American Cinematographer - January 2020 - 48

Wages of Sin

Scorsese wanted to shoot nearly all of
the dialogue scenes with at least two simultaneous angles, one on each actor, and
sometimes a third angle to capture a twoshot at the same time as the close-ups.
Prieto accepted that these setups would be
"a big challenge lighting-wise," he says. "I
had to develop a lighting strategy to maintain the mood and atmosphere of the scene
while the cameras were facing the actors in
opposite directions. It was complicated to
light, but to capture all their emotions I think
it was well worth it; in the end, this movie
lives on those incredible performances.
"When we were using the 'threeheaded monster,'" the cinematographer
adds, "an additional challenge was that instead of three cameras for three angles, we
had nine cameras with the respective crew and gear! Each one of the three cameras
had to have a focus puller. [A-camera 1st AC] Trevor Loomis was head of the camera
assistants, and he managed the small army of ACs."
through square holes in the ceiling,
creating hot spots of white light in the
restaurant."
Perhaps no single setting offered
as many opportunities and challenges
as a banquet scene that found several of
the key characters assembled for a
signal event of October 1974, which
was billed as "Frank Sheeran
Appreciation Night" and celebrated at
a storied destination called the Latin

Casino, where Sinatra had done
shows. The production shot this in a
ballroom in Harlem.
Mindful of the significance of the
color red in previous Scorsese movies
- he particularly remembers a bloody
scene in a car trunk in the woods from
Goodfellas, as illuminated by brake
lights - Prieto sought to push the
metaphor by equipping the set with
red light sources. "Bob Shaw, our

Scorsese at the helm for a scene with De Niro and Pesci.
48

January 2020

American Cinematographer - 100 Years

production designer, was skeptical in
the beginning because he was afraid it
would not go well with the blue
curtains of his initial design," the cinematographer says, "but I shot a test
with a lamp with a red shade and then
augmented with red lighting to match
that color, and Marty liked it. So Bob
changed the curtains to gold and red,
and we went in that direction. The
concept was inspired by a banquet
scene in the movie Network in which
Owen Roizman [ASC] used red lampshades. To bathe the room in red light, I
used Arri SkyPanels with Chimeras.
"All around the perimeter we put
Birdies, miniature PAR cans, that we
actually see in frame," he continues.
"This mix of golden highlights from the
Birdies and the red ambient light from
the lamps became the lighting strategy
for those scenes. I also used two spotlights to light the speakers onstage and
to roam around the dancers when the
music plays."
Prieto points to a sequence in the
ballroom for which the spots were
particularly useful: when Frank's
daughter Peggy (Paquin) dances with
Hoffa. Peggy has seen her father have
an intense conversation with quietly
sinister mob boss Russell Bufalino
(Pesci) and fully realizes what her dad's
deadly trade has done to their relationship, as well as to his (not-always-soinnocent) victims.
"Peggy realizes that these guys

American Cinematographer - January 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 2020