American Cinematographer - August 2016 - 28

The
cinematographer
and director
discuss a setup.

Reis worked with Canon EF L-series USM II
16-35mm, 24-70mm and 70-200mm
zooms (all f2.8); and 24mm, 35mm, 50mm
and 85mm primes. "It was about making
bold artistic decisions and breaking rules,"
he says, "which is why I love the Epic
Dragon, because it's easy to change the
mount from PL to EF."
To further shape the movie's look,
Reis used Tiffen's Black Diffusion/FX, Black
Pro-Mist, Low Contrast, 80C and ND filters.
He explains that he might use a 1⁄4 Black
Diffusion/FX for day scenes and then "bump
it to full 1 BD/FX for night shooting. BD/FX
will have an even glow in the highlights, [or]
a Low Con will help lift the blacks, giving you
a low-contrast look."
On set, Reis worked with look-up
tables inspired by the look book he and
Furman had created in prep. "I think there
were 16 LUTs, and each LUT would go back
to the triptych - everything goes back to
the story," the cinematographer explains.
Reis and digital-imaging technician Keir
Garnet-Lawson managed camera settings
via a wireless network with the Foolcontrol
application, and the DIT used a Light Iron
workstation for all on-set data management.
"We had five iPads synced to a cloud dailies
database," Reis says.
According to Reis, The Infiltrator
called for a wide range of lighting setups,
from scenes requiring only small LEDs to a
large-scale wedding that involved days of
pre-rigging and the use of 20 18Ks. The
cinematographer credits gaffer Alan Martin
for helping him realize the production's big
"Hollywood" lighting setups. "Alan lit
Gandhi and Alien3," Reis marvels. "He was
really good at the big setups, such as lighting
28

August 2016

a 20-foot greenscreen with HMIs and a truss.
I was probably more knowledgeable about
new technology like LED panels with DMX
Wi-Fi control. It was a harmony of new- and
old-school lighting."
Furman adds, "The culmination of
the education that Alan gave Josh and that
Josh gave Alan was one of the most inspiring
things I've seen in my career. Alan was just so
open."
The Infiltrator was graded at LipSync
Post in London, where colorist Sam
Chynoweth worked with a FilmLight Baselight system, grading 2.5K EXR files in 16-bit
linear for a final 2K output. The Redcode
Raw source files were recorded full-gate at
6K resolution, while framing for a 5K extraction, giving the filmmakers "the flexibility to
reframe and stabilize the image, if necessary," Reis says. "This became particularly
useful when you had a dialogue scene with
numerous cast, [as] we were better able to
match different cameras by zooming in or
out of the image." According to the cinematographer, roughly half of the movie's
look stayed true to what he had established
on set. For a few run-and-gun montage
sequences, he and Chynoweth created a
color-reversal aesthetic.
During preproduction, Reis met with
Chynoweth and did a few film-grain passes
and tests. Together, they devised a system in
which they would place each scene on a
scale from one to five, with five being the
grainiest and one being clean. In general,
they left the anamorphic footage cleaner,
like a 250T film stock. For night scenes across
the board they often pushed for a 500T look.
"[Nighttime] anamorphic was generally only
a one or two on the grain scale," Reis says,
American Cinematographer

"while nighttime sequences that featured
undercover operations or scenes in Mazur
and Emir's surveillance-rigged apartment
would be a four or five.
"I found that a lot of the time when
you're stretching the digital 'negative,' the
filtration comes through more, and that
worked out great," he continues. "It amplifies the blooming, or it magnifies the imperfections that the filter introduces. The quality
of the filter's character and sensor noise
pattern is enhanced through a more stylized
approach in post, which I thought was really
interesting. Brad wanted a filmic and organic
image for his movie, so [on this particular
project] my instinct was to push the technology [to generate] adverse lighting through
the color grade, to enhance the imperfections, to amplify the optical flaws - because
the beauty is in the imperfections. To me, the
organic flaws are what make digital cinema
filmic."
"With his post and digital background and his understanding of the
production workflow from point A to point
Z," Furman says, "Josh is the new wave of
cinematography. The work he did in prep
really acclimated the producers, the foreign
buyers and everyone else to a particular look.
It was very important for Josh and me to
preserve the vision we ultimately wanted for
the film, and we knew that you can really get
turned upside-down in the final color timing
when you don't establish this vision up front.
What inevitably happens when you shoot in
a manner meant to be manipulated later is
that the higher-ups get comfortable with the
'shoot look,' and then when you take it into
a color-timing session, push the envelope,
and kick it back to the powers that be,
they're like, 'What the f--- is this?' But when
you have a LUT that looks as close to the final
image as possible, it makes everyone more
comfortable from the jump."

TECHNICAL SPECS
2.39:1
Digital Capture
Red Epic Dragon,
Blackmagic Cinema Camera
Zeiss Compact Prime, Compact Zoom;
Vantage Film Hawk V-Lite; Canon L;
Lensbaby Composer Pro PL

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - August 2016