American Cinematographer - March 2016 - 26

True Peril
By Phil Rhodes

Set around the tourist village of
Geiranger at the head of a fjord in western
Norway, The Wave (known locally as
Bølgen) is a fictional tale that takes on a
catastrophe that is geologically certain to
actually occur, and possibly soon. The
collapse of a rock slope on a mountain
called Åkneset into the narrow waterway
will indeed create a wave capable of obliterating the town - with only 10 minutes'
warning - thus making this particular
onscreen spectacle even more affecting by
its genuine imminence.
The area is internationally recognized
for its natural beauty, and was listed as a
UNESCO World Heritage site in 2005. The
task of bringing this environment and its
terrifying power to the screen went to John
Christian Rosenlund, FNF. Rosenlund shot
his first feature - Fredrikssons Fabrikk -
The Movie, directed by Bo Hermansson
- at the age of 28, with subsequent credits
including both film and television. His first
encounter with The Wave director, Roar
Uthaug, was in 2012. "We did a film
together called Flukt [Escape]," Rosenlund
says. "The fun thing was that he's very
much the opposite of some other directors
I've worked for. I've mostly been [involved
with] art movies, and that's a totally different world. This type of disaster movie - it's
never been done in Norway before.
"When I heard about it, I thought,
'This can't be done for the budget they
26

March 2016

have,'" Rosenlund muses - though he
quickly steers the conversation toward solutions. "You have to be smart, efficient, few
shooting days, with no overtime."
The production's 39-day schedule
was split between the real-world Geiranger
location and MediaPro Studios outside
Bucharest, Romania. "Production designer
Lina Nordqvist refurbished a hotel by the
shore," Rosenlund explains. "We made the
entry close to the water to make it more
exciting. [Then we] made the interior in the
studio, because we needed to flood it with
water." The aftermath of the wave, which
required a more elaborate set and dressing,
was shot in the studio as well. "My gaffer
for many years [Calin Catalin] is from Romania, so he got to work with his local crew,
which was very nice."
Rosenlund shot with the Red Epic
Dragon, a choice that wasn't necessarily
automatic. "Normally," he says, "I shoot
Alexa, but I'm also super-pragmatic. The
Dragon, at that time, was just announced,
and the technical specifications for the
camera promised me one stop more light
than the Alexa. That was important for the
night shoot and the underwater scenes."
The Wave was shot using the camera's 5.5K
full-frame mode, recorded as Redcode 6:1
and cropped to the final 2.39:1 aspect ratio.
"I mostly used my own Arri/Fujinon
Alura 15.5-45mm and 30-80mm T2.8
zooms," says Rosenlund, regarding the
production's lens package. "They are very
practical because of their small size, and the
Lens Data System is good for visual effects.
American Cinematographer

They are not the sharpest lenses in town,
but they have a nice, soft quality that in my
experience [is best attained] if you oversample, shooting on a higher resolution than
your final cinema resolution. I also had a set
of [Arri/Zeiss] Master Prime lenses for the
low-light scenes. We recorded to the internal [RedMag] SSD 128- and 256GB cards
and did the backup on Synology DiskStation
DS3612xs with a 110 Gigabit Ethernet
connection."
The filmmakers had considered
anamorphic lenses, though as Rosenlund
explains, "money-wise and time-wise, I
would lose some f-stop, so I didn't do it."
He also notes that the decision to shoot
predominantly handheld "was mainly
because we wanted to get a feel that this is
real. Roar and I designed the visual style with
our limited budget in mind. He is very
precise when it comes to genre; he knows
exactly what he needs to visually enhance
the story. At the same time, he gives me a
lot of freedom. I think the mix of my earlier
documentary experience and his knowledge
of genre gave the project its visual
language."
The aspect ratio itself was an easy
choice, as Rosenlund explains: "People
[have to] feel that they are getting something back for paying for a ticket to the
cinema. One of the few unique things we
have left in the cinema is amazing sound
and a very big picture. Not many years ago,
I was asking, 'Is it necessary to go that
wide?' Now I'm asking, 'Is there any reason
not to go as wide as possible?' I want

Unit photography by Eirik Evjen, courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

With the collapse
of a rock slope
on a mountain
called Åkneset,
the citizens of
Geiranger,
Norway -
including
geologist Kristian
Eikjord
(Kristoffer Joner,
right) - have
only 10 minutes'
warning before
the town is
obliterated by a
tsunami in the
disaster film
The Wave.

American Cinematographer - March 2016

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