American Cinematographer - November 2013 - 20

Top: Under the
Fourth Street
Bridge,
crewmembers
prepare for the
scene in which
the daughter
lights the fuse to
her father's
fireworks suit.
Bottom: Durald
readies a Red
Epic for the
fireworks scene.

sought to underscore the event by adding
"a unique touch to the fireworks
sequence." Inspired in part by the recipe
that Panavision optical engineer Dan Sasaki
implemented for Greig Fraser, ACS on
Killing Them Softly (AC Oct. '12), Durald
asked Rik DeLisle and Guy McVicker at
Panavision Hollywood to provide a modified
HS50 lens. The cinematographer explains,
"Using part of Dan's recipe, Guy gave the
lens an intentional anamorphic twist,
misaligning the elements and giving it
higher-order spherical aberrations, which
affect the out-of-focus bokeh and cause the
highlights to bleed." In the resultant images
from the music video, the fireworks
emanating from Glenn pop in stunning
fashion, with each burst creating its own
20

November 2013

unique flare.
Durald operated the Epic during the
shoot, and she captured spontaneous
moments in Glenn's performance, which he
performed a total of seven times over two
nights. "There's about a 30 to 45 minute
reset in between [Glenn's performances],
because he has to remove everything,
hydrate and take a break," she says. The
Phantom Flex, operated by Jeff Bierman,
was fitted with a modified Cooke 10:1 rearanamorphic zoom lens to get close-up
detail from a safe distance, where the
camera was kept on a dolly. "Sam really
wanted those little bursts and beautiful little
moments within the big explosion," says
Durald.
Particular attention had to be paid to
American Cinematographer

exposure during Glenn's performance. "We
didn't want to expose the hottest point of
the blast at key and then allow the smaller,
surrounding explosions to get lost in darkness," the cinematographer explains. "I
chose to balance the two exposures, letting
the hottest points overexpose by around 5
stops, and allowing the surrounding pops
to be exposed closer to key to maintain
detail and color. The smaller blasts were so
poetic, and Sam wanted to make sure we
were getting all of that texture."
Color correction was done at The
Mill in London with colorist Seamus
O'Kane, who worked with transcoded 2K
files on a Pandora Revolution using YoYo
Data I/O, for final HD delivery in Rec 709.
Live grading was also available on location
in a DIT tent, where a feed from the camera
was viewable on a 17" OLED monitor. "I
worked with my DITs, Mike and Tom
Kowalczyk, over the headset so I could dial
in the look without leaving the set," Durald
says. "At the end of the day, we tweaked
the LUT we established on set for our
dailies, which we output through [Blackmagic Design's DaVinci] Resolve."
Durald proudly notes that "Strong"
represented the first time Glenn's performance had been captured professionally,
rather than with an iPhone or similar device.
"We were doing it with expensive cameras
and lenses, so Wally was obviously really
happy." And so was Durald. The modified
HS50 lens was hand delivered in the nick of
time, just before it was needed on location,
and since "Strong," the cinematographer
says, "it's gone out on three other jobs, and
it's out right now. People are really interested in using it." She tips her hat to DeLisle
and McVicker for their enthusiasm in helping to lend the video's finale such a striking
look, commenting, "Rik and Guy are great
to work with, especially on a project like
this, where I've got a unique vision of what
I want to create. It's always an inspiring
project when you can tailor the optics to
make your ideas come to life."
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American Cinematographer - November 2013

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