American Cinematographer - May 2019 - 41

When a choice is offered
to the audience, the viewer
has 10 seconds to act. This is
called the "fuse," Slade says
- and the filmmakers
worked to give these
moments significance and
tension. The viewer's
options appear onscreen
with a banner that shrinks
as time passes and sound
builds. "A decision was
made to create a photographic element for [those
moments
as
well],"
Polonsky explains.
"We knew that there would be a necessary pause when the choice is being made, so we wanted to build tension into
that pause," Morton says. "We went with a feeling of 'foreboding.' As Stefan is making up his mind about what to do, we
would slowly flag certain lamps to try and make it feel like a shadow is passing over him." Polonsky reports that this also
involved bringing down the foreground light.
Morton adds that he enjoys in-camera lighting cues, and that such effects were further refined by Soret's work in the
grade. "I think those [fuse] moments are a big part of why the whole show has quite a tense feel to it," Morton says. "As
you make more choices, the stakes keep getting raised."
Slade notes, "This was a Charlie Brooker conceit: If you didn't make choices, [Bandersnatch] would make bad choices
for you. The idea was to make the audience complicit [in the decision]."
150mm Prime DNAs, "plus the 58mm
T Type, a prototype 200mm, and a
300mm Prime 65."
The main-narrative throughline was shot via large-format digital
capture and framed for a 2.20:1 aspect
ratio, while flashback and dream
sequences were filmed on 4-perf
Super 35mm negative and framed for
1.33:1. "I wanted to be quite cinematically aggressive," Slade says. "Each
format has a meaning."
The
film
negative
was
processed at the Kodak Film Lab
London, and scanned at 4K resolution
at Digital Orchard and recorded to 16bit 4K DPX FilmLog files. Dailies
were provided by Technicolor
London.
Regarding the production's
digitally captured footage, Morton
attests, "It's a great pleasure to be able
to shoot Alexa 65 large-format. David
and I talked a lot in prep about wanting to feel like we are experiencing
the story with Stefan. [We] didn't ever
want it to be observational. [We

wanted] the decisions you are making
for Stefan to feel even more personal
- so we tended more toward a closeand-wide feel, as far as lens choices.
We wanted to feel the optical characteristics of the glass wherever possible. I love the way the Alexa 65
contrasts with the other formats that
we used. There was no mistaking that
we were showing people something
different."

"There were a lot of scenes in
Stefan's bedroom where he's
programming, and we wanted to try
to make them visually interesting,
and [ensure that they] keep changing," Polonsky says. "By happenstance, we discovered that the DNA
lenses had some great flaring characteristics - not anamorphic-type
streaks, but strange rainbow stars if
you hit them at a particular angle

The viewer has
helped Stefan
choose which
record to
purchase at a
WHSmith shop.

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May 2019

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American Cinematographer - May 2019

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