Daniel Fapp: Incident Light Metering, Reflectors & Snow

From Filming "All the Young Men" by Herb A. Lightman, American Cinematographer September 1960.

In photographing the snow scenes for "All The Young Men", Director of Photography Fapp violated a theory of exposure long held by most photographers and even some film manufacturers: namely, that when shooting in snow you should always decrease exposure at least one stop from the normal incident light meter reading in order that the reflected glare from the snow will not burn up the scene. Fapp did exactly the opposite.

"The greatest danger in shooting snow scenes in under-exposure," he explains. "It is hard to get an accurate reading in snow because o the reflected light, even when you are using an incident light meter. One must rely on a great deal on his general knowledge and experience. In such cases I use my Norwood meter and then open up one stop above the indicated exposure. Where there are people in the scene and you expose exactly according to the meter reading, you run the risk of losing the detail in faces completely. You can't possibly read an overall snow composition with a reflected light meter and get any sort of accuracy. Here is the best bet is to use a gray-scale card a couple of feet square, having a tonal value similar to average flesh tone, and take a reflected light reading very close to the card. Some cameramen prefer to take a reading from the sky, disregarding the scene itself."

Whatever Fapp's theory of exposure determination, the result speaks for itself. The snow as he photographed it, has texture and form and a gravure quality that is almost third-dimensional. This is due mainly to the infinite care given the lighting. He avoided shooting any sow scenes with front light, because this would have flattened the character of the snow, making it look like a sheet of white paper. instead, he endeavored to shoot from an angle in which the sun functioned as a cross-light or back-light, and used arc booster lights as the key source. In this way Fapp also had firmer control of the lighting, since it was not always possible to count on the sun being where he wanted it.

... He disdains use of sunlight reflectors. "I'm not a reflector man," Fapp maintains. "I don't like the 'shiny boards.' It takes about three of them to light a full figure, and if an actor moves a foot off his mark he's out of the light. Following him with a reflector is cumbersome and often looks unnatural. In a wind they are always flopping around. If the sun goes behind a cloud you're left with nothing to reflect. Many cameramen do use them, but I prefer booster lights."

Jack Cardiff: Fake Snow

From the article, Jack Cardiff's VistaVision Venture by Derek Hill, American Cinematographer, December 1956

"My experience in shooting 'Scott of the Antarctic' proved highly valuable when it came to shooting many of the scenes staged in the snow and snow storms," said Cardiff. "I'd become familiar enough with various snow scenes to be able to recreate the effects I wanted. But sometimes I was just lucky with the location. When we shot on the banks of the Arno river, for instance, there was a slight fog which offered wonderful pictorial possibilities. But we also had to create snow and winter aspects for some of the scenes. Actually, a large proportion of the film was shot during the height of the Italian summer, when almost every Roman desserts the capital to escape the relentless heat. To photograph an important winter scene at this time, it became necessary to scatter powdered plaster over a square-mile location site to give it the appearance of frost."

"In August," Cardiff continued, "we couldn't get the Cine Cita stage space we wanted, as Metro-Goldwyn Mayer had booked it for its production of 'Ben Hur,' which had not yet even been started. So we were obliged to take space in a tiny studio across the road. It was so small that our one set came to within a foot of the walls on every side. Luckily, fire restrictions in Rome are less severe than in Britain."

"By this time we'd lit this set, the temperature was practically bursting the thermometer. And on top of this, the interiors we were shooting were supposed to be mid-winter scenes in which members of the cast had to wear fur coats and appear to shiver in the cold! The floor was literally soaked with perspiration before we began rehearsals."

In all the 'exterior' snow scenes which were actually shot in the studio, Cardiff used a panel of glass, sprayed white, plus a pale green filter before the lens in order to impart a slight mist effect to the scenes. One sequence in the picture, which has attracted much praise for its photographic excellence, is the action of the duel in the snow. Many expert photographers have unqualifiedly declared these scenes actual exteriors. The fact is however that they were shot on Stage 5 at Rome's Cine Citta studio. To achieve the very real effect of dusk on a wintry night, Cardiff used a glass before the camera with sky painted on the upper portion, as the wide-angle lens used in covering the great sweep of the set took in too much vertically.

Though this is a technique which Cardiff has used before, it was new to the Italian technicians, who were rather dubious about the outcome. For a sun effect in the same sequence, Cardiff employed an original trick of directing a lamp onto the sky area of the painted glass mounted before the camera lens. A combination of colored filters plus a fog filter gave Cardiff the effect he sought, and resulted in one of the most talked about scenes in the film.

Alar Kivilo: Helium Balloons

From American Cinematographer, The Root of All Evil by Jay Holben (December 1998)

"We used a helium balloon light for the night exteriors on the roadside. It was logistically tricky location because we were on a small road with two snow fields on either side, so there was no place to drive in a crane or a Condor. The balloon seemed to be a perfect solution. We could fly it up so that it would hover just above the road, and then hide the black cable in the night sky. What I didn't expect was that it got really windy during the night we were shooting. I was operating the second camera, looking at the wide shot of the sheriff's truck approaching, and as the wind was gusting I kept seeing the balloon getting lower and lower in the frame. It never quite dropped into the picture area, but it made me very nervous. Then, at one point in the middle of the first take, the wind blew the balloon into a power line and it made a huge spark. Thank God no one was hurt and there was no damage, but we did lose quite a bit of time. We really hadn't factored the wind into the equation, and because of the white snow surrounding the area, we really couldn't attach extra lines. I thought the light that the balloon provided was perfect-- a nice ambient glow and a beautiful night softness-- but I was very uncomfortable with it after that first night. On the second night, when we returned to shoot the reverses, I went with a more traditional approach."

- Alar Kivilo, CSC

Alar Kivilo: Snow, Exposure & Contrast

From American Cinematographer, The Root of All Evil by Jay Holben (December 1998)

"I was letting the snow go about three stops over. I was usually exposing at about an f5.6 outside, but the snow would be reflecting back an f16 or more. By overexposing it that much, the snow gave us really blinding whites and we'd lose detail, which for most applications was great. However, there were a couple of scenes in the film in which footprints in the snow were an important element of the story. Because of the overcast conditions and the contrast created by the way I was exposing, we would occasionally have to paint in the footprints to make them readable. Someone from the art department would walk backward through the footprints with water-based spray-paint and darken in the shadow side of the prints so they would read better."

- Alar Kivilo, CSC

Alar Kivilo: Snow & Contrast

From American Cinematographer, The Root of All Evil by Jay Holben (December 1998)

"We wanted to avoid blue skies and sun, and we were lucky for the most part. On overcast days, I would simply employ some negative fill so that the light wouldn't bounce around as much from the white snow. We covered the ground with solids and brought in more solids on one side to give the light more direction. Then, for close-ups, we'd shape and refine the light slightly with a bit of bounce fill off a card. During the few days when the sun did come out, I wanted to bring in a big crane with a huge silk to take care of the situation, but again, budgetary factors didn't allow it."


- Alar Kivilo, CSC

Alar Kivilo: Shooting in the Snow

From American Cinematographer, The Root of All Evil by Jay Holben (December 1998)

"Of course, another difficulty of shooting in the snow is that every time you do a take, you have to get rid of the footprints. To do that, the 'snow unit' marched around armed with gasoline-powered blowers, rakes and whatnot to erase footprints and make the snow look virgin again."

- Alar Kivilo, CSC