American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 68

Landmark Gains forehead — that’s how bright it is. But it’s organic to the moment, which involves extreme drama, anger and racial tension, as well as the stress of the football season.” Gaffer Brett Laumann, who also worked with Morgenthau on such features as Fracture (2007) and Havoc (2005), says, “I like working with Kramer because he tends to go more toward the extremes. If things seem a little too dark or a little too hot, that’s okay with him. His style is sometimes a little expressionistic, which I particularly enjoy.” On The Express, Laumann notes, large soft sources were the norm. For example, in a scene depicting young Ernie eating dinner with his family, “we couldn’t use spreaders or put anything in the ceiling at the location,” explains the gaffer, “so we suspended five China balls and ran a piece of Duvatyn skirting around the whole thing, [in effect] creating a large softbox. “Throughout the film, we used a lot of book lights, often a bounced 5K going through light grid or full grid,” continues Laumann. “And we used Source Four [Lekos] inside extensively. For a college dance, we hung 24 Source Fours up high, all with the same gobo pattern of small dots. With smoke in the room, it created hundreds of shafts of light and gave the scene a nice depth.” In other instances, the Source Fours were used without a gobo pattern to help balance the frame. Laumann observes, “Kramer gets very precise. He’ll say, ‘Give me a beam of light here that is 4 inches tall and 6 inches wide.’” Several important scenes depict bus rides that take Davis and his fellow Orangemen to their games in the South, where they encounter bigotry and catch glimpses of the growing civil-rights movement. For daytime bus rides, “we took a very minimalist, available-light approach,” says Above: The first unit used fairly traditional methods to cover football action, including dolly moves and telephoto lenses. Steadicam and an ATV were also employed for certain scenes. “The camera was not so much a participant as an observer, allowing the viewer to follow the game more objectively,” says Morgenthau. Below: A sudden shift in the production schedule left the crew with just five hours to rig a key sequence involving a nighttime bus ride. They opted to use the poor man’s process onstage at Chicago Studio City. silent voice. I like to lean toward reality, but at the same time, I express myself and extend the characters’ reach through the lighting. Things need to look true to what’s happening in the scenes and underscore the drama at the same time. I usually light to extreme levels of highlight and darkness, pushing beyond the limits of the film; to me, extreme highlights make for an emotional use of light. Those extremes of contrast exist in nature, but film handles them differently, and when it blows out, the light flames and glows and bounces off things in the room. In that way, film emulates reality and expresses the emotions of the scene.” The extreme contrast becomes especially pronounced during scenes that take place at Syracuse and in Texas. “There’s a scene where the Syracuse coach, Ben Schwartzwalder [Dennis Quaid], breaks up a fight between Ernie [Rob Brown] and one of his teammates,” says Morgenthau. “The coach is standing directly under a narrow-spot Par can pointed straight down, and the lens is flared by the light that’s kicking off his 68 October 2008

American Cinematographer - October 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - October 2008

American Cinematographer - October 2008
Contents
Editor's Note
Short Takes: DirecTV's "Fourth Wall" Campaign
Production Slate: Prison Break
Production Slate: Need for Speed: Undercover
Middle East Intrigue
Kingdom of Light
Memoirs of a Spook
Landmark Gains
Post Focus: An Overview of the ASC CDL
Filmmakers' Forum: Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC
New Products & Services
International Marketplace
Classified Ads
Clubhouse News
ASC Close-Up: Ross Berryman
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - American Cinematographer - October 2008
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 1
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 2
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Contents
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 4
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 5
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 6
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 7
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Editor's Note
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 9
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Short Takes: DirecTV's "Fourth Wall" Campaign
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 11
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 12
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 13
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 14
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 15
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Production Slate: Need for Speed: Undercover
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 17
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 18
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 19
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 20
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 21
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 22
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 23
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 24
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 25
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 26
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 27
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Middle East Intrigue
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 29
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 30
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 31
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 32
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 33
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 34
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 35
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 36
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 37
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 38
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 39
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Kingdom of Light
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 41
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 42
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 43
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 44
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 45
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 46
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 47
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 48
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 49
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 50
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 51
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 52
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 53
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Memoirs of a Spook
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 55
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 56
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 57
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 58
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 59
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 60
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 61
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 62
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 63
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Landmark Gains
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 65
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 66
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 67
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 68
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 69
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 70
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 71
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 72
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 73
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Post Focus: An Overview of the ASC CDL
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 75
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 76
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 77
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Filmmakers' Forum: Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 79
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 80
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 81
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 82
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 83
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - New Products & Services
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 85
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 86
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 87
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 88
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 89
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - International Marketplace
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 91
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Classified Ads
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 93
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Clubhouse News
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - 95
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - ASC Close-Up: Ross Berryman
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Cover3
American Cinematographer - October 2008 - Cover4
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