American Cinematographer - February 2015 - 24

Multiple layers of diffusion were utilized to create soft, directional light on the actors' faces.

whomever to go to hell.'
He said, 'In Die's house, I want it to
be sunny all the time; I want it to be California light! In Kyla's house I want it to be
blue and dark and ugly, toned down. But in
Die's house I want it to be glittering and
shining and golden and yellow' - you
should know I hate yellow. Xavier wanted
this glam, pop, very bright visual. He said,
'This is my American film.'
Why did you decide to shoot
with 35mm negative?
Turpin: The decision to shoot film
was all Xavier. I have never shot a digital
feature, but I have shot 50 or 60 commercials digitally, with Alexa and Red. We shot
Mommy with Kodak [Vision2 50D] 5201,
24

February 2015

[Vision3 250D] 5207 and my all-time
favorite negative, [Vision3 500T] 5219. I
discovered it on Incendies, which I shot for
Denis Villeneuve. I shot Mommy with
Master Primes. Xavier often wanted shallow
depth of field, so we'd go to T1.3 for really
shallow depth of field.
The scenes are very dense, with
many different angles. How did you
define the découpage [shot breakdown]?
Turpin: Xavier has an extensive shot
list for most scenes. He covers a lot, but not
for protection. He needs each shot because
it says something.
Xavier doesn't hesitate about how
to shoot a scene. I know because we would
American Cinematographer

often spend the evening together at my
place, and I would watch him do the shot
list. I really learned a lot, watching his brain
flow while he was constructing his film,
writing on his script in the classic way. For
example, he'd write, 'Close-up of Kyla' and
draw a line in the script through the
dialogue. He was quite instinctive: 'I need a
shot for this,' 'I need a shot for that.' It all
came out very quickly. I would accompany
him and suggest little things, but I was not
doing the shot list at all. It's his vocabulary.
It's his thing.
What was your lighting
approach for Mommy?
Turpin: Mommy was shot almost
entirely on location, except for one reshoot
scene. I used one Arri M90 and three M40s
to simulate sunlight - I like the 9K and 4K
Pars because of their punch. Also, the
reflector in the back of the lamp has little
bubbles, which create little bubbly patterns
in the shadows when you use them as a
hard source; it's very different from Fresnel
or sun shadows.
I really like soft, directional light.
When I do want direct sunlight, I diffuse the
torso and face. I will never hit a face with
hard light, and I hate to feel the source on a
face, so my sources are highly diffused, with
two or three layers of diffusion spaced out,
the lighter one closer to the light and the
heavier one closest to the actor. My
colleague Yves Bélanger [CSC] calls me 'the
three-diffusion DP.' For diffusion I'll use
Muslin mostly; I'll always use the thickest I
can, unless there's not enough light.
I use Kino Flos, which are always
practical because they don't take a lot of
space. I will often use the Kinos for ¾ back,
a very soft rim light, or back sidelight that I
heavily diffuse.
I love Lekos, which I use with
[K5600] Joker-Bugs all the time. If I need to
light a face with punch, I will diffuse [a Leko]
through muslin. But mostly I bounce the
Joker Lekos on the ceiling and on the floor
to create little splashes of light. I love them
because you can cut them to control the
size and shape of the bounce light. When
you control the dimensions of the bounce,
it changes everything in the shadows;
you're not only giving more or less light, but
if you reduce the size of the bounce, the
light gets harder, and if you enlarge it, the

American Cinematographer - February 2015

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