American Cinematographer - December 1999 - 56

Galloping Ghost
and many many times I wanted
myself for deciding to work

and

black, but after the tests she began

me,

adding bits of silver and other

to

enhancements to the texture of the

with the CCE process, but when you
see the movie from start to finish, it

that

looks

as

clothes

wouldn't lose the

kill

helped to reduce the dramatic
produced by the CCE.

contrast

"There

are some

elements in the film

them, project the footage, discuss it

problems he encountered with CCE,
Lubezki offers, "The thing that's
really difficult about the process,

might be viewed as 'cheap,' such
heavy use of smoke, but in a
weird way, those elements help to
make the images more beautiful and
interesting," he submits. "Using
smoke also allowed us to get a consis¬

and revise the colors. The color red

which almost made

tent

look for the movie. When all of

particularly affected by the
process - it became really dark,

is what it does to the actors' skin

the

sets are

so

details

we

With Rick
Heinrichs, we would paint 8' by 4's
with the colors he was planning to
use

completely.

for each set, and then shoot

was

sometimes

so

dark that it was almost

black. We had

be

really careful in
the way we lit things. If you went into
one

of our

sets

to

while

we were

shoot¬

really good."
Asked

tones.

outline

to

Because

me

some

of the

chicken out,

there's

so

much

and the gamma curve

is so
look blem¬
ished if you're not careful. I don't like
to use much diffusion, and I usually
contrast

steep, the skin tones can

don't mind when you can see some

ing, you'd have thought we were
doing a soap opera, because every¬
thing looked really overlit. When we
saw the dailies, though, everyone
would say, 'Wow, this is really dark
and moody.' You always have to

imperfections in the actors' faces -
as
long as those imperfections don't
take you out of the movie. On this
picture, though, I wish I had used
just a little more diffusion."

factor in the effect that the process
on the images. The first

monitor his

will have

week of the show

New 10.4"

was

miserable for

some

smoked, you can't tell
on a stage and what
wasn't. I didn't want the light to be
what

was

done

baroque, with all kinds of back¬
lights, kickers and little lights. Most
of the lighting was created with very
big sources, so you can't really tell
where the light is coming from.

too

"In the Western Woods set and
at some

of the other locations, you

of smoke, which

definitely see the smoke - it
looks like the fog they used in the old
Frankenstein and Mummy movies!"
he exclaims with a laugh. "Balancing

Hammer-like ambience

the smoke therefore wasn't much of a

Lubezki
added

the

was

use

also careful

to

can

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American Cinematographer - December 1999

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