“

‘THECROWN’I
SMAGNI
FICENT.
GORGEOUSLYSHOT.
”
 AU G U S T 2 0 1 7
A M E R I C A N C I N E M ATO G R A P H E R • AU G U S T 2 0 1 7 • D U N K I R K – T H E L A S T T Y C O O N – T H E B E G U I L E D – A G H O S T S TO RY – D R O N E S • VO L . 9 8 N O. 8
A U G U S T 2 0 1 7 V O L . 9 8 N O . 8

An International Publication of the ASC

On Our Cover: Allied troops keep an eye on the sky as they wait to be evacuated in
director Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic Dunkirk, shot by Hoyte van Hoytema,
ASC, FSF, NSC. (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.)

FEATURES
30 Dunkirk – Great Escape
42
Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC and director
Christopher Nolan go all-in with large-format film and a
photochemical workflow

42 The Last Tycoon – Classic Hollywood

Danny Moder and director-showrunner Billy Ray restage
the glamor, discord and artistic innovation of the 1930s
studio system
50
50 The Beguiled – Dark Hospitality
Philippe Le Sourd, AFC frames director Sofia Coppola’s
Civil War-era thriller on 35mm film

58 A Ghost Story – Haunted House

Andrew Droz Palermo and director David Lowery tell a
tale of a bedsheet-clad spirit anchored in a 1.33:1 frame
58

DEPARTMENTS
10 Editor’s Note
12 President’s Desk
16 Shot Craft: Drones • CRI • Waveform
26 Short Takes: Momma
68 Filmmakers’ Forum: Employing drones on Whale Wars
72 New Products & Services
74 International Marketplace
75 Classified Ads
76 Ad Index
77 In Memoriam: Fred J. Koenekamp, ASC
78 Clubhouse News
80 ASC Close-Up: Gordon C. Lonsdale

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 A u g u s t 2 0 1 7 V o l . 9 8 , N o . 8
An International Publication of the ASC

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF and PUBLISHER

Stephen Pizzello
————————————————————————————————————
WEB DIRECTOR and ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
David E. Williams
————————————————————————————————————
EDITORIAL
MANAGING EDITOR Jon D. Witmer
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Andrew Fish
TECHNICAL EDITOR Christopher Probst
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Benjamin B, Rachael K. Bosley, Mark Dillon, Michael Goldman, Simon Gray, Jim Hemphill, Jay Holben, Noah Kadner,
Debra Kaufman, Iain Marcks, Matt Mulcahey, Jean Oppenheimer, Phil Rhodes, Patricia Thomson
PODCASTS
Jim Hemphill, Iain Marcks, Chase Yeremian
BLOGS
Benjamin B; John Bailey, ASC; David Heuring
IT DIRECTOR/WEB PRODUCER Mat Newman
————————————————————————————————————
ART & DESIGN
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Marion Kramer
PHOTO EDITOR Kelly Brinker
————————————————————————————————————
ADVERTISING
ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Angie Gollmann
323-936-3769 Fax 323-936-9188 e-mail: angiegollmann@gmail.com
ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Sanja Pearce
323-952-2114 Fax 323-952-2140 e-mail: sanja@ascmag.com
CLASSIFIEDS/ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Diella Peru
323-952-2124 Fax 323-952-2140 e-mail: diella@ascmag.com
————————————————————————————————————
SUBSCRIPTIONS, BOOKS & PRODUCTS
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Saul Molina
CIRCULATION MANAGER Alex Lopez
SHIPPING MANAGER Miguel Madrigal
————————————————————————————————————
ASC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR John Krasno
ASC SPONSORSHIP & EVENTS DIRECTOR Patricia Armacost
ASC PRESIDENT’S ASSISTANT Delphine Figueras
ASC ACCOUNTING MANAGER Mila Basely
————————————————————————————————————
American Cinematographer (ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 97th year of publication, is published monthly in Hollywood by
ASC Holding Corp., 1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028, U.S.A.,
(800) 448-0145, (323) 969-4333, Fax (323) 876-4973, direct line for subscription inquiries (323) 969-4344.
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6
 American Society of Cinematographers
The ASC is not a labor union or a guild, but
an educational, cultural and professional
organization. Membership is by invitation
to those who are actively engaged as
directors of photography and have
demonstrated outstanding ability. ASC
membership has become one of the highest
honors that can be bestowed upon a
professional cinematographer — a mark
of prestige and excellence.

OFFICERS - 2017/2018
Kees van Oostrum
President
Bill Bennett
Vice President
John Simmons
Vice President
Cynthia Pusheck
Vice President
Levie Isaacks
Treasurer
David Darby
Secretary
Isidore Mankofsky
Sergeant-at-Arms

MEMBERS OF THE
BOARD
Paul Cameron
Russell Carpenter
Curtis Clark
Richard Crudo
George Spiro Dibie
Fred Elmes
Victor J. Kemper
Stephen Lighthill
Karl-Walter Lindenlaub
Woody Omens
Robert Primes
Cynthia Pusheck
John Simmons
John Toll
Amy Vincent

ALTERNATES
Roberto Schaefer
Dean Cundey
Lowell Peterson
Steven Fierberg
Stephen Burum

MUSEUM CURATOR
Steve Gainer
8
 EDITOR’S NOTE
In May 2016, Dunkirk director Christopher Nolan paid a visit to
the ASC Clubhouse with his wife and producer, Emma Thomas,
and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC. The
trio mingled amiably with Society members and associates
before discussing their latest project during an enthusiastic
question-and-answer session. Beyond outlining strategies for
the ambitious production, they made a strong case for the
continued viability of film as a creative medium — a cause
Nolan has supported passionately over the course of his cele-
brated career.
With the July release of Dunkirk, Nolan, Thomas and van
Hoytema demonstrate the visual power of film with a go-big-
or-go-home epic shot on a combination of 15-perf Imax 65mm
and 5-perf 65mm, and finished entirely in the photochemical realm. Nolan feels that the movie
can stake a claim to being “the highest-resolution feature film that has ever been made,” while
also providing ample evidence of celluloid’s additional merits. Although van Hoytema concedes
that the size of the 65mm cameras made his extensive use of handheld work a bit challenging,
he calls the added camera weight “an insignificant element when compared to the quality of
the images we produced.”
Shooting in these formats on such a grand scale required a number of innovative
approaches, detailed by Michael Goldman in his main article on the show (“Great Escape,” page
30), two sidebars, and bonus coverage posted on our newly redesigned website (which is now
accessible via two URLs: ascmag.com on the magazine side, and theasc.com for the Society).
On the Civil War-era picture The Beguiled, Philippe Le Sourd, AFC used the 35mm film
format to lend a painterly elegance to a hothouse drama that earned Sofia Coppola Best Director
honors at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Coppola’s adaptation of the novel of the same name
— about an injured Union soldier taking refuge in a Confederate girls’ boarding school — is the
second after Don Siegel’s version in 1971. “Sofia wanted to take a more feminine approach,”
Le Sourd tells New York correspondent Iain Marcks (“Dark Hospitality,” page 50). “The fact that
it was a woman director telling this story completely transformed the mood and feeling, and
brought a new essence to the film.”
The old-Hollywood series The Last Tycoon, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famously unfin-
ished novel, finds cinematographer Danny Moder and director Billy Ray mining the intrigue inher-
ent to moviemaking during the 1930s — and working from scripts that evoke “how movies
began, how they evolved, how innovative the technology was, and who the revolutionary
thinkers were,” as Moder relates to writer Jim Hemphill (“Classic Hollywood,” page 42).
A Ghost Story, whose titular spirit is cheekily presented as a traditional Halloween figure
clad in a white sheet, uses a single-camera approach and melancholic compositions to lend its
spectral protagonist an eerie, contemplative presence. Cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo
and director David Lowery provide their insights in Q&A interviews with managing editor Jon D.
Witmer (“Haunted House,” page 58).
This month’s special focus on drones, an increasingly popular tool for achieving dynamic
aerial perspectives, is showcased by several items in our new department, Shot Craft (page 16),
and in this month’s New Products & Services section (page 72) — as well as in a Filmmakers’
Photo by Owen Roizman, ASC.

Forum written by Gavin Garrison, a producer and cinematographer on the reality series Whale
Wars (page 68).

Stephen Pizzello
10 Editor-in-Chief and Publisher
 PRESIDENT’S DESK
The Fast Shooter

Is he fast enough? Does he take a lot of time lighting the set? When is the first setup?
Through my whole career, I have been pursued by these questions.
Even when you choose to photograph a set without any lighting because it looks beautiful
exactly as is, if you then move a small LED light in to clean up a close-up, they’ll again question your
speed: “You said you didn’t need any lighting here.” Most of us stay calm, though, and shrug it off
with a comic remark. “We are artists — and we don’t always know what we are doing.”
There is actually a lot of truth to that statement. I think that many times we are not exactly
sure what we are going to do. After all, we get inspired by the story, by the environment. Yes, we plan
and analyze, but rarely will our drawings translate to the definitive image that we’re striving to put on
the screen. They only serve the purpose of liberating us, giving us options, and, perhaps most impor-
tantly, giving the world around us the impression that we are prepared.
Ironically, when we turn on all the lights we might have indicated on our plan, it probably
won’t appeal to either our taste or our intention. We will quickly find ourselves scrimming lights down,
adding diffusion, and, more often than not, turning them off as we search for a balance of light and dark that artistically
and creatively supports and enhances the story.
Our euphoria swells when the backlight hits the subject just right, when a sidelight creates the perfect atmos-
phere. But with the constant demand for speed hanging over our heads, it can start to feel like we’re bricklayers. Would
anyone expect a bricklayer to stop what he’s doing and start musing about how the bricks are stacked? No — that guy has
to work. Philosophy and bricks don’t go together.
But I feel that cinematography and bricklaying do sometimes have a lot in common.
When Frank Lloyd Wright set out to design Fallingwater — the magnificent house in the Pittsburgh area with vari-
ous levels cantilevered over a small river with a waterfall — he sketched the concept with a few Picasso-like lines on paper.
The Kaufmann family, who had approached Wright to design the home, loved the design and moved ahead with the
construction. But the builders rebelled, complained and recalculated — and many concluded, “It can’t be built.”
Eventually, though, one builder said “yes” and started to construct Fallingwater in an unconventional manner:
slowly, layer by layer, imbuing the home with strength and integrity — and, in the process, creating art.
So maybe we have to accept that we can be slow, and admit it to the outside world. As it is, it seems like we’re
always working, always moving, constantly running options through our mind while negotiating for a minute here and a
minute there in the hopes that we might improve on and make the most of the images we’re creating.
Maybe we need to slow down.
Gordon Willis, ASC could spend hours looking at a scene through the lens, demanding absolute control of the
set, which would be shrouded in silence to the point where you could hear a pin drop. When he was finished, though, there
would be 15 setups chalked out on the floor, specifying angles and focal lengths, and all of those setups would be shot in
short order.
To me, that is all the proof we should need that intellect and inspiration provide the clearest route to being a fast
— and artistic — shooter.
Photo by Jacek Laskus, ASC, PSC.

Kees van Oostrum

ASC President

12 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 SHOT CRAFT
“The decision about who should operate a specialty shot
is always up to the cinematographer and the A-operator,” says
Chambliss. “Currently, the common practice is for the pilot and
drone camera operator to be a team that are brought in for the
shot. There are a lot of reasons, starting with the variety of equip-
ment; a lot of it is customized.” Even when it’s not, a drone’s
controls and “personality” take getting used to. “On traditional
flight heads, the joystick controls are very refined; we don’t tend
to push a full-scale airframe to the same extremes or find that a
lens change materially alters the craft’s flight characteristics,” he
points out. “The smaller the craft, the more flight performance
changes with different lenses and bodies.” An aerial team knows
how their various drones will react. Like Steadicam, drone work
can be very spontaneous during complex sequences, with pilots
filling in the blanks as they execute a shot. Flight teams develop
Drones have become an indispensible tool for capturing
compelling aerial imagery. their own shorthand language. “It’s ‘Fred and Ginger’ doing the
dance routines,” Chambliss says.
Welcome to Shot Craft, AC’s new section for emerging But there can be pushback from production. “On most
cinematographers, focusing on tools, techniques, and shows and sets, the cinematographer would rather have his guy
tricks of the trade. operating the remote head on the camera, and you’d just hire a
pilot,” says Eric Fletcher, technical chairperson of the Society of

I Learning to Fly
By Patricia Thomson
Camera Operators. “Camera operating on a drone is very similar
to camera operating on a Technocrane. A camera operator is
hired for very specific reasons: They know how to tell the story
Last year, brothers Corey and Ian Bracone — a Local 52 grip and how to operate the camera, and they make the cinematog-
and a Local 600 focus puller, respectively — joined the throngs rapher comfortable. You get two guys walking on set, saying,
taking advantage of a Federal Aviation Administration game- ‘Hey, we’re here with the drone! What do you want us to do?’
changer. Under the old regulations, one had to be a licensed pilot That’s a little unsettling to a cinematographer.”
before applying for drone-pilot certification. No longer. As of Fortunately, the choice isn’t binary. Max Tubman, director
August 2016, Part 107 of the regulations governing small of North American operations for Gryphon Dynamics — as well
unmanned aerial systems (UASs) requires just an aeronautics- as a pilot and co-founder of Steam Machine Aerial — prefers to
heavy written exam, opening the door to serious drone hobbyists integrate these approaches. His ideal aerial team comprises a
like the Bracone brothers, who have since started their own busi- drone pilot, a gimbal operator and a gimbal tech. Once on set,
ness — New York Action Unit — and, with the requisite FAA certi- his team brings out wheels. “They’re very familiar to a lot of
fications, have become Local 600 UAS pilot/operators. people,” he says. “The gimbal tech will go to the A-camera op
Local 600’s West Coast division now has around 100 certi- and say, ‘This is how it works. Would you like to operate?’ Some-
fied drone pilots, while the East Coast has about 20. (FAA restric- times they’ll say ‘yes’ and slide into the role, and other times
tions on flying in New York City’s congested airspace play into that they’ll say, ‘I don’t want this to be on me, because I’ve never done
discrepancy.) Michael Chambliss, a technologist and business it before.’ But we always offer. Eight or nine times out of 10, a
representative for Local 600, is bullish about the future of drones camera operator says, ‘Let the gimbal tech operate the camera.’”
Photo courtesy of Vertical Images.

on movie and television sets. “This is really a new vernacular That ratio is likely to change as more operators get hands-
within the language of cinematography,” he says. “It’s a develop- on experience. Forward-looking camera operators would be wise
ment similar to the Steadicam that opens an entirely new kind of to familiarize themselves with drone heads, whether or not they
shot.” want certification. (Only the pilot in command needs a license.)
As a new specialty within the motion-picture industry, it’s But new pilots should be prepared for a fluid, confusing
suffering some growing pains. One evolving area is the question regulatory environment — and perhaps some advocacy work.
of who operates the remote head on dual-operator heavy-lift Current regulations leave many practical questions unanswered.
drones — the gimbal operator on a specialized aerial team hired “What the FAA told me is, ‘We establish a baseline. Your industry
specifically for the shot, or an operator already on the production? is free to create higher standards as you might see fit,’” says

16 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 widely used. CRI was designed for architec-
tural applications in locations — shopping
malls, restaurants, airports — that would
benefit from the high efficiency and long
lives of non-continuous-spectrum sources
such as metal-halide gas discharge and
fluorescent lighting.
In the 1980s — with a great deal of
thanks to Frieder Hochheim, who would
later found Kino Flo and is now an ASC
associate member — the humble fluores-
cent fixture became a viable tool for the
motion-picture industry. Hochheim strug-
The original eight color patches in the CRI test protocol (top) were a somewhat random gled for several years to come up with the
selection of pastel colors. The six extended patches (bottom) add saturated red, green, blue
and yellow, along with yellow-pink and greenery. right alchemy of phosphor coatings in his
tubes that would produce solid, correlated
color-temperatures and a high-enough CRI
Chambliss. “Safety Bulletin #36 by the The Fault in Your CRIs for photography.
Joint Labor-Management Safety Commit- By Jay Holben CRI has been used since the 1970s
tee is an excellent start. Going beyond with HMI fixtures as well, again to identify
that, we’re encouraging the community For lighting professionals, CRI — the color fidelity of a light source. Indeed,
to develop a set of operational standards color rendering index — is a ubiquitous despite some inherent shortcomings of CRI
that would be applicable across all sets.” term. Most everyone is at least somewhat and the fact that the system was never
On the East Coast, Corey Bracone familiar with the scale, which runs from 0- designed for photographic applications, it
and an ad-hoc committee of drone 100, and knows that the closer you get to has been widely adopted, with every manu-
specialists are part of that effort to 100, the better color fidelity your fixture will facturer of a non-continuous-spectrum light
develop a best-practices handbook and have. source testing and reporting the CRI of their
are pushing for easements in NYC-specific But let’s take a closer look. fixtures.
restrictions. That advocacy work is as The International Commission on Enter the 21st century and the light-
much a part of their nascent business as Illumination, otherwise known as the CIE emitting diode (LED) technology that has
the fleet of five drones that Bracone and (Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage), suddenly become viable for use in photog-
his brother fly. They consider it a necessary invented CRI as a methodology for deter- raphy. In keeping with established tradition,
investment in their future. Once the dust mining the comfort levels for human beings the manufacturers of those LED fixtures of
settles, he says, “We’re ready to go!” around non-continuous-spectrum light course reported their CRI ratings — many
sources. It was first published in 1965 after of which were super-high, at 95 and above.
fluorescent lights had started to become But testing the fixtures revealed that those

Tech Essentials cantly safer manner than ever before. Some general tips for drone piloting:
Drone Primer In the world of motion-picture drones • Get to know the laws in your area before
— not to be confused with sporting piloting
Drones have become a hot new tool or racing drones — companies such as • Practice makes perfect — drones are
in imaging. What was previously the DJI, Freefly Systems, Shotover, Gryphon delicate and require considerable time to
purview of helicopters armed with gyro- Dynamics, Traxxas, Autel Robotics, Yuneec operate properly, safely and effectively
scopes — or, worse, operators hanging out and Xiaomi make aircraft suitable for • Always follow a preflight checklist
open helicopter doors — is now becoming image capture. All of them require a delicate • Know your hardware, its flying modes
CRI images courtesy of Jay Holben.

the task of unmanned copters of all sorts. hand to control, and require registration and functions
UAS (unmanned aerial system) or UAVs with the Federal Aviation Administration • Slow and steady nearly always does it
(unmanned aerial vehicles) have become (registermyuas.faa.gov) before piloting. All • Never overshoot your flying time
increasingly popular for all kinds of image of these models are governed by FAA regu- • Avoid wind, rain and other inclement
capture, from news gathering to feature lations, and it’s the responsibility of the pilot weather
filmmaking. Although some may find these to follow those regulations and maintain a • Plan your shots carefully
drones a nuisance, they afford the opportu- safe flight at all times. • Maintain direct sight whenever possible
nity to achieve dynamic shots in a signifi- — Jay Holben

18 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 super-high CRIs weren’t always entirely The spiky nature of the LED color spectrum Earth, it contains wavelengths of red,
trustworthy, and many times — especially meant that there were some test patches orange, yellow, green, blue and violet in
with digital sensors — the colors they that had no representative spectral various strengths, but in a smooth and
generated could be very skewed. response from the LED and others that had continuous spectrum. When those wave-
Obviously, there was a problem. sketchy response; the result was that a lengths of light strike objects in our world,
Acknowledging the fact, in 2015 the CIE fixture could score very high on the CRI, yet some are absorbed by the object and others
released an official statement noting, “For yield very poor color fidelity when used are reflected off. The wavelengths that are
some types of light sources, the CIE General photographically, and vice versa. reflected off become the color that our
Colour [sic] Rendering Index does not agree In 2004, an update to the CRI — brain interprets.
well with overall perceived colour render- called extended CRI — added six more When we look at a strawberry under
ing.” Some people were very outspoken color patches: primary red, green, blue, white light, that delicious red color is the
about the issue, but most seemed to sweep yellow, olive (leaf) green and light yellow- result of the strawberry’s skin absorbing
it quietly under the rug, as there didn’t pink. These additional patches gave the most of the green, blue and violet wave-
seem to be a viable alternative to CRI. measurement protocol more viability, but it lengths and reflecting back a lot of red, and
The fault in the original CRI was still not sufficient for LED technology. some orange and some yellow, to our eyes.
measurement methodology lies in the limi- To fully understand the shortcom- If we deprive the strawberry of the light
tation of the color patches used for testing. ings of the color validity system, we need to that it ‘wants’ to reflect back by introducing
A mere eight pastel colors from the Munsell understand the physics of color, the eye and a cyan filter that stops red, orange and
color wheel were chosen for the test — the camera. yellow light from passing through, then
colors that don’t necessarily represent “White” light, specifically light from those wavelengths of light are no longer
anything in real life or anything that we the sun, is a combination of all colors of the present to reflect back to our eye — and
traditionally photograph on a regular basis. rainbow. When light from the sun travels to the strawberry will appear black. ➣

Pro Perspective streets below.

Nick Kolias: “The common denom-
The Heavy Lifters inator with these,” he adds,
“is that the locations were
“Heavy lifter” isn’t offi- very tight, much too small
cially defined, but in drone for a full-size helicopter, yet
parlance it’s generally taken to we could safely get the
mean a UAV that can carry a drone in there and capture
professional-grade camera amazing footage.”
with a cinema lens — as Safety is paramount,
opposed to a GoPro or other Kolias stresses. “As drones
compact action camera. become more common on
Weight-wise, some define it set, it’s important to stay
as anything over 40 pounds vigilant and avoid a compla-
total, including the drone, its cent attitude,” he says. “The
payload, and batteries. The equipment we use, our
FAA limit is 55 pounds; heav- maintenance regimen, our
ier setups require a waiver. flight testing and verifica-
Nick Kolias — a co- A Freefly Systems Alta 8 heavy-lift drone flies above the treetops. tion, the preflight checks
owner, pilot and aerial coordi- and status monitoring are all
nator at Aerial Edge — has recently been Alexa Mini with Super Speeds on a Freefly intended to ensure the safest drone opera-
flying heavy lifters on a slate of car commer- Systems Alta 8 drone. tions possible.”
Photo courtesy of Freefly Systems.

cials. In one, he explains, “we start a few “Another interesting setup was For Kolias, knowing that drones have
hundred feet over a tree canopy, then flying through the urban canyons and alley- advanced from their scratch-built phase to
descend rapidly at a strategic angle through ways of the San Francisco financial district, proven, reliable, industrial-grade aircraft
small gaps in the trees, all while keeping the chasing cars for Lexus,” Kolias continues. manufactured by respected companies
picture car in frame and leading it at just the “In that case, we had an Alexa Mini with makes all the difference. As he attests, “I
right distance. We’ve done that with a Red Leica Summicron-Cs on an Alta 8. We were literally sleep better at night because of
Weapon and Zeiss Super Speeds on a Freefly right in-between high-rise buildings at that.”
Systems Cinestar 8 HL, as well as an Arri around the 10th floor, looking down at the — PT

20 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 lighting for a number of years, and the
organization has been thoroughly
researching and testing. Late last year the
Academy published a paper in the SMPTE
Motion Imaging Journal describing the
Spectral Similarity Index (SSI), a new
methodology for measuring color fidelity
from non-continuous-spectrum light
sources. Due to the work of Academy
members Jack Holm, Tom Maier, Paul
Debevec, Chloe LeGendre, Joshua Pines,
Jonathan Erland, George Joblove, Scott
Dyer, Blake Sloan, Joe di Gennaro and Dan
Sherlock, the SSI stands to replace CRI as
the primary methodology for measuring
color fidelity for the motion-picture indus-
try. Pines, Erland and Joblove are also ASC
associate members.
“A new color index is proposed that
is based upon the similarity of a luminaire’s
spectrum to a reference spectrum that
eliminates the need for any assumption of
a specific observer or camera spectral
sensitivity,” reads the SSI report’s abstract.
“The index yields a ‘confidence factor,’
where a high score implies predictable
color rendition for cinematography, and a
moderate score implies possible color
Cinematographer Kaity Williams poses for a battery of tests of current LED fixtures. The top-left image rendition challenges.”
provides a skin-tone reference under tungsten light; there are substantial variances in each subsequent With just a spectrometer, a lighting
image, despite all of the LEDs’ high CRI ratings.
manufacturer can measure the spectral
output of a given fixture and plug the
This is a challenging concept for into account by incorporating the satu- results into a look-up table to find its score,
many people to understand because our rated red and yellow-pink chips. That which relates the spectral output of the
brains have wonderful color memory. Even helps, but it doesn’t solve the problem for light to a reference illuminant: sun, tung-
though our eyes don’t see the red, our the rest of the color spectrum. sten, etc. The resulting number is a “confi-
brains remember that the strawberry is There have been several proposed dence factor.” If it is 90 or above, then you
red, and we imagine that we still see that alternates to CRI, such as the Television can know the light source will result in
color. Film and digital sensors, however, Lighting Consistency Index created by colors that nearly mimic those from the
don’t have such memory. They can only color-science expert Alan Roberts; the TLCI specified reference source. If it is 70 or
show you what is actually there. When the employs the Macbeth color chart’s 24 color below, you know that there will be prob-
strawberry doesn’t get red light, it looks patches and incorporates the opinions of lems and some colors will not reflect accu-
black to the camera. So in order for us to colorists on whether or not the light from rately. Employing this system removes the
see real colors as they appear in the real a specific luminary could be timed to look bias of human vision and eliminates any
world, the light that we’re using has to proper. This system, however, was based direct comparison to a specific camera or
contain those colors; if it doesn’t, then on a theoretical digital camera in Rec 709 color matrix. You simply get a result that
we’ll never be able to record the true color and is only somewhat useful for the abun- relates the spectral curve that is being
of the object we’re looking at. dance of digital-sensor color matrices out tested to that of a reference spectrum.
Red, as it happens, is a crucial color there. Other concepts such as the Color For the time being, though, manu-
for most applications, as it is the primary Quality Scale (CQS) and the Gamut Area facturers continue to employ CRI. So when
hue in skin tone — and most of us are Index (GAI) were proposed but never you read a data sheet and you notice
shooting human faces on a regular basis. widely adopted. what’s sure to be a high CRI, remember to
That means it’s very important to have the The Academy of Motion Picture take it with a grain of salt.
red wavelength when we’re lighting. Arts and Sciences has been aware of the
The extended CRI tries to take this limitations of CRI and the problems of LED ➣

22 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 While the Y-axis (vertical) scale on the
waveform represents luminance percent-
age, the X-axis (horizontal) scale represents
the image from left to right. This is where
things can get confusing. If we’re
photographing a white piece of paper in the
upper half of the frame and a black piece of
paper in the lower half, each point along
the waveform will register both white and
black. Similarly, if we have a grayscale posi-
tioned vertically in the frame, you’ll notice
that each point on the waveform has a line
that represents the steps of that scale.
You can use the waveform monitor
like a light meter if you put a gray card out
into your scene where the talent will be, fill
the screen with the gray card, and then
A typical waveform signal. adjust your aperture until the waveform
reads between 45 and 55 IRE. This will give
Tech Essentials intervals, and are of no importance to us in you a proper exposure for that area.
The Waveform judging exposure. The area above 100 is The waveform is a solid tool for
the “super-white” area; generally any signal seeing your overall exposure range and for
Although the light meter is still the in this area has complete loss of image maintaining a solid signal-to-noise ratio in
best tool for exposure judgments, in the detail. In addition, some waveforms have a your image. With a low-light scene, you’ll
digital age we have a number of additional marking at the 7.5 IRE for “setup”; this was notice that the signal is crowded toward the
tools available to us. A keen understanding required for getting solid blacks in standard bottom of the waveform; in that case,
of how to interpret them is necessary to a definition (Rec 601), but you can you’re likely to be picking up a lot of noise
smooth workflow. completely ignore 7.5 for HD and cinema in the recorded image, and it’s generally
Probably the most common is the signals. better to open up, expose a little higher on
waveform, which is built into many produc- Although waveforms do consider the waveform scale and, if needed, reduce
tion monitors and camera systems today. chrominance information, they are primarily the brightness later in post.
Waveforms have been around since the for measuring luminance information. The With the waveform’s parade mode,
early days of analog video and have been vertical IRE scale represents a percentage of we separate out red, green and blue into
used by engineers to monitor the values of luminance of the image. When you see their individual components so we can look
an image for over half a century. areas of the waveform above 100 IRE, you at the luminosity of each channel side by
Reading a waveform monitor takes know those areas are “clipping” — they side. It’s a quick way to see if you’re overex-
a little practice, but it is mostly intuitive. have become pure white and cannot be posing your skin tones too much — is the
There are three primary display modes on brought down. If areas of the scene are red channel running hotter than green and
most waveforms: luminance, luminance below 0, they are pure black, without blue? — which can lead to strange clipping
with chrominance, and parade. We’ll start detail. and color solarization.
with the luminance function. In fact, whites should really sit It’s important to note that most
The waveform monitor starts with a between 80 and 100 for a well-exposed waveform monitors are only going to work
grid marked out on the screen. The primary image; if you’re shooting a wedding scene, properly with Rec 709 signals. Log and raw
section of this grid is marked in horizontal the bride’s dress shouldn’t register above 85 signals are much more difficult to interpret
delineations from 0 to 100. This represents IRE or else you’ll risk losing detail in the lace. on a waveform, although new tools are
Waveform image courtesy of Jay Holben.

the signal intensities from 0 percent (black) Medium gray should be set between 45 beginning to come out for just this purpose.
to 100 percent (white/peak). The markings and 55 IRE. Caucasian faces generally fall — JH
actually represent IRE (Institute of Radio between 60 and 70 IRE. ●
Engineers) values, which translate to We can also combine chrominance
percentages of luminance in the image. (color) information, but this can get kind of
Some waveforms have a scale that goes messy and hard to read, so if your wave-
beyond the standard 0-100, having values form has adjustments, it’s better to set it to
below 0 (generally to -40) and above 100 IRE or “luma” only and ignore the chromi-
(generally to 120). The lower values are for nance — unless you’re in the parade mode,
the sync-pulse signals, or line-blanking which we’ll discuss shortly.

24 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 SHORT TAKES

In his mother’s absence, 9-year-old Darius (Maceo Smedley Jr.) fends for himself in the short Momma.

I Childhood Interrupted
By Lauretta Prevost
Thanks to ASC associate Seth Emmons, marketing director for CW
Sonderoptic, the cinematographer was able to secure a set of the
company’s Leica Summicron-C primes for everything outside the
Cinematographer Alexandre d’Audiffret believes his experi- trailer; he shot predominantly with a 29mm.
ence as a documentary stills photographer is more closely related to In contrast, interiors in the trailer were shot with Cooke
narrative filmmaking than it is to motion-picture docs. “My main goal Anamorphic /i primes. This space was meant to feel protective, and
is to shoot emotional stories,” he says. “In photography I’m really d’Audiffret’s impression was that the Cooke lenses provided a softer
focused on emotion and storytelling, but in movie documentaries I and warmer look that would invite viewers to connect with Darius.
don’t have time for that — we have to rush to cover the story. It’s not The cinematographer underexposed night interiors in Darius’
the same for a photo, where you can focus on a specific thing. Narra- home by more than two stops. “I love to build an atmosphere for
tive [filmmaking] is very close to that. You can make choices.” the talent,” he says. “If the scene is dark in the script, I want to
D’Audiffret grew up on the west coast of France. He is well- shoot it dark. The talent has to feel the script.”
traveled and often packs a Leica still camera with a 35mm lens. He Helping with this approach was the wide dynamic range of
has worked extensively under renowned French photographer and the production’s Arri Alexa Mini camera. The filmmakers shot all
Academy Award-nominated director Eric Valli, and he draws inspira- trailer interiors at 2.8K in the camera’s 4:3 mode with the Cooke
tion from the evocative imagery of photographers Steve McCurry, Anamorphics; non-trailer shots were recorded at 4K UHD and
William Albert Allard, W. Eugene Smith and Sebastião Salgado. cropped to 2.39:1. D’Audiffret set the camera’s ISO to 800 for inte-
The cinematographer brought these influences to bear while riors and 1,280 for exteriors. “I got this tip from colorist Fabien
shooting the short Momma, which follows 9-year-old Darius (Maceo Pascal at Technicolor in France,” the cinematographer notes. “He
Smedley Jr.) as he lives alone in a trailer in Arizona — guiding himself told me it’s good to shoot the Alexa at a higher ISO, as it helps
All images courtesy of the filmmakers.

through his daily routine, going to school, shopping for groceries, compress the blacks and gives more headroom in the highlights.”
preparing his meals — following the unexplained disappearance of Given this approach, d’Audiffret adds, “I checked the noise limits on
his mother. Director Nacho Arenas wrote the script, which was the Flanders [Scientific] monitor’s waveform to be sure I wasn’t
inspired by a tragic true story. going too far. Underexposing can be risky!”
It was important to Arenas that there be a visual distinction Between the two lens sets, 1st AC Jay Dallen had 15 primes
between Darius’ controlled world inside the trailer and the hectic, in his care. D’Audiffret notes that Arri’s WCU-4 wireless lens-control
destabilized world the boy confronts when he ventures outside. To unit allowed Dallen to program marks for all of the lenses during
that end, d’Audiffret shares, “I wanted to shoot the outside portion prep, in turn enabling fast lens-swapping during the shoot. With a
with a doc feel. It’s all handheld, and the spherical lenses we used production schedule that allotted only four days in which to capture
don’t distort much — it’s the same feeling as my Leica [still] images.” 147 shots — roughly 37 shots per day — and working with a child

26 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 Left: Darius prepares his lunch in the kitchen of his trailer. Right: Cinematographer Alexandre d’Audiffret frames the
production’s Arri Alexa Mini camera.

actor, which limited each day’s schedule to 8 complemented with black duvetyn. Sievers Calosio. The three of them were then able to
or 9 hours, every minute mattered. carried a light meter, and he and d’Audiffret finalize all of the details inside the trailer.
To further streamline the work, aimed for a classic 2:1 or 3:1 contrast ratio. Throughout post, the cinematogra-
d’Audiffret planned to divvy each day’s shot “As we were rushing, my biggest concern pher was grateful that Arenas sent him
list among four or five general lighting was keeping continuity between the shots different rough cuts and allowed him the
setups, and he came up with detailed — the direction of the light and the shape opportunity to share his opinion. And thanks
diagrams for each of those setups ahead of of the light on the face,” the cinematogra- to Arenas’ friendship with Lubezki, Momma
time. Working with a local grip and electric pher recalls. “The face and the eyes are found its way to Los Angeles-based color-
crew in Arizona, d’Audiffret’s initial appre- most important. If light is the same on the grading facility Shed, which was founded by
hension melted into appreciation as he got eyes [from one shot to the next], the other colorist Yvan Lucas. At Shed, the short was
to know gaffer Jacen Sievers. “In France, mistakes are less important.” paired with colorist Élodie Ichter, who
gaffers are more direct interpreters of what D’Audiffret operated the camera, worked with FilmLight’s Baselight system.
you say, whereas in the U.S. I find the gaffer and when outside he used an Easyrig to “She’s amazing,” says Arenas. “She comes
has more artistic power,” the cinematogra- help him keep the camera on the eyeline of from the same school of thought as Yvan.
pher observes. “Sievers is only 24 years old, his 9-year-old star. Inside the trailer, the crew She has a great eye, and she found this
but he was one of the best gaffers I have executed gentle moves with a Chapman project fun to color because Alex had done
worked with. He understood without need- Cobra dolly, which is basically a column that such a great job.”
ing to ask, and if he did ask it was because it can also function as a riser within the shot, During prep, d’Audiffret designed
was needed. He used the tools he preferred making vertical moves possible, too. Despite four reference LUTs that he sent to Ichter as
to work with, and I could trust him from its condensed footprint, the camera opera- a guide for her work, along with mood
beginning to end.” tor can still ride the dolly. pictures and stills he had graded on set. Due
The location for Darius’ home was a The cinematographer and director to a commitment on a commercial in France,
practical trailer, albeit a run-down one in had more than seven months to prepare for he was unable to join the coloring sessions in
which floors had to be installed. The produc- the shoot; during most of that time, d’Aud- person, but he kept in touch with Ichter via
tion carried a 6K generator, and the biggest iffret was in France, but he kept in touch Skype. “I told her to start the grade with skin
unit in d’Audiffret’s arsenal was an Arrimax with Arenas through Skype sessions in tones,” the cinematographer notes. “If the
M18 HMI. For a kitchen scene where Darius which they would discuss shot lists, color skin tones are right, you can do anything.”
is packing his lunch, the crew shot the M18 palette, and influences such as Emmanuel D’Audiffret’s attention to detail, from
into Ultrabounce and let it come through Lubezki, ASC, AMC’s use of natural light. the amount of material he provided the
Quarter CTO and 251 diffusion before enter- “Alex has a great knowledge of lighting,” colorist to his down-to-the-diffusion lighting
ing the trailer through the window as a soft Arenas enthuses. “He knows how best to diagrams, underscores his deep investment
daylight key; an 800-watt daylight-balanced use natural light and not oversaturate.” in telling emotional stories to the fullest
K 5600 Joker-Bug was aimed through 251 D’Audiffret adds, “I always long for extent of his abilities and resources. Follow-
and Quarter Straw to light the back area of my director to give me emotions, so that I ing Momma, Arenas has another short and
the kitchen. can focus on that and feel that part of the a feature in mind to complete what he’s
Outside the trailer, the crew story we are telling.” conceiving as a trilogy on the human condi-
controlled the natural light with large rags — The director and cinematographer tion and, specifically, loss. Looking ahead to
typically bleached and unbleached muslin, spent the final week of prep together on those productions, he says, “It is my wish to
Quarter and Full Grid Cloth, and Half Silk, location with production designer Marcia go on this journey with Alex.” ●

28 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 Great
Escape
Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC And thanks to a specialized periscope lensing system built by
Panavision, the filmmakers solved the problem. However, it
reteams with Christopher Nolan occurred to them that acquiring these “intimate angles,” as van
to push large-format narrative Hoytema calls them, foreshadowed a film-printing issue.
filmmaking to new heights. The duo not only put their heads together — one of
them literally stood on his in order to better conceptualize the
problem. “[The periscope] gave us a flipped image because of
By Michael Goldman the prism,” van Hoytema explains. “With 65mm 5-perf, that
would be a simple problem to overcome just by flipping the
•|• negative in the printer. But with Imax — which we were
determined to use — where every frame is printed horizon-
tally across the negative, it was not possible to flip the negative

D
uring a meeting to strategize how best to shoot aerial in the printer. Flipping the whole negative horizontally would
dogfighting sequences for the World War II epic effectively play the scene backwards, and flopping the negative
Dunkirk — an entirely large-format film production — vertically would turn the image upside down.
director Christopher Nolan and cinematographer “I remember pondering how we could solve this prob-
Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC quickly realized that lem optically,” he continues, “without the interference of a
solving one problem had created the potential for another. [digital intermediate] or computers. Correcting the image
For these sequences, which were crucial to Nolan’s digitally would fundamentally change things visually. Chris
vision, the director was determined to use a 15-perf 65mm and I were trying to do as much as possible in camera for the
Imax MSM camera inside the tiny cockpit of a replica vintage simple reason that we wanted to avoid scanning and printing
Spitfire fighter plane as it engaged in actual aerial maneuvers. back to film, where there would be a huge loss of quality.”

30 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 Opposite: Set in
1940, the World War
II epic Dunkirk
depicts the
evacuation of the
British Army from
the titular beaches
in France. This page,
left: Commander
Bolton (Kenneth
Branagh) stands at
the end of a
concrete mole that
protects Dunkirk’s
outer harbor, with a
hospital ship
moored behind him.
Below: Director
Christopher Nolan
(left) and
cinematographer
Hoyte van Hoytema,
ASC, FSF, NSC plan a
shot on the beach.

Van Hoytema reports that it

required “Chris Nolan standing on his
head in my office to come to a realiza-
tion — what if we turned the camera
upside down?”

***

Dunkirk examines the true story

of the famous evacuation of virtually the
entire British Army from the beaches of
Unit photography by Melinda Sue Gordon, SMPSP, courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

Dunkirk, France, in 1940. The event

was the ideal subject matter, and van
Hoytema the perfect partner, for Nolan
as he took his crusade to promote large-
format filmmaking to new heights. In
their second collaboration after [Imax] cameras was always a limiting “for a small number of night scenes.”
Interstellar (AC Dec. ’14) — an factor, because I don’t like ADR Nolan’s work with van Hoytema
Imax/35mm-anamorphic hybrid — dialogue,” Nolan explains. “[But] with on their prior feature was an important
they have produced a movie that, Dunkirk, I was looking at telling the factor in the director’s decision to pursue
according to Nolan, has “a very good story in primarily a visual way, with less these ambitious methodologies. “We did
claim about being the highest-resolu- dialogue than in my previous films, so a lot on Interstellar that gave us confi-
tion feature film that has ever been that suggested to me that we could dence we could find solutions,” he says,
made.” And they did it by “trying hard achieve more with Imax MSM cameras “such as Hoyte working closely with
to do things never done before on such [than on Interstellar]. We could use Panavision to make special lenses and
a large and rewarding negative.” [Panavision 65mm] cameras for attachments for us. These were huge
Indeed, the filmmakers shot [lengthy dialogue scenes], and [achieve] issues, but Hoyte was able to challenge
about 70 percent of Dunkirk with 15- the goal of as much 15-perf [Imax] as Panavision and Imax to come up with
perf 65mm Imax MSM 9802 and possible.” innovative solutions. He doesn’t take no
MKIV film cameras, and acquired the Van Hoytema reports that the for an answer. He has an engineering
rest with 5-perf 65mm Panaflex HR production relied primarily on Kodak mind — he challenges everybody.”
Spinning Mirror Reflex and System 65 Vision3 250D 5207 stock, with 200T Nolan also points to van
Studio cameras. “The noise in the 5203 and 500T 5219 stock employed Hoytema’s “brute strength as an opera-

www.ascmag.com August 2017 31

◗ Great Escape
Right: Soldiers
wend their way
toward the base
of the mole, with
white sea foam
creeping in from
the left — an
unexpected
natural occurrence
that gave the
sequence its
special look.
Below: Sea foam
surrounds the
crew as Nolan
finds the desired
shot.

there would be no characteristics of

anamorphic distortion, [particularly]
flares, so the photography would largely
match,” Nolan adds. “And then, hope-
fully, by the time the Imax film print was
completely finished, the difference would
be smoother and more subtle.”
As in those prior collaborations,
for the Imax-projected version of
Dunkirk, the on-screen aspect ratio will
periodically alternate between 1.43:1 and
2.20:1 — when there is a shift from 15-
perf to 5-perf capture — while 70mm
and standard DCP projection will main-
tain 2.20:1 and 2.39:1, respectively.
It was Nolan’s intention to “put the
tor,” which allowed the Interstellar with van Hoytema on Interstellar, audience into the situation subjectively,”
production “to [shoot] handheld for the tended toward a visually evident mix he says. “To make them feel like they
first time in Imax. So all that pushed me between two negative formats, the were running along the beach at
in the direction of feeling like it really director notes that a different philoso- Dunkirk, to feel like they are dogfighting
would be possible to do the entire film phy would apply here. “When we from inside a Spitfire cockpit, or on a
that way.” approached Dunkirk, it was clear this small yacht sailing the English
The cinematographer’s view of was not a script we could break down Channel.”
their common goal is similar. Nolan, he the same way,” he says. “This is a film “I had a feeling this material would
says, “has a sense of connection between that’s relentless in its approach — we require a purer approach with sphericals,”
aesthetics, technology and mechanics, are always in it. We knew early on, van Hoytema elaborates. “The whole idea
philosophy, and storytelling. He can looking at the way this story would that a spherical lens is built with less glass,
intertwine these elements into related unfold, that it would be impossible to and doesn’t have an anamorphizing lens
solutions — making connections while say exactly where we would want those to stretch the image a certain way, seemed
others are still in the dark, but without visual shifts to occur. Instead, we really right for this material. I didn’t want that
getting hung up on insignificant detail wanted a more seamless blend.” extra filter that you often have with thick,
or being precious.” It was thus decided to use as anamorphic glass. I wanted to strip all
While Nolan’s prior work with much of the larger Imax negative as that away.”
Wally Pfister, ASC — such as on The possible, and to employ flat, spherical The cinematographer adds that
Dark Knight (AC July ’08) — as well as lenses with the 5-perf material “so that ASC associate member and Panavision’s

32 August 2017 American Cinematographer

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(C) Carpetlight CL84 LED flat light (D) Digital Sputnik DS Voyager LED tube control app (E) Zeiss Milvus 35mm lens (F) Matthews
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 Left: Nolan
checks the shot
for a scene with
Gibson (Aneurin
Barnard, sitting,
left) and Tommy
(Fionn
Whitehead,
sitting, right).
Below: Van
Hoytema sits
atop a dolly for
a shot that
tracks alongside
soldiers lined up
on the mole.

vice president of optical engineering

and lens strategy, Dan Sasaki,
“customized a couple of beautiful sets of
Sphero 65 lenses for us [for use with the
Panavision 65mm cameras] that looked
wonderful, and those were more similar
to Imax than anamorphic lenses would
be. They had the same kind of flare and
a softness in the field that was similar to
our [Imax footage].”
Panavision also customized exist-
ing 80mm and 50mm Imax lenses and
built additional ones for the production,
along with building the aforementioned
periscope. (See sidebar, page 34.)
In addition to the Imax bodies,
van Hoytema also handheld the heavier not because I’m that strong, but because choreographed dance of sorts with key
Panavision 65mm cameras, estimated it isn’t as difficult as people think, if you grip Ryan Monro. Once van Hoytema
by 1st AC Bob Hall to weigh approxi- know what you are doing and have great had secured firm footing, Monro “was
mately 55 pounds — before the 1,000' people helping you. For me, I think the like a mountaineer, fixing himself in
film magazines and lenses were added, weight or size of the camera was an different positions so he could lift the
which brought the whole package close insignificant element when compared to camera on my shoulder, or help me keep
to an estimated 90 pounds. The Imax the quality of the images we produced.” balance if it looked like I might fall
cameras were slightly lighter before lens Handheld Imax work was aided over,” the cinematographer says. “That
and magazine, but were still “a very by a custom eyepiece — which symbiosis between Ryan and I was
awkward camera, because it is a very big Panavision’s Sasaki had developed pivotal to working handheld.”
box, definitely not designed to be hand- previously for Nolan’s The Dark Knight Monro wore a backpack specially
held on your shoulder,” Hall says. Rises (AC Aug. ’12) — to make the unit configured by 2nd AC Dan Schroer —
The cinematographer insists that more ergonomic. Hall notes that this containing, as Hall reports, a video
his ability to operate such cameras innovation made it “easier to get the transmitter, Preston’s FI+Z lens-and-
handheld “wasn’t because I’m some sort operator’s eye to the camera when it was camera control system, a CineTape
of superman. I’m just an overweight, on his shoulder.” display, a Dionic battery to power the
non-sporting, slightly drinking, happy The protocol for van Hoytema’s CineTape, and an Imax battery to
cameraman — and I was able to do it safe operation revolved largely around a power the camera — that also bore

www.ascmag.com August 2017 33

 •|• Inside Panavision’s Optical Engineering •|•

ASC associate member and

Panavision’s vice president of
optical engineering and lens strategy,
more dynamically. The final result gave
us an Imax-specific periscope that not
only tilts, but pans.
Creating, Customizing and
Rebuilding Lenses
Sasaki: The tweaks on the exist-
Dan Sasaki, was initially surprised by Basically, we did a lot of napkin ing lenses included readjusting flange
how committed the filmmakers were to drawings to figure out if we could pipe depth, rebuilding mechanical trans-
featuring Imax footage in Dunkirk, and enough light through the system to ports and resetting element positions.
particularly by their pursuit of Imax- achieve Hoyte’s target stop of T8. The In the case of the lenses we had to
captured footage from inside the cock- clock was ticking and there was no time build, the 50s are a proprietary design
pits of small Spitfire airplanes. With the to generate an entirely new orienting for Panavision, so we had to pull out old
latter directive, Sasaki launched a prism system. Our solution was to designs we hadn’t addressed since The
project to build “a periscope that can go design around the prism assembly, and Dark Knight Rises [AC Aug. ’12], and
on the camera and pan, with a mechan- brute-force the optics to complement remanufacture the glass in a short
ically compensated imaging orienting the existing light path. Once we solved period of time.
prism,” he says. Panavision ultimately the orientation, rotation and stop We basically started over again
engineered six versions of two different requirements, Hoyte discovered that the with the 80mm lenses as well. One
periscopes — including one to acquire system, with Preston motors installed, problem with the 80mm design was
the POV of the water from a boat or was too tall to fit into the cockpit, and some of the elements in the reproduc-
submarine — to meet Hoyte van could not get the full axial adjustments tion were not exactly the same as in the
Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC’s specifica- required to capture airplanes flying by. original Chris Nolan 80mm lens. We
tions. We were able to get the specs of had to do some work with the optical
Panavision also customized two the airplane, and that last bit of infor- characteristics of the new batch to get
new sets of Sphero 65 lenses for the mation directed us into other design them to match as close as possible.
Panavision HR 65mm camera system, concepts that are used in surveillance For the 65mm 5-perf camera
including creating four new focal aircraft. We learned that if we optics, we had just finished working
lengths (29mm, 40mm, 100mm and approached the solution with a non- with Bob Richardson [ASC] on Live
300mm); customized an existing 50mm conventional relay system, we could by Night, and we adapted the Sphero 65
(T2) Imax lens originally built for The remote the pupil position of relays and lens technology we developed for that
Dark Knight (AC July ’08); and repaired actually achieve a smaller periscope that show to work with film cameras and
director Christopher Nolan’s personal met the T8 requirements, while still their spinning mirrors. One thing
80mm (T2) Imax lens. The company having all the articulated motions worth noting is that the actual perfor-
then developed from scratch additional Hoyte required. mance of the Sphero 65 lenses had to
50mm (T2) and 80mm (T2) Imax Another thing Hoyte asked for be an order higher in performance than
lenses. was an optional wider-objective lens to the Imax lenses. That is because of the
achieve a more expansive field of view. blowup factor and lack of magnification
Designing the Periscopes The original periscope had an objective associated with 5-perf 65mm when
Dan Sasaki: Hoyte revealed to lens that had a field of view equivalent compared to native 15-perf Imax. Since
me that their original idea of putting a to 120mm in Imax, which is pretty Nolan didn’t want there to be a
periscope on a camera supported by a wide, approximately a 35mm in the contrasting look [between the two
large ball-bearing turret mechanism, Super 35 world. But Hoyte requested formats], we had to be careful about
which would rotate the camera, didn’t an additional lens that would produce monitoring performance qualifications
pan out — and that by the way, they an equivalent field of view of a 17mm in of the new optics. Some of the older
were talking about an Imax camera, not the Super 35 world, which I think was a 65mm-format lenses didn’t have the
the smaller 5-perf camera. We had been 50mm in the Imax world. In creating pop to match the Imax images
planning a periscope design based on this iteration, we actually reduced the adequately, so we turned to the Sphero
the other presumption. As a result of size of the primary front objective to 65 lineup and created the four new
collaborating with Hoyte, we had to yield a system that could fit within the focal lengths.
add another degree of periscope articu- Spitfire. —Michael Goldman
lation to allow the camera to follow the
other airplanes from inside the cockpit

34 August 2017 American Cinematographer

◗ Great Escape
some of the camera’s weight. “[Schroer]
made a very efficient, watertight bag that
had all the necessary tethers for the
camera to run, making it easier to service
and taking unnecessary weight away
from my operating,” van Hoytema says.
“Hoyte was usually okay to operate
the Imax cameras handheld without
much help from me, as long as the shot
didn’t go on too long,” Monro explains.
“But when we shot dialogue scenes using
the heavier [Panavision 65 cameras],
those shots were usually much longer, so I
assisted Hoyte by taking some of the
weight while he operated. I would hoist
the camera onto his shoulder, and then
interlock my arms underneath his to push
up on the camera, taking as much weight
as I could, while being delicate enough for Above: With the help of a custom-
him to still pan and tilt. It seemed to work made snorkel lens, van Hoytema
quite well, but we had to get very close. It lines up an Imax camera for a POV
shot. Left: A joint effort by
was like two men in their mid-40s playing aeronautic engineers and the
Twister while juggling an old sewing production’s grips allowed an Imax
machine.” camera to be rigged on the wings of
a two-seater Spitfire replica,
Van Hoytema also performed enabling visceral in-flight shots of
handheld work on boats, while shooting actor Jack Lowden (portraying
on a lake near Urk, Netherlands. For Collins). Below: Nolan operates the
gimbal rotation and van Hoytema
scenes that took place on a small sailboat, uses a wire to simulate realistic
for example — a vessel which rocked back camera vibrations on a fully
and forth in choppy water, making it balanced and hand-operated gimbal
built on a cliff overlooking the
difficult to keep balance while standing water; this setup gave the
— Monro made a “cradle” for the cine- filmmakers full control for realistic
matographer to lean into, built out of in-cockpit acting scenes.
rock-climbing webbing and static line
attached to various points on the boat.
The production also used a large
catamaran as a camera boat, on which
both handheld and mounted camera
techniques were employed. In some cases,
the cameras were affixed to a remote,
gyro-stabilized Edge Crane and Head to
achieve what Monro calls “boat-to-boat
filming.” He adds that the production
“also rigged a platform to the side of the
catamaran, just underneath the waterline,
so that we could get down there handheld
to film oil-soaked, drowning soldiers
struggling in the ocean.”
The Dunkirk beach location in
France was both “a magnificent place” as
well as “an ugly, big, gray monster” that
wasn’t particularly compatible with giant
cameras, according to van Hoytema. “The
beach is endless,” he says. “When you get

www.ascmag.com August 2017 35

 •|• Practical Lighting Approach •|•
Lighting the Destroyer bare-bulb light in a [nondescript] black pushed as much light as possible
According to European gaffer housing, which was perfect to hide. We through the existing and available
Helmut Prein, the most apt example of spread out a dozen of those into the openings.”
Dunkirk’s need for period light aboard ship, producing a raw and punchy Rather than manufacture light
the film’s on-screen ships involved a downlight on the lower decks. We also with no believable source, the filmmak-
420' decommissioned French destroyer, installed three 10K Molebeams as ers left the interior unlit, and simply
now used as a museum vessel, called the searchlights for certain shots, dimmed “pushed daylight HMIs through every
Maillé-Brézé. The ship required the down to a period color. nook and cranny,” Chambers contin-
painstaking installation of generators, “Then, to reach deeper down to ues. “The only instrument used within
the rewiring of the power system and the water surface,” he continues, “we the trawler was a 2-by-2 poly — bead-
existing practical lights, the sealing of stuck out two 16K Dinos on outriggers board — bounce card. We would peri-
the electrical installation against to reach out over the ship’s bow. Our odically adjust lights to shoot
humidity and saltwater, and the addi- riggers built a movable truss-boom directionally through the hatches or
tion of more lighting fixtures that could system, which could be wheeled in and portholes toward either the bow or
blend in with the ship’s originals. out as needed, with [grips] securing the stern, accordingly. The trawler sat
“The existing electrical installa- rig against the movement of the waves. within the tank, and was surrounded by
tion was in very poor condition, and We also used 250K Lightning Strikes either box truss or I-beams saddled
there wasn’t any engine producing elec- rigged just above the waterline to simu- with trolleys that carried Arrimax
trical power on board, so we had to late a torpedo impact into the boat.” 18Ks, M90s or M18s.”
place two 150-kilowatt generators in Chambers’ team also rigged a
the back of the ship with an auto crane,” 20x40 soft box filled with 60 Arri
Prein says. “The generators were Skypanel S60-Cs over the top of the
camouflaged by set decoration. We also “Each period and trawler within the tank, for overall
had to rewire 78 existing practicals [due ambiance. Those were the only LEDs
to porous original cabling], as we could- specialty lamp had used on the show, due to the produc-
n’t simply feed in 230 volts/50 hertz. tion’s mandate to adhere to period light,
Then set decoration added some 48 to withstand the as Chambers explains. But the toughest
additional practicals, ending up with 63
practicals on each side of the ship —
explosion and lighting work with the trawler, he adds,
involved complex setups to film the
three different styles of housings. All capsizing over sinking of the ship in the water tank.
fixtures were running on separate “Each period and specialty lamp
dimmer channels and controlled by a and over.” had to withstand the explosion and
GrandMA2 dimmer board. capsizing [which were accomplished
“To get a more spiky light char- practically] over and over throughout
acteristic out of the practicals,” Prein Water-Tank Illumination the day, and night as well,” Chambers
adds, “we decided to use a special halo- Particularly complex lighting rigs says. “Each piece of Socapex [electrical
gen light bulb in a retro pear shape. were employed for Dunkirk’s water- cable] had to be rerun from the edge of
They looked period to camera, but had tank work, shot on Stage 16 at Warner the tank, underwater and through set
a much higher luminance output. To get Bros. in Los Angeles, where key scenes walls — 175 feet to the ship — to the
a more yellowish period color, we pulled aboard a trawler were shot. As underwater set following each day that
in the practicals to about 50 to 60 American gaffer Adam Chambers was shot, due to the fact that it would
percent on the dimmer board.” explains, for the interior of the trawler, be compromised by constant immer-
Prein reports that he found a below deck, the intent was to light from sion in the water. We had quite a few
variety of specialized lighting instru- the exterior to allow director practicals, as well as open-face lights,
ments along the way that helped for Christopher Nolan; cinematographer working in the shot — all on a dimmer
specific nighttime looks. “I did some Hoyte van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC; and controllable. The flicker effect on
investigation to find unobtrusive lights and the actors to work without restric- the boat and the foreground were
to integrate into the vessel’s structure,” tion within the vessel. “It was quite dark created with eight 24-light Maxi-
he says. “In a Paris rental house, deep inside, due to the fact that the trawler Brutes with VNSP globes.”
back in the shelves, I found an old 5K had few portholes or hatches,” —Michael Goldman
DeSisti Renoir fixture — an open-face, Chambers explains. “Therefore, we

36 August 2017 American Cinematographer

◗ Great Escape
there the first time, you are in awe of the
magnitude of the place, and you realize
you don’t have to do a lot of complicated
things in order to reproduce that magni-
tude. It was a unique atmosphere, so we
only had the core crew out there with the
camera — an intimate, contained,
focused, down-and-dirty experience.”
Monro adds, “We had to keep the
camera footprint small and stealthy, to
move in and out of the way of [actors
portraying soldiers] without the use of
large telescopic cranes and tracking vehi-
cles. So we used a lot of dolly track,
usually on the edge of the water. We had
a team of French and English grips and
techs leapfrogging camera dollies to dolly
tracks set up further away as the tide came
in. On [a jetty known as ‘the mole’], there
wasn’t much space for any gear, so we used
dollies and track there, also.”
As Monro explains, the mole is “a
massive pier or breakwater. From the
beach it went straight out into the ocean
for about one kilometer, and it ranged
from 8 feet to 20 feet wide in various
spots. Along with using camera dollies
on the mole, and due to weight restric-
tions, we used a lightweight GF-8
camera crane from Grip Factory
Munich. In the streets of Dunkirk, we
used a Grip Trix electric camera car with
a 17-foot telescopic MovieBird mounted
to the top.”
Van Hoytema also waded into
Top: An Imax camera in a custom splashbag — and mounted to an Edge Crane on a camera ship
shallow water and shot Imax handheld. — is angled into position for a shot of a Spitfire after a water landing. Above: Van Hoytema and
For those applications, Imax cameras Nolan line up the Imax camera, which is encased in an underwater housing, for a shot of
were placed into special waterproof Lowden’s character trying to escape a sinking Spitfire.
splashbags designed by underwater cine-
matographer/engineer Pete Romano, to hold a scuba tank for divers, maybe ing,” that they decided to place an Imax
ASC of Hydroflex, so that van Hoytema, 21⁄2 feet long and 2 feet wide. We put camera into a stunt plane — which was
wearing a drysuit, could carefully dip the backpack in a waterproof bag, “unmanned and catapulted from a
Imax cameras underwater while operat- strapped it to the raft, and let it float ship,” van Hoytema says — and crash it
ing by hand. To accomplish this, Hall along with Hoyte as he was handhold- into the sea. The crash, however, didn’t
came up with an alternative way for van ing, standing in the English Channel. go quite as expected.
Hoytema to be safely tethered to the We were using these cameras exactly as “Our grips did a great job build-
camera’s electronic components. they were not designed to be used, turn- ing a crash housing around the Imax
“We had a cable loom going from ing a lot of notions about Imax cameras camera to withstand the physical
the camera to the backpack,” Hall says, and how to use them upside down.” impact and protect the camera from
“and we had to be very careful that Hoyte Indeed, van Hoytema reveals that seawater, and we had a good plan to
didn’t go in too deep, where water could the production was so eager to “put the retrieve the camera while the wreckage
go in through the opening of the sleeve camera in places that are normally hard was still afloat,” van Hoytema says.
on the [splashbag]. So I found a little to access in order to provide a first- “Unfortunately, the plane sank almost
[SEAC Seamate] raft, which is designed hand, visceral view of what was happen- instantly, pulling the rig and camera to

www.ascmag.com August 2017 37

◗ Great Escape
that the maneuvers will place a certain
amount of Gs on [a pilot], and that it
gets very heavy, physically, on the body.”
When the Imax cameras were
rigged to peek into the cockpits using
the Panavision periscopes, either Nolan,
van Hoytema, or aerial-unit director of
photography Hans Bjerno squeezed in
and partnered with aerial
coordinator/pilot Craig Hosking.
“We mounted the camera
[upside-down] behind the camera oper-
ator, and the lens would stick out above
him,” van Hoytema explains. “His knee
operated the periscoping lens by rotat-
ing it left and right. And the camera was
mounted so that it was balanced, but we
could actually still move it.
“For shots done from the wing,
inward,” the cinematographer contin-
ues, a camera-mount support built by
the production’s aeronautical engineers
was employed “so that we could physi-
cally put an Imax camera on the wing of
an airplane. The camera was hard-
mounted and started and stopped by
Craig Hosking, the pilot.”
Describing another aerial setup,
van Hoytema reports that Hosking “had
a EuroStar airplane, and we would have
an Imax mounted in the nose of it and
Top: The “Frankenhull” — a fully gimballed sinking warship built in Falls Lake at the Universal in the back of it with hard mounts, so
lot. The funny-looking proportions allowed the ship to look bigger and more complex for shots that the only way to point those cameras
made on deck. Two 60'x30' overhead frames with gray muslin were employed to replicate the was to steer the plane, to bank it left or
overcast skies encountered in Europe. Bottom: Van Hoytema and Nolan work out a shot on the
tilted minesweeper replica. right.”
When asked if all the aerial
the sea bottom. In all, the camera was across the Atlantic Ocean to be devel- footage in the film was shot on real,
under for [more than 90 minutes] until oped. It was uncharted territory.” flying planes, the cinematographer notes
divers could retrieve it. The housing was As van Hoytema reports, that “we did the meat of it for real, apart
completely compromised by water pres- “FotoKem carefully developed it to find from some additional outdoor close-up
sure, and the camera and mag had filled out the shot was all there, in full color gimbal work.”
with [brackish] water. But Jonathan and clarity. This material would have In terms of focus pulling, Hall
Clark, our film loader, rinsed the been lost if shot digitally.” notes with a laugh that he “only experi-
retrieved mag in freshwater and cleaned The process of devising aerial enced the normal challenges that one
the film in the darkroom with freshwa- shots was “very meticulous and careful,” would associate with pulling focus on
ter before boxing it and submerging it in van Hoytema says. “Our mandate was the bow of a 1935 sailboat in force-7
freshwater.” that we wanted it to be visceral — for seas in the rain, with my CineTape
Hall adds, “FotoKem advised us the aerial footage to feel real and not disabled and large-format depth-of-
to drain as much of the water as we sensationalist, including the experience field equal to 3 stops less than anamor-
could from the can, [as it] is not a water- of sitting in the cockpit of a Spitfire. We phic 35mm film.”
tight container and we didn’t want the felt it was important to avoid any The depth-of-field issue resulted
airlines to not accept something that is dramatization that defied the laws of in Hall’s relying largely on his own
leaking. This was the first experience of physics. We wanted to understand the seasoned experience for pulling focus.
sending waterlogged film to a film lab mechanics of a dogfight, to be aware As Hall explains, “When you shoot

38 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 ◗ Great Escape
weather can change from moment to
moment — but we wanted all those
changes, as it really is, and we didn’t
Van Hoytema, want to stop and micromanage certain
Nolan and crew light directions. So for those kinds of
prepare an scenes it didn’t matter if the light was
underwater
shot in which a flat from the front or backlit, or if it was
soldier windy and raining and then the next
submerges to day it wasn’t. We felt that was part of the
escape the
inferno on the reality we were filming. Our job wasn’t
surface. to create a special look — our job was to
observe and take in what we could get.”
More traditional lighting was
used, however, for such setups as the
various ships featured in the production,
Imax, you are basically losing 3 stops of Regarding the constantly shifting which needed period-relevant lighting.
depth of field. Fortunately, they wanted European skies over the English The film’s most sophisticated lighting
an epic look, and to utilize as much Channel, van Hoytema decided early on rigs were supervised by two gaffers —
depth of the large format as they could that he would not try to “intervene with Helmut Prein handling the European
for lots of day exteriors, when we had light” when shooting day exteriors on sequences, and Adam Chambers over-
the sun — but that was not all the time. the beach in Europe. Rather, he opted seeing the water-tank work at the
We were shooting at an 8-stop, but that to go for “a true visual sense of the Warner Bros. studios in Los Angeles.
left me with an effective 2.8 for depth of moment,” he says. (See sidebar, page 36.)
field. And then, as the day went on, that “European skies are very Per Nolan’s edict, the movie was
diminished greatly.” extreme,” van Hoytema notes, “and finished photochemically at FotoKem,

40
forgoing digital scanning and recording. raw negative that has our [analog photo- TECHNICAL SPECS
Multiple exhibition versions of the chemical] color correction all over it.”
movie were output from two separate It is the hope of both director and 2.20:1 (5-perf 70mm),
film masters — 15-perf 65mm Imax cinematographer that one of Dunkirk’s 1.43:1 (Imax),
and 5-perf 65mm. ASC associate contributions will be to illustrate to the 2.39:1 (standard DCP)
member Dan Muscarella performed industry that this kind of filmmaking is
final color timing on the possible, and continues to be an innov- 15-perf 65mm Imax, 5-perf 65mm
film negative in both formats on a ative process. “I certainly feel a sense of
custom 65mm Colormaster color excitement around photochemical Kodak Vision3 250D 5207,
analyzer. (See expanded coverage of prints that I have not felt in years,” 200T 5203, 500T 5219
FotoKem’s and Imax Post/DKP Inc.’s Nolan says. “I was in London recently
postproduction workflows at and saw various cinemas that had Imax MSM 9802, MKIV; Panavision
ascmag.com.) ‘35mm’ advertised on the marquee as a Panaflex System 65 Studio 65SPFX,
Only Dunkirk’s limited number selling point. I think there is an HR Spinning Mirror Reflex 65HSSM
of visual-effects shots — created by increased interest from younger audi-
Vancouver’s Double Negative — were ences. For them, it’s a newer experience Panavision Sphero 65; Imax 80mm,
touched by a computer. But even there, to get that emotional connection from 50mm; Panavision Imax Periscope
the filmmakers’ analog processing pref- the material with these superior prints.”
erences mandated that upon comple- Printed on Kodak Vision 2383
tion, the images were scanned and For additional Dunkirk coverage,
filmed out for inclusion in reels. “Our visit ascmag.com. ●
original negative is always the color
guidance for the visual-effects shots,”
van Hoytema says. “When we get our
output from DNeg, we end up with a

41
 Classic Hollywood
Cinematographer Danny Moder and tatives attempting to unionize screenwriters — a surprisingly
timely premise, given that at that very moment a writers’ strike
director Billy Ray (ultimately averted) is potentially about to descend upon 2017
balance vintage styles and modern Hollywood.
sensibilities on Amazon’s The contemporary relevance is not lost on director of
photography Danny Moder, who was attracted to The Last
old-Hollywood series The Last Tycoon. Tycoon partly because of what it had to say about where
Hollywood started and where it was going. “The script for the
By Jim Hemphill pilot really touched on a lot of interesting ideas about the
concept of how movies began, how they evolved, how innov-
•|• ative the technology was, and who the revolutionary thinkers
were,” Moder says. “These guys were really the Steve Jobs of
their day.”

O
n a soundstage of a historic studio lot that was once the Moder first became aware of the project when he
stomping grounds of John Ford, William Wyler and worked with director Billy Ray on the feature Secret in Their
countless other Hollywood legends, a group of contem- Eyes. “I have a hard time looking past whatever job I’m
porary filmmakers gathers to re-create a bygone era for currently doing,” the cinematographer notes, “but Billy kept
an episode of Amazon’s new series The Last Tycoon. Based on talking about this Last Tycoon thing — that he might have the
an unfinished novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon rights and he might be able to make it happen. Sure enough,
follows boy-wonder producer Monroe Stahr (Matt Bomer) a few months after Secret in Their Eyes came out, Billy asked
and studio head Pat Brady (Kelsey Grammer) as they struggle me to read the script for the pilot.”
to reconcile the aesthetic, financial and technical demands of Ray, who wrote and directed the pilot for The Last
moviemaking in 1930s Hollywood. Tycoon before going on to serve as the first season’s showrun-
On the day that AC visits the set, the crew is shooting a ner — and director of additional episodes — notes that
scene where Stahr and Brady face off against labor represen- Moder’s collaboration was essential. “I don’t consider myself to

42 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 be a naturally gifted shot-maker, so my
director of photography has to be,” Ray
explains. “Danny’s compositions are
phenomenal, and he has a great sense of
how and when to move the camera.”
Though Moder hadn’t shot a series
before, the prospect of reuniting with
Ray, combined with the inherently
visual nature of the material, inspired
him to sign on.
“The period is so cinematic, and
it’s such a great subject if you’re a movie
lover,” Moder says. “Billy and I had a lot
of fun conversations about what we
were doing and how it related to film
history. We watched Singin’ in the Rain,
which is later than the era we’re portray-
ing — which takes place just before it —
so how does that style inform what
we’re doing? We used a lot of movies
from the era as references — like Fritz
Lang movies that are so much fun, and
that inspire you to ask how they did it
with what they had, and why they did it
that way.”
For Moder, part of the challenge
was finding the line between remaining
true to the style of the period and
formulating a visual style appropriate for
contemporary audiences. “They used a
lot of light in those 1930s movies, and in
more obvious ways,” he explains. “Today
we’re always trying to be less on-the-
nose about where the light’s coming
from, or to make it look unlit, and
Photos by Adam Rose and Jennifer Clasen, courtesy of Amazon Studios.

modern audiences expect more contrast.

The good news is that even though Opposite: Producer Monroe Stahr (Matt Bomer) battles studio head Pat Brady (Kelsey Grammer)
we’re using a lot of LED fixtures, it’s in the 1930s Hollywood-set series The Last Tycoon. This page, top: Celia Brady (Lily Collins)
informs her father that she’s joining forces with Stahr to make the perfect picture.
gotten to the point where we can really Bottom: Cinematographer Danny Moder on set.
soften and color the light, giving it
enough density to make it more fitting sitated a very classic kind of style.” I also looked at the use of color in
to this era.” Moder adds that his influences Boardwalk Empire and The Crown. I
Ray notes that he and Moder were not limited to films from and thought that if we could aim for that
looked at a lot of George Hurrell about the 1930s. “We talked a lot about level of photography with our budget,
photography to recapture the look of the The Godfather, which Billy, like so many our crew, and our time, that would be
period. “You don’t want a story set in directors, is obsessed with, as well as pretty great.”
1936 to be screaming with 2017 tech- Chinatown. For me, John Seale ASC, Those budget and time limita-
nology that will pop you out of the ACS’s work on The English Patient was tions became more pronounced when
story,” he explains. “I thought this extremely important — I wanted to The Last Tycoon was picked up for series.
subject — the contrast between the replicate the way he would make you “The pilot was done in 12 or 13 days,
dream of Hollywood and the reality of think you were looking at one thing and and we got some pretty good work
Hollywood, and on a deeper level the then reveal it to be something different, done,” Moder recalls. “We were work-
question of why that dream is so power- which fit in perfectly with the visual ing with a phenomenal production
ful and has such a hold on us — neces- language and theme of The Last Tycoon. designer, Patrizia von Brandenstein, and

www.ascmag.com August 2017 43

◗ Classic Hollywood
he doesn’t care where it came from. That
said, 90 percent of the time it came from
him.
“He also has instant credibility
with actors, because they know he’s
going to take care of them,” Ray adds.
“He speaks their language, so there’s
never a hassle about camera versus
performance — ever.”
Moder notes the importance of
communicating his plan to the
performers so they can integrate what
they’re doing with the cinematography.
“The lighting on this show is kind of
specific,” he says. “It’s not just, ‘We’ll hit
it anywhere.’ Every scene is an opportu-
nity, and it’s something that somebody
has written down, and there have been
hundreds of meetings about it — about
wardrobe and everything else. You try to
feel out the sensitivity of the scene, and
work out how it will be most powerful
with everybody.”
For Moder, preparation is also
key in terms of accomplishing a feature-
film look on a television schedule. In
fact, he notes that “there’s a line in the
pilot where Monroe says something
like, ‘I’m not good enough to be unpre-
pared’ — and Billy used to say that a lot
when we were making Secret in Their
Eyes. We have in-depth shot-list meet-
ings — not to lock ourselves into
anything, as it could all go out the
window, but so that we don’t have to
Top: The real-life production crew shoots the story’s filmmakers at work on a soundstage. worry about standing on a set with 50
Bottom: Cast and crew capture a scene in which Stahr romances Kathleen Moore (Dominique
McElligott). people staring at you and wondering
what they’re supposed to do.”
a great costume designer, Janie Bryant every single person on the crew.” Ray adds, “The bigger virtue of
— and my crew was incredible. It just Ray reciprocates Moder’s shot-listing is that it forces you to ask
all felt right.” compliment by adding that the cine- yourself what the scene is really about. Is
Moder was initially resistant to matographer is as adept at the “non- it about a shifting power dynamic? Is it
continuing on the series, out of fear that glamorous” aspects of photography as about two people falling in love? Is it
the tighter nine-day schedule would he is at the aesthetically rewarding ones. about tension in a given circumstance?
require too many compromises to the “I’ve been on sets where the director of Once you know what the scene is about,
visual style, but his fondness for the photography and the first AD are you know where the camera should go
initial scripts and the environment that always arguing about schedule versus and how long it should stay there. Then
Ray had devised changed his mind. style, or the cinematographer and the if you get to the set and all of a sudden
“You can’t help but be amazed by the production designer are always arguing the cinematographer or an actor or a
costumes and production design,” about whether or not the sets are grip has an idea, you can react to it
Moder enthuses. “The places we get to camera-friendly,” Ray says. “With because it doesn’t change what the scene
go, the cars we get to see, and Billy’s Danny, there’s a strong point of view is about. The rigor that you have
writing all just give you an amazing and a strong aesthetic, but a complete imposed upon yourselves now starts to
opportunity — as does his generosity to absence of ego. The best idea wins and pay off, because it doesn’t matter if

44 August 2017 American Cinematographer

you’re making adjustments to your shot
list, as long as the scene is still about the
same thing — that’s the North Star.”
Moder adds that while the
production had more time and resources
on the pilot, he hasn’t felt the constraints
he’d feared he would on the series’ later
episodes. “On a pilot, you have to ramp
up from nothing,” he explains. “Now
we’ve got this moving army that can get
into a place, black out some windows,
light it, and get a good camera angle and
the actors in the right spot very quickly.”
In keeping with Amazon’s
mandate that all their shows be shot in
true 4K, Moder relies primarily on
Sony’s PMW-F55, which he selected
after seeing a demonstration on the
Sony lot. “That’s been our camera body
for both the pilot and the series, aside
from a oner we did in the pilot on a
Movi — for that we put on an [Arri]
Alexa Mini,” Moder recalls. Shooting in
Cine E1 mode, the Sony camera
recorded 4K raw to AXS cards, with
SxS cards as backup, and framed for the
1.78:1 aspect ratio.
In terms of lenses, Moder adds,
“For the last five years, I’ve just been
loving the T1.3 Zeiss Super Speeds.
They’re very fast, and I would say we’re
wide-open more often than I care to
mention. We’ve got phenomenal focus
pullers, Jason Garcia and Jan Ruona,
who spoil me. They’ve got this [Preston
Cinema Systems] Light Ranger system,
where the lenses are already calibrated Top: Multiple cameras roll for a scene between Bomer and Collins. Bottom: Moder and his crew
and they tell you exactly what’s in focus finesse Bomer’s lighting.
at different distances, so you can be
leading it or following it. It makes my coordinating crews on ‘double-up days,’” the money on getting us some of the
job so much easier.” The Last Tycoon was he attests. “Fortunately, my second-unit newest lighting packages,” he says.
captured primarily with Zeiss Super director of photography, Mike Ozier, is “Toys like wireless iris control, or LED
Speed Mark IIIs. The production made a longtime friend and an excellent cine- lighting with wireless connections to
use of Angenieux’s Optimo 25-250mm matographer. He and operator Jason make it brighter, darker, bluer or
(T3.5) and 28-76mm (T2.6) zooms on Ellson would take my crew to finish the warmer, have allowed us to shoot up to
the pilot, and occasionally employed last day of an episode, while at the same nine pages a day.”
Cooke’s 18-100mm (T3) zoom. time I would be a couple stages away Gaffer Nicholas Kaat affirms that
Moder credits his second unit with capable crew stepping up to start the LED fixtures were a central part of
with alleviating some of the pressures of day-one of the next episode with a new his lighting methodology for the show.
achieving his vision on a show for which director.” “The Last Tycoon is the first time I’ve
he was the sole first-unit cinematogra- Moder adds that he’s benefited used mostly LEDs in every aspect, from
pher. “It was a welcome challenge from smart producing, which has given lighting our sets to lighting our actors,”
shooting every episode with different him what he needs to move on the fly. he says. “Of course, we still use big tung-
directors, and actually overlapping and “The production went ahead and spent sten units or HMIs when needed, but

www.ascmag.com August 2017 45

◗ Classic Hollywood
[FuseFX] had a growing list every day
and the results are gorgeous. He was on-
set whenever we needed a bit of guid-
ance to make both of our jobs easier, or
on the phone if something came up.”
Key grip Pat O’Mara recalls a
party scene shot at Greystone Mansion
in Beverly Hills, Calif. “No rigging
could touch any part of the ceiling or
walls,” he describes. “My key rigger,
Larry Edwards, installed a freestanding
truss that spanned the enormous room,
enabling us to light from above.”
O’Mara adds that Max Menace Arms
were a frequently used tool for difficult-
to-reach lighting. “I also introduced
Danny to 6-by-8 and 8-by-8 frameless
A Steadicam is employed for a musical sequence. Wag Flags we’ve had made in every
diffusion possible,” he says. “It’s a very
many of our other lighting instruments allows people to get in and out of the unobtrusive way to diffuse light without
were LED. We had everything from space, and not have a push of light in all of the extra hardware and stands.”
Arri SkyPanel S60s and S30s to one direction. It comes on and hauls off O’Mara notes that Moder and
LiteGear LiteTile LiteBoxes rigged on easily, and actors — especially the ones the rest of the crew developed a short-
our sets, and our floor package was who aren’t that young anymore — love hand on set. “It’s always important for
mostly SkyPanels, LiteMats, Arri L- how it makes them look.” me to stay 10 steps ahead of the game
Series Fresnels and ETC Source Four Moder and Kaat both note the plan, especially when dealing with a new
LEDs. We chose those instruments not contributions of the grip and electric set, a new location or a major rig,” he
only for their quality of light, but also rigging crews, whose system for says. “The working relationship with
their ability to quickly adjust color and prelighting the sets provided an infra- Danny and Nick, whom I worked with
intensity. All of these fixtures are bi- structure for expansion. “I can’t say closely on each lighting setup, was pretty
color, if not also RGB mixing. As much enough about the confidence and secu- seamless.”
as possible, we gave control of all these rity I had with my riggers, Mike “We fell into a groove early in the
fixtures to our lighting-console Bonnaud for gaffing and Larry series,” Kaat concurs. “On the first
programmer, Richard Rasmussen, via Edwards as rigging grip,” Moder episode, it felt like we were already
wireless DMX Cintennas.” enthuses. “They had intuition for my clicking. Danny always knew the mood
Kaat adds that the tools the crew style and gave us great options and an and time of day he wanted to convey,
employed aided Moder in his desire to excellent foundation to keep moving and that gave us a solid jumping-off
bring more nuanced lighting than a TV forward.” point. Sometimes Danny knew exactly
schedule might ordinarily permit. The trickiest part, from Kaat’s what he wanted the lighting to be, and
“These choices allowed us to work point of view, came when the produc- it was my job to work with Pat to get it
quickly and precisely,” the gaffer notes. tion left the lot for sensitive location there. Other times he would only have a
“We could have an average-sized crew work. “Many of our locations were feeling and I would pitch him ideas
working quickly on a very detailed light- protected because of their history and until something clicked. Sometimes we
ing setup, knowing that Danny and I age,” Kaat explains. “That made rigging would build on the ideas he had and
could make our final adjustments to and prelighting more difficult, but our sometimes he would build on ours, but
color and intensity from the monitor, production designer and set dressers it was always in service to the story and
without needing electricians and grips helped us when they could — and style of the show.”
to add gel or scrims in the final Danny, our directors and camera opera- That style, according to Moder,
moments before the cameras rolled.” tors helped us when we couldn’t find any relies on a kind of restrained elegance
Moder shares Kaat’s enthusiasm places to hide our equipment.” evocative of the Sidney Lumet movies
for LED equipment, adding that his Moder notes, “Adding to the that he and Ray saw as models for their
favorite piece of gear is the LED Jem sensitivity of the historic locations was previous collaboration. “Those strong
Ball. “It’s just a nice, soft orb that can go our need for visual effects to simplify the frames, with a lot of depth and clarity,
in a lot of places,” he says. “It really landscapes back to 1936. John Heller at really resonate with me,” Moder says.

46 August 2017 American Cinematographer

◗ Classic Hollywood
look that we’re aiming for]. Technicolor
then gets the raw image and they just
apply [the given LUT] for dailies.
Maybe not every LUT works for every
shot in the scene, so there will be some
massaging.”
Two 6'x13'
hybrid
Moder notes that the final color
HMI/tungsten correction has not only allowed him to
balloons from refine The Last Tycoon, but it has also
Skylight Balloon
Lighting help
given him ideas for future projects. “The
illuminate a more I familiarize myself with the post
ballroom for an process and the new LUTs, the more
awards-
ceremony scene.
excited I get about the possibilities,” he
says. “It’s getting easier and easier to
achieve your vision, and that just makes
me want to push things further every
time. I admire a cinematographer like
Darius Khondji [ASC, AFC], who on
Lost City of Z [AC May ’17] is just push-
ing himself and transporting the audi-
He adds with a laugh, “I guess this show “This is such a departure from that, ence,” he continues. “He’s got a vision,
is kind of like a Sidney Lumet version of which is fun, but sometimes I want to and that’s ultimately what you’re hired
Singin’ in the Rain.” shake it all up. That’s where I rely on for; it’s about putting energy and texture
Moder credits his A-camera dolly Kim — he helps me find a more fluid into the frame. The more elegantly you
grip, Jim Leidholdt, with executing way of responding to those impulses.” can insert yourself into the project, the
many of the series’ most elaborate In addition to the production’s more satisfying it’s going to be for
camera moves. “So many shots would camera and lens packages, the cine- everyone.”
have been impossible without him,” the matographer also credits Pandora Moder’s desire to express himself
cinematographer attests. “It’s a thing of Technology’s Pluto Colour was made easier by a crew with whom
beauty, the way he understands the Management System LUT box he found an instant rapport. “The new
mechanics, along with the timing of the enabling him to achieve the precise looks paradigm supported by streaming
actors and the timing of the operator. Of that he’s after. “For the pilot,” he says, services like Amazon,” he says, “where
course, a dolly grip is operating in a way, “we did the DI at Technicolor you have just a little bit more money to
when they’re doing their job the way Hollywood with Tim Vincent, who’s make the show, helps you find people
Jim does.” going to be doing all the coloring on the who are really good at their job and are
The fluidity of Leidholt’s dolly series with Autodesk Lustre. He created willing to work with you for a few
moves was dictated by the overall 16 or 17 distinct looks for the pilot, months and be fully committed. You’re
approach Moder took to movement and which have now been dumped into this in Los Angeles making a small feature
composition. “My A-camera operator, Pluto Box. As we’re putting the scene every nine days, using the best crew and
Kim Marks, and I decided on a philos- together on set, I’ll think, ‘I want this to the best gear, and everybody’s into it. It
ophy where we would move the camera be all warm.’ And then there’s [the ability reminds you of the maverick filmmakers
when we really needed to, not for some to make it] super-warm, or neutral, or that this story is about — the innova-
arbitrary reason,” he explains. “I want it desaturated, and then there are cool tors.” He smiles and adds, “You know,
to feel natural; I don’t really like pulling shadows — so for each scene, we just it’s really the best job ever.” ●
walls if we don’t have to. I like to make take that look and apply it. We made a
it feel like we’re in a real space. The black-and-white LUT for when we’re
TECHNICAL SPECS
biggest challenge is making the sets feel shooting black-and-white. I can just go
like they’re not sets, and finding new but onto my monitors and choose which 1.78:1
motivated angles in rooms we go into LUT looks good and hit the button, and
again and again.” that’s what we’re all looking at. Digital Capture
Moder submits that sometimes “[I roll] the iris just a little bit the
Sony PMW-F55, Arri Alexa Mini
the style is at odds with his natural whole time,” Moder adds, “and we’ve got
instincts. “It’s funny, because most of the the LUT, so by the time we approach Zeiss Super Speed Mark III,
commercials I do are handheld,” he says. finishing, we’re a lot closer [to the final Angenieux Optimo, Cooke

48 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 Dark Hospitality
Philippe Le Sourd, AFC

B
ased on the novel by Thomas Cullinan and set in a
Confederate girls’ boarding school in Virginia during the
embraces shadows, candlelight and Civil War, The Beguiled is an atmospheric thriller about
35mm film for Sofia Coppola’s headmistress Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman), teacher
Civil War-era feature The Beguiled. Miss Edwina (Kirsten Dunst), and the young women in their
charge. The school takes in an injured Union soldier, John
McBurney (Colin Farrell), and as the women provide refuge
By Iain Marcks and tend his wounds, the house they inhabit — a stately colo-
nial mansion — becomes a pressure cooker of sexual tension
•|• and dangerous rivalries.
Philippe Le Sourd, AFC photographed the film for
writer-director Sofia Coppola, who was awarded Best
Director honors when The Beguiled premiered at the recent

50 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 Miss Martha
(Nicole Kidman,
this page, left)
runs a girls’
boarding school in
Virginia during the
Civil War in
director Sofia
Coppola’s
atmospheric
thriller The
Beguiled. Below:
Cinematographer
Philippe Le Sourd,
AFC operates the
camera for the
scene in which
Amy (Oona
Laurence) finds
wounded Union
soldier John
McBurney (Colin
Farrell).

Cannes Film Festival. Asked how he

had first met Coppola, Le Sourd tells
AC, “About 15 years ago I was in Paris
with Harris Savides [ASC], and we
took a picture together. He kept this
picture in his office, and later, after he
got very sick, Sofia came to him with a
commercial project and asked whom
she should work with. At the time, he
couldn’t remember my name, but he had
that picture, and through the picture she
found me.”
Unit photography by Ben Rothstein, courtesy of Focus Features.

American Cinematographer:
What were those early collaborations
with Coppola?
Philippe Le Sourd, AFC: We
did a few Dior commercials together,
and I later filmed a stage production of the film. Cameron. And even though I knew
La Traviata that she directed. Finally, How would you describe the they came later, I was looking at the
she sent me the script for The Beguiled, film’s mood and feeling? work of [Alfred] Stieglitz, [Edward]
and of course I was delighted. Sofia Le Sourd: Sofia wanted some- Steichen, and the Pictorialists, whose
wanted to take a more feminine thing very specific with the tone and the works manifest a painterly approach to
approach than the previous adaptation emotions. A film is not only about the light and darkness, using strong shadow
[from 1971, directed by Don Siegel], story or dialogue, but also about the and unusual angles to highlight their
which was told more from the soldier’s hidden meanings that are translated subjects.
perspective. The fact that it was a between the lines. We looked at refer- Did you have any other refer-
woman director telling this story ences from the Civil War era, the ences? Film references?
completely transformed the mood and photographers who were working in the Le Sourd: Sofia had researched
feeling, and brought a new essence to medium of tintypes, like Julia Margaret the time period extensively. She sent me

www.ascmag.com August 2017 51

◗ Dark Hospitality
Le Sourd: It would have been
easier to shoot with digital, but Sofia
wanted film for its color, the quality of
the skin tones, and the quality of the
blacks. It was never a question. The real
challenge was in seeing how we could
make this new interpretation with the
lenses, processing, negative, framing
and format. It was almost like a new
discovery, because when you come back
to film after spending so much time
shooting digital, there’s something very
fresh, something romantic and chal-
lenging about shooting a film that’s lit
mostly with candlelight. You have to
work with the lab to make sure the
processing is correct. We did a lot of
film-processing tests and lens tests. I
was thinking about highlights, if it
would flare or not, low contrast versus
high contrast, push or pull.
Which lenses did you use?
Le Sourd: Our lenses and camera
came from Panavision, but we used an
Arricam LT because I like the
viewfinder — it was important to be
able to see the light and the focus. As for
the lenses, I wanted to give a texture to
this period, so I tried to find the most
low-contrast lenses with nice texture.
For all the interior and exterior daylight
scenes, I used rehoused Cooke S2
Speed Panchros, and for the interior
night scenes I used Panavision Ultra
Speed and PVintage lenses. They vary
in speed, but they have a quality in the
low light that’s very nice. I try to get the
Top: Miss Edwina (Kirsten Dunst) gazes through sheer curtains. Bottom: Cast and crew work look as dark as possible, to use the low
through a scene in the kitchen. part of the negative when making an
exposure. Also I used one zoom, a
some documents about the condition of Even in the first scene in the forest Panavision Primo 24-275mm [T2.8], in
women living in the time of the Civil you’re thinking Rashomon, and in the a long tracking shot when Nicole
War. We looked at the paintings of house when they’re praying you can Kidman’s Miss Martha is searching for
Caravaggio and Vermeer. The film is think about Gone With the Wind or The one of the girls outside. The fact that we
filled with influences, from Roman Leopard. There are a lot of visual inspi- used the zoom lens only once makes the
Polanski’s Tess [shot by Ghislain rations you can interpret [as a film- feeling of tension completely different.
Cloquet, ASC, AFC and Geoffrey maker], but you have to make sure that What was your T-stop range?
Unsworth, BSC] to Peter Weir’s Picnic you don’t disappear, and that the film Le Sourd: I shot everything
at Hanging Rock [shot by Russell Boyd, stands strongly on its own. Every story wide open, interiors and exteriors. I
ASC, ACS], and as the film’s tone speaks with its own language and gram- used the 50mm Ultra Speed often, so I
becomes darker and darker, it goes more mar, and all our decisions were made could go close-up at a T1, which let me
for a feeling reminiscent of Hitchcock following the essence of the film. [pull] the negative to give us the most
or [Charles Laughton’s] The Night of the How did you arrive at the deci- detail in the shadows in night interiors.
Hunter [shot by Stanley Cortez, ASC]. sion to shoot on film? I used Kodak [Vision3] 5219 500T for

52 August 2017 American Cinematographer

its texture and grain, rated at 250 and
processed at 250 for the entire film. For
our exteriors I used an 85 filter and a
lot of NDs to shoot wide open, under-
exposing to desaturate the color. That
is always a challenge, to find the dark-
est side of the film negative.
There’s something very
distinctive about the way you framed
the film using the 1.66:1 aspect ratio.
Le Sourd: We watched a lot of
[Robert] Bresson movies, like Au
Hasard Balthazar, because Bresson was
always shooting in a very economical
way — for example, using only the
50mm lens. On our film we only had
25 days, and that forced us to make
some very economic decisions. Do we
need to cover everyone? Do we need
only one shot? Where do we put the
camera? Do we only need their hand?
A close-up portrait in the 1.66:1
frame has a very different focus on the
character. We wanted to capture the
loneliness and imprisonment of the
women’s monastic life, the idea of
confinement. If you look at portraits of
the 1860s, you’ll see that they had two
kinds of lenses: lenses for portraits, like
a 50mm Petzval lens, and wider lenses
for landscapes. For this film, we were
more interested in the people than the
locations.
Did you have a preferred focal
length?
Le Sourd: I love the 50mm
Ultra Speed prime. There’s something
really beautiful about it. You’re never
far away from the actors when you
shoot and you are not too close, and
what you capture in the end is the true
emotion of the people. You’re not
distracted by any distortion.
There are certain scenes,
particularly the one in which Miss
Martha visits the soldier in the plan-
tation’s garden, where all the detail in
the background seems to just disap-
pear.
Le Sourd: I shot wide open even
outside, to give the exteriors a specific
look, almost like a painting with the
Top: Amy goes for a walk. Middle: The camera follows Laurence. Bottom: A dolly move keeps
background out of focus. With the old pace with the actors for a shot of Amy guiding the wounded McBurney to the school.
Petzval portrait lenses, the focus was

www.ascmag.com August 2017 53

◗ Dark Hospitality
this kind in person. I’d never been on a
plantation — I’d only seen them in
movies.
Did you use a local crew?
Le Sourd: First AC Hector
Rodriguez was the only person I
brought from Los Angeles. Gaffer Bob
Bates, key grip Nick Leon, and both of
their teams were from New Orleans.
Was it a challenge to film in a
new place? Did it open up any new
perspectives?
Le Sourd: It’s not the place that’s
a challenge. Working with a new direc-
tor or with a new talent and story, and
trying to figure out what kind of
photography you can bring to the story,
and to make sure that it doesn’t distract
— that’s the challenge.
What’s your working relation-
ship with Coppola like?
Le Sourd: Every creative deci-
sion was a discussion between Sofia,
production designer Anne Ross,
costume designer Stacey Battat and I.
Of course as the director she always has
the final decision. She doesn’t use a
monitor and we don’t have playback on
the set; we have a small monitor for the
script [supervisor], and most of the time
Sofia is looking at the actor. I operated
the camera, so there’s a trust to framing,
composition and performance.
Was collaborating on a feature
any different than working with her on
a commercial?
Le Sourd: In a feature you’re
telling a story, so you have to ask your-
self how you cut a scene, how you frame
Top: Alicia (Elle Fanning) studies herself in a mirror. Bottom: Le Sourd frames the shot. a character — what is the emotion? We
had six women and one man in small
very sharp in the center of the lens, changes the effect; it’s your distance sets on a real location, and 25 days to
with the bokeh swimming around the from the subject — and the effect was shoot the film. You have to figure out
frame [in the Petzval design’s charac- more accurate [when the aperture was] what is most important, and what you
teristic swirl pattern]. I told Panavision wide open. If you do a medium shot or want to see and hear in the end. You
that I loved the idea of the swimming a close-up, the bokeh will be completely have to question yourself on everything.
bokeh, and they gave me this circular different. Even in the wide shots, there On this film we never worked with
matte with a hole in the middle to put was something impressionistic about its storyboards — compared to commer-
in front of the lens when I was outside. character, which made it more like a cials, which are storyboarded. We just
It could give me some vignetting and at painting. brought the actors on set to find where
the same time change the bokeh — but Had you worked in New to place them and how to frame them
this matte also made it very complicated Orleans before? in the scene.
for my focus puller, Hector Rodriguez. Le Sourd: I’d never shot in New You mentioned production
It’s not only the lens you use that Orleans, and I’d never seen a mansion of designer Anne Ross and costume

54 August 2017 American Cinematographer

designer Stacey Battat — can you
share some more about your collabo-
ration with them?
Le Sourd: Since I live in New
York now, Sofia and I spent months
going through the script, talking about
it, and bringing all of our references
together to make a decision about the
light and color and what we needed to
bring to the set to make the movie come
alive. We knew that we were shooting
on a plantation and couldn’t make any
change to the color of the walls — and
shooting at night with white walls is
always complicated for a cinematogra-
pher, so I knew we would need some
help from Anne to give me a back-
ground texture for all the interiors. That
was a very important collaboration.
Stacey spent more time with Sofia to
prep the wardrobe, and my conversa-
tions about that usually happened with
[Coppola, too].
Let’s talk about your approach
to shooting at night, on film, with
candlelight.
Le Sourd: We used double-wick
candles, and I had other candle sources
outside of the frame. I wanted to make
sure that we wouldn’t see any of our
electric light, [so that it would look] as
if somebody had brought a candle to
the set and that was the only light we
saw. Most of the time I used Kino Flo
Celeb 201 or 401 LED lights through
unbleached muslin for an extreme
diffusion, to make sure I didn’t see any
direction. I also preferred to use LED
lights because I knew I could dim them
down without changing the color
temperature, and these actors all have
different skin tones — Nicole Kidman
or Kirsten Dunst would require more or
less light than Elle Fanning or Colin
Farrell. It’s a great thing to shoot today
because we have all of this technology:
LED lights, [traditional] lights, old
lenses, new lenses, film stock, digital
capture. You can do more now than ever
before.
Tell us about working on loca-
tion at the plantation. The way you
photographed some of the night inte-
riors is absolutely uncanny — in
◗ Dark Hospitality
our framing. Instead of using a 50mm,
I’d use a 35mm; instead of a 35mm, I’d
use a 25mm or 18mm.
Where were your dailies
processed?
Le Sourd: We sent our negative
to FotoKem in Los Angeles. They
scanned the negative at 4K and sent me
still frames so I could see what our
dailies colorist, Dan Garsha, was doing,
and I could make adjustments to the
color and density using FotoKem’s
Cineviewer application. We screened
the dailies in 2K on a calibrated monitor
or in a theater with a 2K projector.
Where did you do the final
color grade?
Le Sourd: Colorist Damien van
der Cruyssen did some beautiful final
The camera rolls for a scene in which Miss Edwina checks on McBurney as he convalesces in the parlor. touches [working in 2K with a
FilmLight] Baselight at Technicolor
particular the scenes with the girls at out gels] on condors for our nighttime New York. We were basically staying
prayer. exteriors. I didn’t want to be distracted true to what I had shot, making minor
Le Sourd: That was one of the by the color. We almost never put light adjustments to the skin tones of all the
more difficult sets to have to work with through the windows for the ‘night different actors. We never changed the
because it was very small, with white effect’ — it would have been distracting. density — that had already been set in
walls. Not only did I have to create the Let’s talk about day interiors. the dailies.
feeling that everything was lit by We spend a lot of time with McBurney Did you do a film-out?
candlelight, but you had to see all the in the parlor where he convalesces. Le Sourd: We made an amazing
characters. I used a wide lens, so there That room has two huge floor-to-ceil- print with Technicolor and FotoKem,
was no room to have any light. It was ing windows that the light just pours with Kodak’s Vision Color Print Film
one of the last things we shot on the through. 2383. It was such a reward, because I
film, and it was one of the most chal- Le Sourd: A couple of months couldn’t have achieved what I did with-
lenging. I had my Celeb from the ago I saw this amazing Vermeer exhibi- out the beauty of the negative film
camera side, strongly diffused. tion in Paris. If you look at his paintings, stock. No matter what the resolution
Sometimes I have to bounce light everything seems to have been lit by may be, digital can’t give me the
off the ceiling. No matter what, I light windows. It’s something I tried to textures, the quality in the skin tones,
only where the action is. I want only to achieve on this film. The lights — 12- and the beauty in the blacks and the
play with the character and the emotion light Dinos with ¾ Blue, and 18Ks — highlights. This movie needs to be seen
of the character. I want to give the nega- were coming through the window, and I on film, in the theater! ●
tive something, but I avoid 3⁄4 back- always used atmosphere on all the inte-
light; in general, it makes the scene feel rior shots. It felt like nothing had been
TECHNICAL SPECS
very artificial. lit artificially.
What about night exteriors? I thought I noticed a distinct yet 1.66:1
Le Sourd: When I first read the subtle change in the film’s visual
script, I knew I was going to light the language after the soldier’s leg is 4-perf 35mm
night interiors with candlelight and the amputated. Am I imagining things? Arricam Lite
night exteriors with ‘moonlight,’ but I Le Sourd: We did change our
didn’t want to have this feeling of going approach. The camera would be lower Cooke S2 Speed Panchro;
from something that’s very formal and to the ground, whereas before it was Panavision Ultra Speed, PVintage,
natural to this artificial blue light. Sofia closer to the actors’ eye level. Our light- Primo Zoom
and I decided that we had to avoid this ing choices would tend towards the Kodak Vision3 500T 5219
convention and even went in the oppo- more dramatic, with more shadow,
site direction, using warm 20Ks [with- more obscurities. And we went wider in Digital Intermediate

56 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 Haunted House
A
Cinematographer man and woman move into a house. In time, the woman
comes to feel they’ve outgrown the space, but her
Andrew Droz Palermo partners husband feels rooted to the home and its history. After a
with writer-director David Lowery car accident takes his life, the man’s spirit returns to the
for an intimate portrait of a house, where his perception of time becomes increasingly
abstracted: He watches his wife drive away for the last time,
spirit stuck at home and sees new residents occupy and abandon the abode, stalks the
untethered in time. halls of the futuristic skyscraper that eventually overtakes the
land, and plunges backward in time to witness a family of
settlers first drive a stake into what he knows will become
By Jon D. Witmer personally storied ground.
With a small cast — centered around the man, C
•|• (Casey Affleck), and the woman, M (Rooney Mara) — A
Ghost Story was written, directed and edited by David Lowery
(see sidebar, page 64). Prior to making audiences believe in A
Ghost Story’s quiet specter, the director had crafted a tale of
mythical Americana with Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (shot by

58 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 Bradford Young, ASC; AC Sept. ’13)
and convinced moviegoers that winged,
green-furred beasts hide in the woods of
the Pacific Northwest with Pete’s Dragon
(photographed by Bojan Bazelli, ASC;
AC Sept. ’16).
Joining Lowery for A Ghost Story
was cinematographer Andrew Droz
Palermo, whose credits behind the
camera include the features You’re Next,
A Teacher and 6 Years, and the documen-
tary Rich Hill (AC April ’14), which he
also co-directed. Faced with a 19-day
production schedule — which was
followed by about 10 days of additional
photography — the filmmakers
embraced a predominantly single-
camera approach, shooting with an Arri
Alexa Mini as the A camera, which they
paired with Panavision Super Speed and
Ultra Speed primes, and 19-90mm and
24-275mm Primo zooms (both T2.8).
They recorded 2.8K ProRes files to
CFast 2.0 cards, working in the camera’s
4:3 mode for a final 1.33:1 aspect ratio
presented with rounded corners that
were added in post.
Although Palermo and Lowery
hadn’t worked together previously, their
orbits had intersected on multiple occa-
sions, such as when they each had a
project at the Sundance Labs —
Lowery with Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,
and Palermo with his feature directorial
debut, One and Two. But it was mutual
friend and A Ghost Story producer Toby
Halbrooks who reached out to Palermo
to gauge his interest in the project. “We
had breakfast and he mentioned the
idea,” Palermo tells AC, seated outside at
a coffee shop in the Silver Lake neigh-
borhood of Los Angeles, with a
Hasselblad medium-format camera at Opposite: After dying in a car accident, C (Casey Affleck) returns home as a silent specter and watches
over his wife, M (Rooney Mara), in the feature A Ghost Story. This page, top: In life, C already feels rooted
his side. “He said, ‘There’s this movie to the house. Above: Cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo (foreground) considers a frame alongside
Photos by Bret Curry, courtesy of A24.

that we want to do. It’s just a guy in a writer-director David Lowery.

sheet — that’s the ghost. It’s not
supposed to look supernatural; it’s David was more worried about it than I puppeteer, essentially. She would be just
supposed to look like a guy in a sheet.’” was, about whether or not it was work- below camera holding different parts of
ing. I thought it was so visually strong. the costume to give it the right expres-
American Cinematographer: But I knew it was going to be a chal- sion; if it started riding lower, it would
Were you nervous about it being ‘just a lenge. It was incredibly hard to shoot. look really sad, and if it got a little too
guy in a sheet’? Did you wonder if it What made it so difficult? frumpy, it would look comedic. She had
would actually work? Palermo: [Costume designer] done a lot of work before I was involved.
Andrew Droz Palermo: I think Annell Brodeur needed to be a She built up this sort of petticoat, with

www.ascmag.com August 2017 59

◗ Haunted House

Right: M drifts
numbly through
the days
following her
husband’s
passing. Below:
Palermo studies
the light outside
the house during
a preproduction
scouting day.

ered within that frame, and that sort of

attention to detail was afforded to us by
the schedule, even though it was very
short. We had a half a day to shoot that
one shot, which is incredible. That gave
us such an unhurried feel, and it seeped
into the core of the movie. David even
stated in an early meeting with every-
one, ‘Our energy is going to feed the
movie. If we’re rushed and we’re hurried
and we’re stressed, the movie won’t have
that patience.’ I completely agree with
that.
Was it the realization that you
would have to shoot wider that led you
to embrace longer takes?
multiple layers, and there was a soft- powerful and imposing, with strong Palermo: The script told us that.
formed helmet that gave it structure and tableaus, like every frame could be taken Time was always a thread for this movie.
a strong bridge of the nose. as a still?’ The impact of the images was David pitched it once as Apichatpong
Still, the ghost becomes so always the challenge. If I moved the Weerasethakul making Ghost — like a
abstracted when you shoot from the camera a little this way or a little that Thai art film of the Patrick Swayze
shoulder up — it’s just a curve and two way, it would become a stronger image Ghost. He and I both love Apichatpong’s
dots. You don’t really get the scope of the or say so much more about the ghost’s movies, Asian cinema, Thai New Wave,
costume unless you see him head to toe. confinement, or his emotional state, or Taiwanese films — those were all kick-
So David and I were pushed to shoot a the eeriness of what was going on. ing around in our heads. We wanted to
lot wider than we were used to — which The hospital is a great instance of make a film like those films, and we
was something I’d wanted to incorpo- that. We staged the really long take knew that this movie was the one to do
rate more into my work anyway. A lot of when he first comes ‘alive’ as a ghost on it with.
it was, ‘How can we make this feel a scout day. Every element was consid- In the same way, that’s how 4:3

60 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 Left: C finds his
way home after
awakening as an
apparition.
Below: The crew
captures a dolly
shot as the ghost
makes his way to
the house.

came about. David was like, ‘I’m never

going to be able to shoot 4:3 again.’
That aspect ratio is a very differ-
ent animal to get your head around.
Palermo: Completely. I underes-
timated it, too. You would think that it
would be easier than it is, but it’s just
totally different than the way I think.
When I’m watching older movies now,
I’m so envious of the way they used it. I
see frames from classic movies, and they
put 15 people in a frame and it feels
perfect. I’m just blown away by the way
they used 4:3.
In A Ghost Story, the frame feels
like a window — like you’re watching
through some kind of portal.
Palermo: The rounded corners When we saw the footage, we’d be like, lunchroom at Disney while some of the
add an aspect of feeling like you’re look- ‘Oh, 16:9’s looking pretty good.’ We’d color was going on for Pete’s Dragon. We
ing through something. It was never our start to be worried that 4:3 was a crazy didn’t really look at the shot list on set,
intention to make it claustrophobic. I choice, but I’m so happy we stuck with but it was super-helpful to get on the
didn’t want it to feel too tight — and it. same page. David’s a very visual person
with the costume, anyway, you couldn’t What did preproduction look and has very specific ideas for shots; it’s
go too tight. We shot natively in 4:3 for like for you? good to put those down and remember
the main camera, but occasionally we’d Palermo: It was really abbrevi- that he’s thinking this way.
have a B camera on set, and those ated. I went out to Burbank maybe two The house had already been
cameras were not shooting natively 4:3. or three times, and we shot-listed in the chosen, so then I went to the location

www.ascmag.com August 2017 61

◗ Haunted House
Right: Mara
stands in front of
a false wall for a
shot of her
character hiding a
note before
moving out of
the house.
Below: Palermo
hunkers down in
the passenger
seat — out of the
dashboard-
mounted
camera’s angle of
view — for a shot
of Mara behind
the wheel.

running any time the ghost was present

inside the house. That was inspired by
some of the photography we were look-
ing at. We really like Gregory
Crewdson’s stuff, which always has that
eerie quality. I looked a lot at the way he
lights day interiors, because he manages
to keep his corners really deep. I wanted
the walls to stay deep, I wanted to feel
the shafts of light, and atmosphere was
really important for helping achieve that
falloff.
What sort of lighting package
did you have?
Palermo: A very small package.
More often than not it was flagging stuff
— the Texas sun was just too strong for
what we had. We couldn’t afford the
[in Irving, Texas, near Dallas] and took books — and when we were choosing kind of HMIs that we would need to
a bunch of photos, multiple times a day, the wallpaper for the bedroom, she overpower it, so it became a game of
to see the different ways the light would made a small little ghost on a stick and removal: Let’s block out windows and
play. And then it was shooting costume put it in front of swatches of wallpaper. keep the source coming in one direction.
tests. It was the cutest thing, but it really illus- Bret Curry, my gaffer and second-unit
Were the production designers, trated what it would look like. Jade had cinematographer, and I noticed that
Jade Healy and Tom Walker, already previously committed to go do Yorgos there was a lot of green coming into the
on the project when you came on Lanthimos’ new movie [The Killing of a house, which was mainly from the grass
board? Sacred Deer], so she worked side by side and all the trees; Rooney is so fair, when
Palermo: Yeah. The house that with Tom, who was local, and when we she would get up to a window she would
they used was completely abandoned, did additional photography in October, take on this really lime-green pallor. So
and you can’t tell. They did incredible Tom did all that. we would lay out big sheets of
work on it. Early on, Jade sent me a look Did you use some atmosphere unbleached muslin in the grass, and that
book with stills of things that she was inside the house? would bring it back to neutral. Save for
referencing — other movies, other Palermo: We did. Hazers were that, daylight interiors were pretty

62 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 Left: The ghost
sits at a piano
that remains with
the house from
one family to the
next. Below:
Palermo wears a
Ready Rig and
operates the
Movi M15 gimbal
as he gets free-
flowing footage
of the family that
settles into the
house after M
moves away.

natural. For fill, I had two LED bi-color

[LiteGear] LiteMats that I would either
bounce off the wall or bring up super-
dim really close to the ghost. Those were
our real workhorses for night scenes,
too.
As the film changes, the light
changes. For example, if you look at the
under-lights in the kitchen, I gelled
those for each different family that
inhabits the house. Casey and Rooney’s
were nice and warm; with the Latino
family, I went cool blue, very fluorescent;
and then for the squatters I put a very
thin party gel and made it a little pink.
In a couple of instances, the
ghost manipulates the house’s lights.
Palermo: Yeah, Bret would be
off-camera with a few dimmers — and
many of them were not on dimmers, it
would just be a simple switch. Almost When the new family moves the Movi technician was Shaun ‘Gish’
every time we’d shoot the ghost, if into the home, a suddenly very mobile Falcone. It’s very free-flowing, very
there’s not someone else visible, we camera follows them through the wide. After the destruction of the house,
would be shooting at 33 fps, and so a space. when the ghost is roving around the
light would pulse in a way that didn’t just Palermo: That’s another thread skyscrapers, we used Steadicam. And
feel like somebody flipping the switch that I really like about the movie: In the then the pioneers were all shot on a long
on and off. That was a frame rate that same way the light changes, the camera lens. We were finally outside, in this
David had started using on Pete’s. It language changes. The Latino family is expanse, so that just came naturally; now
didn’t feel like slow motion, but the presented with a [Freefly Systems] Movi that we were in a period piece, it just
ghost didn’t just feel like he was walking. M15 on a Ready Rig gimbal support; didn’t feel right to bring a wide lens close

www.ascmag.com August 2017 63

 •|• A Soul at Home •|•

A Ghost Story was shot in and around

Irving, Texas, where writer-director
David Lowery grew up. “I didn’t intend
to shoot there, but that just happened to
be where we found the house,” Lowery
tells AC over the phone while driving
from Cincinnati, Ohio — where he had
just wrapped principal photography on
his next feature, Old Man and the Gun
— back to Texas. “It definitely added a
layer of meaning to the entire experi-
ence for me.”

American Cinematographer:
Where were you when you began
working on A Ghost Story?
David Lowery: I was in L.A.
working on Pete’s Dragon [AC Sept. ’16];
it was February or March of 2016. The Dragon. But on a creative level and a were making something that was going
first draft was only 10 pages, the second technical level, it was just as challeng- to be very handmade, and that we
draft was 30 pages, and by the time we ing, if not more so — and more daunt- weren’t going to have a lot of tools or
shot, it was about 40 pages. I’d fly to ing because I didn’t have the safety net time or any of the things that a larger
Dallas on the weekends so we could of a larger budget or a studio. This was film might have. But also he knew how
develop it a little further, put various a crazy idea that was entirely on me. to make a film this small feel much
pieces together, find the location, and go There was no one else who was going bigger than it might have. I really
scouting — and then I’d fly back and to pay to fix problems. My partners and wanted to take something that was
work on Pete’s Dragon for another week. I were paying for the movie, so going to have every limitation, whether
It kept going like that throughout April anything we screwed up was on us. it be time or budget or even the aspect
and May, and then production began By bearing that responsibility ratio, and make it feel epic. That was
June 12. yourself, though, you had the freedom something I feel he was uniquely suited
Just in terms of scale, Pete’s to do things like shoot in the 1.33:1 to because he comes from a micro-
Dragon and A Ghost Story seem like aspect ratio. budget background but his tastes are
such disparate projects. Were there Lowery: Absolutely. On a very much more expansive and run towards
lessons learned on the former that you base level I knew that I probably would fine art. He was able to bring a lot in
could apply to the latter? not have a chance to make a movie in both of those regards.
Lowery: I definitely went into it 1.33 unless I paid for it myself — so I’d Also, one of the biggest things
thinking that it’d be a very different sort better take that chance while I’ve got for me is working with people who —
of production. After having spent a year the opportunity. But I also wanted to even beyond our creative similarities or
at that point in postproduction on Pete’s challenge myself creatively. I love 1.33; similar instincts — have a disposition
Dragon, I really wanted to shoot some- it’s a beautiful ratio, and I wanted to that’s similar to mine. Andrew doesn’t
thing again, and I felt that this would be learn how to think that way because my like to yell, he doesn’t get riled up, he’s
quick and easy — which turned out not brain just naturally thinks in very calm, and that really suits me well;
to be true. I came to the realization widescreen. I also felt this would be a that allows me to be in the best space
within a few days of shooting that it good film to do it on, not only because for my own creative needs, and I think
doesn’t matter what scale your movie is; it was already going to be an art-house the same goes for him. We’re both able
it’s going to take everything you’ve got movie, but because it’s about being to complement each other in our
to give. All of the joys and woes of film- trapped in a space, and I felt that the chilled-out dispositions.
making are a hundred-percent scalable. constraints of that ratio might add to — Jon D. Witmer
Over the course of that summer, that.
we shot for about 29 days, which was a How did cinematographer Click here for an extended inter-
little less than half of what Pete’s Dragon Andrew Droz Palermo complement view with Lowery.
took, and the budget was less than a your vision for A Ghost Story?
single day of photography on Pete’s Lowery: He understood that we

64 August 2017 American Cinematographer

◗ Haunted House
to this pioneer. and David of course has as well, so we
Was there a stop you tried to both had an eye on it. I don’t think we
maintain? ever had markers except for greenscreen
Palermo: No, I don’t normally stuff. The scene in which the ghost
shoot for stop. The 50mm [Ultra Speed] climbs to the top of the skyscraper, that’s
would go to a T1, and I was in love with all work that [visual-effects facility]
that idea. The first time we used it was Weta did, and it’s absolutely stunning
the close-up of Rooney with her head- work on their part; we shot the ghost on
phones on; that lens was just stunning. greenscreen, climbing up apple boxes,
So that lens worked in close-ups all the with some markers in the studio.
way open. But otherwise I just set the Who did you work with for the
aperture as felt appropriate. Generally I color grading?
was shooting as wide open as I could. Palermo: Joe Malina in Austin.
There’s still a lot of depth in the He and I have done a few things
image. together in the past, but it was the first
Palermo: That’s from the lenses time David had worked with him. It was
being so wide and the subjects always a real race to get the movie done in the
being so far from the camera. But I end [once it had been selected to screen
would always snug up against a door- at Sundance]. We did five days of color
frame so there would be a little some- correction in early December, before the
thing on the side that’s soft, and then cut was locked. Because there are so few
everything else would be sharp past the shots, we got pretty far — but there was
midground and into infinity. a lot of work to be done on each shot.
There’s a shot in which the We didn’t have any kind of pre-grade, so
camera pushes in as Rooney is seen the footage came in exactly as shot —
walking out of the bathroom, crossing different months, at different times of
to the front door, and leaving the house day, the same scene shot over different
multiple times in a row, each time conditions.
wearing different clothes. Did you When David locked picture, there
have a motion-control rig? were an additional two or three days,
Palermo: This speaks to the and then a few more days after
benefit of shooting films where you have Sundance. But it was not that long. I
a support system. The producers had a really love color timing, and it’s always
friend, Stewart Mayer at CamBlock, sad for me to do it quickly.
who had developed this motion-control You could still be in there work-
rig. The camera had to be totally ing on the movie?
stripped down and very lightweight, and Palermo: I really could, trying to
he had a very small set of sticks that do the most with as little as possible.
went on a track system. He could set There’s a point of diminished returns,
pan, focus and the push, and he could set where we’ve gone too far and it becomes
key frames. We had Rooney, her stand- way too manipulated, but I really feel a
in and another woman; they went in a lot of the emotion comes out in color.
train, one after the other, and we had Were you watching any dailies
Rooney change positions in each take, during production?
and then it was all comped together. We Palermo: Yeah, and I was also
used the motion-control system for just capturing stills on my day off. That
a couple hours and then it was gone. would give me a whole day of sitting
That shot swiftly illustrates that time is with the drive, watching the footage,
beginning to slip by. seeing what was working, what wasn’t.
Was visual-effects supervisor The time off in between principal and
Richard Krause with you during the pickups was really educational, too —
shoot? seeing the cut, seeing where I should
Palermo: Not every day. I’ve had push harder. Some of the widest shots in
some experience shooting visual effects, the movie were shot after principal. ➣
◗ Haunted House

As time slips
away, the ghost
suddenly finds
himself amid a
construction site
where his home
with M once
stood. He will
continue to
haunt this space
long into the
future — and far
into the past.

You’ve directed, and David’s time of day. I’m always surprised by the the work I’m putting out there, I just
notched credits as a cinematographer. way you can divorce footage of its origi- want to make things for the sake of
Do you feel those experiences elevated nal intent. making them; I want to make them for
the collaboration, or helped you find a Probably his biggest asset is his the process.
shared language? general placidness. He will say that he This film’s process was one of the
Palermo: His shooting I can defi- feels like the world is crashing down on best I’ve ever had. I’ve made some great
nitely speak to. He has very specific him when he’s making a movie, but he friends and had a great time making
shots in mind sometimes, but even then gives off a calm that really trickles down. them. The fact that there is this movie at
there’s so much collaboration. He’s And it also trickles down from his the end of the process that I like is
never over your shoulder — ‘I wanted it producers. That really sets a mood: another aspect of it, and I do like that it’s
like this.’ It’s always, ‘How can I improve nothing’s a disaster; there are no real going to live on, and that it’s this docu-
on it? What can I do to make this really fires here; we’re all making a movie, and ment of a time in our lives when we all
sing?’ It’s fantastic because he knows what a blessing it is to be doing that. got together in Dallas, in the sweltering
exactly what he wants and he knows And as a result, as you heat, and put an Oscar-winning actor in
when it’s right; if I made a recommen- mentioned earlier, the movie has a real a sheet. Not to get all philosophical
dation for a shot, he would know imme- calmness to it — even as the ghost about it, but that’s ultimately the beauty
diately whether that shot was valuable to becomes increasingly untethered and of this film to me. ●
him. He and I both are also very avid time slips by at an accelerating rate.
film watchers, and as a result we had a Palermo: That was the thing that
shorthand. I was so touched by in the movie. The
I’m astounded by his ability to script so perfectly nailed that, and it kind
edit. It’s one of the things that I admire of does away with the feeling that we TECHNICAL SPECS
the most about him. When I see the need to have a legacy at all. It’s so at 1.33:1
way he used stuff out of context and peace with our position in this world.
what you can get away with in an edit, When I first started making things I Digital Capture
it’s incredible. The ghost looked over his was really concerned with how they’re
left shoulder; you can’t really tell what perceived, how I’m perceived through Arri Alexa Mini, Alexa Classic EV;
Red Weapon 6K
the background is, so David would put them, what they look like in the long
it in this scene — it didn’t matter if it run. As I’ve become more comfortable Panavision Super Speed,
was a totally different room, different with myself or more comfortable with Ultra Speed, Primo Zoom

66 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 FILMMAKERS’ FORUM
The Ocean
Warrior patrols
the Antarctic
Ocean in the
documentary
series
Whale Wars,
which follows the
efforts of the Sea
Shepherd
Conservation
Society. For the
show’s 10th
season,
cinematographer-
producer Gavin
Garrison
employed a UHD
workflow and
aerial
photography
captured from
drones.

I Drones Lend an Antarctic Advantage

By Gavin Garrison
upon to provide extensive coverage. Projects like Planet Earth II have
embraced drones in order to realize unprecedented shots and jaw-

Photos by Gavin Garrison, Simon Ager and Ashleigh Allam, courtesy of Sea Shepherd Global.
dropping camera moves, bringing sweeping, cinematic movement
My first Antarctic adventure for the Animal Planet series into the documentary sphere. However, I’ve also seen a trend in
Whale Wars began on December 25, 2012, when I flew across the which shows substitute what would ordinarily be conventional
world to join the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society — the wildlife coverage with a drone’s telltale high- and wide-angle view. Though
activists on whom the show is based — and their fleet of ships at a the average viewer may not notice, to the discerning cinematogra-
port in New Zealand. As conveyed via a thick style-guide, my crew’s pher, a show that’s inundated with drone footage can start to feel
mission was to stick closely to the show’s established “docu-adven- like shooting choices were made for convenience’s sake rather than
ture” aesthetic that had captivated audiences since the series the story’s.
premiered in 2008. For Season 10 of Whale Wars, my goal was to split the differ-
That style was rough-and-tumble, with single-source, high- ence between the high bar set by Planet Earth II and the examples
key interviews; predominantly handheld camerawork; crash zooms; I’ve seen from other unscripted productions in our genre. Balancing
GoPro-style POVs; and an infinite depth of field courtesy of the small utility with beauty, we would employ drones to create “cinematic”
sensors on which the show was birthed. As both a producer and a coverage to the best of our abilities, and we would use the drones’
cinematographer on the series, my goal is to remain loyal to the high- unique perspective to capture master shots that we could default to
adrenaline aesthetic that audiences have come to know and love in scenes that demanded context for the viewer — for example, if
while simultaneously pushing a look that keeps us relevant and one ship collided with another at sea, or if a ship sailed through a
engaging in today’s television market. And so, when I began prep- thick field of ice. The trick, I felt, was to be discerning with our
ping Season 10 in late 2016, I was eager to introduce some of the deployment, lest we give post too much to hang their hats on.
modern technologies that have become commonplace on other We chose to capture this season in 3.8K UHD, in part
productions — specifically, 4K capture and the use of unmanned because I believe the footage has a much longer shelf life with the
aerial vehicles (UAVs), aka drones. higher resolution. We also chose not to capture in log, as I thought
If you take a look at any number of today’s adventure-themed log would have created a workflow issue down the line. Those deci-
unscripted series, it becomes immediately evident how readily drones sions, though, were made in somewhat of a vacuum — as we on
have been adopted by the genre — and how heavily they’re relied the production crew don’t have any communication with post.

68 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 Because we weren’t recording log,
we had to do as much color-matching as
possible in-camera. To accomplish this, we
brought all of our camera’s profiles to
neutral and worked our way up from there.
We were using Panasonic’s AG-DVX200 as
our main camera, with profiles generously
provided by our account manager Steve
Slade and Panasonic guru Barry Green,
along with Sony’s a7S II, which was record-
ing to an Atomos Shogun Flame; DJI’s Phan-
tom 4, Osmo X3 and Osmo X5; and GoPro
Hero4s and Hero5s. All cameras recorded in
UHD to SD media, save for the Shogun,
which carries its own SSDs. Capturing accu-
rate skin tones with the Phantom 4s was
not a priority, so we elected to let the Phan-
toms go with only a few minor adjustments,
dropping the contrast and sharpness; we
took a similar approach with the GoPros.
We inevitably encounter many wild
color environments over the course of a
season, so while we’re in production we do
what we can to adjust on the fly. We’re not
allowed to modify the lighting aboard the
ships ahead of shooting, and we’re hard-
pressed to find any two practical fixtures
that match. Most of the shipboard lighting
is fluorescent, and the ambient daylight
temperature in Antarctica is a touch cooler
than 5,600K. In Season 10, the organization
gained a new ship, the Ocean Warrior,
whose windows contained embedded
heating elements that created an unpleas-
ant color cast — something we could do
little to control, and could only barely adjust
for in-camera.
Shooting in Antarctica also brings
with it high-contrast lighting environments,
extreme temperatures, high winds, mois-
ture and splashing, drone-calibration errors
due to the ship’s constant movement, and
compass errors due to the ship’s metal struc-
ture and occasional proximity to the South
Magnetic Pole. Challenges aside, one of the
great aspects of filming in Antarctica during
the austral summer is the extended twilight
hours; the sun never quite sets, and instead
hangs around the horizon for three to four
hours twice a day. It’s an absolute delight for
a cinematographer.
Knowing that we would need to be
ready to fly at a moment’s notice, we built Top: The Steve Irwin is silhouetted against an Antarctic sunrise. Middle: Sandra Alba
operates a Panasonic DVX200 as Capt. Adam Meyerson (foreground) helms the Ocean Warrior.
our drone kits to accommodate rapid Bottom: Garrison preps a DJI Phantom 4 drone outfitted with a DroneRafts WaterStrider.
deployment. For us, that meant using the

www.ascmag.com August 2017 69

 but we have avoided these due to their low
success rate.
Once the drone is in the air, the trick
is to capture shots that are a pleasure to
watch, aid our narrative, and conform to the
stipulations of our UAV permit, which is
granted by the Australian Antarctic Division.
It was quickly apparent that surprising the
viewer wasn’t going to be difficult; with its
icebergs, penguins, whales, seals and more,
Antarctica abounds with fascinating frames.
What we needed to do, we decided, was to
go beyond the subjects alone and move our
aerial cameras in ways that would help tell
our story. Once we had a few flights under
our belt, we began to grasp exactly how we
could use aerial camera moves to aid our
narrative.
For one thing, drones allowed us to
get much closer to wildlife than we would
otherwise have been able to, resulting in
footage that many non-production crew
remarked they “could see being on TV.”
Drones also allowed us to provide context
by situating the ships within the larger envi-
ronment; you don’t quite grasp the scale
until you see a ship dwarfed by the towering
icebergs that dot the landscape. Even if we
placed crew on an iceberg and sailed by a
few times, we wouldn’t be able to achieve
the sheer sense of scale we get from the air.
In this case, the relatively wide angle of the
Phantom 4’s lens plays to our advantage —
the perceived distance between objects is
slightly exaggerated, which underscores the
expansiveness of the environment.
Top: Two Phantom 4 drones are readied for deployment. Above: Simon Ager (left) and Garrison As with our “conventional” ship-
prepare to launch a Phantom 4.
board cinematography, we relied heavily on
natural light to help improve the images we
CasePro Phantom 4 carry-on hard cases could grab a single case and be ready to fly. were capturing with the drones. We would
with custom foam, which allowed us to On occasion, we also employed the Shogun position the Phantom 4 to place the sun
store the drones with the props installed and as a director’s monitor, plugging in via the behind icebergs and ships to create silhou-
most of the accessories nestled alongside. Phantom transmitter’s HDMI-out. Because ettes, take advantage of twilight’s long
Those accessories included PolarPro ND/PL we often fly the drones from rigid inflatable shadows to create texture, and use the
filters, which I consider an absolute neces- boats (RIBs), which are very wet and offer twilight hours’ lower ambient exposure to
sity; a long-range antenna-modification kit little room to maneuver while on board, aid the small sensor’s compressed dynamic
that helps ensure signal robustness when having a well-packed kit is particularly critical range.
multiple drones are in the air at once; a to each flight’s success. We also employed classic camera
desiccant pack; a lanyard for the transmitter; To provide some additional security moves to strategically reveal objects or place
extra batteries; touchscreen gloves; an iPad; while flying, we also carried a pontoon focus on an area. For example, we might
and Light & Motion’s Seca 2200D, a small assembly from DroneRafts called a Water- skim the drone low over the water with the
LED light that can be rigged on the top of Strider, which allows you to land on the camera pointing 70 or 80 degrees down,
the drone via a GoPro mount and is excel- water in an emergency. Many pilots who fly then gain altitude and tilt up as the aircraft
lent for peering into caves and other dark over water suggest attaching a hydrostatic traveled up and over an iceberg, revealing a
areas. With this arrangement, an operator float (originally designed for fishing poles), sunset or a ship in the distance; or we might

70 August 2017 American Cinematographer

move the drone laterally — as if it were on
dolly track — from behind an iceberg,
revealing a ship traveling on the other side.
By taking advantage of planned camera
moves, the environment, and the time of
day, we were able to create the kind of
cinematic shots that I wanted to replicate
from Planet Earth II — and from Disney’s
Soarin’ Over California, which I think stands
as one of the finest examples of aerial cine-
matography.
Now that LED lighting has become
so lightweight and powerful, we’ve started
to attach fixtures such as Light & Motion’s
2200D to our Phantoms to help illuminate
objects during both the day and night. The
2200D is powerful enough to create some
additional fill in a cave or on the shadow-
side of an iceberg. At night, a drone carry-
ing a light can also create the feeling of a
mystery — for example, when it illuminates
the name on the side of a ship that’s a
target of interest. Larger drones can carry
lights like Light & Motion’s Stella Pro
10000C, which can more easily illuminate a
large area. As both drone and LED technol-
ogy continue to evolve, remote lighting is
certain to play an increasing role in our
productions.
For all that drones help us achieve,
we can’t yet reconcile the disparity between
the serenity of their gimbal-stabilized
“God’s eye view” and the relative chaos of
the handheld camerawork on the ship. The
two perspectives feel very different. To me,
though, this can create a welcome release;
the drone footage allows the audience a
moment to take a breath and soak in the
scene before diving back into the handheld,
high-energy footage and the adrenaline-
pumping narrative.
Drones have certainly become an
indispensable tool that adds enormous
value to our productions. With them, we
can achieve breathtaking imagery that just
isn’t possible any other way — even with a
full-scale helicopter. UAVs such as DJI’s
Phantom 4 will continue to inform how we
go about shaping the aesthetic of our
shows. As long as we strategically deploy
these highly capable tools to underscore
our storytelling, I have high hopes that
drones will help us craft narratives that
continue to surprise and delight audiences
around the world. ●

71
 NEW PRODUCTS & SERVICES
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Photos must be TIFF or JPEG files of at least 300dpi.

DJI Launches 3 UAVs offers full integration with third-party software and hardware.
DJI has expanded its drone DJI’s Mavic Pro is a smart, portable, easy-to-fly drone that
offerings with the introduction of features 24 high-performance computing cores, an all-new trans-
the Inspire 2, Matrice 600 Pro and mission system with a 4.3-mile unobstructed range, five vision
Mavic Pro. sensors, and a 4K camera stabilized by a three-axis mechanical
DJI’s Inspire 1 UAV gimbal.
(unmanned aerial vehicle) inte- For additional information, visit www.dji.com.
grated an HD video transmission
system, 360-degree rotating Yuneec Flies H520 Drone
gimbal and 4K camera, as well as Yuneec International has expanded its commercial UAV offer-
simple app control. Building on ings with the H520, an advanced six-rotor drone. The H520 offers
the Inspire 1’s successes, the Inspire 2 boasts an all-new image- longer flight time, greater
processing system that records at up to 5.2K resolution — with the payload, modular design
Zenmuse X5S camera — in formats including CinemaDNG raw and and enhanced compo-
Apple ProRes. The drone can go from 0-50 mph in 5 seconds and nents.
can hit a maximum speed of 58 mph, with a maximum descent The H520 features a
speed of 9 meters per second. A dual-battery system prolongs the high-visibility Hazard
flight time, while self-heating technology allows the drone to fly Orange fuselage and a six-
even in low temperatures. rotor design capable of
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dancy. Multiple intelligent flight 3-axis gimbal coupled with
modes have been added, including retractable landing gear
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dramatic shots. An upgraded video transmission inspections.
system is now capable of dual signal frequency Yuneec offers three camera options that include the CGO-ET
and dual-channel streaming video from an dual thermal RGB camera, CGO-CI seven-element inspection-ready
onboard FPV camera and the main camera camera, and CGO-3+. Targeting the broadcast and cinema markets,
simultaneously, enabling a smoother the CGO-CI’s longer field of view and edge-to-edge distortion-free
collaboration between pilot and camera operator. lens captures sharp, high-contrast imaging to meet the needs of
The Matrice 600 Pro (M600 Pro) professional hexacopter can filmmakers and broadcast producers. Additional upgrades to the
carry payloads up to 13.2 pounds; with a Ronin-MX stabilizer, the H520 camera options include a panoramic shooting function along
system can carry cameras including a Red Epic or Raven, Arri Alexa with burst, time-lapse and metering modes.
Mini, Sony a7S, or Canon EOS 5D. The M600 Pro inherits everything Challenging angles and locations are more accessible with
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loading capacity. Pre-installed arms and antennas reduce the time aircraft to intelligently navigate around objects. Coupled with user-
required for setup, and the system’s modular design makes it easy variable speed control, pilots can confidently approach critical struc-
to mount additional modules. tures without concern of impact.
The M600 Pro airframe is equipped with the latest DJI tech- The H520 comes with the professional-grade Android-based
nologies, including the A3 Pro ST16 controller, which has a large 7" integrated display and HD
flight controller and Lightbridge 2 720p video downlink for real-time video reception, and an HDMI
HD transmission system. The six- uplink for distribution to external monitors
battery system enables flight Yuneec is also launching a software developer kit (SDK) plat-
times of 15-35 minutes, depend- form that allows third-parties to develop value-added applications
ing on payload. All Zenmuse and services on the H520 platform for a variety of industries and
cameras and gimbals are natively commercial markets.
compatible, and the M600 Pro For additional information, visit www.yuneec.com. ●

72 August 2017 American Cinematographer

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Pille Filmgeraeteverleih
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Pro8mm 74

76
 IN MEMORIAM
Fred J. Koenekamp, ASC, 1922-2017
Fred J. Koenekamp, To capture all the
ASC, an Academy Award drama of a conflagration in a
winner for the iconic disaster San Francisco skyscraper for
film The Towering Inferno, The Towering Inferno (AC Feb.
died on May 31 at the age of ’75), producer Irwin Allen
94. formed two units to handle
Born in Los Angeles on the principal photography: a
Nov. 11, 1922, Koenekamp main unit led by Koenekamp
was introduced to filmmaking and an action unit led by
in his youth by his father, Joseph Biroc, ASC. The logis-
special-effects cinematogra- tics included location work in
pher Hans F. Koenekamp, San Francisco and soundstage
ASC, who often took him to work on 57 sets built at 20th
work on Saturdays at the Century Fox, a record for the
Warner Bros. Camera and studio at the time. Only eight
Special-Effects Department. sets were intact when produc-
“There was a balcony that tion wrapped; typically, when
overlooked the stage where Koenekamp’s team finished
they had all the miniatures, [and] I used to percent of the picture onstage. with one, Biroc’s team would move in and
just love to go up there and look around,” Adding to the scope was the format: burn it to the ground, saturate it with water,
the junior Koenekamp told AC (Feb. ’05). But Dimension-150, a widescreen process that or both. “I keep telling Joe he had most of
the bug didn’t bite until many years later, paired the titular lenses with Todd-AO the fun!” Koenekamp told AC. Koenekamp
after he was honorably discharged from the Mitchell 65mm cameras. The process was and Biroc shared the Oscar for their work on
U.S. Navy following World War II. He had named for the 150-degree angle of view the film, and Koenekamp accepted their
met a woman he wanted to marry, and facilitated by its widest taking lens, the statuettes.
when the head of the camera union offered 18mm; proper D-150 exhibition required a The Nov. ’76 issue of AC featured
him a job as a film loader at RKO, “all of a wall-to-wall curved screen and custom Koenekamp’s production journal from
sudden, I was totally fascinated by the optics, but release prints in the usual range Islands in the Stream, which brought him his
picture business,” he explained with a smile. of formats could easily be struck from the third Oscar nomination. The complexities
He spent the next decade working his negative. Koenekamp did extensive hand- posed by the Hawaii-based shoot included
way up the ranks, mostly at MGM, where he held operating with the Mitchell AP-65, extensive day-for-night photography with
arrived as a camera assistant in 1955, moved which weighed about 30 pounds minus the interior and exterior in shot, filming aboard
up to operator in 1958, and then moved up lens. “I gave the AP one big workout,” he a 36' yacht, and shooting on the open
to cinematographer (on the TV series The told AC. “[Often] I would handhold the water.
Lieutenant) in 1963. At MGM he also shot camera on an approaching tank or vehicle Koenekamp’s feature credits also
four seasons of the series The Man From and inch it out of the way of the treads as it included Uptown Saturday Night, Fun with
U.N.C.L.E. — receiving two Emmy nomina- passed. The 28mm lens was very effective Dick and Jane, The Champ, The Amityville
tions in the process — as well as its big- for this.” Horror and The Adventures of Buckaroo
screen spinoff, The Spy With My Face, his Patton brought Koenekamp his first Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. He retired
first feature as a cinematographer. Oscar nomination, and he and Schaffner after shooting Flight of the Intruder (AC July
Koenekamp became an ASC went on to collaborate on five more ’90).
member on Aug. 7, 1967, after his father pictures, including Papillon and Islands in When he was honored with the ASC
proposed him for membership, and his the Stream. “Frank was the most congenial Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005, he
biggest break came soon thereafter: Patton, gentleman I’d ever met,” Koenekamp noted, “What I still miss is the camaraderie
directed by Franklin J. Schaffner (AC Aug. observed, “and the most prepared director of the crew. I’d love to call every one of
’70). To tell the story of maverick U.S. Army I’ve ever worked with.” Noting that Patton them today and tell them we’re starting a
Gen. George S. Patton’s quest for victory in often achieved 20-30 setups per day, he picture tomorrow.”
World War II, the filmmakers shot on 71 added, “With all the complexity of that — Rachael K. Bosley
locations around the world, filming just 20 shoot, it’s amazing how smoothly it went.” ●

www.ascmag.com August 2017 77

 CLUBHOUSE
NEWS
Amy Vincent. The alternates are Roberto Coffee and Conversation
Schaefer, Dean Cundey, Lowell Peter- in Hollywood
son, Steven Fierberg and Stephen The Society recently held a pair of
Burum. “Coffee and Conversation” events at the
“As an organization, we are focused Clubhouse in Hollywood. The events
on education, international outreach, diver- featured David Klein, ASC, who discussed
sity, and preservation of our heritage,” says his work on the Showtime series Homeland,
van Oostrum. “Over the past year, we and Robert McLachlan, ASC, CSC, who
expanded our Master Class program inter- discussed his work on the Showtime series
nationally to Toronto and China; we Ray Donovan. The discussions were moder-
launched a Chinese version of American ated by AC contributor Jim Hemphill.
Cinematographer magazine; we are prepar-
ing for a third International Cinematography Johnston Joins ZGC
Summit, which sees attendees from several Associate member Eric Johnston
Above: David Klein, ASC (left) talks other societies around the world; and our was recently appointed to the role of sales,
with AC contributor Jim Hemphill. Vision Committee has many initiatives Americas for ZGC. Based out of the
Below: Frederick Elmes, ASC accepts his AFI honor.
planned, after presenting two very success- company’s New Jersey offices, Johnston’s
ful ‘Day of Inspiration’ events in Los Angeles role will be to develop and grow sales
and New York, which were designed to opportunities in the film and broadcast
inspire female cinematographers and sectors across North, Central and South
crewmembers.” America. Johnston previously held the posi-

Coffee and Conversation photo courtesy of Alex Lopez. AFI photo by Kevin Winter, courtesy of Getty Images.
tion of strategic account manager for digital
Patel, Hammond Named cinema and rental houses for the Vitec
Associates Group.
New associate member Snehal
Patel currently serves as the sales manager AFI Honors Elmes
for cine at Zeiss in Los Angeles. Patel’s first Frederick Elmes, ASC received the

Photo of Clubhouse by Isidore Mankofsky, ASC; lighting by Donald M. Morgan, ASC.

production experience was at the age of 17, American Film Institute’s Franklin J.
as the host, director and producer of his Schaffner Alumni Medal during the 45th
own cable show. A decade later he annual AFI Life Achievement Award Gala,
attended film school in Chicago, after which recently held in Hollywood. According to
he moved to India and worked in the Bolly- AFI, this honor “recognizes the extraordi-
wood film industry for almost five years nary creative talents of an AFI alumnus or
before returning to Los Angeles. Patel has alumna who embodies the qualities of film-
ASC Elects Officers, Board worked professionally as a freelance cine- maker Franklin J. Schaffner: talent, taste,
Kees van Oostrum has been re- matographer and director, and previously as dedication and commitment to quality
elected ASC president for the 2017-’18 a camera salesperson for Arri. storytelling in film and television.” Elmes
term. The other elected officers are Vice Dan Hammond currently serves as graduated from AFI in 1972. Previous recip-
Presidents Bill Bennett, John Simmons senior account executive, business develop- ients include Caleb Deschanel, ASC; Wally
and Cynthia Pusheck; Treasurer Levie ment for Production Resource Group (PRG) Pfister, ASC; Janusz Kaminski; Darren
Isaacks; Secretary David Darby; and in Los Angeles. Hammond is responsible for Aronofsky; Lesli Linka Glatter; Patty Jenkins;
Sergeant-at-Arms Isidore Mankofsky. developing markets and a range of services David Lynch; and Terrence Malick.
Elected as members of the Board of in the fields of feature film, television and
Governors were Paul Cameron, Russell commercial productions. Hammond previ- For more complete coverage and additional
Carpenter, Curtis Clark, Richard Crudo, ously worked as director of cinema technical Society news, visit theasc.com/asc/news. ●
George Spiro Dibie, Fred Elmes, Victor J. services at Doremi Labs, and spent 19 years
Kemper, Stephen Lighthill, Karl Walter working various positions at Panavision’s
Lindenlaub, Woody Omens, Robert international corporate headquarters.
Primes, Pusheck, Simmons, John Toll and

78 August 2017 American Cinematographer

 CLOSE-UP
Gordon C. Lonsdale, ASC

When you were a child, what film made the What has been your most satisfying moment
strongest impression on you? on a project?
Birdman of Alcatraz. The first time I saw a TV movie I had shot projected
on the big screen. It was called A Loss of Inno-
Which cinematographers, past or present, do cence, and the director, Graeme Clifford, struck a
you most admire? print and showed it to me at the Deluxe laboratory.
Caleb Deschanel, ASC — The Black Stallion totally It looked beautiful.
impressed me. The photography told the story. T.C.
Christensen, ASC — his beautiful lighting always Have you made any memorable blunders?
touches my heart. Nancy Schreiber, ASC is so tena- I remember the first time I flashed a roll of 35mm
cious and driven. She will succeed against all odds. film in the darkroom. As I took the lonely walk to
the set to tell my cinematographer, I realized how
What sparked your interest in photography? important the loader’s job was. If you screwed up,
When I was 15 years old, my aunt gave me an then all these people have to come back and do it
Argus rangefinder camera. I lived in Solvang, Cali- again. Or even worse, if reshooting was not possi-
fornia, and remember shooting in this old aban- ble, that work and effort is lost forever.
doned Danish academy. Once I got my first prints
back from Kodak, I was hooked. What is the best professional advice you’ve ever received?
After we watched the dailies of the first commercial I ever shot,
Where did you train and/or study? producer Darryl Bateman looked at me and said, “Anyone could
While pursuing my bachelor’s degree in communications with have shot that. I thought you would give me more.” After that I
emphasis in photography from Brigham Young University, I interned made a commitment to make my work stand out from everyone
for three years at the BYU motion-picture studio, spending summers else’s. Key grip Bob Blair once said to me, “If you want to make it,
there, working on movies. I also trained on movie sets, working as you need to figure out how to light fast and make it look beautiful.
camera assistant, grip and electrician. Then as now, I watched those Do that and you will always work.” He was right!
around me, learning daily.
What recent books, films or artworks have inspired you?
Who were your early teachers or mentors? American Cinematographer magazine. Movies and TV shows
Bob Stum was the first cinematographer I worked for, and I learned include Moonlight (2016), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,
a great deal from him about using hard light. I also worked for Reed The Crown, The Young Pope.
Smoot for eight years. He demanded perfection, and I learned to
demand the best from myself. Ron Vidor taught me assistant-camera Do you have any favorite genres, or genres you would like to
techniques on my first feature, which I still use and share. try?
I would really love to do a film-noir project.
What are some of your key artistic influences?
I still remember the first time I visited the Louvre in Paris and saw the If you weren’t a cinematographer, what might you be doing
brush strokes and layers of paint, and the direction, color and quality instead?
of light. I wanted to create that same feeling in my photography. I No question, a heavy-equipment operator. As a kid, I worked in the
remember hearing people say how beautiful ‘Rembrandt lighting’ oil fields of Southern California, and I was always assisting with a
was. When I saw my first Rembrandt painting, I got it. shovel at the bottom of a hole they were digging.

How did you get your first break in the business? Which ASC cinematographers recommended you for
Peter Johnson hired me as a cinematographer at a small studio in membership?
Provo, Utah. For the first time, my business card listed only one job: Caleb Deschanel, Reed Smoot and Bill Wages.
‘Director of Photography.’ Peter allowed me to do side projects when
studio work was slow, which eventually led to shooting the TV series How has ASC membership impacted your life and career?
Northern Exposure. I feel like I have a whole new family of brothers and sisters who share
the same love of photography — a whole group of people I can call
on for help or ideas. Some of my best times are being at the ASC
Clubhouse, meeting members and catching up. ●

80 August 2017 American Cinematographer