American Cinematographer - November 1998 - 98

To

moon

in

the proper

look, Soos
technology a step
further. He ran the video from the tap into

A cloud slices

the

an

ensure

took video-assist

image directly
inspired by
Bunuel's
surrealist short
Un Chien
Andalou.

a

recorder, then trained

dial in

an

operator to

high-contrast version of the
image on a monitor. "Instead of playing
this spot-meter guessing game and
having a just-trust-me attitude with the
a

director, I could dial in the look on set and
know

cinematographers would use Skypans or
eye strips, but Goyas are just fantastic
for lighting broad areas of eyes very
evenly, and they're very light."
Harder's insistence

on

a

very

high-contrast image made the job much
riskier for Soos. "I knew with preliminary
color correction [in telecine] and
secondary color correction [in Flame and
other image-manipulation programs], we
would be able to achieve a high-contrast
look with no problems. But in high
contrast, it's about playing the edge."
From the record company's
perspective, the danger was that certain

details
face of

might get lost, especially in the
singer Esthero. To protect them¬

selves, Harder and Soos did

a

lot of

preliminary tests to determine the range
of subtleties. In high-contrast work, gray
shadings are scarce, so anything in
shadow can easily be enveloped in
black. Makeup also has to be handled
very carefully. "If we'd used too much
rouge on Esthero s cheeks, it would have
looked

as

Harder. "It

if she had bruises," says
the same thing with the

was

lighting - we had to use a mixture of
lighting and front lighting, which
looks horrible to your eye."

flat

exactly what we were shooting.
"Let's leave the mystery of cine¬
matography to another generation," he
adds. "The less guessing you do, the
better, because everyone on set is
suddenly more at ease. The director
didn't question me for a second."
Making the live-action images
fit with the background plates was the
most trying task. To facilitate the
process for digital artists working with
the footage in post, Soos and Harder
gave them two ways to orient them¬
selves geographically. "Before each
shot," says Harder, "we would lay down
a

wireframe to simulate what would be

the

corner

of the

Wiith

GET A
MOVE ON!

our

It

room.

was

like three

modular Phoenix

and Felix Crane Systems a
remote

either

or

platform version of

crane can

within minutes

-

be set-up
without

tools!

Try the Magnum Dolly with
it's

programmabale column:

camera

movements

stored and

can

be

repeated in

realtime.
360° turns with the Duo Jib?
No

MAGNUM

PHOENIX

problem with the Magnum.

For easier transport you can

detatch the column from the

basis.
So get a move on
next

-

on your

job! E-mail, call

or

fax us.

Movie Tech
Movie
Tel.

Tech

Filmgerate

++49/89-434081

*

Fax

GmbH

&

Co

++49/89-4312961

■

Levelingstr.
9
D-81673
Munich
113206.1105@compuserve.com

E-mail
American Cinematographer - November 1998

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