American Cinematographer - February 1993 - 26

it 'the Rembrandt look' because of

the grand
in."

hotels we were shooting

In the film's

opening se¬
Slade is seen in a dim,
dingy guest house. As the story -

quence,

and Slade's character -
the darkness gives way,

unfolds,

"but we
didn't want to lose that dark,

brooding quality. At the same time,
we had to
express the grandeur of
New York and the warmth of the

relationship that Slade builds with
Charlie."
The hotels provided a rich,
Above left:

Tracking Pacino
and O'Donnell
on their tour of
New York's

great hotels.
Above

right: Don

Thorin, ASC
considers his
next move.

Thief was followed by An
Officer and a Gentleman and Against
All Odds with director Taylor
Hackford, Bad Boys with Rick
Rosenthal, and Purple Rain with
Albert Magnoli. When Brest called
and asked him to shoot Scent of a
Woman, Thorin needed no urging.
"Each director has a different work¬

ing pattern," he observes. "Marty
likes to work it out with the cast,
then line up the shots and light. He
does

practically

no rehearsal after
the shot's been lit. Most directors

prefer to do a dress rehearsal; al¬
though he's never said it, Marty
seems to feel that the
performances
fresher if the actor hasn't been
rehearsed. His method is quite suc¬
are

cessful, and he gets very interesting

performances."
Thorin had no time to ana¬

lyze the shot list or make
preproduction decisions when he
came on

24

American

the set, because the pro¬

Cinematographer

duction

was

He reshot

already in full swing.

some

(not all) of the

former cinematographer's scenes,
but didn't really mind the lack of
prep time.

"It would have been dif¬

ficult," he notes, "if the picture

ready-made environment for the
filmmakers, but not without

a

price: the high ceilings precluded
hanging lights, and day-to-day op¬
erations meant that pre-rigging was
impossible. In addition, nothing

hadn't been prepped so well by the
New York crew. And having
worked with Marty before, I knew
what to expect."
Brest and Thorin did have
some discussions about the
lighting

could be nailed or screwed into the
walls of the ritzy locations. "We
had to be very careful not to dam¬

style before the director of photog¬
raphy got behind the viewfinder. "I
believe in mixing hard and soft
light and bounce light, and I do
very little handheld work, but I
have no pattern as far as a lighting
style," Thorin insists. "Some cam¬
eramen will
only use hard or soft
light but I prefer to mix it and use a
little color in the gels. The source
lighting came from practical places

crew

anything," Thorin recalls.
"Normally you can go in a day or

age

two

ahead and have the

rigging

put in lights and cables so you
can
spend most of the day shooting.
But we had to go in from scratch
each day. We ended up spending
a lot of time
rigging. It took a lot of

light to make the hotels look glam¬
orous."

The Pierre Hotel

was an

like the windows. We also chose to

exception. The production was able
to secure the ballroom (the princi¬
pal location in that hotel) for a pe¬
riod of days, so it was possible to

keep it on the dark side. We called

build, dress and shoot the set with-

February 1993
American Cinematographer - February 1993

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