Cinematography World September 2021 (CW 005)

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THE ART AND CRAFT BEHIND THE CAMERA

ISSUE 005 SEPTEMBER 2021

INSIDE THIS ISSUE GEORGE RICHMOND BSC•CLAIRE MATHON AFC•ANDREW DROZ PALERMO•GEORGE GEDDES•RUBEN IMPENS SBC•PAUL CAMERON ASC HENRY BRAHAM BSC•MATTHEW WICKS•BENEDICT NEUENFELS AAC BVK•ELISHA CHRISTIAN•KASPER TUXEN DFF•RACHEL CLARK

ISSUE 005•CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

Editor-in-Chief RON PRINCE ronny@cinematography.world Special Consultant ALAN LOWNE alan@cinematography.world Editorial Assistant KIRSTY HAZLEWOOD kirsty@cinematography.world Advertising Manager CLAIRE SAUNDERS claire@cinematography.world Subscriptions & Social Media CHLOÉ O’BRIEN chloe@cinematography.world Web Manager IAIN HAZLEWOOD iain@cinematography.world Art Direction & Creative Kinda Stuff JAM CREATIVE STUDIOS adam@jamcreativestudios.com tim@jamcreativestudios.com

CONTACT US News hello@cinematography.world Ad sales & Subscriptions +44 (0) 1428 746 377 Artwork artwork@cinematography.world +44 (0) 1428 746 375 www.cinematography.world

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.

THE RIGHT STUFF

George Richmond BSC

Cinematography World is created by people who care about cinematography, and brings you more stories about more cinematographers than anyone else.

Ron Prince photo by Joe Short www.joeshort.com

Rascals Publishing & Media Ltd! Red Lion Yard, Odd Down, Bath United Kingdom BA2 2PP Tel: +44 (0) 1428 746 375

It is always the cinematographer’s job to work as a team player in service to the director and their vision.

In our first five print editions we have covered the work of more than 50+ DPs, working on a range of projects – from micro-budget independents to the biggest blockbusters.

And… there’s even more of the international cinematographic good stuff to come in our online channels and future print editions. If you have a project that you think is of note, please get in touch.

Also bringing you heaps of cinematographic nourishment, is the annual Camerimage Festival Of Cinematography. We have attended the stellar event no fewer than 17 times in a row.

Now, the organisers have given the world a first glimpse of what promises to be an impressive and iconic setting for the festivals of the future, as well as other cultural events, with the European Film Centre Camerimage (ECFC) in Toruń, Poland. Have a look at the 3D visualisations of the winning designs in our news pages and online, and you will see what I mean.

We send our best wishes to the Camerimage team, and their associates, for this ambitious new venture, and look forward to the time when we can be together again once again.

Stay tuned, keep safe and keep reading Cinematography World!

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 Burns has covered film, broadcast, VFX, animation and interactive design, in print and online, for 20 years, for publications including IBC Daily, Digital Arts, TVB Europe and Broadcast Tech.

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.

Ron Prince Editor in Chief ronny@cinematography.world

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.

Oliver Webb is a film graduate/freelance journalist based in Barcelona, and is the founder/editor of CloselyObservedFrames. His interests include screenwriting, British New Wave cinema and the works of Ingmar Bergman.

Cover: Ryan Reynolds star as Guy in 20th Century Studios’ Free Guy, shot by DP George Richmond BSC. Image courtesy/copyright of 2020 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

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CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 3

Beautiful look.

Full control.

ISSUE 005•CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

INSIDE

ISSUE 005 SEPTEMBER 2021

ZEISS Supreme Prime Radiance Lenses

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MARKUS ZEILER•VIEW FROM THE TOP

30 THE LAST BUS

PRODUCTION NEWS WHO, WHAT, WHEN & WHERE STUDENT UNION•ENS LOUIS-LUMIÈRE CLAIRE MATHON AFC•PETITE MAMON ANDREW DROZ PALERMO•THE GREEN KNIGHT GEORGE GEDDES•THE LAST BUS RUBEN IMPENS SBC•TITANE

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BENEDICT NEUENFELS AAC BVK•I AM YOUR MAN KASPER TUXEN DFF•THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD ELISHA CHRISTIAN•THE NIGHT HOUSE MATT WICKS•PEOPLE JUST DO NOTHING: BIG IN JAPAN DAVID SINFIELD•GAFFERS CAFÉ TAKE SCENE SLATE•IAN SEABROOK

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VIEW FROM THE TOP•MARKUS ZEILER

REALITY CHECK

With 104 years of history on its shoulders, ARRI has seen its fair share of crises over the past decades. However, the pandemic that hit us in March 2020 had an unprecedented impact, as it affected all business areas and all regions at the same time.

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ince Autumn 2020, business is seeing a steep revival with record highs in recent months. The tremendous global demand for content can compare to feeding light into a black hole. This is good news for our creative industry and its partners.

Due to travel restrictions and the need to reduce the density of people on-set, filmmaking is experiencing strong spins in new directions.

The remote operation of cameras and equipment is in stronger demand. Video distribution is not only required within near-set applications.

Productions are also ‘retreating’ to studios and, therefore, reducing the variety of shooting locations across the globe. Combined with the extensive coronavirus prevention measures in place, it is amazing to see how the industry has responded and adapted to the new normal. Will this leave a long-term change to processes? Yes, indeed.

At ARRI, we think of ourselves as toolmakers for creatives, and it is our mission to find reliable ways for filmmakers to create the best and most inspiring moving images. Sitting down with cinematographers and gaffers and learning about the challenges inherent with interconnecting technologies and handling quick set-ups, it became clear that we need to support this trend of synergy on-set. The interaction of all departments should be supported by interconnected technology. By no means should these interconnections result purely in automation; the freedom of creative choice with quick and reliable set-ups is the goal.

Over the past years, ARRI has stepped back from certain business activities, such as medical applications with digital imaging as well as postproduction services in Germany. Our focus lies in the capture process itself within cinematic, television and broadcast environments. Based on the requests we receive from the market, we see our role in producing holistic infrastructures and interconnections for modern filmmaking.

Within 18 months, mixed reality (MR) productions with active LED backgrounds have gained enormous traction; normally, this adaption rate would have required three times the amount of time and effort. Even though MR is not the Holy Grail, it is nevertheless a major step and a clear advantage in content creation.

Even though ARRI has been in the business of finding solutions for our customers since our inception, the ARRI Solutions Group is now an official part of our portfolio. Besides our experience with camera and lighting hardware, we have had dedicated system engineers for years, including architects, lighting designers and network specialists. Their focus had been on broadcast studios but has now been extended to include MR environments. ARRI has a number of on-set competencies that help boost the quality of future productions; colour science, metadata integration and studio integration, to mention a few. For example, looking at the Dark Bay LED Volume studio in Babelsberg, Berlin, we coordinated the overall technical integration of various disciplines.

From early-on, ARRI has been involved in the first major MR productions and has spent significant effort in connecting the dots on-set and getting reliable answers to the many outstanding questions. Mixed reality is a bit of an uncharted territory; however, we have learned a whole lot in building up those volume stages. We realise that by combining all disciplines in our company in order to help our customers. Additionally,

The global demand for content can compare to feeding light into a black hole creatives on MR sets report that the process for developing content is changing. Post needs to be pulled into the process. All departments are synergising their efforts even more and are directly involved with the capturing of content on-set or remotely. I would call this an agile development of creative content. Sometimes problem-solving techniques can be universal, and it’s evident that MR is acting as a catalyst for new ways of filmmaking.

How can we ride this huge wave of content demand without giving up the industry’s values of creativity, freedom and quality of work? This is a puzzle that has been keeping us busy for quite some time already.

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Nevertheless, we will continue to devote our strength to developing and manufacturing the best lighting fixtures and outstanding cameras systems. We won’t let go of our past achievements, and we will always strive for the best overall image quality.

There are enough challenges ahead, but these are very exciting times as well. Despite the roadblocks, demand for quality content is not going away. The future of our industry is bright!

Together with our clients and partners, ARRI is looking forward to exploring new vistas that technology and imagination make possible.

Markus Zeiler Executive Board member at ARRI

We are extremely proud to have supported Director of Photography Linus Sandgren FSF ASC, Gaffer David Sinfield, Rigging Gaffer Tommy O’Sullivan, Best Boy Dave Brennan and the entire Crew on No Time To Die.

MBSE Lakeside Road, Colnbrook, Slough, Berkshire SL3 0EL +44 (0) 1753 987 888 mbseco.uk Photo: Nicola Dove © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PRODUCTION & POST NEWS

LEADING DPs CALL ON PRODUCERS TO ADDRESS LONG WORKDAYS

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ourteen of Hollywood’s top cinematographers – including Oscarwinners John Toll ASC, Sir Roger Deakins CBE BSC ASC, Emmanuel Lubezki AMC ASC and Erik Messerschmidt ASC – have signed a letter urging member companies of the Alliance Of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) to address “the hazards of unsafe working hours” that have been common in the film and TV industry for decades. Their letter, which also was signed by John Lindley ASC, president of the International Cinematographers Guild, IATSE Local 600, says “the time to create meaningful change is now.”

The letter, obtained by Deadline and penned before the recent resumption of contract negotiations between IATSE and the AMPTP, notes that drowsy driving after workdays that can last 14 hours or more, have contributed to numerous accidents over the years, including one that occurred just before contract talks began in May. “We are Local 600 DPs who are writing to express our on-going concern about the hazards of unsafe working hours, a practice that continues despite all the medical and indisputable evidence of the harm caused by fatigue,” their letter said.

“Most notable are the numerous car accidents our colleagues have suffered in recent years, including

the weekend before we entered these negotiations.

“This past year has shown that when employers and craftspeople work together to confront a worldwide safety threat, it is possible to both protect everyone on our sets and successfully complete the most ambitious projects,” it added. “It is past time to use that same intelligence and resources, now proven to be available, to increase daily rest periods and implement weekend rest periods to ensure the physical and mental health of every member of the crew. The time to create meaningful change is now.”

The letter was also signed

by Paul Cameron ASC, Jim Denault ASC, Ellen Kuras ASC, Donald A. Morgan ASC, Rodrigo Prieto AMC ASC, Eric Steelberg ASC, Amy Vincent ASC, Mandy Walker ACS ASC and Robert Yeoman ASC. The letter is similar to a joint statement issued in August by the leaders of IATSE’s 13 West Coast studio locals, which included three with nationwide jurisdiction – Cinematographers Guild Local 600, Editors Guild Local 700 and Art Directors Guild Local 800. In their statement, they too said that it is time to end the industry’s long history of brutally long workdays.

“The science is clear,” the local leaders said.

“Long and irregular hours without adequate breaks and rest are unsafe. The negative impact on health and well-being is well-documented, and nobody should accept or defend 14-hour days without a break as an industry standard.”

CAMERIMAGE REVEALS ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPT FOR NEW EUROPEAN FILM CENTRE

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ustrian architecture studio Baumschlager Eberle Lustenau has won the competition for the architectural concept of the European Film Centre Camerimage (ECFC) in Toruń, Poland, which will, amongst other cultural events, hold the annual Camerimage Festival Of Cinematography.

The results of the competition were announced during a press conference organised at ECFC headquarters, attended

by Michał Zaleski, president of the city of Toruń, Marek Żydowicz, president of the Tumult Foundation and director of the EnergaCAMERIMAGE Festival, Kazimierz Suwała, director of the European Film Centre CAMERIMAGE, plus Bolesław Stelmach, director of the National Institute Of Architecture & Urban Planning, and chairman of the competition jury. Prof. Piotr Gliński, minister of culture, national heritage and sport, took part in the conference virtually.

The winner will receive a prize in the amount of PLN1,500,000 and an invitation to take part in single-source contract

negotiations to complete a service based on their competition design. No date for the opening of the centre has yet been given, but the construction is expected to take between three and five years.

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PRODUCTION & POST NEWS

LARRY SMITH BSC WELCOMED INTO ASC MEMBERSHIP

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inematographer Larry Smith BSC, who got his start working alongside Stanley director Kubrick and John Alcott BSC, has become a member of the American Society Of Cinematographers.

Born in London, Smith left school aged 15 to apprentice as an electrician, eventually working at Shepperton Studios. He subsequently worked with director Stanley Kubrick and cinematographer John Alcott BSC as an electrician on the acclaimed feature Barry Lyndon (1975), which won a Best Cinematography Academy Award and a spot on the ASC’s list of 100 milestone films of the 20th century.

Originally, Smith was only meant to stay on the project for a couple of weeks, but endedup continuing on it to completion. This became a pattern for him in what would become a long relationship with Kubrick.

Smith formed his own lighting company, Highlighting, and worked again with Kubrick and Alcott, this time as a gaffer, on the director’s next feature, the influential horror adaptation The Shining (1980), which also earned a spot on the ASC’s 100 milestone films list. Again, Smith was only meant to stay on the project for a short time, but saw the film through to its end, which further strengthened his relationship with the director.

Smith then focussed on his company and

began lighting commercials, which eventually led to working with as an operator, cinematographer and director.

His first feature as a DP was Kubrick’s final credit, the drama Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Smith’s other feature credits include The Piano Player (2002), Red Dust (2004), Bronson (2008), The Blue Mansion and Only God Forgives (2013). On the

HOLLYWOOD’S SUNSET STUDIO TO OPEN £700M STUDIO FACILITY

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he owners of Sunset Studios in Los Angeles and an investment firm have bought a 91-acre site in Hertfordshire for £120m. Subject to planning permission, the production centre would be built in Broxbourne, at an estimated over all cost of £700m.

Los Angeles-based studio owner and operator Hudson Pacific has joined with investment company Blackstone and hopes to transform Broxbourne into a world-class hub for UK and international productions. The companies anticipate it will “contribute £300m annually to the local economy” and could create up to 4,500 jobs.

James Seppala, head of Blackstone Real Estate Europe, said the development would

“deliver a world-class studio facility that will help ensure that the UK continues to be a premiere destination for content production globally”.

The UK government said it was “supporting” the development of such stage spaces across the UK. Oliver Dowden, Secretary Of State For Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, said: “This new studio is yet another vote of confidence in the UK’s booming film and TV industry.

“Through the British Film Commission, we’re supporting the development of stage spaces like this across the UK – boosting the local economy and backing our world-class creatives to make the next 007 Bond blockbuster or bingeworthy box set.”

If planning approval is given, Sunset is expected to be the largest film and TV studio campus in the UK, with between 15 and 25 sound stages. The group currently owns three studios in Hollywood and recently announced plans for a fourth, called Sunset Glenoaks.

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MONEY HEIST

action-drama Trafficker (2015), Smith served as the project’s director, co-writer and cinematographer.

Smith’s forthcoming work includes the forthcoming feature The Forgiven (2021) for which he selected Cooke Anamorphic/i lenses and the Sony Venice camera. See the full story about Smith and The Forgiven on our website at www.cinematography.world.

CAMERA TECH APPRENTICES PROGRAMME GETS GREEN LIGHT

SHOT ON SUMMILUX-C

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rom over 200 young hopefuls who came forward to lodge their interest in the new Camera Tech Apprenticeship Programme, 42 were invited to an activity and selection day event hosted at the London Screen Academy on 21 July 2021. In the coming weeks, 11 firm job offers for the first Camera Technician Apprenticeship will be made by nine industry companies including VMI, Pixipixel, Promotion Hire, CVP, Luna Remote, Brownian Motion, Alan Wells, Shoot Blue, Movietech and DV Talent.

The trainees have embarked on a two-year training programme, and will be trained to senior technician standard, without cost to them, whilst being fully-employed and being able to achieve a formal Level 3 NVQ industry qualification by August 2023. It is hoped the programme will be extended next year and will continue as a new formal route for youngsters to join the industry.

THE FINAL SEASON

Learn more at cvp.com/creativespace

PRODUCTION & POST NEWS

81 Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia, London, W1T 4PP

CVP/ARRI CREATIVE SPACE REOPENS WITH A NEW LOOK AND NEW GEAR

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VP has unveiled a new look-and-feel for its CVP/ARRI Creative Space, situated on Charlotte Street, in London’s Fitzrovia district. Following the reopening of Newman House earlier in the summer, both of CVP’s Fitzrovia showrooms are now back in full operation, with a refreshed look and dedicated areas allowing visitors to home-in precisely on their interests, as well acting as a hub for industry training, events, meetings, hot-desking and screenings.

Creative Space was launched in 2018 as collaboration between CVP and ARRI. Aimed at showcasing kit and encouraging creativity in a relaxed, modern and knowledgeable environment, the space is filled with the latest state-of-theart technology from ARRI. New-in is Hi-5, ARRI’s fifth generation ECS hand unit, providing wireless control of cameras and lenses, after nearly a decade of the ARRI WCU-4 dominating the market for electronic lens control systems. With a new and brighter display, Hi-5 comes weather-ready, operating in temperatures ranging from -20°C to +50°C. Additionally, its ability to adapt to new frequencies will help boost the need to be flexible on-set and on location.

“The CVP/ARRI Creative Space offers a unique destination right in the heart of London for the industry to gather, discover what is new and connect their creative vision with technology in a highly-personalised and engaging manner,” commented Aaron George, CVP Creative Space director. “We are curating a busy events agenda and continue to add new meet-ups and gatherings, with the vision of giving something back to the industry in the form of a dynamic and engaging space for our visitors to network and learn more about the latest

technology developments in the cinematographic field.”

The Creative Space is open to anyone wanting to test drive the latest ARRI solutions or to book a slot to use the facility as a Central London workspace.

ARRI PLANS NEW HQ IN NORTH AMERICA

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RRI Rental North America, provider of camera, lens and grip equipment, has announced plans to open a new headquarters in Long Island City, New York, during the first quarter of 2022. The facility will offer comprehensive equipment and services to customers, and serve as a creative hub for production communities in New York and the greater North Eastern region.

“The relocation to our North American HQ serves as another example of our dedication to supporting filmmakers in New York’s production scene, offering timely services and extensive support to our clients and creatives,” said Andy Shipsides, president of ARRI Rental North America.

“This also comes at a time when the production community is experiencing increasing demand and exponential growth. Our team is excited to offer their expertise at the new location, and we look forward to this new facility providing a valuable

resource for the community, with improved access to our industry-leading products and services.”

With a grand opening scheduled in the first quarter of 2022, ARRI Rental NYC will be the company’s largest facility in North America. The new location will bring together operations and personnel from ARRI Rental’s current Secaucus, New Jersey and Brooklyn facilities under one roof.

The existing locations will continue to operate and service clients until the move to Long Island City has been completed in early 2022.

The three-story space will feature ten large prep bays, four feature rooms, a machine shop, and a customer lounge, all designed to maximise the client prep experience.

The 42,000sq/ft facility will also include a creative space, and two 8,000sq/ft rooftop decks designed for hosting events, camera tests, product demonstrations, training and film screenings.

Filmmakers will have access to ARRI Rental’s full line of camera systems, lenses and grip equipment at the new location, such as the Alexa 65 and Alexa Mini LF cameras, DNA lenses and Hover Dolly.

NEW FIILEX Q8 COLOR 320W LED FRESNEL LAUNCHED

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iilex has launched Fiilex Q8 Color, a 320W 8” LED Fresnel that generates high-quality full-colour light output. This fixture uses the latest iteration of Fiilex’s Dense Matrix LED technology to deliver colour fidelity and optical versatility that are superior to previous generations of LED fresnels.

With an extremely wide spot/flood range of 12°-

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62° with no optical aberrations, smooth dimming to 0%, no flicker and high CRI white light output (2000-10000K), the Q8 Color combines the extensive feature set of top-tier RGBW LEDs with the performance of a Tungsten fresnel. Various colour control modes, including CCT, HSI, Gels and Effects are accessible via the fixture’s control pad, and modes support 8 and 16-bit DMX.

Certain solutions require a special kind of space.

C R E AT I V E S PA C E Designed as an exclusive space for networking, workshops and events, this exciting collaboration between CVP and ARRI presents the latest in ARRI technology including the Alexa Mini LF and Signature lenses.

PRODUCTION & POST NEWS

BLACKMAGIC DA VINCI USED TO COLOUR GRADE THE PROTÉGÉ

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orking out of Nu Boyana Post Production, colourist Vanessa Taylor delivered the grade on director Martin Campbell’s new thriller, The Protégé, shot by renowned British DP David Tattersall BSC, using Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve Studio pipeline to complete picture post.

The film, which stars Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Keaton and Maggie Q, tells the story of two world-class assassins who share a mysterious past. It rejoins the story when Anna’s (Maggie Q) mentor Moody (Jackson) is murdered. She and Rembrandt (Keaton) must form an uneasy alliance and return to Vietnam to track down his killer.

“It was fantastic to work with Martin and David, both creatives at the top of their game,” begins Taylor. “They were both on the same page in what they wanted, so the grade was easy in that respect.”

According to Taylor, a key focus was guiding the audience through the story. “Your eye will always be drawn to the brightest part of any picture, so by darkening or brightening areas, we led the audience through the narrative.”

“We gave a lot of attention to a motorbike scene featuring Maggie Q. In the sequence, camera angles are shot both forwards and backwards, capturing various colour temperatures on the camera’s digital sensor.

David and I worked closely on the balancing of this scene. We used a combination of primary and curve tools to achieve a match.”

One scene in particular that presented a challenge had a jungle monastery setting, says

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ujinon FujiFilm has signed up as the Australian Cinematographers Society’s (ACS) Major National Sponsor for a record-breaking thirteenth year. FujiFilm’s sponsorship of the ACS includes promotion and support of the ACS National HQ, being a major participant in all state and national awards ceremonies and providing support for Australian cinematographers all around the world.

PIXIPIXEL INVEST IN ROTOLIGHT TITAN FOR RENTAL

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Taylor, “We needed to balance the greens out to remove spill reflecting on Maggie Q’s face.

“As soon as I pushed the primary temperature warmer her lipstick pinged out.

This can happen with some lipsticks that contain fluorescent pigments. The digital cameras pick them up, making the lips appear too luminous.

I had to key her lips and alter the colour of her lipstick to make the correction.”

One feature in particular that Taylor likes about using DaVinci Resolve is the LUT ad to see results instantly. ““With the new colourmanaged workflows in Resolve, we’re using LMTs a lot, which is a look file similar to what you get in an ARRI camera. So, the ability to roll over a clip and load it onto the image you are looking at as a preview is very handy.”

Taylor concludes, “A colourist’s role is primarily to enhance. The more you try to push an image from its natural starting point the more digital the result. What we do is complimentary.

It’s the most beautiful images that are the easiest to grade.

“David did an amazing job in capturing the look and feel of this story, so I’m very pleased with the result. It’s a great looking film.”

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demand for high-performance large format cinema lenses that deliver high resolution and advanced scene-depicting capability.

Marc Van Agten commented, “Fujinon FujiFilm has been in harmonious partnership with the ACS for many years. The ACS is a wonderful society that serves its members and the entire industry with great dedication and professionalism.”

otolight has announced that camera, lighting, and grip rental house Pixipixel has added 40 Titan X2 and X1 cinematic lights to its inventory. Recent credits include TV dramas such as Behind Her Eyes (Netflix), I Hate Suzie (Sky) and Save Me Too (Sky Atlantic), as well as feature film The Courier starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

The Rotolight Titan family of LED soft lights utilises RGBWW technology to provide high-quality, colouraccurate light output, with the latest generation Lumenradio CRMX as standard. Featuring SmartSoft technology, users can electronically adjust Titan’s diffusion, focus and spread without the need for gels, whilst an intuitive, fast and responsive touchscreen display is designed to save time on-set.

Steve Knight, CEO at Pixipixel said, “The Rotolight Titan X2 panels are packed with numerous features that will be appreciated by cinematographers and gaffers, and the X1s are great for stills photographers and filmmakers.”

Gaffer Howard Davidson, recently joined Pixipixel after wrapping the period feature The Colour Room (2022, DP Denson Baker ACS NZCS), which he lit extensively with Rotolight Titan X1 and X2s throughout.

Davidson said, “The Rotolight Titans have been a workhorse, they just slid into my workflow on-set seamlessly and that was really important. Their CRMX implementation is fantastic, and the user interface is terrifically easy for people to use for the first time. I was super satisfied. The Titan punches above its weight.”

Rod Aaron Gammons, CEO of Rotolight added, “We’re delighted with Pixipixel’s investment in our Titan cinematic lights, and look forward to partnering with them to bring these fixtures to gaffers and DPs on their upcoming productions.”

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ACS national president Ron Johanson OAM ACS said, “The ACS is delighted that Fujinon FujiFilm have decided to continue their wonderful support for our society. Where do I even begin to let them know how much the support – ­ from Marc Van Agten personally and Fujinon FujiFilm as an organisation – has meant to the ACS. It would be a document of many chapters, all finishing with a resounding thank you.”

John Seale AM ACS ASC is using the Fujinon Premista 19-45mm wide-angle zoom lens on the new George Miller film Three Thousand Years Of Longing.

The last few years has seen an explosion in the use of Fujinon cine lenses by cinematographers around the world, first with the Cabrio series, then the MK series and most recently the Premista large format series This is in-part due to the rapid growth in popularity of movies made by cinematographers using large format cameras, which has boosted

ow Films Were Made And Shown, by authors David Cleveland and Brian Pritchard, has been digitally reprinted and is now available from localeastanglianbooks.com.

Originally produced in 2015, the 450-page tome contains over 620 B&W and 360 colour illustrations/images, and looks at how film cameras worked, how film was developed and printed with sound, and then projected – from the first animated pictures of the 1890s to the end of the 20th century.

Between them, the authors have a lifetime of practical experience of nitrate and safety film stocks, making films, laboratory practice, projection and archive work. Copies of the book are available at £60 including postage worldwide.

Ron Johanson

E

quipment rental provider Dynamic Rentals has opted this year to present its own, intimate indoor/outdoor event called ‘Dynamic Mini Gear 2021’ – primarily for local manufacturers, clients and partners – at its US Burbank facility, slated to take place on Thursday, September 23, 2021.

Dynamic officials are planning an educationfocussed event combined with appetisers, daylong bar and buffet-style dinner. Booth space is being offered to prospective attendees, along with meeting spaces, sponsorship acknowledgements, and more.

Anna Schmidt, Dynamic’s chief-of-staff, calls the event “a unique opportunity for high-end rental houses and manufacturers to meet locally in a safe and intimate way” to get out their messages and enjoy some real, in-person face time.

FUJINON FUJIFILM COMMITS HOW FILMS WERE MADE SUPPORT TO AUSTRALIAN CINEMATOGRAPHERS SOCIETY AND SHOWN

The company recently announced a new European location in Leipzig, Germany, adding to the company’s existing Copenhagen and Ashford (UK) operations. Along with its presence in Burbank, the firm also has North American outlets in Atlanta, New York, Seattle and Chicago, plus Auckland in New Zealand. Like all Dynamic locations, the new offices in Germany will stock considerable volumes of ARRI, Sony, Codex, Fujinon, Chrosziel, Cooke, Zeiss, Leitz, Red, Canon and Angénieux equipment among many other brands for sub-rental and leasing.

John Seale ACS ASC

DYNAMIC RENTALS UNVEILS MINI GEAR 2021 EVENT IN LA

PRODUCTION & POST NEWS

LOWEL DELIVERS BLENDER XL LED LIGHT

T

iffen’s new Lowel Blender XL LED lights are now shipping. The bi-colour Blender XL puts out a tuneable narrow flood beam up to four times the brightness of a traditional 1×1 panel light, yet its durable metal housing is compact enough to hold in one hand.

Blender XL’s design offers advanced engineering features to enable professional specifications, versatility, enhanced control and affordability. An array of surface-mount LEDs – 12 cool white/daylight and 12 warm white/Tungsten – produce 98 CRI/99 TLCI output. Each LED has its own 45-degree angle optical lens for pleasing light direction.

On the back, dual rotary knobs let users intuitively control the cool white (6000°K) and warm white (3000°K) channels to independently “blend” desired colour temperatures and enable full-range dimming.

Measured three-feet away at full strength, the Blender

XL can output 3796 Lux/656 FC. For softer lighting with more spread, the Blender XL comes with a professional drop-in diffuser.

The resulting shadow-free illumination helps light sources and colours blend seamlessly. In addition, a removable clear LED guard slides in front of the honeycomb of LEDs to add extra protection during

production.

Included is a switching power supply with US and EU cables, plus a D-Tap power cable to operate anywhere using standard, high-capacity batteries for long run times. Blender XL weighs 2lbs/9kg and measures 5.375H x 4.25W x 3.125D in. (13.65H x 10.8W x 7.9D cm).

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 15

WHO, WHAT, WHEN & WHERE

WHO, WHAT, WHEN & WHERE

Opposite: (top & below) Sergio Cesari; This page: (clockwise) Johan Aidt, Clive Tickner BSC (r) and Ilana Garrard.

PICTURE FRAMERS

Our regular round up of who is shooting what and where UNITED AGENTS: Remi Adefarasin BSC is prepping Secret Invasion for Marvel Studios. John de Borman BSC AFC has wrapped on Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, directed by Hugh Laurie for Mammoth.

Philippe Kress DFF is prepping Fate: The Winx Saga S2 with director Sallie Aprahamian for Archery Pictures/Netflix. John Lee BSC is prepping the latest series of His Dark Materials with director Harry Wootliff. Nic Morris BSC is grading We Hunt Together S2 for BBC Studios/ Showtime Networks. Mark Nutkins is shooting The Split S3 with director Dee Koppang O’Leary for Sister Pictures. Gavin Struthers BSC ASC is lighting Your Christmas Or Mine with director Jim O’Hanlon for Shiny Button Productions.

Alwin Kuchler BSC is shooting The Marsh King’s Daughter with director Neil Berger in Toronto.

Alan Almond BSC is available. Danny Cohen BSC is lighting Shane Meadow’s The Gallows

Pole for Element Pictures/BBC. Martin Fuhrer BSC is filming Holding, an adaptation of the novel

by Graham Norton, directed by Kathy Burke for ITV Studios. David Higgs has completed The Fantastic Mr Blunden directed by Mark Gatiss and is prepping Half Blood for Imaginarium Productions/Netflix, directed by Rachna Suri.

Kieran McGuigan is prepping the first block of The Capture S2 for Heyday Television/BBC. Laurie Rose BSC prepping Universal Pictures’ Rosaline. Bet Rourich is working on The English for BBC1/Amazon as second unit DP. John Sorapure has wrapped on Disney’s The Little Mermaid and is now prepping for Warner Bros’ Wonka as second unit DP. Simon Tindall is shooting the fourth block of Call My Agent for Bron Studios/Amazon.

Ollie Downey is shooting episodes 3, 5 and 7 of Amazon/Sister Pictures The Power, directed by Ugla Hauksdóttir and Lisa Gunning. Laurens De Geyter is shooting Hans Herbots’ latest feature,

ONE COMPANY – CAMERA & LIGHTING When you need rental kit and expert service, look to Pixipixel. With our friendly, experienced team and expansive inventory in both camera and lighting, we will support you all the way to make your production as smooth as possible. For a personal service, just talk to us.

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16 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

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in Belgium. Sam Heasman is working on Kudos/ Sky series You. David Rom is currently on Call My Agent. Simon Stolland is meeting for projects. Si Bell is shooting on Floodlights, directed by Nick Rowland for Expectation Entertainment/BBC2.

Sam Chiplin is reading and meeting. Charlotte Bruus Christensen DFF ASC is shooting Sharper, directed by Benjamin Caron, in New York. James Friend BSC ASC shot block 3 of Trapper Keeper, directed by Philippa Lowthorpe, for Barking Lion Productions/ Disney+ and is prepping the feature Conclave, directed by Edward Berger.

David Marsh is lighting Call The Midwife. Anton Mertens SBC is lighting a feature film in France.

Milos Moore is on Pennyworth S3. Neus Ollé AEC BSC is lighting Spanish TV series La Edad De La Ira. David Raedeker BSC has wrapped on Estuary. Niels Reedtz Johansen is shooting a drama series in Copenhagen. Kate Reid BSC is lighting blocks 1 & 2 of The Baby for HBO/Sister Pictures. Joshua James Richards is prepping his directorial debut. Ed Rutherford is lighting The Serpent Queen for Stacie Passon and Lionsgate Television/Starz. Anna Valdez Hanks has wrapped on Magpie Murders. Ben Wheeler is lighting block 3 of The Baby for director Faraz Shariat and Sister Pictures/Sky/HBO. Alex Barber shot a Paralympics project with Sam Pilling via Pulse Films, and a Heineken job in Portugal with director Pedro Martin Calero via Blink London.

Laurent Barés is shooting Gangs Of London S2 in London with Pulse films. Hatti Beanland lit a Quaker ad with Ed Morris at Riff Raff. Philipp

Alfred Thirolle worked with Moxie Pictures and director Henry Lu on a Google project in the UK. Joost Van Gelder shot with director Martin Krecji for DHL via Merman and lit a Ford TVC in Bucharest with Adam Berg via Smuggler. Haris Zambarloukos BSC GSC shot with Hungry Man for Direct Line with director Bryan Buckley.

Blaubach has been shooting on Bridgerton S2.

Daniel Bronks shot a Landrover ad with Gary Bryan and a Tesco spot with directors That Jam via Black Sheep. Simon Chaudoir filmed a Chanel project in Paris with Karim Sadli and a Kavinsky music video in Kiev for director Alex Courtes at 75 Paris. Sara Deane is shooting the feature The Infernal Machine in London. Brendan Galvin lit the feature The Plane in Puerto Rico. Stephen Keith Roach lit a Baileys TVC with Camilla Zapiola through Bold Films in London and a Kaufland project with director Jason Smith in Slovakia. Alex Melman worked with Vince Squibb on a Vodafone job though Academy. Diana Olifirova worked with Missing Link Films and director Florence Winter Hill on an AXA ad. Jake Polonsky BSC recently worked with Casey Storm on a Motorpoint job for Arts & Sciences London. Simon Richards framed a Santander spot with director Declan Lowney for Merman. Chris Sabogal worked with director Stuart McIntyre on a Budweiser job for Somesuch.

MCKINNEY MACARTNEY MANAGEMENT: Stuart Biddlecombe is shooting The Devil’s Hour for Amazon. Denis Crossan BSC and Alessandra Scherillo have been shooting commercials.

Seamus Deasy is prepping a project for Hallmark.

Sergio Delgado is prepping Fate: The Winx Saga S2 for Netflix. Mike Filocamo is shooting Elite in India. Gavin Finney BSC is prepping Good Omens S2 for Amazon/BBC. Jean Philippe Gossart AFC is filming The Witcher: Blood Origin for Netflix. Dale Elena McCready NZCS is making No Return for ITV. Sam McCurdy BSC recently shot Scriptures S1 in Canada for Warner Brothers. Andy McDonnell has finished on Call The Midwife S11 and is prepping Token for ITV. John Pardue BSC recently finished Signora Volpe for ITV Studios/Route 24. Chris Seager BSC has wrapped Amazon’s Carnival Row S2.2.

Mike Spragg BSC is shooting on Pennyworth S2.

Richard Stoddard is shooting Brassic S4. Robin Whenary is prepping Doctor Who in Cardiff.

INTRINSIC: In features, James Mather ISC continues on Joyride in Ireland for Subotica. Dave Miller

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27/08/2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 202112:07 17

WHO, WHAT, WHEN & WHERE

WHO, WHAT, WHEN & WHERE

Opposite: (top) Gareth Munden with grip Sid Jones (l) and director Benn Northover (r); (below) Nanu Segal BSC with Joy Gharoro Akpojotor on-set of For Love.

This page: Rachel Clark (l) and Mike Staniforth (r).

continues on Michael Sheen’s film Age Of Tony for Sigma Films and Nic Lawson is prepping a Marvel feature. In Glasgow, David Liddell lit Crime. Richard Donnelly is prepping for The Nevers S2. Tom Hines has finished on block 2 of The Chelsea Detective. Andrew Johnson has returned for more Holby City. Bebe Dierken shot a drama in Germany. Rasmus Arrildt DFF has been busy in his native Denmark. Gabi Norland lit live streaming performances by The Ballet Rambert.

Martin Roach, Gareth Munden and Lynda Hall have been lensing commercials.

is currently shooting Black Widow with director Simão Cayatte. Niels Thastum DFF is shooting the series Leonora with director Pernille Fischer Christensen. Maria von Hausswolff has wrapped on the feature Vandskabte Land with director Hlynur Palmason. Stuart Bentley BSC, Nicolas Canniccioni, Nadim Carlsen, MacGregor, Anders Malmberg, Christopher Miles, Michael Paleodimos, Will Pugh, Noel Schoolderman, Chloe Thomson BSC, Felix Wiedemann BSC and Sean Price Williams have all been busy in commercials.

LUX ARTISTS: Pat Aldinger, Tasha Back and Farhad Ghaderi have joined the roster. Steve Annis is prepping I’m A Virgo, directed by Boots Riley. Christopher Aoun BVK is shooting Sisi, a new series directed

by Sven Boshe. Autumn Durald Arkapaw is in prep for Black Panther 2. Tasha Back is shooting Girl, a feature directed by Adura Onashile. Eigil Bryld is shooting the series Extrapolations for Apple TV. Sebastian Blenkov is lighting The Kiss, directed by Bille August. Nicolas Bolduc CSC is prepping Martin Bourboulon’s film Les Trois Mousquetaires. Henry Braham BSC is shooting The Flash, directed by Andy Muschietti. Daniel Landin BSC lensed a John Lewis ad directed by Tom Kuntz. Natasha Braier ADFC ASC is lighting the feature, She Said, directed by Maria Schrader.

Justin Brown is prepping the Apple TV series Hello Tomorrow!, and shot a Burberry spot directed

by Megaforce. Guillermo Garza is shooting Rupert Wyatt’s new feature. Magnus Joenck is lighting Nicolas Winding Refn’s series Copenhagen Cowboy. Benjamin Loeb has wrapped on Sick Of Myself, directed by Kristofer Borgli. Adam

INDEPENDENT TALENT: Darran Bragg has wrapped on The Larkins with director Andy de Emmony. Ole Bratt Birkeland BSC is prepping Ol Parker’s Ticket To Paradise.

Bjorn Bratberg is filming The Devil’s Hour with Isabelle Seib. Caroline Bridges is shooting a new series of Silent Witness. Jordan Buck been busy shooting commercials for RSA, Tu with Leone Ward at Blink, and Virgin with Tash Tung. Chris Clarke shot spots for RSA and Spotify with How Alexander, plus Starbucks with Will Innes Smith at Prodigious. Oliver Curtis BSC is shooting Lockwood & Co. for Will McGregor. Ben Davis BSC is filming Martin McDonagh’s Banshees Of Inisherin. Anthony Dod Mantle DFF BSC ASC is prepping Style And Dignity with Marjane Satrapi.

Adam Etherington BSC is shooting Disney+ The Wedding Season series with director George Kane. Arni Filippusson is shooting Everything I Know About Love, with director China Moo-Young.

Kit Fraser shooting Babak Anvari’s I Came By. Sam Goldie shot a Porsche ad with Miika Vaso, and a Sonos spot with Armoury’s Marc Sidelsky.

Catherine Goldschmidt is lighting Red Gun for director Geeta Patel. Stuart Howell is filming The Peripheral with Vincenzo Natali. Suzie Lavelle ISC BSC is shooting on Conversations With Friends for director Lenny Abrahamson. Seamus McGarvey BSC ASC is prepping for Wonka with Paul King.

Andreas Neo lit ads for Discovery with Michael McKenna, Cinch with Lee Cheney, and Shutterstock with Jurian Booij/RSA. Aadel Nodeh Farahani is shooting the opening block of Tell Me Everything with director Richard Senior. Mark Patten BSC is lensing Mechanical with Morten Tylden. Stephan Pehrsson BSC is prepping Wednesday Addams.

James Rhodes is on block 4 of The Rising, directed

by Carl Tibbetts. George Richmond BSC is filming Matthew Vaughn’s feature Argyle. Christopher Ross BSC is prepping Shogun with Jonathan Van Tulleken. Ashley Rowe BSC is lighting Sandra Goldbacher’s The Reckoning. Oliver Stapleton BSC is doing Claire Scanlon’s The People We Hate At The Wedding. Maja Zamojda BSC is shooting a new series of The Wheel Of Time.

Newport-Berra is prepping Kindred for director Janicza Bravo. Rob Hardy BSC ASC lensed a Fendi ad directed by Luca Guadagnino. André Chemetoff has finished on Asterix & Obelix: The Silk Road, directed by Guillaume Canet. Ben Fordesman lit an NDA ad directed by Sam Brown.

Ari Wegner ACS is shooting Sebastian Lelio’s next feature The Wonder. Arnau Valls Colomer AEC is shooting The English, a series directed by Hugo Blick. Jody Lee Lipes ASC is filming Dead Ringers starring Rachel Weisz, written by Alice Birch. Jess Hall BSC ASC is shooting Chevalier, a feature directed by Stephen Williams. James Laxton ASC continues prepping The Lion King followup directed by Barry Jenkins. Anna Franquesa Solano is shooting Expatriates, directed by Lulu Wang. Matyas Erdely HSC shot a Confused.

com spot directed by Nicolas Fuglsig. Arnaud Potier AFC lensed a Hermes ad directed by Jonas Lindstroem. Lukasz Zal PSC is shooting Jonathan Glazer’s currently untitled new feature. Tom Townend is shooting Joe Cornish’s new Netflix series, Lockwood & Co. Rasmus Videbaek is on the next instalment of The Crown for Netflix. Bobby Shore CSC has finished on Conversations With Friends, directed by Leanne Welham. Krzysztof Trojnar is shooting second unit on 1989, directed

by George Belfield. Rina Yang lit Nikyatu Jusu’s feature Nanny. Leo Hinstin AFC is shooting Lisa Azuelos’ new feature I Love America. Ruben Impens SBC is lighting Felix van Groeningen’s next feature 8 Montagne. Nanu Segal BSC is prepping the TV series A Spy Among Friends, directed by Nick Murphy. Manel Ruiz shot a Migros Christmas TVC directed by Martin Werner. Mauro Chiarello has shot an NDA ad directed by Craig Gillepsie.

David Bird is shooting second unit for Gangs of London S2 with directors Corin Hardy and Marcella Said.

ECHO ARTISTS: Carlos Catalan is working on Amazon’s The Power, lensing episodes 4, 6 and 8 with director Shannon Murphy. Federico Cesca ASK is shooting HBO’s Industry S2 with director Birgitte Staermose.

David Chizallet AFC is lighting Dead Lions with director Jeremy Lovering for See-Saw/Apple TV. Rachel Clark has finished second unit duties on Daina O. Pusic’s Tuesday. Andrew Commis ACS is prepping on Michael Duignan’s film The Swifty.

Nick Cooke lit the short Bus-Girl with director Jessica Henwick. Ruben Woodin Dechamps has started on BBC feature film Silent Roar, with director Johnny Barrington. David Gallego ADFC is lensing Laura Mora’s The Kings Of The World.

Edgar Dubrovskiy shot the Sky documentary European Super League, with director Carl Hindmarch. Bonnie Elliott ACS is still working on Apple TV’s The Shining Girls with director Daina Reid. Charlie Herranz is working with directors Ben Rycroft and Johnathan Teplitzky on BBC’s We Hunt Together S2. Jo Jo Lam has started on feature film Playland Café, with director Georden West. Lachlan Milne ACS is shooting Elegance Bratton’s The Inspection. Lorena Pagès has wrapped on the film Truth Serum with sirector Vika Evdokimenko, and the short Walls Like Windows for director Werner Vivier. Korsshan Schlauer is prepping Tell Me Everything, with directors Marley Morrison and Richard Senior. Bartosz Swiniarski

18 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

VISION ARTISTS: Two new cinematographers, Kai Blamey and Luke C Harper, have joined the roster. Benedict Spence has graded Sister Pictures’ medical dramedy This Is Going To Hurt, starring Ben Whishaw and directed by Lucy Forbes. Dan Atherton has wrapped the Spanish leg of Well Street’s Top Boy, directed by Brady Hood, and is prepping episodes on Clerkenwell Films’ The Birth of Daniel F Harris with Alexandra Brodski. Nick Morris’ has wrapped the second block of BBC musical drama Superhoe. James Blann’s second

series of TV comedy Feel Good, directed by Luke Snelling, has arrived on all major platforms. JeanNoel Mustonen FSC continues on an NDA’d Finnish comedy series with director Pete Riski.

Evelin Van Rei has wrapped ITV’s Vera, directed

by Paul. Anna MacDonald is grading C4›s On the Edge for BlackLight, after recently wrapping the short, Festival Of Slaps, directed Abdou Cisse through BBC Films. Ryan Eddleston has wrapped the docu-drama Grav following the life of acclaimed Rugby player Ray Gravell, directed by Marc Evans. Kia Fern Little has been assisting Nick Morris in shooting second unit and additional photography for BBC’s Superhoe. Spike Morris has been shooting second unit on comedy series for Netflix. In commercials, Jaime FeliuTorres has been abroad for BRW, Mercurio and Pulse. Jim Jolliffe has been shooting in Australia with production outfit Nutopia.

James Watson lit fashion commercials with Chief and Kode. Arthur Loveday shot

fashion and food ads with DadBod and Pulse. Luke Scott has been lighting with collaborators at Independent. Jack Wilkinson returned to Amsterdam to shoot an NDA’d Water Bear doc. Jonas Mortensen has been lighting in music documentaries in Italy. Courtney Bennett shot beauty spots for Conde Nast. Ian Murray has lensed car commercials with Independent and Fresh Group. Martin Hill filmed food spots with Bold and Snapper. Tim Green has been lighting with Madam and Dan Tobin Smith.

BERLIN ASSOCIATES: Will Baldy is shooting Trapper Keeper (aka Willow) for Barking Lion Productions, with director Jamie Childs. Sarah Bartles Smith has wrapped Ray And Gaynor pilot with director Sandy Johnson. Nick Cox is shooting Compulsion for LA Productions in Liverpool. Len Gowing recently finished shot block 2 on The Bay S3 for ITV in Manchester with director Nicole Volavka.

Alvaro Gutierrez was on block 2 of Killing Eve S4, with Anu Menon directing. Annemarie Lean-Vercoe recently worked on Britbox/ITV’s Murder In Provence, with director Chloe Thomas.

Nick Martin has finished on Big Talk Productions The Offenders for BBC1 with director Stephen Merchant. Toby Moore recently shot block 1 of Call The Midwife S11, Silent Witness blocks 1 & 3 and Vera, S11, ep5. Trevelyan Oliver is shooting The Tuckers S2 for BBC Cymru. Tom Pridham worked on second unit for Trapper

Keeper. Benjamin Pritchard shot on McDonald & Dodds S3 for Mammoth Screen/ITV. Andrew Rodger shot some days on STAY CLOSE for Netflix with director Lindy Heymann. Pete Rowe has wrapped on Dodger for NBC Universal.

James Swift shot a block of Call The Midwife, S11 with director Noreen Kershaw, and is now on Kudos/ITV’s Grantchester S7 with directors Tim Fywell and Tom Brittney. Simon Walton recently shot Shetland S6, block 2 for ITV, with director Siri Rødnes. Matt Wicks is shooting Funny Girl for Potboiler with director Oliver Parker. Phil Wood has completed on Ragdoll for Sid Gentle Films/Alibi.

MY MANAGEMENT: Max Witting has joined the roster, whose work includes The Sleeping Field and The Ring Master with director That Jam, plus music videos James Blunt and JP Cooper. Carlos Veron lensed

Available at

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CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 19

WHO, WHAT, WHEN & WHERE

WHO, WHAT, WHEN & WHERE

Opposite: (top) Annemarie Lean-Vercoe shooting Murder In Provence (l) and Pete Rowe GBCT shooting Dodger; (below) Carlos Veron showing his fast feet (l) and Simon Walton shooting ITV’s Shetland (r); This page: Ahmet Husseyin on a shoot with his excess baggage (l), David Mackie (c) and Duncan Telford (r).

music videos for Shakira in Tenerife with Partizan director Warren Fu, Little Mix & Lola Aubrey with Camp Films director Samuel Douek, plus Michael Bublè with Yella Inc director James Larese. Tómas Tómasson is shooting action thriller TV series The Octet in Cairo with e-Productions/Mass Comm 98, directed by Ahmed Medhat. Petra Korner AAC is shooting His Dark Materials S3 for HBO/ BBC1 using Sony Venice cameras, with director Charles Martin. Todd Banhazl is still shooting HBO’s Showtime drama series Adam McKay. Chris Dodds filmed with Ben Hilton from 7A Films for Oka and Soho House, Remington AW21 with Simon Sorted, and a short film called Lilian with actor/director Cathy Tyson. Dominic Bartels continues his collaboration with Black Lab on a long running furniture campaign with director Marcus Thomas and has also been filming for beauty and fashion labels Rimmel, acclaimed fashion designer Richard Quinn, and Armani. Craig Dean Devine is shooting BAFTA award winning comedy Stath Lets Flats S3 directed by Andrew Gaynord for Roughcut TV. Filip Marek has been lensing spots in Prague for Radegast with Boogie Films’ director Juraj Janis, plus T-Mobile with Bistro Films’ director Marek Partys. Isaac Bauman is in Santa Barbara with Alfred Marroguin on America Express, followed by Mexico City for Taco Bell with Golden director Saman Kesh. Pete Konczal teamed up with Moxie director Travis Hanour in LA on Sleep Number then lensed with Ruth Hogben at Group Thrpy on Rem Beauty. Sam Meyer lit a Millionz music video with Meeks & Frost, plus a Dulux commercial with Kode director Jara Moravec. Agile Films director Tom Haines enlisted Sy Turnbull to lens on a Hayden Thorpe music

video in The Lake District. Nicolaj Bruel DFF was in Berlin with director Martin Werner on a TVC for Telekom through Czar films. Adric Watson shot with Prettybird director Josef Bates for artist Sam Thompkins and with Common People director Tommy Davis for artist Frank Carter. He also lens on a TFL production with Craig Bingham and flew to Iceland to shoot an art film with Jofridur Akadottir.

Ahmet Husseyin shot music videos for Dave & Stormzy with Lowkey director Edem Wornoo, Kali Claire ft Jvck James with Platoon director Grace Carrol, plus Skepta with Mastermind & Matt Walker. Jallo Faber FSF was in Mexico City with Jeff Low at Biscuit filming Hotels.com and in Mallorca with E+P director Andreas Hoffmann shooting Stepstone. Arnaud Carney worked with directors Luigi & Lango for Ashi Studio in Paris before heading to Cannes Film Festival for L’Oreal with director Masha Kondakova. Gaul Porat had a lens on Khalid’s song ‘New Normal’, which was premiered with a live performance at Virgin Galactic’s Unity 22 Spaceflight launch directed

by Andy Hines in LA. He also shot with Charlie Todd on Nike in NYC. Ekkehart Pollack shot for Mercedes in Spain with Czar director Bart Timmer & Peugeot with Quad director Jan Wentz. Tuomo Virtanen FSC filmed in Milan with The Family and director Luis Cervero and with BRW Filmland on a Mulino Bianco ad with Finnish director Vesa Manninen. Olivier Cariou enjoyed another Compare The Market shoot in Portugal with Passion Pictures director Dave Scanlon. Paul O’Callaghan has been filming with Sassy films on campaigns one for Audible with Floris Ramaekers and Longines with fashion photographer / director Koto Bolofo.

Congratulations to Todd Martin as his first

20 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

feature, The Novice, directed by Lauren Hadaway, was awarded Best Cinematography alongside Best US Narrative Feature at the 2021 Tribeca Festival.

Lee Thomas has been busy with drone filming, and lensed with Across The Pond director Carol Brown on a spot for Google Workspace. Darran Tiernan has wrapped on Netflix Original’s The Lincoln Lawyer crime series, and is now on HBO’s action comedy Barry S3. Jo Willems ASC recently lens with Nicolai Fulsig at MJZ on an Allied Bank TVC. Daisy Zhou teamed up with director Charlotte Rutherford for a shoot in New York for Urban Decay, plus Prada in LA directed by Martine Syms.

David Lanzenberg has started prep with director Tim Burton on Wednesday Netflix’s live-action spin-off series from the Addams Family. Ian Forbes teamed up with director Dean Puckett to shoot a BFI-funded short called Seagull in Devon. Robbie Ryan BSC ISC is shooting Poor Things, a romantic Victorian sci-fi releasing next year, in Budapest with director Yorgos Lanthimos, starring Emma Stone, William Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo. Atlanta is where Jon Chema has been shooting with Hungry Man director Amir Farhang for Home Depot and with Love Boat director Elena Parasco.

Laurence Fishburne.

Duncan Telford has completed the new series of The Cockfields.

Sean Francis shot some second unit DP dailies on Man vs Bee, starring Rowan Atkinson for House Sitter Productions.

George Amos is operating on Masters Of The Air for Amblin TV. Andrei Austin ACO Associate BSC SOC is operating on The Man Who Fell To Earth, directed by Alex Kurtzman. Jon Beacham ACO has wrapped second unit of The School Of Good And Evil and is now in Iceland on The Lark. Danny Bishop ACO Associate BSC SOC is doing dailies on Citadel. Sergio Cesari, a new addition to the agency, recently worked on His Dark Materials. Ed Clark ACO has also been working dailies on Citadel, plus Pistol, The Power and Red Gun. James Frater ACO SOC is in Berlin on John Wick 4. Ilana Garrard ACO was in Turkey operating on The Swimmers for Netflix. Zoe Goodwin-Stuart ACO worked on The Rising, and has started prep on Wonka. James Leigh ACO is operating on the new series of Sanditon. Will Lyte

ACO is also in Iceland working on The Lark. Vince McGahon ACO Associate BSC continues on See Saw’s Embankment which stars Gary Oldman.

Julian Morson ACO Associate BSC GBCT is on the much-anticipated 5th instalment of Indiana Jones. Aga Szeliga ACO continues on HBO’s Red Gun. Tom Walden Associate ACO is A-camera/ Steadicam operator on The Midwich Cuckoos for SnowedIn Productions. Rick Woollard operated Steadicam on commercials for Outsider, a McDonalds ad for Object & Animal, and a Paddy Power job for Stink.

PRINCESTONE: Of the agency’s camera/Steadicam operators…

Peter Robertson Associate BSC ACO is prepping on Warner Bros. Wonka, directed by Paul King, with DP Seamus McGarvey BSC ASC. Nic Milner is second unit DP/Operator on The Peripheral for Amazon Studios/Warner Bros, directed by Vincenzo Natali. Sean Savage Associate BSC ACO SOC is shooting on Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom. Joe Russell ACO is working on Red Gun at Leavesden Studios with DP Fabian Wagner. Cosmo Campbell ACO is shooting on The Power series for Amazon Studios, with director Reed Morano and second unit DP Carlos Catalan.

Dan Nightingale ACO is shooting Sherwood, a six-part BBC drama, directed by Lewis Arnold.

Ian Ligget is the DP on BBC’s Horrible Histories.

SARA PUTT ASSOCIATES: Emily Almond Barr is lensing a block of Sanditon for Red Planet Pictures and director Charles Sturridge. Giulio Biccari has wrapped on his last block of Stay Close for Red Production Co. Yinka Edward has returned from Nigeria where he shot a project called Damages. Sashi Kissoon has graded Death Of England. David Mackie was second unit DP on Netflix’s The School For Good And Evil, starring Charlize Theron and

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 21

WHO, WHAT, WHEN & WHERE

This page: (top) Sean Francis with the camera on his shoulders; (below) Petra Korner on a recce for His Dark Materials.

Simon Baker ACO is prepping on The Crown S5, Peter Wignall ACO is shooting dailies on Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom and Mission: Impossible 7. Matt Fisher ACO has finished shooting Disenchanted in Dublin for Disney Films with DP Simon Duggan ASC, and now shooting dailies on Conversations With Friends. Fabrizio Sciarra SOC Associate BSC GBCT ACO finished on Dungeons & Dragons in Belfast with DP Barry Peterson, and started the live-action series of The Addams Family, directed by Tim Burton.

James Layton ACO is shooting Lockwood & Co, directed by Joe Cornish, with Tom Townend the DP. Rob Hart ACO is the DP on Consecration a supernatural thriller is filming in London and the Isle of Skye, using Alexa Mini and Cooke S4s.

Tony Kay ACO is shooting on Mammals, the comedy drama directed by Stephanie Laing via Fulwell 73. Dion Casey is shooting dailies on Amazon’s The Offenders S2. Tony Jackson ACO is filming dailies on Matilda, an adaptation of the award-winning musical, for Netflix, is directed

by Matthew Warchus. Diego Rodriguez was the DP on Juventus, a documentary following the football team through the entire 2020-21, part of the All or Nothing series on Amazon Prime. Diego is also the DP on Among The Stars, a documentary inside NASA for Disney Plus. Thomas English is the second unit DP on The Pentaverate, a Netflix comedy series for Netflix, directed by Tim Kirkby, written by Mike Myers. Thomas also did dailies as a Steadicam Operator on Mission: Impossible 7.

Michael Carstensen ACO is shooting the Disney + TV series Willow with DP Stejn Van Der Weken SBC, starring Warwick Davies. Junior Agyeman Owusu is shooting dailies on the UK version of Call My Agent, with DP is Baz Irvine BSC. Tom Wilkinson ACO is shooting on the next series of Amazon Studios action thriller Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan with DP is Richard Rutowski ASC. WIZZO & CO: Chas Appeti and Carmen Pellon Brussosa have joined the agency. Chas recently wrapped an embargoed Amazon Original drama, and Carmen’s short film Opal directed by Kirsty McLean is playing at festivals worldwide. Nicola Daley ACS is prepping Netflix’s Half Bad alongside director Debs Patterson. Susanne Salvati recently wrapped a BBC drama directed by Bruce Goodison. Franklin Dow shot a documentary about the Olympics in Tokyo. Adam Gillham is shooting an embargoed drama. Matthias Pilz is shooting with director Henry Blake on Red Rose.

Charlie Goodger is shooting alongside Jim Archer on Big Boys. Haavard Helle has wrapped feature The Lonliest Boy directed by Martin Owen. Ryan Kernaghan has finished Karen Pirie, directed

by Gareth Bryn. Richard Mott continues on the drama Our House, directed by Sheree Folkson.

Karl Oskarsson IKS has completed Netflix Original Man Vs Bee. Aaron Reid is lighting an embargoed ITV drama directed by Paul Andrew Williams. Oli Russell is prepping Riches for ITV. Molly Manning Walker is shooting an embargoed feature directed by Charlotte Regan.

Steven Ferguson has wrapped Chloe for director Amanda Boyle. Jan Richter-Friis DFF is shooting Fear The Walking Dead in Mexico. Seppe Van Grieken SBC has wrapped The Midwich Cuckoos alongside director Jennifer Perrott, Nick Dance BSC has wrapped Gentleman Jack S2. Ben

Magahy continues on an embargoed feature documentary directed by Mary McCartney.

Luke Bryant is shooting The Lair for director Neil Marshall. Hamish Anderson is shooting BBC’s Get Even S2. Gary Shaw has wrapped the opening block of His Dark Materials S3. Sverre Sørdal FNF is shooting feature Defekt, directed

by Malou Reymann. Tim Sidell has graded Peter Strickland’s Flux Gourmet, and shot short film The Bower directed by Marco Alessi. Antonio Paladino has graded the opening episodes of Deppelhaushälfte. Christophe Nuyens SBC has concluded his embargoed drama. Fede Alfonzo shot with Ben Fogg, Will Bex with Tubby Brothers,

Joe Douglas with Josh Cohen and Theo Garland with Jack Cole. Arran Green shot with Dalia Dias. Patrick Meller shot with director Billy Boyd Cape. David Procter shot with Ne-O and Murren Tullett shot with Zac Ella.

WORLDWIDE PRODUCTION AGENCY: New BSC member, Mattias Nyberg BSC continues principal photography on Amazon/ Vertigo Pictures’ six-part comedy Mammals with director Stephanie Laing. Baz Irvine ISC BSC, also a new BSC member, has grades the first block of Amazon/Bron Studios/Headline Pictures’ UK version of Call My Agent with director John Morton for Amazon, Bron Studios, and Headline Pictures, and is doing second unit photography with director Marc Evans on the Netflix action-thriller Havoc, starring Tom Hardy. Ed Moore BSC shot the first block of The Birth of Daniel F. Harris with director

22 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

Alex Winckler for Clerkenwell Films/C4. Ed is now prepping ITV’s four-part drama Nightingale with director Jim Field Smith. Stephen Murphy ISC BSC has graded the horror thriller No One Gets Out Alive for Imaginarium Productions/Netflix.

Tony Slater Ling BSC is shooting Stephen Moffat’s thriller Inside Man with Paul McGuigan for BBC1/ Netflix/Hartswood Films. Vanessa Whyte has graded AppleTV+’s Ted Lasso S2 with directors Matt Lipsey and Sam Jones. Robert Binnall is shooting second unit on the espionage drama Brussels, co-run by Ringside Studios in the UK and Leonis Productions in France. Manoel Ferreira SASC is shooting S2 on the Netflix drama Fate: The Winx Saga in Ireland with director Ed Bazalgette at Archery Pictures. Callan Green, ACS NCZS has wrapped on the noir thriller Barracuda in Greece, starring Antonio Banderas, directed by Richard Hughes. Ruairi O’Brien ISC continues principle photography on the final block of Amazon’s The Power with director Neasa Hardiman. Arthur Mulhern continues on C4’s prison drama Screw, with Tom Vaughn directing the opening block.

Andy Hollis is shooting with Mackenzie Crook Worzel Gummidge S2 for Leopard Pictures/ITV. Marc Gomez Del Moral continues principal photography in Milan on Sky Studios’ series Blocco 181. Catherine Derry has wrapped the romantic comedy A Christmas Number One with director Chris Cottam and Genesius Pictures for Sky Original Cinema. Thomas Hole recently worked on spots for Pizza Hut spot with POPS and director Ed Rosie, and Barclays for Rogue Films and

director Charlie Watts. Jake Gabbay lit a spot with director Paul Gore for Matchesfashion with Iconoclast, and worked with Agile director Dumas Haddad on Lola Young’s latest promo. James Whitaker shot with Dog Eat Dog director Iain Morris on a spot for DiDi, plus McDonalds with director duo Bert and Bertie at Object & Animal.

Benjamin Todd shot a TVC for Samsung with Radical Media and director Rosey in Kiev, and for Renault in Barcelona with director Bicep and Eddy.

Marcus Domelo wrapped up a spot for Samsung with Cylndr and director Matt Posner. Adam Barnett is shooting the short Break 22 with OB Management and director Thomas James. Jaime Ackroyd has wrapped on the feature documentary Super Eagles with director Yemi Bamiro in Nigeria.

Dan Holland continues shooting with director Keith Schofield on a spot for Argos via Biscuit.

STUDENT UNION•ENS LOUIS LUMIÈRE

ENS LOUIS LUMIÈRE•STUDENT UNION

MODERN TRADITION

Opposite: ENS Louis-Lumière’s Cité du Cinema campus; This page: students at work and enjoying a special visit from the renowned Chris Doyle HKSC.

ENS Louis-Lumière offers well-known training for DPs and sound engineers – that’s what we do best

By Natasha Block Hicks

T

he École Nationale Supérieure (ENS) Louis-Lumière was founded in 1926 by a collective of motion picture pioneers, including Louis Lumière and Léon Gaumont, with the specific intent of training film crews for their burgeoning industry. The school has not strayed far from this primary objective in the ensuing near-century. Natasha Block Hicks meets Vincent Lowy, director of the second oldest film school in the world.

“We’ve always been a school for technicians,” emphasises Lowy, keen to convey that, despite some heavyweight directing alumni – such as Fred Zinnemann, known for From Here To Eternity (1959, DP Burnett Guffey ASC), Jean-Jacques Annaud, director of Seven Years In Tibet (1997, DP Robert Fraisse) and Gaspar Noé, who left an indelible impression on the industry with Irréversible (2002, DP Benoît Debie SBC) – prospective directors should focus their applications on ENS Louis-Lumière’s sister school La Fémis (the École Nationale Supérieure Des Métiers de l’Image Et Du Son).

“ENS Louis-Lumière has a very well-known training for DPs and sound engineers and that’s what we do best,” continues Lowy. “It makes us a very specific school and complimentary to La Fémis because that is the school for authorship: for directors, writers and producers, which they do very well.”

Both schools are part of the French higher education system. As such, students attending ENS Louis-Lumière pay no more than a few hundred Euros towards the cost of their three-year masters degree.

Candidates are expected to have completed two years of higher education and must be under the age of 27 on January 1st of the year of their prospective enrolment. Places are awarded via a competitive entrance examination, or ‘concours’, and every year several hundred candidates vie for one of only 48 places, split equally between the departments of Cinema, Photography and Sound.

“I probably couldn’t win a place myself,” laughs Lowy, “but for those that do, there are great benefits.

The best training and wonderful facilities.”

The Cinema department educates students in the key disciplines associated with the role of director of photography, such as lighting, operating, digital imaging and colour grading. The course objective is to graduate production-ready DPs as well as individuals who could carve themselves a career in the ever-evolving science of the moving image. 2008 alumna Céline Tricart, for example, is renowned as a stereoscopic 3D and VR specialist, writing and directing her own virtual reality works, who was called-in for her 3D expertise on Hollywood productions such as Transformers: The Last Knight (2017, DP Jonathan Sela).

“We have a high level of science training,” explains Lowy, “so we can send students not just onto set, but on to a PhD or into research in this field.”

undertake an internship, working professionally in a production or post-production company.

Based since 2012 in the Cité du Cinéma, a large studio complex in Saint-Denis to the north of Paris which was originally conceived

by French director Luc Besson, the ENS Louis-Lumière enjoys state-of-the-art facilities and equipment. This includes: two 230m² sound stages with professional lighting, grip and greenscreen; six editing suites; multiple post-production stations offering VFX; and a Digital Cinema Package (DCP) manufacturing station. Students can grade their films large-size in the screening theatre. Uniquely, they also have access to the Image and Sound Science Unit, which is a collection of three laboratories exploring optics, colour science, photochemistry and sound.

The school owns its own industry-standard digital production cameras, such as ARRI Alexa Studio, Sony Venice, Panasonic VariCam LT and Phantom HDGold, plus students can use film cameras such as the

The production of cinematographic images is at the heart of studies on the Cinema programme – every student acts as DP in at least one complete in-house production during their time at ENS Louis-Lumière.

Students also explore other roles within camera and lighting crews, like operator and gaffer, and test their skills at producing, writing, directing and editing, largely to facilitate the production of moving images, but also to explore the unique relationships of each of those creative roles with the DP. Each student will also

35mm Moviecam SuperAmerica and S16mm Aaton A-Minima on their productions. Manufacturers like Sony and Zeiss present their equipment at the school, and students also visit facilities such as the Angénieux optics factory near Saint-Étienne, where the ubiquitous zoom lenses are manufactured.

Teaching is delivered by a core of full-time staff supported by a host of visiting tutors. Regular masterclasses expose students to the experience and knowledge of professionals already at work within

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the industry. This could be an evening Q&A with a high-profile DP such as Edward Lachman ASC who shot Carol (2015), Darius Khondji AFC ASC known for Delicatessen (1991) or Stephen Goldblatt ASC BSC whose credits include The Help (2011). Or even a “rencontre confinée” (close encounter), a YouTube series of online Q&As, analyses and dialogues created during the pandemic featuring DPs such as Agnès Godard AFC, known for her long-running collaboration with director Claire Denis on films such as Beau Travail (1999), alumna Claire Mathon AFC discussing her work on Portrait Of A Lady On Fire (2019), and 2013 graduate Jonathan Ricquebourg AFC, who gained recognition for his work on The Death Of Louis XIV (2016).

Members of the French Society Of Cinematographers (AFC), many of them ENS LouisLumière alumni themselves, visit the school to give longer practical workshops. For example, 1999 ENS Louis-Lumière alumna Pascale Marin AFC who shot Passade (2017) and Claude Garnier AFC whose credits include Gang Of The Caribbean (2016), have been recent visiting tutors.

“People from the French film industry are very generous with their time,” says Lowy. “DPs from the

AFC, electricians and camera crew give workshops and assist students on their short films. They are not the international stars, but actually the French tradition is for film crews to be very humble. We assist, we support the creators. Our students are very well known for that.”

Industry professionals and the ENS Louis-Lumière alumni network continue to support students into their working years. “The AFC members will sometimes sponsor our students,” explains Lowy, “and the alumni often hire them. We have a strong connection with the industry. There are ex-students everywhere.”

ENS Louis-Lumière alumni often gain recognition

for their work. There are the high-profile DP alumni such as BAFTA-winner Eduardo Serra ASC AFC, known for Blood Diamond (2006) and César-nominee Benoît Delhomme AFC who shot The Theory Of Everything (2014). In 2021, French-Mexican DP Pamela Albarrán received the Pierre Angénieux Tribute honour for an upcoming DP. Albarrán studied her craft at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC) in México, but then took a one-year course at ENS Louis-Lumière.

The CCC is one of a number of schools, both in France and internationally, with whom the ENS Louis-Lumière has been building relations over recent years. The benefits are manifold. Cinema students, for example, will act as DPs on productions for institutions training directors, screenwriters and producers, such as La Fémis and the Kourtrajmé school, a new suburban film school providing training to Paris’ most underprivileged citizens.

In the other direction, students from the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français (CLCF) will act as assistant directors to ENS Louis-Lumière students on their productions. ENS Louis-Lumière is signed up to Erasmus+, but the scope of this networking goes further.

Students can now opt in to a fourth year, travelling to international partner schools to help teach other film students their craft. The intention of this inter-school partnering is to deepen students’ learning, help them build their own cross-border network of contacts and broaden their cultural outlook.

Supporting students to enact necessary change towards a more inclusive and diverse industry is a role taken seriously by ENS Louis-Lumière.

“I took the office in 2017, just when the #MeToo movement happened,” remembers Lowy, “and now the gender inclusivity is very impressive. There’s a new maturity and it brings a lot of change on the set.”

As well as ensuring a fair proportion of female DPs amongst the visiting tutors, the ENS Louis-Lumière arranges a yearly start-of-the-semester visit from the coordinators of Paye Ton Tournage, for antidiscrimination awareness training with the students.

Paye Ton Tournage is a tumbler account collecting anonymous witness statements of sexism and discrimination at play on film sets.

“It’s very important because it gives students a lot of things to think about at the very beginning of their training,” emphasises Lowy. “Nowadays to be a great DP is not a matter of domination, it’s a matter of collaboration and respect.”

On 27th November, ENS Louis-Lumière will hold an Open Day via its Facebook page, discussing the ‘concours’ and what newcomers can expect from their first weeks at the school. Applications for the 2022 intake open in December.

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 25

CLAIRE MATHON AFC•PETITE MAMAN

PETITE MAMAN•CLAIRE MATHON AFC

SPELLBINDING

This page: (below) DP Claire Mathon AFC on-set, plus stills from Petite Maman

By Oliver Webb

A

s eight-year-old Nelly copes with the loss of her grandmother, she befriends a girl her own age building a tree house, who looks astonishingly like her. There’s an immediate spark between the two of them that runs deeper than their remarkable physical resemblance. Nelly’s new-found friend shares the same name as her mother, Marion, and could even be her living embodiment.

Beautifully-shot in colourful, autumnal hues and framed with emotional poignancy by Claire Mathon AFC, in her second collaboration with writer/ director Céline Sciamma, Petite Maman is a magical, heartwarming tale of bereavement and childhood. The critically-acclaimed feature had its world premiere at the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival, and screens at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2021.

both outside and on stage.

I worked with the light as if was writing as a musical score, with very precise conductorship sequence-by-sequence. Every moment had to be unique and particular. I tried to recreate the real richness of natural light whenever the story became more intense and magical than usual.

Petite Maman was shot during the height of the Covid pandemic. How did this impact prep and shooting?

Céline and the producers created a shooting environment that was perfectly feasible and perfectly safe to shoot in during the Covid pandemic – a small crew, very few sets, no extras and very few characters. Except for the facemasks, which was a pity as sometimes they got in the way of connecting and communicating simply with children.

Where did you train as a cinematographer?

I graduated from the French cinema school, the ENS Louis Lumière in Paris, and I did my first longform feature film 15 years ago, Pardonnez-Moi (2006, dir. Maïwen). I am a member of the AFC, the French Cinematographic Society.

What were your working hours like during production?

We had long period of preparation every day, fixing everything, adjusting the lights and the lighting effects in different places, before we shot a short day with the girls.

Tel us about your DP heroes?

Firstly, Nestor Almendros. The diversity of his collaborations and his work with natural light is a huge inspiration and an inexhaustible model. When I began to work as a young DP, I had a great admiration for the DPs closest to me: Agnès Godard AFC, Harris Savides ASC, Eric Gautier AFC. Their gaze, their way of framing, of moving the camera, their sensibility to serve the story of the film touched me, inspired me, and still does. .

How did you get involved with Céline Sciamma?

We first met before the shooting of her film Tomboy (2011, DP Crystel Fournier AFC), but it did not work out. Later Céline offered me the chance to work on Portrait Of A Lady On Fire (2019). It was obvious that we had a very strong common desire to collaborate, and Petite Maman is our second production together.

What were your initial conversations with Céline about the look of Petite Maman? What did she want to achieve?

First of all, Céline talked to me a lot about sensations, about the colours of autumn, about the forest of her childhood. She wanted to film an intimated, suggested “journey through time”. Céline was talking about this being a simple and magical film. From the beginning, she had the desire to shoot all of the interiors on stage, to create one custom-made house in order to invent an intimate space for this meeting, for this time shared, between Nelly and her little mother.

She also wanted not to mark the time, to erase the epoch. The idea was to capture what the two characters share more than what separates them.

Céline wanted a child from 2021 to be as if they were a child born in 50, 70 or 80 years ago... that can be projected into the spaces of the film. It was important for Céline to create this common epoch.

Céline wanted to create a film that was as much for children as for adults, at the level of the child spectator as well as the adult spectator who once was a child.

What creative references did you look at?

The Japanese animators Hayao Miyazaki and Mamoru Hosoda were amongst our references. Of course, it wasn’t literal as they create animated feature films. But we were inspired especially by the visual way of telling the story through a mixture of magic and simplicity through ‘La Ligne Claire’, the cartoonish appearance of solid, uniform colours, realistic backgrounds, with minimal shading and blending.

Other important references were the intimate places in Céline’s own life, such as the apartments of her grandmothers and especially for their textures and colours of things like wallpapers and carpets.

For my part, I was also very inspired by the play of light in different houses surrounded by nature. When collaborating on the image of a film it is also a story of shared taste.

What did these creative references inspire aesthetically?

For sure it was the expressiveness of light, plus the importance and the richness of colour in the image.

The rigour of creating the frames and also the simplicity in reading them. I tried not to be not too naturalistic.

For example, we sought to bring a little more décor to the exterior shots in the forest of Céline’s childhood. We wanted a flamboyant autumn which required many interventions, such as removing the leaves which were too green, and covering the ground

26 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

with autumnal leaves. This is where we became a little cartoonish in the use of colour, playful, joyful and expressive. There’s a light blue to the night. We immediately read it as night, but everything is clear and we can especially see the faces without shadows.

Throughout the film the camera is at Nelly’s eyelevel, which helps the audience to understand and see the world from her perspective. Other characters are often obscured in the framing due to this. What were your choices behind the framing, and how important were these in conveying Nelly’s story?

Working at child height was important, but so to was the height of Nelly’s imagination. We tried to make our scenery – the cabin, the forest and the

house – playgrounds for Nelly’s imagination. And, we also wanted to keep pace with her rhythm, with her way of discovering the places. From the beginning to the end, the camera movements follow with a distance that seeks to be more mental than physical. In many scenes, adults must sit or kneel to be in Nelly’s frame.

What cameras, lenses and aspect ratio did you choose?

I chose the Red Monstro and Leitz Thalia lenses to capture the natural richness of the autumn colours in our outdoor scenes, and the Alexa LF with the Leitz Thalias for the interiors, where I favoured the softness of low lighting and the intervention of colour provided by decoration of the stage sets. The Leitz Thalia lenses bring a certain softness, but retain precision over all elements in the image, especially in the textures and on the skins. We chose large format cameras for same the depth-of-field that we liked when we shot Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, feeling the environment but always focussing on the characters. The simplicity of 1.85:1 aspect ratio was perfect for that. It was a single camera shoot and I operated on all of the shots.

Did you work with a colourist on-set?

No, I didn’t. But I collaborated with Jérôme Bigueur, the colourist of Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, during production and post production. Notably, he enabled me to visualise ACES (Academy Color

What were the biggest challenges on this production?

Building a custom-made house on-stage, shooting with a small crew, and then having to be very quick with the children, whilst keeping the camera moving and having fragility in the light. Every light had to be unique and alive. Fine-tuning and focussing on all these details always takes a lot of time, and required a great amount of preparation, testing, pre-lighting before the actual shoot, so that we could be precise as possible with the palette and the mix of the colours.

My biggest challenge was to create movement in the light, feeling the wind in the leaves and so on, without making any noise. It was indeed very important for Céline to take advantage of the studio to make direct sound recordings.

Céline wanted to create a film that was as much for children as for adults

What’s your mantra? Or best advice you ever had?

When I finished film school, they told me: “Make images and make them right away. Go towards your own tastes, and let yourself be guided by your intuition. Make yourself known for what you do.” I have never forgotten that.

Encoding Specification) on-set, which helped me to push my work on the colour as far as possible, especially various scenes that had a mix of colour temperatures. Our colour palette for the film was like a herbarium. It has the warm colours that you find in nature – autumnal, flamboyant, but not too saturated.

What was your approach to lighting the film?

It was important to feel the different moments of the day, to mark them with different states of light. And to play with the passage of time, such as going from one house at the end of the day to another at night, all in the same shot.

We talked about bringing the autumnal colours inside. The link between the exterior and interior was very important, especially as we had windows looking out over the forest backdrops from our stage sets.

During preparation, we discovered that it was not just the backgrounds but also interiors spaces that needed to fit into the overall lighting plans. I worked with, amongst others, a landscaper to assist with that, and there were many layers of intervention with the artificial film lighting in order to find the right, natural feeling

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 27

THE GREEN KNIGHT•ANDREW DROZ PALERMO

ANDREW DROZ PALERMO•THE GREEN KNIGHT

BEWITCHING PRESENCE

Photos: BTS photo of Andrew Droz Palermo by Eric Zachanowich.

All images courtesy of A24.

By Ron Prince

The Green Knight is visionary filmmaker David Lowery’s interpretation of the late 14thcentury chivalric poem, Sir Gawain And The Green Knight. The mystical and frequently hallucinatory film, starring Dev Patel, has been acclaimed as one of the most memorable and mesmerizing films of the year, with American cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo, charged with shooting Gawain’s disorienting physical, mental and emotional odyssey.

I

t’s Christmas in the court of King Arthur. But the high-spirited merriment at the Round Table banquet is interrupted by the sudden appearance of the mysterious Green Knight, partman part-tree, who enters the great hall with a challenge. Whosoever can behead him will gain everlasting glory, but only on the condition that, in twelve month’s time, the person who carried out the deed must journey to his Green Chapel and accept the same fate themselves.

Sir Gawain, Arthur’s reckless and headstrong nephew, accepts the challenge, and decapitates him with one blow, at which the Green Knight picks up his severed head and leaves, laughing as he reminds Gawain of the appointed rendezvous.

The impulsive Gawain embarks on a daring quest across the country to confront his nemesis. During his struggles to keep his side of the bargain, Gawain contends with ghosts, giants, thieves, scavengers and a talking fox, in what becomes a deeper journey that defines his character in the face of temptation, seduction and tests of nerve, and proves his valour in the eyes of his family and the kingdom.

“David’s script was my first introduction to the story, as I had never read the classic poem, and prefer not to colour my imagination or thinking by reading original novels or books,” says Palermo, who initially met Lowery through the Sundance Institute Producers Lab initiative, and went on to shoot the director’s widely-acclaimed A Ghost Story (2017), on a budget of just $100,000.

“However, David writes his scripts so beautifully, including notes about the camera direction and cinematography, that it was very easy for me to see his creative intentions about the mystical visual storytelling he wanted. As we discussed the project in more detail he told me he wanted The Green Knight to have a big budget look, and not to be stuck back in time. He also challenged me early on to make this medieval movie feel as 3D as it possibly

could, but without it being shot in 3D, which I took as meaning the image needed depth.”

Along with extensive location scouting around Ireland to absorb the natural environment for the film’s many bucolic exteriors, Droz Palermo says also he made a point of watching every single King Arthur and Round Table-related movie, both old and new, that he could lay his hands on, “to see how we might position against them, or use the strengths of those movies. One of the more informative things that came out of this was seeing how ridiculous some performances can be in armour, and how, if we were not careful, it might end up looking like a theme-park Renaissance Fare with cheap costumes and bad props.”

Some of the visual references that Droz Palermo found helpful to the cause included the Shakespearian comedy drama Chimes At Midnight (1965, dir. Orson Welles, DP Edmond Richard AFC) for the dynamic depth in its wide and tight framing, and the Czech historical drama Valley Of The Bees (1968, dir. František Vláčil, DP František Uldrich) for the impact of its symmetrical compositions and the graphical quality of Anamorphic lensing.

In one of The Green Knight’s most eyecatching sequences, Gawain wanders through the forested wilderness amid a thick yellow fog as he approaches the Green Chapel, which was partially inspired by, and is a feverish homage to, the orangetinted river sequence in Apocalypse Now (1979, dir.

Francis Ford Coppola, DP Vittorio Storaro AIC ASC).

The Green Knight was framed in 1.85:1 aspect ratio using a package of ARRI Alexa 65 large format camera, plus ARRI DNA and T-Type lenses, supplied by ARRI Rental in London.

“We always wanted to shoot this movie in large format for the sense of cinematic scale it gives, and the way close-ups can be rendered without things in the background feeling distorted or disconnected.

We could shoot incredibly wide, using a 10mm

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and 12mm lens, and be very close to a character, yet create a sense of depth and maintain their relationship with the location,” he explains.

“We went for central framing, which is very powerful when you are observing one person.

Nearly the entire sequence at the end of the film, where Gawain is imagining what the future could be, was centre-punched, and the imagery became all the more striking by using the T-Type lenses, which have really extreme fall-off on the sides. Another good example, is when Gawain’s bride stands in the court with her handmaidens. She’s the only thing in focus even though there are other people on the same focal plane at both sides of the frame.”

Based out of Ardmore Studios in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland, principal photography on The Green Knight began on March 7th 2019, wrapping 48-shooting days layer in June. A good many suitable rural, rustic and fortified locations were found within 90-minutes drive from the studios, around the counties of Wicklow, Dublin and Tipperary, including the castles of Cahir, Braemore and Charleville Forest. Sets including the great hall, farmhouse cottage and Gawain’s home, were constructed under the auspices of production designer Jade Healy.

The Green Knight was chiefly a single camera shoot, apart from the great hall banquet and round table conversation scenes, when a second camera was draughted-in. Droz Palermo operated A-camera, with Cormac O’Maille and David Boyle supporting as 1st and 2nd assistants respectively.

US operator Michael Wilson provided his skills on Steadicam and as 2nd unit DP, with Greg McGuinness also working on Steadicam in the movie’s latter stages. The DIT was Niall O’Connor, who helped with data wrangling and on-set grading tasks. The key grips were Darrell and Philip Murphy, with Barry Conroy in charge of lighting as the gaffer.

“Apart from Michael, my crew were all Irish, and they were great,” exclaims Palermo. “They have considerable experience of working on massive films and TV series that shoot regularly in Ireland, and I was spoilt by their genuine kindness, enthusiasm and humour, as well as their talents.”

As regards the lighting Droz Palermo says, “During that period of history, the bowels of any interiors would have been incredibly dim, with the sun, fire or candlelight being the only sources of illumination. So I tried to hold on to that with singlesource, single-direction lighting as much as possible.

However I did need to add some fill, sometimes with a balloon or SkyPanels here and there, in the bigger spaces, and had 18K HMI or Wendy lights pushing-in daylight from outside. I like mixed colour temperatures in the image, so I let the daylight go cool, the fire/candle light be warm, and soft-lit faces between 4,000 and 5,000 Kelvin.

“Shooting the great hall scene at the beginning of the movie was tough as the beats in the action took place across 90 different set-ups, which we shot over four days. There were many different magical and mysterious lighting conditions to achieve depending on the moment, and it always had to look beautiful. I had never lit a stage that big before, and keeping on top of how the lights had to change between scenes, and the relentless shooting pace, was hard.”

Along with the CG-animated fox, the movie’s atmospheric VFX were done by Lowery’s go-to VFX supervisor Eric Saindon and the team at Weta Digital in New Zealand. This work encompassed

composites with practical elements, subtle environmental enhancements and set extensions, all matching the original cinematography, and in support of the mystical storytelling in different ways.

One particularly hallucinatory, time-travelling moment in the film, when Gawain is bound and tied in a forest, was shot by Palermo as a single 180-degree arc, filmed at 120fps. The team at Weta evolved this into a subtle, time-lapse sequence, by compositing it with separate 360-degree rotation of the scene, changing the foliage in post between winter and summer seasons, along with Gawain himself transforming into a skeleton and back.

“David likes a fluid image for his montage work, and we made some strong and bold choices about moving the camera, says Droz Palermo. “We generally shot with a camera head that I could operate on a jib arm, using the dolly on tracks to create all manner of shots where the camera arcs, pushes-in and pulls-out, or had some big swings with a Technocrane.

“We went handheld briefly out of necessity, when it had been raining and the level of mud meant that Gawain and his horse could not follow the line we intended. So I felt that was done best with the camera on my shoulder.”

Droz Palermo completed the final colour grade with Alastor Arnold at FotoKem in Los Angeles, where he says one of the thrills was enhancing the ping of light in the Green Knight’s eyes to give him a sense of human presence. Stand by to be bewitched!

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 29

THE LAST BUS•GEORGE GEDDES

GEORGE GEDDES•THE LAST BUS All movie and BTS images courtesy of Hurricane Films.

Below: 3LR’s Barry Grubb (left) and Matthew Lloyd (right) Opposite: FoS/4 studio line of fixtures. Bottom: adding technology to the 3LR product mix.

and our art director, Andy Harris, was a real joy to work with,” says Geddes. “There’s a house that the couple live in, at the beginning when they travel up from Land’s End to John O’ Groats, and we needed

it came to the flashbacks to the 1950s and we talked a lot with Andy Harris about things like the colour on walls.”

Geddes’ favourite scene comes right at the start,

to shoot it in three different time periods. At one point we were shooting in one part of the house while the art department were round the corner pulling-up all the weeds and putting in sunflowers. But it worked really well.”

Another challenge was getting hold of appropriate buses for the various parts of the country.

“The script called for 39 buses, but I think we used 13 in the end,” he says. “There were quite a few scenes rewritten as being stuck in traffic, or at bus stops, rather than being on a moving vehicle. Luckily we had the writer Joe Ainsworth on-board – and on-board – who was very supportive of us making changes.”

with Spall’s character washing dishes at the sink in a cottage while watching his wife in the garden through the window.

“I lit it with one hard source that would fall away as soon as you stepped away from the window. I was able to tweak that really nicely,” he says. “We mirrored those shots later on, and so that echo had a bit more of an impact.

The Last Bus was finished at Lipsync Post. “It was a real pleasure working in the grade with Jamie Welsh,” says Geddes. “Tim’s partner had a mustardcoloured coat and it becomes a trigger for his flashbacks when he sees the colour, such as when he sees a girl enter a café wearing a similar jacket.

ALL ABOARD

By Michael Burns

The Last Bus is a road trip movie with a difference. Starring Timothy Spall, the drama follows Tom, an elderly widower who takes a series of local bus journeys from John O’Groats, in Scotland, as he makes a poignant return to first home he shared with his late wife in Land’s End, at the very Cornish tip of England.

D

irected by Scottish filmmaker and painter Gillies MacKinnon, The Last Bus appears to encompass the whole 875-mile journey, but was, however, filmed completely in Scotland.

“They were looking for a Scottish-based DP and I was recommended by a few people,” says Glasgow-based cinematographer George Geddes.

“Gillies and I just clicked straight away in the interview.”

The Last Bus was originally meant to shoot in February 2019, but was put on hold due to funding issues. By the time shooting could commence in October of that year, production was really busy in Scotland.

“My pool of regular crew were all busy,” says Geddes. “The focus puller and DIT had to come up from Manchester and my gaffer was someone I’d never met until the week before the shoot. Usually you’ve got a shorthand with your regular crew.

However, although I had just met my team, when we got started it all worked very well.

“My gaffer, Stuart Johnson, brought the lighting kit with him, along with our two sparks,” he adds.

“We had an Astera kit, a few Fresnels, LED Lite Mats and LED panels, and a handful of HMIs, but nothing bigger than a 2.5K, as we didn’t have the luxury of a generator.

“Generally I’ll operate, but because there was a lot of Steadicam in this film, I managed to convince Martin Newstead, a Steadicam operator I work with a lot, to come on as my camera operator,” he says.

“He could slip over from the A-camera and do the

Steadicam as and when we needed it. Thankfully that allowed me to get things done as I had a lot on my plate.”

One of those things was the issue of converting multiple buses into filmable sets – 13 were used in all, standing in for 40 vehicles.

“We knew that production always going to be challenging, and it would have been impossible to shoot during the Covid pandemic,” says Geddes.

“We had to pack-in the cast and the crew, then I had to check the lighting, get the sparks to flag-off a window, or other things that would allow us more freedom to shoot. Thankfully the Astera kit worked well in tight spaces, and the LED panels gave a soft source that we could bring in close.”

Due mainly to the amount of Steadicam work that would be involved, Geddes’ camera of choice was the ARRI Alexa Mini. Kit was provided by Progressive Broadcast Hire in Glasgow.

“I do love the ARRI camera,” says Geddes. “The Alexa is so easy to work with. As regards framing, I spoke to Gillies about what he had in mind, and 2:35:1 seemed right for the aspect ratio of the film.

I’ve always liked Cooke Primes, so we had a set of S3 Panchros. I like the way the softness falls away at the edges and the bokeh. We also had a couple of Angénieux Optimo zooms which we used for GVs out windows or travelling shots.”

“We knew a lot of the film would play on Tim’s performance as Tom. It’s his journey,” he continues.

“There’s a lot of 40mm, wide close-ups. Even when he’s in a crowd, we’d be centred on Tim, interacting with him. There was not a lot of long lens work, apart

30 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

from when he arrives at Land’s End and he’s in a crowd. That’s also the only time we had two cameras out together, and we used a long lens to show him against the horizon.”

A couple of days of second unit filming took place around the Rest And Be Thankful, a famous beauty spot in the Trossachs, to capture some road shots and POVs, but in the main shooting took place

The Alexa is so easy to work with around Glasgow and its surrounding areas.

“One of the challenges was we only had 22 days to shot the film,” says Geddes. “In the prep, we had to schedule how many locations we could shoot close to one another. We filmed a lot in Dunure (in Ayrshire), parts of which stood-in for both Land’s End and John O’Groats. We had access to a race track, so we shot loads there in the first week, standing-in for travelling between different locations.”

The Bridgeton Bus Garage in Glasgow, now a museum, stood in for six different locations including high-rise flats, a hospital ward, as well as various bus depots and stations.

“The bus garage was just redressed and we moved around. There was a lot of that kind of thing

A certain scarf his wife wears when older works in a similar manner. We boosted that colour in the grade to show it’s what Tim’s character was reacting to,” explains Geddes. “It wasn’t too in your face, just subtle.”

With this type of story there’s always the danger of making things a bit twee, but the director and the lead actor avoided this.

“It was a privilege to work with Timothy Spall, and lovely working with him and Gillies together, watching them iron out any clunkiness or unnecessary exposition,” says Geddes. “I think it’s a handsome movie. I’m very pleased with it.”

Although Mackinnon and Geddes planned extensively, it often wasn’t until the crew and cast were in-situ on-location that Geddes could start blocking and that camera angles could be finally decided.

“That’s a big part of what I do, constantly finding shots as we go,” he says. “Also with Gillies being very visual, he will edit and re-edit as he goes. He’s brilliant.”

MacKinnon was always on-set. “Gillies has more energy than anyone I’ve ever met,” Geddes recalls.

“He knew as well as I did that we had to plan this shoot to the ‘nth’ degree. It was his forthrightness and energy that got us in-place before we shot.”

References included Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror (1975, DP Georgy Rerberg) and the opening scene of John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy (1969, DP Adam Holender).

“There’s lots of jumping back and forth in time, so we had lots of discussions about how to handle the transitions,” says Geddes. “I used filters for the flashback scenes and we used two different LUTs for the time differences, just to give Gillies a vague approximation on the monitor.

“The travel is all shot very naturalistic; we tried to keep it low-key as much as possible,” he adds.

“Gillies wanted to introduce more subtle tones when CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 31

TITANE•RUBEN IMPENS SBC

RUBEN IMPENS SBC•TITANE Opposite: (top) photo by Carole Bethuel, (below) photo of Julia Ducournau, copyright

SEX, LIES AND METAL

By

Philippe Quaisse/Pasco.

This page: all photography by Carole Bethuel.

Images courtesy/copyright of Altitude. Titane will be released in UK and Irish cinemas on 31 December.

Visit altitude.film for more information.

Darek Kuźma

We planned every scene in terms of light, angles and colour contrasts, plus details like the... sexiness of wet floors

I

n the Cannes Palme d’Or-winning Titane, Belgian cinematographer Ruben Impens SBC once again collaborated with director Julia Ducournau to push the boundaries of cinematic experience and make what some have called the most shocking film of 2021, with its freaky and unrelenting bombardment of sex, violence, lurid looks and stomping soundtrack.

Sometimes words are just not enough. Although French director and screenwriter Julia Ducournau’s feature debut, Raw (2016, DP Ruben Impens SBC) could be aptly characterised as an offbeat comingof-age-drama-cum-cannibalistic-horror, this leaves out myriad observations pertaining to how the modern world enslaves young people with arbitrary ideas and expectations. In the same vein, calling her next film, Titane, an intense tale of disparate kinds of love and redemption, told through the means of body horror, monster movie and disturbingly carnal psychodrama, would pretty adequately sum it up. Yet it would not even scratch the surface of what the film brings to the table.

makes it seem quite ordinary.

“Titane is just a step-up from Raw. It’s the same language, only more precise and developed. It has more craft,” notes Impens. “We shot on large format and had better lenses, but it’s the same mixture of handheld camera and stylised static shots. I’m very wary of overdoing camera movement or lighting. If it’s not connected to what you want to tell, it gets pretentious.

Like, if you can afford to have a crane, it doesn’t mean you should have one just for the sake of it.”

The lighting style makes you feel emotions in a way other movies don’t prepare you for Curiously enough, looking at this audacious project and the plethora of its sensory, emotional and intellectual stimuli via the eyes of its cinematographer 32 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

To be honest, Titane has a number of crane shots and camera set-ups as laborious as mounting it on the bonnet of a jumping muscle car, yet everything complements the film’s delirious journey of Alexia, a

scarred young woman with a titanium plate in her head and a lust for all things shiny and chrome.

“The process of making Titane was quite fluid and precise. In prep, we went through the script and planned every scene in terms of light, angles and colour contrasts, plus details like the shininess of titanium reflections and metal surfaces, and the sexiness of wet floors. It felt natural. Besides, in many cases there was just no other way to do it that we could think of.”

“Julia is a very visual director, she’s not interested in doing things the obvious way. I mean, the saturation and anchoring of colours connected to characters were a must, but she pushed me into single-source lighting in interiors, and these epic, painting-like wide shots of characters walking through places,” says Impens, adding that they did not use any film references.

“Watching other DP’s work can add flavour to yours, but you have to follow your instincts, carve your own path. Sure, we’re inspired by how Francis Bacon and Caravaggio used light, and Julia introduced me to the photography of Gregory Crewdson, but we didn’t need anyone to push us in the right direction.”

The film’s narrative and visual complexity were achieved over 40 shooting days in summer 2020 and the subsequent two weeks’ in colour grading with Peter Bernaers at M141 in Paris. Most of the film was shot on-location in France, chiefly in an old squat building redone as a fire station in which the other protagonist, Vincent, a bereaved guy desperately seeking his longlost child, lives in.

“I’m not a fan of shooting in a studio, it’s limiting in many ways, it doesn’t give you a sense of authenticity,” says Impens. Although this was a difficult set, says he found time to go through fireman training to prepare for Titane’s most demanding sequences with real fire.

Impens craves “emotional lighting” that transports you into a character’s head, which in the case of the androgynous Alexia transforming herself into Vincent’s missing boy is something you want to experience in this

way. This dictated the tools he chose.

“We had to have technical flexibility to stay close to the characters. Alexa Mini LF gave us that feel.

Equipped with Zeiss Supreme Primes it gives elegant, crisp images that retain a classic look. No need for other lenses. The film was shot on Supreme Primes, from 21mm to 200mm, no zooms. We did crazy shots from under a car where we follow this black liquid and the amount of detail was amazing. It really helped the story.”

So did the a lighting combo of Asteras, M90s and DMG Lumière’s SL1 Mix fixtures.

“This whole LED revolution has changed lighting so much from the days of Tungsten, dimmers and gels. It’s quicker, gives you a lot of advantages, especially the ability to quickly adapt your levels to the needs of a scene,” explains Impens.

“I discover films through light. In Titane it’s not complex, but it is emotional, it hits you in the face. It shifts from warm and orange to blueish cool white and

these contrast with all other colours in the film. This is a strong, harsh light, it’s not gentle. It penetrates the characters and places and reveals them for what they are. Or want to be.”

If you can’t help yourself but imagine fiery orange flames putting up a spectacular fight against the nocturnal darkness of the woods, this is definitely an example of an image you will find in Titane. Along with vivid set-ups like the one in a bathroom bathed in fierce pink.

“There’s a person standing in the bathtub and we hit it with light, then it’s basically a reflection of the light lighting his skin, his flesh, in this beautiful and hideous manner. It’s like when you go to the butcher and they put these pinkish lights to make the meat look better.

This is what we did and, damn, it looks suggestive. The lighting style makes you feel emotions in a way other movies don’t prepare you for.”

When all is said and done, with Titane you should not focus on the plot but immerse yourself in the cinematic experience the film offers. After the screening, you may treat it as a needlessly ambiguous melting pot of diverging ideas or a wild experiment that goes to places not many directors would dare to go, but you will ponder on it for months.

“As a DP, I’m interested in the story. I need to be moved by the script and to feel connected to the characters. Titane is definitely a puzzle each viewer has to solve for themselves, but for me it’s a love story.

Yeah, it’s strange and violent, but it’s also endearing. If it were just metal and gore, I wouldn’t be interested.”

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 33

ONE TO WATCH•RACHEL CLARK

ROLL WITH IT!

RACHEL CLARK•ONE TO WATCH

Selected Filmography (so far): as DP – ­­ feature Pirates (2021, dir. Reggie Yates), TV show I Am Maria (2021, dir. Dominic Savage); shorts Shagbands (2020, dir. Luna Carmoon) and Nosebleed (2018, dir. Luna Carmoon).

As 2nd Unit DP – feature Rocks (2019, dir. Sarah Gavron, DP Hélène Louvart AFC).

When did you discover you wanted to be a cinematographer?

I’ve always had a passion for image-making and storytelling. For a long time this materialised itself through photography. As a teenager I had a makeshift darkroom in the garden shed, and spent hours locked away processing and printing pictures I’d taken on my beloved Pentax K100. I loved movies, but hadn’t really connected with the idea that making films was something you/I could do. That came later.

My interest in cinema started at art school film club, run by one of the lecturers, that we went to religiously, where I was introduced to directors such as David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch and Wong Kar-wai, and watched films like Three Colours Trilogy, Un Chien Andalou and La Jetée.

The teacher would recommend new releases screening at the local art house Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle. At the same time I worked part-time in a record shop, and was exposed to all kinds of music and movies. This is really where the seed was planted.

I went on to study Culture and Anthropology, and became interested in how people were represented and how they had represented themselves. This feeds heavily into my work and my approach today.

Where did you train?

On-set. That was my film school. After university I became involved in the strong, independent, filmmaking community in Nottingham, shooting shorts with likeminded people. My first job was as a runner on Michael Winterbottom’s film A Cock And Bull Story (2005, DP Marcel Zyskind DFF). I was fortunate enough to work

Try things, experiment, fail. It’s the quickest and best way to learn

34 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

on others such as This Is England (2006, dir. Shane Meadows, DP Danny Cohan BSC), Control (2007, dir. Anton Corbijn, DP Martin Ruhe ASC) and Bronson (2008, dir. Nicolas Winding Refn, DP Larry Smith BSC).

How did you work your way up the ladder?

Within the camera department – from trainee, 2nd AC, focus puller and operator. It’s perhaps a more old school/traditional way of doing things, but I wouldn’t change it. I’ve been lucky enough to work on incredible projects all over the world with inspiring and wonderful people. To get this kind of insight across such a broad spectrum of projects, locations and budget sizes was

invaluable in my transition to becoming a DP. I feel very comfortable on a film set – it feels like home and where I want to be.

Dominic’s process forces you to function purely on instinct.

You have no choice but to react in the moment and trust yourself. I gained so much from this experience and it continues to filter into my work.

What life/career lessons did you learn from your training?

Treat everyone with respect. The runner that’s been blocking off a corner for the last four hours may have noticed something you’ve been too busy to see. Also, have fun, be kind and look after yourself. We work long hours, drive great distances, eat terrible food and don’t get enough sleep.

Tell us one thing people would be surprised to know about you?

I used to play roller derby for the London Rockin’ Rollers Away from work, what are your greatest passions?

Anything to do with food - growing it, cooking it, eating it. Riding my motorbike. Walking my dog. Live music and travelling.

I’ve learned you can do a lot with a little. It’s not always about having all the toys. Having very little often pushes you to be smarter, to think outside the box and be creative. It’s easy to over-complicate things.

What is the top thing on your bucket list?

Taking a trip on the Trans-Mongolian Express.

How did you get your first break as a cinematographer?

Being asked to be part of Rocks with Sarah Gavron and DP Hélène Louvart AFC as a 2nd unit DP. They involved me in the entire process. I was there during preproduction, location scouting through to the whole shoot and post-production. I also shot additional photography when Hélène was away shooting somewhere else.

What’s the best freebie you ever blagged?

I’m not very good at blagging anything. I just try to be nice to people and hopefully they’ll want to help out.

What are your current top albums?

I’m currently obsessed with Greentea Peng, Arlo Parks, Bakar, Moses Boyd and Khruangbin. There’s a Spotify playlist called ‘Chez Baldwin’, a selection of James Baldwin’s record collection, that I have on repeat.

Who are your DP/industry role models?

Robbie Ryan ISC BSC: who I worked for as an assistant on many projects, has had a massive influence on me.

His passion, energy and integrity are infectious, no matter how big or small the project, and this is something I try to carry through in my own work and attitude.

Andrea Arnold: a force of nature, a huge inspiration, and another person who I’m incredibly lucky to call a colleague and a friend. As a woman, to witness such a strong female presence in such a role of responsibility on-set, has been invaluable. Andrea has the ability to see the beauty in even the most banal and search for truth. She’s taught me so much about filmmaking, storytelling and humanity.

What’s the best/worst thing about being a DP? Best: the people you get to meet, the stories you get to tell, the communities you get to embed yourself into.

Worst: being away from family and friends. Eating cold food in the rain out of a soggy cardboard box is also pretty rubbish.

What are your aspirations for the future?

To shoot films I would want to watch myself. I love a good crime/investigation story and would love to shoot a film noir.

I feel very comfortable on a film set – it feels like home and where I want to be

What have been your favourite projects so far?

Those about a person, a journey, a piece of history or culture, a community, where you learn about something you might not have Worst: as an assistant and I had to tell the DP that I’d otherwise come across. This is what drives and excites me accidentally flashed a mag of filmstock, right after a big as a cinematographer. stunt. The door of the magazine came flying off in my hand and I’ll never forget that feeling of horror, looking at What was the worst knock-back/rejection you a full roll of exposed filmstock in broad daylight. But we ever had? sent it off to the lab and it all came out fine.

Too many to mention. But I try not to worry about this too much, it’s part and parcel of the job, especially when What is your most treasured cinematographic you’re starting out. You’ve just got to keep going, and you possession? never know what’s around the corner waiting for you.

The clapperboards I’ve collected over the years.

What have been your best/worst moments on-set?

Best: anytime I’ve taken a risk with something I wasn’t quite sure would work out and it does. That’s a great feeling. It pushes you to be braver and experiment.

What do you consider your greatest achievement, so far?

That I’m here now, doing what I do. Having worked my way up through all the levels of the camera department as a woman, coming from a working-class background in the North East of England. I’m pretty proud of that.

What advice would you give to the ‘young you’, just starting out?

Make mistakes as early as you can. Try things, experiment, fail. It’s the quickest and best way to learn.

Also, don’t be impatient. You’ll get there if you work hard and don’t give up. Keep smiling.

For you, what are the burning issues in cinematography and filmmaking?

Equality and opportunity. Whilst we’ve made incredible leaps forward since I started in the industry, there’s still a lot of work to do. There are huge disparities across many aspects of society – gender, race, religion, disability, sexuality and class. We need to work on making the industry accessible for all, especially those who don’t even know it exists. It will only enrich our work and the stories that are told.

Who is your agent?

I’m lucky to be part of the Echo Artists family.

What was the biggest challenge on your latest production?

Shooting I Am Maria for director Dominic Savage. One- What is your URL/website address? hour-long handheld takes, no rehearsals, one prime lens www.rachelclarkdop.com and no lights, shooting in winter during the pandemic.

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 35

SMOOTH OPERATORS•ŁUKASZ BIELAN SOC

ŁUKASZ BIELAN SOC•SMOOTH OPERATORS

It’s up to you to capture the moment before the moment is gone

CAMERA ADDICT

By Darek Kuźma

Ł

ukasz Bielan SOC lives and breathes shooting films – even if that means being constantly on the road. However, the distinguished camera operator, and adventurous cinematographer, stopped for a moment to reflect on his career twists and turns – just before heading for Morocco for yet another exciting project.

Bielan may well be known as the daredevil camera operator on visual extravaganzas – for instance, multiple Michael Bay Transformers movies, action behemoths like 007 Spectre (2015, DP Hoyte Van Hoytema FSF NSC ASC), and the gritty Navy Seal drama The Lone Survivor (2013, DP Tobias A. Schliessler ASC). But, Bielan also has amassed

an impressive array of other genres during his career. Rom-coms like Failure To Launch (2006, DP Claudio Miranda ASC), gangster flicks including Public Enemies (2009, DP Dante Spinotti AIC ASC), westerns such as Jane Got A Gun (2015, DP Mandy Walker ACS ASC), sci-fi spectacles like Oblivion

(2013, DP Claudio Miranda ASC) and even the crime series CSI: NY. He was also by Ang Lee and Claudio Miranda ASC’s sides when they filmed the breathtaking Life Of Pi (2012), which Bielan calls the most challenging shoot he has ever worked on.

“One thing they teach you in film school is that the hardest things are doing movies with kids, water and animals. We had all three on Life Of Pi, plus 3D stereo, 3D lighting, 3D framing and 3D limitations,” quips Bielan. “We couldn’t have a camera in the water because the image in 3D would be so shaky that the audience would have basically thrown up after twenty seconds. So, we had to learn many things anew.”

How about Bay’s big-budget mayhem? “That’s different. Tough, but different, and way more fun. You do everything.

There’s no A-, B- or C-camera, it’s all Michael Bay camera. We call it ‘Bayhem’,” laughs Bielan. “That’s why I stayed with him for seventeen years. In a romantic scene, with people talking, you know how it’ll go. With action, although it’s pre-viz’d and organised, anything could happen. You can do all the prep in the world but when you’re out there with the camera and there’s a beautiful frame, it’s up to you to capture the moment before the moment is gone. You work by your gut.”

Bielan loves the physical aspect of the job of camera operating, both during and before the shoot. “You’re getting into the nitty-gritty, into the dirt. On movies like Spectre or Transformers we work with military guys, train with Seals. If you want to be in-there with actors, you need to know how it works, how it feels, how to react to what’s before you. Anticipation and reaction –

36 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

that’s the beauty of it.”

Funny enough, the career of one of the most sought after specialists in the field started by accident. Bielan, born in Warsaw during communist times, initially wanted to be an actor, but could not get into the film academy. Not the end of the world, you may say, but for him it was an ample incentive to seek change.

“Back in the day, when you didn’t continue education you were drafted by the military,” reminisces Bielan. “I was lucky. I lived in LA for a couple of years when I was a kid and I had family in the States, thus I was able to get a passport and fly out of Poland!”

His ‘Hollywood, here I come!’ moment did not happen as in LA everyone else was also dreaming of breaking into acting. “I didn’t know if I had it in me. My father was a cameraman on Polish TV, and I thought that might do as a backup. I enrolled in a small film school in LA, without any passion really, but I completely fell in love with it!”

Then fortune smiled once again. Bielan’s aunt connected him with a production manager on the hunt for interns for an upcoming shoot. “I got the job as a personal assistant to the film’s DP. I took a leave of absence from school, and went with the flow.” The movie was Chaplin (1992) its cinematographer, the renowned Sven Nykvist.

“Sven man was a legend and he’d done films with legends. But he was also an amazing human being,” says Bielan who never went back to film school. “I got my education from being Sven’s assistant and working as an intern for camera crews.

I stayed with him for ten years.”

Essentially, Bielan started from the bottom and slowly climbed up to where he is now. “I took the long route, but it was the better way because you get to learn everybody’s job, gain an appreciation of how everything works. You become a bit more patient.”

Patience brought another breakthrough in his career. Through Nykvist he met Nicola Pecorini, then a brilliant Steadicam operator, who was soon to become Terry Gilliam’s cinematographer, and who was working an HBO show Tracey Takes On… (1996).

“Nicola invited me in. It was a non-union thing, he was DP and camera operator, I was camera assistant and focus puller. When the union noticed, he said, ‘Let’s just move everybody one notch up’.

That’s how I became a camera operator.”

Though Bielan is now recognised for his handheld work, you could not foresee it after his first day at the job. “There was this amazing shot where the camera had to whip-pan from one person to another, and I wanted to impress director Tommy Schlamme. I practised between takes and when the time came, I did it beautifully. Tommy came to me, patted me on my back, and said, ‘That’s brilliant, but you landed on an electrician!,” laughs Bielan, who ultimately became one of the crew’s mainstays.

When Pecorini left the show, the producers wanted Bielan to stay and help the next DP – Mauro Fiore ASC – take up the reins. “In the meantime, I started shooting the second unit. And when Mauro left, they asked me to do the next season.”

In a matter of just a few years Bielan rose through the ranks to become a cinematographer in his own right. But, as he explains, “Sadly, there was a huge writers’ strike and not a lot of work. I went back to operating to make a living, and I stayed.” Bielan had his break as a DP in the last couple of years and has been shooting such diverse projects as the Polish crime story A Grain Of Truth (2015), Indian social drama Love Sonia (2018) and American satirical comedy The Comeback Trail (2020).

Because his career evolved in such a way, Bielan has a different understanding of his profession. “They say it’s natural progression to go from operator to DP. I think that applies when you go from focus puller to DP. For an operator it’s more natural to become a director. You have a lot in common with them.

You have to know the editing, the staging. There’s also psychology involved. When a director’s busy, you have to show actors how to hit their marks and explain technical stuff,” says Bielan. “Directors are obviously storytellers, but, for actors, camera operators are often the last bastion between reality

Opposite: (top) shooting on 007 James Bond Spectre, (below) and on Oblivion (image copyright David James).

This page: (clockwise from top) filming on The Tomorrow War (copyright Frank Masi), Deadpool (image copyright Joseph Lederer), Transformers, The Comeback Trail and 007 James Bond Spectre.

and the screen. The energy you have behind the camera makes them feel more secure.”

Although Bielan admits he still has a lot to learn, and would never dream of resting on his laurels, he seems to be in a very good place right now. “Each project brings new challenges, and even if it’s still the same process, I feel that I’ve learned on each set I’ve worked on. I’m a lifer. I love my job and I take it with all of its pros and cons.”

The greatest disadvantage is the lack of time. “I don’t have a lot of time between projects, and I’m shooting almost all the time. When I’m on location, I get up early, work out, go to work for 15 or 16 hours, come back, work out, and go to sleep. Weekends?

Bike rides, books, movies. But when you do a Bond or a Transformers movie, there’s not a lot of time off.

You don’t get to relax until you’re back home and then there’s stuff to do, people to meet. You’re like a sailor, after a while you go on another boat and sail off to explore a new sea.”

Or like Frank Capra put it: “Film is a disease.

When it infects your bloodstream, it takes over as the number one hormone; it bosses the enzymes; directs the pineal gland; plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to film is more film.”

Bielan is definitely an addict. “People often ask me about my hobbies and I feel bad that I don’t have any. I mean, I try to play the ukulele, I love going to the movies, but my job is my hobby. I get paid to travel to places I would never be able to go, and work with amazing people. That’s not a bad life.”

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CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER06.09.21 202110:56 37

FREE GUY•GEORGE RICHMOND BSC

GEORGE RICHMOND BSC•FREE GUY

Opposite: (l-r) Taika Waititi as Antwan, Utkarsh Ambudkar as Mouser, and Joe Keery as Keys in Free Guy. This page: Ryan Reynolds as Guy in 20th Century Studios’ Free Guy.

THE GREAT ESCAPE

All photos by Alan Markfield. © 2020 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

By Ron Prince

Rather than staying at home on the sofa, consuming yet another box-set, movie fans are escaping to cinemas in droves not seen since before the pandemic, lured by the return of Hollywood blockbusters to the big screen and fuelling what is hoped will be the start of a much-needed box office revival.

O

ne of these revivifying feature attractions, well worth the price of admission according to critics, is the dose of comedic mayhem served up by Disney’s Free Guy, starring Ryan Reynolds, directed by Canadian filmmaker and producer Shawn Levy, and shot by British cinematographer George Richmond BSC. In the first two weeks after its release on August 13th 2021, the $125m production had returned £185m in receipts, giving rise to unconfirmed rumours of a sequel.

“Free Guy has the feel-good factor, and seems an appropriate crowd-pleaser to have in cinemas after the protracted period of the pandemic,” says Richmond, whose key storytelling challenge was to differentiate between the movie’s real and computerworld elements.

In Free Guy, the action follows Guy, a bank teller and a really nice chap. Every day he wakes up, dons his blue short-sleeved shirt, listens to his favourite song, eats breakfast and gets coffee.

He never questions the many times he is robbed, beaten, burned and otherwise battered on his way to work, until, that is, he comes to realise he is a background, non-player character (NPC) in a violent and extremely popular open-world computer game.

In a realm where there are no limits, he decides to become the hero of his own story – one that he can rewrite, thereby saving himself and his friends from deletion by the game’s creator. Guy is determined to save the day his way before it’s too late, and maybe find a little romance with the coder who conceived the game.

Along with Reynolds as Guy, the film stars Taika Waititi, Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery and Utkarsh Ambudkar, with cameos from Chris Evans, Channing Tatum, and the voice talents of Tina Fey, Hugh Jackman, Dwayne Johnson and John Krasinski.

The screenplay for Free Guy, by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn, was sold and put into development at 20th Century Fox prior to its acquisition by Disney, and is one of the first Fox films to continue production under Disney ownership, as well as under the studio’s

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CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 39

FREE GUY•GEORGE RICHMOND BSC

GEORGE RICHMOND BSC•FREE GUY

I like to control colour on-set and not have it done by someone working remotely in the middle of the night

Cinematographer George Richmond BSC on the set of 20th Century Studios’ Free Guy. All photos by Alan Markfield. © 2021 20th Century Studios.

All Rights Reserved.

new name of 20th Century Studios. Levy’s directing credits include Big Fat Liar (2002, DP Jonathan Brown), Cheaper By The Dozen (2003, DP Jonathan Brown), the 2006, 2009 and 2014 episodes of the Night At The Museum franchise, and Netflix’s sci-fi horror series Stranger Things.

As so often happens in life, your good deeds go before you. Richmond, the son of renowned cinematographer Anthony Richmond BSC ASC, started in the film industry as a second camera assistant on The Sandlot (1993), and later worked as a camera operator on Men Of Honor (2000) and Legally Blonde (2001), all lit by his father, followed by Alfonso Cuarón’s Children Of Men (2006), shot by Emmanuel Lubezki AMC ASC. He won the Society Of Camera Operators Historical Shot Award for his handheld work on ‘The Siege Of Bexhill’ scene in Children Of Men. Somewhat portentously, Richmond was the camera operator on Safe House (2012, dir. Daniel Espinosa, DP Oliver Wood), starring Reynolds alongside Denzel Washington, for which he was charged with framing the movie entirely handheld.

Richmond made his debut as a cinematographer with The Hide (2008, dir. Marek Losey), before going on to enjoy multiple collaborations with director Dexter Fletcher on Wild Bill (2001), Sunshine On Leith (2013), Eddie The Eagle (2016), and Rocketman (2019), as well as with Matthew Vaughn on the blockbuster, action spy comedies Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017). In 2018, Richmond also shot Tomb Raider for director Roar Uthaug, and most recently shot the third film in the Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them franchise for director David Yates.

“I am very lucky to be in the position of shooting large-scale, big budget, productions, where it’s all about relationships and collaborations,” he says. “Looking back, I think my trajectory through the camera department is a good example of the positive impact a camera operator can have on a production, and hope my experience can inspire the new generation of operators coming through.

“I was given a lot of rope on Safe House, and I had a virtual free rein to move the camera and frame the picture as I saw it. The results must have resonated with Ryan, who also saw my later work on the Kingsman films, and he introduced me to Shawn for Free Guy.” Whilst Richmond was afforded an introduction to Levy by Reynolds, his eventual work as cinematographer on Free Guy was by no means a shoo-in.

“I had at least five meetings with Shawn across UK and US time zones, and he had some difficult questions for me about how we should best depict and distinguish between the real and gaming worlds in the film. But perhaps the most important thing was to give him my reassurance that, although Ryan had made the introduction and was a producer and the star of the film, I was the right person for the job. It is always the DP’s job to work as a team player in service to the director and their vision.”

Recalling his creative conversations with Levy, Richmond says, “It was a clever, complicated script and it took me a couple of reads to understand fully what was going on, as I am not a gamer. But it was clear that Shawn had done a great job in interweaving the two worlds – the real and gaming – together for a rather crazy experience.

“I try not to trawl through loads of books or films to find images that are the visual essence of a

40 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

movie, as these can mean different things to different people. Our take on it was that Free Guy was The Truman Show meets Grand Theft Auto, and I

I hope my experience can inspire the new generation of camera operators focussed on illustrations made by the art department to lead the process.”

Early-on in his discussions with Levy, Richmond pitched the idea of keeping things cinematic by shooting in widescreen 2.40:1, but using different formats, each with their own looks, framing and lighting, to depict the two different worlds.

“For the game world, which features lots of day exteriors and very tall buildings, I proposed that we shoot using large format and a set of spherical lenses that would yield a precise, immersive look akin to the clean-looking experience of online gaming, where uprights would be kept vertical, with no barrelling or pin-cushion distortion on the image that you can get with Anamorphic,” Richmond explains.

“For the visual signature of the real world, where the action takes place more in office and apartment interiors, I proposed capturing on a digital Super35mm chip using 2x squeeze Anamorphic lenses, embracing their characteristic bokeh, edge

and vignetting artefacts, using a looser, freeform camera style, and framing with more foreground in the image.

“This thinking, which Shawn liked, was not designed to bat anyone around the head with, but rather to use subtly to set-up the premise for the audience.”

After 12 weeks of prep, Richmond started principal photography in Boston, Massachusetts in May 2019, concluding some 79-day shooting days later. Production took place mostly around the city’s financial district, the nearby city of Worcester, and in the former Savings Bank building in Framingham. A hangar at the former Naval Air Station in Weymouth,

and a local warehouse, were used for a number set-builds for the movie’s interior sequences, although both had to be rigged to accommodate the lighting.

For the gaming world sequences in Free Guy, Richmond shot using the ARRI Alexa 65 large format camera, but tested two sets of Panavision spherical glass – namely the System 65 and Sphero 65 lenses.

“Both of those lens types are built using older glass and give a soft, cinematic feeling to the image on the camera sensor,” he says. “However, I went with the Sphero 65s as they handled the veiling glare, highlights and contrast of the sunny Boston skies against tall buildings in a more appealing way.

I also liked the way they blended the fore, mid and background elements of the image together, as large format cameras can make the actors pop-out if they are too sharp, as if they are standing against a bluescreen. We used the 24mm a lot, which Dan Sasaki at Panavision in LA modified so that we could achieve very close focus – down from over 3ft to about 14-inches shooting at T3.5.”

For the real world, Richmond’s shooting package comprised of ARRI Alexa Minis, shooting with Panavision G-series Anamorphic lenses. “I wanted to feel relaxed, and use a shooting package I felt comfortable with. So I went with the same Alexa and G-series combination I had used previously on CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 41

FREE GUY•GEORGE RICHMOND BSC

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Jodie Comer as Molotov Girl in 20th Century Studios’ Free Guy. Photo by Alan Markfield. © 2020 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Rocketman. The G-series Anamorphics deliver soft, filmic results with Alexa. The flares and hot spots hold themselves together and look pretty. The G-series are roughly the same size and weight across the range, and work well on Steadicam and in handheld mode. They all open up to T2.6 and are visually consistent between focal lengths too.”

Although it was tempting, Richmond eschewed the chance to operate himself, and unleashed that task on A-camera/Steadicam operator Peter Rosenfeld, who was supported by 1st AC Eric Swanek. “Peter is a real team player and joy to be around, whilst Eric, who I’ve known for over 20 years, is an artisan focus puller who makes his job look effortless.”

Richmond says he also enjoyed great relationships with his gaffer, Frans Wetterings III, and key grip, Frank Montesanto. He describes as both being, “fantastic technicians who really helped me create the images we were after.”

British DP Tim Wooster came from the UK to shoot the second unit. “I’ve known Tim since we were

camera operators together during the late ’90s. We have a great working relationship and he matched the main unit photography perfectly, which can sometimes be a very difficult task.”

A further key collaborator during production and post was visual effects supervisor Swen Gillberg.

“We necessarily had a really close working relationship and really bridged the gap between the photography and VFX to produce the final images, whilst keeping the original look and ideas intact.”

Whilst Richmond had formed the basis of the differentiation between the real and gaming world scenes through his camera and lens choices, this was further delineated by the application of LUTs, developed in collaboration with EFILM colourist Skip Kimball, on test footage shot in downtown Boston during prep.

“The use of LUTs has been an evolving learning curve for me,” Richmond admits. “On the Kingsman films I used a dozen LUTs and interchanged them, as you might with celluloid filmstocks, for all sorts of practical and creative purposes. The cutting copies

42 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

were always accurate in terms of colour, but you start to streamline your process, and I realised I could getby with far fewer LUTs. “These days I generally develop a master LUT with the colourist, from which I create one with lifted blacks and flatter contrast, plus another that is perhaps half a stop brighter, and have these in-the-bag in case I don’t want to change the ISO on the camera or to solve exposure problems I might encounter on-set.”

For Free Guy, Richmond developed a trio of LUTs offering different levels of contrast, colour and exposure. “In combination with more heightened and dramatic lighting, I used a LUT to make the game world scenes warmer, more vivid and contrasty. For the real world, where the lighting style was more naturalistic and constrained as regards the amount of different colour temperatures in any one scene, I generally used a LUT with lifted blacks, lower the contrast and mildly desaturated colour.”

Danny Fernandez worked as DIT on the film.

“There is no right or wrong way to structure the on-set workflow, it is more about the one you prefer,” says

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FREE GUY•GEORGE RICHMOND BSC

I like to control colour on-set and not have it done by someone working remotely in the middle of the night

VENICE Utkarsh Ambudkar as Mouser and Joe Keery as Keys in 20th Century Studios’ Free Guy. Photo by Alan Markfield. © 2020 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

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Richmond. “For me the DIT is incredibly important. I like to have control of colour on-set and not have it done completely separately by someone working remotely in a darkened suite in the middle of the night. Danny was willing and capable of working this way, variously using Live Grade and Da Vinci Resolve to finesse the picture to my liking, before sending the footage and the CDLs over to the dailies colourist at the digital lab and cutting rooms that had been set up by EFILM in Boston. This meant the cutting copy was very accurate.”

Framing, camera movement and lighting were also key ingredients in Richmond’s visual recipe for the differentiation between the real and gaming worlds.

“We used a lot of different hardware – Technocrane, Steadicam, dolly and wire-rigs, more often than not remote-operated – to shoot the game world scenes, and even employed a Motorized Precision Kira robotic arm to achieve that angular, first-person look you get in video games for a couple of sequences. For the real world the camera

movement was more active, with either handheld, Steadicam or loose volleyball and wok camera heads on the dolly,” remarks Richmond.

“As for the lighting strategy, the game world was much more heightened, vivid and dramatic, with shafts of light and backlighting on city streets, but always having soft LED lights to illuminate the actors faces. However, trying to control the natural light amongst the skyscrapers in downtown Boston, together with shadows and reflections from widows, was a real challenge. Thanks to judicious scheduling, and kit like an 80 x 40 helium mattress balloon that we could move along the street on a wire, I was able to control the light for continuity.

“For the real-world scenes, which generally took place in interiors, I wanted to keep the range of colour temperatures to a minimum, and have a more naturalistic look. So we fitted the practicals and ceiling fixtures with LEDs, and balanced them to daylight at 5600K.” Richmond attended the final grade remotely, working over T-VIPS and an open-mic voice-link

44 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

from a grading suite at Goldcrest in London, with colourist Skip Kimball at EFILM. The editors and VFX supervisor Swen Gillberg joined as required using iPads, with Levy viewing the final results on a colourcalibrated projection screen at his LA home.

“This process is not as good as being in a suite all together with a laser pointer, and I had some misgivings, but it worked worked-out really well,” Richmond declares. “We did the standard 2K version first, followed by the HDR DolbyVision deliverable, which you have to be careful not to overcook, as it is very easy to hurt your eyes.”

Richmond concludes, “Free Guy was a very happy and productive shoot, where everyone was motivated to deliver their best. This started from the top, from Shawn. He’s a very clever, highenergy guy, and he set-up an environment where he encouraged, and was happy to listen to, ideas.

Working in surroundings like that, especially when you are the new boy like I was, makes things much easier and much more fun!”

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REMINISCENCE•PAUL CAMERON ASC

PAUL CAMERON ASC•REMINISCENCE Rebecca Ferguson stars as Mae alongside Hugh Jackman as Nick Bannister, in the action thriller Reminiscence, a Warner Bros. Pictures release. BTS shots by Ben Rothstein.

All images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

NOIRISH NOSTALGIA

By Michael Goldman

C

inematographer Paul Cameron ASC knew all about director Lisa Joy’s creative chops, having been a longtime colleague of hers on HBO’s acclaimed Westworld. But once Joy lured him into helping her turn her new spec script into a romantic, noirish, sci-fi feature thriller called Reminiscence, starring Hugh Jackman and distributed globally, Cameron quickly realised her feature film directorial debut would pose a major challenge for his team.

The film takes place in a future version of Miami after war and climate change have caused ocean water to flood much of the mainland, forcing people to live in towers, travel almost everywhere by boat, and only work or play at night when the heat abates. In this environment, people yearn for distractions. Jackman’s character, Nick Bannister, has built a business out of this yearning – creating a so-called “nostalgia machine” that allows users to not only relive past memories, but to actually feel as though those memories were fresh events unfolding for real. Bannister eventually becomes addicted to his own machine when a lost love’s memories set him off on a chase to learn if his missing muse, played by Rebecca Ferguson, was the person he thought she was or something far more sinister.

The film was shot in late 2019 in Miami and New Orleans, with principal photography finishing in early 2000, just before the global pandemic shut down the industry. Cameron shot the production using the Sony Venice 4K camera system and Cooke 2x Anamorphic lenses. He says he was especially taken with the Venice’s dual-base ISO ability to shift its sensitivity to light, letting him seamlessly switch between 500ASA for higher light levels and 2500ASA for lower light levels.

“The sensor, the internal ND feature, and the colour rendition are the primary things I love about that camera,” Cameron elaborates. “I’m a big advocate for psychology and depth-of-field options and maintaining focus the way I want for backgrounds. I can light something for a T5.6, and then ND it wide open for wide shots, and then I can selectively add a little depthof-field as I go longer lens for coverage. It’s so fast and intuitive and easy to change my own stop.

“And I love how the Cooke Anamorphics render the roundness of a face and have kind of a contrast and slightly creamy vintage quality to them.”

The heart of the film involves the nostalgia machine.

The machine essentially involves a combination of a water tank where users lie down, wearing a headpiece, and when “some very analog knobs” are turned, as Cameron puts it, Bannister’s voice guides them into seemingly physical manifestations of their memories.

He and his assistant, Watts (Thandie Newton), are then able to essentially watch and, as we will eventually learn, even stand inside of the memories via what is essentially a holographic style projection of what is playing out in the subject’s mind.

The cinematographer says he was adamant that the nostalgia projections would not be manufactured in greenscreen/CG fashion, but rather would be created in such a way that would allow Jackman to organically view, interact, and emotionally react on-set to what he was witnessing.

“In my initial discussions with Lisa, I told her I felt it would be a shame if Hugh was just acting in front of a greenscreen,” Cameron recalls. “I felt there would be very little emotion between him and the impact of the projection. The weight of creating these illusions was everything for me – it had to have an emotional value. I had done some work on a short film a number of years

I believe, as I read in some early books Robert Bresson, that, ‘the actor moves the camera’ ago in which we used a material called Hologauze for projection. It’s sort of like a sharktooth scrim, but it has

46 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

silver woven into the threads so that you can project on it, and yet see through it at the same time, to create a kind of semi-transparent image. So, the genesis of the nostalgia machine is actually a 20ft-diameter projection on a screen sort of made out of ‘string’ whereby the images appear in 3D. “I was able to create the illusion using three Christie 20K projectors mapped on a 130-degree Hologauze screen on a circular truss. It was extremely challenging, but in the end, we could visualise Hugh Jackman standing there watching Rebecca’s character singing in a nightclub – images of her that we shot earlier before we lost Rebecca to another movie – and the whole thing looks quite real.”

One big key to figuring out how to shoot Jackman live on-set engaging with the projections, essentially revolved around blocking and “an incredible amount of math,” to calculate the choreography, according to Cameron. Since the concept involved filming Ferguson separately, singing in a nightclub location, for example, turning that imagery into a projection, and then filming Jackman moving around the image, that math and meticulous planning were crucial in terms of ensuring camera moves matched. Cameron’s team was able to do dolly moves and Steadicam moves around her while meticulously recording camera positions they could then precisely re-create when later filming the nostalgia machine sequences on stage.

“I would literally have to figure out shots where, if Hugh was walking, I would have to do the same dolly move on the projected material later, matching-in with the same lens, and the same exact background. It was quite complex, but I mainly went with the math and

trusted it. It was very satisfying to finally see the film and realise all the frustum points – the viewing perspective points for the projections – all matched.”

Cameron hastens to add that, “there is some 3D-mapping over live projection, so that I could match them better in the digital intermediate grade. In the film, what you see are a number of real live projections and some that are mapped over with 3D. The visual effects supervisor, Bruce Jones, realised how important the live projections were, and his willingness to help me get digital mattes to go over some of them for the final DI was important.”

On the set representing Bannister’s office, the filmmakers rigged the 20K laser projectors to emit a short throw at a steep angle of projection in order to reduce light loss. The projectors, due to the noise and heat they produce, had to be placed in sound-proof boxes with specially-configured cooling systems, built into the set’s ceiling.

The movie also features other highly complex action sequences, including a stylised shootout in a bar and a chase at a sunken amusement park – a sequence accomplished when the filmmakers literally flooded a section of the now abandoned Six Flags New Orleans theme park facility. But perhaps the most complicated was a chase/fistfight that culminates underwater beneath the broken floor of a long-abandoned music conservatory and features the dropping of a real piano into the murk.

That sequence required the team to flood an abandoned church rectory in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans – a facility empty since 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. It starts with a rooftop fight, a jump into what

is portrayed as an abandoned music conservatory, a crash and fall down some steps and through the floor of the conservatory, where the two combatants follow a tumbling piano into the water and continue their battle there.

Cameron explains that the sequence’s main beats were all shot practically, but “broken down into small pieces.” The main portion of the fight before it heads underwater was filmed at the flooded church rectory.

The part in which the floor crumbles, and the piano falls through and into the water, was filmed in a speciallyconfigured tank on a stage at Quixote Studios in New Orleans. The underwater fight sequence was filmed in a small scuba-diving pool-training facility in New Orleans.

“That was a very small indoor pool, about 12-feet deep, and only has a two-foot walkway around it and a vaulted seven-feet high ceiling, so they literally built that place for people to sit on the edge of the pool and learn how to scuba dive,” Cameron relates. “So, we built a moving gantry across the pool so that I could create shafts of light using 7K Xenon fixtures located at the water’s edge, bounced down off 90-degree mirrors into the water. With the mirrors, we could adjust the angle of the beams, because the angle of refraction from the surface through the water changes depending on the angle you are shooting at. I was able to send the gantry back six feet, tilt it up a little, hit the beam there, dive down and take a look at it, and see that the beam was going right toward the lens.”

The diving pool location was so small and cramped that digital imaging technician, Michael Romano, says he ended-up placing his DIT cart outside the building, running wires inside. Further, there were various other “spots that are really small,” including filming on small boats, and so Romano says he relied extensively on his own proprietary, homebuilt DIT rig to monitor, colour, and manage imagery.

“I built this little 17-inch monitor with a simple button switcher, so that you could switch between any of four feeds,” he relates. “It looked like a little cheese-plate type thing – metal plates with threaded holes that grips use. So, I basically built an entire DIT system with a 16x switcher and could control up to four live camera feeds inside that box. We took it everywhere—on barges, skiffs, motorboats.

“For all camera feeds at the pool or the tank stage, I would get them wirelessly out of the set, bring them to my cart, and then return them back to Paul’s monitor, which gave him the power to switch to whichever feed he needed to see for iris using a handset. Our workflow was all live graded using Pomfort Livegrade software based on a 3D LUT that was developed in pre-production.”

In terms of camera movement generally, Cameron says he used a combination of tools and approaches, depending on what each sequence required, ranging from use of Alexa Mini cameras for some drone work, a 30-ft. Technocrane for high-angle shots for some projection sequences, and liberal reliance on the Steadicam skills of his A-camera operator Chris Harhoff for chase, fight, and other sequences.

“I believe, as I read in some early books by French director Robert Bresson, that, ‘the actor moves the camera,’” Cameron says. “So, whether it is a dolly, Steadicam, tilt or pan, the actor initiates the movement and we follow it. I have done a number of films and Westworld with Chris, and he goes with his instincts as an operator. His level of craftsmanship, artistry and experience with the Steadicam is worth its weight in gold.”

Cameron adds that he worked closely with two gaffers – Ian Kincaid and New Orleans-based Chet Carey – to achieve Joy’s aesthetic. Kincaid says the biggest lighting challenge involved with the nostalgia machine projections involved “keeping light off the screen while properly lighting our cast and not restricting Lisa’s vision.”

He adds that the lighting team built 6K softboxes to provide soft overhead lighting and Litegear softboxes for broad key lighting applications during the course of the production. For the extensive water scenes in boats or on location, moving Condors and Telehandlers were used to manoeuvre lighting instruments around in three-foot-deep water, and above-water cable bridges were built by floating extension ladders on foam swim noodles, of all things. “And our locally-sourced key grip, Jimi Ryan, was a delight. His team kept us cleverly flagged, controlled and diffused during those scenes,” he elaborates.

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 47

THE SUICIDE SQUAD•HENRY BRAHAM BSC

HENRY BRAHAM BSC•THE SUICIDE SQUAD

KILLER COMBINATION

Shot using Leitz M 0.8 lenses and Red cameras, The Suicide Squad marks the explosive return of DC Comics’ Super-Villain characters. The completely standalone, Warner Bros. Pictures feature, captured for IMAX and Dolby Vision theatrical presentations at 1.90:1 by DP Henry Braham BSC, was envisaged by writer-director James Gunn and inspired by the classic 1967 war movie The Dirty Dozen, among others.

Opposite: (top) Henry Braham BSC with the camera.

BTS images by Jessica Miglio. Images from The Suicide Squad copyright 2021 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

I

n the film, a taskforce of convicts, including Harley Quinn, Bloodsport and Peacemaker, are sent to destroy a Nazi-era facility and laboratory. The ensemble cast includes Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Viola Davis and Pete Davidson.

“James conceived the movie as magical realism,” relates Braham, who previously collaborated with Gunn on Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2. “It is a black ops caper with highly-dysfunctional superheroes. But the flaws in their characters make them highly-relatable to the audience. They have a humanity to them which is what James was interested in portraying.”

One of the main goals was to keep the story visceral and real, getting up-close and moving around the actors, so as to create a grounded atmosphere for what are over-the-top and frequently ludicrous characters.

“Of course, the story is fantastical,” Braham admits.

“We had a walking shark in the movie! So, to make it believable for the audience, we needed a look and feel for the film that combined fantasy with realism.”

Braham points out that King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone) was created with special effects and prosthetics in keeping with the desire to keep as much in-camera as possible. Likewise, the filmmakers opted to shoot the jungle scenes on stages at Pinewood (now Trilith) Studios in Atlanta, plus beautiful locations in Panama, rather than use virtual production techniques.

Braham lit the giant sets to allow Gunn to design shots from any angle. “If you can light truthfully, you can move the camera freely no matter how large a setting,”

he explains.

Together, Gunn and Braham evolved a dynamic shooting style that they agree wasn’t possible before the creation of Red’s latest camera innovations paired with diminutive, high-quality optics from Leitz.

“The Suicide Squad is a rollercoaster ride on the big screen,” Braham says. “You want the smallest physical technology you can possibly have with the best picture quality you can possibly achieve. That’s the case with Red and Leitz.”

The director and DP’s journey with Red began with Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, the first feature film captured on the 8K Red Dragon VV sensor inside the Weapon camera.

“Jarred Land, Red’s CEO, and the team at Red were

We needed a look and feel for the film that combined fantasy with realism

48 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

really engaged with us on Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, and in the intervening time they took another big step forward,” Braham notes. “For The Suicide Squad, I needed to bring together two potentially irreconcilable

demands: to shoot a large format 70mm movie with a fluidity of movement that feels alive. It is a style of filmmaking that gives total freedom to James. The decision to shoot with Red and Leitz was a slam dunk because the technology serves the idea of freedom.”

Braham selected an array of eight Reds including Ranger Monstro 8K VV and Weapon 8K VV, as well as a Komodo, each mounted in different ways to offer maximum flexibility on-set. “The physicality of these cameras means you can invent entirely new ways to use them,” Braham says. “It’s like having an array of musical instruments all tuned in different ways for different shots.

I can put one down and pick another up to achieve the exact shot that’s needed.”

Braham and his camera team made customised gyro-stabilised mounts to enable genuinely stabilised handheld movement on The Suicide Squad. The Ranger Monstro was Braham’s primary camera with the Komodo, then in prototype, used on selected shots.

“Komodo is a great little camera,” he says. “There are shots in the movie we could only get with something that small that comes with high-res imagery. I prefer to operate with a custom-built stabilised handheld configuration as much as possible, because I feel having the camera and the operator present with the actors makes their performance more present when called for. Spending many months of prep in conversation with the director had so deeply immersed me in the visual idea of the film that as an operator those split-second decisions on a camera move can further serve the intimacy and authenticity of the film.”

The Suicide Squad was captured with the Leitz M

0.8 lenses resolving on the full Monstro sensor. Braham’s camera crew carried two to three sets of Leitz M 0.8 lenses, while the second unit carried a minimum of two sets of the lenses.

Braham says his choice of Leica M-System glass was made with keeping image quality and camera manoeuvrability in mind. On The Suicide Squad he used wide lenses, such as the M 0.8 21mm, which gives a feeling akin to a 12 mm on Super35, and the ability to get very close to the actors.

“The decision had a lot to do with the lens geometry combined with the VV sensor which worked incredibly well for what I needed. I could shoot large format on wide lenses without distortion, or I could make the camera very intimate with the actors when required.

“The problem for me is that so many large format lenses were either built for film, which have some benefits but also compromises, while many of the modern lenses developed quickly for large formats are quite flat. The characteristics of their bokeh offer very little in the way of separation so you have to use a wider aperture to achieve separation.

“I used the Leitz M 0.8 lenses as my primary lenses on The Suicide Squad as their bokeh allowed me to create separation and a dimensional feeling without shooting at an excessively shallow depth-of-field. They present a precise image with a clear and definitive focus that gives me more freedom to tell the story. One day I shot three set-ups with the 21mm Leitz M 0.8 lens and I love it because it doesn’t look like a fisheye. The geometry of large format works so much better and is less distracting. For me the M 0.8 lenses solve the

challenges of shooting wide and close.”

An additional and significant factor was the size of the lenses. As Braham explains, “Shooting with a tiny camera package combining Red and Leitz allowed me

The decision to shoot with Red cameras and Leitz lenses was a slam dunk to tell the story in an uncompromised way, using a small camera and capturing large format, which until now was impossible.”

“Everyone is different, but to me the camera needs to be moving. A small camera can allow the operator to react in the moment, and to almost speak a different language when it comes to camera movement, which creates a genuinely different experience for the theatre audience in a way that the large format alone can’t achieve.”

Braham’s crew included Chris McGuire on B-camera/Steadicam, with Tom Lappin as C-camera operator. The second unit DP was Patrick Loungway.

Taylor Matheson, Will Emery and Max Junquera were the first assistants respectively on A, B and C-cameras,

with Kurt Kornemann as key grip. The chief lighting technician was Dan Cornwall.

Braham partnered with award-winning colourist Stefan Sonnenfeld, co-founder and president at Company 3, to develop the LUT for the film. “I like to use stills and paintings as references,” Braham says. “I’m looking at the quality of colour and tone of contrast, as well as the shape of black and the shape of white. For the core visual idea of The Suicide Squad – a vivid, rich but violent war movie – I wanted a lot of colour and beauty alongside gritty reality.”

Company 3 also prepped dailies for Gunn and Braham to view projected on-set. “Every day we’d build the look of the movie as it would look on a big screen in a theatre,” Braham says. “What Red and Leitz have done is come up with tech that is so small yet perfect for shooting pictures made for IMAX.” He concludes, “The Suicide Squad was a massive, complex movie. Same for the one I’m shooting now and the one after that. For me, this camera and lens combination is central to how all of these stories are being told. Nobody sitting in the cinema cares how big the camera is, or whether a film was shot Anamorphic or spherical. But they do connect with how you tell the story through movement and intimacy.”

Article courtesy of Red Digital Cinema and Leitz Cine Wetzlar.

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 49

HIGHLIGHT•CREAMSOURCE

ScreenSkills: supporting growth and recovery UK-wide

LEADING LIGHTS

By Michael Burns

C

reamsource is a company of technologists “who love film and lighting”, according to co-founder and CEO Tama Berkeljon.

Hailing from New Zealand, where he worked on The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, innovator Berkeljon made his first big impression on Australian film production when he built a highpower LED system for a motion capture stage for Happy Feet (2006, dir. George Miller, DP David Peers). The 6Kw LED lighting rig he built for the CG-animated, musical comedy caught the notice of gaffers working on the live-action component of the film, and collaboration proposals followed.

A company (established as Outsight) was founded in 2005 with fellow New Zealanders Sasha Marks, who had been building devices with Berkeljon since they were kids, and who now leads the engineering team at Creamsource as CTO, and Creamsource chief strategist Rob Craig.

Early projects included X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009, dir. Gavin Hood, DP Donald McAlpine ACS ASC), which included the development of a custom solution for the water tank scene, and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015, dir. George Miller, DP John Seale ACS ASC). Indeed, the movie’s DP John Seale ACS ASC described the Creamsource LED fixtures he used as being “great for manoeuvrability”, with “phenomenal versatility”.

Today the company is massively busy.

“Creamsource fixtures have been on a number of recent films including The Batman (2022, dir.

Matt Reeves, DP Greig Fraser ACS ASC), Mission: Impossible 7 (2022, dir. Christopher McQuarrie, DP Fraser Taggart) and Thor – Love And Thunder (2022, dir. Taika Waititi, DP Baz Idoine) to name a few,” says Berkeljon. “In all instances, either the gaffers or the cinematographers chose to use Creamsource fixtures for a specific application or for general use.

“Some of the unique capabilities of Creamsource fixtures lend themselves to very bespoke lighting effects, and we’ve seen this on a very large scale in films like Thor,” he adds. “We have learned that we find inspiration for improvement and innovation in these more specific cases, when working with gaffers, board/desk ops and effects crews.”

Most lighting companies are defined by their flagship products, and Creamsource has produced quite a few in a relatively short time. The Creamsource Doppio+ high-power LED flat panel array, described by Berkeljon as a “very punchy and very versatile workhorse”, and its more compact sibling the Mini+, were championed by the late DP Andrew Lesnie ACS ASC, who put the first Doppio units through their paces in 2009, and later used the Creamsource fixtures to light Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011, Dir. Rupert Wyatt) and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012, dir. Peter Jackson).

The Creamsource Sky full-colour-controllable LED fixture was an array of six powerful LED engines, cooled by a highly-efficient and silent heat pipe system. Water-resistant (IP65-rated), it first saw action

on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016, dir. Gareth Edwards, DP Greig Fraser ASC ASC).

“That film was the jumping-off board for a number of technology providers on several fronts, especially in the RGBW and RGB space,” says Berkeljon.

“The main focus for the Creamsource team has been on filling demand and maintaining exceptional quality, despite how challenging the times are,” he continues. “As we grow and optimise our manufacturing capacity, we give ourselves more headroom for innovation.”

One of the current fruits of that innovation has been SpaceX, developed primarily as an overhead alternative to conventional space lights. Gaffer David Besdesky, who deployed the SpaceX on the music video for Midnight Sky (2020) self-directed by Miley Cyrus, described it as being “so much more efficient and easy to get a consistent colour temperature and

system offers CCT ranging from 2200K to 15000K, a 20° beam angle and 650W of LED power providing the equivalent output to a HMI 1.2Kw Fresnel.

“Vortex8 is the culmination of years of customer feedback from our legacy users,” says Berkeljon.

“The Creamsource Doppio set a precedent in the industry for its punch due to the narrow beam angle.

Evolving this key element into an RGB all-in-one unit was really our driver. There are many things that gaffers now expect in a heavy-use fixture like a 2x1.

Our inspiration was to give them nothing less. To add to this, the value proposition for Vortex8 is equally important to our customers.

“Vortex8 was launched in July 2020 as a unique, high-powered hard light that’s IP65-rated and an allin-one light in a sense, as there is no external ballast or antennas,” he continues. “When you need to light

You can’t make great film, TV and animation without investing in the people Read the stories of the people we support at screenskills.com

output even when paired with custom lighting.”

“SpaceX is a 1200W RGBW fixture that is equivalent to a 5K Tungsten,” says Berkeljon.

“Although this was the intended use for the fixture, we have seen many applications for SpaceX on a yoke with a modifier being used as a key light and also as a practical. This combination yields an incredible volume of light and is flicker free for high-speed applications in excess of 5000fps.”

A recent development has been the Vortex8, another water-resistant LED fixture. The 2×1 RGBW

50 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

large areas, you may have tens to hundreds of fixtures and costs can quickly climb as higher illumination levels or larger coverages are required. In terms of dollars per watt, the narrow beam angle of the Vortex8 and the high wattage design is able to cover more area with fewer units.

“One year on, and we have made significant impact in the 2x1 space,” he says. “The market has shown us there is a significant desire for a fixture like this.”

David Besdesky is a fan of this fixture too, as he

HIGHLIGHT•CREAMSOURCE

We are extremely conscious about the environmental impact of running large-scale productions explains, “I always try to approach gaffing from a new angle on each project, and the pixel-mapping on Vortex8 gives me eight programmable pixel zones for building customised effects,” he says. “That built-in technology lets me add my signature touches to a production and set my work apart by offering the level of services someone else couldn’t deliver.”

“The industry has definitely got more aggressive in its demands over the years we’ve been at it,” says Berkeljon. “The requirements for last-minute stock, flexibility of product, and what is expected in terms of features has changed a lot. Competition has also changed totally since we started. In the early days we felt like we were competing with traditional light sources. Now we’re competing with ourselves to make things more innovative, to really polish the details and to give the world an alternate platform for their success.”

As with the rest of the industry, Creamsource is taking tackling the climate crisis seriously, with low-power, high-output solutions and a sustainabilityfriendly, five-year extended warranty programme being the norm.

“Being able to offer high volumes of light level and throw is achieved using lensed LEDs,” says Berkeljon. “At Creamsource we are extremely conscious and aware about the environmental impact of running large-scale productions. We take pride in our contribution to our industry and offering tools that are capable of achieving excellent light levels at a fraction of the power consumption.”

The Covid pandemic has proven to have had less of a negative impact on Creamsource than it has for some other manufactures. “The impacts of supply chain issues are real, but we have done a good job in pre-empting issues and ordering key parts ahead of time in volume,” Berkeljon says. “However, no-one is immune to the ever-changing world of the supply chain. Fingers crossed we will be okay for the near future.”

However, he also adds that, “the past year has been the company’s most significant year of operation in terms of growth, in all aspects.”

“The custom work that we have done in recent times has resulted in commercial releases, so our general customers are becoming the beneficiaries of this work,” Berkeljon reveals. “Evolving our technology is an on-going pursuit. As a result of our success with Vortex8 we can now focus on R&D for upcoming projects. We continue to keep working on the feedback from our customers and use this

as the inspiration for our product and technology development.

“For example, we have found that the need for fixtures that work effortlessly with wireless protocols has become more common in the past few years.

This natural progression has inspired us to focus on solutions that work well in environments with a high volume of lights.

“Creamsource will continue on its current trajectory of innovation and offerings to the pro market,” he adds. “Our goal is to continue to inspire creativity and out-of-the-box thinking in our community.”

52 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

The past year has been our most significant in terms of growth

ON TOUR•MBSE UK

MBSE UK•ON TOUR

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laying around with acronyms can make for an amusing pastime. During my drive along the M4 to visit MBS’s UK equipment headquarters at Colnbrook, near the confluence of the M25 and Heathrow Airport, wordplays like ‘meeting bright sparks’, ’mindblowing stuff’ and ‘millions & billions spent’ kept going through my busy skull.

My motorway brain storms, however, turned out to have more than a grain of truth to them, as I was ushered into to the company’s vast warehouse floor, by marketing director Ian Sherborn (erstwhile designer of Cinematography World Magazine’s first three editions), who has armed me with a welcoming cup of tea.

Entering the depot reminds me of the moment I first entered Terminal 5 at Heathrow, as in “Wow, that’s a ‘mightily big space”. A pair of binoculars would not go amiss to see what’s happening at either end of the 80,000sq/ft facility, which has a width of more that 24 loading bays.

MBSE UK, as it should be correctly titled, and run by UK and Europe MD Darren Smith, “is home to one of the UK’s newest inventories of lighting equipment designed specifically for

use in the entertainment production industry,” I am informed by amiable guru Steve Howard (technical director), who cheerfully boasts he can bore people to death about the company’s vast stash of energy-efficient, low-energy and LED products – some of which have been exclusively created by the company’s in-house think-tankcome-technical-development team at MBSi (the ‘I’ stands for ‘Innovations’).

These homegrown creations include MBSE’s Aquabat, the fully-submersible (IP68-rated), modular, bi-colour LED strip lighting system, developed in collaboration with UK gaffer David Smith, which, when ganged together, can be easily rigged to create softboxes with an almost infinite choice of size and shape, amongst other applications. Another is the company’s LEDtrix, a portable package of compact, controllable, five-colour, flicker-free LED panels, that come in multiple sizes and feature magnetic mounting and snap-on diffusion options, also developed through consultation with gaffers.

“We pride ourselves on forging strong working relationships with production crews,” says Howard. “It’s these relationships that allow gaffers

54 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

and desk ops to comfortably approach us with technical challenges or to develop ideas, straight from the set, which go beyond the realms of what is available from what we have on-the-shelf already.”

The provision of low-energy lighting, customdesigned control and network connectivity systems now represents multiple tens of millions of invested dollars by the MBS Group as a whole.

MBSE reckons it is able to achieve relative power savings of 92% on saturated lighting rigs – a mind-

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boggling statistic. Indeed, MBSE was a founding member of the BAFTA-led Albert initiative, as a supplier that supports an environmentally sustainable future for the TV industry.

“During filming on a recent Lucasfilm production, MBSE provided over 1,400 individual LED lamp heads,” says Howard. “Being able to supply these products in such quantities considerably lowered both the overall power consumption and environmental impact of the production.”

If further proof were necessary, the specification for a current tentpole movie called for 600 traditional spacelight units, with a power requirement of 2.8Megawatts. Following advice and camera tests with MBSE, the production replaced the request with the latest full-colour LED fixtures, straight from stock, which reduced the overall power requirement relatively to just 240kW. There seems to a fair amount of equipment racked and ready-to-go in the warehouse – encompassing many beautiful sources from recognised lighting brands such as ARRI, Creamsource and Ayrton, along with all manner of HMIs, Dinos and Wendy lights and other

02/09/2021 18:54

Opposite: (top) Toby Dare, Steve Howard and Ian Sherborn pictured at MBSE UK’s HQ, (below) a homegrown mini-LED driver This page: Chroma Q Brute-Force fixtures

traditional sources, right down to LED ribbons and miniature wireless LED drivers. If you want Tungsten illumination there’s a bountiful supply.

However, the kit that resides here and at MBSE’s well-known Pinewood base, represents just 10% of the overall inventory. The rest of the kit, along with vehicles and drivers, is out on jobs around the UK, Europe and beyond. Hence, a major part of MBSE being a customer-friendly

(DP Dion Beebe ACS ASC, gaffer David Smith).

MBSE provides lighting to music videos and commercials too, and if you are making a short, you could do worse than give them a call and see what you can blag!

We pride ourselves on forging strong relationships with production crews lighting supplier, trying to offer a much better service, is being a slick logistics operation – where kit comes back, gets tested, repaired and recycled for the next project with no mad b*ll*ck scramble. Howard says the company can test up to 400 separate LED fixtures a day.

Recent productions supported by MBSE in the UK include: 1917 (DP Sir Roger Deakins CBE BSC ASC, gaffer John Biggles Higgins); No Time To Die (DP Linus Sandgren FSF ASC, gaffer David Sinfield); Eternals (DP Ben Davis BSC, gaffer David Smith); Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (DP John Mathieson BSC, gaffer Chuck Finch); Mission: Impossible 7 (DP Fraser Taggart, gaffer Martin Smith); and The Little Mermaid

MBSE is also at the heart of providing the panels and infrastructure for multiple virtual set installations around the UK, as per those used on The Mandalorian (DP Greig Fraser ACS ASC, gaffer Jeff Webster) – although the specific application of these is being kept a most beloved secret for the time being.

Joining the tour is Toby Dare, formerly operations director at MBSE, and now its head of sustainability and risk – which by way of swift explanation means he’s overseeing the future carbon-neutral development of the company (his well-meaning mantra for that is “No More Lightbulbs”), plus the welfare of staff and visitors.

This is, after all, an industrial site where people are working with electricity and often heavy goods, so health and safety are important.

“It’s early days as we set out on the path towards being a carbon neutral company, but legislative compliance is only going to get tighter, and our customers’ expectations surrounding sustainability are only going to grow. So we must seek to fulfil these different ambitions,” says Dare.

What Dare’s title doesn’t elucidate is his significant additional role in also making sure that MBS takes diversity and inclusion seriously as an employer.

“MBSE is proud to partner with organisations such as ScreenSkills to address the skills gap in the industry, and with Netflix on the Bring To Light Trainee Programme,” Dare explains.

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 55

ON TOUR•MBSE UK Now, if you let us know how many times MBS and wordplays around that acronym appear in this article (some obvious, others not so obvious), I am sure there’s a tour and a mixed bag o’swag (hint) for you too. Give it a go!

Our customers’ expectations surrounding sustainability are only going to grow

“That programme was created to offer a unique opportunity to join the industry, where trainees are selected from the local community, with those from under-represented communities being particularly encouraged to apply.

“We also work with several other local groups, such as the MAMA Youth Project, to support and encourage the entry of young people from disadvantaged circumstances to the industry.

This support has included the direct employment of trainees through these incredibly worthwhile and valuable schemes.”

I depart after two and a half hours of what has been a genuinely enlightening tour, from a team who are passionate about what they do. I’m clutching a swag-bag stuffed with MBS-branded merch – pens, water-bottle, notebook and T-shirts.

MBSE IN NUMBERS: • Has the hardware to generate over 1.85million DMX control channels • Enough practical LED driver systems to generate over 56,000 LED channels • Almost 3.25million feet of mains cables • Over 1million feet of data cables • In excess of 5,000 mains distribution units • More than 10,000 low-energy LED fixtures This page: MBSE Auqabat LED strip lights, and Steve Howard showing-off MBSE’s LEDtrix

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I AM YOUR MAN•BENEDICT NEUENFELS AAC BVK

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CHEMISTRY TEST

Photo credits © Benedict Neuenfels.

BTS photos from I’m Your Man by Christine Fenzl.

By Darek Kuźma

It was a wonderful idea to make a smart film with robots about what it means to be human

Distinguished cinematographer Benedict Neuenfels AAC BVK used every opportunity to imbue director Maria Schrader’s acclaimed, bittersweet, human/AI romance, I’m Your Man, with subtle visual gloss.

T

he idea is simple: to indulge her boss, Alma (Maren Eggert), a steely and single German scholar, agrees to test Tom (Dan Stevens), a beta-version of a personalised humanoid robot, that is set to revolutionise the world of loners and workaholics unwilling or unable to build a long-lasting relationship.

Tom the robot, is gentle, handsome and would lasso the moon for her. Alma the human is busy, chaotic, stubborn and initially perceives Tom as a bothersome favour for the R&D department, treating him like a dumb machine.

But, being a self-improving AI in human skin, Tom swiftly becomes more than the sum of his parts, whilst his gentlemanly ways and algorithmic joie de vivre make Alma reflect on what being human should be about.

The film was inspired by Emma Braslavsky’s short story Ich Bin Dein Mensch and was adapted for the screen by Schrader alongside Jan Schomburg.

Neuenfels’ cinematography has been described as a pleasure to behold, as has the chemistry between the two leads.

Whilst prepping this offbeat story about humans, robots and the dwindling space between them, Neuenfels and Schrader watched dozens of cinematic depictions of AIs, including Her (2013, dir. Spike Jonze, DP Hoyte Van Hoytema FSF NSC ASC) and Ex Machina (2014, dir. Alex Garland, DP Rob Hardy BSC ASC). This was partly to envisage how to handle a high-concept idea about the advent of customised robots designed to bring human happiness, and ground it in low-key realism with a pinch of screwball comedy. And partly to see how not to make yet another dull, run-of-the-mill sci-fi show.

“The futuristic element about A/I in the story is an addition, it informs but not overwhelms the relationships. It’s in the background, sometimes you take notice, sometimes it flies before your eyes and

58 SEPTEMBER 2021 CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD

you’re not sure what it was,” says Neuenfels.

“We decided to rely very much on Dan Stevens’ acting. He invented a particular way of moving, in a slightly stiff but weirdly fluid, even acrobatic, sort of way; robotic and yet human-like. This gave him an interesting visual character. Tom is constantly learning and upgrading everything he is, so as to fit into Alma’s life and the human society she lives in, which is where a lot of the comedy comes from. I have a tremendous respect for comedians, their craft and their impeccable timing. I considered my main job in this area was to complement Dan with lighting and camerawork: they evolve as the film goes along, just as the audience’s perception of Tom is evolving.”

Neuenfels usually works with Red cameras, thus when it came to I’m Your Man he did not hesitate for a second. “I picked the Red Dragon 6K because I know it by heart and the feel that it gives me can’t be compared to any other camera on the market,” he says.

Neuenfels matched the Red Dragon with an interesting array of lenses. “I’m quite heterogeneous when it comes to lenses. I like it more when a film doesn’t have one precise look, because each perspective makes you see the world in a different way. I had a miscellany of glass on this film – old Russian lenses from the times of the GDR, which I combined with Zeiss High Speed lenses and I threw two Cooke zooms into the mix as well.”

He says he did not try to visually differentiate between Tom and Alma to drive the film’s point home, but focussed on subtly enhancing the viewers’ perception of them.

“I tried to give Tom’s face, his moves, a certain glow and smoothness. It’s barely perceptible but it gives him an interesting quality,” notes Neuenfels.

“As for Alma, I used an old-school system of ladies’ stockings on the lenses to soften the image. Then, in colour correction, done at The Post Republic in Berlin, I

pulled the colour and put more contrast into the image to make Tom’s skin look slightly artificial, and Alma’s less sharp. My camera operator was also a DIT, so we had a workstation on-set and prepared everything for post-production there.”

The key word for I’m Your Man, both narratively and technically, is ‘perception’. Both in terms of the characters and the places they occupy.

“There are some differences in how we shot Tom’s bedroom and Alma’s bedroom, but my job consisted in enhancing the worlds created by Dan Stevens and Maren Eggert through architecture and light,” says Neuenfels. “The apartment itself is neutral in tones. It’s outside where I could do much more.”

By “outside”, he means Berlin and the many ways it could be presented in-camera.

“I tried to capture its metropolitan essence, its magnificence, to stylise and contrast the richness and vivacity of our day scenes, with the coolness and sexiness of the night lights.”

Berlin is also depicted via locations, including the iconic Pergamon Museum with its stunning display of ancient architecture that serves as a backdrop to a notably emotional dispute between Alma and Tom. “We were limited at that location by rules of what we could do, in terms of camera movement and colour temperature. So we shot day-for-night, trying to cope with the overhead sunlight from outside, but we managed to get a great look with a huge battery of greenish-blueish coloured LED lights. It was a challenge, just like shooting a different technicallydemanding scene we did in a vividly lit ballroom full of extras playing robot holograms. But as Maria and I have known each other for decades, it has always been a pleasure for us to deal with these specific conditions.”

I’m Your Man was shot in a bit of a rush in 22 days in August 2020 in between the first and the second

wave of Covid-19, with more than half of shooting days in the Berliner Union Film Ateliers.

“Alma’s apartment was built entirely there, with a Rosco SoftDrop in the background. I mostly used LED lights, especially Aladdins because they have high colour index and I needed TLCI and CRI 97 to paint skin tones,” Neuenfels explains. “I’m not homogenic with light sources, so I had one ARRISUN 12K Par, a couple of 4K M40s and one Octagon Softbox to get softness in Alma’s eyes. This was basically my whole set, with a few Dino lights used in one location as a fill.”

Neuenfels put the emphasis on complementing the little moments that make Alma respectful of Tom, while he evolves to see the greyness in between blacks and whites of his binary programming. And he says that as the film progresses the viewer loses the ability to tell if the AI is still only a simulation of a human.

“When I read the script for the first time, I thought it was a wonderful idea to make a smart film with robots about what it means to be human, to be happy in a world in which everyone seems to have a different understanding of what being human and being happy are about. I feel we managed to fulfil this premise narratively and visually, and I’m proud of that.”

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 59

THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD•DP KASPER TUXEN DFF

DP KASPER TUXEN DFF•THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD

LIFE & LOVES

Film stills © Oslo Pictures.

This page: (below) DP Kasper Tuxen DFF with director Joachim Trier,

BTS pics courtesy of Christian Belgaux.

By Ron Prince

I really connected with the emotional trajectory of the script

S

et in contemporary Oslo, Norway, The Worst Person In The World (Verdens Verste Menneske) is a modern-day comic drama about the pursuit of love-and-meaning in our times. Directed by Joachim Trier, and shot on Kodak 35mm film by Danish DP Kasper Tuxen DFF, the movie was screened in-competition for the Palme d’Or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, and has been widely acclaimed as a contemporary classic.

Written by Trier and Eskil Vogt, and taking place over a four-year period, the story follows Julie, a 30-year-old whose life is an existential mess. Several of her talents have gone to waste and her older boyfriend, Aksel – a successful graphic novelist – wants to settle down and raise a family. However, one night, Julie gatecrashes a wedding party and encounters the young and charming Eivind. Before long, she has broken up with Aksel and thrown herself into yet another new relationship, leading her to take a look at who she really is and the understanding that some life choices have already passed her by.

The Worst Person In The World, a $5.7m Norwegian/French/Swedish/Danish co-production, sees theatre actress Renate Reinsve making her longform feature debut as Julie, alongside Anders Danielsen Lie as Aksel, and Herbert Nordrum as Eivind. It represents the closing chapter of Trier’s humanistic contemplation of the human condition in the so-called Oslo Trilogy, which includes his feature debut, Reprise (2006) and Oslo, August 31st (2011), which premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard. Both were shot on Kodak 35mm film by DP Jakob Ihre DFF. “It was a very proud moment for me to attend Cannes, and exciting to know this film was watched on its premiere by an audience that really respects cinema and the art of filmmaking,” says Tuxen, who frequently shoots music videos, shorts and commercials on celluloid, but who had not shot a

longform feature on film since leaving the Danish National Film School in 2003.

“One of the most important aspects of shooting this movie on 35mm was how it acted as an intensifier,” he remarks. “This was Renate’s first major screen role, and she, along with the other actors, gave it everything they had. For them, it was as though every take was the opening night on a

theatre stage. We did not want to lose that energy of emotion, and shooting on 35mm film had the incredible effect of magnifying everyone’s attention on-set and making sure we were always ready to capture those amazing performances.”

The Worst Person In The World was supposed to have started filming in Oslo during April 2020.

However, due to Norway’s national lockdown, the production commenced at the start of August, under strict testing and safety protocols, concluding 11 weeks later in October. For Tuxen this meant an extended stay in the city, but he used that time productively, renting a bicycle and touring around to observe the light at the chosen locations.

“Joachim and I are both fans of natural lighting,

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and I was highly-aware that the summer weather was going to be good for our shoot,” says Tuxen.

“But by the same token, the way that Joachim likes to give actors adequate time for crucial scenes, some of which were quite long, meant that I knew I would have to protect the look through the lighting – not an inconsiderable challenge.”

During production this required that some exterior scenes – such as the magicallyunreal, frozen-moment sequence when Julie crosses the town to see Eivind, whilst everything else remains motionless – were shot over the course of several days to ensure lighting continuity.

Additionally, many lengthy interior daytime scenes had to be shot under controlled artificial lighting, using bounced light from different ARRI LED SkyPanels, daylight HMI Fresnels and LiteGear LiteTiles, plus carefully-positioned Astera tubes, again for the sake of continuity.

During his extended prep period, Tuxen was encouraged by Trier to study the theatrical nature and storytelling power of the camera in films by renowned auteur filmmakers, such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrei Tarkovski and Éric Rohmer, as well as more contemporary directors including Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson.

“Joachim is great with mise-en-scene,” says Tuxen.

“When he steps into a particular room or location, you can see he’s creating the scene in his head – thinking about the blocking, the camera movement, creating shots on the dolly, or having moments for when we might go handheld or use Steadicam – all to support a certain freedom for improvisation amongst the actors. His attention to this meant this meant that we

were always well-prepped and everyone knew what to expect in advance of the shoot.”

There was never any debate that The Worst Person In The World would be captured on anything other than celluloid film, as that was a stipulation in Trier’s contract. Tuxen selected the ARRICAM LT with Cooke 5/i lenses for the shoot, along with an ARRI 435 for high-speed 150fps work, supplied by Storyline Studios in Oslo. Focus Film Lab in Stockholm, and CineLab in London, provided photochemical processing and film scanning services.

“I tested a range of different lenses, all offering T1.4, but we went with the Cooke 5/i’s as they gave a personality to the look that was softer, with controlled flares, and more appealing to our eyes,” the DP says.

“Our workhorse lens was the 40mm. Joachim does not like to shoot on wide lenses, so we would generally step back if we ever needed to frame for a medium or a full wide shot, rather than change lenses. I found this an interesting way to work.

“We filmed in 1.85:1, as all Joachim’s films have been in that aspect ratio. It’s a beautiful shape for portraiture and, on 3-perf film, it leaves a little wiggle room for reframing in post production if that becomes necessary.”

As for the filmstocks, Tuxen went with Kodak Vision3 5207 250D for the day exteriors and some of the brighter day interiors, and used Kodak Vision3 5219 500T for lower-light and night scenes.

“The 250D and 500T make a good overall combination in terms of grain, contrast and colour rendition,” he says, “But, for Joachim, the most important thing is how film renders the colour palette, especially on skin tones. He wanted the audience to see the emotion of red in crying eyes and the blush of a cheek, and film is really honest and beautiful in the way it does that.

“Film was also perfect for the many dusk and dawn sequences in the movie. With digital some

saturation levels can become flat blocks of colour, as the pixels don’t translate such graduated, painterly detail. But it is great pleasure to shoot on film, because you get what your eyes have seen on-set.”

Apart from a small number of scenes that needed a second camera, such as the summer cabin trip, The Worst Person In the World was a single camera shoot. Tuxen operated throughout, supported by first AC Ola Austad, second AC Robin Ottersen, and clapper/loader Luigi Cortese. Steadicam operators included Stig Indrebø and Anders Holck. The key grip was Morten Magnussen, and gaffers were Olav Haddeland, Jarl Johnsen and Björn Dokken. The final grade was performed by colourist Julian Alary at Storyline.

“They all had a good, positive attitude towards shooting on film and I found them very helpful and supportive in delivering the look that we intended,” declares the DP about his collaborators.

Tuxen concludes, “It was a huge honour to be asked to shoot this project by Joachim, and a really exciting challenge for me to come back to film. I

really connected with the emotional trajectory of the script, and I learned a lot from Joachim’s approach to filmmaking about storytelling using the camera and light. It was a very beautiful experience, and I would love to do it again.”

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 61

NIGHT HOUSE•ELISHA CHRISTIAN

ELISHA CHRISTIAN•NIGHT HOUSE

THE INVISIBLE MAN

By Darek Kuźma

Cinematographer Elisha Christian brought a distinct visual flair to director David Bruckner’s labyrinthine, widescreen, psychological horror The Night House, starring Rebecca Hall.

Images from The Night House courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

BTS photos by Bret Roedel. © 2020 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved Below: 3LR’s Barry Grubb (left) and Matthew Lloyd (right) Opposite: FoS/4 studio line of fixtures. Bottom: adding technology to the 3LR product mix.

The second layer was to cause the ordinary to seem increasingly sinister, and making the invisible visible. “There are shots where Beth goes through the house and may or may not notice a man-shaped void that can be seen only from a certain angle. Creature movement is VFX, but the shape and depth was done in-camera using a combination of architecture, objects and light,” says Christian. “We assume Beth’s POV, so a lot of times we go past the void and then come back to it when she questions what she saw. It’s almost as if Owen built these negative shapes into the house.”

The third layer was about breaking all previously established rules to mess with the viewers’ heads. “At night Beth keeps finding herself in this backwards world, which is a reflection of the normal world where everything is slightly off. Her house’s layout is wrong, she gets lost while walking through rooms. In her search for answers, Beth

distant location.”

Despite all of this, the DI, which was completed at Light Iron in New York with senior colourist Sean Dunckley, was basically about “making the whole piece visually-cohesive, and trying to shape the normal world versus the mirror world in which Beth gets trapped,” says Christian.

The Night House will scare audiences

O

wen has just shot himself. For no apparent reason. He went out in his boat to the middle of a scenic lake surrounding the perfect house he had built with his own hands for his perfect relationship with Beth. And then he pulled the trigger.

Obviously, Beth is devastated. Her whole life is turned suddenly into that of a grief-stricken, oftintoxicated widow, who feels the presence of her husband in the void he has left behind. But one night the void talks back and begins to stalk her in the daytime as well as in her dreams. A trick of her mind, surely. But… might it be Owen?

Christian says he is not a horror person, but considers himself a “genre-flexible DP.” His recent credits as a cinematographer include Kogonaga’s feature Columbus (2017) and the documentary Max Richter’s Sleep (2019), directed by Natalie

Jones. He joined The Night House for its psychologically-nuanced storytelling.

“The script for The Night House was very much like a labyrinth,” he remarks, “it was insanely difficult to keep track of all the false leads and tropes it throws at you, but I loved the sheer variety of options it gave us.”

He and director David Bruckner watched a number of films to augment what they were planning to achieve on-screen. “We considered Olivier Assayas’ supernatural thriller Personal Shopper (2016, DP Yorick Le Saux AFC), for the way the camera floats and follows the character, and also Darren Aronofsky’s psychological horror Mother! (2017, DP Matthew Libatique ASC), for the eerie relationship between the characters and their house towards nature.”

But ultimately Bruckner and Christian wrote

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their own rules. “As an audience member, you’re going on a visually-layered ride with a woman who doesn’t know what’s real. As a result, as a viewer, it makes you question what is actually happening versus what may be in her mind.”

The first layer was to detail Beth’s world.

“David knew from the beginning that we needed to familiarise the audience with the geography of the house and the surrounding area. We see Beth enter rooms, we see spaces leading to adjacent rooms, it’s always clear where she is and where she’s heading. Outside, we make sure the viewer understands the relationship of the lake, the dock, the woods and the neighbour’s house,” says Christian. “That’s part of the reason we shot widescreen. Even in a close-up, you have extra information on the sides of the frame that place Beth in the space.”

uncovers Owen’s extremely dark secrets,” Christian explains. “In the third act, we flip everything on its head and pull the rug out from under the audience.”

Thrown into a genre he did not know well, Christian had to trust his instincts, especially as he had just three weeks of prep and 24 shooting days in the summer of 2019 in and around Syracuse, New York, with a quarter of it on a local stage where they built some interiors of Beth and Owen’s house.

“As I didn’t have time to test, so I relied on my familiarity with the ARRI Alexa Mini, using a combination of Cooke S5s and Angénieux Optimo zooms. I had used the S4s in combination with the Optimos in the past, but because of our extensive night and remote location work, I knew I was going to need the extra stop that the S5s provided,” says the cinematographer. “The lenses were kept pretty clean filtration-wise, with 1/8 or 1/4 Hollywood Black Magic being employed in certain scenes.

I was very fortunate to bring along my operators James Goldman and Roger Chingirian, as well as my 1st ACs, Nito Serna and Nick Bianchi.”

Knowing the challenges laying ahead, Christian equipped himself with light sources he knew would help to maintain the director’s vision.

“Our HMI package consisted of an M90, a couple of M40s, M18s, and a K5600 JoLeko 800.

Other than that, we mostly used a combination of LED sources: LiteGear LiteMats, ARRI SkyPanels, and a couple of Astera kits,” explains the DP. “Coming from a grip background, I prefer shaping day exteriors with bounces and negative fill. I owe a huge amount to my gaffer, Steven Lundgren, and key grip, Dan Jarrell, and their teams.”

There were challenges with night exteriors in the woods, though. “One day we had a delivery truck accidentally dump a Condor on its way to set.

So we had to figure out on-the-fly how to shoot in the woods that night without our main light source.

That’s one of the many challenges of shooting in a

“Sean helped us ride the line of how dark we could keep things and still maintain detail, and he developed this silky black level that I fell in love with.

There were hundreds of VFX shots being finished concurrently with the DI, which made it a race to finish by our Sundance deadline.”

The film premiered at Sundance 2020 to great reviews but, like many others, it was shelved because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I’m proud of the work we did, and it’s satisfying to see the result finally ending-up on the big screen,” says Christian. “I believe The Night House will scare audiences, but it has more dimension than relying on cheap scares, and I hope viewers will recognise that.”

Christian is currently trying different challenges in his flourishing career. “Out next is an erotic thriller called The Voyeurs, written and directed by Michael Mohan for Amazon, and I’m prepping a limited series for Hulu that flips the true crime genre on its head. I know, I’m all over the place, but I think that’s what’s interesting in this job. I wouldn’t have it otherwise.”

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 63

PEOPLE JUST DO NOTHING: BIG IN JAPAN & SWEETHEART•MATTHEW WICKS

NOTHING VENTURED, NOTHING GAINED

People Just Do Nothing images

by Ken Hirama. © Focus Features.

Sweetheart image (bottom)

by Nell Barlow. © OverACliff Ltd.

Things were too ‘on-the-fly’ to have focus pullers

W

and loud. Growing through its BBC Three Comedy Feeds commission and subsequent five series, the show has now metamorphosised into that most strapping of formats – the feature film, entitled People Just Do Nothing: Big In Japan.

“We decided to shoot in 2.39:1 aspect ratio as an immediate cue that you’re watching something visually different, something cinematic,” relates Wicks, speaking via Zoom from his garden-shed-cum-office the morning after the film’s cast and crew screening at Cineworld, Leicester Square, London.

“The director, Jack Clough, wanted to keep that

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feeling of a two-camera documentary in the film,” continues Wicks, “so we chose the Sony Venice, partly for its resolution, but also because the Venice’s codec means you can get 100 minutes of shooting on a card.”

The importance of this detail is soon revealed.

“We don’t rehearse,” Wicks confides, “the cast just run the scenes over and over and we capture it.”

He reveals that somewhere between takes ten and 15, there is a sweet spot whereby the two camera operators have sufficiently familiarised themselves with the material, which is largely scripted but peppered with ad-libs, and learned to pan at the crucial moment to

catch a line or zoom in for an expression.

“It is true to how the guys need to perform in the TV series,” Wicks continues, “and we had to carry that over into the film. We couldn’t just ‘shoot the script’ because you’d lose so much of their magic.”

This approach, however, raised some eyebrows at Focus Features (co-producing with BBC Films) and distribution company Universal Pictures. “They’re not used to seeing dailies that are two-and-a-half hours long,” chuckles Wicks, “where the camera’s swinging around all over the place. But that’s the shooting style.”

Citing both This Is Spinal Tap (1984, DP Peter Smokler) and 16mm documentaries from the ‘70s as stylistic references, Wicks swapped the TV show’s usual Angénieux zooms for vintage Nikon stills lenses, re-housed for production cameras and sourced from Procam Take 2. Wicks operated A-camera himself, with seasoned TV-comedy DP/operator Alistair Upcraft on B-camera. They did not use focus pullers.

“You need that documentary-style operating where you find the focus a little bit,” explains Wicks, “and things were too ‘on-the-fly’ to have focus pullers. It wasn’t too bad for me because I was on the wider end most of the time, but Ali handled all the tight stuff. It was a bit of an undertaking for him.”

The storyline of People Just Do Nothing: Big In Japan sees the Kurupt FM crew swap the sodium-saturated sprawl of suburban Brentford for the neon, sense-jangling megalopolis that is Tokyo, Japan, after discovering that one of their garage tracks is being used in a Japanese game show.

“Tokyo is amazing,” marvels Wick, “but there’s so much artificial light from the buildings, street lighting and advertisements, that sometimes you don’t know whether it’s day or night. It’s tricky because the People Just Do Nothing shooting style means you see 360-degrees in most locations and move between exterior and interior, plus they’re wearing baseball caps in practically every scene. I really tried to avoid stop pulls, there’s enough camera noticeability in the show anyway. But the exposure needed to stay consistent.”

Hidden lights, practicals, lighting from the outside-in and bringing lights up on-cue, were all utilised to help balance the fluctuating lumens. “There were some tricky interiors on this film, says Wicks, “ and it took a lot of figuring out.”

One scene in particular, in which the Kurupt FM crew visit a record label on the 30th floor of an archetypal Tokyo skyscraper, caused some headaches.

“It was all glass, everywhere,” exclaims Wicks. “The sun was moving constantly, going in and out. I had to use a couple of 6kW lamps just to get the levels to match, but then had to work out how to hide them with reflections everywhere.”

Local experience came into its own in this circumstance. “Jun Tanaka, my gaffer, came up with some great ideas,” enthuses the DP. “He rigged the 6Ks off

another part of the building. We got that scene done in a day, but we were flying by the seat of our pants a little bit.”

Finding that they couldn’t get permission to film inside a hotel room in Tokyo “for love nor money”, the production team were obliged to recreate those scenes at Pinewood Studios, with greenscreens to fillin the Tokyo skylines outside the expansive windows.

Reflections plagued Wicks once more, plus there was the added complication of trying to match the parallax of the virtual Tokyo skyline with the action.

“Normally when you’re using VFX the shotlist is carefully pre-planned,” says Wicks, “so you know the angles and can shoot plates to match.” However, this was not possible under the People Just Do Nothing methodology. “You can’t ask to the cast, ‘Can you stay there?” or say “You’ve got to hit this mark’,” reiterates Wicks, “it just doesn’t work like that. But the VFX team pulled it off and you wouldn’t know that it wasn’t shot on location to look at it.”

The final look of People Just Do Nothing: Big In Japan was finessed at Goldcrest Post Production, London.

“We went for quite a de-saturated look,” says Wicks.

“We liked how Lost In Translation (2003, DP Lance Acord ASC) captured Japan, with the colours flattenedout and muted, and that’s the look of the People Just Do Nothing show as well. It needed to feel real.”

Frustratingly, the pandemic drove a wedge between the shoot and post-production, and by the time they came to the grade, Wicks had been called onto another project.

“I could only give notes remotely,” he commiserates, “which I was gutted about. But the director Jack just lives and breathes the show, so I knew that the grade was in safe hands with him.”

Wicks’ name can be seen gracing the credits of another feature film in 2021: Sweetheart, the debut feature of director and LGBTQ rights activist, Marley Morrison, which was made under Film London’s Microwave scheme in partnership with the BFI and BBC Films. Representing Wicks third project with Morrison, the coming-of-age comedy follows teenager AJ as she discovers that a sexual awakening might just sweeten-up a dull caravan park holiday.

“It was great because everyone stayed on-site and we had the run of the park,” says Wicks. “Even though it’s one location, the variety that you get from filming somewhere like that is amazing.”

Shooting with a single camera, Wicks utilised the Sony Venice once more. “Being able to work in Rialto mode, by taking the front part of the sensor off, and shoot with a tiny camera in the caravans was a godsend,” he remarks.

The cramped interiors contrasted with the

expansive scenery. “We wanted to shoot on Anamorphic lenses,” expounds Wicks, “as the landscape lends itself really well to the 2.39:1 aspect ratio.”

With a tiny budget for the camera package, Canning 24 came up with some vintage, slightly creaky, Kowa Anamorphics. “They were characterful to say the least,” laughs Wicks.

Even though West London lighting hire company Liteworx provided the lighting package “pretty much for free”, budget and space limitations meant Wicks often needed to get creative.

“It was really sunny a lot at the time. We didn’t have big lights, and the caravans don’t have any floor space for lights anyway,” he relates. “So we bounced a lot of

Being able to work with the Sony Venice in Rialto mode was a godsend the sunlight inside, flagging it off and silking it, to keep the exposure levels correct.”

Morrison favoured letting the scenes play out in one or two shots rather than regular cuts between wides and close-ups. As with People Just Do Nothing, Wicks operated the camera himself.

“For me, camera operating is such a personal thing,” reflects Wicks, “I definitely feel like I get hired for my operating style as well as my lighting. Operating as a DP can be testing, like when you’re shooting handheld and someone else has to hold the frame while you tweak the lights. But it’s so much a part of what the job is, and sometimes you might be inspired by something in the moment and want to frame it a bit differently. I would definitely like to try a job in the future where I was just lighting and had an operator,” he muses, “because then that’s another skilled person’s input.”

© OverACliffLtd

By Natasha Block Hicks

e catch up with Matthew Wicks, resident DP on the BAFTA-winning series People Just Do Nothing: Big In Japan and the cinematographer on Marley Morrison’s Microwave London debut feature Sweetheart.

People Just Do Nothing was initially created to be viewed on the smallest screens. Conceived as a series of YouTube mockumentary webisodes, it follows the hapless crew of Kurupt FM, the most ‘notorious’ pirate radio station inside Brentford. People Just Do Nothing’s nascent format was peppery, loose-in-length

MATTHEW WICKS•PEOPLE JUST DO NOTHING: BIG IN JAPAN & SWEETHEART

CINEMATOGRAPHY WORLD SEPTEMBER 2021 65

GAFFERS CAFÉ•DAVID SINFIELD

DAVID SINFIELD•GAFFERS CAFÉ

SHINING A LIGHT

Having everything controlled from an iPad allows us to be very, very quick when it comes to tweaking a lighting set-up

This page: gaffer David Sinfield pictured with DP Linus Sandgren ASC (photo by Jason Dully), and with DP Phedon Papamichael (photo by Giles Keyte).

Other BTS images taken on the set of Wonder Woman 1984 (photos by Clay Enos)

41 29/11/79 School // Bhamesmead, Shepperton & Strodes College, Egham Training // Lee Lighting & City & Westminster College, London Early career // Lee Lighting at Shepperton Studios Lives in // North Newton, Somerset, UK Hobbies/Passions // Golf, watching rugby, travelling, holidays with the family Age //

Born //

Recent filmography (as gaffer unless otherwise indicated) Indiana Jones 5 (2022) Venom Let There Be Carnage (2021) No Time To Die (2021) Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) Aladdin (2019) The Nutcracker And The Four Realms (2018) Red Sparrow (2018) (gaffer: UK) The Mummy (2017) (gaffer: additional photography) Wonder Woman (2017) The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016) Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) (gaffer: second unit) Starting out Originally I went to college to study law, aged 16, but didn’t really enjoy it. My uncle was a grip and he got me a job at Shepperton Studios in the lighting stores with Lee Lighting. They offered me an apprenticeship, I passed my exams and went on the road. My first film experience was Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire and I never really looked back. I always wanted to be a gaffer from the time I was an apprentice electrician.

Working with DPs The more time you spend with the DP talking about the film, the script, the look and what they envision, the better in my view. I’m currently working with Phedon Papamichael ASC on Indiana Jones 5.

We previously worked together on The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016). Working with a DP for the second time always makes the job easier and more fun, something I also found with Linus Sandgren FSF ASC on No Time To Die after working with him on The Nutcracker And The Four Realms (2018).

Discussing in detail what Phedon wants the film to look like gives me the opportunity to design lighting plans and rigs to suit. I see my role as primarily a support for the DP, allowing them to shoot a scene over the allotted timeframe without delays because of lighting issues. Whether it’s a set on a stage or a day exterior, it’s about how you maintain the desired look for the duration of the day. It’s nice when you gain a DP’s trust to go ahead and prepare sets on their behalf.

Emission-free generators We launched Green Voltage, a battery-powered generator company, in the UK at the beginning of 2019 to bring battery power to the film industry. When I say “we” I mean myself, my desk op Adam Baker and Ben Patience. We got the idea when I was working on Wonder Woman 1984 in Fuerteventura, Canary Islands. We were powering lights and cameras on tracking vehicles in a dead quiet area and the level of noise and fumes from the diesel generators was frustrating everyone. It was then that a friend drew my attention to these 5K battery-operated generators called VOLTstacks.

It was a light bulb moment as they were just what I needed right then to deal with the problems of noise and pollution that comes with diesel powered generators. That was three years ago and since then they have really taken off, being used on lots of films, events and streaming shows, helping those productions to become as sustainable as possible.

We have followed up the 5K model with our latest 20K E-Gen. To me they look like the future of powering production, certainly when you don’t need to run big lights. We have access to about ten 20K battery generators, but not that many people are aware of them just yet.

Benefits of LED in greening production LEDs have made it very easy to use battery power, because they are all low-power lights compared to Tungsten or HMI. I have done a lot of night shoots recently where we’ve used LEDs, such as ARRI SkyPanels, Creamsource Vortex or LED balloons, and relied completely on battery-powered generators.

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Whereas before you might have used a 5K, you can now run an LED equivalent that pulls just 500W. If LED didn’t exist it would be hard to use this battery power for lights, that’s for sure.

On No Time To Die we shot a few of the scenes out at sea on boats in Jamaica –powering the whole shoot with battery generators as the key source of power, charging them with solar panels. But when you get the big lights out you still have to fire-up a generator at the moment.

Battery-power makes progress In filmmaking people are increasingly looking for solutions to reduce carbon footprints. When I go on recce’s in places like London, one of the first questions is always, “Where am I going to park the generator?”.

Often the nearest likely spot is 500m away as residents don’t want them parked outside their houses.

I completely respect that, but it means very long cable runs and logistics to provide power.

The way I look at these generators at the moment is that, if we are on location and don’t need to run big lights then, I don’t want to run a diesel generator at all, because it’s just polluting and increasing our carbon footprint. So I’d use the electric generator to power the film unit – the video, the DIT, camera and grips. Some days now we have completely carbon zero shoots in lighting because we’ve not needed to turn on the diesel generators.

The 200KW battery In ten years time, maybe less, people will be driving 200KW battery units around London, because it will be increasingly hard to run noisy, polluting diesel generators to power film shoots.

It depends creatively on what lights the gaffer or DP wants to use, of course. They might want to light with conventional film lights, so you can’t at the moment say we are going to use battery power generators for everything. You have to find out what the DP wants to use and work backwards from there.

But I’m very invested in Green Voltage as a business, and also as a way of reducing the environmental impact of filmmaking. There’s no printing on-set, or plastic bottles any more, and battery generators are where the lighting department can make its contribution towards sustainability.

Virtual sets The use of projected graded footage on big LED screens to create a virtual ‘location’ environment on stage for the actors to perform in is increasingly common these days. The actors really seem to like it because it’s easier for them to feel they are on location,

Some days we have completely carbon zero shoots rather than in front of a greenscreen. Creatively it’s up to the DP/director whether they want to shoot like this or not, but lots of films use them successfully because there are lots of advantages. A scene at sunset in the desert, for example, doesn’t have to chase the golden, one hour window, but can use virtual backgrounds to shoot the scene over a couple of days.

Loyal crew When people employ me what they are really hiring is the whole team and I’m very lucky to have a

loyal fantastic crew. Most of them have been with me for last six of seven years – lighting programmer Adam Baker, best boys Dave Brennan and Ian Sinfield, Tom O’Sullivan as rigging gaffer, supervisor Fred Brown, rigging supervisor Simon Cullen, and HoD rigger Michael Heath. The practicals team is headed up by Gary Thornhill. These guys are very experienced with electronics and building lighting into sets but everything comes from Adam Baker’s plans.

I create lighting plans in prep and Adam puts them into CAD designs and the rigging ops figure out channel numbers for lights and the rigging guys install it. Having everything pre-programmed and controlled from an iPad allows us to be very, very quick when it comes to tweaking a lighting set-up. On some films we have multiple rigging crews at studios and on location, so along with the lighting companies providing kit, it’s a real team effort.

Importance of the desk op The centre of everything these days is the desk operator. They control any number of complicated lighting rigs from an iPad on stage. It really helps because you can change the colour of LEDs in seconds. DPs and gaffers all like the facility to change lighting from 4000K to 3200K at the touch of a button on multiple lights, including intensity, even matching certain lighting scenarios via XY coordinates.

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TAKE SCENE SLATE•UNDERWATER DP IAN SEABROOK

UNDERWATER DP IAN SEABROOK•TAKE SCENE SLATE Opposite: Ian Seabrook shooting M. Night Shyamalan’s Old in The Dominican Republic.

This page: BTS shots of Ian Seabrook during production on Jungle Cruise.

SUBAQUAMAN

By Michael Goldman

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bout three years ago, when filmmakers were planning Disney’s recent box-office hit, Jungle Cruise, one key challenge involved figuring out how to film the climactic sequence to the film, a large portion of which takes place underwater.

The scene involves characters played by Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt discovering a mystical, ancient tree that has potential life-giving powers, but is sunken underwater, dormant and needing to be raised to the surface by manipulating “puzzle pieces” embedded in stone. Realising the sequence required extensive and highly complex underwater work, and that, in turn, meant the filmmakers needed a worldclass underwater cinematographer to collaborate with director Jaume Collet-Serra and cinematographer Flavio Martinez Labiano.

The producers chose award-winning industry veteran Ian Seabrook, who had freshly finished shooting underwater sequences for It, Chapter 2 (2019, DP Checco Varese ASC). Previously, Seabrook had taken charge of complex underwater scenes on such blockbusters as Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice (2016, DP Larry Fong), Deadpool 2 (2018, DP Jonathan Sela), and has since worked on M. Night Shyamala’s Old (2021, DP Mike Gioulakis) among others.

Relying on Seabrook’s expertise, Jungle Cruise’s underwater scenes were shot over the course of two weeks in late 2018 on a specially-configured tank at Blackhall Stages in Atlanta, using Alexa SXT Plus cameras with specially-designed Panavision lenses enclosed in a proprietary water housing. I recently caught up with him to discuss his work on the film, and the broader challenges posed by the grueling art of underwater cinematography.

When joining a production like Jungle Cruise, what are the first steps you need to take to make sure the plan can be executed safely?

When they were constructing the ‘puzzle

piece’ set, I started with several meetings with the art department, to ensure they were going to use the correct marine-grade materials, so that the set would not decompose or come apart in the water.

It had to be a functioning piece, painted with Mayan script and puzzle pieces attached to it.

They built a tank with heated water, and eventually used a construction crane to lift the set into the water on a stage at Blackhall 2. From there, I inspected the set daily with the marine coordinator, and made special note of anything that was floating, and any particulate that was coming off. Any time a set goes into the water, there will be air bubbles as the set gets used to being submerged. Whatever materials are used will get waterlogged, and sometimes, they can come apart in a bad way, affecting visibility in the water.

You are the first in line between the talent and what the director wants So, there were lots of meetings. Then, you work with the stunt team on preliminary stunt rehearsals. I always observe the stunt rehearsals to make sure the camera is not placed in a spot where the motionpicture camera might not fit later. Stunt visualisation can be great for the stunt team to work out their own parameters, but it can be limiting sometimes for camera placement. So, all kinds of meetings and steps are taken long before I get into the water.

So, you get personally involved in safety and logistical matters during prep? It’s not a

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situation where you simply show up on the day, dive and shoot?

Not hardly. I remember doing a picture once with the great cinematographer Don Burgess ASC. One of the crew looked at me and said that looks like so much fun, “jump in and let it rip”. Before I could reply, Don cut him off and said, “it’s actually an incredibly difficult job.”

You have to use your diving skills, you have to compose, grip and direct underwater when the director or AD can’t communicate through the underwater speaker. You are the first in line between the talent and what the director wants. You also have to be a safety diver in case an actor gets into trouble or gets confused. You might also have to redress parts of the set or adjust other underwater elements for practical effects if there is a bubble line or whatever. And, of course, you have to operate and adjust the camera. So, you wear many different hats doing this kind of work.

What about dealing with the lead actors—in the case of Jungle Cruise, Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt?

That’s usually the first question I ask, “Who is going into the water?”. I study their resumé and see in advance if they have any water experience. In Dwayne’s case, he had previously done Baywatch.

Emily, to my knowledge, hadn’t done any water work, but for someone who had not, she was remarkable – very skilled at holding her breath while acting.

The thing is, people can be petrified and scared underwater, which obviously makes it hard to act, and then they might be dealing with a set that has a specific escape route that isn’t easy, and it might be dark or there might be confusing interactive lighting down there.

On Jungle Cruise, we had the side of the set open so that Emily could swim out. I always design an escape route for the talent and physically show

them where it is. The problem is their schedules. The production may tell us we only have the person for 20 minutes before they go back to main unit or some other obligation. So, you have to work efficiently in short periods of time. But that said, they were both great in the water.

I would imagine your camera housing is of huge importance.

It’s a custom-designed housing. The one I use has an internal rib design to help dispense and dissipate heat. On a set like Jungle Cruise, there is not much room to move around inside the tank. We also try to make sure the weight is balanced – not too much effort pulling down or pushing up. But really, balancing a housing underwater is not too much different from balancing a Steadicam or Libra head on dry land.

The camera housing is slightly negative and will sink if left alone, because if it floats, that isn’t good.

But, by having perfectly trimmed and balanced cameras, I can concentrate on filming images, and not have to fight the camera housing so much. I try to forget my diving and the balance on the camera and just think about the four corners of the frame. At the end of the day, it should just be about composition and the shots and swimming enough to keep up with the talent.

There have been many custom designed housings for film cameras in the past, including the Hydroflex, which was pretty much an industry standard for film work. Shooting film or digital also impacts size and weight. For digital work, such as Jungle Cruise, however, I prefer my own customdesigned system.

So, you typically do most of the ‘heavy lifting’ yourself? That must require great levels of fitness and training?

Typically, I don’t have any help beyond a surface assistant who pulls focus remotely, hard-wired by

cable to the housing. That’s one of the two cables down there – the other one is an HD cable going back to the DIT on the surface. Remote focus pulling is not unusual these days, and we make sure to have enough cable so that they won’t get yanked or have the unit pulled out of their hand.

For digital work, the camera housing can range

I might come out for a pee break, but hardly ever leave the water anywhere up to 80lbs, depending on camera and lens configuration. That can be heavy underwater, so you just have to muscle it. You are basically using your shoulders, hip flexors and your stabiliser muscles to keep the camera buoyant. Sometimes, people put

a buoyancy compensator on just to give themselves a bit of air, but often times, I do not wear a tank, so as to reduce weight. I use a long hose or just hold my breath. There was no room, for instance, for me

to have a breathing tank on-set for Jungle Cruise.

So, my tank was outside the set, connected to a long hose that I grabbed if I needed air.

So, yes, to be an underwater cameraman, you have to be in really good shape. I have a commercial diving license and a diving medical done every year, getting a stress test and checking heart rate and other stuff. I’m forced to stay in shape.

I do weight training, running, cycling and other things year-round.

The other thing is longevity, once I go into the water. You might come out for a pee break, unless you are in the ocean of course, but I hardly ever come out of the water. You have to have stamina. I basically have four drink vessels filled with different things. One has a shake in it, one has green tea, one has water, and so on. When I come to the surface, I’ll ask for the green or the red bottle and I get a quick drink. It’s not really different from what athletes do during a triathlon. In fact, the fitness level has to be about the same, especially if you are in the open ocean.

Sounds like you put all that training and fitness to good use on Jungle Cruise.

There is a scene near the end when the set comes out of the water, and we were discussing how could we do that. Typically, you would speed-rail the camera housing to the set, so that the camera and the set are rising at the same time. But we discovered where the storyboard wanted the camera to be, there wasn’t any hard place to bolt the camera housing. I proposed a pass where I stood on the set, holding the camera, and then, using the construction crane, they lifted the set out of the water. We had an 80lbs camera and housing system in the water. But when a set gets lifted up, all that water weight and mass pushes down on you as you are attached to the set. I was just standing there in my flipflops. I held my breath as we came up, but once the set was lifted out of the water, the shot was not over – I had to hold the shot all the way. You have to be in good shape to lift that kind of mass and capture the shot under those conditions.

Michael Goldman is the author of The Making of Disney’s Jungle Cruise, for those who want to learn more about how the film was put together.

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COLOUR & POST

COLOUR & POST

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inelab, London: has hired Darren Rae as head of colour. Rae is a highly-regarded colourist, having spent over 25-years collaborating with the leading directors and cinematographers doing dailies supervision and grading numerous blockbusters, independent features and award-winning long form series.

Some of his credits include: Spectre, Dumbo, Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, Solo – A Star Wars Story, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, Rogue One – A Star Wars Story, The Mummy and Doctor Strange. Rae has also specialised in the restoration and remastering of classic films such as Weird Science, Murder On The Orient Express and Ken Loach’s Ladybird Ladybird.

Rae began his career at Todd-AO, working with the photochemical and film laboratory team on film and TV productions. He most recently held roles of supervising dailies colourist at Company3 London, head of grading at Pinewood Studios, and senior colourist at Harbor.

Cinelab London CEO, Adrian Bull, said, “I have known Darren for many years and have been impressed with how his career has developed. He is an outstanding talent, dedicated to looking after clients and always doing his best.”

Rae added, “I’ve known Adrian since my ToddAO days, we’ve been friends ever since and I’ve long admired all that has been achieved at Cinelab. Their recent expansion to become a complete film and digital dailies facility, the continued resurgence of shooting on film, and the high-profile digital shows in production make this an inspiring opportunity.”

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ilmLight, London: the colour management and DI technology firm’s new event – FilmLight Colour Awards – honouring colourists and the art of colour worldwide, has met with acclaim from colourists, cinematographers and directors across the globe.

The judging panel and awards are being organised with the co-operation of the ASC , IMAGO and CSI (Colorist Society International), with the winners due to be celebrated at EnergaCAMERIMAGE 2021 in Poland.

DP Roberto Schaefer ASC AIC, a member of the IMAGO technical committee, said, “For years I have believed that as cinematographers we need to acknowledge that there is more to creating the best cinematography. The finished product is the work of many talented and artistic individuals who should be recognised in a wide, cross-departmental way. I hope that this will be a beginning.”

FilmLight has started to unveil the panel of industry luminaries who will evaluate the nominees.

Oscar and BAFTA-nominated DP Danny Cohen BSC commented, “How the cinematographer and a colourist work together on a film is key. There needs to be a sympathetic understanding of the project as so much hangs on the grading. For a colourist to be able to interpret what a DP wants and then execute the look is vital.”

Colourist Peter Doyle has formed long-term collaborations with DPs such as Bruno Delbonnel AFC ASC, Seamus McGarvey BSC ASC and Philippe Rousselot AFC ASC, and directors such as Tim Burton,

Joe Wright, Guy Ritchie and Peter Jackson. From using custom software to colour grade The Matrix in the 1990s, to commissioning the first of the DI grading packages for The Lord Of The Rings in the early 2000s, he now works with PostWorks NYC. Beatriz Pineda is senior director, non-linear distribution and new technologies for HBO Latin America. She has helped companies such as HBO and Sony to optimise their media distribution pipelines, introducing innovative products in a highly demanding industry.

The Oscar and BAFTA-winning cinematographer of Slumdog Millionaire, Anthony Dod Mantle DFF BSC ASC, is known for his collaboration with

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directors such as Danny Boyle, Lars Von Trier, Ron Howard, Oliver Stone, Thomas Vinterberg and Kevin MacDonald. Nicola Daley is a renowned Australian cinematographer who has shot documentaries in Iraq and North Korea, and who now focuses on drama and commercials.

Also joining the judging is multi-award-winning senior colourist Jet Omoshebi from Goldcrest Post Production, London. Collaborating with highly regarded DPs and directors, she has contributed to acclaimed TV dramas and feature films including Fortitude, Rellik, The Night Manager, The Witcher and The Terror. The panel also includes Simon Astbury, managing director at Juice in Shanghai, and Zak Tucker, co-founder, CEO and president of Harbor.

Wolfgang Lempp, CEO of FilmLight said, “I’m sure that having colourists and cinematographers, plus artists and technologists, on the judging panel will spark some lively debates.”

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olinare, London: senior colourist, Vicki Matich, recently pulled out the stops on Netflix’s Memories Of A Murderer: The Nilsen Tapes, directed and edited by Michael Harte. The show explores the life and terrible crimes of Scottish serial killer and necrophile Dennis Nilsen. Following three different timelines, North London 1983, Nilsen’s time in prison, and his backstory, the brief was to differentiate visually between all three, whilst maintaining continuity and harmony. This feature was shot on a Red camera, and later graded by Matich, who carried out the Dolby Vision grade session. Describing her process, she explained how, “It was important to give the film an ambient and moody grade, staying true to the intentions of the film’s DP Tim Cragg,” who signed off the film remotely via Molistream.

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2X Creative, London: has expanded international operations with the opening of a boutique post-production facility in Soho and the addition of a second HDR suite. The new facility, formerly Shed and directly across the street from X2X Media Group’s location in Poland Street, increases the company’s capacity to deliver post-production and finishing services for high-end features and streaming content.

The expanded X2X Creative now offers two HDR grading suites, two Baselight seats, a Grade1 Sony HX310 Mastering Panel and a Barco 4K-P Projector, all driving its in-house screening theatre and presentation space. Dark fibre optical connectivity between the two facilities, combined with a 100GB network infrastructure and an MTI Cortex mastering system, allow mastering of Digital Cinema Packages, IMFs and AS-11 files.

“Demand for content is exploding and projects have more complex production requirements,” said director of sales Justin Lanchbury. “We’re continually strengthening our capabilities and services to handle anything our clients need. No matter how big a production is, our team is ready to deliver beyond expectations.”

The firm has provided dailies and DI services to a diverse list of digital productions over the last decade,

including Gravity, World War Z and Spider-Man: Homecoming, plus Gunpowder Milkshake for Studio Canal and No One Gets Out Alive for Netflix.

“We have always excelled at streamlining workflows, from camera through to final delivery,” said executive producer Kim Honeyman. “Being boutique means we can offer clients a unique, one-to-one experience directly with our team, but still work within every budget.”

X2X Creative has extended its creative talent pool by collaborating with senior online editor/VFX artist Jaime Leonard (LOC Studios), whose projects include White Lines, Peaky Blinders, Humans and Killing Eve. Senior colourists Vanessa Taylor and Dan Moran

The Green Knight graded by Alastor Arnold at FotoKem in LA.

have worked with some of the industry’s most highly respected cinematographers including Michael Seresin BSC, Henry Braham BSC, Ed Moore BSC, Stephen Murphy BSC and David Tattersall BSC, and directors such as Anton Corbijn and Yorgos Lanthimos.

FotoKem, LA: here’s a quick Q&A with senior colourist Alastor Arnold about his work on The Green Knight, directed by David Lowery and shot by DP Andrew Droz Palermo.

Describe the vision for The Green Knight? What were the director and DP were trying to achieve?

Dark, beautiful and bold sum up the look.

One of the things I love about this film, and why it was so fun to work on, was the fearless choices that were being made by everybody involved. The Green Knight is a truly unique story with unique cinematography. It’s a film that should be seen in the theatre to really appreciate it all.

This film is based on the epic poem Sir Gawain And The Green Knight. Did you reference any materials for artistic inspiration?

When Andrew, David and myself were building the show-LUT, I didn’t really have any background on the story. Andrew had shot some test footage before he left for Ireland to shoot, and we spent some time in the DI theatre crafting the look with David. We didn’t really rely on any references; we just played and came up with something we felt looked great. The LUT really helped set the mood, and plenty of the movie is pretty much straight out of the camera with some additional shaping in the DI. It’s always my preference to help set the tone of a film up-front by building a really solid show LUT.

the film was graded in DaVinci Resolve. I work exclusively in Resolve these days, so it was a natural choice.

Describe your process working with the DP and director?

Andrew and I worked together on a first pass of the film until we thought it was in a good place, then David came in for a few days for review and notes. Andrew and I are friends and I have worked together on a number of projects, so we definitely have a shorthand.

We have a lot of fun working creatively together and listening to music in the theatre for hours on end.

Interestingly, this was the last film I worked on before lockdown in LA. We were literally rushing to get the final masters out. That being said, because the release of the film was delayed, we were able to revisit and make some tweaks once lockdowns eased and under Covid protocols, so Andrew and I got to work in person again while David was able to review remotely.

What format was the film shot on and did that influence the colour system you chose to grade on?

Andrew shot the film on ARRI Alexa 65, and

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SHOOTING GALLERY•FIVE FILMS SHOT ON FILM MIKE GIOULAKIS•Old

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NEW DATES CONFIRMED: MUNICH • 1 - 2 JULY • 2022 1 - 2 JULI • 2022 • MÜNCHEN

Left: Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan pictured on the set of his surreal horror movie Old, shot by American DP Mike Gioulakis on 35mm using spherical Master Primes for an immediate and immersive audience experience. Photo Credit: Phobymo. © 2021 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

THIMIOS BAKATAKIS GSC• Master Of None: Moments In Love (S3)

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Left: Greek DP Thimios Bakatakis GSC created a showcase for the power of the static camera using 16mm, plus ARRI Zeiss Ultra 16 lenses, shooting in 4:3 aspect ratio with no close-ups and no coverage, for Netflix’s Master Of None S3, directed

by Aziz Ansari. Photo by Cian ObaSmith/Netflix © 2021.

DENIS LENOIR AFC ASC• Bergman Island

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Left: Combining natural lighting together with character-focussed camera moves, French DP Denis Lenoir AFC ASC delivered an exquisite result, shooting 2-perf 35mm with Leitz Summilux-C medium focal-length lenses, for Mia Hansen-Løve’s feature Bergman Island.

MARCEL RÉV HSC•The Story Of My Wife

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Coinciding with the Munich Film Festival & delivering a world class seminar & workshop programme of events to run alongside the exhibition

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eurocineexpo.com 5

Left: Strangers make connections on a very long train journey in Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment No.6, shot by Finnish DP J-P Passi and filmed in 2-perf on 35mm using Zeiss Super Speed lenses for their T1.3 capabilities in low-light, and appealing softness and subtle flaring characteristics. ©2021 Sami Kuokkanen/Aamu Film Company.

If you would like further reading about these DPs, and more, shooting on film, visit www.kodak.com/en/motion/blog or check out www.cinematography.world.

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Uniting the film industry across 2 days of exhibition & seminars

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Left: Hungarian DP Marcell Rév HSC used 3-perf 35mm film and Zeiss Standard Speed spherical lenses to create a warm and vivid visual aesthetic for The Story Of My Wife, director Ildikó Enyedi’s visual ode about communication between-thesexes.Photo copyright: Csata Hanna/ M&M Film.

JP PASSI•Compartment No.6

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Europe's new event focusing on the technologies and craft of Cinematography

The first event will take place in a very unique venue within Munich - carefully selected to provide flexible exhibition space, breakout areas and an atmosphere like no other.

Save the dates

1 - 2 July 2022

For more information contact us on +44 1428 609 382 or email info@eurocineexpo.com