American Cinematographer - August 2011 - 22

TECHNICAL SPECS
2.40:1 Super 35mm Arricam Lite, Arri 435 Arri/Zeiss Master Prime, Angenieux Optimo Kodak Vision3 500T 5219, 250D 5207 Digital Intermediate
22 August 2011

American Cinematographer

Femme Fatales photos courtesy of True Crime, Inc., and Cinemax.

would look better, and we could simply keep shooting regardless of whether the sun was going in or out.” To achieve the desired look, a 300'x80' scrim was constructed by the production’s rigging department. Rigging grip Kevin McCloy explains: “The scrim consisted of 80by-50-foot panels of Light Grid that were stitched together. At first we tried to attach the panels with Velcro to give the shooting crew greater flexibility, but the 10-to-12-knot winds and 20-knot gusts coming off the nearby ocean easily overpowered the Velcro.” The attachment structures comprised heavy-duty theatrical truss suspended from a 70-ton and a 120-ton mobile construction crane. The trussing was further secured by multiple aircraft cables, anchored and tensioned to several 2-ton concrete blocks that were located at either end of the set. The scrim could be flown as high as 55' above the set, but was mostly used at around 30' to cover more area. An additional construction crane flew a 40'x40' frame of either Light Grid or bluescreen. “24,000 square feet of sail can catch a lot of wind,” recalls McCloy. “We peaked at about 30,000 pounds of force combined on the two cranes! The system was made up of many ‘soft’ but still safety-rated components so that in the event of catastrophic failure during shooting, the cast and crew wouldn’t be put in jeopardy. We used synthetic rated ropes over the set as our purchase for the grid to attach to and travel on, and small rated quick-links as our attaching hardware.” Skytrackers and boom lifts flew 20'x30' and 20'x20' frames that provided additional bluescreens, diffusion or negative bounces. “If it hadn’t been for the dedication of our rigging team and the support of the drape and crane vendors, this part of the shoot could have been a big, scary mess,” says McCloy. “I’m proud of the fact that we achieved it, from concept to execution, in eight days.”

The scheming Barbara (Tina Casciani) aims at her prey in the Femme Fatales episode “The White Flower.”

Dangerous Beauties By Michael Goldman

In many ways, the risqué Cinemax series Femme Fatales can be viewed as a prototype of how tightly budgeted television production can succeed in the era of digital tools and ridiculous turnarounds. Each half-hour episode is shot at a single practical location in the Los Angeles area with a single camera, a Red One (with the Mysterium-X chip). There are one day of prep and three days of actual production (and the occasional pickup shoot) per episode. What makes the challenge more complex is the fact that Femme Fatales is an anthology series, so characters, locations and stories change with each episode. And it all has to be done in the context of a visual aesthetic inspired by the moody photography in such films as T-Men and The Big Combo (both shot by John Alton, ASC), Body Heat (Richard Kline, ASC), Bound (Bill Pope, ASC) and Basic Instinct (Jan De Bont, ASC). “Every three days we have a new script, new characters and new actors,” says director of photography Roger Chingirian, who was in the midst of shooting the series’ second season when he spoke toAC. “And the producers want a different look for every episode to support the individual

story. We have a set approach, but not a set look. That’s difficult to do in three days, but we have a great team, and we’ve all become quite good at it. We do a tech scout on each episode and discuss tools, colors and how best to use the inherent qualities of our given location, but mostly it’s about changing style and color palette and developing effective camera moves.” During location scouts, the team makes key decisions about the look and shooting method for the episode at hand. They always carry a six-lens set of Arri/Zeiss Ultra Primes and an Angenieux Optimo 12:1 (24-290mm) zoom lens. They usually record to Red Raid hard drives, and occasionally employ a Canon EOS 7D with a PL mount (modified by FGV Schmidle) for specialty shots. Chingirian, who does his own operating on the show, says his main tool in maintaining high production value is his lens package. “During my interview, the one thing I really pushed the producers on was lenses,” he recalls. “The lenses mattered more to me than the camera. It’s all about the glass. Going in, we didn’t know what kind of spaces we’d be shooting in, but I had a low-budget background, so I knew we had to have a zoom. And quite honestly, the Optimo often saves our schedule.” In fact, the Optimo has been dubbed “The Daymaker,” according to 1st AC Kyle

American Cinematographer - August 2011

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