American Cinematographer - March 1994 - 54

five weeks, Baker had to find
ways to hide lights and turn
corners in
square rooms under
seven-and-a-half-foot ceilings. "It
would have been much easier in
a

studio, with wild walls and the

ability to get outside

a window
and look in," he points out. But
the apartment on the 17th floor
over

Central Park offered

such

vantage. "Technically, to

no

do a shoot like this in five weeks
would be impossible," the cin¬

ematographer adds. But Baker
didn't spend years honing his re¬
sources in Australia for
nothing.
The Kittredge apart¬
ment, surrounded by windows,
has

a

full view of the Manhattan

skyline, which
the location

was one reason
chosen. Baker

was

notes, "This film is about New
York. When you look out the
windows after dark, the night
moves.

Lights twinkle. Traffic

flows." But the windows also
The

Kittredges

and their fellow

would be

ways, to introduce a sense of un¬
ease." He created this nervous

posed problems: 86 percent of the
apartment shoot was done at

feeling by keeping characters'
heads stationary in the frame
while the background moved,

night, and Baker was constantly
looking at reflections in the win¬
dows. A visitor to the set might

plains. "Ladies sometimes like

but "not like

diffusion filters to soften their
faces. But I believe in doing that
with lighting." Occasionally he'll

have wondered if Baker had
hired his crew from a monastery:

viewer nauseous,

dupes (Bruce
Davison and

uses

Mary Beth Hurt)

tion

find that the list
of those who
have been
tricked

by Paul
getting
longer every
day.
is

a

Super 35 film.

Whenever he can, Baker

lighting - rather than filtra¬
-

to achieve

"I seldom

use a

desired look.

filters," he

low-contrast filter

exterior

bloom
on

use

a

on

ex¬

night

work, "and really only to

streetlights

or

headlights

motor cars." Other than

that,

except for the occasional use of

action film: characters don't

fuel audience adrenaline

by aim¬
ing 38-caliber revolvers or leap¬
ing from burning buildings. In
portraying the real motion of the
picture - the emotional turmoil
created as the impostor Paul (Will
Smith) dupes a social group that
believes itself invulnerable

Baker used
to

camera

-

movement

provide emotional buildup

and create a sense of unrest. His
Panaflex was seldom static, and
tended to move "in eccentric

American

Cinematographer

it makes the
and not in

a

convey the fear and outrage of
the Kittredge crowd's response.
Will Smith was lit from
the side to narrow his face: "It

"it

as an

so

camera

way either." Baker
used subtle camera motion to

filter effect.
Six Degrees may take its
audience outside of the Kittredge
a

seasick

gratuitous

wasn't

apartment, but it hardly qualifies

52

swaying around

daylight correction filters, he pre¬
fers to use his own techniques to
create

a

really meant to make
Baker,
just that flat light on his

"Everybody shuffled around in
long black robes," Baker explains,
"so they wouldn't reflect in the
windows. We couldn't get any

lights in the windows because
they were constantly in shot, and
the square rooms made it hard to
do 360-degree dolly moves."

him look deceitful," says
was

face made it look wider, which

changed his character." Charac¬
ters often require different light¬
ing styles, and Baker admits that
when the actors are all together in
one

frame it's difficult to stay true

to each

style without compromis¬
ing. "You can't light each one in¬
dividually when they're all under
the same light, but what you can
do is cheat a bit in a close-up and
go back to their special lighting in

Where, under the low

ceilings, could Baker place lights?
"That was the big question," he
admits. He and his

crew man¬

aged to conceal them so well that
"any technical person who sees
the film will realize, if they know
it's

an

actual location and not

a

set, that hiding those lights was a
real achievement."
Baker's ingenuity came
to his rescue and he used simple
tricks to solve a complicated

ing in the Kittredge residence,

problem. "We didn't bring in any
new, special lighting units. We
just had the full HMI package for
daylight and incandescents for

which

nights." The incandescents

that frame."
Also difficult
was a

was

film¬

real Fifth Avenue

apartment rather than a set. For

March 1994

small, with

no

unit of

more

were

than
American Cinematographer - March 1994

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