American Cinematographer - September 2007 - (Page 24)

Above: Michael is committed to a mental institution at the age of 10 under the care of Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell, center) with grim results. Below: After years of study, Loomis comes to believe Michael is the embodiment of pure evil. ment. Parmet notes, “I’ve never had this experience before: when I walk onto a set, everything we discussed on the scout is done, and it’s always exactly the way I talked about it!” Just as the grip and electric departments had their share of challenges, so too did the camera department. “We’d basically go with a freeflowing, organic rhythm,” says Sprattley. “Rob tells his actors what he wants to happen, and then he lets the operators find their shots. Sometimes we go in there with no rehearsals and no marks and just start shooting.” Parmet praises Levy and Sprattley’s contributions to the film: “Both of them told me it was possibly the hardest show they’ve ever done, and they have some amazing résumés. Their work was really terrific.” Provided by Otto Nemenz in Hollywood, Parmet’s camera package comprised two Arricam Lites (with a third brought out for some night-exterior work), a full set of Cooke S4 primes, and long and short Angenieux zooms. For filtration, he used Tiffen Black Pro-Mists, “but never more than 1⁄2. Usually I’d combine them with [Tiffen] Soft/FX on extreme close-ups. Also, I shot mainly with NDs to control the depth of field, and I didn’t use any 85s.” When filming outdoors during the day, Parmet maintained a T5.6 stop, and he shot at a T2.5 for night exteriors and dark interiors. He used two Fuji Eterna stocks, 500T 8573 and 250T 8553. “I underexposed by a stop, but [8573] is really amazing — it picks up the grain a little bit, but you can easily rate it at [ISO] 1,000.” Technicolor processed the production’s footage and Post Logic generated high-definition video dailies and carried out the digital intermediate (DI). For the dailies, Parmet refined the system he used on Devil’s Rejects, shooting stills on set with his Nikon D80, tweaking those shots in Photoshop, and sending off his corrected files for the dailies colorist to use as a guide. This time, though, a few additional pieces of hardware and software helped streamline the process. “The dailies timer and I each had the exact same Apple Cinema Display monitor, and our workflow was based on keeping those monitors calibrated to BT 709-5, the standard for HDTV color space,” says the cinematographer. An off-the-shelf hardware and software package called Spyder 2 was used to maintain the correct calibration. “A company called MeSoft transferred the footage to a proprietary hard-disk system so we could watch the dailies on set,” says Parmet. “I was able to go to the camera truck and see the HD dailies on the same Cinema Display I’d used for my original Photoshop corrections.” When the time came to do the DI, Parmet had started working on another feature and was unable to participate. “However, I gave a copy of my digital still files to Lou Levinson, and after working with Rob on several projects, I know he’s an artist in the true sense of the word. People tend to think of him as a rock’n’roller and musician, but he is an accomplished graphic artist and designer as well, and the choices he makes are informed by that background.” ¢ 24 September 2007

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - September 2007

Contents Editor’s Note Global Village DVD Playback Production Slate Bourne Again Cultural Immersion Baroque Visions Once Upon a Time in Bucharest Short Takes Post Focus Filmmakers’ Forum New Products & Services Points East International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index ASC Membership Roster Clubhouse News Wrap Shot

American Cinematographer - September 2007

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