American Cinematographer - January 2011 - 26

Above: David reluctantly takes a position at his father’s multimillion-dollar business. Right: Katie offers comfort as the stress of his job starts to take a toll.

suggest something a bit darker to the audience. We get more and more into night photography as the story gets darker.” During prep, Seresin did extensive testing at Technicolor New York, “more to show Andrew a few ideas for the look of the film,” he says. “Tech New York is family, and I love working with them.” Seresin tested the digital equivalent of Technicolor’s ENR process, but, he notes, “this was more of a guide for lighting contrast ratios, and reminded me of an approach rather than serving as a blueprint for the look of the film. I love the photochemical ENR process, which is hard to do these days. But the digital version is getting close.” (The final digital grade was done at Company 3 by colorist Matt Turner.) Apart from some home-movie footage, which was shot on Super 16mm,
26 January 2011

Seresin decided to shoot All Good Things on Kodak Vision3 500T 5219. “I love some of the older film stocks because you can get a sort of lovely patina — some call it grain — and I was tempted to try and find some older stock [for this movie], but I decided I preferred the challenge of working with a modern stock,” he observes. “I think so much of today’s film stock looks too perfect, too glossy, and I think we managed to get some of that patina in 5219. Somehow, it arrived. “I recently had a showing of Angel Heart on film, and it looks so different from the DVD,” he adds. “The digital transfer looks so slick, smooth and sharp. It’s missing that texture from the film stock.” The production’s camera package, provided by Panavision, comprised an Arricam Studio and Lite and a backup
American Cinematographer

Moviecam Compact. For the home-movie footage, Seresin used a Bolex H-16 Rex-5 “and mostly a 10mm Switar lens. That seemed truer and more appropriate than shooting 35mm and degrading it in post. “Cameras are not a big deal to me,” Seresin continues. “I like the new Arris, but to be dead honest, if I had a chip in my head and could just imagine the picture and then download it, I would. I’m not the world’s most technical cinematographer!” Lenses are another matter, however. “I have a set of Cooke S4 primes and Cooke zooms that follow me everywhere. They came out of JDC [Joe Dunton Co.]. Joe is a technical genius and a great friend, and I’ve used his spherical and anamorphic lenses on pretty much every movie I’ve done.” On All Good Things , Seresin used a full set of S4s and the Cooke 18-100mm zoom. Although the shoot took place in Connecticut and New York, Seresin was able to bring Peter Bloor, his longtime gaffer in Great Britain, aboard as the lighting consultant. “Peter and I first worked together on Midnight Express when he was just an electrician,” notes the cinematographer. “I finally persuaded him to work as a gaffer, and we’ve done more than a dozen movies together.” Seresin has high praise for the rest of the crew, which included Acamera/Steadicam operator Gerard Sava, Acamera 1st AC Stanley Fernandez, B-camera operator Tom Weston and B-camera 1st AC Paul Colangelo, all out of New York. “I am tough on a crew, and they were brilliant,” says Seresin. “We had a lot of handheld and Steadicam work, and a lot of location work. Some days we had two [company] moves, so you end up working at the speed of your slowest truck. We were filming at a time when everyone was taking advantage of New York’s tax breaks, so we were lucky to get such a great team.” Bloor agrees, adding, “We worked some incredible hours, and the crew never moaned or groaned; we just all got on with it.” Connecticut stood in for much of the New York photography, with a large, vacant house standing in for three different locations: David and Katie’s Manhattan apartment, Sanford Marks’ stately home, and the den where David practices “scream therapy.” Of the latter room, Seresin recalls, “There was a crazy quality to the design of the ceil-

American Cinematographer - January 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 2011