True Blood

True Blood, the death-obsessed HBO television series that portrays vampires as a misunderstood, oppressed minority, begins its fth season in June. In a world with dozens of vampire entertainment options, the show has earned such a devoted following that it has become HBOs most-watched series since The Sopranos. Recognized by critics and fans, True Blood has also received more than a dozen Emmy nominations. Based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries novels by Charlaine Harris, the storyline centers on a telepathic waitress (Anna Paquin) and her blood-soaked adventures in a small Louisiana town. True Blood, according to the story, is a synthetic blood substitute that helps the undead keep their thirsts quenched. But for some reason, regular folks are still less than accepting of the pale, persecuted yet sexy Vampires. Cinematography duties on the series are shared by David Klein, ASC and Romeo Tirone, who shoot alternating episodes. Tirone has enjoyed a prolic career as a cinematographer, and in addition to shooting, he has directed episodes of True Blood and Showtimes Dexter. Klein broke into lmmaking in the 1990s with Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy, and has added more than 30 narrative projects to his resume, including Good Time Max, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Red State, as well as episodes of Flight 29 Down and Pushing Daisies.

HBOs Vampire Tale Enters Fifth Season

John B. Aronson, Joseph Gallagher, Matthew Jensen, Stephen St. John and Checco Varese, ASC, AMC all previously contributed to the series. Describing the look of True Blood, Tirone says, One of the major things that separates True Blood from most shows is that we shoot on lm. That helps us keep our look consistent. There is nothing like the romance that lm gives to a show. We shoot a lot of night exteriors, and are very careful to keep our night look constant. Darkness is a big part of the character of True Blood, we are always on the edge trying not to be too safe with our look. Slick and sexy, with an edge, adds Klein. I try to take the sharpness off of the edge a bit, because I think when youre dealing with such supernatural material, if the look starts to stray too far from reality, everything begins to feel phony and lame. So at its core, the lighting of the show, for me, needs to feel based in reality. Generally, the approach features wider lenses with somewhat saturated colors. The lenses are usually COOKE S4 primes, with the occasional use of ANGENIEUX OPTIMO zooms. Klein says he prefers to move closer and do a close-up on a 50mm rather than using a longer lens and hanging back. To me, it feels more like a

More importantly, I lean on lm so heavily every day. I know that I can blow out a highlight by ve stops and its going to look gorgeous.
feature lm that way, he says. The combination of the Cookes and the Angenieux zoom is one of the best Ive found, but I still prefer the look of the primes. An episode is usually shot in 10-15 days. The main format is 3-perf 35mm, usually shot with a single ARRICAM and KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219 and KODAK VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 5207. But Klein notes they use a wide variety of cameras and formats when the story requires. Weve used a hand-cranked ARRIFLEX, CANON 5Ds, REDs, ARRI 235s and 435s, says Klein. Our stories contain many ashbacks, and we use many different tools to depict them. Well sometimes push one or two stops to add some contrast and grain, just noticeable enough to make it dance and that grain is wonderful. Its one of the best tools I have at my disposal. Its something I really miss when I shoot digitally. Grain can be an actresss best friend. During season four, Klein used the technique for a sequence that ashed back to a 1920s Louisiana sharecroppers house at nighttime. I went all moonlight and oil-burning lamps inside the house, he says. I knew that I wanted to desaturate the image and add grain, so I did a two-stop push and asked my dailies colorist to drop the color out by 60 percent. The initial idea was to shoot 16mm, but we wanted to do something with our existing equipment, and this was the solution. The grain really sang. We were already rating at 2,000 ASA, but at times I underexposed the negative even further. After lifting the image up, it was like looking at a faded, old photograph from that era. In nal color, we desaturated everything that was brown and blue a little further than anything else, so the reds and skin tones held out the best. Suzuki Ingerslev, our production designer, really helped me out with this by painting the house very neutral and keeping most of the color out of the frame. It really felt like a faded, color photograph from that era that had sat in the sun for too long. After a series of cost comparisons, the production determined that the choice of origination format was not a money issue. (Executive producer) Gregg Fienberg and I decided to keep the show on lm, says Klein. The current crop of digital cameras is amazing, but to switch a show from lm to digital will change the look of the show. That was one of my main arguments: If youre happy with the way True Blood looks right now, then dont change it. More importantly, I lean on lm so heavily every day, he says. I know that I can blow out a highlight by ve stops and its going to look gorgeous. I know that a certain actors face, when lit one-and-a-half stops under, is going to glow perfectly. Theres

no monitor I have to babysit. I can light by eye, through the lens, instead of going back and forth between the monitor and the set, which takes time. Also, with lm, I can lock in the look by exposing the negative a certain way, which you cant currently do with digital. With digital, you expose to capture all the information, and then you push it around in post. Youre basically creating the entire look in a color suite. I prefer to lock 90 percent of the look into the negative on the set, and then ne tune it in the color suite. The post facility is Technicolor, where Peter Ritter serves as dailies colorist and Scott Klein handles nal color. They know what I mean when I say, Make this scene almost dark enough to get me red, says Klein with a laugh. Key grip Bud Scott introduced Klein to CHIMERA cloth, which he uses for large, diffuse sources. I tend to go somewhat big on the show, says Klein. Vampires come out at night, so we have a lot of night exteriors, and we often use Condors and big sources last week we had two 20K Fresnels to simulate moonlight. CHIMERA is one of the thickest diffusion materials Ive used, so it takes a lot of repower and manpower to make it soft, especially when we go through two rags. True Blood provides the cinematographers and their crews with an ever-shifting array of challenges and opportunities. Whether its a modern-day scene shot on one of the shows six stages on The Lot at Santa Monica Boulevard and Formosa in Hollywood, or a 1920s ashback on a remote location, they are ready.

2-perf Format
Director Hyung-Suk Lee and director of cinematography Sung-Kuk Lee shot the short lm Two Boys and a Sheep with funds from the Korean Film Councils Production Support Program for Independent Films. For several reasons, the lmmakers chose to use 2-perf KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219, making it the rst Korean production in that format. The lm is about two diametrically-opposed lifestyles, homosexuality and heterosexuality, explains Sung-Kuk. We wanted to portray these lifestyles with the dramatic space they deserve, and this would be almost impossible in a digital format. Only 35mm lm accurately conveys the emotions of the characters, and allows audiences not merely to see or hear the movie, but also to experience it. The movie had to be lmed right before sunset with the unstable glow from the sun, and we knew that 5219 Film would provide the appropriate dynamic range, adds the cinematographer. We attempted to use natural light as much as possible with the correct exposure, which is one of the advantages of the lm format. By enhancing shadow detail and by setting highlighting around faces, we accentuated the skin tones to describe the emotional state of each character. Using different lenses (a wide-angle lens for outdoor shooting and a telephoto for indoors), we were able to introduce variation into the shots, so that despite the fact that all the action takes place in one day, the audience is engaged by visual clues. The two creatives agreed that shooting in the 2-perf format gave them advantages in terms of both budget and time. Sung-Kuk says, We went through test shooting during pre-production and concluded that there is little difference in image quality between the 2-perf and

Advantageous to Budget and Schedule

4-perf format. You might think theres an inevitable frame loss since 2-perf is done with half the existing frame, but by setting frame loss to zero, enormous nancial resources can be saved. In other words, choosing 2-perf gave us the exibility to spend on other production elements such as production design, lighting, crew and actors. The 2-perf format also reduces the number of roll changes, thus reducing loading time, he continues. This meant we were free from the rolling out effect that can interfere with the actors emotional ow. The lmmakers point out that one of the last shots of the movie was also one of the most important. They wanted to shoot it handheld and it was a long takelonger than one minutewhich tracked ve characters and an animal. Since the 2-perf format ts twice as many widescreen images on a given length of 35mm lm, slashing raw stock and processing costs in half compared to conventional 4-perf 35mm formats, the lmmakers report they felt free to set as many takes for this scene as needed because the 2-perf format was so cost effective. A DI was completed using scanned 4K images that were recorded out to lm. Two Boys and a Sheep will be submitted to various international lm festivals as a 35mm print.
Photo: Taking a dolly shot on the panther, Director of Cinematography Sung-Kuk Lee follows a man (Kwan-Jae Ko) from the back to take a tracking shot. (Credit: Courtesy of Hyung-Suk Lee)

What keeps me most engaged in this show, and what is also exhausting, is that were constantly given new storylines, new ashbacks, new stories to tell within our story, Klein says. Every episode has something that requires a different look. It denitely keeps us on our toes. Its one of the best aspects of shooting a show about vampires, adds Tirone. They have lived so long that it lets us shoot ashbacks from any era.

Photos: Previous page/top: David Klein, ASC. Center: (L-R) Rutina Wesley and Anna Paquin. This page: (L-R) Stephen Moyer and Romeo Tirone. (credit: John P. Johnson/HBO)

Only 35mm film accurately conveys the emotions of the characters, and allows audiences not merely to see or hear the movie, but also to experience it.

You shot this in 3-perf Super 35mm. Which cameras and lenses did you employ? I shot the lm on ARRI ST and LT cameras and COOKE S4 lenses. I love those lenses. They are slightly on the warm side and are very clean. I own a set thats how much I love them! I usually shoot two cameras and operate one the B camera. I had an incredible operator in Colin Anderson who brought a lot to the table. I gave Colin a lot of room to bring his storytelling abilities to the lm. How did camera movement factor into the visual approach? We were always mindful of moving the camera. The cameras were on dollies, sliders, and STEADICAMS. Every scene had a little bit of camera movement to it to help draw you in and help you focus on what was happening with the actors. Camera movement makes the audience feel like they are there as opposed to being just an observer, and that is what really helps them relate to this lm, as well. Which scene sticks in your memory the most? There are a couple emotional scenes with Michelle (Pfeiffer) and Chris (Pine), and I found myself crying behind the camera. When youre behind the camera and you start crying you go back to that moment when you were younger and deciding you want to make lms that you believe in them. The actor and actress have taken you somewhere. Its one of those extremely rare moments of This is what I always wanted to do. Youre an artist, youre a technician, youre a manager, and you can become so preoccupied with whats at hand to accomplish that day that when you get those moments, its so special. When lighting interiors through windows, what are you using to get enough light for your exposure choice? To hear cinematographer Salvatore Totino, ASC, AIC talk about his latest lm, People Like Us, you can tell the project resonated deeply with him. The DreamWorks SKG lm, about a man who must deliver part of his deceased fathers fortune to a sister he has never met, stars Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks and Michelle Pfeiffer in writer-producer Alex Kurtzmans feature directing debut. The story, written by Kurtzman, is quite a departure from his usual fantasy and science-ction fare (Transformers, Star Trek, Alias and Fringe), and it really gripped Totino. I equate this lm to a modern-day version of the psychology that was behind Italian neo-realism lms, says Totino. This is a real story that has been ctionalized to some degree but is accessible to everybody. With that storyline, a lot of people will turn around and say I know somebody like that or that has happened to me or will know what it is like to be an illegitimate child. Its so real, and that is what drew me to the lm. What did you feel you could bring to the film as far as a visual approach? Totino: My whole idea with the lm was to help create a real environment so that the viewer can relate to the story. For example, we would be inside a house in the middle of the day, and it would be lit from outside so it feels tangible. Did shooting on lm help in your approach as opposed to using a digital format? Absolutely. If I had my choice, Id always shoot lm as much as possible. Which lm stocks did you use? We shot KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219, KODAK VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 5207 and a little bit of KODAK VISION2 100T Color Negative Film 5212, which I used on a few daytime exteriors. Most of the time I chose 5207, including for the majority of daytime interiors. For nighttime shots, did you do any pushing of the lm stock? I didnt need to do it. I worked in the toe of the lm when I could, and there is a lot of latitude there to work with. I didnt want to change the grain structure at all by pushing the lm because I was trying to be clean and not articial. I was very conscious of making it feel very naturally lit. Considering the cast, was there any special lighting for them? No, and that was a ne line to walk because it was all about keeping it genuine. I wasnt trying to be extra conscious of beauty. I wanted them to look good, but I wanted it to look real and not over the top. The lm is very emotional, and you forget you are watching a movie. I give credit to Alex (Kurtzman) for that. Although this is his rst feature as a director, I felt like I was working with a seasoned lmmaker. I was very impressed with how prepared he was. It sounds like there was restraint in having the cinematography and look call attention to itself. I try to do that with most of my lms, unless it is something like a science-ction thriller where the look is part of the story. Alex wanted the lm to look good, and gave me a lot of room as to where I wanted to go with it. In this lm, the look is there to help tell the story but not distract from it. Different locations called for different lighting elements. We shot a scene in Coles, which is a restaurant and bar in downtown Los Angeles with very dark windows and a dark interior. I lit that with 240,000 watts of light through the windows. We used two 100,000-watt SOFTSUNS, plus a bunch of 18Ks. When you see the scene, you dont even feel like its lit. In Michelles house interiors, I used some 18K ARRIMAX HMIs outside. Do you complement this lighting with anything inside the interior locations? Very little is used inside. I try to use a little bit of bounce. But thats what is so great about the lm stocks you have this latitude and contrast there that allowed me to work in this environment. I would have had to approach it differently if I did it digitally. Did you encounter a shot or scene that turned out to be more complicated than anticipated? There is a night scene with Chris and his mom on a bench in Laurel Canyon overlooking the city, and we had talked about approaching it a certain way. When we got there with the actors and blocked the

scene, it wasnt working the way we had planned. We only had one night to do it. Its a low-budget lm so we couldnt come back, and we were ghting against the rising sun. We simplied it and changed everything the coverage, the angles, the camera movement and it turned out great. We shot listed the script beforehand, but sometimes you have to change it up when the players get there. We had that exibility to do that, and it was great to work that way. Thats the way I work with Ron Howard, as well. Another good thing about this lm is that we worked really hard to make sure we had a lot of coverage, which gave Alex more choices editorially. That is unusual in a lower budget lm because you dont have the time. We shot for 42 days with two days of additional shooting. We had a great crew and the actors were dialed in. The coverage enhanced the lm. Who handled your dailies and digital intermediate? Deluxe Laboratories developed the lm, and we did dailies at EFILM. Ben Estrada did my dailies as well as the DI color timing. I viewed dailies in digital form on DVD, but I got to look at some prints when I needed to. The lm colorist was Yvan Lucas.

Familial Ties Uncovered in Touching Drama

People Like Us

Did you use the DI to create a look or was that done primarily in camera beforehand? We captured most of the look in camera. The DI was more like conventional color timing except for a few spots where we did some Power Windows, and that was only necessary because while we were lming, it would have taken extra time to ag off and bring down the lighting on a particular wall. Instead, we used that time to get more coverage through an extra setup or two. Looking back, what do you take away from this movies undertaking? It was an incredible experience, and working with those professionals in a low-budget world helped make a difference. Producer Clayton Townsend with whom I did my rst feature Any Given Sunday worked really hard to give us what we needed to tell the story. Ida Random, the production designer, worked with one hand tied behind her back because she didnt have the funds but gave us sets that were fantastic. She did a great job and helped me tell the story. The other asset was the collaborative relationship with the director. Alex felt comfortable and trusted me, and that collaboration always makes a difference.

Photos: Left page: (L-R) Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks, and Michael Hall DAddario. Center: (L-R) Michael Hall DAddario and Elizabeth Banks. Right page: (L-R) Salvatore Totino and Alex Kurtzman on set. (Credit: DreamWorks Distribution Co., LLC. All rights reserved.)

Shooting lm was an easy choice for me. It allowed me to shoot quickly, and it brought about the natural look and mood I was after.
VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 5219. The initial timing was handled by Sparkle at Technicolor in Los Angeles. The agency was Deutsch, New York. The agency was very happy that we took it in a more comedic direction, says Pster. I think its smart, because it helps the spot stand out. Going a little bit over the top, and seeing Salma in those humanizing situations makes it memorable, something that people talk about. And of course if it catches the attention of the audience, and makes them smile, they are much more likely to be paying attention when the button identies the product at the end. Pster also turned to 35mm lm for a completely different type of spot, this one lmed at a track in Spain. In it, two cars are lined up as if to race. The engines rev, and the helmet visors are ipped down. Cut to a close-up of the key counterintuitively, turning the engine off. Car doors open, and a foot emerges to push each car slowly forward. Slowly, the viewer realizes that the race is just two cars coasting. Eventually, one pulls away. The idea is to demonstrate that Michelin tires are designed to be more efcient with less resistance than their competitors tires. The spot, titled Hills, was one of four for Michelin that Pster shot and directed over four days at the track. Again, he shot full frame 4-perf 35mm in spherical format. This time, the stock was KODAK VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 5207. It was a terric idea and a great, interesting way to illustrate the point, says Pster. The producers suggested that I shoot digital, saying that it would be cheaper, but I didnt believe it. There are circumstances when shooting lm is actually cheaper. In this case, I found a way to minimize the costs, because I felt it was important. I was traveling to a foreign country, and using an almost entirely Spanish-speaking crew, with the exception of my key grip Ray Garcia and rst AD Peter Jackson.

Once again, I had a very tight schedule and I wanted the best light of the day. The nal shot looks right into the sun and I needed the latitude. I needed to be able to shoot fast to grab the camera and run. Pster laid an ARRI 235 directly on the track to get a low angle. He had an ARRI 435 mounted on an Ultimate arm, which he operated while Dean Bailey, a colleague from the Dark Knight shoots, drove the vehicle. An old friend from lm school at AFI, cinematographer Flavio Labiano, operated another camera and grabbed additional unit shots. It was fun and exciting to do all four of these spots in comfortable fashion, without having to worry about the blazing sun in the shot, says Pster. The ability to shoot fast without compromise, and its simplicity are my main reasons for shooting lm. Not surprisingly, Pster plans to originate on celluloid for his upcoming feature directorial debut as well. Ill be shooting lm, he says. As a director, Im thinking in a new way, but Im going to apply every lesson Ive learned as a cinematographer. Im not going to compromise or leave behind the visual integrity that I applied in the features I shot.

Wally Pster Brings Big Screen Gloss to Commercials

Oscar-winning cinematographer Wally Pster, ASC, BSC recently brought his sharp eye for narrative to one of the most well-known ad campaigns in recent history: the National Milk Mustache got milk? Campaign. Pster is known for his arresting images in the feature lm arena, on hits like The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Inception, Moneyball, and the forthcoming The Dark Knight Rises. His insistence on the highest possible image quality and the support of director Christopher Nolan has led him to shoot critical sequences in 65mm and IMAX lm formats. The results speak for themselves The Dark Knight, for example, was widely praised while raking in more than $1 billion for Warner Bros. Pster is now embarking on a new chapter in his career, making the leap from director of photography to director. Currently in the early stages of preproduction on a major, high-budget feature lm that Nolan is executive producing, Pster says that his focus is now on character and story but that doesnt mean hes leaving behind everything hes learned about telling stories with images. Of course images are always going to be important to me, he says. But the new component is storytelling through performance. The broader aspects of storytelling are really where my head is at these days. Pster is not exactly a rst-time director. Hes been working as a directorcinematographer on commercials for six years, and he logged time in the editing room when he was a news and documentary cameraman in the early years of his career. But the got milk? campaign presented his rst opportunity to dabble in comedy. He had a willing accomplice Salma Hayek was onboard as the talent. When I rst saw the boards for got milk? Midnight Run, I wasnt sure how funny we could make it, Pster recalls. Then I had a conversation with Salma, and she really helped take it in a more deeply comic, at times even slapstick, direction. She wanted to show off her comic chops, which I thought was a great way to go. We worked the boards over to incorporate broader humor, while keeping the narrative extremely abbreviated and efcient, which is whats needed for a commercial. In the spot, Hayek returns home late, dressed to the nines and looking glamorous. She takes a milk container from the fridge and discovers its empty. Needing milk for her childs breakfast in the morning, she ventures out to a convenience store, which is out of milk, and another that is closed. It begins to rain and she breaks a heel. While desperately driving past a cow pasture at dawn, Hayek attempts to crawl through a fence, only to be chased off by the cow. Eventually, desperation drives her to ag down a milk delivery van, and the driver hands her a gallon of milk. Comically disheveled, she makes it home in time to provide breakfast for her daughter, and to enjoy a glass of milk herself. The kicker is that unfortunately, the cereal box is discovered to be empty. The spot was lmed over two days on a variety of locations north of Los Angeles. As a director-cinematographer, I knew when and how I wanted to shoot, says Pster. I obviously had strong feelings about how I wanted to present it and what format I wanted to use, and it was very important to have the exposure latitude of lm. I rmly believe the spot required all the gloss of a feature lm. I wanted to catch the beauty of the early morning light on lm, and I wanted the latitude to let the sun blow out a touch once we did get to morning. Shooting lm was an easy choice for me. It allowed me to shoot quickly, and it brought about the natural look and mood I was after. The got milk? Midnight Run spot was lmed in 4-perf format using the full 35mm negative. The stock was KODAK

Photos: Salma Hayek stars in a spot for the National Milk Mustache got milk? Campaign (credit: courtesy of AKA Media Inc. for MilkPEP)

An Epic Surf Movie With A Twist

Sure a global, civilization-ending apocalypse has wiped out the world as we know it, but maybe things arent so bad after all. Thats the idea director Joe Guglielmino sought to explore in his latest surf documentary, Year Zero. Guglielmino runs the entertainment division for Globe International, a surf and skate gear and apparel maker. If anyone is going to survive an apocalypse with smiles on their faces, it would probably be surfers, because as long as everyone is safe and they can nd a wave, they are pretty happy, says Guglielmino, who was inspired by the conceptual surf lms made by George Greenough and Jack McCoy in the 1970s and 1980s. Though categorized as documentaries, conceptual surf lms like Year Zero are experimental in nature and almost music video-like. Surng itself and communing with nature is a psychedelic experience in that it is transformative, he explains. The goal is to try to get the viewer as close to that experience as possible by using high frame rates to slow down time and music to really drive that home, honing in on little moments. A big part of his aesthetic, and by extension the Globe brand aesthetic, is the use of KODAK Super 16mm Film to capture the visuals. Ive always had an incredible afnity for lm the tactile nature of it; loading mags with your hands; its durability and ruggedness; the incredible latitude and versatility of the Kodak stocks; and of course, the look, he notes. It has an incredible quality that is still unsurpassed, in my opinion. As far as a cost comparison, he says shooting and processing lm versus renting and shooting high-end high denition was practically a wash. The crew also needed minimal gear to get through customs as efciently as possible, and oftentimes they have to swim to beaches with their gear in watertight Pelican cases. Our production schedule is very different than traditional lms, in that we are completely location based and also completely at the whim of Mother Nature, he explains. We have to chase swells to the far corners of the globe and often nd ourselves waiting for weeks once we get there for everything to line up just right so we can get what we need. When we tested and priced everything out based on length of rentals, durability, etc., and compared Super 16mm against the best digital cameras and workows, we decided that shooting lm was the best option for us. Starring Globe-sponsored riders who are well known in the surf community, Year Zero was shot in Western Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, Southwest France, the north coast of Spain and Costa Rica. Exact locations are never identied because when it comes to discovered waves, surfers are a protective bunch. Their gear consisted of tripods, a couple ARRI SR-2 High Speeds and two 35mm CANON 15-600mm zooms modied for Super 16 (one by Optex, one by Century Precision Optics), which doubles the focal length. Cameras were loaded with KODAK VISION2 50D Color Negative Film 7201 and KODAK VISION3 250D Color Negative Film 7207. After the 12-month shoot, around 40,000 feet of lm had been shot. Guglielminos longtime director of photography, Scott Soens, actually taught him how to shoot because they realized two angles on the same action were better for editing. Normally, I manned the longer lens, says Soens, and then Joe would be just a little bit wider and at more of a straight-on angle, which was free of obstructions in front of the lens in order to get the clip that makes the trick. I would experiment with foreground, ramping speeds, rack focusing, extreme angles and we can cut back and forth between the two angles. I usually speed ramp after the surfer drops in, right when he starts his session and then return to normal speed after hes nished. Adds Guglielmino, With long focal lengths, we try to build the frame so that youre not just seeing a guy and ocean. We want a background, a foreground and to have the athlete performing between the two and then maximize the amount of action happening in the frame.

I love working with film because you dont have to do much to it to make it look beautiful.
The lmmakers tried for locations that lent themselves to a post-apocalyptic landscape. For instance, cites the director, along the southwest coast of France we shot where there were World War II bunkers jutting out from the sand, using those in the foreground to look like ruins backed by these incredible waves. The third integral member of this tight crew is water cinematographer Rick Jakovich, whos out in the waves with a MILIKEN DBM 55 Super 16mm camera in a waterproof housing. Some of the most stunning shots in the lm are done by Rick, Guglielmino says. Jakovich was usually on a 10mm lens to capture intense shots when the wave barrels, and also used a spring-wound Bolex with a longer lens to focus in on surng intricacies. Citing a ratio of one cloudy day for every three sunny days, Soens shoots clean at a stop of T16 without any special processing, though a roll here or there may be pushed when needed. A 72-degree shutter helps with clarity on high-speed shots. While the SR-2 cameras go up to 150 fps, the MILIKEN is twice as fast. A familiarity with the surfers helps them know what to expect. We know what the surfers are like, what their body positions are and can pick the best angles for each surfer, says Soens. Thats important to make a trick look much better. Soens usually counts on spending four to six hours a day shooting. The surfers perform in rotating groups so they are able to take breaks. The cameramen dont have that luxury. I denitely have pulled nine-hour days on the beach just by myself, Soens says with a laugh. Everyone on board knows that this is a production, and needs to be out there performing as best as they can. The riders are athletes, and they really put their time in out there. After each location shoot, Rushes in Hollywood did 1080p transfers supervised by telecine colorist Gino Panero. Guglielmino and another core member of the team, editor George Manzanilla, would then make their shot selects. Working in ProRes 422 HQ at full resolution in Final Cut Pro, Manzanilla would edit the lm, create the looks and composite, built upon a score of songs from retro rock band Black Mountain. Final output was in ProRes 422 HQ to a BLU-RAY disc master. I love working with lm because you dont have to do much to it to make it look beautiful, Manzanilla says. The scene would dictate if we should add a layer of Super 16. Sometimes a beautiful bright sunset shot would look awesome on top of a shot of a girl putting her hands up to the sky. Most of the compositing was pretty simple transfer modes. Were just overlaying visual elements on top of other visual elements, using three or four layers in a shot at most. Though lm has the grain aesthetic the lmmakers like, some footage was grunged up further with overlays of lm grains, dust and inverted white lm leader. Apocalyptic cut scenes throughout the lm tie the surng locations together. Shot in the deserts of Southern California, these feature people cavorting around decaying castoffs, bonres and Mad Max-like muscle cars. Most was shot with a ZEISS 11-110mm zoom, but the lmmakers went longer on the car scenes. The cars racing through the desert were shot long lens at 24 frames per second at 600mm you get a little camera shake that adds intensity to the driving scenes, notes Guglielmino. Even Manzanilla got into the act by shooting cut-scene footage on Super 8mm with a BEAULIEU 4008 converted to a 16:9 aspect ratio by Pro8mm in Burbank. He shot the same 50D and 250D Films cut down for Super 8, and Pro8mm processed and transferred the footage. I grew up shooting Super 8 lm and stealing my dads cameras to do it, he points out. Its fun to be able to use it professionally, and it was easy to integrate into this grainy, grungy, post-apocalyptic scenario. After 18 months of shooting and postproduction, the lmmakers created a visually and sonically mesmerizing lm. So many people watch the lm and keep saying how beautiful it is or how amazing the shots look and they cant quite gure out why they love it so much. I tell them what they are responding so strongly to is the magic of lm. And we shot it all on cameras that are way older than we are! Year Zero won Surfer Magazines Movie of the Year Award, and is now available on iTunes, BLU-RAY disc and DVD.

Photos: Shot on location around the world Year Zero delivers a unique concept with stunning visuals that capture the essence of surfing in a novel setting. (Credit: Courtesy of Globe International)

Gate of Hell and A Diary of Chujis Travels

BEFORE AFTER

Restored
BEFORE AFTER

IMAGICA in Japan recently restored several major titles, including such classics as Gate of Hell (Jigokumon) and A Diary of Chujis Travels (Chuji tabi nikki: Goyo hen). Gate of Hell is the rst Japanese feature lm shot on EASTMAN Color Negative Film 5248 / Tungsten EI25. Directed by Teinsuke Kinugasa in 1953, this movie was awarded the Grand Prize in Cannes in 1954 and also won two Academy Awards. The restoration was a joint project of Kadokawa Pictures and the National Film Center (NFC) of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, who conducted research and led the project as lm archivists. The intention was to faithfully restore the original 1953 look of EASTMAN Color Film. We found surviving materials in three-color separation black-and-white master positives, color dupe negatives, and a release print of the lm, explains Norimasa Ishida, IMAGICA Corp. technical advisor. Sadly, the original camera negative lms were lost. We compared the three materials and chose the most information-rich master for each scene. In some scenes, only the release

print was available and in those instances, we had to later erase the English subtitle with Reliance MediaWorks partnership and support. After the project planning, the actual restoration process took over six months. The most difficult part was the re-registration of the RGB separated images, says Kazuki Miura, IMAGICA Corp. archiving specialist. The films were shrunk by aging, and could not stabilize with the pin registration of todays scanners. One of our members came up with the idea of customizing the registration pins of the scanner by physically curving it for this project, and this achieved ner alignment and worked out well throughout the rolls, says Ishida. Several IMAGICA retirees were brought back for the projects as they were actually involved with the original postproduction. They helped us to understand the early color motion picture process. Originally, three-colorseparation black-and-white master positives of Gate of Hell were not made. For domestic release, direct print films were used. But as the film started getting

acclaimed internationally, the studio decided to create dupe negatives for further demand of the release print. That is why the three-colorseparation black-and-white master positives were very carefully created, notes Miura. In Japan, as the quality of intermediate films increased, three-colorseparation black-and-white master positives were no longer made after a while. The next step was grading. Kadokawa and NFC agreed that color should be graded to reproduce the look of 1950s EASTMAN Color Film. Fortunately, legendary front-line cinematographer Fujio Morita (JSC) who was a camera assistant on Gate of

Hell understood the intention of art and color of the lm, and was able to supervise the grading to revive the vibrant look, says Ishida. Kadokawa and NFC were very happy and excited to see the restored EASTMAN Color Film. Miura explains that because Japanese lms are not as internationally viewed as Hollywood content, it is not widely known that Japanese lms are being restored on a regular basis. In addition to NFC, major domestic studios have also been investing in their heritage titles over the past seven to eight years. The aim of restoration varies depending on the country or archivist, adds Ishida. In Japan, the aim is

often to revive the original look. This means researching past technologies as well as the intentions of the filmmakers instead of making improvements or enhancements in addition to the original image, although it is possible with todays technology. The digitally restored master was recorded to KODAK VISION3 Color Digital Intermediate Film 2254, and printed on KODAK VISION Color Print Film 2383. A Diary of Chujis Travels is a silent, tinted black-andwhite print. Made in 1927 and considered one of the best lms of the pre-war period in Japan, this three-part epic had been lost for a long time, but in 1991 a large part of it was found by chance in Hiroshima. Our rst tinted lm restoration project with NFC was in 2008, and we have completed about 17 tinted short lms to date including animation, documentary, short lm and toy lm, says Yoshihiro Matsuo, IMAGICA West Corp. lm processing specialist. The digital restoration project of A Diary of Chujis Travels is a sole-project of NFC, but we had an opportunity to work on

the title. NFCs intention was to restore tinted print lms. Surviving materials were tinted nitrate positive lms which were stored in NFCs storage. The materials were seriously damaged, and dyes were mostly faded. Not many Japanese lms from the 1920s and 1930s survived, but archival groups nd one from time to time. Tinted print lms fell into disuse as talking pictures became more popular because tinting would degrade the quality of the soundtrack. The restoration process involved reinforcing and manually cleaning the surviving materials. A digitally-restored black-and-white dupe negative was then made, and printed on KODAK Black-and-White Print Film 2302 for tinting. Working with badly-damaged nitrate lms was extremely difcult, but we had another challenge after printing, which was tinting, notes Matsuo. As tinted lms from that era are generally quite faded, we closely studied the surviving materials, especially around the perforation area where more dyes remained than image areas. We also researched past restored

titles for references and then decided how much tint was appropriate for Chuji. We discovered that three different dyes were used for tinting, depending on scenes, and we tinted the lm accordingly. We had never tinted a feature-length title, so in order to stabilize colors and density, we needed to modify our specially designed tinting processor. The question then arose, should it be tinted in black and white or restored using the lm color process? We decided to tint in black and white as we felt that this best replicates the original state of the lm, says Matsuo. Also in black and white, the print image consists of silver so the black is cleaner and more pure. In the color lm process, it is like making a color photo copy, so discrepancies in color occur. You cannot achieve uniform color in an original print. They were able to not only bring back the original look of the lm but also restore the past motion picture techniques from scratch. If the original title is made on lm, I believe we should preserve on lm because being faithful to nuance in the original media is the essential factor in

preservation and restoration, says. Matsuo. The texture of black-and-white lm, and the aesthetic impression from the combination of dyes and silver are only replicable on lm. I feel tremendous responsibility with my work, adds Matsuo. We learned about tinting techniques of 100 years ago through this project, and now it is ready to pass down to the next generation. I feel I am standing in between the past and the future, and that makes me feel very proud.

Photos: Across top: Scenes from Gate of Hell before and after restoration (Photo 1953 Kadokawa Pictures. Bottom: L-R Kazuki MIURA, archiving specialist at IMAGICA Corp, Norimasa ISHIDA, technical advisor at IMAGICA Corp. Right: A restored and dyed positive from A Diary of Chujis Travels. (Photo courtesy of National Film Center, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo)

Italian Film Tackles Taboo Subject of Police Brutality

Diaz-Dont Clean Up This Blood reconstructs the events of July 2001 when Italian police unleashed a calculated frenzy of violence on protesters at the G8 Summit. During the scufes the day before, one protester was killed. Just before midnight, more than 300 police ofcers stormed the Diaz school looking for Black Bloc demonstrators. Inside the school were about 90 activists, mostly students from around Europe, along with a handful of foreign journalists preparing to bunk down for the night on the schools oors. As the police burst in, the young demonstrators raised their hands to surrender. Undeterred and unmoved, the police waded in beating up both young and old, male and female indiscriminately. Diaz-Dont Clean Up This Blood is a reconstruction of those terrible days from the viewpoints of the police, the protesters, the victims and the journalists who were caught up in the tragedy. It aims to analyze how frustration can erupt into raw, uncontrollable violence. The movie uses original footage taken at the scene to underline the fact that the lm is based on actual events. Cinematographer Gherardo Gossi takes up the story. Told from different perspectives, the
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camera describes the events of that day, sticking close to the heels of both perpetrators and targets until the whole bloody truth is told. During preparation for the lm, I did a lot of comparison tests to choose the right way to translate such a compelling and sad story into images, explains Gossi. In the end, director Daniele Vicari and I agreed to use 16mm lm for its color depth, the reliability of its lming system which means handling, speed and lightness, and lms ability to provide a striking and solid image. The light grain and the good denition in the blow-up helped me to build a strong image. A digital image would have been too light for this kind of project. I used three KODAK Film stocks, he continues. For the majority of the lm that takes place at night, I used KODAK VISION3 500T Color Negative Film 7219. I chose it for its soft and very useful reading of blacks, and its exibility in DI. For day interiors, I used KODAK VISION3 200T Color Negative Film 7213 for its saturated colors and high resolution. For the remaining day exteriors, I used KODAK VISION2 50D Color Negative Film 7201 for its absent grain setting and engraved colors.

Much of the lm was shot on a set in a backlot built by production designer Marta Maffucci. A greenscreen and inserts of 3-D compositing were included. To facilitate the VFX postproduction, the lmmakers used grain management software to lighten the grain shots and allow for better processing. After processing the VFX, the shots were re-traced in the software to re-grain the image and incorporate with other untreated shots. I worked at the DI with colorist Angelo Francavilla at Technicolor in Rome, says Gossi. Together we modulated the contrast and color saturation curves according to the lms atmosphere. The lm stocks with their tonal ranges, color brilliance and good depth in blacks and highlights helped enormously in this respect.

The lm begins on a warm and sunny day with a comparison between moments of great serenity (very colorful with a normal contrast), and moments of high tension with steadily increasing contrast, Gossi describes. The tension and anxiety take over on the night of the police raid, and the contrast increases at the same time as the color desaturates. The darkness and horror are mixed with the chaos of the city lights acid colors. The lm ends with the return to freedom and the bold colors of summer. The photographic journey was possible thanks to the excellent exposure latitude of the emulsion and the palette of the lm choices.
Photos: Top: Gherardo Gossi. Bottom: A scene from Diaz (credit: Alfredo Falvo/ Agenzia Contrasto)

Diaz-Dont Clean Up This Blood screened at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Audience Award at the Panorama.

InCamera is published by Eastman Kodak Company. To see our expanded online edition, go to www.kodak.com/go/incamera. To be featured in the magazine, please contact your local representative. You will nd your Kodak representative contact information at www.kodak.com/go/motioncontact. KODAK, EASTMAN, VISION, VISION2, VISION3, and the lm numbers are trademarks. OSCAR is a trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. EMMY is a trademark of, and copyrighted by, the National Academy and American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Imax is a registered trademark of the Imax Corporation. The opinions expressed by individuals quoted in articles in InCamera do not necessarily represent those of Kodak Limited, Eastman Kodak Company or the editors of InCamera. Because of our constant endeavour to improve quality and design, modications may be made to products from time to time. Details of stock availability and specications given in this publication are subject to change without notice.