American Cinematographer - July 2017 - 58

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Crimes of Passion

Actor Cosmo Jarvis
(portraying
Sebastian) and
crew prepare to
shoot in the
woods.

was the only person she brought from
Australia. "It was great having someone
familiar there," she says. "It was a pretty
tiny crew. But on the whole, we had just
enough of everything."
One of Wegner's favorite rooms
from a lighting perspective was the
castle's formal dining room, which
boasted floor-to-ceiling wood paneling,
globed lanterns on the walls, a fireplace,
and windows on one side. "The sense of
space in that room exemplified the film
for me visually - austere opulence -
and the sense of loneliness that's created
when a large space, designed for group
experiences, is inhabited by just a few
individuals," she says, adding, "I think it
has great day and night looks."
For day interiors in the dining
room, either the 6K or M18 was positioned outside the ground-floor
windows, its light usually pushed
through two layers of diffusion: a 4'x4'
of 250 Half White, then an 8'x8' of Full
Grid. Interior smoke softened the
blacks and rendered everything more
milky.
Night interiors in the room
comprised two dinner scenes: one in
which Katherine glazes over during a
male-dominated dinner party, and
another where Boris sadistically takes
his anger out on the maid, Anna
58

July 2017

(Naomi Ackie). For the key light, "we
decided to build a big overhead soft box,
with six 500-watt floods on inline
dimmers," says Wegner. The nonfunctional fireplace contained a circular gasfire unit. "If we needed extra fire effects

"We wanted to
work within some
strict visual rules for
the film to emphasize the boundaries
in which Katherine
is trapped."

down low, we'd use Celeb or Dedolights
hiding out of frame or under the table,
just to illuminate the walls a little bit,"
she adds. "These were dimmed and
gelled using a combination of Half and
Full Straw. Anywhere I could hide a
silver reflector out of frame, I had that to
kick some of the moving light from the
American Cinematographer

gas fire up the walls. We initially entertained the thought of doing more of a
flicker effect for the fire, but we did a
few tests, and it felt a bit too much.
Ultimately, we went with either a tiny,
subtle flicker or something quite
constant.
"When we came in for the closer
stuff," she continues, "I'd bring in a 4by-4 frame of Half Diffusion or Opal,
right on the edge of frame underneath
[the soft box], so it didn't feel too toppy
and to get a more flattering light and an
eyelight. We'd move that around on a
boom arm, which ended up being a
great solution to that big space."
Not surprisingly, Katherine's
bedroom is where much activity takes
place. This setting required the widest
array of lighting moods, from bright
sunny mornings to deep, dark night.
Here, too, lanterns and fireplace were
the motivating sources - again simulated with skirted China balls,
Dedolights and Celebs. "Those night
scenes in the bedroom, trying to do a
wide master with a lot of action and
motivated in a realistic way by just
lanterns and fire - that's a pretty technical challenge," says Wegner. "There's a
certain amount of real estate where you
can't put anything."
Especially challenging was a

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