American Cinematographer - September 2008 - (Page 38) Portrait of a Lady Right: Actors regale a posh audience in a play Georgina has specifically selected to humiliate her husband. Middle: During a formal ball, Georgina circles the dance floor with wily politician Charles Fox (Simon McBurney). Bottom: Heliumballoon lights were used to illuminate the ballroom sequence without damaging the location’s ornate walls and columns. light or an OctoDome with a flicker box.” In order to achieve a soft ambience, the only real options for sources that would be unobtrusive and quick to adjust without touching either walls or ceilings were helium balloons, spring balls (a.k.a. Chinese lanterns) and Lowel Rifa-lites. “For the most part, we used a couple of 8K tungsten sausages, dimmed down to about 30 or 40 percent to mimic candlelight with a color tempera- ture of around 2200°K,” states Colley. “We tethered them from Cstands or other equipment and made adjustments to the light with the guide lines.” Helium balloons proved invaluable for a great many interior scenes, especially when it came to wide and traveling shots that made it impossible to hide fixtures on the ground. The balloons’ only downside was that they did not lend much in the way of contrast or depth. As Pados explains, “We had a big ballroom dance scene and Saul wanted to use a Steadicam to follow Keira as she walks from one room into the ballroom and then starts dancing, with the camera turning through 360 degrees; I think it was a four-minute shot. In that situation, my only chance of lighting anything was with the helium balloons, but they looked a bit flat because everything was coming from above. I had to get more light in there, so I was running next to the Steadicam operator with a couple of 15-inch Kinos in a housing we made [modified to run off a 12-volt camera battery in a backpack] and trying to get a bit more contrast — a bit more light on the costumes and faces.” The cameras employed on the shoot were Panaflex Millennium XLs supplied by Panavision U.K. 38 September 2008
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