American Cinematographer - July 2010 - 17

digital-imaging technician, and I don’t have to with this camera; [we used it with] an onboard digital recorder that helps keep the camera self-contained.” The Camera House in North Hollywood supplied the new camera package, which includes two D-21s, three zoom lenses for each camera — an Angenieux Optimo 24290mm, an Optimo 15-40mm and an Optimo 17-80mm — and a full set of Cooke S4 primes. Gallagher, too, quickly became a fan of the D-21. “I’d use it again in a second,” enthuses the cinematographer, whose previous credits include the series Deadwood and John From Cincinnati. But one wrinkle had to be ironed out. Gallagher explains, “The D-21 has a base sensitivity of 200 ASA, and lighting for that wasn’t practical for us. We went to our colorist at Encore Hollywood, Pankaj Bajpai, who suggested applying a 400ASA LUT. We set our meters as if for 400 ASA and lit interior scenes accordingly, but the camera recorded at 200 ASA. For exteriors, Pankaj could apply either a 200-ASA LUT or the 400-ASA one. “With the 400-ASA LUT, I used a touch more fill to keep the blacks rich,” adds Gallagher. Both cinematographers regularly shoot with a 1⁄4 Schneider Black Frost filter on the lens, “primarily to take the edge off of shooting digital,” he adds. When filming women, both cinematographers occasionally employed a Mitchell A filter. The switch to the D-21 also required an adjustment to the night look used in season one, which relied on the use of Heavy Amber gels. With digital capture, the warm orange became a more unflattering hue, so Gallagher and Sidell switched to Golden Amber, which the D21 renders as a warm hue similar to the first-season look. A favorite lighting setup this season was in a huge warehouse, the meeting place of an underground fight club. “It was a massive space,” Gallagher says of the location. Inside the warehouse, a circle of cars surrounded two combatants, with headlights and fog lights providing a key source that the crew augmented with Par 64s. Gallagher added color with the fill and background lighting. “First,” he says,

Assisting Lightman in his work are FBI Agent Ben Reynolds (Mekhi Phifer, top) and Dr. Gillian Foster (Kelli Williams, bottom).

“my rigging gaffer, Tony Varoulo, placed a bunch of 4K Zip lights gelled with Storaro Yellow [Roscolux 2003] about every 10 feet around the perimeter of the warehouse. We backed them into corners and put them directly in the shot, facing the camera. The stands were all blacked out, so it looks as if the lights are bolted to the walls. Storaro Yellow is great for backlighting the smoke we pumped in. “We also placed 40 2K nooks gelled with Rosco Industrial Green on the
www.theasc.com

floor, some of them shooting up through staircases,” he continues. “There was all this wrought-iron and metal and industrial stuff lying around that we could shoot through, and it created wild, hard shadows everywhere.” Although it was a night scene, it was shot during the day, and a bank of 20'-wide, two-story-high windows presented an obvious problem. Some of the windows were blacked out with Visqueen, which Gallagher preferred over
July 2010 17

http://www.theasc.com

American Cinematographer - July 2010

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