American Cinematographer - February 2007 - 24

Right: Farmer's
seemingly

stocks, and he filmed Astronaut Farmer
on

farfetched

generates avid

used

media interest.

Super F-64D 8522, Super F-

lot of smoke in the interiors, and

a

the Eterna stock

Below: Members

flatter in contrast

was

than 8562," he notes. "Also, early on
we weren't sure we'd finish with a digi¬

of the show's
camera crew set

up a

three:

250D 8562 and Eterna 500T 8573. "We

scheme

low-angle
dolly shot.

tal intermediate

[Dl], so I thought for
day interiors with smoke I'd want the
contrast of 8562, and for night scenes
without smoke I'd

agreed to give us a certain amount of
money, and we had to find states that
had both the right look and the right
[economic] incentives." New Mexico
met both criteria, providing practical

able about

the

pola rings and the mattebox filter
trays so we could push them tighter
against the lens and get rid of any

locations for almost every scene.
Mullen and the Polish brothers

vignetting

share

such

an

affinity for the anamorphic

2.40:1 format, and Mullen filmed Astro¬
naut Farmer \N\lh a Panavision

that included

a

package

Panaflex Millennium, a

Gold II, Primo anamorphic primes, a
Primo zoom, and a few older C- and ESeries primes for handheld work.

anamorphic. He tested all of

lenses and got a good set together,
and he also had Panavision shave down
our

as

on the wider-angle
the 35 and 40mm."

Mullen also

Primos,

singles out key grip

Brad Heiner, with whom he'd previously
collaborated on Akeelah and the Bee
and D.E.B.S:,

Mullen's 1st AC, Keith Eisberg, who
also worked on Twin Falls Idaho and

gaffer Steve Litecky, who
"was not only very creative but also very
organized - he made my life so much
easier"; and 2nd-unit cinematographer
Philip Pfeiffer for their contributions to

Northfork,

Astronaut Farmer.

responsible for prepping
the package at Panavision, and Mullen
enthuses that "Keith is very knowledge¬
was

Mullen's loyalty to Panavision is
matched

by his devotion to Fuji film

use

the Eterna, and

everything should match." Mullen over¬
exposed everything by % of a stop, and
some scenes, such as a night exterior
showing the Farmer family at the local
fair, were also pushed one stop. (The
fairground scene was shot almost
exclusively with available light;
Mullen's crew added some string lights
across the top, Nine-lights on tele¬
phone poles in the four corners of the
fairground, and a China ball for closeups.)
In addition to smoking some
locations, Mullen experimented with
Men's Smoque filter. "I originally got
the filter so my inserts would retain the
smoked look of the wide shots," he

explains. "Usually when you get that
an object, you aren't looking
through enough smoke to see the
close to

effect, which

can

too clean and

make the insert look

sharp. I eventually real¬

ized that if there wasn't

a

visible shaft

of

light in the scene - if it was more
of a foggy haze from the windows -
the Smoque filter could substitute for
smoking the set. The only trouble with
the filter

arose

when

an actor

crossed

the window and blocked the

light for a
moment, causing the smoke effect to
disappear until the window was
unblocked. In that regard, it's a slightly
artificial effect, but when the lights are
in the frame, it provides a very convinc¬
ing atmospheric haze." On close-ups,
Mullen consistently used a #1 Glimmer
Glass filter

on

the lens.

Mullen

experimented with
during filming of the
capsule's re-entry into Earth's atmos¬
phere. Inside the capsule, Thornton
wore a 1960s-era spacesuit complete
smoke effects

with

a

helmet that featured

a

curved

glass facemask, which provided reflec24

February 2007



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