American Cinematographer - Ac1115

AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER NOVEMBER 2015 SPECTRE THE MARTIAN THE WALK STEVE JOBS LEGEND VOL. 96 NO.
11
NOVEMBER 2015
An International Publication of the ASC
On Our Cover: James Bond (Daniel Craig) returns to take on a nefarious criminal syndicate
in Spectre, shot by Hoyte van Hoytema, FSF, NSC. (Image courtesy of Metro-GoldwynMayer Studios, Inc.; Danjaq, LLC; and Columbia Pictures.)
FEATURES
34
48
62
74
Sinister Sect
Hoyte van Hoytema, FSF, NSC goes into the field to
track 007s exploits in Spectre
Questions of Perspective
Dariusz Wolski, ASC details his work and collaborations
on the features The Martian and The Walk
Thinking Different
62
Alwin Kchler, BSC mixes formats to chart an innovators

rise in Steve Jobs
Counterparts in Crime
Dick Pope, BSC crafts period ambience for the criminal
Kray twins in Legend
74
DEPARTMENTS
10
12
14
20
84
88
90
91
92
94
96
48
Editors Note
Presidents Desk
Short Takes: Best Man Wins
Production Slate: Victoria Jem and the Holograms
Filmmakers Forum
New Products & Services
International Marketplace
Classified Ads
Ad Index
Clubhouse News
ASC Close-Up: Mark Vargo
VISIT WWW.THEASC.COM
COMING SOON
and catch up with our

latest classic podcast:
Jan de Bont, ASC
on Die Hard
Look for more at www.theasc.com
Meadowland images courtesy of Cinedigm. Photos of Reed Morano, ASC

by Paul Sarkis. Die Hard photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
Q&A: Director-Cinematographer Reed Morano, ASC on Meadowland
N o v e m b e r
2 0 1 5
V o l .
9 6 ,
N o .
1 1
Visit us online at www.theasc.com
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF and PUBLISHER

Stephen Pizzello
EDITORIAL
MANAGING EDITOR Jon D. Witmer
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Andrew Fish
TECHNICAL EDITOR Christopher Probst
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Benjamin B, Douglas Bankston, John Calhoun, Mark Dillon, Michael Goldman, Simon Gray,
Jay Holben, Noah Kadner, Debra Kaufman, Jean Oppenheimer, Iain Stasukevich, Patricia Thomson
ART & DESIGN

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Marion Kramer
PHOTO EDITOR Kelly Brinker
ONLINE
MANAGING DIRECTOR Rachael K. Bosley
PODCASTS Jim Hemphill, Iain Stasukevich, Chase Yeremian
BLOGS
Benjamin B
John Bailey, ASC
David Heuring
WEB DEVELOPER Jon Stout
ADVERTISING
ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Angie Gollmann
323-936-3769 Fax 323-936-9188 e-mail: angiegollmann@gmail.com
ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Sanja Pearce
323-952-2114 Fax 323-952-2140 e-mail: sanja@ascmag.com
CLASSIFIEDS/ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Diella Peru
323-952-2124 Fax 323-952-2140 e-mail: diella@ascmag.com
SUBSCRIPTIONS, BOOKS & PRODUCTS

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Saul Molina
CIRCULATION MANAGER Alex Lopez
SHIPPING MANAGER Miguel Madrigal
ASC GENERAL MANAGER Brett Grauman

ASC EVENTS COORDINATOR Patricia Armacost
ASC PRESIDENTS ASSISTANT Delphine Figueras
ASC ACCOUNTING MANAGER Mila Basely
ASC ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE Nelson Sandoval
American Cinematographer (ISSN 0002-7928), established 1920 and in its 95th 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.
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American Society of Cinematographers

The ASC is not a labor union or a guild, but
an educational, cultural and professional
organization. Membership is by invitation
to those who are actively engaged as
directors of photography and have
demonstrated outstanding ability. ASC
membership has become one of the highest
honors that can be bestowed upon a
professional cinematographer a mark
of prestige and excellence.
OFFICERS - 2015/2016
Richard Crudo
President
Owen Roizman
Vice President
Kees van Oostrum

Vice President
Lowell Peterson
Vice President
Matthew Leonetti
Treasurer
Frederic Goodich
Secretary
Isidore Mankofsky
Sergeant-at-Arms
MEMBERS OF THE
BOARD
John Bailey
Bill Bennett
Richard Crudo
George Spiro Dibie
Richard Edlund
Fred Elmes
Michael Goi
Victor J. Kemper
Daryn Okada
Lowell Peterson
Robert Primes
Owen Roizman
Rodney Taylor
Kees van Oostrum
Haskell Wexler
ALTERNATES
Isidore Mankofsky
Karl Walter Lindenlaub
Kenneth Zunder
Francis Kenny
John C. Flinn III
MUSEUM CURATOR
Steve Gainer
8
Editors Note
James Bond is a big deal in the Pizzello household. My
9-year-old son, Nicholas, reveres 007 and once celebrated Halloween by donning a tux and arming himself
with a toy Walther PPK. My wife, Delphine, still laughs
whenever she recalls the conversation that ensued after
Nicholas and his younger brother, Matthew, had
watched Goldfinger together:
Our third son, three-year-old Tommy, is well on his way

to his own career in MI6; I recently spotted him toting the familys Bond broofcase, which
sports a 007 sticker on one side perhaps blowing the boys cover as they embark on
covert missions, but cool nonetheless.
Spectre is the 24th official Bond film produced by Eon Productions. The feature
teamed Hoyte van Hoytema, FSF, NSC with director Sam Mendes, who wowed global audiences with Skyfall in 2012. According to van Hoytema, he and Mendes sought to lend Bonds
latest adventure a romantic and more classic feel. I was wondering if we could get some
of that old-fashioned flair back, but in an effortless way, he told ACs senior European correspondent, Benjamin B, during the latters visit to the sets at Pinewood Studios in England
(Sinister Sect, page 34). Bond never really has to prove himself, and I wanted to reflect
that effortless feeling in the visual language.
If 007 existed in the real world, he probably would have encountered Ronald and
Reginald Kray at some point during the 1950s or Swinging Sixties. The notorious twin siblings
were the imposing overlords of organized crime in Londons East End, but as West End club
owners they comingled with celebrities and ruled their empire with unrepentant bravado.
Dick Pope, BSC knew these neighborhoods as a teenager in England, and took pains to make
the movies scenario feel real. We wanted to make the film accessible and polished in order
to reach out to a wide audience, but we didnt want it to look really fairy-tale glamorous,
Pope tells Phil Rhodes (Counterparts in Crime, page 74). It had to be grounded in the reality of those Sixties pubs and clubs and often grim East End neighborhoods.
The lives of real-world icons are also dramatized in two of this issues other spotlighted
projects: Steve Jobs, Danny Boyles biopic about the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Apple
Inc., shot with imaginative panache by Alwin Kchler, BSC (Thinking Different, by Noah
Kadner, page 62), and The Walk, for which Dariusz Wolski, ASC and director Robert Zemeckis
used 3D perspectives to tell the daring tale of French high-wire artist Philippe Petit, who
famously traversed a 200' steel cable suspended between New Yorks 110-story World Trade
Center towers in 1974. Our coverage of Wolskis work, presented in a Q&A by David E.
Williams (Questions of Perspective, page 48), also includes his thoughts on Ridley Scotts
sci-fi drama The Martian.
Stephen Pizzello
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher
10
Photo by Owen Roizman, ASC.
Nicholas: Im James Bond, but you can be

Felix Leiter.
Matthew: I dont wanna be Felix Leiter.
Nicholas: Hes like the American 007.
Matthew: Well okay. Im Felix.
Presidents Desk
Photo by Dana Phillip Ross.
A couple of weeks ago I was out for dinner with some friends at a place an unenlightened person
might refer to as a dive a locals-mostly bar/restaurant where the food is marginal and the decor
somewhat less so. Which is not to say it has no appeal. Fresh off the beach, after your eyes have
adjusted to the T1.4 lighting, the wood-paneled 70s makeover of this 50s original will keep you
scanning the red banquettes for Jimmy Page and the rest of the Led Zeppelin entourage. Even
though you dont smoke, the native vibe makes you wish you did, and when you park two blocks
away, the wafting smell of beef on the grill promises more than it will deliver.
Making up for that, its a serious no-hipster zone theres not a hate the man beard
or touch of smarmy irony within flame-thrower range. The unpretentious patrons are more
concerned that you mind your business and check your nonsense at the door. House Rule
Number One? Noise-making or attention-seeking of any variety are discouraged by the governing
barflies.
About an hour into my visit just as the manhattans were kicking in something
happened that was so extraordinary in its effect that an exception had to be allowed. Three men
and two women, middle-aged and respectful of the prevailing code, were ensconced over their
meal in one of the booths. Youd be hard-pressed to find a more unassuming group in a place
filled with purposefully low-key souls. However, their anonymity ended when one of the gentlemen chose just the right moment to voice a rendition of Happy Birthday. Under normal circumstances he wouldve been shushed
into silence by the village elders or, worse, told by the staff that the kitchen had closed and the lights were about to be turned off.
Instead, this man, unfamiliar yet clearly a trained vocalist, continued with a warm, rich baritone that froze everyone in mid-sneer. It
came from deep inside his chest and communicated a profundity of emotion rarely encountered in daily life. I can think of only one
word to describe the way he sounded: exquisite. And as his mesmerizing effect washed over the room, I was not alone in feeling
that I was hearing this most familiar of melodies for the very first time. As he finished, the initial sideways glances of the gin-mill
Taliban had been turned to full, outward appreciation. Their applause was every bit equal to his performance.
But our new friend wasnt finished. A few minutes later, after the drinks were freshened and the ambience resettled, he
once again piped up, this time with The Star Spangled Banner. Unlike so many of the celebrity fools we see these days who turn
it into an ego-driven vocal exercise at the ballpark or arena, his version was genuine and brought forth without artifice or reference
to himself. Leading up to a deafening appreciation at its conclusion, the entire house was on its feet, hands over hearts, with not a
dry eye to be found.
At this point you might be asking what any of this has to do with cinematography. Well, it has everything to do with it.
Under the right circumstances, the work we perform can have the identical effect on people as that nameless singer in the
bar. It doesnt matter if youre shooting the most innocuous bit of tripe or a top studio release. Rest assured that someone somewhere is going to be moved perhaps deeply or unexpectedly by what youre doing. Though its easy to lose sight of this critical
notion amidst todays obsession with technology and the breakneck pace at which we work, we cant afford to let it slip away. In
an industry that is too often too short on decency and humanity, any pure motivation to do something is valuable and must be
welcomed.
ASC legends Vittorio Storaro and Haskell Wexler recently called for a more humanistic awareness within our ranks. As we
approach the end of the year, I suggest the new one start with that singer in mind. Its only through recognizing our own effect on
others that positive change can take place. And since the only thing we can fully control in life is our own behavior you got it!
the effort begins with you-know-who.
Richard P. Crudo
ASC President
12
November 2015
American Cinematographer
Short Takes
Sweet Revenge
By Neil Matsumoto
Best Man Wins, directed by Stphane Dumonceau, is based

on a short story of the same name by Frederick Waterman, and stars
Tim DeKay as Edward Stiles, a famous New York City chef who cooks
up a revenge plot against his best man, Jean-Louis Vachon (Franois
Vincentelli), after discovering that the latter had an affair with his
wife, Caroline (Nadia Fars). The ambitious 20-page script was shot
in just three and a half days by cinematographer Wes Cardino, who
was introduced to Dumonceau by the films production designer,
Justin McClain.
The film is set at JFK Airport in New York, Charles de Gaulle
Airport in Paris, on a Boeing 767, and in the kitchen of a Manhattan
restaurant. Like most short films, Best Man Wins had a limited
budget, so instead of flying cast and crew to each location, the filmmakers worked entirely in Los Angeles and took advantage of
virtual-set technology.
To my disappointment, we werent going to France,
Cardino says with amusement. One of the major things in prep we
did was to figure out how to pull off Charles de Gaulle and JFK. A
lot of our time was spent discussing greenscreen elements and what
our virtual sets were going to look like. From there, it was me building a lighting scheme and [planning] camera movement within that
virtual world. I had worked on virtual sets before and I had seen
mixed results. It was really important for me to make sure we could
pull this off.
With an MFA in cinematography from the American Film
Institute, Cardino has a number of shorts, commercials and feature
credits under his belt. For Best Man Wins, he found particular inspiration in the work of cinematographer Robert Elswit, ASC, especially
Michael Clayton and The Town. Elswit has a stylized naturalism,
Cardino observes. It still feels very real, but its also very immediate.
His lighting style is very moody. We found a lot of inspiration in that
14
November 2015
[style and] in the way he moves his camera.

We definitely wanted [Best Man Wins] to have elements of
naturalism in terms of not feeling like a slick commercial, but we also
wanted it to have a punchiness and darkness based on the arc of the
story, Cardino continues. Stphane really wanted to make a film
where people are not good or bad, right or wrong everybody has
a little responsibility in all of it. There are a lot of gray areas where
these characters live their lives, and we wanted the lighting to reflect
that. We wanted to build off of that sense that people are never
[fully] in or out of the light.
Cardino shot the film with two Red Epic Mysterium-Xs, framing for a 2.39:1 aspect ratio, and capturing 5K files with 5:1 compression. The cinematographer notes that he doesnt like to go above 5:1
with the Epic, especially for a film with a lot of visual-effects work. I
thought it was really important that the color fidelity was at the maximum capacity we could accommodate in terms of running time for
the cards, he says.
Cardino rented all of his camera gear from Panavision Hollywood, with the help of Mike Carter, and used Super Speed and Ultra
Speed lenses, which are part of Panavisions Legacy Primes series.
Having used them on previous projects, he felt their softness would
take some of the edge off of the Epics sensor. He generally stuck with
wider lenses I mainly used the 24mm, 29mm, 35mm and
40mm, but occasionally went wider to the 20mm, he says. A
wider lens for close-ups and mediums adds additional character, and
you feel closer to [the actors], especially if youre shooting nonanamorphic 2.40:1. It also adds a little bit of flavor and texture to
their faces.
The airplane interior was shot on a traditional airplane set at
Air Hollywood in Pacoima, Calif., but the creation of the airport interiors was spearheaded by visual-effects supervisor Elliott Jobe and his
company There in Los Angeles. (Additional effects work was
performed by ArsenalFX and Cosmo Street in Santa Monica, and
Moondog/Hectic NY and Significant Others in New York.) I went in
All images courtesy of the filmmakers.
Edward Stiles
(Tim DeKay,
left), a famous
New York City
chef, cooks up
a revenge plot
against his
friend JeanLouis Vachon
(Franois
Vincentelli) in
the short film
Best Man Wins.
Top: Edward
rushes to board a
plane. Middle: The
greenscreen set
and lighting setup
for the scene
above. Bottom:
Cinematographer
Wes Cardino (left)
discusses the
scene with visualeffects supervisor
Elliott Jobe.
fully trusting Elliott and his team that it

would all work out, despite not having seen
it, reflects Dumonceau. That was a huge
ask for someone like myself, because I like to
see what Im getting. I wont lie I lost a
few nights of sleep over that, but ultimately
it more than worked out.
According to Jobe, Dumonceau
selected the best reference images he could
find for Charles de Gaulle Airport and then
cut together a rough animatic to see how
that airports interiors would sequence
16
November 2015
together. Once the filmmakers were satisfied

with the animatic, the team at There
modeled, lit and rendered the sets digitally
to match the reference images, then shot
the CG plates to further refine the look of
each scene. Jobe adds, We had already
captured the JFK terminal during the day [for
initial previs work], so it was just a matter of
switching the time of day to night and using
the digital set to then previsualize all the
camera setups.
For both terminals, Jobe continues,
[Cardino] suggested additional lighting

elements we could add to the scene that
would enhance each angle. On set, we were
able to use the previs details to line up all of
the blocking, lenses and lighting, so we only
had one major lighting change for the day
and were able to hit all 40 setups [for both
airports] in 10 hours without feeling
rushed.
Even though the filmmakers had
playback capabilities on set and were able to
see a real-time composite of the actors in
the virtual environment, it was still a challenge to ensure that the lighting matched
across the real and CG worlds. Cardino
remembers wondering, Does this lighting
match the plates, and can the visual effects
find a medium ground [with the on-set
lighting] where its all going to come
together and feel real for the audience? For
me, it was all about selling the space via the
lighting.
The greenscreen scenes were shot on
a stage at Thunder Studios in Long Beach,
Calif., where Cardino brought in an array of
lights from Mole-Richardson, including
10Ks, 5Ks and Zips. He lit the greenscreen
with a series of 1,000-watt Molorama Cyc
lights, and for a base ambience, he used a
large overhead Fisher Light. Overall, he says
he tried to approach the virtual set as he
would any other set, while keeping in mind
the technical requirements of pulling good
keys. A big part of the [production] was
having a lot of dialogue with Elliott and
making sure there wasnt greenscreen
bleeding all over the actors, the cinematog
rapher notes.
Final frame grabs from scenes inside the airport, paired with their greenscreen beginnings.
18
November 2015
The final confrontation between

Stiles and Vachon is set in a restaurant
kitchen, where Cardino worked with tungsten fixtures and Kino Flos, including
5,600K 2-by-2 and 4-by-4 Kinos, an assortment of practical tungsten bulbs on handdimmers, and there were some 150-watt
Dedo lights for downward spots or accentedge lights as well, he says.
A lot of kitchens have overhead
fluorescents, the cinematographer continues, and then you have heat lamps that are
generally very warm 2,700 to 2,900K
so I was looking to work within those parameters to give [the scene] a realistic feel.
Another factor is that Kino Flos come in
handy in tight quarters. We were in a
kitchen that had limited space, and [working
with Kino Flos] really helped us achieve the
look we wanted within [those confines].
During prep, Cardino created an incamera LUT that he and his digital-imaging
technician, C.J. Brion, used along with
Redcine-X to create dailies. The final digital grade took place at Company 3 with
colorist Tim Masick, using DaVinci Resolve.
The grade was done in native resolution
and output to 2K for DCP and 1080 for Rec
709 deliverables, Cardino says.
I try to shoot everything as close as
possible to how I want it to look in the end
so there arent a lot of surprises in the final
grade, says Cardino. I still try to approach
digital shooting like film shooting, because
thats how I started. You learn a lot of discipline when you shoot film, and I try to carry
that over.
The main goal for the team was to
make sure the visual effects would not
distract the audience from the story, and
Cardino was very pleased with the end
results. People have come up to me after
screenings and said, I cant believe you went
to Charles de Gaulle Airport, the cinematographer says. Its been awesome to
hear people say that. It was so important for
the film to feel photorealistic, because we
wanted a natural and realistic approach
from the get-go.
Best Man Wins had its world
premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival
and has also screened at festivals in Seattle,
Palm Springs and Rhode Island, and at
Londons Raindance.
Production Slate
Single-Take Heist
By Patricia Thomson
One city, one night, one take is the tagline for Victoria,
which sums up the stunning tour de force by German director Sebastian Schipper and Norwegian cinematographer Sturla Brandth
Grvlen, DFF. While this isnt the first one-take film 2002s Russian
Ark (AC Jan. 03) holds that honor it is the first to bring such harddriving, spontaneous energy to this high-wire act.
Consider the magnitude: Two hours and 18 minutes of handheld camera, 22 locations, more than 150 extras managed by six
assistant directors, seven actors followed sequentially by three sound
teams, and the whole enterprise timed to end with the morning light.
We first meet Victorias title character (Laia Costa) dancing by
herself in an underground club. Shes a vivacious newcomer from
Madrid, open to making friends, and is soon adopted by a quartet of
rowdy rogues who say theyll show her the real Berlin. The first
hour follows them from nightclub to city streets to a rooftop hangout
to the coffee bar where Victoria works. She and the friendliest of the
bunch, Sonne (Frederick Lau), hit it off, but their flirtation is interrupted by his ex-con pal (Franz Rogowski), who has promised a
favor to the man who was his protector in jail (Andr Hennicke).
Victoria is sucked into duty as a driver for the ensuing bank robbery,
and the second half of the film follows them as they take the money
and run. This hour has several dramatic set pieces in the getaway
car, celebrating at a nightclub, a police foot-chase, a hostage-taking
as well as more intimate moments.
When Schipper got in touch with Grvlen about the project,
20
November 2015
I was intrigued, and a little skeptical, says the cinematographer,

whod met Schipper a year earlier while shooting Anders Morgenthalers The 11th Hour, in which Schipper acted alongside Kim
Basinger.
Potential funders were even more skeptical. To inspire confidence, the Victoria cast and crew shot a one-take 10-minute short.
That calling card got them their funding, and it was also useful for
finding the right approach to Victorias camera movement. Sturla
was already on top of his game, but I told him, You cant shoot
Victoria like this you cant anticipate actions, says Schipper.
Instead, the director suggested he think like a war photographer. I
was to react to things happening around me, rather than have a
preconceived idea of where to look or whats [in] the frame, says
Grvlen. It was important to have the energy of being in the now
coming through the lens, rather than trying to create a specific
shot.
When the four weeks of rehearsals began, there was no
script just a 12-page treatment that was meant to be fleshed out
with the actors. The story was broken into 10 segments, which the
filmmakers immediately began rehearsing on camera with a full
crew. In that process, we learned the language of the film,
Grvlen says. The actors would improvise the theme, Sebastian
would correct them, and the story would develop. I learned the
rhythms of the actors, which helped me to read their body language
in order to move with them. I was very tapped into their energy;
when they were stressed, I got stressed, or when they were having
a quiet moment, I could relax. It went hand in hand, with their
energy coloring my work.
Victoria images courtesy of Adopt Films. Photo of Sturla Brandth Grvlen, DFF by Roxy Reiss.
A newcomer from Madrid, the titular character (Laia Costa) endures an adventurous and harrowing Berlin night in the feature Victoria.
Top: Open to meeting new people, Victoria befriends Sonne (Frederick Lau), a roguish local.
Bottom: Victoria soon finds herself in a predicament.
Grvlen also wandered the neighborhood with his camera, getting to know
the lighting conditions and the ergonomics
of the Canon EOS C300 PL. I did test the
Sony F3 and some sort of modified GoPro,
where you could have interchangeable
lenses, he says. But I was pretty confident
from the beginning that I would choose the
Canon C300 [because of the cameras]
ergonomics and light sensitivity and I like
the texture and image quality.
Eschewing cables of any kind,
Grvlen recorded onto a 32GB CF memory
card, which could hold two hours and 40
minutes using the MPEG-2 50 Mbps 4:2:2
codec. The C300 was outfitted with a Zeiss
Standard Speed 24mm T2.1 prime lens, and
a small matte box held a 18 Tiffen Black ProMist filter. The ISO was set to 2,000. The
camera sat inside a Redrock Micro
UltraCage, which held a monitor, microphone, top handle, side handle and lightweight Arri follow-focus. That was basi22
November 2015
cally it, says Grvlen. It weighed about

5.5 kilos.
Handholding 12 pounds for 138
minutes is a challenge you have to experience to understand, and Grvlen got a taste
during rehearsals. For the police chase
which occurs well past the one-hour mark
he was expected to run flat-out with the
actors. The first time we rehearsed that, I
hadnt warmed up, and after the first take,
I couldnt move, Grvlen recalls with a
laugh. After that, his prep included physical
training: He took up running with a 5-kilo
weight, core strengthening, and half-hour
warm-ups before the full takes. It was like
training for a marathon, he says. The
fitness paid off. Surprisingly, while I was
shooting [the full takes], I never thought,
Im tired now. Its not going to work. You
just focus on being there. But afterwards, I
was totally gone! I would get my massage
and sleep for 12 hours.
For the several scenes inside a car,
they strapped a bungee to the roof, which

would allow the camera to dangle and give
Grvlen a moments rest. But I dont think I
ended up using it, he says. I wouldnt risk
anything getting caught in the roof of the
car when stepping in and out. That caution
also extended to his own wardrobe, which
included shoes without laces and slim-fit
pants without pockets, so nothing could
snag.
When space permitted, focus puller
Boye Klver dealt with aperture adjustments, steered Grvlen, and reminded him
to flip the internal ND filter as he passed
from interiors to exteriors. When space was
too cramped, like in the cars, elevator, apartment and hotel room, Grvlen had to fend
for himself.
All locations had to be lit for 360
degrees and, to lower the chances of crew
getting in frame, Grvlen decided against
any kind of handheld lights or bounce
boards. Some scenes are only with available light, says gaffer Mirko Fricke. We
[also] did some little things while the shot
was in progress. For instance, haze in the
garage, some adjustments in the hotel and
bank, and we had one lamp that was set
and removed within the take because otherwise it would have been in the frame.
The films biggest units were
deployed for the club exterior and subsequent walk-and-talk, when Victoria and the
boys get to know each other. For ambient
light, a 6K Par with spot lens was positioned
on a roof and bounced against the opposite
building, while a 5K sodium-vapor Fresnel
was hidden around the corner and directly lit
Cinematographer
Sturla Brandth
Grvlen, DFF
lines up a shot.
the scene. On a more distant roof, Arri

M18s and M25s with CTO gel provided
additional ambience and enhanced the
street lamps. Par 64s with various gels to
match specific lamp colors including
sodium, CTB and a variety of greens
were mounted on roofs to serve as streetlight extensions, with some boomed out
with 4-meter pipes. Fluorescent-lit billboards were erected to provide background
highlights, while unwanted storefront lights
were scrimmed out.
The most elaborate interior setup
was the nightclub set, which was used
twice. It opens the film, with strobe effects
hitting Victorias face, and then serves as
revelry central when the group triumphantly
returns from the robbery. Built in an empty
basement, this was the only constructed
set, done for proximitys sake. Two scanners
and four moving Mac 250 profile spots did
the yeomans work. The moving lights
were used for the strobe effect because we
needed a longer flash time to provide a
clean effect in camera, says Fricke. Adds
Grvlen, A strobe light would have created
artifacts in the form of half-exposed frames
because of the rolling shutter of the
camera.
In addition, a large soft box faced the
DJ. For his face, I used two Linestra halogen light tubes, Fricke notes. Both the DJ
and the crowd behind him were backlit with
gelled Par 56s the DJ himself with a pair
of reds and the crowd with a pair of bluishgreens and another of yellow-oranges.
The whole dance floor was prepared with
a lot of Par 56s and Par 64s, Fricke continues. We had different colors on them for
the two different moods. The biggest
difference in lighting between the gangs
two visits to the club was a switch from a
stroboscopic effect to a cool bluish-green
24
November 2015
and hazy ambiance to complement the

dawn, Grvlen explains.
The first time the production tried a
full take, it was as taxing as any robbery.
The hopes were really high to nail it right
away, says the director. The initial attempt
was technically successful, but otherwise fell
flat. Everybody was holding back, says
Schipper. Nobody wanted to be the guy
that made the mistake.
They took a weeks pause, then tried
again. Schipper encouraged the team to
embrace whatever happened and incorporate that into the story. But this second try
top-sided in chaos, Schipper says. He had
promised his funders a jump-cut version if
the one-take approach failed, but he could
tell that an edited version, culled from full
takes and filmed rehearsals, just wouldnt
work. It would probably qualify on some
level as a product, he says, but that
wasnt their goal.
Given the high stakes, their third and
final take was supercharged, says Schipper, who hung closer to the actors this time
around, slipping into the car off-camera and
being in their sphere during certain trouble
spots. This time, they pulled it off on all
fronts. Actually, I felt it wasnt the best
work I had done, Grvlen confesses. But
after the last shot, when Victoria is walking
away and were about to cut, Sebastian
came over, put his hand on my shoulder and
said, We got it. He was very clear: This had
the best performances, the best energy. And
I have to agree.
That take also included some happy
accidents. The chaos that erupts in the
getaway car, for instance, was real. Costa
was driving too fast on unblocked streets, so
everyone was yelling at her to slow down.
Whats more, they tried a new, shorter
route, and the actress nearly turned down
the street where craft services was located.

The yelling intensified. I could see it out of
the corner of my eye, says Grvlen, so I
just panned the camera to Frederick Lau,
who was on the floor, and stayed on him for
a while. When we finally found the route
back to the club, everybody took a breath. It
was really authentic. That was something
that could have gone very wrong, but it
made everything so much better.
Grvlens proudest moment came
toward the end, when Victoria parts with
Sonne. It came together perfectly, he
recalls. When I moved in close on her, a
tear was falling. In a normal shoot, we probably would have done that 20 times to get
it right, and here, after two hours of shooting, it was there. That was a magical
moment.
Victorias color grade was done at
NHB Berlin on a FilmLight Baselight Two
(Generation V), with a DPX sequence
transcode in 1920x1080 24p and Rec 709
color space, for a final 2K DCP deliverable.
Grvlen, producer Jan Dressler and colorist
Pana Argueta pursued a natural look to
enhance the you are there experience.
Argueta explains, My main task, and the
most challenging part of my work, was to
enhance the changes in the light and the
color temperature as the characters were
moving throughout the locations, he says.
I had to use hundreds of key frames on the
Baselight kind of like color dissolves
within scenes to achieve the right mood
for every situation in the smoothest possible
way. I still get dizzy when I think about it.
According to Grvlen, another big
task was painting out the most obvious
camera shadows and crew reflections. They
also had one sky replacement. Up on the
rooftop, we wanted dawn to start being visible, instead of looking into blackness.
Overall, Grvlen assures, there wasnt that
much trickery. Just a lot of gumption.
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.39:1
Digital Capture
Canon EOS C300 PL
Zeiss Standard Speed
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FDPHUDVVXSSRUWHGIRUKLJKVSHHGE\WKH2G\VVH\4DUHWKH6RQ\3;:)6ZLWKWKH IRUPDWVWKDWFKRNH\RXUFRPSXWHU+LJKVSHHG
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RQWKH2G\VVH\4LVVWUDLJKWIRUZDUGDQGWKH
TXDOLW\LVDVJRRGDWISVDVLWLVDWISV
+RZDERXWWKHPDSSOHV"
Outrageous Fortune
By Neil Matsumoto
Kids were wild about Jem and the

Holograms, a TV staple in the 1980s. The
cartoon starred mild-mannered Jerrica
Benton, who would transform into the
glamorous Jem and lead her truly outrageous rock band into the breach,
confronting all manner of adversity before
taking the stage by storm. Directed by Jon
M. Chu and written by Ryan Landels, the
live-action reimagining of Jem and the
Holograms is a modern-day tale of a
YouTube sensation who rises to superstardom, only to find herself in a predicament
that threatens to tear lifelong friendships
and her family apart. And behind the scenes
is Synergy, an advanced artificial intelligence
created by Jerricas late father, that projects
complex holograms.
The film, which stars Aubrey Peeples
as Jerrica/Jem, was shot by Alice Brooks,
who first met Chu while the two were
attending the USC School of Cinematic
Arts. The cinematographer shot Chus
ambitious short film When the Kids Are
Away while they were students, and later
collaborated with the director on the Web
26
November 2015
series The LXD: The Legion of Extraordinary

Dancers (AC Nov. 10). Chu had first
discussed Jem and the Holograms with
Brooks several years before the opportunity
arose to make it happen.
Brooks explains that her most valuable preproduction experience occurred
when she went for a supposedly quick
meeting at Chus house, while he was
going over script changes with Landels.
They had been working on a rewrite of the
script and I ended up staying at Jons for 12
hours going through it page by page, she
says, really getting to the essence of what
each moment was about. At the end of that
meeting, I knew that Jon and I were on the
same page and we knew what story we
were telling.
There are two distinct visual styles for
Jem and the Holograms: concert scenes
with vibrant colors and theatrical stage
lighting, and the four bandmates everyday
lives. When it came to the latter, Brooks
wanted more of a documentary, analog,
film-like feel, she explains, and thus shot
90 percent of the girls non-concert scenes
with handheld cameras and muted colors.
We went into everything with a beat
sheet, knowing what we needed to get out
of a scene, but we didnt have a specific

shot list, except for the more complex
scenes and concerts, she says. It became
this organic creative process, which was a
much different way of approaching a
project than Ive done before.
The filmmakers knew they would be
shooting most of the movie with Red Epic
Mysterium-X cameras, as Chu already
owned one. (They rented additional Epics
from Panavision Hollywood.) During prep
they visited various locations, including the
Santa Monica Pier, where they tested the
cameras night-exterior performance at
1,600 ISO, capturing footage lit only by the
existing lights of the Ferris wheel.
Although the majority of the film
was shot with the Epic, Brooks knew from
the beginning that Jem would employ
multiple formats. Jems sister, Kimber
(Stefanie Scott), for example, spends a lot of
her time documenting her life, and for these
scenes Brooks used a Blackmagic Pocket
Cinema Camera that captured 1080p
ProRes files to onboard SD cards. We
tested a lot of cameras, including GoPros,
iPhones and Canon DSLRs, but ended up
with the Blackmagic camera, says Brooks.
We shot 16:9, pillar-boxed in [2.39:1]. We
Jem and the Holograms unit photography by Justina Mintz, courtesy of Universal Pictures.
A YouTube
sensation rises
to superstardom,
but fame
threatens to tear
her family and
friendships apart
in the feature
Jem and the
Holograms.
Top: The crew

preps for a
scene.
Bottom (from
left): Director
Jon M. Chu,
cinematographer
Alice Brooks and
actress Stefanie
Scott (who
portrays Jems
sister, Kimber)
view footage on
a Blackmagic
Pocket Cinema
Camera display.
tested CinemaDNG but ended up with

ProRes because it was better for our workflow, and in our tests we liked the way
ProRes looked. We wanted Kimbers
camera to feel digital, and we wanted the
Red to feel more analog.
Also intercut in the movie are flashbacks in the form of home movies shot by
Jerrica and Kimbers father when the sisters
were kids. Brooks tested out DV, Hi-8, Digi28
November 2015
tal 8, and even thought about shooting

with the Epic for these scenes and degrading the footage to look like VHS. In the end,
she ended up shooting with an actual VHS
camera from the mid 1980s the Panasonic OmniMovie. As we were going
through prep, Brooks says, we set rules
for ourselves, and one of them was that we
didnt want anything to feel plastic or fake.
When we projected the VHS, there was a
quality to it that we loved, and one of my

favorite shots in the movie is actually shot
on VHS.
The majority of Jem and the Holograms was shot with two Epics capturing
5K resolution to RedMags with 6:1
compression in the 2.39:1 aspect ratio.
Brooks chose Panavision PVintage Prime
lenses, which are from the mid-1970s and
based on Panavisions Ultra Speed Primes.
Brooks primarily shot with a 35mm on the
A camera and a 50mm on the B camera,
and for close-ups she used a 75mm on the
A and a 100mm on the B. Wider lenses
were generally only used for concert
sequences.
According to Brooks, lens flares were
a deciding factor in the filmmakers choice
to use PVintage Primes. When the lenses
were combined with the Epic, we ended up
with these soft, pink-like flares and
almost everything about Jem is pink, she
notes. We loved the flares so much that
we didnt use hard mattes; we just
completely embraced the flares. The cinematographer adds that the lenses softness
also helped hide the digital-ness of the
Epics. To soften even more, Brooks used
Schneider Optics and Classic Soft
filters.
Top (from left): Shana (Aurora Perrineau), Kimber, Aja (Hayley Kiyoko) and Jerrica (Aubrey Peeples)
before they become Jem and the Holograms. Middle: Kimber documents Jerrica/Jems rise to stardom.
Bottom: Jem and the Holograms perform.
30
November 2015
The way Jon works is once we start

shooting a scene, he doesnt like to cut a
shot, but rather reset. explains Brooks.
The most important thing for him is
getting the performance and telling the
emotion of the story. We had to be 100percent ready on the first take. Operators
Nick Franco and Andy Waruszewskis work
was never shaky, no matter how long they
held the camera. They both are brilliant in
composing frames and they did a truly
heroic job.
For Jems concert sequences, Brooks
sought the expertise of a veteran concertlighting specialist. Through Facebook she
got in contact with lighting designer Marc
Brickman. Marc was one of the first people
to use lasers in concerts, working with such
artists as Pink Floyd and Bruce Springsteen,
so I knew he was the person I wanted, says
Brooks. It took a bit of convincing. I told
him we wanted each concert to be a defining moment and to feel more like an art
form than a typical concert movie. We
shared our ideas, and Marc came on board
to light two of our three concerts. The one
he was really interested in was the underground concert because it was such a challenge. He also collaborated with us on the
finale.
For the final concert scenes, which
they shot outdoors at Los Angeles Center
Studios, the crew used 18 4-watt, full-color
lasers on six independent towers set up
around the stage. There were also 60
.5-milliwatt single-beam blue lasers that
were pointed upwards, as Brooks had to be
cautious not to point them at the cameras
and risk burning out their sensors. The
production also used Vari-Lite VL3500
moving lights on the sides and back of the
stage. It was really windy that night, so we
used crazy amounts of smoke to see the
lasers, Brooks adds. At one point when
the sun went down, all the smoke was
blowing away and you couldnt see the
lasers and we had 500 extras piling in. The
winds eventually died down and the
special-effects people were able to keep
the smoke up.
Perhaps the most difficult concert
scene was the underground shoot in a
garage, four stories down at Los Angeles
Center Studios. The biggest challenge was
that the ceilings were only 10' high and the
The camera crew shoots Jem performing solo.
length of the space was 400' deep, and

Brooks wanted to feel the depth without
seeing the actual source lights. Brickman
came up with the idea to light the ceiling
and the floor rather than the columns, as
Chu and Brooks had originally planned.
Brooks and gaffer Jay Muranaka
relied heavily on the Cineo HS line. They
were one of our workhorses for the whole
movie, Brooks enthuses. We used them
mainly as booklights, sometimes with up to
five frames of diffusion in front of them. I
loved their output and that we could
change the color temperature. The quality
of the light on the skin is beautiful, as well.
Along with the Cineos, Brooks and
Muranaka also used a multitude of Arri
fixtures, including M18s, M40s and M90s.
For a couple of night scenes, the cinematographer brought out an 18K HMI. During a
sequence in which the band was lit entirely
by audience members holding up their cell
phones, Brooks tested LiteGear LED ribbons
but instead used flashlight apps from 80
Samsung mobile phones.
Light Iron handled post for the film,
and Brooks and digital-imaging technician
Chase Abrams used the companys Outpost
system to handle the productions massive
data workflow. (They were often capturing
32
November 2015
up to seven hours of footage a day.) For

dailies they used the Pix system, with which
Abrams loaded shots onto multiple iPads for
the crew. Brooks would also watch dailies
with the director on the weekend.
Brooks completed the color grade at
Light Iron with colorist Ian Vertovec. Ian
and I have been working together for five
years, says Brooks, and we have a really
great shorthand and incredible collaboration. Hes an amazing artist. All throughout
prep I would send him images, as well as the
rules we had created for ourselves. Ian
created a LUT from our test footage that we
used for all of our Epic dailies. We had lots
of bright pink, red and purple hair, and it
was really important for us that the real-life
footage feel grounded and not fake in any
way. Sometimes the hair was just too colorful, so we pulled quite a bit of saturation for
our dailies. We didnt have much time [for
the final grade], but at this point its a pretty
easy process working with Ian. The project
was graded using Quantels Pablo for a 2K
DCP final deliverable.
Jem and the Holograms was a dream
project for Brooks, who as a child was a big
fan of the animated series. I was
completely obsessed, she reveals. I
dressed up as Kimber for Halloween one
year. My sister and I were always dancing on

the coffee tables singing songs from the
show, so it was incredibly exciting to get to
actually make the live-action version.
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.39:1
Digital Capture
Red Epic Mysterium-X,
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera,
Panasonic OmniMovie, GoPro Hero 3+
Panavision PVintage
ERRATA
The photo credit for our September 2015
cover (Straight Outta Compton) was incorrect and should have read, Photo by
Jaimie Trueblood, SMPSP, courtesy of
Universal Pictures.
The aspect ratio of The Man From
U.N.C.L.E. (also covered in September) is
2.39:1 not 1.33:1, as our Technical
Specs on page 67 assert.
Sinister Sect
Hoyte van Hoytema, FSF, NSC
combines classic and contemporary styles
for the James Bond film Spectre.
By Benjamin B
|
34
November 2015
aniel Craig stands on a narrow ledge some 30' off the

ground. A security cable stretches out the back of the
actors elegant jacket and fastens to a point roughly 20'
above, where a crewmember monitors the rig attentively. The set comprises four walls of a blown-out building,
and the action is a simple gag: 007 grabs at a light fixture on
the wall to steady himself, the fixture comes off, and he falls
on the ledge. Director Sam Mendes yells, Cut!
AC is visiting director of photography Hoyte van
Opposite and this

page, top: James
Bond (Daniel Craig)
battles an old
nemesis in the new
007 thriller, Spectre.
Middle:
Cinematographer
Hoyte van Hoytema,
FSF, NSC (left)
studies a scene with
director Sam
Mendes. Bottom:
The crew captures a
helicopter sequence
in Mexico City.
Hoytema, FSF, NSC and his crew on

the back lot of Pinewood Studios, on the
set of Spectre, the latest film in the longrunning James Bond franchise. Filmed
by a Technocrane-mounted Panavision
Millennium XL2 camera, Craig
performs several takes in this perilous
position, and when at last the scene is
done, he descends and introduces
www.theasc.com
November 2015
35
Sinister Sect
himself, adding, You have to put our
film on the cover of American
Cinematographer!
We joke that Bond might get the
cover if Craig provides an exclusive, tellall interview. The notoriously private
actor responds with a good-natured
smile and goes back to shooting. Were
pleasantly surprised, however, when he
does return to offer his thoughts about
the importance of shooting on film. As
far as Im concerned, nothing beats
shooting on 35mm film, the actor
opines. Film is so much more beautiful
than digital; it gives so many more
textures and variations. I dont know very
much, but the amount of work that goes
into working on digital to make it look
like film after the event seems like a great
waste of time. Why not just shoot on
film?
Indeed, if theres a single theme
that emerges from our time with van
Hoytema, its his unconditional devotion
to film negative. After the production
wraps, the cinematographer kindly
invites AC to appreciate the films grain
and texture during the DI at Company 3
in London, where he reads amusing
statistics about the production sent by 1st
AC Julian Bucknall: The Spectre camera
crew used 30 cameras, 280 lenses,
consumed 1,800 espressos and almost
a million feet of film!
Spectre was shot over seven
months in Mexico City, London, Rome,
Austria and Morocco. In addition, giant
sets were built at several facilities at
Pinewood Studios, including the famous
007 Stage, the back lot and the Paddock
Tank. Van Hoytema worked mainly
with Panavision C Series anamorphic
lenses, with exceptions including the
opening sequence, which was filmed
with spherical Primos, and a nocturnal
boat chase along miles of the Thames
riverfront in London; for reasons of
exposure, the latter was shot with
Panavisions new Primo 70s on Arris
new Alexa 65 digital camera (see sidebar,
p. 44).
The cinematographer used three
Kodak Vision3 negatives on Spectre: 50D
5203, 250D 5207 and 500T 5219. The
Top: Bond
inspects his new
car. Middle: The
camera crew
preps the car
reveal. Bottom:
A Performance
Filmworks Edge
crane trails
Bonds vehicle.
36
November 2015
Unit photography by Jonathan Olley, Franois Duhamel, Stephen Vaughan and Jasin Boland, SMPSP, courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc.; Danjaq, LLC; and Columbia Pictures.
dailies were transferred on a Spirit, and

the negative selects were rescanned at
4K on an Arriscan. The DI was graded
by colorist Greg Fisher, who worked in
4K using Blackmagic Designs DaVinci
Resolve.
ACs interview with van
Hoytema was complemented by discussions with Fisher and Panavisions Dan
Sasaki. A special thanks goes to gaffer
David Smith for taking time to detail
the lighting setups, and to Heather
Callow for coordinating visits to the set
and DI suite.
American
Cinematographer:
What indications did director Sam
Mendes give you about the visual style
and look of Spectre?
Hoyte van Hoytema, FSF,
NSC: Sam wanted the different
[points] on Bonds journey to have a
distinctive feel. They all had to carry a
specific mood, suitable to the location
and, of course, the story. The visual
language of the film wasnt something
that had a certain mandate or rulebook
attached to it from the start, but was
something that evolved as we moved
forward. It was a very organic process of
eliminating what felt wrong, and adding
what felt appropriate.
How did you decide to shoot
film negative?
Van Hoytema: I suggested film
from the start, but I think that Sam had
been living with the same thought. I
had the feeling that Sam really had a
great interest in finding a medium that
his cinematographer was comfortable
with, and I have always felt his respect
regarding the choice.
Why did you choose to shoot
anamorphic?
Van Hoytema:
Shooting
anamorphic for a project like this is a
no-brainer. However, we also played
around with the thought of shooting
Imax, and I did extensive testing. But it
became impossible for us to pursue
Imax on this kind of scale we shot
almost a million feet, and our second
unit sometimes used more than seven
camera bodies simultaneously so we
Top: Panalux
FloBanks
illuminate the
Translight that
surrounds the
Austrian-spa set
built at
Pinewood
Studios (see
sidebar, p. 38).
Middle and
bottom: Mr.
Hinx (Dave
Bautista)
pursues Bond
through the
streets of Rome.
www.theasc.com
November 2015
37
Lighting the Austrian Spa
merican Cinematographer: Can you

talk about the huge Austrian-spa
set in Pinewood?
Hoyte van Hoytema, FSF,
NSC: The building was three stories
high and mostly glass, and a Translight
background of snowy mountains went
360 degrees around it, from floor to
ceiling. To get convincing Translights,
you need big sizes and distances. The
glass panes in the building also helped
here, because we got reflections of the
Translight from all sides.
How did you and gaffer David
Smith light the Translights for the spa
set?
Van Hoytema: The scene was
meant to [take place on] a clear, overcast
day, so I wanted to light it with daylight
sources to be naturalistic. With a big
Translight, you have to take temperature into consideration with tungsten or HMI lights, the stage would
have become unlivable. Also we couldnt
use big light sources behind [the
Translight] because we had to keep the
footprint as small as possible. So we
made a giant rib of fluorescents all
around the set.
David, could you detail the
fixtures used on this big glass set?
38
November 2015
David Smith: Everything was

daylight-balanced. All the fluorescents
and LEDs were fully dimmable and
DMX-controlled. We used Panalux
FloBank fixtures behind the Translight;
FloBanks have two groups of four 54watt tubes.
To give an overall ambient light
and in case we saw reflections of the
sky in the glass we had a silk above
the set roof with Panalux HiLights
lighting from above. The HiLights
have eight 55-watt tubes. We also had
rows of [Panalux] 2-by-2 LED
TekTiles to give a sense of light direction from the two brighter sides of the
building, and we had six K5600 4K
Alphas beaming down the central
atrium, which we used because you can
[position] them pointing straight
down.
Not pictured on the diagram are
16 18K Arrimax Pars that we moved
around on the floor of the stage outside
the building. They were aimed at
Ultrabounce frames on trusses above
the Translights. We could lower and
angle the frames as needed with electric
motors to get a soft daylight key into
the building.
Benjamin B
Sinister Sect
decided on 35mm anamorphic.

What was it like working with
Mendes?
Van Hoytema: I enjoyed every
moment with him. Sam is smart, witty
and a pure film craftsman. He is very
knowledgeable and is genuinely interested in all the aspects of filmmaking
a fanatical storyteller. Sam told me once
that, within the whole machinery of
filmmaking, cinematography was very
close to his heart. I can confirm that.
His love for cinematography created
great companionship, trust and access.
There is a classic feel to the look
of Spectre. How did you and Mendes
arrive at that style?
Van Hoytema: We wanted it to
feel more romantic and more classic.
Since Bond used to be a style icon, I was
wondering if we could get some of that
old-fashioned flair back but in an effortless way, not having to try too hard,
without feeling forced and unnatural.
Bond never really has to prove himself,
and I wanted to reflect that effortless
feeling in the visual language. I believe
that we got more powerful results by
being more settled and restrained.
How did you and Mendes work
together to define the camera angles
and movement?
Van Hoytema: We tried to place
the camera exactly where its supposed
to be, without trying to jazz things up
by putting it in weird positions or
complicated moves. We wanted camera
movement to be functional rather than
decorative.
In the action scenes, we were very
meticulous about screen directions. Its
important that the viewer is able to
understand whats going on. As a result,
you can cut very fast, but you dont get
confused, and the film can be punchier.
This is something I never used to do,
and is very much due to Sam.
And there is no slow motion?
Van Hoytema: Hardly any. Once
again, the idea was to have no unnecessary decoration, just to focus on the
story. Theres a phrase by Goethe that I
like a lot: So fhlt man Absicht, und
man ist verstimmt, which translates
Lighting diagram courtesy of David Smith.
roughly to: As soon as one becomes

aware of the intention, the senses are
numbed.
Youre not used to working with a
camera operator?
Van Hoytema: I have worked
with operators, but I always did the
handheld it has always been a very
personal and organic thing. I remember
in the beginning of this film, when [Acamera operator] Lukasz Bielan operated a scene, I looked at what he was
doing and I thought, Oh, its so nice to
have an operator who is better than I
am! It made me very comfortable and
helped me to handle the magnitude of
the production. Sam and I would talk a
lot about the mise-en-scne and which
lenses to use and so on, but Lukasz was
always there, listening in the background, and he added his energy and
ideas.
How was handheld employed in
the movie?
Van Hoytema: There are very
formal parts in the film, but there is also
a sort of warm-blooded storyline that
starts to evolve with James Bond actually
falling in love! We felt that it was interesting to gradually step away from the
formalism, to loosen the camera up a
little and add some handheld in those
scenes.
But in the action scenes, like the
car chase in Rome, we wanted the
frames to be more elegant and settled.
We wanted to convey speed without
shaking the visuals. So we had the
camera mounted to the car, and we used
a Russian Arm a lot.
Although the camera feels classical, the lighting is more contemporary.
For example, there is no fill light.
Van Hoytema: Exactly. We
wanted to give the film a retro feeling,
but that doesnt mean making a retro
film. So we used very modern elements
and technology, with a slightly old-fashioned laid-backness. Its a mixture, a
blending of both worlds.
In general, Im not big on fill. I
love the idea of just putting the light
source in the right place. There have
been [Bond films] in the past where his
Sinister Sect
face is lit in the same meticulous way in
different scenes: a frontal with a little
bit of fill. When you find the perfect
light for a face all the time, you step
away from reality. For this Bond I
wanted close-ups to have different feels,
and I also used different tools: RifaLites, fluorescents, LED panels.
I like to do dynamic close-ups,
where the light on the faces changes
because of the mise-en-scne. For
example, when Bond and Madeleine
[La Seydoux] are in the back room of
the hotel in Morocco, theyre standing
in half-darkness, in a very soft ambient
light, and then they have a confrontation as they step into the light of an
overhead lightbulb hanging above a
table.
The Day of the Dead opening
sequence in Mexico City is shot without direct sunlight, and with a lot of
smoke. That gives the day exterior a
unique look.
Van Hoytema: We wanted to
make Mexico like an exotic, strange
dream. We would literally wait for the
sun to disappear, add smoke and shoot.
We added a lot of smoke, because we
really wanted to disperse the light, to
make the air feel heavy. We shot in
Mexico in [4-perf ] Super 35 with a
combination of the 50 and 250 [stocks].
We tried to shoot everything in
Mexico overcast, but we werent always
successful; there are parts where the sun
breaks out. We wanted to reserve direct
sunlight for Morocco.
Why did you shoot Mexico City
with spherical Primos instead of
anamorphics?
Van Hoytema: I wanted to make
the image a little softer and grittier, as
well as help visual effects with some
extra negative at the top and bottom to
assist with their transitions for the
master shot. Spherical always feels a
little more rounded off; the edges are
taken off a little bit. Anamorphic is so
much sharper.
Some people feel that spherical
is sharper than anamorphic.
Van Hoytema: Not if youre
working with extremely well-tuned
Top and
middle: M
(Ralph Fiennes)
meets with
Bond. Bottom:
Mendes
prepares a
train-car
interior with
Craig and La
Seydoux.
40
November 2015
Sinister Sect
anamorphic lenses. A good anamorphic
lens has much better resolution in
[2.39:1] than a Super 35 image. But its
very hard to create anamorphic glass that
is good, so its true that you come across a
lot of lenses that feel soft. People often
use anamorphics in commercials to make
soft images with lots of flare. [ASC associate and Panavisions vice president of
optical engineering], Dan Sasaki, tuned
our anamorphic lenses so that flares dont
occur as much in sunlight, but they do
occur in artificial light.
For the [nighttime chase scene in
Rome], we used a big collection of
lenses. Our workhorse set [for these
sequences] was actually the Arri Master
Anamorphics, to avoid extreme headlight flares and still be able to shoot in
low light, as they are a [T1.9] across the
set. All the other [footage] in Rome was
shot with the Panavisions.
This playfulness with the
formats, mixing spherical and anamorphic, is very much a part of modern
filmmaking.
Van Hoytema: I think so, too, and
I love it. The mantra that I got at the
classic film school in dz [Poland]
and also read in old American
Cinematographer interviews was that
it doesnt matter what you do as long as
youre consistent. I take pleasure in trying
to be inconsistent!
How did you light the interiors
in the Roman car chase at night?
Van Hoytema: The car interiors
were shot on a stage with a mixture of
rear-screen projection, LED panels and
classic light gags. Rear screen disappeared because of greenscreen, but the
big problem with greenscreen is that
youre always lighting the foreground
and background separately. Rear screen
gives you reflections in the car and light
on peoples faces that you wouldnt get
with greenscreen. We added rotating
mirrors and classic light gags with
moving panels to sell the effect. We also
fed the content of the rear projection to
bright, low-resolution LED screens and
used them off-camera as a light source.
You used Translights a lot on
your sets.
Top and bottom:

Franz Oberhauser
(Christoph Waltz)
chairs a meeting.
Middle: The crew
captures an angle
from atop the
boardroom table.
For more
information on
this scene, visit
The Film Book
blog at theasc.com
42
November 2015
A Collaboration Among Vendors
lthough Hoyte van Hoytema,

FSF, NSC is a confirmed film
aficionado, he decided that, due to the
extremely low light levels, it was more
prudent to shoot Spectres nighttime
boat chase on the Thames with a digital camera. He opted to shoot with
Arris recently introduced Alexa 65
because of its resolution, and he
wanted to pair the camera with
Panavisions new Primo 70 lenses
because they open to T2.
ASC associate Dan Sasaki,
Panavisions VP of optical engineering, explains that Arri Managing
Director Franz Kraus and Panavision
CEO Kim Snyder both of whom
are also ASC associate members
agreed to work together to deliver this
cross-company equipment package to
the Spectre filmmakers.
American Cinematographer:
Putting the Primo 70 lenses on the
Alexa 65 involved a historic collaboration between Arri and Panavision.
Dan Sasaki: We had a dinner
together when we finished, and Franz
Kraus commented that, for years,
neither of us would have allowed a
competitors employee into the building!
We had a great collaboration
with Arri. A small team from
Panavision went to Munich prior to
44
November 2015
the principal photography of Spectre to

ensure that the adaptation of the Primo
70s for the Alexa 65 went well. We met
with the Arri design team and we
found some optical problems, because
there were a lot of unknowns. So we did
some research and development there
to figure out what we needed to modify
or change. Everything worked out very
nicely, and things went pretty smoothly
for Spectre.
What kind of modifications did
you make?
Sasaki: The Primo 70s were
developed for a different optical low
pass filter scheme than the Alexa 65s, so
we had to include compensation
elements in the optical path behind the
lenses. This was on the adapter inside
the camera. We also changed some
coatings.
Did you do any mechanical
modifications?
Sasaki: Arri made a universal
base for the Alexa 65, which made it
adaptable to our Panavision 70 mount.
So we made half the mechanical
coupling and Arri made the other half.
What were van Hoytemas
requirements?
Sasaki: The fact that the Primo
70s performed well at T2 was very
important to Hoyte. He was happy
with the way the lenses handled flares
and random glare during his initial tests,

but he was shooting down the Thames
where he didnt have control of all the
lights, and he didnt want unforeseen
surprises showing up. So we did another
battery of tests to look at the flare and
glare, and that was another factor that
prompted a change in the coatings to a
much higher tolerance than we originally had.
Will there be more projects
pairing the Primo 70s and Alexa 65?
Sasaki: Yes, for example
Passengers, an upcoming film to be shot
by Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC.
Hoyte tells us that you also
tuned his anamorphic lenses.
Sasaki: Yes, we did optical and
mechanical adjustments to his C Series
[lenses] which were first used on
Interstellar [AC Dec. 14] to get close
focus to about 2 feet, and we
customized the coating to make the
flare more diffuse and reduce its blue
component. We also built a custom
65mm lens for Hoyte that is very close
focus.
Benjamin B
Photo courtesy of Panavision.
Sinister Sect
The crew preps

a car scene as
Naomie Harris
receives a
touch-up.
Van Hoytema: Im very much for

doing things in-camera. I want the
images to guide post more than the
other way around; thats why I like to use
Translights. I love to create environments on the soundstage that are as realistic as possible for the actors. Its such a
wonderful feeling to have actors walk on
to a set and start settling in as if theyre
really in a location, without having to
46
use their imagination.

Thats also the reason I love
working with low light levels, and why I
love to keep my lights outside the set.
Even on a soundstage, I like to have my
sources come through the windows. I try
to have as few lights on set as possible,
because they break the magic they
pop the balloon.
The night exterior along the
Thames required an epic lighting installation that only a James Bond film could
get away with.
Van Hoytema: Its the biggest
lighting setup Ive ever done, and it might
be one for The Guinness Book of World
Records! It took five weeks to set up. My
gaffer, David Smith, and his crew set up
eight construction cranes and two floating pontoons on the Thames, plus
dozens of other fixtures on the shore. We
had 28 generators.
[Editors note: The full lighting rig
for the Thames shoot included 30 20Ks,
primarily on rooftops; eight Full Wendys
on cranes and barges; 24 Quarter
Wendys, mainly on rooftops; 25 T12s,
rigged on rooftops and on stands along
the water; 16 10Ks, 12 5Ks and 50
Blondes, mostly on stands along the river;
and 150 1,250-watt Atlas fittings, which
took a crew three weeks working at
night to rig beneath the bridges.]
Why did you do the DI in 4K?
Van Hoytema: 2K is not enough
resolution to render the shape and depth

of the grain. I love grain. Its very organic;
it feels round. In my opinion, if you
render grain in 2K, it turns into noise
some sort of digital interpretation of
grain.
You feel that you need the 4K to
render the grain even though youre
going to go back out to 2K later?
Van Hoytema: Yes, its better to
oversample. Its a lot of data, but its totally
doable. To be honest, I think its quite
strange that the 2K workflow has held on
for so long. For a lot of post houses, its
cheaper business-wise, but I think that
the 2K format is not going to last, because
its not enough resolution.
Making a film involves so much
collaboration. Gaffer David Smith,
colorist Greg Fisher and Panavisions
Dan Sasaki have given us important
production details. Who are some of the
other people you would like to thank?
Van Hoytema: I owe so much to so
many! Operator Lukasz Bielan, AC
Julian Bucknall, second-unit director

Alexander Witt and cinematographer
Jallo Faber, production designer Dennis
Gassner, and also Hugh Whittaker and
Charlie Todman from Panavision and
Rob Garvie from Panalux. My key grip,
Gary Hymns, was a fantastic source of
energy. No matter how stressed or
gnarly the situation was, in the heat of it
all, he would turn to me with a glint in
his eye and say, God, I love this job. I
thrive when people around me have
that kind of love and energy!
I also have to thank Sam. He has
an awe-provoking command over every
aspect of filmmaking, yet he puts a lot of
trust in his co-workers, and he is very
secure and humble about letting people
influence him. Sam Mendes is a director in the most complete sense of the
word.
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.39:1
Anamorphic 35mm,
4-perf Super 35mm,
Digital Capture
Panavision Millennium XL2,
Arriflex 235, Arri Alexa 65
Panavision C Series, Primo,
Primo 70;
Arri Master Anamorphic
Kodak Vision3 50D 5203,
250D 5207, 500T 5219
Digital Intermediate
For additional Spectre coverage,

visit www.theasc.com/site/blog/thefilm
book beginning in November.
47
Questions of
Perspective
Dariusz Wolski, ASC examines

his experiences on two distinctly
ambitious projects: The Walk and
The Martian.
By David E. Williams
|
hings are about to start getting crazy here, warns

cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, ASC, speaking to
AC from London, where hes in the final week of prep
before shooting the upcoming Netflix-produced
political satire War Machine, directed by David Michd. Its a
black comedy about the Afghan War. And every film has that
stage, just before the beginning of production. There are just
so many creative decisions to be made, he notes, adding that
the show will later move to the United Arab Emirates for
exterior work.
With credits that have included all four Pirates of the
Caribbean adventures (AC Aug. 03, June 07), Sweeney Todd:
48
November 2015
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (AC Jan. 08) and Alice in
Wonderland (AC April 10), Wolski is no stranger to imaginative, complex productions, but his two most recent projects
have proved to be visual showcases not only for his technical
prowess but his ability to carefully mesh his own artistic sensibility with those of his directors.
Equally fanciful and historically accurate, The Walk is an
inspiring period drama set in the 1970s, detailing the exploits
of French high-wire walker Philippe Petit ( Joseph GordonLevitt) and his obsession with the World Trade Center; the
feature marks Wolskis first film with director Robert
Zemeckis. In contrast, the futuristic yet science-based drama
The Martian, which follows a castaway NASA scientist (Matt
Damon) as he fights for survival after being stranded alone on
the Red Planet, is Wolskis fourth collaboration with director
Ridley Scott, following Prometheus (AC July 12), The Counselor
and Exodus: Gods and Kings (AC Jan. 15).
With just days to go before the start of principal
photography for War Machine which he describes as a serious change of pace after a series of big-budget studio assignments Wolski opened up about his work with Zemeckis
and Scott, and how he approached each picture to help achieve
their singular storytelling visions.
The Walk photos by Takashi Seida, courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment. The Martian photos by Giles Keyte and Aidan Monaghan, courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox.
American
Cinematographer:
Thematically, there are a lot of similarities between The Walk and The
Martian. They would make quite a
double feature.
Dariusz Wolski, ASC: Thats
interesting, because theyre very different pictures from two directors with
completely different styles. And I had
an established relationship with Ridley
that helped me understand his way of
thinking using multiple cameras,
setting up the event and capturing it
while Bobs way of thinking is
completely different, working with very
long, design-intensive shots. Photographically, though, both films were
very challenging but a lot of fun to do.
After having seen both films
one set largely on Mars and the other
high above Manhattan I can only
imagine how many days you spent that
year shooting on greenscreen stages.
Wolski: Actually, not as many as
you might think, specifically because of
the way Ridley and Bob wanted to
shoot both pictures. They both wanted
their stories to feel real, which meant
building as much as we could for real.
On The Martian, much of what
we shot for Mars was done on location
Opposite:
Philippe Petit
(Joseph GordonLevitt) tests his
high-wire skills in
The Walk. This
page, top: NASA
scientist Mark
Watney (Matt
Damon) struggles
to survive in
The Martian.
Left: Dariusz
Wolski, ASC.
in Jordan. Our main stage [Stage 6 at

Korda Studios, just west of Budapest]
was 65 feet tall and wider than the Bond
stage [at Pinewood Studios], so it was
huge, and we could re-create Mars there
with all the dirt and the full-size Hub
habitat building. We could even drive
our rover around. So we really only
needed greenscreen to add the
[computer-generated] mountains in the
distance, which were completed with
360-degree plates we shot in Jordan
during our scout there in prep. The
result is quite realistic, as opposed to
shooting on a greenscreen stage and just
www.theasc.com
making everything up later. There was

a lot of study and design that went into
it, and those scouts in Jordan made
that possible. Part of that included not
only the colors of the landscape, but
our exterior lighting approach on
stage, which was essentially one big
single source standing in for the sun
comprising five Arrimax 18/12K
HMI Par units punching through
layers of Rosco Soft Frost diffusion
so I had just one shadow. And then
I did a lot of the modeling with
bounce and negative fill.
Of course, because of the stages
November 2015
49
Petits dream of
walking a wire
suspended
between the
twin towers of
the World Trade
Center is made
possible by his
diverse team of
collaborators
(below).
height limit, my sun never went super

high, which was great, so we had a
daylight that was at a constant of somewhere between 9:30 to 11 a.m. When
we finally wrapped on stage and went to
Jordan for our location work, we tried to
maintain that angle as much as we
could. This approach, of shooting on
stage first, was only possible because of
the detailed location scout we did in
prep.
The only other extensive greenscreen work we did was for the scenes
set in space for example, aboard the
NASA ship, [where we had] to have the
ceilings replaced and extended due to all
50
November 2015
the wire work we did with the actors to

simulate zero-gravity weightlessness.
Virtually everything else was shot on
real physical locations around Budapest
or on stage.
On The Walk, we obviously had
quite a bit of greenscreen work, but we
did build an entire rooftop set for the
Trade Center. With some adjustments,
we just used the same set for both roofs.
But the length of the wire we used on
stage was exactly the length of the
distance between the real Twin Towers:
140 feet. So a realistic sense of perspective between Joseph Gordon-Levitt and
the physical rooftop set was maintained
throughout that scene as he walks

between the buildings. Thats a very
subtle thing, but it delivers an illusion of
realism that would be ruined if we were
not consistent. Sure, we cheated it a little
bit sometimes, but we always knew
where we could do that because we
understood what the reality was.
The Martian seemed to call for a
very realistic lighting and photographic approach to support a more
realistic story as opposed to, say,
Prometheus. Is that how you read the
script?
Wolski: Prometheus is a sci-fi
film, while The Martian is a drama
about science thats set in the near future
[of 2035], and everything is plausible.
We had experts from NASA and JPL
and the European Space Agency. There
are some elements that are not quite
real, of course, but 90 percent is
absolutely plausible. And that was in the
back of my mind whenever we had a
lighting issue. The Hub, for example,
was lit almost entirely with practicals
built into the sets [by production
designer Arthur Maxs department].
And this was done in a way to also
contrast our interiors with the Martian
exteriors. Inside, we are quite monochromatic, clean and modern, while the
exterior is so vibrant. Even the Mars
daylight we have coming into the
Top: Petit steps

out onto his
wire amid earlymorning fog.
Middle: GordonLevitt makes his
move on the
greenscreen set.
Below: Wolski
and director
Robert Zemeckis
(left, gesturing)
designed each
shot in The Walk
to take
advantage of
the films 3D
presentation.
Hubs translucent dome ceiling is

neutral, as we assumed that there would
be some sort of built-in filtration to
counter the reddish light from outside.
So, inside, our character is protected and
safe, but this interior-exterior contrast is
also for the audience, so their eyes do
not become immune to the redness of
Mars. That would gradually remove the
impact of the hostile environment.
The Walk is your first feature
with Zemeckis while The Martian is
your fourth with Scott. How are those
working relationships different, and
how did they impact your approach on
each respective film?
Wolski: Theres always a first
time with every director you work with.
You try to understand how they think in
order to sell them on your ideas, and the
first step is to listen and understand
their vision. Then you can gradually
show them what you can bring to that,
what you can do to achieve or enhance
that. The primary difference between
Ridley and Bob is that Ridley likes to
use multiple cameras it was not
unusual to have three of our 3D units
rolling and cover the action in a very
objective manner. He likes to have the
camera back slightly, observing what is
taking place. That also allows for a lot of
spontaneity from the actors, as youll
have the coverage you need if something
good comes of it.
Bob narrates his story with the
camera. It can be the POV of a character, and we see through those eyes and
experience the scene as they do. For
example, when Philippe is finally walking on the wire between the Trade
www.theasc.com
Center towers, we experience much of it

through his eyes, giving us the feeling of
being up there. Neither storytelling
approach is better than the other; they
are just different. [Laughs.] Fortunately,
November 2015
51
Right: Petit takes
a knee above
Manhattan.
Below: The
greenscreen
setup for the
shot.
hes Bob Zemeckis, a pretty prolific

filmmaker, and Ive studied his work for
years and know his movies well, so I
knew his style and what he likes. There
was no Ah-ha! moment in our discussions about the movie. I knew Bob
would want to design these very long,
atmospheric shots as he had in movies
like Forrest Gump [AC Oct. 94]. Thats
his visual style.
It was the same situation with
Ridley when I shot my first movie with
him. I was a student of Blade Runner
[AC July 82] and Alien [AC Aug. 79]
and all those movies. I knew I would
have amazing visuals to photograph. As
a cinematographer, you grow up studying the films of your favorite directors,
and I have been lucky enough to work
with two of mine.
Zemeckis is one of the few
52
November 2015
feature-film directors who has also

directed animated features The
Polar Express [AC Nov. 04], Beowulf
and A Christmas Carol so does that
give him a different way of working
with the camera?
Wolski: I think those mo-cap
films Bob made were very interesting
experiments, but he was telling stories
with those long takes and elaborate
camera moves well before that as I
mentioned, in Forrest Gump and also
Cast Away [AC Jan. 01]. But the
animated projects were a way for him to
learn new technology and try a different
storytelling approach. That said, whats
great about Bob is that his experience in
doing his 3D animated movies
where he had complete control over
camera and performances taught
him exactly how to compose in 3D, and
Ive done enough 3D work so that the

two of us could really do it right in The
Walk and fully take advantage of the
format.
The Walk has a very whimsical
framing device featuring GordonLevitt directly addressing the audience
while standing on the Statue of
Libertys torch which gradually
transitions to a magic-hour look at the
end of the picture. Can you describe
shooting those sequences?
Wolski: Its a little theatrical, but
I think it works nicely because of the
character of Philippe. He is a showman.
We also shot our close-ups on Joseph
quite wide with the camera very close to
him to bring the audience into the story,
into this personal space and his perspective. Thats Bobs style. Having an actor
directly addressing the camera is not
usual, but, interestingly, Matt Damon
also does quite a bit of it in The Martian
as he is recording his video diary. In that
case, of course, there is a device, and that
supports the realistic approach to the
story; there are cameras everywhere,
documenting everything. And this gives
us a way to communicate what he is
doing and feeling to the audience, as he
is alone while in The Walk, this is
purely Bobs storytelling device. Its
funny that both movies have this direct
performance.
The height of the Trade Center
towers is very dramatically depicted

throughout The Walk. Was that a
priority throughout the production?
How did Zemeckis communicate
this? And how did the eventual 3D
presentation play a part in achieving
those vertiginous perspectives?
Wolski: Well, its interesting.
We shot both films in 6K with Red
Epic Dragons, but The Walk was shot
in 2D and converted with a postproduction 3D process [by Legend3D in
Toronto] while The Martian was shot
in 3D [using 3ality Technica stereo
rigs]. But the conversion process has
improved to the point where it can
seem even more dimensional than
something shot in actual 3D, just by
virtue of the way the image is
processed and composed in depth. If
you shoot very carefully in 2D, designing the shots correctly, the illusion of
3D is quite good. Today, if you see a
2D film converted to 3D that looks
terrible, its probably not because of
the conversion process its that the
film simply was not conceived to be
seen in 3D.
As far as the towers are
concerned, there was nothing to
accentuate, as they were so bloody
high! [Laughs.] Im kidding a little;
there was a lot of care taken in
composing shots of the towers [the
full heights of which were computer
generated], either from above or
below, by using their entire height in
the composition, if possible, to always
accentuate that distance. We did
briefly use an on-set previs system at
first to help that process, but after we
made the mental adjustment, we
didnt use it very much.
Part of Bobs visual approach to
shooting The Walk had to do with
always finding the right elements to
take advantage of the 3D, especially in
more subtle ways. For example, as
Philippe steps out onto the wire
between the towers, the wire itself is
used as a dimensional element, cutting
the image diagonally and accentuating
the depth in the composition. In other
shots, the balancing pole Philippe uses
For The Martian,
the interior of
NASAs habitat
was purposefully
planned by
production
designer Arthur
Max to be
neutral in color
to offer dramatic
contrast to the
red-hued surface
of Mars.
achieves the same thing, as does the

angular architecture of the Trade Center
itself. Sometimes [these elements work]
in combination as the camera moves
around him out there in space on the
wire, transitioning from one dimensional element to another in threedimensional space.
Ridley, on the other hand, doesnt
think that way. He loves the dimensionality of 3D for the big, wide shots, but
hes not as particular about the effect
overall, so its more subdued and naturalistic, which better fits his objective
approach. Unlike Bob, he also pulls back
a bit when shooting people to reduce the
stereo effect, because he doesnt feel
human beings need it so much. But
when he does want to accentuate it,
Ridley is a master of designing epic
landscapes that look spectacular in 3D.
What lenses did you rely on for
each film?
Wolski: When shooting in 3D, I
always use zooms, because changing
lenses becomes a time issue. On The
Martian, I had one camera [rig fitted]
with wide zooms and another with long
zooms. So we mostly used the
Angenieux Optimo 15-40mm [T2.6]
and the Optimo DP 30-80mm [T2.8]
zooms, but we also had the Fujinon 1990mm [T2.9] Cabrio Premiers just to
sometimes have a wider range.
With Bob on The Walk, I mostly
54
November 2015
On location in
Jordans
desolate Wadi
Rum valley, the
Martian
production
team led by
director Ridley
Scott (middle, in
white) often
used multiple
3D camera rigs
to capture the
action.
used Zeiss [T1.9] Ultra Primes, in part

because they are so small and light, but
also because we could get so close to our
subjects and the combination with
the Epic makes for a very handy setup.
[The Walk used Angenieux Optimo 1540mm and Optimo DP 30-80mm
zooms as well.]
We never considered shooting
The Walk in real 3D. Bob wasnt ready to
do it, and its actually very expensive to
do. Ridley has the experience and a
handpicked team of experts from all
over the world to help him. And theres
more prep as well. The Walk was just a
smaller film. But there are other considerations as well. For instance, we knew
we would have enough time to do a
proper postproduction 3D conversion of
The Walk, while, given our schedule and
the number of visual effects that had to
be completed, we did not have enough
time to do that on The Martian. So we
had to shoot in 3D.
The Trade Center wire walk
takes place largely in cold, overcast,
almost shadowless daylight. How was
that approach decided? And can you
describe the overall stage lighting
setup for this?
Wolski: It was in part for historical accuracy, because [the conditions]
were like that [over the course of 45
minutes on the morning of August 7,
56
November 2015
1974], but that also gave us the opportunity to use transitions in the lighting
the sunrise, clouds passing and
other weather for dramatic effect as the
walk occurs, ending with this nice sunup look when Philippe is done. So there
is an arc to the lighting [that suits] the
scene.
We shot all of those scenes on
stage in Montreal [at Mels Cite du
Cinema], basically hanging diffusion
from the ceiling to create a huge soft
box overhead huge battens with
hundreds of 2K bulbs and then very
heavy silk which was the exact opposite of what we did on The Martian. On
the Montreal stage, we always modeled
the light, using trims and sections in the
silk or by just turning bulbs off, but
because everything was so green and we
had such issues with spill and reflections, we would also use either white or
gray flags for negative fill, because if you
use black, you get too much negative,
but sometimes white creates too much
bounce. The gray will eliminate the
green spill but not go too far with the
shadows. I came up with this approach
on Alice in Wonderland, which also had a
lot of greenscreen work. We also used
some other fixtures in there for various
effects; for instance, we employed
balloon lights a mix of tungsten and
[HMI] to create a moonlit look for
the night before the walk takes place.
The great thing about having this huge
soft box overhead was that we had a
base illumination in place, and it was
just a matter of adjustments and a few
additions.
This big-box approach, of course,
would not have worked for our stagework exteriors on The Martian, in part
because the visor of the space helmet
Matt Damon wears throughout the film
would have picked up all these reflections that we didnt want. So our singlesource, directional lighting was the way
to go. Even still, we shot some scenes
with a different helmet that had no visor
and it was added later in post, primarily
in case we were going in for tight closeups and wed get a reflection of the
camera. It was a constant change back
Extensive use of
cranes and jib
arms throughout
The Martian
allowed Wolski
to counterpoint
the extensive
use of GoPro
documentarystyle footage
with more
sweeping
camerawork.
58
November 2015
and forth, and often it was a matter of

whether it would be easier to add the
CG visor or just do a little cleanup on
an unwanted reflection. We had a similar issue on Prometheus, but we kept the
real helmet visors throughout as we
were almost always on stage, so we had
much more control. And everything
was black or dark, so it was easier to
conceal things.
Some fairly major portions of
The Martian were shot in a NASAlike documentary style, with GoPro
cameras sometimes integrated into
spacesuits and such. How did that
perspective affect your more traditional camera approach?
Wolski: It added a [distinctly]
different new layer to the production,
as we would have multiple cameras
running all around the set or even
mounted to our actors spacesuit or
helmet in addition to the multiple 3D
units we were running on any given
scene. The perspective is important
from a storytelling [point of view]
because the camera serves as his
confessional, becoming a character of
sorts. He has to talk to somebody. But
as we got further into production, we
started using more and more of the
GoPros to capture new angles, and
quite often something unexpected and
fantastic would come out of it. We had
a dedicated crew person to handle
them, but [an issue did arise] in regard
to video playback, because suddenly
there were so many angles to review
a helmet-cam POV, GoPros placed
around the set, and then our Epic 3D
units. And while GoPros are great for
jumping off cliffs or skydiving, when
you can simply review the footage later,
on a professional set you have to know
what youre getting, so it took us a
minute to figure out [how to do that]
with wireless video systems and backup
recorders. Also, we would be getting
subjective and objective perspectives
simultaneously, which could then be
combined. So it was a new way of
working, and Ridley loved playing with
those choices.
Lets talk a little more about
At Korda Studios, just west of Budapest, a spacesuit-clad performer is prepped for some wire
work while shooting the storm sequence that opens The Martian.
your location work in Jordan for The

Martian.
Wolski: Jordan is truly the most
amazing place Ive ever seen. Our
primary location was Wadi Rum [also
60
known as the Valley of the Moon],

where David Lean shot Lawrence of
Arabia. Wed actually secretly filmed a
small portion of Prometheus there for
the scene in which the spaceship lands
and simply removed the color to

match our location work in Iceland,
which is very monochromatic. So
returning to Wadi Rum was fantastic,
although there was quite a bit of greenery that we had to later remove in post.
So its just real, real, real, and the natural
lighting was spectacular. We didnt have
to do anything other than later do some
sky replacement, add atmosphere, or
add and alter mountain ranges in the
background.
[Editors note: The color grade
for The Martian was performed by
Company 3s Stephen Nakamura, who
worked in both London and Los
Angeles with 3D 16-bit Linear EXRs
(with a source resolution of 2192x1156)
in Blackmagic Designs DaVinci
Resolve. The Walk was graded in 2K
for both its 2D and 3D release with
Quantels Rio by Corinne Bogdanowicz
at Light Iron in L.A. Final deliverables
for both films were in 2K resolution.]
How has your relationship with
digital cinematography evolved in the

six years since you shot your first digital feature, Alice in Wonderland ?
Wolski: Has it been that long?
Shooting Alice with the Genesis and the
Dalsa was like working with Stone Age
tools, as things have changed so much in
so little time. We did use a little 35mm
film on the beginning and the end of
that picture, so it was a combination.
Then I shot The Rum Diary [2011] on
Super 16, which I was very proud of,
and it has been all digital since. The
technology has improved so much so
fast that now we have cameras with
chips that are too big for the lenses we
have to cover its the Wild West.
People are designing and building new
cameras for the sake of having new
cameras. But you just cant go crazy over
it. Logic dictated that the small size of
the Epic would work best for shooting
3D. But every film has its own demands
and problems to solve.
For this new project, War
Machine, Im trying something different

Sonys PMW-F55. Its still fairly
compact, and I want to see what it
offers. [Laughs.] Not so long ago there
was one film stock: Eastman 5247. That
was it. And almost all those great films
of the 1970s were shot on the same
stock. Things have changed.
TECHNICAL SPECS
The Walk
2.39:1
Digital Capture
Red Epic Dragon
Zeiss Ultra Prime;
Angenieux Optimo, Optimo DP
The Martian
2.39:1
Digital Capture
Red Epic Dragon, GoPro Hero4
Angenieux Optimo, Optimo DP;
Fujinon Premier PL Cabrio
61
Thinking
Different
Alwin Kchler, BSC utilizes

16mm, 35mm and digital capture
to create incremental upgrades
through time for Steve Jobs,
directed by Danny Boyle.
By Noah Kadner
|
alter Isaacsons biography of Steve Jobs was released

just three weeks after the mercurial, visionary founder
of Apple passed away at age 56 in 2011. Soon after,
Universal Pictures became determined to produce the
definitive portrait of the man behind the Macintosh computer,
iPod, iPhone and iPad. Development proceeded swiftly with
the hiring of renowned screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. The
project changed players a few times along the way, but in late
2014, Danny Boyle took the helm and went on to choose
Michael Fassbender for the title role in Steve Jobs. Fassbender
62
November 2015
stars alongside Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak, Kate Winslet

as Joanna Hoffman, Jeff Daniels as John Sculley and
Katherine Waterston as Chrisann Brennan.
Though aspects of Jobs life have been presented before
in such projects as the 1999 telefilm Pirates of Silicon Valley
(shot by Ousama Rawi, BSC, CSC) and the 2013 feature Jobs
(shot by Russell Carpenter, ASC, who offers his thoughts on
the production in podcast #45 on theasc.com) as well as in
numerous documentaries Boyle and his team were aiming
for something different with Steve Jobs. Unlike more traditional biopics, Sorkins script was essentially divided into just
three scenes, each covering the run-up to a key product
launch. Act one, set in 1984, concerns the debut of the first
Macintosh computer. Act two, in 1988, sees Jobs launching
the Next computer, his first creation after being forcibly
ousted from the company he founded. The final act, set in
1998, depicts a resurgent Jobs returning as Apples CEO and
igniting the companys renaissance with the iMac.
To add authenticity, Boyle insisted on filming in the
actual historical California locations for each presentation,
during a brisk production that spanned January through April
2015. The Bay Area settings included the Flint Center for the
Performing Arts in Cupertino, and Davies Symphony Hall
Unit photography by Franois Duhamel, courtesy of Universal Pictures.
and the War Memorial Opera House in

San Francisco. Flashbacks to Apples
genesis which made use of the actual
Los Altos garage where Jobs and
Wozniak first set up shop in the 70s
and to other key moments in Jobs life
are glimpsed as well. The stage and
house at Davies Symphony Hall were
shot at the actual venue, while the backstage area was re-created in an old
smart-bomb factory warehouse in
Alameda.
Cinematographer
Alwin
Kchler, BSC received the call very
close to the start of production. Id
worked with Alwin on Sunshine [AC
Aug. 07] and he did a magnificent job
of prelighting those sets in a really interesting way, says Boyle. On Steve Jobs I
wanted to liberate the actors, and that
called for a really strong conceptual
approach to the lighting, and the artistry
to execute it.
We had very little prep time for
Steve Jobs, Kchler says. It was also
going to be a challenge shooting in
those locations. Danny is bold when he
gets a specific idea and he wants that
real texture, so we had to work around
the schedules of the real places. That
meant working the graveyard shift
10:00 p.m. to 11:00 a.m. We also werent
allowed to leave our lights on the working stages, so wed rehearse prelighting
for a week before shooting each part.
Danny likened it to a theater perfor-
Opposite and this

page, top: Michael
Fassbender plays the
title role in Steve
Jobs, a biopic about
the man who was
the face of Apple.
Bottom:
Cinematographer
Alwin Kchler, BSC
scopes out a setup.
mance in that wed shoot an act, then

production would stop and hed
rehearse the next act with the actors
while I prepped for the next location.
As the shooting plan firmed up,
Boyle and Kchler reviewed other films
in the genre. The Social Network [AC
Oct. 10] was both an inspiration and
because its so good a [source of ]
anxiety, says Boyle. [The Social
Network and Steve Jobs] are both written
by Sorkin and delve into the brave new
world of Internet pioneers. It feels like
they are the first two parts of a trilogy
about the digital revolution.
We wanted our film to have a
distinct identity of its own, though,
Boyle continues. When we looked at
The Social Network, we realized that
almost the whole movie takes place
sitting down. So we decided to make
www.theasc.com
Steve Jobs the standing-up movie. If

something really important happens,
Steve might sit down, but otherwise hes
always on his feet, always moving
forward.
To help visually differentiate the
eras, Kchler suggested shooting each
with a different camera format. The
filmmakers captured 1984 with the
Arriflex 416 Super 16mm camera using
Kodak Vision3 500T 7219 stock, and
1988 with Arricam LT and ST cameras
in 3-perf Super 35mm using Vision3
500T 5219. The footage set in 1998 was
captured digitally on an Arri Alexa XT,
recording to Codex drives in ArriRaw.
One of the wonderful side effects of the
16mm is that it looks aestheticlly raw
and poetically beautiful, notes Kchler,
which mirrors the story of Steve Jobs
[in his early years] perfectly, where the
November 2015
63
Thinking Different
Top: Jobs takes the

stage at the War
Memorial Opera
House in San
Francisco to
present the Next
Computer. Bottom:
Director Danny
Boyle discusses
the scene with
Kchler.
original ideas are there but not fully

developed.
Boyle and Kchler also determined that Steadicam would be the best
way to enhance the visual dynamics of
the dialogue-intensive screenplay.
Operator Geoff Haley ended up shooting as much as 80 percent of the
finished film on a Tiffen Steadicam
Ultra2. (See sidebar on page 70.)
The progressive approach to
formats and lighting that Alwin imagined and executed enabled us to apply
an incremental upgrade in visual quality
as the story develops, observes Boyle.
Its a conceit that is beautifully tailored
to the story we are telling, and it was a
lot of fun to do. Great credit should also
go to Geoff as the Steadicam [operator]
64
November 2015
and sculptor of scenes.

Kchlers other key collaborators
included 1st AC Gregory Irwin and
chief lighting technician Len Levine. In
keeping with the edict to frame the
movie as cinematically as possible, the
filmmakers chose to frame for the
2.39:1 aspect ratio. Dailies were
processed by FotoKem and distributed
digitally to the filmmakers using the Pix
dailies delivery system. FotoKem
scanned 16mm and 35mm negatives on
a Spirit 2K scanner. Kchler was able to
communicate desired dailies corrections
via FotoKems Frames iPad app.
The different camera bodies
necessitated different lenses. According
to Irwin, We used [16mm and 35mm
Zeiss Super Speed (T1.3) primes] on
the Arri 416 camera, and [Arri/Zeiss]

Master Primes for the Arricam 35mm
and Alexa cameras with pretty much
the entire focal range. For zooms, we
used the shorter Angenieux Optimos
on the 16mm camera, including the 1540mm [T2.6] and the [28-76mm
(T2.6)].
The production sourced its
camera bodies and lenses from Keslow
Camera in Los Angeles. Keslows Brad
Wilson was instrumental in prepping
eight cameras in three formats over just
five days and shipping it all to San
Francisco, says Irwin. We couldnt
have done this movie without them.
I operated a lot on B camera to
get additional coverage where possible,
notes Kchler. We also ran up to six
cameras on the big crowd scenes. Steve
Jobs was such a rock star that the call for
volunteer audience extras attracted
thousands of people. Greg, Geoff and I
would bring the cameras and lenses to
the set the day before we shot to help
decide what to cover.
Because the camera was
constantly covering large distances,
monitoring also became a significant
challenge. We used [Navtech Systems]
Rover transmitters for the film cameras
because they were powerful enough to
punch through all of that dense metal,
concrete and RF interference in the
locations, Irwin says. Initially, the
Comtek audio monitoring wasnt in
sync with the Rovers due to their different methods of transmission. Sound
mixer Lisa Pinero built in a digital delay
that counteracted the audio lag brilliantly. For the Alexas, we switched to
Teradek Bolt uncompressed wireless
HD transmitters. With the Preston
Cinema Systems remote lens control
and [Cinema Electronics] CineTape
distance-measuring device, we were able
to make each camera rig completely
wireless.
The long runs and relatively low
lighting levels proved a challenge for
Irwins focus pulling as well. There
were a couple of times when I was
essentially pulling focus blind, he notes.
We shot in a lot of narrow practical
Lighting diagram courtesy of Len Levine and the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco.
Lighting diagram for the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco.
www.theasc.com
November 2015
65
Thinking Different
Top: Andy
Hertzfeld (Michael
Stuhlbarg), Jobs
and Joanna
Hoffman (Kate
Winslet) prepare
for the unveiling
of the original
Macintosh
computer at the
Flint Center for
the Performing
Arts in Cupertino.
Bottom: A camera
crane assists in
capturing the
audience reaction
at the Flint Center.
corridors and doorways. There are only

so many people that can physically fit
through a space at a time, including
Geoff on his rig and a dolly grip guiding
him so hes not banging into things. So
a lot of times, I would have to go back
further and pull focus with timing and
intuition. When we were shooting with
the Alexa, I worked with a monitor and
the CineTape to finesse the cadence and
rhythm to know right when Im at 2 feet
10 inches or 2 feet 9 inches [from] the
actor. Otherwise, I was pulling by eye
along with timing and rhythm when I
couldnt see the actors while shooting
film. Please remember that the camera
never stopped moving, in order to cinematically keep up with Steve Jobs
constantly racing mind. That was the
level we had to operate at.
Act one which Kchler
66
November 2015
captured in very grainy 16mm, the

cinematographer notes depicts the
lead-up to the 1984 unveiling of the
original Macintosh computer, an event
considered to be the culmination of
Jobs initial tenure at Apple. The
sequence was shot at the Flint Center, a
large auditorium located on the De
Anza College campus, near Apples
present-day corporate headquarters.
Much of the action takes place in corridors, dressing rooms, stairwells, elevators and meeting rooms.
We used LiteGear xFlo ballasts
to retrofit the period fluorescent
fixtures, Levine reveals. This allowed
us to use our ETC Eos Titanium lighting-control desk to set the desired levels.
We also added Mac Tech LED tubes to
increase the punch in some of the units
higher up in the rafters. Levine used
Vectorworks Spotlight 2015 to create a

CAD lighting plot for each venue.
We augmented with Kino Flo 2foot 4-bank and 15-inch 4-bank fluorescent fixtures, BarFly 100s and 200s,
homemade LEDs made from LiteGear
parts, and Par20 and Par46 incandescent
fixtures painted to match the colors of
the sets, Levine says. The fixtures were
controlled by RatPac 10-channel 1.2K
dimmers hidden in plain sight on set and
wrapped in white to disguise them as
ductwork. We also hid small hybrid
LiteRibbon cards between computer
monitors and keyboards, and [used]
Tensor practical lamps and urban-vapor
gel on Par cans to tint the walls behind
the actors.
To highlight a key moment
between Jobs and Sculley, Levine hung 8'
Kino Flo 5,500K 4-bank fixtures with
Double CTB gels. We also had three
[Philips] Vari-Lite VL1100s hung on
pipes along with some Super Trouper
follow spotlights that were already in
place at the venue, Levine adds. Finally,
we replicated press photographers
camera flashes with Studio Force LEDs.
The flash effect increased exponentially
in the subsequent two acts.
Act two sees Jobs presenting the
Next Computer in 1988 after being
ousted from the company he founded.
Act two is like one of those Jacobean
revenge dramas, observes Boyle. Its set
at [the War Memorial] Opera House
an ornate, gilt-edged Beaux Arts theater.
To capture the luscious golds and reds of
this section, we used the liquidity of
35mm and warm, seductive tungsten
bulbs.
According to Levine, the Opera
House was the most beautiful and most
difficult location due to repertory shows
and two world premieres occurring while
we were rigging, shooting and derigging. We were incredibly lucky to
[have access to] existing lighting positions that werent already being utilized
by the ballet, as well as the amazing
cooperation and guidance of master electricians Maria Mendoza and John
Boatwright, who work for the [Opera
House].
Thinking Different
A row of gelled HMIs bolster the daylight ambience outside the War Memorial Opera House
in San Francisco.
We couldnt reach to focus on

stage, so we hung our [DMXcontrolled Vari-Lites] again, Levine
continues. We had to light the entire
lobby, backstage, 500 feet of hallways
and corridors, an elevator, multiple
stairwells, the entire downstairs caf,
and a makeup room complete with
dimmable fluorescents and 20 makeup
tables. The setup would have been
impossible without incredible rigging
by John Lacy and his crew, networking
of the house ETC lighting-control
system with ours by DMX tech Stacey
Cobalt, adept control by lightingconsole programmer Stephanie Parry,
and the Opera House staff.
Act three is the films most
modern sequence, set in 1998 at Davies
Symphony Hall, and follows a reinstated Jobs preparing to debut the iMac
computer, which would ultimately
restore Apple to prominence in the
computer industry. Act three is about
launching the future, and we are
propelled into the sleek world of the
Alexa, notes Boyle. Its a world of
precision and infinite possibility,
[emphasized by] the crisper, more
neutral colors of LEDs.
Lighting-wise, Davies was very
much about the architecture and a
68
November 2015
cascade of flashes that really were an

event in themselves, says Levine.
[Assistant chief lighting technician]
Sophie Shellenberger augmented the
computers using LiteGear ribbon and
controllers tied into the lighting
console. The house lighting covered
most of the architecture, and a combination of Chroma-Q Studio Force D
XT 12s and Lightning Strikes 250Ks
spread throughout all three tiers of the
hall gave us our flashes.
Jim Jacobs, DSHs tech director,
had an incredibly detailed plan of the
venue already drafted in Vectorworks, so
plotting was quite simple and our
proposal was easily overlaid on his,
[which made it easier] for him to
approve our plan, continues Levine.
Everything came together quite
quickly thanks to Dropbox and to
meetings with Jacobs, Lacy, Cobalt and
Parry to once again mesh our two
control systems. Davies also had two
Gladiator III 3K Xenon spotlights that
saved a ton of work for us.
As each act featured a projected
product presentation, Kchler also gave
consideration to the onstage projection
formats. We did 1984 with a pair of 4:3
screens, he says. In 1988 we switched
to 16:9 projection, and 1998 was in 2.35
to look the most advanced and cinematic. Its not quite based on period
accuracy, but we did it to enhance the
camera formats. We also added Tiffen
White Pro-Mist filters onto the front of
the projectors to get a little more light
bleed.
The eras divided neatly into the
different camera formats, but the script
occasionally prompted the filmmakers
to break those rules. As an example,
Kchler shot a flashback to appear
during the 1998 sequence that depicted
a moment set before 1984, and they
shot it with the Alexa rather than going
back to Super 16mm. We used
uncoated Cooke Panchro primes on the
Alexa to get more flared highlights and
knock down the sharpness, but we
didnt want to go too far in jumping
radically between the formats and
become too pretentious, Kchler
comments.
Although Steadicam was the
primary camera platform, Steve Jobs also
deployed dollies, Technocranes, a
Hydrascope arm, and even a drone for a
shot during the 1988 era at the Opera
House. We hired a Hot Gears Remote
Systems MR-14 Octocopter drone for a
huge crowd scene, reveals Irwin. It was
a continuous shot going from the top
balcony, over the full audience, past the
chandeliers and the orchestra pit, and
finally into a medium close-up of Jobs
preparing onstage.
The drone crew was a selfcontained unit supervised by cinematographer Mehran Salamati, Irwin
adds. It came complete with a Red
[Epic] Dragon shooting with [Zeiss]
Compact Prime lenses, and I pulled
focus for it. It wouldnt have been possible to get that kind of shot any other
way, given the physical restrictions of
the location. According to Salamati,
the units wheel controller was custommade for this project.
Kchler supervised the movies
2K DI at Technicolor in London with
colorist Jean-Clment Soret, using
FilmLights Baselight, for a 2K DCP
final deliverable. Danny was popping
in and out of the sessions, and we
An Immersive Collaboration
ith as much as 80 percent of Steve

Jobs shot on Steadicam, operator
Geoff Haley had to work very closely
with director Danny Boyle and cinematographer Alwin Kchler, BSC.
Here, Haley relates his experiences.
American
Cinematographer:
How did you come to work on this
project?
Geoff Haley: Alwin interviewed
a number of high-quality operators. I
didnt think I had much chance of
landing the gig, given the competition,
but Alwin and I got on quite well, and
to my shock, he offered me the job,
pending additional approval from
Danny Boyle. So I had a Skype interview with Danny before even reading
the script, as it was being kept securely
under wraps. He doesnt normally use a
lot of Steadicam, but it was his tool of
choice for this movie. The average
scene length was around 10 pages of
rapid-fire dialogue, and we had some
that were as many as 20 pages. Danny
referenced Birdman [shot by
Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC; AC
Dec. 14], in which they would do
maybe 10 takes of a carefully choreographed, long, uninterrupted oner. We
were also going to do a lot of uninterrupted takes with the camera traveling
long distances, but unlike Birdman,
Dannys intention was to shoot plenty
of coverage to be able to manipulate the
pacing and performances in post. So we
would also shoot reverse masters,
followed by two-shots, over the shoulders, close-ups and so on. We might
end up shooting some 80 takes of a 10minute-long scene. It was incredibly
exhausting, and there were times I
thought Id run out of steam, but the
actors incredible performances and
Dannys rare mix of empathy, passion
and artistry fueled my adrenaline.
What is one particular challenge
you faced?
Haley: Even though I was
improvising the coverage based on the
movement of the actors, all the different passes needed to be cuttable and fit
together like a jigsaw puzzle in the editing room. Remembering which pieces I
70
November 2015
had already gotten and which I still

needed during a 10-minute-long
moving scene with four actors was not
easy, especially when you are shooting a
180-page Aaron Sorkin script.
How did you manage focus?
Haley: My focus puller, Greg
Irwin, had challenges just traveling
through those tight, practical backstage
spaces. We also didnt use marks very
much because the scenes were so long
and so involved. Additionally, the
lenses were often very long, and the
depth of field shallow. I have no idea
how Greg managed it.
How do the different camera
bodies affect the Steadicam?
Haley: Traditionally, the heavier
the rig, the more stable the Steadicam
behaves, because its basically a weight
balancing on a giant spring. The 16mm
camera was nice and light and I was
able to do longer takes, but [it was] also
a little more skittish. This dovetailed
nicely with the 1984 sequence because,
in my eyes, Steve was a little bit immature, skittish and rough around the
edges, personally and with Apple. In
the second act, hes more mature
post-Apple with Next and the heavier 35mm camera feels more grounded,
with more weight. Finally, the last
sequence is the digital Alexa with no
moving parts. On a Steadicam, any
moving part introduces a tiny piece of
motion thats impossible to completely
counteract, so those Alexa shots are
laser-precise and symmetrical. None of
this was a conscious or intentional
choice; it was one of those happy accidents I began to notice unfolding in the
story during dailies.
How did you know when a take
was good?
Haley: Danny said to me in the
interview, I may be asking you to try
some nearly impossible shots at high
speeds in very confined spaces. Your
success ratio might only be 50 to 60
percent. But thatll be okay and well
push through technical mistakes and
missed lines. We all had to become
comfortable with failing, and to keep
right on going and maintain the energy
knowing the editor would find the

best pieces. However, I would let
Danny know when I thought we didnt
get a specific moment, especially after a
few tries at it.
How did Steve Jobs compare
with your other operating experiences?
Haley: Steve Jobs was shot
primarily on Steadicam, but we also did
scenes where I operated on dollies or
handheld. Id operate A-camera and
Alwin might operate B-camera. Alwin
was always finding those striking
moments that ended up in the trailer,
while I was getting the meat and potatoes of a given scene. We developed a
shorthand during my luxuriously long
prep. Im typically accustomed to starting a day or two before production
begins, but this production had the
foresight to bring me in three weeks
early. It was really helpful for me to be
part of the location scouting, prelighting and rehearsals. I got to spend time
in the spaces and start imagining the
best angles to tell the story. Ive always
wondered what it would be like to have
that level of involvement during prep,
and found it an invaluable tool in doing
my job effectively.
What was your favorite scene to
shoot?
Haley: The scene where we first
meet Chrisann Brennan [Katherine
Waterston], the mother of Steves
daughter Lisa. It starts in a hallway and
continues into a dressing room. That
was an extremely emotional scene with
Michael [Fassbender] and Katherine
really pouring their hearts out. At a
certain point I started to feel more like
a privileged observer than a technician
shooting a scene; I was so drawn into
the narrative that I was able to forget I
was part of making it. I moved through
every inch of the dressing room with
the camera following, spinning
around them and passing between
them. Ive never had an experience so
completely disassociated from the technical work, one in which I could delight
simply in the emotional power of the
moment.
Noah Kadner
Thinking Different
Steadicam
operator
Geoff Haley
discusses a
scene with
Boyle.
spoke all the time, notes Kchler.

Hes a very clear communicator about
his expectations and what is important
to the story. Our challenge was to
create three very distinct looks for the
different eras.
For the 1984 sequence, we
pushed the 16mm with very saturated
colors, emphasizing the oranges and
greens of the Seventies and Eighties
72
and embracing the grain, Kchler adds.

The second act, in 1988, had more
golden and red tones. As some scenes in
act two were intercut with earlier timeframes, wed emphasize this with opposite color temperatures to help orient
the audience.
Finally, for act three in 1998, we
went with a much more muted and very
modern look, continues Kchler. We
graded all of the greens out and emphasized more metallic grays and cooler
blacks. Working with Jean-Clment is
like working with a Michelangelo of the
grading world. He has great taste. I dont
like to defer completely to the original
on-set LUT; instead, I prefer to see
where we can take things and support
the storytelling.
Working tirelessly to complete
the color grading in time for the films
premiere at the 2015 Telluride Film
Festival, Kchler and Boyle took a
moment to reflect on the experience of
making Steve Jobs. The biggest technical challenge was the huge crowd days
we did, says Boyle. But the biggest
creative challenge that we set for
ourselves was to construct the film in
two-shots. Its a 180-page script driven
completely by dialogue. Cinema is a
visual medium occupying a widescreen
canvas, and we didnt want a movie full
of singles. We developed a language to
build the film in two-shots and used
singles very sparingly for emphasis at

important moments.
Really, the job of the director is
to realize your first reading of the
script, Boyle continues. Its an impossible task and of course things evolve;
things turn out differently than you
expected for better or for worse in
the making. But if you can hold onto
the essence of what you felt and imagined the first time you read the script,
then you have a shot at harnessing in a
purposeful way the talents of all the
people involved in making the film.
This story is ultimately about
people keeping up with Steve Jobs, who
was fast and super-intelligent with a
great vision that he couldnt wait to realize, observes Kchler. He drives
people hard but hes also very charismatic. Similarly, our work was all about
keeping up with Danny Boyle. He tried
to add as much movement into the
scenes and make things as physical as
possible. Danny really pulls the actors
along with him. Our focus was as much

about keeping that momentum going
with the camera moves as it was the
look.
Im very happy and incredibly
proud of this movie, Kchler
concludes. Im also curious how the
film will do, because its a demanding
movie for the audience; you have to
concentrate on the brisk pace of the
dialogue. Its almost like a thriller with
words I find it fast-paced even when
theres no action. Danny maintained the
initial feeling I got when I first read the
script. Its very moving with threedimensional, complex characters, and
you always want to know what happens
to them next.
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.39:1
Super 16mm,
3-perf Super 35mm,
Digital Capture
Kodak Vision3 500T 7219,
500T 5219
Arriflex 416; Arricam LT, ST;
Arri Alexa XT; Red Epic Dragon
Arri/Zeiss Master Prime;
Zeiss Super Speed,
Compact Prime; Cooke Panchro;
Angenieux Optimo
Digital Intermediate
73
Counterparts
in Crime
Dick Pope, BSC and his
collaborators craft a period palette
for Legend, a biopic about the
Kray twins, a pair of infamous
London gangsters.
By Phil Rhodes
|
rom the late 1950s until their arrests in 1967, twin brothers Ronald and Reginald Kray were almost single-handedly responsible for the organized crime in Londons East
End. For Legend, director Brian Helgelands biopic about
the ruthless twins, cinematographer Dick Pope, BSC was
tasked with crafting an appropriate 1960s look while working
on location in modern London. Combining this with the fact
that the brothers despite their divergent personalities
are both portrayed by Tom Hardy, the project called for a close
association between Pope and the shows visual-effects team.
Legend marks Pope and Helgelands first collaboration.
74
November 2015
As the director recalls, when they first met to discuss the

project, Dick came in, we started talking about how things
could look, and he mentioned a promo [music video]: Ghost
Town by the Specials. Its my favorite promo of all time, and
he said, I shot that!
We started talking very casually about the Krays and
London at that time, Helgeland continues. [Pope] was a
teenager back then, but he was around and hed seen it with his
own eyes, that London. The director also waxes enthusiastic
about Popes technical ability. The one thing about Dick that
he probably wouldnt mention is that hes the best camera
operator Ive ever been around. Its really amazing.
The filmmakers initially discussed shooting with
anamorphic lenses, but, Pope recalls, as we tested more and
more, I became very concerned about the glamorous look that
anamorphic was giving me, along with its very shallow depth
of field. We wanted to make the film accessible and polished
in order to reach out to a wide audience, but we didnt want it
to look really fairy-tale glamorous. It had to be grounded in the
reality of those Sixties pubs and clubs and often grim East End
neighborhoods.
Moreover, Pope was concerned by practicalities. I didnt
want any focus issues as a result of shallow depth of field. I was
ruled by this being a location film [with] dimly lit interiors and
Unit photography by Simon Mein. Photos and concept art courtesy of StudioCanal and Universal Pictures. Additional photos by Peter Marsden.
lots of actors in small rooms moving

around as much as they wanted. I just
wouldnt be able to build the stop up for
more depth of field. I wasnt going to be
confident shooting anamorphic.
Ultimately, Pope opted to use
Cooke S4 primes with an Arri Alexa XT
camera, recording ArriRaw in the
cameras Open Gate mode to best
facilitate visual effects. The glass, Pope
feels, is superb on digital. The S4s give
such a lovely, softer look. He adds that
he most often used the 21mm, 27mm,
32mm and 40mm I often did closeups on the 40. Long lenses seemed too
distant and uninvolving for this in-yourface story, so a 50 or 65mm would be
almost the maximum. The production
also carried an Angenieux Optimo 1780mm (T2.2) zoom, though it was rarely
used.
Pope primarily kept the Alexas
ISO set to 800, adjusting it to 1,600 for
a few scenes. As the cinematographer
explains it, his approach to exposure is
straightforward. I deal with exposure on
anything I do as if I were shooting on
film; I dont really differentiate. Ill set an
exposure, but Peter [Marsden, the
digital-imaging technician] will be there,
and if I am [clipping], I wont touch the
lighting, but Ill usually stop down a bit.
For his part, Marsden offers,
When Im doing something for Dick
Pope, Im going to build up a color look
and end up with a selection of looks.
Opposite and this

page, top: Tom Hardy
plays twin brothers
Ronald and Reginald
Kray, who rise to the
top of organized crime
in Londons East End
during the 1950s and
60s in the feature
Legend. Middle:
Cinematographer Dick
Pope, BSC (left) and
director Brian
Helgeland take a
break during filming.
Bottom: Concept art
for the exterior of the
Hideaway nightclub.
Both Marsden and Pope refer in glowing

terms to the work of the projects concept
artist, Elo Soode, whom Marsden
describes as a genuine artist.
Dick said, Can we do a palette
like we did on Turner? Marsden
www.theasc.com
continues, referring to his collaboration

with Pope on director Mike Leighs Mr.
Turner (AC Jan. 15). When we did Mr.
Turner, I took samples from [and based
LUTs on J.M.W. Turners] paintings.
For Legend, I did the same thing [with
November 2015
75
Soodes work] while we were doing

prep.
Once into production, Marsden
handled recording, on-set monitoring
and rushes processing, working on set
with Fujifilm IS-mini LUT boxes. He
selected prepared LUTs as appropriate
for display on two Sony PVMA-170 17"
OLED monitors. To help in handling all
the data of uncompressed ArriRaw
recording, assistant DIT Doiminic
Evans performed the initial backup using
a Codex Vault that lived in the truck,
Marsden explains.
Operating out of Working Titles
production offices, assistant DIT Phoebe
Fraser applied a dailies grade and did
some tweaks per my instructions,
Marsden adds. We did all the dailies in
Resolve and just handed everything over
to editorial. These files were provided in
the DNxHD format, and Fraser also
produced LTO tapes of the original
material for use in visual-effects work
and the final assembly.
Principal photography ran from
the end of May to the beginning of
August 2014. Period-appropriate
locations were found all over East
London, but principally in Waterloo and
Greenwich, with frequent use of
greenscreen for extensions. Pope notes,
We did a lot of wetting down [of the
streets] to give it that rainy London feel.
It darkens the pavement [and makes for]
a much more evocative image.
Top: Reggie
berates Ronnie
inside Esmeraldas
Barn. Middle:
Ronnies blaring
trumpet disrupts
the show.
Bottom: The
lighting setup for
the Esmeraldas
Barn set, which
was built in
Londons Rivoli
Ballroom.
76
November 2015
Top: Reggie
dines with
Frances (Emily
Browning) at
the Double R
club. Middle:
Reggie and
Frances get cozy
at the
Hideaway.
Bottom: The
lighting setup
for the
Hideaway set,
built at the Caf
de Paris.
The building that housed the

Krays Soho nightclub still exists on
Gerrard Street, but its now completely
changed, in the center of Chinatown,
says Pope. We needed a blank canvas on
a controllable road, and we found that in
Hoxton.
Interiors included the Caf de
Paris in Soho and the Rivoli Ballroom in
Brockley. The Rivoli which stands in
for Esmeraldas Barn, the Krays first club
is a beautifully intact 1950s ballroom,
where Pope had previously worked on
Richard Linklaters Me and Orson Welles.
Im sure my father used to go dancing
there in his youth, the cinematographer
says. He was from Brockley!
The protected status of the
building provoked caution from the
owners, and the only way Pope could
install an overhead rig was to have my
rigging crew go up into the roof space.
From behind those big, round air vents
above which were beams they
lowered cables down to support a long
ladder beam. Pope lit the Rivoli using
China balls. 2Ks were the biggest I used,
suspended in 36-inch-diameter paper
lanterns, he explains. I use big bulbs in
them as much as I can. You get a fantastic
color when you dim them, say, 60
percent. I also hid various-sized smaller
lanterns containing 1K bulbs throughout
the set using the brilliant Lanternlock
system.
The production added its own bar
to the club. The vertical columns, lit
inside [with Warm White fluorescent
78
November 2015
tubes], were a real godsend that Tom

Conroy, the production designer, came
up with, Pope enthuses. The bar broke
the place up so it wasnt such a vast
ballroom area. Over the bar, Pope used
a 6'-diameter light ring again
dimmed down along with single
fluorescent tubes behind the glasses
stored above the bar. A stage area
provided another opportunity to simulate
practical lighting, with shell-shaped
footlights and a drape that Pope backlit
using small Arri Fresnels.
The Caf de Paris required a
different approach, as Pope explains:
When you look out from the first-floor
balcony, the ceiling is very low, with
velvety, ruched material affixed around a
central chandelier. We would be looking
out on this a lot; therefore modern,
regular fixtures couldnt be used. So I had
this festoon strung right around [fitted
with 60-watt clear golfball bulbs]; it
looked architectural and you could shoot
it. There was an outer ring and an inner
ring, and I was able to play these
independently and make out that the
place was being lit by the chandelier.
For one of the films grittier scenes,
in which a rival gang member is tortured,
the production shot in a bus depot beside
the Regents Canal in Bethnal Green.
With no access to light from outside,
Pope explains that daylight ambience
was simulated internally with three pairs
of two [Kino-Flo] Image 80s, one above
the other, recessed and clamped to the
three skylights running down the place.
Additionally, visible beams of sunlight
were created with an 18K quite
simple, not
complicated, the
cinematographer notes.
The productions single largest
setup was staged nearby, on the canal
itself. Taking place near the end of the
film, the night exterior features a
traveling shot of Reggie Kray walking
away from the scene of a murder; the
shot was actually captured with the
camera on a pontoon with outboard
motors, supplied and driven by the crew
from Diving Services UK. Key grip
Colin Strachan rigged the pontoon with
a Lenny Mini crane supplied by
Top: The Krays

and their gang
celebrate in the
family kitchen.
Bottom: Pope
readies the
camera for a
kitchen scene.
Chapman/Leonard UK specially
chosen, says Pope, to reach the height
we needed and have a low enough profile
to pass under the bridge. The rig made
use of a Libra-stabilized head, supplied
by Camera Revolution. The setup also
included two Full Wendy lights on what
Pope describes as 150-foot-high mobile
truck cranes, set right back so they were
giving maximum spread. Additionally,
gaffer Julian White and his crew installed
numerous lights over a days pre-rig in
order to define the canals towpath and
distant industrial installations.
Pope operated the B camera
throughout the shoot, and Vince
McGahon served as A-camera/Steadicam operator. McGahons prowess with
the Steadicam is particularly on display
80
November 2015
in a long take at a club early in the film;

Reggie is drawn away from a romantic
evening to deal with a disagreement.
Brian had the idea of covering the entire
scene with no cuts, Pope recalls. It was
very exciting that he proposed this, but I
had to do major lighting changes
depending on which way the camera was
pointing and of course the camera was
sweeping all over the place. In the end,
some 20 lighting cues were required to
maintain a consistent mood as the
camera moved during the shot.
Pope muses that the resulting shot
describes Reggies world perfectly. The
fact that you dont cut, the violence
and with [his date], its just another lovely
evening. The achievement, though, was
not without sacrifice. God, it was
intense, Pope adds. We had to be

finished at 1 in the morning. You can
imagine, with a sweltering club full of
people like that, things went wrong.
[But] that shot Vince did is a truly
wonderful piece of Steadicam.
Helgeland and his collaborators
deliberately tailored their approach to
doubling Hardy so as to not simply create
a clone. Often filmmakers try to make
them as identical as they can, Pope
observes. With this, we were trying for
different characters.
To differentiate between the two
brothers, I tried as much as possible to
photograph them from opposite sides,
the cinematographer continues, with
Reggie looking right to left and Ronnie
looking left to right.
Hardys timing was aided by an
earpiece, through which his previously
recorded lines were played, but he also
received an assist from stuntman Jacob
Tomuri, who has doubled for Hardy on
several films, including Mad Max: Fury
Road and The Revenant. As Pope
explains, We would rehearse the scene
with Jacob sitting in [as either Reginald
or Ronald]. Jacob would carefully watch
Tom and learn the lines absolutely, as if
he was appearing in the film. Hed play
all the mannerisms; he was really good.
Tom would talk about exactly when he
should blow smoke, or his body language
or whatever. They had a real rapport
going.
Indeed, Tomuri was not relegated

to an off-screen role. When we were
doing over-the-shoulder work, we only
shot over Ronnies using Jacob as the side
of his face, so as an audience you get used
to the side of Jacobs face being Ronnie.
It took an hour for Hardy to
transform from one brother to the other,
during which time the crew had to
continue shooting, so traditional
doubling techniques such as locking
off the camera after shooting the first half
of a split screen quickly became
impractical. As the ability of visual effects
to match approximate splits became clear,
the filmmakers at first would leave the
tripod in position and steal the [camera]
bodies, Pope recalls. After a while we
thought, To hell with this, and we also
stole the tripods and just left tape marks
on the floor. We found that if we
measured the inclination and recorded
the parameters for what we were doing,
we liberated ourselves from laborious
split-screen techniques. Further down the
line, when the brothers were fighting
each other, we threw away all those
things and went Steadicam and handheld
and got on with it. We had to we had
little time, and there was no way we could
choreograph every scene on splits.
According to visual-effects
supervisor Adam Rowland, the scenes in
which Hardy played both twins were
divided into three broad categories. First
was split screens, fairly traditional
techniques, says Rowland. It becomes
more complicated when the cameras
moving. We did quite a few motioncontrol shots, but only one ended up in
the film the others, some quite
extensive, were from scenes that didnt
make the final cut.
More complicated were shots in
which the characters touch. As an
example, Rowland offers, Theres a scene
at a party; Reggie grabs Ronnies knee.
These were split-screens as well, but
because of the interaction, we had to
make sure that we could match their
exact positions.
More complicated still were shots
involving face replacements on Hardys
double. We got time throughout the
The crew preps for a car scene.
shoot to do some greenscreen with

Tom, continues Rowland. Working to a
slowed-down reference of the scene in
question, Hardy knew what expression
and motion to aim for. We shot him at
96 fps, and because we were shooting
82
slow-motion and much higher resolution

than most of the shots were going to be,
so long as he hit specific marks in the
right order, we could speed up or slow
down his movement to match that of the
original scene.
This process, Rowland remembers, was pressed for time, so we werent

able to do specific lighting for each setup.
We lit it quite flat. That worked well for
distance shots, but in some of the more
close-up shots, we used 3D relighting
techniques. We had a cyberscan of his
head, as both Reg and Ron, and wed use
renders from that to relight the footage
of Tom.
Rowland adds that he was
brought in quite early, because Brian and
Dick were interested to see what was
possible in-camera in terms of getting
split screens for the twin characters, and
also to what degree they would be able to
augment the environment, as we were
shooting for the Fifties and Sixties. They
had a very specific aesthetic they were
after.
All told, Rowland worked on
Legend for about a year, he says. It was
about 275 shots. We did a lot of
architectural shots, about 20 face
replacements, and then there are little bits
and pieces, doing some environmental

and cosmetic work. I would hope most
viewers wouldnt consider it a visualeffects film, or we havent done our jobs
very well!
The visual effects were completed
using a temporary LUT, and ArriRaw
files were then supplied to Company 3s
Wardour Street facility in London a
mere few hundred feet from the Caf de
Paris location where colorist Greg
Fisher worked with Blackmagic Designs
DaVinci Resolve, and Barco DP2K-P
and DP4K-P projectors. Fisher recalls
having enough lead time to watch the
offline to get to know the film. Then,
once a reel had been conformed, I had an
afternoon sitting with it, which is when I
chose the LUT that we were going to
use. It needed to be contemporary and
modern; it needed to hint at the period
but not be a pastiche.
Pope notes that there was a bit of
a course correction at this stage. When
I started the DI and we started to apply
[the LUTs used during production], it

became apparent that the look was too
period and nostalgic, the cinematographer explains. A colder, more crisp
and contemporary image served the
Krays violent world and the fragile
character of Ronalds wife, Frances
[portrayed by Emily Browning].
Nonetheless, Fisher notes, The
period design is there, and I was just
trying to tease out the details of it. Ive
always been resistant to the idea of a
colorist having a look. What youre doing
is supposed to come from the film.
Popes biggest influence, he says,
was an iconic David Bailey photograph
of the Kray brothers: Natural but fairly
hard top light, shadows underneath the
nose it gives the brothers a really
tough look. The complicated thing for
me is never the lighting, though. Its how
to tell the story, the lenses you choose,
where to put the camera.
Finally, Pope muses about
something that anyone whos worked on
set will recognize as an achievement.

Brian and I had a fantastic collaboration
on this film. We became good friends.
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.39:1
Digital Capture
Arri Alexa XT
Cooke S4, Angenieux Optimo
83
Filmmakers Forum
Reaching Tomorrows Filmmakers Today

By Debra Kaufman
The ASCs mission, almost from the very beginning of the

organization, has been education, says Society President Richard
Crudo. And not just [educating] students or young people, but the
industry as well. The ASCs educational initiatives take many shapes,
including the Master Classes and Breakfast Club conversations, but
the Society also places particular importance on reaching out to
young people in or just out of college who plan to pursue a career
in the motion-picture business. To that end, the ASCs Education and
Public Outreach Committee invites groups of students every month
to visit the Clubhouse and absorb real-world lessons from panels of
ASC cinematographers.
George Spiro Dibie, ASC has chaired the Education and Public
Outreach Committee since former ASC President Daryn Okada
appointed him to the role. George jumped on the opportunity, and
he shepherds the program, says Crudo. He took it to the next
level, driving it almost single-handedly, just as Kees van Oostrum,
ASC has shaped the Master Classes.
Reaching out to students is particularly important at a time
when cinematographys tools have become democratized, but the
practical and artistic requirements of the job are often minimized or
ignored. Theres a lot of misinformation out there about cinematography, notes Crudo. We want to give [the students] an idea of
what the real world of cinematography is, which is different from the
academic environment, and I think we do that really well.
The Committees student-focused activities include Cine84
November 2015
matographer Show & Tell, during which ASC members show clips
of their work and explain how they lit and shot the scenes, and
Dialogue With ASC Cinematographers, an open forum in which
the conversation is driven by whatever questions the attendees ask.
Schools that have participated include George Washington University; University of California, Los Angeles; California State University,
Northridge; Tulane University; College of Southern Nevada; Loyola
Marymount University; Rochester Institute of Technology; Montana
State University; and Compass College of Cinematic Arts. With
anywhere from 20 to 60 students attending each event, Dibie estimates that the Committees activities have so far impacted close to
1,000 students, he says, and not all of them have been aspiring
cinematographers. Some of them want to be directors, editors,
writers or producers, Dibie notes. But, for all of them, the more
you know about cinematography, the easier your job will be.
In addition to hosting these events at the ASC Clubhouse
or, as Dibie refers to it, the shrine the Committee has also
presented similar sessions at CSUN, J.L. Fisher and Cine Gear Expo.
Whatever the venue, Dibie assembles each session by recruiting
fellow ASC members to sit on the panels, and schools to send their
students. He requests that faculty provide their students with the
names of the panelists ahead of time so they can come prepared
with specific questions tailored to those cinematographers experiences. According to Dibie, 54 ASC cinematographers have so far
participated.
The conversations frequently focus on lighting, composition
and camera movement. We talk about how to light for different
genres and different stories, and how to achieve different looks,
Photos by Alex Lopez.
From left: ASC members Bill Bennett, David Perkal, Anna Foerster, George Spiro Dibie, Haskell Wexler, Victor J. Kemper, M. David Mullen and James
L. Carter speak with visiting students during an event presented by the Education and Public Outreach Committee at the Clubhouse in Hollywood.
From left:
Society members
Paul Maibaum,
Patrick Cady,
Peter Moss,
Dibie, Wexler,
Bennett and
Peter Levy
participate in
another of the
Committees
events.
Dibie details. We came through the ranks

and learned how every step worked, and
thats what we teach.
Many of the students are interested
in technology, but we let them know that
these are just tools, Dibie continues. Tools
change, but storytelling is always there.
The participants also talk about
movies. Dibie usually asks how many
people have seen Lawrence of Arabia
often only half of the students have and
praises cinematographer Freddie Young,
BSCs lighting and choice of lenses. And
Citizen Kane always comes up as an example of how cinematographer Gregg Toland,
ASC used deep focus. We mention many,
many pictures, says Dibie.
Across the board, Dibie says, every
new group of students enters the Clubhouse thinking they know the motionpicture business but leaves with a significantly expanded awareness of the industry.
So many of them think they can just put a
camera on their shoulder and make a
movie, says Dibie. But I ask how many of
them have been on a set and, if so, how
many people they saw there. You cant do
this by yourself. Its a collaborative business.
Another question the panelists
frequently entertain is how they got into
the business. First, I say, the time when we
did this is different from yours, Dibie notes.
Before, it took forever to get into a guild;
86
November 2015
today, its wide open. You have digital

cameras, and everyone can pick one up and
shoot. Its easier for your generation, but
your biggest problem is competition. Thirty
years ago, there were 1,000 graduates from
film-school programs. Now, 80,000
[students] graduate per year, and you all
compete. Because of that, we tell them
thats its no longer enough to put a camera
on your shoulder and be ready to go. You
have to work very hard and learn about
everything that happens on set and in
post.
Equally important is attitude, says
Dibie. You have to learn on-set etiquette,
he stresses. You cant check your cellphone every few minutes. When youre on
set, your iPhone stays away. Being on time
is also crucial, Dibie adds. If youre late,
what happens? he asks. You wont be
there the next day. Other advice includes
encouraging students to visit galleries and
look at art and still photography, as well as
to volunteer to work on as many student
films as possible.
Beyond discussing on-set work,
Dibie and his fellow ASC members talk
about the practicalities of guiding their
images through postproduction. When
there are too many chefs in the kitchen,
your work can get burned, says Dibie.
We give examples and show them how to
follow their work from A to Z. We stress
that they need to make sure the audience
will see what they shot, or it could damage

their reputations. The panelists touch on
ACES and give the students a handout with
additional information about the system.
But, Dibie muses, before the students can
run, first they have to learn how to walk.
Inevitably, Dibie has to explain the
difference between the International Cinematographers Guild and the ASC. Often,
the students think were a union, he says.
We explain how you become a member of
the International Cinematographers Guild,
and how that differs from becoming a
member of the ASC.
By the end of the two-hour session,
the visiting students have amassed a wealth
of real-world information that will stay with
them as they begin their professional
careers. Every student who attends [one of
these panels] cites it as a highlight of their
film education, notes Dibie.
Crudo notes that the Society
members who volunteer to participate in
these panels get as much out of [the experience] as the students. Our ASC ambassadors answer questions and mix with the
students. They carry the instruction to the
next level, and its really energized everyone.
Its been a magnificent success.
New Products & Services
Ovide Provides 4K Smart Assist

Ovide has upgraded the Smart Assist, the companys all-inone video-assist solution, enabling the system to record, play back,
and tackle visual-effects tasks in 4K with one camera or in 2K or HD
with up to four cameras. Additionally, by linking eight Smart Assists
and Quad Splits, up to 128 cameras can be connected for a single
take at HD or 2K resolution.
The Smart Assist combines a 22" (1920x1080) capacitive
touch screen with 4K video recording and edit-ready visual effects.
An updated display offers improved picture quality with brighter
performance; the display is available with a matte finish to mitigate
reflections or a special finish that makes it viewable in sunlight. The
updated system also incorporates SMA connectors for Wi-Fi
compatibility and has a built-in Bluetooth antenna. Video can be
streamed live or played back to up to 16 connected iPhones or
iPads.
Ovide Smart Assist now features 12 routed SDI outputs so
users can choose 12 independent video feeds, including multi-viewers. Smart Assist can still be powered with mains, block batteries or
regular camera batteries, and the system is hot-swappable. The
updated Smart Assist warns users when all power sources are
disconnected; the system can be run for two minutes without any
power source attached.
For additional information, visit www.ovidesmart.com.
Aerial Mob Partners With Panavision
Aerial Mob, LLC, a leader in drone aerial technology, has
reached an exclusive agreement with Panavision, whereby Panavision will recommend Aerial Mob as its preferred drone company in
the United States.
Aerial Mob is very excited and honored to be forming this
alliance with Panavision, says Tony Carmean, chief marketing officer and co-founder of Aerial Mob. We will now be able to utilize
the most innovative lens and camera systems with our ultra-hightech drone platforms, offering filmmakers a combined aerospace
88
November 2015
SUBMISSION INFORMATION
Please e-mail New Products/Services releases to
newproducts@ascmag.com and include full contact
information and product images. Photos must be
TIFF or JPEG files of at least 300dpi.
technology package unmatched in the motion-picture industry.

ASC associate Bob Harvey, Panavisions EVP of global sales
and marketing, adds, We consistently strive to support our
customers with the latest creative tools and services, and aligning
with Aerial Mob meets that objective. Their focus on providing
advanced aerial technology, with an emphasis on safety and performance, forms a natural alliance of our two companies [and
provides] our clients with the best filmmaking experience.
Aerial Mob was a pioneer in the development of drone
safety standards with the Motion Picture Association of America and
the Federal Aviation Administration, and the company was the first
in the U.S. to gain FAA approval for the use of drones for film
production.
For additional information, visit www.aerialmob.com and
www.panavision.com.
Procam Expands in U.S.
U.K.-based rental facility Procam has embarked on the next
phase of its expansion into the U.S. market with the rebranding of
HotCam New York which it acquired earlier this year to
Procam New York. The company is also expanding its New York
operation with new staff appointments and a large financial investment in the latest digital cinematography equipment. These moves
strengthen Procams services to clients working on both sides of the
Atlantic.
In conjunction with the rebrand, Procam New York has
appointed Mark Schwietering as VP of operations and Sean Smith
as VP of customer relations. Schwietering joins Procam New York
from AbelCine in Los Angeles, and prior to that worked at Procams
London headquarters. Smiths new role comes after his service as
HotCam New Yorks VP of operations.
Procam New Yorks investment in the latest equipment
expands the companys rental portfolio to include Arri Alexa Mini
and Sony FS7 cameras, Angenieux Optimo zooms and Cooke S4/i
primes. All Procam equipment is available to clients across the
companys U.K. and U.S. offices.
We want our U.S. client base to enjoy the same levels of
service and expertise through Procam New York that the company
is renowned for delivering across the U.K., says John Brennan,
group CEO of Procam. Since opening in March, weve expanded
and refocused Procam New Yorks range of services to mirror that of
our U.K. offices. This includes kit and crew rental, project management, workflow consultancy, expert advice, training and 24-hour
support. As well as servicing U.S. clients, we support U.K. clients
shooting in the U.S. by offering a seamless experience when booking cameras and crew.
For additional information, visit www.procam.tv and
www.procamny.com.
Manios Distributes
Veydra Expander
Manios Digital & Film has reached an
agreement with cinema-lens maker Veydra
to become the exclusive worldwide distributor for the Veydra 1.2x PL-to-PL Expander.
The Expander makes it possible to use
vintage zoom lenses from the Academyformat era with current-generation Super
35mm and larger-sensor cameras.
The Veydra Expander extends the
image circle of vintage zoom lenses from
28mm to 36mm diagonal with a light loss
of only stop. Such lenses can then be
used with PL-mount digital cameras with
sensors that have up to a 34mm image
circle.
The Veydra Expander gives vintage
zoom lenses a new lease on life, says ASC
associate Steven Manios Jr., president of
Manios Digital & Film. Cinematographers
can once again use their favorite vintage
zoom lenses and recapture the classic film
looks of yesteryear.
For additional information, visit
www.maniosdigital.com.
Cinematography Institute
Opens in India
Located in South Indias film hub of
Chennai, the Achariya School of Moving
Image Technology and Arts opened its
doors to eligible international students this
past October. The institute was co-founded
by award-winning Indian cinematographer
Ravi K. Chandran and Camerimage-nominated cinematographer Alexander du Prel
from the Mozarteum University at Salzburg;
du Prel has also been named the institutes
inaugural dean.
Along with contemporary cinematography techniques, ASMITAs globally
focused program will teach aspiring directors of photography to think like visual
storytellers and develop a signature visual
language using the latest technology on the
market. Attending the Camerimage International Film Festival in Poland will be a vital
part of the course.
For additional information, visit
www.asmitaedu.org.
Telecine &
Color Grading
Jod is a true artist with
a great passion for his craft.
John W. Simmons, ASC
Contact Jod @ 310-713-8388

Jod@apt-4.com
International Marketplace
90
November 2015
Watch out
for ex-demo and

used equipment!
www.movietech.de
Classifieds
CLASSIFIED AD RATES
All classifications are $4.50 per word. Words set
in bold face or all capitals are $5.00 per word.
First word of ad and advertisers name can be set
in capitals without extra charge. No agency
commission or discounts on classified advertising.PAYMENT MUST ACCOMPANY ORDER. VISA,
Mastercard, AmEx and Discover card are accepted. Send ad to Classified Advertising, American Cinematographer, P.O. Box 2230,
Hollywood, CA 90078. Or FAX (323) 876-4973.
Deadline for payment and copy must be in the
office by 15th of second month preceding publication. Subject matter is limited to items and services pertaining to filmmaking and video production.
Words used are subject to magazine style abbreviation. Minimum amount per ad: $45
EQUIPMENT FOR SALE
EQUIPMENT FOR SALE
4X5 85 Glass Filters, Diffusion, Polas etc. A Good Worlds SUPERMARKET of USED MOTION
Box Rental 818-763-8547
PICTURE EQUIPMENT! Buy, Sell, Trade.
CAMERAS, LENSES, SUPPORT, AKS &
16,000+ USED PRODUCTION EQUIPMENT ITEMS
MORE! Visual Products, Inc. www.visualwww.ProVideoFilm.com
products.com Call 440.647.4999
www.UsedEquipmentNewsletter.com
888 869 9998
HOLLYWOOD STUDIO ANTIQUES
www.CinemaAntiques.com
BUY-SELL-TRADE
www.theasc.com
November 2015
91
Advertisers Index
Abel Cine tech 43
Adorama 15, 39
Aerial Mob, LLC 53
AFI Film Festival 71
AJA Video Systems, Inc. 61
Alan Gordon Enterprises 91
Arri 17
Arri Rental 29
ASC Master Class 8
Aura Productions 89
B&H Photo-Video_Pro Audio
23
Backstage Equipment, Inc.
79
BBS Lighting 19
Blackmagic Design, Inc. 7
Camerimage 93
Canon USA 13
Carl Zeiss SBE, LLC 67
Cavision Enterprises 90
Chapman/Leonard
Studio Equip. 33
Chrosziel 59
Cinematography
Electronics 79
Cinekinetic 90
Convergent Design 25
Cooke Optics 21
CW Sonderoptic Gmbh 31
92
Digital Sputnik Lighting Systems Red Digital Cinema C2-1

45
Schneider Optics 2
Eastman Kodak C4
Slamdance Film Festival 85
EVS/Express Video Supply 59
Sumolight Gmbh C3
Sundance Film Festival 69
Glidecam Industries 55
Grip Factory Munich/GFM 79 Super16, Inc. 91
Swit 47, 72
GV Technology Expo 77
SXSW 95
Hasselblad Bron, Inc. 60
Teradek, LLC 5
Hollywood PL 89
TNS&F Productions 91
J.L. Fisher 73
UCLA Health MPTF 57
Jod Soraci 89
Ushio America, Inc. 81
Jumpstart Guide 92
Visionary Forces 91
Kino Flo 83
Lights! Action! Co. 90
Matthews Studio Equipment
81
Mole-Richardson/Studio Depot
90
Movie Tech AG 90, 91
Nila, Inc. 89
Ovide Broadcast Services 46
P+S Technik
Feinmechanik Gmbh 90
Panasonic System
Communications Co. 9, 11
Panavision, Inc. 27
Paralinx 41
PED Denz 53, 91
Pille Filmgeraeteverleih
Gmbh 90
Pro8mm 90
Welch Integrated 87
Willys Widgets 90
www.theasc.com 89, 92
Yes Watches 82
Clubhouse News
Society Welcomes Takayanagi

New active member Masanobu
Takayanagi, ASC was born and raised in
Gunma, Japan. After graduating from
Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, where
he studied English linguistics, Takayanagi
moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in
cinematography. He studied at California
State University, Long Beach, and later graduated from the American Film Institute with
an MFA in cinematography. In 2003
Takayanagi received both the ASC John F.
Seitz Heritage Award for outstanding cinematography, and the Kodak Award for best
student cinematography at the Palm
Springs International Festival of Short Films.
After working on numerous projects,
including music videos, commercials, shorts
and features, Takayanagi served as 2nd-unit
cinematographer for Rodrigo Prieto, ASC,
AMC on the feature films Babel and State
of Play before moving into main-unit cinematography. Takayanagis recent credits
include Warrior, The Grey, Silver Linings
Playbook, Out of the Furnace, True Story
and Black Mass (AC Oct. 15).
Schaefer Speaks at
Bristol Festival
Roberto Schaefer, ASC, AIC was a
guest speaker at the inaugural Bristol International Festival of Cinematography, sponsored by the University of the West of
Englands Centre for Moving Image
Research, where Schaefer is a visiting
94
November 2015
professor. The festival opened with a panel

discussion about the state of the art of cinematography, in which Schaefer participated
alongside Nic Knowland, BSC; Geoff Boyle,
FBKS; Nigel Walters, BSC; and professor
Terry Flaxton.
In addition, Schaefer participated in
a discussion with Knowland, Boyle and Ula
Pontikos, BSC titled Cinematographers
and Their Influences, and a director-cinematographer collaboration panel with Flaxton and Otto Bathurst. Schaefer and his
wife, costume designer Caroline Eselin,
shared the stage for a discussion about their
collaboration on Lee Daniels drama The
Paperboy. Schaefer also conducted an
onstage interview with Billy Williams, BSC.
Just before leaving for Bristol, Schaefer participated in an ASC Breakfast Club
event held at the Clubhouse in Hollywood.
Moderated by AC managing editor Jon D.
Witmer, the conversation touched on
Schaefers work for the features The Paperboy, Best in Show, Finding Neverland and
Quantum of Solace (AC Nov. 08).
For more information about the Bristol International Festival of Cinematography, visit www.cinefest.co.uk.
Freeman, Jur Win Emmy Awards
ASC members Jonathan Freeman
and Jeffrey Jur each took home a 2015
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding
Cinematography. Freeman won in the
Single-Camera Series category for his work
on the Boardwalk Empire episode Golden

Days for Boys and Girls, and Jur won in the
Limited Series or Movie category for Bessie
(AC June 15). Both projects were HBO
productions. The win marked Freemans
third Emmy for Boardwalk Empire; he has
also won three ASC Awards for his work on
the series, including one for Golden Days
for Boys and Girls. Jur previously won an
Emmy in the Single-Camera Series category
for HBOs Carnivle.
For more information about the
2015 Creative Emmy Awards, visit
www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/Septem
ber2015/2015Emmys/page1.php.
Suschitzky Publishes Reflections
Marking the culmination of a sevenyear project, Peter Suschitzky, ASC has
published a photography collection titled
Naked Reflections. Focusing primarily on
female nudes, the book features a foreword
by director David Cronenberg, one of
Suschitzkys longtime collaborators. Their
films together include Maps to the Stars,
Cosmopolis, A History of Violence and
Crash (AC April 97). Suschitzkys cinematography credits also include the features
Mars Attacks! (AC Dec. 96), The Empire
Strikes Back (AC June 80) and The Rocky
Horror Picture Show. The book is available
through Schilt Publishing in Amsterdam and
on Amazon.com.
Photo of Clubhouse by Isidore Mankofsky, ASC; lighting by Donald M. Morgan, ASC.

Masanobu Takayanagi photo by Claire Folger, courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment. Bristol Festival photo by Ingrid Domeij.
Left: Masanobu
Takayanagi, ASC
on the set of Black
Mass. Right (from
left): Otto
Bathurst; Roberto
Schaefer, ASC, AIC;
and Terry Flaxton
participate in a
directorcinematographer
collaboration
panel at the
Bristol
International
Festival of
Cinematography.
Mark Vargo, ASC
When you were a child, what film made the strongest impression on you?
Darby OGill and the Little People. Scared me to death.
What has been your most satisfying moment on a project?

Gosh, I dont know. On lousy projects, when we wrap. On great
projects, the satisfaction is endless.
Which cinematographers, past or present, do you most

admire?
If I had to pick one, Id have to say Freddie Young, BSC. Epic cinematographer, epic life. Its a tough
question, though, as there are so, so
many that I admire.
Have you made any memorable blunders?

Yup. I turned down an interview with Chris Nolan because I didnt
understand his script for Memento.
What sparked your interest in

photography?
My father gave me his Polaroid Land
Camera to mess around with when I
was 10 years old. I discovered double
exposing by accident and had lots of
fun doing multiple exposures of every
kind. I suppose it was my introduction
to the multiple-pass photography I did
for a while at Industrial Light & Magic
on an optical printer.
What recent books, films or

artworks have inspired you?
Book: Glittering Images by Camille
Paglia. An amazing treatise on the
evolution of art. Film: Melancholia,
directed by Lars von Trier. The ideas
and imagery of this film blew me
away. Artwork: The National Portrait
Gallery in Washington, D.C. My absolute favorite gallery in the
world.
Where did you train and/or study?

I received a B.S. in motion-picture production at Montana State
University. Im still training and studying every day.
Who were your early teachers or mentors?
Early on, when I was working in visual effects: Richard Edlund, ASC;
Doug Trumbull; Richard Yuricich, ASC; Stuart Robertson; and Robert
Abel. As a cinematographer: Caleb Deschanel, ASC; John Bailey,
ASC; John Seale, ASC, ACS; and Russell Boyd, ASC, ACS. I am very
fortunate.
What are some of your key artistic influences?
As a child I loved looking at National Geographic magazine. Beautiful
pictures, beautiful places. We also had a huge book it must have
weighed 25 pounds that featured all of the great paintings from
the early Renaissance up to modern day. Wish I could find that book
today! My lighting these days is heavily influenced by the paintings
and illustrations of N.C. Wyeth.
How did you get your first break in the business?
As a college senior, I flew out to a film lab in Seattle to observe the
timing of our senior project. The lab was Alpha Cine, and the owner
was Les Davis. Les had a llama ranch in western Montana. When I
met him and he found out that I was in film school at Montana
State, he told me to call him when I graduated and he would hire
me at the lab. I called and he offered me my first film job.
96
November 2015
What is the best professional

advice youve ever received?
Dont ever give up. And make lots of
friends in the business.
Do you have any favorite genres, or genres you would like to

try?
I really like old horror films, but I would love to shoot a spy thriller set
in the pre-cell-phone, pre-Internet era.
If you werent a cinematographer, what might you be doing
instead?
Key grip. I really admire the incredibly important work these guys do
for us.
Which ASC cinematographers recommended you for
membership?
Richard Edlund, Lloyd Ahern II and Neil Krepela.
How has ASC membership impacted your life and career?
Even before I started down the photographic path, I liked the whole
concept of the Society. I remember way back in film school thumbing through old copies of the magazine and reading about [editor]
Herb Lightmans escapades on film sets all over the world. I never
dreamed of becoming a member until much later. But the dream
came true, and becoming a member of the ASC is one of the most
meaningful events of my life. Im a better cinematographer for it,
because I strive to uphold the high photographic standards of our
members, present and past. Im very proud to be a member of the
American Society of Cinematographers. Loyalty, Progress, Artistry.
Photo by Sam Lothridge.
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AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER NOVEMBER 2015 SPECTRE THE MARTIAN THE WALK STEVE JOBS LEGEND VOL. 96 NO.

An International Publication of the ASC

Alwin Kchler, BSC mixes formats to chart an innovators

An International Publication of the ASC

and catch up with our

Look for more at www.theasc.com

Meadowland images courtesy of Cinedigm. Photos of Reed Morano, ASC

Q&A: Director-Cinematographer Reed Morano, ASC on Meadowland

An International Publication of the ASC

Visit us online at www.theasc.com

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF and PUBLISHER

ART & DESIGN

SUBSCRIPTIONS, BOOKS & PRODUCTS

ASC GENERAL MANAGER Brett Grauman

American Society of Cinematographers

Kees van Oostrum

Our third son, three-year-old Tommy, is well on his way

Photo by Owen Roizman, ASC.

Nicholas: Im James Bond, but you can be

Photo by Dana Phillip Ross.

Best Man Wins, directed by Stphane Dumonceau, is based

[style and] in the way he moves his camera.

All images courtesy of the filmmakers.

fully trusting Elliott and his team that it

together. Once the filmmakers were satisfied

[Cardino] suggested additional lighting

The final confrontation between

I was intrigued, and a little skeptical, says the cinematographer,

cally it, says Grvlen. It weighed about

they strapped a bungee to the roof, which

the scene. On a more distant roof, Arri

and hazy ambiance to complement the

the street where craft services was located.

Kids were wild about Jem and the

series The LXD: The Legion of Extraordinary

of a scene, but we didnt have a specific

Top: The crew

tested CinemaDNG but ended up with

tal 8, and even thought about shooting

quality to it that we loved, and one of my

The way Jon works is once we start

The camera crew shoots Jem performing solo.

length of the space was 400' deep, and

up to seven hours of footage a day.) For

year. My sister and I were always dancing on

aniel Craig stands on a narrow ledge some 30' off the

Opposite and this

Hoytema, FSF, NSC and his crew on

dailies were transferred on a Spirit, and

Lighting the Austrian Spa

merican Cinematographer: Can you

David Smith: Everything was

decided on 35mm anamorphic.

Lighting diagram courtesy of David Smith.

roughly to: As soon as one becomes

Top and bottom:

A Collaboration Among Vendors

lthough Hoyte van Hoytema,

the principal photography of Spectre to

and random glare during his initial tests,

Photo courtesy of Panavision.

The crew preps

Van Hoytema: Im very much for