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MARCH 2014

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The International Journal of Motion Imaging
30 5-Star Service
Robert Yeoman, ASC books a stay at
The Grand Budapest Hotel
44 A Fight to the Death
Tobias Schliessler, ASC locks and loads
on Lone Survivor
54 Espionage, Payback and Laughs
The cinematographers of The Americans, Revenge and
the Saturday Night Live Film Unit detail their work
DEPARTMENTS
FEATURES
VISIT WWW.THEASC.COM
On Our Cover: Resourceful concierge Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes) reflects upon bygone
days in The Grand Budapest Hotel, shot by Robert Yeoman, ASC. (Frame grab courtesy of
Fox Searchlight Pictures.)
10 Editors Note
12 Presidents Desk
16 Short Takes: Coward
24 Production Slate: Pompeii
68 New Products & Services
72 International Marketplace
73 Classified Ads
74 Ad Index
76 ASC Membership Roster
78 Clubhouse News
80 ASC Close-Up: Rexford Metz
M A R C H 2 0 1 4 V O L . 9 5 N O . 3
44
54
The International Journal of Motion Imaging
In an exclusive podcast, Philippe Le Sourd will discuss his work on Wong Kar-wais The Grandmaster, which earned ASC
and Academy Award nominations. The movie tells the story of Ip Man, the martial-arts expert who trained Bruce Lee.
Left: Ip Man (Tony Leung)
readies himself for another
round of martial-arts action.
Right: Cinematographer
Philippe Le Sourd lines up
a shot.
M A R C H 2 0 1 4 V O L . 9 5 N O . 3
Danny Habany: House of Flying Daggers.
Shady Grady: Hero and Unleashed.
Joshua King: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Drag-
on.
Lee J. Tamer: The first Matrix was like nothing
I had ever seen.
Chris Mooney: The Raid.
David E. Williams: There are so many great
ones, but Peter Paus work in Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon is truly great. (And you should
also check out his cinematography in The Bride
with White Hair.)
Douglas Adam Ferguson: Bichunmoo, Fear-
less and Ashes of Time Redux.
Benoit Lelievre: Big Trouble in Little China.
William Mank: Hero. Christopher Doyles cine-
matography was some of the best I had ever
seen! He showed us the fantastic use of sym-
metrical and asymmetrical balance in a frame.
Sridhar Reddy: Derek Wans camera on Gor-
don Chans Fist of Legend. Beautifully lit and
composed throughout. A seamless blend of
frame rates and movement, the camera and
lighting never once compete with the action;
rather, they provide a rock-solid foundation for
Yuen Wo-Pings insanely powerful choreogra-
phy.
Jeff Ryan Carlson: Hero with Jet Li the first
time I understood completely why color is impor-
tant onscreen.
Sue Lawson: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
was a work of art.
Andrew Henderson: The Protector. The cine-
matography of Nattawut Kittikhun has a 3-
minute-plus tracking shot as the main character
[played by Tony Jaa] ascends a huge staircase
fighting off goons. This scene is nothing short of
perfection; imagining the amount of choreogra-
phy that went into its making is a marvel in
itself.
Rajendra Biswas: Hero, The Matrix, The Ban-
quet, Tom yum goong.
Robert Alterman: Iron Monkey. Nice camera
angles, fun action sequences. Groundbreaking
work.
Edward Ybarbo: Kill Bill 1 and 2 [with cine-
matography by] Robert Richardson, ASC so
poetic, relentless and brutal.
Michael Wa Re: Arthur Wong [helped estab-
lish] a new vocabulary, along with Yuen Wo-ping
and Tsui Hark, in the Wong Fei-hung series.
Wong made the camera move and glide in end-
less shifting planes of motion, graceful but catch-
ing the power inherent to the style of Wushu.
Dan Lam: I agree with Michael Wa Re. Arthur
Wong is a pioneer in the martial arts/wire-fu
genre in Hong Kong. Hes done everything from
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin to the majority of
Jackie Chans and Jet Lis filmographies. He
shoots to edit and his widescreen compositions
are exquisite. Once Upon a Time in China, Oper-
ation Condor, New Dragon Gate Inn and Mira-
cles are great examples of his craft.
SEE AND HEAR MORE CINEMATOGRAPHY COVERAGE AT WWW.THEASC.COM
THIS MONTHS ONLINE QUESTION: Which martial-arts movies have wowed you with their cinematography?
To read more replies, visit our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/AmericanCinematographer
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M a r c h 2 0 1 4 V o l . 9 5 , N o . 3
T h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l J o u r n a l o f M o t i o n I m a g i n g
Visit us online at
www.theasc.com

PUBLISHER Martha Winterhalter

EDITORIAL
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Stephen Pizzello
SENIOR EDITOR Rachael K. Bosley
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Jon D. Witmer
TECHNICAL EDITOR Christopher Probst
PHOTO EDITOR Julie Sickel
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Benjamin B, Douglas Bankston, Robert S. Birchard,
John Calhoun, Michael Goldman, Simon Gray,
David Heuring, Jay Holben, Noah Kadner,
Jean Oppenheimer, Iain Stasukevich,
Patricia Thomson

ART DEPARTMENT
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Marion Kramer

ADVERTISING
ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Angie Gollmann
323-936-3769 FAX 323-936-9188
e-mail: gollmann@pacbell.net
ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR Sanja Pearce
323-952-2114 FAX 323-876-4973
e-mail: sanja@ascmag.com
CLASSIFIEDS/ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Diella Peru
323-952-2124 FAX 323-876-4973
e-mail: diella@ascmag.com

CIRCULATION, 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 94th year of publication, is published
monthly in Hollywood by ASC Holding Corp., 1782 N. Orange Dr., Hollywood, CA 90028, U.S.A.,
(800) 448-0145, (323) 969-4333, Fax (323) 876-4973, direct line for subscription inquiries (323) 969-4344.
Subscriptions: U.S. $50; Canada/Mexico $70; all other foreign countries $95 a year (remit international
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office. Article Reprints: Requests for high-quality article reprints (or electronic reprints) should be made to
Sheridan Reprints at (800) 635-7181 ext. 8065 or by e-mail hrobinson@tsp.sheridan.com.
Copyright 2014 ASC Holding Corp. (All rights reserved.) Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, CA
and at additional mailing offices. Printed in the USA.
POSTMASTER: Send address change to American Cinematographer, P.O. Box 2230, Hollywood, CA 90078.

6
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MEMBERS OF THE
BOARD
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Michael OShea
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ALTERNATES
Isidore Mankofsky
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Steve Gainer
American Society of Cine ma tog ra phers
The ASC is not a labor union or a guild, but
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or ga ni za tion. Membership is by invitation
to those who are actively en gaged as
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This months focus on television production led us to seek
out a group of cinematographers whose work has added to
the buzz surrounding their shows.
On The Americans, Richard Rutkowski must strike a
balance between the storys suburban settings and spy vs.
spy intrigue while telling the story of two Soviet moles
posing as a married couple in Washington, D.C. To that end,
the shows espionage sequences are very edgy in terms of
darkness and shadow, with backgrounds falling away,
while family scenes are often broadly lit to balance the
tone. Rutkowski reveals more of his strategies in our TV
roundups lead piece, written by John Calhoun (Espionage,
Payback and Laughs, page 54).
Duality is also a theme on Revenge, shot by Cynthia Pusheck, ASC, and John Smith.
The plot follows the elaborate machinations of a woman seeking to exact long-simmering
retribution against the people who framed and murdered her father. Theres the beautiful
surface world summer in the Hamptons, extreme wealth, pretty people in lovely homes
and then theres the underbelly of darkness, corruption, lies, schemes and murder,
Pusheck tells Jean Oppenheimer (page 58). We try to create a sense of unease and tension
between these two sides and also accentuate the contrasts between them.
Irreverent satire is the goal for the Saturday Night Live Film Unit, spearheaded by direc-
tor of photography Alex Buono, who uses his talents to mock the visual rhythms of commer-
cials, movie trailers and music videos. Research and cinematographic skill are required to
approximate the styles of the high-profile targets in the shows sights. Part of my job is to
be a cinematography detective, Buono tells New York correspondent Patricia Thomson
(page 62). Ive got to study a [project] and try to determine how they approached each shot
and lit each scene.
One of the shows recent parodies cheerfully lampooned the oeuvre of director Wes
Anderson, whose meticulously detailed films have a truly distinctive look and feel. With his
latest feature, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson ups the ante with a zany period adven-
ture about a legendary concierge who inherits a priceless painting from his octogenarian
lover. Robert Yeoman, ASC reteamed with Anderson on the picture, which required three
different formats to depict the storys three time periods. Wes tried to plan out as much of
the movie in advance as possible, Yeoman tells Iain Stasukevich (5-Star Service, page 30).
He does painstaking research, and we plan our shots pretty carefully during prep.
On the military drama Lone Survivor, Tobias Schliessler, ASC helped director Peter Berg
drop viewers in the middle of Afghanistan, where a Navy SEAL team is flushed out and deci-
mated by a horde of Taliban fighters. As Schliessler explains in coverage by Douglas Bankston
(A Fight to the Death, page 44), the movie was shot in the mountains of New Mexico,
where the filmmakers devised strategies to orient the audience as all hell breaks loose. It was
important to establish the geography of our story, he says. We wanted the audience to see
and understand how the soldiers were moving in one direction and then another while trying
to escape. We didnt want [the action] to be completely chaotic.
Stephen Pizzello
Executive Editor
Editors Note
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Remember the days when the title card representing producer listed only one or two
names? Even if you were a civilian and not at all sure what such a person did, you could rest
assured that the movie or television show you were watching was somehow guided by a
strong and committed presence. Anyone whos made passing note of the credits leading into
most of todays movies and TV shows knows the situation has drastically changed. Now its
not uncommon for 15 or 20 people to be designated as producers, and not just in TV.
Perhaps the definition of the job has changed, but the hard, day-to-day work of getting
a project up on its legs and through to completion hasnt. I have the highest respect for the
true producers of this world, those who search out and develop great ideas and scripts,
nurturing them and whipping up support for them; the ones with years of experience, who
can read a budget and schedule and see the big picture; the ones who know their way around
a set from teeth to tail. Unfortunately, it appears to be a dying breed. As for the rest, I propose
a new title: the phantomproducer. Every show seems to bring more of them out of the wood-
work, and you might wonder who they are.
Of course, the industry has a long, glorious tradition of nepotism, and significant others
are often given their moments in the spotlight (not to mention a nice slice of the budget).
Then there are the agents, managers and representatives who might bring in a star or two to
help obtain the financing. Stars themselves tend to cede the producer title, though they occa-
sionally deliver practical value beyond their box-office appeal. Writers have made tremendous advances in the producers realm over
the years, especially in TV, where they enjoy much more influence than in features. Investors, bankers, completion-bond people,
distributors, and almost anyone else with some small role in the process who doesnt fit into any other category are also good fits
for the phantomprefix. That they dont know a sprocket hole from a donut hole is of no concern. To many of them, the title is just
a line on their rsum, something to jack up their rate the next time out or get them a good seat at a hot restaurant. Even if they
prove vital to the preliminary stages of a show in some way, once the rocket leaves the pad (often sooner), they become irrelevant,
which is quite the opposite of a real producer. I cant imagine having a dozen or more cinematographers credited for something Im
shooting, especially if they only arranged the tests for me. Im sure the genuine producers of the world are wincing at a similar deni-
gration of their profession.
Given all the ridiculous, frivolous and outright deceptive practices that often define the producer credit, why hasnt some
smart individual figured out that it would be efficient and cost effective to allow the cinematographer a measured hand in produc-
ing? Think about it. No one is more qualified, across the broader scale of a show, to make clear and intelligent decisions about
budget, scheduling, equipment and personnel; most of our time in prep is spent huddling with the director and making decisions
in these areas. Calling us producers would sanctify the relationship and encourage more respect for our contributions, and the time
and money saved could only benefit the production.
The streets are filled with cinematographers who also direct and directors who also produce. The leap from cinematographer
to producer is a lot narrower than you might think, and this idea deserves serious consideration. We are well prepared from the start,
so whats the big deal?
Cinematographer/Producer. Yeah, I like the sound of that. And its long overdue. Now if we can only get the powers-that-be
to listen.
Richard P. Crudo
ASC President
Presidents Desk
12 March 2014 American Cinematographer
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Coward on the Front Line
By Jon D. Witmer
Set on the front lines of the First World War, the 28-minute
film Coward follows the fictional characters James (Sean Stewart)
and Andrew (Martin McCann) Irish cousins who enlist in the
British Army and serve in the trenches at Ypres, Belgium to shed
light on a real-life tragedy: During the war, a number of Irish-born
British soldiers suffering from what is now believed to have been
shell shock were tried and executed for desertion and disobedience.
To tell the story, director David Roddham and Irish cine-
matographer Stephen Murphy aimed for what Murphy describes as
an old-school visual approach. We arent hugely enamored of the
current trend of shooting with a shaky handheld camera and using
rapid cuts. Instead, we wanted to slow things down and distill the
visual storytelling into a simpler fashion to reinforce what these
[soldiers] had to cope with: a relentless assault, both literally and
metaphorically. Were both big fans of David Lean, and wed love to
see that kind of cinema being made again.
Murphy came to cinematography with a background in
makeup and special effects, which he studied at the Dun Laoghaire
Institute of Art, Design & Technology in Dublin, Ireland. As he started
to find work on set, though, he very quickly gravitated toward the
cinematographer, and before long, he transitioned into the camera
department, where he climbed the ranks and eventually notched
operating credits on such features as Hunger (AC April 09) and The
Guard. His cinematography credits include the features Porcelain and
Assault of Darkness, as well as numerous commercials and shorts
(including Fifth Street, also directed by Roddham).
While prepping Coward, Roddham and Murphy found partic-
ular inspiration in John Singer Sargents painting Gassed, which
depicts soldiers who have been wounded in a mustard-gas attack.
Its proportions are almost the same as a 2.40:1 image, Murphy
notes. Even though the color palette of our movie is different, the
tone and color saturation are similar sort of pastel and quite deli-
cate. The wear and tear on the soldiers in the painting is something
we really wanted to get across in our film.
From the outset, the filmmakers planned to shoot on 35mm
film in the anamorphic 2.40:1 aspect ratio. Murphy sourced his
camera and lens package from Panavision U.K., where he liaised
with Hugh Whittaker and Lee Mackey. They pulled everything out
of the back of the closets, and we found an old set of High Speed
Auto Panatars that I just fell in love with, says Murphy, who supple-
mented with a few E Series primes.
We shot 80 percent of the movie on the 40mm and
50mm, continues the cinematographer. Even most of our closer
shots were done on wide-angle lenses [because] we were always
trying to fill the frame either with geography or another actor. You
cant really impart the wear and tear on bodies and minds, or the
brutality of an environment, by living in close-ups. You need to see
the space the soldiers are in.
The majority of Coward takes place over the course of one
day in and around the British Armys trench, which, along with an
expanse of no mans land, was constructed over 3 acres of open field
in Hertfordshire, England. Everything in the trench, Murphy says,
was supposed to feel cold and miserable, but I wanted to get a
sense of time passing throughout the course of the day. I used Tiffen
85, 81EF, Chocolate and Coral [filters] to vary the amount of blue
that was hitting the stock, Fujifilm [Eterna 500T] 8573.
To underscore the conditions at the front, the production
created its own weather effects. Dave was quite keen to show the
relentless weather these guys had to deal with, says Murphy. We
Andrew (Martin
McCann), an
Irish-born
soldier in the
British Army,
suffers the
conditions of
the First World
Wars trenches
in the short film
Coward.
I
16 March 2014 American Cinematographer
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Short Takes
had a stellar special-effects crew, led by
Steve Warner. Steve would set up huge
smoke machines with black smoke in the
deep background and then use portable
trucks with white smoke. I could ask him to
block out the sun or parts of the back-
ground, and then wed have snow or rain in
the foreground.
Because the trench was quite deep,
and because we were shooting in winter,
when we only had light from about 9:30
a.m. to 3 p.m., we had big lights burning all
the time, Murphy continues. He and gaffer
Mark Rickett lit the 200' trench with two
12K HMI Pars in the background and two 6K
Pars and two 4K Pars in the mid ground. I
would then use 12-by-12 UltraBounces
closer to the action to provide soft fill,
Murphy adds. I was exposing the fill a stop
or two under and using that as my key. Id
read in American Cinematographer that Don
Peterman [ASC] did that for Flashdance
[May 83], and its a style I love.
Perhaps the biggest challenge at the
location was simply navigating the terrain.
We collected rainwater in the trench excep-
tionally quickly, even though we pumped
it, says Murphy. That changed how we
were able to move in the trench; we had to
work harder on blocking and let the actors
do the staging for us, using the depth of the
trench and the width of the frame. We were
able to get a couple of camera moves by
laying 8-by-4-foot pieces of track and doing
conventional dolly moves, but in one
instance it was raining so hard the track
began to float away!
One camera move the team
managed to make was a long dolly shot that
plays out in an uncut take, tracking parallel
to Andrew and James as they wend through
a fiery, debris-filled no mans land. No mans
land was so sodden with mud and water it
was almost unwalkable, Murphy recalls.
Key grip Philip Murphy and his crew had to
bring in an excavator the day before to carve
out the track area that wed spotted with a
lens on a pentafinder, he adds. The exca-
vator dug out a swath of land, and then the
grips could lay 120 feet of track.
Murphy operated the A camera, a
Panaflex Millennium XL, throughout the
production, and there was an Arri 435 on
hand for two days as the B camera. [Cine-
matographer] Ed Moore came out to do one
18 March 2014 American Cinematographer
Top to bottom: Andrew waits while his aunt (Charlotte Bradley) and her son, James (Sean Stewart), say
their goodbyes during the films opening sequence; James shares in the misery of the front line;
cinematographer Stephen Murphy utilized filtration to create different time-of-day looks in the trench;
Capt. Montague (Nick Moran) shouts orders during battle.
of the B-camera days, and one of my first
ACs, Tony Kay, stepped up to operate the
other B-camera day while first AC Matt
Smith did a stellar job keeping everything
sharp, Murphy says.
At one point, Andrew, severely
dazed by the shelling and separated from
the rest of his company, stumbles away
from the battlefield, an action that leads to
his eventual court martial for desertion.
During his trial, Andrew stands before the
tribunal of four officers, who sit in near
silhouette; the officers were lit primarily by
12K Pars placed outside the locations three
windows. Murphy details, I had double
nets on the curtains and a warming gel on
the lights. For the close-ups, I used a 575-
watt Fresnel, clean and right on the actor at
about a 45-degree angle. I also had some
negative fill behind the camera.
Murphy maintained a shooting stop
between T5.6 and T8. In addition to 8573,
which he pull-processed one stop to lower
the contrast and color saturation, he
employed Fujifilm Eterna Vivid 160 8543.
The Vivid stock was processed normally,
and I only used it for one scene toward the
end of the movie, where I wanted a slightly
heightened emotional quality when the two
cousins have their last conversation, he
notes.
The scene finds James visiting
Andrew in a barn thats been converted into
a jail cell. Because I wanted something
slightly more dramatic, I used harder light, a
575-watt Fresnel, on their faces, says
Murphy. Again, its sort of a throwback to
the David Lean era. Hard light isnt seen
much anymore, and its something I miss.
The light in the barn is primarily moti-
vated from a slatted window, outside of
which Murphy mixed a 12K Cine Par and a
4K Mole Beam. Im quite fond of mixing
hard and soft lights as if theyre the same
source. Its something I did in some of the
other interiors, too; I would punch a large
HMI through a window and soften it, and
then mix in a Mole Beam to get a splash of
hot light hitting off the floor or the wall.
After the seven-day shoot in Hert-
fordshire, the production spent three days
filming in Ireland, where Murphy worked
with a local crew that included gaffer Niall
Mannion, key grip Richie Egan and 1st AC
Fionn Comerford. This work entailed
reshoots, pickups and the films opening
sequence, in which Andrew and James
depart James home to report for service.
Our three days there were probably the
only three days of sun Ireland had that year,
Murphy notes with a chuckle. We were
lucky we got them, but because of the way
the buildings and trees were [situated] at our
location, the backlight was only working for
the background. So, for our coverage, we
brought in Cine Pars and Mole Beams to
[backlight] the actors as best we could.
Technicolor London processed the
productions negative and handled the final
digital grade. Murphy worked on the timing
with colorist Paul Ensby, who used a Film-
Light Baselight for a final 2K DCP deliver-
able. Coward was the first time Murphy
collaborated with Ensby, whom the cine-
matographer describes as a brilliant
colorist. Paul comes from a traditional
photochemical background, and he under-
stood my desire to treat this as though it
were being photochemically timed. That
was a great starting point, and from there,
we took full advantage of the tools of the
DI, which helped us out with the weather
and let us highlight or shadow an eye or
two.
Regarding his and Roddhams classi-
cal visual approach, Murphy muses,
Coward was a great success. I think theres
an audience for more of this kind of consid-
ered visual storytelling, and its a style Im
very excited to use on future projects.
To view Coward online, visit
www.vimeo.com/52220211.
20 March 2014 American Cinematographer
Top: A military tribunal hears the case against Andrew, who is accused of desertion following
a heavy shelling on the front line. Bottom: Murphy (right) and director David Roddham discuss
a shot in the trench.
24 March 2014 American Cinematographer
A 1st-Century Disaster in 3-D
By Mark Dillon
Opening in A.D. 62, the action feature Pompeii tells the story
of Milo (Dylan Schombing), who as a boy watches Roman soldiers
sack his North Britannia village and kill his parents by order of the
merciless Senator Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland). Milo is abducted and
trained as a gladiator-slave, and he grows to become an arena cham-
pion, landing in Pompeii as an adult (played by Kit Harrington). There,
he is forced to battle soldiers in a re-enactment of the attack on his
village. He befriends rival gladiator Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-
Agbaje) and longs for the comely Cassia (Emily Browning), who has
also caught Corvus eye. In the middle of the epic fight, nearby
Mount Vesuvius erupts, threatening to obliterate the city and its
inhabitants.
Speaking to AC on the productions Toronto set in June 2013,
director Paul W.S. Anderson acknowledges a childhood fascination
with the Roman Empire and especially with Pompeii, the city buried
and preserved in ash. Its great subject matter, he observes. Our
storys structure is a combination of a sword-and-sandals epic and a
disaster movie Spartacus meets 2012.
Pompeii is Andersons fourth feature with director of photog-
raphy Glen MacPherson, ASC, CSC, following Resident Evil: Afterlife,
The Three Musketeers (AC Nov. 11) and Resident Evil: Retribution.
All four productions have been native 3-D. Glens 3-D work on The
Final Destination [2009] impressed me, and because hed already
worked in the format, I knew I could feel free to experiment, says
the British director. Hes also the fastest cinematographer Ive ever
worked with. The number of setups we do per day is usually in the
high 20s, and theyre complicated moves.
On this, the 39th day of the 59-day shoot, the production is
working in its amphitheater set, which comprises a practical portion
featuring seats for 500 extras and a large greenscreen for CG addi-
tions. Massive boulders in the center of the arena are incorporated
into the battle between 23 soldiers and Milo, Atticus and five other
gladiators.
MacPherson wears rubber boots because despite clear skies,
the previous days downpour has left puddles where the ground is
gravel and mud everywhere else. He relates that during his six weeks
of prep for the show, he and Anderson screened a number of
related movies and TV shows. One thing we took from them was
the importance of atmosphere, says MacPherson. Weve got lots
of smoke and flame and dark sets. If you look at Gladiator [AC May
00], theres atmosphere in every shot, and were going for some-
thing similar.
The production is shooting with four 3ality Technica Atom
3-D rigs modified by Cinesail 3D Systems, a company owned by
MacPherson and second-unit director of photography Vern Nobles,
Production Slate
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X
.
Senator Corvus
(Kiefer
Sutherland)
declares the
gladiatorial
games open in a
scene from
Pompeii. The
film marks the
fourth
collaboration
between director
Paul W.S.
Anderson and
cinematographer
Glen
MacPherson,
ASC, CSC.
I
www.theasc.com March 2014 25
rigs are positioned on cranes and one on a
dolly to capture Roman soldiers storming
the gladiators with a collective roar. The A-
camera rig, 20' high on a SuperTechno 50,
moves in with the attacking soldiers,
coming to rest nearly on top of them as
they engage their opponents. MacPherson
says he likes the SuperTechno 50 because
it gets the camera in many places a lot
faster. Its expensive, but you get a lot of
great dynamic shots, so it pays for itself.
The B-camera rig is on a SuperTechno 30.
Libra heads modified for 3-D capture have
been the workhorses on the production. A
3-D camera rig on a crane is very top-heavy,
so you need strong motors and good stabi-
lization, MacPherson notes. (Robert Stecko
is the A-rig operator, while Dave Sheridan
operates the B rig and Steadicam.)
On the main camera, the filmmakers
are going wide with a 16mm Zeiss Ultra
Prime to take in all the extras in the stands.
MacPherson jokes that Andersons middle
initials stand for Wide Shot. Paul will
plus a Steadicam rig. Each rig consists of a
pair of Red Epic cameras, one pointing
down and shooting off a half-silvered mirror
at 45 degrees, and the other positioned
below shooting straight through the mirror,
with the resulting two images converging
to form a 3-D picture. Convergence and
focus are pulled remotely. MacPherson
functions as stereographer, evaluating the
image using Marshall Electronic 3-D moni-
tors.
The filmmakers chose the Epic
mainly for its compactness and wireless
capability, says MacPherson. On Resident
Evil: Afterlife, Paul said, I want car chases. I
want to put the camera on a car, and I dont
want to haul 18 guys in a trailer along with
it. Thats when we first went with the
Epic.
He is capturing Pompeii in 4K 2.40:1
at 5:1 compression. The main and second
units, both usually shooting with a pair of
two-camera rigs, are using six 128GB
RedMag 1.8" SSD cards per camera. One
set of cards is in camera, another is for on-
set backup, and a third is usually with the
DITs for offloading. A constant rotation of
cards is required because of the large
volume of footage being shot.
For one of the days key setups, two
Left: Milo (Kit
Harrington,
right) forges an
alliance with
rival gladiator
Atticus
(Adewale
Akinnuoye-
Agbaje). Below:
Milo and Cassia
(Emily
Browning) brave
the chaos that
spews forth
with the
eruption of
Mount Vesuvius.
26 March 2014 American Cinematographer
say, Can we get farther back? Can we take
the walls out so we can get wider? Were
always tucked into the farthest corner of the
set. It looks like we have massive sets, but
we rarely do. We make sure theres a lot of
detail on the floor so we can do high angles
shooting down.
MacPherson is using a full range of
T1.9 Ultra Primes on the show, but mostly
focal lengths between 16mm and 28mm.
The Ultra Primes are compact, they dont
breathe, and they dont have floating
elements, which is important, he notes. I
recently did a 3-D shoot with [Arri] Master
Primes, and it was a challenge to align them
because the centers shifted.
On interiors, MacPherson is using the
Ultra Primes at T2.8 as often as possible for
greater depth-of-field. He is also avoiding
diffusion filters because of the difficulty in
matching them between the two aligned
cameras; instead, he is leaving any softening
for the final grade.
For this gladiator scene, two Arri 18K
Pars on a Condor provide sun for backlight,
while two 18K Pars shine through a 20'x30'
silk for sidelight. The latter setup was also
used to illuminate previously shot close-ups
of spectators in the stands, including Sena-
tor Corvus, Cassia and her parents (played
by Jared Harris and Carrie-Anne Moss). Lee
250 Half White Diffusion is used for overcast
situations, and a CTO filter will be
employed late in the day to maintain the
color temperature of sunset. A 40'x60' solid
Right: The
Proclaimers
(center) tell the
story of the
battle that will
be reenacted in
the gladiatorial
arena. Below:
This sequence
of images
illustrates the
visual-effects
layers used to
create the
amphitheater
and its crowd.
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28 March 2014 American Cinematographer
suspended from a construction crane and
three 30'x30' blacks on telehandlers help
block the actual sun. For later scenes, when
Mount Vesuvius ash darkens the sky, the
crew will lower the solids further.
It is a basic lighting scheme. The
grittier, the better, says MacPherson. We
want the men to look real. Milo has to look
good and strong but also weathered, so Im
not lighting him classically. Wherever the
light comes from, if it works on his face, we
let it go. The women, of course, always
have to look great.
For a scene in which Milo and Cassia
embrace in a doorway amidst the volcanic
violence, Browning had to look glamorous
despite being covered with dust. To
augment the period practicals used in the
film, including torches, candles and oil
lamps, gaffer Michael L. Hall suggested
using Aurasoft lights in a flicker box, and he
rewired each of the six bulbs in each unit.
For this romantic scene, the crew aimed
two units down onto a 12'x12' Ultra-
Bounce on the floor to light the actors from
below. The Aurasofts are soft yet direc-
tional, so when all six lights in each unit
flicker at different intervals, you see a nose
shadow moving around a face as opposed
to just changing brightness, MacPherson
says. It was a great solution.
The production built a number of
exterior sets indoors at Cinespace Film
Studios, including a large street that was re-
dressed as different locations. Two 100K
SoftSuns served as the sun source for day
designer Paul Austerberry and art director
Nigel Churcher. Glen made sure the live-
action pieces could be shot, and in some
cases we would have to change the previz
to accommodate what was practically
possible on set, Berardi explains.
Mr. X created a historically accurate
Pompeii that could play in medium shots,
and its artists also animated an opening
montage of the famous plaster casts of
Vesuvius victims, who were flash-heated to
death. All shots of the volcano were
animated, along with its pyroclastic flow
and the resulting giant waves and crum-
bling cliffs.
Berardi accompanied aerial cine-
matographer Jeremy Braben of Londons
Helicopter Film Services on a two-day shoot
in Pompeii to capture reference images and
background plates. They shot in 5K with an
Epic, using a Super G head for stabilization.
Braben also shot one day on the ground in
the Pompeii ruins.
When MacPherson spoke to AC
again, he was in Redlabs DI suite with
colorist Walt Biljan, working on an
Autodesk Lustre with a 2K RedLogFilm
workflow. We dont want a super-clean
digital feel, the cinematographer notes.
Walt is giving it a feel that suggests the
period but is also strong and modern, which
is a fine line. Biljan adds, Were not going
desaturated and monochromatic. Were
using the full P3 color space to make it as
rich as possible but adding subtle touches,
such as slight cyan in the black, and were
moving really high-end magenta skin tones
and making sure they fall in a yellower
palette. There were a lot of blues in this era,
and were making them vibrant.
Naturally, Pompeiis showstopper is
the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, a multilay-
ered mix of live-action and digital elements.
We did as much research as we possibly
could, and what you see of the eruption is
what it was really like coming at the people
of Pompeii, says MacPherson.
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.40:1
3-D Digital Capture
Red Epic
Zeiss Ultra Prime

street scenes. For ambience, the crew


directed 30 Arri T-12s into a 30'x200' over-
head bounce. MacPherson explains, We
put them all on full blast to shoot the day
scenes. In the scenes after the volcano
erupts, we put on every second or third one
and had them on a dimmer because theres
supposed to be ash rolling through the
daylight sky.
On-set workflow supervisor Vinit
Borrison of Torontos Redlab Digital would
often begin the day by adjusting color and
contrast levels. Dialing looks into the
camera bodies helped match sensors
between cameras and between the rigs,
he says. This helped with viewing the 3-D
footage on the LG set monitors, so one eye
did not feel more saturated than the other.
He also did basic color correction to still
frames and then uploaded them for
MacPhersons approval on an iPad, and,
with the look-up table they established in
prep, prepared dailies using Redcine-X on a
Mac Pro. Redlab presented the dailies to
MacPherson in H.264/QuickTime format on
a LaCie hard drive and output DNX files for
editor Michelle Conroy and DPX files for the
visual-effects work.
The grand scale of Pompeii could
only have been achieved with extensive
CGI, and this work was done by Toronto
shop Mr. X and collaborators Scanline VFX
and Soho VFX. Mr. X contributed to 475
shots, all of which were previsualized by a
team that included visual-effects supervisor
Dennis Berardi, MacPherson, production
MacPherson (left) confers with Anderson between takes.
Wes Andersons
The Grand Budapest Hotel,
shot by Robert Yeoman, ASC,
follows the whimsical
adventures of a legendary
concierge and his protg.
By Iain Stasukevich
|
5-Star Service 5-Star Service
30 March 2014 American Cinematographer
www.theasc.com March 2014 31
Zero swipe the painting. The police
then arrest Gustave for Madame D.s
murder, leaving Zero with the task of
clearing his mentors name.
The Grand Budapest Hotel was
shot entirely in Germany, and
Anderson set the story in a fictitious
octogenarian lover, the rich widow
Madame Desgoffe-und-Taxis (Tilda
Swinton), is found murdered at her
estate, and her will bequeaths to
Gustave a priceless painting. The
surviving Desgoffe clan vows to contest
the will, but not before Gustave and
S
hot by Robert Yeoman, ASC, The
Grand Budapest Hotel is very much a
film in keeping with his previous
collaborations with director Wes
Anderson: a storybook tale with
complex narratives and first-person
narrators, captured in an illustrative
style thats both theatrical and cine-
matic. The central story is bookended
by scenes set in the late 1970s, when an
elderly author (Tom Wilkinson)
recounts the details of his extended stay
at the Grand Budapest Hotel in the
1960s. He recalls a story told to his
younger self (played by Jude Law) by
one Monsieur Moustafa (F. Murray
Abraham), the hotels owner at the
time.
The film then transitions to the
early 1930s, when Moustafa, then called
Zero (Tony Revolori), serves as a lobby
boy for the impeccable Monsieur
Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), head
concierge of the hotel at the height of its
fame. Trouble begins when Gustaves
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.
Opposite: M.
Gustave (Ralph
Fiennes) is the
concierge at the
luxurious Grand
Budapest Hotel,
located in the
fictitious Eastern
European
province of
Zubrwka. This
page, top:
Gustave comforts
his lover,
Madame
Desgoffe-und-
Taxis (Tilda
Swinton), as she
concludes one of
her regular visits.
Bottom:
Cinematographer
Robert Yeoman,
ASC lines up a
shot in the
hotel lobby.
32 March 2014 American Cinematographer
Eastern European province, Zubrwka
(a real-life brand of Polish vodka). As
with many of the directors films, vague
historical and geographical references
locate the story somewhere between
fantasy and reality. Wes prefers to draw
from real-world references to create his
own world, says Yeoman. In this
movie, for instance, the Fascists in
power arent specifically Nazis, but they
certainly could be interpreted that way.
During prep for the film, Yeoman
and Anderson spent a lot of time scout-
ing locations in Germany and Poland
together. To get an idea of how certain
scenes might play out, they sometimes
used a film camera to shoot some scenes
as they scouted, with various crewmem-
bers serving as stand-ins. Anderson
then used his own hand-drawn and
voiced animatics to build the structure
of each scene. Wes tried to plan out as
much of the movie in advance as possi-
ble, says Yeoman. He does painstaking
research, and we plan our shots pretty
carefully during prep. Occasionally, new
ideas come up while were shooting, but
we generally have a pretty good idea of
what to expect for each scene.
Anderson curated an extensive
image library for his collaborators.
Many of those books had pictures of
old European hotels from the 1930s and
other visual references that were relevant
to our story, says Yeoman. Anderson

5-Star Service
Top: Gustave addresses the hotel staff from a podium in a utility hallway that also serves as
a dining area. Bottom: Years later, a writer (Jude Law) visits the faded hotel, where the propertys
owner, Monsieur Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), recounts its colorful history.
www.theasc.com March 2014 33
notes, Our best reference was the
Internet. The Library of Congress
photochrome-print collection is sort of
like Google Earth for 1905. We actually
found some of our locations that way,
and a few of them looked a lot like they
did 108 years ago.
The production also maintained a
library of reference DVDs, which
included The Red Shoes, Twentieth
Century, Love Me Tonight and Grand
Hotel. Wes loves the Ernst Lubitsch
comedies of the 1930s: The Shop Around
the Corner, Trouble in Paradise, The
Merry Widow and To Be or Not to Be,
Yeoman says. We looked at those more
to familiarize ourselves with the 1.37:1
aspect ratio, which Wes wanted to use
for the 1930s sequences. This aspect
ratio opens up some interesting compo-
sition possibilities; we often gave people
a lot more headroom than is customary.
A two-shot tends to be a little wider
than the same shot in anamorphic. It
In the wake of his dalliance with Madame D., Gustave continues to
court other wealthy, elderly women.
was a format Id never used before on a
movie, and it was a fun departure. You
can get accustomed to 1.85:1 or 2.40:1
to the point that the shots become more
predictable.
Sequences set in the late 1970s,
when the author addresses the camera
from behind a desk, were filmed in
1.85:1, and scenes set in the 1960s were
filmed in 2.40:1 anamorphic. Yeoman
shot the latter material using anamor-
phic Techno-Cooke prime and zoom
lenses from Technovision. They have a
very interesting quality theyre not
sharp and crisp like Panavision Primo
anamorphics, he notes. I was a little
nervous about how they fell off at the
edges. I think the 40mm was actually
pretty soft in the lower center.
Cameramen dont like seeing that, but
Wes embraced the imperfections of the
lenses because of their distinctive look.
Cooke S4 prime lenses and an
Angenieux Optimo 24-290mm zoom
were used for the rest of the film.
Principal photography was
strictly a single-camera affair, and
Yeoman used an Arricam Studio
provided by Arri Berlin. When youre
as compositionally specific as Wes and I
are, one camera is the only way to go,
the cinematographer muses.
Yeoman takes a low-tech
approach to accomplishing Andersons
trademark swish pans and dolly shots.
I generally prefer an Arri gear head, but
at times Ill opt for an OConnor
Ultimate fluid head, particularly for
swish pans that are more than 90
degrees, he explains. I can be more
accurate and move the camera faster
with the fluid head. We had several long
dolly moves, and we prefer a large dolly
like the Chapman Hybrid 3. Wes
prefers to ride with a handheld monitor
so he can be near the actors.
Anderson constantly encouraged
Yeoman and key grip Sanjay Sami to
find new ways to accomplish shots. A
new addition to their toolkit was the
Towercam, a telescoping camera plat-
form from MAT in Berlin. The
Towercam was occasionally used in
place of a crane or to boom the camera
34 March 2014 American Cinematographer

5-Star Service
Top to bottom:
Gustave and his new
lobby boy, Zero (Tony
Revolori), are
roughed up by
military goons during
a train ride; Gustave
is threatened by
Madame Desgoffes
son, Dmitri (Adrien
Brody, second from
left), and his enforcer,
Jopling (Willem
Dafoe, left), after the
old lady leaves the
concierge a priceless
painting in her will;
Gustave and Zero go
on the lam.
www.theasc.com March 2014 35
between floors, as in the sequence
where an incarcerated Gustave and his
fellow inmates stage a prison break.
When the lantern dropped through a
hole in the jail-cell floor to the base-
ment, we suspended the Towercam
upside down so the camera could
descend all the way to the ground, says
Yeoman. Wes often challenged us, and
Sanjay always came through!
Yeoman shot the entire picture
on Kodak Vision3 200T 5213. We did
that on Moonrise Kingdom and found
that the lab could handle the correction
[for day exteriors], he remarks.
Without the 85 filter, the film stock is
rated at 200 ASA instead of 125, which
helps late in the day when youre losing
light.
The Grand Budapest is first
shown in a shabby state, its crumbling
faade (a combination of locations in
Grlitz, Germany, and miniatures shot
at Babelsberg Studios) concealing an
interior decked in flat shades of nico-
tine, with low ceilings and narrow halls.
The cavernous atrium of a former
department store in Grlitz served as
the hotels main lobby. Production
designer Adam Stockhausen hung a
translucent egg-crate drop ceiling to the
ground floor and boxed in the lobby
with wall flats to make the Cold War-
era hotel feel claustrophobic and
oppressive. It was an austere environ-
ment, Yeoman remarks. The entire
lobby ceiling was designed to resemble
an overhead fluorescent source, and we
accomplished that with 24 12-light
Maxi-Brutes shining through a layer of
Rosco 216 White Diffusion that
covered the ceiling.
Yeoman lit all interiors with
tungsten instruments and practicals on
DMX dimmers, and he typically lit to
T3.5. We did a few zoom shots with a
Techno-Cooke 40-200mm zoom in
the 1960s hotel lobby, and I lit those to
T8 because the anamorphic zooms look
slightly soft unless theyre given a
deeper stop, he adds.
Production in Grlitz began with
the hotel scenes set in the 1960s, and
then the art department spent three
Top to bottom: Zero finds love with Agatha (Saoirse Ronan), the hotels baker; Ronan
retrieves items from a safe under Yeomans watchful eye; the crew uses a Towercam
to capture a shot of the young couple hanging on for dear life.
36 March 2014 American Cinematographer
days redressing the location for the tran-
sition to the resplendent Grand
Budapest of the 1930s. The lobbys drop
ceiling was taken out to reveal an addi-
tional three floors (cheated to six in the
film), chandeliers and an enormous
stained-glass skylight.
For day interiors in the lobby,
Yeoman placed 20 4K HMIs on the
department-store roof and used frames
of stretched muslin to bounce them
through the skylight. The downside of
working in Germany in winter is that its
light at 8 a.m. and dark at 4 p.m., he
explains. By creating our own daylight,
we were able to shoot as long as we
wanted.
Daylight was supplemented
throughout the lobby with warm practi-
cals. We liked the tungsten contrast
with the cool daylight, says the cine-
matographer. Whenever possible, we
wanted to work only with the artificial

5-Star Service
Henckels (Edward Norton, at center in top photo) leads the manhunt
after Gustave and his allies break out of prison.
www.theasc.com March 2014 37
daylight and practicals, plus the occa-
sional fill light. Night interiors were lit
only with practicals and tungsten units.
The hotels servant quarters and
service areas, filmed in an empty build-
ing near the department-store location,
appear less inviting than the rest of the
hotel. Stockhausen incorporated fluo-
rescent sources into his production
design for the kitchen and safe room,
whose lighting was accentuated by small
tungsten bounces. Gustave and Zeros
tiny bedrooms were lit with bare incan-
descent bulbs and China balls. Adam
did extensive research on the lighting
fixtures of the time, and we tried to be as
historically accurate as possible in what
appears onscreen, says Yeoman. We
mainly used tungsten lights supple-
mented by HMIs and Kinos.
The production transformed
other locations in and around Grlitz
into mini soundstages. A shuttered
concert venue, the Stadthalle, makes
several appearances in the film, each
time masquerading as a different loca-
tion. One room in the venue serves as
A variety of fixtures
was used to light
1960s scenes in the
hotels dining room
(top and lower
left), where
Moustafa meets
with the writer, and
lobby (lower right).
38 March 2014 American Cinematographer
the Desgoffe trophy room at Schloss
Lutz, where Deputy Vilmos Kovacs
( Jeff Goldblum) gathers the bereaved
for a reading of Madame D.s will. (The
rest of the house was filmed on location
at Germanys Schloss Waldenburg.)
Much of Andersons camera blocking
in this scene required a 360-degree
sightline, so Yeoman and gaffer Helmut
Prein floated two skirted Zasa 9'x9' 5K
tungsten helium balloons between the
rooms chandeliers. Two 2K tungsten
Fresnels were pointed at the large
painting of a boar on the wall behind
Kovacs, which is flanked by tungsten
candelabras on dimmers. Helmut was
a wonderful collaborator, and we
worked together to formulate the most
effective lighting solutions, says
Yeoman.
The Stadthalles main audito-
rium was converted into the Grand
Budapests dining room for the scene in
which the adult Moustafa tells the
Young Writer the story of how this
enchanting, old ruin fell into his
possession. The production brought in
tables and practical lights and repainted
the walls. An enormous painting in the
style of Caspar David Friedrich depict-
ing a stag atop a craggy peak was hung
in the proscenium.
Yeoman floated three Zasa
20'x20' 30K tungsten helium balloons
over the tables for ambience. On the
floor, his keylights were 12-light Maxis
bounced off white card through a
12'x12' frame of Full Grid and
controlled with a 40-degree soft egg
crate. For the closer shots, we put an
additional layer of diffusion between
the bounce and the diffusion, says
Prein. A Keylite 5K tungsten Illico,
China balls ranging from 250 watts to
1K, and 1K and 2K tungsten Jem Balls
provided fill and additional sculpting.
The filmmakers experimented
with dynamic lighting cues, fading
down and up as Moustafa slips in and
out of his memories. We looked at One
from the Heart [AC Jan. 82] to see how
Vittorio Storaro [ASC, AIC] accom-
plished all those great lighting transi-
tions, says Yeoman.

5-Star Service
Top: The hotels
main entrance
during its glory
days between
the wars.
Bottom:
Crewmembers
deploy a
balloon light
and diffusion
beneath the
lobbys ornate
skylight.
In a sequence partly inspired by
Hitchcocks Torn Curtain, Kovacs is
pursued through the Kunstmuseum by
the murderous Jopling (Willem Dafoe).
For this chase, the Stadthalle audito-
rium served as a gallery filled with suits
of armor. Yeoman used menace arms to
boom a snooted 2K Fresnel over each
suit. We liked the look of the hard light
on the armor, though it was a bit tricky
keeping the stands out of the shot, he
says. A handheld China ball provides a
small amount of fill as the camera leads
Kovacs through the room.
Train-car interiors were a combi-
nation of a set in the Stadthalle audito-
rium and a train faade positioned on a
track built by the grips. The shots
where you see out the windows were
shot from our outdoor train faade, and
the soldiers in the distance were actually
there, Yeoman reveals.
The filmmakers also experi-
mented with front-projecting window
backgrounds for shots in the
Kunstmuseum and in Madame D.s
suite at the Grand Budapest. Color-
reversal slides were made from digital
stills and reflected off a polarized mirror
positioned 45 degrees to the camera-
lens axis. Scotchlite backdrops posi-
tioned at 90 degrees to the lens axis
reflected the slide image back to the
camera. There was a magical quality to
the image that we all loved, but if things
werent lined up exactly, there was a
ghosting effect, recalls Yeoman. And
the projector didnt throw out much
light, which meant we were shooting at
a T2!
Day exteriors utilized little artifi-
cial lighting, with Yeoman opting
instead for practicals and bounce
sources. In the same way, many night
exteriors were shot day-for-night: cars
traveling through towns and over
bridges, and scenes with Gustave and
Zero in a hayfield following the jail-
break. We typically started shooting at
dusk and went right up to dark, says
Yeoman. Practicals were placed in the
shots to better sell the impression of
nighttime, and Yeoman underexposed
up to 1 stops with the knowledge that
the lab could print down, and that there
would be a certain amount of digital sky
manipulation. Lighting a large field at
night would have been very difficult,
and I love the way our dusk-for-night
looks, he adds.
After gaining his freedom,
Gustave seeks to clear his name by
tracking down the Desgoffe-und-Taxis
butler, Serge X. (Mathieu Amalric), in a
monastery atop a snowy mountain. The
monastery was another location in
Grlitz, but parts of Gustave and Zeros
gondola journey to the peak and the
wide mountaintop exteriors were created
by the miniatures unit at Babelsberg
Studios. Directing remotely from
London, Anderson supervised a team
comprising producer Jeremy Dawson,
supervising model maker Simon Weisse
and miniature-effects supervisor Frank
Schlegel as they shot the live-action and
stop-motion miniature sequences. This
work was captured on film and digitally,
with a Red Epic and Canon EOS 5D
Mark II used for the latter. (Character
puppets were fabricated by Andy Gent
and animated by Andy Biddle at
Clapham Road Studios.) All of the
elements were combined at Look
Effects in Stuttgart, Germany, by a team
of artists led by visual-effects supervisor
Gabriel Sanchez.
A hair-raising downhill ski-and-
sled chase combines stop-motion
animation and live-action with in-
camera effects, which we tried to do
whenever possible, says Yeoman.
A shootout at the hotel involving

5-Star Service
Jopling emerges from a ski locker at the start of a downhill ski-and-sled chase
that combines stop-motion animation, live action and in-camera effects.
40
Dmitri Desgoffe-und-Taxis (Adrien
Brody) and the police decides the fate of
Gustave and his valuable painting. Not
only was the whole sequence carefully
planned out in animatics, but we also
pre-shot some of it during prep, with
our assistant directors and grips and
electricians pretending to shoot at each
other so we could get an idea of how the
skylight and top floor would look on
film, says Yeoman. On the day, he
operated the camera with a 360-degree
field of view from his perch atop a scaf-
fold on the department stores upper
landing. There were enough squibs and
enough time for three takes.
Colorist Maiken Preidman at
Arri Berlin graded the productions HD
dailies. She grades using a large screen
in Arris DI suite, so she would be the
first one to spot any issues, says
Yeoman. But we were largely problem
free. The cameras performed flawlessly,
and a lot of the credit goes to our fantas-
tic focus puller, Christian Almesberger,
and his camera team.
After editing the picture in
London, Anderson supervised the 2K
DI at London facility Molinare.
The production brought Modern
VideoFilm colorist/ASC associate
member Jill Bogdanowicz and a
DaVinci over from Los Angeles to do
the grade, according to Dawson. At the
time, Yeoman was already on another
project, but he was able to offer the
team notes. The final grade wasnt all
that different from our dailies, says the
cinematographer. All of Wes films
tend to feature warmer skin tones, but
in this case we took it toward a cooler
look in some scenes, such as the prison.
Wes usually pushes the saturation pretty
heavily, but this one is a bit less satu-
rated.
Every film we do is an adventure
in its own way, he concludes.
Germany in the winter was a whole
new environment for us, and we had a
great experience.
Tink LEE
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652
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35mm and Digital Capture
Arricam Studio, Red Epic and
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Techno-Cooke, Cooke S4 and
Angenieux Optimo
Kodak Vision3 200T 5213
Digital Intermediate
41
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See us at
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C6143
A Fight to
the Death
44 March 2014 American Cinematographer
Tobias Schliessler, ASC
shoots intense action for
the military combat drama
Lone Survivor.
By Douglas Bankston
|
www.theasc.com March 2014 45
I
n June 2005, a four-man detachment
from Navy SEAL Team 10 was
dropped near a village in a mountain-
ous region of Afghanistan to surveil
and ultimately capture or kill a high
value Taliban target. Local goat herders
stumbled onto the soldiers position
and compromised the mission. The
Americans determined the goat herders
to be civilians and, per the rules of
engagement at the time, released them.
As the team attempted to pull out, the
mountains were soon overrun with
Taliban fighters. Outmanned and
outgunned, the SEALs fought a long,
hard battle, but only one of them,
Marcus Luttrell, survived.
Director Peter Berg optioned the
book Luttrell wrote, Lone Survivor, and
making the feature became his passion
project over the next few years. He
brought on a frequent collaborator, cine-
matographer Tobias Schliessler, ASC,
with whom hed also made The
Rundown, Friday Night Lights, Hancock
(AC July 08) and Battleship. AC caught
up with Schliessler while he was in
Miami prepping the pilot for another
Berg project, the sports comedy Ballers.
Pete said he didnt want the
camera to be obvious in Lone Survivor,
Schliessler recalls. He wanted it to
be as smooth as possible and not
stylized handheld, but smooth
handheld. In the collection of visual
examples Schliessler assembled for the U
n
i
t

p
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y

b
y

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.

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s
.

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s

a
n
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s
.

Opposite: Navy SEALs
Matt Axe Axelson (Ben
Foster, left), Danny Dietz
(Emile Hirsch, middle) and
Marcus Luttrell (Mark
Wahlberg) flee from
gunfire in a scene from
Lone Survivor. This page,
top: Dietz races Mike
Murphy (Taylor Kitsch)
during a morning run
around the base. Middle:
Newcomer Shane Patton
(Alexander Ludwig)
dances for his fellow
SEALs as part of his
initiation. Bottom:
Cinematographer Tobias
Schliessler, ASC on
location.
46 March 2014 American Cinematographer
director, one became a sort of visual bible
for the various production departments:
Tim Hetheringtons book Infidel.
Hetherington was a photojournalist
embedded with a U.S. platoon in
Afghanistans Korengal Valley. (He later
died while on assignment in Libya.)
During prep, Schliessler headed
to the mountains outside Los Angeles to
shoot tests of the quality of rock features,
wardrobe and even blood color. The test
footage and a copy of Infidel were
handed over to Schliesslers regular
colorist, ASC associate member Stefan
Sonnenfeld, at Company 3. We wanted
Stefan to see the contrast, color and
quality of light in Hetheringtons shots,
says Schliessler. It wasnt re-created
exactly, but a nice look was set.
After testing Arri Alexa and Red
Epic cameras, Schliessler chose the
Epic, but he notes that it was ultimately
a financial choice because we needed so
many cameras. Ninety percent of the
movie was shot handheld or with
Steadicam in rough terrain, and
Schliessler wanted to outfit his operators
with cameras that were as small and
lightweight as possible.
The main unit was armed with
four Epics, while the second unit carried
three. (A Vision Research Phantom
Flex was used for one high-speed shot.)
Capturing in 5K at 5:1 compression, we
shot everything on the main unit with
three cameras at all times, while some

A Fight to the Death


Top: The SEALs navigate after being dropped by helicopter in the mountains
of Afghanistan. Middle: Dietz keeps a watchful eye in the trees. Bottom: Lt. Cmdr. Erik
Kristensen (Eric Bana, standing) monitors the mission from the Bagram Air Base.
www.theasc.com March 2014 47
action scenes went to four or five
cameras, recalls the cinematographer.
We could play out whole scenes, which
is the way Pete likes to work. I would
strategically position them as best as I
could, but I also had a great team. My A-
camera operator, Jacques Jouffret, was
really good at working with the other
operators. Sometimes getting another
operator in shot happened, but we had
so many angles to choose from that we
could cut around it from one angle to the
next and stay in continuity.
In addition to Jouffret, the
camera crew included A-camera 1st AC
Jimmy Jensen, A-camera 2nd AC Brent
Egan, B-camera operator Coy Aune,
B-camera 1st AC Nick Shuster and
C-camera operator Kent Harvey.
Cinematographer Dino Parks handled
second-unit action duties. Aerial cine-
matographer Hans Bjerno and aerial
coordinator/pilot Frdric North
provided stunning aerial shots on only
two days of flight time, says Schliessler.
The shooting style was akin to a
Top: The
soldiers
traverse the
mountain after
their operation
is
compromised.
Schliessler
notes that lens
flares really
gave the image
realism and
energy.
Bottom:
Murphy and
Luttrell are
peppered with
gunfire.
48 March 2014 American Cinematographer
handheld documentary approach
wherein the operators could change
angles and reframe at any time. We
wanted to make this movie feel like it
was being shot by a documentary
cameraman in the middle of combat,
Schliessler says. The focus pullers never
had marks because they were constantly
moving. If the focus was a little behind,
that was okay, as long as they did find
focus.
Lightweight zoom lenses were
paired with the cameras. I wanted to use
zooms because Pete likes to change the
shot between takes for example, he
might want to go tighter on the second
take and I didnt want to change
lenses, Schliessler explains. Fujinon had
just released the 19-90mm T2.9 Cabrio
Premier PL Zoom, and when Schliessler
tested it, he liked the results. Only one
Cabrio was available at the time, and it
became the A-camera workhorse. (A
second was made available to the
production midway through the shoot.)
The B and C cameras were given light-
weight Angenieux Optimos: 15-40mm
T2.6, 28-76mm T2.6 and 45-120mm
T2.8. A Fujinon 75-400mm T2.8-3.8
Premier PL Zoom was used for longer-
lens work. The Fujinon and Angenieux
lenses matched pretty well, Schliessler
observes. There were small differences,
but we could adjust things like contrast
in the DI to get them to match.
Much of the picture was shot on
the wider end of the focal-length spec-
trum but in close to the actors, offering
an intimate view of the characters and
action with enough space in the frame to
show how they are positioned in relation
to each other, to their surroundings and
to their enemies. That came from the
photos in Hetheringtons book,
Schliessler says. All of his pictures seem
like youre right there with wider lenses.
It was important to establish the geogra-
phy of our story; we wanted the audience
to see and understand how the soldiers
were moving in one direction and then
another while trying to escape. We didnt
want [the action] to be completely
chaotic. We used the long lens for certain
shots where we wanted to compress the
foreground and background a little
more, and we used a long lens for the
soldiers POVs when theyre looking
through their scopes.
The mountains of New Mexico
the alpine region above 12,000'
stood in for northeastern Afghanistan.
We had to hand-carry all our equip-
ment up mountainsides for most of the
shoot, Schliessler recalls. We used the
locations ski lifts and then hiked from
there to the peaks. My key grip, Mike
Anderson, crewed up with very physi-
cally strong people. Being up that high
really takes the wind out of you, but there
was not one person on the crew who
wouldnt carry a case. Everyone worked
extra hard it was the hardest-working
crew Ive ever had. We also were very

A Fight to the Death


The SEALs try to evade heavy gunfire from Taliban fighters in these frame grabs.
www.theasc.com March 2014 49
lucky with the weather. We came in on
time and on budget.
For ease of transport, digital-
imaging technician Jeff Tomchos tent
was nothing more than a 4'x4' floppy
with side skirts. It housed three 17" Sony
OLED monitors and three Leader
waveform-vectorscopes that were fed
video signals via wireless HD transmit-
ters on each camera. Schliessler also had
single-channel iris control of each
camera. Our camera operators were free
to move around, and sometimes one
would focus on an area that was 2 or 3
stops darker than the rest of the scene
and then pan out again into a strong
backlight, he says. We would
constantly ride the exposures during the
shot to keep all the detail and keep the
exposure safe, sometimes with 5-stop or
6-stop pulls. Jeff handled B and C
cameras, and I would do A camera. Wed
always first compensate the exposures for
Top: Luttrell and Murphy help guide Dietz toward shelter.
Bottom: Wahlberg discusses the action with director Peter Berg.
50 March 2014 American Cinematographer
our actors faces to not lose detail in their
shadow side. Second, we tried to protect
the highlights. There are only two shots
in the movie where I lost detail in the
skies.
For on-set data verification,
Tomcho put together a mobile flight
case containing a MacBook Pro with a
Thunderbolt expansion chassis, a
RedMag SSD reader and Red Rocket
transcode/playback card. The quality-
control station proved an essential tool
because, at an altitude of about 14,000',
the Epic would at times corrupt a clip
during long dialogue takes while the sun
was beating down on it.
The sun was Schliesslers main
source in his natural lighting kit. I was
so dependent on sunlight that I set the
locations where I knew the light was
good at certain times of the day, he says.
In prep, I walked around with my
SunPath, inclometer and compass,
always looking for where the sun was
going to be. Our first AD, Eric Heffron,
and Pete were very accommodating
about arranging the schedule so we
could shoot in certain areas at the best
times.
An example of the sun cooperat-
ing perfectly is the scene in which Axe
(Ben Foster) collapses against a tree and
succumbs to his multiple wounds.
When we scouted, I decided I wanted
to shoot that in the afternoon, roughly
between 12 and 3 p.m., Schliessler
recounts. When it came time to shoot,
Ben leaned against the tree and, for some
reason, God was with me, because the
sun was coming perfectly through those
trees. The sunlight was dappled on his
body and hit his eyes at a perfect angle. I
couldnt have asked for a better position
in how the sunlight fell on that scene!
And the close-up matched the wide
shots because it was natural light. There
was no way I could have lit the scene
artificially in that way.

A Fight to the Death


Top (both pages): The crew sets up a dolly shot at the Afghan village set.
Bottom: A-camera operator Jacques Jouffret and 1st AC Jimmy Jensen
shoot a scene in which Gulab (Ali Suliman), a villager, helps Luttrell.
www.theasc.com March 2014 51
Schliessler was fearless about
using the sun as a strong backlight and
contoured it with 12'x12' silver and gold
lam checkered bounces. I felt like the
sun was a part of this story, and I wasnt
afraid to shoot right into it, he says.
When my operators got in close to an
actor, I would get in there with a little
white card to give an eyelight where I
needed it, while Mike [Anderson]
would be next to another camera doing
the same. At the same time, if we would
be getting in closer on a face, Jeff
[Tomcho] just opened the iris up
remotely if necessary.
The cinematographer also
embraced lens flares, which really gave
the image realism and energy. I have to
thank my operators, who were so good.
Small moves by them would change the
quality of the flare or position it just so
within the frame. I remember the scene
after the SEALs decide to let the goat
herders go, and Luttrell [Mark
Wahlberg] is walking up the mountain
into the setting sun. Jacques was follow-
ing Mark on the Steadicam, and I was
running alongside Mark with a white
card. Jacques moved his body slightly to
the left and let a flare come through but
not across Marks face you never want
to flare out an actors face. Thats some-
thing a great operator can help you with.
It added drama to the shot.
The mountains werent totally
devoid of artificial light, however. There
were certain areas that gaffer James
Tynes could infiltrate with a generator
and an 18K Arrimax. Other mountain
locations allowed for a few open-faced
1.8K Arri M18s run off a small, portable
generator. Otherwise, everything was
natural light and bounces.
For a scene at the base of the
mountain where the SEAL team rappels
out of a helicopter under the cover of
night, Schliessler had three 18K Pars
placed high in a Condor to serve as an
ambient moon backlight. He purposely
kept the scene dark, grading down even
Bottom: Luttrell says an emotional goodbye to Gulabs son (Rohan Chand) outside the village.
further in post when necessary. For
close-ups of the soldiers, the moon
backlight was bounced onto their faces.
Schliessler went industrial with
his lighting for the Bagram Air Base
command center, where the mission was
being monitored. I didnt want to stylize
it or beautify it, he says. When I looked
at the lighting on the bases, I discovered
most of it was fluorescent toplight, not
that pretty. So I lit those scenes from
above with practical fluorescents, and we
added a few Kino Flos wherever we
needed them. Some practicals were no
more than bare tubes visible in shot. Per
Schiesslers preference, background fluo-
rescents were cooler in color temperature
with a greenish tinge for Bagram and
blue for the main Afghanistan opera-
tions center while the fluorescent
fixtures on the main actors were warmer.
Lone Survivor was the first feature
to employ the Company 3/EFilm EC3
Trailer, a 12-seat mobile dailies-grading
theater with a file-ingest room, 2K digi-
tal cinema projector and 7'-wide screen.
Dailies colorist Adrian DeLude used the
filmmakers custom gamma-curve
presets from Schliesslers initial camera
tests and matched the three cameras. It
was such a great luxury, Schliessler says.
It felt like the old film days, when Id
shoot film and then go to the lab the next
morning to look at printing lights.
Before lunch, we sent the Red cards to
the trailer, and at lunch Id come look at
dailies from the morning on the big
screen. I could talk to the dailies colorist
then and there to make adjustments, and
that could be carried into post, which
made for a very smooth and fast final
grade.
Nowadays, I think of the differ-

A Fight to the Death


This frame grab shows the grounded helicopters on Bagram Air Base.
52
ent digital cameras as different film
stocks, each with its own qualities, he
adds. Looking at the movie now, Im
very happy I used the Epic because it
had the right contrast and color satura-
tion. Making something that looks like a
documentary is hard when you have
actors and sets, but I feel Lone Survivor
comes across as documentary-like. Im
proud of it because I feel like its one of
the most appropriate looks Ive done for
a story.
Berg issues a command on the Bagram set.
53
TECHNICAL SPECS
2.40:1
Digital Capture
Red Epic, Vision Research
Phantom Flex
Fujinon and Angenieux Optimo
54 March 2014 American Cinematographer
The cinematographers behind
The Americans, Revenge and the
Saturday Night Live Film Unit
discuss their work.
By John Calhoun, Jean Oppenheimer and
Patricia Thomson
|
T
his special focus on television production features direc-
tors of photography Richard Rutkowski (The Americans);
Cynthia M. Pusheck, ASC and John Smith (Revenge);
and Alex Buono (Saturday Night Live Film Unit).
The Americans (FX)
Cinematographer: Richard Rutkowski
Those friendly neighborhood spies are back, as the FX
series The Americans enters its second season with director of
photography Richard Rutkowski. Set in Washington, D.C., in
1981-1982, the series honors its period setting while fulfilling
Espionage, Payback
and Laughs
www.theasc.com March 2014 55
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its obligations as both an espionage
thriller and domestic drama.
Soviet moles Philip and
Elizabeth Jennings (Matthew Rhys and
Keri Russell) live in a typical middle-
class home with their two teenaged
children, who are unaware of their
parents true identities. We are trying
to exploit the theme of duality, that
these characters are supposed to be
living normal American lives and enjoy-
ing the American dream, while in fact
theyre working hard to undermine it,
says Rutkowski. Sequences depicting
the Jennings espionage activities are
very edgy in terms of darkness and
shadow, with backgrounds falling
away, he continues, while the family
scenes are often broadly lit to balance
the tone. He cites Alan Pakulas 1970s
drama Klute, shot by Gordon Willis,
ASC, as an inspiration, noting, In that
film, theres a wonderful mix of flat-lit
and more dramatic lighting schemes,
and a flow from very contrasty to less
contrasty imagery, usually motivated by
the environment.
This duality is always at play in
the visual design of The Americans. But
Rutkowski, who has shot every episode
since the pilot (shot by Alan Caso,
ASC), says, I would say the most
important factor in the visual design of
this show is its schedule. We have a very
limited number of days, and we try to
pack into them every bit of visual qual-
ity that we can. If we take too long on
one thing, were just taking it from
another. Our single biggest asset is our
cast; most of them work and move like
athletes, and they understand where the
camera is and how to work with it.
Although the cinematographer
maintains, theres not a lens, a type of
Opposite page
(clockwise from
top): Scenes from
The Americans,
Revenge and
Saturday Night
Live. This page,
top: Soviet agents
test the loyalty of
Elizabeth Jennings
(Kerri Russell) in a
scene from the
period drama The
Americans.
Bottom: Elizabeth
speaks with her
husband, Philip
(Matthew Rhys), in
their home.
56 March 2014 American Cinematographer
recording device or a monitor that
equals what [the actors] do for me, he
gets plenty of help from those elements
as well. He shoots The Americans with
the Arri Alexa, recording in ProRes
4:4:4:4 in Log C at 23.97 fps to SxS
cards, with compression the least possi-
ble without going to 2K. When
Rutkowski came aboard the show,
production briefly considered shooting
35mm or 16mm film to better evoke
the period. After weighing all the costs
vs. benefits and expected workflow,
there just wasnt enthusiasm at the
highest levels for shooting exclusively
on film, he says.
Instead, influenced in part by the
work of Willis and still photographers
Stephen Shore and Joel Sternfeld,
Rutkowski suggests the early 1980s
through his lens and lighting choices.
Our show has the advantage of truly
being about something, so we do not
need to add content with the visuals
we follow content, he says. As a result,
the lenses are wider than on most
shows. Ill never do a close-up on a
100mm; Ill always get closer with a
50mm or 65mm. I use an older set of
Zeiss T2.1 primes from the 1980s, and
a T3 18-100mm Cooke Varotal zoom,
which was a go-to lens when I started in
the late 1980s. It eventually fell out of
favor, but when I tested it for this show
everything that was wrong with it was
right: Its a T3, but I dont need extra
stop with the Alexa; its barrel distortion
and falloff at the edges are perfect for
our story; and I love the way its center
pops out at the audience.
Rutkowskis key crew includes
gaffer J.P. Dolan and key grip Gary
Martone. To stay true to the storys
period, we dont use a lot of LED
lights, says the cinematographer. Im
quite often working with period instru-
ments, the standard tungsten and HMI
lights weve known for years. We do use
Kino Flos, but we dont overuse them.
We use small instruments because were
on the Alexa, and we spend a lot of time
essentially cutting light. Theres almost
no light on the set that isnt either
bouncing or coming through a frame,
and theres almost no source around me
that I havent considered turning off
before we roll camera.
In the film days, he continues,
visual character came through the
chemistry, the emulsion, so I feel the
need to add some aberrations in order
to give the digital image character. I use
a lot more filtration, grads, color grads
and NDs, and Ill even use polas on
interiors.
The Americans is primarily shot at
Brooklyns Eastern Effects studios,
with various locations around New
York standing in for the nations capital.
To help save time during shooting,
Rutkowski has built a series of preset
looks into the Alexa. Our looks are
developed in prep and then loaded into
all the Alexa bodies, he says. They are
mostly manipulations of the overall
color bias and contrast. Our first ACs,
Rory Hanrahan and Robert Bullard,
have become intuitive about the look I
might select for a scene, and our second
ACs, Brendan Russel and Yusuke Sato,
keep a detailed book listing the looks
chosen for particular locations or
scenes. I can say, Lets view this on
Look 10 or Look 12. I see it in the
eyepiece, I see it on the onboard moni-
tor, and I see it on the set monitor. Of
the three, the one I trust the most is the

Espionage, Payback and Laughs


Elizabeths role
as a Soviet spy is
unknown to her
children, Henry
(Keidrich Sellati)
and Paige (Holly
Taylor). We are
trying to exploit
the theme of
duality, that
these characters
are supposed to
be living normal
American lives
and enjoying the
American dream,
while in fact
theyre working
to undermine it,
says
cinematographer
Richard
Rutkowski.
www.theasc.com March 2014 57
eyepiece; working in Log C means
theres always more information there
than you might see on the monitor.
Then I manipulate the color tempera-
ture, which in the Alexa is the touch of
a button.
Rutkowski compares working
with his preset looks to choosing
different negatives and developing and
printing options in the old days. We
keep the look file in the metadata so it
is always available in post, and our
fabulous dailies timer, Adam Moore,
can see the intention right away, says
the cinematographer. I would say our
dailies have been 75 to 80 percent of
the way to final correction. The inten-
tion is very fixedly there. As a result, I
dont work with a DIT on set. Post is
done at Technicolor Postworks under
John Crowleys supervision. The Log
C capture is converted to DNX files
for Avid and color corrected on a
FilmLight Baselight.
Executive producing director
Daniel Sackheim has been a major
collaborator with Rutkowski on the
shows visual design. Sackheim
directed the fifth episode of the first
season, in which Philip and Elizabeth
were forced to endure a brutal loyalty
test by their Soviet handlers. With
each director, we try to identify the four
or five scenes that are going to have the
biggest visual impact, says Rutkowski.
In that episode, the couple was interro-
gated in a dark, abandoned warehouse
that dwarfed them in the frame. The
space the actors are in is as revealing of
their character as what they perform
for the camera, Rutkowski says. As
spies, they are usually hiding their real
reactions. Certain schemes of compo-
sition add tension. And a general pref-
erence for wider lenses closer to the
actor brings more of the background
into the frame.
The second seasons fifth
episode, directed by Dan Attius, is
particularly rich with big visual
moments. There is a kidnapping and
exchange of hostages, followed by the
forced repatriation of one character to
the Soviet Union. One hostage is being
held by Philip and Elizabeth in an
abandoned pizza parlor, a stage setting
that offered the opportunity to paint
everything in light that would only
enter naturally: exterior night light infil-
trating windows and broken slats of
blinds and, in the daytime, light coming
through blinds. Theres no artificial light
in the joint at all. The idea behind it is
that its as much a prison for Philip and
Elizabeth as it is for their captive. They
have created their own trap.
Throughout the series, Philip has
been portrayed as the more conflicted
character, and that ambivalence is
clearly shown during a driving scene in
the same episode. (Rutkowski likes to
do car scenes on the show because they
are private spaces we peer into.) In this
scene, Philip has a hostage in the back
seat, and you can see he does not want
to listen to a word this man says, says
Rutkowski. We did that as a driving
scene in the rain, with light coming on
and off our guest star, but the light was
consistently on Philip so you could see
how the words were hitting him.
Finally, a scene of the hostages repatria-
tion by boat ends with an iconic image
reversed: through a porthole, the Statue
of Liberty recedes into the distance.
Rutkowski defines camera moves
Top: Elizabeth
dons a disguise
to tail a CIA
agent. Bottom:
Rutowski eyes a
shot on set.
58 March 2014 American Cinematographer
on the show as very reserved, and
motivated. Season 2 has dispensed
with a full-time Steadicam operator,
with the cinematographer preferring
to rely on dolly, tripod and steady
handheld work that does not have a
war-photography feel. Rutkowski
usually operates one camera himself,
which comes from a belief that look-
ing through the camera is the best
place for me to judge performance and
lighting. Performance changes the
operating each and every take. (The
other camera operators are Sung Rae
Cho and James Callahan.)
Another change this season
involved a major set, the Soviet
embassy or rezidentura, which was
shot on location in a Columbia
University building last year and has
now been re-created on stage by
production designer John Mott. The
settings dark, Old World air contrasts
dramatically with the shows brightly
lit FBI set. At the rezidentura, the
primary goal is keeping secrets, and at
the FBI, the constant objective is to
learn them, Rutkowski explains.
Secrecy and the need to keep prying
eyes away is a big theme.
Of course, knowing the
outcome of the Cold War puts an
extra burden on the storytelling,
Rutkowski observes. But what
becomes interesting is, why was there
a struggle? What were the ideological
differences? And those differences
of philosophy, of generations and of
gender also become the conflicts
within a family. For that reason,
Rutkowski feels duty bound to not
jazz the image up. You have to let
the characters emerge organically. If
you try to force a look on it, youll lose
out, because if you dont care about
these people, then you wont care
about the action sequences, and you
wont be as affected by the family story
at the core of the drama.
John Calhoun
Revenge (ABC)
Cinematographers:
Cynthia M. Pusheck, ASC
and John Smith
Revenge has been a powerful
motivating force throughout human
history, a catalyst for countless crimes.
Amanda Clarke (Emily VanCamp) has
been harboring thoughts of retribution
since she was a child in Southampton,
N.Y., and her beloved father was
framed for a heinous crime and then
murdered in prison to make sure the
truth stayed buried. Convinced that the
rich and ruthless Conrad and Victoria
Grayson (Henry Czerny and
Madeleine Stowe) were behind her
fathers misfortunes, Amanda has been
plotting the couples downfall for 17
years. She set her plan in motion when
the primetime series Revenge debuted
on ABC. Passing herself off as one
Emily Thorne, Amanda rented a beach
house next door to the Graysons and
quickly insinuated herself into their
lives.
For me, Revenge is a show of
duality, says Cynthia M. Pusheck,
ASC, who served as the shows sole
director of photography in the first
season and has alternated with cine-
matographer John Smith on seasons
two and three. Theres the beautiful
surface world summer in the
Hamptons, extreme wealth, pretty
people in lovely homes and then
theres the underbelly of darkness,
corruption, lies, schemes and murder.
We try to create a sense of unease and
tension between these two sides and
also accentuate the contrasts between
them.
That means letting a lot of the
conniving and backstabbing play out in
broad daylight. In some scenes, says
Smith, the characters are really digging
into one another, and we could make
that dark and moody, but that would be
too obvious. It plays better if theyre
deceiving one another in the light, and
we just hint at the underlying blackness
by putting shadows on the walls and
giving it some shape.
With a laugh, Pusheck notes,
Ive completely embraced white. In
some scenes, I really let the whites pop
to emphasize the Hamptons bright
summer world white clothes, white
walls, white furniture. Then, in post, I

Espionage, Payback and Laughs


Emily Thorne (a.k.a. Amanda Clarke, played by Emily VanCamp) conspires with
Nolan Ross (Gabriel Mann) in a scene from Revenge.
www.theasc.com March 2014 59
can have our colorist, Pankaj Bajpai [at
Encore Hollywood], stretch the whites
out even more to get a nice snap in the
contrast. This can be especially helpful
in selling the day-exterior feel on some
sets, including the Graysons backyard
and the Stowaway deck.
Pusheck and Smith, who spoke
to AC separately, enjoy a comfortable
working relationship, having previously
shared cinematography duties on a
season of Brothers & Sisters. Smith also
handled inserts and additional photog-
raphy for Revenges first season.
Revenge is shot predominantly on
stages at Manhattan Beach Studios,
where interiors of Grayson Manor,
Emilys beach house and the Stowaway
Tavern have been built. Only the house
of Emilys close friend, Nolan Ross
(Gabriel Mann), is a practical location,
although a facsimile of the interior has
also been built onstage.
In the first season, the two-
camera show was shot almost exclu-
sively on Steadicam, a preference of
pilot director Phillip Noyce, who also
directed the series first episode.
(Christopher Manley, ASC shot the
pilot.) Now Steadicam accounts for
about 40 percent of the camerawork.
Pusheck encourages A-camera/
Steadicam operator Tom Schnaidt and
B-camera operator Jay Herron to
maintain a kind of floating feeling.
Sometimes it means using a slider to
just add a slight movement, and some-
times Tom and Jay are on the dolly or
handheld, she says. It should be loose,
but not too distracting or obvious. Its
part of maintaining that feeling of
unease.
The camera package, provided by
Panavision, includes two Arri Alexa
High Speeds, a Sony PMW-F3 (for C-
camera work), Panavision Primo 4:1
and 11:1 zooms, and Angenieux
Optimo 15-40mm, 28-76mm and 45-
120mm zooms. The B camera lives on
the 11:1, reports Pusheck, unless Jay is
going handheld or needs to go smaller
to avoid being seen by the A camera.
For cost reasons, we have slowly gotten
rid of most of our primes over our three
Top: Emily ties
the knot with
Daniel Grayson
(Josh Bowman).
Middle: Conrad
Grayson (Henry
Czerny) shares
important news
with his wife,
Victoria
(Madeleine
Stowe, left),
Emily and
Daniel. Bottom:
Co-director of
photography
Cynthia Pusheck,
ASC frames a
shot.
60 March 2014 American Cinematographer
seasons because we needed the Optimos
for Steadicam, but we still carry the
14.5mm, 21mm and 150mm Primo
primes. The team also occasionally uses
a LensBaby and two slant-focus lenses
a 24mm and a 45mm.
A Mo-Sys Remote Head
brought in this season has allowed the
cinematographers to do more crane
shots on a regular basis despite the tight
TV budget. Key grip Stu Abramson
provides the 12', 20' and 30' cranes.
Thats been incredibly helpful in
designing shots this season that dont
require renting extra equipment, says
Pusheck. It also helps save time when-
ever were shooting on Emilys porch
and need to get the camera up higher
without working off risers on the dolly.
The backyard patio at Grayson
Manor and the front deck at the
Stowaway (glimpsed mainly through
windows behind the bar) are also
soundstage sets, and both are pre-rigged
for day and night looks. One of the
changes we made this season was to use
Ohm Space Lights, which are LEDs,
instead of regular space lights outside
Grayson Manor, notes Smith. The
Ohm lights are dimmable from 10
percent to 100 percent and can be
switched from daylight 5,600K to tung-
sten 3,200K with a dimmer board. We
use them for ambient light. Not only are
they more energy efficient, but they also
give us the flexibility to choose our color
temperature.
Mac Techs hang outside the
Stowaway. They arent as flexible or
dimmable as the Ohms, Smith contin-
ues, but theyre really bright, and thats
what we need coming through the
tavern windows. We keep them at
3,200K so they appear very white, but
we also have a few [Arri] T12s and
20Ks hanging on some I-beam trusses
just outside the windows. We warm
those with Quarter to Full CTS to
contrast that with the white light farther
back. To create texture, we also use
smoke.
To help sell the illusion that there
is a marina outside the Stowaway, the
special-effects team this year built three
standing ships masts at the far end of
the deck and rigged them on small
motors to rock back-and-forth. Small
mirrors strung on a wire against the
backing and blown with a fan give the
impression of light reflecting off the
water, and a large, slowly spinning
mirror creates the effect of light bounc-

Espionage, Payback and Laughs


Right: Jack Porter
(Nick Wechsler),
one of Amandas
childhood
friends, stands
behind the bar at
The Stowaway.
Below: The team
films Bowman
and Christa B.
Allen, who plays
Charlotte
Grayson, on the
Stowaway set.
ing off the windows of moving boats.
The creative team decided early
on that each location should have a
distinct personality and tone. Emilys
beach house is warm and pretty, with a
strong feel of the ocean right outside,
while Grayson Manor has a harder look
and feels more walled off from the
outside world. Pusheck often takes the
whites in the manor a little toward blue
to accentuate the contrast with Emilys
house. The Stowaway Tavern has more
reds and warm hues, giving it a cozier
feel than the other two key locations.
Nolans house is all white walls, vaulted
ceilings and sliding glass doors, mandat-
ing a lot of negative fill. The pool at
Nolans house allows us to play with
water reflections and dancing light, and
thats been a visual theme in that set
since season one, adds Pusheck.
Instead of working with a digital-
imaging technician, the production uses
a FilmLight Truelight LUT Box, and
Pusheck and Smith have 10 looks to
choose from. The camera reports indi-
cate which LUTs were used that day,
and dailies colorist Will Lawrence
applies them accordingly to the dailies.
We get dailies on an SD card and look
at them on our iPads, says Smith. Its
a wonderful way of working.
To ensure that Revenges actresses
look as glamorous as possible, the cine-
matographers favor large bounced or
diffused sources, as well as Dome lights,
Lowel Rifas, Barger Baglites with
Chimeras, Source Four Lekos, Lumos
and Sumos. Pusheck is especially
pleased with the Sumos. Our gaffer,
Andrew Smith, often handholds the
Sumos when we need a little fill or ping
in someones eyes, and he does a great
job of dancing around Toms Steadicam
to get the light in just the right spot,
she says. The Lumos and the Sumos
color are incredibly clean, so we never
see color corruption when mixing them
with tungsten or daylight. Bleached
and unbleached muslin and white
Duvatyn are used for diffusion on all
lights.
Also helping to enhance glamour
are the lenses. The Primos are kinder to
faces than some of the newer lenses
would be, says Smith, who typically
keeps a
1
8 Hollywood Black Magic
filter on the lens, switching to Schneider
Classic Soft for actress close-ups.
Pusheck also uses Black Magic and
Classic Soft, but varies them with Tiffen
Black Pro-Mist and Black FX. She
tends to keep filtration light to give the
post team maximum flexibility. Pankaj
does a wonderful job of softening and
smoothing out skin tones, she notes.
On Brothers & Sisters, our colorist,
Chris Boyer, did a great job of softening
the ladies without losing the crispness in
the eyes, and I wanted to use that tech-
nique on Revenge as well.
Lighting in Grayson Manor
became a lot easier this season, after key
grip Stuart Abramson and his team built
two lighting grids on motorized chains,
one in the foyer and one in the living
62 March 2014 American Cinematographer
room. The mansions high ceilings have
proven a boon for staging scenes.
Schnaidt details, We did a great shot
where the crane was outside, and we
extended the arm through the front
door and pushed in on Victoria, who
had her back to the camera. She turned
around, and mascara was dripping
through her eyes she was being
arrested for shooting Emily. The camera
then tracked back as she was dragged
back outside and got pushed into the
police car. It was pretty simple: We put
the base of the crane in one spot and
extended the arm into the house and
then out again.
The high ceilings, as well as the
white trim and moldings, have also been
helpful with Steadicam shots where we
needed to hide our lights, Pusheck
adds. Often we can rig Source Fours
out of shot and have them hit parts of
the walls to light the actors, and then we
dial them out when the camera comes
around and photographs that area.
The Hamptons world involves
lots of parties and other large events. A
Fourth of July party this season is a good
example of the challenges these large
scenes can create, says Pusheck. Some
of the party was shot on the beach, and
some was shot in the backyard onstage.
Andrew and [best boy] Pete Smith
designed a great lighting rig for the fire-
works show that we could hang in the
stage corner and then also rig on the
beach in a Pettibone lift. We used
Atomic 3000 Strobes for the flash
effect, Par cans for the white bursts, and
Color Kinetics Color Blazes and Color
Blasts for color and sparkle. It was all
bounced into a 12-by-12-foot Silver
Microwave Bounce. The partygoers
looked into the bounce, and we dialed in
the explosions and pops. The effects
were programmed into a dimmer
system using wireless DMX.
Despite the characters scheming,
their world is a seductive milieu.
Perhaps Schnaidt sums it up best: Its
an unsavory world, but the glitz and the
glamour suck you in, and the camera
puts you in the midst of it all.
Jean Oppenheimer
Saturday Night Live Film Unit
(NBC)
Cinematographer: Alex Buono
Its 5:30 p.m., and Saturday Night
Live Film Unit director of photography
Alex Buono is metering a Christmas
tree on Stage 6A at 30 Rockefeller
Plaza. Its 30 hours to broadcast, and
the team is just beginning the shoot for
Now Thats What I Call Christmas, a
holiday-album parody featuring guest
host Jimmy Fallon and members of the
shows cast. Two brand-new Red Epic
Dragons are onstage, one on a dolly, the
other slung from a 23' Scorpio telescop-
ing crane. According to the production,
this shoot marks the Dragons broad-
cast-television debut.
Film Unit director/producer
Rhys Thomas inspects the image on a
TVLogic monitor. Its definitely got
more dynamic range than the Epic, he
says, and Buono nods as he spins the
Scorpio control wheels. But final judg-
ment wont be passed until they see
whether the workflow survives SNLs
unforgiving schedule: Thursday prep,
Friday shoot, Saturday broadcast.
Were a great test lab for workflow
because we only get one day to turn
these spots around, observes Buono,
who is in his 15th season on the show.
Indeed, the SNL Film Unit is
among the earliest adapters of camera
technology in American television,
thanks to its need to create a constant
stream of parodies that lampoon
commercials, movie trailers and music
videos. For instance, the show utilized a
pre-release Canon EOS 7D for the ad
parody Bladdivan, a pre-release Red
Epic-M Monochrome for the ad parody
Brad Pitt for Chanel No. 5, and a just-
released Freefly Movi M10 gyrostabi-
lized rig for Stefons Farewell, a
send-off to regular cast member Bill
Hader that was modeled on The
Graduate. For the fake allergy-medica-
tion spot, Flaritan, and four subse-
quent spots, the Film Unit was among
the first to use the Canon C500 to
capture 4K with three then-new external
recorders: the Codex-S, Gemini 4:4:4
and Ki Pro Quad.
Why risk trying new technology
on a breakneck schedule? Its totally
motivated by the question, Can this
make our lives easier? says Buono.
Maybe the workflow is faster, or the

Espionage, Payback and Laughs


From left: Saturday Night Live Film Unit director Rhys Thomas, cast member Bill Hader and
director of photography Alex Buono pose on the set of Stefons Farewell.
64 March 2014 American Cinematographer
dynamic range is so much wider that I
can use less light, or we can shoot 4K so
we can have more latitude to reframe
shots in the edit. We often feel like,
Aha! Someone just invented the perfect
camera for this thing were doing. Lets
try it!
It wasnt always this way.
Following the series debut in 1975, the
Film Unit spent decades shooting on
35mm and 16mm negatives. Digital
capture was introduced in a big way in
2005, when Andy Samberg joined the
cast and brought his Lonely Island
team, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma
Taccone, with him to create digital
shorts (many of which were shot by
Aaron Phillips). As it happened, this
coincided with the rise of social media
and YouTube, which helped catapult
Sambergs shorts, such as Lonely
Sunday and Dick in a Box, into the
stratosphere.
The Film Unit and the Digital
Shorts team often worked separately
from each other and from the live-
broadcast team. The Film Units mtier
was commercial parodies, while Digital
Shorts riffed on music videos and other
inspirations. The digital shorts brought
a new energy to the show, says
Thomas. We were shooting on film
with a more traditional visual language,
whereas they were creating a whole new
paradigm on digital video.
A new chapter began when SNL
mandated that the Film Unit switch to
HD capture for the 2005-2006 season,
which Thomas recalls as a dark period.
He explains, No one prepared us for
what that transition would mean. All
these cameras were coming out that
were really just ENG cameras, and
there was a race to see who could do
things cheaper and quicker, even within
the show. We were really playing catch-
up for a while.
A happier paradigm shift
occurred in 2009, when the Film Unit
began using DSLRs. To create the 2009
title sequence, Buono took to the streets
with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II for a
week of nighttime shoots, photograph-
ing each cast member in various spots
around town. Suddenly, we had a tiny
little camera and could move so fast, and
the resulting images looked so much
more like film stock than the HD
camcorders wed been using, says
Buono. The 2009-2010 season was
subsequently filled with Canon DSLR
shorts a fun time, Thomas recalls.
Buono adds, It was like coming out of
a coma, the DVCam Dark Ages.
Since then, DSLRs have
remained a valuable tool for the
Film Unit, proving ideal for squeezing
inside a bathroom stall (Bathroom
Businessman), grabbing doc-style
shots on a subway platform (Matchbox
3), and mounting on a Movi rig to run
full-throttle through the streets after
Seth Meyers (Stefons Farewell).
With the emergence of higher-
resolution digital cameras such as the
Red Epic and the Arri Alexa, which the
show began using in the 2010-2011
season, we were able to find our way
back to the filmic language that used to
be our signature, says Thomas. By all
accounts, the turning point was British
Movie Trailer, shot on a Red One and
Canon 5D Mark II. Riffing off British
gangster movies such as Sexy Beast, it
starred Bill Hader as an ex-con pulled
back into the game. The joke is that no
one can understand the thick British
accents. Like any trailer, the spot

Espionage, Payback and Laughs


Above: Thomas
and Buono
confer on the
set of Now
Thats What I
Call Christmas.
Right: Buono
frames cast
member Kate
McKinnon on a
New York City
street for the
shows title
sequence.
required multiple locations and enough
scenes to suggest a feature-length film.
British Movie Trailer was one
of Thomass first projects after he
became director/producer of the Film
Unit. (He replaced James Signorelli,
who founded the Film Unit and served
as its director for 38 years before retir-
ing.) According to Buono, the parody
did more than prove Thomas mettle. It
was the moment we actually redefined
our goals, says the cinematographer.
Previously, he explains, the Film Unit
might decide a given setup looked too
real. The theory was that our spots
should not look exactly like the real
thing because we wanted to let the audi-
ence know it was a gag. With British
Movie Trailer, that went out the
window. We went 100 percent for the
real thing. Ever since then, weve tried
to use the same tools and techniques as
a real movie or commercial at least as
much as we can on our schedule. Weve
expanded our art department, our
camera packages are bigger, and the
shots are often more ambitious. For
example, we rarely used camera cranes
in the old days and now we use them
regularly. Were trying to make our work
look as high-end as possible despite our
fast turnaround.
The team went the extra mile for
Brad Pitt for Chanel No. 5, which
spoofed a black-and-white commercial
directed by Joe Wright and shot by
Seamus McGarvey, ASC, BSC. Buono
obtained a pre-release Red Epic-M
Monochrome. That became a really
fun experiment, he says. We shot in a
way we wouldnt have on a color camera,
using black-and-white filters to pop
skin tones deep oranges and reds. I
was amazed at how creamy and grain-
less the skin textures became.
Part of my job is to be a cine-
matography detective, continues
Buono. Ive got to study a spot and try
to determine how they approached each
shot and lit each scene. In the case of
the Chanel spot, he was puzzled by the
source of a pulsing toplight. In the midst
of the pre-light, he reached out to
McGarvey. Seamus graciously offered
65
to chat on the phone, and he had a great
sense of humor about us satirizing their
work, Buono recalls. He sent me a
behind-the-scenes photo so I could see
exactly what they did. It was a gorgeous
custom lighting rig that we couldnt
possibly replicate exactly, but we could
get close enough to sell the visual joke.
(Coincidentally, McGarvey and Wright
created another Chanel ad that SNL
parodied earlier that year with Red
Flag, featuring Kristen Wiig channel-
ing Keira Knightley. Buono captured
that one on an Arri Alexa.)
Its always our ambition to outdo
whatever weve done before and deliver
something people cant believe was shot
yesterday, says Thomas. But its a hole
you keeping digging yourself, because
the next week, suddenly every script has
stage directions like, Wide shot of
Rome!
Buono points to the short
Djesus Uncrossed, a send-up of
Quentin Tarantinos Django Unchained,
as the hardest thing Ive ever done on
the show. He detailed the Alexa shoot
on his blog (alex-buono.com). It was
totally insane: sword-fighting, big squib
effects, real horses onstage and elabo-
rate visual effects all in one day.
The project introduced the
horse shot into the Film Units lexicon.
Late Thursday night, after all the
preproduction tasks had been ticked
off, Buono and Thomas paused. Buono
says, Thats when we sit back and say,
Okay, were servicing the script, but
what can we do to really elevate this
thing? Thomas suggested that Djesus
(played by host Christoph Waltz)

Espionage, Payback and Laughs


From left:
Production
manager Justus
McLarty,
Thomas, key
grip Mort Korn
and Buono at
work on
location.
66
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should crest a hill on a white stallion.
The director recalls, Everyone said,
Forget the horse. It will kill us time-
wise. After an hours sulk, I came back
and said, Ill figure out something in
the schedule we can squeeze, but weve
got to do the horse. By 8 the next
morning, they had their horse. That
became a running joke, says Thomas.
Now, if theres something people say
we shouldnt do but we decide to go for
anyway, we call it the horse shot.
It isnt just the scale thats
increased. Not long ago, the show
might greenlight a film piece for every
other episode, but now it often features
three or four per show. That has led to
the rise of a B unit (the Beast Unit, as
they call themselves): directors Matt
Villines and Oz Rodriguez and cine-
matographer Jason Vandermer.
Now Thats What I Call
Christmas, which Buono was filming
when AC visited the set, was a walk-in-
the-park compared to several other
recent Film Unit projects. (The Wes
Anderson parody The Midnight Coterie
of Sinister Intruders, for instance,
required the full-scale re-creation of a
theatrical trailer.) The faux holiday-
album spot called for just one big light-
ing setup on a single stage. The
controlled environment is exactly why
Buono chose to try the new Red
Dragon that night. We dont know
exactly how the workflow will go, so I
didnt want to try it on a logistically
crazy shoot that would have us out on
location till 7 a.m., he says.
The Epic has a lot going for it,
including 5K resolution and all these
super-high frame rates, but I always feel
I have to be a little more careful with the
shadows and highlights, Buono
observes. The Dragon is supposed to
offer more dynamic range, and thats
what Im most excited to see in this little
experiment.
Though the Dragon is capable of
capturing in 6K, the Angenieux
Optimo 24-290mm zoom Buono is
using cant cover the entire sensor and is
vignetting on the wide end, so he
captures in 5K instead. By nights end,
the camera has received thumbs-up
from both him and Thomas. The
image is nice and rich, Thomas
comments.
Buono had both cameras rigged
with Ki Pro Minis recording ProRes
4:4:4 so that our editor, Adam Epstein,
could start editing in ProRes immedi-
ately and we could just conform the 5K
files at the color-grade stage, he says.
It was a really smooth process no
hiccups. More critically, the workflow
passed the test. Colorist Emery Wells of
Katabatic Digital had spent the week
testing a Red Rocket-X card (necessary
to process the Dragon files), and deliv-
ered the finished footage in time for the
shows Saturday dress-rehearsal dead-
line.
Patricia Thomson

67
68 March 2014 American Cinematographer
Cavision Re-imagines Electronic Slate
Cavision Enterprises Ltd. has introduced a series of
redesigned clapper slates, including a standard slate, a slate with
strobe light, a slate with stop-
watch, and a slate with both
strobe and stopwatch.
The strobe-light feature,
which illuminates the film-title
area, can be set to continuous,
fast-flash or slow-flash mode. This
function serves to obtain the
attention of the crew when filming
is set to commence. The light auto-
matically shuts off as the clapper
sticks are closed.
The stopwatch function provides clock time in
1
25-second
increments. Because the time on the watch freezes when the clap-
per sticks are shut, it can also be used as a visual aid for synching
sound in post.
A sleek design and reinforced three-dimensional structure
offer added durability, and a slot at the back provides a convenient
way to hold the slate during operation. The slates also feature fine,
crisp text printed inside the acrylic surface. The small, lightweight
lithium-ion battery provides three hours of on time and can be
recharged via USB or regular wall outlet.
All versions are available with color or black-and-white clap-
per sticks, which feature a new hinge mechanism for ultra-smooth
movement as well as a newly designed latch system rather than
a magnet, which could cause interference with other devices to
keep the sticks in the closed position.
Additional information and pricing can be found on Cavi-
sions online store, www.cavision.biz.
Lumos Illuminates Trip Pro LED
International Supplies, a distributor for the photo and video
industry, has introduced the Lumos Trip Pro, a
portable, continuous LED light for HD camcorders
and DSLRs. Built by DMLite, the Trip Pro boasts an
adjustable color range from 3,200K to 5,600K as
well as 100-to-0-percent dimming with minimal
color shift.
The Trip Pro features flicker-free operation, a
color-rendering index as high as 97 Ra at its
tungsten setting, and a maximum Lux rating
of 560 at a distance of 3'. The light can be
powered by an AC adaptor, a Canon LP-E6
battery, or an Anton/Bauer or V-mount
battery via a D-Tap power cable.
New Products & Services
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.
The Trip Pro is available through International Supplies for
$399, and comes with one small grid, five spare lenses, a pouch and
a manual. A strobe and continuous version for DSLRs, called the Trip,
is also available.
For additional information, visit www.lumosusa.com and
www.internationalsupplies.com.
KGS Development Launches Pneumatic Bazooka
Key Grip Systems Development has introduced
a pneumatic-bazooka camera support, which
comprises a triangular base, three pneumatic columns
and two types of wheels.
The pneumatic columns cover a range of
110cm (approximately 43") to enable quick and easy
positioning of the camera. The combined wheels
allow the bazooka to be used
on rails or on the ground; the
wheels feature a directional
blocking mechanism for
stable, locked-off shots.
For additional information, visit www.kgsd.eu.
Colorfront Unveils 2014 Lineup
Colorfront has introduced its 2014 versions of On-Set Dailies,
Express Dailies and Transkoder. The updates boast performance-
boosting advances for 4K and Ultra High Definition Television
production and postproduction.
On-Set Dailies 2014 introduces accelerated CPU and GPU
processing of HD/2K/4K video via Nvidias latest Quadro K6000,
Tesla K20 and GeForce GTX Titan cards. The latest release also
supports AJA Corvid Ultra with simultaneous HD/4K/UHDTV high-
frame-rate video output. Additionally, On-Set Dailies 2014 sports an
improved grading toolset with new primary and selective grading
tools, masks and curves, and mapping for third-party control panels.
Playback and review tools have been significantly enhanced with
new timeline and editing features, plus extended Bin and Lookstore
functionality, which enables users to rapidly search for, organize and
manage media for an entire production. On-Set Dailies
2014 also features extended audio and video
format support, including embedded audio on
Sony F55, Arriraw, Red, QuickTime and MXF
footage, rendering of DCPs, IMF AS-02 MXF, and
support for the latest High Efficiency Video
Coding H.265 video-compression formats.
Express Dailies 2014 extends support
across new MacPro, iMac and MacBook Pro platforms
and adds background rendering using the latest Nvidia
GeForce GTX Titan and AMD FirePro graphics cards for fast 4K video
display, 4K deBayer and 4K deliverables. For
visual-effects plate pulls, Express Dailies 2014
also supports the export of 2K/3K/4K/5K/6K
DPX, TIFF and EXR file formats. Express Dailies
2014 also features enhanced grading capabili-
ties with the addition of vignettes, gradients,
effects and filters on simple grades. Other
enhanced features include a new timeline user
interface and editing features, LUT
import/export, waveform and vectorscope, 2K
ProRes output, and live grading.
On-Set Live, which allows DITs or on-set
graders to create and manage looks, preview
footage and grade on live raw/SDI camera
signals, is included in On-Set Dailies 2014 with
support for external 3-D LUT boxes and
improved burn-in capabilities for time code,
watermarks, and camera and lens metadata.
Transkoder 2014, Colorfronts stand-
alone, automated system for fast, high-quality
digital file conversion, has been updated with
a new, easy-to-use user interface, a multi-track
timeline, EDL conform editing tools, support
for subtitling, and automatic watch folder
processing. Additionally, Transkoder 2014
features extended support for CinemaDNG,
R3D, Arriraw, F65/F55, Canon C500 and Phan-
tom camera formats, as well as deliverables
including DCPs, IMF AS-02 and HEVC.
For additional information, visit
www.colorfront.com.
Autodesk Announces
Flame Premium 2014
Autodesk, Inc. has announced the new
capabilities of its Flame Premium 2014 soft-
ware. The latest release of Flame Premium
combines the creative capabilities of Autodesk
Flame 2013 20th Anniversary Edition software,
Autodesk Smoke Advanced software and
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
Autodesk Lustre software in an efficient,
intuitive workflow that integrates visual
effects and editorial finishing. Flame
Premium 2014 also features powerful new
3-D visual-effects creation tools, a graphics
processing unit pipeline that extends across
the application for improved interactivity in
the workflow, and enhanced real-time
color-grading tools, helping simplify and
accelerate complex production tasks.
Expectations of visual-effects artists
and editors are higher than ever, and theres
no room for production bottlenecks that
can derail the creative process and delay
project delivery, says Chris Bradshaw,
senior vice president, Autodesk Media &
Entertainment. Flame Premium 2014 soft-
wares holistic workflow and powerful new
creative capabilities allow customers to
seamlessly shepherd the creative process for
an entire project from start to finish.
For additional information, visit
www.autodesk.com/flame.
Digital Vision Unleashes Thor
Digital Vision, a supplier of color
grading, restoration and film-scanning solu-
tions, has introduced Thor, a dedicated
hardware platform for advanced image
processing. Thor enables real-time process-
ing for 4K and faster-than-real-time
processing for HD and SD sources. Digital
Vision plans to enable 8K processing this
year.
Thor will initially feature the award-
winning DVO Clarity noise and grain
management tool, followed by other tools
including DVO Dust 2.0, DVO Steady and
DVO Upscale. Thor will be available as part
of the Nucoda and Phoenix ecosystem, but
will also function independently across
multiple platforms, making the tools avail-
able to broadcasters and archives in a file-
based or video environment, including live
broadcast applications.
The enthusiastic feedback we have
received about Thor shows that there is a
great demand for better, faster image
processing, says Kelvin Bolah, Digital
Visions managing director. By incorporat-
ing our DVO image-enhancement and
restoration tools into Thor, we have created
a formidable toolset.
For additional information, visit
www.digitalvision.se.
69

70 March 2014 American Cinematographer


Blackmagic Enhances
UltraStudio 4K
Blackmagic Design has introduced an
updated model of UltraStudio 4K equipped
with Thunderbolt 2 technology. The rack-
mount capture and playback device features a
machined aluminum front panel with an inte-
grated color LCD as well as fast-to-use video
and audio input buttons. The rear panel
includes virtually every type of video and audio
connection, including 6G-SDI, HDMI 4K,
analog component/s-video/composite, as well
as balanced analog and AES/EBU digital audio.
With the 20Gb/s speed of Thunderbolt
2, UltraStudio 4K boasts more bandwidth to
work with higher-quality video and frame
rates. Users can capture and play back Ultra
HD 4K YUV video at 60 fps and Ultra HD 4K
RGB video at 30 fps via the advanced 6G-SDI
video connections. The Thunderbolt loop-
through allows connection of up to six devices,
so users can connect fast disk arrays for
massive amounts of video storage with a
single Thunderbolt connection to their
computer.
The 6G-SDI connections enable Ultra-
Studio 4K to support virtually every television
format; users can instantly switch between SD,
HD, Ultra HD and 4K, making UltraStudio 4K
an ideal solution for post and broadcast users
working on design, editing, paint, color correc-
tion and visual-effects tasks. UltraStudio 4K is
also suited to 3-D workflows, as it features
both interleaved/side-by-side and dual-stream
capture and playback.
UltraStudio 4K users can also take
advantage of Blackmagic Designs Desktop
Video 10, which has been optimized for high-
speed computers and the emerging Ultra HD
television formats that require massive data
speeds. Additionally, users of Blackmagic
Design DaVinci Resolve 10 will benefit from
the simultaneous capture and playback
support that lets them capture directly from
cameras on set and grade the live video with
multiple nodes of color correction for live
onset monitoring.
The updated UltraStudio 4K replaces
the previous model and is available now for
$995.
For additional information, visit
www.blackmagicdesign.com.
easily switch between FAT32, HFS+ and
NTFS formats, and an LED indicator lets
users know the status of data transfers. The
drives are also stackable for easy daisy-
chaining with a design that allows for
increased airflow between each to reduce
heat build-up.
The drives come with a full three-
year limited warranty.
For additional information, visit
pro.sony.com.
Avid Shares Storage with Isis
Avid has introduced the Isis 5500
online shared-storage system, which
provides critical capabilities to help small- to
mid-sized postproduction, broadcast,
education and corporate facilities more
easily and efficiently deliver high-quality
content by streamlining and accelerating
editorial workflows.
The successor to Avids Isis 5000, Isis
5500 provides exceptional scalability, perfor-
mance and real-time collaboration, as well
as media access, sharing and protection.
The 64TB engine doubles storage capacity
at the same price point as the Isis 5000 32TB
system, and Avid will continue to offer a
32TB system at a 25-percent reduced rate.
For additional information, visit
www.avid.com.
Sony Takes Storage on the Go
Sony has introduced portable stor-
age solutions for professionals who need
high-speed, highly reliable data storage for
backup and transfer of content in the field.
The line includes a 256GB solid-state drive
(PSZ-SA25) and two hard-disk models with
capacities of 500GB and 1TB (PSZ-HA50
and PSZ-HA1T, respectively).
Each drive
features one
USB 3.0 and
two FireWire
800 interfaces,
allowing users to transfer video at up to
400MBps with the SSD model and
120MBps with the HDD models via USB
3.0. At these speeds, users can transfer
approximately 30GB of video to the SSD
drive in less than 90 seconds via USB 3.0.
The drives also connect to compati-
ble Sony hardware such as the PMW-50 or
PMW-1000 decks. Each has a heavy silicon
cover and protective case to withstand the
rigors of field production and reduce ship-
ping damage. Built-in shock resistance can
absorb falls of up to 7.5' for SSD and up to
6.5' for HDD.
The drives are compliant with the
MIL-STD-810G standard, the IP5X dust-
resistant standard ant the IP4X splash-resis-
tant standard, so data can be used in a
range of environments and conditions. Pre-
installed formatting software allows users to
Dolby PRM
Integrates
LightSpace CMS
Light Illusion, a U.K.-
based color-management
specialist, has announced
the integration of its Light-
Space CMS color-management system with
the Dolby Professional Reference Monitor.
With this integration, LightSpace CMS users
can perform automated calibration of the
Dolby monitor and build custom profiles
that can be loaded onto the monitor as 1-D
and 3-D look-up tables. With custom 3-D
LUT import capabilities, which allow for the
direct application of calibration LUTs via
LightSpace CMS, the system delivers a new
level of flexibility for users of the Dolby PRM.
In discussion with Dolby, we
proposed how LightSpace CMS could assist
with user calibration and
color manipulation of their
displays, and it has been
extremely enjoyable seeing
the results of this discussion
directly assist end users,
says Steve Shaw, CEO of
Light Illusion. The ability for color specialists
to self-verify calibration when needed
should appeal to users of the Dolby monitor,
helping ensure high levels of expected
display accuracy.
LightSpace CMS has the ability to
integrate with a wide range of calibration
probes, which enables users to choose their
own calibration workflows and level of
equipment investment.
For additional information, visit
www.lightillusion.com and
www.dolby.com.
72 March 2014 American Cinematographer
International Marketplace
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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 with-
out extra charge. No agency commission or discounts on
clas si fied advertising.PAYMENT MUST AC COM PA NY ORDER.
VISA, Mastercard, AmEx and Discover card are ac cept -
ed. Send ad to Clas si fied Ad ver tis ing, Amer i can
Cin e ma tog ra pher, P.O. Box 2230, Hol ly wood, CA
90078. Or FAX (323) 876-4973. Dead line for payment
and copy must be in the office by 15th of second month
preceding pub li ca tion. Sub ject mat ter is lim it ed to items
and ser vic es per tain ing to film mak ing and vid eo pro duc -
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CLASSIFIEDS ON-LINE
Ads may now also be placed in the on-line Classi-
fieds at the ASC web site.
Internet ads are seen around the world at the
same great rate as in print, or for slightly more you
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www.theasc.com March 2014 73
Advertisers Index
AC 65, 73
Adorama 11, 29
AFI 71
AJA Video Systems, Inc. 17
Alan Gordon 73
Arri 7
Backstage Equipment, Inc. 8
Birns & Sawyer 72
Blackmagic Design, Inc. 9
Canon USA Video 14-15
Carl Zeiss SBE, LLC 13
Cavision Enterprises 72
Chapman/Leonard Studio
Equipment Inc. 27
Cinebags Inc. 73
Cine Gear 63
Cinematography
Electronics 8
Cinekinetic 72
Cooke Optics 42-43
Eastman Kodak C4
Film Gear (International), Ltd.
39
Filmotechnic USA 40
Filmtools 69
Glidecam Industries C3
Grip Factory Munich 65
Jod Soraci 69
K5600 19
Kino Flo 52
Lee Filters 41
Lights! Action! Co. 72
Lighttools 53
Maccam 67
Mac Tech LED 61
Matthews Studio
Equipment/MSE 72
M.M. Mukhi & Sons 73
Movie Tech AG 72, 73
NAB 75
Next Shot 39
Panavision, Inc. 5
Pille Filmgeraeteverleih
Gmbh 72
Pro8mm 72
Red Digital Cinema C2-1
Sony Electronics, Inc. 22-23
Schneider Optics 2
Super16, Inc. 72
Technocrane 21
TV Logic/Preco, Inc. 66
Willys Widgets 72
www.theasc.com 6, 8, 73,
74
74
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76 March 2014 American Cinematographer
American Society of Cinematographers Roster
OFFICERS 2013-14
Richard Crudo,
President
Owen Roizman,
Vice President
Kees van Oostrum,
Vice President
Lowell Peterson,
Vice President
Victor J. Kemper,
Treasurer
Frederic Goodich,
Secretary
Isidore Mankofsky,
Sergeant-at-Arms
MEMBERS
OF THE BOARD
Curtis Clark
Richard Crudo
Dean Cundey
George Spiro Dibie
Richard Edlund
Fred Elmes
Victor J. Kemper
Francis Kenny
Matthew Leonetti
Stephen Lighthill
Michael OShea
Lowell Peterson
Owen Roizman
Rodney Taylor
Haskell Wexler
ALTERNATES
Isidore Mankofsky
Kenneth Zunder
Steven Fierberg
Karl Walter Lindenlaub
Sol Negrin
Jack Couffer
Vincent G. Cox
Jeff Cronenweth
Richard Crudo
Dean R. Cundey
Stefan Czapsky
David Darby
Allen Daviau
Roger Deakins
Jan DeBont
Thomas Del Ruth
Bruno Delbonnel
Peter Deming
Jim Denault
Caleb Deschanel
Ron Dexter
Craig Di Bona
George Spiro Dibie
Ernest Dickerson
Billy Dickson
Bill Dill
Anthony Dod Mantle
Stuart Dryburgh
Bert Dunk
Lex DuPont
John Dykstra
Richard Edlund
Eagle Egilsson
Frederick Elmes
Robert Elswit
Scott Farrar
Jon Fauer
Don E. FauntLeRoy
Gerald Feil
Cort Fey
Steven Fierberg
Mauro Fiore
John C. Flinn III
Anna Foerster
Larry Fong
Ron Fortunato
Greig Fraser
Jonathan Freeman
Tak Fujimoto
Alex Funke
Steve Gainer
Robert Gantz
Ron Garcia
David Geddes
Dejan Georgevich
Michael Goi
Stephen Goldblatt
Paul Goldsmith
Frederic Goodich
Victor Goss
Jack Green
Adam Greenberg
Robbie Greenberg
Xavier Grobet
Alexander Gruszynski
Changwei Gu
Rick Gunter
Glen MacPherson
Paul Maibaum
Constantine Makris
Denis Maloney
Isidore Mankofsky
Christopher Manley
Michael D. Margulies
Barry Markowitz
Steve Mason
Clark Mathis
Don McAlpine
Don McCuaig
Michael McDonough
Seamus McGarvey
Robert McLachlan
Geary McLeod
Greg McMurry
Steve McNutt
Terry K. Meade
Suki Medencevic
Chris Menges
Rexford Metz
Anastas Michos
David Miller
Douglas Milsome
Dan Mindel
Charles Minsky
Claudio Miranda
George Mooradian
Reed Morano
Donald A. Morgan
Donald M. Morgan
Kramer Morgenthau
Peter Moss
M. David Mullen
Dennis Muren
Fred Murphy
Hiro Narita
Guillermo Navarro
Michael B. Negrin
Sol Negrin
Bill Neil
Alex Nepomniaschy
John Newby
Yuri Neyman
Sam Nicholson
Crescenzo Notarile
David B. Nowell
Rene Ohashi
Daryn Okada
Thomas Olgeirsson
Woody Omens
Miroslav Ondricek
Michael D. OShea
Vince Pace
Anthony Palmieri
Phedon Papamichael
Daniel Pearl
Edward J. Pei
James Pergola
Dave Perkal
Lowell Peterson
Rob Hahn
Gerald Hirschfeld
Henner Hofmann
Adam Holender
Ernie Holzman
John C. Hora
Tom Houghton
Gil Hubbs
Shane Hurlbut
Tom Hurwitz
Judy Irola
Mark Irwin
Levie Isaacks
Peter James
Johnny E. Jensen
Matthew Jensen
Jon Joffin
Frank Johnson
Shelly Johnson
Jeffrey Jur
Adam Kane
Stephen M. Katz
Ken Kelsch
Victor J. Kemper
Wayne Kennan
Francis Kenny
Glenn Kershaw
Darius Khondji
Gary Kibbe
Jan Kiesser
Jeffrey L. Kimball
Adam Kimmel
Alar Kivilo
David Klein
Richard Kline
George Koblasa
Fred J. Koenekamp
Lajos Koltai
Pete Kozachik
Neil Krepela
Willy Kurant
Ellen M. Kuras
George La Fountaine
Edward Lachman
Jacek Laskus
Rob Legato
Denis Lenoir
John R. Leonetti
Matthew Leonetti
Andrew Lesnie
Peter Levy
Matthew Libatique
Charlie Lieberman
Stephen Lighthill
Karl Walter Lindenlaub
John Lindley
Robert F. Liu
Walt Lloyd
Bruce Logan
Gordon Lonsdale
Emmanuel Lubezki
Julio G. Macat
ACTIVE MEMBERS
Thomas Ackerman
Lance Acord
Marshall Adams
Javier Aguirresarobe
Lloyd Ahern II
Russ Alsobrook
Howard A. Anderson III
Howard A. Anderson Jr.
James Anderson
Peter Anderson
Tony Askins
Christopher Baffa
James Bagdonas
King Baggot
John Bailey
Florian Ballhaus
Michael Ballhaus
Andrzej Bartkowiak
John Bartley
Bojan Bazelli
Frank Beascoechea
Affonso Beato
Mat Beck
Dion Beebe
Bill Bennett
Andres Berenguer
Carl Berger
Gabriel Beristain
Steven Bernstein
Ross Berryman
Josh Bleibtreu
Oliver Bokelberg
Michael Bonvillain
Richard Bowen
David Boyd
Russell Boyd
Uta Briesewitz
Jonathan Brown
Don Burgess
Stephen H. Burum
Bill Butler
Frank B. Byers
Bobby Byrne
Patrick Cady
Sharon Calahan
Antonio Calvache
Paul Cameron
Russell P. Carpenter
James L. Carter
Alan Caso
Vanja ernjul
Michael Chapman
Rodney Charters
Enrique Chediak
Christopher Chomyn
James A. Chressanthis
T.C. Christensen
Joan Churchill
Curtis Clark
Peter L. Collister
Jack Cooperman
www.theasc.com March 2014 77
Wally Pfister
Sean MacLeod Phillips
Bill Pope
Steven Poster
Tom Priestley Jr.
Rodrigo Prieto
Robert Primes
Frank Prinzi
Cynthia Pusheck
Richard Quinlan
Declan Quinn
Earl Rath
Richard Rawlings Jr.
Frank Raymond
Tami Reiker
Robert Richardson
Anthony B. Richmond
Tom Richmond
Bill Roe
Owen Roizman
Pete Romano
Charles Rosher Jr.
Giuseppe Rotunno
Philippe Rousselot
Juan Ruiz-Anchia
Marvin Rush
Paul Ryan
Eric Saarinen
Alik Sakharov
Mikael Salomon
Paul Sarossy
Roberto Schaefer
Tobias Schliessler
Aaron Schneider
Nancy Schreiber
Fred Schuler
John Schwartzman
John Seale
Christian Sebaldt
Dean Semler
Ben Seresin
Eduardo Serra
Steven Shaw
Lawrence Sher
Richard Shore
Newton Thomas Sigel
Steven V. Silver
John Simmons
Sandi Sissel
Santosh Sivan
Bradley B. Six
Michael Slovis
Dennis L. Smith
Roland Ozzie Smith
Reed Smoot
Bing Sokolsky
Peter Sova
Dante Spinotti
Buddy Squires
Terry Stacey
Eric Steelberg
Ueli Steiger
Peter Stein
Tom Stern
Robert M. Stevens
David Stockton
Rogier Stoffers
Vittorio Storaro
Harry Stradling Jr.
David Stump
Tim Suhrstedt
Peter Suschitzky
Attila Szalay
Jonathan Taylor
Rodney Taylor
William Taylor
Don Thorin Sr.
Romeo Tirone
John Toll
Mario Tosi
Salvatore Totino
Luciano Tovoli
Jost Vacano
Stijn van der Veken
Theo van de Sande
Eric van Haren Noman
Kees van Oostrum
Checco Varese
Ron Vargas
Mark Vargo
Amelia Vincent
William Wages
Roy H. Wagner
Mandy Walker
Michael Watkins
Michael Weaver
William Billy Webb
Jonathan West
Haskell Wexler
Jack Whitman
Gordon Willis
Dariusz Wolski
Ralph Woolsey
Peter Wunstorf
Robert Yeoman
Richard Yuricich
Jerzy Zielinski
Vilmos Zsigmond
Kenneth Zunder
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Pete Abel
Rich Abel
Alan Albert
Richard Aschman
Kay Baker
Joseph J. Ball
Amnon Band
Carly M. Barber
Craig Barron
Thomas M. Barron
Larry Barton
Wolfgang Baumler
Bob Beitcher
Mark Bender
Bruce Berke
Bob Bianco
Steven A. Blakely
Jill Bogdanowicz
Mitchell Bogdanowicz
Jens Bogehegn
Michael Bravin
Simon Broad
William Brodersen
Garrett Brown
Ronald D. Burdett
Reid Burns
Vincent Carabello
Jim Carter
Leonard Chapman
Mark Chiolis
Denny Clairmont
Adam Clark
Cary Clayton
Dave Cole
Michael Condon
Grover Crisp
Peter Crithary
Daniel Curry
Marc Dando
Ross Danielson
Carlos D. DeMattos
Gary Demos
Mato Der Avanessian
Kevin Dillon
David Dodson
Judith Doherty
Peter Doyle
Cyril Drabinsky
Jesse Dylan
Jonathan Erland
Ray Feeney
William Feightner
Phil Feiner
Jimmy Fisher
Scott Fleischer
Thomas Fletcher
Claude Gagnon
Salvatore Giarratano
Richard B. Glickman
John A. Gresch
Jim Hannafin
Bill Hansard Jr.
Lisa Harp
Richard Hart
Robert Harvey
Michael Hatzer
Josh Haynie
Charles Herzfeld
Larry Hezzelwood
Frieder Hochheim
Bob Hoffman
Vinny Hogan
Cliff Hsui
Robert C. Hummel
Roy Isaia
Jim Jannard
George Joblove
Joel Johnson
John Johnston
Mike Kanfer
Marker Karahadian
Frank Kay
Debbie Kennard
Glenn Kennel
Milton Keslow
Robert Keslow
Lori Killam
Douglas Kirkland
Mark Kirkland
Timothy J. Knapp
Franz Kraus
Karl Kresser
Chet Kucinski
Jarred Land
Chuck Lee
Doug Leighton
Lou Levinson
Suzanne Lezotte
Grant Loucks
Howard Lukk
Andy Maltz
Steven E. Manios Jr.
Steven E. Manios Sr.
Chris Mankofsky
Frank Marsico
Peter Martin
Robert Mastronardi
Joe Matza
Albert Mayer Jr.
Bill McDonald
Karen McHugh
Andy McIntyre
Stan Miller
Walter H. Mills
George Milton
Mike Mimaki
Michael Morelli
Dash Morrison
Nolan Murdock
Dan Muscarella
Iain A. Neil
Otto Nemenz
Ernst Nettmann
Tony Ngai
Mickel Niehenke
Jeff Okun
Marty Oppenheimer
Walt Ordway
Ahmad Ouri
Michael Parker
Dhanendra Patel
Elliot Peck
Kristin Petrovich
Ed Phillips
Nick Phillips
Joshua Pines
Carl Porcello
Sherri Potter
Howard Preston
Sarah Priestnall
David Pringle
M A R C H 2 0 1 4
Phil Radin
David Reisner
Christopher Reyna
Colin Ritchie
Eric G. Rodli
Domenic Rom
Andy Romanoff
Frederic Rose
Daniel Rosen
Dana Ross
Bill Russell
Kish Sadhvani
David Samuelson
Steve Schklair
Peter K. Schnitzler
Walter Schonfeld
Wayne Schulman
Alexander Schwarz
Juergen Schwinzer
Steven Scott
Alec Shapiro
Don Shapiro
Milton R. Shefter
Leon Silverman
Garrett Smith
Timothy E. Smith
Kimberly Snyder
Stefan Sonnenfeld
John L. Sprung
Joseph N. Tawil
Ira Tiffen
Steve Tiffen
Arthur Tostado
Jeffrey Treanor
Bill Turner
Stephan Ukas-Bradley
Mark Van Horne
Richard Vetter
Dedo Weigert
Steve Weiss
Evans Wetmore
Franz Wieser
Beverly Wood
Jan Yarbrough
Hoyt Yeatman
Irwin M. Young
Michael Zacharia
Bob Zahn
Nazir Zaidi
Michael Zakula
Les Zellan
HONORARY MEMBERS
Col. Edwin E. Al drin Jr.
Col. Michael Collins
Bob Fisher
David MacDonald
Cpt. Bruce McCandless II
Larry Parker
D. Brian Spruill
Marek Zydowicz
78 March 2014 American Cinematographer
Society Welcomes Fraser,
Squires, Van der Veken
New active member Greig Fraser,
ASC, ACS was born in Melbourne,
Australia. He began his career as a stills
photographer before moving into cine-
matography for Exit Films, whose projects
included national and international
commercial campaigns, music videos, and
long-form works such as the documentary
P.I.N.S. Upon transitioning into the freelance
world in 2002, Fraser shot a variety of
projects, including the short films Fuel,
Lucky, Marco Solo, Love This Time and
Stranded. His feature credits include Bright
Star (AC Oct. 09), Let Me In (AC Oct. 10),
Snow White and the Huntsman (AC June
12), Killing Them Softly (AC Oct. 12) and
Zero Dark Thirty (AC Feb. 13).
Buddy Squires, ASC was born and
raised in Cleveland, Ohio. His first foray into
motion pictures came during high school,
when he shot a visual essay about urban
pollution, complete with aerial shots over
industrial mills along the Cuyahoga River.
While studying photography and documen-
tary at Hampshire College in Amherst,
Mass., Squires met and began collaborating
with Ken Burns, and after graduation, the
pair formed Florentine Films.
Squires won an Emmy for his work
on the cinematography team of Americas
Endangered Species: Dont Say Good-bye
(1998), and he has earned another 10
Emmy nominations for his documentary
work. He received an Academy Award
nomination for The Statue of Liberty (1986).
He has also been honored with the IDA
Outstanding Documentary Cinematogra-
phy Award (2007), as well as the Crystal
Heart Award. His recent credits include
Salinger, The Central Park Five and Ethel.
A native of Belgium, Stijn Van der
Veken, ASC, SBC studied film at the Insti-
tut des Arts de Diffusion. He began his
career as a camera assistant and eventually
began shooting Belgian television series,
including the documentaries Shadow of the
Cross and Salmon for Corleone, and the
dramas Katarakt, Emperor of Taste and
Wolven. His credits include the features
Tied Together, Zot van A. and Wolf (2010),
and the short films Death of a Shadow
and Murk Light.
Bogehegn, Weiss, Killam
Named Associates
New associate member Jens
Bogehegn is a founding member of
Zacuto, U.S.A. He holds degrees from
Drake University and Columbia College.
He met future business partner Steve
Weiss in 1986 while working as a director
of photography and camera operator. In
2000, they formed Zacuto, which began
as a production house before evolving into
a rental facility and then a manufacturer of
custom camera-support accessories. With
Zacuto, Bogehegn has helped design and
manufacture more than 340 camera
accessories.
Steve Weiss has served as a
photographer, director and producer for
more than 30 years. Before founding
Zacuto with Jens Bogehegn, he and Boge-
hegn collaborated on more than 600
corporate, commercial, political and fash-
ion productions. Since 2000, Weiss has
focused on fine-art photography, Web-
series producing and directing, and prod-
uct design. Through Zacuto Films, which
he and Bogehegn launched in 2008,
Weiss has directed and produced such
Web series as The Great Camera
Shootout, FilmFellas, BTS, Critics and Light
and Shadows.
Lori Killam serves as marketing
executive at Panavision Woodland Hills.
She began her career with Panavision in
1994, working in the camera-rental
department as the customer-service super-
visor. From 1996-2000, she was an execu-
tive assistant to ASC associate Robert
Harvey. Killam was named marketing
executive in 2001.
Clubhouse News
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Top to bottom: Greig Fraser, ASC, ACS;
Buddy Squires, ASC; Stijn Van der Veken, ASC, SBC;
Ed Lachman, ASC (left) and director Gaspar No at the
Galerie Cinma in Paris.
www.theasc.com March 2014 79
Lachmans Photos Displayed
in Paris
The Galerie Cinma in Paris
recently hosted Ed Lachman:
Photos/Montage, a show that presented a
collection of Ed Lachman, ASCs still
photos and collages, as well as frames
from a number of the features hes
photographed over the course of his
career. Highlights of the collection
included Polaroid photos Lachman took
during the production of Im Not There
(AC Nov. 07), as well as a frame from the
last shot actor River Phoenix completed
on the film Dark Blood. Lachman was on
hand in Paris for the shows opening.
Woolsey Celebrates Centennial
Ralph Woolsey, ASC recently
celebrated his 100th birthday with a party
at the Clubhouse. Woolsey was joined by
family, friends and fellow members, many
of whom stepped to the microphone to
share recollections from Woolseys
decades-spanning, storied career, during
which he earned Emmy nominations for
his work on the series Maverick, 77
Sunset Strip and It Takes a Thief (he won
for the latter). Woolseys credits also
include episodes of the series Lawman
and Batman, as well as the features The
New Centurions, The Iceman Cometh,
Mother, Jugs and Speed and The Great
Santini.
1. Ralph Woolsey, ASCs 100th birthday was celebrated
at the Clubhouse; 2. revelers turn their attention to
the man of the hour; 3. Robert Primes, ASC signs the
guest book; 4. Woolsey admires his cake; 5. Richard
Crudo, ASC congratulates Woolsey; 6. ASC members
Owen Roizman (second from left) and Bill Roe enjoy
the party with their wives, Mona and Kathy;
7. Woolsey thanks the attendees.
Errata
A caption on page 52 in last
months profile of Dean Cundey, ASC
(Cool, Calm, Creative), incorrectly
identified a subject as Cundeys wife,
Tisha. Dean and Tisha are pictured at
right.
In the same issue, the photos
from the ASC Master Class (Learning
from the Masters) were all taken by Alex
Lopez, whose credit was omitted.
1. 2.
3. 4.
5.
6.
7.
80 March 2014 American Cinematographer
When you were a child, what film made the strongest impres-
sion on you?
Joan of Arc (1948). I was 11, and I watched Ingrid Bergman in a Long
Beach theater twice a weekend for a month. I also loved the Buck
Rogers serials.
Which cinematographers, past or present, do you most
admire?
The work of Robert Surtees [ASC] was the
real deal, realism on the screen, much like
the work of Haskell Wexler [ASC]. Also,
who could forget Billy Fraker [ASC], Ph.D.?
What sparked your interest in photog-
raphy?
I always seemed to have a camera in my
hand. I had nine aunts and uncles and 25
cousins in Los Angeles, and I was desig-
nated the family photographer.
Where did you train and/or study?
I studied fine-art photography at Los Ange-
les City College, and then I studied cinema
at USC and did a final year in UCLAs
theater-arts program.
Who were your early teachers or mentors?
Ralph Woolsey [ASC] was my main cinematography teacher at USC,
and Robert Surtees kept me on the straight path as my mentor. He
mentored me while he was training his son, Bruce.
What are some of your key artistic influences?
Raphaels natural-light paintings, Edward Westons black-and-white
prints, and the work of Charis Wilson, Westons wife, muse and
printer.
How did you get your first break in the business?
In my first year after college, I shot a documentary short about Craig
Breedloves land-speed record, The Spirit of America, which was
nominated for an Academy Award. I met Nelson Tyler and other
great pilots like Dave Jones, James Gavin and John Sarviss. I was
typed as a jock cinematographer and was picked to shoot second
unit for Micky Moore, the greatest second-unit director; we made 30
action films together over 35 years. John Sarviss and I are still shoot-
ing aerials after 28 years as a team, most recently for Jack Green
[ASC] on Left Behind.
What has been your most satisfying moment on a project?
Seeing an entire audience jump out of its chairs during Jaws when
the dead mans head appeared in the hole in the side of the fisher-
mans boat. I was the underwater cinematographer, and we shot
that in [editor] Verna Fields swimming pool after the answer print
was finished!
Have you made any memorable blun-
ders?
I made arrangements to do a short film
with Marlon Brando on his Tahitian island
during his sons 12th birthday party. The
location was a rundown dental clinic
given to Marlon and his wife. The idea
was to film Marlon as he walked around
and explained the history of the flowers
growing there, the clinic and his family
village. The Kodachrome I loaded in the
camera was the wrong speed. Enough
said.
What is the best professional advice
youve ever received?
Never say no!
What recent books, films or artworks have inspired you?
Storaros Scrivere con la Luce (Writing with Light) trilogy and Zoom
magazine, the finest in fine-arts photography.
Do you have any favorite genres, or genres you would like to
try?
Anything black-and-white. I love to experiment with digital cameras
like the Red Epic-M Monochrome.
If you werent a cinematographer, what might you be doing
instead?
I would be a practicing artist and teaching fine-art black-and-white
photography.
Which ASC cinematographers recommended you for
membership?
Vilmos Zsigmond and Owen Roizman.
How has ASC membership impacted your life and career?
It has allowed me to associate with the worlds best cinematogra-
phers. Im proud to be a member of the good ol boys, as Conrad
Hall [ASC] used to say. Cinematographers are a brotherhood.
Rexford Metz, ASC Close-up
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