One of the most defining things about
In the Soup (1992) is its look. The stellar cinematography of
Phil Parmet comes across in a rich, high-contrast look, deeply saturated blacks and brilliant whites. The only way we could achieve that was by shooting on a fine grain color stock and then printing on black and white stock, the now extinct Kodak 5369, that was primarily used for making silhouette mattes and travelings mattes. This particular stock had a high silver content. It's a very critical process but back in those days you had old school masters, like Don Donigi at DuArt Film Labs, who were craftsmen. And you also had Irwin Young, who owned the lab and was one of the godfathers of independent film. We used to call him Uncle Irwin because he would keep the lab open for us on the weekends and he was completely dedicated to finding the look that worked best for the film. As we hoped, the result was spectacular. Even back then, it was quite an expensive process especially for an independent film; we did it anyway - but only for two prints. After seeing it, the Coen brothers duplicated the effect for
The barber: l'homme qui n'était pas là (2001). [Filmmaker Magazine, 2017]
