American Cinematographer - October 2012 - 77

During prep, Pardue carefully studied the photographic strategies employed on The Birds and Marnie by Robert Burks, ASC (portrayed in The Girl by Sean Cameron Michael). Hitchcock’s fascination with Hedren is certainly reflected in the cinematography of both movies. The camera seems voyeuristically complicit in the travails she faces throughout The Birds, and Hitchcock biographer Donald Spoto reported that on Marnie, the director gave Burks “unusual instructions about photographing her face — the camera was to come as close as possible, the lenses were almost to make love to her. For a scene in which she is kissed by Sean Connery, the close-up is so tight, the frame filled so fully with pressing lips, that the tone is virtually pornographic.” “The overall style of The Girl is quite naturalistic, but when I shot scenes that were homages to Burks, I tried to light them the way he would have,” says Pardue. “This is very evident in our depictions of Hedren’s screen tests, the Birds attic scene and the Marnie seduction scene. I looked at many photographs from the sets of those two movies to try to get into the mindset that existed back then. We even sourced some old lights, old stands and other vintage lighting gear. The older lights had softer Fresnel lenses, which really helped. I used a lot of 10Ks, some 20Ks and quarter Wendys to create a big-source feel for our studio scenes.” Pardue took particular pains while re-creating Hedren’s screen test for The Birds. In the original test, Hitchcock paired her with actor Martin Balsam for a series of playful exchanges the duo performed on a wood-paneled set. “I really studied that footage, and I think we got our scene very close to the look of the original test,” Pardue says. “We shot our test in a restaurant, copying the furniture arrangement and the positioning of the two lamps against a wood wall. We used half of the restaurant for the test and the other half for the first part of the sequence, when Tippi walks in to meet Hitchcock. We

Unit photography by Justin Polkey, Kelly Walsh and David Bloomer, courtesy of HBO.

Opposite: Tippi Hedren (Sienna Miller) auditions for Alfred Hitchcock after he selects her to star in The Birds. Cinematographer John Pardue went to great lengths to emulate the look of the original screen test. This page, top: Hitchcock (Toby Jones) and his wife, Alma (Imelda Staunton), study Hedren’s test. Bottom: Pardue (right) frames a shot for director Julian Jarrold.

also had to find a contemporary lens that would match the look of the test. We chose a 32mm Cooke S2, which enabled us to capture the essence of the original perspective. “Burks’ lighting for the screen test was quite simple,” continues Pardue. “He lit Hedren with a classic, frontal, slightly off-camera key that was quite directional, probably with a softener in front of the lens. Then, he had an eyelight right next to the camera and some backlight, of course. That was the basis for our approach. Sienna walks all over the set in the test, so she was walking into a couple of preset backlights and keys.” Pardue shot most of The Girl digitally with an Arri Alexa, but for the
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screen test and all footage replicating scenes from Hitchcock’s movies, he shot Fujifilm Eterna Vivid 500 with an Arricam Lite. “The idea was that whenever we cut to a shot that re-created a scene from The Birds or Marnie, we would go a little bit further into the texture of those films,” he explains. “We thought the color saturation in the Fuji stock might help us approximate the look Burks got from the negatives of that period. Because we were shooting those scenes on film, I was able to use heavy Mitchell Pancro filters to emulate the heavy diffusion Hitchcock and Burks used on their close-ups. With the Alexa, we used Pancro filters on our S2 primes, but they weren’t as heavy as the filters we used for our film scenes. The
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American Cinematographer - October 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - October 2012