lion for best direction, the Marcello Mastroianni Award Award to Taylor Russell for Best Young Actress, plus criticalacclaim for its lead performances, narratives about marginalisation, survival and dissent, and its wild mix of sun-kissed and blood-splattered visuals.

Bones And All was directed by Guadagnino from a screenplay by David Kajganich, which was based on the 2015 novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis. Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet lead an ensemble cast that includes Mark Rylance, Michael Stuhlbarg, André Holland, Chloë

Sevigny, David Gordon Green, Jake Horowitz and Jessica Harper.

Cinematographic duties on the film fell to cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan, who is based in New York and whose previous work includes director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s multi-award-winning Beginning (2020), which he filmed on Kodak Vision3 35mm 500T 5219.

“I had not worked with Luca before, although I was well-aware of his work, and when I became attached to the job I made a point of watching

All, and things got into motion pretty fast after that.”

Khachaturan remarks that, “David’s script was brilliantly written and I was really excited. Although I did a lot of research about the history and culture of that era, when Ronald Reagan was president in the 1980s, I wouldn’t say that there was a specific look that Luca had in mind when we first discussed the script.

“First and foremost it’s a romantic road movie about the precious, fragile love between two characters who are underdogs on the fringes of society. Although they are fierce and cannibalistic, and there are some pretty bloody scenes, we had no interest whatsoever in producing it with any kind of shock value that you might see in a typical horror film. Luca wanted a much more naturalistic approach to the cinematography.”

every single movie, documentary and short film he has ever made to immerse myself in his world,” says Khachaturan.

“Luca had seen my work when was president of the jury at the 2020 San Sebastián International Film Festival, where Beginning won the Golden Seashell and the Jury prize. I got a call from him couple of months afterwards about a project he had in mind, although that did not take off in the end. But he came back later-on with the script for Bones And

Production on Bones And All took place at multiple locations across several different US states, including Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Nebraska, between May and July 2021. Khachaturan had nine weeks of prep prior to the shoot, which included a lot of time spent on-the-road with Guadagnino and production designer Elliott Hostetter.

“I did a lot of the driving during our location scouts, many thousands of miles across state lines,” Khachaturan remembers. “I have been living in the US for over ten years now, and many of the places we visited have definitely not been seen or represented in films, photography or art in general. So it was very interesting for us to explore and absorb the changing nature and colours of the

Luca wanted a naturalistic approach to the cinematography

It’s mind-blowing how much colour you can squeeze from the scanned film negative

Captured

colour

Kodak

film, director Luca

cannibalistic period road movie, Bones

may

gruesome, twisted

landscapes and to see how we could reflect those in the film.”

Aged 28 when he shot Bones And All, one might have expected Khachaturan to be an exemplar of all-things-digital, but he reveals a remarkable knowledge and experience of shooting on celluloid.

“Although I do shoot digital projects, most of the features I’ve shot so far have actually been on film, which is perhaps a little strange because nobody ever taught me directly how to do that,” he says.

“I moved to the States when I was 18. Rufus Burnham, at The Camera Division in Burbank, encouraged me to build and play around with the film cameras and lenses there, and I pretty much taught myself how to shoot tests, process the results and learn how to expose film negative correctly.

“I started to pick-up fashion projects, music videos and commercials, shooting on 16mm, and then moved to New York, where I struck up a great relationship with Panavision, and started shooting shorts on film.

“I then went on to shoot Eyimofe (This Is My Desire) (2020 dirs. Arie and Chuko Esiri) in Nigeria on 16mm, followed by Beginning on 35mm. After Bones And All, I worked on The Idol series on 35mm for Sam Levinson, where we got through millions of feet of film stock.

“It made me very happy when Luca told me he wanted to shoot Bones And All on film, as it is such a unique and special medium. I think that, in relation to the tangible sensations in the narrative – the period setting and wardrobe, the romanticism of the love story, the faces and American landscapes, the physical acts of cannibalism, the vibrancy of being young, alive and present in-the-moment – film was the perfect choice. The result just would not have

been the same if it had been shot digitally.”

Working with Panavision New York, Khachaturan chose a brace of Millennium XLs 35mm cameras, plus an ARRI 235, using Ultra Speed and Super Speed lenses for the mainstay of the shoot, Primo zooms, filming 35mm 3-perf in 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

“The Ultra Speed and Super Speed lenses were made in the 1970 and early 80s, and they are a really beautiful match with celluloid film,” he says.

“On the practical side they’re fast, many starting at T1.3, and aesthetically they bring a gentle, luminous and painterly quality to the filmed image, whether you are shooting faces or landscapes, that is reminiscent of films from the period.”

time photography, which was very appropriate for this film.

“There were a lot of very bright and vivid daytime scenes, and the 500T has a great ability to retain details in highlights in extreme lighting situations. We shot a lot in magic hour as well, and the colours look amazing. But our characters also inhabit the shadows, and the 500T performed really well in limited light scenarios, where the scene was about hinting what might be hidden in the darkness.”

Film processing was done at Kodak Film Lab New York, with 4K scans and dailies performed at Technicolor Postworks New York, and the final grade completed at Frame By Frame in Rome.

“The final colour grade was extraordinary,” says Khachaturan. “The locations we had captured in-camera on 35mm film were so visually diverse, vibrant, emotional and intense, and we were struck by huge range of colour on the screen in the grading suite.

Khachaturan chose just one filmstock, namely Kodak Vision3 5219 500T, for the entire shoot.

“Of course, I could have selected different Kodak Daylight and Tungsten stocks for the production, but Luca and I share the same sentiment towards the 500T in terms of the natural colours, inherent texture and grain it renders, and we wanted a visual consistency of these throughout the film. Also, the 500T is a really versatile, beautiful and vibrant stock, that’s gentle on faces, in both day and night-

“But rather than try to control or wrangle that with some sort of homogenous look, we took the opposite approach, and decided to expand the colour palette even more. It’s mind-blowing how much colour you can squeeze from the scanned film negative. When you look specifically at the scenes we shot in Nebraska, and you look at the range of colours across the verdant landscapes, the sky, the light and on faces and wardrobe, it’s unparalleled.”

Looking back on his experience, Khachaturan observes, “Making Bones And All was a wild ride. I felt humbled and incredibly excited to work with Luca, who is an amazing collaborator, and a blessing to work with such amazing actors too. It was really emotional to be in the audience and experience the ovation at the Venice premiere, and to have lived-up to Luca’s vision.”

Images: © 2022 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved. BTS photos by Arseni Khachaturan and Yannis Drakoulidis.

We shot a lot in magic hour and the colours look amazing

PRO-CHOICE

By Ron Prince

Iwould shoot every narrative story on film if I could,” declares New York-based cinematographer, Greta Zozula, recalling her time spent working on Call Jane, Phyllis Nagy’s impassioned movie about the work of the underground Jane Collective to provide terminations at a time when they were illegal across the entire US.

“I had zero negative experiences during the production shooting on film. In fact, it always exceeded expectation, and the result shows just how special celluloid can be to the viewing experience.”

Captured on Kodak 16mm filmstocks, Call Jan e is a gripping and engrossing dramatisation of a pivotal, but largely ignored, chapter in American history. It’s Chicago, 1968, when the city and the nation are on the brink of social and political upheaval. Joy (Elizabeth Banks), a suburban housewife, leads a perfectly ordinary life with her husband and daughter. But when pregnancy leads to a life-threatening heart condition, she has to navigate beyond the all-male medical establishment unwilling to terminate her pregnancy in order to save her life.

Joy’s journey to find a solution leads her to the Jane Collective, an outlawed organisation facilitating safe abortions, led by Virginia (Sigourney Weaver), who is courageous and fiercely-committed to women’s health, and Gwen (Wunmi Mosaku), an activist who dreams of a time when all women will have access to abortion, regardless of their ability to pay. Their work inspires a burning sense of purpose within Joy, who joins forces with them and puts every aspect of her life on-the-line to help other women take control of their own destinies.

As noted at the end of the film, the Jane Collective went on to facilitate over 11,000 safe abortions in the Chicago area between 1969 and 1973, until it was disbanded after a ruling in the landmark Roe vs Wade case struck down many federal and state abortion laws and the US Supreme Court gave legal access to abortion as a constitutional right.

Call Jane was co-written by Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi, and helmed by Nagy, who, amongst many accolades, received an Oscar nomination, Best Adapted Screenplay, for the 16mm-originated Carol (2015, dir. Todd Haynes, DP Ed Lachman ASC).

“My agent sent me the script and, being aware

exactly who Phyllis is, I was automatically interested,” says Zozula. “But, I have to admit real shock that I did not know what about Jane Collective. Neither did many of my friends when I mentioned it to them. As I investigated and learned more, it blew my mind as to what they did and what they achieved, and I was appalled that this incredible part of history had been overlooked and forgotten for so long.

“I was excited to meet Phyllis and we bonded over a shared appreciation for intentional and honest storytelling, as well as an overwhelming need to shoot this film on film. Our meeting was easy, and a fun side-note is we shot-listed the entire film over two days and never deviated from it.”

Connecticut in May 2021, concluding 23 shooting days later, shooting mainly on-location, with the exception of the operating room where the abortions take place, which was a specially-constructed set in a local gymnasium.

Zozula went with an ARRIFLEX 416 16mm camera, fitted with Master Prime and Ultra Prime 16mm lenses, in a package supplied by TCS New York. She used Kodak Vision3 250D 7207 for the film’s day exteriors and a small number of day interiors, and harnessed Kodak Vision3 500T 7219 for low-lit interiors and night scenes. These decisions helped to support distinct contrasts between the three main environments in the story – Joy’s world at home, the world of the Janes and the operating room.

Zozula says the texture and colour in the photographic works of Chicagoan streetphotographer and nanny, Vivian Maier (19262009), provided an early inspiration for her personally, and was both surprised and delighted to discover that Nagy had some of the exact same stills amongst her visual references too.

“It was clear Phyllis and I were already thinking along the same lines at this very early stage,” Zozula adds. “Of course, when we discussed things in more depth, Phyllis wanted the visuals to be honest and character-driven, and especially around Joy, her family, her friendships and her steely resolve, and we looked at a small number of films to consider ways we might approach this.”

Amongst those references were A Women Under the Influence (1974, dir. John Cassavetes, DPs Mitch Breit and Al Ruban), for the raw and honest nature of its compositions, together with the films of French filmmaker Claire Denis, for the portrayal of how female characters are often overcome by their physical senses in a total experience that involves both body and soul.

Filming on Call Jane began in Hartford,

“The way that film reacts to and captures light – whether it’s artificial light or natural light coming through a window – is impossible to replicate,” says Zozula. “I love the way it responds to colour, and how, in combination with the costume and set design, it evokes a period-setting.

“The camera, image compositions and lighting set-ups were intentionally more calculated in Joy’s world, more playful and unpredictable when we introduced the Janes, and more focussed on the patients as they undergo their procedures in the operating room. While both the saturation and contrast of the 250D are a little bit stronger than the 500T, the two filmstocks work well together, and they really helped to support the visual separations between these scenarios.

“Additionally, we shot a lot of our interiors, such as the bedroom and abortion scenes, in low-light, and I had no doubt about the ability of the 500T to capture detail in the darker areas of the image in those situations. When it came to scenes that had a wide exposure range, such as a darker day interior with a bright window, I had faith that the highlights would not clip and that we’d have details in the image.”

Film processing was done at Kodak Film Lab New York, with 4K scans, dailies and the final grade overseen by colourist Nat Jencks at

Phyllis wanted the visuals to be honest and character-driven

Postworks New York.

“Nat created a look from a camera test and most of the colouring was done upfront and with the film stocks themselves,” says Zozula. “We did very little in the DI and mostly used that time to refine some scenes and do a final polish.”

“Whilst it was a no-brainer to me and Phyllis that we should capture Call Jane on film, there was quite a lot of talk before production began with the producers about the pros and cons, I had to debunk a few misconceptions that may have been valid 10 or 15 years ago, but not now.

“When you shoot on film, you really can trust the process, and nothing went wrong between the moment the exposed negatives left the set and the digital dailies came back to us. As for the workflow, film scanning and digital film dailies technologies have come-on in leaps and bounds in the last few years, and we generally got the see dailies back overnight.

“Also, we had a lot of locations to contend with on a really tight schedule. But one of the advantages of film versus digital is that you don’t need so much infrastructure around the film camera. This meant we were quite sprightly and could get through set-ups quickly every day. The time it would have taken to achieve some set-ups on digital would have sacrificed the scene itself and we could not afford that time.

“Indeed, the way things worked out, we had to shoot all of our driving shots – three during the daytime and two at night – plus two ‘oner’ interiors, one Steadicam the other on the dolly, all on the same day. That wasn’t easy, but we did it.”

experiences at pivotal moments in the storytelling such as the opening sequence which follows her down the stairs, around the lobby and outdoors of a downtown hotel, where see witnesses civil unrest on the streets.

“We shot that scene towards the end of our schedule,” Zozula explains. “The choreography of the camera movement was really important to set the scene for the film, and there were some real challenges to overcome, such as mirrors and reflections, and the lighting had to be 360-degrees too.

“My gaffer, Noah Chamis, was really creative in finding ways to add appropriate praticals, and to hide lights, around the different spaces. This was our biggest lighting set-up with at least half of our lighting being outside, including two condors.

Zozula operated during the shoot, supported by 1st AC Rob Agulo and 2nd AC Amaya Chenu. A second camera was introduced for a number of scenes involving multiple characters, with Michael Merriman operating, assisted by 1st AC Adam Gonzalez and 2nd AC Nat Pinheiro. The loader was A.J. Strauman-Scott.

Steadicam operator, Afton Grant, was draftedin for several ‘oners’ – long takes depicting Joy’s

“When we came to shoot, it was a really big moment for all departments, especially Grant, working in tandem with our grips Kevin Kennedy and Adam Beard. It was one of those occasions when everything needs to go according to plan. But we had no doubts, and we pulled it off in six takes.”

Zozula reflects, “Phyllis is an amazing person and a wonderful collaborator. I feel honoured that she wanted me to play a part in the making of this film about such an important subject. Shooting it on film was a great way to get this story across.”

Images: Photo credit Wilson Webb. Images courtesy of Roadside Attractions.

I had zero negative experiences during the production shooting on film

MAKING TRACKS

By Natasha Block Hicks

Ifyou were to listen to Ravi Varman ISC narrating the story about an orphaned boy from a rural farming community in India, who goes from loitering on the streets of Chennai to receiving the highest award for an artist given by the government of Tamil Nadu, you might be forgiven for thinking he was describing the plotline of one of his many movies.

But this is Varman’s own story as the writer, poet and celebrated DP relates via Zoom from Chennai, at the time that his latest movie – the multi-million-dollar Ponniyin Selvan: Part One (2022, dir. Mani Ratnam) – gears up for its worldwide theatrical release.

“Life is not just something we live, life is something that teaches us,” relates Varman emotionally, recalling his childhood. “After my mother died, I had nothing left.”

The destabilisation of the family had begun years before with the alcoholism and death of Varman’s father, upon which his widow and four children, Varman being the youngest, were gradually stripped of their home and assets. When a fever claimed his mother, 13-year-old Varman crumbled.

“I was in the seventh standard at school,” he recalls, “but after that, I couldn’t study anymore.”

After six months mentally adrift, Varman travelled to the nearby town of Thanjavur, where he stood on the rail tracks, waiting for oblivion. His suicidal plan was thwarted when he was caught by the transport police and charged with travelling on a train without a ticket. He was held for 15 days in an adult jail.

“I had no knowledge about the police procedures, which enraged them,” relates Varman. “They asked me to strip which I refused. I was beaten so badly that I couldn’t wear my clothes or sleep for the next three days, due to the wounds.”

Once released, he was – in the eyes of his village –tarnished by the jail-time, innocent or otherwise. He felt his only option was to leave his hometown.

“The irony is that I reached Chennai by hiding in the train bathroom for 350 kilometers, without a ticket,” relates Varman. “I wasn’t guilty when they charged me, but after wards I had to do it anyway to escape.”

The one person he knew in the big city – a friend of his father – welcomed Varman into his home, but viewed him as a resource to exploit. When faced with the choice to stay and provide free labour, or try his luck in the streets, Varman chose the streets.

Genuine help finally arrived in the form of a kind stranger and a paid position in a hotel, which came with shelter and food. Having money in his pocket for the first time, Varman visited Chennai’s Burma Bazaar, “the smug glers market” as he describes it, where he came across a stall selling cameras. Photographs had been a rarity in his village, however Varman did possess one snapshot of his mother, captured accidentally in the background of a wedding celebration, which he only acquired six months after she passed away.

“That’s the only image I have of her,” Varman relates. “In time I came to learn the terms ‘out-of focus’ and ‘silhouette’”.

After striking a bargain with the generous stallhold er, Varman owned a camera for the first time. Teaching himself from books, first with still photographs shot on film sourced from the Burma Bazaar, and then with the moving image, Varman started to make his way in the art of wielding light.

In 2001, Varman received a Best Cinematographer Award at the 23rd Three Continents Festival in Nantes, France, for his second movie Calmness/Shantham (2000, dir. Jayaraaj), which was shot using lights that he had fabricated himself.

“That film changed my life,” he relates, “after that, I got lot of recognition.”

Starting out in films shot predominantly in Malayalam and Tamil – his mother tongue – Varman diversified into Hindi and Telugu Cinema. In his first decade as a DP he shot over 15 movies, working with renowned directors such as S Shankar on Anniyan (2005) and Gautham Va sudev Menon on Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu (2006), which fetched him Best Cinematographer at the 2006 Tamil Nadu State Film Awards. Varman also gained internation al attention working with British-Tamil hip-hop artist M.I.A on her music video Bird Flu (2006).

“My work in all my films was appreciated by many,” states Varman, “but the one film that changed my life was Barfi!.”

Disney-UTV produced Barfi! (2012 dir. Anurag Basu) is a whimsical Hindi-language tragicomedy that shares some of its DNA with the lighter films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, as well as the slapstick silent movies of Buster Keaton.

“They wanted it stylistically to be like an international

film,” relates Varman. “The director, Anurag Basu, said to me, “However you want, you can do it”. I was very interest ed in utilising glare and flare. When I was an assistant, I would hear directors shouting, ‘Glare, cut the glare!’ but I wondered to myself, why not use it as a subject?”

Varman went to town with Barfi!, with direct and reflected sunlight and source lights blowing out parts of some frames, and heavy shadowing and silhouettes employed frequently throughout.

“Then, all the biggest directors in India were calling to work with me,” he laughs.

This included Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who sought out Varman’s creativity on Romeo And Juliet adaptation Ram-Leela (2013), for which Varman used the paintings of Rembrandt as a visual reference. In Tamasha (2015, dir Imtiaz Ali), the candle-source cinematography of Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975, DP John Alcott) was an inspiration, and when Basu called Varman up again for the romantic adventure Jagga Jasoos (2017), the DP created a cinematic place where comic books meet the films of Wes Anderson.

After Ram-Leela was released, Varman received a call from director Mani Ratnam, a director whom he had long admired from afar, inviting him to lens Kaatru Veliyidai (2017). Varman’s cinematography of that romantic drama, set during the Kargil War of 1999, garnered several national film festival accolades.

For many years, Ratnam had been trying to produce a filmic adaptation of the historical fiction novel by Kalki Krishnamurthy, Ponniyin Selvan, which imagines the early days of the ancient Chola Dynasty. In 2019 it was

Life is not just something we live, life is something that teaches us

announced that he had finally achieved this dream, with Varman lined-up for their second collaboration. Split into two full-length movies, Ratnam’s interpretation of the cult book is epic in subject, scope and budget.

“I had the opportunity to make Ponniyin Selvan really interesting,” says Varman enthusiastically.

Varman was strongly committed to maximising natural lighting for the project, using candles for interior scenes and sunlight where possible. He often had to sacrifice sleep to get the lighting set-ups ready in advance for a packed day’s shooting.

“I like natural light,” Varman confides, “and in the big palace scenes, we only used the sun.” He preferred to utilise a solitary skimmer for external shots, avoiding reflectors which tended to make the various skin tones of the cast overly shiny.

“I also wanted contrast,” he continues, “in every frame there will be some darkness.”

Much of Ponniyin Selvan: Part One was shot hand held, with Varman shouldering an unusual double-camera arrangement which he rigged himself: an ARRI Alexa XT and Alexa Mini, one with a wide-view lens and the other on tight, using Cooke S4 prime lenses and occasionally an Angénieux Optimo Zoom. Shots from camera moving gear, such as Panther jib and crane, were given a bit of shake, to match them with the handheld style.

“I try to match the consistency in every movement,” confides Varman, “but, I don’t want everything perfect. Perfect is plastic. In the battle sequences I tried something interesting. A large proportion were shot with the handheld zoom, which is very technical. You match the action with the same kind of rhythm and momentum in the zoom. That was the hardest part of shooting Ponniyin Selvan.”

The day before this interview, Varman’s final post-pro duction session, he says watched Ponniyin Selvan: Part One for the last time in silence, with the audio turned-off.

“Once the sound is added, it can shift things; I can see my mistakes,” divulges Varman. For this reason, he never watches his films in the theatre with the music and dialogue, and is physically absent from their premieres by default.

Though he is one of India’s most successful and high ly-sought-after cinematographers, Varman is restless, yearn ing to continue experimenting and pushing boundaries.

“I can tell you honestly, I am never satisfied with the work I have done,” he says frankly, “I want to keep moving. I would like to find an international project, through which I can explore further.”

Varman remains philosophical about his tough childhood.

“If I look back, it’s to remember that now is a better space,” he rationalises. “Everyone has an amazing brain; we can overcome our circumstances.”

I would like to find an international project

SEXPOSÉ

By Ron Prince

Indie director and cinematographer Joshua Z. Weinstein has built a reputation as a filmmaker who likes to bring a gritty, documentary-style, realism to his work, along with a sense of humour and pathos. And he’s always embraced unusual, unique projects.

He wrote, shot and directed 2017’s tender drama Mensashe, which was performed entirely in Yiddish and garnered Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards and Breakthrough Director at the Gotham Awards. The film was also nominated for a Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for Best of Next.

With much of his work featured in festivals such as Sundance, Berlin and Camerimage, Weinstein’s director credits include the feature documentaries Drivers Wanted (2012) and Flying On One Engine (2008), with his director of photography credits including the TV series Blackballed (2020), Bikini Moon (2017), Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me (2013) and Code Of The West (2012).

That resume alone probably made him the ideal choice to shoot Sell/Buy/Date, the new hybrid docnarrative written and directed by Tony Award-winning playwright Sarah Jones making her feature film directorial debut.

Adapted by Jones from her one-woman show of the same name, and executive produced by Meryl Streep and Rashida Jones, Sell/Buy/Date is a provocative look at the sex industry that combines a traditional scripted narrative with the spontaneity of a documentary. In addition to featuring real sex workers, the film also stars its director playing multiple characters simultaneously in a single scene – something that was impossible to do in the stage version.

“When Sarah first called me about doing this, she had more of a ‘stagey’ idea of how to do it,” recalls Weinstein. “I get a lot of calls to do these hybrid films, and people want more realism, real locations, and I’m good at making them feel cinematic and very specific to people and places, and yet they’re also wildly chaotic.

“So I told her, ‘I love all the different characters you play. What if they’re all together and actually talk to each other?’ And that sparked a whole new direction, as her characters are based on those in the play, but the rest of it’s all-new.”

In terms of look, the DP says, “Sarah didn’t want it to have that predictable sex industry documentary dark look. She wanted it to be bright and poppy, and we looked at comedies like Girls Trip, as she wanted to go against topic.”

Prep was initially delayed by two months, “because my second child was about to be born,” he reports, “but we did a test shot of Sarah on a sofa playing all five characters, and I showed her how easy it was to blend frames. A month later we were shooting, but it was really a start-stop film, as we shot in New York, LA and Las Vegas, and we’d prep for a couple of weeks, shoot and repeat the whole process for each place.”

The total shoot was under 20 days and Weinstein shot the film with the ARRI Alexa Mini and used the ARRI Amira as the B-camera. Workflow was 3.2K 4444 Log C.

“We did have a LUT originally, but in the end we just went with one in the ARRI, as I know the camera so well and trust it completely,” he adds. “I’ve tested all the other cameras out there and I just love ARRIs and trust the colours and accuracy. I’ve shot a lot of people of colour, and I love the way it picks up all sorts of tones on people’s faces and I know I can rely on it in dark and bright light situations. We were shooting outside in 110-degrees in Vegas, and I got all the detail and contrast I wanted.”

For lenses the DP used his own set of Canon FD Primes (a mixture of NFD and SSC) rehoused by GL Optics, plus a Leica R 18mm for two shots and a 50mm on the B-camera, and well as Zeiss Compact zooms. Filters were Tiffen 1/16 and 1/8 Black Pro Mists.

With regard to the lighting, “the goal, as usual, is always to make it all look as natural as possible,” notes the DP. “But to do that, we had tons of different

lights and two amazing gaffers – Jacob Abrams who did all the LA and Vegas stuff, and Dave Reichman who did all the New York stuff.

“The thing about indie films is, you can’t fudge the light, so obviously you have to look at what the light’s doing and then augment it and enhance it. We used a few HMIs and always had a lot of LEDs going. The whole look is geared to working with the clock and getting the best-possible look in the limited time you have for set-ups and so on, and it can be very tough.”

As an example, he cites the scene shot outside an In-N-Out Burger restaurant in LA where Jones’ multiple characters are eating burgers.

“That’s a disaster of a scene to shoot like this, as it takes 30 to 40-minutes for Sarah to act the part and then change into another character, and we only had just over a three-hour window to light and shoot all five characters,” he reports.

“So you’re always chasing the clock. But I wouldn’t have it any other way, because when you shoot like that in a real location it just enters the movie and it feels different. You can’t fake a real street and location. It never looks real.”

Weinstein goes on to note that shooting on the East and West coasts can be quite different.

“I’ve shot a ton of work on both coasts, but I’m from New York and started shooting on the streets there, and the mentality is, ‘We’ll figure it out and just get it done.’ Imperfections are part of the picture. In LA it’s more, ‘What’s the easiest way to do this? Can we drive

right up to the location?’ Of course you want to make it as easy as possible, but I’m always thinking of story first, and then we’ll work back from that and deal with budget and schedules and the rest.”

The film’s opening sequence where Jones plays multiple characters all talking to each other in a single frame is a tour de force. How did he shoot it?

“I immediately thought of Eddie Murphy playing multiple characters in Coming To America,” he says. “That barber shop sequence was all done in-camera. I

don’t think there were any VFX shots at all. Also, I’d done something similar in a music video years ago, which I showed Sarah. The key was really working it out and storyboarding and blocking it very carefully, and then having plenty of rehearsals. “That scene was mostly done with doubles and mirrors. Jacob and I had everything on LEDs, and we had it all dialled in so we could change the lighting pretty quickly as needed. There are only two small VFX shots. The rest was all in-camera. There was room for vocal improvisation, but not anything else. And

it was especially challenging for Sarah, playing five characters and directing the whole scene too.”

Working on the DI with colourist Tony Shek was also a challenge, largely because of Covid protocols, Weinstein reports.

“I was in New York and we did the DI in LA at Fancy Film Post, so it was all remote for me. I used my computer as my monitor and it wasn’t ideal. It’s always better to be at the DI in person, but it worked and I’m very happy with the way the film turned out.”

photos by Danielle DeBruno and Colin Lane.

didn’t want that predictable sexindustry documentary look… she wanted bright and poppy

A TORCH FOR QUALITY

By Iain Blair

When I started this company 30 years ago, there were about ten manufacturers worldwide of HMIs, making professional lighting for the movie industry. Now there’s about 200 manufacturers, and you’ve probably never heard of half of them,” says Marc Galerne, cofounder of K5600.

But, what you will have heard of is K5600’s Joker, an HMI fixture with a parabolic reflector and set of lenses which broke into the market in 1992.

“The Joker was really a game-changer,” says

Galerne. “We sold thousands and thousands of them. It made a difference, because it was the first time an HMI light was packaged in a kit, with a lot of accessories such as the Soft tube to make it like a long fluorescent lighting device. There was the ability to plug into the wall and still have a big amount of light, and a one-man-band could do everything. It was such a success that we only ever made one version update over the past 30 years.”

The Joker2 was a complete redesign, including improved strain-relief and braking systems, quickchange lamp access, and numerous ballast

features, including high-speed, dimming and wireless control.

The Joker range was joined by the Bug-Lite, a 400W daylight HMI system without optics to take full advantage of Lightbanks, and K5600 subsequently combined the two to form the Joker-Bug HMI Par System. The latter saw action on location globally for TV dramas such as CSI and 24, as well as on films such as 007 Skyfall and Defiance, and deployment by Haris Zambarloukos BSC GSC on Cinderella. Then when the BBC’s Casualty series moved from Bristol to Cardiff, the team led by DP Jaz Castleton selected a package of more than 60 K5600 fixtures.

“They went 100% K5600 on that show,” recalls Galerne. “By obligation with the council they had to be green and save money, and we provided all the lights. It’s been going for over ten years now, and it’s still PKE in Manchester renting the equipment. They have probably introduced some LEDs there now, for colour effects, but I know they’re still using the HMIs. We also had some big numbers like this on another TV series in France.”

Sales of the Joker remain strong and stable. The early 200W version is no longer made, but Galerne reports that the higher the output of the Joker, the better the sales these days.

“The 400 is still selling, but not as much as we used to, the 800 is still the same, but the 1600 is definitely picking-up,” he says. “I think it really depends on the kind of film you’re doing.”

The K5600 HMI range now also includes the Alpha line of Fresnel fixtures, ranging from 200W up to the 18kW Alpha 18K, claimed to be two-thirds of the size of other 18Ks on the market. It features a custom-made reflector to increase output by nearly 15%, moulded out of quartz composite material that allows the lamp to be placed much closer to the reflector, therefore reducing the physical size.

“Robert Richardson ASC is always taking K5600 18K Alphas on shoots for Tarantino – on The Hateful Eight they had four 18Ks in the snow,” says Galerne. “Wherever they were shooting, he and his gaffer were

Our reputation has always been to make products which are not too heavy, but very sturdy for rental

asking to import Alphas from anywhere else in the world; they really insisted on them. Roger Deakins CBE BSC ASC also uses the Alphas.”

NEW LIGHT

Its maybe not surprising then that K5600 took a long run-up before entering the LED market.

“We were waiting for the right COB (chip-onboard),” says Galerne. “We felt there were so many panels around that we needed to come in with something which was much more of a directional light.

“It took a while to get the right combination, where we would have a COB with a size small enough to make it work with a Fresnel, which was going to be too big,” he continues. “If you want to have a real Fresnel, you need to have a very small source. So it’s a compromise between the optical quality, and also the heat dispersion. With an HMI you can go to up to 450°C at the lamp base, while for LED, an average 100° is already pushing it.

“We really wanted to be on the safe side,” he adds. “So we tested our units in our California office, where it was pretty hot and we set it to 80°C to ensure a long life of the LED, but without a quality loss and without an output loss, which is usually what happens with

power supply,” Galerne continues. “You can plug-in up to four 300W units on 1200W ballast, which you can control independently from regular DMX or wireless. We added a range of panels, which is something we didn’t want to do in the beginning. We came into a world that we were totally new to, and basically created a system, more than just one light.

Since we started, we have never stopped having stock

Unfortunately, we came out with it when Covid started, and then it was difficult to get components.”

K5600 has had more than its fair share of hardship and setbacks in the past 30 years, but this has built resilience that served the company well during the pandemic lockdowns.

“I was so much more prepared, because of what I’ve been through before. I had to sell my car to pay salaries one month,” Galerne says. “But you just have to do it and not think too much about it.”

We wanted to create real shadows with a real Fresnel. The Fresnel specification has a very bright centre and a nice fall-off to the edge, and we found that had not yet been achieved when we got into the market.

“Our reputation has always been to make products which are not too heavy for end users, but very sturdy for rental companies – there are fixtures that we sold 30 years ago, which are still being rented. So, we didn’t want to go down the plastic route; we checked out building aluminium products, something really reliable, which will live longer than the actual LEDs themselves.

overheating elements. It took a while to do that, but we came up with a Fresnel unit, the Alpha 300W, a Joker Bug with all the accessories.”

Capable of being powered by a 300W or 1200W LED Ballast, the Joker 300 is colour tuneable from 2700K to 6500K and accurately dimmable from 1-100%. As well as several light shapers, the Joker 300 LED includes a Beamer (a par reflector of the same diameter as the Joker 400 HMI), lens and a focal spot adapter for a ‘Jo-Leko’ effect.

“It was important to us to be very versatile on the

“As a manufacturer, we’ve always felt that we need to have stock, and since we started we have never stopped having stock,” he adds. “When Covid came we did a lot of sales because we were able to deliver.”

As he prepares to hand over the running of the company at the end of next year, to his son, Kenny, the third generation of the family to be involved in the business, Galerne reveals that K5600 will branch into sub-rental, renting kit to rental houses.

“Let’s say the rental company has a request for four 18Ks and they only have two Alphas,” he says. “We’ll be able to sub-rent to them for a period, whether it’s a couple of days or a couple of months. The idea is to make the product available and give people what they ask for.

“We’re going to change a few things. We’re going to add some new products, whether that’s a light itself or accessories,” he adds. “There are six of us here in Paris, and six of us in the States, and we like to keep it that way. My colleagues and I want to be proud of what we’re doing and to create long-lasting quality products. We want to be able to respond to suggestions and be able to change something on a product. That is something we can do. You can’t do that when you make 10,000 units at a time.”

This page: Alpha 18K on The Martian, where the ability for fixture to be used pointing straight-down was a natural choice for the shot; Marc Gallerne with DP Jaz Castleton who convinced the BBC to go all-K5600 HMIs for Casualty; gaffer Julian White holding a Joker 800 in a Chinese ball on Cinderella; and testing a Joker 400 with a Softube on Casualty.

Opposite: Spacebeams in action!

SHINING A LIGHT ON...

Selected Filmography (as gaffer unless otherwise stated)

Wicked Little Letters (filming)

My Mother’s Wedding (post-production)

The Statistical Probability Of Love At First Sight (post-production)

My Policeman (2022)

The Banshees Of Inisherin (2022)

Silent Night (2021)

Bounty Hunters (2019) (TV Series)

Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017) (lighting console op)

The White Room (2015)

Winter (2015)

Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015) (lighting console op)

Molly Moon And The Incredible Book Of Hypnotism (2015) (moving light operator: additional photography)

Before I Go to Sleep (2014) (desk operator)

Decline Of An Empire (2014) (desk operator)

Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014) (desk operator)

Pantani: The Accidental Death Of A Cyclist (2014) (documentary)

World War Z (2013) (console/desk operator/ electrician – uncredited)

Getting started:

It was just a bit of luck really. I was in the right place at the right time with the right skills. I startedoff in live music events as lighting designer, creating programmes for bands for a company, called Spotco, about 30 years ago. They were pioneers of intelligent lighting and digital control. Films were just starting to get into digital control and a group of us were asked to demonstrate the latest techniques in lighting control to film-industry lighting companies.

Early days:

I started doing film projects with great gaffers like David Smith on Guardians Of The Galaxy and Avengers: Age Of Ultron (both DP Ben Davis BSC) as his desk op. I got as far as I could in lighting programming, working on films such as Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (DP Steve Yedlin ASC) – where everything had to be controlled with a lighting desk and tablet. Around 2015, I decided to

become a gaffer, letting talented, up-and-coming desk ops have their opportunity to shine.

Happy crew and core team:

My aim is for everybody to have a positive energy on set, creating an atmosphere of well-being and positivity, without taking away from the quality of the work they are there to do. I try to create a harmonious team. If you can create a situation in which everybody feels they can have an input, it brings out the best of the team, makes everybody better at their job and makes the whole experience more enjoyable.

My core team is Alex Jason as best boy – we have been working together for 30 years. He knows me very well and I know he’s more than capable of taking over in my absence. Tomas Euan Maddrell is rigging gaffer and I use desk op Karyn Wilson, who is 24-years-old and quite phenomenal. There are a lot of talented young women coming to into the industry now and there are a lot more opportunities for everyone, which is a good thing.

Diversity in film production:

I think I might have been one of the first Indian lighting designers to get into film lighting in the UK. There hadn’t been anybody from Asia that I’m aware of who had done this kind of lighting control work. Fortunately the people I worked with helped push me forward and gain confidence in what I was doing.

Working with cinematographers:

I’ve done about six films with Ben Davis BSC, who I find really easy to work with. He’s very receptive to other people’s opinions. It’s nice when people who are at the top of their game value your opinion. And, I’ve just finished on My Mother’s Wedding with French/Canadian DP Yves Belanger CSC. He’s a beautifully eccentric DP.

What I’ve discovered as a gaffer is there is no set way of working – you are always constantly learning and that’s what I enjoy. Having done a lot on the more technical side with Ben, Yves was completely different. He was more about using natural daylight, which has become easier over the years with the increased sensitivity of a lot of the cameras now. It allows you to capture light during parts of the day that are just naturally beautiful. My Mother’s Wedding was all about using natural daylight and enhancing it – a really good experience.

Favourite films:

Probably The Banshees Of Inisherin with Ben, which was shot in Ireland. That film was an amazing experience – for one, the awesome, natural beauty of the locations was just incredible. And, of course, there were the challenges of working with the weather there, which can turn on a sixpence. The artists we worked with in the picture were great too, as was working with director Martin McDonagh. Another great film was Guardians Of The Galaxy, because of the degree to which we pushed the technical aspects of controlled lighting environments.

Rising to the challenge:

Every project has its own set of challenges and I love to find solutions to problems we may face, be they physical location challenges or technical

challenges. But that’s what keeps you on your toes. It helps you go into work with a fresh head.

The challenge of high-tech lighting:

Being a desk op on films such as Guardians Of The Galaxy and Avengers: Age Of Ultron was a huge challenge – everything has to be worked out very precisely. On Avengers: Age Of Ultron Ben and our gaffer, David Smith, had designed a ceiling rig for Tony Stark’s apartment in a studio at Shepperton, made up of 400 to 500 Panalux bi-colour 2 x 2 LED TechTiles – arranged in banks of eight – all individually controlled by the lighting desk. The whole set had a lot of LED lighting which needed two Portakabins full of dimmers to control. We only had a problem in one or two of them, which I was really proud of. I’d put that down to the amount of pre-planning we did using a pre-visualisation programme called Wysiwyg.

50-ish London and Lisbon, Portugal

Hoshiarpur, Northern India Reynolds High School, Acton, London Spotco

Lighting control in music and live events Sailing and surfing, which I hope to do more of in Portugal

My aim is to have a positive energy on-set… an atmosphere of wellbeing and positivity

The pressure is always on during these kind of shoots because everything has to work to keep on schedule. What I’ve learnt is to put lighting control infrastructures in correctly, which means that problems are much easier to identify. Obviously mistakes happen because we are all human. I don’t really regard mistakes as mistakes, rather they are lessons we can learn from.

Best kitbag:

A lot of the choice of kit is down to the DPs themselves, and LED is very popular. I tend to get a little LED package, daylight HMIs and a few small Tungsten heads together. What I find now is that LED lighting can be a bit harsh, although they have their place in films. On the plus side, they use less power and they have more options in terms of colour. On the other hand, incandescent bulbs are really beautiful, so I like to use the old lighting tools. Seeing somebody light in the old-fashioned way is quite a privilege. It’s good sometimes not to have a million colours to chose from, because a huge amount of choice doesn’t necessarily produce the best end result.

Cinematographer Yves Belanger CSC says:

“I find that all gaffers are technically good. Onx certainly is – he’s very precise, so I never have to worry about the technical aspect of lighting. We talk

more about the mood and the physical aspect of the light, rather than specific lights. I find I don’t need a lot of different suggestions about new lighting technology, but he always give me one or two different options.

Cinematography can be very stressful or very easy and relaxed. Some DPs make it complicated and stressful and get very nervous on-set, but it’s just a job at the end of the day, and all that stress doesn’t translate into better images. But a happy crew does, and what really stands out about Onx is how he makes his crew happy – he’s concerned

and involved about their well-being, which is very important. So it’s always fun on-set with him.”

Cinematographer Ben Davis BSC says:

“On a film you work intensively with people for a long period of time, particularly on a film like The Banshees Of Inisherin, where we were all on a small island together. So you have to work with people you like.

I’m extremely fond of Onx, it’s his personality. For me his greatest asset is his attitude. Everyday he has a huge smile on his face – I don’t think I’ve ever seen him grumpy or in a bad mood. Nowadays on sets with intense schedules there’s no room for any malice or grumpiness. One measure of who you are as a gaffer is your crew. A testament to Onx is how much people want to work with him. He treats them extremely well.

Before he was a gaffer Onx was a very good dimmer operator, so he also has a firm grip on the latest developments in lighting, which is important because recent advancements in lighting have been faster than in any other part of film. I don’t need a gaffer who lights so much as one who’s on top of everything. If I say that something needs to be done I have to know that’s going to happen, and in that regard Onx is utterly reliable.”

There are a lot of talented young women coming to into the industry now and a lot more opportunities for everyone