American Cinematographer - January 1993 - 56

The

bulbs that look like fluorescent
tubes but aren't. We put them on
the dashboard and above the vi¬

aspiring

cent

filmmaker gets
some

sartorial

tips from his

sors.
They gave us a much nicer
light than the fluorescents, and be¬
cause
they're incandescent, we
could dim them way down to a
level just above street ambience.
Also, I turned on the dome light in
the car; nobody questioned it be¬
cause the car was so beaten
up. We

would-be

financier.

had the

camera mounted on the
hood of the car, which was being

towed, and I did

some front light¬
ing right through the windshield
using an inky. As long as the cam¬
era was at a
right angle to the light,
I didn't get any reflections and it
just opened up the car a bit."

up. Originally, it was supposed to
be one shot walking all the way into
this overblown room, but I didn't
know how far I could go without

being totally overexposed and I

actually touch an actor with one
and not burn him. They also don't

didn't have a chance to test it. I went

spill anywhere.

three

"We used a lot of one-tube
fluorescents for fill light throughout
the film," he continues. "We didn't

stops over and it was too
much; it was out of the printing
range of the film. It was printable,
but not within the same shot, so we
had to make a cut. So when we first
enter the room and it's blown out,
that's one shot. Then we cut away,
and when we cut back, it comes
down a lot."
To add the proper feel to
the film's dream sequences, Parmet

can

have the money for KinoFlo so we
just used normal fluorescent bulbs
at 3200 degrees. I'd put one-foot
tubes behind a door so that when
an actor stood in the
doorway, I had

key there. I'd also put them be¬
pieces of furniture to create a
tiny bit of a glow on the wall behind
them; that way you'd see the shape
a

hind

Parmet calls the shot that
follows - where Skippy pulls to an
unscheduled stop in a very bad part
of town, jumps out of the car, runs

through the headlights, picks up a
gun and gets back in the car - "one
of my favorite scenes in the whole
film. It takes place in a black envi¬
ronment again. It's night with no
light sources anywhere, and it was
fun to make it look like it wasn't lit.
I used

couple of lights to simulate
headlights in front of the car and
then I rimlit Aldolpho and the other
guy in the car from outside. I also
put a light on the ground that flares
on

a

the dirt of the window

could

so

you

little

beauty filter used by still photogra¬
phers," he explains. "It works
something like a soft effect filter,
but it looks very weird; it's made up
of a series of lenses on a flat plate
of glass."

of the furniture and it would give a
sense of
depth to the shot. I'm not

depth when
Skippy opens the car door. It was
nothing spectacular, but for me, it's
great in its unspectacularness. You

you could get away with it in
color. It might be too noticeable."
Tubular lights also played

don't think about the sources, or
about how it's lit
you just accept
it."

For all of the film's earthi¬

the inside of a beat-up car during a
hilarious joyride sequence that oc¬
curs when Joe's
psychotic brother,

used

ness,

a

Zeiss Softar filter. "It's

there

are a

a

number of classi¬

cally composed shots. One of
Parmet's favorites is

a scene

at

an

intimate

party that Joe arranges for
Aldolpho. "There's a really pretty
shot of Joe in that scene," he says.
"Joe is talking on the phone, and
a band of white over his
head on the wall behind him and
his hair is slicked back and shiny.
It's like a Thirties image. To create
that effect, I put a fluorescent light

there's

sure

an

Skippy, offers to take Aldolpho
home from Joe's place. Lighting the
interior of the car proved to be a bit
of a challenge for Parmet. "I had to
make sure that the ambient lighting
inside the car was just a bit bigger
than that outside," he says. "Shoot¬
ing with an ASA of 500, we could
get exposures on the street, so the
idea was to try to bring up the inte¬
rior

enough to model the faces.
"Charlie Libin, my gaffer,
came
up with long, thin incandes¬

American

January 1993

Cinematographer

see

a

-

Another of Parmet's favor¬

important part in illuminating

of frame, and used that to add a
slash of light across his head. It was

eight inches over his head, just out

54

close that an incandescent light
would've burned him up, but the
nice thing about fluorescents is you
so

ite shots

occurs
during a sequence
where Joe and Aldolpho attempt to
break into a house at night, only to
arouse the old
gentleman who lives
there. With the logic of a dream, the
old man falls into a confessional
as the
burglars try to com¬
fort him. Parmet's lighting for the
scene is
elegant and very beautiful.

reverie

"It's also very simple," he adds.
"The problem was how to simulate

night. If I was shooting in color, I
might've done it by using blue
light. But shooting in black & white,
I couldn't

use that convention. I
decided I'd have a streetlight shin-
American Cinematographer - January 1993

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