Ellen Kuras: Kodak 5017

From American Cinematographer, Psycho Killer by Andrew O. Thompson (June 1999)

For all intents and purposes, 5017 is a still photographers’ stock; the emulsion therefore had to be reperforated so that it could be run through Kuras’s Arriflex cameras. In order to do this work, Kodak required a month’s worth of advance notice, along with a minimum order of 14,000’.

"I really like what Malik Sayeed did with 5017 in He Got Game—he’s a very innovative cinematographer. There was one beautifully shot scene where some guys dressed in fluorescent orange and yellow came into a green room and threw a pair of red dice on the floor. The colors were supersaturated and had a lot of black in the shadow areas. I was struck by the way the colors were rendered, particularly the greens... 5017 is a stock to be reckoned with. The shadow areas will go very black unless there is enough fill. Without the ability to hide big lights in a small location, 5017 is a struggle because of the extreme contrast and slow ASA, especially for night exteriors. We tried to use it effectively, as in the scene where Vinny and Dionna are dancing in the Virgo Club. We used [strobing] Lightning Strikes units as our keys, along with some backlights and a couple of hard sidelights. A few years ago, I did something similar on a music video for the band Lush with director Mark Pellington, but I was using 5245, which is a very slow [50 ASA] stock. I just put in a few effects lights and then used the Lightning Strikes units to reveal what was in the shadow areas."

- Ellen Kuras, ASC

John Schwartzman: Simulating a Rocket Launch

From American Cinematographer, When Worlds Collide by David E. Williams (July 1998)

The "firing room" a control center featuring a set of massive 25'-tall windows looking out onto launch pad 39B was one area at NASA where Schwartzman did do extensive lighting. The extra illumination was very necessary, given that he was replicating the awesome blast created by a shuttle liftoff.

"The firing room is the closest spot to the pad during a real launch. Of course, I couldn't get cameras in there when we shot our night launch. But they gave me clearance to work there even though [the Endeavor] was really on the pad and ready to go up a few days later. We could shoot in there from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. just two hours."

- John Schwartzman, ASC

Schwartzman began his lighting earlier that day by replacing NASA's warm-white fluorescents with Kino Flo 3200°K tubes. Outside, 10 Dinos were mounted on 86' Condors and positioned near the main window, along with ten 70,000-watt Lightning Strikes units.

"The firing room is located on the fourth floor of the building, so the top of this window is about 80 feet in the air. To create a moonlight effect, I also ripped in a couple of 18Ks to add some nice modeling on the interior walls. Then, as the guys went through the countdown and got to T minus four seconds, we throttled up eight Dinos on dimmers to simulate the shuttle's engines, which are very warm when compared to the solid rocket boosters. During an actual launch, the shuttle's engines burn for a few seconds, coming up to 100 percent of their capacity. But they're not enough to lift the shuttle; when the boosters kick in, the orbiter instantly shoots upwards for 88 seconds until they burn out. The boosters are so bright that at night they light up half the state of Florida. To create that effect, we instantly brought up the rest of our Dinos and set off all of the Lightning Strikes units. What was great was that we didn't use actors for that scene; the real NASA launch team came in on their own time to do it. They later told me that our launch lighting was very similar to the real thing, but maybe a bit brighter and more dramatic. That was neat."

- John Schwartzman, ASC

Emmanuel Lubezki: Smoke and Lightning

From American Cinematographer, Galloping Ghost, by Stephen Pizzello (December 1999)

"There are some elements in the film that might be viewed as 'cheap', such as the heavy use of smoke, but in a weird way, those elements help to make the images more beautiful and interesting. Using smoke also allowed us to get a consistent look for the movie. When all of the sets are smoked, you can't tell what was done on stage and what wasn't. I didn't want teh light to be too baroque, with all kinds of backlights, kickers and little lights. Most of the lighting was created with very big sources, so you can't really tell where the light is coming from. In the Western Woods set and at some of the other locations, you can definitely see the smoke-- it looks like the fog they used in the old Frankenstein and Mummy movies! Balancing the smoke therefore wasn't much of a problem on exterior sets, but it became really complicated when we used it in a smaller set like Ichabod's room, where I didn't want the audience to feel the smoke. It's difficult but after a week of using smoke you get a better feel for the proper level and how much is too much. Our use of smoke was also dependent on the CCE process. In our case, we could use more smoke, because we knew that the process would 'see through' it. The smoke affected the blacks, but the process also affected the blacks in the opposite way, so everything balanced out. Of course, if you're going to use smoke, you have to live with the limitations. One problem with using smoke was that sometimes, when we were working outside with our big cranes, the smoke would reveal where the light was coming from. That drove me insane, and I lost the battle a couple of times; in two or three shots, I had to beg the visual effects team at ILM to erase the light that was closer to the cranes, or to take the edge off."

- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC

"Usually I hate lightning as an effect, because it has the potential to take the viewer out of the movie a bit. If it's supposed to be raining, it's fine, but otherwise it can be a bit much. When we did tests with the Headless Horseman, though, we found that the lightning really added a lot of energy to the character-- it made him more impressive, scary and Burtonian. Every time the Horseman is going to kill someone, the lightning appears as dramatic punctuation. The problem with lightning is that it really affects the editing of the movie. If it's really fast paced in one cut, and you go to a shot where the lightning doesn't match, you start to feel this lack of freedom. It took us a while to learn how to keep it constant without obliterating the images with lightning. It looks really interesting when you're shooting it, but you have to control yourself!"

- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC