American Cinematographer - June 1995 - 72

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a

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deep shadows in the scene, which
made it very difficult. I made a lot

it wound up

being a bit too bright

outside, but

we

of tests with the Kodak 5296 stock
5298 wasn't available at that

to do it

time. I collaborated with the great
lab Schwarzfilm in Switzerland
to find the limits for that scene. I
wanted it to look like a Dutch

istic curve!"

painting, so you could

of lighting. In one, the judge is lit
from the right side when the win¬
dow should be casting light from
the left. In another, a window
that is completely blown out in
one shot is
exposed normally in
the next. When asked about these

-

see people
in the audience without recogniz¬

MASTER SLATE
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Hand setting or ext. Jam. Aaton © Ascii
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log. Check TC drift. Many features.

LOCKIT BOX

ing them. We painted everything
with a special matte black to help
achieve that look."
an

Equally demanding was
early-evening con¬

intimate

versation between Valentine and

the judge, staged in the latter's
house. As their chat begins, Val¬
entine is lit by a bright naked

Outputs

*

TC Jam.

Fr/s 23.98 29.97

to 29.97 Fr. NTSC
and Fr/s 24/25/30
sync to PAL, 30 Fr. NTSC
sync

we

we

didn't have

had to shoot
of the day,"

the course
Sobocinski said. "You

see

their

profiles against the background
of the dark windows. We put a
special pane of gelatin on the
windows to keep the balance the
same for the whole
day. It was

horrible, because the weather

merates, Tune

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something different in

few

a

shots, but not all spectators will
are

several

mo¬

that, but they are very

brief. We did it to break up

the
repetitious bolero, to indicate to
the viewer, on a subconscious
level, that something is a bit

wrong."

Reflecting upon his col¬
laboration with Kieslowski,
Sobocinski praised the director's
willingness to give his collabora¬
tors creative freedom. "We've
made three films together, and in

all that time I think he's looked

through the

lights. Although I don't usually
do it, I operated the camera my¬

Jacob's pupils. Then she places

self because he asked me to. We
didn't use any storyboards on

I did

the shade

over

the bulb to create

yellow that we later see in a shot
of the younger judge as the cam¬
era runs into the window of his
a

apartment. This was all part of
the game of associations.
"Later in the same scene,
a stone is thrown
through one of
the windows, and I had to re¬
the gelatin to make it pos¬
sible. We had to do that just at
move

magic hour, and

we

waited for

the exact moment. I had to re¬
the 85 filter from the cam¬
We didn't manage

to finish
the first day, so we had to wake
up early the next day and wait

era.

again for exactly the right
Konradinstrasse 3
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apparent "mistakes," Sobocinski
smiled slyly. "I wanted to do

a

on.

move

Call

play against the normal laws

beforehand to find the limit
where we could still see Irene
test

Controller Xtal from Broadcast video ref.

scenes

camera maybe three
four times. He really gives me
a lot of trust. On Red, after we dis¬
cussed camera placements, I
would set up the camera and the

Jean-Louis turned it

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that

ments like

outside was going back and forth
from sunshine to clouds. I used a
250-watt high-intensity bulb so it
would absolutely flash when

CONTROLLER

Particularly observant
viewers will notice several

notice it. There

over

or

scene really
of the whole character¬

lampshade over the bulb, creat¬
ing a golden hue. "It was impos¬
sible to shoot the scene at magic
hour, because

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use

bulb; seconds later, she slips a

enough time;
Compact TC and videosync generator

made

didn't have time

again. That

ment. We

June 1995

were

still

a

mo¬
bit off, and

or

this film. We had talked about
the film a great deal before we

started, and we made most of our
decisions on the set. We did a lot
of rehearsals with the actors and
then set up the camera after¬
wards.
"It's incredible to work
with Kieslowski, because his per¬

sonality is

so great

vision for his

and he has

a

films," Sobocinski

concluded. "He

can

motivate

people to follow his ideas with¬
out words. We didn't speak too
much

on

the set, yet we

problems at all. There

had

no

was an or¬

ganic atmosphere on the set, and
it was really a lot of fun."
American Cinematographer - June 1995

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