American Cinematographer - March 2014 - 20

Top: A military tribunal hears the case against Andrew, who is accused of desertion following
a heavy shelling on the front line. Bottom: Murphy (right) and director David Roddham discuss
a shot in the trench.

of the B-camera days, and one of my first
ACs, Tony Kay, stepped up to operate the
other B-camera day while first AC Matt
Smith did a stellar job keeping everything
sharp," Murphy says.
At one point, Andrew, severely
dazed by the shelling and separated from
the rest of his company, stumbles away
from the battlefield, an action that leads to
his eventual court martial for desertion.
During his trial, Andrew stands before the
tribunal of four officers, who sit in near
silhouette; the officers were lit primarily by
12K Pars placed outside the location's three
windows. Murphy details, "I had double
nets on the curtains and a warming gel on
the lights. For the close-ups, I used a 575watt Fresnel, clean and right on the actor at
about a 45-degree angle. I also had some
20

March 2014

negative fill behind the camera."
Murphy maintained a shooting stop
between T5.6 and T8. In addition to 8573,
which he pull-processed one stop "to lower
the contrast and color saturation," he
employed Fujifilm Eterna Vivid 160 8543.
"The Vivid stock was processed normally,
and I only used it for one scene toward the
end of the movie, where I wanted a slightly
heightened emotional quality when the two
cousins have their last conversation," he
notes.
The scene finds James visiting
Andrew in a barn that's been converted into
a jail cell. "Because I wanted something
slightly more dramatic, I used harder light, a
575-watt Fresnel, on their faces," says
Murphy. "Again, it's sort of a throwback to
the David Lean era. Hard light isn't seen
American Cinematographer

much anymore, and it's something I miss."
The light in the barn is primarily motivated from a slatted window, outside of
which Murphy "mixed a 12K Cine Par and a
4K Mole Beam. I'm quite fond of mixing
hard and soft lights as if they're the same
source. It's something I did in some of the
other interiors, too; I would punch a large
HMI through a window and soften it, and
then mix in a Mole Beam to get a splash of
hot light hitting off the floor or the wall."
After the seven-day shoot in Hertfordshire, the production spent three days
filming in Ireland, where Murphy worked
with a local crew that included gaffer Niall
Mannion, key grip Richie Egan and 1st AC
Fionn Comerford. This work entailed
reshoots, pickups and the film's opening
sequence, in which Andrew and James
depart James' home to report for service.
"Our three days there were probably the
only three days of sun Ireland had that year,"
Murphy notes with a chuckle. "We were
lucky we got them, but because of the way
the buildings and trees were [situated] at our
location, the backlight was only working for
the background. So, for our coverage, we
brought in Cine Pars and Mole Beams to
[backlight] the actors as best we could."
Technicolor London processed the
production's negative and handled the final
digital grade. Murphy worked on the timing
with colorist Paul Ensby, who used a FilmLight Baselight for a final 2K DCP deliverable. Coward was the first time Murphy
collaborated with Ensby, whom the cinematographer describes as "a brilliant
colorist. Paul comes from a traditional
photochemical background, and he understood my desire to treat this as though it
were being photochemically timed. That
was a great starting point, and from there,
we took full advantage of the tools of the
DI, which helped us out with the weather
and let us highlight or shadow an eye or
two."
Regarding his and Roddham's classical visual approach, Murphy muses,
"Coward was a great success. I think there's
an audience for more of this kind of considered visual storytelling, and it's a style I'm
very excited to use on future projects."
To view Coward online, visit
www.vimeo.com/52220211.
●

http://www.vimeo.com/52220211

American Cinematographer - March 2014

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