American Cinematographer - October 2014 - 16

Left: Alexander accepts his award for the sci-fi/fantasy film Starlight from Amy Vincent, ASC. Right: An image from the film.

space just felt right," the cinematographer
says. "It was very important for Alex and me
to maintain a composed but fluid look, and
the movement of the CamMate certainly
helped us attain that vision."
Giving so much attention to the
technological aspects made it a challenge at
times to stay focused on the core story,
Alexander relates, "but we always tried to
remember that it's basically a story about
the relationship between a mother and
daughter. The actresses were gorgeous and
a lot of fun to shoot; there isn't any
dialogue in the movie, so the portraiture is
very important. At the end of the day, I'm
more proud of that than any of the technical achievements."
Alexander was involved in postproduction, including all the digital compositing. "The fly-by shot of the spaceship
needed a lot of tweaks," he says. "I had
very clear ideas about the position and size
of the elements in the frame and how that
affected the lighting." He also did the color
correction himself, using Blackmagic
Design's DaVinci Resolve 9. "The color
correction aided the transformation of the
beautiful fantasy world into the darkness
which arrived. Alex and I were able to
achieve the specific and often unnatural
color palettes we envisioned for this world."

October 2014

Forest Keepers
Directors: Matthew Blake,
Malina Fagan, Siede Kohl,
Kristelle Laroche, Ben Mullinkosson
Cinematographer: Matthew Blake
Chapman University's Dodge
College of Film and Media Arts offers a
course called Destination: Africa, which
provides students the opportunity to create
short documentaries about nonprofit,
humanitarian organizations across the
continent. In 2013, the chosen destination
was Uganda. Cinematography student
Matthew Blake, who had been to Uganda
in high school, teamed up with classmates
Malina Fagan, Siede Kohl, Kristelle Laroche
and Ben Mullinkosson, and began searching for a good story.
The team decided to focus on the
plight of the Batwa, an indigenous people
that were displaced from the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in southwestern Uganda
when the land became a national park in
the early 1990s. The students arranged to
film the lives of one Batwa family as well as
the Batwa Experience, a program through
which the elder Batwas lead groups on a
forest trek to teach their traditional ways.
The journey serves as an essential cultural
education for the Batwa children, as well as
a learning experience for hardy tourists.
Sony had donated both an
American Cinematographer

NEXFS700U and an NEXFS100 camcorder
to Destination: Africa, and Blake's team was
able to use the NEXFS700U. The camera
features a Super 35mm CMOS sensor. "It
was easy to use and also had some really
helpful features, including the capability to
shoot 240 fps, and an internal ND filter,
which is great when you're in the field," he
says. "The camera proved to be a great tool
in capturing the peaceful beauty of both the
Batwa people and scenery." Blake brought
an array of Canon EF-mount zoom lenses
- 16-35mm, 24-70mm and 70-200mm,
all of them f2.8 - which the team also
used with a Canon EOS 60D DSLR. With
both cameras, the filmmakers recorded
internally to an SD card and captured the
footage at 1080p.
The lighting kit was almost nonexistent. "We had one LED panel, but we didn't
use it," says Blake. "We just had some disc
reflectors that are easily foldable and could
be put in a backpack." Shooting with
natural light proved challenging when full
sunlight made it difficult to balance darker
skin tones. The forest canopy, though,
created a more agreeable location.
Blake states how grateful he is to
have had two other talented shooters on
the team - Fagan and fellow Heritage
Award nominee Mullinkosson (nominated
for Pink Helmet Posse) - who both
contributed to the footage. Given the short

American Cinematographer - October 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - October 2014