American Cinematographer - January 2017 - 18

Above: Klaus
(Garret Linden
Dailey) is an
elderly German
man who handpaints the text on
Volkswagen side
mirrors in the
short movie
Closer. Right:
Cinematographer
Emmett
Sutherland (left)
and director
Zak Marx at work
on set.

Sutherland was able to rent an Arri Alexa
Classic. "It was my first time using one, and
it gave me butterflies when I turned it on,"
he says. "Everything immediately looked
amazingly beautiful." For lenses, Sutherland
employed Arri/Zeiss Ultra Primes. "They
paired with the look we were going for -
clean, but not hyper-clean," he says. "It
matched the aesthetic and fit within our
budget."
The production also employed Super
8mm negative to create a 25-second
sequence of a much younger Klaus with his
father, using a Canon 814 AZ camera
18

January 2017

borrowed from a friend, and Kodak Vision3
250D and 500T color negative procured at
Pro8mm in Burbank - the facility that
processed the negative as well. Sutherland
had concerns about matching the 8mm
with the Alexa footage, but after scanning
it to 2K at Pro8mm, he says, "it worked out
great."
Closer was framed for a 1.78:1
aspect ratio. "We shot 2K ProRes 4:2:2 and
worked with those files," Sutherland says.
"Zak graded in [Adobe] Premiere while he
edited the piece, [and the final] was delivered in 1080."
American Cinematographer

Marx and Sutherland planned to use
available light as much as possible. "We
scouted the area multiple times and took
very detailed notes and photographs of
how the light played around the planned
shooting areas," says Sutherland. "Everything that could be lit by the sun was."
When further light was required, the
production employed bounce cards or a
four-bank Kino Flo to wrap around the
actor's face. "For the scene when Klaus is in
the bathtub, I hammered a bounce card
into the ceiling, which gave us contrast on
his face, and shot a 750-watt Source Four at
the bounce card from across the room." In
another scene, Klaus is lit by sun coming
through a ripped drape. "It didn't work out
as we planned," says Sutherland. "We
ended up bouncing the natural sunlight
from the window into a mirror, which then
reflected onto a bounce card. It was
mayhem to figure out the shot, and then I
got it through serendipity when the sun
came into position. We stopped everything
we were doing to get the shot."
Mirrors are the focus of the drama,
so Marx and Sutherland played with that,
bouncing light to get "unorthodox flares"
and shooting through textures to make
light shift within the image. The cinematographer also points to a shot of hundreds of
car mirrors neatly arranged on a wall.
Sutherland's girlfriend, Alex Akopova, took
a photo reference of a Volkswagen car
mirror and laser-cut 500 mirrors that the
team taped up on the wall.
Sutherland's favorite scene is when
Klaus becomes emotional as he thinks
about his work. "It's a very tight shot on
Klaus," the cinematographer says. "Our
actor really related with the story and got
deeply emotional. Because we were wide
open on the shot, the light and falloff is very
dramatic. There's a lot going on at this
moment in the development of the story, in
this one shot, and it feels very real."
Into the Microscope
Director: Colin F. Shepherd
Cinematographer:
Colin F. Shepherd
Into the Microscope depicts a scientist looking into a microscope expecting to
see a magnified view of the specimen on
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 2017
