American Cinematographer - May 1984 - 66

lot pastels that add to it - to
the overall texture. That's what

Right: Ralph

are a

Richardson in his

final role

as

Lord

you're trying to achieve. The new
film has such a fine grain that it's
picking up points of color that
were never seen before.
People

Greystoke welcomes
his grandson to
Greystoke Manor.
Below: The

talk about the wonderful films we
had years ago when it was lovely
and pastel. It wasn't pastel, it was

expedition which
discovers Tarzan.

grainy. Now it's up to the cin¬
ematographer to create the word
pastel."
Super Techniscope
Alcott has

first

experience in shooting the
"stately homes" was in Barry Lyn¬
don. "When I'd done that all I
could wait to do was shoot an¬
other picture with that type inte¬
rior. Whatever you do in one film

gain experience and you think
of things you want to try another
time. The way things happen, it's
been six to eight years before I got

you

another chance to shoot that kind
of interior.
"The exciting thing is
that the building is there, the inte¬
rior is there
we redressed occas-

sionally, but basically it's all there.
And it makes it very easy for a cin¬
ematographer to light, because
you have to establish natural light
through the windows and every¬
thing else takes care of itself! The
most difficult part is determining
the correct exposure. This is
where the Polaroid is a great help
letting the shadows become an
important part of the scene.

never

impossible to make Greystoke
because the old film was
not sensitive enough. The faster
film has a color range that chal¬
lenges the cinematographer. "In
the living areas of the old homes
there was a lot of fading (carpets,
wall hangings, furniture) so there
years ago

"Homes made in those

built so that the living
facing south. There was
central heating and they relied
the sun for heat and light.

days

were

areas were
no

on

There

Venetian blinds

were no

or

to block it out. If you are
natural source light style of

anything
into

a

find it much
location. When I
set which is built, the

photography
easier

to

windows

64

American

you

go on

go on to a

are

in

places

Cinematographer

you

normally find them. At least

of the time when you walk
into a natural location the win¬
dows are in the correct place!"
Alcott is acutely aware of
the nuances of light and its effect
on the type of film he is shooting.
He feels that it would have been
most

would
May 1984

never

been

re-

ally sold on the idea of
anamorphic lenses. To avoid hav¬
ing to use them and losing vital
depth of field he and Hugh Hud¬
son came up with the idea of
Super Techniscope as an alternate
technique for shooting an ana¬
morphic ratio picture. "What we
did was go back to the old Techni¬
scope system of enlarging the
negative and making it Super
Techniscope. In other words we
were using the sound track area,
which

was

never

used before.

Using the sound track gave us
more height on the
negative which
in turn gave us a larger area of
negative than the original Techni¬
scope frame."
What happens is the film
is shot with a spherical lens, but
the camera ground glass is marked
for a 2.35 ratio frame. The camera
aperture is modified so that the
American Cinematographer - May 1984

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