American Cinematographer - December 1999 - 86

The Devil Made Flesh
For interior
scenes

you'd then probably want to break
that light up a bit to make it more
interesting and give it dimension and
texture. The T5s look great right out
of the box. They're not as bright as
Xenons, but they're bright enough
and they're tungsten, so you don't
have to fight the color temperature.
"Alongside the T5s, we had
some
of
[best boy]
Larry
Richardson's 16-light Fays, which are
terrific and put out a lot of light,"
Devlin continues. "They use smaller

set

within Peter's

office/

apartment,

production
designer
Garreth Stover
erected a 250'

TransLight that
surrounded

nearly 300
degrees of the
set. To

illuminate the

TransLight,
gaffer David
Devlin and key
grip Jim

IK FCX bulbs that
Par. On

rig for

an array
of 2K Skypans.
Devlin notes,
"For some of
the night shots,
we

an

a

rally has a wider spread, even though
it's physically smaller. If you were to
take any Par source - such as a 9light Maxi-Brute - and a 9-light
Fay and shine one medium-beam

only had

two or four

bulb from each

Skypans lit, but
on

softer than

are

FCX

bulb, there is more
of a dish than a Par 64 has, so it natu¬

Kwaitkowski
built a support

set it

on a

wall, the Fay

light would

cover the whole wall,
while the Maxi-Brute would create a

suddenly felt

as
if you were

hot spot. For a bounce or any wide
ambient source, Fays are great. We

right there in
New York."

put 16 of them beside the T5 beam

projectors to create an ambient wash
so that the
light could see different
angles through, the way natural light
does. All of those lights were hung
from chain motors so that you could
encounter

deranged psychopath

Henry Birdson. "Birdson is actually a
mathematician who's been possessed
by the devil," Fiore explains. "The
mental ward

was

another instance

where

we
really stayed away from the
typical Gothic shafts of light coming
through the windows. In the halls,

the

crew

built in

some

overhead

practical fluorescents to give us a bit
of source lighting, but we didn't
really use those to key the actors.
Instead, we decided to primarily use
the windows to light the actors."
Gaffer David Devlin elabo¬

"To

claustrophobic
feel, Mauro really wanted to feel the
source coming from the outside
world, while keeping the interior
kind of dead. We put different lights
rates:

create

a

outside the windows
different things.
82 December 1999

to

achieve

First, we had a line of

coop lights that were
down to create a

aimed straight
skylight feel
through the windows. Next, we
wanted to feel the high, hot sun of
New York
not necessarily beams
shooting in through the windows
like you find on the West Coast, but
rather little pieces of light, as if the
sun was
just barely breaking through
over a branch and was high and
raking. For that effect, we used T5
beam projectors. The T5's beam is
-

similar

to

that of

doesn't have

a

a

Xenon, but it

cold center. The actual

signature of the beam is the magni¬
fied coils of the unit's 5K bulb. If you

see

had

outside the windows, where we
a blue
backdrop with trees in

front of it."
Also constructed
a

set

on

stage was

depicting Peter Kelson's office.

"There was

a

York where

we

Union

shot that we did in New
started with

a

view of

Square and moved through

a

window into the office," recounts
Fiore. "We then had to re-create the

onstage in Los Angeles. The
production designer made a roughly
300-degree TransLight that was
photographed at the location and
digitally altered to make it a little
more
interesting. The TransLight was
set

white

then stretched about 250 feet around

eye, you could see the actual hot spot
of the lamp coils. That's always inter¬

the apartment set. The set itself was
built on risers because Peter's office

esting from a lighting perspective,
because if you were to use a Leko to

was

were

shooting the light into

create a

a

perfectly even wash of light,

supposed to be on the 10th floor
building on Union Square.
Following the same approach to the

of

a
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