American Cinematographer - February 2008 - (Page 18) Right: A balloon light helps illuminate a scene in the revival tent. Below: Pope lines up a shot in a cotton field. slightly more yellowish palette than I would have gotten with the usual 85 filter, and which therefore also rendered the skin tones with a more period feel.” He filmed day interiors and all night scenes on Eterna 250T 8553 and 500T 8573. Corbett had the town that served as Harmony completely repainted in colors in tune with the Kodachrome look. The Honeydripper was a vacant grocery store made over into a juke joint. Working closely with Pope, Corbett used mid-toned blues, deep rose and dark timber inside the club, “which helped enormously and were the perfect background for the dark skin tones,” says the cinematographer. During the digital intermediate (DI), which was carried out in six days at Orbit Digital in New York, Pope tweaked the Kodachrome effect he had achieved in camera and evened out shots, but the bulk of his work pertained to density: bringing out detail in dark faces, particularly in tricky settings like bright cotton fields. “When you look at the first 15 movies Sidney Poitier was in, you’ll notice he’s either next to a window or under a streetlight, and the white guy is in the shadows — that was just to get them in the same frame,” notes Sayles. A third of the movie is set in the Honeydripper, and given that he would be working in varying conditions, including day-for-night and night-for-day, Pope needed to make sure the location could accommodate flexible lighting. “John was determined to shoot wide from low angles and see right up to the roof,” he notes. When Pope first saw the building, a simple A-frame with an attic, “I asked that when they tore down the ceiling, they leave enough for a walkway that could run the length of the club and be open to the stage below. I also asked for extra-thick beams to be introduced around the bar area, creating reveals where I could hide a complete system of slim Kino Flos and tiny Fresnels. It was brilliant that I was there when this lynchpin of a location was first discovered. With Toby’s help, I was able to come up with a plan for this walkway, a bit like one in a studio, where my lights could be pulled back and hidden from view, which made the place a lot more lighting-friendly. I also permanently tented two sides of the place; John insisted we were never going to see them when we were outside, and he was right! I was therefore able to control the light from outside these windows, which let out onto a terrible view, anyway, and within the tent I was able to create the right day or night mood inside.” Units such as Kino Flo Flatheads, Zips and Fresnels stayed on the walkway, while hidden units supplemented practicals on the club floor. “It was a mixture of lights I could turn from daylight to tungsten and move aside without too much fuss,” says Pope. For the climactic musical performance, which required 360-degree lighting, Pope relied heavily on practicals. “The visible stage lights were all period lamps we purloined from New York, Fresnel stage lights that were pretty crude. But they were all doing a job — all open, no doors, no color — and they looked the part.” For the musical performance, Sayles was very specific about camera moves. “He had all these beats worked out for editing purposes, so he knew where he wanted to be tracking into different artists,” says Pope. Sayles adds, “I wanted to shoot the first twothirds of the scenes in the Honeydripper with the widest lens possible to emphasize how empty it was — Ty has no customers. Once the rock ’n’ roll finale starts, we go to a longer lens. We needed fewer extras to fill it up, but it was also to emphasize how full the place was.” A key part of Sayles’ preparation involved storyboarding. He used FrameForge 3D software, which allowed him to simulate lens changes and camera moves. He constructed the virtual interior of the Honeydripper in 3-D, then adjusted camera position, moved furniture and planned scenes. “One of the great things about that program is that I could see when the shot was so wide we would see the ceiling, and change the shot accordingly,” says the director. Based on these storyboards, “Dick and I could talk about how to get the most out of the day.” ¢ 18 February 2008
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