American Cinematographer - August 2015 - 72

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Personal Battles

The crew preps
a night-exterior
car scene.

a church, is a warm, red setting. And the
last fight, Billy's redemption, takes place
at Caesars Palace and goes with even
warmer tones - golds and oranges, the
colors you'd see at Caesars."
The second fight - a particularly
brutal and bloody one - shows Billy's
downfall. "It's a very tragic event for
him," says Fiore. "[For that sequence]
we started to experiment with different
lenses for specific moments. A couple of
times, we used [a Lensbaby] for Billy's
disoriented point of view." A-camera
operator Kirk Gardner also got into the
ring with a Red Dragon fitted with a
Cooke MiniS4 prime and mounted on
Freefly Systems' Movi M10, a gyrostabilized handheld rig. "[The Movi rig
is] much smaller than the Steadicam,"
says Fiore. "You don't wear it; you hold
onto it, and the fact that you can put the
camera almost on the ground and lift it
up to somebody's face makes it a pretty
interesting rig that can create some
really long shots."
By the end of the second fight,
Hope has destroyed his boxing career by
knocking out the official. "It's a beautiful
Shakespearean moment," says Fiore.
"We're still objective, watching him fall
apart. There are some POV shots, but it
was about an active, chaotic camera that
reflects his [state of ] mind. It's still basically HBO style, but it was important
for us to get into the characters' minds a
little bit."
The third fight, which takes place
as a fundraising event, serves as Hope's
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August 2015

comeback. "This is the beginning of
[Billy's regaining of ] his confidence and
sense of self-worth," says Fuqua. "The
fight is a reminder of what boxing is
about - the sweet science."
"It's re-creating the time when
boxing was a community event," Fiore
adds. The sequence was shot inside a
former church, which has since been
converted into a banquet hall. "The
lights are very basic," the cinematographer explains. "There are four 1,000watt Skypans, one in each corner,
lighting up the boxers in the center. You
have the red glow of the ring - not the
blue of the [previous] fights - and
stained-glass windows in the background. The idea was to make it a spiritual moment, capturing the intimacy of
the environment."
The fourth and final fight is not
only Hope's triumph, but also recalls the
Sugar Ray Leonard match that inspired
The Fighter, in which both boxers are
exhausted by the 12th round. "It's the
definition of a champion," says Fuqua.
"It takes more than boxing skills to get
you off that stool when you are bloody,
hurt - broken lungs burning. And yet
you still get back up to give and get
more punishment to win the fight."
By this point in the film, the
audience is alongside Billy in the ring.
His point of view was captured with the
extremely compact SI-2K Mini -
recording to a Convergent Design
Gemini 4:4:4 - which Fiore mounted
on Gyllenhaal. "He did two rounds with
American Cinematographer

the camera mounted," the cinematographer says. "There's a backpack for the
batteries [which Gyllenhaal wore], and
a hard drive that cinches onto the body.
We filmed this section separately [so the
rig was not in the other cameras'
frames]. At other times, Kirk was in the
ring with the Movi rig. All the technology we had came together in this fight.
We used [HBO-style] coverage, ringside cameras, subjective POVs and the
Phantom for the final knockout."
With multiple cameras shooting
non-stop for all four fights, an unusually
large amount of footage was generated.
"The editor, John Refoua, kept saying,
'Great, great!'" recalls Fiore. "'The more
I have to play with, the better.'"
The DI for Southpaw took place
at Technicolor's Seward and Tribeca
West facilities, where colorist Skip
Kimball worked with Blackmagic
Design's DaVinci Resolve. "Skip is a
very experienced colorist who comes
from a photochemical background,"
says Fiore. "We've collaborated on
several projects in the past, including
Avatar and Real Steel."
Fuqua points to his close collaboration with Fiore as being key to realizing his storytelling goals. "We cast the
movements and lenses and look of the
movie as if we were casting another lead
actor in the film," the director says.
"Mauro and I have collaborated five
times, as we are [now] filming The
Magnificent Seven. Every time, we
discuss story and work very closely
together on every aspect of the look of
the film."
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TECHNICAL SPECS
2.39:1
Digital Capture
Arri Alexa XT,
Vision Research Phantom Flex,
Red Epic Dragon,
Silicon Imaging SI-2K Mini
Angenieux Optimo, HR;
Fujinon Cabrio;
Cooke S4, MiniS4; Lensbaby

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