American Cinematographer - May 2009 - 43

Because of the low light levels in both locations, “Kevin and the producers suggested we shoot on video with available light,” Prieto recalls. “I thought that would betray our intention to separate the anamorphic and digital worlds, so on one of our scouts, I took a [PanArri] 235 with a 50mm C-Series lens and a couple of 200-foot loads of 5219 into the subway and rolled a little bit of film with available light. I pushed it one stop, and it was quite dark — around two stops underexposed — but it was gorgeous; 5219 can really capture the information in low light and still have good contrast. Thank goodness we made a test, because we decided to shoot film. The art department added some fluorescents, and [2ndunit director of photography] Masanobu Takayanagi, who shot the subway scene, put a China ball with a metal-halide bulb in the foreground and had a couple of Kino Flos floating around.” Meanwhile, the first unit tackled the end of the foot chase, when Robert Bingham (Michael Berresse) kills the thief and puts a bullet into a deliveryman who witnessed the shooting. The action takes place beneath the Washington abutment near the Key Bridge in Georgetown. Robby Baumgartner, a longtime collaborator of Prieto’s, notes, “It was a night scene, we were shooting 360 degrees, and we had to backlight rain. We changed out and added a couple of cobra heads [streetlights] with metal-halide bulbs, and on top of the abutment, we put an Arri T12 on a MaxMover on a [Chapman/Leonard] Lenny Arm III camera crane. I had a wireless device so I could spot, flood, pan and tilt the light, and when the camera flipped around, the grips could swing the light to the other side [of the abutment]. We were able to hide a Condor on one side of the abutment when we needed to have both sides lit at once, but that was rare.” Collins learns of Baker’s death just prior to an important meeting of the Energy Committee, on which he serves. The meeting scene was shot on location in Washington’s Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, where the filmmakers bolstered the daylight coming through the windows with a row of six 18K ArriMax Pars on scissor lifts; inside the room, the ambience was boosted with a skirted HMI helium balloon on the window side of the room. “We floated around a bounce with a couple of 6Ks just to fill in a little, and we also kept the practicals on, which added some warm highlights,” notes Baumgartner. “The lighting allowed us to shoot in any direction,” says Prieto, who shot the scene at a T8 to increase the depth of field. “One of the windows was at an angle where we could have the ‘sunlight’ right on Collins, and I thought that was appropriate because he’s literally in the spotlight. It’s a very vulnerable moment for him.” Indeed, as the congressman tries to say a few words about his assistant’s death, he cracks and, in tears, excuses himself from the meeting. Collins’ public breakdown incites a wave of speculation in the Washington Globe newsroom, a fully enclosed, practically lit, two-story set that filled two adjacent soundstages at Culver Studios. Reporters’ desks Left: The Robert C. Weaver Federal Building stood in for a hospital exterior. For the location, Prieto gelled a BeBee Light with ½ Plus Green for a metal-halide look. “The BeBee raked the building and backlit the rain and the actors for the main angle,” the cinematographer explains. Below: With nowhere else to turn, Collins goes to his old college roommate, crashing in McAffrey’s apartment. American Cinematographer 43

American Cinematographer - May 2009

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