American Cinematographer - January 2008 - (Page 14) Above: Madame Tutli-Putli awaits the train’s earlymorning arrival. Chinese lanterns “were an extremely effective way to achieve the diffuse morning light we wanted for this shot,” says Lavis. Right: A setup of the lead character in her train compartment. would invent miniature Kinos by buying foot-long fluorescents from an out-ofbusiness bistro and converting them to our purpose. “We found that Chinese lanterns, a common tool mentioned in AC’s pages, were an extremely effective way of achieving the diffuse early-morning light we desired for the film’s opening shot of Madame Tutli standing at the station,” he continues. “In other situations, we achieved subtle effects by simply bouncing the light from a pair of 500-watt halogens pointed away from the set onto dental mirrors and pinpointing that light into our scene. To suggest the uneven light that results from trees passing by a train window, we used the same bounce technique but used cracked and slivered pieces of a car mirror we’d collected by the side of the road on our way into work.” One of the most striking effects in the film is the rendering of the puppets’ eyes, which are all human eyes. (Tutli-Putli’s are those of costume designer Maher.) The filmmakers were assisted in this work by portrait artist Jason Walker, who is also an animator and compositor. “First, we shot the animation with puppets, using tracking points in place of eyes,” explains Lavis. 14 January 2008 Bottom photo by Garth Gilker.
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