American Cinematographer - April 2016 - 14

Short Takes

Shot in the Dark
By Matt Mulcahey

"When night falls in the desert, it becomes almost an entirely
new world," says California artist Eric Merrell in the documentary
short Nocturnes. "My goal with painting is to try and capture the
feeling and experience of being in the desert rather than just replicating the location itself." The same can be said of Nocturnes, a
mood piece produced for the Los Angeles Review of Books that
follows Merrell into Joshua Tree National Park as he crafts his abstract
desertscapes by moonlight.
Director Alec Ernest first became aware of Merrell's nocturnal
painting habits from the artist's brother Jesse Merrell, a graphic
designer with whom Ernest previously worked on several productions. The notion of shooting in the desert at night immediately
appealed to Ernest. "I love Joshua Tree," he says. "It's one of the
most beautiful places I've ever been. I'm always the guy who wants
to go on a night hike there. So in that respect, Eric and I have a lot
in common."
Capturing Merrell at work with nothing but moonlight to
expose the image posed a technical quandary. Ernest discussed the
challenge with Nocturnes colorist Brandon Chavez, who proposed a
solution: Sony's a7S, a 12-megapixel mirrorless stills/video camera
with a full-frame sensor known for its uncanny performance in low
light. "A friend of mine owns an a7S, and he had just shown me
some things he shot on a trip to Vietnam," Chavez recalls. "Every14

April 2016

thing was shot in completely natural light, and the [images shot] at
night looked really interesting."
Nocturnes cinematographer Ryan Carmody, however, was
skeptical. "I couldn't even remember the last time I had used a [stills
camera] for video," he says. "I was definitely a little leery."
Before committing to the a7S, Carmody wanted to shoot
tests to determine the camera's boundaries. Los Angeles-based
rental and production house Stray Angel Films provided the camera,
a set of Canon L-series lenses, and all the accessories needed to turn
the pint-sized a7S into an ergonomically practical video camera -
including a Movcam Cage and top handle, an IDX V-Mount batteryadapter plate, and an Arri Mini Follow Focus.
Hoping to escape the luminance of Los Angeles and replicate
the conditions of the desert, Carmody headed up the Pacific Coast
Highway to Malibu. With Jesse Merrell standing in to provide a skintone reference, Carmody sampled the camera's ISO options all the
way up to the maximum of 409,600. "We were pushing the camera
to see how far we could take it, and I think we were all very
surprised," the cinematographer notes. "Then I gave the footage to
Brandon so he could color it and determine how much noise reduction we could put on the footage and how much he could lift the
blacks."
After consulting with Chavez, Carmody settled on 12,800
ISO as the camera's night-exterior "sweet spot." To reach that sweet
spot, the shoot was scheduled on a weekend with a full moon, and
the a7S was outfitted with a PL mount in order to shoot at T1.3 with

American Cinematographer

All images courtesy of the filmmakers.

California artist Eric Merrell crafts abstract desertscapes by moonlight in Joshua Tree National Park in the documentary short Nocturnes.

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