American Cinematographer - January 1998 - 78

A Midwife's Tale

Doing
Research?

the

1997 Back

Issues Available

The

negative."
Rogers, who also paid close

attention to the stocks'

performance,
appreciated the 87's lower-contrast
look, "which gave the film a certain
mood," as well

as

the emulsion's great

range in shadow areas. "That charac¬
teristic of the stock helped us a lot.

The interiors

and

we

come

we

used were very dark,

wanted all of the

from the windows,

light to

so we were

using very little fill."
Poster felt that it
to use too

January
of a Lady,
English Patient, Hamlet (1996),

Evita, Portrait
The

Microcosmos, Bus III

February
Star Wars

(restoration), Absolute

Power, In Love and War, Kama
Sutra, Around the World in 80 Days
March
Lost

Highway, subUrbia, Squeeze,

Roseanna's Grave (aka For

Roseanna), Kissed, Darklands,
Invasion

of the Body Snatchers

April
Crash, Temptress Moon, Empire
Strikes Back and Return

of the Jedi

(restoration), The Maltese Falcon
May
The Fifth Element, In the Gloaming,
Selena, The Picture of Dorian Gray
June*
The Lost World, Men in Black,
Con Air, Epsilon, Beau Geste

July
Batman and

Robin, Contact,

Rough Riders, Box of Moonlight,
Air Force One, Rebecca

August
Event

Horizon, Spawn, B. Monkey,

187, Berlin Express

September
The Game, The Peacemaker, Cop
Land, Kiss the Girls, Beauty and the
Beast

(1946)

October

U-Turn, Color

of Justice,
The Ice Storm,
Bridges, Tower of London

was

best

not

much filtration, but he did

occasionally use a Tiffen White Pro
Mist, "mostly for the historical scenes
and night reproductions." For exteri¬
ors, he used his signature polarizer.
"I've used one on everything since I
was a
teenager," he notes. "I love the
way it lets you see things that are nor¬
mally invisible because of the reflec¬
tive quality of light. It takes the glare
off skin, too, and I like the way it
works with greens and reds. It allows
you to see more into the colors."
When Stein took over at King's
Landing, he and the crew faced their
own

location hurdles. With its 18th-

century houses, sawmill, church and
farms, King's Landing made for a
realistic location, but as Stein notes,
"The

ceilings were often only seven
high, and a lot of the night inte¬
riors were lit by candlelight, oil lamps
or fire. Hanging lamps was compli¬
cated by the lowness of the ceilings,
which kept us from building a grid.
On a normal set, I'd have hung the
lights." Instead, he used tiny light fix¬
tures taped to the ceilings or, for day¬
feet

time scenes,

hid HMIs outside the

$7.00 percopy
by phone call:

1-800-448-0145 (U.S.

only)

(213) 969-4333
Fax:

(213) 876-4973
limited

copies available

so

the

lighting was motivat¬

Superspeeds in the candlelight,

aug¬

mented

simulate

To order

"The Cooke

exclusively for inte¬

riors," Stein says. "When we shot

night exteriors, which was not often,
used primes."
Although Poster is used to
working on big-budget projects, he
says that he had no problem adjust¬
ing to the creatively resourceful,
problem-solving methodology that
low-budget documentary filmmak¬
ing demands. "This was a real
money-saving project," says Poster,
who later returned to supervise the
we

telecine work. "There

were no

dailies;

the

direct-to-tape transfer was done
from the negative. We were going to
cut on tape and then for timing, just
do the tape-to-tape correction to
save
money and time. But since that
approach doesn't allow the same
kind of control you'd have if you
were
doing a final telecine from the
negative, it was very important to get
close

to

the look

wanted in the

we

initial

film-to-tape transfer."
Luckily for Poster, the piece
was short
enough so that he could
keep track of where he was going
with everything in the initial transfer;
in the

end, there

was

little need for

Ultimately, KahnLeavitt and Rogers cut the negative
and made film prints, as well as an
interpositive from which they made

tape correction.

their final video for broadcast.

they cook their food

ed from outdoors. Stein used Zeiss

Starship

zoom.

those up or

Nash

Troopers, Seconds

used almost

by inkies handheld just out
of frame. "We could bring the level of

windows

Alien Resurrection,

Cooke 9-50mm
was

Reflecting upon the project,
says that the atmosphere at
King's Landing established the pace
for the filmmakers. "Many of the
people who work in this village actu¬
ally live like 18th-century villagers;

L.A. Confidential,
November

cinematographer shot his

portions of A Midwife's Tale with
both Rogers' Aaton and an Arri SR-2.
In addition to the Zeiss Superspeed
primes, his array of lenses included a

have

down with

a

candlelight," he

one crew

dimmer to
says.

"I'd

person per actor on a

dimmable

inky; they'd move with
the actors right out of the frame,
holding the lights. We also used the
dimmers

to create

a

bit of flicker."

Rogers

and dress the way
then. We adopted
made

our crew

over open

fires,

people did back
that pace, and it

very

sensitive to these

people, who cared so much about
every animal and flower."
■
American Cinematographer - January 1998

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - January 1998
