“Hamlet”: Week 3

Day 12 – 19/4/21

“More matter with less art”

The two-day weekend allowed us all a much-needed recharge. A few of us hired bikes on Sunday and cycled up the river to Maidenhead, where we found an idyllic field to have a picnic in. Bliss.

Monday saw us tackling all of the scenes in what Sean dubbed “the Oval Office” – the office of Claudius the king. First up was a big day scene with a few pages of text and multiple characters coming in and out. One of my references for this scene was The Man in the High Castle, specifically a scene in Hitler’s office where the sunlight smashes into the floor and bounces back up to light Rufus Sewell. The real sun was indeed pounding through the window of the Oval Office, but not from a high enough angle to produce much floor bounce. Since we were on the third floor and we didn’t have the budget for a scissor lift or cherry-picker, we had to live with what the natural light was doing. I set my ISO to 1600 to hold more highlight detail outside, then stacked .9 and .3 NDs so that I could keep the lenses wide open as usual. Ben wanted to keep the room’s many practicals (desk lamps, table lamps and wall sconces) off for this scene, but it looked a little too flat without them – a little too much like we hadn’t done anything! Apart from a Litemat sneaked into a corner to extend the daylight, and a Fomex in another corner to extend one of the practicals, we really hadn’t done anything else on the master shot! For the coverage we brought the Litemat in closer. At lunch we were forced to wrap the scene, despite having only the bare minimum of coverage in the can. I wasn’t very happy about it, but we could not afford to fall any further behind schedule.

After lunch we shot an evening scene, with just a little natural light playing and our main source being an Aladdin with unbleached muslin boomed over the centre of the room. Being only half a page, we were able to knock the scene off very quickly, to everyone’s surprise!

Finally we had a supper party scene set at night. The art department put a white cloth on the table, and Ben suggested firing a 650W fresnel down into it as well as the Aladdin, so that most of the light on the four characters would come up from below, and the Aladdin would just serve as fill. The result was absolutely beautiful. All the practicals gave us lovely backgrounds, and we brought up a dark corner by placing a warm Astera tube on the floor behind a pot plant. When we faced towards the window for the reverses, the castle was now visible across the road, thanks to a 2.5K HMI stationed on the theatre’s first floor canopy, firing through a frame of muslin. (We’re really using the muslin on this job!) The castle wall reflected about two and a half stops under key according to my spot meter, which looked pretty realistic on camera. (Key was T3.7 at ISO 800-1280 for this scene; I shot it all on the zoom. I would have stuck at 1600 ISO but the backgrounds in the room were looking a bit bright and the wall sconces weren’t dimmable, so Ben suggested stopping down and bringing up the Aladdin and 650. Rather than stopping down I stayed wide open and reduced the ISO from 1600 to 800. Then when we reversed to see the window I went back up to 1280 to get a bit more from the castle.)

 

Day 13 – 20/4/21

“The time is out of joint”

This was one of the biggest days in the schedule for logistics, safety, and lighting, as well as a crucial part of the story: Hamlet meeting the ghost of his murdered father on the battlements of Elsinore – or, in our version, on the rooftop of the theatre with the battlements of Windsor Castle looming in the background. It was our first and only night exterior shoot.

There were three consecutive scenes to shoot, which we did in reverse order. The first to go before the camera was set just before sunrise, so we shot it day-for-dusk, completing the last set-up just after sunset at 8:15pm. I used the Easy Rig to allow me to look straight down on part of the spiral staircase fire escape where we were shooting, then pan with Horatio and Marcellus as they ran up the stairs and into a 2-shot. This was natural light only, with a .9 and .6 ND in the matte box, and a white balance of 4500K to give that cool, dawn feel. Next we shot Hamlet’s reverse, and here we added a 2K inside the building for his exit into it, and turned on an existing practical emergency light which helped to give the feeling of the daylight being dim. As the spiral staircase was sandwiched between two buildings the characters were naturally shadowed, which helped a lot. After an insert on their hands as they took a blood oath, we ran the camera four storeys down to the street to get a dramatic low angle wide of the staircase and Horatio and Marcellus running up it. By this time the sky was starting to darken and the emergency lights were at a nice level compared with the remaining daylight.

Then it was up to the rooftop for Hamlet’s encounter with the Ghost (played by Francesca Annis). Health and sfaety concerns had led the producers to have a scaffolding staircase built over the narrow ladder which had been the only access during our recces. This made it much easier to get equipment and people up there! Ben, Connor, Bruce, the spark dailies Nathan and Joey and the two members of the theatre’s LX staff who were helping them had spent several hours and most of the previous day pre-lighting the scene. Six 10K tungsten fresnels were set up in the street (requiring two gennies) to light Windsor Castle, while a Litemat 8 was rigged from scaffolding to top-light the main area of action on the roof. Next to it were two Astera tubes which Connor had programmed to produce interactive light for an Aurora Borealis effect that will be added in post. Underneath the roof’s four skylights were Geminis with a warm, dynamic program to suggest a raucous party happening inside the building. There was also a  2K on a walkway lighting a neighbouring building site. The art department had built a sort of chimney or air conditioning vent which concealed a smoke machine, motivating a supernatural mist. We kept the Ghost just in front of the top-light so that it would become backlight, but Hamlet was then quite flatly and frontally lit by it – not ideal, but there was little else we could do.

The first scene of the roof sequence, but the last to be filmed, took place mainly at the foot of the scaffolding staircase, which looked amazing with the illuminated castle behind it and the Ghost standing at the top against billows of backlit smoke. We’d had bulkheads installed on the wall next to the staircase, and a Gemini was placed behind a pair of doors cracked open, again suggesting the party going on inside. The final source was a Litemat on another part of the roof (accessible only by Will from the theatre in a safety harness!) which provided ambience in one direction and backlight in the other. I came up with a clever shot to show off the scale and slowly walk down some steps to push in on Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus and then tilt up to show the Ghost, but it never quite worked as well as I wanted to because the tilt was so extreme and the weight of the camera made it very hard to balance at that angle. It didn’t help that I was pretty tired by that point! Anyway, we picked up the moments that didn’t work in other angles, then shot the reverse and wrapped comfortably on time, which made everyone very happy!

 

Day 14 – 21/4/21

“Now is the very witching hour of night”

Back in the auditorium (it seems so long since we were last there!) we shot the aftermath of the play within the play. It needed to be bright because it follows on directly from the conscience-pricked king calling for “Lights, lights!” We used the chandelier as a key for some shots, adding a Litemat or a Rifa for others.

After lunch we shot a oner in which Hamlet soliloquizes while shutting down the the lights on the stage and in the auditorium. This took a bit of rehearsal and cueing with Zoe and with Tilly who was operating the lighting desk. We added some Astera tubes and a small LED to make sure Hamlet was still dimly visible when everything went out.

That completed our call sheet for the day, and we spent the last few hours on reshoots and pick-ups. We revisited day 3’s first scene, changing up the blocking a little and using the wheelchair dolly and handheld shots to increase the energy, then we grabbed a missing shot from the next scene.

 

Day 15 – 22/4/21

“My thoughts be bloody, or nothing worth”

We started on and near the stage, with a scene in which Gertrude – having run all the way down the back staircase from her room at the top of the theatre – finds Claudius in conference with Guildenstern in a box. I decided to turn all the house lights off to give it the mood of secrecy required, motivating most of the light from the fluorescents on the stage (but beefing it up with a Litemat and an Astera for eye-light). Inside the box were another couple of tubes to provide backlight and fill, motivated by a practical table lamp. As usual we stuck closely to the storyboards, shooting steep angles up to the box and down from it onto Gertrude, a focus pull from Gertrude to Claudius and Guildenstern in the foreground, then a shot-reverse through the doorway as Claudius issues orders to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

We continued into the next scene, where Claudius walks briskly down the corridor from the box with Voltemand. This was shot on the wheelchair dolly, both leading and following the characters. Ben added a Fomex wrapped in muslin for the final position, but otherwise we relied on the existing overhead practicals and emergency-light practicals, the former re-globed and diffused, the latter gelled with Straw and ND.

After lunch we shot Gertrude’s actual run down the staircase, a fun (if somewhat strenuous) scene which quite simply involved me running down three or four storeys with the Alexa XT after Jenny Seagrove. I stopped down to T4 and a third, the smallest aperture of the shoot so far, in order that the existing florries she ran past wouldn’t be too bright. This meant pounding a couple of 5Ks into a bounce board on the stage so that Claudius and the box would be sufficiently lit when I emerged into the auditorium. The only other lighting was the straight blacking out of a fire escape window (as the scene was meant to be night), black-wrapping part of one florry that was making the start of the run super bright, and turning off one florry to create a patch of darkness. I used the 18mm and didn’t look in the viewfinder much, instead concentrating on where I was going and guessing the framing. My experiences in Exit Eve (which had a lot of staircase scenes) reminded me to pan in advance of going around corners to keep Gertrude in shot. The result was very cool, especially the dark section which was lightly hazed and featured a distant florry reflecting off the floor.

Finally we moved up to the flies, shooting first from a small platform accessible only by ladder, which required getting the camera up to it on a rope. We motivated the lighting from the stage, firing two or three 5Ks into ultrabounce, which resulted in the cast moving through soft shadows of the fly-ropes. Back in the prep the theatre LX team had installed extra florries on the fly floor in addition to the two extant ones, especially for this scene, but we ended up taking out the tubes and cable-tying Asteras in their place, which we set to a low level with Quarter Plus Green virtual gel. I deviated from the shot-list for the coverage, finding a new and interesting shot where – using the Easy Rig – I crabbed the camera from one side of the ropes to the other. On one set-up we rolled Horatio’s camcorder, getting his POV of Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and the Captain from the stage.

 

Day 16 – 23/4/21

“Lights, lights!”

A complicated shot to start with, winching up the chandelier as I zoomed through it to Hamlet and Horatio at the lighting desk beyond. Ben placed an Astera on the desk to beef up the monitor light, and a Fomex to beef up the tungsten practical lamp. Other than a couple of 2Ks bouncing through doorways, we relied on existing wall sconces and down-lighters for the zoom shot. For closer coverage we added a Rifa as a key for the two Hs, but when the action moved over next to the wall the sconces did all the work for us, though Ben did add some tungsten bounce from the stage to give a touch of backlight.

After lunch a second camera came into play. The producers had requested this after becoming concerned about the schedule slipping. Using two cameras is not a magic wand to double your coverage; it doubles your sound problems and your lighting problems and makes every lens choice and lamp position a compromise to keep things out of the other camera’s frame. I decided that today was one of a very small number of the remaining days on which it could be used successfully. I asked Max to operate it, as he’d been watching all the footage as he wrangled it, so he was familiar with the style. A new B-camera 1st AC and trainee were brought in for the day, while trainee Lulu stepped up to 2nd the B-camera.

Our first dual camera set-up – to which we added Horatio’s camcorder rolling, for extra shits and giggles – was reactions of Claudius and Gertrude to the play within the play, with Max getting a single on the latter while I started on a two-shot and zoomed in to an ECU of the former. But first the dance part of the play had to be rehearsed so that Zoe could plan the theatrical lighting for it; then Ben and Connor were able to programme the same colours into two Astera tubes that were bounced onto Claudius and Gertrude. A dim Gem ball and a couple of 300W kickers were added, while the house down-lighters were turned on at about 10% to look like emergency lights in the background.

Later we flipped around to shoot the dance itself, at 18mm and 75mm simultaneously, before cross-shooting Hamlet and Ophelia through the dancers and over their shoulders to the dancers. Finally we captured a pick-up of the glaring lights coming up on Hamlet, for which we ensured that one of Zoe’s lights was pointed right down the lens to flare it. After wrapping most of the crew we grabbed a GV on B-camera of the curtains lowering in preparation for the play.

 

Day 17 – 24/4/21

“Now cracks a noble heart”

The morning was spent finishing scene 79, capturing reactions to the duel and re-shooting Hamlet’s death. Then we set up for the film’s final scene, 80, in which Norway’s impressive prince Fortinbras arrives in the blood-soaked Danish court. This involved the street door in the scene dock opening, dazzling light flooding in, and Fortinbras emerging from it. To achieve this effect we dimmed all the lighting in the dock, stage and auditorium so that we were wide open (T2.2) and at ISO 1600 to correctly expose it. The daylight outside was then 11 or 12 stops over (fortunately it was a sunny day) and most detail was eradicated, though passing cars and pedestrians were still discernible and will have to be removed in post. Ben enhanced the daylight effect by clamping a matt silver bounce board above the door and firing a 2.5K HMI into it, and I made the light glow a bit by shooting with a 1/2 Soft FX filter. When Fortinbras and Horatio sat down on the edge of the stage to talk, we closed the street door for sound and relied solely on the HMI to create the effect. As there was almost no light coming from the auditorium, Ben set up an Ultrabounce in front of the men and the theatre crew fired one of their spotlights into it, filling in the faces.

Our last task for the week was to return to the paint shop to pick up what we had missed on day 11. The flashbacks were quick and fun to shoot. We reduced the par cans and changed the colour of the Asteras uplighting the paint-splattered wall to give a different feel. I shot with the prism across the bottom left corner of the frame, which helped to keep Hamlet looking mad and mysterious, and a beautiful effect was created when Ophelia was composing her song, whereby both her face and her hand making notations on the music score were visible simultaneously. Unfortunately we were forced to wrap before getting everything we needed to complete the main paint shop scene, so we will be going back there at some point.

“Hamlet”: Week 3

“Hamlet”: Week 2

Day 7 – 12/4/12

“Contracted as it were in one brow of woe”

Not sure how to feel about today. On the one hand we got some great shots, including our first one on the Technocrane. On the other hand, we spectacularly failed to make the call sheet.

Due to the workload on costume and make-up, we generally do not start our days with master shots because not all the cast are ready. Instead we start with singles and 2-shots which is always a bit confusing and inefficient, and the wide shot is done last. Not ideal, but I’m sure it’s the lesser of at least two evils. So we started scene 14 – the first proper Hamlet scene – with Ian’s single, on which I did some of my wackiest framing yet, giving him loads of headroom (even accounting for his Tim-Burton-esque top hat!) and letting the chandelier take up a lot of the frame. Sean loved it and went even further, having half of Ian’s face hidden behind Jonny.

A couple of set-ups later it was time for lunch and for the three-person grip team to bring in the Technocrane. This then sat idle while we picked off a number of other singles, followed by a shot which pulled focus between Claudius and Gertrude and their images on the CRT monitor at prompt corner. The original plan had been to use the theatre’s existing relay camera – mounted to the front of the circle – to provide the image on the screen, but when the chandelier was winched down into position its cable blocked half of the relay camera’s frame. The solution was to borrow the stills photographer’s tripod, mount Horatio’s camcorder on it and run a feed from there to the monitor.

At last it was time to put the zoom on the Alexa XT and mount the package on the crane. Turns out that it was a bit too heavy for the remote head we’d been given, and it struggled to keep the camera bubbled. The remote head was operated by me via a monitor and hot-wheels, which I’ve never used before. I found them surprisingly intuitive.

The scene’s lighting was inspired by a tribunal scene from The Handmaid’s Tale which had warm practical desk lamps and hard, cold beams of light on the accused. The beams were easy to create with the theatre rig, today operated by Will and Tilly from the theatre’s permanent staff, while the half-CTO-gelled fluorescents weren’t exactly warm (our white balance was 3200K) but at least neutral-ish. Additional theatrical lights picked out parts of the architecture, while Astera tubes supplemented the stage set’s florries for CUs. Characters at the edge of the stage were keyed either with Rifas or a 2K through a frame located in one of the boxes.

 

Day 8 – 13/4/21

“Now I am alone”

Yesterday we should have filmed our first soliloquy, “the play’s the thing wherein to catch the conscience of the king”. The only specific shot to be described in Sean’s treatment, it was the whole reason we hired a crane, and therefore had to be picked up today, our second and final crane day. It’s the most complex shot in the film, covering three minutes of monologue in a single developing shot, and unsurprisingly took most of the morning. It begins in CU on Hamlet, shot at the 250mm end of the Cooke Varotal, then zooms out. As the zoom is reaching its 25mm end the crane begins to move back, swinging, booming and contracting to pull back as far from Hamlet as possible, revealing almost all of the circle in which he is sitting alone. Halfway through the soliloquy, when the character has his big idea which will be the turning point of the entire film, he stands up and walks to the front of the circle, while the crane pushes back in towards him, with a slight zoom in too, to end on a low angle MS.

I operated the pan and tilt again, 2nd AC Ashton did the zoom, Aris was of course pulling focus, and the two grips and the crane tech manoeuvred the crane. And we weren’t the only ones doing a dance. Because the circle was only lit by four wall sconces (which were installed especially) and we had to reach an exposure of T3.7 for the Varotal, the sparks had to boom an LED Flyer and clear backwards as the camera pulled out. God only knows what the boom ops were doing! I think it took nine takes to get the shot in the bag; not bad going really.

Next we rehearsed Ophelia’s funeral, which included the final crane shot, a much simpler boom up and push in with a bit of a zoom from 25-60mm as well. We lit the scene with one of Zoe’s backlights streaming through the dock doors, gelled a golden yellow, plus some architectural spots on the set and a Jem ball as a key. When we moved into the coverage after lunch, we tried to keep the scene looking like it was all lit by that one yellow light, even though a few other sources were actually employed, including one skipped off the floor.

 

Day 9 – 14/4/21

“A touch, I do confess”

We were scheduled to film all of scene 79 – the duel – today. That’s a nine-minute scene with half a dozen speaking characters and a swordfight!

We started with the fight coverage while everyone had plenty of energy, breaking the fight into chunks. My angles were stolen wholesale from our two key references: the first fight in Ridley Scott’s The Duellists, and 2012 TV coverage of Olympic fencing. From the former I took handheld shots over Hamlet’s then Laertes’ shoulders (we tried using a double for Ian initially, but Sean wasn’t convinced and we quickly sacked him off) and long lens CUs to show the tension between bouts. From the latter I took a side-on wide shot of the duelling “runway”, zooming in manually as the combatants got closer together and zooming out again as they separated.

We punched hard light from the theatre rig through the metalwork and grills of the set, which enhanced every movement the duellists made as they passed through shadows and highlights. The set’s florries provided fill, a Jem ball over the king and queen gave them suitably regal illumination, and a Rifa was brought in for close-ups when we needed more shape. In the scene dock, visible through the open doors at the back of the stage, we relied on a truss of par cans which the theatre crew had kindly rigged to the ceiling for us a few weeks ago.

It’s going to be another busy day tomorrow picking up everything still left, including a couple of shots at the top of the scene and all the woundings and deaths!

 

Day 10 – 15/4/21

“The rest is silence”

Little to report today. We continued shooting the duel, and still didn’t quite finish. About mid-afternoon Ian finally realised that I was wearing a “What would Gandalf do?” t-shirt. He was very amused. “Keep it until tomorrow,” was his initial response to the sartorially posed conundrum, quickly followed by: “Fix it in post.”

 

Day 11 – 16/4/21

“The apparel oft proclaims the man”

We spent the morning in Claudius’s dressing room, the most cramped of all our locations. We used a 2.5K HMI bounced off a matt silver board to push more daylight in through the window, with two practical table lamps providing additional sources. The scene was fairly simple, with two characters conversing first with one of them on a sofa under the window and the other in a chair opposite, then later with both of them on the sofa. Coverage was conventional too, consisting of a wide (from a high angle, maintaining my CCTV theme), a 2-shot on the sofa, a shot-reverse for each half of the scene, and a couple of inserts. For the first half of the scene, one of the practicals served as our key-light motivation, and we added a small LED hidden behind a desk and a Fomex just out of frame. For the second half, the window was our key-light, so we stopped supplementing the practicals and instead put a Litemat on the window-ledge.

In the afternoon we moved into the paint shop, a space which Ophelia’s character has made her own, adding plants, guitars and various hippy accoutrements. The scene ran for about five minutes, and we managed to come up with a developing master shot that got us a lot of useful material, though it was physically demanding for me and the boom op, and also for the octogenarian Steven Berkov (playing Polonius). It was mentally taxing too, trying to remember all the various positions the characters stood or sat in throughout the scene, and then figure out what other angles were required to finish covering it. After some sticks coverage we were forced to wrap without having completed the scene. (We had originally been scheduled an entire day for it, but overrunning on the duel had a knock-on effect.)

I’m not entirely sure I liked the way the lighting turned out. I pushed for a Jem ball suspended over the main area of the set, which worked out pretty well even though it became a broad key sometimes; bouncing it back into people’s eyes gave an unpolished but still attractive look. Ben had rigged a series of par cans along the paint-splattered wall which picked out the set dressing nicely, but I can’t help wondering if the scene wouldn’t have had more mood and shape without them. What I did like was the three Astera tubes uplighting that same wall (which was mainly blue/violet), providing a nice colour separation from the warmly-lit aforementioned hippy accoutrements. Almost the only other source was our old friend the bulkhead practical, which was installed in an ante-room seen at the beginning and end of the developing master.

“Hamlet”: Week 2

“Hamlet”: Week 1

“If the audience starts looking at the cheeseboard, we’ve had it.”

– Sir Ian McKellen

Following the well-reviewed recent cinema release of Hamlet, which I shot for director Sean Mathias in 2021, here is the diary I kept during filming. You can also go back and read my blogs from prep if you’re interested.

 

Day 1 – 5/4/21

“A king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar”

Our progress began with scenes at the stage door, one of the few spaces in the theatre that has natural light coming in. Gaffer Ben Millar and I considered trying to add artificial light outside to the main window which was backlighting the scene, but instead we opted to light through a little side window with a Fomex wrapped in unbleached muslin. After a minor hiccup about blocking and crew shows, which hadn’t been planned for because we spent the last two weeks rehearsing, we bashed through three set-ups including two using Wes Anderson-esque central framing and eye-lines very close to camera.

Next up was a scene in the substage, next to the boiler room. Here we installed a practical tungsten bulkhead light on the wall as our key, adding to the extant yellowy-green fluorescents that illuminated parts of the background, and the Fomex spilling down a staircase. Lots of black negative space in the frame added to the moody look.

After lunch – during which I sorted out the footage transcoding plan with line producer Stephen Cranny and data wrangler Max Quinton – we moved to the glamorous location of the gents’ toilets for Ian McKellen’s first scene. The location had been very flat and white originally, but Ben’s crew rigged three Astera tubes to the tops of two walls – the two walls that we were mainly shooting towards – and that created a nice wrappy backlit look. Director Sean Matthias embraced the weirder shots I had storyboarded, which I was very happy about!

We also had a brief scene in a corridor outside the toilets, for which we relied largely on the existing practicals. Ben had already gelled the fluorescent emergency lights, and for the ceiling lights we turned off the one closest to camera, left the one in the midground with its pre-existing 25W bulb, and put a 60W bulb in the background one to create classic dark-to-light depth.

After wrap Ben and I had a meeting with Zoe Spurr, the theatrical lighting designer, to work out a plan for the upcoming stage scenes. By that time my brain had clocked off for the day, but Ben did his usual trick of identifying the right solution that I was too tired to see. That solution is to use less of the theatrical lighting than previously planned, which I think is what most people on the production want. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow, with our first auditorium and stage scenes!

 

Day 2 – 6/4/21

“The woman will be out”

Both of today’s scenes required wrenching emotional performances from the cast, who delivered in spades. We began with a well-planned scene in the SL vom. This, I have learnt from a fortnight working in a theatre, is short for “stage left vomitorium”. I’m not entirely sure the theatre crew weren’t winding me up when they told me this. Anyway, it’s an enclosed little space opening onto a short flight of steps up to the stage. The walls are deep red and Lee had stuffed it full of booster seats in the same colour, giving it a rich and striking look. We used the Cooke Varotal 25-250mm zoom for the first time, which is an absolute beast, but enabled us to get a lovely slow push-in to Gertrude during a long speech. I stayed on the zoom for the rest of the scene for speed. The lighting was nearly all motivated by a practical in the ceiling, but we ended up adding quite a few other sources to make the look more flattering, including a Fomex on the ceiling wrapping the practical light, a 1K into poly as fill and tiny little LED for eye-light.

This little LED came in handy again for the second scene, giving a beautiful glint in the characters’ eyes. Here the main source was a Jem ball wrapped in unbleached muslin, which Sean particularly liked as a source. A 2K through diffusion in one of the boxes provided a second key for certain people. We saw a lot of the stage for the first time, and we used Zoe’s theatre lights to illuminate the metalwork of the set and give us a strong, graphical backlight. Ben added Astera tubes and Rifas to softly light the woodwork and separate it from the black walls. The hilariously low-tech wheelchair dolly was broken out for the first time, but the bazooka mount proved too wobbly so I ended up keeping the camera on my shoulder. The prism saw its first use too, mounted to a noga arm in front of the matte box to give us some weird blur and a slight kaleidoscope effect for a handheld shot of the mentally-ill Ophelia. One problem was that it kept reflecting the crew, the equipment and the boom, so that will have to be cut around.

 

Day 3 – 7/4/21

“Denmark’s a prison”

Today’s work was all in the auditorium and covered many pages of dialogue. We began at the back of the stalls, where the existing down-lighters (previously re-bubbled) and emergency lights (gelled with straw and ND) motivated all the lighting and genuinely provided a fair bit of it too. We used Rifas and Litemats wrapped in unbleached muslin to key the close-ups, and added some poly bounce after hearing via Susannah in make-up that Ian wanted a more flattering look!

In the afternoon we moved down into the stalls, where we had lots more text and twelve characters to cover! Needless to say, we went into overtime and still owed a couple of set-ups, despite covering large swathes with a few carefully-chosen handheld shots. By this point I was leaving the lighting almost entirely to Ben, as Sean was relying on me (with help from 1st AD Top Tarasin and script supervisor Jodie Woodall) to work out the coverage. Ben used several soft sources in combination with the auditorium’s existing practicals, which looked lovely but did give the soundies a few boom-shadow headaches!

 

Day 4 – 8/4/21

“The purpose of playing”

We began in the rear stalls again, this time introducing the tiny lighting box too, from which Claudius and Polonius spy on Hamlet as he asks one of the acting troupe to add a speech into the evening’s play. We turned out the house lights and motivated everything from two desk lamps and the stage itself, on which Hamlet was supposedly in the process of designing the play’s lighting. We used two Rifas (one through a frame) for the stage light, plus a 5K to give an edge on the seats. A small LED provided eye-light supposedly bounced up from one of the desk lamps. The other desk lamp, the one in the box, was genuinely bounced off white show card on the table to provide a sinister up-light on Claudius. An existing fluorescent tube behind him served as backlight after being gelled with .3 ND, while we brought Polonius up by hiding the little LED again.

We managed to cram the camera package – complete with zoom – into the back corner of the lighting box to do a lovely shot over Claudius through the lighting-box window to Hamlet and the player beyond. For the shots closer to these latter two characters, I switched to handheld shooting, having learnt the previous day that trying to set up sticks amongst the auditorium seating is a bit of a nightmare. Fortunately the handheld look worked well for this scene.

For the rest of the day we tackled part of the prologue for the first time. In this prologue, the cast are trapped inside the theatre without an audience and decide to put on Hamlet for themselves. I set the white balance right down to 2500K so that the stage set’s fluorescent tubes (which were daylight, but gelled with half CTO by us earlier in the week) went white with a touch of green, and kept the lighting fairly flat and uninviting. We used no haze and kept the theatrical lighting to an absolute minimum. I tried to pick up the pace and power through the shots so we could fit in the dropped material from yesterday – keeping the camera on my shoulder and encouraging simple lighting set-ups – but there were simply too many other elements to juggle, and though we made the day’s call sheet we did not repair yesterday’s damage.

My favourite shot of the day, and of the whole shoot so far, was done before lunch. It was part of the prologue, but a dreamy foreshadowing of Hamlet coming to life. I shot Claudius and Gertrude waltzing on stage with the blurry chandelier glowing in the foreground. All the lighting came from Zoe’s theatrical rig, there was haze aplenty, and most importantly we clamped a £4.99 pair of kaleidoscope glasses to the front of the matte box. On a 100mm lens, this had little effect on the actors but it splintered and repeated the chandelier lights in an utterly entrancing way. Combined with shooting at 48fps the shot was absolutely beautiful.

 

Day 5 – 9/4/21

“Poison in jest”

News of the death of Prince Phillip at Windsor Castle, literally across the road from both the theatre and our hotel, trickled through the crew this morning. This will likely affect production in several ways, the most immediate of which is that we have to move rooms within the hotel, the ones that look out onto the high-street being highly coveted by paparazzi with their long lenses and ghoulish ambitions. It was a day of ill health amongst the cast and crew too, and data wrangler Max had to step in to help out the reduced camera department.

Our first scene was behind the closed “tabs” (curtains) on the stage; we relied mostly on the set’s fluorescents for this, turning off foreground ones to give us more shape. Zoe provided a hard raking light on the back of the curtain. Outside in the auditorium, Ben used two Jem balls (one as hairlight, one as a key) plus 300W kickers from each side to illuminate Claudius and Gertrude.

The next scene was the play within the play, “The Murder of Gonzago”, or, as Hamlet dubs it, “Mousetrap”. Zoe of course took the lead in lighting this, making adjustments primarily to avoid casting nasty shadows on the leads. Ben again added a Rifa to key the close-ups.

We continue to stick very closely to my storyboards, which I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, we know exactly what we’re doing in advance, and I’ve given a fair bit of thought to the shots throughout prep, but on the other hand I sometimes wonder if there wasn’t a better shot that I failed to spot because I was following the boards by rote. I try to look at my spreadsheet and mood-board at least once a day to remind myself of my original intentions and keep myself on track.

 

Day 6 – 10/4/12

“This is the very ecstasy of love”

First up was a short scene on and under the stage; two traps were being used as the graves dug by Shakespeare’s pair of “clowns”. Coverage included a shot looking through a hole inside one trap to Llinos underneath the other, then rising up as she climbed a ladder onto stage level. For this we broke out the Easy Rig for the first time, to take the camera’s weight. Lighting below the stage was motivated by a bulkhead (the same one used on day one) with a warm Astera tube cheated in too, while on the stage a wonderful sixties handheld floodlight was sitting beside the clowns. Ben used a Rifa gelled with (I think) half CTB to enhance the slightly cold light from this practical, while a couple more Astera tubes and some low-level house lights prevented the backgrounds from going completely black.

Next we moved up to the circle bar, which Lee had so beautifully transformed from the ugly, white room of our first recce to a decadent gentleman’s club strewn with the refuse of an indulgent party. I had always known that I wanted low morning sun glaring in through the window, and Ben accomplished this using a 6K par for the larger window and a 2.5K for the smaller one, both gelled with Full Straw. The curtains, bolton and some diff on the window helped to shape this and ensure that camera shadows were not an issue even when I was shooting with my back to the light. Deeper into the room, an Astera tube on a DJ’s desk and a few floor lamps added to the light. Most of the nasty ceiling lights were turned off, but two or three were snooted with black wrap and allowed to spill a little onto the scene. Reverses were fairly simple, shooting into the window which threw beams of light into the smoke (pretty much the only time I’ll be doing that on this movie!) and using a Rifa or bounce boards to fill in faces. For a later part of the scene we added diff to the Straw frame and an additional diff frame inside the room to create a beautiful, creamy light on Alice’s face.

One week down, three to go!

“Hamlet”: Week 1

“Annabel Lee”: Lighting the Arrival

Last week, Annabel Lee – a short I photographed at the end of 2018 – won its sixth and seventh cinematography awards, its festival run having been somewhat delayed by Covid. I’ve previously written a couple of posts around shooting specific parts of Annabel Lee – here’s one about a Steadicam shot with a raven, and another about the church scene – and today I want to dissect the clip above. The sequence sees our two young refugees, Annabel and E, arriving at the Devonshire cottage where they’ll await passage to France.

I was a last-minute replacement for another DP who had to pull out, so the crew, kit list and locations were all in place when I joined. Director Amy Coop had chosen to shoot on an Alexa Mini with Cooke anamorphic glass, and gaffer Bertil Mulvad and the previous DP had put together a package including a nine-light Maxi Brute, a couple of 2.5K HMIs and some LiteMats.

The Brute is serving as the moon in the exteriors, backlighting the (special effects) rain at least when we’re looking towards the driver. (If you’re not familiar with Maxi Brutes, they’re banks of 1K tungsten pars. Ours was gelled blue and rigged on a cherry-picker.) The topography of the location made it impossible to cheat the backlight around when we shot towards Annabel and E; rain doesn’t show up well unless it’s backlit, so this was quite frustrating.

We didn’t have any other sources going on except the period car’s tungsten headlights. It was very tricky to get the cast to hit the exact spots where the headlights would catch them while not shadowing themselves as they held out their hands with umbrellas or brooches.

Inside the cottage it’s a story point that the electricity doesn’t work, so until E lights the oil lamp we could only simulate moonlight and the headlights streaming in through the window. These latter were indeed a simulation, as we didn’t have the picture car at the time we shot inside. There was a whole sequence of bad luck that night when the camera van got stuck on the single-lane dirt track to the cottage, stranding certain crucial vehicles outside and sealing us all inside for three hours after wrap, until the RAC arrived and towed the camera van. So the “headlights” were a couple of tungsten fresnels, probably 650s, which were panned off and dimmed when the car supposedly departs. We also tried to dim them invisibly so that we could get more light on E as he comes in the door and avoid the Close Encounters look when the window comes into shot, but after a few takes of failing to make it undetectable we had to abandon the idea.

We also didn’t have the rain machine for the interiors, so as E opens the door you might briefly glimpse water being poured from an upstairs window by the art department, backlit by an LED panel. We put one of the HMIs outside a window that’s always off camera left to give us some “moonlight” in the room, create colour contrast with the tungsten headlights and the flame of the oil lamp, and ensure that we weren’t left in complete darkness when the “car” departs. Annabel looks right into it as she hugs E.

When the action moves upstairs, an HMI shines in through the window again. I remember it gave us real camera-shadow problems at the end of the scene, because Steadicam operator Rupert Peddle had to end with his back to that window and the talent in front of him (though the clip above cuts off before we get to that bit). The practical oil lamp does a lot of the work making this scene look great. I was sad that I had to put a little fill in the foreground to make E’s bruises at least a tiny bit visible; this was a LiteMat panel set to a very low intensity and bounced off the wall right of camera.

It’s worth mentioning the aspect ratio. My recollection is that I framed for 2.39:1, which is normal for anamorphic shooting. With the Alexa Mini in 4:3 mode, 2x anamorphic lenses produce an 8:3 or 2.66:1 image, which you would typically crop at the sides to 2.39 in post. When I arrived at the grade Annabel Lee was all in 2.66:1 and Amy wanted to keep it that way. I’m not generally a fan of changing aspect ratios in post because it ruins all the composition I worked hard to get right on set, but there’s no denying that this film looks beautiful in the super-wide ratio.

Finally, let me say a huge thank you to all the people who helped make the cinematography the award-winning success it has become, crucially drone operators Mighty Sky, underwater DP Ian Creed and colourist Caroline Morin. I’m sure the judges for these awards were swayed more by the beautiful aerial and aquatic work than the stuff I actually did!

“Annabel Lee”: Lighting the Arrival

Newton Thomas Sigel on the Cinematography of “Bohemian Rhapsody”

The following article originally appeared on RedShark News in 2018.

Directed by Bryan Singer, of X-Men and The Usual Suspects fame, Bohemian Rhapsody charts the story of Queen from their formation in 1970 to their triumphant Live Aid set in 1985, with plenty of their classic rock hits along the way. Rami Malek (from Amazon’s Mr. Robot) turns in an Oscar-winning performance as larger-than-life frontman Freddie Mercury.

In his tenth collaboration with Singer was director of photography Newton Thomas Sigel, ASC. I spoke to Sigel about how he approached evoking an era, recreating the concerts, and lensing a legend.

“Every day was this wonderful trip back in time,” enthuses Sigel, who saw the movie as a chance to relive his own youth. “I love shooting music. There is this wonderful transition from the end of the counter-culture, through glam-rock into the hedonism of the eighties.”

Shooting digitally, Sigel employed both the Alexa SXT and Alexa 65. “I decided the movie needed to have a visual arc that best represented the band’s transition from idealists to rock stars, and all the issues that creates. To that effect, I did the first act with old Cooke Speed Panchro lenses on the Alexa SXT. As Queen is discovered, and begins to be known on the international stage, we transition to the Alexa 65.” Sigel later fine-tuned this arc during grading.

The cinematographer paired the large-format Alexa 65 with Prime DNA and Prime 65-S glass, testing all the lenses to find the ones with the most gentle fall-off in focus. “Each lens had its own personality, and was never really ‘perfect’. Our 28mm had a particularly crazy quality that, when used sparingly, had great effect.”

One thing that struck me immediately about the cinematography is the distinctly un-British, warm and glowing look, with lots of sun streaming through windows. This was all part of Sigel’s plan, which develops as the film progresses. “What begins as warm and golden, with its own special LUT, grows ever sharper and cooler, even desaturated,” he explains. “The beginning is all handheld and grainy, the rest much cleaner, with the camera on Steadicam and crane.”

Sigel took a down-to-earth approach to photographing Malek’s Mercury. “I always wanted Freddie to feel very real,” he states. “It is important that you sense his vulnerability at the same time as he is projecting the bravado of the consummate showman. Like so many great performers, Freddie exuded confidence and brashness on stage, and yet, had a terribly shy insecurity in ‘real’ life.”

The highlights of Bohemian Rhapsody are undoubtedly the concert scenes. To tackle these, Sigel began by watching every single piece of Queen footage he could lay his hands on, noting the development of the stage lighting over the years. “I wanted to be as faithful to that as I could, while still having it service our story,” he says. That meant eschewing the easily-coloured RGB LED fixtures so common in movies and concerts today, and going back to the traditional method of laboriously changing gels on tungsten units. “We stuck to period lights,” Sigel confirms, “predominantly par cans and follow spots.”

The sheer number of concert scenes was a challenge for the filmmakers, who at one point had to shoot four gigs in just two days. “We had so many concerts to shoot and so little time, I needed to develop a system to quickly change from one venue to the next,” Sigel recalls. “Because Queen’s lighting was based on large racks of par cans, we were able to construct a very modular system that would allow us to raise or lower different sections very quickly. By pre-programming lighting sequences, we could also create sequence patterns with different configurations of light pods to make it look like a different venue.”

The types of units change as the story progresses through the band’s career. “By the late 70s, Queen was among the first bands to adopt the Vari-Lite, which was championed by the band Genesis,” Sigel explains. “That opened up many more possibilities in the theatrical lighting, which also reflected the band’s ascendancy to the upper echelons of the rock world.”

Sigel notes that he embraced all opportunities to capture lens flares from the concert lighting. “There is a great moment during Live Aid where Freddie makes this sweeping gesture through a circular flare, and it almost seems as if he is drawing on the lens.”

The historic Live Aid concert forms the jubilant climax of the film. Queen’s entire 20-minute set was recreated over seven days of shooting. “We photographed it in every type of weather Great Britain has ever seen: rain, sun, overcast, front-light, backlight – you name it. We couldn’t afford to silk the area as I would have liked,” Sigel adds, referring to large sheets of diffusion hung from cranes to maintain a soft, consistent daylight. “So it was a constant battle and the DI [digital intermediate] certainly helped.”

Filming for Bohemian Rhapsody began in autumn 2017, but by December trouble was brewing. Twentieth Century Fox halted production for a while, with the Hollywood Reporter citing the “unexpected unavailability of director Bryan Singer” as the reason. Dexter Fletcher, who had been attached to direct the nascent film back in 2013, ultimately replaced Singer for the last leg of photography.

“A change like that is never ideal,” admits Sigel, “but Dexter was very impressed with what we had done so far. With only a couple weeks to go, he was happy to carry on in the direction we had begun. Obviously he brought some of his own personal touches, but what I noticed the most was the ease he had in communicating with the actors.”

Reflecting on his long history of collaboration with Singer, Sigel is very positive. “When you have done that many movies together, there is a shorthand that develops and makes much of the work easier because you know your parameters from the beginning. Bohemian Rhapsody was truly the ‘labour of love’ cliché for so many people involved; it was quite remarkable.”

Asked to sum up the appeal of Bohemian Rhapsody, the cinematographer declares, “The film has everything – a deep emotional core at the centre of what is otherwise an exuberant celebration of Queen’s music. I also think Freddie’s story of an immigrant outsider just trying to fit in has a resonance today that is very profound.”

Newton Thomas Sigel on the Cinematography of “Bohemian Rhapsody”

“The Little Mermaid”: A Tale of Two Cameras

As The Little Mermaid is leaving Netflix next week, I decided to go back to my production diary from 2016 and see if there were any more extracts that might be of interest. Tying in with my recent post about shooting with two cameras, here are a number of extracts demonstrating how we used our Alexa Plus XR (operated by me) and Alexa Studio XR (operated by Tim Gill). I definitely won’t say that we made the most effective and efficient use of two cameras the whole time, but I certainly learnt a lot about the pros and cons of having a B-cam.

 

Day 1

We start in a third floor bedroom… After we get the main coverage, we head out to the garden for the next scene, while the B-camera team steps in to pick up a couple of inserts.

As soon as we’re outside, the sun starts to dick around. Those clouds are scudding in and out faster than we can swap ND filters and fly in Ultrabounce to fill the shadows. Eventually we get the three-channel Preston (which only arrived this morning) hooked up so I can pull the iris remotely for our big jib shot. B-camera arrives and picks up alternate angles, and using the two cameras we’re able to wrap out the scenes by lunchtime.

Now we’re inside, on the first floor this time, in a beautiful little circular study. The electrical department have already set up the lamps, so it doesn’t take much tweaking to get us ready to go. Over the course of the afternoon we shoot out our scenes in the study, while B-camera gets various POVs out of windows and establishers of the house exterior. Although the G&E (grip and electric) crew are thinly stretched to support both camera crews, having that second camera is incredibly useful.

 

Day 2

This morning we’re in a church, shooting a montage scene in which Cam interviews a number of locals. We use two cameras to capture a locked-off wide of the interviewee (which can be jump-cut between characters) and a roaming CU simultaneously. Since Tim’s B-camera is doing the roaming shot, I spend the morning at the monitors, keeping an eye on both feeds…

 

Day 3

The forecast says cloudy all week, and we dearly want our exteriors at Lorene’s House to be sunny and beautiful. But actually the dark, overcast skies work in our favour when the AD has us spend the morning shooting a “sunset” exterior. Our 12K HMI, gelled with full CTS, has enough power to cut through the dim natural light and give the impression of a gentle sunset. Working with both cameras, we get a great tracking shot, a jib shot and some other coverage. Then we leave the B-camera team behind, under the direction of VFX supervisor Rich (for the above green-screen shot), while we move back inside to block and light other scenes…

 

Day 8

… We have planned our day to maximise our two cameras. We’ve only been getting about eight set-ups a day, and we knew that with the stunts and effects we have today we would be pushed to even get that many. So we planned six two-camera set-ups and an insert, and we stick closely to this plan. A-camera lives on the crane with the (Angenieux 19.5-94mm Optimo) zoom most of the day, getting the most out of the scale and height of the big top and the action, while B-camera – using the (Cooke S4/i) primes for a change – gets the closer shots. This leaves me free to look at the monitors, which is useful but often boring. (All the material from this day sadly hit the cutting room floor.)

 

Day 12

Our last day at the circus… For most of the day the B-camera is nearby shooting different stuff. This is great in principle, but in practice we tend to get in each others’ way, our lighting affecting their shots and vice versa.

 

Day 24

… After lunch we have a big fight scene to shoot, and the pace of work kicks up several gears. I light a small clearing so we can shoot 180 degrees with two cameras simultaneously. Some directions look better than others, but in an action scene no shot will be held for very long, so it’s not necessary to get every angle perfect.

Normally I open the Cooke S4s no wider than 2 and two thirds, as no lens performs at its best when wide open, but my resolve on this is slipping, and it’s really hard to get a decent amount of light through the dense trees at this location, so I go wide open (T2) for this sequence.

 

Day 25

Our last day on Tybee Island. We start with pick-ups in the woods for various scenes shot over the last few days, then move to the beach, a portion of which we’re cheating as a “river marsh” location. This is a night scene, so we have to go through the slow process of moving the condor (cherry-picker) around from the woods. This involves a police escort to get it across the highway…

Meanwhile B-camera are shooting a shot of a car driving along the road behind the beach. Since the G&E crew are all tied up, at (co-director) Chris Bouchard’s suggestion they use the location work-light and have to fiddle with the white balance to render it a reasonable colour on camera. More and more micro-budget cheats are being employed as the production goes on, and to most of the crew, who are used to big-budget stuff, it’s ridiculous. I don’t mind so much, but I feel bad for the B-camera team.

 

Day 26

We are back on the stage, in three different sets. I’ve lit them all before, but most of the lamps are gone and some require a new look because the time of day is different. Towards the end of the night we leap-frog from set to set, sending G&E and the B-camera ahead to set up while we’re still shooting. To my surprise it works. The sets are small enough that we have enough G&E crew to split up like that.

Top row: A-cam 1st AC Jonathan Klepfer, A-cam 2nd AC Kane Pearson, me, B-cam 1st AC Geran Daniels; bottom row: B-cam 2nd AC Matt Bradford Dixon, digital loader Alex Dubois, B-cam operator/2nd unit DP Tim Gill

For more extracts from my Little Mermaid diary, visit these links:

The Little Mermaid is currently available on Netflix in the UK – but hurry because it leaves on November 30th – and Showtime in the US.

“The Little Mermaid”: A Tale of Two Cameras

Why “No Time to Die” and Other Productions Still Shoot on Film

After many delays, No Time to Die hit UK cinemas a month ago, and has already made half a billion dollars around the world. The 25th James Bond movie was shot on celluloid, making it part of a small group of productions that choose to keep using the traditional medium despite digital becoming the dominant acquisition format in 2013.

Skyfall made headlines the year before that when it became the first Bond film to shoot digitally, captured on the Arri Alexa by the legendary Roger Deakins. But when director Sam Mendes returned to helm the next instalment, 2015’s Spectre, he opted to shoot on 35mm. 

“With the Alexa, I missed the routine of film and the dailies,” Mendes told American Cinematographer. “Watching dailies on the big screen for the first time is kind of like Christmas. Film is difficult, it’s imprecise, but that’s also the glory of it. It had romance, a slight nostalgia… and that’s not inappropriate when dealing with a classic Bond movie.”

Early rumours suggested that Bond’s next outing, No Time to Die, would return to digital capture, but film won out again. Variety reported last year: “[Director Cary Joji] Fukunaga and cinematographer Linus Sandgren pushed to have No Time to Die shot on film instead of digital, believing it enhanced the look of the picture.”

Charlotte Bruus Christensen believed the same when she photographed the horror film A Quiet Place on 35mm. “Film captures the natural warmth, colour and beauty of the daylight,” she told British Cinematographer, “but it’s also wonderful in the dark, the way it renders the light on a face from a candle, before falling off into deep detailed blacks. It is quite simply beautiful and uniquely atmospheric.”

The Bond filmmakers went one step further, making No Time to Die the franchise’s first instalment to utilise IMAX 65mm (reportedly for action sequences only). In this respect they follow in the footsteps of film’s most passionate advocate, Christopher Nolan, who mixed 35mm and IMAX for The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar.

“I think IMAX is the best film format that was ever invented,” said the celebrated director in a DGA interview. “It’s the gold standard and what any other technology has to match up to, but none have, in my opinion.” For his most recent films, Dunkirk and Tenet, Nolan eschewed 35mm altogether, mixing IMAX with standard 65mm.

Nolan’s brother Jonathan brought the same passion for celluloid to his TV series Westworld. “Jonathan told me that he had already made up his mind about film,” said pilot DP Paul Cameron in an Indiewire interview. “We wanted the western town to feel classy and elegant… There’s something tactile and formidable [about film] that’s very real.”

Cameron and another of the show’s DPs, John Grillo, both felt that film worked perfectly for the timeless, minimalist look of the desert, but when the story moved to a futuristic city for its third season Grillo expected a corresponding switch in formats. “I thought we might go digital, shooting in 4K or 6K. But it never got past my own head. Jonathan would never go for it. So we stuck with film. We’re still telling the same story, we’re just in a different place.”

One series that did recently transition from film to digital is The Walking Dead. For nine and a half seasons the zombie thriller was shot on Super 16, a decision first made for the 2010 pilot after also testing a Red, a Panavision Genesis and 35mm. “When the images came back, everyone realised that Super 16 was the format that made everything look right,” reported DP David Boyd. “With the smaller gauge and the grain, suddenly the images seemed to derive from the graphic novel itself. Every image is a step removed from reality and a step deeper into cinema.”

“You really are in there with the characters,” added producer Gale Anne Hurd during a Producers Guild of America panel. “The grain itself, it somehow makes it feel much more personal.” Creator Frank Darabont also noted that the lightweight cameras can be squeezed guerilla-style into small spaces for a more intimate feel.

The team were forced to switch to digital capture during season ten when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. “The decision came about because there are fewer ‘touch points’ with digital than 16mm,” showrunner Angela Kang explained to the press. “We don’t have to swap out film every few minutes, for example.”

The pandemic also hit No Time to Die, pushing its release date back by 18 months and triggering the closure of the Cineworld chain, putting 45,000 jobs in jeopardy. But its reception so far has proved that there’s life yet in both celluloid capture and cinema as a whole.

Why “No Time to Die” and Other Productions Still Shoot on Film

6 Tips for Virtual Production

Part of the volume at ARRI Rental in Uxbridge, with the ceiling panel temporarily lowered

Virtual production technically covers a number of things, but what people normally mean by it is shooting on an LED volume. This is a stage where the walls are giant LED screens displaying real-time backgrounds for photographing the talent in front of. The background may be a simple 2D plate shot from a moving vehicle, for a scene inside a car, or a more elaborate set of plates shot with a 360° rig.

The most advanced set-ups do not use filmed backgrounds at all, but instead use 3D virtual environments rendered in real time by a gaming engine like Unreal. A motion-tracking system monitors the position of the camera within the volume and ensures that the proper perspective and parallax is displayed on the screens. Furthermore, the screens are bright enough that they provide most or all of the illumination needed on the talent in a very realistic way.

I have never done any virtual production myself, but earlier this year I was fortunate enough to interview some DPs who have, for British Cinematographer article. Here are some tips about VP shooting which I learnt from these pioneers.

 

1. Shoot large format

An ARRI Alexa Mini LF rigged with Mo-Sys for tracking its position within the volume

To prevent a moiré effect from the LED pixels, the screens need to be out of focus. Choosing an LF camera, with their shallower depth of field, makes this easier to accomplish. The Alexa Mini LF seems to be a popular choice, but the Sony Venice evidently works well too.

 

2. Keep your distance

To maintain the illusion, neither the talent nor the camera should get too close to the screens. A rule of thumb is that the minimum distance in metres should be no less than the pixel pitch of the screens. (The pixel pitch is the distance in millimetres between the centre of one pixel and the centre of the next.) So for a screen of 2.3mm pixel pitch, keep everything at least 2.3m away.

 

3. Tie it all together

Several DPs have found that the real foreground and the virtual background fit together more seamlessly if haze or a diffusion filter are used. This makes sense because both soften the image, blending light from nearby elements of the frame together. Other in-camera effects like rain (if the screens are rated weatherproof) and lens flares would also help.

 

4. Surround yourself

The back of ARRI’s main screen, composed of ROE LED panels

The most convincing LED volumes have screens surrounding the talent, perhaps 270° worth, and an overhead screen as well. Although typically only one of these screens will be of a high enough resolution to shoot towards, the others are important because they shed interactive light on the talent, making them really seem like they’re in the correct environment.

 

5. Match the lighting

If you need to supplement the light, use a colour meter to measure the ambience coming from the screens, then dial that temperature into an LED fixture. If you don’t have a colour meter you should conduct tests beforehand, as what matches to the eye may not necessarily match on camera.

 

6. Avoid fast camera moves

Behind the scenes at the ARRI volume, built in partnership with Creative Technology

It takes a huge amount of processing power to render a virtual background in real time, so there will always be a lag. The Mandalorian works around this by shooting in a very classical style (which fits the Star Wars universe perfectly), with dolly moves and jibs rather than a lot of handheld shots. The faster the camera moves, the more the delay in the background will be noticeable. For the same reason, high frame rates are not recommended, but as processing power increases, these restrictions will undoubtedly fall away.

6 Tips for Virtual Production

Undisclosed Project: Experimentation

The main event of last week’s prep was a test at Panavision of the Arri Alexa XT, Red Gemini and Sony F55, along with Cooke Panchro, Cooke Varotal, Zeiss Superspeed and Angenieux glass. More on that below, along with footage.

The week started with Zoom meetings with the costume designer, the make-up artist, potential fight choeographers and a theatrical lighting designer. The latter is handling a number of scenes which take place on a stage, which is a new and exciting collaboration for me. I met with her at the location the next day, along with the gaffer and best boy. After discussing the stage scenes and what extra sources we might need – even as some of them were starting to be rigged – I left the lighting designer to it. The rest of us then toured the various rooms of the location, with the best boy making notes and lighting plans on his tablet as the gaffer and I discussed them. They also took measurements and worked out what distro they would need, delivering a lighting kit list to production the next day.

Meanwhile, at the request of the producer, I began a shot list, beginning with two logistically complex scenes. Despite all the recces so far, I’ve not thought about shots as much as you might think, except where they are specified in the script or where they jumped out at me when viewing the location. I expect that much of the shot planning will be done during the rehearsals, using Artemis Pro. That’s much better and easier than sitting at home trying to imagine things, but it’s useful for other departments to be able to see a shot list as early as possible.

So, the camera tests. I knew all along that I wanted to test multiple cameras and lenses to find the right ones for this project, a practice that is common on features but which, for one reason and another, I’ve never had a proper chance to do before. So I was very excited to spend Wednesday at Panavision, not far from my old stomping ground in Perivale, playing around with expensive equipment.

Specifically we had: an Arri Alexa – a camera I’m very familiar with, and my gut instinct for shooting this project on; a Sony F55 – which I was curious to test because it was used to shoot the beautiful Outlander series; and a Red Gemini – because I haven’t used a Red in years and I wanted to check I wasn’t missing out on something awesome.

For lenses we had: a set of Cooke Panchros – again a gut instinct (I’ve never used them, but from what I’ve read they seemed to fit); a set of Zeiss Superspeeds – selected after reviewing my 2017 test footage from Arri Rental; a couple of Cooke Varotal zooms, and the equivalents by the ever-reliable Angenieux. Other than the Angenieux we used on the B-camera for The Little Mermaid (which I don’t think we ever zoomed during a take), I’ve not used cinema zooms before, but I want the old-fashioned look for this project.

Here are the edited highlights from the tests…

You’ll notice that the Sony F55 disappears from the video quite early on. This is because, although I quite liked the camera on the day, as soon as I looked at the images side by side I could see that the Sony was significantly softer than the other two.

So it was down to the Alexa vs. the Gemini, and the Cookes vs. the Superspeeds. I spent most of Thursday and all of Friday morning playing with the footage in DaVinci Resolve, trying to decide between these two pairs of very close contenders. I tried various LUTs, did some rough grading (very badly, because I’m not a colourist), tested how far I could brighten the footage before it broke down, and examined flares and bokeh obsessively.

Ultimately I chose the Cooke Panchros because (a) they have a beautiful and very natural-looking flare pattern, (b) the bokeh has a slight glow to it which I like, (c) the bokeh remains a nice shape when stopped down, unlike the Superspeeds’, which goes a bit geometric, (d) they seem sharper than the Superspeeds at the edges of frame when wide open, and (e) more lengths are available.

As for the zoom lenses (not included in the video), the Cooke and the Angenieux were very similar indeed. I chose the former because it focuses a little closer and the bokeh again has that nice glow.

I came very close to picking the Gemini as my camera. I think you’d have to say, objectively, it produces a better image than the Alexa, heretical as that may sound. The colours seem more realistic (although we didn’t shoot a colour chart, which was a major oversight) and it grades extremely well. But…

I’m not making a documentary. I want a cinematic look, and while the Gemini is by no means un-cinematic, the Alexa was clearly engineered by people who loved the look of film and strove to recreate it. When comparing the footage with the Godfather and Fanny and Alexander screen-grabs that are the touchstone of the look I want to create, the Alexa was just a little bit closer. My familiarity and comfort level with the Alexa was a factor too, and the ACs felt the same way.

I’m very glad to have tested the Gemini though, and next time I’m called upon to shoot something great and deliver in 4K (not a requirement on this project) I will know exactly where to turn. A couple of interesting things I learnt about it are: (1) whichever resolution (and concomitant crop factor) you select, you can record a down-scaled 2K ProRes file, and this goes for the Helium too; (2) 4K gives the Super-35 field of view, whereas 5K shows more, resulting in some lenses vignetting at this resolution.

Undisclosed Project: Experimentation

“The Little Mermaid”: Prep Diary Part 2

This is the second part of my flashback to spring 2016 and the pre-production for The Little Mermaid. Part one is here.

 

Weeks 3 & 4

Nothing much seems to happen the third week of prep. After the Shirley shoot finishes on Monday, I take Tuesday off. I’m so exhausted I can barely move, which bodes ill for the 26-day slog of principal photography that’s coming up! Things are quiet in the office on Wednesday and Thursday, and Friday is Good Friday so it’s a holiday. The three-day weekend is enjoyable but also frustrating given how much prep there is still to do.

Next Monday I go scouting with Anthony, the new locations manager. He takes us to a quarry ten minutes down the road from the office, where we finally find the cliff we’ve been searching for since prep began. The location has a lot of potential for many scenes, so we’re very pleased. (Ultimately it went unused because of safety concerns.)

On Tuesday there’s a page turner, which is like a table read only without the cast. We spend five hours going through the script, asking questions and addressing issues that might come up. I try to clarify certain things in the script and make sure everyone knows how Chris, the director, wants to approach things. (He’s just a talking head on my iPad right now, due to visa delays.)

Gaffer Mike and key grip Jason have arrived in town for the page turner, and on Wednesday morning we get down to the business of writing a lighting list. It’s difficult for me to get my head around the crew structure here in the States. The gaffer is the head of the electrical department, so they only deal with lamps and distro. Flags, cutters, nets, black-out, bounce boards and so on are handled by the grip department, led of course by the key grip… who also handles the camera grip, like cranes and dollies.

Most of the rest of the week is spent visiting locations with Anthony, Mike and Jason, while the latter two finesse the list and get quotes. On Wednesday evening I convene the camera department to debrief from the Shirley shoot and discuss what can be done to improve the crew structure, equipment package and workflow.

By the weekend it stills feel like there is much to figure out, and there is only one week left before principal photography begins. Still, I won’t be sorry to say goodbye to office work and get back on set.

 

Week 5

It’s the last week of preproduction and we should be spending it doing tech scouts and production meetings. But unfortunately many HoDs have been hired late, and there are lots of locations left to find, so it’s a frustrating week for me, waiting for stuff to happen. I try to nail down the grip and electrical items which are only required on specific dates, but it looks like some of that will have to be done as we go along.

I spend more time location scouting with Anthony, during which I realise just how time-consuming it is to drive around, spot possible places, make friends with the owners and just get to the stage where any of the crew can check it out.

We visit a possible beach location, a nice little spot on the same island we did the Shirley Shoot on. Chris, still unable to enter the US, participates by video call. He wants me to roll up my trousers and test the water, because the principal cast will have to spend hours in it. It’s nice enough for a paddle, but I don’t think I’d want to spend a day up to my waist in it. (Actually, that’s exactly what I and several other cast and crew end up doing.)

As the week goes on I spend less and less time at the office, because there simply isn’t much left I can do. I occupy my evenings swimming in the pool and binge-watching season one of Outlander, which Starz have made free for a couple of weeks here in the US. The cinematography in the first couple of episodes is utterly stunning, in fact it’s the most beautiful cinematography I’ve ever seen. It’s very inspirational, and I have a couple of good ideas for lighting A Little Mermaid as I watch it. (Recently I had the exciting chance to ask David Higgs BSC about lighting the Outlander pilot, for an article in the January issue of British Cinematographer.)

Chris finally arrives on Saturday, two days before the shoot. In the evening there’s a “pre-game” party by the pool. It finally feels like we’re making a movie. The equipment has all arrived, and there are trucks and trailers parked outside the production office.

On Sunday we do the closest we’re going to get to a tech scout. It’s great to be able to walk around a location with the directors at last. (Writer Blake has joined Chris as a co-director.) I try to use Helios, a sun tracker app, to work out when the sun will hit the back of the house, but in the end I trust my own estimation better. I whip out my light meter to check the contrast ratio between sunlight and shade; it’s 8:1 (3 stops), well within the Alexa’s dynamic range, but setting up an ultrabounce to fill in the shadows, as the key grip suggests, will make the image much more pleasing to the eye.

I figure out the broad strokes of the lighting for the interiors and let the G&E (grip and electric) team know the plan. With Larry, the 1st AD, I discuss how we’re going to maximise our two cameras in order to make our day.

I can’t believe we’re about to start principal at last. Five weeks is by far the longest prep time I’ve ever had for a movie. It’s feels like I’ve been here forever! But I’m only halfway through my time in Savannah…

Here are links to my diary entries from the shoot:

The Little Mermaid is currently available on Netflix around the world.

“The Little Mermaid”: Prep Diary Part 2