American Cinematographer - February 2010 - 20

Mia’s escape from family pressure is hip-hop dancing, which she practices in an empty apartment in her housing project. major scenes were saved for the end of the shoot. “With a normal schedule, the ‘bigger’ or more technical scenes tend to be jumbled around, but shooting sequentially, you end up with a heavy section at the end because of the dramatic arc,” notes Ryan. “That dawned on me halfway through prep! It was fine, but we were a bit wrecked.” Ryan shot Fish Tank in 35mm using three Fuji film stocks, mainly Eterna Vivid 160 8543. Working with Hugh Whittaker at Panavision’s U.K. office, the cinematographer chose a Panaflex Millennium XL as his main camera because of its top-mounted mag, and because he and Arnold wanted to use Primo Close Focus lenses. “We used the whole range, wide and tight,” he notes. “There was a lot of ND filtering going on.” 20 February 2010 The film’s unusual 1.33:1 aspect ratio had several inspirations. Arnold recalls that when she supervised a 4x3 transfer of Red Road for television, she grew to like the intimacy of the frame. Also, she was smitten by Polaroid photos she’d seen in a recent exhibition at the Tate Modern (Street and Studio: An Urban History of Photography), and by Polaroids in Andrei Tarkovsky’s autobiographical collection and Barbara Hitchcock’s The Polaroid Book. When she and Ryan tested 35mm, 16mm and high-definition video for Fish Tank, Ryan shot the 35mm full-aperture, and when they viewed the tests at Soho Film Lab, “it looked lovely, very home-movie,” says Ryan. Arnold immediately decided 1.33:1 was “absolutely right” for Fish Tank: “It suited the small rooms; it was intimate and put American Cinematographer Mia very much in the center of the frame; and it made things feel a little more claustrophobic, which underscored Mia’s frustrations.” To achieve the 1.33:1 frame, the filmmakers had to forego the photochemical finish they originally intended and create the smaller frame digitally within the 1.85:1 frame. With colorist Rob Pizzey at Ascent 142 Features, Ryan strove to use the digitalintermediate process to create images that “were as close to the photochemical process as possible, warts and all,” he says. “Our first few weeks of rushes were heavier and more contrasty than what Rob was doing in his initial grade, so they became his reference.” Ultimately, Ryan was satisfied with what he was able to achieve in the DI. “I think the visuals are nice and honest, true to what we shot.” The cinematographer’s team on Fish Tank was documentary-size: three camera assistants, a gaffer and an electrician. He recalls, “The sparks and gaffer weren’t used that much; they were good, but they were always waiting for some mission to go on!” There was no grip. “Andrea bans tripods from her set,” Ryan continues. “On a shoot that’s completely handheld, you sort of need a grip even more, because you need someone to pass the camera to when you finish the shot — the Millennium is quite heavy! But they say if you don’t need a tripod, you don’t need a grip. Poor John Watters, my focus puller, often had to hold the camera for me.” Ryan eventually recruited a friend to be a grip trainee. “He

American Cinematographer - February 2010

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