American Cinematographer - September 2017 - 82

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Funny Business

Bill (Andrew
Santino,
above) and
Cassie (Ari
Graynor, right)
take the
Main Stage
at Goldie's
comedy club.

was unrepeatable, that's of more value.
Sometimes those little flaws help things
to feel more real." The director also
emphasizes the importance of "the
emotional story as well as the surface
story. We can always dig a little deeper
and get something to rise up from
underneath - what the story is really
about." (Read AC 's extended interview
with Davidson at ascmag.com in
September.)
Around the corner, Flinckenberg
assesses at the DIT station, where digital-imaging technician Peter Brunet is
matching color and brightness via a
Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve
82

September 2017

system - reconciling a lighting change
made between takes. The Sony OLED
monitor indicates that this is Episode
110 - the season finale - and notes
that the cameras are shooting at 24 fps
and EI 800, with the shutter at 180
degrees. There's some whispering about
framing, and the next take has the A
camera at a wider angle.
Launais and key grip Jake Cross
join us at the monitors, and the conversation turns to the details of other
California-based setups the crew has
devised throughout the four-month
shoot. There was a hot-wing-eating
contest, shot at The Bear Pit restaurant,
American Cinematographer

which L.A. neophyte comics Eddie
Zeidel (Michael Angarano) and Ron
Shack (Clark Duke) enter so they can
afford the meal they've just shared with
their respective dates. The production
has shot at a bar in North Hollywood
and at a California state prison in
Lancaster, and the location for Goldie's
parking lot is in Echo Park. We're told
that as the season's shoot began, there
was about a two-to-three ratio of stageto-location work, and that as the show
progressed it evolved to around half and
half.
We meet Adam Bedi from the
special-effects department, who is
recently back in the States after working
in Bollywood. He reports that his
responsibilities here have involved
atmosphere, location wet-downs and fire
effects.
Mortensen takes some time to
provide detail on the lenses used for
Flinckenberg's work on I'm Dying Up
Here. As he offers us a look at the A-cam
lenses, he explains that the show employs
rehoused vintage Leica R primes, and
that for Flinckenberg's episodes the cinematographer sought to expand the package's range of focal lengths with
additional lenses that would match the
vintage look of the Leicas. With assistance from Panavision Hollywood's
manager of technical marketing and
optics, Guy McVicker, a new scalable
detuning process was employed to alter
the lenses. These detuned Primo Primes
and Zooms, the latter of which
comprised the 19-90mm and 24275mm lenses, provided an in-camera
image conforming to the characteristics
that Flinckenberg was after - including
a decrease in crispness and an increase in
flaring. As the 1st AC describes, "It's a
vintage look, but modern mechanics.
Panavision has a couple different versions
of detuning, and [after testing] we used
'Noir.'" He elaborates that the production specifically chose Noir #3 - from
the various levels of detuning available -
as it is "more aggressive."
The Leica R lenses used on
Flinckenberg's episodes were rehoused
by G.L. Optics.

http://www.ascmag.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - September 2017