American Cinematographer - May 2008 - (Page 50)

A Need for Speed Right: A race starter prepares to fire her gun. Below: A cranemounted remote head captures the moment onstage as a ritter fan provides some breeze. proprietary color handling, and that can complicate how well that camera’s color space integrates with post systems. We wanted to make that as [simple] as possible, so we converted the F23’s natural 12-bit linear color space to the Kodak Cineon 10bit Log standard before handing it off to any of our post facilities. There’s no loss or compromise going from 12-bit linear to 10-bit Log, and it allowed everyone to work from the same standard. “In addition, we sent [all of the effects facilities] a custom lookup table [LUT] that we cooked up with Digital Domain and Pacific Title [which handled the digital intermediate and some effects shots] to emulate the color satura- tion we had in mind,” continues Glass. “That got everyone very close to a final look, but we built in some headroom so no one could push the saturation too far and break it.” Tattersall notes that when shooting digitally, he normally uses hi-def monitors to adjust his lighting. However, on Speed Racer, he was operating the A camera, so he was often away from the monitor tent. “On the last two Star Wars movies and Next [2007], I spent most of my time at the monitor with my engineer and communicated remotely to my gaffer and crew,” he recalls. “On Speed Racer, I was on the floor operating and communicating directly with my crew, the directors and the actors, and that helped us move more quickly. The cameras were set up every morning to gray scales, and we didn’t really tamper with settings during the day. I would go into the engineering tent to check the settings after the first take of every new scene, just to make sure everything was okay, and then I’d spend the rest of my time on the set with the camera. “It’s a very kinetic show from a camera point of view,” he continues. “Larry and Andy were constantly asking me to do whip-pans, crash zooms and trombone tracks. They had me chasing kung-fu stars and machine-gun tracers, flying stunties and crashing ice sculptures. Frankly, it was just a lot of fun.” Tattersall rarely adjusted the F23’s internal matrices and menus, and he captured most of the action at a -3db gain setting to achieve a sharp, noise-free look. The camera captures 4:4:4 1920 x 1080, but he occasionally pushed it to 4:2:2 to capture 60-fps slow motion. When the filmmakers needed faster speeds, they brought in Vision Research Phantom and V10 high-speed cameras (which captured 4:2:2 direct to data up to 1000 fps) and an NAC Hi Motion camera (which captured 4:2:2 direct to data up to 600 fps). With a young audience in mind, the Wachowskis set a target running time of 100 minutes, but their screenplay clocked in at a 50 May 2008

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American Cinematographer - May 2008 Contents Editor’s Note Global Village: The Fall Short Takes: ASC Laszlo Kovacs Short Takes: Heritage Award Winners Production Slate: Anamorph Production Slate: Fugitive Pieces Heavy-Metal Hero A Need for Speed Kink and the City Beautiful Minds A Hollywood Homecoming Post Focus: Paramount Restores The Godfather Filmmakers’ Forum: Levie Isaacks, ASC Teaches Marines to Shoot Movies New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Antonio Calvache

American Cinematographer - May 2008

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