American Cinematographer - August 2008 - (Page 30) Dark Matters A lot of I Want to Believe takes place at night, but another significant element in the palette is snow, and it was the side-by-side film/HD camera tests Roe shot in snow that ultimately steered the team away from HD. “In heavy falling snow in particular, there was a streaking effect in the Genesis image that would have, I think, made such scenes very difficult to watch,” says Carter. Roe describes the effect as “busy,” noting, “Close-ups of someone in falling snow had an electronic feel that just didn’t look right, whereas the film image held very well. “We wanted this movie to be nice and big, and we talked about going anamorphic, but with all our night work, I needed to shoot at a T2.8, and I wanted to push the film,” he continues, noting that most of the picture was shot on Kodak Vision2 500T 5218. “I also wanted to shoot mostly with zoom lenses because I knew we wouldn’t have the time to change a prime whenever we wanted to adjust a shot. So we decided to shoot Super 35mm [3-perf] and do a digital intermediate [DI].” (The digital timing will be done at Santa Monica post house Riot, where Roe will work with colorist Tony Smith, a longtime collaborator on The X-Files and other projects.) The zoom lenses — Primo 4:1 (17.5-75mm) and 11:1 (24-275mm) and Angenieux Optimo 15-40mm and 28-76mm — were always used at specific focal lengths, and Maier recalls that with few exceptions, the Optimos were used for the show’s extensive Steadicam work. The camera package, supplied by Panavision Vancouver, also included a large complement of Primo primes ranging from 14.5mm close-focus to 150mm. “We’re a huge fan of the 65mm at The X-Files — it’s our close-up lens,” says Roe. “That actually goes back to John Bartley, and when the show moved to L.A. and became a Panavision show, Mulder pursues a suspect through city streets. Filmed over eight nights, the foot chase covered 12 blocks in downtown Vancouver, and the filmmakers used an array of devices, including a Cablecam (visible in bottom photo), to put viewers in the midst of the action. 30 August 2008
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