Canadian Society of Cinematographers Magazine June 2017

CANADIAN SOCIETY OF CINEMATOGRAPHERS

$4 June 2017 www.csc.ca

Anne

Bobby Shore csc

Reimagines a Classic

Guy Godfree csc Maudie George Hosek csc Liberating a Continent

A publication of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers Celebrating 60 years of excellence

FEATURES – VOLUME 9, NO. 3 JUNE 2017

Fostering cinematography in Canada since 1957.

The Canadian Society of Cinematographers was founded by a group of Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa cameramen. Since then over 800 cinematographers and persons in associated occupations have joined the organization.

We facilitate the dissemination and exchange of technical information and endeavor to advance the knowledge and status of our members within the industry.

As an organization dedicated to furthering technical assistance, we maintain contact with non-partisan groups in our industry but have no political or union affiliation.

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Credit: Ken Woroner

The CSC provides tangible recognition of the common bonds that link film and digital professionals, from the aspiring student and camera assistant to the news veteran and senior director of photography.

Anne: Bobby Shore csc Reimagines a Classic

By Fanen Chiahemen

AC Lighting Inc. All Axis Remote Camera Systems Applied Electronics Limited Arri Canada Ltd. Canon Canada Inc. Clairmont Camera Codes Pro Media Cooke Optics Dazmo Camera Deluxe Toronto FUJIFILM, North America Corporation FUJIFILM, Optical Devices Division Fusion Cine Henry’s Camera HD Source Inspired Image Picture Company Kino Flo Lee Filters Miller Camera Support Equipment Mole-Richardson MOSS LED Inc. Nikon Canada Inc. PRG PS Production Services Panasonic Canada Panavision Canada REDLABdigital RED Digital Cinema Rosco Canada S1 Studios Toronto SIM Group Sony of Canada Ltd. Technically Yours Inc. Technicolor The Source Shop Vistek Camera Ltd. Walter Klassen FX William F. White International Inc. ZGC Inc. ZTV

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Maudie: Guy Godfree csc Returns to His Roots

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By Trevor Hogg, Special to Canadian Cinematographer

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Liberating a Continent: George Hosek csc Retraces a Pope’s Footsteps

By Fanen Chiahemen

COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS 2 4 6 8 26 30 32

From the Editor-In-Chief In the News On Set Spotlight: Colin Hoult csc Companionship LED Strip Lighting Powers Futuristic Short Tech Column Production Notes/Calendar

Cover Anne (Amybeth McNulty). Credit: Sophie Giraud

Canadian Cinematographer June 2017 Vol. 9, No. 3 EDITORIAL BOARD EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Joan Hutton csc EDITOR EMERITUS Donald Angus EXECUTIVE OFFICER Susan Saranchuk, admin@csc.ca EDITOR Fanen Chiahemen, editor@csc.ca COPY EDITOR Karen Longland ART DIRECTION Berkeley Stat House WEBSITE www.csc.ca ADVERTISING SALES Guido Kondruss, gkondruss@rogers.com EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER Bruce Marshall, brucemarshall@sympatico.ca CSC BOARD OF DIRECTORS Carlos Esteves csc Joan Hutton csc Alwyn Kumst csc Antonin Lhotsky csc Bruno Philip csc Joseph Sunday PhD George Willis csc, sasc CSC EXECUTIVE PRESIDENT George Willis csc, sasc PAST PRESIDENT, ADVISOR Joan Hutton csc VICE PRESIDENTS Carlos Esteves csc, Toronto Alwyn Kumst csc, Vancouver Bruno Philip csc, Montreal MEMBERSHIP CHAIRS Arthur Cooper csc Phil Earnshaw csc EDUCATION CHAIRS Carlos Esteves csc George Willis csc, sasc AWARDS CHAIR Alwyn Kumst csc PUBLIC RELATIONS CHAIR Bruce Marshall OFFICE / MEMBERSHIP / SUBSCRIPTIONS 131–3007 Kingston Road Toronto, Canada M1M 1P1 Tel: 416-266-0591; Fax: 416-266-3996 Email: admin@csc.ca, subscription@csc.ca

Canadian Cinematographer makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information it publishes; however, it cannot be held responsible for any consequences arising from errors or omissions. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of the publisher. The opinions expressed within the magazine are those of the authors and not necessarily of the publisher. Upon publication, Canadian Cinematographer acquires Canadian Serial Rights; copyright reverts to the writer after publication.Canadian Cinematographer is printed by Winnipeg Sun Commercial Print and is published 10 times a year.

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FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Joan Hutton csc

T

here has never been a better time for film and television production in Canada. Newfoundland and Labrador just had its best year ever and is expecting to do even better in 2017. I’m sure the Oscar buzz swirling around the feature Maudie, which was shot on the Rock, is doing lots to boost their production profile. Quebec’s industry is expected to surpass $2 billion in annual production within the next three to five years. Ontario has been pushing past that $2 billion threshold for several years, while neighbouring Manitoba is also breaking records with $127 million in production for 2016. While British Columbia, another region with more than $2 billion in production spending, has been opening new mega studios to accommodate productions lined up at their door.

With all this big money being thrown around, I wonder why I keep hearing from production people that their rates keep being undercut. To be fair, this is not the case with union sanctioned productions where the money is good. It’s the other side of the coin, the burgeoning indie market, where production wages seem to be in a race to the bottom. For example, I recently learned that a talented, award-winning DP walked away from a large U.S. studio-backed but independent television series after his rate and production needs were being cut with every pre-production meeting.

We’ve all worked for less at times to help friends or have agreed to a freebie for a production with something special that had caught our eye. But in the end, we all do need to eat and have a roof over our head.

A solution of sorts is the by-product from a system devised by producer Jason Blum of Paranormal Activity fame. His company, Blumhouse Productions, makes cheap films, some of which have been extraordinarily successful. Blum’s movie Get Out, produced for $4.5 million, has grossed $167 million to date. His salaries for crew and talent are notoriously abysmal. But he does compensate people with backend percentages. Essentially, if the film does well in distribution, you too will do well financially.

If it’s a flop, you’re left with a very thin wallet. Although Blum has been incredibly successful, this is a dicey pay model that I would approach cautiously because crews are underwriting with their labour the producer’s risk. In our big money industry, good wages should not be dependent on a roll of the dice issue.

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Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, shot by associate member Alfonso Maiorana, in May won the Hot Docs Audience Award. Rumble also received the Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary, and a $50,000 cash prize, courtesy of Rogers Group of Funds, was given to director Catherine Bainbridge and co-director Maiorana. Rumble tells the story of Native American rock guitarist Link Wray and other indigenous musicians who shaped popular music.

Link Wray circa 1970s in a still from Rumble.

IMAGO Announces International Awards for Cinematography

that are produced around the world and which without them, have no chance of being recognized.” More information on the first IMAGO International Awards for Cinematography can be found at imagoawards.org. The CSC will be submitting various winners from the 2017 CSC Awards competition.

Credit: Courtesy of IMAGO

IN THE NEWS

Rumble Wins Hot Docs Audience Award, $50,000 Rogers Audience Award

IMAGO President Paul René Roestad FNF

IMAGO, The European Federation of Cinematographers, has announced its first International Awards for Cinematography will be held on 28 October 2017 at Hanasaari – The SwedishFinnish Cultural Centre in Helsinki.

The Awards will recognize work in feature film cinematography, TV drama cinematography and documentary cinematography. There will also be an IMAGO Lifetime Achievement Award, IMAGO Contribution Award and an IMAGO Technical Achievement Award. IMAGO President Paul Rene Roestad FNF explained, “Despite the great number of academies, societies, festivals and other organizations recognizing the art of cinematography, IMAGO as the Federation of Societies representing 49 countries feels that the IMAGO Awards are needed to bring to light many other artistic works

4 • Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017

Cooke Optics Announces Standardizing of Lens Metadata on /i Technology Protocol Cooke Optics in late April announced that Panavision, RED Digital Cinema, Canon, Blackmagic Design, CW Sonderoptic and Sony are embracing an industry-defining project to standardize the collection of lens metadata from PL and selected Panavision mount lenses on the /i Technology protocol. While the value of metadata is a given for archiving, it is still largely overlooked at the acquisition stage. Cooke Optics recognized this deficit in lens metadata capture around 17 years ago, and set out to create a metadata protocol that would provide the industry with a digital open standard to gather and share lens data, ensuring compatibility from acquisition to postproduction. The result was /i (Intelligent) Technology.

Today there are 30 /i Technology partners, including many of the industry’s leading camera, lens, monitoring, data recording and postproduction manufacturers, which support /i Technology in their products. However, up to now there has been no standard for lens

metadata. The development of /i is ongoing thanks to input from the /i Technology partners, with data, technology and methodology freely available to all partners to use for their own refinements. Recent developments include a complete camera and lens communication system similar to that which is available for 2/3” broadcast cameras; inertial tracking that helps VFX teams to better deal with common issues like occlusions and fast camera motion (motion blur); and unique distortion mapping for individual lenses, as opposed to a theoretical measurement of all lenses of a particular focal length.

The long-term goal for the /i standard is to ensure it evolves with the changing metadata requirements on set and in post, while also respecting the evergrowing technical requirements of the /i Technology partners, and paying attention to relevant industry developments.

ALEXA SXT Goes Wireless ARRI in late April announced an upgrade to the ALEXA SXT platform, making ALEXA SXT an entirely wireless professional motion picture camera system. The company has integrated a high-quality and low-latency HD video transmitter and a Wi-Fi radio into the new ALEXA SXT W model. Based on the ALEXA SXT Plus, the SXT W will replace the ALEXA SXT Plus and ALEXA SXT Studio models. There are upgrade options for existing owners of ALEXA SXT EV and ALEXA SXT Plus

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radio opens a range of options, starting with wireless colour management on set and continuing with wireless camera remote control with the ALEXA Web Remote. Other Wi-Fi options are currently in development.

The CSC congratulates Greg Middleton csc, asc on receiving ASC accreditation.

Credit: Alsandair Toms

ON SET

cameras. Having a video transmitter built into the ALEXA SXT W makes the camera smaller and lighter than it would be with an external transmitter, and avoids the associated cable problems. Camera setup will be quicker and productions will be able to move faster, freed of the necessity to route video cables. In addition, the integrated Wi-Fi

John Banovich csc, dgc, director/cinematographer on caribou wildlife documentary in Northern B.C. and Yukon. Camera: Sony F55 + AXS-R7 with Canon 50-1000mm lens.

Associate member Ryan Knight (with camera) on a shoot in Nunavut for CBC's Keeping Canada Safe.

Associate member Shahzad Pasha on location for Nestle Boost commercial (South Asian Version).

Camera: Canon C300 Mark II.

Robert McLachlan csc, asc in Mystery Mesa on the set of Ray Donovan.

ACCEPTANCES / AWARDS / NOMINATIONS / Ilias Adamis, associate member (DP) The Last Resort (documentary), screened at Hot Docs, April 27 to May 7, 2017, Toronto Stan Barua csc (DP) The Mystery of Mazo de la Roche (documentary), screened at Hot Docs, April 27 to May 7, 2017, Toronto Aaron Bernakevitch, associate member (DP) Dear Kate (short) won Best Cinematographer (Drama under 30 minutes) The Rosies Awards – Alberta Media Production Industries Association, April 29, 2017, Edmonton Scott Brown, associate member (DP) Girl Inside (documentary), screened at Hot Docs, April 27 to May 7, 2017, Toronto Zoe Dirse csc (DP) Erotica: A Journey into Female Sexuality; Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives (documentaries), screened at Hot Docs, April 27 to May 7, 2017, Toronto

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Wes Doyle csc (DP) Rebels on Pointe (documentary), screened at Hot Docs, April 27 to May 7, 2017, Toronto Kevin Fraser, associate member (DP) Invading Giants (documentary), screened at Hot Docs, April 27 to May 7, 2017, Toronto Karl Janisse, associate member (DP) Companionship (short), screened at Nassau Film Festival, May 20, 2017, Princeton, N.J.; National Screen Institute Online Film Festival, June 17, 2017; Next Stop (short), screening at Bermuda International Film Festival, May 5, 2017, Hamilton, Bermuda; Lariat (short), screening at Film Invasion L.A., June 4, 2017 Los Angeles Allen Leader csc (DP) Birth of a Family (documentary), screened at Hot Docs, April 27 to May 7, 2017, Toronto Catherine Lutes csc (DP) Mermaids (documentary), screened at Hot Docs, April 27 to May 7, 2017, Toronto Alfonso Maiorana, associate member (DP) Rumble: The

Indians Who Rocked the World (documentary), screened at Hot Docs, April 27 to May 7, 2017, Toronto Duraid Munajim, associate member (DP) My Enemy, My Brother (documentary), screened at Hot Docs, April 27 to May 7, 2017, Toronto Iris Ng, associate member (DP) A Better Man (documentary), screened at Hot Docs, April 27 to May 7, 2017, Toronto Derek Rogers csc (DP) Girl Inside (documentary), screened at Hot Docs, April 27 to May 7, 2017, Toronto Van Royko csc (DP) Let There Be Light; Shiners; Tokyo Dolls (documentaries), screened at Hot Docs, April 27 to May 7, 2017, Toronto Bradley Stuckel, associate member (DP) Incontrol (feature) won Best Cinematographer (Drama over 30 minutes) The Rosies Awards – Alberta Media Production Industries Association, April 29, 2017, Edmonton

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Justin Lovell www.justinlovell.com Associate CSC Cinematographer

Colin Hoult csc

CSC MEMBER SPOTLIGHT

Colin Hoult csc

What films or other works of art have made the biggest impression on you?

B

eing a child of the ‘70s, I was raised on sci-fi and apocalypse movies! I think Star Wars was the first film I could understand as a piece of work made up of elements, including cinematography. Days of Heaven sticks in my memory as somewhat mind altering. Citizen Kane, Apocalypse Now, Lawrence of Arabia, Alien and, of course, Blade Runner are among so many that had an impact. Caravaggio, Vermeer, Rembrandt were always mentioned by the great cinematographers, and I took note!

How did you get started in the business?

My mom, knowing my fledgling interest, enrolled me in a Super 8 film course at Saturday Morning Class –something the Toronto Board of Education did way back when. This got a camera into my hands and I never let go. My first effort, “STAR TREK II,” landed me a special award of recognition for cutting-edge techniques like flicking on and off the kitchen (transporter room) light, and scratching Phaser shots with a pin onto the film frame by frame! After making a ton of Super 8 and then VHS films in high school, I met a local production manager named Allan Levine at my school’s career day. He was impressed enough with what I’d done to offer me a position later that summer in the camera department of the low-budget feature he was making. I took every little gig I could after that, working weekends and holidays, even taking a week off school to be a loader on a small feature using an Arriflex 35BL-2! The first summer out of high school, cinematographer Gerald Packer csc hired me to be his focus puller on a commercial, and there was no turning back!

Who have been your mentors or teachers?

Gerald Packer csc, Naohiko “Kuri” Kurita csc, Barry Stone,

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csc, Adam Swica csc, and especially Alwyn Kumst csc, all served as remarkable teachers along my journey. Each was always very generous with what they knew and always pushed me forward. Gerald let me shoot with his Bolex when I was 12 and was the first actual cinematographer I met. Kuri was very patient and shared stories of his IMAX adventures.

I got to watch and learn as Barry did all sorts of fabulous in-camera tricks with beam splitters and front projection, multiple exposures and time lapse. Adam’s lighting techniques left a lasting impression, and I hope one day to have onetenth of his insight and appreciation of art. Alwyn became like a big brother to me, and I learned a great deal about light and camera movement, practicality, logistics, time management and how to craft lighting on paper in advance with a rigging crew.

What cinematographers inspire you?

Dean Cundey csc, asc, Gregg Toland asc, John Alcott bsc, Nestor Almendros asc, Derek Vanlint csc and Jordan Cronenweth inspired me before I entered the business. They helped me discover and pay attention to cinematography.

Conrad Hall asc, Darius Khondji asc, Jan De Bont, Roger Deakins asc, bsc, Robert Richardson asc, Emmanuel Lubezki asc, amc and Dan Mindel bsc, asc have inspired me in a more contemporary sense to dream big on set each day.

Closer to home, Pierre Gill csc and David Greene csc, asc inspire me with each and every project they accomplish.

Name some of your professional highlights.

Flying down a river bed hanging out of the side of a helicopter over the Alberta Badlands to film segments for a documentary on Bryan Adams' Waking Up the World tour; travelling to different parts of the world to shoot the series Covert Affairs; and, just recently, setting up slightly more complicated lighting cues than I had back in my folks’ kitchen on the sets of Star Trek: Discovery! The 12-year-old’s dream came true!

What do you like best about what you do?

Watching the final product, seeing the work that we’ve done on set in concert with the performances, the production design, the editing, the music! It can be a little magical.

What do you like least about what you do?

Time is in very limited supply on a film set, and forever racing the clock is something I could – at least sometimes – do without. Being away from your family for long hours can be tough. Leaving for work before your kids wake up and getting home after they’ve gone to sleep for weeks at a time is hard.

What do you think has been the greatest invention (related to your craft)?

What would we do without HMIs? Kino Flos, and now LEDs, have dramatically changed lighting in the days since I began working as a cinematographer. The Kino Celeb has a special place in my heart, and don’t even get me started about how many times the Arri SkyPanel has come to the rescue lately! However, I might have to vote for the telescoping crane – be it Techno, Scorpio or MovieBird – as something that has really changed what we can achieve in a day on set.

The ability to get so many kinds of shots out of one piece of (well-placed) gear has given so much scope to so many scenes I’ve done.

How can others follow your work?

My web site is colinhoult.com.

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Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017 •

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Anne

Bobby Shore csc Reimagines a Classic 10 • Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017

The crew employs a Russian Arm System while shooting a scene in Prince Edward Island.

I

By Fanen Chiahemen

t’s impossible to be born and raised in Canada and not be exposed even a little bit to the story of Anne of Green Gables,” Bobby Shore csc states. Indeed, L.M. Montgomery’s classic book series has spurred multiple adaptations on radio, television, stage and film since it was first published in 1908, and the coming-of-age story of an orphaned girl growing up in 1890s Prince Edward Island is known around the world.

So when Shore was in talks to shoot Anne, a CBC/Netflix update of the story – executive-produced by Miranda de Pencier (Beginners) with Emmy and Golden Globe-winner Moira Walley-Beckett (Breaking Bad, Flesh & Bone) – the discussion quickly turned to how to reinterpret the popular tale.

To that end, Shore says the producers decided to adopt a more reality-driven angle for the six-episode drama, whose multiple directors included Niki Caro (Whale Rider, North Country) and Patricia Rozema (Into the Forest, Mansfield Park).

“This was a dirtier, darker, more realistic angle, rather than a glossed over, Merchant Ivory approach,” Shore says. “There would be an honesty to the visuals.

It was more like we were creating a world that’s so real and we just happen to be pointing a camera at it. So it was a much more verité approach – and I mean this in a good way – a much messier aesthetic with nothing being super refined.”

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Credit: Scott Baker

“

Credit: Ken Woroner

inherent aggression and violence behind it.”

The heightened realism was also achieved through proximity to the character, Shore says. “It had everything to do with the camera being with her all the time and not necessarily being 40 feet away on a 250 mm lens, but more on a wideangle lens and being very close to her so you’re just with her and you’re experiencing everything the way she is, especially for some of the flashbacks. It felt like a very visceral approach to portraying the kind of behaviours she was subjected to.”

Shooting in Prince Edward Island for the first four days during prep was “a huge contributing factor to the look and the feel of the pilot,” Shore says. But due to logistics, most of the series was shot in Ontario. The Green Gables set was Marilla (Geraldine James) finds Anne (Amybeth McNulty). built on a stage that was essentially a converted warehouse Their visual references were Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering near the Ontario Science Centre. The production also shot Heights, and Jane Campion’s The Piano and Bright Star, all of in a couple of smaller satellite sets, “but for the most part, it was basically a road show,” Shore says. “We also spent time which had “various levels of dirt and grime,” Shore says.

But given Anne’s younger target audience, the DP says it was in Ancaster and Peterborough. So every day was a different important to still maintain “a certain amount of levity” in the hour-and-a-half drive outside the city to go shoot,” he adds. series, which he found in the psychology of the protagonist. “In Pickering, we built a working farm complete with farm “She is this very precocious, imaginative teenage girl who animals, a house, a barn, red dirt roads and all the things you sees the world in a very specifically beautiful and original need to sell it as P.E.I.” Shore says one of his primary techniques for achieving the way,” Shore says. “How do you visually portray this young kid who has such a unique perspective and who’s so fascinated by look the production was going for – that is, a “dirtier” image – was to use “the oldest, most fucked up glass you could find,” and for that he turned to How do you visually portray this young kid who has such long-time collaborator Panavision. “Basically, I hand tested more than 70 lenses and picked a unique perspective and who’s so fascinated by the way the worst of the worst for our A set and our B a bug crawls on her hand or the way the light shines on a set,” he says. “These lenses are 40 to 50 years flower? Finding the beauty in the every day was the way I was old and if you point them at a window, the image gets completely flared out and soft and it approaching the story when I was thinking about how you doesn’t resolve well. But it’s the kind of thing achieve this perspective.” where you really only notice it when you put it side by side to a Primo or Master Prime or the way a bug crawls on her hand or the way the light shines something really sharp. So if your only point of reference is on a flower? Finding the beauty in the every day was the way that lens, it just creates a feeling, it doesn’t necessarily look I was approaching the story when I was thinking about how like a bad lens; it just gives the image something tangible, and for me that’s what made the show feel realistic. It created a you achieve this perspective.”

But the darker side of Anne Shirley – played by Irish-Ca- sense of verisimilitude. Our workhorse closeup lens for spenadian actress Amybeth McNulty – was also mined, Shore cific moments tended to be the 35 mm, and Panavision had says. “In the pilot script, Moira, the writer, poses the ques- an old 35 mm close focus lens that we used for a lot of macro tion why does this young woman have such a precocious work because there’d be a lot of stuff where the camera would imagination and also these very violent outbursts and these literally be 2 inches from Anne’s face, again with that whole angry reactions to things?” he says. “And it basically all came idea of proximity being a really important aspect to achieving down to dealing with the trauma of being raised an orphan, the feeling of how this person experiences the world. being physically and verbally abused by foster families and “Then I also had a series of specialty lenses, like one where kids in her orphanage, and that gets addressed in a very real when you shoot wide open, you get the weirdest rainbow on way where you see that Anne is this character who lives in the right edge of the frame, or one that flares really weird and her own head almost as a coping mechanism to deal with all is too aggressive a flare for a standard set but we could use for this trauma she’s gone through. So in the pilot we’re flashing a specific feeling,” he adds. “So we had a massive set of some back to these scenes of abuse and not shying away from the of the oldest and most unique lenses you could find, and it

‘‘

12 • Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017

Credit: Bobby Shore csc

Courtesy of Bobby Shore csc

was obviously a huge challenge for the camera department to use them because they don’t work well in the cold, none of the marks really lined up all that well, and the T-stops were kind of all over the place.”

But Shore says first AC Robert Tagliaferri, who he’d worked with on a couple of other features, “just absolutely killed it. The shoot would not have happened without him. He is not only one of the most innately gifted focus pullers I’ve ever worked with, but also just a kind and supportive individual to have at your side for shooting a show like this.”

Shore also employed a Panavision Panaflasher, “a new version of really old technology,” he says. “In the ‘70s, you put a lightbox around the front of the lens or inside the film magazine, so you’d flash the film as Bobby Shore csc on the set of Anne it was running through the camera, and it was a big cumbersome thing. And about a year ago, Panavision came up with the Panaflasher 2.0, which is a 6 x 6 filter surrounded by LEDs, which are fully RGB controllable. So you put it in front of the lens and dial up the intensity and dial in the colour, and basically it lifts the shadows and you can contaminate shadows with a specific colour. So every scene we did, I’d just pop in there and mess with the Panaflasher, just do whatever we could to make the image have a less clean feeling.

“And I noticed in testing that by pumping light into the shadows, it actually increased the noise floor a little bit on the image, and I just liked the way it looked and felt so we stuck with it,” he continues. “Again, it was not an easy tool to use, especially on a fast-paced shoot like this one, but the camera team and operators were very gracious in the way they let me just drape my arms all over them and dial the thing in and Main street in Millbrook, On., is dressed to look period appropriate for then walk away to the monitors.”

1890s Charlottetown.

Because Anne was also destined for Netflix, which had a 4K mandate, Shore had to select a camera that could capture 4K could accommodate the fast-moving show on which there native, something he did with the help of a fellow CSC mem- was a lot of handheld shooting.

Associate member Andreas Evdemon operated A camera/ ber. “I cannot send out enough thanks to Brendan Steacy [csc]. He was shooting a Netflix show that started prep a Steadicam, while Eric Gerard operated B on the two-camera month before mine, so he went through the exact same thing. shoot. Shore says, “Andreas was a great collaborator, and conHe had to test every 4K camera he could get his hands on. He sistently helped elevate the work we were striving to achieve. tested the ALEXA, the Panasonic VariCam 35, F65, F55 and And I couldn’t speak highly enough of Eric. This was his first a RED camera,” Shore says. “By the time I started prep on narrative job ever as an operator, and he was extremely colAnne, I was leaving three weeks later to go to P.E.I. to shoot, laborative and brought a lot of good ideas to the table. And and I just didn’t have the luxury of time, and Brendan very he had a good eye and knew how to frame things up, and he graciously just gave me all of his tests. And even though we would just constantly offer up really great suggestions. We were doing our post at Technicolor, Deluxe – who was doing were always throwing him on the 150 mm or on the long end the post for Brendan’s show – was like, ‘Come in, we’ll set you of a 25 – 250 mm and saying, ‘Okay, go find something, get up with a suite, we’ll sit you down with a colourist and you this and get this,’ and he would just always come up with good can look at all Brendan’s tests.’ I gleaned so much informa- stuff.” Meanwhile, B camera1st AC Dave McKane “was contion, and it was such a generous gesture on his part to offer sistently the only focus puller I’ve worked with who would that all up and also to get his take and perspective on which smile whenever I’d ask to shoot the 150 mm wide open. He cameras he thought would work well.” nailed it on this show,” Shore adds.

The VariCam ended up being the right fit for Anne, as it When it came to lighting, Shore adopted a natural approach.

Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017 •

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‘‘

Credit: Ken Woroner

Television now is probably more cinematic than a lot of the features that are made, especially when you have the right creative team behind it. And Moira and Miranda and Niki were just three extraordinarily talented, fierce individuals who had such a specific vision for the show. I think by virtue of that, we kind of inherently created a very interesting, original take on the show.”

Diana (Dalila Bela) and Anne (Amybeth McNulty).

“For exteriors, we almost never put up any lights, just negative fill and bounce or just shooting at the right time of day.

For interior work, everything had to be naturalistic and motivated so it was all gigantic sources coming in through windows,” he says. “It really became about not lighting the actor but lighting the sets so the actor could inhabit the space.”

Production designer Jean-François Campeau and the art department “just killed it and did such an amazing job,” Shore says. “The way the sets were built, there were no wild walls, there were hard ceilings for everything, so we weren’t lighting from a grid at all. We were lighting our stage sets like we would a location. So it was all big soft sources coming in through windows. If we wanted direct sunlight, we’d bring in a hard source and all that, but the way it ended up working was if you wanted to see something, you’d stage it by the window and if [the actor] walked away from the window, they were going to get a bit dark and that’s just the way it went.”

Shore also made a conscious effort to mix HMI and tungsten lighting for the stage work. “Anytime you shoot on location, you’re never going to get the same quality of light everywhere. You’re going to get blue spill from the sky, and if it’s sunny, you’re going to get a warm bounce off the dirt ground,” he explains. “So I kept thinking, ‘How can we make the stage feel more realistic?’ And it was basically by creating these giant sky boxes outside of windows, usually 20 by or 12 by 20 light grid and bleached muslin with M90 HMIs pushing through them, which would create a blue highlight on the

14 • Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017

floor, and then we would key them with tungsten lights so there was always a mix of colour temperatures. And for some of the sets, we’d make sure the windows in the background were lit with HMIs but the windows in the foreground were lit with tungsten, so it created a pretty solid sense of colour depth and it felt more realistic.”

As Anne is a period piece, some scenes were lit entirely with candles or oil lamps, the DP says. “Even though the lenses were super old, a lot of them were really fast; they still opened to a 1.2 or a 1.3,” he recalls.

For Shore, the experience of making Anne drove home how much shooting for the small screen has evolved. “Television now is probably more cinematic than a lot of the features that are made, especially when you have the right creative team behind it. And Moira and Miranda and Niki were just three extraordinarily talented, fierce individuals who had such a specific vision for the show,” he says. “I think by virtue of that, we kind of inherently created a very interesting, and I think original take on the show.

“The crew deserves so much recognition for the hard work that they put into it,” he adds. “They just busted their ass day in, day out to make everything happen, humping gear through 3 feet of snow in minus 20-degree weather, in mud and rain for six months. It was definitely a challenge; people were really burned out by the end, but for the most part, people did it with a smile on their faces because they all believed in the project.”

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Sally Hawkins as Maud Lewis.

Maudie Credit: Duncan Deyoung, Courtesy of Mongrel Media.

Guy Godfree csc

Returns to His Roots

By Trevor Hogg, Special to Canadian Cinematographer

16 • Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017

M

audie, a biopic about a with the camera under the stairs, tucked into corners and crippled and impover- up against walls. Because of the house painting scenes, I still ished housekeeper for have green paint on my jacket and raincoat!”

Maudie was the last film to have received lighting and grip a cantankerous recluse who becomes a folk artist equipment from PS Atlantic in Halifax which closed after sensation enabled New Nova Scotia discontinued a provincial tax credit. In providing York City-based cinema- equipment, PS worked in partnership with local Newfoundtographer Guy Godfree land Atlantic Studio Co-Operative and the late Bob Petrie. “I csc to experience a homecoming. “Similar to Maud Lewis, had a great lighting crew led by gaffer Flora Planchat and key I grew up in rural Nova Scotia. My mother’s painting and art grip Micah Martin,” Godfree remarks. “With only one winhas a similar colourful style to [Lewis’] in what she paints. It dow and one door, both on the same side of the house, there felt close to home and with Maudie being set between 1936 was a nice opportunity for a simple lighting approach, albeit a and 1967, I was excited to have an opportunity to film a pe- challenging one. We had to push light in through the window riod piece,” Godfree says. “Nova Scotia is a beautiful place, and door in order to get light in the back of the little house. but it’s also on the Atlantic Ocean. I felt that the way to make Flora came up with this idea of a Zoom Boom lift where we Maudie was not as a postcard, but instead to embrace the under hung an 18K lamp, and Micah put a diffusion cloth on rugged rural terrain. To portray that would help highlight the a 6 x 6 frame and hung it on the other side of the bucket. We beauty in how Maud Lewis sees the world, and to bring for- could drive that in. The base of the lift was parked down the ward the quality that made her artwork special to begin with. road a little bit. The light was armed over and down just out It was an opportunity to make a movie set in Nova Scotia but of the top of the frame so it would push into the house below, in the way that I felt best represented this story.”

Substituting for the Maritime province during the “Similar to Maud Lewis, I grew up in rural principal photography was Newfoundland. “UltiNova Scotia. My mother’s painting and art has mately, we managed to find fantastic locations just outside of St. John’s that felt like the rolling hills of the a similar colourful style to [Lewis’] in what she Annapolis Valley and the farmland of Digby County,” paints. It felt close to home and with Maudie Godfree notes. “The house that we built was situated in the Goulds, and some shooting was done in Witless being set between 1936 and 1967, I was excited Bay along with about a week’s worth of work on the Bonavista Peninsula in Keels and Port Rexton.” Five to have an opportunity to film a period piece.” weeks were allotted for the cinematographer’s preproduction work, with the 28 main unit shooting days concluding on Halloween. “We left the little house in the Goulds allowing Sally Hawkins [who plays Lewis] and Ethan Hawke with a security guard after wrap and returned in January to [who plays Everett Lewis] to go in and out of the door with film two days of winter material. It’s a luxury that you don’t no problem. I like to work in a way where you bring light into often get. [Director] Aisling Walsh and the producers made a a set and passively work it from the inside rather than having strong effort to do so because it was valuable to broaden the a lamp beside the camera pointed at an actor’s face. I don’t want people to watch the movie and recognize that it’s lit like feeling of time in the story.

“Very early in the process, there were discussions about one.” building the exterior shell of the house on location and the Because of the natural lighting approach, and a desire to deinterior of the house in the studio,” Godfree reveals. “Howev- feat the sharpness of the digital image, a special filtration syser, after seeing the location, production designer John Hand tem needed to be produced to help hold those textures in the said, ‘We should put it out there and do it all in the one set.’ extreme highlights and shadows. “[SIM’s] Craig Milne and I Maud painted the house over the course of her years so there did early testing on an internal camera filter system for the ALwere three versions of that house that had to be made for the EXA XT,” remarks Godfree, who made use of Cook S4 lenses inside and outside. John Hand and the art department team and an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. “We landed on using a Black Frost built the house so that the inner wall panels could be pulled internally in combination with the 1/8 Digicon in front of the out and replaced with pre-prepared walls for the 1950s and lens. We tested different filter styles. Craig had a custom Digi1960s. Briefly, we talked about having a way to pull the wall con internal filter made for the ALEXA, but we determined it off so that we could get a camera back in the corner, but we was more effective in front of the lens. That filter combination never did. It would take too much time and we always want- became our day interior and exterior setup. For the night work, ed to feel the confines of the house. We spent a lot of time we changed the Digicon out for an Ultra Contrast 1/4, which Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017 •

17

Courtesy of Mongrel Media.

Capturing a scene in the snow.

and Sally were great for that because they were only going to do what felt right. I would sit in the blockings and we would work out the scene as a group.”

There is not a large amount of camera movement in Maudie, Godfree, who won the 2017 CSC Theatrical Feature Cinematography Award for Maudie, points out. “We chose simple and efficient places to be with the camera and let the action take us there,” he says. “But when Maud paints, that was one of the few times we would shoot handheld because it was a moment when she was expressing herself, and the intimacy the handheld gave us helped with that.”

A CBC documentary about Lewis made on 16 mm film, which plays at the end of the movie, needed to be recre“Nova Scotia is a beautiful place, but it’s also on the ated. “We had to shoot some of that material to put on the television in the movie. My focus puller Mark Cyre and I Atlantic Ocean. I felt that the way to make Maudie thought, ‘Why don’t we take an ALEXA and stick an old was not as a postcard, but instead to embrace the 16 mm zoom lens on it that breathes, falls apart and has funky aberrations,’” Godfree explains. “The 16 mm zoom rugged rural terrain. To portray that would help lens does not cover the full sensor so it was like looking highlight the beauty in how Maud Lewis sees down the barrel of a telescope or through a tunnel, but we only needed to sample out the middle 4:3 square in the world, and to bring forward the quality that the centre of the sensor as the footage was going to be degraded down to look like 16 mm TV. made her artwork special to begin with. It was an “In prep, there were three to four people in the art departopportunity to make a movie set in Nova Scotia ment trying to do versions of Maud’s style of painting,” he but in the way that I felt best represented this story.” says. “We all quickly learned how difficult it was to paint simplistically. That was one of many moments during the film when we realized how unique Maud’s work is.”

An important part of the process for this film was making “We spend a lot of the movie in 15 foot by 14 foot room with a proper ceiling, which was a 6 foot 4 inches high,” he sure that all of the scenes and contributions of the various notes. “Our biggest challenge was to find a variety of ways to departments come together to produce a cohesive cinematic film all of those scenes in that one room without repeating journey for the audience. “During prep, we were in one open how you lay out the action or the shot. Aisling and I prefer to room with the art department, Aisling had a desk in one let the actors play it out and see what they want to do. Ethan corner and I had another beside her. Then there was John gave us even more lift to the toe of the image.”

The movie was shot ProRes 4444 XQ to cards because the dailies needed to be pipelined from Newfoundland to the postproduction facility in Ireland. The colour grading was handled by Gary Curran of Outer Limits Post Production located in Dublin. “Early on, Aisling and I talked about one of my favourite movies, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, shot by Bradford Young. That movie was influenced by Days of Heaven, which itself was inspired by the paintings of Andrew Wyeth.

We drew a lot of inspiration from all of those references for the colour palette,” Godfree says.

18 • Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017

Credit: Duncan Deyoung

The CSC

Ethan Hawke and Sally Hawkins in Maudie. After their wedding, Maud is pure happiness and Everett is his usual stoic self.

Congratulates

2017 LEO AWARDS Nominees

Best Cinematography in a Motion Picture Thomas Billingsley associate Lost Solace Nelson Talbot, Graham Talbot associates The Hollow Child Paul Mitchnick csc This Is Your Death

Credit: Duncan Deyoung

Best Cinematography in a Television Movie Bruce Worrall csc From Straight A’s to XXX Ryan McMaster csc Operation Christmas Neil Cervin csc Sandra Brown’s White Hot Best Cinematography in a Short Drama Brad Creasser affiliate Cinephiliac Tony Mirza associate I Love You So Much It’s Killing Them Dan Carruthers associate The Cameraman Stirling Bancroft csc The Goodnight Kiss Kim C. Miles csc The Letter Carrier

Sally Hawkins as Maud Lewis and Ethan Hawke as Everett Lewis.

Best Cinematography in a Dramatic Series John Bartley csc, asc Bates Motel – “Forever” Stephen McNutt csc, asc Beyond – “Out of Darkness” Michael Wale csc iZombie – “Salvation Army”

Courtesy of Mongrel Media.

Best Cinematography in a Feature Length Documentary Vince Arvidson csc Aim for the Roses Ian Kerr csc Spirit Unforgettable

From left to right: stand-in Shannon Crotty, gaffer Flora Planchat, Guy Godfree csc, dolly grip Jay Andrews, boom operator Mark Neary and stand-in Darryl Hopkins.

Hand and [art director] Owen Power. We were surrounded by location photos, art references, sketches, and colour palette references. We would sit in that room day in and day out and talk about the ideas among ourselves and how we were going to do things. That’s the way I would like to work on every movie from now on. We were all respectful, keen and flexible about everybody’s job as it pertains to the overall goal and what our contributions to that would be. None of us were precious. You can’t be.”

Best Cinematography in a Documentary Series Ian Kerr csc Facing – “Facing Putin” John Banovich csc Wild Rockies – “The Borderlands” Best Television Movie Vic Sarin csc (co-producer) Summer in the City Best Direction in a Television Movie Vic Sarin csc Summer in the City Best Short Drama Brendan Uegama csc (co-producer) Black Chicks Best Direction in a Dramatic Series David Geddes csc, asc Legends of Tomorrow – “Compromised” Best Documentary Series Ian Kerr csc (co-producer) Facing Best Web Series Ian Toews csc (co-producer) Bugs on The Menu Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017 •

19

David LeRoss.

George Hosek csc with the Canon C300.

Liberating a Contin

George Hosek csc Retraces a P

G

eorge Hosek csc had the honour in December of receiving an Emmy award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Chicago/ Midwest Chapter for his cinematography on Liberating a Continent: John Paul II and the Fall of Communism, a feature documentary that captures the role played by the late Pope (born Karol Józef Wojtyła) in the collapse of communism and the liberation of Central and Eastern Europe.

The film also won in the Outstanding Achievement for Documentary Programs – Historical category, and was nominated for editing, sound mixing and special effects in graphics.

Narrated by actor Jim Caviezel and with original music by composer Joe Kraemer (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Jack Reacher), the 90-minute film features archival footage and interviews with several heads of state, among them former Polish President Lech Wałęsa, as well as eyewitness testi-

20 • Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017

monies of the Pope’s closest associates, including his lifelong assistant, Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz.

To capture the story, the documentary crew travelled to the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, England and Italy. Hosek, who is Czech by birth, says his language skills appealed to the producers. “They asked me what languages I speak. I speak Czech, Russian, Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian. Having those languages helped me to understand Polish because Czech and Polish are like distant cousins, and also I could brush up on my Russian in Lithuania and Ukraine,” he says.

Despite his connection to the region, Hosek indicates that making the film provided him with some fresh insights into the events that took place. “At the time when this happened, I was living in the Czech Republic and of course we knew about certain things going on in politics and government,

nent

Pope’s Footsteps

By Fanen Chiahemen Photos courtesy of George Hosek csc

“I always chose locations where I could create a continuity in the images, especially for the interviews, in spite of being in different locations. I was very picky and demanding.

I tried to keep the same kind of mood and the same visual continuity.

This is a big difference from the usual documentaries where people walk in and they don’t create things like that. This comes from my motion picture background. It’s not like cinema verité where you walk in and you film things as they are. In documentaries you also can be creative; you have to give some creative visual input in it.”

Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017 •

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1: Jasna Góra Monastery, Czestochowa, ˛ Poland 2: View from old communist factory in Gdansk ´ 3: The Vatican 4: Gdansk ´ ship yard, Poland

22 • Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017

and we knew the pope who came to what was then Czechoslovakia. We knew he was a big influence, but if you live under communism, all information is very scarce. Official media don’t publicize those things; you just hear about it. So I used to live there, but I was not involved in any kind of gathering or historical event.”

Making Liberating a Continent involved conducting dozens of interviews with many dignitaries, former presidents, historians and politicians in various locations including palaces, clubs, universities and churches, yet it was important to Hosek to maintain visual continuity across the different settings, so he was actively involved in location selection, often travelling a few days ahead of filming with the producers to scout.

“I always chose locations where I could create a continuity in the images, especially for the interviews, in spite of being in different locations. I was very picky and demanding,” he says. “I tried to keep the same kind of mood and the same visual continuity. This is a big difference from the usual documentaries where people walk in and they don’t create things like that. This comes from my motion picture background.

It’s not like cinema verité where you walk in and you film things as they are. In documentaries you also can be creative; you have to give some creative visual input in it.”

Hosek would also use location scouting as an opportunity to select members of his crew, which usually consisted of two electricians, a camera assistant, a production manager and a sound person. “Because it’s a completely different type of philosophy how people work in various countries, it’s always important to go ahead and scout because you don’t want to be surprised. Sometimes you get some people whose skills are not really up to date. So you try to avoid such surprises,” he says.

To light the spaces, Hosek would use existing light from windows with a mixture of artificial light or completely block the existing light and create his own, he explains. “On a movie set you can say, ‘Okay, I’m going to film in the morning because light’s coming from this direction and it creates a nice look or whatever,’ but not in documentaries; you have to film as it is. So in that situation, you have to find something that is visually appealing but still let the content inform you.

So if we were in a palace, I had to tell them to please turn off the lights. I always ask to do such things because you always have to manipulate reality. If you like the reality as it is and it would create a nice image, you keep it, but usually it’s important for a cinematographer to ask to turn off practical lights.

People sometimes are afraid to just ask.”

When he needed to use artificial light, Kino Flo Divas, Fresnel lights and soft boxes were his staples. “I use a combination of those to create the mood,” he says. “I also adjusted the sensitivity of the camera’s ISO to compensate for the existing light in the background. Normally, in a movie set you keep

Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017 •

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1: Andriy Chirovsky, professor, Saint Paul University, Ottawa.

2: Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz Archibishop of Krakow and former private secretary of the Pope Jan Paul II. 3: Dr. Arkady Józef Rzegocki, professor of political science, Jagiellonian University, Poland.

4: Andrzej Gwiazda, vice president of Solidarity movement in Poland, 80-81.

24 • Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017

the same ISO; you keep the same aperture because you have a grip and lighting department and they can help to reduce the light from windows with gels or nets. You can control the whole environment. But in a documentary, it’s very hard because you don’t have such equipment and you have to do it

by ISO and eventually cover some spill light from windows.”

Rather than travel with a lighting kit, Hosek would request a list of lights before arriving at each location. “Although sometimes you get surprised,” he jokes. “In Lithuania, they said, ‘We don’t have Divas, but we have regular 6 foot and 4 foot Kino Flos.’ And of course, they brought some big, huge, heavy homemade fluorescent panels that you cannot even dim and adjust or hold properly because they’re so heavy.

Those are the surprises if you film in some countries where they don’t have proper equipment or the equipment you’d like to film with. In North America, we are kind of spoiled and lucky. We can get any equipment we’d like to have.”

His camera of choice was the Canon C300, which he finds is particularly mobile. “The C300 can be used in some documentaries in various places where video cameras are not allowed; you can strip it down and pretend you’re a photographer,” he says. “I usually use the Canon 70-200 zoom lens for interviews. I use the aperture f/4 because if people move during the interview, they stay sharp in the face. Many colleagues sometimes use 1.8 or 2.8 and the depth of field is shallower, but if the interviewee moves, you can lose the focus on the eyes. I also like to have a shallow depth of field and try to keep it with longer lenses. Way back in the classic filmmaking in Hollywood and Europe, usually it was standard to film on f/4 or f/5.6 aperture, and f/5.6 was a golden aperture.

It used to be the standard only because you can help the focus puller. If the actor moves, the focus puller still can catch the focus. If you open the aperture too much, if it’s a shallow depth of field, the focus puller doesn’t have a chance to react right away and the actors can look soft.

“It’s always good to use longer lenses,” he continues. “People today in documentaries, they use very often wide-angle lenses and they go close to the person to create a kind of closeup with that wide lens and everything in the background is in focus. It’s always good to work with a longer focal length in closeups and it is intimate.”

With his penchant for visuals developed in childhood, Hosek has an appreciation for aesthetics-driven cinematography. “As a child, I remember going with my mum to the local theatre. I remember sitting there eating my sandwiches and watching movies. As a child, you lose the continuity of the story, but I always remembered the visuals,” he says. “And what is important for young people is to educate themselves about aesthetics and about how to be able change the reality.

Also you can still create nice images with a minimum lighting kit and existing light; you can still create an aesthetic visual documentary.”

Liberating a Continent can be seen on Netflix and more information is available at JP2film.com.

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Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017 •

25

Companionship LED Strip Lighting Powers Futuristic Short

The short film Companionship takes place at a time when artificial intelligence has taken on a larger role in public life beyond commanding the search engines that power smartphones. AIs are purpose-built, capable, responsive, and, in some cases, bi-pedal beings. Associate member Karl Janisse was brought on to shoot the 17-minute film after co-writer/co-director Alex Loubert saw the world premiere of the genre feature Dead Rush (Canadian Cinematographer, June 2016), shot by Janisse. Companionship, which was co-directed by Zachary Ramelan and co-written by Jordan Gray, had its world premiere in Toronto at the Canadian Film Festival at the end of March and plays at the National Screen Institute’s Online Film Festival on June 19. Janisse, who is also on the producing team of the film (along with Anna Jane Edmonds, Divya Shahani, James O’Donnell and Loubert), depicts how he lit the film on the four-day shoot using camera-friendly LED strip technology supplied by Moss LED. BY KARL JANISSE

I

n the world of Companionship, the environment is marginally more advanced, but the story is told in a way that intends to engage the audience into feeling as if it is happening in the present day. The film follows Jennifer (Mandy May Cheetham), a woman in

experience that offers an advanced algorithm that connects clients with their ideal candidate. This app makes the claim that dating will be revolutionized by the power of artificial intelligence and offers a trial period to give users a taste of what it is like to build their soul mate.

From the outset, the largest question within the creative team was how to build the look of this future. How we sculpted that look would say a lot about how the world as a whole is viewed by the audience. Given the themes of isolation and loneliness, the primary location was our main character’s apartment, serving both as Jennifer’s deprivation chamber and her safe haven. We brainstormed and then eventually landed on the idea of having a Purple was the base colour used to represent when Jennifer felt the most at home in her environsmart-home style lighting system serve ment. In this scene, she decides to use the Companionship app to try out a new way to find love. A as the core backdrop of the apartment. deep fuchsia was added as an accent colour to represent her state of emotional curiosity.

Whatever emotion Jennifer felt in her home, her home read and connected to her atmosphere by a neurological-style “Fitbit.” This was intended to give the audience the feeling that everything around her had a somewhat intelligent, connected sentience that responded to her actions.

To achieve this look, I called upon the hard-working team at Moss LED, who I have partnered with on a few projects now, to see how we could create a Orange was used as the base colour for Jennifer’s companion, Andrew, as a naturally complementary commandable, interactive lighting array that could be installed in an apartcolour to purple. Sitting at opposite sides of the colour wheel was our way of showing how Jennifer ment as a set piece, as well as a principal was stepping out of her comfort zone by bringing Andrew into her life.

26 • Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017

her mid-30’s who has grown tired of the ever-diminishing pool of eligible partners in her life. Seeking a change, Jennifer decides to respond to a push notification on her phone from the tech giant, Darwin Corp., which has developed a new interactive dating

YEARS 1927-2017

®

Canadian Cinematographer - May 2017 •

27

When we see Jennifer in her home for the first time, we chose a neutral blue as the entry colour to tie it into the world of Darwin Corp.

The notable contrast between purple on one side of the room and orange on the other is used to show the dichotomy between Jennifer and Andrew as the scene begins, which shifts into a deep amber combination in the next scene as the two grow closer to one another.

Here the Darwin-blue returns as the accent colour of this later scene in the film as a sinister reminder to the audience of how much Jennifer’s experience with Andrew has changed her way of life.

In one of the final scenes in the film, we bring back the Darwin-blue as the final shift in the characters has been made, while accenting it with the reds and oranges used previously.

28 • Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017

source of lighting. We decided on a series of 4’ x 4’ long RGB LED strips imbedded in an opaque plastic and brushed metal housing. This type of fixture allowed for the strips to be a part of every scene without breaking the illusion of the time period we were attempting to create. Moss LED helped design these fixtures and the wiring layout to make sure everything ran smoothly the entire shoot.

Moreover, nearly the entire film was lit using the extremely flexible and powerful bi-colour ML6 and ML12 FlexLED panels in different lengths. The extremely lightweight form factor of these lights allowed for very creative setups in a tight space. For example, we were able to tape a light panel to the ceiling with bellowed diffusion, which allowed me the power and control I needed to light every setup in the living room scenes while not having to worry about damaging the walls or ceilings in the apartment by drilling in baseplates to hang lights.

I derived a lot of inspiration from the graphic novel works of Alan Moore and Warren Ellis to build the look of the Darwin universe. Specifically, Ellis’ Transmetropolitan (illustrated by Darick Robertson), and Moore’s Watchmen (illustrated by Dave Gibbons).

Both of these graphic novels use vibrant colours and ink-like blacks to paint the tapestries on which their worlds live. We also tapped the visual style of films such as Spike Jonze’s Her (DP Hoyte Van Hoytema) and the TV series Black Mirror to help us find the window through which we looked, to find the characters in this environment.

We shot the entirety of Companionship at 4000K and 6500K for colour temperature, utilizing the precise tune-ability of the ML6 and ML12 to match this colour balance. This was done to give the uncontrolled sources outside the windows and on the street an uncommon look in order to help sell the time-period on budget. The RGB strips were used as accent colours to convey Jennifer’s mood at any given time in the film, sometimes performing active colour transitions within a scene to sell a strong mood shift as controlled through her Darwin smart-home system. Their placement above the couch in the living room and above the bed allowed us to backlight most scenes with these fixtures.

The final budget for the project was $3,500, and we were able to pull off this film due to the immense support of the community around us, our cast, crew, PS Production Services, Moss LED and Ontario Camera, who all offered largely discounted rentals to help us make the film for such a low budget. I could not have been happier with how the Moss LED panels and RGB light bars helped me establish the exact mood that the entire creative team sought for Companionship.

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29

Technology by the Caseload

W

hen you gotta move, you gotta move fast, and when you’re capturing live events on the fly, in HD or 4K, you need to move that data fast with no bottlenecks. With a soup-to-nuts live event workflow in mind, Inspired Image, the rental house based in Toronto, Sudbury and Vancouver, has taken the concept of ready-to-roll-production to another level with their 4K Airpacks.

They’ve loaded up cameras, lenses, switchers, monitors, intercom and monitor walls in a set of road cases, ready to scale up and ready to capture in 4K and beyond. Their Airpacks come

Inspired Image 4K Airpacks feature 2K, 4K and HD routing and monitoring.

The SMPTE fibre workflow makes the system compatible with a range of cameras, including ARRI and Sony cameras.

30 • Canadian Cinematographer - June 2017

in different HD and 4K flavours. Sony, RED, ARRI and Canon are among the camera platforms that can be integrated in a customizable Airpack Configuration. 4K is where Inspired Image sees the future.

“We’ve seen an increase in 4K requests these days,” Anthony Sacco, Inspired Image’s director of national operations, says. “Our inventory has been changing to meet that.”

In the Vancouver market, Inspired Image services more cinematic projects, but there are more multi-camera shoots coming into the frame. In Toronto, it runs the gamut with lots of demand for multi-cam setups for all kinds of projects, sports, concerts, live events and more.

The packages started after Inspired Image was asked to research a job in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show for electronics giant Samsung a few years ago. “They wanted to showcase their new 80” 4K displays with a Sam Roberts concert at a location away from the main exhibition hall,” Sacco says. “We went with a three-camera setup with the then new Sony F55. At the time, manufacturers didn’t have cinema sensors and workflows in 4K. Images: Courtesy of Inspired Image

TECH COLUMN

Packed and Ready to Roll:

Sony did. We added Cine-servo lenses with remote iris control and some SMPTE fibre cable in a three-camera package and got the job.”

Convinced 4K was the future, they started assembling the components for an Airpack.

It started coming together quickly when Multidyne created the camera back to convert a 4K camera signal to SMPTE fibre. Fast forward, and Inspired Image was asked to bid on an Air Canada Centre concert package with the band Imagine Dragons in the summer of 2015. It was to be a multi-cam setup with streams captured for postproduction. The result, Smoke + Mirrors Live, was released theatrically in March 2016. Directed by Dick Carruthers (Led Zeppelin, The Killers, Oasis, Beyoncé) it was shot with 13 cameras in front of 15,000 fans.

“Based on our experience with the Samsung shoot, it inspired us to pursue 4K,” Sacco says. “One of the claims with the F55 is the global shutter, which wouldn’t compromise the lighting design and strobes from the concert. They were concerned with the 4K RAW file size and found the 4K XAVC on-board record was suitable for a theatrical release.”

“In the end, we had 10 F55s with three more FS7s floating in the crowd too,” Sacco says. “We had eight on fibre, including two jibs and two wireless setups for Steadicam. The client was thrilled.”

The key to the Airpacks is the scalability. They’re extremely modular with a two-hour setup, depending on how many cameras are involved.

Ian Harvey is a Toronto-based journalist who writes for a variety of publications and covers the technology sector.

He welcomes feedback and eagerly solicits ideas at ian@pitbullmedia.ca.

NEW FROM VISTEK CLASSIFIEDS EQUIPMENT WANTED

NEW

Edmonton Film Cooperative wants your unused Arri 35 mm camera. Do you have film cameras languishing on a shelf? Give it a new life, give it to a film coop and we will give you a healthy tax credit. Have a 35BL, a 235, a 435 gathering dust because everyone is Red cam nuts? Have other great camera accessories? Let us know, let’s make a deal. Contact Andy @rentals@fava.ca and work a great deal.

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HILL’S VIDEO PRODUCTIONS – BURLINGTON, ON March 2017 – Our New Sprinter versatile mobile unit is ready for hire! Call us and we will drive it out to you for a look inside. Features 3 cameras line cut and record with connected with fiber for long distance cable runs. NEW SINGLE CAMERA SHOOT PACKAGE Sony PXW-FS7, Zeiss Compact Prime lenses, and all the Grip Gear. Doorway Dolly and Camera Slider. need post production? We have AVID, Adobe Premiere and the best 5.1 sound mix in the area. Closed Captioning. Descriptive Video too. www.hillvideo.com Rob Hill – 905.335.1146 Cell 905.875.5272

CAMERA CLASSIFIED IS A FREE SERVICE PROVIDED FOR CSC MEMBERS.

Rotolight AEOS Designed with location videographers in mind, the new AEOS LED is like a smaller, more portable version of Rotolight’s award-winning Anova Pro. This ultra-thin, lightweight bi-colour LED features CRI:95+, flicker free output, CineSFX, Designer Fade, and high speed sync flash with zero recycle time. The AEOS also includes integrated aluminum handles (expanding creative handheld possibilities) and a professional grade ball head providing full 360° rotation and 270° of tilt.

For all others, there is a one-time $25 (plus GST) insertion fee. Your ad will appear here and on the CSC’s website, www.csc.ca. If you have items you would like to buy, sell or rent, please email your information to editor@csc.ca.

The Visual Technology People

23 31

Canadian Canadian Cinematographer Cinematographer - March - April 2017 • | MISSISSAUGA | OTTAWA TORONTO CALGARY | EDMONTON

VISTEK.CA

PRODUCTION NOTES

12 MONKEYS IV (series)

DP David Greene csc, asc & Boris Mojsovski csc (alternating episodes)

to July 14

Toronto

A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS II & III (series)

DP Bernard Couture csc (alternating episodes)

to April 16, 2018

Vancouver

AMERICAN HANGMAN (feature)

DP Mark Irwin csc, asc 1st Assistant Tony Lippa

to June 12

Parry Sound

CAMPBELL II (series)

DP Michael Balfry csc

to June 6

Burnaby

CARDINAL: BLACKFLY II (series)

DP Dylan MacLeod csc Camera Operator Yoann Malnati 1st Assistant Brent J. Craig B Camera Operator Justin Beattie B Camera 1st Assistant Pierre Branconnier

to August 4

North Bay

CAUGHT (limited series)

DP Philip Lanyon

to August 4

St. John’s

CONDOR (series)

DP Steve Cosens csc B Camera Operator Sasha Moric

to August 15

Toronto

CRAWFORD (series)

DP David Makin csc Camera Operator Perry Hoffmann

to June 28

Etobicoke

THE DETAIL (series)

DP Davide Perrault csc

to June 25

Mississauga

DIRK GENTLY II

DP Samy Inayeh csc & Stephen McNutt csc, asc

to August 30

Burnaby

L’ÉCHAPPÉE II (series)

DP Marc Gadoury csc

to January 15, 2018

Montreal

GIRL, UNDERGROUND (TV movie)

DP David Fraser

to June 1

Toronto

GHOST WARS (series)

DP Thomas Burstyn csc, nzcs

to September 8

Vancouver

GREEN HARVEST (series)

DP Colin Hoult csc (alternating episodes)

to October 6

Toronto

HEARTLAND XI (series)

DP Jarrett Craig

to December 5

Calgary

HIT THE ROAD (series)

Camera Operator Greg Fox

to July 16

Burnaby

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS (TV Movie)

DP Russ Goozee csc

to June 6

Hamilton

LEAD, THE (series)

DP David Perrault csc

to July 25

Mississauga

LES PAYS D’EN HAUT III (series)

DP Jérôme Sabourin csc

to July 21

Montreal

LES SIMONES III (series)

DP Geneviève Perron csc

to June 3

Montreal

LITTLE ITALY (feature)

DP Thom Best csc

to June 26

Mississauga

MURDOCH MYSTERIES XI (series)

DP Yuri Yakubiw csc Camera Operator Brian Gedge 1st Assistant Kevin Michael Leblanc

to December 5

Toronto

PEOPLE OF EARTH II (series)

DP Jonathon Cliff csc Camera Operator Robert J. Barnett B Operator/ Steadicam Duraid Munajim

to July 17

Mississauga

SALVATION (series)

B Camera Operator/Steadicam Peter Sweeney

to August 1

Toronto

SCHITT’S CREEK IV (series)

DP Gerald Packer csc

to June 18

Toronto

SLEEPER (MOW)

DP Daniel Villeneuve csc

to June 23

Montreal

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN (series)

DP Michael Wale csc (alternating episodes)

to June 15

North Vancouver

STAR FALLS (series)

DP Kim Derko csc 1st Assistant Lem Ristsoo B Camera Operator Paula Tymchuck

to August 4

North York

SUITS VII (series)

Camera Operator Michael Soos

to November 15

Toronto

SUMMER IN THE VINEYARD (MOW)

DP Ron Stannett csc

to June 18

Burnaby

TOM CLANCY’S JACK RYAN (series)

B Camera Operator Alfonso Maiorana

VAN HELSING II (series)

DP Brendan Uegama csc

to June 16

Vancouver

WONDERFUL WORLD (TV movie)

1st Assistant Ciaran Copelin

to 14

Toronto

ZOO III (series)

DP François Dagenais csc

to June 16

North Vancouver

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Montreal

SEPTEMBER

JUNE

7-17, Toronto International Film Festival, tiff.net

10-11, CSC Tabletop Lighting Workshop, Toronto, csc.ca 11-14, Banff Media World Festival, banffmediafestival.com

OCTOBER

AUGUST

24-September 4, Montreal World Film Festival, ffm-montreal.org

Write to Us

www.csc.ca Connect online with the CSC

14, CSC Advanced Post Workflow Workshop, Toronto, csc.ca 21-22, CSC Lighting Workshop, Toronto, csc.ca

Follow us on Instagram to see featured full members' work @canadiancinematographer

Canadian Cinematographer welcomes feedback, comments and questions about the magazine and its contents. Please send your letters to editor@csc.ca. Letters may be edited for clarity and space.

@csc_CDN

MESSAGE TO THE CSC FROM A FACEBOOK MEMBER Just wanted to send you a personal 'thank you' for the CSC group. It's one of the most well managed, most friendly and informational industry groups I'm in. As a director, photographer and producer, it means a lot to be able to engage with CSC members whether it's for knowledge exchange or to learn a few things or two. So, kudos to you and all the other admins for the great work.

-Julie Laurin

32 • Canadian Cinematographer - June

2017

Pure Creativity.

Vision. Control. Freedom.

The versatility of the SkyPanel family in combination with new firmware features and a wide range of accessories brings your artistic vision into focus. SkyPanel‘s LED technology pushes the boundaries of what is creatively possible and allows for new and fantastic applications. The immense control options built into every SkyPanel provides the tool set needed to save time on set and gives you the freedom required during the creative process.

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The script calls for a cast of established stars.

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If there’s a film in your future, start casting for Sony at Vistek.

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The Visual Technology People

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