American Cinematographer - January 2009 - (Page 37)

Left: Frank and April’s first encounter is presented in flashback. The scene’s soft overhead source was a 6'-long-by4'-wide oval ringlight of 60watt bulbs, some of which were dimmed to create a warm feel. “We teased it with muslin to cut spill and send some fill back to the center, where the actors played the scene,” notes O’Leary. Below: Mendes checks an angle on a scene depicting one of the couple’s liaisons in Frank’s apartment. Connecticut and New York City in the summer of 2007, experienced a fair share of rain.) “I didn’t really feel shooting in the house was confining in terms of what we could do with the camera, but it was sometimes frustrating in terms of how I could light it,” continues Deakins. “Locations like that only look good for about a half-hour or an hour at a certain time of day on a good day, but you can’t allow for that. It takes an enormous amount of light to maintain a naturalistic, consistent daytime feel inside, and the house was backed up against a hill, so getting light into the upper rooms and into the kitchen around back was tricky.” To accomplish this, his electrical crew, led by gaffer Bill O’Leary, bounced 12K Arri Compact HMIs off 20'x20', 12'x20' and 12'x12' sheets of muslin or Ultrabounce set outside the windows. “For the ground-floor scenes, we worked off the grade, and on the second floor, we worked off a scaffold,” says O’Leary. “The rigs danced about a bit to accommodate the shots, and the beauty of a single-camera show is that this is possible; the closer one can work to the edge of the frame, the better.” Because every shot in the house depended on the scene and the blocking, pre-lighting was out of the question. “We had the house stripped apart and rewired so we could use the sockets in the walls, and we also put power points in the ceilings so we didn’t have to run cables in the room,” says Deakins. “We used no big lights inside, mainly 200-watt or 400-watt Jokers. A huge amount of the film was lit by practicals in the shot.” These practical table lamps and floor lamps held standard household bulbs ranging from 60 to 200 watts, according to O’Leary. “We used no tricks or special gags — it was all standard fare but properly applied, so it worked,” notes the American Cinematographer 37

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 2008

American Cinematographer - January 2009 Contents Editor’s Note Short Takes: Triangle of Need Production Slate: Frost/Nixon, The Wrestler Close Focus An Old Soul Brothers in Arms A Cut Above Post Focus: HPA Awards, Still Me New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index In Memoriam: Robert C. Jessup, ASC Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Gabriel Beristain

American Cinematographer - January 2008

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