American Cinematographer - March 2015 - 52

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Outside the Box
to itself, and I hope it doesn't, but I
certainly put a lot of effort into making
the actors look their best.
"I'm a soft-light guy, especially
with digital," he continues. "When I
light directly, I'll push Blondes, Babies,
Mini-Brutes or HMIs through 6-by-6
or 8-by-8 butterflies with Full Grid and
Lighttools egg crates. For a smaller
direct light, I use the Chimera medium
Video Pro strip [bank] with the barebulb Triolet fixture and egg crate. When
I bounce, I frequently tape or clip raw
bleached muslin to walls or ceilings, and
hit it with Tweenies, Blondes or Source
Fours. For a small soft light in close
proximity, I use either 2-by-2 or 'fat boy'
[2-foot four-bank] Kino Flos with
bleached muslin clipped on the front.
And I will always light a night car scene
with the exceptional LiteGear LED
lighting kit." Fierberg notes that gaffer
Scott Ramsey (whose company, Xeno
Lights, supplied the lighting package)
and key grip Gary Martone made all the
difference to the production. "They're
phenomenal and so creative," he says.
The "sensual" aspect of the show's
visual style, Fierberg adds, helps create
an emotional connection to what the
characters experience. For example, he
says, "Alison remembers her child jumping into the pool, or how the waves
touched her feet." One technique the
cinematographer employed was to
undercrank the camera. "By playing
with the frame rate, you can get something very poetic and not achievable any
other way," he submits.
Fierberg says he's found The Affair
to be "one of the most satisfying projects
I've worked on. The writing is phenomenal. It's good because it's subtle; it
doesn't hit you in the face. I love working
with these great scripts and great actors.
I always want to work on projects where
the directing, writing and acting are all of
one piece, so I'm very satisfied with what
we're doing on this show. We've been
able to achieve a style that's rare in television: to take the time to rehearse and
stage, then shoot masters and not do
coverage. I love that."
- Debra Kaufman

52

March 2015

The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) arrives on the scene for the season-eight, two-part finale of
the science-fiction series Doctor Who.

Doctor Who (BBC)
Cinematographer: Rory Taylor
Since Doctor Who was first broadcast in 1963, the beloved BBC series
has presented all manner of sciencefiction-infused adventures headlined by
its titular Doctor, the sole survivor of
the alien but decidedly human-looking
race of Time Lords. The Doctor and
his companions travel through epochs
and galaxies via the TARDIS (an
acronym for Time and Relative
Dimension in Space), a combination
time machine/spacecraft that appears,
at least on the outside, to be an unassuming police box. It's "bigger on the
inside," though, and allows the heroes
to journey far and wide while battling
foes of all stripes - and, inevitably, save
the day.
Over the course of the Doctor's
onscreen existence, tastes in television
have changed almost as much as the
technology used to produce it. Deftly
managing these factors as they apply to
Doctor Who's camera department is a
team of cinematographers, including
New Zealand-born director of photography Rory Taylor, whose history on the
American Cinematographer

series includes 22 episodes going back
to David Tennant's incumbency in the
title role. Taylor notes, "Ernie Vincze,
BSC was the original cinematographer
I shared lighting [duties] with on Doctor
Who. We alternated each filming block
for four years, and discussed in detail the
various lighting ideas required for each
show. Working alongside Ernie was a
wonderfully creative and aesthetically
stimulating time."
Taylor's involvement in camerawork began in 1978 at the Swansea
College of Art and Design. "I applied to
every film school in Great Britain from
my native New Zealand," he recounts.
"From art college, I got a job as an assistant cameraman with the BBC Wales
film unit in Cardiff." After traveling the
world working on "all genres of
programs: documentaries, sport,
daytime TV, 2nd unit on dramas,"
Taylor advanced to the status of lighting
cameraman in 1988 and subsequently
worked on a variety of BBC network
dramas, including Berkeley Square and
Insiders. In 2000, he left the BBC for a
freelance career, working on such series
as The Story of Tracy Beaker, Upstairs
Downstairs and Casualty, as well as
American Cinematographer - March 2015

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