American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 26

TECHNICAL SPECS
1.85:1
Digital Capture
Arri Alexa
Zeiss Ultra Prime

26

April 2013

A swordsman travels through the thick forest of northern Britain in The Darkest Day.

I

Capturing Vikings with
Canon’s C300
By Mark Hope-Jones

Set in northern Britain in the year
A.D. 793, The Darkest Day follows the journey of a young monk, Hereward (Marc Pickering), who must deliver a cherished holy
book to safety against a backdrop of
lawlessness, pagan sects and pursuing
Viking marauders. Directed by Chris Crow,
the film was shot by Alex Metcalfe, whose
credits include the features The Refuge
(2003) and Playing Burton (2011). The
Canon EOS C300 was released just prior to
Darkest Day’s 18-day shoot, and AC recently
spoke with Metcalfe about his experiences
using the new camera on this micro-budget
action film.
American Cinematographer :
What led you to choose the C300 for
this film?
Alex Metcalfe: As with most independent films, our budget was very low. A
period piece requires a lot of costume and
makeup, so the camera department’s
budget shrank and shrank. We were shooting 12-hour days at the beginning of the
American Cinematographer

year without any movie lights, so all the
scenes were set during the day or at dusk or
were shot day-for-night. I knew I needed a
camera that would give me decent results
in low light at the darker end of the day,
and the C300’s base sensitivity is 850 ASA.
It’s a compressed format rather than a raw
format; it compresses in-camera at 4:2:2,
and you can’t get out of that. But for me,
cinematography is not really about a clean
image; it’s more about offering up a picture
that people can get drawn into, and resolution is not necessarily the biggest part of
that. The C300 allowed us to move quickly
and get into little spaces that other cameras
couldn’t have, so it opened up creative
options that, I think, will give the viewer a
much better experience than having fewer
angles but a 4K image. Dealing with the
compression and a slightly lower latitude is
really no different than shooting film 15
years ago, when we had much less latitude
on the print than on the neg, and our decisions on set had to take that into account.
What testing did you do?
Metcalfe: I bought a C300 myself,
but the delivery was delayed to the point
where Canon had to loan me one for the

The Darkest Day photos by Susan Plant. Photos and frame grabs courtesy of Lindisfarne Films.

Alexa, I could film the kids without them
ever knowing when we would stop. I could
shoot for 14 minutes straight, and then I
would drop the camera to my knee, we’d
pop in another card, and about 12 seconds
later I’d start another 14-minute card.
That’s a great asset on a film where your
cast are non-actors, because if you stop
[shooting], you might miss the perfect
moments.”
Bolduc did no color correction on
set. A local hire, Divita Wa Lusala, served as
the on-set digital-imaging technician,
downloading data from the cards.
Throughout the shoot, Bolduc used
camera-support handles from Montrealbased Shape that could be adjusted on the
fly. He also sometimes used an EasyRig. “I
would bring the camera really low, almost
to my knees, and have it just hang [from]
the EasyRig. I could frame with the monitor
and have it between my legs or push with
it and walk with it smoothly. I never had it
on my shoulder. I was using it more for an
effect.” The floating shots accomplished
with the EasyRig help express Komona’s
state of mind when she trips on some
hallucinogenic tree sap, a scene that, along
with her ghostly visions, injects moments of
magical realism into the film.
For his part, Nguyen was sold on
the Alexa’s image quality. “In testing, I
thought its image was really amazing,” he
says. “It’s not necessarily about the definition; it’s about the poetry of the image.
There’s something very organic about it.”
In the final grade, carried out in just
over a week at Vision Globale in Montreal,
Nguyen and Bolduc did little image manipulation. “What Nicolas captured on the
cards was already so beautiful,” says the
director. “For me, the color correction was
really about paying tribute to his work on
the set. It wasn’t about transforming it at
all.”



American Cinematographer - April 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - April 2013

American Cinematographer - April 2013
Table of Contents
Editor's Note
President's Desk
Short Takes: 7x6x2
Production Slate: War Witch • The Darkest Day
Hello, Yellow Brick Road
Hell on Wheels
All In
6 Sundance Standouts
New Products & Services
International Marketplace
Classified Ads
Ad Index
Clubhouse News
ASC Close-Up: Christopher Baffa
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - American Cinematographer - April 2013
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 1
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 2
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - Table of Contents
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 4
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 5
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 6
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 7
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 8
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 9
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - Editor's Note
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 11
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - President's Desk
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 13
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - Short Takes: 7x6x2
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 15
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 16
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 17
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 18
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 19
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - Production Slate: War Witch • The Darkest Day
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 21
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 22
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 23
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 24
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 25
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 26
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 27
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 28
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 29
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 30
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 31
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 32
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 33
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 34
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 35
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - Hello, Yellow Brick Road
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 37
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 38
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 39
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 40
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 41
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 42
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 43
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 44
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 45
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 46
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 47
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 48
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 49
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 50
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 51
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - Hell on Wheels
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 53
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 54
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 55
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 56
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 57
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 58
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 59
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 60
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 61
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 62
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 63
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - All In
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 65
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 66
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 67
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 68
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 69
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 70
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American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 75
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 76
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 77
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 78
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 79
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 6 Sundance Standouts
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - K1
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - K2
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - K3
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - K4
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - K5
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - K6
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - K7
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - K8
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - K9
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - K10
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - K11
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - K12
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 81
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 82
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 83
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 84
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American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 99
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 100
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 101
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 102
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 103
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - New Products & Services
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 105
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 106
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 107
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 108
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 109
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 110
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 111
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 112
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 113
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - International Marketplace
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - Classified Ads
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - Ad Index
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 117
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - Clubhouse News
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - 119
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - ASC Close-Up: Christopher Baffa
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - Cover3
American Cinematographer - April 2013 - Cover4
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