American Cinematographer - January 2008 - (Page 58) Very Close Shaves Right: Close collaboration between departments helped accentuate the colors in the film’s flashback sequences, which were then finessed during a digital intermediate at Company 3. Wolski notes, “We took so much color out of the rest of the movie that when we looked at the film [stock] normally, everything was shockingly colorful.” Below: After Benjamin Barker is imprisoned, his wife is lured to Judge Turpin’s ball. The candles were fitted with three wicks to enhance their flames. staged, everything was built, and part of me likes to work that way. I like to be in an environment we’ve created from scratch.” With credits that include The Crow and Dark City, Wolski is certainly no stranger to shaping whole environments onstage, but he stresses that he always takes his cues from the natural world. “Ultimately, nature inspires me the most in terms of lighting. I mean, you can exaggerate or accentuate, but everything should come from what you see; your imagination is influenced by what you see around you.” Production designer Dante Ferretti brought his considerable experience to bear in resurrecting 19th-century London within the confines of the soundstage. Ferretti offers a sketch of his collaboration with Burton: “In the beginning, Tim said most of the [sets] would be CGI, because he wanted to rebuild a kind of Victorian London. Then, after I started to design the movie, he said, ‘Why don’t we build more?’ Of course, it’s better for the actors and director to know where they are [in a physical environment], so step by step, we decided to build more. We built 70 or 75 percent, and the rest was CGI.” As Ferretti hunted for reference material for Victorian London, Burton treated Wolski to a festival of old films to communicate the feel he wanted for Sweeney Todd. “We decided to find a modern approach to old-fashioned photography,” says the cinematographer. “It was so easy 58 January 2008
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