American Cinematographer - September 2017 - 68

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Mean Streets

Right: A Steadicam is employed for Tommy's wedding scene. Below: Tommy dances with his
new bride, Grace (Annabelle Wallis).

principally on A camera; he agreed to do
B and Steadicam 1st AC on Season 3."
All four seasons have been shot
on Arri Alexa cameras framing for the
1.78:1 aspect ratio. "With TV budgets,"
Rose submits, "you can rarely shoot raw.
For broadcast, ProRes is still plenty. I'm
a huge fan of the Alexa - the sensor is
bomb-proof and beautiful, and the file
format is just as robust. I maintain that I
haven't used anything better." Rose's
season was captured on Alexa Plus
68

September 2017

cameras, recording to ProRes 4:4:4:4
files at 25 fps for U.K. broadcast.
Footage was captured in Log C to SxS
cards.
Though Steel and Dennis had
used Panavision Primo lenses, Rose
reports that he chose a slightly different
route. "I didn't know Primos at the
time," he says. "I tested some things and
changed it to be more like my normal
package." The cinematographer thus
paired the Alexas with Zeiss Super
American Cinematographer

Speeds. "Mark IIs and IIIs," Rose specifies, "combined with an Arri/Fujinon
Alura 45-250mm [T2.6] - a good
match together."
Rose relates that he used minimal
filtering, employing a 1⁄8 Schneider
Black Frost "worn as a rule, just to take
the edge off - unless flaring ever
became an issue with naked flame or
sources in shot. Ambient smoke was the
ultimate diffusion."
Another key accessory he "was
given the opportunity to test," Rose says,
was the Tiffen Multi Rota Tray. This
specialty rotating filter tray consists of a
custom ultra-thin 138mm circular
polarizer mounted in front of an additional removable 4x5.65 ultra-thin fixed
circular polarizer. With both polarizers
employed and the rear filter oriented
forward, rotating the front 138mm filter
creates a variable ND effect. When the
rear 4x5.65 is flipped, it turns the combination into a warming/cooling filter, but
still with a minimum of 2-stops of light
loss. With this device, when stop pulls
were performed - such as in the second
episode during a long Steadicam scene
of a servant moving across an enormous
garden and entering a relatively dark
interior - the Multi Rota allowed for
unchanging depth of field.
"It was so good that I petitioned
to get one for my B camera," Rose
enthuses. "There are a couple of minor
optical issues with vignetting, but that's
one percent of it. [The rest] of it is just
speed. It becomes less about thinking,
'Oh, the sun's come out, so we'll have to
stack the ND.' It's about, 'I want to shoot
this all at 2.8 so I can simply spin the
ND in.'" The 2-stop loss of a two-polarizer setup was offset by the Alexa's 800ISO sensitivity. "Sometimes you don't
need all of those [spare stops], but at 800
you tend to have them."
Peaky Blinders is largely shot some
distance away from its purported
Birmingham location. The second
episode of Season 3, for example, depicts
"a big charity gala, shot at St George's
Hall in Liverpool," Rose says. "It's a
massive, historic venue - very glamorous, but a big area to light with

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