American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 26

I

Girls Gone Wild
By Iain Stasukevich

Spring Breakers follows four co-eds
(played by Ashley Benson, Vanessa
Hudgens, Selena Gomez and Rachel
Korine) who are so desperate for the ultimate spring vacation that they will commit
robbery and car theft to make it happen.
Along the way, the women meet Alien
(James Franco), a drug dealer and rapper
who serves as their tour guide to the dark
side of paradise. The film marks the first
collaboration between American director
Harmony Korine and Belgian cinematographer Benoît Debie, AFC. Debie recently
discussed his work on the picture with AC
via Skype.
American Cinematographer:
How did you meet Harmony Korine,
and how familiar were you with each
other’s work?
Benoît Debie, AFC: Harmony is a
close friend of Gaspar Noé, and I think he
likes Enter the Void [AC Oct. ’10]. I knew
Gummo, and Spring Breakers was interesting for me because Harmony’s style is
usually more like Dogme [95], but his ideas
for this movie were a bit bigger in terms of
cinematography, and we had to shoot very
26

June 2013

fast. We had about five weeks, and the idea
was to change locations every day, sometimes three times in a day. So, I had to find
a way to light very simply. During prep, we
tried to find locations that would not
require additional lighting. For instance, at a
gas station with fluorescents, I would only
change the color of the lights with gels,
usually yellow or pink. Harmony wanted me
to be very fresh with the colors. He wanted
something very pop, like candies.
Whose decision was it to shoot
film?
Debie: The producers wanted us to
shoot digital, but Harmony didn’t think that
was the right way to do it, and I agreed with
him. I argued for film because I knew he
wanted me to use strong colors and play
with fluorescents and practicals, and I knew
that would be more difficult with digital. I
know because I’ve worked both ways. I
knew the lamps would all burn out [on digital], and that we would have to do a lot of
work in post to fix the colors. Harmony had
to cut three days from the shoot to pay for
the film stock.
To help save money, we shot mostly
2-perf with an Aaton Penelope, and we
only shot anamorphic for [select] scenes
rather than for the whole movie. I thought
American Cinematographer

it would be nice to use older anamorphic
lenses, round-front Russian Lomos, to create
nice flares at sunset. I brought the Lomos
with me from Europe because they’re nearly
impossible to find in the United States. Our
spherical lenses were Cooke 5/i primes. We
also shot with VHS cameras and some plastic toy cameras from Japan that Harmony
likes. You can see the VHS footage during
the big party at the hotel. Harmony felt it
was like having old spring-break footage.
Tell us more about the toy
camera.
Debie: It’s called a Digital
Harinezumi, and Harmony was able to get
prototypes from Japan. It has a plastic body
and a plastic lens. The [620x480] image
quality is like a Polaroid, kind of bad but very
interesting. You can change the settings
from Monochrome to Vivid or Normal, and
we used all three. The idea was to sometimes grab an image with them, so I shot the
entire movie with three of them on top of
my lens; one was set to Monochrome, one
to Vivid and one to Normal. Each time we
went to shoot, I had to switch them all on.
We could have made an entire feature with
just that footage, we shot so much! The
image has a kind of blur and a lot of pixels.
You may have noticed it in the scene where

Spring Breakers photos courtesy of A24.

Four friends —
Candy, Brit, Cotty
and Faith (from
left to right:
Vanessa
Hudgens, Ashley
Benson, Rachel
Korine and
Selena Gomez) —
are arrested after
committing
robbery to fund
their spring
break in Spring
Breakers, directed
by Harmony
Korine and filmed
by Benoit
Debie, AFC.



American Cinematographer - June 2013

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

American Cinematographer - June 2013
Contents
Editor’s Note
President’s Desk
Short Takes: “The Volt Plasma Challenge”
Production Slate: Frances Ha • Spring Breakers
Boldly Captured
Living Large
A Killer with 2 Faces
Utopian Dreams
Filmmakers’ Forum: Edgar Burcksen, ACE
New Products & Services
International Marketplace
Classified Ads
Ad Index
ASC Membership Roster
Clubhouse News
ASC Close-Up: Shelly Johnson
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - American Cinematographer - June 2013
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Contents
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 2
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 3
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 4
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 5
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 6
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 7
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 8
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 9
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Editor’s Note
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 11
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - President’s Desk
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 13
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Short Takes: “The Volt Plasma Challenge”
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 15
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 16
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 17
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 18
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 19
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Production Slate: Frances Ha • Spring Breakers
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 21
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 22
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 23
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 24
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 25
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 26
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 27
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 28
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 29
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 30
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 31
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 32
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 33
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Boldly Captured
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 35
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 36
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 37
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 38
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 39
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 40
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 41
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 42
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 43
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 44
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 45
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 46
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 47
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Living Large
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 49
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 50
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 51
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 52
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 53
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 54
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 55
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 56
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 57
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 58
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 59
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - A Killer with 2 Faces
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 61
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 62
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 63
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 64
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - I1
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - I2
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - I3
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - I4
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - I5
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - I6
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - I7
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - I8
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - I9
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - I10
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - I11
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - I12
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 65
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 66
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 67
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Utopian Dreams
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 69
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 70
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 71
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 72
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 73
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 74
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 75
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 76
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 77
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 78
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 79
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 80
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 81
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Filmmakers’ Forum: Edgar Burcksen, ACE
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 83
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 84
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 85
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - New Products & Services
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 87
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 88
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 89
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 90
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 91
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 92
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 93
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 94
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 95
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 96
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 97
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 98
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 99
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - International Marketplace
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Classified Ads
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Ad Index
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 103
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - ASC Membership Roster
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 105
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Clubhouse News
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - 107
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - ASC Close-Up: Shelly Johnson
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Cover3
American Cinematographer - June 2013 - Cover4
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