American Cinematographer - February 1988 - 48

didn't look like

shiny boards."
Large "silks" made of Grifflon
were used to diffuse the
sunlight in
many scenes. "We used a lot of
Grifflon. For big scenes and many

Fop: Lamkin, Chuck
Connors and Hank
Worden prepare for
outdoor scene. Beow:

/vork

Camera
on

crew

at

flashback

horsemen

/vhich features ball-

we

used two

or

three 12-

by-12 foot Grifflons to fill in an
area.
They do a nice job. We used
them also on a cabin and a couple
of relay stations."
Much of the picture was
photographed with the new Agfa
negatives because of Lamkin's ad¬
miration for the location photogra¬
phy of Out of Africa and The

room scene.

Mission, both of which

largely

on

were

shot

Agfa stocks.

"I didn't have

a

chance to

do any lighting tests or night tests,"
he noted. "I did do some exterior

shooting with Agfa and liked what
I saw. The first night we got into a
scene, I was rating the film at a
suggested 320. The picture came
out dark. The background did not
hold up to the faces, did not seem to
have a proper ratio. With 5394 (East¬
man's high speed film) you can tell
with your eye what you are going to
get on the film. You know you are
going to get a nice balance and the
background will hold up. But in
dailies, the Agfa didn't hold up, the
background fell off.
"I

was

alarmed," Lamkin

continued. "I went to the lab and
had the

Agfa man come down. He
told me to rate it about 250. I was
2 still a little scared because I didn't
g like the look I was getting. It was an
c

^ important picture for

me

and the

^ producer said all was too dark in
% the first night scene. On the second
£ night I used Agfa again and rated
it, not at the suggested 250, but at
spot flood and they are really great.

ran

We

that

supplemented a lot of our
moonlight backgrounds that were
things we couldn't reach - we used
lot of those
of

with

-

with the HMIs. Most

weather

was
really good,
quite a lot of sun. Arcs seemed

our

to be the

answer

have been

an

to that. I like arcs,

arc

man

for

a

long

out about two

our

package

incandescent. We tried build¬

ing a long snoot on the little 750 soft
lights - they call them egg crates that extend off the light about two

46

three inches. We built

American

Cinematographer

one

that

used

200

-

and it

came

out

okay. But in¬

I could

use

94 and rate it

Dickinson and Richard Widmark

fine."

when she arrives

He decided to stay with
Agfa ASA125 for all the day exteri¬
ors and use
high speed Agfa (320)
for day interiors where they could
utilize the HMI package and some
daylight. "It seemed to hold up

used that

ups

on

the train, we

key for the closeand it worked well."
as our

For most of the

"The rest of

or

we

asmuch

time.

was

feet and

key light on a lot of the
night scenes and it would give us a
very, very soft light. It worked out
really well. For a scene with Angie
as our

Lamkin elected to
termed
out

use

picture

what he

"simple lighting

- nothing
ordinary. We tried to
exteriors all in backlight,

of the

shoot the
so we

had to

use a

lot of fill with

shiny boards from 'way back,
February 1988

our

so

it

as

faster and get the same
look, I decided to go back to 94 for
all the night stuff. It worked out
at 320 or

where

we were

doing bright stuff,

but wouldn't handle

ness." He

was

the black¬

highly pleased with

the results of the exteriors. "With
American Cinematographer - February 1988

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 1988
