American Cinematographer - June 1987 - 30

Extreme

Prejudice Cowboys

Wheels

on

Produced by Buzz Feitshans
Directed by Walter Hill

Matthew Leonetti, ASC, director of

by Les Paul Robley

photography

to cinematographer
Matthew Leonetti, ASC, Tri-Star's
new action thriller Extreme Preju¬
dice plays more like a Western
with cars instead of horses. Its

According

six ex-soldiers, offi¬
cially classified as killed-in-action,
who target a small Texas border
town being used as cover for a
huge money laundering and drug
smuggling operation. Powers
Boothe portrays Cash Bailey, the
man whom the covert special
forces group must terminate "with
extreme prejudice," while Nick
Nolte plays his childhood buddy
Jack Benteen, now a Texas Ranger
whose job it is to maintain law and
story concerns

order in the town. The film re¬
unites both actors with director
Walter Hill whose previous credits
with them included Southern

Comfort and 48 Hrs, respectively.
Leonetti had never
worked with director Hill. But
after preparing the film for three

weeks, he had

a

chance

to

discuss

with Hill the photographic style
and overall look for the film. How
does a cinematographer approach

assignment and decide
style will be appropriate for
a given film?
"You have to analyze the
story, and decide what lends itself
best to the particular look you
want to capture," began Leonetti.
"In this case, because I thought it
was a Western, a hot, dusty feeling
was appropriate." He had em¬
ployed a completely opposite ef¬
fect for an earlier effort, Jumpin'
Jack Flash, where no nets were in¬
volved and a sharper look was
a

new

which

called for.
"Walter likes
We used

28

American

an

long lenses.
long Ul-

primes (300 to 600mm
lengths), and we used the
long end of the Cooke 10 to 1
tranon

focal

lens,

(The Ultranon lens
Zeiss lens remounted
and is a little sharper than the
Cooke. The Cooke 5 to 1 and 10
to 1 zoom lenses were exchanged
freely with the Ultranon primes.)
We ended up putting a Tiffen Net
4 over them for all exteriors. I
zoom

is

actually

too.

a

wanted the interiors and exteriors
to have the same quality and feel. I
didn't want a hard sharp look. The

helped take the edge off the
sharpness of the lenses, giving me a
nets

softer look.
"We wanted the lighting
to be 'sourcey,' with shadows and
nice contrast, but
so it wouldn't be

with soft lights
too harsh," he

continued. "Since

everybody's

down a little, yet not enough to be
too dark."
The Western-style hats

presented problems for shooting
scenes

hotel

which involved a massive
interior designed by A1

set

Heschong at Laird Studios in
Culver City. The set walls were
built high to encompass a balcony
that figures prominently in the
script. Leonetti prefers not to an¬
gle lights straight down, since hat¬
ted

shadow lines which
their chins, causing eye

actors cast

cut across

sockets to go black. His remedy
involved hanging lights low on the
set whenever possible to alleviate
this problem. An outdoor
"source" look

as

if

light

was pour¬

ing in through windows was
achieved. In some instances, criss¬
cross

windowpane shadows

were

wearing hats, we had to deal with
the problem of getting light on

positioned cosmetically on walls,
with hot back lights trained on the

their faces. We let the faces go

heads of those who
near them.

awful lot of

Cinematographer

MBcrBurocme

byPhots

June 1987

were

standing
American Cinematographer - June 1987

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