American Cinematographer - October 1994 - 61

"John was [aiming for] a
sort of comic-book style/' says De

Segonzac, "where the back¬
grounds tend to be wild, berserk
colors: yellows and reds, magen¬
tas and bright greens. The actors
are lit
mostly in a conventional
white light, sometimes with col¬
ored backlights, while the back¬
ground colors change from shot
to

shot."

Mainly using large
fresnels, De Segonzac con¬

sciously mimicked the hard light¬
ing preferred in the 1950s, aiming
for a film noir feel in color. He re¬
lied heavily on key grip Pizzuto
and gaffer Bob Calnan to help
him keep one step ahead of
things. "We went over the sched¬
ule carefully and made very de¬
tailed lighting plans on the loca¬
tion scouts

so we

could

get every¬

thing pre-rigged and figured out
before we stepped on the set.
Sometimes production didn't
want to bring the crew in early or
pay for pre-rigging, so we had to
organize ourselves one way or
another, usually by doing an ex¬
where I'd have no
but the dolly grip,
while the rest of the crew would
be lighting the next scene."
terior
one

scene

with

me

McNaughton marveled
at his cameraman's abilities and

attitude. "There was really no
time to light. For one scene that
takes place in the office of a
record producer, we needed a

translight out the window. On
Mad Dog and Glory we had a
translight out the window and I
asked my director of photogra¬
phy how long it would take to
light it. He said, 'Six to eight
hours.' I ask Jean

and he says,

only used the colors for back¬
ground," says De Segonzac; "in
Confessions of a Sorority Girl we
actually used them directly on
the characters: peacock blue as a
backlight and a full yellow as a
keylight.
"It was all done with gels
on the
lights and filters on the
camera.

For the outdoor

always put

a

scenes

color enhancer

I

on

the lens, which makes the reds

explode and gives everything a
kind of Fifties look and style. We
used a gelled 12K HMI for the
backlight and controlled it with
giant gold reflectors."
Edel had only eight days
to cast his

movie, choose loca¬

tions and re-write the

script. The
project had appealed to him be¬
cause

it

was so

different from his

'Twenty to twenty-five minutes.'
impossible.
He's so into it, it is possible."
McNaughton's enthusi¬
asm
for De Segonzac was
shared by both Uli Edel and
Allan Arkush. After seeing
what De Segonzac had shot for
McNaughton, Edel showed the

previous two films - the uncom¬
promisingly brutal Christiane F.
and Last Exit to Brooklyn.

his own favorite
comic books. "I wanted to go
even further than John did,"

and told him, 'No, it's a comedy!'
"I did the film from the

point of view of

laughs Edel.

in the

He doesn't know it's

cameraman

"With Girls in Prison, we

"I wanted to get away
from my dark image," explains
the German-born director.
"When (co-producer) Lou Arkoff

called, he told
a

me

the script was

psychological drama. I read it
living
Nineties, looking back on

the Fifties. I

October 1994

someone

was more

interested

in the kitsch of the Fifties and

saw

Sorority Girl as having the look of
that whole kitsch culture. That's

why the first time we see the pro¬
tagonist, she is trying to kill the
kitsch icon of the Fifties, the pink
poodle."
De Segonzac laughs
when apprised of Edel's com¬
ment.

Teresa

Dispina,

Aimee Graham
and Eleanor

O'Brien do
some

yardwork

in Reform
School Girl.

"(Series screenwriter and

co-producer) Debra Hill was
thinking melodrama, but Uli and
I were thinking high comedy."
Both Edel and his

cam¬

appreciated the freedom
given in both styling
shooting the picture. The fi¬

eraman

they

were

and
nal scene in the film consisted of
five pages of dialogue, but the
had only a half-day left in
which to shoot it. "I knew we
couldn't do it," says Edel, "so I
said 'We just have to improvise,'
and we shot the whole scene in
slow motion with no dialogue,
crew

just music."
"And there

was no one

running up and down the beach
yelling at us," adds De Segonzac.
"We didn't have to check with

the

producers when we made a
decision like that. Debra was
a little
didn't show it."

probably

upset, but she

Edel believes that the
short

production schedule

American

Cinematographer

was

59
American Cinematographer - October 1994

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