American Cinematographer - September 2008 - (Page 45) milk, water and white paint in front of the screen so the images were reflected in the liquid “like when you see buildings reflected in a lake,” he says. Turning off all lights in the room — so that the only light was coming from the laptop — he shot the reflections in the tray of milk. When projected, this appeared as a white screen with subtle but noticeable traces of texture, shadow and movement. The “sea of milk” sequences in Blindness were subsequently all shot on MiniDV (with a Sony DCRPC110), but Charlone used film for the rest of the picture, alternating between 3-perf Super 35mm and Super 16mm throughout the shoot. “In every situation, I try to use the format that will give me the best, most appropriate image,” he explains. “Usually, I used Super 16 for tighter shots and Super 35 for medium and wide shots.” Not even Super 35 could give Charlone the kind of detail he wanted for the ultra-wide shots of the city that open the film, however. For these scenes, he tested a Viper FilmStream HD camera equipped with a film lens and a Beaumont “Mini” VistaVision camera, and after scrutinizing the results, he chose the latter. “When compressed into a 1.85 frame, which was to be our final aspect ratio, the 8-perf 35mm had much more information,” he notes. The Beaumont, provided by U.S. rental house Geo Film Group, was operated by Steadicam operator Brian Lataille, SOC and used to capture city shots in Brazil and Uruguay. The first act of the film, in which characters are introduced and begin losing their eyesight, one by one, was shot mostly in São Paulo. Charlone notes, “The picture starts out with a naturalistic, realistic look and normal colors, and this starts changing when people start going blind.” At that point, day interiors assume a washed-out quality, as if they are covered by fine white gauze. (This is a different effect than the “sea of milk” shots, which provide the blind characters’ points of view.) Months before production commenced, Charlone started playing around with digital stills in Photoshop, trying to approximate the pale, faded quality Saramago describes in his novel, which Charlone kept by his side throughout the shoot. Two scenes stand out for Charlone in this opening section. The first finds a Japanese couple hailing a taxi to rush to the doctor’s office; the husband (Yusuke Iseya) is the first person to go blind. Charlone’s grip in Brazil, “Cezinha” Coelho, built a wheeled rig that wrapped around the right side of the taxi. The top of the rig was flat so Charlone could walk on it. While the cab was moving, the cinematographer walked from the back of the rig to the front, beginning the shot with the camera looking through the back window. (Ed. Note: This shot is not in the final cut.) The second sequence shows another character, a prostitute (Alice Braga), at the moment she goes blind. She is wearing a pair of sunglasses while having sex with a client, and the camera is slightly above her, aimed at her face. A small white dot, a reflection of the ceiling light, is visible in one of her sunglass Photos and frame grabs courtesy of Miramax Films. Opposite: An eye doctor’s wife (Julianne Moore) joins her husband in an ambulance that is heading to a medicalquarantine facility in Blindness. This page, top: She and her husband (Mark Ruffalo) argue over her decision to feign blindness so they won’t be separated. Bottom: César Charlone, ABC (seated at camera) prepares to film a car scene with (from left) 1st AC Fabio Burtin, 2nd AC Lula Cerri, camera operator Analia Pollio (standing behind Charlone) and 1st AC Cris Assunçao (foreground). American Cinematographer 45
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