MyTeeVee
Ian Spohr (Director)
“I
knew from the get go there was a couple key challenges in getting the look I wanted for The Society. First, I like to work fast. I like minimal crews, as much practical light as possible and I like to run and gun. Marc (Marc Ritzema, Director of Photography) and I both agreed that the best visual way to tell this story was longer takes with bursts of fast cutting to capture the interjection of the this characters psychology into his physical world. Basically we wanted a camera that could do it all. I wanted true black, filmic high-lights, enough resolution for the fx work and a camera that was maneuverable enough to chase our actors at full speed. I remember Marc looking at me like “yeah, I want a
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magical unicorn to ride around on, but it’s not going to happen.” We started talking about camera options. Both Marc and Roham (Roham Rahmanian, 2nd Unit DP) predominantly operate themselves, and I like to grab a camera from time to time so we all had a real concern of what the camera “feels” like when we operate. To be honest, we all thought of the F65 as a big power hungry, tethered studio mode style camera, so it seemed an illogical choice for the project. Basically we wanted an Alexa image in a RED Epic body. However, when we started testing we actually found that ergonomics of the camera were great for handheld. By the end of the shoot the operators had shed most of the support gear and we were happiest with a back to basics handheld approach. We did some test
grades with DIT Arthur To, who was instrumental in giving Marc and myself the confidence that the F65 exposure index and color gamut could give us the elusive combination of inky blacks and soft, blown out highlights that we wanted. Over all, I’d say happily surprised would encapsulate our experience.
”