American Cinematographer - February 2009 - (Page 18)

Salinger’s investigation into shady financial dealings takes him to a variety of exotic locales, including Istanbul. The large source above the center of the set was motivated by the domed skylight at the top of the Guggenheim’s rotunda. White silk skirting was hung on a circular alloy pipe surrounding the helium tubes, and an additional outer circle of black skirting provided complete control of the light. “In the end, it looked like a space light with a diameter of 13 meters,” says Prein. “The falloff from that source was extremely natural; between the top floor on the stage and the bottom, there was a loss of only 11⁄2 stops.” At that point, the filmmakers didn’t know how much light would be available on location at the real Guggenheim, so they decided to set the sequence at dusk and keep the light as soft as possible. About 70 4'x4' Kino Flos were hidden in the elevator areas on each floor, and 6' tubes were positioned behind screens in the rotunda; all lights were DMX-controlled. Additional lighting came from three Kino Flo Flatheads punching through an 8'x8' grid cloth on a rotating base on a scissor lift. When it came to the location shoot in New York, Griebe’s lighting options were fairly limited. “The Guggenheim is a complicated building to light,” he notes. “The people there were very friendly, but we couldn’t mount anything to the structure inside, so we had to light from outside. We needed quite a bit of light, so we had six 18K ArriMax units controlled by Maxmovers on a rig suspended from a crane directly above the skylight.” The dome of the skylight was covered with a 45'x45' grid cloth, and a few 12K ArriSuns were positioned on the roof to even out the falloff of the down lights. “Inside, we supplemented with about 10 Kino Flos on each floor of the rotunda and three helium balloons,” adds Griebe. “But most of the light was coming through the skylight.” Prein installed daylight bulbs in about 80 triangular house lights inside the museum and gelled them to recreate the look of the studio footage. “It was a really exciting moment to arrive at the Guggenheim after a night shoot to see whether our ideas about how to match the real museum to our stage work had worked out,” he recalls. “I got there with our New York gaffer, Russ Engels, and Gregor Wilson, the unit production manager, and we all had to smile when we looked at the lighting setup. It matched the look we had developed in Babelsberg perfectly.” Griebe shot The International on Kodak Vision2 500T 5218, 200T 5217 and 100T 5212. “Sadly, the new Vision3 wasn’t available at that time,” he says. Throughout the shoot, he viewed HDCam dailies. “I took a lot of stills and sent them to [Arri] with notes, and the rushes were graded accordingly,” he says. “We didn’t print any shots, but the HD rushes were so good that Tom said all the way through editing that he wanted the movie to look exactly like the rushes.” The digital intermediate, carried out at Arri Schwarzfilm in Berlin, was Griebe’s second experience with the process. On Perfume, it was primarily the intense color scheme that necessitated a DI, and Griebe used very few filters on set. For The International, he again tended to avoid filtration, “but the main reason for the DI this time was all the visual-effects shots,” he explains. “Probably half the shots in the movie are effects shots, but it’s the kind of film where you don’t want the audience to notice them. We did some architectural enhancements and lots of effects for the Guggenheim action scenes, and we had a great relationship with [visual-effects house] UPP and [visualeffects supervisor] Viktor Muller, who was always on set with us.” In post, the 65mm footage was scanned at 4K and the 35mm footage at 2K on an Arriscan. “We didn’t do anything too major in the grade,” says Griebe. “We were mainly just balancing things out. Tom and I didn’t want to get carried away by imposing different looks on certain scenes; we wanted to keep the look as natural as possible, and making even little adjustments to effects elements in the grade can take a lot of time. “It was a very special experience to make a film with a big studio, especially as we got to work in Berlin and didn’t have to go to Hollywood,” he concludes. “Maybe next we’ll do a short movie — 10 days around the world with just the camera and a few lenses! Sometimes it’s good to go back to the basics.” TECHNICAL SPECS 2.40:1 Super 35mm (3-perf and 4-perf), 65mm Arricam Studio, Lite; Arri 235, 435, 765 Arri and Angenieux lenses Kodak Vision2 500T 5218, 200T 5217, 100T 5212 Digital Intermediate Printed on Kodak Vision Premier 2393 ¢ 18 February 2009

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2009

American Cinematographer - February 2009 Contents Editor's Note Short Takes: Circus Production Slate: The International Reverte 2 Worlds in 3 Dimensions Dead Reckoning Embracing Anamorphic Citizen of the World Post Focus: Restoring Manhatta New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Peter Suschitzky

American Cinematographer - February 2009

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