Karl Walter Lindenlaub: Adapting for New Film Stocks

From American Cinematographer, This Old House by David E. Williams (August 1999)

Dailies and prints for The Haunting were handled by Technicolor, and like some other cinematographers who have now used Vision negative and print stocks in combination, Lindenlaub found that their increased contrast compelled him to rethink his lighting methods.

"The 79 is more contrasty than [EXR] 5298 was—with the newer stock, the blacks fill up and grain disappears, but latitude disappears as well. To my surprise, the Vision print stocks became the only option for release prints after April [of this year]. Between that factor and our dark sets, I had to reevaluate all of my lighting ratios, especially for moonlight effects—and those were methods that I had been using for 20 years! For moonlight, I would normally go two stops under on the faces, and the backlight would be the moonlight at key. On this film, though, two stops under was almost too dark, because everything just under that would drop to black. With 98, you would have had a stop or so left, and you’d get some shadow detail, but that’s not the case now unless you use more fill. The amount of fill determines the look of the movie much more than any other factor, but on this picture I was adding a lot more fill than my eye was used to seeing, which meant that I had to depend on my meter much more. My exposures had to be precise as well, because the 79 doesn’t handle under- or overexposure very well—it gets too milky. Grain isn’t a problem, but milky blacks look wrong to me."

Asked if using other stocks were an option, Lindenlaub replies,

"No, we needed the speed because of our big sets, but because we were using so much smoke in the film, the grain in 5298 would be too apparent. Before this, I’d used the Vision 5277 320T, which has much lower contrast, but I overexposed it to get good blacks. I liked it because it took the contrast out of faces and was more flattering, but it was too slow. I also looked at Vision 800T 5289, but I wasn’t too happy with the grain. The 89 would be a great stock for a gritty big-city thriller, but not for The Haunting .

I know that some people’s use of lab processes like ENR to get better blacks prompted Kodak to add contrast to their stocks, but not everybody wants it. If I ever wanted more contrast, I could do it with my lighting. Now, lighting for 79—in combination with the Vision print stocks— is like lighting 5247 or 45 in the studio, and it will take time to get used to that. Of course, the blacks we got with 79 were great for the atmosphere of our film, since it’s a dark movie."

- Karl Winston Lindenlaub, ASC, BVK

Karl Walter Lindenlaub: Speed & Pre-Rigging

From American Cinematographer, This Old House by David E. Williams (August 1999)

"My general lighting approach for the entire film was to be relatively soft on the front of the faces, and then use backlight to give things shape and direction. That method helped quite a bit, given what we were doing with the camera. It would have been interesting to try more dramatic techniques with the lighting— using higher, more frontal lighting and cutting more—but we didn’t have the time to do it. Jan wanted between 18 and 20 setups a day, with one camera, while constantly switching between Steadicam, cranes, normal 35mm cameras on dollies, and VistaVision for effects work. With that many setups, we had about 20 minutes to light each shot, so we ended up doing much more pre-rigging than I normally would."

- Karl Walter Lindenlaub, ASC, BVK

Peter Menzies Jr: Lighting Rain & Flood

American Cinematographer, Photographing at Full Flood, by George Turner (January 1998)

"The backing was quite easy to light. Because it was on dry land, but in the tank in was always a struggle to move lights around. Then we tried lighting balloons, and they really helped us out. They were flexible, safe, and provided a beautiful quality of light. When we floated the balloons, the rain obscured the power cords coming down from them. We didn't have to worry about lighting from Condors or towers or anything else. To see all of those glowing balloons floating up over the set was pretty surreal! It could look absolutely beautiful when we backlit it, but a flood isn't a beautiful thing. We didn't backlight much because we really didn't want a theatrical look; we wanted it to look real. Also, if we had backlit the rain, we wouldn't have had the depth we wanted on such a large set. It was great to see the whole set without it being washed out by backlit rain. Most of the time I'd crosslight it, but sometimes we'd just throw 360 degrees of light with the balloons. Quite often, you couldn't even see the rain falling. Instead, you could just see it on the water's surface, which really enhanced the realism."

- Peter Menzies Jr., ASC

Michael Ballhaus: Layered Separation

From American Cinematographer, Sci-Fi Cowboys by David E. Williams (July 1999)

Bo Welch's sets, including Loveless's bordello-style bedroom, the grimy interiors of the Tarantula walking machine, the interior and exterior of Fat Can Candy's Saloon, and James West's railroad car, reflect the film's genre-blending tone, and were alternately fashioned with complex patterns, deep shadows, rich colors and dark-wood textures. To create separation between the actors and their surroundings, Ballhaus kept the backgrounds "light, but not so prominent that they might distract the viewer's eye from the actors and the action. Many of our scenes are set at night, and we kept those backgrounds dark; while you can see detail, it's not jumping out at you. However, the sets sometimes really soaked up all the light-- inside West's train car, for example, which had a lot of dark wood and dark green curtains-- so we had to add much more light that is apparent. We generally staged scenes so they were sidelit, which added separation and added backlight when possible."

- Michael Ballhaus, ASC

Robert Surtees: On Back-light

From American Cinematographer, Photography for The Last Picture Show interview by Herb A. Lightman (Jan. 1972)

The photography in the picture is very clean-- that is, free of trimmings and frills. Is that due to the fact that you had such a small amount of lighting equipment available?

"Not really. I don't use back-light anymore-- unless it's established as coming from a practical lamp or something like that-- and I don't break up the walls with shadow patterns. I think that's old fashioned and 'motion picturish,' and it would have been all wrong for this picture. Now, if you are shooting a glamour picture, it would be different. You'd tend to go back to the old style, with all the trimmings.

- Robert Surtees, ASC