American Cinematographer - March 2012 - 33

initially feel relatively similar to the first series, and then, as the war starts to filter in, we wanted to strip away the veneer of grandeur before restoring it for the later episodes.” It was not Struthers who shot the two episodes for which this cooler look was intended, but David Marsh. (A third cinematographer, Nigel Willoughby, BSC, was on second unit and also shot the finale, which aired in the U.K. as a Christmas special.) Marsh had shot a couple of episodes in the first series and was able to share his experiences with Struthers. “It was very collaborative,” says Marsh. “Gavin and I agreed that the general feeling for my episodes would be much busier and bleaker. The woman who owns Highclere told us that the house really had been used as a convalescent home in World War I, so it was exciting to recreate something that had actually occurred in that place.” Scenes set in the trenches on the Western Front were limited in number, but Struthers relished the opportunity to do something different and gave a lot of thought to his approach. “We wanted a look that would feel horrific but also sit in the world of Downton, so I spent quite a while grading stills in Photoshop [for the colorist’s reference]. We ended up with a yellowy-khaki feel, but with a coldness, a tiny bit of blue in the blacks.” The camerawork had to put the audience on the battlefield and also achieve continuity between exteriors and bunker scenes. “I came up with a rough design and asked one of my camera assistants, Scott Rodgers, to create what we called a ‘Wobbleator,’ which was basically a motorized, rotating weight,” says Struthers. “We put them on both cameras, and whenever an explosion went off, a little button was pressed that made the camera wobble so the operator had to fight to control the frame. It’s quite an old trick, but that judder at the moment of an explosion really helped to sell the experience of being in the trenches.” — Mark Hope-Jones

Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) wrangles a zombie in a scene from The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead Cinematographers: David Boyd, ASC and Rohn Schmidt On the surface, AMC’s The Walking Dead seems like zombie apocalypse stories we’ve seen before: a small, scrappy group of survivors, in this case led by small-town sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), struggles through the aftermath of a mysterious worldwide pandemic that causes the dead to rise as “walkers.” At the heart of the rotting flesh and pulpy horror is a story about the strength of the human spirit, and series cinematographer David Boyd, ASC believes that’s the key to the franchise’s success. “My interest in The Walking Dead lies in seeing how the human spirit responds to a brave, new world — how we all adapt to weather the times,” he says. The show’s pilot was shot in and around Atlanta, GA, by David Tattersall, BSC; Boyd shot the first season as well as some of the second, which were also based in Atlanta. Boyd theorizes that his work on NBC’s Friday Night Lights helped him land the job; he shot that show in Super 16mm with multiple cameras, and The Walking Dead’s original showrunner, Frank Darabont, wanted the same thing.
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The Walking Dead uses Panavised Arri 416 cameras, rented from Panavision offices in Dallas and Atlanta, and mainly two Kodak Vision3 negatives, 250D 7207 (for most day exteriors) and 500T 7219 (for most interiors and night work). “Shooting 16mm was a fantastic choice in terms of what it enables us to achieve, and the pace of the shoot is a perfect fit for the Arri 416,” says Boyd. “The camera is small and light; it moves fast; it’s totally selfcontained; and it can handle all the accessories that are necessary for a good photographic outcome. “With a Canon 10.6-180mm zoom on each body, we can move these cameras around freely at no cost in terms of production time, even between takes,” he continues. “The compulsory shots can be accomplished with speed, leaving time to do the unique shots that help make the show visually interesting. The production benefits greatly from the ease of use the 416s give us. Shooting 16mm easily buys us an hour-and-a-half a day in production time, maybe more, compared to any other format.” As part of his prep for the series, Boyd delved into the comic books that inspired the show. “The illustrations convey what the characters are thinking as well as what they’re saying,” he notes. “My goal was to construct a method of shooting that would do justice to some
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American Cinematographer - March 2012

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