American Cinematographer - November 2015 - 32

The camera crew shoots Jem performing solo.

length of the space was 400' deep, and
Brooks wanted to feel the depth without
seeing the actual source lights. Brickman
came up with the idea to light the ceiling
and the floor rather than the columns, as
Chu and Brooks had originally planned.
Brooks and gaffer Jay Muranaka
relied heavily on the Cineo HS line. "They
were one of our workhorses for the whole
movie," Brooks enthuses. "We used them
mainly as booklights, sometimes with up to
five frames of diffusion in front of them. I
loved their output and that we could
change the color temperature. The quality
of the light on the skin is beautiful, as well."
Along with the Cineos, Brooks and
Muranaka also used a multitude of Arri
fixtures, including M18s, M40s and M90s.
For a couple of night scenes, the cinematographer brought out an 18K HMI. During a
sequence in which the band was lit entirely
by audience members holding up their cell
phones, Brooks tested LiteGear LED ribbons
but instead used flashlight apps from 80
Samsung mobile phones.
Light Iron handled post for the film,
and Brooks and digital-imaging technician
Chase Abrams used the company's Outpost
system to handle the production's massive
data workflow. (They were often capturing
32

November 2015

up to seven hours of footage a day.) For
dailies they used the Pix system, with which
Abrams loaded shots onto multiple iPads for
the crew. Brooks would also watch dailies
with the director on the weekend.
Brooks completed the color grade at
Light Iron with colorist Ian Vertovec. "Ian
and I have been working together for five
years," says Brooks, "and we have a really
great shorthand and incredible collaboration. He's an amazing artist. All throughout
prep I would send him images, as well as the
rules we had created for ourselves. Ian
created a LUT from our test footage that we
used for all of our Epic dailies. We had lots
of bright pink, red and purple hair, and it
was really important for us that the real-life
footage feel grounded and not fake in any
way. Sometimes the hair was just too colorful, so we pulled quite a bit of saturation for
our dailies. We didn't have much time [for
the final grade], but at this point it's a pretty
easy process working with Ian." The project
was graded using Quantel's Pablo for a 2K
DCP final deliverable.
Jem and the Holograms was a dream
project for Brooks, who as a child was a big
fan of the animated series. "I was
completely obsessed," she reveals. "I
dressed up as Kimber for Halloween one
American Cinematographer

year. My sister and I were always dancing on
the coffee tables singing songs from the
show, so it was incredibly exciting to get to
actually make the live-action version."

TECHNICAL SPECS
2.39:1
Digital Capture
Red Epic Mysterium-X,
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera,
Panasonic OmniMovie, GoPro Hero 3+
Panavision PVintage

●

ERRATA
The photo credit for our September 2015
cover (Straight Outta Compton) was incorrect and should have read, "Photo by
Jaimie Trueblood, SMPSP, courtesy of
Universal Pictures."
The aspect ratio of The Man From
U.N.C.L.E. (also covered in September) is
2.39:1 - not 1.33:1, as our Technical
Specs on page 67 assert.
American Cinematographer - November 2015

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