American Cinematographer - January 2015 - 28

the desk, while a soft box might provide
additional ambient light.
Period fluorescents also hung in
these settings, including Hut 11, where
the hulking code-breaking computer
stood. "The art department sold the
fluorescents very well, using an ugly
fitting rather than the sleek fittings we
have now," says King. "But the units
were very, very old and had to be
completely rewired to work." Faura
wanted the dual-tube fluorescents
rigged to act independently - an important time-saver. "Rather than having two
tubes on all the time, he had the ability
to go to one tube, which you don't get
with a normal fluorescent," King notes.
While Hut 8 was a studio build,
28

January 2015

which allowed 20K Fresnels to push
daylight through the windows and Kino
Flo VistaBeam 610s to be positioned on
stands, Bletchley pub was original. In this
and other historic locations, Faura's team
had to honor museum-level restrictions
against touching walls with rigging or
metalwork.
For the three major scenes in the
Bletchley bar, "we decided to use an
array of Chinese lanterns hanging from a
camouflaged rig," says Faura. "The rest
of the lights were tungsten-balanced
fluorescents on stands." King adds, "A
big warm glow would be in the middle,
then on the outskirts of the set there
would be small 300-watt Arri backlights,
just to pick out bits and pieces."
American Cinematographer

TECHNICAL SPECS
2.40:1
3- and 4-perf 35mm
Arricam ST, LT, 435
Arri/Zeiss Master Primes
Kodak Vision3 500T 5219, 250D 5207
Digital Intermediate

Top photo courtesy of Óscar Faura.

Top: The crew positions lights outside. Bottom: Director Morten Tyldum on the set for Hut 8.

In other instances, Faura had to
rely entirely on period practicals. Such
was the case in the MI6 room where
Turing tested potential recruits with a
crossword puzzle. The practical location
was "impossible," in the director's estimation, since it had no windows and a
central pillar. "When Oscar saw it for the
first time, he just went pale," says
Tyldum. "When Keira first enters, it's a
big scene with 30 extras. The only way to
light it was with hanging practicals and
desk lamps."
Color timing was done at
Company 3 in Los Angeles, where Faura
worked with colorist and ASC associate
Stefan Sonnenfeld. The negative was
scanned at 2K resolution with an
Arriscan, and the digital grade was
conducted using Blackmagic Design's
DaVinci Resolve 10, powered by Linux
boxes. An Arrilaser was used for the 2K
filmout.
"This is a period piece shot on
film, so while we did do a significant
amount of work on certain portions, it
was designed to feel as though it could
have been done photochemically," says
Sonnenfeld. "I worked closely with Óscar
to add little accents and subtly highlight
portions of quite a few shots. The underlying idea was to ensure that we were
doing the kinds of things he could have
done on set but didn't have time for, like
setting more flags and adding a few
more lights. Overall, we slightly desaturated the look to be more subdued than
color is in most movies these days, and
then we went a bit further, softening and
desaturating the flashbacks."
Bringing Turing's story to the
wider public made The Imitation Game
"a very special experience," says Faura.
"I'm proud to have been part of the film,
and to have contributed to the memory
of Alan Turing."

American Cinematographer - January 2015

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