American Cinematographer - April 2008 - 22

Above (from left): Li, Van Sant and Doyle discuss their next setup. Doyle feels that working with his two collaborators helped facilitate a welcome “break from self.” Below: Doyle credits Van Sant for encouraging the film’s “Zen aesthetic.” ramped the frame rate to 70-100 fps without adjusting the aperture; as a result, the boy’s progress looks slow and he becomes increasingly underexposed. “We wanted to show what having experienced the interview caused in Alex’s head,” says Doyle. “We initially overexposed the background a few stops to help silhouette him when the frame rate increased. The school corridors gave us just under T2 at 800 ASA at 24 fps, so it was a matter of making something of what we had.” Doyle and Li framed for Van Sant’s favored 1.33:1 aspect ratio but protected for standard 1.85:1. “1.33:1 was liberating, but we protected for 1.85 because we feared our integrity would be violated [by exhibitors]. We chose 1.33 out of respect for the Super 8 format of most skater films; as a move away from ‘how films look’ to, we hope, ‘how this feels’; and because we wanted to push ourselves to look.” Paranoid Park’s Zen aesthetic is probably most evident in its lighting. Li, a Beijing native and alum of Bournemouth Arts Institute, started working as an electrician on commercials eight years ago. “With Chris, I learned to simply enhance the feeling that the space creates naturally,” she says. “We simply balanced the natural light and the film light. If I tried to set up more than three lights for a scene, Chris would start shouting at me!” Most interiors were lit by a single 18K HMI through a window, shaped by cutters and the occasional gel. To light the railyard where the accident occurs, the cinematographers set up two construction-light rigs, “the kind used to light the guys who dig up your neighborhood at night,” says Doyle. “They have a retractable tower with four very powerful lamps that can be turned in any direction. We put them in the shot, and they did all the lighting. Our gaffer bought 10 of them on Ebay for the same price as the day rental of the 18K!” For a series of shots in which Alex drives aimlessly through a Portland downpour after the accident, the filmmakers simply jump-cut from one configuration to another instead of trying to maintain lighting continuity. “Our only light was a car-kit Mini-Flo set by the dashboard,” says Li. “The camera was rigged to the hood of the car, which was pulled by a truck.” The shots are all desaturated, with a hint of green in the shadow. “Portland’s streetlamps are sodium-vapor, so whether it’s the stock or the timing, whatever the light doesn’t hit gives the complementary green,” notes Doyle. The crew was reduced to four when the time came to film Alex showering away the vestiges of the accident. “It was Gus on mic, Rain on camera, Gabe in the shower, and me with an open-faced 2K, worrying about whether the water was going to electrocute me — all in a 10-by-4 bathroom,” recalls Doyle. “That’s how to make a film!” To pick out individual droplets of water in the shower, Li closed the camera’s shutter to 45 or 90 degrees. She panned across the spray and then with Nevins as he slid slowly down the wall. “We ramped the speed again without compensating the stop, so you can sense subtle changes in the light,” she says. “I couldn’t pull focus, operate and manipulate the speed all at once, so we called in our first assistant, Chris Blauvelt. I think he was controlling the timing of the speed change in the middle of the take.” Doyle seems to relish “the break from self” that his collaboration with Van Sant afforded. “I think it was the same for Gus, too,” he remarks. “You break from self to find the essential, and that’s why Rain and I shot the film rather than [Van Sant’s frequent collaborator] Harris Savides [ASC]. Harris obviously would have done a better job! I feel Gus made the brave — most would say foolish — choice to dare to move on. One has to walk away from habit and comfort to know where one really lives.” ¢ 22 April 2008

American Cinematographer - April 2008

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