American Cinematographer - June 2010 - 41

fierce or as low as we wanted.” A menu of gels that Martin and Mathieson selected in advance helped create unique looks for different times of day and night on the interior sets. Blue gels in windows were often combined with warm gels inside to create contrast between interior and exterior light. Mathieson notes, “You can mix color temperatures in the frame more now, especially because of the control you have in the DI. That said, I did try to gel [lights] and shoot as though we’d be doing a photochemical finish, because if you expose the negative properly with the right colors at the right temperatures, you get a head start on the final timing.” Though he used many different gels, Mathieson avoided putting filters in front of the cameras whenever he could. “I’m always putting lights really close to the edges [of the frame], so if you put a piece of glass in front of the lens, you’re basically pushing the lens element forward, and you can get more flares. Also, with nine

cameras, you’re not going to stop and say, ‘Let’s all change filters!’” Scheduling conflicts prevented Mathieson from participating in most of the digital grade, so Nakamura worked with Scott instead. Several looks had been created when the visual-effects plates were graded, so Nakamura had a reference for the majority of scenes. Color correction was done on a DaVinci Resolve using 2K proxies; the final filmout was at 4K. “We tested a 2K filmout and a 4K filmout with the same grade to show Ridley how they looked, and he preferred the grain structure of the 4K version,” recalls Nakamura. Mathieson joined Nakamura for an intense few days toward the end of the grade. “I spent what time I could with it, and then I had to let it go, and that was fine,” says the cinematographer. “I think a lot of films look the same these days because there’s too much fiddling around in the DI. A scene might be slightly underexposed

or overexposed, and if you leave it the way it is, there’s a visual rhythm when all the scenes are cut together. If you fiddle with every frame in every single scene, there’s no journey in the film photographically.” ●

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American Cinematographer - June 2010

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