American Cinematographer - January 2015 - K9

handheld work, Naylor opted
for an older, lighter weight,
non-Panavised ARRI SR-3 and
a set of ZEISS Superspeed
MK1 lenses.
Night interiors were fi lmed
with KODAK VISION3 500T
Color Negative Film 7219. "I'd
rather start with as clean an
image as possible," Naylor
says. "I told them we could
always boost the grain in
post, and Chris actually had
us boost the grain more. I
thought that was a good
move because we got a
look that would be hard
to emulate digitally. What
I like about fi lm grain -
as opposed to the fi xed
position of a pixel - is
that the placement of fi lm
grain is random and has an
agitation to it, so that even
if an image is static it still
feels alive."
Naylor rated the 500T
Film at 320 EI. "I start with
a nice meaty base," he says.
"I overexposed it just a little
bit - a habit I adopted from
when I was shooting Super
"Film is this tangible
thing that hands have to
touch. It's so imperfect yet
incomparably pure."
production day-played some
MaxiBrutes with half CTB
and 1/8 Plus Green to light
up a lake shore at night. "It's a
shot that captures the whole
bacchanal of the situation
- running off into the lake
naked," he explains. "I'm from
Michigan and everything is
about lakes. That captured that
whole vibe for me."
Powering the MaxiBrutes
became an issue. "We did
blow the power grid for half
of the lake shore, and we
caused a small blackout," he
says. "Petoskey Electric came
out, and we had to shuffl e our
cable runs."
Super 8mm fi lm stock
also plays an important role,
showing a more subjective
perspective of the characters'
emotional states. Even fi lm
rollouts were part of the
movie's aesthetic, becoming
more frequent as the movie
progresses and the characters
become unhinged. Pro8mm in
Burbank, California, provided
the Super 8 camera and
Pro8/19 stock (cut down
KODAK VISION3 500T Color
Negative Film). That fi lm stock
actually was too sharp for the
16 back in the day and wanted
to blow it up."
Shot mostly in a log cabin
by Walloon Lake in Petoskey,
Michigan, Lowell wanted an
almost documentary, unlit feel
to the movie. Notes Naylor,
"Ninety percent of the fi lm is
handheld, and night interiors
were lit mostly with China
balls, covered wagons and
small units."
Day interior scenes were
shot with KODAK VISION3
250D Color Negative
Film 7207. "At most we
were pumping 1.8K HMIs
through the windows," the
cinematographer says, adding
that he rated the stock at 200
EI. Naylor also had 1.2K and
2.5K Par HMIs available on the
sole 5-ton grip truck.
A few scenes necessitated
larger lighting units. The
fi lmmakers' liking, so again
more grain was introduced
in post.
Naylor says the fi lm was
"pretty standard" in terms of
the type of production, but
being handheld for a majority
of it provided the documentary
energy Lowell sought. "It kept
us mobile," Naylor explains.
"It allowed us to get a lot of
coverage quickly. And it didn't
make things so precious."
On such a tight
schedule and budget,
the fi lmmakers had
to be judicious with
their shooting ratio,
something that could
easily balloon on
a dialogue-heavy,
character-driven fi lm.
"I think what helped
was Chris hired
nothing but pro actors
and spent a week with
them rehearsing,"
Naylor says. "Everyone
appreciated the
discipline fi lm brings,
so when it came time
to shoot, we usually
did two or three takes
and moved on. That created a
real focus with cast and crew,
and it shows on screen."
The fi lm negative was
developed and transferred
by Deluxe to a 2K master in
ProRes 444 in C-Log color
space.
Says producer Mohit
Narang, "Really the only
issue we had with processing
was that we couldn't pay for
expedited shipping, so instead
of dailies we basically were
getting weeklies. But shooting
on fi lm really refl ected on
the character in the movie in
every way we intended, and
it has been very well received
visually."
Colorist Doug Delaney
handled the color grade. "Doug
was amazing," Naylor recalls.
"We needed somebody who
was really fast and he fl ew
right through it. We got done
in six days what would have
taken most people two weeks."
"Film is this tangible thing
that hands have to touch,"
adds Lowell. "It's so imperfect
yet incomparably pure."
Photos: Left page: On location for Beside
Still Waters. Center: (R-L) Beck Bennett
and Reid Scott. Right page: Director Chris
Lowell.
American Cinematographer - January 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 2015
