American Cinematographer - July 1993 - 71

CToemlveisrcoianls

Curtis Clark, ASC:

Thinking Big for the Small Screen
An aesthetic-minded feature

cinematographer

turns his attentions to television commercials.

by Bob Fisher

Even when he's

shooting commer¬
cials for the small screen, cinema¬
tographer Curtis Clark, ASC says
he still thinks big.
"I've brought my back¬
ground in feature films to every¬
thing I've done," Clark says of the
commercial work he has been

shooting for the past two-and-ahalf years. "When you're executing
a certain kind of
shooting style -
even if it's in a
compressed form

that all formats

are

created

equal.

Features, by their very nature, often
tend to be more realistic, while
commercials lean more toward the
surreal. "There's more exaggera¬
tion of style and form in a commer¬
cial because of the nature of what a
commercial is," Clark says. "It
needs to use expressive exaggera¬
tion to make an impact."

as the format for certain
sequences,
you accept it as a new normality,
with the strangeness attached to it."

Locations,

including the

sand dunes outside Yuma, Ari¬

selected for their
graphic value in order to comple¬

zona,

were

ment the
were

anamorphic format. Sets

also built at Raleigh Studios in

sition, camera movement and light¬

cently shot for the Seagram's Bev¬
erage Co. are a good case in point.
The two 30-second spots, created
by the Wells, Rich, Green agency,
attempt to capture viewers' interest
and attention by intriguing them

Hollywood to amplify the stylized
big-screen view. The distorted per¬
spective was further accentuated
by the use of dutch angles - either
off-center to the right or to the left.
To vary the effect even more, scenes
were shot at
anywhere from 6 fps
to 120 fps. "You tend to accept this

ing.

with altered realities. Several

new

like

a

commercial

-

there

are cer¬

tain

experiences you subcon¬
sciously carry forward from a fea¬
ture in terms of

a sense

of compo¬

"You're

usually thinking
[commercial]
is going to have as a large projected
image," he notes, adding that he
doesn't believe in making compen¬
about the impact this

sations for

with good

screen

size. "If you

start

solid cinematic values in
terms of what visually makes the
most impressive renderings, those
will likely be the most effective."
That's not to say, however,

The commercials Clark re¬

scenes,

featuring actor Judge

Reinhold searching for the ultimate
thirst quencher, were filmed with
an

anamorphic lens. In the final

transfer, these scenes will remain as

"squeezed" images.
"In doing this, we're intro¬
ducing a certain degree of dramatic
surreal dimension to the scene,"

world which is based on actual
locations and a certain reality, but
which is now being experienced in
an

extremely unusual way," Clark

says.
Reinhold

finally does find
the Seagram's Quest non-alcoholic
beverage in an idyllic outdoor set¬
ting; the studio set was shot with a
spherical Primo lens on the

Clark explains. "By using it not just
as an odd shot here and there, but

Panavision Platinum

July 1993

American

Pan-Arri III

was

camera.

also used

Cinematographer

on

A

the

Above: Clark and
crew prepare to
shoot actor Judge

Reinhold

(grasping bar at
center) searching
for a thirst

quencher amid the
desert in

a

Seagram's spot
designed by the
Wells, Rich, Green
agency.

69
American Cinematographer - July 1993

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