American Cinematographer - July 2016 - 24

TECHNICAL SPECS
2.39:1
Digital Capture
Arri Alexa XT Plus, XT M, Mini;
Red Epic Dragon; GoPro Hero4 Black
Leica Summilux-C

July 2016

The American West, a "hybrid documentary" miniseries, tells the little-known personal stories of
Wyatt Earp (Jonathan C. Stewart) and other historical figures.

Reframing the Wild West
By John Ealer

The eight-part AMC miniseries The
American West recounts how, in the aftermath of the Civil War, the United States
conquered and settled the American frontier, transforming the vast western lands into
"the land of opportunity." The show focuses
on little-known personal stories of such
legendary historical figures as Jesse James,
Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, George Armstrong
Custer, Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid.
This series marks my fifth directorial
collaboration with executive producer
Stephen David on a "hybrid" documentary
- a form David pioneered that fuses the
power of nonfiction with the immersive
appeal of scripted entertainment. David's
earlier hybrid-documentary series include
The Men Who Built America, The World
Wars and The Making of the Mob: New
York, and although I'd worked with him on
each of those projects, I found The American
West to be the most challenging of all our
productions.
Unlike other documentaries, these
shows are much more than just re-creations.
We're doing a full historical narrative that
needs to connect seamlessly with traditional
documentary elements such as talking-head
interviews and archival materials. With The
American West, we were also basically
making an action movie, complete with
gunfights, cavalry battles and train robberies
- and we were doing it all on a 25-day
American Cinematographer

shooting schedule, with the shoot split
between West Virginia and Utah.
To meet the challenge, I turned to a
longtime collaborator, cinematographer
Kevin M. Graves. "Working with John can
be described in one word: intense," Graves
acknowledges. "He often wants to move at
a startling pace, but he never loses sight of
the look we've created. So, going into this, I
knew it was going to be a fun but challenging shoot, and that my background in documentary would be a huge help."
For this project, Graves chose Arri's
Amira documentary-style camera with the
Premium license. "These shows have one
foot in the documentary world and one foot
in the scripted space," Graves explains. "The
Amira seemed to balance those needs
perfectly." The camera's light weight, small
form factor, built-in NDs, and ability to shoot
at a maximum frame rate of 200 fps were all
important features.
For Graves, an even more important
consideration was the Amira's workflow for
creating and maintaining looks. "In preproduction," he says, "I spent many hours
working in the Amira Color Tool [which has
since been renamed the Arri Color Tool]. The
power and simplicity of the application made
it possible to test dozens of looks on a laptop
before presenting them to John for discussion. After we found what fit the feel of our
show, an .aml file was created for the A and
B cameras, and a copy was also given to
Johnny Saint Ours, our second-unit directorcinematographer."
➣

The American West photos by Kris Connor and Michael Moriatis, courtesy of AMC.

Nancy clings to the rock for the night, the
crew dimmed down a scrimmed 20K
directed toward the middle of the tank.
The filmmakers used a Log C to Rec
709 LUT for monitoring on set - on a 25"
Sony OLED display and other Sony and
Panasonic screens - and in post. Harrow
graded on set using DaVinci Resolve's livegrade capability and then handed off to
local studio Cutting Edge, which generated
dailies that were viewed on iPads.
Because Labiano would be on to his
next project when colorist Élodie Ichter
would perform the final grade with ColletSerra in May at Deluxe in Culver City, he and
Ichter spent a week in March pre-timing
and setting up looks. Working with deBayered DPX files in 2K on a FilmLight Baselight
system, Ichter relied on the cinematographer's guidance through the film's intended
shifts in weather and times of day. The files
were prepared as DPX for mastering to a P3
DCP final deliverable.
"We created different atmospheres
and decided on a natural skin tone and soft
contrast for the morning and daytime
while revealing the beauty and color of the
location," she says. "We get into a more
aggressive look in the dramatic sequences
with deeper blacks and less color overall.
The water color was also a challenge.
Between the ocean, the weather changes
and the tank, it varies from deep blue and
light blue to cyan and green-blue. Good
continuity is essential because the ocean is
an important part of the story."
For Labiano, the myriad logistics
made for a difficult shoot - which is all
right by him. "We didn't know how to
make this film when we started, and the
process of learning how to do it and
succeeding was very gratifying," he reflects.
"It was a challenge to try to shoot a kind of
film you will probably never shoot again."

American Cinematographer - July 2016

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