American Cinematographer - January 1998 - 52

Fly Girl
along the walls; over the couch, we
rigged 12 Source Fours with 3/4 CTB
on

them, which

we

bounced into the

cards. Even with the filtration,

they
bright enough to get us to the
level we needed, but they were small
enough to be rigged overhead and
were

remain out of the shot. The control

they gave us allowed us to focus them
precisely without using a lot of flags
for spill. When De Niro sat down to
do the scene, he looked up and saw
all of these lamps suspended over his
head and gave a little shudder."
Dark Shadows
The
in

crew

found

no

solace

Jackie's Flawthorne apartment,

which was

equally cramped. This set¬
ting is the backdrop for a confronta¬
tion between

Jackie and Robbie, dur¬

ing which the two characters ratchet
up the tension by taking turns at
tweaking the knob of a standing
halogen lamp. This three-minutelong night interior begins with the
lamp on, falls into silhouette as the

shiftless

con man

dims it down, and

ends with the air hostess

turning up
the light as she regains her moral
footing. Tarantino explains, "I liked
the idea of pulling off a scene with
two black actors and no light. I want¬
ed to do it without cheating - turn¬
ing the lights off, but still allowing the
viewer to see everything. We wanted
darkness with a rich depth. There's
one

the

moment

when Jackie opens up

refrigerator

she's making
screwdriver; the refrigerator
light becomes the only source. Sam is
dressed entirely in black, and the only
thing that holds any light is his glass,
because the drink is orange. Pam has
a white blouse on, and she
literally
walks into complete darkness; you
can't see anything for two beats until
she turns the halogen lamp back on.
Ordell

Then Sam walks
down

as

a

over

and dims it

again - it's very spooky."
Kneece

adds, "I

was

track¬

ing Pam [with a 25mm Zeiss
Superspeed lens]. When the light
went out, I had to guess where she

JOKER-BUG125
"Think small... travel light.

going to end up when she turned
lamp back on. She actually ended
up silhouetted against a window, so
we played a lot of the
remaining dia¬
logue that way. We did this all in one
was

the

Steadicam shot, which

was

difficult

because the video monitor

went

dark.

Although we did have the abil¬
ity to ride the exposure by using our
focus system and one of its motors
for adjustment, we didn't do that in
this instance; the

scene was

lit in such

way that when the lights went out,
the majority of the picture - except
a

for the window

-

went

black. At the

end of the scene, the
on

at

lights went back
a proper
exposure level."
Due the lack of space

in

Jackie's digs, standard filmmaking
fixtures were out of the

question. The
space's primary illumination was
generated by a quartz halogen
torchiere and bounce-fill cast by tiny
MR-16 units and the type of 150W
globes typically used in vanity mir¬
rors;

additional fill emanated from

Source

Fours.

Lee

comments,

K 5600

"

10434 Burbank Blvd.

On the Left: a BUG-LITE 125 Watt, a 360 degrees
lighting fixture equivalent to a 500 Watt quartz lamp,
excellent for Chinese Lanterns and Lightbanks where it
takes full advantage of the reflective sides of the bank and
gives even front screen coverage.

Hollywood

91601

On the

Right: the "Beamer", an accessory that

turns the BUG-LITE 125 into

for

a

JOKER 125, excellent

everything else!!!

TWO SYSTEMS FOR THE REASONABLE PRICE OF ONE !!!
50
American Cinematographer - January 1998

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