American Cinematographer - April 2009 - 18

Prison guards make inmates run the gauntlet as an extra punishment. The production recreated Northern Ireland’s notorious Maze Prison in a warehouse near Belfast. softer blacks than 8573.” For the movie’s final scene, which shows Sands as a child, Bobbitt shot Eterna Vivid 160 8543. The production re-created Maze Prison in a warehouse outside Belfast. The filmmakers were allowed to walk through the real Maze Prison to gather visual reference materials, and Bobbitt made sketches and shot stills to devise his lighting plan for the set. He notes that it was particularly helpful that Hunger’s production designer, Tom McCullagh, had built replicas of the prison twice before and knew it intimately. The set had no breakaway walls, but Bobbitt’s news-cameraman background had prepared him to fit into tight spaces with a camera. He used an Arricam Lite for handheld work, an Arricam Studio for tracking and dolly shots (and in cells, because the Lite proved too noisy in close quarters), and an Arri 235 for a few other shots. His lenses were Cooke S4 primes and a Zeiss 100mm Macro. “The Cookes have a softness and warmth, and I like the way the focus falls off,” declares Bobbitt. “I felt that posed an interesting contrast with the brutality of what was going on inside the prison.” Given the size of the cells, the camera had to be quite close to the actors. “The 35mm S4 gives a very close focus, so you can get in tight without creating distortion,” notes the cinematographer. “When I needed to get a two-shot in the cell, the 12mm lens was the only way to do it. We reserved the 100mm Macro for when we wanted to get right into an eye.” During prep, McQueen gave Bobbitt a book on 17th-century Spanish painter Diego Velázquez to communicate the kind of light he had in mind. “There is a physicality and texture to the light in his paintings,” explains McQueen. Bobbitt designed the prisonlighting scheme to mimic Velázquez’s reliance on single sources. He notes, “The cells really lent themselves to that style of lighting; each cell had one small window, and I put a 20K through full grid outside and added CTB on the glass to create a level of coldness.” For night scenes, he switched out the CTB for CTO and Bastard Amber to mimic the prison yard’s sodium lights. The centerpiece of Hunger is a conversation between Sands and a priest, Father Dominic Moran (Liam Cunningham), who are seated at a table, facing each other. The scene lasts almost 23 minutes, and the first 17.5 minutes comprise a single static shot that holds the two men in a mediumwide frame. “Steve pointed out that when he’s listening to two people talk, he doesn’t stand up and walk around the room, looking at them from different angles — he sits in one place and listens,” explains Bobbitt. Windows cover the wall in the background of the scene, and outside them, Bobbitt’s crew positioned an 18K, a 12K, two 6Ks and four 4Ks at different angles. Framed against the windows, the actors are in partial silhouette. “I felt the scene would work only if their faces were partially hidden,” says Bobbitt. “When viewers can almost, but not completely, see the men, they project their own emotions onto the characters, and I think that keeps them engrossed in what’s being said. I added no fill light; whatever fill exists is natural bounce coming off the walls behind the camera.” The cinematographer notes that McQueen doesn’t shoot coverage; the director prefers to let a scene play out in one shot, usually in front of a stationary camera. One such scene depicts Sands being brutally beaten by guards and then dragged down the corridor. The camera seems to be right in the middle of the assault, and it remains on Sands’ face as he is dragged away. “I’d always seen that shot that way in my mind — the camera looking up at Bobby as he’s carried down the hallway,” says 18 April 2009

American Cinematographer - April 2009

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