American Cinematographer - June 1988 - 75

iiimatn i
The Street

Shooting Video With Eye for Film

-

by David Heuring
The steady drift of the evening news toward
the realm of entertainment has given rise to
that questionable term, "infotainment." The
Street is a late night television series which
turns this

recipe around, incorporating styl¬

istic elements of television news for dra¬
matic effect. With its documentary camera

style and realistic portrayal of life in a police
cruiser, The Street contrasts the cinematic
approach of most episodic television. The
results

are

interesting and unusual.
The Street is well named, for it

takes

place entirely

on

location in the

streets of

Newark, New Jersey, and almost
all of the story occurs in or near the police
cruiser. The police are regular, average cops,
working in the town they grew up in.
Director of photography Rob
Draper is responsible for the unique look of
The Street. Draper's resume includes more
than 300 documentary films and several
features, including Tiger \Narsaw, to be
released next spring. He treats the camera
as "another film emulsion." Ignoring the
factory specified 125 ASA, Draper runs the
Sony BVP-5 video camera at 800 ASA, and
at + 9db. This results in a grainy feel with
an electronic noise. Combining this technique with a spare, feature-like lighting
style gives the show its film look and
docmentary TV feel.
In a business where tough
schedules and low budgets come with the
territory, The Street outdoes most. The
show is shot on a schedule of five episodes
in five days, completing 125 pages of script,
devoted mostly to dialogue among the main

Above: Patrolmen
Jack

Runyon IRon
Ryan, left) and
Shepherd Scott
(Michael Beach) in
the

jz

work with the

%

Sony Betacam.

°

Left: On location in

c

the cold streets of

£

Newark.

£
J>

M

normal production, The Equalizer completes
about 50 pages, and an average episode of
Miami Vice runs about $1.5 million.
The producers had a realistic
look in mind for the show. Their search for a
director of photography turned up Draper, an
Australian cinematographer with a reputa¬
tion for giving video images a film-like

they wanted to use videotape, I was excited,
because I really wanted to try to show that
videotape can be made to give the visual
effect that approaches or imitates the quali¬
ty of film," says Draper. "Obviously the
resolution's not there, but ultimately, when
you start degrading and pushing film, with
filters and so on, you're really degrading the
image anyway. I think that the producers'
reasons for choosing video were mainly
economical, but they also wanted a realistic,

quality. "When the producers told

television

characters, for the
purposes

sum

of $250,000. For

of comparison, in

seven

days of

me

that

police cruiser.
Draper at

Far left:
c

June 1988

news

look.

"With that in mind, the pro¬

ducers asked

to come up with a visual
style. I wanted to take the show a step
me

further than 'realism.' Rather than have it
look like pure, cleanly shot videotape, I
treated it as I would a feature film. After

American

Cinematographer

73
American Cinematographer - June 1988

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