American Cinematographer - December 1997 - 121

the

light; then, as the scene devel¬
oped, Ewen walked away from

moved them around until

Gina and the lit

area. The camera
then tracked back, holding Ewen in
the foreground and Gina in the

woodwork," recalls the camera¬
man. "This time around, I had two
to three mirror balls in-camera, and

background for

the others were on out-of-frame
stands. We bounced some Arri 4K
HMI Pars off of them to spread the
mirror-ball effect everywhere. The

a deep two-shot
with Ewen in silhouette.
''We then had to do a closeup of Ewen, however, so I had to
cheat and find a reason why there
would be light on his face. Realis¬

they re¬
panels of the room's

flected in the

opening scene starts in close on the
mirror ball and then

cranes

down,

tically, after we turned around 180
degrees for a close-up, Ewen
should have been in complete

which

blackness. You have to

lights aimed at the mirror balls;

see some¬

thing, though, so we wound up
lighting him with the reflected
glow from the area in which Gina
was
standing."
Later on, as Fraser's ten¬

sion increases,

he gyrates spas¬

modically on top on an oil drum -
to

demonstrate to Gina his

real nightmare in
terms of reflections. We hung
Duvateen everywhere to hide the

were

covered in

photogra¬
phy recently lent his skills to What
Rats Won't Do, a romantic comedy
set within the legal world which
will be released this spring.

promis¬

(Norway)
Erik

In the

wegian capital city of Oslo. As the
film begins, Engstrom and his partner, Erik Vik (Sverre Anker
Ousdal), are sent to a northern
town to investigate a young girl's
brutal slaying. The methodical psy¬
chopath behind the killing has
taken all manner of precautions to
eradicate any evidence - even go¬
ing so far as to dispose of the girl's

opted for multiple orbs after seeing
similar setup in a local venue.
To attain the shimmering

psychological thriller

the Waves' Stellan

Skarsgard) is

a

clothes and wash her hair.

During a botched attempt
to trip up the killer, Engstrom acci¬
dentally shoots and kills his part¬
The neurotic Swede covers up
the incident, pinning it on the girl's
murderer. But the butcher becomes
ner.

effect, Tufano resorted to what he
terms "mirror balls-on-a-stick," a

privy to this deceit, forcing cop and
criminal into an unholy alliance
which soon has both confronting
personal demons.

variation of the "candles-on-a-

Nordic filmmaker Erik

a

stick" tactic he

developed in cap¬
turing BAFTA-nominated imagery
for the BBC period drama Middlemarch.

vision

"On that

ture in his

candles

film, I stuck
on

a

a

bunch of

C-stand and then

Cinekinetic U.S.A. Inc.

Thurmann-Andersen, FNF

had to stretch the 93 [used for all of
the film's interiors] to its absolute

lone disco ball, but he

when the video is returned.

Cinematographer:
Erling

tremely hot to normal to underex¬
posed, but still have some detail. I

use a

Send $10 which will be refunded

E-mail: cinekine@ois.com.au

dour, obsessive-compulsive Swed¬
ish detective assigned to the Nor¬

to

by
people who have viewed it as
the best film of it's type ever made.

most

Skjoldbjaerg

Insomnia, Jonas Engstrom (Breaking

Not all of The Life of Stuff
place in the erstwhile bakery:
the film's opening nightclub scene
was
actually shot in a Glasgow
dancehall. The film opens with
Mad Alec delivering a monologue
that indicts Dobie's motley crew;
throughout this scene, he's being
encircled by reflections cast from
several rotating disco balls. Direc¬
tor Donald had initially intended

setups.

Vegas Valley Dr. #177
LasVegas, NV89109
Tel/Fax: (702) 731-4700

posure to maximize the amazing
latitude of the 5293 stock so that
Ewen's face could go from ex¬

took

in less time with fewer

PO Box 73063,

Director:

face got very hot, moments of nor¬
mal exposure, and moments when
it went dark as he turned away.
The tricky part was setting the ex¬

limits, but it ended up coping

updated videotape demon¬
films
more
visually exciting. It also
shows you how to produce them
strates how to make your

1405

Insomnia

says,
moments when his

beautifully."

This

The video has been described

The director of

wildly over his head. Tufano
"There

camera was

Duvateen."

as an exotic dancer -
lone 100W bulb swings

a

the

even

ing future
while

was a

Skjoldbjaerg,

an alumnus of
London's National Film and Tele¬

make

School, helmed his first fea¬

use

hometown of Tromso to
of the locale's

interesting

A COLOR FILTER AD IN
BLACK & WHITE?
Colors so vivid, they would be

impossible to reproduce
in a color ad.
*

BOCEN PROFESSIONAL
LIGHTING FILTERS
Color Stable

High Heat Tolerance
Lower Cost
*

Available in

21 " X 24" Sheets
48" X 25' Rolls
12" x12" Filter Packs
SEE OUR TRUE COLORS
SendforourFreeFilterSwatchBook

boaenHflfl
565 East Crescent Avenue, Ramsey, NJ. 07446-0506
(201) 236-0077

December 1997

117
American Cinematographer - December 1997

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - December 1997
