American Cinematographer - May 2011 - 56

◗

First Dance

centerpiece. “We bounced Dedolights into the fountain,” says English, “and we also brought in a bunch of 150-watt waterproof garden lights that we gelled with Full Straw and ND. The fountain had a copper-tile surface, and we bounced two 300-watt Arri Fresnels and two Peppers with 200-watt FEV bulbs off it to produce shimmering light on the kids’ faces.” “For a lot of the night scenes, we rated the Alexa at 500 ISO for more shadow detail,” says McDonald. “In a couple of instances, we went to 800 to make a shot; that added some image noise, but it was a pleasing, film-grain sort of noise. For day scenes, we kept the camera at 320 ISO, which seemed to give us the best-looking skin tones.” As Jesse and Nova complete their Top: Nussbaum directs Cameron Monaghan (left) and Nolan Sotillo (center). For scenes set in hallways and classrooms, Shah says, “we swapped out the overhead fluorescents for daylight-balanced work, the film transitions to the night Kino tubes.” Bottom: Lloyd (Nicholas Braun) talks with Besty (Allie Trimm) in the library. Shooting of the prom. “We lit the prom scene with Arri’s Alexa digital camera, Shah never shied away from extreme highlights. “The Alexa holds with 56 Pars and 19-degree Source hot windows really well,” he says. Fours rigged over the tables,” says English. “We dressed practical table lamps with 216 diffusion gel in glass cylinders and put two Jokers and Source Fours gelled with 1⁄4 CTB on a mirror ball over the dance floor.” During the dance, the filmmakers also made judicious use of a 25' Technocrane and a Steadicam. At the beginning of the shoot, Shah and Nussbaum screened a selection of dailies at 2K resolution on a big screen in a Pablo suite at FotoKem, using a custom-designed film-emulation LUT. “We didn’t film out any dailies,” notes Shah. “Once we got going, we had Internet dailies via the Pix network.” “In the dailies, I was surprised to see a big difference in resolution hard sun, and used a few Jokers with our ubiquitous Chinese lantern fitted between our prime and zoom lenses,” Source Four attachments for extra with a 500-watt ECT. We also dressed he says. “Like a lot of digital cameras, splashes of sunlight. the art room with lots of practical lamps the Alexa still needs that extra snap that “Scenes progress in this room on hand-squeeze dimmers to play as primes give on the big screen. That was from a bright day to a bluish twilight,” warm and inviting as antagonism fine with me, because we would have continues the cinematographer. “We between the two characters gives way to used primes for almost the whole show, bounced four HMIs [two 18Ks and romance. We did a lot of long, handanyway.” two 12Ks] into a row of 12-by-12 held takes to emphasize their changing FotoKem’s involvement in Prom Ultrabounce frames for skylight emotions.” began early in prep, with the help of through the high windows, and then Nova and Jesse create a giant, Tom Vice, manager and vice president used a tungsten key light inside with functional fountain for the prom’s of FotoKem’s NextLab. “We’ve had a
56 May 2011 American Cinematographer

American Cinematographer - May 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - May 2011