American Cinematographer - November 2007 - (Page 14)

Milo and Andrew (Michael Caine) face off in the master bedroom. would normally have in an exhibition or club. I was also interested in a kind of architectural lighting that is only achievable by using LEDs.” He gathered all the LED lights he could find that would register on film and tested them, eventually deciding on RGB units from Color Kinetics, though they were so new that they had to be purchased rather than rented. Production designer Tim Harvey found ways to hide the lights in alcoves on the set, just as they would be hidden in a real building. The RGB LEDs were controlled from a DMX dimmer board and could generate four million different colors, allowing dramatic background changes in shot. These changes were matched to Caine’s actions with the PDA, giving the impression that Wyke manipulates his environment as part of his constant power play. “Actually, even though we had four million colors to play with, the three I liked best were red, green and blue,” says Zambarloukos. The film progresses from a bold blue wash at the beginning to a mix of blue and green for the middle section and then red for the final scene. “One of the things about these LED lights is they’re very directional,” he continues. “They’re meant for lighting up the sides of buildings, so they have something like a three-degree beam. We could change things in the background, but I wanted to be realistic; I didn’t want to do a blue film, I wanted a film where a wall could be blue or green but not a face.” For lighting faces, he and gaffer Julian White selected the new VistaBeams from Kino Flo. “I really like the VistaBeams,” Zambarloukos enthuses. “They’re DMX-mixable and seem to be a powerful fluorescent, almost like a 6K. We needed more than we could get, so used them in combination with Wall-O-Lites and Image 80s.” Though he wanted two dimmer boards to separate architectural and film lighting, the budget could accommodate one, which made for some complicated setups when it came to programming moving lights and patterns. “Daniel Lowe, my best boy, doubled up as a desk operator. We were shooting on one set, so it was possible.” Zambarloukos and Branagh agreed that widescreen would be the ideal format, so the cinematographer opted for Panavision Primo anamorphics on Platinum and XL cameras. “It’s a standoff film, almost like a Western,” he says, “and I believe you can shoot a film inside four walls like a Western, especially when it’s about two confrontational characters.” He used a wide range of focal lengths, from 35mm to 550mm, but tried to maintain one aperture setting. “I do have favorite lenses, but I really didn’t pay any attention to that on this film. I pretty much consistently worked at T4 no matter what; it’s just a good stop for anamorphic work. My 1st ACs, Hamish Doyle-Ditmas and Ashley Bond, were so experienced with ‘Scope that they allowed us to shoot confidently.” All interiors were shot on Kodak Vision2 500T 5218, while the exterior stocks were 50D 5201 and 250D 5205. Branagh rehearsed the actors in 14 November 2007

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - November 2007

American Cinematographer - November 2007 Contents Editor’s Note Global Village DVD Playback Production Slate Deconstructing Bob Dylan Honoring a Lost Friend Night Terrors Losing Control TV’s Top-Rated Short Takes Post Focus New Products & Services Points East International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up

American Cinematographer - November 2007

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