American Cinematographer - October 2017 - 50

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Fear Itself

Above: Eddie
Kaspbrak (Jack
Dylan Grazer)
first encounters
"It" at the
abandoned
house at 29
Neibolt Street.
Right:
Muschietti
guides
Lieberher
through a scene
at the house.

two Arri Alexa XT Plus cameras, paired
with a mix of anamorphic and spherical
lenses, with Angelo Colavecchia on A
camera and Michael Carella on B. The
production occasionally pulls out an
Alexa Mini for Steadicam shots, which
are operated by Colavecchia. Both XT
Plus and Mini capture in ArriRaw
format in Open Gate mode with no
compression.
Digital-imaging technician Rany
Ly reports that with the anamorphic
lenses the camera captured a resolution
of 2880x2160 and a framed image of
2578x2160. With the spherical lenses,
the camera captured 3414x2198, and
3074x1730 within the frame lines with
a 10-percent punch-in because of a
vignetting 18mm lens. The movie's final
aspect ratio was 2.39:1. The crew
records the Alexa XT Plus footage on
512GB Codex XR Capture Drives, and
50

October 2017

the Arri Mini material on CFast
memory cards.
"Mama was so much about the
creature, which is skinny and tall,"
Muschietti explains, referring to his
2013 horror feature, which was shot by
Antonio Riestra, ASC, ACK, AMC,
and framed for the 1.85:1 aspect ratio.
"But this story is bigger in scope. It's not
only about Pennywise. It's also about
the spirit of a town, and we have seven
child characters who are often together
- so I needed a wider format. I
remember listening to commentary
from the director of the miniseries, and
he talked about how difficult it was
getting all the characters in a TV
frame."
The director prefers spherical
lenses, in part because he's familiar with
them from his background in directing
commercials. "Shooting spherical also
American Cinematographer

gives you a chance in postproduction to
reframe or apply effects like shakes,"
Muschietti says, "which anamorphic
doesn't because it doesn't have that extra
information on the top and bottom."
Chung, meanwhile, likes to
combine anamorphic and spherical, as
he did on Me and Earl and the Dying
Girl. "Optics are so sharp with today's
lenses and digital cameras," the cinematographer says. "The Alexa XT Plus
is great - I think it's the best camera
body in the world - but I need some
balance, so I go with lenses that give a
more natural look that's not too sharp.
That's why I like Panavision lenses."
He reports that the production
uses Panavision G Series Anamorphic
Prime lenses, and switches to Primo
Primes "when Andy wants to use a
wider lens or needs more frame space
for visual effects. The look [of the]
lenses is nearly the same. I mix them a
lot and it works well."
The production's zooms include
Panavision's ATZ 70-200mm (T3.5)
and AWZ2 40-80mm (T2.8), and an
Angenieux Optimo 24-290mm spherical (T2.8), which were particularly helpful for convenient reframing on B
camera. Chung notes that he's usually
"not a filter person" and uses only NDs
on the project.
Muschietti prefers the wide end
of the focal-length spectrum. "I like the
feeling, even for close-ups," he explains.
"I want to be close to the characters and

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - October 2017