American Cinematographer - June 2009 - 10

Short Takes A 65mm Microsoft Installation at JFK Airport by David Heuring 10 June 2009 Frame grabs courtesy of Crispin Porter + Bogusky/Brand New School. Photo by Stephen Sloan. Visual installations serving as ads for Microsoft are on display at John F. Kennedy Airport. Presented across five high-definition plasma screens, the images were shot on 65mm by Christophe Lanzenberg. T ravelers hustling through the American Airlines terminal at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport are currently getting a break from the drab interiors typical of such locations. An unconventional visual installation shows single motion images — a dog chasing a Frisbee along the beach, a golfer chipping from a sand trap — across five 40" highdefinition plasma screens. Each image is a quick narrative playing out in an attention-grabbing 9.31:1 aspect ratio. The images were designed as a visual analog to Microsoft’s “Life Without Borders” slogan. Graphic representations of cellphones, computer monitors and home-theater screens help express the message that magical moments of everyday life, once captured, can move easily among platforms that use Microsoft products. There are eight five-bank displays in the concourse, and any passenger arriving or departing on an American Airlines flight passes by them. Ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky asked director Rob Feng and cinematographer Christophe Lanzenberg to create four vignettes, each with motion that would cross the frames from right to left, taking into account the viewer’s motion through the viewing area. The “stories” include a motorcycle daredevil jumping from one ramp to another, and a child creating a long soap bubble that bursts as he reaches the final frame. “The basic idea was that whatever was playing across the screens should really span all five,” says Feng. A graduate of the University of Southern California’s film program, Feng worked at visual-effects facility Digital Domain before joining Brand New School, a directing collective with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Lanzenberg, a native of France, moved to the United States in the mid-1980s and studied film history and theory in the graduate program at Columbia University before transitioning into cinematography. His credits include music videos, commercials (“NBA: There Can Be Only One”) and features (Watching the Detectives and Sensation of Sight). He is now working with Savant Film. For the Microsoft installation, Feng and Lanzenberg considered a rig comprising five HD cameras and also researched the possibility of shooting in Imax. But extensive previsualization and previous experience on a five-HDcamera shoot convinced them that the most effective approach was to use a single 65mm camera, an Arri 765, which would allow them to shoot at frame rates of up to 75 fps. Scanned at 8K resolution and enlarged 12 percent, the 65mm frame provided adequate resolution even after the image was spread out over the five plasma screens. The ability to overcrank was

American Cinematographer - June 2009

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