American Cinematographer - January 2014 - 74

AMC_0114_p064_p075_c_feature 11/24/13 11:37 AM Page 74

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A Curious Camera
time. It starts with the camera very still
on the two figures in the room, and
then, when she goes to him, we go
handheld and the camera invades them,
exploring them physically, as it were. It's
like it's trying to understand, trying to
get under the skin and between the
fingers and lips of these two people."
"That was the most challenging
scene for me in terms of lighting, and
visually, it's also the scene I am proudest
of," says Hardy. "At first, as they stand
on opposite sides of the room, looking
at each other, Nelly's back is to the
camera and she is softly edged with
light, her face hidden, while Dickens
inhabits only the periphery of the light
softly bathing the room. Then she goes
to him, into the shadows, their frisson
happening in complete silhouette, only
their eyes betraying sentiment as they
peer from the edge of the darkness. I
wanted it to feel captured, real and,
most importantly, illicit, as it would
have felt between them.

74

"We wanted the room to have a
very subdued feel, a real sense of a single
low source," Hardy continues. "I used a
1K Rifa rigged low to the ground with a
cascade of Light Grid and unbleached
muslin falling from its edges as it leaned
toward the floor into a soft bounce of
white card; the lamp was dimmed to 25
percent and gelled with ¼ CTO.
Above, for an invisible room tone, I had
an Octodome dimmed to 25 percent
and rigged through three layers of Light
Grid and one layer of unbleached
muslin. It needed to be gauzy and
elegant and almost sourceless. Another
1K Rifa dimmed to 25 percent pushed a
light haze of light toward the camera.
"My light meter read 'Error' and
practically told me to go home, but I
ignored it, opened the lens up, and
removed the matte box to encourage as
much light to penetrate the glass as
possible. I could barely see the faces
through the viewfinder, but to me it felt
absolutely right for the moment. Ralph

liked the darkness of the scene and positively encouraged it. The wide shot of
them on opposite sides of the frame
reminds me of a cross between
Visconti's The Leopard and an unrestored Rembrandt that's been festering
in someone's attic for a hundred or so
years: beautiful!"
Fiennes also wanted to create a
sense of direct intimacy between
Dickens and Nelly in scenes showing
them together in France, perhaps the
happiest interlude in their relationship.
For most of this material, Hardy operated an Arri 3-C, and for a sequence in
which the pair walks through a field, he
encouraged the actors to take turns
operating the camera themselves. "It
gives the brief but slightly bizarre effect
of a home-movie perspective approximately 100 or so years before home
movies were part of life," the cinematographer observes. "I love the 3-C
because it forces you to operate the
camera in a very different way - it
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American Cinematographer - January 2014

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