American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 14

Short Takes

ASC Honors 3 with Harris Savides Heritage Awards
By Jennifer Wolfe

The ASC presented Harris Savides Heritage Awards to three
student cinematographers from Chapman University’s Dodge
College of Film and Media Arts during an awards ceremony at the
Clubhouse in June. Ryan Broomberg won the graduate competition
for The Bright Side; Mishka Kornai won the undergraduate competition for Straight Down Low; and Drew Heskett and Ryan Westra
won the documentary competition for We Are the Land.
The Bright Side
Director: Sarah Wilson Thacker
Cinematographer: Ryan Broomberg
The Bright Side is a 1940s-era musical romance that merges
fantasy song-and-dance sequences with the gritty realities of a nation
preparing for war.
Director Sarah Wilson Thacker, cinematographer Ryan
Broomberg and their collaborators referenced two period gangster
dramas, HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and the feature Road to Perdition
(2002), for mood, lighting and camera moves, and the musical
Moulin Rouge (2001) for how it blends fantasy and reality. “We
stayed relatively wide and let the composition and lighting tell the
story,” says Broomberg. “We knew we didn’t need tons of angles to
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October 2013

tell the story, and we didn’t have time to overshoot every scene. If the
camera moved, it was motivated by an action or a feeling.” For the
most part, the filmmakers employed single-camera setups, reserving
a B camera mainly for inserts and establishing shots. One notable
exception is an emotional scene set in the rain; for that, two cameras
were used to simultaneously capture medium and close-up coverage
of the performances.
Broomberg shot the picture with Panavised Red One MX
cameras and Zeiss Super Speed prime lenses provided by Panavision
Hollywood. He captured in the 2.0:1 aspect ratio in 4K, recording in
Redcode 36 to Red CF Cards. He used a range of Schneider Black
Frost filters on the lens to bloom practical lights and soften skin tones
and textures, and he worked closely with production designer Rachel
Aguirre to make sure the sets could incorporate vintage lamps and
filament bulbs as much as possible. “The filament bulbs looked
amazing with the Black Frost,” he notes.
The cinematographer used the in-camera Redcolor LUT for
viewing images on set. “The raw image looks very flat and dark, and
I wanted to view an image that was as close as possible to the look
we wanted to achieve and then make tweaks in the final color correction,” he explains. “The Redcolor LUT crushes the blacks and brings
up the highlights, which is what I intended to do in the timing. Also,
by using the LUT, I gave myself a little more latitude in the highlights
and the blacks in the raw file. During setups, I toggled between raw
and Redcolor preset to see the range I was working with.”
➣

American Cinematographer

The Bright Side photos by Joe Mackedanz. Photos and frame grab courtesy of the filmmakers.

Leo (Aric Chase Damm) spins Hazel (Aryn Wuthrich) during a musical number in this frame grab from the The Bright Side, shot by Ryan Broomberg.

American Cinematographer - October 2013

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