Digital Video - February 2008 - (Page 34) Look writer-director Adam Rifkin (below). CANDID CAMERAS THE INDIE FEATURE LOOK PLAYS ON YOUR PARANOIA OF BEING TAPED IN PUBLIC. BY DOUGLAS BANKSTON T he things people do when they think no one is watching makes for good entertainment. With the proliferation of surveillance cameras, that “entertainment” can bring out the inner voyeur in all of us, and Look, written and directed by Adam Rifkin, does just that. The independent feature unveils secrets of a variety of characters through a series of interweaving stories that range from highly comedic to disturbingly dark. For Rifkin, inspiration for the movie came in the mail — in the form of a costly traffic-light violation accompanied by a picture of himself behind the wheel. (“I say it was yellow,” he maintains.) The fact that the authorities sent him his picture got the mental gears turning, and after in-depth research on the art of surveillance, Rifkin wrote the script for Look. The film was shot in its entirety over just three weeks, and the result is a compelling exposé of secrets and surveillance that was the jury prize winner at the 2007 CineVegas Film Festival. (It opened theatrically in December with a slow rollout release.) “Everybody is a bit of a voyeur,” Rifkin notes, “and I wanted to make the audience an accomplice to what was going on. I wanted to force them to look in on something that they knew they shouldn’t be watching. Hopefully, people are titillated by the voyeurism but also a little ashamed as they look at something that is none of their business.” Chicago-based cinematographer Ron Forsythe handled director of photography duties. Forsythe became involved in the dv february 2008 project having shot for producer Brad Wyman in the past. Wyman was responsible for getting Look in front of the eyes of executive producer Barry Schuler (formerly of AOL fame). Digital guru Scott Billups worked his magic as the visual effects supervisor and as an additional photographer when needed. The compact cast and crew rolled around Los Angeles in vans, employing with stealth tactics rivaling those used by some government agencies. “The whole project was liberating,” Rifkin says. “This was very guerrilla-style moviemaking. The crew was so small and the amount of equipment so small — we didn’t light any location. All we did was put the cameras in the places where actual surveillance cameras already were. A lot of times I wouldn’t even tell the actors where the cameras were — in most locations they were hidden.” The cameras of choice were Sony HDW-F900s and HDCF950s (of which the head and recording deck can be separated) with Fujinon HD zooms. “I knew what the capabilities of the cameras were,” Forsythe adds, “and I’m a menu junkie so I was inside the cameras tweaking them all the time. I was my own digital image technician. We were smart in picking locations that were lit in a certain way. And we knew what our capabilities were in post also. “I had an extensive sitdown with Scott [Billups] and learned what he knew about Magic Bullet and how to affect our post,” Forsythe continues. “I had never really sat down like that because I don’t have the patience to be a post guy. I learned enough to know what we would do in certain situations. We didn’t do a lot www.dv.com 34 http://www.dv.com
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