American Cinematographer - November 2010 - 82

Post Focus
Directed by Tim Cox and shot by Mateo Londono, Miss Nobody follows an ambitious office worker (Leslie Bibb) who murders her way up the corporate ladder. The feature was one of the first projects to take advantage of New Hat’s DI theater.

tives. “We wanted the film to feel like a fairy tale,” says Londono. “We were inspired by a couple of films by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, where even close-ups were shot on a very wide-angle lens. Santa Monica-based post facility New Hat recently added to We also loved the precise, exact and methodical ‘camera’ moveits impressive digital capabilities with the construction of a feature DI ments in The Incredibles.” theater, a move designed to tap into the burgeoning independent Londono also supported the film’s fantastical atmosphere film market. with lighting, using mostly soft, single sources placed to create high Offering totally digital, nonlinear color grading on commercontrast, which in turn emphasized the comedy’s dark edge. Night cial, music video and short-form projects, New Hat can transfer jobs sources — primarily soft-source balloons — were balanced with in digital or film format to standard definition, high definition, 2K or plenty of negative fill. 4K throughout any stage of post. “We built this whole facility Londono chose three Fuji Eterna stocks for the production: around the concept of nonlinear digital,” explains New Hat colorist 250T 8553, 250D 8563 and 500T 8573. “I feel Fuji offers enormous Michael Mintz. “We work with all the digital workflows. [For examlatitude and is very forgiving,” says Londono. “Our main camera ple,] we can take a client’s drive, ingest it and look at the raw files. was an Arricam Studio, our Steadicam was a Moviecam Compact, Everything is as pure as possible; we don’t want to convert anything and we used an Arriflex 435 Xtreme for second-unit/high-speed that degrades the image.” work.” The DI suite joins three existing color bays and showcases a To complete Londono and Cox’s vision for the film, Mintz was Barco DP-1200 projector, a 14' Stewart Filmscreen screen, a FilmLight booked for 80 hours in the DI suite. “They did an amazing job creatBaselight Four color corrector and Blue Sky 5.1 audio system. The ing a fantasy black-comedy look [on set],” Mintz says of the footage. setup is designed for filmmakers to tweak their images with exten“Even though the story occurs in common places, the characters sive flexibility. Two Spirit 4Ks also offer high-speed native resolution inhabit a fairy-tale world.” at 4K plus native 2K scanning in real time. However, Miss Nobody arrived at New Hat with one major Miss N obody , directed by Tim Cox and shot by Mateo caveat: the images had been telecined at another facility via 2K Spirit Londono, was N ew Hat’s second independent project in the new to 10 bit 4:2:2 HDCam-SR. “Due to budgetary constraints,our theater. The film is a dark satire of corporate culture that follows the source became the dailies,” says Mintz. Surprisingly, though, Mintz story of a young office worker (played by Leslie Bibb, who also found room to explore within the format’s limitations. The colorist produced the film)with a penchant for murdering her way up the explains, “Because of the wide exposure range of the Fuji stock, I corporate ladder. ended up having a lot of flexibility. I actually had a lot of information To support the darkly comedic tone of the piece, Londono compared to other digital formats with limited latitude. Even downopted to shoot with wide Cooke S4 primes, favoring the 27mm (for rezzed, film has enough gamma to stretch it out. There was deficlose-ups), 25mm, 20mm and 14mm, to create unusual perspecnitely room to play.”
82 November 2010 American Cinematographer

New Hat Finishes Miss Nobody By Simon Wakelin

Michael Mintz photo by Tim Cox. Photo and Frame grabs courtesy of New Hat.

American Cinematographer - November, 2010

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