American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 70

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Sundance 2011: Spirited Images
benefitted from it, and they did, too, because those structures were left intact for them to use. “It was difficult shooting there, especially because we only had five days, but Susanne and I shot in India for our last film [After the Wedding], and I have a documentary background, so I’m used to primitive conditions. We were constantly fighting elements like wind and dust, which had us concerned because we were using Red One cameras, but in the end, the dust looks flawless on the screen and really helped the visual realism.” Søborg used an Arri LWZ-1 (15.5-45mm T2.8) zoom lens for most of the shoot, and also used a few Zeiss Superspeed primes for a handful of night sequences. Footage was recorded to Red Drive hard drives and sometimes to Compact Flash cards. The cinematographer has used digital capture on all his collaborations with Bier, and he suggests that for many European productions, shooting digitally “comes down to economics. A Danish budget wouldn’t permit us to shoot 35mm, and I think the digital formats have now come so far that they look better than Super 16mm for this kind of work. On this movie, I was very pleased with how the Red dealt with the contrast, the dust and the hot climate.” Nevertheless, during the digital grade at Filmek Teknik in Sweden, Søborg strove to make sure the movie would not look “digital” on the big screen. Working under Søborg’s direction, colorist Peter Hjorth built a CineSpace-calibrated look-up table designed to imitate slightly overexposed Kodak Vision2 50D 5201 and placed it onto RedLog files throughout the grading process, which was done on a Digital Vision Nucoda Film Master. “Peter made the images look like they were shot on Kodak daylight film,” says the cinematographer. “It came out nicely. About 70 percent of the film emulation looked right the first time he laid it on there, and the rest [of the grade] was spent correcting or adjusting minor things. We put a lot of effort into

Søborg captures a shot on location in Kenya.

One reason for that is the fact that the production spent a week shooting at a small refugee camp in a Kenyan village called Kikopey, crafting visuals that had to be strategically contrasted with the imagery captured in Denmark. The locations reflect the dual nature of the story: a Danish physician, Anton (Mikael Persbrandt), labors to save lives in an African refugee camp in the shadow of a vicious war, while at home, his bullied son, Elias (Markus Rygaard), bonds with another bullied youngster (William Jøhnk Nielsen) and schemes to get even with their tormenter. The themes of paternal responsibility, anger, loneliness and revenge are characteristic of Bier’s work, but they also posed visual challenges for Søborg and his crew. Certain aspects of the film mirror his previous collaborations with Bier, such as naturalistic lighting and handheld camerawork, while other aspects were new territory for both of them. “There are always similarities in our films together in terms of the way we work,” says the cinematographer. “They are mainly shot handheld to give actors maximum freedom. We plan what we want to have happen, of course, but I like to hold cameras and let the actors move freely while I shoot 360
70 April 2011

degrees. We also use lots of close-ups of actors. This story is all about feelings between the characters, so we do lots of good close-ups. The lighting philosophy with Susanne is always to stay as close to reality as possible [and] to give actors the ability to move freely wherever we are. If the setting is a house, we light the whole house so they can walk freely through it. “But the most important thing in this movie was to illustrate the differences between Denmark and Africa. We wanted Denmark to appear very safe, secure and rich, and then Anton goes to Africa, which is completely the opposite. So the Danish portions of the story look idyllic, almost like a postcard — a Kodachrome sort of look. And Africa [looks] very gritty.” In the story, the camp is located in Sudan and is much larger than the filmmakers’ actual location. Much of the action there takes place in a medical facility where Anton works against great odds to save lives. “The actual camp in the story was too big for our budget, so this was a good solution,” he says. “The people who run the camp agreed to let us shoot there and even had people dress up as extras. In return, we built actual structures for them, including the medical facility. So we
American Cinematographer



American Cinematographer - April 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - April 2011

American Cinematographer - April 2011
Contents
Editor’s Note
President’s Desk
Short Takes: “Faeries”
Production Slate: Jane Eyre • Battle: Los Angeles
Wicked World
A Woman on the Verge
Optical Filtration and 3-D
Sundance 2011: Spirited Images
Post Focus: Red Riding Hood
Tricks of the Trade: Unfettering a Digital Shoot
Filmmakers’ Forum: The Image Interchange Framework
New Products & Services
International Marketplace
Classified Ads/Ad Index
Clubhouse News
ASC Close-Up: Dennis Muren
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - American Cinematographer - April 2011
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 1
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 2
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Contents
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 4
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 5
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 6
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 7
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Editor’s Note
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 9
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - President’s Desk
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 11
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Short Takes: “Faeries”
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 13
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 14
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 15
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Production Slate: Jane Eyre • Battle: Los Angeles
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 17
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 18
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 19
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 20
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 21
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 22
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 23
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 24
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 25
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Wicked World
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 27
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 28
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 29
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 30
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 30a
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 30b
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 31
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 32
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 33
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 34
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 35
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 36
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 37
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 38
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 39
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 40
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 41
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - A Woman on the Verge
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 43
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 44
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 45
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 46
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 47
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 48
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 49
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 50
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 51
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Optical Filtration and 3-D
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 53
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 54
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 55
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 56
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 57
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 58
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 59
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 60
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 61
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Sundance 2011: Spirited Images
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 63
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 64
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 65
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 66
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 67
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 68
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 69
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 70
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 71
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 72
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 73
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 74
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 75
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 76
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 77
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Post Focus: Red Riding Hood
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 79
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 80
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 81
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Tricks of the Trade: Unfettering a Digital Shoot
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 83
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 84
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 85
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Filmmakers’ Forum: The Image Interchange Framework
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 87
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 88
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 89
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - New Products & Services
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 91
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 92
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 93
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 94
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 95
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 96
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 97
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - International Marketplace
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 99
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Classified Ads/Ad Index
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 101
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Clubhouse News
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - 103
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - ASC Close-Up: Dennis Muren
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Cover3
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Cover4
American Cinematographer - April 2011 - Cover5
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