American Cinematographer - November 2016 - 32

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Return of the King

Top: Decades after his last encounter with the Deadites, Ash spends his days working as a clerk
at the Value Stop alongside Pablo (Ray Santiago). Bottom: After Ash unleashes an ancient evil by
reading from the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, a.k.a. the Book of the Dead, Pablo and Kelly (Dana
DeLorenzo) battle alongside their chainsaw-enhanced co-worker.

matched exactly what Dave, John and
Kevin had created on-set."
For the first season, the cinematographers worked with a Leica
Summilux-C lens package, carrying
18mm, 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 75mm
and 100mm (all T1.4) focal lengths.
Garbett recalls, "Episode one featured a
lot of torchlight, and I had found during
testing that the Leicas had interesting
flare characteristics - a lovely blue tone
evident through concentric circles.
They're also fast, beautifully made and
very compact. [We combined] these
with Angenieux Optimo 15-40mm
32

November 2016

[T2.6] and 24-290mm [T2.8] zoom
lenses."
Season two's camera and lens
package changed to comprise Arri
Amira and Alexa Mini cameras and
Panavision Primo Primes, as well as
17.5-75mm (T2.3), 19-90mm (T2.8)
and 24-275mm (T2.8) Primo Zooms. "I
had been missing the Primos," Garbett
acknowledges. "Those lenses have an
interesting 'something' that is hard to
intellectualize. It was also easier to
obtain two full kits, from a 14.5mm up
to a 150mm, with every step in
between." The production also used a
American Cinematographer

small set of Ultra Speeds - 24mm,
35mm and 50mm - for lightweight
work on rigs such as the Movi M15.
"The camera kit was provided by
Paul Lake and his team at Panavision
[New Zealand]," Garbett says. "They
were hugely supportive of me and very
accommodating of my copious requests
during both seasons, and in particular
during the testing phases."
Raimi directed the first episode,
establishing many of the series' stylistic
cornerstones. "It was Sam's idea to use
kinetic lighting to inject energy into a
shot whenever the Evil Force is present,"
notes Garbett. "When police detective
Amanda Fisher [ Jill Marie Jones] and
her partner investigate a reported disturbance in a country house, they slowly
move through the dark, foreboding house
to an upstairs room, where they
encounter a [young woman] they mistake
as a victim. There are hard shadows
throughout the room, maintaining anticipation and trepidation. Then, when the
Deadite possessing the girl reveals itself
to the detectives, a wind comes from
nowhere and whips the curtains, venetian
blinds and plastic furniture-coverings
helter-skelter. One of the detectives drops
a [flashlight] that spins for much longer
than it should, throwing moving shadows
across the room as bulbs flicker and lightning flashes. A sequence that started as
quietly ominous is immediately energized
into something quite crazy. We used this
technique throughout the series to great
dramatic effect."
This lighting motif is complemented with aggressively mobile camerawork - in particular the wide-angle,
high-speed Evil Force point-of-view
shots - that will look familiar to fans of
the Evil Dead films. On those features,
Raimi and his collaborators achieved the
effect with several well-documented DIY
solutions. While Cavill and Garbett had
more modern technology at their
disposal, they nevertheless embraced the
spirit of Raimi's earlier methods. "There
was no particular rule [to how the effect
was achieved]," says Garbett. "It just had
to feel 'Evil Force POV.'"
For a scene in which Ash's boss,

American Cinematographer - November 2016

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