American Cinematographer - September 2011 - 12

Short Takes
zoom, a 400mm Canon lens converted to PL-mount, and a PL-mount Lensbaby with wide-angle and telephoto adapters. Hutchins and McCafferty helped Ragen with his first order of business: finding an aircraft from which to capture the sweeping aerials that bookend the video. In Anchorage, they found a pilot, and they were airborne by the afternoon. Ragen wanted to shoot ice floes, rivers, glaciers and as many mountains as he could see in one hour. Time was of the essence: winter days last less than five hours and offer about an hour of usable sunlight. “The sun would just ride along the bottom of the horizon,” recalls Ragen. “It was just Director/cinematographer Michael Ragen uses his Red One to shoot a snowcapped Alaskan mountain range beautiful. Every hour of sunlight was for the 13-minute music video for Portugal.The Man’s “Sleep Forever/Got it All.” magic hour.” With the pilot and producers Alaska Locations Enhance “Sleep Forever” crammed into the tiny Cessna 206, Ragen wedged himself between By Iain Stasukevich the seats and rolled continuously on the landscape below, using the Red zoom behind a stack of Schneider ND filters. Hutchins and The music video for Portugal.The Man’s “Sleep Forever/Got it McCafferty helped him swap Compact Flash cards. “I had the All” begins with director/cinematographer Michael Ragen’s camera middle row, so I could look around and shoot out either window,” floating above purple ice floes beneath a cloudy, purple sky split by the he recalls. “I had to hold a really tight frame to avoid seeing the jagged outline of a snowcapped mountain range. The sun rises, and plane’s wing, and we couldn’t remove the windows, which were the Arctic landscape comes alive as the camera swoops over glaciers scratched. I had to be careful about moving around and getting too and frozen rivers. A pack of sled dogs wakes up as a grizzled musher much glare off the glass. Because we were shooting through a (lead singer John Gourley) approaches their kennel. He gets the dogs window, and because of our height and distance from the subjects, harnessed to the sled and rides them into the Arctic wilderness. all the contrast was lost in the image. I knew I could pull the contrast At 13 minutes long, “Sleep Forever” is more a short film than back in as long as I didn’t clip anything.” a traditional music video. The concept was inspired by Gourley’s Ragen had hoped to shoot from a helicopter, which would experiences growing up in Willow, Alaska, a mushing community. have provided a smoother ride and more versatility in terms of Ragen had collaborated with the band on other videos, and he was getting his shots. In the Cessna, he had to shoot at 48 fps at 3K kicking around the idea to shoot a short film or teaser for the next (because some of the CF cards couldn’t handle 60 fps at that resoPortugal album in Gourley’s hometown, when Atlantic Records lution) to help smooth out the ride. “I’m not a big fan of shooting approved funds for a video. 2K on the Red, because it doesn’t hold up once you measure the “I knew we’d have to keep things simple — straight cuts and resolution,” he remarks. “I think you can even tell looking at 2K Red holding shots on the screen, just letting them live for a moment,” footage in standard definition that it’s kind of soft. The compression says Ragen. “We figured some people wouldn’t have the patience to doesn’t hold up.” sit through a 13-minute music video, but we decided to take the Another reason to shoot 3K was to safeguard the image’s risk.” integrity when Ragen stabilized it in post, which he did with Final Ten days were scheduled for the shoot, and the crew Cut Pro’s SmoothCam plug-in. The final shots are rock solid. “I knew comprised Ragen, Gourley and two producers, Rich Hutchins and the aerials were going to be a big part of the video, but I didn’t know Doug McCafferty, who, in the spirit of keeping things simple, also what I could get until we were up in the plane,” says Ragen. “Luckacted as camera assistants. Ragen brought his own Red One ily, Alaska is beautiful in any direction you point the camera. I hadn’t (upgraded with Red’s Mysterium-X sensor), a tripod and an EasyRig seen those areas before, so I really had no idea how big the glaciers 2.5, as well as a small lens package comprising a Red 18-50mm would be. When the sun started to go down, a beautiful, pink light

September 2011

American Cinematographer

Photos by Richard Hutchins and Doug McCafferty. Photos and frame grab courtesy of the filmmakers.

American Cinematographer - September 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - September 2011