American Cinematographer - February 2007 - 30

Technocrane, which created

Right: At the
printing press,
publisher

Dunn's favorite shots: "It starts

on

of
the

top of the printing press, and you follow

Norman Warne

the paper

going through this wonderful,
noisy machinery, then you come up on

(Ewan

McGregor) and
Potter check the

Beatrix and Norman's faces. It's like

proofs for her

they're giving birth. Their love was never
consummated, but here they're coming
together through her creation."

first book, The
Tale of Peter
Rabbit. Below:

During Warne's

On this and other interiors, Dunn

visit to her

parents' house.

used

Potter shows
him her

one

Fuji Eterna 500T 8573. "We tested

about 10 different stocks, and there's a

writing
studio.

great texture to the Fuji, particularly the
500T, for interiors and low light. It's very

grain-free and gorgeous." Elsewhere, he
used Fuji Eterna 400T 8583 and Super FYou

can

moves,

hide the

zoom

within

camera

and enhance and embellish

allowed Dunn to fill the interior with
sufficient smoke.

without

malist," he says.

subtle."

There

drawing attention to anything.
The use of zoom can be very elegant and
To create the

feeling of London
during the Industrial Revolution, the
team studied
period photographs
collected by production designer Martin
Childs. "You don't realize how polluted
the cities were at that time, particularly
London, where there was fog and smoke
in the air all the time," says Noonan. The
scene that best conveys this look is at
the printing press, when the pages of
Peter Rabbit first come rolling off the
press and are fine-tuned by Potter and
her publisher. Fortunately, London's
array of museums includes the Type
Museum, which is filled with antique
printing presses in good working order.
"It had all that texture and grime," notes
Dunn. Being an enclosed space, it also

on

Lighting was "mini¬
"We put some gelatin

the windows to create

a

cooler look.

movie

lights coming through
the window and a couple of hard lights
with practicals in the room, which isn't
as long as it may appear. Because of the
lack of space outside, my gaffer, David
Smith, and I devised a way of using
mirrors to multiply and harden the lights
that we could use
to focus, give
are

-

some

We

direction and

ease

of movement.

employed some hot, hard-edged
Goyas with Par cans with a mix of
chocolate, lavender and peacock gels to
give an apparent greater depth to the
room. It's what I call 'sleight-of-hand
lighting.'" In addition, a Chimera half¬
dome was used for modeling, and a
LitePanels LED served as an eyelight.
The production repositioned the
massive presses to accommodate a 15'

250D 8563.

The

Bluebell Railway was
key location that effectively
conjured up the Industrial Revolution.
another

Located outside of London, it's a tourist
a historic railway

attraction that offered

station

complete with antique news¬
functioning locomotives
dating back to the 1850s; it served as
the setting for an emotional farewell
stands and

scene

between Potter and Warne. "Like

America, Australia is

a

young country,

and you

have to work very hard to get
anything old to look real," notes
Noonan. "In England, there are lots of
people interested in preserving that
stuff in a way that's very accurate. That
makes a huge difference to a film¬
maker."

Nonetheless, Dunn still had his
work cut out for him. "We were

trying to
railway station in the
middle of the countryside feel like a
massive, bustling, dirty station in
London," says the cinematographer. "I
make this little

think

we

succeeded. That's

tricks with smoke. We

one

of the

relying on it
to fill the frame and veil the countryside
beyond the station." The smoke, steam,
and rain created by the special-effects
department were also dramatically
motivated by the farewell scene. Fortu¬
nately, the weather cooperated - to a
degree. "We were very lucky with the
were

overcast conditions. If it had been sunny,

it would have been

nightmare," says
blustery wind did
keep blowing away the atmosphere.
More challenging than the fickle
Dunn. Flowever, a

30

February 2007

a



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