American Cinematographer - January 2007 - 40

Fear and

Fantasy
overhead, which then bounced the

light down into the well. "The qual¬
ity of the light was a bit soft and felt
organic," says the gaffer. "Because it
was silver, we could punch through a
little bit stronger light here and there,
and just sort of paint this big room
through that little hole."
In the Pale Man's intensely
warm

environment, which is domi¬

nated by red tones and a blazing fire,
Navarro's lighting team was faced

similarly limited options. In the
through to
reach the dining room, small
skylight-like holes were built into the
ceiling to allow for sources. Lee
recalls, "We brought in something
fairly soft from there, just so there

with

corridor Ofelia walks

would be

little bit of level

a

as

she

through. Rick Stribling and I
rigged Source Four Lekos around the

walked
Above: Ofelia is

terrorized by

her
new stepfather,
Capt. Vidal
(Sergi Lopez).
Below: The

captain and his
troops

affect the entire
chocolate filter

on

the lens."

bedroom wall.

guidelines rigidly,
picture's early scenes.

in the

a

Ofelia's encounters with the faun in
or pozo, beneath the
clearly within the steelas are the faun's visits to

local train.

the

deep well,

labyrinth

are

blue range,
Ofelia in her attic bedroom. "In the

pozo, cooler tones felt more organic
to the exterior nights and to the
scenes that would connect with it,"
says Navarro. In
the cold palette

Ofelia's bedroom,
contrasts dramati¬

cally with the warmth of the Pale

a

on

her

fantasy environ¬
particularly challenging
light. "The pozo was basically a

ments were
to

cave

with

a

10- to 12-foot-wide hole

and squeezing enough
light to light the entire space through
that hole was logistically tricky,"
at

the top,

recalls Lee. "We didn't have

a

lot of

ceiling height, so we couldn't get very
far back from the hole. The only way
we could get some distance from it
was

to

do

a

holes and bounced them into white

silver cards. Then we had places to
plug in small lamps hidden through¬
out the hallway. We hung 150-watt
or

The film's

But the filmmakers did not

even

chalk doorway

drawing

adhere to the color

after

Man's set, which she enters

image, I used a

on a

investigate
rebel attack

camera," says Navarro. "If I wanted to

bounce." Lee's

crew

Linestra tubes

that shot up

into

a

silver card

the backsides of

taped them
doing something that
like we'd just hidden

until they were
didn't look

lightbulbs everywhere. Sometimes
put an Arri 150 or 300 on the
floor and bounced it into something,
but this was rarely possible because

we

the
so

camera

moved

so

much and

saw

much.
"We didn't do much fill at all

surrounded the hole with instru¬
ments

on

the columns and then

just enough to lift stuff out of the
black," continues Lee. "We'd do a
little piece here, a little piece there,
just grabbing what little light there

-

with

was

the

a

card. Guillermo and I

work that way anyway,

but
degree to which we'd just let it go

tend

to

greater on this film."
Indeed, one of the things Del
Toro likes about Navarro is that "he's
was

wmr
ttfm

ElQ

-

SjH

afraid of the dark," says the

direc¬
adding, "I've always fought for
movies to be as black as possible,
with figures emerging from the
not

tor,

darkness." Navarro notes, "Darkness
a very important part of Pan's
Labyrinth, and we didn't chicken out

is

40

January 2007
American Cinematographer - January 2007

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