American Cinematographer - March 2008 - (Page 60)

Making Sitcoms “Sexy” Right: Woody Omens, ASC and Dibie show off their Emmy Awards at the 1987 ceremony. Dibie won for Outstanding Lighting Direction (Electronic) for a Series for the hit comedy Growing Pains. Below: Dibie checks the light on a scene set in the New York subway. As a gaffer, he worked on such films as The Molly Maguires (1970), shot by Howe, and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), shot by Stradling. On the latter picture, Dibie found Barbra Streisand to be every bit as talented and demanding as her reputation suggested. He built a special portable beauty light, dubbed the Stri-Light (a Scoop coated with paint and diffusion), that he positioned himself to enhance her close-ups. On one setup, he gave the custom light to his best boy because his own arm was throbbing from a recent inoculation. “Barbra asked me, ‘Why aren’t you holding the light?’ When I told her about my arm, she said, ‘Which arm got the shot?’ ‘My right,’ I told her. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘you can hold it with your left.’” In the early 1970s, Dibie joined forces with Roger Dash, a high-school teacher, to create educational films. The short pieces were self-financed and shot on weekends as cheaply as possible. Dibie-Dash Productions eventually sold more than 2,000 prints to schools throughout the country. “Two or three lights were all we had at first,” recalls the cinematographer. He shot the 16mm projects on reversal stock, which forced him to take an exacting approach. “I was shooting ECO,” he notes. “It’s like Kodachrome — you can’t tell the lab to print it up or print it down. You have to get the exposure perfect.” Despite Dibie’s professional credits, he had a great deal of difficulty getting into the guild, which was then Local 659. He recalls one guild member’s piece of advice: “Go shoot porno movies.” When he returned with the offer of a job as cinematographer on The New Zoo Revue, guild officials resisted, arguing that he should be considered an electrician, not a cinematographer. But Warner Bros. wanted Dibie and 60 March 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - March 2008

American Cinematographer - March 2008 Contents Editor’s Note Short Takes: Bill Viola’s Ocean Without a Shore Production Slate: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days Production Slate: Chantal: A Night at the Pyramids Magical Mystery Tour Some Kind of Monster Tantalizing Television Making Sitcoms “Sexy” Post Focus: Mega Playground Helps Set Look for Sibling Post Focus: Visual Effects Society Launches White Paper New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index In Memoriam: John McPherson, ASC ASC Membership Roster Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Wayne Kennan

American Cinematographer - March 2008

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