American Cinematographer - November 1999 - 48

Anarchy in the U.S.A.
3200°K

Right: Marla
(Helena
Bonham Carter)
is the love
interest of both

was

quarter toplight
from the
side. In the

or

patio

door and
windows in the

kitchen,

we

also

had some Kino
Flos to continue
the daylight, as
well as some

Decapods to
create

stronger

sunlight coming
in through the
windows."
Below: A dimly
lit interior in

Tyler's Paper
Street

home,

illustrating the
often

underexposed
treatment of

the actor's

keylight.

with

environment," he reveals, "and then

three-

12' diffusion.

faces,

top-light ambience and then add
a back edge- or halflight, motivated
by any practicals in the scene. "The
general game plan was to make sure
that the actors separated from their

pretty much lit

Above the

start

his

stating, "The

Skypans
blasting
through 12-by-

actors'

Cronenweth would often

kitchen scenes,

daytime, we
created a kind
of cloudy-day
ambience with
a flood of light
from a wall of

model

To

explains the
lighting of the

a

but if there

specific colors in a given
scene, we'd usually use white light or
perhaps a little warmer light."

Edward
Norton's
character.
Gaffer Claudio
Miranda

with

-

weren't any

Tyler and

kitchen

bulbs, Cool Whites and

Warm White Deluxes

mum

flexibility in composition, in

from The Game, to

terms

of both the film's eventual

naturalistic aesthetic into the film's

video release and the increased range
of spherical focal lengths available in

gaffer Claudio Miranda and key grip

lighting design. "A good part of the
lighting employed some sort of
toplight source," he explains. "Many
practical locations are lit by fluorescents in the ceiling, so we purpose¬
fully tried to maintain that element
of reality. Toplight seemed to help
with the prosthetics as well, by show¬
ing off the integrity of the wounds
without revealing too much.
"If the surroundings of a
certain location had a particular
color of light, then we'd go with that
color and perhaps add to it. We
carried a whole array of different

Michael Coo, both Fincher veterans

fluorescents

the Primo series. "David also likes

Super 35 because it allows us to use
equipment, light with smaller
sources, and expose for practical
night exteriors and actually get
something out of the existing light¬
ing at the location," notes

less

Cronenweth. "In fact,

some

of

our

practical locations were chosen based
on what the city lights did in the
backgrounds."
Cronenweth

worked

with

-

incorporate this

Chroma 50s, normal

play the actors's edgelight off of the
practicals as much as possible with¬
out actually 'lighting' them. For this
film, we didn't necessarily want to be
able to see directly into their faces. It
was more
interesting and appropri¬
ate to the story to force the audience
to pay attention. Faces were generally
underexposed \ Vi to 2 stops, though
it depended upon the scene. If the
scene called for the audience to
really
be able

to see

faces closer
either

case,

to

it

them, I'd make the
IV2 stops

was

under. In

still important to

feel the presence of their eyes, so we
often played with eyelights - every¬

thing from Obie lights to Kino Flos
taped to the matte-box - which we
usually kept three stops under."
"We lit the faces mostly with
Kino Flos covered with V4 CTO

muslin,"

adds

ticals

If it

and

gaffer Claudio
Miranda. "The angle and direction
of that depended on where the prac¬
were.

was a

door shot, the

key may have to come from the top,
or if a pillar got in the way, we
might
bring it in from the side. David and
Jeff wanted everything to be as
natural as possible and allowed areas
to go dark. We then played with
creating blacks that you could just
read into with hints of reflections for
texture."

The

half of its

production spent about
138-day schedule on prac¬

tical locations in and around Los

Angeles. The other half of the shoot
executed

soundstages at 20th
Century Fox in Century City.
One key setpiece in the film is

was

46 November 1999

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