American Cinematographer - May 2010 - 14

Above: In Memoriam follows Jude (Michael Medino), a young writer who befriends an elderly Polish expatriate. Top right: Director of photography Garrett Shannon sets up a shot at a creek bed in Belden, Calif. Bottom right: The cast and crew rehearse a dolly move outside a cabin in Mineral, Calif.

and really bright highlights. There’s a nice moment when she is walking through the dark shadows of the bamboo trees; I had a highlight in the background that was probably 5 stops over, and shadows were 3-4 stops under. I put the exposure in the middle and let it go, and we got a beautiful shot without losing detail. I didn’t have to worry about containing or knocking down those bright highlights.” By the end of the film, the girl has taken her first steps toward finding her way in the world. “This is somewhat of a silly business to embark on unless it really means something to you,” Bakshi says of the film industry. “What was really meaningful to me about this story is the real struggle that this character undergoes. Each of us on the creative team connected with this girl on some level; we brought our life experiences to the project. In the story, we see how mankind is instinctively drawn to nature, and how we often get detached from our origins there. I think that’s a godly message.” Shannon’s winning entry, In Memoriam, was directed by Corey Todd Jones. The story follows a young writer (Michael Medino) as he attempts to fulfill the dying wish of a friend, an elderly Polish expatriate.
14 May 2010

Shannon and Jones envisioned a measured pace and a poetic, lyrical approach. For inspiration, they looked to Terrence Malick’s The New World (AC Jan. ’06) and Days of Heaven (AC June ’79). Location choices were considered as important as the right dialogue or blocking. “Locations played a key role in the film because they established the mood and guided the characters,” says Shannon. “For most of the movie, the main actor is alone, and we wanted his emotions to evolve with the background.” Those decisions played into other aspects of the visual strategy. “We opted to frame for 2.40:1 to incorporate wider landscapes as opposed to more vertical framing,” says Shannon. “We tried to match the setting’s colors and lighting with what the character was feeling. Because the film focuses so heavily on landscapes, we tried to use wider lenses on exterior scenes for both wide shots and close-ups, and that took a little getting used to. We wanted the backgrounds to be in focus; shooting Super 16 helped in terms of creating greater depth of field, but I also shot at a slower stop than I would normally use with that format.” Shannon used spherical Zeiss Superspeed lenses and an Arri 16SR-2. For day exteriors, he shot Kodak Vision2 50D 7201
American Cinematographer

In Memoriam photos by Patrick Jones and Nathalie Curtis, courtesy of Garrett Shannon.

or 250D 7205. In tungsten light, he used Vision2 200T 7217. In post, the images were transferred to HDCam on a Spirit Datacine at Matchframe Video. “We were looking for saturated but naturalistic colors, and we knew we wanted maximum latitude in the highlights because of the predominance of day-exterior locations,” says Shannon. “We had a lot of challenging locations, and the size, weight and 11-minute running time per 400-foot load were all selling points for the SR-2.” The cinematographer relied on judicious blocking and natural light in many of the exterior scenes. “Because we had a small crew and were shooting outdoors, Corey usually deferred to me when we were blocking,” says Shannon. “That enabled us to make best use of the sun. We agreed that the way the light looked was more important than strictly matching its angle.” ●

American Cinematographer - May 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - May 2010