American Cinematographer - December 1997 - 118

for years. That
of the film."

feeling was the soul

Indeed, Regeneration's

opening shot - which the director
dubbed "the Garden of Death"
is

a

-

languid overhead pan of a dis¬

mal war-tom wasteland. MacPherson
executed this sweeping 18mm shot
with a Moviecam compact on a re¬

attached to

mote head

35'

Macpherson explains, "Gillies
liked the desaturated and colorless

platform (112' long, 16' high, and

quality of the flashbacks in Breaking
the Waves [shot by Robby Muller,
BVK]. And I recalled a hockey
movie I had shot years ago in an

a

wide) situated above the mire.
Because the film

was a co¬

production, MacPherson had to
preorder Kodak stock prior to leav¬
ing Canada for Regeneration's sixweek shoot, which commenced in
November of 1996. "I had grandi¬

rich blacks and saturated colors,"
MacPherson relates. "I had 45, 48,

asked

Incident and Reflected

light meter

f/stop

*

footcandles

*

lux

*

contrast ratio

*

f/stop difference

*

average

*

digital, analog
backlit display.

for

more

than 50 yrs.

Achievement Awards from the

Academy

intended, due to the director's

Professionals choice for

light measurement
Hollywood Way, Burbank, CA. 91505
Phone: (818) 954-9222 Fax: (818) 954-0016
e-mail: info@spectracine.com
website: www.spectracine.com

820 No.

114

Gillies
-

was

out there with his

and 60 other

digging, so I took off the 93 and put
on 79.
By the time we shot, it was 3
p.m.; I literally had to pull him out
of there by the collar! I pushed the
79 one stop while wide open,
which is

a

little extreme for

a

day exterior, but it worked out
really well because the light
was

Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences.

SPECTRA CINEINC.

tion, the

light [through the gels]. We had
these fragile frames made for the
gels, and we were up to our knees
in the mud; we couldn't wipe the
specks of mud off the gels without
scratching them, so we had a guy
making green gels all day long! I

the camera with the slow stock. But
Gillies kept digging until about 2 in
the afternoon, so I removed the 48
and put on 93. He kept right on

Spectra products

they did get some of the green out,
but since there was no red informa¬

tured "the Garden of Death" scene
at a much darker exposure than

was no

people -
placing bodies, debris, and burntout tree stumps across this land¬
scape. As per my plan, I had loaded

have received Five Technical

mercury-vapor lights to see if the
lab could just correct the look back;

rected to normal at London's Rank
Labs. "I lost about two stops of

a.m.,

Spectra light meters are the industry
standard and the choice of professionals

shoot tests with the

way

shovel

*

to

they would have worked."
MacPherson actually cap¬

back, because there

hands-on enthusiasm. "At about 7
Measures:

me

players' lips went purple
got really
pasty - it just looked awful."
For the Regeneration flash¬
backs, MacPherson deliberately
produced a similar look by placing
a Lee 322 Soft Green
gel on the lens
and then having the footage cor¬

magic hour. After two days of pro¬
duction, we shipped the 45 and 48

built

would have needed about three

generators' worth of lights in the
arena. The
producers on that film

asked if I had shot the entire film at

ever

lit with mercury-vapor

lights, which have a heavy green
spike. [To offset this green shift], I

plans of shooting the war foot¬
age on EXR 5245 to get really deep
shipped over, but [in
Scotland during the winter] you
don't have any light until 10:30
a.m., and by 2:30 it's gone. In addi¬
tion, the sun was always about 20
degrees off the horizon; when I saw
[Regeneration] with a friend, he

Most accurate meter

arena

ose

93 and 79

SPECTRA PROFESSIONAL IV-A

of life from the soldiers' skin tones.

this rig was placed on a large

12'

you...

(Trainspotting's Johnny Lee
a pha¬
lanx of soldier into a barrage of re¬
lentless gunfire - only to be left as
one of the last men
standing. This
horrific incident is enhanced by a
steel-blue tint that drains any hint

Miller), who recalls leading

crane

arm;

Designed just for

(Jonathan Pryce) hypnotizes Billy
Prior

incredible."

The director did want a
war foot¬

visual differentiation for

age that would appear via flash¬
backs. One such remembrance oc¬
curs

when Dr. William Rivers

December 1997

and their skin tones

ended up getting an even more
pronounced effect than I had in the
hockey movie test, but because
there

was so much red [informa¬
tion] in the printing, red fringing
appeared around the trees in the

background."
Scenes set in

a

military

hospital

were photographed at
Dumbartonshire's massive Overtoun
House

(although interior shots of
patients' rooms were shot in a
Glasgow studio). The structure's
derelict innards were renovated by
MacKinnon's frequent collabora¬
tor, production designer Andy
the

Harris. MacPherson devised dark¬
ened hospital interiors to add to the

film's

oppressive tone. For added

blue enhancement, he shot all

day-
American Cinematographer - December 1997

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