American Cinematographer - November 2007 - (Page 63)

ematographer Jo Willems (Hard Candy; AC May ’05) and director David Slade. Willems notes that some creative license was taken with the big-screen adaptation: “For dramatic purposes, the period of constant darkness was shortened to one month — in reality, it’s 68 days, two short of our shooting schedule. Also, the population of Barrow is around 4,000, but in our film it’s more like 150.” Despite these differences, Slade’s chief concern was that the town and people appear completely believable. “David and I agreed that if the audience feels these horrifically scary things are happening to real people in an actual environment, it’s a much stronger experience,” says Willems. “We did not want the typical smoke and shafts of lights to create theatrical horror; we wanted it much more realistic.” Given that most of the action is set at night, Willems’ choice of stock, Kodak’s Vision2 200T 5217, raised a few eyebrows. He explains: “I wanted to shoot most of the film on 200 ASA negative because it has much more tonal range and richness than 500 ASA. Also, a lot of the action takes place on snow, at night. Everything needed to look as if lit by moonlight. Because of the light tone of snow, I exposed the snow two stops under and rated the film at 800 ASA, or otherwise everything looked like daylight. 5217 gave a phenomenal richness to the images, with fantastic detail and resolution. Even when conditions were very dark, it never went grainy. It was important to us to capture the fundamental look of the film on the negative, rather than rely on the digital-intermediate [DI] process to create the desired effect.” Willems’ technique utilized the toe of the negative’s curve, creating lower-contrast images. “A denser negative, when printed down, would have resulted in deep blacks, which was too slick a look for this film,” he says. “I prefer the blacks to have a sense of softness Photos courtesy of Columbia Pictures; additional photos and frame grabs courtesy of Jo Willems. without being flat. I wanted a certain openness to the film rather than being densely dark.” Another key element of the picture’s look was compressing the contrast ratio in production and costume design. “We had a combina- Opposite: When Barrow, Alaska, is plunged into a month-long darkness, Arvin (Andrew Stehlin) and a horde of hungry vampires begin to feed on the townsfolk in 30 Days of Night. This page,left: Arvin confronts local resident Denise (Amber Sainsbury) and Sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett). Below: Cinematographer Jo Willems says he and director David Slade strove to lend a sense of realism to the movie’s fantastic events: “David and I agreed that if the audience feels these horrifically scary things are happening to real people in an actual environment, it’s a much stronger experience.” American Cinematographer 63

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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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