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M E M B E R P O R T R A I T

Donald A. Morgan, ASC

W W W . T H E A S C . C O M

TO SUBSCRIBE BY PHONE:

Call (800) 448-0145 (U.S. only)

(323) 969-4333 or visit the ASC Web site

hen I was young, I

watched black-and-whit

movies with wonder and

amazement, always wanting to

know how such drama could be

created with shadow and light.

When I discoveredAmerican

Cinematographer, the magazin

provided me with a wealth of

information and helped me

develop my own ability to strike

the right balance of shadow and

light in my work.

Visual images are how

we communicate in the modern

world, and cinematography is th

key to telling a story visually. AC

continues to fuel the magic of the

moving picture. I am so proud to

be part of a society of visual

storytellers.

Donald A. Morgan, AS

W

photobyOwenRoizman,ASC

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LitepanelsSola Fresnels & 1x1s both feature:

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The International Journal of Motion Imaging

30 Horse PowerDean Semler, ASC, ACS bets on Secretariat

42 The Worlds Most Wanted ManDenis Lenoir, ASC, AFC and Yorick Le Saux help profilea terrorist for Carlos

54 A Modern RomanceTom Stern, ASC, AFC provides hope for an afterlifein Hereafter

64 King of CoolAChonors the memory of ASC icon William A. Fraker

80 Primetime ArtistryThis years Emmy-nominated cinematographers take a bowDEPARTMENTS

FEATURES

VISIT WWW.THEASC.COM TO ENJOY THESE WEB EXCLUSIVES Podcast: Morten Sborg and Nicolas Winding Refn on Valhalla Rising

DVD Playback: Apocalypse Now Fantmas Whats Up, Doc?

On Our Cover: A legendary thoroughbred racehorse wins the Triple CrowninSecretariat, shot by Dean Semler, ASC, ACS. (Photo by John Bramley, courtesy ofDisney Enterprises.)

8 Editors Note10 Presidents Desk12 Short Takes: Sextape18 Production Slate: The LXD Monsters82 Post Focus: New Hat

86Tricks of the Trade

88 New Products & Services94 International Marketplace96 Classified Ads96 Ad Index98 Clubhouse News

100 ASC Close-Up: Phedon Papamichael

N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 0 V O L . 9 1 N O . 1 1

54

64

42

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N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 0 V o l . 9 1 , N o . 1 1

T h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l J o u r n a l o f M o t i o n I m a g i n g

Visit us online at

www.theasc.com

PUBLISHER Martha Winterhalter

EDITORIAL

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Stephen Pizzello

SENIOR EDITOR Rachael K. Bosley

ASSOCIATE EDITORJon D. Witmer

TECHNICAL EDITOR Christopher Probst

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Stephanie Argy, Benjamin B, Douglas Bankston, Robert S. Birchard,John Calhoun, Bob Fisher, Michael Goldman, Simon Gray, Jim Hemphill,

David Heuring, Jay Holben, Mark Hope-Jones, Noah Kadner, Jean Oppenheimer,John Pavlus, Chris Pizzello, Jon Silberg, Iain Stasukevich,

Kenneth Sweeney, Patricia Thomson

ART DEPARTMENT

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Marion Gore

ADVERTISING

ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTORAngie Gollmann

323-936-3769 FAX 323-936-9188

e-mail: [email protected]

ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Sanja Pearce

323-952-2114 FAX 323-876-4973


ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Scott Burnell

323-936-0672 FAX 323-936-9188


CLASSIFIEDS/ADVERTISING COORDINATORDiella Nepomuceno

323-952-2124 FAX 323-876-4973


CIRCULATION, BOOKS & PRODUCTS

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Saul Molina

CIRCULATION MANAGERAlex Lopez

SHIPPING MANAGER Miguel Madrigal

ASC GENERAL MANAGER Brett Grauman

ASC EVENTS COORDINATOR Patricia Armacost

ASC PRESIDENTS ASSISTANT Kim Weston

ASC ACCOUNTING MANAGER Mila Basely

ASC ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE Corey Clark

American Cinematographer(ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 90th year of publication, is published

monthly in Hollywood by ASC Holding Corp., 1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028, U.S.A.,(800) 448-0145, (323) 969-4333, Fax (323) 876-4973, direct line for subscription inquiries (323) 969-4344.

Subscriptions: U.S. $50; Canada/Mexico $70; all other foreign countries $95 a year (remit internationalMoney Order or other exchange payable in U.S. $). Advertising: Rate card upon request from Hollywood

office. Article Reprints: Requests for high-quality article reprints (or electronic reprints) should be made toSheridan Reprints at (800) 635-7181 ext. 8065 or by e-mail [email protected].

Copyright 2010 ASC Holding Corp. (All rights reserved.) Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, CAand at additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA.

POSTMASTER: Send address change to American Cinematographer, P.O. Box 2230, Hollywood, CA 90078.

4

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OFFICERS - 2010/2011

Michael GoiPresident

Richard CrudoVice President

Owen RoizmanVice President

John C. Flinn IIIVice President

Matthew LeonettiTreasurer

Rodney TaylorSecretary

Ron GarciaSergeant At Arms

MEMBERS OF THE

BOARD

John BaileyStephen Burum

Curtis ClarkGeorge Spiro Dibie

Richard EdlundJohn C. Flinn III

Michael GoiStephen LighthillIsidore Mankofsky

Daryn OkadaRobert Primes

Nancy Schreiber

Kees Van OostrumHaskell Wexler

Vilmos Zsigmond

ALTERNATES

Fred ElmesRodney Taylor

Michael D. OSheaSol Negrin

Michael B. Negrin

MUSEUM CURATOR

Steve Gainer

American Society of Cine matographers

The ASC is not a labor union or a guild, butan educational, cultural and pro fes sion al

or ga ni za tion. Membership is by invitationto those who are actively en gaged asdi rec tors of photography and have

dem on strated out stand ing ability. ASCmembership has be come one of the highest

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of prestige and excellence.

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This months tribute to the late, great William A. Fraker,ASC, BSC (King of Cool, page 64),is a salute to a cine-matographer who brought positive vibes to the set and joyto all who knew him. A true professional who also knewhow to have fun, Billy was the charismatic embodiment ofan era when moviemaking was the most glamorous andexciting career one could ever hope to pursue. Whenever heambled into the ASC Clubhouse, sporting his mirroredshades, we all experienced a frisson of true Hollywoodhipness,especially when Billy bent an elbow at the bar andentertained us with stories about Roman Polanski, SteveMcQueen or the car chase from Bullitt. Trust me, there wasno cooler way to enjoy a scotch on the rocks.

Dramatizing real-life events can be tricky when most of the audience knows how thestory ends, but Secretariatdoes a fine job of creating suspense while telling the saga of themost famous Triple Crown winner in history. We wanted to capture the excitement of the raceand were willing to do it in ways that no one else had tried, director Randall Wallace tells ACcontributor Patricia Thomson (Horse Power, page 30). We were skimming cameras an inchover the ground, so close to the hooves that you can see the light reflected in the horseshoes.The dirt is flying, and its all real. Of course, that kind of work requires careful planning, as cine-matographer Dean Semler, ASC, ACS relates: We did a careful, analytical study of every race.Each was designed on a corkboard with the exact position for the starting gate, the finish line,and the positions for all the horses throughout the race . Wed pull this corkboard out everymorning and dribble our breakfast burritos over it as wed plan the days events.

The makers of Carlos faced similar challenges in dramatizing the true story of Ilich

Ramrez Snchez, a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal, a terrorist described by director Olivier Assayas asthe Bin Laden of his time. Released in two versions a 5 12-hour cut broadcast on theSundance Channel and a 212-hour theatrical cut the ambitious film was shot in nine coun-tries, on 135 locations and in eight languages, by two cinematographers: Yorick Le Saux andDenis Lenoir, ASC, AFC. Assayas method, which often involves handheld cameras, tested thecinematographers mettle. Lighting for his films is more difficult because you have to cover180, 270 or even 360 degrees, Lenoir tells European correspondent Benjamin B (The WorldsMost Wanted Man, page 42), so you have to compromise; you have to light from the ceil-ing or find ways to not light at all.

OnHereafter, a romantic story with supernatural overtones, Tom Stern, ASC, AFC addednew twists to the tried-and-true methods he usually employs on his collaborations with direc-tor Clint Eastwood. Normally a classicist, Eastwood found himself embracing the latest digital

techniques, including previsualization, CGI and the digital-intermediate process. We startedwith the DI about six years ago, and there was tension about it back then, Stern concedes inhis interview with Michael Goldman (A Modern Romance, page 54). Now, its a standardpart of what we do. The point is, as technologies become stable, more interesting tools becomeavailable. Clint will always take a conservative approach, but things do evolve, and were opento whatever develops.

Stephen PizzelloExecutive Editor

Editors Note

8

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As things continue to progress and evolve in the ever-changing production world, I find thatone element is starting to erode from the lexicon of communication. In a word, trust. Trust savestimeand money and creates a better product. Trust takes many forms.

When watching a 17"or smaller monitor on set, one cannot make an informed judgmentabout the merits of a shot as well as the camera operator, who is living the shot as it happens,moving in unison with the flow of the actors and the dolly. When my operator, Michael Stumpf,tells me the shot was great, I dont need to rewind a tape to check it. I move on. And when he saysit wasnt good and we should go again, I usually understand why without having to ask, becauseI usually plant myself near the camera as the shot is happening so I can see the lighting on theactors faces. Peripherally, I can sense the motion of the camera and its timing to their moves.

As digital intermediates grew in popularity, the color-timing processsuddenly morphed fromthe cinematographer and lab timer working in a small room with a Hazeltine into a dozen peoplecrowding a color-correction theater,complete with leather seats and cappuccinos. Sometimes thecinematographer was even locked out of the process. Cinematographers retaliated by embracingtechnologies that enabled them to establish the proper color and contrast balance on set andensure that the information would follow the workflow to the end product. This put pressure onthe DIT to become the colorist, and minimized the job of the dailies colorist, an artist who was

reduced to applying the data from a memory stick onto the transfer.I dont have any desire to determine the final color of my work on set in the midst of tight shooting schedules and rapidly

changing location conditions in which my eyes dont havethe proper time to adjust to the light level in the DIT tent. I like to discussthe look Im going for with the DIT and have them balance it accordingly for the on-set monitors so that the director doesnt h aveto look at a raw, flat image. Then I like to have Dennis Mackelburg, who is one of the best dailies colorists Ive worked with, takethat footage at night and, within the controlled environment of his suite,away from the chaos of the set, bring the look of tho sedailies to where it should be for distribution to everyone.

For most of the past 20years Ive worked with two gaffers, John Magallon and Terry Meadows, and three key grips, Jean-

Pierre Marangakis, Kenny King and Porfirio Dominguez (who passed away from cancer two years ago). Though I started out as agaffer myself, I dont feel compelled to dictate every single instrument that will be used on set. In our initial conversations, they pickup on what Im intending to do stylistically and plug into the concept. Based on their experience, they suggest instruments toachievecertain effects that I may be unaware of, or offer alternate solutions to a plan that I propose. And theyre usually right.

I love to edit, and Ive edited quite a few projects. I feel that editing teaches you more about directing and shot structure thanjust about anything else, because it forces you to acknowledge what you actually needed to get on set,as opposed to what youthink you needed. However, as much as I love to edit, I like having the perspective that a great editor like Marc Leif brings t o theproject. Marc has edited eight films that Ive shot, and I never have to worry if the visual intention of a scene is going to g et lost inthe process, because he can look at a shot and understand conceptually why we took the time to get it.

Finally, trust builds your future. Ive shot every one of director Charlie Carners films for the past 15years. Weve known eachother (and Marc Leif) since college. When Charlie and I are on the set, people remark that we never seem to talk to each other. Wedont need to. Prior to the start of production, we do our prep by spending nights watching movies, eating Italian beef sandwic hes

and chatting about ideas. By the time the cameras roll, we can complete each others thoughts.I love working with people who are better at their jobs than I am at their jobs. I trust my team to approach each project with

the same passion and commitment that I do. And they trust me to trust them.

Michael Goi, ASCPresident

Presidents Desk

10 November 2010 American Cinematographer

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of specialty prisms. After discovering theGates Deep Red housing, however, they real-ized they could make the rainbows feel morethree-dimensional by arranging the prismsalong the curve of the housings acrylic dome.

Certain scenes in Sextape have alook reminiscent of the night vision settings

on some DV camcorders; the effect wasachieved in-camera by lighting with a puregreen spectrum of laser light and applying a-100 magenta tint in the cameras imagesettings. We fell in love with the subtletexture the single channel gave us for thosescenes, preferring the natural color, saturationand noise levels of the Mysterium-X sensor toperforming the color correction in post.Weve always loved what happens to brightercolors when they clip in the older firmwarebuilds, and we lit certain things with that inmind and processed them with older versionsof RedAlert.

This approach is apparent in the middlesection of the video, as memories flash bywhile the characters literally pull on andbecome entangled in the fabric of the story-line. We wanted these scenes to have thefuturistic sense of nostalgia you might find ina [William] Gibson-esque home movie fromthe future, the filmmakers say. Weachieved this by shooting Redcode 28processed with Build 16 at a half-standard de-bayer, which gave us a lower resolution and

noisier image,and also gave the highlights apleasingly dissonant clip gradient.

While editing Sextape, Forrest andLiebenguth eschewed all computer effects,transitions and fades in favor of straight cuts.We try to get it to a point where the imagessimply morph into one another and the narra-tive flows across the screen in one continu-ous, kinetic piece, the directors remark. Astronger, deeper narrative always emerges inthe editing process. Because the video wasnot shot upfront with this in mind, this new

narrative is hidden and we are the only peoplewho know the secret stories of each video.

Top and middle: Underwater sequences were shot with the Red One in a Gates Deep Red housing andvarious fixtures sealed in military-grade zipper bags. Bottom: Forrest readies multiple fixtures above

the swimming pool used for the videos underwater action.

ErratumGaffer Paul Samaniegos name wasmisspelled in our September Short Takescolumn (Taking Arris Alexa to the WorldCup, page 12).

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Lethal Dance MovesBy Jean Oppenheimer

In the Web series The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (TheLXD), dance has emerged as the newest battleground in the strug-

gle between good and evil. The show follows a disparate group ofindividuals whose mind-blowing dance moves make them a newbreed of superhero. Each has a specific talent: hip-hop, krumping,popping, break-dancing, jazz, and even some tap and ballet.

The Paramount-produced series is one of the most ambitiousever mounted for the Internet; now in its second U.S. season onHulu, The LXD has consistently ranked in the sites top 10 most popu-lar shows every week. Director Jon M. Chu ( Step Up 2: The Streets ,Step Up 3-D) created the show specifically for the Web, and one ofhis first calls was to cinematographer Alice Brooks, a former class-mate from the University of Southern Californias undergraduate filmprogram. Brooks entered USC knowing she wanted to be a cine-

matographer, and she honed her skills shooting a lot of thesis films,including Chus 2002 thesis, When the Kids Are Away . When Chucalled her about The LXD, she immediately signed on.

We are doing stuff on this show that is experimental anddifferent, says Chu. We wanted to create a world where, eventhough its fantasy, you feel the texture and the light, you see flaresand patterns on patterns.

Shooting dance isnt easy, he adds. Theres a choreogra-phy not just of whats within the frame but of the frame itself. Aliceunderstands that there is a duet between our audience and thedancers. She and the choreographers work together, figuring out

how the camera can move with the dancers bodies. Each dancerhas such a different style; Alice has to pick up a new language witheach one. She has really [helped to] define our tone.

When you think of a Web series, you think prosumercameras, but it was always our intention to shoot The LXD as if it

would play on the big screen, says Brooks, who recently beganshooting the shows third season. When shooting began on the firstseason, in February 2009, the Red One was the new kid on theblock. It also turned out to be the easiest camera for the productionto acquire: digital-imaging technician Dan Haas, another USC class-mate, already owned one. (Haas also served as cinematographer onone episode of the first season.)

Production on the first two seasons was spread out over 18months, and when it ramped up for season two, Brooks upgradedto Reds Mysterium-X sensor, which, at 800 ASA, is considerablyfaster than the cameras original chip. Brooks shoots the series inRaw mode, Redcode 36 or Redcode 42,monitors in Redspace, and

records onto CF cards and hard drives. We shoot 3K HD, 4K 2:1and 4K HD, depending upon the aspect ratio and frame rate, andthose vary depending on the dance style and genre of each piece.

We originally hoped to shoot the entire series 2:1, butbecause of different delivery standards, we decided to stick with16x9, she continues. However, a number of episodes begin in16x9 and are matted to 2.40 at different story points. The greatthing about a web series is that there are no rules, so we get to makethem up as we go, including playing with the aspect ratio within anepisode.

Brooks tested a number of lens and filter combinations

Production Slate

Chadd MaddChadd Smith

leads the pack asthe character

Sp3cimen in TheLXD, a popular

Web series thatmakes dance a

battlegroundbetween good

and evil.

I


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before choosing Zeiss Super Speeds. Ifound the Red lenses too crisp, whereas theSuper Speeds, in conjunction with differentincrements of Schneider Classic Softs andthe use of smoke, produce the soft, magi-cal feel we wanted. In order to get full-length shots of the dancers, shorter focallengths are used, primarily 18mm, 25mm

and 35mm. At bigger locations that involvea number of dancers, a 50mm or 85mmwill often be used.

According to Brooks, Chu envisagedthe project as a tapestry of different colors,feelings, tones, moods and genres.Although the series jumps back and forth intime, stretching from the 1920s to the year3000, Jon wanted a sense of timeless-ness, she adds. So you never see anycars, and wardrobe isnt specific to any

period.Early on, we decided we loved lens

flares and blown-out windows, continuesBrooks. She recalls contemplating how tolight the long, dark hallway at one of thefirst locations, an abandoned hospital usedin the episode Robot Love Story, noting,I love to go to the location by myself and

just sit quietly until the idea comes to me.The scene involves a dancer who

specializes in the robot technique an evilcharacter has turned him into a robot byplanting a mechanical box in him. Brooksrecalls, There were three huge windows atone end of the room, and I decided to turnoff all the interior lights and just blast Nine-light Maxis through the windows. The wallswere pale green and naturally aged, whichbounced the light beautifully on the

dancers. We used dichroic bulbs. That gaveme the punch I needed, and for thatepisode, I liked the quality of light theyprovided much more than that of HMIs.

The entire series has been shot onlocation, mostly indoors. Locations have sofar included a high-school gym, an aban-doned warehouse, and a bank that was re-dressed as an art museum. Brooks mustdevise a lighting plan that will work for theentire day; rearranging fixtures between

shots is not an option. The solution is acombination of backlight and skip bounce.We never set lamps in front of thedancers, she says. If we did, [Steadicamoperator] Nick Franco would constantly becrossing the light or we would be inhibitingthe choreography. We cant rig units up highbecause we dont get any pre-rigging time.

She estimates that 95 percent of theshow is shot with the Steadicam. Nick is atrue artist, she declares. Weve beenworking together for almost 10 years, since

I started shooting, and weve developed aneasy and fast way of communicating withone another. Thats especially helpful inlight of the short production schedule: eachepisode is shot in one day, occasionally two.And because Brooks only has three hours tocolor-time each episode, she tries to get asclose to the intended look as possible in-camera. (Post is handled by LightIron Digi-tal in Hollywood.)

To offset the demanding shooting

Top photos:Three Nine-light

Maxi-Brutesilluminate a

dance sequencefrom a balconyabove the set.

Bottom:Cinematographer

Alice Brooksconfers withLXD creator

and directorJon M. Chu.

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Over the years I have used just about every piece of equipment Clairmont Camera has ever owned; time-lapse film cameras to super high-speed digital

cameras and now the Alexa. I love Clairmonts custom gear and incredible service; it keeps me coming back! In visual effect shooting we always are

inventing on the fly. With difficult setups like hanging off a 70-story building, complex driving rigs or doing in camera visual effects having equipment

and service you can depend on is essential. I would recommend Clairmont Camera to anyone in the industry.Sam Nicholson, ASC

Chairman / CEO Stargate Studios

H o l l y w o o d

8 1 8 - 7 6 1 - 4 4 4 0

V a n c o u v e r

6 0 4 - 9 8 4 - 4 5 6 3

T o r o n t o

4 1 6 - 4 6 7 - 1 7 0 0

A l b u q u e r q u e

5 0 5 - 2 2 7 - 2 5 2 5

M o n t r e a l

5 1 4 - 5 2 5 - 6 5 5 6

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aid of wires or special effects.The Greater of Two Evils, one of

the most ambitious episodes from season

two, introduces viewers to two sets ofvillains: the Umbras, who wear bowler hatsand use umbrellas as weapons, and a groupof misfits called Organization X. Bothtroupes want to destroy the heroes, butthey must first battle each other. Theepisode was shot in a 1920s bank dressedas an art museum. The location provided agiant, open space with a number of pillarsthat were perfect spots to hide small lights;it also featured second-floor balconies thatallowed Brooks to light the battle below.

We wanted to create a film-noirlook with lots of shadows, but we had toshoot during the day, recalls Brooks.There were huge windows on all sides ofthe building, and we hung 20-by-20 piecesof black Duvetyn outside all of them, exceptfor one that faced an alley we couldntaccess. As luck would have it, the inacces-sible windows were directly behind thedancers, exactly where the camera wouldbe pointing. Since she was unable to black

the windows out, Brooks decided to createenough light inside the building that thewindows wouldnt key the scene. Sheaccomplished this by placing three Nine-light Maxi-Brutes gelled with 216 on thecamera-left balcony above the dancers, justout of frame. In addition to the backlight, a

number of 1Ks and 2Ks were hiddenbehind pillars; some were dimmed down orgelled with 14 or 12 CTO. Smoke was alsoused in the scene.

The floor was made of old, warm,beautiful marble that bounced light into thedancers faces, recalls Brooks. Because itwas one of the larger locations, we shotfrom slightly farther away than we did inother episodes, using the 85mm or 50mmlens.

One dancer was in the foreground,and the camera was focused on his face.There was a whole row of dancers recedingthrough to the background. They weredancing the exact same moves as the fore-ground dancer we were focused on, and itwas nice how the focus fell off with eachdancer. Charles Oliver, who directed thatepisode, wanted a very shallow depth offield, and the use of selective focus is some-thing weve played with throughout theseries. Im really happy with the way itturned out.

Brooks has worked with most of her

crew on The LXD for years. Nick isfrequently my Steadicam operator, andElliott Schackne is often my first AC. Elliottdoes an amazing job pulling focus; fromtake to take on this show, the camera isnever in the same place, and neither are thedancers! The key grip, Rocky Rodriguez,and the gaffer, Jay Muranaka, are incrediblycollaborative, which makes my work somuch easier.

The LXD has been a very intenseexperience, because the dancers have an

incredible amount of energy, and Ive neverseen a crew work so hard. Everyone lovesbeing there. When I get to the set in themorning, the energy just blows me away.

TECHNICAL SPECS

16x9 and 2:1Digital CaptureRed OneZeiss lenses

and post schedules, prep for 5 episodes(half a season) is 14 days. We shoot a nine-day stretch with one day off, and during

that period well shoot four or fiveepisodes, says Brooks. Then we break fora while and come back for another ninedays. A major part of prep involves dancerehearsals, which Brooks observes regularly.I become intimately familiar with everystep the dancers make, says Brooks. Istudy their bodies and how their musclesmove. I wander around the room observingthe routines to figure out which angle willbe best to use. She shoots the rehearsalson her Flip camera and sends the footage to

Franco, her gaffer (Jay Muranaka in seasonstwo and three, Michael Roy in season one)and her key grip (Rocky Rodriguez) to givethem an idea of the feel, size and scope ofeach number.

Most of the dance scenes are shot at48 fps. We determined our frame rate andshutter angle based on the specific dancestyle, says Brooks. Though many of thedancers moves appear physically impossi-ble, they are, in fact, performed without the

Top: Sp3cimenbreaks into a

routine set in a

hospital.Bottom: Part ofthe detail from

a dancefeaturing the

Dark Nurse(Shelby Rabara).

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Creature FeatureBy Jon D. Witmer

Gareth Edwards feature debut,Monsters, springs from an intriguingpremise: after a probe carrying bacteriasamples from the Jovian moon Europaburns up during re-entry into Earths atmos-phere, huge alien creatures begin to appearin Central America, forcing officials to quar-antine Mexico as an uninhabitableinfected zone. Rather than focusing on

the creatures initial appearance on ourplanet, Edwards sets his tale a few yearslater to follow the journey of two Ameri-cans, Sam Wynden (Whitney Able) andAndrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy), who mustwend their way through the infected zone and elude the tentacled monstrositieslurking there to get home to the UnitedStates.

Edwards specialized in cinematogra-phy while attending film school at the

Surrey Institute of Art & Design, but hefound the experience frustrating. I wasused to having an idea for a shot, picking upa camera and trying to get it, saysEdwards, who recently sat down with ACwhile promoting his film in Los Angeles.Learning to do it properly meant thatwhat used to be as simple as picking up acamera and shooting became an all-dayevent costing thousands of pounds. To me,filmmaking shouldnt be about logistics andmoney.

After graduating, Edwards pursuedwork in visual effects and quickly made hismark, earning honors that included aBAFTA Award for Hiroshima (2005) and anEmmy nomination for Perfect Disaster(2006). In 2008, Edwards applied his CGskills tothe kind of small-footprint produc-tion he prefers, entering and winning theSci-Fi-London 48-Hour Film Challenge withthe short film Factory Farmed, which hemade by himself with just a few actors. He

essentially applied the same methodologyto Monsters, serving asthe shows writer,director, cinematographer and visual-effectssupervisor. The movies six-week shoot tookEdwards, editor Colin Goudie, assistanteditor Justin Hall, sound recordist Ian Macla-gan, line producer Jim Spencer and the twolead actors on a journey through Mexico,Belize, Guatemala, Texas and Costa Rica.

American Cinematographer :How did your work in visual effectsprepare you for your responsibilities onMonsters?

Gareth Edwards: I think CGI isgreat training for cinematography. Whenyou make a bad composition with acamera, you can see it straightaway andcorrect it within seconds, but when youmake a bad composition in the computer,you cant tell until its fully rendered youcan end up wasting a whole day. Its apainful way to learn what makes an imagelook good or bad, and the lessons reallystick. By comparison, being able to movethe camera and change a composition in

real time on location is the most liberatingfeeling in the world.

More than anything, CGI taught menot to compose images based on theobjects in the scene, but to compose basedon shapes formed by lights and darks.When you see a wireframe version of ascene, the objects outlines seem to be thestrongest shapes to compose the shotaround, but once those objects are properlylit, you realize the strongest shapes are actu-

Right: Sam Wynden(Whitney Able) dons

a gas mask whileexploring the

wreckage left in thewake of giant,

space-bornecreatures in

Monsters. Below:

Andrew Kaulder(Scoot McNairy),Wyndens

companion throughthe creature-infested

infected zone,stands before a

mural thatfilmmaker GarethEdwards digitally

painted onto thewall in post.

I

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ally where strong shadows lie or randomhighlights catch something. Its these shapesI compose for, not the objects themselves. Ithink the same difference exists on locationbetween storyboard stick figures and natu-rally lit scenes; I learned to ignore the objectsin front of me and focus on balancing theshapes created by light and dark areas in theframe.

Nevertheless, there are shots thatappear to have been planned, particu-larly as far as production design isconcerned.

Edwards: If it looks like there wasproduction value, it was done after the fact

on the computer. Because of the computergraphics, we could shoot anything on loca-tion and manipulate it afterwards, makingone-off happy accidents fit in with the story.For instance, theres a shot of two guys in awagon carrying a jet engine with an Ameri-can flag on it; they were just guys with anempty wagon I filmed as they went past. Inthe edit, we decided what CGI I would putin there. I also kept filming advertisementsigns everywhere we went, and later, in thecomputer, I painted over them to create

warning signs about the Infected Zone. Aswell as being cheaper, it meant we didnthave to stop filming or carry lots of propswith us.

What software did you use forthe CGI?

Edwards: We edited in [Adobe]Premiere, and I used Photoshop and AfterEffects. All of the creature animation wasdone in Autodesk 3ds Max, and I did all ofthe tracking in Mocha, which is the only way

I know of to track out-of-focus areas. Thatwas a lifesaver!

What camera did you shootwith?

Edwards: It was a Sony PMW-EX3,and it had a Letus35 Ultimate adapter onthe front for our Nikon lenses. We had threelenses during the shoot a 28mm, a50mm and an 80mm all with an aper-ture of 1.2. I fell in love with the 50mm andsecretly wanted it to get stuck on thecamera!

The camera shot 23.97, 1080p MXFfiles to SxS cards. We could get about threehours on two cards, and you can take one

card out while keeping the other onerolling. We had an editor and an assistantwho pulled the footage off the cards,checked to make sure it wasnt corrupted,cloned the footage so we were totally safe,and then deleted the cards.

A lot of times at night I would set thecamera to 9dB. We did a few tests at 0dB innight conditions with the grade whackedup so you could see into the blacks, and at9dB with some de-graining. We printedboth tests to 35mm, and they looked pretty

identical. I chose 9dB because it meant Icould see what was in focus when I lookedin the viewfinder.

The EX3 records in 16x9, but themovies final aspect ratio is 2.35:1. Whydid you decide to crop the image?

Edwards: Im just a big fan of2.35:1. Im always disappointed when I goto the cinema and the curtain doesnt openup that extra bit after the trailers. I also thinkits how our brains work peripheral vision

feels like extreme letterbox and, to behonest, [at that width] its easier to make acomposition look stronger. In theviewfinder, I stuck some tape roughly wherethe 2.35:1 markers should be and then, inthe grade, we could reposition the frame upor down.

Did you have a chance to scoutany of the locations during prep?

Edwards: I hadnt actually seenanything until we landed to start filming,but we did use Google Earth, which is areally useful tool. We made a wish list of[the locations] we thought we wanted, andthen mapped out a route through Mexico,

Belize and Guatemala.Did you try to map your route so

you could shoot chronologically, or wasit more of a catch as catch canmethodology?

Edwards: The actors, completelyrightly, get nervous about ad-libbing a filmout of order, but it became impossible [toshoot chronologically]. It really becamestandard issue to keep a lookout foranything a bit weird as we were drivingalong in the van, and then wed jump out,

make some shots, jump back into the vanand carry on.

How did you keep track of cover-age with all of the ad-libbing?

Edwards: It was kind of aheadache. We got our best stuff when wewere letting the scenes happen sponta-neously without much planning, but theproblem was that wed do a half-hour takeand then Id say, Great, can we do thatagain from this angle? What wound up

Left: Sound recordist Ian Maclagan (left), Edwards (center) and line producer Jim Spencer prepare to capture a traveling shot o n location in Mexico.Right: Edwards set the Sony PMW-EX3s gain to 9dB when shooting with available light at night.


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happening was more like a documentary. Iwanted random pieces you can only getonce youve been doing something for ahalf hour your body language changes,the people around you behave a certainway, and they dont care about the cameraanymore. I would start recording withouttelling anyone, and then, without making abig deal out of it, I would say, Wheneveryou want, Im ready, and there would be acasual flow into what felt like normal behav-ior.

While rolling, I would literally pretendI was in the theater watching the movie,and when I got bored or when I becamemore interested in something else, I wouldmove the camera. There wasnt time tothink too much; I had to just feel it. Then,when the scene was over, I would get someneutral cutaways to help the editor: reactionshots, Scoot or Whitney listening, or just

their hands. Still, if you ask Colin to namethe hardest thing hes ever had to edit, with-out a shadow of a doubt he would say itwas this film!

While filming, did you everreview the days footage?

Edwards: I didnt like looking backat it because Id get paranoid that I didnthave everything I needed. We alwaysplanned to shoot for six weeks and thenedit. Foranything we hadnt gotten orwanted to go backand do better, we would

do a week of pickups. Even if we looked atthe rough footage and it wasnt right, goingback to reshoot the next day would havekilled another scene on the schedule.

Did you have to do any reshoots?Edwards: We did reshoot some

scenes, but never for technical reasons orperformance. We reshot because of exposi-tion. Because we ad-libbed everything, wedidnt always say everything we needed tosay in a scene to keep the audience up to

speed. In the edit, we picked a few scenesand said, Weve got them, but we can getthem better. We went to Costa Rica for thepickups.

What sort of lighting gear didyou carry?

Edwards: We had a bounce board,but we hardly used it and I dont think anyof those shots made the cut. We also hadlittle LED boxes powered by AA batteries.We used those by the campfire, to add tothe flame light, and in the scene with Whit-ney at the doorway of her hotel room. Shekept leaning into the doorway while talkingwith Scoot, and she was really dark, so JimSpencer, the line producer, stood with oneof those lights just out of shot.

On most occasions, Id move thecamera until the frame looked interestingand the light looked good; I didnt everwant anything to look lit.But theres a

night scene in the middle of the film whenit was pitch black in the middle of thejungle, and Id sworn to myself that thecamera was never going to leave the van [inwhich Sam and Kaulder cower while theirguides battle a creature]. We had a smokemachine and two HMIs, but one of theHMIs blew out straightaway. We alsogaffer-taped an LED light inside the van, asif it was the internal light.

A particularly nerve-rattlingscene takes place in a boat on a river at

night. The boats engine has stalled,and what looks like a giant fin startsmaking its way toward the characters.Was that scene shot day-for-night?

Edwards: It was dusk-for-night, butit became night-for-night by the end of thescene!I wanted to be able to tell that thetorch lights were on, and if you do day-for-night on the water, it gives you a perfectreflection of the sky; I think day-for-nightworks best when you have no idea how

bright the sky is. The only way we could doit was to wait for the sky to get darkenough, and as soon as the torch lookedbrighter than the rest of the environment,we went for it.

Monsters opens with a green-hued night-vision sequence. How did

you achieve the night-vision effect?Edwards: That was quite embar-rassing. That sequence was part of thepickup shoot, and we filmed it in one night.You dont really notice it in the film, buttheres a van flipped on its side nothingsays post-apocalypse like a car on its side! Ishot it with an inexpensive Sony night-visioncamera [HVR-A1E], and everyone was look-ing at me like, You paid thousands ofpounds for these cranes and trucks, andyoure filming with that thing?

People tend to shoot those thingsproperly and then treat them in post to looklike bad footage, but I dont like that at all;theres something you cant fake about thelook. Ironically, I thought Id be making mylife a nightmare, having to put the creatureinto these night-vision shots, but it was theeasiest thing in the world. Its so grainy andblurry, you cant tell where the creaturesfeet connect with the ground and you canget away with murder.

The credits list Adam Inglis as thedigital colorist. Where did you do the

digital grade?Edwards: We did all of our grading

and our Dolby 5.1 mix at Post Republic inBerlin. Adam did a brilliant grade. We wereboth surprised by how much we could getout of the blacks in the EX3 footage, andwe softened a lot of it to take the harshnessout of the shots.

The perfect version of this filmwould be full of imperfections I wantedit to have all the crap that reality brings. Idsometimes completely abandon my plan

while we were filming and just go withwhat felt right in the moment, hoping itwouldnt be a mistake in the edit.

TECHNICAL SPECS

2.35:1High-Definition VideoSony PMW-EX3, HVR-A1ENikon lensesDigital Intermediate

Wynden andKaulder

traverse thesite of a

recent militarystrike againstthe creatures,

a sequenceshot on

location inTexas.

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T

he new film Secretariat, about the 1973 Triple Crownwinner, attempts to boldly go where no camera hasgone before: smack in the middle of a thundering pack

of thoroughbred horses. We wanted to capture theexcitement of the race and were willing to do it in ways thatno one else had tried, says director Randall Wallace. We

were skimming cameras an inch over the ground, so close tothe hooves that you can see the light reflected in the horse-shoes. The dirt is flying, and its all real.

The cinematographer tasked with accomplishing thiswas Dean Semler, ASC, ACS, with whom Wallace hadpreviously collaborated on We Were Soldiers (ACFeb. 02).Semler has frequently worked with horses, most notably inDances With Wolves (ACMay 91), for which he won an

An inexperienced stableowner gambles her familys

fortune on a thoroughbredracehorse in Secretariat, shot byDean Semler, ASC, ACS.

By Patricia Thomson

|

HorsePower

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www.theasc.com November 2010

Academy Award. As he points out,though, thoroughbreds are differentbeasts. Theyre ultra-sensitive, andtheyre born to race.

Secretariat re-creates all of thefamous horses astonishing accom-plishments, including his 31-length

victory at the Belmont, a grueling raceknown as the graveyard of speed

horses, but the films focus is on thelesser-known background story. Basedon William Nacks book Secretariat:The Making of a Champion , the filmfollows Peggy Chenery (Diane Lane)after she takes over her fathers horsefarm upon his death. Its a woman-against-the-odds story, as Chenerystruggles to succeed in the all-male

world of thoroughbred racing. Withher stable deep in debt, she literallybets the farm on her horse, a risky

gamble given that his bloodlineexcelled in speed, not distance. Incharting Secretariats rise, the filmcovers six races: his first;the first he

won;a crucial one he lost;and theTriple Crown, comprising theKentucky Derby, the Preakness andthe Belmont Stakes. Filmed over 42days, Secretariatwas shot mostly onlocation in Kentucky and Louisiana,including at the tracks ChurchillU

nitphotographybyJohnBramley,courtesyofDisneyEnterprises.

Opposite: Thelegendary racehorseSecretariat widens hlead in a Triple Crowrace. This page, top:The championthoroughbred (farleft, at back of packwas known for hisslow starts andexciting finishes.Middle: Stable owne

Penny Chenery (DiaLane, far right),sartoriallyextravagant trainerLucien Laurin (JohnMalkovich) andChenerys stalwartassistant, ElizabethHam (MargotMartindale), watchgroom Eddie Sweat(Nelsan Ellis) exercisSecretariat. Bottom:Dean Semler, ASC,ACS (right) lays outhis race plan for 2ndunit director ofphotography BradShield.

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knows what a difficult job it was forthe jockeys to maintain and match theexact positions that Secretariat and

Sham [his primary rival] had in thereal event. The other jockeys had to benear accurate with their positions as

well.If they got it right and we didnt,

it would have been disastrous, so I putas many cameras as possible on each ofthose short bursts. Generally, there

were one or two really long lensesfront-on, a couple of wider lenseshigher up, and one through somecrowds, where we might track along

with them. The shots at the startinggate, where its wall-to-wall horses,

were done on a long lens from down atthe end of the track. Its 400-500 yardsaway, maybe farther. Id give them asmuch depth as I could on the apertureto make it work. Its silly to limit themin a case like that. If it was full sun, Icould give them a 16 or 22 f-stop. The[Panavision] Genesis goes to 50 fps,and we shot most of the races at 48 fps

in case Randy wanted to use somespeed later on. As it turned out, heskipped pretty much all of it back to24 fps because he liked the speed

when he saw it cut. If slow motion wasrequired, we used the trusty Arri 435.

This is the seventh feature

youve shot with the Genesis, thoughwe understand you mixed in someother cameras as well. Why did youfeel the Genesis was right for thisproject?

Semler:The Genesis gives me agreat look, and it also gives me a long

Cheneryquicklydeveloped abond with hprize horse,who provedbe bothstrong-willeand stubbo

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recording time, which directors andactors seem to like. Also, I can go tohigh ISOs and shoot pretty low lightlevels. As cinematographers, we stillhave to maintain that craft of lightingsets, lighting people and creating

moods, but the Genesis allows me tosometimes use smaller lights and, insome cases, available light. An integralpart of why I love it is EFilmsColorstream, which applies the look-up table that emulates the negativeand the print stock. Its not just agood-quality HD image; its actuallythe image Im going to be seeing

onscreen. Im watching dailies, basi-cally.

I rate the Genesis at 400 ASA,the same as I do with [Kodak Vision3500T] 5219. I normally shoot with a180-degree shutter with no Gain atall. If I need more light, Ill progres-sively use the shutter. First, Ill go to

270 degrees, which gives me half astop. Going to 360 degrees puts me at800 ASA, and Ill use that as long as itdoesnt interfere with the movement ofthe character, like blurring the eyes orface; at 360 degrees, Im actuallyshooting at an equivalent to 124second, so theres more of a blur factor.In some cases, thats good, likepanning with a racehorse across afinish line. Next, Ill go to + 12 Gain,

Horse Power

Top: During a pre-race press conference, Chenery trades barbs with rival trainer Pancho Martin (NestorSerrano, far right), the owner of Secretariats main rival, Sham. Middle: A dynamic angle captures the

excitement of a race from behind the rail. Bottom: Chenery celebrates a big win.

Ive had the samecrew over the last

six or sevenpictures, and weve

got the Genesissystem down to

a fine art.

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painters pole that extended to about12 feet. First AC Tony Rivetti put aprotective filter on the front of thecamera, as well as a little nitrogen hoseto blow off dirt. Then they ran a cablefrom the camera to a regular analogmonitor on top of the post that Kris

was holding, so he could see exactlywhat he was getting. The cameracouldnt pan or tilt; it was fixed to theend of the pole. From that monitor,three things happened. It wasconnected to two monitors in the

cabin of the vehicle, a powerful pick-up truck driven by Freddie Hice.Freddie had a monitor to see wherethe camera was. [Second-unit directorof photography] Brad Shield also satin the front with another monitor. Inaddition, we had guys from a companycalled RF Film transmit wirelessimages from the Olycam to Randyand me we were off shooting withthe actors maybe 500 or 600 yardsaway. So we could monitor at all times

what second unit was doing, or theycould play back for us. The system wasbrilliant. Brad Shield, a fellow Aussie,shot all of the Olycam material, as wellas a lot of the race coverage that wecouldnt fit into the main-unit sched-ule and, of course, the horses beautyshots.Brad is an old colleague whod

just moved to Hollywood, as had A-camera/Steadicam operator MarkGoellnicht. With them, [B-camera

Horse Power

Top: Secretariat(in second place)

closes the gap onSham. Middle:

Director RandallWallace tests a

low angle fromthe back of a

truck. Bottom: Aremote arm

captures a photofinish. Upper

right: Wallacechats with actorOtto Thorwath,

who plays jockeyRon Turcotte.

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operator] Richard Merryman and me,there were four Aussies. They called usthe Gumleaf Mafia!

What were your lenses?Semler: We had a full set of

Primos, including the 10mm;

Panavision Lightweight zoom lenses[17.5-34mm T2.8 and 27-68mmT2.8] for Steadicam and handheldwork; and Panavision 11:1 [24-275mm], 4:1 [17.5-75mm T2.3] and3:1 [135-420mm T2.8] zoom lenses.

The 3:1 Hubble would generally playon my veteran B-camera team,Richard Merryman and his focuspuller, Fred McLane. Richard and I goback toMad Max 2: TheRoad Warrior

he was the focus puller and I oper-ated. Hes a master at telling a story

with a long lens rather than just grab-bing bits. Richard and Fred are aformidable duo in the long-lensdepartment, whether theyre wide-open indoors or, in this case, shootinghorses traveling at 35 mph comingstraight toward the camera from 440

yards to 20 yards and decidingwhether to focus on the horses head

or the jockeys head. Tricky stuff.We also hid a little camera on

the inside of the track. This wasusually the Arri 435 with a wide-anglelens, like a 14mm, sitting on a sandbagright on the edge of the inside rail, sothe horses hooves missed it by a fewfeet as they thundered by. These are allbonus shots, and we stole a lot ofthem, but theyre in the movie. I coulddo that both ways: point the camera

one way for this run, then pan itaround and have them going awayfrom us for the next run.

Youd take as many stabs at it asyou could, knowing that this was reallythe master when we were including

the background. Tom Sanders, who Ialso worked with on We Were Soldiersand Apocalypto, is a brilliant and veryhands-on production designer. Heturned one track, Evangeline Downs

in Louisiana, into four different race-tracks. Hed change the infield, andthe visual-effects team would use CGIto fix the background.

What were your visual refer-ences?

Semler:Obviously, we looked atSeabiscuit [ACAug. 03]. Thats abeautiful-looking picture; JohnSchwartzman [ASC] did a fabulous

job. That movie required actors on

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You cant riskactors lives

doing coverageat speed.

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horses, whereas Randy cast real jock-eys for all the riding in our picture. You

cant risk actors lives doing coverage atspeed. They can sit on the horses and

walk around the paddock, but racingis taboo. Thats for the real jockeys.Because we used jockeys, I didnt haveto hide anybody. Randy cast this

young guy, Otto [Thorwarth], as RonTurcotte, Secretariats main jockey.

Otto was an extraordinary rider, buthe also turned out to be a fantasticactor. Imagine, the poor bugger iscovered in mud, sitting next to JohnMalkovich [who plays Secretariatstrainer, Lucien Laurin] and getting

yelled at by Diane Lane for losing arace. Hed never acted before, but he

was right between these two veteranactors, and he got right into the part.

Did mixing the Genesis,Olympus and Phantom materialcreate any problems in post?

Semler: No. There are so manygreat tools now that help you blenddifferent material. If you sat down andreally analyzed Secretariat, youd seedifferences, but in the context of ahorserace, you get away with it.

Horse Power

Chenery and her extended family celebrate Secretariats ultimate triumph: winning the Triple Crown.

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Olivier Assayas Carlos, which premiered out of competi-tion to great acclaim at this years Cannes Film Festival,is an epic portrait of the famous terrorist known asCarlos the Jackal (a.k.a. Ilich Ramrez Snchez), who

was born in Venezuela in 1949 and is currently behind bars inFrance, serving a life sentence for three murders. ProducerDaniel Leconte, who initiated the production, says he wasdrawn to the subject because he believes that terrorism is thebig topic of my generation. He observes, Carlos was theBin Laden of his time.

In order to increase their financing options, the film-

makers decided to create Carlosin two versions, a 2-hourcut for theatrical release and a 5-hour cut for televisionbroadcast and home-video release. (The latter was screenedat Cannes.) In the United States, the longer cut recently airedon the Sundance Channel and has been theatrically releasedby IFC Films in select major cities, and the shorter cut isavailable on demand and is playing theatrically in smallermarkets.

Carlosis an epic in every sense of the word. The three-episode story takes place over 20 years in a dozen countries,

with dialogue in French, English, Arabic, Spanish, German,

TheWorlds Most

Wanted Man

Carlos, shot byYorick Le Saux andDenis Lenoir, ASC,

AFC, offers a portraitof infamous terrorist

Carlos the Jackal.

By Benjamin B

|

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Hungarian, Russian and Japanese. Thefilm starts as the Venezuelan-bornmigr (played by Edgar Ramrez)begins his career as a terrorist with aPalestinian terrorist group that is seek-ing a European agent. The first episode

encompasses Carlos first assassinationattempt (the target is a British business-man), a series of explosions in Londonand France, a bungled airport attack,and the murder of three members ofFrances counterintelligence service in aLeft Bank apartment. The secondepisode begins with Carlos most spec-tacular operation, in December 1975:taking 11 OPEC ministers and theiraides hostage, flying them to variouspoints in the Middle East, and then

ultimately releasing them in exchangefor millions of dollars. Now a celebrity,Carlos offers his services to Syria, withthe complicity of the Soviet Union andthe East German and Hungariangovernments. In the final episode,Carlos takes up residence in Budapest

with his German wife, MagdalenaKopp (Nora von Waldsttten), andprovides his murderous services to thehighest bidder. When the Berlin WallC

arlosphotosbyJean-ClaudeMoineau,courtesyofRaphaelCohenandFilmEnStock.

FramegrabsbyBenjaminB,courtesyofthefilmmakers.

Opposite:Ambitiousterrorist Carlosthe Jackal (EdgRamrez)deplanes aftertaking hostageduring hisinfamous OPECoperation. Thispage, top: Carloand his croniestransport theOPEC hostagesto the airport.Middle: The

radical shows hmeans businesBottom:Casualties arestrewn throughan airport aftean attack.

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falls in 1989, Carlos seeks refuge inSyria, and then finally in Sudan, wherehe is kidnapped by French authorities.

Assayas, whose recent creditsinclude Summer Hours, Boarding Gateand Clean, was obsessed with the verac-ity and authenticity of every detail inCarlos. Executive producer Raphael

Cohen reports that the director wantedeach character to be played by someoneof that nationality, speaking in his orher own language with the correctaccent. We had 96 shooting days with135 locations in nine countries, addsCohen.

Carlosis not a political film, but

it is a film about politics, says Assayas.The movie does, indeed, succeed inrevealing the complex web of terroristnetworks involving Palestine, Iraq, Iran,

Syria, Libya, the Soviet Union, EastGermany and Hungary. (We learn, forexample, that Carlos OPEC operation

was financed and supported by SaddamHussein and Moammar Gadhafi.)

Yet the film is above all a fiction-alized portrait of a terrorist. Assayasobserves, Its not difficult to position

yourself morally with respect to Carlos its pretty black and white! But weget to understand him, what driveshim, and he becomes a rich, complex,

conflicted individual. We can followhim the same way that we follow TonyMontana when were watching Scarfaceor Don Corleone in The Godfather .Carlosis much closer to a Mafia moviethan a political movie.

For scheduling reasons, Assayasworked with two cinematographers.He did a lengthy preparation with

Yorick Le Saux, who then filmed untilhe had to depart for the birth of his

The Worlds Most Wanted Man

Right: Nada(Julia Hummer),a loose cannon

on the terroristsOPEC team,

takes things toofar. Below: A

handheld cameracaptures some

over-the-shoulder action.

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daughter. At that point, Denis Lenoir,ASC, AFC, stepped in for the secondhalf of the shooting schedule. Bothcinematographers had worked with

Assayas before; Lenoir had shot sevenprevious features for the director(including Demonlover; ACSept. 03),

and Le Saux was the second-unit direc-tor of photography on two of thosefilms, as well as the director of photog-raphy on Boarding Gate.

Lenoir recalls that one of thejokes on the set was that the only differ-ence between the two cinematogra-phers lighting was that Yorick will puta bright practical light in the back-ground behind Carlos. In reality, it isimpossible to distinguish whichsequences were lit and shot by Lenoir

or Le Saux. Each cinematographer shotabout half the footage, and each did hisown operating. Such stylistic unity, saysLenoir, proves that cinematography ismade by the director.

Carloswas shot in 2-perf Super35mm with Kodak negative. Le Sauxexplains that he and Assayas chose toshoot film because we wanted to work

very fast and light very little, and wehad to shoot sunny day exteriors in all

these different countries. Digital isgood when can you control the light,but you cant work rock n roll in digi-tal. Although the filmmakers consid-ered Super 16mm, they opted for35mm in part because the AatonPenelope camera had just come out,providing an ideal handheld tool. Inaddition, 2-perf was perfectly suited tothe 2.40:1 frame they wanted to

compose, and the magazines run longerthan 16mm mags, a plus in light of

Assayas penchant for long takes.A Panaflex Platinum served as

the B camera for some action sequencesand intense dialogue sequences, like therestaurant dinner with Carlos and hisfirst wife, Juana Acosta, early in thefilm. The camera gear package,provided by Panavision Alga Techno in

Left: Carlosenjoys somefemale

companionshipduring a breakfrom hisoperations.Below: Theterroristchallenges oneof his mostefficientoperatives,BrigitteKuhlmann(KatharinaSchttler), toprove hermarksmanship.

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Paris, also included Panavision Primolenses. Much of the movie was shot

with a 27mm prime, according to LeSaux. Assayas, who is generally knownfor using long focal lengths, notes, I

decided to go two lenses wider thanusual so we could see the Seventies.

The main film stock was KodakVision3 500T 5219, which the cine-matographers rated at ISO 400. (Day

exteriors in Lebanon were shot onslower Vision2negatives, 100T 5212and 200T 5217.) During prep, Le Sauxdefined a look for Carloswith a set ofrules that he and Lenoir subsequentlyfelt free to break upon occasion. I set

up a framework, and then I did ordidnt apply it depending on the set orthe feeling I had about the space, saysLe Saux. I wanted to shoot pretty

wide open, around T2.8; I wanted tosoften the image somewhat with filters;and I didnt hesitate to change colortemperatures, burning the highlights togive the feeling of heat and sun in theMiddle East and keeping Paris darker,sadder.

Le Saux used two Tiffen diffu-sion filters, White Pro-Mist andSoft/FX, throughout the shoot. He

would often add NDs to get to an openstop. The idea was to work with littledepth of field, using the filters to softenthe image and lower the contrast. Heexplains, With the Soft/FX, we brokethe contrast, the sharpness and hard-ness of 5219. The White Pro-Mist

works as a kind of screen throughwhich you have to project yourself toget into the story and the period; ithelped give a patina to the image. The

White Pro-Mist also added a halo tolight sources, and Le Saux thereforechose a lighter degree of filtration

when shooting towards a window orwith a longer focal length. But, henotes, there were moments when I feltI should go all out, without any rules.

Le Saux also softened the imagewith smoke, which was motivated bycigarettes and cigars, gunfire, and evenbathroom vapors. Smoke is a bitch!he says with a laugh. Everyone hated

me for it, and even I got sick of it, butOlivier agreed that it was right.

Carlos is full of varying colortemperatures. In the Middle East, LeSaux and Lenoir often used a Tiffen

Antique Suede filter to create a distinc-tive ochre hue. This was often coupled

with an 85 to get an even warmerimage. (The coloring scheme washeightened in the digital grade atDigimage by colorist Isabelle Julien.


Frame grabs show various stages of the OPEC operation:Carlos and his team heading to the job (top); holding hostages (middle); and changing planes while

transporting the hostages from Austria to North Africa (bottom).


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Both cinematographers participated inthe grading sessions.) All these rulesare very precise at the outset, but once

you start shooting, you throw yourselfinto the film and do what you do, saysLe Saux. I stay free so I can respond to

the set the production designer deliversand the details of the scene.Both Lenoir and Le Saux kept

their lighting to a minimum. Lenoirsshort lighting list for the Lebaneseportion of the shoot speaks volumes,and seems more appropriate for anambitious short than an epic feature:the HMIs were two 6Ks, one 2.5/4K,one 1.2K Cinepar, and four Jokers(three 400-watt and one 200-watt);and the Kino Flos comprised pairs of 4'4-Banks, 2-Banks and 1-Banks, as wellas two 2' units (4-Bank and 2-Bank), a12-volt single kit and two Mini Flos.

This modest package was rounded outwith some small tungsten units: two 2KBlondes, four 1K Redheads, twoSource Four Lekos, four 500-wattFresnels, and two 150-watt Fresnels.Other fixtures were added throughoutthe shoot as needed for special situa-tions; these included an occasional18K, as well as dozens of industrialfluorescents and household bulbs.

Carlos begins in bed, with aPalestinian agent waking up beside hisgirlfriend in Paris minutes before dyingin a car bomb on the street outside. LeSaux created a simple, moody ambiencefor the scene: the dark bedroom has asplash of sunlight from the window asthe man rises and moves about. Thepenumbra is punctuated by the red haloof the mans lighter as he lights his ciga-rette. The sunlight was provided by an18K HMI. We couldnt get the permit

to set up a tower outside the window,and I was happy about that, recalls LeSaux. So the 18K was in an apartmenton the other side of the street very faraway, and I was only getting crumbsfrom it. Le Saux didnt want the light-ing to be too harsh for the woman, sohe put a Kino Flo inside the room forfill and bounced a Joker 800 on theceiling. The dark image was madegentler still by the combination of the

Soft/FXand White Pro-Mist filters,which also added a halo to the flame ofthe mans cigarette lighter. I almostalways used the Soft/FX and WhitePro-Mist together, and I would vary the

gradation of one or the other depend-ing on faces, the contrast or the light,notes Le Saux.

Early in the first episode, we seeCarlos sitting naked in a bathroom; he

From top: Sunlight provided by an 18K helps to illuminate the opening scene; an Antique Suedefilter, often coupled with an 85, lends Middle East scenes a distinctive ochre hue; the narcissistic Carlos

examines himself in a mirror.

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then walks into the adjoining bedroomand peers at himself in a mirror. Hisfull-frontal nudity is unexpected andsignals, says Assayas, that were notgoing to shy away from anything as wetell this story. The scene is meant to be

shocking, and it establishes that we willbe going into areas that you dontexpect. Were going to tell the story ofCarlos, but we are going to take liber-ties. The director adds, Every witnesshas written about Carlos relationship

with his body; it was complex, narcissis-tic and uneasy.

The backlit shot of Carlosadmiring himself in the mirror is lumi-

nous and hazy with smoke. Le Sauxrecalls, There were Kinos everywhere,above the windows and to the left ofEdgar fitted with Lee 250 diffusiongels. Its all about the balance of theshadows, he says. You see somethingthere, but its still dark. There was nooutside lighting, as the location was onthe sixth floor. You have to know when

its worth it to bring out the heavyartillery and when it isnt, says thecinematographer.

One of the films most suspense-ful moments takes place in an apart-ment of Paris Rue Toullier, whereCarlos is partying with friends whenFrench counterintelligence agentsknock on the door. A fellow member ofCarlos group has been captured andhas led the police to the apartment. The



You have toknow when its

worth it to bringout the heavyartillery and

when it isnt.

From top:Magdalena

Kopp (Nora vonWaldsttten),who became

one of theterrorists

wives, seducesCarlos in a

Beirut hotelroom; Carlos

gives arevealing

interview; ashis world falls

apart, Carlosargues with

Magdalena justprior to their

breakup; inAlgeria, the

terrorist savorshis OPEC

triumph afternegotiating the

release of thehostages.

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The Worlds Most Wanted Manconversation with the police is casual,and one of the inspectors even acceptsa whiskey. The camera follows Carlosinto the bathroom, where he prepareshis gun. When his traitorous compa-triot identifies him, Carlos leaps into

action, killing the three agents and thetraitor. He is now a true killer.Le Saux created the scenes

warm lighting with several hot practi-cals. An open kitchen area is lit veryhot, with fluorescents above. A barebulb near the door adds drama to theentrances and exits. Le Saux confides,I sweated on this one! The apartment

was very small, so I used only smallsources. I changed lightbulbs andcreated rhythms in the set; it was theonly way to make it live. He even laida lamp on the ground to avoid a blackhole, and used newspapers as reflec-tors. Coats were hung on a light standto disguise it.

The problem, says Le Saux, wasto avoid overlighting the actors whomight step too close to a source.Everything had to be measured, amatter of nuances. He explains thatthe bathroom lighting, a 400-watt

Joker gelled with 12 CTO on the ceil-ing, was meant to contrast with the

lower, warmer living room. The scenewas shot with a 50mm at the begin-ning, giving way to a 27mm before thegunplay begins.

For Lenoir, Carlosbrought backmemories of his previous collabora-tions with Assayas, which included thedirectors first four features. All my

years with Olivier were extremelyformative for me because hes a chal-lenging director, says Lenoir.Lighting for his films is more difficult

because you have to cover 180, 270 oreven 360 degrees. So you have tocompromise; you have to light from theceiling or find ways to not light at all.

Lenoir cites some examples inCarlos.The large OPEC room wherethe hostages are kept was a shoe boxlit with industrial fluorescents on theceiling, allowing the camera to movefreely. After that, its a matter ofsavoir-faireas to how to keep the actors from

Top: Denis Lenoir,ASC, AFC grabs ashot with Aatons

2-perf Penelope

camera. Middle:Yorick Le Saux(left) watches a

scene with directorOlivier Assayas.

Bottom: Lenoir andLe Saux listen in as

Assayas discussesthe OPEC sequence

with actors.

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being badly lit with that overheadsource, says the cinematographer. Itsmore a matter of redirecting, subtract-ing and diffusing the lighting, workingthe contrast to use what was given to usto our advantage. In the hallways, I

took the liberty of turning off somefluorescents because we decided theycould have been broken by thegunfire. With a laugh, he adds, Thecamerawork and performances areinteresting in this sequence, but thelighting is not!

No movie lights were used onthe plane carrying Carlos, his fellow

terrorists and the OPEC hostages,continues Lenoir. If you start lightingone shot, you have to light the others,he notes. Lenoir requested that thecockpit face west and tapped thenatural light seeping in from thetarmac of the Beirut airport for thedaytime scenes. The camera washandheld there was no room for adolly, he notes. For the night

sequences, he used the vintage planespracticals.

Lenoir occasionally used HMIsoutside windows, for example, in thescenes where Carlos is reprimanded byhis Palestinian boss. For a memorable,elegantly lit scene in which MagdalenaKopp seduces Carlos in a bright hotelroom, Lenoir simply bounced Jokers toreduce the contrast and put up a diffu-sion frame to soften the light coming

from the window on Carlos futurewife.

Lenoir stresses the importance ofgiving the director more time in a hecticschedule. For any given location, Idecided what lighting would be quick

to set up but also pleasing to the eye,while still being respectful of the periodatmosphere and the drama of the scene.I light with a big brush; I dont likedetail work, which is probably why I

dont do commercials. I am impatientwith myself on the set. Thats probablywhy Im fast.

Although the lighting in Carloscreates a stylish yet realistic period look

with a minimum of tools, Lenoir points

out that it is often the camerawork thatreally sets the filmmaking apart. Carloshas a distinctive, dynamic mise en scnethat keeps the actors moving wheneverpossible. The camera, whether hand-

Carlos has adistinctive, dynamicmise en scne thatkeeps the actorsmoving whenever

possible.

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held or on a dolly, is moving also,giving a rhythm to the action: sweep-ing across the room or going fromcharacter to character with a uniquefluidity. Lenoir adds, This is why Ihave so much admiration for Olivier.His approach is actually modest insome ways, but at the same time,I find

it extremely powerful and efficient.Almost every scene in Carloswas

shot with a series of plan squences, theFrench term for a single continuousshot. The idea is to end up with atleast two shots, perhaps three or four,each of which lasts for the duration ofthe scene and is visually interesting

because of the cameras and actorsmovements, explains Lenoir. Thisapproach allows for performances, andit feels more organic and real than stan-dard coverage.

The first time we did this, in theearly Nineties, we were following oneactor from the beginning to the end of


2

Left: Lenoir captures an emotional moment. Right: Members of Carlos team stand guard at a terrorist camp.

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the scene, and then we followed theother actor, continues Lenoir. Butsoon we developed something moreinteresting that wasnt tied to one actor:

we started on one actor and thenmoved to the other actor when they

crossed paths, and eventually to a thirdactor, all in the same shot. You can,ofcourse,cross the line,but then youcross it twice and you respect themoment you cross the line on thesecond shot. That way,you can cut tothe other shot at any moment, sincethe eyelines are always respected the180 rule. Another idea was to includethe inserts in the shot. So,for example,

we might go down from the actors faceto what hes holding and then back tohis face, instead of cutting.

Le Saux recalls a great exampleof a one-shot scene, when Carlos isoutside the French embassy that hasbeen taken over by Japanese terrorists,and watches as a wounded police-

woman is brought out on a stretcher.

The camera starts on Carlos, thenfollows an ambulance driver as he

whizzes by, revealing the entrance ofthe building; a moment later,thestretcher is brought out, then Carlos

walks back into frame and we follow

him as he walks off. Assayas remembersthat he designed the shot on the spot atthe end of a long day, and that the shot

was accomplished in 30 minutes. Its amiracle! he says, laughing.

Assayas emphasizes that he doesnot believe in storyboarding or shotlist-ing during prep. Rather, he designs allhis shots on the day of the shoot. I domy homework, but I dont plan. I thinkmovies are living organisms; theydevelop gradually, and you have to be insync with that growth, which dependson the actors and whatever they havebuilt themselves from scene to scene,on your locations, and on your crew. Amovie has its own life.

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George Lonegan (Matt Damon), a SanFranciscan with paranormal abilities

who can commune with the dead bytouching their loved ones.

To tell this tale, Eastwood and hiscollaborators, including longtime cine-matographer Tom Stern, ASC, AFC,

took advantage of the latest tools andtechnology, employing extensive visualeffects and making significant use of thedigital-intermediate process. The direc-tor had previously explored digital posttechniques on Flags of Our Fathers (AC,Nov. 06), Letters from Iwo Jima (AC,March 07), Changeling and Invictus(AC, Nov. 08), but Hereafter ups theante right from its opening scenes inHawaii, where a terrifying tsunamicauses Marie to experience what Stern

describes as the dream vacation all goneto hell.

To realize this sequence, and tovisually distinguish the films threestorylines, Eastwood and Stern spentconsiderable time in a Technicolor DIsuite with colorist Jill Bogdanowicz,digitally painting the movie. This is a

very unexpected film from Clint, main-tainsproducer Rob Lorenz, Eastwoodspartner at their production company,

Malpaso. Its a departure he decided

ac noi 2010

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