American Cinematographer - October 2008 - (Page 24)

Top: The police station “was basically a back wall with frosted windows and a series of foreground flats we could shoot through,” says Seckendorf. “We set a small backing behind the windows to give them the color we wanted, and for the edge, we put a 20K through a 4-by-4-by-8-foot snoot made of black foamcore.” Right: In Chau Wu’s warehouse, a 20K outside “poured light into the set and gave great highlights off the cement floor,” says Seckendorf. “We placed our small backing behind the doors and lit it to about 5 stops over. We ran parallel lights, mostly 10Ks, for the actors.” open door, reflected in the shiny metal of a car, or behind frosted-glass panels, for example. It’s a unifying element that brings every scene into the yellow-gold palette that characterizes the entire game. “It’s those little things that help the players feel as though they’re not departing too far from the game,” notes Gardi. Hodges recalls that someone initially suggested putting a greenscreen outside the hotel-room window. “I suggested a backing instead, because I always prefer doing things practically,” he says. “I got the EA art department to create a view looking out over the city, and then I played with it a lot in Photoshop.” Although the backing was made of material designed to be lit from the front, Seckendorf found it looked more luminous and had lower contrast when lit from behind. To create a soft, directional keylight, he used a 20K shining down an 8'-long foamcore box (4' wide on each side and open at either end, with the black side of the foamcore facing in), sometimes adding a 1⁄4 grid in the middle of the box. He used China balls to fill the actors’ faces, moving the lights closer or farther away as needed. Seckendorf lit exclusively with tungsten light, but the One has a daylight-balanced chip. “I’ve shot uncorrected daylight with tungsten film, but I heard about noise with this camera,” he notes. During prep, he ran a series of tests and found that although using a daylight filter cost him exposure, there was noticeably less noise. The best balance between noise and stop-loss came with an 82B filter, which cost 24 October 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - October 2008

American Cinematographer - October 2008 Contents Editor's Note Short Takes: DirecTV's "Fourth Wall" Campaign Production Slate: Prison Break Production Slate: Need for Speed: Undercover Middle East Intrigue Kingdom of Light Memoirs of a Spook Landmark Gains Post Focus: An Overview of the ASC CDL Filmmakers' Forum: Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Ross Berryman

American Cinematographer - October 2008

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