American Cinematographer - August 2012 - 18

Production Slate
In a scene from 360, a gangster’s driver (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) is intrigued by a young Bratislavan woman (Gabriela Marcinkova).
I
Traveling Full Circle
By Jean Oppenheimer
Adapted from Arthur Schnitzler’s play Der Reigen, Fernando
Meirelles’ ensemble drama 360 is structured as a series of encounters
between various pairs of individuals. Some hook up, others break up,
and still others merely cross paths. They also cross international
borders; the story’s settings include Paris, London and Vienna, and
the entire picture was shot on location.
According to cinematographer Adriano Goldman, ABC,
Meirelles initially wanted to shoot digitally. “Fernando is very
concerned about the pace on the set,” notes Goldman. “He is very
quick and doesn’t like to wait, and he reasoned that digital would be
faster. However, I felt that because of the cast and the different landscapes,
film would be a better choice.” He had previously combined
Super 16mm and Super 35mm and maintained a good pace on two
features Meirelles had produced, City of Men and The Year My
Parents Went on Vacation, and he convinced Meirelles to take the
same approach to 360.
Super 16mm proved especially useful for handheld camerawork
in automobiles, where space was severely limited. “Little by
little, though, I started shooting more 35mm,” recalls Goldman, who
did his own operating. “In the end, I think we shot more than half
of the picture on [3-perf] Super 35. Matching the two formats was
our primary task in the DI, which we did with [colorist] Adam Glassman
at Deluxe London. This was my first film with him, and he’s
fantastic.”
The cinematographer recalls that the look of the film devel18

August 2012
oped gradually as the team scouted locations and considered the
various characters. “Fernando knew from the beginning that he
wanted to steer clear of vibrant colors. He envisaged a soft, desaturated
world, and we basically achieved that look by toning down the
colors and skin tones in post.
“There was a slight color orientation for characters, but noth-
ing too strong,” continues Goldman. “For instance, Rose [Rachel
Weisz], who is married to Michael [Jude Law] and having an affair
with a younger man, is the ‘white’ character — everything in her life
is monochromatic and clean, and we kept our lighting for those
scenes clean as well.”
By contrast, Bratislava, home to sisters Mirkha (Lucia Siposová)
and Anna (Gabriela Marcinkova), feels somewhat chaotic. For these
scenes, Goldman and his gaffer, Andy Long, gelled their lights to
match the mixed colors they found at the locations, with a slight
emphasis on yellow, to suggest the instability in the young women’s
lives. “For the touch of yellow, we usually used household bulbs
dimmed down for a warmer tone,” says Goldman.
Yellow is prominent in an early scene that shows Michael in a
hotel bar looking for Mirkha, who works as a prostitute. “The bar
featured a huge backlit yellow pane of glass, and we decided to
embrace that,” relates Goldman. “We found a yellow gel to put on
our Kino Flos that matched perfectly. We didn’t want a vivid yellow,
however, so in post I desaturated it.”
Throughout the shoot, Meirelles was keen to avoid “postcard
images,” Goldman notes. “He wanted to show everyday urban landscapes,
not tourist spots, because the film isn’t about London or
Paris; it’s about the people who live there.”
➣
American Cinematographer
360 frame grabs and photos courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

American Cinematographer - August 2012

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