American Cinematographer - October 2015 - 26

Complex Procedures
By Phil Rhodes

"Critical was always conceived of
as a show that would not hold back on
anything at all," says cinematographer
Tim Palmer, BSC. He speaks of a series
that is widely described as a medical
drama, although the production exhibits
an almost documentarian interest in its
depiction of medical procedures. Furthermore, the production schedule for the
13-episode first season was far from
conventional. When the cameras began
to roll in February 2014, Palmer says,
"nobody quite knew how long it was
going to take. The producers knew they
had to finish filming 13 episodes by the
middle of October, and that we'd fill in
the time accordingly."
Palmer's background includes
work on a wide variety of popular British
series, including episodes of Doctor Who,
Silent Witness, Life on Mars, Hustle and
Wire in the Blood. Prior to his motionpicture work, he recalls, "I started out as
a stills photographer in the late Eighties."
His move toward cinematography took
him through the National Film and Television School at Beaconsfield Studios and a
series of jobs as a camera trainee, including Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream
26

October 2015

That One Calls Human Life, which was
photographed by Nic Knowland, BSC.
"I owe so much to Nic," says
Palmer. "He gave me my first break as a
clapper loader. He was shooting a bigbudget TV drama in Africa called The
Dying of the Light and had to use a lot of
local crew. It was not working out, and
one evening I received a call asking if I
could get on a plane to Ghana, and that
was that."
Palmer's involvement with Critical
began early. "Graciously, the producers
brought me on board at a very early date
- I was involved from mid-November
[2013]. Long before the sets went up, we
were having discussions with the production and set designers about the extensive use of built-in LED lighting and how
it would be incorporated into the set. It
was a groundbreaking show in terms of
its reliance on LEDs to light such a large
portion of the set."
U.K. vendor LED Flex supplied RGB
color-mixing light strips, which worked in
conjunction with color-mixing Fresnels.
"The set was color-coded," explains
Palmer, who worked with gaffer Chris
Bird. "The resuscitation department was
blue, the O.R. was green and the CT
room was red." While Palmer used Arri's
VersaTile LED panels - in their cooler
American Cinematographer

5,000K incarnation - much of the practical lighting built into the set was more
prosaic. "All the ceiling panels were
dimmable LEDs," the cinematographer
notes. "They were not LED panels
designed for film, specifically; they were
just commercial industrial units from a
supplier that kits out office buildings, but
that particular supplier happened to have
the best CRI in the industry.
"Up in the grid there were about
50 Arri L7-C [Fresnels]," Palmer continues. "For complex tracking shots when
the camera had to revolve around the
characters, the L7s could be programmed
so that a block or run of lamps could fade
off and their opposites could come up on
multiple cues, so that the actors remained
backlit at all times. It was very liberating to
have such quick control over lamp color
and exposure. This, in turn, enabled us to
be even more creative with lighting."
Weather and the time of day were
written into the script, allowing each of
the one-hour episodes variability in the
depiction of exterior light. "We shot
episode two first," Palmer recalls. "It
looks good, but from my point of view it's
the flattest. The learning curve was steep,
and I realized that letting the practical
lighting drive the look, though making
the sets very easy to shoot, resulted in not

Critical photos by John Rogers, courtesy of Hat Trick Productions. Additional images courtesy of Tim Palmer, BSC.

Dr. Glen Boyle
(Lennie James)
suits up to save
a patient in the
medical drama
Critical.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - October 2015