Ellen Kuras: Filtration & Lighitng for Hot NYC 70's Summer

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

Much of The Summer of Sam transpires during the sweltering summer of 1977. As a result, Lee wanted the imagery to indicate the intense heat of a New York city summer—which, as any resident of the Big Apple knows, is marked by a muggy, humidity-filled atmosphere. As a visual guide, Lee asked Kuras to view his 1989 film Do the Right Thing (photographed by Ernest Dickerson, ASC). Kuras also watched Natural Born Killers and two versions of the Jack the Ripper story as a primer on serial-killer films. After conducting several tests on emulsions and exposures, Kuras opted to use antique suede filters in front of the lens during day shooting. This tactic lent the colors a more monochromatic look, as well as a period Seventies feel.

"Spike wanted a ’hot’ look, so I tried to give him as many hard backlight and sidelight edges as possible. Those [highlights] had to hug the edge of the frame. I also advised the grips not to dull down the cars or do wetdowns so that the kicks, highlights and glares would play as much as possible, and so the streets would have a blown-out look. While we were shooting, the weather changed quite a bit from hour to hour—in the morning we would have sunshine, and in the afternoon it would cloud over and sometimes rain. Trying to keep consistency throughout a scene was difficult without a lot of available room to put lights or Condors out of shot. We were often on a dead-end street, and we sometimes were backed up right to its end."

- Ellen Kuras, ASC

To convey the sense of humidity and atmosphere at night, Kuras employed pre-exposure flashing. During preproduction, she experimented with filters and a Lightflex, but found the effect somewhat confining.

"The Lightflex gave a haze to the film that was very similar to New York’s hot, humid nights, during which the blacks aren’t really quite black. However, we would have faced the problem of double reflections from headlights playing off the filters in front of the lens. We often had cars driving straight at camera, so I would have had a lot of double lights going through frame. We sandwiched filters as much as we could, and used a tilting matte box, but we just couldn’t avoid the reflections in certain situations because the camera was moving so much. Flashing was a viable way to achieve the same effect while keeping the image clear of double reflections."

- Ellen Kuras, ASC

Jan Ralske: Perception of Black-and-White Pictures

From American Cinematographer, A Teutonic Love Triangle by Andrew O. Thompson (June 1998)

Mindful of this dilemma, the filmmakers left their backers unaware of their black-and-white blueprint until the 11th hour. However, this almost put them in the position of having to re-conceptualize the picture's art direction for capture on color celluloid. Attests Ralske,

"One TV station was not going to let us do it, arguing that they don't even broadcast Citizen Kane before one in the morning because it's in black-and-white; they immediately lose their audience, which thinks it's just some cheap old film. But the experience we've had from festivals and 'normal' audiences is an appreciation for the aesthetics of black-and-white. Nowadays there are music video clips in black-and-white, so there's not as much of a problem with kids who are 16-- they don't associate black-and-white with old fashions. Maybe this is a hopeful trend, because even in Europe you don't see many 35mm black-and-white films that make it past the festival route."

- Jan Ralske, Director of Not a Love Song

Freddie Francis: Kodak Plus-X Stock

From American Cinematographer, Cinematic Glory by David E. Williams (March 1998)

The Elephant Man was principally shot at Wembley Studios in Panavision, utilizing Kodak's Plus-X stock-- the only monochrome emulsion which met Francis' standards and was available in sufficient quantities. Due to the dearth of black-and-white features, most of Britian's labs had let their processing equipment fall into disrepair, necessitating that the cinematographer do extensive tests with several facilities. Rank finally won the contract. Nopted Francis in the informative tome The British Cinematographer,

"Rank's processing produced a result which immediately filled me with confidence. My first impressions were that the [plus-x] had increased in speed and the grain had diminished to such an extent as to be negligible... above all, it was true black-and-white stock with every minute tone in between."

- Freddie Francis, BSC

Despite the promise, Kodak's emulsion varied in sensitivity (increasing by a full stop at one point), and Rank had some problems delivering the image quality Francis demanded. However, as audiences would attest, the efforts paid off, resulting in an evocative film which retains a haunting, dreamlike textural quality while effectively rendering the gritty reality of the story and setting.