American Cinematographer - June 2015 - 26

TECHNICAL SPECS
1.78:1
Digital Capture
Arri Alexa Classic
Panavision Primo, Flare
26

June 2015

In the countryside of 19th-century England, free-spirited Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan) is
pursued by three different men, including sheep farmer Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), in
the film adaptation of Thomas Hardy's novel Far From the Madding Crowd.

Pastoral Romance
By Jean Oppenheimer

Writing about 19th-century British
rural life, English novelist Thomas Hardy
became famous for drawing a link between
his characters and the physical environments in which they lived. Adapted from
Hardy's novel of the same name, the feature
Far From the Madding Crowd relates the
story of Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan), an outspoken, sometimes haughty
free spirit, and the three very different men
who pursue her: Gabriel Oak (Matthias
Schoenaerts), a hard-working, principled
sheep farmer; William Boldwood (Michael
Sheen), an older, prosperous landowner;
and Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge), a dashing
but callous soldier. Bathsheba's impulsiveness and naiveté have dire consequences
for all.
One of the first things that struck
Danish-born cinematographer Charlotte
Bruus Christensen when she read the book
was that Hardy depicted landscape with the
same degree of intimacy and attention to
detail as he did the human face. "The book
is page after page of these amazing descriptions," she marvels, speaking to AC from
her home outside Copenhagen. "And they
are very specific and earthy, whether Hardy
is describing Gabriel's weather-beaten face
or the region's topography. I kept the book
American Cinematographer

by my side throughout the shoot."
The picture marks the third feature
collaboration between Christensen and her
fellow countryman, director Thomas Vinterberg, following Submarino and The Hunt
(AC Aug. '13). The pair campaigned hard to
shoot Far From the Madding Crowd on film.
"Thomas and I both felt that the texture of
film was [essential to capturing] Hardy's
descriptions," notes Christensen, who operated the A camera on the primarily singlecamera production. All four Kodak Vision3
color stocks still being manufactured were
employed: 50D 5203, 250D 5207, 200T
5213 and 500T 5219.
The film was processed at iDailies in
London, and the 2K digital grade was
handled at Company 3 with colorist Adam
Inglis, who worked with Blackmagic
Design's DaVinci Resolve. Panavision
London provided the camera package: two
Panaflex Millenniums, plus an Arriflex 235
for one day; a set of Panavision Primo
primes; a 300mm T2 Nikon Nikkor; a 40mm
Ultra Speed; and a 17.5-75mm T2.3 and
24-275mm T2.8 Primo zoom. Christensen
tested anamorphic lenses and the Cooke
Panchros she had used on The Hunt, but
she says she "fell in love with the Primos"
due to the richness and consistency of their
color rendition throughout the range.
Shot entirely on practical locations -
primarily in the southwestern region of

Unit photography by Alex Bailey, courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

to open the camera's shutter angle. He
points to the scene in which Smith sings for
a crowd in a big tent show. The set decorators had hung strands of period lightbulbs
across the tent interior; rigging gaffer Tom
Fendley and his crew mounted 1K Par cans
to the tent poles and focused them at the
performance end of the tent, and bounced
Source Fours into the tent walls and ceiling
for fill. Even so, Jur recalls, "it was so dark it
didn't even register on my light meter. I
opened up the shutter to 358 degrees,
which is the maximum for that camera. I
don't notice the motion blur that some
people talk about, but it definitely is a
longer exposure - 1⁄24 of a second as
opposed to 1⁄48."
Jur kept an eye on things and
remained on set with a separate 17" monitor connected to a cart manned by digitalimaging technician Stuart Huggins. "I like to
improvise a bit when working, feeling the
colors and look of a particular location, and
the DIT allows me to react to that, like jazz,"
the cinematographer enthuses.
"Without the use of live color-grading tools on set - including a calibrated
Sony OLED monitor and a Leader waveform
monitor - we would not have been able to
emulate the muted tones used throughout," Huggins adds. "It would have also
been difficult to see the full potential of the
performance scenes without these same
tools and a base LUT and CDL combination."
Bessie's color grade was performed
at Deluxe New York, with initial sessions led
by color timer Pankaj Bajpai - who had
previously worked with Jur on Carnivàle -
and final work performed by Sofie Friis
Borup. Jur and Bajpai developed a LUT to
finesse the image's texture, saturation and
contrast. "It's very photographic and feels of
the period," says Jur. "It was something we
just couldn't get in the camera. Ansel
Adams said the negative is the score and
the print is the performance. I think that's
especially true of our film."

American Cinematographer - June 2015

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