American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 82

◗

A Date With Destiny

Deschanel and Sakamoto line up a night-exterior shot.

Campbell - Deschanel explains, "We
used Dedos [and] really sharp, really
bright, single-source lights, and we
basically had a spotlight concentrated
right on [Beatty's] face, with lots of flags
and little circles and things to get exactly
what we wanted. Then we could darken
the image without it falling apart. I never
lit anything like that before.
"When I have people in shadow, I
try to get a little something reflected in
the eye," the cinematographer continues.
"There's a scene in the film [shot on stage
with a Translight in the background]
where Howard finally discusses [Frank's]
real-estate deal. We put Warren against a
daylight window where the 'sun' is
creeping through and it's pretty hot.
Then I kept Warren in the darkness, but
with a hard light in his eyes.
"When I would try to figure out
how old movies were lit, I'd always watch
the close-ups carefully to see what was
reflected in the eyes," he adds. "How
many lights were there? How big was the
light? If you take a large source and shape
it, it can be beautiful. If you just blast
someone with a 10K, it's like a Jerry
Lewis movie, but if you blast them with
a 10K and then start shaping it with
shadows, it becomes really exciting and
the eyes just pop and glisten."
As they entered into the final
digital grade with colorist Michael
Hatzer - an ASC associate member
82

December 2016

- at Technicolor in Hollywood,
Deschanel says that "probably the biggest
difference" of opinion he and Beatty had
was in regard to the darkness of the
Hughes scenes. "Most directors want
things really bright, but Warren wanted
the dark scenes really dark," the
cinematographer recalls. "We ended up
compromising to some extent. In the DI
session, we put in windows to brighten
certain areas of the frame. That's the
thing about modern timing: You have so
much control over everything."
Hatzer worked with Autodesk's
Flame Premium Lustre. "There were
quite a few sequences in which Warren
wanted the scenes to look as dark as
possible," the colorist recalls. "Caleb and
I felt the best approach would be to
selectively darken certain areas of the
image by using hand-drawn shapes to
create heavy vignetting and shading. We
would also work to enhance the existing
highlights on the walls and in the
background to create alternative sources
of directional light focused away from the
characters in order to trick the eye into a
heavier sense of darkness.
"Working and grading with Caleb
came very easy to me because we both
come from the world of 35mm film and
completely understand the process and
language of photochemical timing,"
Hatzer continues. "We tried to work in
only printer points, density and contrast
American Cinematographer

on as much of the film as possible. This
technique allowed us to keep the true,
natural balance of colors throughout the
shadows, mid-tones and highlights in
order to re-create exactly what Caleb
intended on the day of the shoot.
Although this was shot digitally and
graded from ArriRaw log files, our goal
was to aim for a rich, classic film look. A
retro-style film emulation LUT created
by ASC associate member Josh Pines
helped us constrain the colors toward
that."
With his years-in-the-planning
project now in his rearview mirror, Beatty
has nothing but compliments for his
cinematographer. "Caleb and I were
always very much in sync with the
simplicity of the style of shooting, and we
were very much in sync with not having
extraneous camera movement," the
director notes. "I don't like to draw
attention to the way that people are being
shot or the way that people are being
clothed. I don't like to go on about those
things. The shot should speak for itself.
Same thing goes for the costume and
makeup and hair and all that stuff. Caleb
was great. I think he really understood.
He gets the joke."
For his part, Deschanel adds, "I
love being in the presence of really
wonderful directors. I love figuring out
things with production designers - how
you design a set so that you can light it
properly, how you build in practicals that
make it feel right for the atmosphere
you're trying to create. That's all part of
the fun of the job - that and
storytelling. Because at the end of the
day, that's really what matters: Did we tell
the story the best way we could?"
●

TECHNICAL SPECS
1.85:1
Digital Capture
Arri Alexa XT
Panavision Super Speed,
Ultra Speed, Primo



American Cinematographer - December 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - December 2016

Contents
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 1
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 2
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - Contents
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 4
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 5
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 6
American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 7
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