American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 87
Photos by producer Frank Waldeck. Frame grabs courtesy of CBS Broadcasting, Inc. and Crescenzo Notarile, ASC.
Notarile refers to gaffer Jon Haney and key
grip Bob Fischer as “my right and left
arms.” He reports that his lighting aesthetic
changes from episode to episode “depending on the script, how it motivates me, how
the episode director motivates me, and my
own frame of mind at that time. I have
always lit spontaneously, from the gut. For
me, light meters have always been a lastminute check before calling out an official
stop of exposure.”
The overall goal is to “maintain the
feature-film quality mandated by [executive
producer] Jerry Bruckheimer, and that crispy
back edge of light that CSI is famous for. I
love it when our backlight edges the dark
side of the face, sculpting it out. When you
do it properly, you feel that third dimension
of depth.” Notarile uses 5K beam projectors
to provide this edge, along with Source
Four Lekos. “Jon Haney redeveloped the
wattage of the Source Fours to make them
extra punchy, with razor-sharp crispness,”
he notes. “I love to juxtapose color temperatures, such as blue backlight against a
warm key. I do not put much light on the fill
side of the face; I leave it almost black, but
with just enough texture from bounce light
to reach in, grab onto the bone structure
and feel its physiognomy, and to see that
pupil of the eye. Akira Kurosawa once told
me that without that dot of light in the eye,
you can’t feel the person’s soul. My keylight
is usually softened enough not to create a
hard shadow from the nose. When the key
light wraps around the face just perfectly in
that Rembrandt way, it always makes me
smile.”
Notarile likes to double diffuse to
polish this even further, and to use Kino Flos
“just under the lens for what my gaffer calls
‘eyeliners,’ to get that tickle of light in the
actor’s eyes. My gaffer and key grip are
constantly figuring out how to hide lights
reflected in [lead actor] Ted Danson’s
glasses. This is a perpetual task of angles. It’s
like playing pocket pool!”
One of the greatest advantages to
having rotating cinematographers on an
episodic series, he observes, is, “I can physically be there for the final timing of an
episode, which means I can elect not to
bake in certain looks when we’re shooting.
This protects me from the many voices and
opinions that arise during the edit, and
Top: Supervisor
D.B. Russell
(Ted Danson)
oversees the
Las Vegas Crime
Lab. Middle:
Investigator
Nick Stokes
(George Eads)
interrogates a
suspect. Bottom:
Series cocinematographer
Crescenzo
Notarile, ASC
adjusts a
practical light on
the autopsy set.
www.theasc.com
October 2013
87
http://www.theasc.com
American Cinematographer - October 2013
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - October 2013
Contents
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 1
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 2
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - Contents
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 4
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 5
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 6
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 7
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 8
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 9
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 10
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 11
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 12
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 13
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 14
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 15
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 16
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 17
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 18
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 19
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 20
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 21
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 22
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 23
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 24
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 25
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 26
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 27
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 28
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 29
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 30
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 31
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 32
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 33
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 34
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 35
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 36
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 37
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 38
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 39
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 40
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 41
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 42
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 43
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 44
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 45
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 46
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 47
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 48
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 49
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 50
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 51
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 52
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 53
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 54
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 55
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 56
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 57
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 58
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 59
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 60
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 61
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 62
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 63
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 64
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 65
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 66
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 67
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 68
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 69
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 70
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 71
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 72
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 73
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 74
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 75
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 76
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 77
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 78
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 79
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 80
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 81
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 82
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 83
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 84
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 85
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 86
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 87
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 88
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 89
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 90
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 91
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 92
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 93
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 94
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 95
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 96
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 97
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 98
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 99
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - 100
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - Cover3
American Cinematographer - October 2013 - Cover4
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